Chapter Six:

"You really need to gain some weight. I mean, you look like an elf! Wonder why they cast you as a hobbit…" a teasing voice broke into Natalie's muddled thoughts. She looked up from absentmindedly staring at the white-flecked floor tile to the woman standing next to her.

"What do you mean?" Natalie asked, eyeing a chair in the corner of the room. She had been standing on a stool in the costume building for over an hour already, and all she wanted right now was to sit down. And after being victim to the woman's measuring tape, Natalie just didn't want to have this conversation. Or any other conversation for that matter. Her back hurt from standing up straight at the woman's command. 'Put those shoulders back!' she'd ordered. 'Nice and tall. You don't want to be slouchy.'

"Well… you must weigh, what? A hundred and five pounds?" the measuring tape woman asked. Natalie nodded, staring pointedly at the chair, hoping to sit down. "Hobbits are supposed to be, well, not like you," the woman continued, eyeing Natalie's skinny, almost-boyish, five-foot-two figure.

"Wait – what do I have to do?" Natalie asked, hopping off the stool and sinking gratefully into the chair. She could now focus on the instruction.

"Gain 25 pounds by the start of filming." Natalie stared at the woman in disbelief.

"You can't possibly… I mean, really… I… I… no! No way!" she sputtered.

"Er… yes, you are."

"But can't I… I dunno; have lots of petticoats or something under my dress to make me look bigger?" Natalie asked, almost begging now.

"It's not just a simple matter of one dress, dearie, you have many! Nine, I believe."

"NINE! How can one character have that many costumes? Especially if she's on one journey wearing the same outfit most of the time!"

"Well, let's see," the woman responded, picking up a binder labeled 'Costumes'. She leafed through it until she found the page she had been looking for. "You have, in order of appearance: Bilbo's party dress; the Green Dragon dress, which is the same one as the whole Gandalf-finds-you-eavesdropping scene one; the main dress that you wear on the journey, but that has lots of variations as the film progresses, especially in Mordor… um, you get that dress for a while; then you have Orc gear for a couple scenes; in Return of the King you have a nightie for when you wake up in Gondor after the war and see Frodo; Aragorn's coronation dress; the riding outfit on the way home to the Shire – that one has a cape, too; your wedding dress; and then a final one for the last scene, after you see Bilbo, Gandalf, and the elves depart from the Grey Havens."

Natalie blushed when the wedding dress was mentioned… the dress she would wear for Lily and Frodo's marriage… as in, her and Elijah's wedding.

Sinking her forehead into the palm of her hand, Natalie thought about the man who she would be spending most of her time filming with. Over the past few days of rushing to meetings and lessons, she had been with Elijah almost nonstop. They had become tentative friends, but Natalie was having trouble ignoring a small part of her that wanted to be more than friends.

The door to the costume building burst open, and a tall, dark-haired woman rushed in, forcing Natalie to push her thoughts away once again.

She was one of the most beautiful women Natalie had ever seen, so she knew immediately that this must be Liv Tracey, the woman cast to Arwen, a perfect choice in the casting department in Natalie's opinion.

Liv rushed to Natalie and threw her arms around her. "Omigod another girl!" she screeched. "I've met about forty men working on this thing and I was beginning to worry that you and Miranda weren't here yet. Thank goodness you are!" she continued, hugging Natalie yet again.

"Nah, Andi and I've been here for a few days already. You missed horseback riding and a campout!" Natalie laughed, sensing that she and Liv would be fast friends.

"Liv? Liv Tracey?" another measuring lady came into the room and shepherded Liv away to another room to be measured for her costumes.

Smiling apologetically, Liv shouted, "Talk to ya later!" before rounding the corner.

"Sorry," Natalie said, turning back to the costume woman. "Is there anything else that you need me for?"

"Actually… do you want to see what your outfits will look like?" Natalie's face lit up as the woman brought another binder over to her chair, this time one stuffed full of sketches and fabric swatches. She leafed through the book, sometimes tracing her fingers over the patterns on the little 3" by 3" swatches. "We have some tentative outlines for all the characters. No doubt they'll change at one point, but I can give you a general idea of what you'll be wearing."

"Wait – are you Ngila Dickenson?" Natalie asked when she saw the signature in the bottom right-hand corner of all the sketches.

"Yes, that's me. I've been hired as head of the costume department – designing, sewing, making sure everything works… it also means that I get to personally measure all the main characters! Well, do you want me to tell you anything about your costumes? Or anyone else's?"

"Um… okay. Tell me about the hobbits."

"Well, hobbits are very close to nature, so I've highlighted that with natural fabrics – like cotton, wool, and linen – and strong weaves." She showed Natalie some snippets of green and brown fabric. "It's practical; you don't want to have your trousers ripping while you harvest pipeweed! The clothing is also influenced by ancient European cultures, much like hobbits themselves. Harvest colors are prominent – that means greens, yellows, and browns. Your costumes have a lot of those colors." Ngila flipped to the page showing Lily's Green Dragon dress. "You see, you've got an off-white blouse here, with a forest green skirt and a goldenrod bodice. See the close weave of the green?" She pointed to a swatch of fabric next to the sketch. "It's very intricate, too, not something that'll show up on camera, but it adds the layer of detail that we're striving for."

Natalie rubbed the soft wool in between her fingers and stared up at Ngila. There was so much thought and care put into these costumes… and she wanted to know everything! "Yeah? Tell me about all of my costumes!" Ngila laughed; she loved to see her actors admire her work.

"Ok. We have time… let's start at the beginning," she closed the binder and then reopened it up to the first page. "So your party dress… it's lots of different blues. That's another color for hobbits: blue. It's not all that common; I think only Merry has a blue vest out of all those boys. But since it's a party, and a big one at that, I've given you a white blouse with lots of ruffles – see how the sleeves are puffy but then at your elbows they are tightly gathered, leaving about four inches of draping ruffle? It's very flattering. Then you have a dark blue petticoat with a light blue skirt."

Natalie immediately fell in love with this dress. She loved the sleeve idea and wished she could have just a normal shirt for her everyday life like that. She also liked how the skirt's blue looked washed out in parts, like she had worn it a lot of times. Did they purposefully wash the white leaf—patterned fabric a million times to make it look like that? Or did they just find it the way it was?

"You've already seen the Green Dragon dress… what's next? Ah, yes. The main one. The dress you wear on the journey." Ngila stared lovingly at the pages, but then redirected her focus at Natalie. "It's very sedate compared to your earlier outfits, but I'm sure it'll do just fine. Your skirt is a dun color; a very warm tan cotton. Then you've got a blouse similar to the party one, basically the same design, except shorter ruffles on the sleeves. It's white, but a dirty white, not snow white like your earlier one.

"It's almost grey, then," Natalie cut in. "I mean, it looks like a blouse you'd wear to Mordor – one you could get dirty."

"Yes! Exactly what we were trying to get at. Then you've got a bodice that laces up the back – it's a really pale blue and white stripes. The blue sort of shimmers, too. I think you'll love it." Natalie looked down at the small patch of cloth. It was pretty. "Then, to tie everything together, your coat's a darker shade of the skirt color. You only wear it when it gets to be colder, but I love the pockets. I've designed hobbits' clothes to be a bit off, you see, with the pants and skirts just under knee level and the sleeves a bit too short. Then all the pockets are set higher up than normal, so when the actor puts their hands in them, you get a funny look that's very memorable.

"You get the cloak in Lothlórien, and it's the same as all the others'. Though Peter says in some shots he wants them to look green, the actual fabric, which is right… here, is a light gray wool. It looks very nice with your bodice."

"Oh, it does!" Natalie gasped, instantly wanting to wear the ensemble.

"Now, this costume goes through a lot of changes, especially in Mordor. You start out with the costume I've just shown you, but then after the whole Orc gear thing – and I'm not going to show you that, seeing as we haven't really designed it yet – you lose the coat for good, along with the Fellowship cloak. I like to say you put it in your pack, since you have it later in the movie. Then there's always the whole you-get-all-ripped-up-during-the-course-of-the-journey thing. So your costume will go from clean to dirty and from all in one piece to torn up.

"There's also the possibility of shooting a scene where you're sleeping in just your blouse. Oh don't worry; the blouse goes down to about your knees. But like I said, we're not sure if we're shooting that scene yet." Ngila paused to take a breath and Natalie ran her hand over the sketches, her head spinning from all the effort she had gone through to make this. Ngila turned the next page, but stopped when she saw Natalie's expression. "What's the matter?"

"I guess… I guess it's all just kicking in how big this project really is…" trailing off, Natalie glanced at Ngila's concerned face. "But do keep telling me! I want to know what I'll be wearing!"

"Well, you have to know that all of this is subject to change. I'm just hoping to give you a general idea of what you'll be basically living in for the next couple of years." She turned a few more pages in the binder and then frowned. "I can't seem to find some sketches that I know I've done. Ah well. They must be in another binder. I swear, I have way too many of them. A few of your costumes we haven't designed yet, actually, I bet you won't even see them until the day of the shooting. Let's see… nope, all of these are too undeveloped to show you. But we'll be seeing quite a lot of you in this department, so maybe you can see the sketches some other time."

Natalie stood up to leave, waving to the costume designer and thanking her profusely before exiting out the door to meet Elijah for lunch like she had promised the day before.

"I'll see you in two weeks at your first fitting!" was all she heard before the door slammed shut.

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Natalie tried to shift her pillow to a more comfortable position in her arms, but in the process she dropped the blue plaid boxer shorts she used as pajama bottoms. After a few minutes of struggling to pick them back up off the hallway floor while trying to keep everything else loaded in her arms from falling, Natalie gave up and made her way to the costume building.

A quick smile in Miranda's direction was all that Natalie had time for before she dropped her things and ran back to get her shorts.

As a way to welcome Liv to pre-production, Natalie and Miranda had planned a slumber party – girls only. And since the costume building was empty, away from the boys - and within walking distance - the women decided to sleep in there for the night.

Natalie returned to the circle of sleeping bags, shorts in hand. She plopped down next to her stuff and grabbed the bag of Golden Oreos she had brought. Ripping them open, she tossed a few into her mouth after setting the bag in the middle of the circle.

"Ugh. My costume lady was such a bitch!" Liv gossiped, bits of Oreo spewing from her mouth. She slapped a hand to her face and turned a shade of pink Natalie didn't think was possible. "Sorry! But did you guys think that? I mean, she was telling me that I needed to lose weight to play Arwen. 'Loose those love handles, dear,' was what she said to me. She was pushing two-hundred pounds, easy. And here she was basically telling me that I'm fat!"

"Oh, Liv, I'm sure she was just telling you that to motivate you to keep your figure while playing Arwen. You really are quite thin!" Miranda rushed to comfort her new friend.

"I totally agree with Miranda, Liv. You could be a model. The woman who measured me, she was really nice, but she told me to gain twenty-five pounds to play Lily! I'd much rather have to lose weight than gain it. You're lucky, Liv; your character is skinny."

"But why?" this came from an astonished Liv, her annoyance at her measurer disappearing at the news of Natalie's requirements.

"At some point Gollum calls me 'stupid, fat hobbit.' It wouldn't really work if I don't actually look fat!" Miranda nodded in understanding and Liv let out a small chuckle, but it was quickly smothered when Natalie gave her a despairing look.

"I suppose you could ask Peter if there is another option besides gaining weight," Miranda said thoughtfully. "You could probably wear a fat suit beneath your costume and it would look natural enough."

"Yeah, I guess. I have to talk to him about my furry feet – don't you guys think that girl hobbits would have shaved their feet? But anyways, I'll just ask him then." Suddenly, sounds of shouting could be heard in the hallway. "I thought it was supposed to be deserted over here tonight," Natalie added, turning to her friends.

"I thought so, too," Liv began, but Miranda broke in.

"That would be Peter and Stuart," she told them with a grimace. "They've been fighting a lot lately. I don't know what about, but I've seen them arguing at least three different times."

"I wonder…" Natalie trailed off, thinking of all the possibilities. "Do you think he'll still be here for filming? I rather like him… who else would play Aragorn?" Miranda shrugged, but then started laughing when she saw Liv's face.

"I haven't met Stuart yet," Liv said. "I hope he looks better than he gets along with the director. I do have to kiss him after all!"

"He is rather attractive," said Miranda. "I suppose he's got to be since both our characters fall in love with his." She suddenly gave a little laugh. "You know, Liv, I think that Éowyn is supposed to hate Arwen for being betrothed to him!"

"We're enemies, then!" Liv laughed. "I can't remember: do they both meet at some point? I can't imagine Eowyn being very happy about meeting Aragorn's future wife!"

"At the coronation you do," Natalie broke in. "Everybody's at the coronation!"

"But by then I'll have Faramir! You can keep your ranger, Liv, I've met David Waite and he's much cuter than Stuart!" Miranda dodged a pillow flung at her by a mock-raged Liv. "I'm joking, Liv! Joking!"

"Well, I…" drawing a blank on an insult to Faramir, Liv turned to Natalie, who had been attempting to smother her laughter into another pillow. "At least the man I'll marry doesn't have furry feet!" Liv hadn't acted like this since she was about thirteen. She had forgotten how much fun it was.

"But I have furry feet as well! Not that I want them… but… hey! Did you just…?" Natalie never finished her comment, as she whacked Liv upside the head with her pillow.

"We really act like children," Miranda commented to nobody in particular as she lobbed a pillow of her own. "Oh, well. Pillow fight!"

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A/N: I have created a blog for this story. If anybody is interested, the link is on my profile. I would appreciate any comments left by review or PM on whether or not you guys think this is a good idea and want me to continue it!