Chapter 16: Le sigh…

Aragorn yawned and stretched. His watch was over, and now it was finally morning. He glanced around him once more. The camp was peaceful, and everyone was asleep.

Or, almost everyone.

He found himself being stared at by a pair of puffy blue eyes.

"Couldn't sleep, Lady Jo?"

"Not a wink." She paused, looking thoughtful, before proclaiming, "Elves are weird."

"Well, they are immortal beings. I suppose that doesn't help." Aragorn smiled. "You are feeling better, I take it?"

"Yes. And trying to figure out a way to get Iendil away from Frodo, and yet not on to someone else in the group." She scrunched up her nose, looking frustrated. Then she sighed. "I don't suppose there is anyway to get her to start lusting after Saruman…?"

Presented with a very funny mental picture, Aragorn had to laugh. "I doubt it."

"Dang."

"Freakin' Sues, screwing with canon!" Jo kicked the sand, sending a spray of rocks into the water. "Why are we still not in Moria?!"

Pippin glanced over at the ranting girl. "What's 'canon'?"

Jo didn't respond. She was too busy glaring at the offending Sue, who was occupied primping herself in the reflection of the water.

But luckily for all present, even the Valar love to have a bit of fun now and then at the expense of an unfortunate individual. And today, Manwe was feeling rather mischievous. Or just plain annoyed. It probably didn't help that Iendil has insinuated on several occasions that she was the long-lost daughter of Manwe and Varda.

So, when Iendil leaned over the water to fix her hair and just happened to drop her sparkly clip into the water, that just HAPPENED to wake up the Watcher in the water.

If this fic had a musical score…well, all the characters would be wondering why they were hearing music in their heads. But the traditional Jaws-esque, 'No-don't-go-in-there-because-the-killers-right-behind-the-door type, ominous music would be starting, in sync with the ripples of water that were heading right for the oblivious Sue.

But since there was no music playing, no one was really expecting the tentacle to shoot out of the water and grab Iendil. No one really noticed until her ear-splitting shrieks gave Legolas an instant migraine. No one really cared until she started screaming "TAKE FRODO INSTEAD! HE'S GOT THE RING!"

Then Legolas whipped out his handy-dandy bow and shot the calamari right between the eyes. Just so that all the enemies within a hundred mile radius would not be alerted to the fact that "WE'RE RIGHT HERE, WITH THE RING, COME AND GET US!"

And if they thought it was funny to see Iendil whipped around upside down by a tentacled monster, her skirts flying up over her head and her hair products flying everywhere, it was even funnier to see her plummet into a dirty lake and emerge minutes later, a tangled and flustered wreck. She hauled herself onto the shore, her tie-dye skirts torn, her hair a sopping wet, knotted mess, and her makeup running down her face in rivulets of water.

Legolas covered up his snort of laughter with a dignified cough before turning his eyes heavenward and muttering a phrase in Elvish that probably translated to "Thanks, Manwe, I owe ya one."

Fuming and on the verge of tears, Iendil stormed up to the doors, screamed 'Melon' at the top of her lungs, and marched into the mines. She plopped herself down on the cold ground, a pile of wet skirts and dripping hair, and cried.

Now, ordinarily, this would be taken as a cause for pity. It was a bit more serious, however, when the crying person is part of a group that is on a top secret mission in a cave that echoes a lot. And when the person cries like a dying banshee, that doesn't help either.

"Child!" hissed Gandalf. "Have you made it your mission to alert every foul creature around to our presence?"

Iendil glared up at him through her makeup-smudge eyes.

Jo sensed trouble. I don't like that look, not good…

They all blinked as they were suddenly plunged into even darker…darkness. Apparently, Iendil's crying had drowned out the sounds of the Watcher smashing the entrance behind them.

Jo shook her head. "Legolas really should have heard that, but I'm not going to blame him, because his poor ears have suffered enough today."

"There are fouler things than Orcs, in the deep places of the world." Gandalf had told them. Jo couldn't help but glance in the direction of where Iendil was walking. How could she tell? Why, just listening for the slosh of her skirts on the stone steps. With such heavy, intricate material, it was taking forever to dry. The noise was annoying, but it was rather satisfying to hear Iendil's indignant squeak each time a piece of her dress would get just too heavy for the seams and fall off. Jo grinned. Her hair may have grown to a shoulder length oddly fast, but now she was having a wardrobe malfunction that was amusing to no end. She pictured the pieces of fabric littering the path behind them, and had to stifle a giggle.

"Sigh…Sigh…SIGH…SIGH…like SIGH, DAMMIT!!!1"

Jo rolled her eyes. Iendil had been trying to get Gandalf's attention for the past two and a half hours so she could whine about her delicate little feet hurting. The wizard had been ignoring her since her little crying fit at the cave entrance. It wasn't so easy for the rest of them. Especially Legolas. He had developed a nasty little twitch after an hour of her complaints. And now Iendil was falling into the Swearing-Sue cliché. Such things were not meant for the ears of the Middle Earth inhabitants.

"My censored feet hurt so much. Poor censored me." She whined, to the shock of all except Gandalf, who might as well have been deaf to her voice.

Merry's jaw had hit his chest, and he quickly covered Pippin's ears. Sam and Frodo had drifted to the front of the group so as to be as far away from her as possible, but they still heard it. Boromir looked aghast, but kind of amused. Gimli chuckled. Aragorn sighed. Legolas just wanted the pain in his ears to stop.

Jo blinked. And then did a very flamboyant double-take that involved her head whipping back and forth and a rather elaborate face fault. Two seconds ago, she was at the place where Gandalf could not remember, and now suddenly they were in Balin's tomb with orcs at the door.

Sam glanced at her as she picked herself up off the dusty ground. "Are you alright?"

"I'm…" going insane, she thought with a roll of her eyes. "Just nervous."

He nodded, and then focused his energy on protecting Frodo as the orcs started to break through. Jo glanced at Iendil and saw her looking satisfied. Then she realized—she wasn't losing her mind, Iendil had cause the plot to advance forward because she was in such a bad mood. Clearly all her negative energy was to blame.

Jo's thought process was derailed as the orcs burst through the doors and streamed like ants into the room.

It was on.

TBC…