Hey everyone,

Many thanks to you all for the helpful and kind reviews! :D Also, feel free to skip the explanations below!

I've become aware that I haven't set a very consistent tone with this story- it's veering from parody to adventure and back. Sorry! I'll try to improve! The main problem's been lack of time and technical issues (RIP laptop) which has lead to me doing chapters in a rush, speed-writing when I had internet access BUT EVERYTHING IS BETTER NOW! YUSS.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: MC!Legolas is polarising my reviewers!

So, I'll try to explain Legolas' character a bit better in this chapter. I was trying make Legolas funny without going for the obvious jokes (such as Prettyblond!Legolas). He's not intended to be stupid exactly, even if Vimes etc thinks so. He always struck me as a bit dreamy and strange in the books too (Legolas is basically Luna Lovegood, am I right? who agrees?) and Vimes' impressions of the characters aren't necessarily correct.

Also, this series is not meant to be too serious. I know Tolkien is serious and I agree with the reviewer who pointed out that Pratchett conveys some very serious points in his work. But I am not as talented (sadly) nor as serious (probably because I'm not as talented).

Aargh, anyway enough of Legolas stealing all the screen time when he was meant to be a minor character and everyone knows that the very best character of all is Merry!

STORY BEGINS

*some dialogue taken from The Fellowship of the Ring

They started up Caradhras with Gandalf still sending dark looks in their direction. 'Although to be fair,' Sam said quietly to Merry, 'most of what happened was simply bad luck.'

'Yes, we'd survived a couple of weeks in the wilderness without setting anything on fire or falling out of a tree,' Merry agreed. He paused. 'Hmm... When you put it like that, it doesn't sound so impressive...'

Snow began falling before they'd gone very high. Soon, the wind began in real fury. It was bitterly cold and stung their exposed faces. Worse, its howling seemed to contain other sounds: strange, eerie voices that Vimes half-heard and hoped he imagined. It did not comfort him when Boromir mentioned the voices too.

Vimes was suddenly grateful for the light - but, he now realised, deceptively warm- cloak that Elrond had given him. He should make some notes for Vetinari. If they could get such cloaks in Ankh-Morpork, they could use them for the military- or, more likely, sell them at an inflated price to someone else's military. And then charge them interest.

He was certainly getting to understand politics.

Watching Aragorn and Boromir with the hobbits (what little he could see of them through the whirling flakes of snow), Vimes felt he may have judged them a little harshly. None of Aragorn's Sense of Destiny was in evidence as he helped Sam lead their pony, Whatsisname, through a snow drift, although sadly his Smell seemed to be permanent. Boromir, too, proved himself to be both caring and practical as conditions worsened. Vimes nobly forgave the Men for failing to be as arrogant and useless as he'd secretly believed them to be.

Vimes knew he didn't fully understand the nature and importance of their Quest, yet. Hells, he could hardly bring himself to think the word 'Quest' without wincing slightly. He still didn't feel much more than idle curiousity when he looked towards the thing round Frodo's neck. By Io, he hoped that wouldn't change. He'd seen the strange moods Frodo was drawn into. His growing obsession had at first been amusing to Vimes, but as Frodo looked more drained and Sam more anxious, it was becoming heartbreakingly obvious to Vimes that he had been underestimating the ring's malignant power and the damage this was wreaking on Frodo.

He hadn't been wrong when he feared Lord Rust-type behaviour. Lord Rust being dropped into Middle Earth was a terrifying thought.

But maybe, some of this sort of behaviour just made sense in this world? This was what Vetinari had tried to tell him but it only made sense now, watching the two men toil in the snow. Their ridiculous, over the top Manliness and Nobility seemed to fit with the surroundings. What would have seemed out of place in Ankh-Morpork just seemed right, somehow, in these extreme settings.

Or would it be out of place in Vimes' city? Maybe even in Ankh-Morpork it would win friends and influence people. Vimes couldn't help himself, he was reminded of Carrot.

And this reminded him of home.

Merry, trudging beside Vimes and shaking with cold, looked up as if reading his thoughts. 'Get weather like this on the Pisk?' he asked, trying to sound cheery. The hobbit had his arm around Pippin, who was already struggling.

Vimes forced a chuckle, feeling suddenly glad he wasn't three and a half feet tall. He had his own problems, however. Maybe he shouldn't have insisted on cardboard boots? His feet were wet through. Damn stupid weather.

The snow was the wrong colour, as well. It was all white and shiny. Everyone knew snow should be mostly brown, yellow in patches, and hiding the occasional lump that turned out to be a dead dog. This snow was wrong. Why wasn't it criss-crossed with cart tracks and footprints until it was little more than slush?

If Vimes hadn't been so busy trying to follow Gandalf up a mountain, blink stinging snowflakes out of his eyes and not fall over, he might have felt quite homesick.

It was very, very cold.

A pile of snow jumped off the mountain and hit them all on the head.

'What the Hells? Did you see that? Damn snow jumped!' Vimes spluttered, when he'd coughed out most of the snow. He was almost glad of the distraction. An ache was growing deep within his chest. He told himself that the ache was due to being out of shape, but he knew on a deeper level it was the absence of his family, and his city he was feeling.

'This is no ordinary patch of bad weather!' Aragorn added.

They huddled under a snowy outcrop. 'If this is shelter, then one wall and no roof make a house,' Sam muttered. Vimes was inclined to agree with him.

Gandalf passed round a bottle of something he called 'miruvor'. Each took a sip. The hobbits perked up remarkably quickly, going from blue with cold and silent to making quiet jokes among themselves in seconds, but when the bottle reached Vimes, he hesitated.

'Er... this doesn't have anything alcoholic in it, by any chance?'

Gandalf sent Vimes a quizzical look. 'Why do you ask?'

'Er... I don't drink. Any more, that is. Er, got any coffee?'

Snow fell, sometimes almost horizontally. Being warm was a fuzzy memory that Vimes couldn't properly conjure up anymore. It was obvious that they were in serious trouble.

Boromir was clearly trying to bite down the words 'I told you so,' but eventually he said, 'There seems little choice now between fire and death,' which meant the same thing.

Gandalf agreed reluctantly, but then, nobody could get a fire lit. Sighing theatrically, Gandalf raised one of the pieces of wood that Boromir had insisted they carry with them, and spoke some strange words in a commanding tone. The wood burst into flame.

Muttering about how he'd as good as announced Gandalf is here across half of Middle Earth, the old wizard nevertheless seemed as cheered by the fire as the rest.

Vimes found himself admiring Boromir's practicality and foresight, but only with the small part of his brain that wasn't focusing on the intense cold and the need to get as close to the small fire as possible. Usually suspicious of magic, he'd happily ignore all his qualms if his fingers could be less numb.

But the wood was burning fast, and still the snow fell.

'Dawn will find it hard pierce these clouds,' muttered Gimli an hour or so before sunrise. 'Thank you,' said Frodo to Gimli through gritted teeth, 'for your ceaseless optimism.'

Dawn came, and they were all alive to see it, but they also saw that the snow was piled many feet high around them and the path hidden. Only metres from the ashes of their fire, the way was impassable.

'Caradhras has more snow to fling at us yet,' Gimli added, with an air of grim satisfaction.

Pessimism, thought Vimes, was justified. How could you be expected to be a policeman on a mountaintop, when everyone was close to freezing to death? He'd love a coffee right now, but from Gandalf's earlier reaction, it seemed the existence of coffee was another thing they didn't have on Middle Earth.

They stopped when they could go no further. Boromir and Aragorn started trying to push their way through a huge drift of snow that was blocking their way. Vimes scanned the group to check that no-one had been lost in a snowdrift. Legolas was remarkably fresh, and not as snow-sodden as the others. For once, he was not dreamy and vague, and he even spoke to Boromir and Aragorn.

Unfortunately, whatever he said made them so annoyed that Vimes half-expected to see steam rising from them. That would have been useful. Then they could have melted a path through the snow.

'He can walk on snow,' Gimli said, catching Vimes' look of surprise. 'Haven't you noticed?'

Vimes joined the others in sending Legolas jealous, threatening glares. Legolas volunteered to go and scout beyond the massive snowdrift, and disappeared hastily.

While they waited for the three to return, Vimes asked Gandalf a few things.

'Gandalf? if it's not rude to ask, why did they send Legolas with us?'

'Whatever do you mean?'

"It's just, he doesn't seem to be... all there.'

'Elves can sleep even as they walk in the waking world, Vimes. So sometimes he may seem a bit dreamy, yes. Is that what you mean?'

Vimes pondered this. Maybe it explained some of the elf's vague behaviour, but it added a whole new perspective for Vimes to worry about it.

In fact, he felt personally insulted. He thought sleeping while standing up was a police officer thing. He'd got it down to a fine art. Indeed, Vimes had been rather proud of the contribution he could make to the group when it was his turn to stand watch on dark, rainy nights (or slightly less dark, rainy afternoons).

To Vimes, that was the essence of policing. He'd spent much of his working life standing watch while rain dripped down his neck and nose. He could exist in a state of half-sleep, whiling away the hours, and had surprised one or two criminals that way. One had even graffiti'd 'Tonks luvs RL 4-eva' on his face, and Vimes had just stood very still, allowing her to continue writing in order to gather evidence of the crime of defacing public property. Vimes could stand still.

And he could sleep standing up. He could also half-sleep, and do without sleep for longer than was reasonable. Vimes had made various deals with Sleep over the years, negotiating delayed repayments, wrestling Sleep's borders into new shapes. They'd never be friends, but Vimes thought he could get away with not-sleeping or almost-sleeping better than anyone else.

How dare Legolas steal his party trick? And, by the sounds of things, completely out-do Vimes.

But it wasn't just that. Vimes dropped his voice to a whisper. He didn't want to embarrass Legolas.

'It's not just that. He also... er... he... well, he talks to trees.'

'Yes.'

Maybe Gandalf didn't quite hear him?

'Talks. To trees. And listens to them, too. I'm not joking. I've seen him.'

Gandalf chuckled. 'You don't know much about wood-elves, do you?'

Apparently not. Vimes started getting seriously worried. No-one talked to trees! Why did Gandalf seem to think it was normal? Vimes distrusted trees. He knew little about them, and he intended to keep it that way. The only trees he'd had much to do with were the stunted, half-charred stumps in Sybil's garden, the ones the dragons sometimes set fire to. Other trees were associated with terrifying memories of fleeing werewolves in Uberwald.

Yet people talked to them? Would it expose his city-dweller ignorance if he expressed surprise at this? Maybe everyone talked to trees? Was he expected to talk to trees, too? But he'd never noticed any of the other members of the Fellowship trying to make conversation with a larch or joke with a juniper. He kept his face politely blank.

'Elves aren't just humans with pointy ears, you know.' Gandalf continued, attempting to knock his pipe out on a snowdrift.

'Elrond and his folk seemed fairly normal to me. Well, they had a tendency to giggle, but apart from that... at least they seemed to be awake.'

'Yes, but they're used to mortals. Elrond's half-mortal, they get lots of mortal visitors. But many elves, being immortal, live on a different time scale to what you are used to. So they can take a bit of ... adapting. Legolas is in his own world half the time because Mirkwood doesn't get many mortal visitors. There, it's less joyful singing and more... man-eating spiders.'

'So, all wood-elves are like this?' Vimes asked, making a mental note never to visit Mirkwood.

"Well, Legolas is a bit of a hippy, but more or less.'

Legolas returned at that point, and Boromir and Aragorn stomped back from pushing their way through snow, practically glowing with Manliness. Aragorn leant in to join their conversation: "It goes like this: Rivendell elves are quite like humans, with the added annoying habit of having meetings all day and singing all night."

"I shall tell Arwen you said that," Gandalf smiled. Aragorn ignored him, and continued his lecture.

"Mirkwood elves - that's Legolas- prefer trees to mortals. They don't trust anybody, and day dream all the time except when they're sending an arrow through your ear at forty paces.'

'That only happened once,' Legolas said, 'and your scar hardly even shows.'

Aragorn settled himself next to Gandalf and continued. 'Lothlorien elves are even weirder.' he continued. 'They've got an even nastier sense of humour than Thranduil's folk, and they think they're superior to everybody else.' He smiled smugly. 'I think that about sums it up."

Gandalf also allowed a small smile to appear briefly before vanishing back into his beard. "Aragorn is broadly correct. I only hope we don't have to meet any Lorien elves on this trip. Galadriel is deliberately difficult to deal with. And the last time I spoke to her... well... unfortunately, we both have immortal memories.'

'So there's thingydell elves, and then tree-huggers?'

Legolas scowled at Vimes, then got up and left. Aragorn and Gandalf looked horrified.

'Vimes,' Gandalf said gently. 'Tree-hugger is an extremely elfist term.'

'Sorry.' said Vimes. This was all so hard to take in! He'd finally just about got a grip on having a multicultural police force. He'd even learned not say, 'I'll be back shortly' when a dwarf officer was around. Now he had to learn new rules.

'And what of dwarves?' he asked Aragorn, capitalising on the man's talkative mood.

'Dwarves are-' Barely two metres away from him, Gimli shifted, and started to sharpen his axe meaningfully.

'- fine fellows. I wouldn't hear a word said against them,' Aragorn continued, barely missing a beat. Vimes was impressed. The man would make a fine King.

'And Gondorians?'

Aragorn drew himself up proudly. 'Gondorians are an ancient and noble race, descended from-' but Vimes did not hear; he was too distracted by Gandalf's impressive eye-rolling. Why did Gandalf draw attention to his eyes? Truly, the wizard had the most impressive eyebrows Vimes had ever seen. They fascinated him.

'It's just difficult for me,' he explained, when Aragorn had stopped talking. 'I know nothing about Gondorians, Middle Earth's dwarves, or elves. Back home...dwarves are in some ways completely different, and in some ways exactly the same. I don't always know which. And elves aren't the good guys.'

Gandalf tried to reassure Vimes. 'You can trust the Fellowship with your life,' he said. 'Even if Legolas doesn't always seem hugely alert, he'll be the first to know if orcs attack. And every elf, dwarf and man in the group will be very useful if we have to deal with Orcs.

Vimes did not like the sound of the word 'orc'. He glanced at Legolas who was now humming to himself, seemingly oblivious to the freezing drama of his surroundings.

'Right,' Vimes said uncertainly. 'That's good to know.'