"Attention! Everyone, attention!" The Witch King called out to the Nazgûl who stood about the room as he rapped on his new teacher's desk with a steel ruler. What had once been a musty old chamber in some isolated corner of Minas Morgul had become a twisted reflection of a school classroom. Eight student desks filled the floor, facing a large blackboard that hung on the wall. Appropriate pictures of the might of Mordor were tastefully placed around the room, including the building of the Dark Tower, the forging of the One Ring, and a beaming Sauron with a stoic Morgoth.

"Attention!" The Chief futilely cried again as the chatting wraiths paid him no mind. Listening to your superiors? Pfft, overrated, as Ski would say.

"Everyone, SIT DOWN!" The Captain shouted, cutting the chatter as abruptly as the decapitation he'd just overseen an hour ago as the Nazgûl reluctantly slid into their assigned seats.

"What's this mess all about, Boss?" Kraak questioned curiously, scratching the iron desktop with a dirty fingernail.

"What have you done to this once beautiful room? It's hideous now." Udu moaned, pulling his hood over his face to avoid looking at the sickening classroom that smelled like *gasp* hard work.

"Yeah, what's with this crazy school-idea-thing?" Gakh called out as Rut obligingly piped up. "And what would we be studying anyways?"

"More importantly, why?"

"This better be quick, Boss, I'm needed at the armory in fifteen minutes." Khamûl sighed irritably, checking his wristwatch.

"Well, it won't be quick, so quiet, the lot of you morons!" The Chief demanded as he paced intimidatingly in front of the unusual 'class'. "I have something to say."

When some measure of order returned, the Witch King cleared his throat, adjusting his newly acquired collar, before speaking. "The Massshter hass decided that certain proceduresss musst be taken to increasse our reputation. The firsst of thesse meassuress isss a new sstyle of sspeaking, which I am demonssstrating now. Thuss, we sshall have Ssspeach Sschool everyday until you all masster thiss method." He finished, pleased with himself as an astonished silence hung over the room before shortly erupting into laughter and catcalls.

"You expect us to talk like that?"

"Hey, Lispy! What's wrong with your mouth?"

"I always knew you were related to snakes!" Krith crowed in triumph.

"You took so long to talk a dwarf could've killed you!"

"I'm sorry, I don't understand stupidity, could you repeat that?" Zag sniggered into his cloak.

"I can't breathe!" Ski guffawed, doubling over his desk as Rut helpfully slapped him on the back a few times.

"We don't breathe dummy, remember?" Gakh scolded, whapping him over the head with his evil government-issued schoolbooks.

"Well, exscuuuse me for using a figure of speech." Ski whined, rubbing his sore noggin resentfully.

"Sssi-lence!" The infuriated Chief yelled, repeatedly smacking the poor ruler on the desk by way of emphasizing his words. His hissing screech, rather then inspire fear, only sent the Nazgûl into another round of wild and rancorous laughter.

"It's the Master's orders!" He finally bellowed in exasperation over the general clamor, dropping his s's in his anger. "So if any of you numbskulls wish to take the matter up with Him, be my guest. If not, sit down and SHUT UP!" His threat worked as eight Ringwraiths shut up mid-sarcastic jibe. Sauron can have the effect.

"That'sss better." The Boss grinned, savoring the power of blackmail he held over them as his restless students twitched in their seats.

"Now, we will ssstart with role call." He continued in a business-like tone, whipping out a pen and a pair of those cross-teacher reading-glasses, which caused no small amount of secret amusement to the inwardly seething Nazgul.

"Khamûl?"

"Not present."

"Ssasss sshall not be permitted, Khamûl." The Boss intoned darkly as he moved down the list.

"Gakh?"

"Mmph."

"Zag?"

"Yo."

"Kraak?"

"Here and wishing I was wasn't."

"Rut?"

"Present."

"Sski?"

"I'm literally right under your nose."

"And Krith?"

A large yawn was his only answer, but the Chief (wisely) decided not to push it too hard the first day and took what he could get.

"Udu?"

"Yup."

"Now, everyone open your booksss to pagesss 105 and 106. We will sstart with ssstudying correct intonationss."

Afterwards, none of the wraiths would ever be able to clearly remember what that first day of school was like, seeing as it'd all passed by in a dreary haze.

"I'm a victim of shock." Khamûl moaned despairingly once Speech School had been dismissed for the day. The wraiths sat in the Great Hall, bewailing the cruel hand Fate (or Sauron) had dealt them.

"Maybe I could get an excused absence on the basis of extreme trauma." Zag meditated.

"This sucks." Udu grumbled, echoing the sentiments of everyone present as he shoved his schoolbooks away with a scowl.

"Then why don't we do something about it?" Ski demanded, slapping Krith who had finally succumbed to sleep.

"We can't," Kraak sighed. "If it was just Witchy's idea, sure, but a direct command from the Master? No way in Mordor."

"Mother of Morgoth, I feel so helpless." Rut sniffled, using his robe as a very large tissue.

"Must be how people enslaved by an oppressive overlord feel like every day." Gakh said seriously as the rest nodded glumly in agreement. "Why on Middle-Earth would we want to talk that way?"

"Maybe we could ask the Master to cancel school." Rut suggested, perking up at the thought.

"Yeah, right," Khamûl interjected scornfully. "And will you be the one to go ask him? 'Please, Master Sauron, Sir,'" He squeaked in an imitation of Rut's voice as the reprimanded Nazgûl slid down his seat in shame. " 'Could you please cancel the school you just put in place by your command? We don't like it.'"

"He's right, it'd never work." Udu agreed as the gloomy demeanor of the room's occupants returned.

"Hold on," Zag broke in after a pause. "Who says we have to be the ones to ask the Master to end this ridiculous school notion?"

"What'd you mean?" Kraak asked suspiciously. Over time they'd learned the hard way not to accept Zag's every idea as a good one.

"I mean give the Boss such a hard time during school so he won't ever want to step foot in a classroom again, so much so he'll be practically begging Master to stop classes." Zag explained, his familiar mischievous grin spreading over his face.

"But wouldn't the Boss tell on us to the Master?" Ski queried in tones both dubious and hopeful.

"It's a double-edged sword," Udu spoke up, growing excited as comprehension of Zag's plan set in. "We could just as easily tell Sauron what a horrible captain and incompetent leader the Chief is. No, he wouldn't risk telling tales, his good-standing with the Master is too important."

"That…that could work." Gakh said speculatively.

"Anything to stop the madness, I suppose." Kraak acquiesced with a shrug while Rut happily bounced in his seat and Krith let out an accompanying snore.

"We're all in agreement, then?" Zag asked as they all chorused 'yes' before turning to look at the silent Khamûl, who sighed in resignation to the coming chaos.

"All right, I'm in, and no, I won't go tattling to Witchy. Just because I'm his lieutenant doesn't mean I like all his half-cooked ideas."

"More like quarter-cooked." Zag smirked. "We better get busy; somebody wake up Kirth, we've got a lot of homework to do."

The next morning dawned nice and dour (your typical Morgal Vale sunrise) as the Nazgûl trooped into the classroom with decidedly improved attitudes. The Boss eyed them skeptically, doubtful of the outward change of heart, but proceeded with the lesson nonetheless.

About midway through his lecture on frightening noises, he adjusted his glasses and turned to the blackboard to illustrate a point. "Now, sssome creaturess find a low, guttural sssound ssscary, but the high and ssshrill cry is indisssputably more terrifying." He went on, writing on the board when- POOF, the chalk stick exploded, leaving a white powder in the air and a fine layer of dust all over the astonished Chief.

"Wha-" He gasped as several unidentifiable chuckles floated around the room. "Alright, who did that?" The Witch King sputtered, attempting to wipe chalk from his face and robes and look angry at the same time.

"Who, us?" Udu asked innocently.

"You really think we could make chalk spontaneously combust?" Krith scoffed, now wide-awake and ready for action.

"Really, you overestimate us, my dear Captain." Gakh said sweetly.

The Boss grimaced and sat down at his desk, creating pale-chalk mushroom clouds as he did so. "Turn to page 108 and finissh the workssheet." He ordered at last with a frown.

Silence ensued for exactly three minutes and twenty-six seconds when the Chief made the mistake of opening his desk drawer. Out sprang a quokka, which are as a rule despised by all evil minions on account of their eerie perpetual happiness. Eww.

The Captain pushed his desk away with a roar, leaping on top of his chair to avoid being scampered on by exuberant gaiety on four little legs. The quokka was now cheerfully running around the classroom floor, while the class (keeping their feet off the ground) burst forth in laughter, prompting their leader to recover his dignity somewhat.

"Order! Order in the classssroom!" He yelled grabbing his ruler and hitting the desktop, except said ruler didn't create quite the forceful noise he'd expected. Rather, the harder he smacked it, the more it sounded like a duck in childbirth. (Or duckling birth, whatever) The steel stick had been replaced with a cleverly designed rubber ruler, sending the eight Ringwraiths into another paroxysm of mirth.

"Fine, classss dissmisssed for today!" The Chief shouted in frustration as he clambered down the desk. "And sssomebody catch that curssed quokka!"

"Great job team!" Kraak cheered as the Boss made a hasty retreat. "At this rate it's just a matter of days before he cracks."

"I think you mean cracksss." Ski grinned as he gingerly picked up the quokka and thrust it into a box.

"One day down." Khamûl breathed in relief.

"Hopefully only ssseveral more to go." Zag sniggered as they filed out of the room.

The next day saw the delinquents of wraith-kind giving Witchy a figurative heart attack after plastering the schoolroom with hundreds of pictures of cats and kittens. Ever since The Incident Of The Nearly Fatal Cuteness, (as they now called it) the Witch-King had harbored a stronger-then-normal dread of anything feline. Krith swore the Captain had nightmares about it.

The day after that, Rut and Gakh spent some time carefully applying glue to the teacher's chair. So when the Boss sat down and then stood back up his robe, well, didn't make the return journey. The teacher was then forced to depart in disgrace to the taunting cries of 'scandalous!'

Spitballs flew about the room another day as the Chief tried to navigate the wet and dangerous crossfire.

"Heads up!"

Splat!

"Aarggh!"

The fifth day (marshmallow guns) proved to be the very last straw, as the mightiest servant of the Dark Lord tossed his teacher's schedule in the trash, chucked his reading glasses out the window, and yelled some choice words at his students before shouting that he quit and storming out of the room.

There was a slight pause as the rest of the reprobate wraiths registered what had just happened.

"Ha, we did it!" Udu celebrated, tossing his marshmallows in the air.

"Look at him run!" Rut laughed, throwing his books on the floor.

"We ssure ssshowed him." Zag mocked, dancing with glee around the now dilapidated desk.

"Lesson number eighty-two: never send a Nazgûl to school." Khamûl smirked as he expertly caught a flying marshmallow in his mouth.

Several hours later…

A disheveled Witch King stood in the upper-most room of Barad-Dûr, reporting to his Master. To the human eye, the chamber was empty save for the lone, cloaked figure kneeling in respect on the ground. But it didn't take a wraith to feel the power that resonated through every brick, the presence of an indomitable will, ready to break others' to his.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" A mighty voiced thundered angrily, the room trembling with the force of his words.

"I'm…I'm sorry, my lord." The Chief squeaked. "The other Ringwraiths turned out not to be as…accepting of the new speech idea as we'd hoped."

"Really?" Sauron asked, surprise coloring over his rage. "Personally, I thought it was brilliant."

"That it was, your Darkness, they just seemed to retaliate at the whole hissing part."

"Hmm, I prefer to call it the elongation of the voiceless consonants. Hissing has so many reptile connotations."

"You are not…irate?" The Boss questioned hopefully, daring to rise to his feet.

"Oh, I'm very irate," Sauron replied nonchalantly. "But, I suppose the worst punishment you could receive is one you already get a daily dose of: having to deal with eight reckless Nazgûl everyday."

"If it's any consolation Sire, they're well on their way to being Mordor's finest evil pranksters and inflicters of mischief."

The Black Lord made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. "From the looks of it they already are."

A/N: Hope y'all had a good Valentines/Single Awareness Day!

So, ever wondered why the wraiths hiss? Now you know! ;) Also, it appears Sauron has a sense of humor. Who would've thunk? And Zag is turning into a scheming little mastermind, isn't he? Daaw, my babies are all growing up. *sniffles*

If you don't know what a quokka is, go google some pictures right now and be blinded by happy cuteness.

Thanks for all the response & reviews! I will now be personally responding to every review (something I've been meaning to be better about) as I know how much I appreciate it when other authors do it for me.

Let me know what you thought! Like having Sauron in the mix? Want more of a certain character? Thanks again, y'all rock my day!