Legolas was the first person to see it. He had gotten to work early in order to open it up the store (he'd done it multiple times, seeing as he was the oldest employee and Gandalf trusted him the most). He was surprised; never had something like this been done to the café. Sure, there had been shenanigans on campus before, but the café was generally a beloved place for the students, and nobody would have ever thought to smash the windows in with rocks.

Legolas opened up the door, his jaw dropped. Glass was strewn around the room, on the tables nearest to the windows and the chairs. It was obvious that the vandals had entered the café since multiple books from the book-shelf wall had been taken out and ripped to pieces. Legolas stepped over a couple pages of a fantastically illustrated version of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales, disappointment filling his heart. He then saw the shelves that had held the mugs. A couple of the wooden shelves were broken it two; and all of the Halloween mugs, every single one of them, had been smashed on the ground. The shards of the mugs were almost like an ankle deep puddle of orange and black glass.

The first thing Legolas did was swear; a lot. He was normally a gentle person, but working in the kitchens with Gimli had taught him almost all of the swear words he knew. They all came spilling out now; cursing the vandals for ruining the books and the mugs and the café in general. He kicked an overturned chair and ran his hands through his hair. He didn't understand why he was so upset about this; perhaps because this place was the only place where the workers didn't shame him for choosing to be a vegan despite the fact that his family and almost the entire world around him was not.

The second thing he did was pick up the phone and call Gandalf.

"Hullo, Legolas," The voice said, "Having troubles opening the café?"

"Actually, I opened it just fine," Legolas replied, "But it's been vandalized. Horribly. The windows are all smashed, and the mugs. Some of the shelves are broken, and a lot of the books have been destroyed. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry Legolas, unless you were the one who had done it," Gandalf told him, a slight chuckle to his voice. Legolas just wondered how Gandalf could manage to be able to make a joke at a time like this. "I will be over straight away. I presume you have called the police?"

"Um... not actually. I was going to," Legolas admitted, and gave a small chuckle.

"I will see you soon, Legolas," Gandalf concluded, and the phone call ended with the click of a phone (Gandalf's) being hung up.

The third thing Legolas did was call the police. He filled out all of the information that he needed to, wishing to himself that Gandalf had installed a security alarm instead of just being trusting of the students on campus to not do any harm to the café. Legolas knew that Gandalf was going to get little to no money from his insurance company; no company would accept a claim to a vandalism that happened on a building with no security alarm.

Legolas wondered what that would mean for the café. Gandalf was a long retired professor who had set up the café as a way to keep busy during his retired years. Surely it meant that Gandalf had enough money to repair the café, and hopefully get it back into business without falling into economic trouble. Legolas hoped he did; otherwise he was going to have to go back into his high school mode, something he had long hidden.

It had been a long time since Legolas had been seen making fundraisers and raising awareness about things he cared about. It was a side of him that few people he still affiliated with knew, and it was a side of him that he didn't want anybody else to know. It was quite terrifying, actually. Legolas recalled shoving pamphlets about the environment into people's hands. For some reason, they always accepted them. It was most likely due to the fact that Legolas had inherited his father's death glare and that it tended to slip up when he was determined to convince somebody that he was right.

Perhaps that was how he had won student body president in twelfth grade. It all made sense now.

Luckily for him, the death glare made no appearance as Gandalf walked in to the junked up café. If it had, Legolas would not have been surprised if Gandalf presumed that he had been the vandal.

"Well, they certainly made work of this place," Gandalf muttered, leaning down and picking up a piece of one his Halloween mugs. "Luckily they were only the Halloween mugs, and they didn't seem to steal any of the chairs or tables… or the machines."

"They came here to harm, and harm only," Legolas said softly as he opened the door to the kitchens. They were in relatively good condition apart from the black spray paint on the back wall saying 'DIE FAGGOTS.' "And they were relatively uncreative with their insults."

"I do agree with that, Legolas," Gandalf said as he inspected the nearest oven. "Please check on the change room, if you don't mind."

"Of course," Legolas nodded, and turned and left the kitchen he had spent so many hours in over the past couple of years The 'STAFF ONLY' door had been spray-painted as well, though instead of insults it was a rather poorly drawn penis. Legolas was beginning to wonder if it had been students from the nearby high school instead of students at the university or neighbouring college.

The only damage in the change room was a smashed mirror and more spray paint. There was so much spray paint that Legolas thought it would be better to repaint the wall instead of spending so much time trying to wash it off. Legolas stepped over the broken glass when he heard Gandalf call his name.

Legolas spoke to the police as a witness. He could not identify any suspects (much to his chagrin). The only thing he could really say was that it had happened after the café had closed, and that Legolas had been the first person to report the vandalism. The police seemed displeased in the fact that they had no alarm, and then told Legolas that he would be better off out of the way and thanked him for his time.

"You should tell the employees of what happened, Legolas," Gandalf said with a small sigh, "I will sort out this mess. Also, tell them not to worry about their pay, I will pay them for the hours they would have had this week, and for ten hours a week until the café is back up and running."

"Thank you, Mr. Gandalf. I hope we can sort this out soon," Legolas told him, before he whipped out his phone and made a large group text.

'The café has been vandalized to the point that we cannot work there. Gandalf says not to worry about money, he'll pay you for the hours you had this week and then for ten hours a week until the café is open for business again.'

He hadn't even taken ten steps when his phone buzzed with a text from Pippin, 'WHAAAAT? NO! DID THEY TAKE ALL THE FOOD?'

Legolas rolled his eyes; of course Pippin's main concern would be the food. 'No, they just crushed it all.'

'WHAT A WASTE!' Pippin seemed very fond of capslock, and it gave Legolas the impression that Pippin was screaming in his ear. About food. A small smile appeared on his face before his phone buzzed again.

This time, it was from Aragorn, 'Really?'

'Unfortunately so, I saw it myself,' Legolas typed back as he waited to cross the crosswalk. He waited a couple of seconds before he then sent the next text, 'It means you won't be able to see Arwen almost every day. Gives you an excuse to ask her out since your time isn't occupied by work.'

Aragorn took ten minutes to respond. It was short and sweet. 'Shut up.'

Legolas was smirking as he got back to his dorm room. Gimli was waiting for him, sitting up on the bed. The stout man's hair was ruffled from sleep, sticking up rather unattractively and childishly, but Gimli wore a stern expression on his face.

"Um… What's going on?"

"I know who did it," Gimli told him.

"You know who did it?" Legolas asked, almost shrilly. "Who?"

"Well, it's more of a very educated guess," Gimli admitted before he gave a small sigh, "The Mordor College kids. They were hanging around the café after work yesterday. They were wearing an unhealthy amount of eyeliner. One of them hissed at me."

"Just because they were wearing eyeliner doesn't mean they were the ones who vandalized the café," Legolas retorted.

"I got a bad feeling about them, Legolas," Gimli responded as he shifted back into his bed. "They gave the chills, and it was obvious that they were up to no good. Maybe it wasn't them, but they're definitely a top suspect."

Gimli threw the covers onto his head, and then muttered, "Too bad the only damn thing I could see under their hoods was their eyeliner," into his pillow, making Legolas burst out laughing.

Thanks to Nyla Evergale, Wanderingidealism, Daeril Ullothwen, LotR-HP-PJ, laurawesome, Raisinet, Tiarna na fainne, and XxJigoku-no-HanaxX for reviewing! Thanks to Elfwine, HMSFalcon, Daeril Ullothwen, laurawesome, and TooManyFandomsToCount13 for favouriting/subscribing. Thank you for reading, and please review!