"A bit of lint," Lindir looked, "Some straw and a dead bee."
"That�s what Haldir�s made of, alright." Galadrial called, "You�re doing a great job!" Lindir smiled, very pleased with himself, "There should be more lint around!" And indeed, this was not on the account of a vaporized Haldir, but rather a few elves doing a few loads of laundry in their dryer, and these gave Galadrial an amused look.
"This is stupid." Frodo suddenly stood up from his perch in a tree, and all three other hobbits were sitting on the edge of the flet, legs dangling off the sides, watching Lindir. "Let�s go do something fun!"
All the hobbits gave him a wary look, for they were rather tired and Aragorn had told them to stay. "Come on, hobbits!" Frodo announced, drawing out Sting, "The rest of our Fellowship may be in grave danger, and we must save them!"
All the hobbits brightened. "Come, everyone! Let us go forth! Get up!"
All three hobbits hopped to their feet, only to find out that there wasn�t exactly anything under their feet . . . "AAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
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KSPLAT! Lindir nearly jumped out of his skin when out of the heavens, three dark objects tumbled into his umbrella, nearly breaking it with their weight! Finally, large chunks of Haldir! The elf grinned widely and peered inside the umbrella only to find three little curly-haired hobbits between the ribs. The hobbits smiled warily and waved. The elf did not wave back.
"What is this folly?" Lindir screeched, pulling all the hobbits out of the umbrella, "You are not Haldir!" But yet, the elf paused between throwing Sam into a bush, thinking, "Everything that falls within is Haldir!" Suddenly his eyes bulged and Sam found a minstrel�s finger jabbing into his chest, "YOU ATE HALDIR!"
With a small squeak, Sam tried to run, but the elf grasped his collar and shook the hobbit, who answered, "No! No! I did not eat Haldir!"
"YOU HAVE FEASTED ON HIM!" Lindir grabbed a very long, white and SHARP elven knife from his waist and held it before Sam, "AND NOW . . . I SHALL LIBERATE HIM!"
A split second before Lindir was about to gut our faithful little hobbit friend (don�t worry kids, no one dies in this story), Frodo had thrown himself off the flet and had precisely aimed himself to land onto Lindir�s fair head and once here, the little hobbit grabbed onto the only things he could grip to keep from flying off the elf�s head. Lindir screamed in pain as Frodo�s grip tightened, and finally, he loosened Sam, who quickly sprinted into the woods of Lorien, followed by Merry as Pippin stood ready to help Frodo.
Lindir tossed his head wildly, but even with his arms, could not reach the squirmy hobbit who was screaming just as loud as he was. Pippin cupped his hands about his mouth and screamed, "SQUEEZE FRODO!" And the hobbit did so. Lindir screamed even more loudly and a very bewildered Frodo clung on for dear life. What a bucking bronco!
Suddenly, Frodo decided he might as well find out what pained the elf so much upon squeeze, and to his extreme horror, in his fists were clutched two extremely valuable and pointy things. Ears. "AHHHH!" Frodo screamed in surprise, and nearly toppled off the flinging Elf, but as he slipped, he dug his fingers even deeper around Lindir�s poor ears, crushing every little ounce of cartilage in them. "AHHHH!"
"SQUEEZE!" Pippin shrieked, and quickly ran to avoid Lindir who was flinging the ridiculous umbrella after the little hobbit, "HARDER, FRODO!" And the hobbit on the head did so.
Blood pounding his ears, Lindir started to feel woozy from shaking his head about so much. In fact so woozy that he could no longer see straight . . . And Pippin was darting to and fro and . . . there and back and . . . "ARG! I�LL GET YOU!" With a thump, the elf crashed onto the grass, quite unconscious from the pain. From above, Frodo walked off the elf, knees shaking, but to the sound of Galadrial�s applause. Celeborn gave them a thumbs up and counted, "THREE minus ONE is . . . TWO!"
Galadrial grinned. She had not seen such a good skirmish in a few ages, she was so happy, she actually patted Celeborn�s hand with feeling as she whispered, "Very good, dear."
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"Ooh." Sam and Frodo finally met up and with a great big hug, the decision was made. The four hobbits stood alone in the midst of a big chorus of trees and with hushed voices, Sam announced, "That�s it! We must leave this land immediately! The elves wish to eat us!" His hobbit friends gasped. "Yes, at nightfall, we must sneak back to get our supplies, and the rest of our Fellowship. Then we will take boats into the river and hope that any other Fellowship we have not rounded up will see us leaving. And then, it�s on to Mordor." Three other little curly-haired heads nodded. "Alright. Is that a good plan?"
"But what if they recognize us?" Pippin squeaked, "We can�t go back there looking like HOBBITS!"
"Of course not!" Frodo drew out four black ski-masks from his pack, "That�s why I brought these."
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Lindir�s face boiled with shame as the elf sobbed uncontrollably, curled up at the base of a Mallorn tree, fingers wrapped around his mushed ears. An elven warrior NEVER let anyone near his pretty pointy ears and now that his ears were . . . Lindir started bawling again, "WHY ME?" First his brother had been taken away from him, and now, his pretty ears as well!
He dragged himself to the edge of a goldfish pond and gazed at the reflection before him. Elephant ears. They would probably flap in the breeze. That did it. Lindir jumped to his feet and slapped the soggy Kleenex onto the ground, the hobbits would pay for this! They would have to come back for supplies before they left, and when they came, Lindir would be ready. He gritted his teeth.
Running up to his flet proved to be no problem and as he slapped on some ear muffs (lest another elf see his ears), Lindir grabbed the latest REE catalogue and flipped to a section he never quite took a fancy in. Self-defense and munitions.
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Humming the Mission Impossible theme, Merry and Pippin dashed through the darkened undergrowth of Lothlorien in the night on very silent hobbit feet. The elves were all asleep, Lindir having rushed off somewhere soon after the attack, perhaps to a hospital. The two hobbits peered through the branches of the bush they were hiding behind, spying out Galadrial�s Mallorn, for they had calculated that she would probably have the most traveling supplies for them to �borrow.� Frodo and Sam, on the other hand, were off scouting out how to steal boats, and insisted that they did not require Merry�s help.
"Your mission: Permanently Borrow Things." Pippin hissed to Merry who stopped humming long enough for both of them to pull on their ski masks which matched their black clothing speedily ordered from RHE. "Alright, Merry, you launch your attack from the north, and I�ll come in the south." Pippin pointed to the tallest flet, "We will meet up there!"
"Um, there is a slight difficulty with multi-point attack." Merry stopped the little hobbit from springing out of the trees by quickly grabbing onto his suspenders, and Pippin looked dazed, "There is only one staircase up the flet."
"Oh." Pippin looked again, "You�re right! Well, then, let�s just run up there!" Merry growled in response, and as though they were shadows themselves, the hobbits tip-toed across the neatly trimmed green of Lorien and reached the bottom of the flet. Fortunately, it was a new moon that night and it was not possible for the hobbits to be easily seen, and they took this to their advantage, quickly scaling to the very top flet.
There, they saw the grandest sight to behold! Unlike the Fellowship�s flet, upon this one strung two wonders for two very tired hobbits! Two hammocks! With a little suppressed squeal of joy, Pippin ran for one and Merry the other, grabbing onto the sides to fling out their occupants. Indeed, the little hobbits� devilish plan did work and with a gigantic THUMP and THUMP, two very tired elves lay sprawled on the flet. The hobbits giggled and climbed into the hammocks pulling the silvery elven sheets from their previous owners and putting them to good use.
"Good night Merry." Pippin whispered and burrowed deeply into the slightly swaying hammock, but before neither hobbit could do so much as close their pretty little eyes, a sudden bright light whooshed into them and Pippin squealed. "Caught!"
"Yipes!" Merry whimpered as Celeborn grabbed the hobbit by the collar and threw him out of the hammock, "That wasn�t in the plan!"
"What are you two doing?!" Galadrial had grabbed Pippin by the suspenders and threw him also across the flet, where he joined Merry, quivering. The elven queen strode up to them, not quite looking her very pretty self with her hair in many tight braids and stuffed in some burlap sack of a nightgown. To complete the ensemble, fluffy brown slippers were on here elegant feet. Worst of all though, was what she was wearing on her face. Pink sand of the River Running � REE guaranteed for instant facelift!
Revealing her power and her wrath, Galadrial seemed to grow in height as she stomped towards the hobbits, slippers flapping against the flet, and she seemed to grow with an unnatural light. The hobbits gasped and clutched at each other, but Galadrial came ever closer, until finally, she stood towering over the little hobbits as though a World Trade Center and spat, "WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING?!"
"Um . . ." Merry thought quickly, "We are hammock testers!"
The eyes of Galadrial stared into theirs.
"Um . . ." Pippin gulped, "Sleeping?"
The eyes of Galadrial thundered through their minds.
"Um . . ." Merry whimpered, "Trying to sleep?"
The eyes of Galadrial bore through their brain.
"Um . . ." Pippin cried, "Robbing a BANK!"
The eyes of Galadrial could be seen on the backs of their heads.
"Um . . ." Merry screamed, "SKIING!"
"Skiing?" Celeborn stomped up to them, dressed in a flowing off-white nightgown tied with pretty pink silk ribbons, with his hair in curlers and stuck under a matching frilly be-ribboned cap and bunny slippers on his feet, "This is the wrong season to be skiing, young laddies."
"Laddies?" Pippin echoed and lowered his voice to Merry, "They don�t know we are hobbits."
"Um, we thought there would be good skiing around here!" Merry jumped to his feet and pulled Pippin with him, dragging his friend to the stairs, "Now seeing that there�s not, we�d best be going!"
"NOT SO FAST!" Galadrial screamed at the top of her lungs and the Mallorn tree shook so violently, leaves scattered about at their feet, "YOU NEED TO DO BETTER THAN THAT!" Merry and Pippin fell back onto the flet with the violence of her explosion, Galadrial burst into a flame of green light, going very quickly radioactive, "WHAT WERE YOU DOING HERE?"
"AHHHH!" Pippin roared, screaming at the top of his own little pretty hobbit lungs, "AHHHHHH!"
"Dear, dear, dear! Oh dear!" Celeborn rushed around, the bunny�s ears flopping about on his slippers, and he tapped his wife on the shoulder, "You can�t do this, dear. Remember what the doctor told you? About your poor little heart? And how you should control your anger?"
"YOU ARE THE SERVANTS OF UDUN!" Galadrial screeched at the hobbits, ignoring Celeborn, "I AM THE WIELDER OF THE . . ." She trailed off for a second, and scooped down to pick up a Mallorn leaf, "SECRET MALLORN LEAF! THE DARK FIRES SHALL NOT AVAIL YOU!"
"AHHHH!" Pippin confirmed and tried to run, but the elven queen grabbed onto his suspenders, "AHHHHH!"
"GO BACK TO THE SHADOW!" With a sudden explosion of light, both hobbits felt a very fair elven slippered foot in their rears and found themselves very soon afterwards, falling and landing in something with a very wet splash.