Still, every time he found a stream, there was always a loud screaming thing in the close proximity. Gollum looked around carefully, but saw nothing. The Nine were above him, probably stuck. Darn them. Why wouldn�t they just use an elevator? He grinned to himself and rinsed out his mouth again, there was to be no screaming thing THIS time. Gollum finally straightened and was about to fix a knick in his back when he looked up to see that he was in the direct path of some type of spiraling stair structure. Oh well. Whatever.
Gollum shrugged, and reached his long fingers to his skinny back and groaned as he could barely reach the itchy spot. Using what little brain he had, he quickly went over to a large stone pillar, turned around, and scratched at his back. Ahh. Much better. Mmm. Before a smile could form on his face, Gollum heard something particular. He looked up again. Just the bottom of stairs . . . and . . . His eyes widened with utmost horror and all muscles turned to stone. He could not run. It was coming. The loud thing. To claim him. And quickly.
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"AHHHH!" Boromir screamed at the top of his lungs, sword almost worn to a stump, but the finely waxed shield showed no sign of wanting to stop at all. "AHHHHHH!" Thankfully, the stairs were coming to an end in front of him, and unfortunately, the hobbit was gaining quite steadily.
"I am the wielder of a HOBBIT BLADE!" Sam was screaming, waving his sword around, "The dark fires of Gondor shall NOT avail you, STUPID SNAKES!"
"Fires of Gondor?" The man sputtered, "The campfires?" And as suddenly as they began, the stairs were gone, and the heir of Denethur found himself sliding in a beeline out of the stairwell and along the floor of a large stone room. Nothing was in his way. Except . . . A GREY WRINKLY THING! Boromir gasped, "GET OUT OF THE WAY!"
But it was too late! The shield had caught up to the thing, and Boromir found some gray ugly thing sprawled in his lap as his shield continued to whiz ahead. The man looked down. Yuck. Gray and slimy. Before the THING had a chance to do anything, Boromir grabbed it by what he thought were arms, and threw it over the side of the shield, but kept a grip on the convenient arrow coming out of its head. Anchor!
The thing clunked heavily against the ground, but its slime and flesh was slowing the shield down quite a bit. Boromir breathed a sigh of relief, and as soon as the ride slowed down enough, he let go of the thing, and flopped out of the shield, lying on the stone floor, sick as could be. "I�m too young for that ride!"
"Of course you are!" Boromir looked up to see the right-side-up face of an elf, grinning, "You are so YOUNG!" The elf hissed, and tweaked Boromir�s nose. The man groaned. "AND UGLY!"
"Hey!" He growled, "Why are you right-side-up?"
"I am on my hands, you idiot!" Legolas had balanced himself on a hand, and with the other, whipped out a large white bottle which rattled as though filled with pills, "REE Seasick Tablets. May help."
"Gimme some!" Boromir hissed, and grabbed the bottle, wretched of the child-proof lid (Elven-Youth-Proof-Lid), shoved the contents down the hatch all before Legolas could even say what he was about to say. With a small laugh-choke, Boromir swallowed them all down and burped. "Yummy."
"Ooh, you should have waited." The elf grinned evilly, "Those pills were special." Legolas grinning evilly was usually not a good sign. Boromir was in a very prone situation, flat on his back, with a stump of a sword and a very scratched up shield. He felt slightly sick.
The man blinked. "How special?" The elf grinned even more. The man gulped. "They weren�t poisonous, were they?" The elven grin spread from pointy-ear to pointy-ear. "FATAL?" It was not possible for the elf to grin any more without permanent wrinkles. "NO!"
"You should have waited." Legolas cackled, waving a little finger in Boromir�s face (the rest of the Fellowship had not caught up to them yet, something was holding them back), "REE Seasick Tablets!"
"What new devilry is this?" Boromir moaned, "For pity�s sake!"
"You will start to transform at any moment." The elf sneered, "Transform!"
"Into what?" He gasped, "What?"
"A fate worse than death." Legolas replied coldly, "Really."
"Hmm." Boromir considered, "For you, that would be like a split end. I can handle it."
"No. Nothing that simple." The elf grinned again, "Spit ends? Pah!"
"Um . . ." The man trailed off, and suddenly, gasped, "I won�t TURN into an ELF will I?"
"And that would be a fate worse than death?" Legolas snapped, eyes flashing dangerously.
"No!" Boromir didn�t want to get gutted or Elven-kung-fu chopped. "I mean . . ."
"YOU WILL BE A MAN FOREVER!" The elf roared, "HA!"
"That�s not too bad." Boromir shrugged, "I am a man. I don�t need to transform."
"That�s too bad!" Legolas screeched in all genuine honestly, and clapped Boromir�s shoulder, "I pity you! Always stuck as a stupid man! Stinking and about to die!"
"I�m not about to die!" The man moaned, although his head was still swimming, "I just feel very sick! And those stupid pills of yours don�t help!"
"Ah, you forgot to say the magic word!" The elf waved a finger, "The MAGIC word!"
"What is it?" Boromir muttered, "You-are-very-pretty?" As soon as these words floated from his mouth, the man felt much better. He grinned. His stomach was no longer heaving, his hands aching, nor his head throbbing. A very magical series of four words. Maybe he should say it again. "You-are-very-pretty!" And now, all the tiredness and ache flew from his muscles . . . Boromir drew in a deep breath and roared with all feeling, "YOU are very PRETTY!" And suddenly, he was so full of energy! Boromir bounced back onto his feet, grabbed his shield from the ground, gave it a quick polish and to his great relief, found it unscathed. Next, he grabbed his stump of a sword and heft it over his head, "AHA!" The elf grinned and smoothed out his hair.
"He feels better." Sirius growled in a cough, as the rest of the Fellowship finally caught up to them. They had been held up by Aragorn who finally tackled Sam and the hobbit was now tied in the empty mushroom sack. Frodo had slipped Sam a pair of Bilbo�s old spectacles. There. All was better now.
"Yes, I DO feel better!" Legolas batted his eyelashes at Sirius and the dog growled, "Much better! Ain�t I SO pretty?"
"Mmm." Aragorn�s shoulder was getting a little sore. Sam was struggling and this was SO much more difficult than carrying a stiffened elf! Legolas, on the other hand, still hadn�t managed to un-spell his legs, thus was still walking about on his hands in his troll-blood blackened toga. "I have three words for you all." The entire Fellowship looked to him, interested. Aragorn grinned weakly, and pointed to the way they had just came, "GET OUTTA HERE!"
"OUTTA isn�t a word!" Legolas snapped back as he stood on tippy-fingers to get a better view. The elf did not like what he saw. Oh no. Not at all. He whipped his head back, "BALROG!"
"No way!" Gandalf grabbed Frodo by the scruff of the neck and ran with the hobbit suspended in the air (much quicker that way), and the wizard sprinted out of the cavern at quite a fast speed for someone as old as he.
"AH!" Merry and Pippin squeaked, as they fell behind, "Short legs! Short legs!"
"Long arms! Long arms!" Legolas quickly propelled himself out of there and as they approached a rather narrow doorway, Boromir shoved the elf out of the way and ran blindly around a corner. The elf wrinkled his nose in disgust.
"Must save my SHIELD!" The man hollered and suddenly, his cry changed to, "WHAT IS THAT BIG HOLE DOING HERE?"
"Oh no!" Adhara gasped, and as she drew her wand to see if she could be of any help, she tripped over a pair of hobbits which she had not seen. "Oof!"
"AHHHH!" Boromir screeched, "AHHHHH!"
"Hold on!" Legolas screamed, running on his hands around the corner at next to top speed, "We�re coming! Hold on!"
"THE THOUGHT HAD OCCURRED TO ME!" The man hollered right back, and the entire Fellowship (Adhara got back up), turned the corner at almost the same time to come face to face with a very, very dead end. In fact, the stairs which they had been standing on now gave way to a very large stone floored surface and this seemed to be quite smooth. "AHHH!" Boromir screamed again, and the Fellowship found him pointing into the darkness at the bottom of the stairs in horror.
"What now?" Legolas sighed impatiently, and with a light spring, landed beside the man (the rest of the Fellowship had to use the stairs), "What is wrong?"
"My tube of shield wax!" Boromir screamed, face twisted in anguish, as he pointed to a large crevice which ran the length of the stone floor, "It dropped in there!"
"Oh folly!" The elf snarled, "Who cares about your shield wax?"
"Well . . ." The man glared, and suddenly, tackled the elf to the ground, pulling away from him with something clutched in his hands. "AHA!"
"NO!" Legolas shrieked at the top of his lungs, and the elf dragged himself to Boromir�s feet, "Oh PLEASE give that back!"
"NO!" Boromir snarled, and dropped whatever he was clutching into the depths of the large crack, "HA! See how you like that! To make fun of another man�s anguish!"
"MAN?!" The elf roared, and arm-bounded into the air, his fair elven booties catching Boromir squarely in the chin and they both fell onto the ground, "You toss my little mirror into the big crack to first insult me, and I would have forgiven you as you are one of the Fellowship, but this is UNEXCUSEABLE!" Legolas kicked the man in the face again, "I AM NOT A MAN!"
"Yes, yes, yes," Adhara rolled her eyes, "Men are SO weak!"
"Hey!" Sirius growled, "Who was the one who needed me to carry her textbooks?"
"You did it only because you were stupid." She snapped, "I was not weak! I just didn�t want to carry them!"
"We must reach the Bridge!" Gandalf suddenly gasped, and pointed into the darkness, "There! The Bridge is there!"
"Oh. Yeah. Right." Merry and Pippin exchanged a very sarcastic look, "It�s big and black, eh?"
"No!" Legolas jumped onto his hands, "See? Can�t you see it?"
"The Bridge is close!" The wizard continued, and stopped Frodo just in time from freeing Sam. Keeping a firm grip on Frodo�s shoulder, Gandalf pulled the hobbit away from the mushroom sack, and thinking to put as much distance as possible between them, growled, "Lead them on, Aragorn!"
"Well, actually," Aragorn frowned, "I can�t do that. You see, it is in my contract that I am your rearguard. Because I am the best, of course, naturally, with a sword." He grinned, "And of course, then, I would have to cover your skinny little rear ends from the mean orcs."
"Oh man!" Gandalf rolled his eyes, "Swords are of no more use here!"
"Okay!" Boromir took his literally and tossed his stump of sword into the abyss after the mirror and tube of shield wax. He straddled the crack and waved, "Bye-bye sword!"
"Oh man!" Gandalf screeched again, "You hear that, Aragorn? You�re best with sword! They can�t be used any more!"
"Says who?" Aragorn growled, drawing his blade, "I CAN USE IT ANY TIME!" Taking a deep breath, he sighed, "It is a 24 hour blade!"
"24 hour blade?" Legolas moaned, "What is that?"
"24/7!" The Heir of Isildur sniffled, and suddenly, realized what Gandalf had just told him and was about to go and clobber the daylights out of the wizard, but Sirius stopped him, "LET ME GO YOU DOG! I HAVE TO GO RIP SOME BEARD!"
"HEY!" Gimli screeched, clutching his beard, "NOT THE BEARD!"
"Not YOUR beard!" Aragorn growled, and lunged for Gandalf angrily, but Sirius had his teeth dug deeply into the man�s cloak, thus, he ran furiously on spot, "Why am I not getting any closer?!"
"Oh shut up!" Boromir groaned, and was lowering himself into the crack at this point in time, but no one noticed, "I need my wax back."
"What are you doing?" Legolas wandered over, "Going into the crack?"
"I need my wax!" The man whimpered, and the elf gave him some elven rope, "If I give a tug, it means I have the wax and you can pull me up." The elf nodded. "Down I go . . ." And Boromir descended into the depths.
"ARG!" Aragorn finally tore himself away from the dog and was about to clobber the living daylights out of Gandalf when suddenly, a horrific roar came from the end of the chamber, and what seemed to be a gigantic bull wreathed in shadow and flame came upon them.
"BALROG!" Gandalf screeched and brushed past Aragorn, running to the Bridge of Khazad-dum, "YIPES!"
"Oh yes, I second that!" The hobbits squealed, and all three ran after the wizard, as did Aragorn (bearing the fourth hobbit) and the rest of the group. Legolas tied the other end of Boromir�s string to a large boulder, and sprinted after them, screeching, "WAIT FOR ME!"
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