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flonnebonneTitle: Nine Ways to Kill a Fellowship (Part 5 of 9)
Fandom: Lord of the Rings (bookverse, mainly)
Characters: Lots.
Genre: Comedy.
Spoilers: The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers
Summary: If the Quest to destroy the One Ring is so darn dangerous, how come hardly any of the Fellowship die? Here's what should have happened. [On-going]
Previous parts: Archived at my fanfiction.net account
Five of Nine
"You know, I never thanked you for saving me," said Pippin to the sentient, ambulant tree he was riding. "Those orcs had really unpleasant armpits, and they were going to torture me for important information, which I definitely have." He puffed out his tiny Hobbit chest. "You probably saved Middle Earth by not letting them take me to Isengard - good job. By the way, where are we going now?"
"Isengard," said Treebeard.
Pippin was silent for a moment. It was, in fact, the first such moment in his life.
Then he said, "What?"
"It’s what we decided," Treebeard explained patiently.
“What if I have a differing opinion?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
"...Well. No wonder it's called an Entmoot."
- 0 - 0 -
Meanwhile...
“Rohan certainly has a lot of horses, doesn’t it, Gandalf?”
“It certainly does, Aragorn.”
“I like horses.”
The old Wizard turned from Strider’s ruggedly handsome yet plaintively kingly face - a face he was rapidly getting sick of - to surreptitiously check his pipeweed supplies in Shadowfax’s saddle bags. Running pretty low...
“But I like Men too,” said Aragorn after a moment, not wanting anyone to get any ideas about him and horses. “That’s why I think I’ll make a good king.”
Ugh. Five minutes alone with an inbred Dunadan was enough to drive a Wizard to the Darkness, and Gandalf was expected to do this for months? And soon without his weed fix? Sure, he was Gandalf the White now, but that didn’t mean he was a saint, it just meant he could identify and safely carry ancient artifacts like palantíri, fire off a nifty holy element beam twice a day, and gaze off into the distance in a dramatic manner better than anyone.
“Eowyn does make up for things, though, I’ve got to say,” Aragorn went on, now with a smug oh yeah in his voice that Gandalf couldn’t quite put his finger on because Monday Night Football and cheerleaders hadn’t been invented, just yet. “I mean, the Battle for Helm’s Deep will be a doozy, and it’s a shame that the Dwarf and the Elf were too dead to bother coming, but I suppose I can make it on my own with that pretty blond to look forward to.”
No, Gandalf mused, this simply would not do.
With a sudden motion he heaved his brittle old-man hips (1) onto Shadowfax - and, after checking that his groin muscle wasn’t pulled - gazed off into the distance in an appropriately dramatic manner. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
Aragorn gaped.
“But what about the battle?” he complained in his ever-kingly way. “Saruman has an awful lot of Orcs and he’s sending them all to Helm’s Deep. Did I mention the Orcs? Not just normal ones, but fighting Uruk-hai with brains and really good battle cries?”
“I’m sure you can handle it.”
And before Aragorn Son of Arathorn could get in a word -
Whoosh! went Shadowfax, the fastest courier horse in Middle Earth!
- 0 - 0 -
Later...
“Aaaagggghhh!” screamed Pippin as the attack on Isengard began!
“Aaaagggghhh!” screamed Aragorn as the attack on Helm’s Deep began!
“Aaaaaaaah,” sighed Gandalf as his pipeweed session began!
- 0 - 0 -
Eventually, Gandalf showed up at Helm’s Deep with a lot of Horses, Men, Trees, and a rather guilty look on his face. The first thing he said, upon re-uniting with Aragorn and the lords of Rohan, was, “I can quit any time.”
“What?” said Denethor. “We just want to thank you for bringing Erkenbrand and saving us all.”
“Erkenbrand?” Gandalf peered at the leader of Men he’d brought with him to the battle. “Aren’t you Eomer?”
“No, I’m Erkenbrand,” said Erkenbrand. “See the red shield? That’s Eomer over there.”
“Oh Vala,” said Gandalf. “I really do need to cut down.”
Aragorn, who was macking on Eowyn, didn’t notice a thing.
- 0 - 0 -
Pippin had expected Isengard to be horrible, and the waterworks were honestly a bit overdone, but now that it was cleaned out it wasn’t too bad for a flattened, flamed, flooded bastion of evil.
Or rather - a flattened, flamed, flooded, former bastion of evil!
(Well, actually, there was still a little evil on top of Orthanc (two evils, in fact), but there was also pipeweed down here, so it all balanced out.)
Pippin lazily blew a wide, hazy smoke ring and snuggled down more comfortably in his little nook by the gate. "Ah, this is the life. If only Merry were here." Despite the mellowness brought on by the weed, the Hobbit felt a touch of sadness at the thought of dear departed Merry. Then he brightened. "When Gimli and Strider show up I'll share a smoke with them."
- 0 - 0 -
“What was the name of that Dwarf again?” Aragorn Son of Arathorn asked.
“I forget,” replied Gandalf the White.
“You two do need to cut down,” said Eomer.
“Quiet, Erkenbrand,” muttered Gandalf.
- 0 - 0 -
Pippin twiddled his thumbs.
(It was in fact at that moment that Pippin first invented the practice of thumb-twiddling, but as dear Merry was sadly not present to notice and propagate the enormously useful gesture, Middle Earthians would for years to come continue to express their boredom by staring at the East and making dramatic yet trite comments about Doom in a bemused fashion, and beleaguered Pippin would have to go to the trouble of inventing the practice again at a later time, such as while listening to Treebeard talk about trees or Elrond talk, period.)
“Hi, Pippin,” said Aragorn.
“AAAHHHrrragorn you didn’t surprise me at all!” Pippin gasped. “I was watching the gate real well!”
“Peregrin Took!” Gandalf thundered, because someone had to yell at Pippin and it might as well be him since Gimli was sadly absent. “Do you have any idea what trouble you’ve given us?”
“No, but if you hum a few bars I might be able to figure it out.”
“What does that even mean?” Eomer whispered to Denethor, who just shrugged - these non-horse folk were crazy.
“Where is Treebeard?” Gandalf went on thundering, like a cumulonimbus cloud of Doom. “I must speak with him. It is most urgent.”
“You see the extremely large, sentient, ambulant tree? That would be him,” Pippin replied flippantly. “Strider, where’s Gimli?”
“He’s dead.”
“Oh. Pity. I’ve got some pipeweed here, thought we could have a few puffs together.”
Gandalf, who’d already started heading for Treebeard, turned around.
“Did someone say pipeweed?”
- 0 - 0 -
Gandalf was feeling pretty...awesome by the time it came time to accost Saruman (and Wormtongue) in that sweet little pad atop Orthanc. In fact, Gandalf felt like a real Man right about now. A real Wizard-Man. Yeah.
Hee hee.
But...um...come to think of it...was Gandalf technically a Man, with a capital M? He was Istari, yeah...but wasn’t Wizard just his class, and Man his race? How did he get such a stacked character build compared to everyone else anyway?
And what about women? Why didn’t they get a capital W? Why no Woman, only Man?
Man. This was deep.
Deep as Helm’s Deep.
Hee hee.
Gandalf wasn’t just feeling awesome, he was awesome.
- 0 - 0 -
“Gandalf? Are you even listening to me?” Saruman’s melodious, soothing voice wasn’t quite so much anymore. “Gandalf!”
“Maybe the Old Toby was overkill,” Aragorn muttered to Pippin, who just rolled his eyes.
- 0 - 0 -
Blah blah blah blah, said Saruman.
Urrgghhhaah, blah grr ahh! countered Theoden, or maybe Treebeard.
Horses blah blah horses blah blah blah horses, Eomer interjected.
Bwuh? said Aragorn, son of Arrow-thorn. Blorgh bleen your hot sister buh huh?
Fggaahhh! yelled Wormtongue. (2)
I am possibly stoned, thought Gandalf.
And that’s when the stone hit him.
- 0 - 0 -
“What the hell was that?” a random soldier asked stupidly. “Some kind of bowling ball?”
“What’s a bowling ball??” Eomer cried out.
“Medic! Wizard down! Is there a Healer anywhere?” Aragorn started yelling. “A Healer, anywhere?”
While they fussed over Gandalf’s body (corpse?), Pippin waded over to the large glass ball thingy that Wormtongue had hit Gandalf with. Pretty good aim for someone with “worm” in his name. Poor Gandalf’s head. Anyway, this ball looked like it might be worth something...
“If only we had a Healer,” Aragorn was still lamenting over spilled blood, er, milk. “Yes, if only we had someone who knew how to use, say, athelas.”
“What are we going to do without our Wizard?” fretted the random soldier. “He was our main DPS guy!” (3)
“What the hell does that mean?” Eomer snarled. “I mean what the hell!”
Pippin lifted the ball out of the water and cradled it tenderly.
“I shall name you Wormball,” he decided.
- 0 - 0 -
That night, Pippin looked deep into Wormball.
Therein he Skyped with Sauron.
Sauron was most sour.
Then everyone started yelling and Aragorn was confiscating Wormball and before Pippin knew it he was being packed off to Minas Tirith where he could go bother Denethor and hopefully cause less global catastrophe and not cause anyone to go mad and start burning his own son or anything like that.
They gave him Gandalf’s horse, since the guy wouldn’t be needing one anymore.
“This is pretty sweet,” said Pippin as he mounted his new ride. “To Minas Tirith!”
Whoosh! went Shadowfax, the fastest courier horse in Middle Earth!
- 0 - 0 -
Author’s notes:
(1) brittle old-man hips - This phrase was stolen from 8-bit Theater, a webcomic based on Final Fantasy 1.
(2) Fggaahhh! - Famously said by Mr. Chupon (aka Typhon) from Final Fantasy 6. He’s quite taciturn, you know.
(3) DPS - Stands for “Damage Per Second” in video/computer games. Gandalf seems like he has pretty high DPS, right?
Fandom: Lord of the Rings (bookverse, mainly)
Characters: Lots.
Genre: Comedy.
Spoilers: The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers
Summary: If the Quest to destroy the One Ring is so darn dangerous, how come hardly any of the Fellowship die? Here's what should have happened. [On-going]
Previous parts: Archived at my fanfiction.net account
Five of Nine
"You know, I never thanked you for saving me," said Pippin to the sentient, ambulant tree he was riding. "Those orcs had really unpleasant armpits, and they were going to torture me for important information, which I definitely have." He puffed out his tiny Hobbit chest. "You probably saved Middle Earth by not letting them take me to Isengard - good job. By the way, where are we going now?"
"Isengard," said Treebeard.
Pippin was silent for a moment. It was, in fact, the first such moment in his life.
Then he said, "What?"
"It’s what we decided," Treebeard explained patiently.
“What if I have a differing opinion?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
"...Well. No wonder it's called an Entmoot."
- 0 - 0 -
Meanwhile...
“Rohan certainly has a lot of horses, doesn’t it, Gandalf?”
“It certainly does, Aragorn.”
“I like horses.”
The old Wizard turned from Strider’s ruggedly handsome yet plaintively kingly face - a face he was rapidly getting sick of - to surreptitiously check his pipeweed supplies in Shadowfax’s saddle bags. Running pretty low...
“But I like Men too,” said Aragorn after a moment, not wanting anyone to get any ideas about him and horses. “That’s why I think I’ll make a good king.”
Ugh. Five minutes alone with an inbred Dunadan was enough to drive a Wizard to the Darkness, and Gandalf was expected to do this for months? And soon without his weed fix? Sure, he was Gandalf the White now, but that didn’t mean he was a saint, it just meant he could identify and safely carry ancient artifacts like palantíri, fire off a nifty holy element beam twice a day, and gaze off into the distance in a dramatic manner better than anyone.
“Eowyn does make up for things, though, I’ve got to say,” Aragorn went on, now with a smug oh yeah in his voice that Gandalf couldn’t quite put his finger on because Monday Night Football and cheerleaders hadn’t been invented, just yet. “I mean, the Battle for Helm’s Deep will be a doozy, and it’s a shame that the Dwarf and the Elf were too dead to bother coming, but I suppose I can make it on my own with that pretty blond to look forward to.”
No, Gandalf mused, this simply would not do.
With a sudden motion he heaved his brittle old-man hips (1) onto Shadowfax - and, after checking that his groin muscle wasn’t pulled - gazed off into the distance in an appropriately dramatic manner. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
Aragorn gaped.
“But what about the battle?” he complained in his ever-kingly way. “Saruman has an awful lot of Orcs and he’s sending them all to Helm’s Deep. Did I mention the Orcs? Not just normal ones, but fighting Uruk-hai with brains and really good battle cries?”
“I’m sure you can handle it.”
And before Aragorn Son of Arathorn could get in a word -
Whoosh! went Shadowfax, the fastest courier horse in Middle Earth!
- 0 - 0 -
Later...
“Aaaagggghhh!” screamed Pippin as the attack on Isengard began!
“Aaaagggghhh!” screamed Aragorn as the attack on Helm’s Deep began!
“Aaaaaaaah,” sighed Gandalf as his pipeweed session began!
- 0 - 0 -
Eventually, Gandalf showed up at Helm’s Deep with a lot of Horses, Men, Trees, and a rather guilty look on his face. The first thing he said, upon re-uniting with Aragorn and the lords of Rohan, was, “I can quit any time.”
“What?” said Denethor. “We just want to thank you for bringing Erkenbrand and saving us all.”
“Erkenbrand?” Gandalf peered at the leader of Men he’d brought with him to the battle. “Aren’t you Eomer?”
“No, I’m Erkenbrand,” said Erkenbrand. “See the red shield? That’s Eomer over there.”
“Oh Vala,” said Gandalf. “I really do need to cut down.”
Aragorn, who was macking on Eowyn, didn’t notice a thing.
- 0 - 0 -
Pippin had expected Isengard to be horrible, and the waterworks were honestly a bit overdone, but now that it was cleaned out it wasn’t too bad for a flattened, flamed, flooded bastion of evil.
Or rather - a flattened, flamed, flooded, former bastion of evil!
(Well, actually, there was still a little evil on top of Orthanc (two evils, in fact), but there was also pipeweed down here, so it all balanced out.)
Pippin lazily blew a wide, hazy smoke ring and snuggled down more comfortably in his little nook by the gate. "Ah, this is the life. If only Merry were here." Despite the mellowness brought on by the weed, the Hobbit felt a touch of sadness at the thought of dear departed Merry. Then he brightened. "When Gimli and Strider show up I'll share a smoke with them."
- 0 - 0 -
“What was the name of that Dwarf again?” Aragorn Son of Arathorn asked.
“I forget,” replied Gandalf the White.
“You two do need to cut down,” said Eomer.
“Quiet, Erkenbrand,” muttered Gandalf.
- 0 - 0 -
Pippin twiddled his thumbs.
(It was in fact at that moment that Pippin first invented the practice of thumb-twiddling, but as dear Merry was sadly not present to notice and propagate the enormously useful gesture, Middle Earthians would for years to come continue to express their boredom by staring at the East and making dramatic yet trite comments about Doom in a bemused fashion, and beleaguered Pippin would have to go to the trouble of inventing the practice again at a later time, such as while listening to Treebeard talk about trees or Elrond talk, period.)
“Hi, Pippin,” said Aragorn.
“AAAHHHrrragorn you didn’t surprise me at all!” Pippin gasped. “I was watching the gate real well!”
“Peregrin Took!” Gandalf thundered, because someone had to yell at Pippin and it might as well be him since Gimli was sadly absent. “Do you have any idea what trouble you’ve given us?”
“No, but if you hum a few bars I might be able to figure it out.”
“What does that even mean?” Eomer whispered to Denethor, who just shrugged - these non-horse folk were crazy.
“Where is Treebeard?” Gandalf went on thundering, like a cumulonimbus cloud of Doom. “I must speak with him. It is most urgent.”
“You see the extremely large, sentient, ambulant tree? That would be him,” Pippin replied flippantly. “Strider, where’s Gimli?”
“He’s dead.”
“Oh. Pity. I’ve got some pipeweed here, thought we could have a few puffs together.”
Gandalf, who’d already started heading for Treebeard, turned around.
“Did someone say pipeweed?”
- 0 - 0 -
Gandalf was feeling pretty...awesome by the time it came time to accost Saruman (and Wormtongue) in that sweet little pad atop Orthanc. In fact, Gandalf felt like a real Man right about now. A real Wizard-Man. Yeah.
Hee hee.
But...um...come to think of it...was Gandalf technically a Man, with a capital M? He was Istari, yeah...but wasn’t Wizard just his class, and Man his race? How did he get such a stacked character build compared to everyone else anyway?
And what about women? Why didn’t they get a capital W? Why no Woman, only Man?
Man. This was deep.
Deep as Helm’s Deep.
Hee hee.
Gandalf wasn’t just feeling awesome, he was awesome.
- 0 - 0 -
“Gandalf? Are you even listening to me?” Saruman’s melodious, soothing voice wasn’t quite so much anymore. “Gandalf!”
“Maybe the Old Toby was overkill,” Aragorn muttered to Pippin, who just rolled his eyes.
- 0 - 0 -
Blah blah blah blah, said Saruman.
Urrgghhhaah, blah grr ahh! countered Theoden, or maybe Treebeard.
Horses blah blah horses blah blah blah horses, Eomer interjected.
Bwuh? said Aragorn, son of Arrow-thorn. Blorgh bleen your hot sister buh huh?
Fggaahhh! yelled Wormtongue. (2)
I am possibly stoned, thought Gandalf.
And that’s when the stone hit him.
- 0 - 0 -
“What the hell was that?” a random soldier asked stupidly. “Some kind of bowling ball?”
“What’s a bowling ball??” Eomer cried out.
“Medic! Wizard down! Is there a Healer anywhere?” Aragorn started yelling. “A Healer, anywhere?”
While they fussed over Gandalf’s body (corpse?), Pippin waded over to the large glass ball thingy that Wormtongue had hit Gandalf with. Pretty good aim for someone with “worm” in his name. Poor Gandalf’s head. Anyway, this ball looked like it might be worth something...
“If only we had a Healer,” Aragorn was still lamenting over spilled blood, er, milk. “Yes, if only we had someone who knew how to use, say, athelas.”
“What are we going to do without our Wizard?” fretted the random soldier. “He was our main DPS guy!” (3)
“What the hell does that mean?” Eomer snarled. “I mean what the hell!”
Pippin lifted the ball out of the water and cradled it tenderly.
“I shall name you Wormball,” he decided.
- 0 - 0 -
That night, Pippin looked deep into Wormball.
Therein he Skyped with Sauron.
Sauron was most sour.
Then everyone started yelling and Aragorn was confiscating Wormball and before Pippin knew it he was being packed off to Minas Tirith where he could go bother Denethor and hopefully cause less global catastrophe and not cause anyone to go mad and start burning his own son or anything like that.
They gave him Gandalf’s horse, since the guy wouldn’t be needing one anymore.
“This is pretty sweet,” said Pippin as he mounted his new ride. “To Minas Tirith!”
Whoosh! went Shadowfax, the fastest courier horse in Middle Earth!
- 0 - 0 -
Author’s notes:
(1) brittle old-man hips - This phrase was stolen from 8-bit Theater, a webcomic based on Final Fantasy 1.
(2) Fggaahhh! - Famously said by Mr. Chupon (aka Typhon) from Final Fantasy 6. He’s quite taciturn, you know.
(3) DPS - Stands for “Damage Per Second” in video/computer games. Gandalf seems like he has pretty high DPS, right?
