Write Your Own LOTR - TTT - Book IV

[Primula]

Stunned at having been slapped around so thoroughly and summarily stuffed under a bush by his faithful servant, Frodo gaped at Sam's back as the other hobbit strode away purposefully then turned his head and gaped again at a pair of rabbits who were gaping back at him.

Even unseasoned and still alive, they looked pretty edible. Of course, he would've much rather had a hot-dog, considering the rabbits didn't appear to come with any condiments.

[Ladyhawk Baggins]

While he searched for a hotdog stand, Sam took a moment to lay a few snares, hoping for the best. He then grubbed about for anything else they might eat, hopefully no grubs, but a few roots and berries might be nice to add to the pot.

Sam took a moment to dream of mushrooms, and maybe a bit of truffle, perfectly grated on top. No matter what he caught, truffle would make it better. Then he heard a rustle in the bushes. He ducked, and held perfectly still.

[Ladyhawk Baggins]

Abracadabra! Coney's, sadly not from Coney Island, skinned and ready for cooking. (shudders at the thought of what needed to be done, oops, going to lose cookies in a bush, back in a jiffy)

[Primula]

Frodo's big eyes about bugged out of his head as, after watching Sam wander about in the bushes and then loop back towards him, he witnessed the cute widdle bunnies that had been gazing soulfully at him violently grabbed by the ears, yanked out of the bush, murdered, gutted, skinned and then proudly presented to him.

He was almost horrified at it, until his better hobbit senses were restored at the memory of how tasty Rabbit Pie with a thick, rich gravy and all the trimmings would be. And hey! Maybe he'd even get a pair of rabbit-fur slippers out of the deal. His stomach rumbled.

"Well done, Sam! Let's eat! Uh....I mean, after they're cooked, of course. You don't think anyone would notice if we built a little fire around here, would they?"

[agape4rivendell]

Gollum pulled the prickers from his behind, all the while watching the fat Hobbit gut the rabbits. They were fine rabbits. Fat and juicy.His mouth watered. He lay under the bush, goggling the goo on the ground. He could lick that without the fat Hobbit noticing.

"Yessss, precious. We will lick the goo!"

[DoctorGamgee]

Angmar had just gotten off of his (trusty?) steed and gotten the long robe and crown which inspired abject terror in the hearts of men when an orc from Cirith Ungol came flying up the stairs...

"Angmar," the breathless orc called, "I have two pieces of news: one bad, one worse. Which would your worshipfulness like first?" he whined with the Obsequious tone that tended to make Angmar less angry.

"Spit it out! I won't like either so lets just have it." He said, knowing his day was going to get worse...

"Well..the Two ladies are at it again. Her Ladyship was furious about your sonic boom over her Lair and she is contacting Barad-Dur to voice her anger. The second and worse part is that..."

The orc was cut off by an angry from Angmar's kitchen.

"Nwevermind!" said Angmar in a weary voice. "I'll deal with the 'worse' news directly at the source."

Angmar headed towards his house, girding his loins to face his unhappy bride...

[Ladyhawk Baggins]

Sam made quick work of prepping, slicing, dicing, the fixings, glad for the brief stint in culinary school. Digging through his pack he pushed past the lembas and more lembas and still more lembas...

"Ah! Flares! What do you think Mr. Frodo?"

[Primula]

"Flares? You have flares? Sam, you're a marvel!"

Frodo happily snagged a flare out of Sam's hand and after puzzling over the instructions printed on the side for a moment, lit it. The dry, prickly brambles caught fire rather nicely.

WHOOSH! pop pop crackle

Maybe a bit too nicely... Frodo looked up at the flames now waving high over their heads and checked to be sure he still had eyebrows. "Good thing there isn't anyone around here, or they might notice something like that."

[Ladyhawk Baggins]

"Never let a good fire go to waste," my old Gaffer says.

Sam promptly stuck the brace of coneys on spits.

"Need to put on a nice sere, then I'll stick 'em in a stew, with veggies. Stretches the meat, if you know what I mean."

Digging through his pack, Sam drew out marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers.

"Here, Mr. Frodo, why don't you start on the smores?"

[DoctorGamgee]

Having wrapped his nether regions in chainmail, Angmar bounced through the door like Rob Petrie, stopped and wiped his eyes at the unbridled stench in the air (and in all honesty, this stench smelled like it had been saddled, ridden hard, put away wet and left to its own devices). He cleared his throat as best he could, and adding a lilt to his voice and called out, "Yes, Viola Sue...did I hear your dulcet tones as I ..."

"Cut the pants, Angmar!" yelled Viola, cutting him off midway, accentuating the word 'cut' with a blow of a cleaver on the chopping block and removing the head of a cod from it's body.

"I have been simply SLAVING in this kitchen since mother called," she said as she stared lovingly into the fish's eyes ("At least the fish didn't flinch!" she thought as she dropped the unblinking head into the mixing bowl and flung the remainder of the fish at her husband, where it smacked directly into the chainmail and became stuck.*) "Mummy will be here a day early, so I had to start her cod chowder simmering almost instantly. It's bad enough that Mold Foods was out of fresh dill for the souffle -- and those Wingéd Beast eggs are taking longer than ever to set up!--but now the whole thing might be ruined by that horrific stench!"

"Which horrific stench?" asked Angmar, instantly realizing his misstep...

Viola Sue's eyes narrowed as she inhaled, remembering her training at the Banshee School for Wayward Girls. "Which Horrific stench, you ask? WHIIIIIIIIIICH HORRRIFFFFIIIIIIC STEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENCH?!?!"

Angmar ducked under the table as all of the glassware in the kitchen shattered and flew about the room. In the moment that followed, the abject silence pulsed in his ghostly ears as Viola whispered....

"The Smoke, Angmar. Smoke. Not the nice volcanic fragrance from Mt. Doom, Oh no, not that. This is the smell of a wood fire, my sweet. Wood! Someone has lit a wood fire down below, and we are not making Barbecue, are we? Are we?!?"

"No, my dumpling." cajoled Angmar, beating a hasty retreat. "Your soufle doesn't need any further aromatics, cara mia! I shall find the wretch who thought it was BBQ season and put it out. I shall rip out his gizzards and smoke them over the fire before I do, and bring them back as a treat for you, my ..."

"Go!" Viola whispered. "Noooooooooooow!"

Angmar rushed to the stables, hopped on the back of Pokey and headed out as fast as he could go.

As his second sonic boom in under an hour hit Shelob's lair, followed by two separate screeches (one from below, followed by one from his house) and the vision of a hairy arm from her Ladyship emerging and raised in wrath, it occurred to Angmar that his search for the fire was not in need of such great speed ... the fire would burn itself out long before he got to Mold Foods and purchased hen's eggs to replace the souffle he had just flattened, and a bit of extra time would allow her Ladyship to work out her frustration as she usually did...

*Angmar, while not the sharpest knife in the drawer -- he only held the crown because his head fit the one left in costuming -- was terribly fashion forward. His mini-robes were brought to the forefront of fashion in the Mini-Skirts of the 60's counter-culture movement with the rise of Tolkien's boot-legged copies on US college campuses; and back in Merry Olde England, this scene brought new understanding to the need for and the meaning of the term "Codpiece"...

[Primula]

"I think we finished off the chocolate about half a mile past Rivendell," Frodo said. "But if we still have some of that lembas, it might work for graham crackers. You think any of the plants around here might be 'marsh mallows'?

He stepped a couple paces back from what was rapidly turning into a huge bonfire. "Er...Sam... if this park catches fire, do you think anyone will notice?"

Somewhere off past the roaring flames, he thought he heard voices. The ground shook with a massive thumping, as if some giant were slowly pounding a dance beat with an entire tree.

[Ladyhawk Baggins]

Sam stilled and blinked. Even he knew the rhythm was all wrong for the rumba.

[Linaewen]

From behind a large bush that was fortunately not burning, Faramir and his Rangers were watching the hobbits with bewilderment.

"What ARE they doing?" muttered Faramir. "Everyone knows you cannot make s'mores with a raging fire like that. The marshmallows would be burnt to a crisp -- and there is nothing I despise more than burned marshmallows. Boromir, on the other hand..."

Mablung cleared his throat as loudly as he could without giving away their position to the unsuspecting small people.

"Captain. Sir. Forget about the s'mores. What are your orders?"

"My orders, right. First of all, tell me -- what on earth is that loud thumping? It sounds like a mumak is tramping through the forest!"

"Well, I believe that is just what it is, Captain Faramir. While you were asleep, we got a report that Haradrim from the South are coming this way, and their mumak, too. Not only do we have to deal with these fire-setting strangers, but we also have to stop the enemy from advancing and keep that mumak from destroying our park."

"Oh, is that why we brought our weapons?"

"Yes, Captain Faramir."

Faramir shook his head sadly. "Forgive me, I am still groggy from my years long sleep. All right, then, here is the plan. First, we must fulfill our rangerly duty and deal with this forest fire and those who started it! Then we will deal with that mumak."

"Sounds like a plan," Mablung agreed.

"On the count of three... One... two... three!"

With a cry of "Only you can prevent forest fires!" the Gondorian Rangers surged forward.

[DoctorGamgee]

The Haradrim had been sitting over on Lot 17-B for the last three and a half years, awaiting their entrance. What with SAG rules being what they are, the had polished off the crafts table supplies after the first hour, so decided to order Pizza. Sadly, they had not gotten PJ's permission to do this, so when the credit card bill came due, they had been given notice that they were to find the $4,268,628.37 as the studio had no intention of paying for any of it. Well...except the daily delivery of one Extra Large with Peanuts and extra Hay for the Mumak, per PETA rules...

Which is how Lot 17-B had become a great tourist attraction for the Kids on Studio Tours, as the actors (along with Tulip, the Elephant) were paying off their debt by performing Disney's "Aladin" and posing for pictures for Guild member wages. There were turbins galore and everyone was dancing around to "Prince Ali, yes it is he, Ali-ubabwa!" when over the beat of their big finish they heard their cue...

ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT FOREST FIRES!!!

As the true thespians they are, everyone broke into a panic and ran for the set. Persian rugs became padding for Tulip, as they set baskets from the Bazaar (or Bizarre, in this case) on their backs and picked up anything within reach to become a projectile. CGI took those peacock feathers and turned them into arrows, Figs became rocks and stones, and Tulip, almost forgetting her MUMAK Teeth, wrapped a silk scarf through some closed umbrellas to create and attach the deadly (and waterproof!) tusks ready for the onslaught for the charge.

The Rangers and Hobbits, literally, never knew what hit them as they entered the scene across the clearing from Faramir's forces, with the Hobbits in the middle....

[Ladyhawk Baggins]

Sam blinked. And blinked again. And blinked one more time. He could hardly believe his eyes. Awe and wonder filled his voice, "An Oliphant, Mr. Frodo. Big enough to squash us flat, never to be seen again, except as a tattoo on the bottom of the beast's foot."