Part Five

Elrond could not believe his luck. He was finally free!

Considering the various situations he had been forced to endure for the past couple of days, this was an exciting turn of events, and Elrond was certainly going to make the most of it! His first action as King of the Rats would be to drill holes in all the bottles of alcohol in Figwit's cabinet so that he could drink out of them. Then he'd take a bath and maybe have some cheese to go along with the wine. Ah, life was good.

Now, The Reader may be wondering: Wait, did I miss something? How did Elrond get to be King of the Rats? Well, Gentle Reader, let us rewind a bit.

*()*)(*()*)(*()*

Then a speck of dust landed on Lord Elrond's nose. He sneezed.

The six rats immediately turned and looked straight at him.

'Oh shit,' was the thought that passed through Elrond's brain.

Shit happens, as the proverb says; but that was not, in fact, what happened to Elrond. (As much as we'd like it to.) You see, when the members of BEER who had snuck into the Liquor Cabinet recognized Elrond as the wise Lord of Rivendell (albeit, several feet shorter) they instantly knew that their quest was over. They had found a suitable king!

Thus decided, the rats set about releasing Elrond from his cardboard-and-plastic prison. This was easily done and did not take long since, as members of BEER, these particular rats had their teeth routinely sharpened for Maximum Fighting Power. Of course, these were rats trained in claw-to-claw combat. Our (not so) mighty Lord Elrond was glad to have all his limbs still attached by the time they got him out!

Once freed, Elrond wondered vaguely how he would communicate with these rodents to find out what they meant to do with him. He needn't have worried. Apparently one of the things that rats had devolved with their complex civilization was a spoken language that closely resembled Elvish, made up by a series of squeaks. If he listened closely and attentively, Elrond found that he could understand most of what was being said to him.

"Hail, mighty and gracious lord!" cried the leading rat, bowing low. Elrond blinked. That was not exactly what he had expected...

"Um," he said. "Hi."

"My lord!" the rat went on, "You have been imprisoned by enemies of the throne! Now that we have freed you, will you come with us and rule our kingdom?" The other rats nodded eagerly. Elrond scratched his head.

"Uh, sure," he said. "Whatever." BEER rejoiced.

And so it was that Elrond found himself borne upon the back of the largest rat to the center city for the rats of Imladris: The rodent city of Rodentell.

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Aldawen sat happily at her funky wireless laptop, typing away. She was gazing rapturously at pictures of one of the hottest men alive, and his name was-

Before The Author could finish typing her sentence, Sake came sauntering in and plopped down on the couch beside Aldawen. Aldawen quickly closed the window she had been looking at and turned off the computer screen.

"What were you looking at?" Sake asked, naturally curious.

"Nothing," replied Aldawen quickly, as we all knew she would. Sake smirked.

"Never mind, I don't want to see the pictures of you and Legolas from last night anyways," she said.

"WHAT??" cried Aldawen, sitting up and wondering at the same time what Sake was talking about and how she, Aldawen, could have missed it.

"Just joshin' ya!" Sake giggled. Aldawen scowled and settled back down on the couch.

"First Seamoose, now me!" she muttered. "Why me??"

"Because Seamoose is gone." Sake said casually, in the voice one would use when filing one's nails. (Which, in fact, Sake was doing at that precise moment in time.)

"Gone?" Aldawen said blankly. "How? What do you mean?"

"Apparently I reached my ultimate goal and managed to give him a nervous breakdown. He's now recovering at a mountain resort in Sweden surrounded by beautiful blonde Swedish masseuses."

Aldawen nodded slowly. "Poor little man," she said thoughtfully. "It's a good finale for him though."

"Of course it was," Sake said briskly. She paused and added slyly, "So what WERE you looking at when I came in?"

"I told you, NOTHING!" Aldawen snapped.

"If it's nothing, then it's ok for me to see!" replied Sake, grinning broadly and reaching for the laptop. Aldawen slapped her hand away.

"Hands off my laptop!" she said. "I don't touch your stuff!"

"Whatever!" Sake said, crossing her arms and legs at the same time. The door opened, and the blonde hunk that is Legolas came in.

"There you are." He said, eyeing Sake warily. "I was wondering where you ran off to after Seamoose was carted off by the friendly men in white coats."

Sake looked sheepish. "I um..." she began. "I... wanted to... Yeah. Um. I um." Legolas rolled his eyes.

"You know that Figwit is going to be furious, don't you?" he told her. "He has few enough fans as it is, without you sending them to mental hospitals."

Sake muttered something and Legolas chose not to ask her what it was. He had a feeling he didn't want to know. Legolas turned his attention to Aldawen, who had turned her attention back to her laptop.

"Whatcha got there, Aldawen?" Legolas asked, leaning over and trying to see what was on the screen. As she had for Sake, Aldawen closed the window before Legolas could see what it held.

"Nothing," she said. "Absolutely nothing. So utterly nothing that it's not even worth your while knowing how nothing it is."

"Ah, then it's something," Legolas replied.

-----------------

"What do you think?" Sprite asked, turning around slowly so Figwit could see her outfit. "Arwen said that the blue helps to bring out my eyes," she informed him, fluttering her eyelashes.

Figwit smiled broadly at the elven robes that Sprite was wearing. "It looks great on you," he said, nodding. "I like it."

Sprite did indeed like the dress. There was a soft white under-gown with red trim, and a dark blue overcoat with swirling, silvery patterns on the wide sleeves.

"So when will you ever have an occasion to wear that?" Figwit asked, motioning for Sprite to come sit down next to him. She did so, carefully arranging the robes so that they didn't wrinkle. Then she looked back at Figwit, her eyes twinkling.

"Why do you ask? You wear robes like this every day!" she retorted, fondly adding, "My little priss."

Figwit raised an eyebrow. "I'm going to pretend that was a compliment," he said wryly. Sprite giggled and threw a pillow at him.

"Anyway," she said, quickly getting up to dodge the pillow coming in return, "What do you say to celebrating my new gown by cracking open a bottle of fine Elvish Wine?"

"Since when do new clothes merit alcohol?" Figwit teased, but he nodded his consent. Sprite walked over to the liquor cabinet and opened the bottom compartment.

"I know there's a bottle of the stuff in here somewhere," she said, her voice slightly muffled. "I saw it just the other day." There was a pause. "Hey... what's this?"

Figwit came over to the cabinet and peered over Sprite's shoulder. "Ah, would you look at that?" he said ruefully, sticking his finger through a hole in the back of the cabinet. Unbeknownst to either of them, his finger barely missed the rat that had been assigned to keep watch. "Mice, I'll bet you anything. They're always showing up where they're not wanted." He sat back on his heels and glared at the hole, as if daring it to get any bigger.

"Should we patch it up?" asked Sprite doubtfully.

"Nah," Figwit replied, grinning suddenly. "Only if they start stealing the booze. Or if they get into the room. Whichever comes first."

Sprite smiled, suddenly noticing the particular bottle of wine she had been looking for. She took it out of the cabinet and poured two glasses.

Figwit closed the cabinet door and got up to join Sprite for a glass of wine. Conveniently, neither of them noticed the remains of the colourful, cardboard-and-plastic actions figure box lying in the back corner of the cabinet. They would have been quite surprised if they had.