"I can not believe we were followed by two maidens." Boromir said.
"I can not believe the elf did not hear them." Gimli said gruffly sending a glare towards Legolas.
"What are we going to do now, Gandalf?" Frodo asked, "We can not leave them here."
"And it would take too long to bring them back to Rivendell." Aragorn pointed out.
"Do you two think you could find your way back?" Legolas asked.
"Sure we can!" I said proudly, "Come on, Katy, they don’t want us here." I proceeded to walk off and Katy followed me.
"Um… Rivendell is that way." Merry told us.
"Oh." I said and turned around. Then I stopped and walked back to Aragorn, "You don’t happen to have a compass, do you? Then I might have a chance."
"What is a compass?" Aragorn asked me.
"The little round thing with the magnetic needle that always points North…" I began to explain then stopped upon receiving numerous blank stares, "Oh, never mind."
Gandalf and Aragorn went off to the side to talk about what they were going to do with us. I wanted to show Aragorn my sword, but as he was busy at the moment, I decided to show Boromir my sword instead.
"That’s a nice sword you have there, Boromir." I told him walking over, "Think I can look at it?" Boromir obviously hadn’t heard of my reputation because he let me hold his sword. I held it out marveling at its beauty while Boromir told me a bunch of useless things about his sword, like that a man named Haridor made it, and he got it when he was 35, and that he first used it in a battle against a score of orcs in Greywood and a bunch of other stuff I didn’t make it a point to remember.
I soon handed it back to Boromir and proceeded to show him the sword which I had pilfered (though I didn’t tell him that part) from Elrond’s armory. "And its name is Katy." I finished, "I named it after Katy."
At this Katy took out her own sword to show to Boromir, "And I named mine Rachel after Rachel." Katy told him proudly.
"These are very nice swords," Boromir told us, "Where did you get them?"
"Oh, um… Actually that’s a long story… But we didn’t steal them!" I informed him.
"We’d NEVER steal swords!" Katy told him.
He was about to argue when Gandalf and Aragorn walked back over. "Well, what are we going to do with these trouble-makers?" Sam asked.
"Hey, that’s not very nice!" I said, "The journey would be boring without Merry and Pippin."
Sam rolled his eyes but Gandalf interrupted before he got a chance to reply, "We will bring them with us. We will make a stop at Lothlórien and they will stay there." Gandalf told us all.
Aragorn noticed our swords which were still out and walked over, "Do you know how to use those?" He asked.
"What, the swords?" I asked. He nodded, "Of course we do! Come on Katy, let’s show him we know how to use swords."
"You’re talking to me not your sword, right?" Katy asked.
"Yes." I replied.
"Okay, just making sure." Katy said. We then proceeded to bang our swords together in a pathetic attempt at sparring. Boromir laughed (and so did the hobbits, except Sam who rolled his eyes.). Aragorn and Legolas looked like they were trying not to laugh, but they were soon failing miserably.
Finally we stopped seeing that we were only making a spectacle of ourselves. I glared at Merry and Pippin, "Hey it’s not like you two could do any better!" At that they both stopped laughing hoping that no one would invite them to try.
Boromir and Aragorn tried to give us a few pointers before we went to sleep, but they didn’t help much. Gandalf assured us that we were not planning on needing the weapons and Frodo (who has a lot of faith in Gandalf’s judgement) was surprised that we didn’t seem convinced.
We set off the next night and got closer to the mountain. And the next night we got even closer. The next night we were so close that we were actually starting up Caradhras. Needless to say, it was really starting to get cold now.
The climb quickly became difficult, and even though I had finally convinced Gandalf to let me hold his sword the night before (and not without almost getting killed in the process- apparently wizards don’t like to be called ‘liars’ or any variation thereof) I was already complaining again.
"Stupid Mountain." I grumbled, "The least they could do is install a ski lift."
"What is a ‘ski lift’?" Pippin managed between shivers.
"Magical chairs that carry you to the top of hills." I told him.
"Wow." Said Pippin.
"Don’t get your hopes up, Pip." Merry told him, "She is just joking."
"I am not!" I scolded Merry, "Where I come from they have a lot of those!"
"I don’t think we need any more of your silly stories." Sam murmured.
"I’m not making them up, stupid fat hobbit!" I growled.
Sam glared at me but was again cut off from replying by Katy saying, "There really are ski lifts! And heat. I could use a heater right now."
"Yeah, but we’d have to be in a car to use a heater." I told Katy.
It was snowing by now and I wished I had worn a heavier jacket. Everyone started complaining about how cold it was.
"You guys are all a bunch of wimps." I informed them, "It probably isn’t any colder than maybe ten degrees below zero." Then I thought and added, "Fahrenheit."
"Yeah, and that’s cold!" Katy informed me.
"It is not cold!" I said.
"It doesn’t really bother me." Legolas agreed receiving several glares from various members of the fellowship who weren’t elves.