The end of the month was fast approaching, Katy and I were getting increasingly nervous of being left behind. We had tried our best to improve at archery and had, we now were able to hit the target three out of four times. We had also improved our fighting skills with our swords which isn’t saying much, but if we worked together we could almost take down Boromir.
We had been forced to plan while Stacey was around since Aragorn had officially made us all responsible for each other because no one else could stand us for more than an hour on end… Besides maybe Merry and Pippin, but they only made us worse.
"So, what’s the plan to make sure we don’t get left behind?" Katy asked.
"Um… Stake out the docks?" I asked.
"That’ll work." Katy agreed.
"But when do they leave? I don’t want to have to sit out there every day, it would get boring." Stacey interrupted.
"… Well, we should be able to find out, it isn’t like it’s a secret. I think they’ll be leaving within the week." I said, "According to the books of course. If we went by the movie I’d have guessed they were already gone without staying even a week."
"Yeah, the movie was pretty bad with time lengths." Katy agreed.
"Yeah… How long did they stay here?" Stacey asked.
We ignored her, "They were pretty bad with the characters too, Sam is a lot more useful than they make him out and Frodo isn’t as much of a wimp." I agree.
"What are you talking about?" Pippin asked walking with Merry towards us.
"Nothing." I replied quickly.
"Has Aragorn said anything about leaving yet?" Katy asked.
Merry and Pippin both looked upset at this, "Yes, but he said we were not to speak a word of it to you." Merry replied.
"And then we asked him if you were not coming and he said you weren’t." Pippin added.
"And we asked why and he said because you cannot do anything right and you would be nothing but trouble." Merry said.
"And then Merry said ‘that sounds like Pippin but we are not abandoning him, are we?’ and Aragorn could not think of any reply to that." Pippin continued, glaring at his cousin.
"Oh come off it, Pip. I did not mean it that way." Merry insisted.
"Okay, so when did you say you were leaving?" I asked.
"Two days from today." Pippin replied smiling smugly at Merry.
"Pip!" Merry yelled, "We were not supposed to tell them! You never listen to Aragorn, do you?" Pippin continued looking smug.
"I just remembered, I have to go speak to someone… About.. Uh… Something. It’s urgent." I stammered, "We’ll be back!" I declared pulling Katy with and motioning to Stacey to stay and keep a watch on the hobbits.
"Where are we going?" Katy asked me after we were out of earshot.
"To cash in on a promise." I told her heading up some talons and towards the palace.
Katy didn’t argue but followed closely behind me. The palace was really the only place easy to find in this city because it was large and right in the middle. The Southern Gate was also easy to find but that was only if you weren’t looking for it.
We came to the palace and I soon found a servant elf and spoke to her, "Amin merna quen o Silvethian." I told her, "Aa’le hir he?" I asked. [Learn Elvish! amin merna quen o Silvethian ~ I wish to speak with Silvethian; Aa’le hir he ~ will you find her]
"Manka lle merna." she replied. [manka lle merna ~ if you wish]
"Diola lle." I said as she went to find my friend. [thank you]
I had grown quite good at elvish as Aragorn had repeatedly encouraged us to get to know some of the elves and during such times I had learned more and more elvish while Stacey and Katy had both been content to let the elf just speak in Westron.
The servant soon came back with my friend. Silvethian was an elven maiden of high birth and she sat with the Queen and her other maidens regularly. She smiled to see me and we both started talking at once. I sighed quietly and let her finish telling me of her day before speaking again.
When she finished she asked me what I had come for and I proceeded to tell her what we needed. She listened carefully and then nodded in understanding. We exchanged a bit more and she left.
"What was that all about?" Katy asked after Silvethian had left the room.
"What do you mean?" I asked, struggling not to speak in elvish.
Katy rolled her eyes, "What did you say? What did she say? You know I can’t speak elvish." She replied.
"Oh yeah, while I was off learning elvish you were being lazy and letting the elves practice their English instead." I said as if I had forgotten.
"Yeah, yeah. Well there’s no time to learn now so you might as well translate for me." Katy insisted as we walked back out onto the talon.
"She said she’d make us some cloaks." I told her, "They are already working on several for the Fellowship and she said it would be no problem to make two more." I told her.
"What about Stacey?" Katy asked.
I blanched, "You want Stacey to come with us?" I asked, "You want to be stuck in a tiny little boat with HER for hours on end, days and days?" I asked, not believing this could be possible.
"When you say it like that I don’t." Katy admitted.
"Okay then." I said, "She’ll have them ready for us in two days. It doesn’t give us much time so we’ll have to be up early." I told Katy.
"Oh great, I hope you don’t leave the waking up for me." Katy complained.
"Nope. I have already got a plan to deal with that." I said happily.
We came back to where Stacey was still entertaining our small friends. She was looking very tired of them while they were practically bouncing off every tree in view.
"What took you so long?" Pippin asked when he saw us return.
"We wanted to go over to the kitchens but Stacey said we should wait until you returned." Merry added.
I gave Stacey a pitying look. Keeping hobbits from their food, now there’s a challenge. "It took longer than we thought to find the person we were looking for." I said simply.
"It doesn’t matter. We’re here now, let’s go!" Katy said.
The hobbits lit up and hurried along in front of us, turning around every so often to encourage us to go faster.
On our way to the kitchens we ran into everyone’s favorite heir to the Stewardship of Gondor. "Hello Little ones." Boromir said, happily greeting Merry and Pippin as they too greeted him.
"Hullo Boromir. Guess what, we are going to the kitchens." Merry said.
"Hullo Boromir. We are going to get the cooks to give us some food!" Pippin added.
Boromir laughed, "Yes by the looks of it you are both wasting away." He teased. "Hello maidens, are you keeping these two in line, or is it the other way around today?" Boromir greeted us as well.
"I don’t know what you could possibly mean." I told him, "We’re always good."
"Is that why Aragorn is getting stress headaches so frequently now that you are all together again?" Boromir asked.
"We don’t know what you’re talking about." Katy and Stacey insisted.
"Indeed, and I suppose you do not know who it was running around shouting elvish profanities last night either." Boromir chuckled slightly remembering the look on Aragorn’s face when he’d heard us.
"Nope. No idea." I agreed, "Of course I don’t know much about last night, I think I had one pint too many of that ale." I said.
"Yeah me too." Katy agreed, "But on the bright side the headaches are less severe so either I’m getting used to them or I’m stopping sooner!" Katy said proudly.
"I remember, I’m not a drunk like you four." Stacey said, "It was you alright."
"It is not like you were completely innocent either." Pippin spoke up, "I seem to recall you encouraging them to ‘have another pint, heck have TWO more pints!’"
"Yeah well, they said they could stop anytime they wanted." Stacey insisted.
We continued to the kitchens, Boromir accompanying us now. He occasionally broke into our argument with what he remembered happening but was mostly content to listen to what we had to say and chuckle at our faulty memories.
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