8
Search for the Sunglasses
I had breakfast with Shea and Lauren that morning. None of us were very talkative. For them, I suppose it was just weariness. For me, it was another matter entirely. I had to leave the town for the day. I had to get out of proximity of the sword. But how? What would be my excuse? I had to plan some expedition. Then it hit me. I knew what to do.
After breakfast, I wandered down to the courtyard to find Legolas taking some shots at the targets. Needless to say, they were all bull's eyes. He turned in my direction upon my approach.
"Come to get an early start on honing your skills?" he asked with a grin, taunting me to join him.
"Actually," I replied matter of factly, "I wanted to take a trip to the spot where I arrived here in Middle Earth."
Legolas lost his grin, thought about that, gave me another smile, and said, "Of course. We will go after lunch." He turned around, loaded another arrow, and made another shot - yet another bull's eye (a different target this time).
"I'm afraid time is of the essence," I told him hurriedly. "You see, I had a backpack with me that had some very important items in it which I must find." Seeing Legolas' dubious look, I added, "If they were to fall into the hands of the orcs, it could be very devastating."
I'd caught Legolas' attention with that last statement. He put down the bow and walked over to me. "What kind of items?" he asked.
"Well..." I began, thinking quickly, then gave a snap of my fingers and replied, "Sunglasses!"
"Sunglasses?" Legolas repeated, his eyebrows stretched. He seemed rather skeptical. "What are sunglasses?"
"Oh, they're truly powerful devices," I told him. "They can block out the rays of the sun! Now just imagine what would happen if the orcs got ahold of them!"
Legolas' eyes were wide in considering the consequences of such a scenario, and he muttered to himself in a shaky voice, "Eternal darkness. The orcs would thrive. Men and elves would perish!"
"Yes," I said, "and that's just one of the many items in my backpack. It's actually one of the less powerful items."
Legolas frowned greatly at my latest comment. Suddenly, he grabbed his bow and a pack of his best arrows, swung it all onto his back, and told me sternly, "We must go immediately. Such power cannot fall into the hands of the orcs. I will pack us a lunch and meet you back down here. Make sure you have your sword with you." I nodded, and he ran up the stairs to get to the kitchen.
Not even five minutes later, we met back up at the base of the stairs. I had my sword (the regular one, of course), and he had the leather pack containing the lunches. In addition, he now had his sword strapped to his side as well.
"All right," he said. "Let us make haste." I nodded, and we started jogging towards the forest. In my peripheral vision, I saw Shea walking along the path behind us. She suddenly noticed us and called out to ask where we were going and whether she could come too.
"Stay here," Legolas replied loudly. "We are off to retrieve James' sunglasses! We shall be back sometime after lunch!"
As we disappeared into the depths of the forest, Shea must have thought we were all going nuts. First she'd seen me carrying around my bedsheets early this morning, and now Legolas and I were off to fetch my sunglasses as if the fate of the world hung in the balance.
At any rate, it took us a good fifty minutes to reach the area. Once we were there, we crept up to the edges of the trees and bushes and saw an alarming sight. There was a large party of dwarves in the clearing, and they seemed to be searching for something.
"It is as you feared," Legolas whispered. "People are looking for your items! They may not be orcs, but dwarves are not much better. If they get their greedy hands on your items, we may never..." He trailed off. I could tell Legolas was no exception to the rule that dwarves and elves disliked each other. "All right," he said finally, "let us go out there and try talking to them. Perhaps they are not searching for your backpack." He didn't seem too convinced of that possibility, though.
"Right," I replied, and we stepped out into the clearing. Instantly, one dwarf saw our emergence, and he warned the others. They all took their axes in hand and turned to us as if being backed into a corner.
Legolas put up his hands slightly, and proclaimed, "Greetings, folk of the mountains. We mean you no trouble. We are simply here to..." His voice faded away, for he didn't want to let them know why we were really here. After all, what if they were indeed here for some other purpose, and he had then let them know of the magical items? They would most likely have started searching for them themselves after such an explanation. Fortunately, I had come up with a good excuse and came to Legolas' aid.
"To pick up pine cones!" I declared.
Legolas' head spun to the side, and he looked at me with an expression saying, "What are you doing?!" The dwarves also stared at me with odd looks on their bearded faces.
"Yes," I continued. "We aim to preserve a very special tree in these parts, and we must collect its pine cones to grow new ones."
"Yes," Legolas agreed while turning back to face the dwarves with a look of uncertainty on his face. "That is right."
The dwarves just stood there for a while, blinking and not saying anything, and I began to fear they weren't buying it. Then they suddenly burst into laughter.
"Leave it to a pair of elves to be concerned about the preservation of a tree!" the lead dwarf roared.
Legolas seemed ruffled by the comment but stood his ground. As for the comment about two elves, I realized they must have mistaken me for an elf. After all, they were more than fifty metres away, and my physical appearance must have thrown them off. Most men in this land had beards (I only had about a day's stubble which couldn't really be seen from far away), and I was also rather slim for a man. In addition, they must have assumed that since Legolas was definitely an elf, so was I. Besides, everyone knows the eyesight of a dwarf is generally not as good as that of other races. In the current situation, I found that thought rather humourous, but I fought hard to prevent even the slightest of a smirk from developing on my face.
Anyways, Legolas ignored the comment and called out, "And what, may I ask, is your business in these parts?"
The dwarves seemed caught off guard by that and stopped laughing. They started looking to each other rapidly, and the lead dwarf finally gave a response.
"We are searching for gold!" he exclaimed. The other dwarves joined in on his enthusiasm.
Legolas seemed very unbelieving upon hearing this statement, though. "There is no gold in these parts," he stated loudly to the dwarves.
The lead dwarf quickly replied, "Well we shall prove that belief wrong!" There was another cheer from the other dwarves. Legolas shook his head.
"Keep them busy," I whispered to him and started walking to the right side of the clearing. Legolas seemed to look back and forth between me and the dwarves with a desperate look, as if he couldn't handle them on his own.
All of the sudden, the lead dwarf yelled, "What is this treachery? Where do you think you are going, devious elf?"
I turned to look at him while continuing to walk to my intended destination. "To gather pine cones of course," I replied as if that were an obvious fact.
"Oh no you don't!" the dwarf exclaimed. "You will stay at the side of your elven friend!"
"Why, surely my collecting little pine cones won't interfere with your glorious search for gold, now will it?" I responded with an amused look on my face.
The dwarf seemed positively enraged and bellowed, "You are a tribute to your kind, elf, but do not start taunting me! Get back here!"
"I shall," I told him, nearing the edge of the clearing, "after I collect all the pine cones." With that said, I ducked into the mass of trees.
"Such defiance!" roared the dwarf, swinging his axe in the air. This only inspired the other dwarves to exhibit similar behaviour.
Legolas took a big swallow. He seemed to be hoping I would indeed come back and that I hadn't abandoned him to the mercy of the discordant dwarves.
Once in the forest, I quickly set about in looking for my backpack. Thankfully, for once in my life, I found what I was searching for very quickly. As I had suspected, my backpack was hanging from one of the lower branches of a tree. I was able to poke it with a long branch that had been lying on the ground, and it finally came down into my arms. I then ran deep into the forest and lay it down beside a particular tree I knew I could remember the position of and ran back to the clearing.
Legolas was in the midst of a very heated argument with the dwarves. I dashed up to him, tapped him on the shoulder, and said in loud voice so the dwarves could all hear me, "Let us go! There are pine cones in other parts of the woods! We shall leave the dwarves to their gold!" I stared into Legolas' eyes, and he immediately picked up on the fact that I had found the backpack.
"Yes," he said, nodding, "pine cones are not worth a quarrel, nor bloodshed. Let us leave in peace." We trotted into the forest, and I led him to the spot where I had put the backpack. Upon picking it up, he asked whether I had checked to make sure nothing was missing. I unzipped the bag and rummaged through the contents.
"Yep," I responded. "Everything's here, including..." I reached in and pulled out my silver rimmed and blue lensed sunglasses, then put them on.
With a huge grin on my face, I looked up and said, "Cool, huh?"
Legolas seemed rather confused and asked, "Are these the sunglasses you spoke of?"
"Yes," I confirmed. "It's a good thing we got to them first."
"Certainly," Legolas agreed, though he actually seemed quite uncertain. "We had best head back now, in case the dwarves decide to move this way."
"Agreed," I said with a smile. "Let's go."
We walked back to Rivendell and ate the lunch Legolas had packed halfway there. During that period of time, I showed Legolas many of my "magical" items. I think the one that impressed him the most was the flashlight. Once we were done eating, we packed up all our stuff and headed back to Rivendell.