Chapter Seven: Murphy’s Law is Alive and Well in Mordor

Legolas: Murphy's Law?
AW: Whatever can go wrong does.
Legolas: Ah.
(Legolas pauses for a moment)
Legolas: ... Do you hear giggling outside of the theatre?
(AW listens.)
AW: Uh... I ... guess ...a little. o_O

The hobbits and their unlikely human companion walked well into the night. They paused seldom, and then only for brief sips of water. An urgency was on them,

AW: They had to return the rental car before the weekend was up.

a sense of time running out. The hobbits didn’t know where it came from, but Mary Sue did. She’d read the books repeatedly. She knew damn well Frodo was succumbing to the corruption of the Ring.

AW: (Frodo) Preciousssss!

Hell, she could see it happening in his face and posture.

Legolas: (Sam) Hey, that's a good impression of Gollum, Mr. Frodo.

The poor thing was drawn and haggard, bent double with the weight of the damn Ring. He had huge dark circles under his eyes.

AW: Frodo needs some Sleep-eez.

Mary Sue swore the lines on his face grew deeper hourly. It broke her heart.

Legolas: Ca-chink!

Nor was she the only one to see it. Sam positively hovered over his master,

AW: Having borrowed the hot pink hover board from Michael J Fox.

supporting him when he stumbled, which was often. The worry lines in Sam’s face were nearly as deep as the tension lines in Frodo’s.

AW: Both hobbits need some Olay.

Mary Sue was anxious about both of them, but there was jack shit she could do for them. It bothered her. This whole situation bothered her.

Legolas: And she was still wearing the same pair of underwear as yesterday.

She’d briefly considered offering to lug the Ring for Frodo, just for a little while. Thankfully, she came to her senses and kept her mouth shut.

AW: That... and she really bit her tongue.

She could just picture the scene in her imagination:

“Jesus, Frodo, you look like shit. Want me to carry that thing for you a bit? Give you a break?” she’d offer.

Legolas: (Mary Sue) After I eat some soap, of course.

“NO! Thief! You can’t have it! It’s MINE,” Frodo would scream.

AW: (Frodo, perfectly normal) And do try the brand 'Zest'. I've heard it does wonders.

Then Mary Sue’s frayed temper would snap, she’d slam Frodo up against one of her handy-dandy rocks and hiss at him

AW: (Mary Sue) Sssstupid hobbites!

 “Dammit, Baggins! I don’t put up with attitude from my kid, nevermind a hairy-footed half-pint like you!

Legolas: (Mary Sue) Now, go to your room!

I don’t care how evil the Ring is or how tortured it makes you, if you EVER talk to me like that again I will pop your head like a zit!!”

AW: Then Hobbits are just full of white goo?
Legolas: Eww!

Then Sam would hamstring her for manhandling his master, and that would suck.

AW: (Sam) Don't make me come back there! I'll take this car and turn it right around, or so help me...!

So Mary Sue’s seldom-used better judgment prevailed and she kept her idiot offer to herself. Besides, wouldn’t that just be the height of hubris to think she could be Ringbearer instead of the main character? She liked to think she wasn’t THAT far gone in Mary Sue-dom. Yet.

Legolas: Being the operative word.

As she daydreamed about the catastrophe that couldn’t happen, she wasn’t paying attention to any that could. So when the sinkhole opened under her feet, she obediently fell right in.

Legolas: Good Sue. You get a cookie.

She tumbled ass-over- teakettle, hitting every rock in creation on the way down. She landed with a thud, a pop, a crack

AW: Rice crispies!

and a scream.

“Are you all right?” Sam called from the top of the sinkhole.

AW: (chortles)
Legolas: Pardon?
AW: Sorry. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy flashback.

He kept Frodo back from the edge, proving Sam was still the brains of this operation. Mary Sue certainly wasn’t!

Legolas: Here here!

“No, I’m not fucking all right!!” she screamed, not recognizing Sam’s brains-of-the-operation status.

AW: She had her butt-of-jokes status at full.

She was in massive amounts of pain, stuck at the bottom of a sinkhole in Gorgoroth and this idiot was asking if she’s all right??? She would have cheerfully throttled Sam if only she could reach him.

Legolas: Then her day would be complete!

“What’s wrong?” Frodo asked softly.

AW: (Sam) Isn't it obvious? She is. We're suppose to be alone at this point in the story!

Mary Sue was astonished to hear his voice.

Legolas: (Mary Sue, surprised) My ears still work!

He hadn’t strung two words together since their last real stop. She managed to pull herself together long enough to answer his question.

“Feels like my hip dislocated,” she hissed thru gritted teeth.

Legolas: That means she'll have to stay there!
Both: YEY!

“And I’m soaked through.

AW: Ugh. She soiled herself.

I think the water bottle broke.”

AW: Oh.

“Can you climb out?” Sam wanted to know.

Legolas: (Mary Sue, dramatically) No. You go on ahead. Just let me die here.
AW: (Sam, cheerfully) Right-o!

Mary Sue just managed to bite back a snide comment. “Not without a rope,’ she said instead. “Even then, I’m not sure I can manage,” she continued, grunting in pain between her words.

AW: Then wouldn't sound more like: Even *grunt* then *grunt* etc?
Legolas: Shh! I want to enjoy the injured Sue.

Sam cursed himself for a ninnyhammer. He got out their length of elvish rope, one of the few things he’d kept after abandoning his gear shortly before meeting Mary Sue.

AW: His poor cooking gear...

He tied one end around a convenient rock (Sam was beginning to see what Mary Sue meant when she’d commented that the rocks of Gorgoroth were her new best friends)

Legolas: They're just as hard headed as she is?

and lowered the other end down to the fallen human. Frodo, meanwhile, had fallen to his hands and knees, giving in to his extreme weariness.

AW: Later he needed to put on little Arthur bandaids for his booboos.

“What the hell is going on up there?” Mary Sue bellowed as Sam worked. She’d never handled pain well, though she dislocated that bad hip on a semi-regular basis. The deprivation of the last couple of days coupled with the Dali-esque quality of the whole thing made her low tolerance for pain even lower.

AW: Funny, she's been complaining the whole time.

She was hurt, tired, hungry, bitchy and homesick,

AW: And bossy.
Legolas: And loud.
AW: And anal.
Legolas: And annoying.
AW: An-
Legolas: Let's stop here; we could go on forever.

and she took it out on poor Sam. Mary Sue could be a real asshole at times.

AW: Only at times? Show me a time where she wasn't!

Just as she was bitching, the rope came flying down and smacked her on the nose.

Legolas: Hold you head back! It'll help stop the bleeding!

Mary Sue let off an unprintable oath that the hobbits thankfully didn’t understand. She grabbed the rope and tried to haul herself up. Problem was, yoga classes aside, her upper body strength was that of a modern American couch potato.

AW: 100% flab.

She got nowhere fast.

Legolas: Except down

“Dammit, Sam, this isn’t working!” she screamed. Panic was setting in.

“I don’t think I’m strong enough to pull you up,” Sam pointed out.

Legolas: Come on, Sam. Give it the old heave-ho!

“Then get Frodo to help! Just get me the hell out of here!” If she kept screaming like this she could add a sore throat to her list of hurts. On the upside, she still had cough drops if it came to that.

AW: (monotone) Yippie skippie.

Sam glanced back at Frodo, so pathetic on all fours. “Mr. Frodo is in no condition to help now,” he said.

“I don’t care WHAT kind of condition Frodo’s in! Get me the flying fuck out of here NOW!!” Mary Sue really WAS an asshole sometimes.

Legolas: Sometimes?
AW: (british accent) Burn'er!

Sam was ready to leave this troublesome female where she was.

(Both elves stand up and start to whoop and holler.)
Legolas: Go Sam!
AW: Power to the fat hobbit!

Not care about Mr. Frodo, indeed! He knew she was bad news from the moment he’d set eyes on her.

Legolas: Whoo! Thank the Valar!
AW: There is justice in the world afterall!

Just as Sam was about to walk away, he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. Frodo had pulled himself out of his misery. “I will help,” he said quietly.

Both: ...
Legolas: No! Frodo! Don't let evil lure you!

Though soft, Frodo’s voice carried. Mary Sue heard him from the bottom of the sinkhole. “Hell yeah!! You go Frodo! Now get me out of here!!” she hollered.

AW: ... I have lost faith in the justice of this world.

With much effort, grunting and swearing on Mary Sue’s part, they eventually hauled her out.

Legolas: Then Sam pushed her back down and went away humming a merry tune.

To be fair, she did pull herself hand-over-hand as much as she was able, but the hobbits did most of the work. Actually, Sam did most of the work.

AW: Sam, I have to say, I'm very disappointed in you.
Legolas: You're smarter than this!

The problems weren’t over once she was on solid ground. Her dislocated hip still had to be popped back in,

AW: Pfft. If she's popped stuff out before, it's easier to pop back in.
Legolas: You know this from experience?
AW: That I do.

as well as any other damage assessed and dealt with.

AW: Yeah, now Sam needs a shrink now after dealing with her.

Things looked likely to get worse before they got better. IF they ever got better.

AW: Go Murphy, go!

Abruptly, the whole stupid situation just got to Mary Sue. She looked up at the hobbits and began to cry.

Legolas: (hopeful) And begged for death?

“I’m sorry…..

AW: (Mary Sue) I suck. Leave me here!

I don’t…..go on…..”she babbled.

Both: ...

Frodo and Sam glanced at each other.

AW: Grinning madly!
Legolas: Indeed; they could not believe their good fortune!

Both of them had other concerns on their minds, with no energy to spare for Mary Sue’s egocentric ramblings.

AW: So they knocked her unconscience and left her for dead.

They didn’t know what to say, so they said nothing.

Legolas: But their minds were going a mile a minute.

After a few minutes, she calmed down, took a deep breath and looked at Sam. “I need your help,” she said simply, gesturing to her popped hip.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

AW: (Mary Sue) Take that rock and knock my head against it a few times...

Mary Sue gulped. This was not going to be fun. “Basically, I need you to pop my hip back in so I can walk again. I can’t go anywhere like this.”

Legolas: Yes, that's the whole point of us cheering before.

“How?” Sam wanted to know.

Legolas: With my hands in the air and ...oh... he means about the hip. Right.

She thought about it. Normally, when she blew her bad hip, the nearest brawny male would pull it back into place

Legolas: And Boromir was enjoying meeting everyone while passing through the Halls of Mandos at this time.

and she’d be fine in a few minutes. That obviously was not going to work with 3’6” worth of hobbit doing the pulling. A different approach was needed.

AW: It needed some Hubba Bubba gum and a porcupine.

Then she remembered Mel Gibson in one of the Lethal Weapon movies. He’d banged his shoulder in on a wall. Maybe if 3’6” worth of hobbit jumped on her at the right angle, the ground could serve in lieu of a wall.

AW: (frowning) Well, thanks. Now I don't have to see that movie.

It was a crappy solution,

Legolas: Well, yes.

but the only one she could think of at the moment. Certainly it was better than lying here in pain!

AW: Well, I guess that's true.

When she explained her plan, Sam looked doubtful.

Legolas: (Sam) Are you sure you've never smoked anything lately?

Frodo had no comment, he’d retreated back into his dark fixation with the Ring.

AW: Anything to get away from the Sue is alright in my books.

Mary Sue was none too thrilled herself. This was going to hurt like hell, assuming it worked. If not……she didn’t even want to think about that.

Legolas: They go to Mt Doom, while you are doomed yourself.
AW: Merry Christmas!

“Just do it, Sam! I can’t be any worse off than I am now,” she demanded when he protested the plan.

Legolas: (Sam) It's still a stupid plan.

The logic of that swayed him. Sam clambered up a rock. “What IS it with these rocks?”

Legoals: They hate you!
AW: For kicking them and stuff.

Mary Sue wondered in a brief aside as she pulled herself into place. Sam jumped, landing square on her hip.

AW: And broke it.

“YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!! Jesus, that hurts!” she screamed.

AW: Well, don't expect him to come down and heal you, that's for sure.

It worked, though. At least, she heard her hip pop back into place. She awkwardly hauled herself up, using the rock as a prop. Her leg collapsed when she put her weight on it.

AW: Well, duh!

Of course.

AW: Of couse it did that! You can't walk on a freshly re-located joint!
Legolas: Stupid Sue.

The hobbits looked on in sympathy as Mary Sue tried again. And again. And one more time.

Legolas: And then they left her to struggle with her pain.

Each time, she couldn’t put her full weight on her leg without collapsing. This was not good.

AW: They would have to amputate

She should at least be able to stand by now, if not exactly run a marathon. Crap.

Legolas: Exactly how I would describe this, yes.

“Oh, screw it!” she finally exclaimed in disgust. “Let’s just crash here for the night and set out in the morning. I’m sure things will be better then.”

AW: Famous last words.

Nobody actually believed that, of course, but it sounded good. Besides, Frodo was in no shape to go on.

Legolas: Not after what Sue made him do, of course not!

Sam was not much better. The darkness was so complete they couldn’t see three feet in front of their faces anyway. All in all, the three of them were hurtin’ units.

AW: ...Hurting units?

Murphy’s Law wasn’t quite finished with them, however. There was still one nasty surprise left.

AW: (cheerfully)  Murphy just loves surprises. That's why everyone hates him!

Everyone already knew the tequila bottle had broken. The water it held was now soaking Mary Sue’s pants, mixed with blood from the cuts it so nicely bestowed while breaking.

Legolas: Yey.

Now, they discovered the cheap-ass vanity flask that held the back-up water had popped open in the fall. There was no water left whatsoever. Frodo, Sam and Mary Sue were screwed.

AW: May this be a lesson to all. Never let Mary Sue keep your water, for she will most likely play the story's fool and spill it on her pants for kicks!

(To be continued)