Mice and lice are not nice

Chapter two: A whole lotta scratchin' goin on

The storm had hit out of nowhere, the weather had been nice for weeks and very few could remember a summer quite as sunny and pleasant as this one. The forest was quiet in the heat of the sun and very little happened. A delegation of elves from Mirkwood had been sent out to visit Imladris and they had been rather close when the storm hit, and it hit hard. It went from a few dark clouds to complete mayhem within an hour and the group had been forced to seek shelter in a human village not very far from Imladris. It was simply dangerous to remain outdoors since lightning bolts shot through the air accompanied by branches and all sorts of debris. The elves had found an inn in the village, it was rather large and it had a good reputation, a major trading route went through that particular village and so the place saw a lot of strangers. They were rather used to having elven guest and the innkeeper greeted the elves with a lot of courtesy and respect although he had to admit to himself that he never had seen such a sorry bunch of first born.

Normally elves are very well groomed and they look pristine and perfect, these looked like half drowned cats. They were soaking wet and even their horses looked extremely irritated. The innkeeper was glad they had at least some rooms available, a whole bunch of rangers had also arrived that evening and the inn was rather crowded but the best rooms were still not occupied, they were rather expensive. So the innkeeper managed to squeeze ten elves into four rooms and the servants were scurrying around like mice, finding spare beds and heating water and trying to make life a bit more comfortable for the drenched elves. The weather outside was just awful and the wind was tearing at the roof and the chimney, some of the locals had also come to the inn since it was the most solid building of the village and they believed themselves to be safe there. The elves were in the process of getting their wet clothes off and getting new and dry ones on when the door to the inn once more got kicked open and a new group entered, the innkeeper was a bit in shock for you hardly ever saw dwarves in this area but here they were, about twenty in total, fifteen males and five females and they too were soaking wet and rather miserable.

The innkeeper knew that elves and dwarves are unable to mingle in a very civilized manner, it was like putting cats and dogs into the same pen so he had quite a problem to solve. He couldn't tell anyone to leave, the weather outside was just too dangerous and he needed the money. He decided that he could place the dwarves in the servant's quarters and in the dining hall and his wife was wringing her hands in despair. They didn't have enough blankets for everybody, and it would get uncomfortable beyond any doubt. But if the elves stayed in the good rooms and the dwarves stayed in the dining hall things would turn out alright, or so she hoped.

They had enough food and the weather couldn't last that long now could it? But there had to be some extra bedding to be found for the guests could not be told to sleep straight on the floor, the innkeeper's wife got an idea, she sent one of the kitchen boys over to the village tailor and got some cloth there, and the blacksmith had a lot of horse blankets and some of the other wives in the village also donated whatever extra blankets they had, and so nobody would at least freeze.

The blankets were distributed, they smelled of horse and sheep and worse things too but beggars cannot afford to be choosers right? The elves were mumbling a bit with clenched teeth but they did understand the situation. The innkeeper did split the dining hall in two with a portable screen and let the elves eat on one side of it and the dwarves on the other. For the moment they all were too miserable to start any form of trouble, they just sat there and ate their warm stew listening to the storm outside and perhaps thanking the gods for this warm and safe place.

The elves were not just anybody, they were carrying a very important message from the king and among them were the kings trusted butler Galion and even his son, although in disguise. The young ellon was heading to Imladris to see some more of the famous valley and to deliver some ancient scrolls from the kings library which Elrond's librarian had requested and he was very excited about the opportunity to see more of the world. He hadn't anticipated this though and he sat there wide eyed and almost drank in all the new impressions. The inn was cozy but it did smell odd and there were so many things of which he was curious. Galion sat there nibbling at some bread and he looked as if he was afraid that it would come to life and bite him, he didn't trust humans more than he would trust dwarves and now they were stuck there with twenty of the short hairy creatures.

Legolas were unaccustomed to dwarves, he only knew that his father hated them like the plague itself and that they were greedy, smelly and rather devoid of anything even resembling good manners. He was curious though and the young prince had gotten the shock of a decade when he realized that some of the dwarves were in fact female. But they had beards! He started to believe that his father was right when he claimed that dwarves were something that hadn't been planned at all, they couldn't be a part of Illuvatars great music. The dwarves had gotten the warmth back in their stocky bodies, they had food and they had ale and the atmosphere soon became rather jolly. Some were singing and as dwarves do when they appreciate the meal they started tossing food around.

The elves sat behind the screen and felt shocked and a bit disgusted by what they heard and the dwarves of course knew that there were elves present and didn't do anything to hide their feelings regarding the first born. Before long subtle insults were being flung around and the innkeeper found it a bit worrying so he got one of his servants to start playing the violin to drown the voices with music. It didn't do much though, the dwarves were still being rather rambunctious and so the innkeeper managed to convince the elves of the wisdom of returning to the rooms. He didn't want any trouble there and he knew that the group of rangers were too few to be able to stop a fight if it was to occur. The dwarves managed to turn the whole hall into a war zone before the night and the innkeeper sighed and knew it would take days to clean the mess up. There wasn't a square inch of the room that wasn't covered in grease and food stains.

The dwarves went to sleep and peace fell, or at least it tried to fall. The sounds of the storm were terrifying and the innkeeper just prayed that the roof didn't give in. The walls were creaking and groaning and the wind howled through the chimney. It sounded like some wailing beast of some sort. Legolas lay awake in his bedroll and listened to it, he was a bit worried too. He hadn't experienced a storm while staying in a human settlement before and he wasn't so sure about the strength of the building. Galion seemed calm enough and after a while the young elf managed to fall asleep.

The next morning the storm was still raging and the streets were transformed to rivers and the rivers into raging floods. It was pouring down and it didn't seem to stop anytime soon. The innkeeper had never seen such terrible weather and he was afraid this was the end of the world or something. Humans were superstitious and he was no exception from that rule. The day was dark and everybody had to stay indoors. The rangers and the elves did pass the time by playing cards and the dwarves stayed near the hearth and told each other stories. The mood was rather relaxed and pleasant and the innkeeper was glad.

He made sure that the elves got their meals served in the rooms they had gotten and the dwarves did yet again turn the dinner into a foodfight. The innkeeper did the mistake of serving mead to the food and if dwarves are a bit naughty while sober getting drunk do quadruple that trait. They were singing songs so bawdy and rude the innkeeper forbade his wife from entering the room and he told the servant maidens to stay away from the dining hall until the next day. The elves had gotten some wine, he didn't have much of the stuff and it wasn't really good wine but it was all that he could offer.

It continued to rain for three whole days, like the skies were mourning and there were water everywhere. The guests had gotten bored by now and they had fallen into a rather grumpy mood, the dwarves were no longer using subtle insults towards the elves, now they were shouting some rather nasty ones. The elves claimed that there were no real females among the dwarves since everybody had beards and the dwarves in return claimed that the elves all were womenfolk since there wasn't a beard to be seen among them. The atmosphere was getting a bit heated and it didn't get any better when one of the dwarf women promptly pulled the hem of her dress down just to show them that she indeed was female.

The sight made the elves turn both red and pale and the dwarves were laughing so hard they almost fell of their chairs, claiming that the elves were to thin blooded to really appreciate the sight of a decent bosom. One of the warriors was almost on the verge of dropping his pants just to let the dwarves see that they indeed were male. Galion stopped him though and the elves retreated to their rooms, praying that the awful rain soon would end. They sought refuge in the realm of elven dreams and the dwarves played dice and were making a lot of noise. The human rangers were a silent and disciplined bunch but this was almost too much for them. They wished that they could bind and gag the dwarves but that would have caused a diplomatic crisis and so they just tried to endure.

The next morning things took a turn for the worse, it was one of the rangers who felt a peculiar itch and scratched his scalp vigorously. The others laughed at him and claimed that he had forgotten that you in fact can bathe in water and not just drink it and the man just grunted and grinned. But later that day also some of the others started itching and a couple of the elves itched too. At the end of the day also some dwarves complained about an itch and the innkeeper's wife got a fine toothed comb and checked the ranger's hair. It was lice and not just a few, the moist warmth of the inn had obviously benefited the insects and heaven knew where they had come from but it was probably from some of the blankets.

All hell broke loose, the elves were panicking and accusing the dwarves of having infected them with the pest and the dwarves blamed the elves and the rangers blamed the inn, it was chaos. Elves are terrified of lice and fleas, after all, with all that long flowing hair it is easy to imagine the horror of getting infected, all the combing and washing and medicine needed. To a dwarf it is even worse, they are very hairy and the hairs are thick and coarse. Accusations and curses were flying through the air while a whole lot of scratching was going on and it soon became apparent that the lice had spread through the entire inn. Everybody had them to some degree and the inn keeper's wife was in tears. It was such a shame and she was ready to just lay down and die from it, she was a very proper lady and the knowledge that people had attracted lice in her home was beyond terrible.

It was one of the rangers who managed to calm the temperamental dwarves and elves, he just said that they had lice, fine, they had to deal with it. They were all in the same boat and neither of them could be blamed for the fact that the blankets they had slept in were infected with the pesky insects. The innkeeper's wife knew of a pharmacist in the village and one of the kitchen boys went to retrieve some ointment and he returned with some vials of herbal wash that should fix the problem. The innkeeper did open the bath and so the room was suddenly crowded by more than fifty persons of various size. The dwarf females were given a separate room in which to wash and bathe, the males were not so fortunate and so there was an extremely awkward silence within the huge stone room.

Everybody had to cover their hair with the ointment and it wasn't just the hair upon their head. No, it meant all the hair on their bodies and to the elves that wasn't so bad. After all, elves are not very hairy, except from the hair on their heads they have just a little pubic hair in the groin area and the rest of their skin is as smooth as a baby's bottom. The rangers were a bit worse off, humans are very hairy compared with elves and then it was the dwarves. To them lush hair growth is a sign of power and masculinity and a couple of the dwarves looked a bit as if they had fur.

Legolas was aghast, the idea of having lice had at first almost made him catatonic with shock and then he felt his skin crawling with disgust, it was the most terrifying thing ever. He didn't mind fighting an army of orcs on his own, but this was just too much. Galion had to work rather hard to calm him down, after all the prince was still rather young and inexperienced and to him this was beyond awful.

The sight of the naked men and dwarves was traumatizing and he just sat there staring at the wall while Galion rubbed the terribly smelly ointment into his hair, he just prayed that it would work. The bath became a stinky place and the elves men and dwarves sat there wrapped in towels and looked miserable. Nobody had the energy to mock the others now, they all had more than enough with sulking and the dwarf women were crying. To them getting lice was an awful shame and one they probably never would be able to forget.

After some hours the ointment had to be washed out and the innkeeper had to work like a madman to warm enough water. In the end they all gave a damn whether or not the water was warm, they just wanted to get the goo out of their hair. There were some arguments of who was to wash themselves first, but the innkeeper did take the lead and he ordered that the elves washed themselves first, after all, they didn't have that much hair to wash. Then the rangers rinsed the medicine out of their hair and the dwarves were last.

Then all they could do was wait, wait and see if the medicine had done what it promised to do. The inn keepers wife had replaced the blankets with sheets and so many had a very cold night and when the grey light of dusk entered the inn the truth was revealed. The medicine hadn't worked at all. They all had lice still and the insects were as vigorous as before and everybody was itching like mad. The next step was obvious, combing the lice out of the hair. The innkeeper's wife got several lice combs from the other women in the village and they all went to work. Now the elves did suffer because the ointment had made their hair very static and caused countless tangles. There was a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth and Legolas sat there and let Galion comb through his hair while he tried not to yell out in pain.

The humans and the dwarves had more ground to cover so to speak, the body hair had to be checked too and it was a peculiar sight indeed. It was weird but nobody were trying to insult the other races present now, they had more than enough with their own despair and fear. The combing didn't work, they didn't manage to get rid of all the lice like that and so the next step was removing hair. That caused an uproar among the dwarves, but alas, that didn't work. They had to do it, and razors were found and sharpened. Even the elves had to shave down there and there were some rather nervous expressions to be seen. Now there were a lot of males sitting there covered in shaving foam from head to toes and it was a most peculiar sight. The innkeeper's wife was scurrying around blushing like a maiden on her wedding night and the sight probably added years to her life. There were an unholy lot of very well shaped menfolk present and she was secretly enjoying herself a lot but her husband would never have guessed that.

The shaving did help a little, but the lice weren't to be vanquished so easily, they returned with a vengeance and fought the attempts at eradication with a determination that would have made Sauron green with envy. The itching didn't stop either and the elves were a miserable sight, they hated the idea of parasites of any sort and for some peculiar reason the lice seemed to like their blood better than that of the dwarves and humans. It could be that fact that elves are prone to enjoy good red wine more often than humans, and dwarves are after all creatures of the earth, perhaps their blood had a certain metallic taste to it the lice didn't really like.

Legolas didn't really believe it when the final solution was presented. A complete shave. For an elf the idea of shaving their heads was outrageous, it was just unthinkable and they all fell eerily silent when the proposition was laid forth. The dwarves almost passed out, to them the idea of losing their beards was worse than the idea of losing their home and family. They refused, and dwarves do know the art of refusing, they are as adamant as the very bones of the earth when their minds are made up. The leader of the rangers sighed and told them with in a calm voice that then they had to return home with lice and most certainly the darn plague would spread and everybody would know who had caused it too.

The choice was theirs, save their beards and spread the lice or sacrifice their pride and save that of others. The rangers didn't hesitate, they accepted their fate with a shrug and helped each other shave, the end result brought the elves to tears and the dwarves to hysterical laughter. The men were used to travelling in the wilds and they were tanned and worn, the sun had kissed their skin until they all looked like leather but their skulls were egg white and so were their chins where the beards had been. It looked downright bizarre and the dwarves very reluctantly agreed, if the humans could do this then they couldn't be any less brave but they shed their tears as their pride and joy were removed by the razors.

Legolas had never seen a beardless dwarf, and he had absolutely not seen one without hair at all. It was a sight to behold and he didn't know of he should be weeping in sympathy or laughing his guts out. They too had that pale white skin where the hair had been and they looked like very sad and grumpy toddlers who hasn't gotten their will. But at least the lice would be gone.

The elves had no beards, but there was no pardon to be found, their long flowing locks could house a lot of lice and so it had to go. Legolas cringed as Galion cut his braid close to the nape of his neck and then started shaving off the rest of it. Some of the warriors started singing a very sorrow filled lament when the deed was done, most of them were crying and there was in fact a bit of sympathy to be seen in the eyes of the dwarves. They of course knew how proud the elves were of their beautiful hair. The innkeeper's wife burned all the hair in the hearth and the stench of burned hair made everybody cringe. Before long the bath was filled with sad songs, wailing and tears and it had become a very somber place.

The dwarves and the elves ate side by side that evening, nobody tossed food or made fun of each other and everybody wore their cloaks with the hoods pulled up. The dwarf females were just as stricken as the males and tears were running all the time. The bedding and their clothes had been boiled a few times to remove all the lice and some had found out that the clothes they got back were fitting for a hobbit, not a grown ellon.

The next day the storm had passed, the roaring rivers returned to normal and the travelers could each and every go their own not so merry way. The elves did bid the dwarves farewell in a much more polite way than ever before and the rangers felt that this perhaps hadn't been too bad after all. Nobody had gotten killed, and just their pride had been injured. The hair would grow back in time and the idea of them having spent several days in an inn with both elves and dwarves without casualties was amazing.

The elven group arrived in Imladris two days later, they were greeted by Elrond who didn't understand why they didn't remove their hoods until they were inside. When he saw their shaved heads he burst into an involuntary fit of laughter before he expressed his heartfelt sympathy, still giggling like mad. He hadn't laughed like that for an entire age and it made his stomach ache. It took ten minutes before the entire valley knew the sad tale of the inn and the lice and the dwarves and Legolas insisted on keeping his hood up during the entire stay.

When he returned to his father's palace he had already grown some soft stubble which resembled velvet to a touch and the king almost lost it when he saw that both his son, his butler and his most trusted guards returned almost bald. He wept for the loss of his son's beautiful long hair but that didn't stop him from ordering that everything they had been wearing or bringing along during their trip was to be washed, washed again and then boiled just to make sure that no lice had hitched a ride back to the palace. The only good thing that came from the incident was that Legolas didn't find dwarves quite as repulsive as his father did and he had a lot of fun over the next weeks pretending to be scratching an itch and then watching his father go pale and run like his robes were on fire, looking for a fine toothed comb.