Authors Note: I never thought that I would write a fic with such tiny chapters…believe me, this has taken my average chapter length down from 10,000 words to just over 9,000 (it makes me very sad *sniff, sniff*).

To clarify – I detest Mary Sues, I find them tedious and anyone over the age of ten who writes them ought to be $^&$££"£%&*(*^^ (please substitute your own particular form of torture).

I've done a bit of research and found quite a few clichés that tend to emerge in LoTR fics – no offence to anyone who likes particular pairings of the none Mary-Sue type, be they slash or het.

And for the record, I don't have a thing for any actors/characters/species of Middle Earth – those that appear here are simply those I have come across in my flit through the fandom.

~~~

The Fourth of the Rings: Part iii

Fellowship

~~~

The Elf, his hair falling in waves about his chiselled jaw dashed forward and grasped Rhiannon's slender wrist. Her eye caught his but her attention was truly fixed on the other man who lurked near the trees – indeed as she regained her feet their eyes barely parted. His were blue and sparkling like the ocean on a calm summer day, cool, deep and alluring, Rhiannon's own were the brightest green flecked gold. Nudging Legolas aside Aragorn took Rhiannon's arm.

But it was not his gaze that held Rhiannons so securely. In the dappled light he stood, toes curling into the grassy earth as he marvelled at the beauty before him. Never before had Frodo seen such poise, such grace. Oh, however could he survive knowing that a thing like she as near oblivious of him.

With a light but firm grip, Rhiannon lifted Aragorn's hand from her arm.

"Thank you," she said expecting her second lapse into unexpected Sindarin yet this time she spoke in an ancient dialect of Quenya. Aragorn and Legolas looked uncertainly at one another and though they had never before shown any sign that they understood the language they know that those words (when in that dialect) were exactly the same as a terrible and ancient command in the black tongue of Mordor (another language, which until this moment they had demonstrated no knowledge of).

Beneath Barad-Dûr something (even more evil than usual) stirred.

As if connected Aragorn and Legolas turned and watched Rhiannon cross the glade, their heads swaying from side to side in time with her hips undulating as smoothly as the ebb and flow of the tide. Legolas stumbled in his effort to reach her but Aragorn grabbed his arm.

"Forget it, Legolas," he said wistfully as his own hopes regarding Rhiannon dried out, crumbled and were blown away in the wind. He nodded toward the trees, "looks like she's one of those that fancies Hobbits," he remarked in modern day English, "No hope for us."

"Yup," agreed Legolas, with a distinct New York twang, "We should count ourselves lucky that Gimli is not around. Imagine if she'd like, fancied dwarves."

"Come to think of it I haven't seen Boromir either."

"Y'know y'll not be seeing Arwen for a while, Aragorn" Legolas commented suggestively and in the same moment a new plotline bursting with romance was created with the simultaneous suicide of 700,000 fangirls who suddenly realised that he would never marry them.

~~~

Frodo blinked, and blinked again. She was coming closer, a vision. Was it true that stunning women were attracted to short hairy men or had she heard that she had just inherited Bilbo's millions?

Ah, he understood as her flimsy robes wafted and her bosom rose and fell with each step. She must be an Elf – of Elvish descent and there was an aura of great power about her (Ring Bearers just know things like that). Frodo's hand clutched his ring, it was singing to him, urging him to give it to her.

Each step was lighter than the last and by the time she reached him Rhiannon was almost walking on air, indeed the author had just decided to give her the gift of flight so she was in fact hovering an inch above the ground radiant and glorious and with her own ring securely and symbolically on the ring finger of her left hand.

"Hello," stuttered Frodo agog at the sight.