Lapsus Memoriae [Rávamë's Bane: Book 1]

Part III : Chapter 22 ~ Two Souls

"What do you call a psychic hobbit that has escaped from a dungeon?" Pippin yelled over the gap between the boats, and I could hear his grin even though I couldn't quite see it.

We'd been floating down the River Anduin in the elven boats for three days straight, though it felt much longer. For all the drama and regal goodbye, the trip since we'd left Lothlórien had been, and there's no nice way to say it, kind of dull — and had gone some way to showing me why film directors chose to use time-skip montages. Honestly, the whole thing was starting to feel like some bizarre parody of a road trip; one in which we had been spending an average of four hours at a time floating down the river, only stopping to eat or sleep on the banks.

Naturally, this meant the hobbits and I were bored out of our mined within the first few hours, and in the absence of a decent book or an iPod, this of course meant we had to resort to other means of keeping ourselves sane. During the first few days we'd told stories, each of us taking turns to pass the time, though I somehow ended up telling more than the others. Then it had somehow escalated to raunchy pub songs, provided mostly by Merry, Pippin and even Gimli — who'd clearly had enough practice with drunken singing to become rather good at it even when sober. Eventually Sam and Frodo had pitched in with some less vulgar ballads, which in turn had pulled the rest of us into the fray.

We'd been cruising comfortably downstream for about three hours on the fourth day, by which time the conversation had deteriorated thus:

There was a beat of 'um'ing and 'ur'ing as everyone thought about Pippin's riddle for a moment. Then, finally, Frodo caved first and called back from the boat several feet ahead.

"We give up! Tell us!"

Pippin's grin widened.

"A small medium at large," he answered cheerily. Laughter erupted from all directions over the sounds of the water and the creaking of the boats. We were quite spread out, but still close enough together for me to see wide smiles on Frodo's, Sam's and Merry's faces, and the amused quirk of Aragorn's lip.

"Point to Pippin!" I announced, having been tasked with keeping track of who was winning the 'how-many-bad-jokes-can-I-come-up-with-that-no-one-has-heard-before' game. "My turn now! What do you get when you cross Middle Earth with the Silvan elves?"

There was a collective spattering of thoughtful sounds, but no guesses. I grinned slyly, then answered.

"About half way."

Aragorn actually laughed a deep rolling chuckle at that, though there were only puzzled sounds from Merry, Pippin and Gimli who all seemed to have not quite understood the punchline. Legolas had got it, though.

"That was low, Eleanor," he chided from where he was steering the boat behind me, but I could hear his laughing smile without turning around.

"You have a better one, your highness?" I asked primly over one shoulder.

He paused for a moment, thinking, then said:

"What do you call a beautiful woman on the arm of a dwarf?"

No one knew, and I could practically feel Legolas's self-satisfied smile against the back my neck.

"A tattoo."

Gimli made a sputtering sound and spun to glare at the elf. His outrage was rather spoiled by a cry of panic as the boat suddenly lurched, and the hobbits crowed with giggles.

"Now that was low!" I snickered as Legolas tried to steady the boat, still chuckling.

"Anyone want to challenge that one?" Merry asked with theatrical seriousness. There was a seconds paused before Sam — who had been working mostly on conquering his fear of boats rather than jokes this whole time — raised his voice from a little way ahead of us.