A Second Chance

Chapter 28

The Picture is Emma~~

"Are we there yet?"

"No!"

"What about now?"

"Emma, go torture Legolas with your petty whining."

"But Thraaaandyyyyy!"

"No buts. Go." Thranduil waved his hand in Legolas' general direction, and Emma grumbled before skulking down the long train of elves. She fell into step next to Legolas and stared at him.

Legolas lifted an eyebrow. "Yes Emma?"

"Your father told me to annoy you."

Legolas looked vaguely surprised.

"Apparently I was irritating him."

Legolas mouthed 'ah' and wore an expression of understanding.

"How much longer?" Emma whined.

"We're almost there Emma. Where is Zippy and Carl?"

Emma shrugged.

Legolas sighed.

"I hate those word crimes!"

Legolas internally panicked. "No singing... Please!" he begged.

oOo

Finally they reached the clearing that the festival was taking place in. As the king rode in on his elk, a cheer went up among the elves already busy preparing for the party. Emma was glad to see fires and... tents! Emma nearly squealed and ran up to Thranduil (both of them pretended like the vengeful snowball fight never occurred) and practically hung off him, asking which tent she could use.

Thranduil contained an annoyed sigh, before pointing to the good sized tent that was placed to the left of his (which was, of course, the biggest). Emma actually did squeal this time, and ran back to Miri and her bags, dragging both to the inviting tent.

After Emma and Miri changed, they went back outside and Emma took in more of her surroundings. It was decorated not unlike the feast of that dreaded night, the night she had been taken, except it was much prettier; especially with the snow (she studiously avoided thinking of anything other than that party). There were lanterns hanging from the branches of the trees, and a large, ginormous actually, bonfire was being built in the center of it all. Tables lined the sides of the clearing, slowly being filled up with food and drink, and elves were rushing back and forth, doing their jobs, chatting, laughing, and singing. Emma went over to the nearest important looking elf, and asked for a job, hoping to occupy herself until the actual start of the feast. He pointed her over to the elf who seemed to be addressing the food ferrying.

"Uh... Excuse me?" Either he didn't hear her or he was ignoring her. Emma rolled her eyes and proceeded to vigorously poke in between his shoulder blades.

He whirled around. "I beg your pardon!"

Emma smiled innocently up at him. "I need a job."

The ellon looked confused for a moment, before he sighed and directed her to haul the biggest salad she had ever seen in her entire life, over to the table 'on the right'. The problem was, her arms were neither long, or strong enough to haul the giant salad bowl anywhere, let alone to the 'table to the right'. This was another problem. There where at least four tables to the right. Emma rolled her eyes and looked around for someone to assist her.

"Zippy!"

Zippy froze midstep, looking like a cornered squirrel.

"Could you help me lug this salad over there?" Emma gestured to the right with her head, busy holding the salad up against the table. Zippy heaved a sigh of long-suffering and slowly shuffled over to help the bane of his existence (he really didn't have too big of a problem with her... she just seemed set on making him miserable).