Mischief

Mischief: Chapter 6

The birds were singing a sweet tune from their nests and a slight wind flowed lazily through their camp. Aragorn was sitting quietly in conversation with Gandalf, the three Hobbits still dozed and was joined by Pippin, back from night patrol. Legolas was nowhere to be found and Boromir was preparing for the fire for their meals.

Nobody noticed Gimli.

Yawning and stretching, the dwarf rolled up his sleeping bag, feeling like today was going to be a particularly good day after a deep, dreamless sleep.

He'd never been more mistaken in his entire life.

"Good mornin' Gandalf, Aragorn." He thought it was going to be a good day until he noticed that the had both stopped speechless, staring at his face as if he'd grown an extra eyeball on his nose.

"What?"

Neither of them said anything, but he didn't like either of their expressions. As if sensing the awkwardness, Boromir turned around as well, jaw dropping open in surprise.

"WHAT?! What are you people staring at?" He questioned a bit louder now, their combined silenced was grating on his nerves. His voice attracted the hobbits, and Pippin struggled to keep silent, but in the end, failed. He was joined by Merry and the rest.

Aragorn said nothing, instead pointed at Gimli's chin, where his beard should have been.

"What never seen a beard bef-" his hand grasped empty air as he felt for the missing hairs.

"Wha- it was- how-" It had never occurred to Gimli once in his entire life that anyone would sabotage his hair, his most prized possession.

He froze, not letting out even a breath as the realization sunk in. The whole forest had gone quiet as if sensing a ticking time bomb.

Nobody within a one-mile radius even had time to seek cover before it exploded.

"LEEEEEEGGGGOOOOLLLLLAAAAASSSS!!!!!!!!"

The trees seemingly rattled with Gimli's mighty bellow, birds flocked up into the air and fled squawking as if Sauron was on their trails, and his intended person heard it as well, as you had to be deaf not to hear his cry.

"Where is he?! Where is that bloody wood-elf?! I will rip his hair out of his pretty head!" The entire Fellowship cringed, the hobbits wilting with fear and even the two men and Gandalf the Gray seemed to be affected by his fury.

Gimli's entire face, now depleted of half of the hair he had set out with from Rivendell, was the color of the flames of Mount Doom, and suddenly facing the armies of bloodthirsty orcs seemed a safer choice than to face the dwarf's wrath.

Legolas, who had come running despite the obvious anger directed towards him, slipped back into the camp silently without any attention.

"WHERE IS HE?! WHERE IS THAT STUPID ELF?!" He repeated with renewed vigor, this time directed towards the remaining company.

Gimli glared at Strider, who tried not to look too suspicious and just shrugged, and gave a soft, "I'm not sure Gimli."

Just as his gaze swept around the room for clues to Legolas's whereabouts, he spotted something red on one of the bedrolls. Something the hue of his lost beard.

It was strands of it.

On Boromir's bedroll.

Once Legolas had deemed it safe to expose himself, judging by the look on Gimli's face as he now fumed at the human, the elf let a twig crunch underfoot as he moved into view.

"Here I am. I heard you calling and I came back." He hoped the anxiety didn't appear in his voice.

"And what were you doing?!" Gimli spun around accusing him.

"I was just searching for food."

It didn't look like Gimli completely bought the lie, but now he thought he had found the taker of his beard and was too fueled by rage to care about anything else.

"You! You'll pay for this!" Even though Gimli was nearly half his height he was no less menacing, even without his battle ax.

He stormed over to the human, Frodo and the rest backing away, and yanked him down to eye level, pulling back a fist.

Now, the man had seen a lot of death and war before, but Boromir had never felt as scared as he was now facing off against a vengeful warrior dwarf.

"I-It wasn't me!" He spluttered, holding up his hands in surrender.

Gandalf, who had been watching both interestedly and silently from the background stepped forward to stop Gimli from breaking the innocent's nose and face.

"Now Gimli, I'm sure it was just a good-natured prank, he was probably just avenging me after your little.....incident there." The old wizard used his staff to put some distance between the two.

"You'll grow it back good as new, now. Let's not do anything hasty."

Growling, after a moment deciding whether or not to risk Gandalf's spells or to just back off, his common sense convinced him in the end that it wasn't worth being transformed into something unnatural.

Gimli took a couple steps back but never broke eye contact with Boromir.

"Mark my words human, you haven't seen the end of this yet!" He spat shaking a gloved fist in front of his face, marching off to go brood over some vengeance.

After the storm cloud blew away, all eyes were turned towards Legolas once again. There was that knowing look on Gandalf's face that made him want to hide in a hole and stay there.

Boromir most likely already suspected, too, but he said nothing, but his expression spoke volumes of what he didn't voice.

And from the looks Gandalf and Aragorn were giving him, it really wasn't really hard to guess what was going on in their minds, either.