(We find ourselves actually at Dunharrow now. There are thousands of tents holding Rohirrim and other able-bodied men of Rohan. We are on the side of the mountain, near to the ghastly Paths of the Dead. The girls are getting off their horses and going to their tent.)
Kit: My bum hurts.
Stevie: And mine doesn�t?
Haldir: Oh, stop complaining. No one here cares. Besides, you�re largely among the Rohirrim, who take horses as their main priority. They�ll just laugh at you.
Stevie: Well, aren�t we Mr. Crankypants?
Haldir: (grumpy) Don�t go there.
Stevie: You so need to take a chill pill.
Haldir: I do not. Be quiet, wench.
Stevie: (to Kit) Did he just call me a wench?
Kit: I think he did.
Stevie: (back to Haldir) You called me a wench.
Haldir: Aye. What of it?
Stevie: That was severely uncool. Boromir used to do that to us, remember, Kit?
Kit: It was mostly Harper, but yeah.
Stevie: Haldir, you have a �tude problem.
Haldir: And?
Van: And I don�t like it.
Haldir: When did you join this conversation?
Van: When you all started arguing and upsetting me again.
(Haldir just harrumphs off. Van shrugs, Kit wonders what Mr. Marchwarden has shoved up his butt, and Stevie smirks.)
Kit: There is a smirk. Why is there a smirk?
Stevie: Oh, no. It has nothing to do with Haldir, honest. I need to talk to Spry and Dawdle again.
Van: Why?
Stevie: I need them to scoot on over to Rivendell, make Elrond have Narsil reforged, and bring it back for Aragorn.
Kit: That is important.
Stevie: (yelling) SPRY! DAWDLE! I NEED TO TALK TO YOU!
(With a magical poof and a bright flash, our two favorite Sprites show up. They look a wee bit peeved. Must�ve disrupted them or something.)
Spry: What is it?
Stevie: I need you to do something for me.
Spry: (rolls eyes) So what else is new? What is it? I�m busy.
Stevie: I need you, or Dawdle, or somebody to go to Rivendell and convince Elrond to have them put the shards of Narsil back together, and then bring the sword back for Aragorn.
Dawdle: That could take a while, you know. We have a tight schedule right around now.
Stevie: Well, forget your schedule! I need you to do this, or Middle-earth is in deep crap.
Spry: We�ll have it done. Is it alright if we have to have someone else do it for us?
Stevie: I don�t really care. As long as it�s here�..by tomorrow night?
Dawdle: Yeah, I think we can do something about that.
Stevie: Thanks a bajillion!
Dawdle: No problem.
Spry: Tootles.
(The two poof and flash off to do whatever. Stevie sighs. Kit and Van laugh and Stevie just looks at them.)
Stevie: What�s so funny?
Kit: I have this feeling that something funky is going to happen with all of this.
Van: Me too, though I don�t know what it is.
Stevie: (shrugs) Maybe that won�t be such a bad thing. I don�t know. I have to go report in to Mister Dirty Ranger Man and then hit the sack before he kills me.
Van: That�d be bad.
Kit: I�d say so. We�ll see you in a few.
Stevie: Okily-dokily.
(Stevie goes off to report to Aragorn, when she is stopped by Haldir. He looks kind of peeved, sort of like before.)
Stevie: Hey, what�s going on?
Haldir: What was up with Spry and Dawdle being here?
Stevie: I needed to ask them something.
Haldir: I know. What was it?
Stevie: That�s a secret. Nothing bad, I promise.
Haldir: I don�t want promises, I want answers. What is it?
Stevie: It�s something that Aragorn will need to become king. That�s all that I�m telling you. Now, if you would be so kind as to excuse me?
Haldir: Why do you always have to be such a troublemaker, Stevie?
Stevie: Troublemaker? I don�t make trouble. I am trouble. Never forget that.
(Over at the Gladden River, Harper and Boromir are fishing. Yeah, they are fishing. Kind of scary, isn�t it? It is. Now, this is a very amusing sight, seeing as Boromir keeps telling Harper to go away because she doesn�t know what she is doing, and he has no idea what he is doing. Using a fishing pole is not one of his strong points, obviously.)
Boromir: For goodness sake, woman, leave me be!
Harper: I was only trying to help. You don�t have to yell at me.
Boromir: (sighs) I am sorry. Perhaps you have a more effective way of doing this?
Harper: I guess.
(Harper takes her boots of and wades into the river up to her knees. She just stands there for several moments, bent over, with her hands in the water, unmoving. She stays like this for nearly fifteen minutes before she moves abruptly and then throws this uber-fish at Boromir. He ducks and the fish lands on the riverbank. He looks at the fish, looks at her, and repeats that process several times before he says anything.)
Boromir: (totally dismayed) That isn�t fair. I spent all day trying to do this and you can do it with your bare hands in fifteen minutes. It isn�t fair.
(Harper climbs out of the water and goes over and hugs him. He holds her gently and lowers his head to rest atop of hers.)
Harper: I�m sorry, sweetie. If I�d have known you�d be so upset I wouldn�t have done that. I didn�t even think it would work. (furrows her brow) It wasn�t supposed to work, anyway.
Boromir: It wasn�t?
Harper: (tilting her head up to look at him) Nope.
Boromir: (smiles) I love you.
(Before Harper can reply with an �I love you� of her own, he goes ahead and kisses her. Now, as all you wonderful people sit there yelling �yeah!� at your computer screen, the two are having this funky little thing going on. Harper stepped away from him when he broke the kiss, both of them in some kind of a happy little daze. Only, that daze was broken when Harper tripped on a rock and then proceeded in falling backwards and landing atop the still-wriggling fish.)
Harper: (shrieks) Ahh! Wiggly fish! Wiggly Fish!
Boromir: (laughing) Hold on, let me help you.
(Boromir now helps pull Harper up, and both are still laughing too hard to speak. Neither of them are really sure what to say when they can talk again. After a moment, Harper says something.)
Harper: Well, did we really expect our first kiss to be normal?
Boromir: You have a point there. Just for that, I think we should cook that fish right now. In honor and in thanks of making our first attempt at a truly romantic moment go awry.
(Back at Dunharrow, Stevie is �reporting in� to Aragorn. He appears to be in a weird type of funk, and Stevie figures that it is just the next upcoming days are causing him anxiety.)
Stevie: You wanted me to �report in�, Your Highnessness?
Aragorn: I did, and would you please not call me that?
Stevie: Nope. It�s too much fun.
Aragorn: (sighs) Fine. I just thought I�d let you know that you�ll be leaving the morning after next.
Stevie: Sounds good. That gives me a whole day to do whatever.
Aragorn: (smirks) Gives you a whole day not to get into trouble, I hope.
Stevie: Oh course, Your Highnessness. I would never do this �getting in trouble� thing.
Aragorn: Good, I�m glad to hear that. I wanted to ask you a question.
Stevie: Fire away.
Aragorn: Haldir seems touchy to me. Do you know what�s up with him?
Stevie: (rolls her yes) He�s just being cranky.
Aragorn: Just cranky? Looks to me like he�s a wee bit lonely.
Stevie: (serious) I think that�s an understatement, Aragorn.
Aragorn: Maybe he�s homesick. He isn�t angry with you over the whole thing. He said he forgave you. Maybe you should go and talk to him again.
Stevie: I could. That�d probably be a good idea.
Aragorn: Good. Go talk to him, and then I want you back in your tent! If you aren�t there by an hour to midnight I�m going to look for you, and when I find you heads will roll. Understood?
(Somewhere among the many tents at Dunharrow, Stevie finally manages to find Haldir. He is sitting near a lonely fire out at the edges of the encampment. He seems his usual dour self; only in his eyes Stevie can see a melancholy unbefitting a march warden of Haldir�s stature. She sits next to him and he turns to look at her, but doesn�t say anything.)
Stevie: I came to apologize about everything I�ve done to you.
Haldir: There is nothing to apologize for that I haven�t already forgiven.
Stevie: But there is. I shouldn�t have said what I did to you when we were out on the plains. It was hurtful and wrong. I feel truly awful about it.
Haldir: It�s alright, really.
(No one says anything for a while. They both sit there, staring at the fire, unmoving. After a while, the silence starts to bother Stevie, so she speaks up again.)
Stevie: You�re lonely.
Haldir: (tries to hide his surprise) What makes you think that?
Stevie: The fact that you�ve been all out of whack since I basically told you that you didn�t have a love life, ran off, and then had you shoved in a creepy room in the Voids of Space and Time.
Haldir: That obvious?
Stevie: Not really. I can see these things sometimes. I picked that up from Harper. She can pick up what you are feeling a mile away. I have no idea how she does it, though.
Haldir: That should make talking easier, when the person you�re talking to already knows how you feel.
Stevie: It does. Life is kind of like a Frisbee, going up and down and never in the direction you think it�s going to. Harper can generally do that. That�s why I always lose Ultimate Frisbee to her.
Haldir: (has no idea what Frisbee is) Fascinating.
Stevie: So, what are you going to do about it?
Haldir: Deal with it.
Stevie: Deal with it? As in remaining lonely and cranky for the rest of your days?
Haldir: Yeah, that�s about it.
Stevie: That�s about the worst plan I�ve ever heard.
Haldir: You have a better idea?
Stevie: Not exactly. Not yet anyway.
Haldir: That doesn�t make me feel any better, you know.
Stevie: Sorry.
Haldir: Thank you anyway.
Stevie: No problamo, buddy.
Haldir: Get you to your tent before Aragorn shows up and kills us both. It�s nearly an hour to midnight.
Stevie: Oh, goodie. Wouldn�t want Mr. Kinglypants to lop out heads off, would we?
Haldir: �Getting Beheaded� isn�t exactly one of the first things on my �To Do� list. Goodnight Stevie, and for Valar�s sake, no more trouble!
Stevie: Hey, remember what I said? I am trouble! In order to get rid of trouble, you�ll have to get rid of me.
