Mary's Trip to Isengard Chapter 1/10

Mary's Trip to Isengard,

Starring: Mary Aseltyne and a cast of thousands!

Rated: G

Daily Diary Entry

Day 6
When I left off we had been to Helm's Deep and had met up with Legolas and Gimli while there. When the next day came, the day we finally ran out of reasons and excuses for not going directly to Isengard, the Twins woke me with some pleasant news. Legolas and Gimli were headed into Fangorn Forest for a visit with the Ents and would be traveling with us for at least the first part of that day. I gutheythey thought this would cheer me up but at that point I felt, more or less, the way a condemned person must feel while on their way to the gallows. It wouldn't really matter who walked along beside you when your final destination just happens to be tast ast place on earth you would choose to be, would it?

We left after breakfast and saying our final goodbyes to the Lords Eomer and Faramir and the Lady Eowyn, who took me aside for a final "Grima’-briefing" as she had had to deal with that wretched creature for most of her life and knew more about his nature than any other human alive. "You are lucky, in a way," she said, "that he is so cowardly and easily intimidated because someone as clever-minded as yourself ld bld be able to easily control the situation, just remember what I said and never turn your back on him!" As a parting gift she presented me with a silver bracelet adorned with the Edoras symbol of two horse heads in profile face-to-face. The Twins were swaggering around the courtyard as they displayed their new massive silver horse-head belt buckles presented to them by Eomer earlier in the day. They made him promise to come visit the Haldir_Lovers' Riding Stables for some unique "riding-fun" with the management team of Char, Jen and Nueume, "Fair maidens, all!" according the Bad Boys.

The same Rohirrim escorts who had met up with us at Sarn Gebir were to accny uny us as well in order to return with the mearas tha wou would be riding into Isengard. It was hard to feel gloomy while being surrounded by all that male flesh, elves, men and horses! Legolas and Gimli rode alongside me for quite a while and the dwarf was nearly beside himself that held nld not personally escort me up the stairs of Orthanc with his battle-axe at the ready. "Just tell Grima' that he will have to answer to me, personally, if a single hair on your beautiful head is found out of place after your so-called "date!" The Twins laughed, "Don't you trust us, Master Dwarf, to keep our Lady from harm?" asked Elladan. "Wormtongue will be known as "Worm-meat" if he behaves as anything less than a perfect gentleman with Mary!" exclaimed Elrohir. Gimli did not look impressed. He pulled his axe from its sling, held the menacing weapon up, and expressed his desire to deliver "A few gentle lessons in manners and deportment first" before he would have allowed me to spend even a minute alone with Grima'. The Twins assured him that they were quite capable of giving Grima’ more than just a few proper lessons in deportment, if needed.

We reached the edge of the Fangorn Forest at mid-day and had a picnic in the grassy meadowland before saying our goodbyes to Legolas and Gimli. As I watched them ride in to the forest I nearly fell from my saddle as I tried to stand up in the stirrups in an effort to spot and Ent or two. One of Rohan escort reminded me that there were plenty of Ents at Isengard as they been put in charge of renovation and reconstruction following the fall of Sauron and the diminishment of Saruman's power. "Saruman has long since departed so you have nothing to fear from his wizardly tongue and black arts," they assured me.

Isengard is like a great bowl, instead of a steep valley such as Rivendell, and is surrounded by an enormous fortification of walls with a tunnel entrance. Standing guard on either side of the tunnel were two of the large tree-like Ent folk and it was a most unusual experience to be greeted by a talking tree. "Welcome to Isengard, Mary of Haldir_Lovers, we have been advised of your arrival and are pleased to see you have made it safe and sound for your visit here," said the smaller of the two Ent-guards in the slow, sonorous speech of his kind. The Twins were fascinated with both them and with Isengard, for they had only heard legends and tales about Ents and the Wizard Saruman, and his evil Uruk-hai. They were a little disappointed that there weren't a few of the orc-men creatures available for "entertainment purposes."

When you exit the tunnel the first thing you see is that enormous tower of jet-black stone dominating the other wise breath-taking landscape. The Ents had been busy planting and gardening and the whole area was like an enormous park with trees, bushes, and many glorious and fragrant types of flowers lining neat paths of ground rock. The Tower was still too far in the distance for me to be able to tell if Grima' was standing on the staircase waiting for us, like Saruman greeted Gandalf in the movie version of the Fellowship of the Ring, but the Twins elvish eyesight revealed that someone was waiting there for us, although they could not tell just exactly who it was. "Grima’ has black hair," said Elladan, "and whoever is standing there appears to have longer, almost silvery, hair." It couldn't have been Saruman, as the Ent guards had reassured me that he was long gone from the premises, so we were all a bit puzzled until Elrohir suddenly proclaimed, "It's Grima'! He has on an elf wig with braids and all!" The Twins nearly fell from their saddles with laughter as we made our final approach and I was personally stunned at the transformation of my "dream-date" from grimy Grima' to someone resembling a mixture of elf, pirate and drag-queen. I wasn't sure if I should laugh, cry or just turn around and get the heck out of there and back to Rohan or, even better, all the way back to Lothlorien where I could live quite happily for the rest of my life, but, as I had made it that far it was time to accept my fate.

On closer inspection it became obvious that Grima' had been "cleaned up" for our meeting. Well, maybe "clean" isn't exactly the word, more like "power-washed!" He bowed and gave me a sickly smile and I could tell he had cleaned his teeth, possibly with bleach, as they appeared a few lighter shades of their usual gray, but, they were still just as crooked. The platinum-colored elf wig did nothing for his greenish complexion, except maybe highlight a few of his more prominent facial blemishes, but at least it looked better than the stringy, greasy mop that was concealed beneath it. His costume, however, was nearly undescribable. "What are you wearing?" I asked him, even before he had the chance to speak, "Are you supposed to look like a pirate or something?"

Grima' drew himself up to full stature, "I'll have you know that I have been told this outfit is all the rage at Haldir_Lovers Paradise Resort and I think I happen to look quite dashing!" With that said he did a pirouette so that the thigh length jacket he wore swirled and the various beads and baubles that were woven into the elf-braids on his wig clattered as they fell back into place upon his shoulders. The "swash-buckler" hat he was wearing was too large for his pointy head and it flew off and landed on the steps which prompted snorts and sniggers from the Twins and the Rohirrim escort but I just sat there trying to take this all in. Not only did he have the hat and the jacket but he had the whole rather "Jack Sparrowish" looking pirate outfit on, from boots to blouse, and it appeared he was wearing black eyeliner and possibly even lipstick.

"Grima'," I began, but then I closed my eyes tight for a moment as I struggled to come up with a compliment on his efforts to look presentable, "this...this outfit you're wearing, this wasn't Dorothy's idea, was it? A blonde Jack Sparrow?"

"Actually," said Grima while stroking his elf-pirate hair, "this wig was Donna's idea. She thought I would better please you as a blonde, are you not pleased?" He was so pathetically eager for my approval that I almost pitied him. The Twins, however, decided that the time for chit-chat was over and the time for the laying of ground rules had begun. They lifted Grima' bodily, one on each side grabbing him at the shoulders, and carried him further up the stairs while giving him their "tips" on proper deportment.

"You will not touch Mary without her permission," said Elladan.

"You will not ask Mary for permission to touch her," said Elrohir.

"You will not keep either of us separated from Mary unless that is what she wants," said Elladan.

"Even if you tell us that is what she wants, we won't believe you," said Elrohir.

And like that...

I bade farewell to the Rohirrim escort and waited at the bottom of the staircase entry where the air was fresh and fragrant instead of following the Bad Boys and Grima’ any further up into Orthanc. I was hoping to see another Ent but the Twins returned and took turns carrying me, over-the-shoulder of course, up the long stair made of black obsidian. Grima’ had prepared a suite of rooms near the top of the Tower for my use and, after the Twins placed me and my things safely down, tried to direct the boys to a similar set of rooms prepared for them, "only a few floors below," as he put it. They just laughed and pointed out that it would be up to me where they slept or had he already forgotten one of their ground-rules? The look on his pathetic face caused another spasm of pity to grip me but I managed to ignore it and thanked Grima' for the nice rooms and told him I was going to turn in early, "gotta get my beauty sleep for our big date tomorrow," and shut the door in his face.

Eowyn had packed us a basket of food because she did not want any of us to eat anything prepared for us by Grima' and we unloaded the goodies from within it onto a small table near a window. "Strawberries!" shouted the Twins in unison as they unwrapped sketsket filled the the plump delicious fruit, 'we love strawberries! How did Eowyn know?"

"Oh," I said, while removing the marshmallow fluff, remaining bottle of chocolate syrup and bottle of Lorien wine I had been saving for such an occasion, "maybe a "little bird" told her? Now, who wants to get sticky first?"

That was the end of day 6-you will have to wait one more day to find out how we spent our last day-I assure you, it will be worth the wait...

Love you, Mary