Chapter Text
“BLEH!” Pippin immediately spat out the bite of salad he’d, just seconds before, shovelled into his mouth with great enthusiasm.
“Pip? Everything okay?” Merry, who also was about to dig in, looked concernedly at his cousin.
“IS EVERYTHING OKAY HE ASKS?!”, Pippin’s face was marred with outrage, “NO IT ISNT! LEGOLAS!”
“What?” The prince of the woodland realm, currently distributing salad to a gaggle of incredibly unenthusiastic dwarves, turned around and tilted his head in confusion.
“CILANTRO!? WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND ADDS CILANTRO TO A SALAD?!”
Merry gasped.
Frodo frowned.
Sam gagged.
Bilbo, ever the gentleman, took Thorin’s bowl and threw it into the fire.
“Hey! Cilantro is a perfectly good herb!” Legolas, looking slightly hurt, defended his actions. “In my father’s realm we use it for salads all the time.” Tauriel nodded in agreement.
The hobbits collectively looked horrified.
Then, after a moment of dead silence (spare for the sizzling and smoking of the salad in the fire), Pippin Took stood up with a solemn face.
“I see. Well then, I am sad it has come to this, but you leave me no other choice.” He extended one arm and pointed accusingly at the confused elf. “Legolas, son of Thranduil. Over your violence against my people’s tastebuds, unprovoked I may add, and your refusal to repent for your actions, I, Peregrin Took, officially declare war against you and your realm.”
Merry clapped.
“He can do that?” Thorin looked at Bilbo, clearly weirded out. The hobbit nodded solemnly. “His father’s the Thain. Yeah he can do that.”
Legolas, now with his arms crossed defiantly and one salad-ladle in each hand, stood as well. “So be it, Peregrin Took. I accept your declaration of war. Be warned though, it will be you who will learn that the beauty that the complex flavour of cilantro adds to a salad is never to be demeaned.”
“Sweet,” Pippin said. “I’ve always wanted to do this.”
….
“Peregrin?”
“Yeah, Meriadoc?”
“You know what would make this even more dramatic?”
“Oh?”
“I’m gonna betray you.”
“Sweet.”
….
“So, just to clarify: You want one of us to marry you because you need to betray Pippin?” Kili looked curious, but not uninterested.
The hobbit, lounging in a chair, grinned. “Yep,” He said, popping the p.
“And your reason for this is…?,” Fili inquired.
Merry shrugged. “Eh, he’s a Took and I’m a Bandybock.”
“I have no idea what that means, but,” Fili looked over to his brother, “We were looking for a way to join in on the fun. And uncle won’t allow us to declare war on the woodland sprite even if he himself really wants to. At least not before we get Erebor back from that overgrown lizard.”
Kili inclined his head, contemplating. “A marriage alliance would theoretically necessitate that we enter the fray to defend our intended’s honour. I like how you’re thinking, Fi.”
“Well thank you, Ki.”
The two dwarves turned to face the hobbit, who still lounged in the shadows, grinning like a little shit. “We’ll do it.”
“Sweet.”
Too late they realized they had never clarified which one of the brothers Merry was supposed to wed, and before they realized their mistake both Kili and Fili had entered him into their family register separately. Not that either the hobbits or the dwarves had issues with polyamory, it was just weird.
It also annoyed Tauriel.
….
“You what?!” Legolas spluttered, almost falling off the branch he and Tauriel were sitting on.
“I need to marry someone.”
Legolas choked.
She boxed him in the arm. “Oh Eru, not marry marry, you idiot! But Kili is an idiot and fake married Merry who betrayed Pippin to join in on your little war campaign and I need to get back at him.” She grumpily threw a pinecone at a juvenile spider that was skittering over the forest floor under them. “I was thinking one of the other dwarves…. Thorin would be best, but he’s got too much of a stick up his ass to say yes. So I was thinking Ori maybe? He seems like a sweet guy.”
Legolas choked. Again.
“Nono, no more dwarves!” He hastily drew his bow and shot down the spider Tauriel had been antagonizing. “Adar almost got an aneurysm last time and I’m not ready to become king yet! Moreover, you’re still his ward, which kind of makes you a princess of your own right, so please aim a bit higher. Literally.”
He ignored the dirty look the elleth shot him. “Kili is surprisingly tall for a dwarf.”
“Mmmhhhh.”
She sighed. “But I guess you’re right. Wooing another dwarf might be too obvious and then it’s not really revenge… But who else is there who is in about our age category and would join in on something like this?”
They both were silent for a while, safe for the tell-tale sound of pinecones hitting chitinous carapaces.
“What about Arwen?”, Legolas said after a while.
“Lord Elrond’s daughter?” Tauriel looked like she was contemplating something.
“I’ve met her before. And she’s got two younger brothers, so she’s definitely no stranger to pranks.”
“But isn’t she, like, revered for being like the perfect Lady or something? Do you really think someone who is known far and wide for being his prim and proper would fake-marry me to get back on a dwarf?”
A sly smile stole itself on the prince’s face. “You misunderstand. She’s being compared to Luthien.”
Tauriel’s mouth formed a little ‘o’, before also splitting into a wide grin.
“Nice. So we’re gonna marry her.”
“Yes. WAIT, did you just say ‘we’?!”
“Of course, my Prince,” She smiled sweetly, “It wouldn’t be proper revenge if I didn’t one-up Kili now, would it? Besides, with the dwarves and the Brandybocks allied, you’ll need someone new on your side too if you don’t wanna lose this war.”
That seemed like logical reasoning. He groaned. “If Lord Elrond kills me, you pay for my funeral.”
“Sure”
“And for the love of Eru Iluvatar, STOP ANTAGONIZING THE SPIDERS!”
…
“What is this, dear sister?”
Arwen smiled sweetly, an elegantly embossed letter in her hand. It sent a shiver down Elladan and Elrohir’s spines.
“This?” She looked up at them with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. “This is a wonderful opportunity.”
…
“LEGOLAS!”
Legolas, pressed securely into a branch of a tree with particularly thick foliage looked over to a similarly tucked away Tauriel, just in time to see her make a shushing motion to some of the other silvan guards in the trees.
“LEGOLAS I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME! NOW GET OUT OF YOUR DAMNED TREE AND FACE ME LIKE A MAN, YOU FIANCÉE STEALING LITTLE SPRITE!”
Tauriel grimaced. ‘This is bad’, She signed to her partner in crime.
‘For Aragorn to use dwarven insults? Yeah no shit.’ He signed back. Internally cursing his lack of foresight; why had he forgotten about Arwen and Aragorn’s relationship? How had he forgotten about it. Aragorn had been waxing poetry about his love for months back at the Dunedains’.
“I WASN’T GOING TO INDULGE YOU’RE CHILDISH LITTLE WAR WITH THE HOBBITS, BUT I SWEAR TO THE STARS, IF YOU DO NOT CEASE THIS MADNESS AT ONCE I WILL BE FORCED TO TAKE ACTION AS WELL. ELLADAN AND ELROHIR ARE MOCKING ME INFRONT OF BOROMIR!”
Spoiler alert: They didn’t.
Thus, before the week ended, Gondor, now under it’s brand new King, declared war on the Woodland Realm, obviously, and the Shire because, to quote the newly crowned King Aragorn, ’Pippin needs to realize that actions have consequences’.