The sun shone.
A horde of large Orcs (well, they were really middling-to-small Orcs, but large – or even gigantic – sound more impressive) fought two tired, injured and irritated Elf-Lords.
The odds were unquestionably with the Orcs.
“This,” said Erestor, “Is unbelievable.”
Glorfindel looked hard at Erestor. Was the Elf already feeling ill? Perhaps he was delirious. He had sounded so exultant.
He didn’t look ill, so Glorfindel regretfully concluded that it had been a sensible observation.
“What is unbelievable?” he asked.
“We really are cursed,” replied Erestor, brushing his wet hair away from his face impatiently.
“How so?” asked Glorfindel, just to play with the idea a bit.
“Well,” said Erestor, “I’m probably in danger of losing this arm, those pesky beasts joined up with another horde of pesky beasts and decided to murder us together, and – ” he gestured around at the skies, “It’s raining. Again.”
Glorfindel chuckled to himself and inconspicuously darted a glance at Erestor’s arm. It looked ugly, red, andÂ…well, bloody.
“Of course,” he muttered to himself. “Wounds inflicted by Orc daggers have an annoying little habit of doing that, stupid Elf. Especially when said wounds pierce the skin.”
He wondered why they were running into such abysmal bad luck. Perhaps they were merely hallucinating, and they were really in the pits of Angband.
“Yes,” said Glorfindel aloud. “That must be it. Any moment now we are going to wake up and Morgoth is going to graciously welcome us to his home-away-from-home.”
“If only, my friend,” sighed Erestor. “It would be somewhat better than fighting fifty Orcs – no, forty-five – no, it’s a bit less than that now, isn’t it?”
“How many are there?” asked Glorfindel.
Erestor did some quick mental arithmetic (something along the lines of: If I place this many Orcs in a grid, then the number of rows times the number of columnsÂ…).
“Thirty-six,” he said.
“Right,” said Glorfindel. “That gives us eighteen each.”
“Seventeen,” said Erestor, killing two Orcs with one stroke.
“Yes, seventeen,” agreed Glorfindel.
“You know,” he added, “If I could travel back in time and meet myself when I decided to go on this trip, I would hit myself so hard I wouldn’t know what had hit me.”
Erestor took a couple of minutes to wend his way through this laborious maze of words.
‘Really?” he asked wryly. “Well, let me just say that I would join you in that noble task, my friend.”
Glorfindel looked at Erestor.
“I think you knew this was going to happen.”
“Who, me?” asked Erestor innocently, busily driving Orcs away with one hand and looking innocuously (and ineffectually) at Glorfindel. “Nothing of the sort, dear friend. I was merely acting on the principle that you are practically gifted at getting into these – ” he vaguely waved the hand that was not killing Orcs around at their surroundings ” – situations.”
“You insult me, my friend,” said Glorfindel gravely.
Erestor snorted cynically and went back to the Orcs.
“Oh, what a jolly holiday this is,” muttered Glorfindel savagely.”

<>

Dark clouds covered the sky, and a certain Elf wondered whether this was because the sun had given up on them and left.
It wouldn’t be too surprising, thought Glorfindel grimly, hacking into a large row of Orcs.
All the Valar seemed to be conspiring against them. It was either that or Morgoth had escaped. There was no other possible explanation for this prodigious stream of bad luck that assaulted them continually.
Glorfindel looked to his right. Erestor looked discomfited and unhappy. Unusually for him, he was also quite messy.
“I guess he’s all right,” said Glorfindel to himself.
Erestor dodged an Orc and stumbled slightly.
“I take that back,” muttered Glorfindel grumpily. “He is not all right.”
And neither was Glorfindel.
Erestor’s bandage – the one he had put on just before the little ‘incident’ with the wine – had come off, and Glorfindel was strenuously avoiding looking at his arm, as he didn’t really want to know how bloody and ugly the wound was now. He was going to avoid doing that for as long as was possible.
And some enterprising Orc had taken advantage of the fact that Glorfindel was hurt and distracted and actually managed to place a slice across his forehead.
Of course, Glorfindel had killed the Orc, but that didn’t stop it from hurting.
It did give him a certain moody satisfaction, but that was about all.

A sudden sound startled Erestor. He twisted around and looked at the tree where the horses were tied.
Or rather, where the horses had been tied.
There didn’t seem to be any horses there now.
Erestor fought the urge to hang his head. It was rude anyway, and he didn’t want to see how quickly he would be killed if he hung his head in the middle of this battle.
But he was sure about what was going to happen after this.
One of them was going to carry the other.
Erestor didn’t have real foresight like Lord Elrond, but you didn’t need it to extrapolate from this situation.
“Glorfindel!” he yelled hoarsely.
Glorfindel looked around. Erestor jerked a thumb at the uprooted pickets wordlessly.
Glorfindel grimaced and gestured expressively.
He shouted something about ‘doom’, ‘the Valar’, and ‘my turn to do the bandages’.
Erestor chuckled to himself.
Yes, it was indeed Glorfindel’s turn to do the bandages.
And Glorfindel would probably revel in the opportunity, and might even – Erestor shuddered – drug him.
Ilúvatar forbid.

Glorfindel looked at Erestor. He was really beginning to wonder whether the other Elf was delusional or delirious.
What on Arda did he have to smile about? They were fighting a band of Orcs who stubbornly refused to die or even diminish in number, it was dark, it was about to rain, and Erestor was probably poisoned. Add to that the fact that a long gash on Glorfindel’s forehead was bleeding freely and unrestrainedly, and you had in your hands absolutely nothing worth any mirth. Nothing at all.
So what was Erestor smiling about?
Perhaps, thought Glorfindel wryly, he was hallucinating and Erestor wasn’t.
Oh well, he thought. It could be worse.
At least he wasn’t poisoned.

<>

Glorfindel and Erestor looked around at a scene of chaos, bloodshed, destruction, and carnage.
‘Messy’, thought Erestor disapprovingly.
‘Cool, that’s a lot of Orcs to kill’, thought Glorfindel. ‘I think we deserve a statue.’
Glorfindel limped over to Erestor. He was limping because he had stupidly twisted his ankle. But he wanted to know if Erestor was all right.
As Glorfindel got closer to Erestor, he could see that the other Elf did not look all right.
“Erestor?” he asked worriedly. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” said Erestor. “I just need to sit down for a little while.”
“What, here?” asked Glorfindel, vaguely gesturing around at the piles of carcasses.
“It would be nicer somewhere else,” replied Erestor, squatting on a fallen log, “But this will just have to do.”
“That was quite an adventure,” said Glorfindel.
“Hmm,” agreed Erestor distractedly.
Actually, he didn’t feel at all well. He had a headache that felt like ten million excitable Dwarves were remodelling the interiors of his skull, and his arm didn’t exactly feel like it was in the best of shape either.
“Erestor? Are you sure you’re fine? Erestor?”
“I’m fine,” said Erestor moodily.
He was not fine. He knew that he was not fine.
But he wasn’t admitting that to Glorfindel.
“Erestor?” asked Glorfindel again. Erestor assumed that he wasn’t looking fine, either.
He looked up at Glorfindel’s comically worried face.
And passed out.