A few notes before we begin:

This story was born from a bit of dialogue I had to cut out of “Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Hobbits”. It took me quite a while to figure out what to do with the dialogue, as I quite enjoyed it and didn’t want to lose it entirely. I had thought to write a short ficlet from it, also set in Rivendell, but this story came to me instead. The dialogue responsible for this story is at the end of the first chapter and concerns a prank Frodo played on a young, impressionable Merry. It has been altered slightly to fit its new context.

This story picks up directly after the events in “A Humble Gift”/“Reflections” and the epilogues to “Quest for the Hairless Cat” and “Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Hobbits”. There will be some references to those stories and others, but it should not be necessary to have read those to understand anything that will take place here.

There will also be some references to the history I built for the Haradrim in "Blue Wizard Blues" as well as some borrowing of some characters and tales referred to therein. BWB is an AU, but don't worry - none of the AU elements will so much as touch this story. "Distractions" is not an AU, it is canon-based only. So it is not necessary to have read BWB either, but those who have will be one step ahead of the game once we get to that part of the tale. 

(A/N added 5/24/09: I know I said this was canon-based. However, I just realized that I made a boo-boo with the timeline. This story begins June 6, but Elrohir and Elladan were supposed to have left the city on May 8 for Rohan with Éomer and Éowyn, and likewise are supposed to be meeting Arwen’s escort on June 14. I could have sworn I checked that timeline over before starting this story, but apparently I missed the two dates I was looking for! Go figure. So I had two options: change my timeline entirely, which would mess up everything else I had written prior to this story, or remove the twins. I decided to do neither. The first would just require too much work, and the second didn’t seem fair to the twins, who were enjoying themselves far too much. And honestly, how many escorts does Arwen need anyway? So, despite my best efforts, this story does have one teeny tiny AU element, that will be resolved before the end, no worries. Sincere apologies!)

And now, without further ado...
 
 
 
 
 

Disclaimer: These are not my characters (except the OCs). I'm just playing with them and will put them back where I found them when I'm done. I am not making any money from this.
 
 
 

GF 2/22/09