THE LORD OF THE CARDS. BEYOND THE WHITE TOWERS.
ENTMOOT.

Dedicated to k8trocks, my fifth reviewer. I bet I'll have a thousand reviews by the time I get to Mordor. Yeah you _know_ I will!

Mimi: Lookee who I've got! It's Gimli son of Glóin son of Gróin son of Bob.#
Gimli: *Waves* Hello to everybody and maybe to Legolas too. *Barbie-boy glares from the background*.
Mimi: So Gimli, what do you think of my world?
Gimli: *Scratches beard* Well, I do not like autimobulizers (A/N Cars) but I do like the food.
Mimi: What's your favourite food my purdy likkle dwarf?
Gimli: There are so many! French fries with catsup; chips with ketchup; crispy potatoes slices with tomato sauce, and fried spud strips with red sauce. Delicious!
Mimi: Aren't they all the same thing?
Gimli: *Grows up to seven feet* WHAT DID YOU SAY?
Mimi: *Looks at his feet* Nice platforms. Where did you get them?
Gimli: *Blushes* Aw thanks. Scary Spice gave them to me. She asked what happened the ones I was obviously wearing during 'Raiders'. Then she called me John Rhys Davies and walked off.
Mimi: Daft.
Gimli: Isn't it just?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
A deep voice rumbled behind the hobbits. A knobbly, brown hand placed itself on each of their shoulders and strongly turned them around.
The two gasped. It was a tree, yet it wasn't a tree. It was a troll, yet it wasn't a troll. It was…well Takashi summed it up in three simple letters.
"An Ent!"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"An Ent!" Eriol repeated. "What's that?"
The Ent frowned slightly. "Well, humm, I am what some call an Ent obviously. The question, however, should be: what type of creatures are you? I have never seen such kinds before."
"_Some_ call an Ent?" said Eriol confusedly. Takashi elbowed him.
"Please sir, we're hobbits!"
"Hobbits." The Ent said the word slowly. "That is certainly not on the old lists."
Takashi smiled brightly. "That's what we call ourselves."
The Ent's queer eyes widened in shock. "You call yourselves hobbits! By root and twig, you are hasty people indeed! You should not be giving out your true name in such a hurry in this, humm, bad time!"
Eriol nodded slightly, his previous confusion melting away with the last statement. "Our kind doesn't worry about such stuff…well most of the time. I'm Eriol and this is Takashi."
Takashi winked. "Yo."
Eriol rolled his eyes. "So Mr. Ent, what may we call you?"
The Ent's strange eyes crinkled up in the corners. "You may call me Treebeard. That is what Men call me. It would take a long while to say my true name, maybe even one of your lifetimes!"
Takashi wrinkled his nose. "That's …long alright. Us hobbits live to be around a century old."
"Unless you're Takashi's great-great-great-great-great-great-granddad," Eriol mused, "then you live to a hundred and thirty."
Treebeard laughed. "Well my young hobbits, I have strayed far and wide and I have never seen your kind before. You must be from very far away. Why have you come here then, when the bad is the worst it has been in years?"
Eriol strained his mind. He should tell the truth as well as he possibly could without revealing the Ring. "Two friends of ours, and us two were going to visit our cousin Clow Reed in Rivendell, when we stumbled into a secret council there."
"Well not really stumbled," interrupted Takashi, "more like, sneaked into and jumped out in the middle of it and disrupted the whole thing."
"That's a bit more like it," admitted Eriol, "though it was Takashi's fault. Tomoyo, Takashi's-"
"Gardener!" Takashi cried.
"Significant other#," Eriol continued while ignoring his cousin, "jumped out first and of course Takashi had to follow her. I then followed because if Takashi got hurt, Auntie Eglantine would kill me."
"Mother is rather good with a bread knife." Takashi said proudly.
"And to make a long story short, us and our two hobbit friends, two Men, a wizard, an elf and a dwarf set off to beat the Dark Lord. A giant fireball on legs killed the wizard, one of the Men was made into a sieve, orcs captured us and the others set off in their own directions. We escaped the orcs and now we're here!" Eriol stopped and gasped for air.
The Ent frowned and stroked his mossy beard. "You are not telling me the full story but it is enough for now nonetheless. But who is this wizard you speak of? Is it, harrumph, Chiharu?"
Takashi shook his head. "'Twere Meiling. Chiharu's evil. Did ya know that? I've never met an evil person before. Well once me, Eriol and Sakura, our other cousin, were having second breakfast at her house and Eriol got up 'cause he wanted a drink. At least that's what he said! Sakura got _really_ evilish because she walked into her room and Eriol was there, trying on her skimpy unde- Oof!" Takashi suddenly toppled over because of a quick elbow to the gut.
Eriol shook a fist at him. Then he turned to Treebeard and asked, "Please sir, what do you know about Chiharu? We only heard of her," he coughed and continued in a deep husky voice," going over to the Dark Side."
Treebeard's throat rumbled as it always did when he was disgusted about something. "Chiharu the White was good once. She was always walking these woods and asking how I was. She would talk to me ask and about any news. I now know she was gathering information. She moved into a great tower, not far from here, about fifty, sixty years ago. Around that time," Treebeard snorted and smashed his fist through a dead, charcoaled tree," the orcs came.
Good trees were being burnt and cut down. Other trees turned black inside, evil you might say, and did not turn back. They were, and still are, bent on revenge. Someday…someday soon, we shall attack Isengard and Chiharu and her, harrumph, orcs shall be no more." He stood up, the most patriotic looking tree you'll ever see (A/N I'm a poet and I didn't even know it!). His eyes gleamed with vicious determination and his knobbly hand was laid where his heart must be.
The hobbits jumped up, inspired by the Ent. "We'll help you sir! We won't rest or eat," Takashi blanched slightly as they said that, "until Isengard is knocked down, Chiharu with it!"
Treebeard beamed at them. His eyes lost their viciousness and they turned gentle again. "Then we shall go to Entmoot in the morning."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The hobbits woke up (A/N There goes one part of their pledge) in the morning in one of Treebeard's many homes. The Ent had left already so they decided that they should have breakfast and wait for him to come back (A/N And there goes the other part).
They munched on lembas and sat silently, listening to the breeze whistling through leaves of trees.
"Any drink here?" asked Takashi.
Eriol shrugged and got up to look. Finding a little pool of water, he filled two small bowls and brought them back to Takashi.
They sat thinking again, half-forgetting the water.
"I miss 'em." stated Takashi, breaking the silence.
"Who?" asked Eriol as he raised his head groggily.
"The rest of the Fellowship. Sakura, Tomoyo, Naoko, Syaoran, Yue, Rika… I even miss Meiling!"
Eriol laughed. "How do you miss Yue? He talked to you like twice!"
Takashi smiled knowingly. "I miss his hair. I'd tug it while he walked in front of me and then I'd hop behind Naoko. You should have seen some of the dirty looks he gave her!"
Eriol sniffed. "I miss Naoko. She was always threatening to kill me."
"You gotta love that!" said Takashi. They sighed simultaneously.
"Why the long faces my friends?" boomed a familiar voice behind them. "The day is sunny, Entmoot shall soon begin and you are alive! What more can you ask for?"
While Takashi muttered something about a television, Eriol said, "We were thinking about our friends, and if we'd ever see them again."
"You will." said Treebeard firmly. He paused, not sure what to say next. "Come along," he said eventually, " have a drink and then we must call Entmoot."
The hobbits gulped down their 'Ent-draught' as Treebeard called it. It had a strange taste, sort of like it was solid. It made the hobbits feel as if the hairs on their head was growing upwards and curling right as they were talking.
"Come come," cried Treebeard again, "Entmoot is waiting!"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Boom, boom, rumboom, boorar boom boom, dahrar boom boom, dahrar boom, boom boom…" Treebeard paused and started humming again. Now and then the hobbits, who were perched on Treebeard's shoulders, heard and similar humming coming from either side of them.
After what seemed like an hour, they finally arrived in Derndingle, the place where Ents held Entmoot. Treebeard bent down and let the hobbits scramble off his shoulders.
Treebeard straightened up again and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Hoom, hom!" The noise echoed around the trees.
"HOOM!!!" Trees walked out from behind other trees 'hooming' loudly.
"There's bazillions of 'em!" cried Eriol.
Takashi blinked. "HOLY CHEESE!"
(A/N "Galadriel: *randomly flies in* Would you like some cheese? *flies out*" Heh -_-' See notes.)
The trees were huge. Some were gnarled and old; some had more fingers than the hobbits cared or could count. They all resembled some tree or another.
The trees glanced at the hobbits curiously and then gathered around Treebeard.
He started talking to them in Entish. The language was long, slow, rambling and awkward. Soon the hobbits found themselves yawning.
Treebeard turned around and smiled at them. "Hoom, my hasty halflings, it is rather boring to listen to a language that you are not familiar with."
"Like you wouldn't believe," muttered Takashi.
Treebeard ignored him. "We have all agreed that you are not orcs, and you shall be added to the old lists. We are now deciding what to do with Isengard. Bregalad over here," he gesturing towards a waving beech, "as already voted what to do. He shall escort you through the woods while we finish our discussion."
The two sighed inwardly as Bregalad brought them away from the dingle. After a while he turned and grinned at them.
"'Lo, I'm called Bregalad, I think that means Quickbeam in your tongue. That's just a nickname though. I was called that ever since I answered an Elder before he finished the question. Do you want to go for a walk? The wood is nice this time of year, and knowing them old Ents, the Entmoot won't be finished for another couple of days. So, a walk?" Quickbeam talked fast which was a nice difference from the slow talk of Treebeard.
The hobbits nodded mutely as they followed Quickbeam.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
They sat by the river splashing their toes.
"And our Father Ents never found the Entwives again," finished Quickbeam sadly. Takashi and Eriol wiped away some tears.
"Tha' wooz bootiful!" sobbed Eriol as he blew his nose loudly.
"There, there." Takashi patted Eriol's shoulder.
It was the beginning of the second day of Entmoot and Bregalad had just finished one of his stories. The three could just hear Entmoot if they strained their ears enough.
Suddenly the low-pitched rumble ended and there was a mighty roar. "TO ISENGARD!"
"Yay!" squealed Takashi.
"Finally, a bit of action!" cried Eriol as himself, Takashi and Bregalad rushed towards the dingle.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
They burst in to find the Ents glowing with spirit. Treebeard let the hobbits clamber up on his shoulders.
"What's happening?" yelled Takashi over the noise.
"We are going," Treebeard paused dramatically, "TO ISENGARD!"
The Ents cheered and with one voice they all cried out, "TO ISENGARD!"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Mimi: *beams* How's that for patrioticness for you? Below are the notes:

#1: " It's Gimli son of Glóin son of Gróin son of Bob." Yup, that really is Gimli's granddaddy's name. Poor mite. Bet he had a very hard childhood.

#2: '"That's a bit more like it," admitted Eriol, "though it was Takashi's fault. Tomoyo, Takashi's-"
"Gardener!" Takashi cried.
"Significant other," Eriol continued."'
I've been watching 'Only Fools And Horses'.
Del Boy: And this is Raquel, my significant other.
Raquel: -_-'

#3: Takashi blinked. "HOLY CHEESE!"
(A/N "Galadriel: *randomly flies in* Would you like some cheese? *flies out*")
Teehee, the only possible way to explain this is to read 'The Pencil Show' by Hikaness on fanfiction.net.

Mimi: *Points upwards* Since I'm already plugging some fics here's some more.

Mine (To come):
Sakura and the Beastly Behaviour. Everybody is sprouting fur or scales and Meiling is only able to communicate in monkey talk. What card is it _now_?
.
Other CCS:
Any of Lady Star's fics, 'cause she's cool!

'The Wedding' by Peacewish. So much stuff happening there that it's hard to summarize. It's like a really complex soap plot.

Any of Seeraks' stuff, 'cause he's cool! Except for the fact that I can't seem to get any reviews to him by e-mail, they keep bouncing.

The Lord of the Rings:
'The Official Fanfiction University of Middle-Earth' by Camilla Sandman, on fanfiction.net. There's a new twist in writing fanfics, now you have to go to OFUM, learn the Ten Tolkien Truths and why it's 'Naturally Nine', and spend three semesters with the characters. Go on; tell me what's better.

'The Pencil Show' by Hikaness, on fanfiction.net. Doodles and Hika kidnap random LOTR characters and… FORCE THEM TO REVEAL THEIR MOST HIDEOUS SECRETS! MWUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Full of insanity. BEWARE!

Mimi: Pheew, that was a lotta pluggin'.
Gimli: Am I in any of those LotR fics?
Mimi: *Whistles and tries to look very innocent* Mayyyybe. In 'the Pencil Show you might appear once or twice.
Gimli: *Gets out his axe* What do I do?
Mimi: Well it's not _you_ really.
Gimli: Who?
Mimi: Legolas and Frodo.
Gimli: What do they do?
Mimi: *Widens eyes* Nothing.
Gimli: *Makes as if to chop off her head*
Mimi: Okay, okay. I'll tell you. *Winces* Oooo, the mental images I'm getting.
Gimli: WHAT?
Mimi: *Very quickerly* Theyshaveoffyourbutthair. AAHHH!!! MY BRAIN IS BURNING!!!
Gimli: THEY DO _WHAT_???
Mimi: That's enough chatting for today folks. I have to gorge my brain with sharp objects. Bye!!!
Gimli: Farewell! *mutters* Where's my axe gone?