Fellowship of the Dynasty - And He Lived Happily Ever After...

[maisie]

Wow, congratultaions for your third immortal!
You are really doing well, I think. ^^

[Shewolf13]

Yay!  Merry's an Immortal now!  Way to go Tia!  I love the way you tell this story.  It's a lot of fun ^^

[Trip]

Congrats on the third immortal!

[LivvieLove]

Congratulations Tiamet on your third immortal! Woohoo! Five more! You can do it!

[Tiamet]

Wow, congratultaions for your third immortal!
You are really doing well, I think. ^^

Thanks so much, Maisie!

Yay!  Merry's an Immortal now!  Way to go Tia!  I love the way you tell this story.  It's a lot of fun ^^

Thanks, Shewolf, I have a lot of fun playing them, so I'm glad it comes out in the story.

Congrats on the third immortal!

Thanks, Trip!

Congratulations Tiamet on your third immortal! Woohoo! Five more! You can do it!

Thanks for the vote of confidence, LivvieLove!

[Tiamet]

Chapter Twelve - Another Hobbit!

After about a week and a half in the Music career, Gandalf was able to report that he'd finished his Ops.  There was much cheering in the Fellowship home.



"I'm so proud of you, son!" Nikia told him.

"I see you've given up the wetsuit," Legolas said to Merry.  "Any particular reason?"

"The daycare kids keep trying to ride around on the flippers."  Merry pointed out.

They celebrated with one of Elrond's famous pizzas.  For his YA birthday, Elrond had asked for the Monte Vista oven, and the family was addicted to the wonderful smell of fresh baking.



The Sunshine Senile Seniors Sant was flourishing.  Even Aragorn, when he wasn't trying to teach the toddlers to meditate, got into the spirit of it, and was often seen showing the babies the proper way to ride on the spring toys in the playground.

Gandalf quit the Music career and helped out with the daycare, his Family Oriented trait kicking in.



But time was slipping away, and all too soon, Nikia got a visit.



Grim's arrival set off all the babies, who immediately needed a diaper change.  Nikia was not unhappy, though.

"Goodbye, Merry, it's been a lot of fun!  Look after the boys!"  She only had one question for Grim.

"Will it be quiet?" she was heard to ask, as she followed him into the afterlife.

Gandalf and Elrond comforted each other as best they could.  Elrond was full of advice for his brother.



"If you like the girl, call her up and invite her over."  Elrond told him.

"But the age gap..."

"Isn't going to get any smaller.  Quit wasting time."

And thus, Shannon Jolly came to visit.



"She's gorgeous," Tia whispered to Gandalf.  "Go for it!"

And thus, (again), Shannon joined the household.

And, LO!, a resigned sigh was heard throughout the lot.  For the beautiful Shannon was but four days from her Elder birthday.

But Gandalf, being a canny and resourceful young man, was not daunted in the least, and the next morning Shannon came to him with the glorious news.



"'Kay, don't freak out, but we're gonna have a baby, dude!"  Shannon told him.

"Awesome!" Gandalf said, embracing her.



One quick marriage by the toybox was arranged.

Shannon was an athletic girl, who loved to work out. She also loved to flirt.  And in a house with Legolas the Player, that could have been problematic.  But Tia kept an eye on her, and Shannon found other ways to keep herself busy.



"Shannon?  Should you being doing that?"  Merry asked.  "You're the equivalent of nine and a half months pregnant!"

"It's fine, Merry,"  Aragorn assured him.  "A little exercise is good for her, and keeps her happy."

"She could at least keep her feet on the floor," Merry grumbled.

But Shannon finished her workout before going into labour.  Gandalf met her at the hospital and Aragorn had been right, since it was a quick and easy labour.



Peregrine had arrived.

[Tiamet]

Chapter Thirteen - Gandalf Goes The Distance

Three days goes by very quickly in a house with a nooboo and a daycare.  Despite his work with Amber, the resident problem child, Aragorn was very protective of Pip. 



The little mischief maker was an adorable toddler, showing no signs of the havoc he was going to wreck on the Dynasty.

It was Aragorn who made the first save.  Little Pip blended in so well with the daycare children, learning all his skills, and playing happily, that everyone was shocked when Aragorn stormed in and picked him up out of the mele.



"Dad!" he yelled across the noisy house.  "Do you know what happens tonight?"

"It's Pip's birthday!"  Legolas called back as he coaxed Susie to keep walking.  "Merry picked up a cake."

"Yeah, and we would have lit the candles. Without having Pip's Toddler portrait done!  It ends now, Dad.  We can start the daycare up again later if we need to."

Legolas made the call while Merry painted away.  Once the picture was hung and the last children picked up, the family breathed a sigh of relief.  Pip had his birthday and aged up.



"What's wrong, kiddo?" Tia asked him

"I want some hobbit hair.  I look like a Ken doll."

One quick trip to the dresser later...



"Whoa!"  Gandalf said, pleased.  "You're your Uncle Elrond all over again."

With the demise of the daycare, Pip wanted to throw a Slumber Party and invite all his friends from school.  Remembering the last attempt, Aragorn shook his head, but Merry made the phone calls.  All the children he invited had aged to teens by the time they got there, except for Jerome.



While the teens played pool with Gandalf and Amber apologized to Merry for her behavior as a child, Jerome asked why Pip lived with so many old people.  Even his mother was an elder.

"I dunno.  We just live a long time." Pip told him.

Even with all the age disparity, everyone had a good time.  Amber gave Pip a big hug before she left.



"You've got a great family, Pip, you're really lucky."

Pip aged up into a good looking young man with a less than keen interest in school. 



But the rest of the family were waiting with baited breath.



"This is it, Gandalf," Elrond told his brother.  "This is what we've been working for.  I'm so proud of you!"

"Thanks, Ronnie," Gandalf said.  "I'm glad you've been here with me the whole time."

And that night, it happened.  The sparkles, the portraits, and then Gandalf had his name added to the ambrosia room door.



Immortal.

Gandalf Fellowship (Gen 4)
Traits: Heavy Sleeper, Virtuoso, Ambitious, Family Oriented, Supernatural Fan
LTW: Alchemy Artisan
Property: Appaloosa Historical Society
Building: DT Grocery and Koffi Cafe
SuperMax: Alchemy
Career: Alchemy Artisan
3 LTR: Fireproof Homestead, Philosopher's Stone, Climatron Control Unit
6 Black Ops: Puzzle Panic, Some Hogan Rock, The Set Up, Stick Around For The Music, Attend Master Class, Filling the Application
6 Best Friends: Elrond Fellowship, Shannon Fellowship, Kane Causey, June Price, Natalie Weston, Ralph Price
Portraits: Toddler, Child, Teen, Young Adult, Adult, Elder

[Shewolf13]

Pip is ADORABLE!  And congrats on your 4th immortal!  Half way there!

[Tiamet]

Pip is ADORABLE!  And congrats on your 4th immortal!  Half way there!

Thanks, SheWolf.  This is where it starts to get hairy. (In more ways than one) 

Chapter Fourteen - The Trouble with Tooks

"It's no wonder I've got a complex."  Pip complained to his assorted grandfathers.

"A what?" Merry asked, looking up from his book.

"One of them syndrome thingies.  I'm surprised I'm not insane."

"What are you going on about now?" Gandalf asked him.

"He's complaining about how ill treated he is."  Legolas supplied.  "He never had to sleep in a field and live off whatever we could scrounge."

"Fighting an old lady who was really a secret weapon," Aragorn added.  "We didn't have any fancy potions, either.  It was all hard work and sweat back then, my lad."

Pip rolled his eyes.  "I'm saying that my story needs to be told.  It's not easy being the fifth, you know."  Merry nodded sympathetically.

It had all started back at the slumber party.  Pip had been exhausted, and to help him get his homework done, Gandalf had slipped him a Potent Invigorating Elixir.  With everyone else awake at all hours, no one noticed that the child was getting less and less sleep.  Once he reached the teen years, he was eager to get started on his Nectar making skills.



"Elrond!  Get out of there!"  Tia yelled.  The boy looked up.  "Oops, sorry, Pip.  What is it with you guys and wetsuits?"

The mood swings kicked in and the generally pleasant boy began wanting to fight with everyone and skip school.

"I'm not going, I'm horrid at it anyway," he told Tia bluntly.

"Fine, get in the vat.  But don't try to blame this on me."

For the next few days he alternated between going to school after spending the night squishing grapes and just skipping school altogether.  Aragorn noticed that he hadn't been at a meal in three days and started asking questions.

"He's in the basement, living off of dried travel rations," Tia finally admitted.

Legolas cornered him and scolded him.  Then he dropped his bombshell.  "We may have some serious trouble with the Nectar making skill.  The Vizard of Vine challenge is buggy."

"Y'know, some days this all gets way too meta, Great-Great.  What does it mean for the Dynasty?"

"You have to plant and harvest the grapes."

"But the super fast skilling means that I could theoretically max Gardening.  That's your skill."  Pip said, wiping grape skins from his wetsuit.

Legolas ran a hand over his braids and regarded Pip thoughtfully.  "There's a way around that.  But you won't like it."

That night Gandalf became one of the Immortals.  The very next night, the beautiful Shannon shrugged off her mortal coil and left with Grim.



Poor grieving Pip, hopelessly addicted to Invigorating Elixirs, now found himself trying to plant and harvest while he was hungry, tired and dirty.  His mood got lower and lower.



"Elrond!"  Tia yelled.  "Pip needs to do...oh.  Sorry, Pip.  The green plumbob threw me off."

"I managed to eat something while you weren't looking,"  Pip muttered.  "Uncle Elrond is abusing this gardening station in the worst way.  I have to harvest these things every other second."

Legolas pulled him in and tried to tutor the now D student back into the green.



Not surprisingly, Pip was in the middle of harvesting again, when the school dance rolled around.

"You're wearing that?"  Tia asked.



"I've been trapped in this gardening station for the past day.  I don't remember the last time I showered.  You're lucky I'm not wearing the wetsuit," he barked, rolling his eyes.  "I'm grateful for the travel rations Uncle Boromir left me, or I'd be hungry enough to try and eat the sunshine Uncle Elrond keeps feeding these things.  I hate grapes!"

But the buggy Appaloosa school struck again, and instead of going to the dance, Pip was left on the front lawn, watching the limo speed away.  He celebrated with a hot shower, a hot meal and a quick frolic through the sprinklers.

"Gandalf, get the Flask of Bees ready," Legolas said, watching the boy enjoy himself.

"That's going a little far, Dad," Aragorn pointed out.

"We start this again, and you get to come first.  Alright," he relented, as Aragorn glared at him, "you can zap him with that useless Moodlet Manager."

Pip made one more attempt to get his grades up before graduation.  Merry was there to lend him some love and support.

"It all started to go wrong when I stopped being a baby."



But his grades would never be good.  Only once in his whole school career did he get an A.  It was too little, too late.



"Look on the bright side, you did graduate." Gandalf told him.

"In a bright green cloud." Pip muttered. 

"We didn't think the ceremony would work," Elrond told him.  He shrugged.  "The school is strange that way."

Pip was the first generation not to have a Valedictorian.  His friends, not knowing what he was most likely to be, went with the fact that he could kick a soccer ball, and guessed sports star.

After some dodgy math, and collecting 450 grapes on his own, Pip was startled when the dreaded Vizard of Vine challenge suddenly completed itself. 

"I don't get it, Great-Great," he told Legolas, as he inhaled his favorite dinner in celebration.  "I crushed 380 of the grapes you'd harvested, 60 of the ones I did, then 380 of the ones that I planted, but Uncle Elrond harvested, and then when I had 450 of the ones I harvested in my pocket, the challenge fired on the next batch.  I can't make sense of it."

Legolas shrugged.  "It's finished, that's what matters.  You're almost at level 7 of gardening, so I don't ever want to catch you in the greenhouse again, got it?"

Pip nodded enthusiastically.  "Good.  We're going to the Festival tonight to celebrate.  Win yourself a teddy bear or something."



But Pip had other plans.  At the Festival, the usual happened.

Aragorn passed out in the washroom.  Gandalf shook his head.



"We live next door, Dad," he complained to Merry.  "Couldn't he have made it back to the house?"

Legolas proved he still had a soft spot for the fairy lasses.



But Pippin hopped the fence and made a quick phone call from the yard.  She agreed and came right over.  She always knew what he needed.



"Amber, honey," Tia said gently, "I don't usually do this, but if you two are going to get married, you are hitting the dresser first.  You're mixing Siouxsie and the Banshees with Mary Tyler Moore, and it's not working."



"Much better."

So Aragorn's problem child and his great-grandson tied the knot and Amber joined her favorite family.  Four days later they came home from the hospital.

[Shewolf13]

LOL!  Poor Pip... feel so sorry for him.  Hm... that Vizard of Vine challenge really is a mystery XD  I'm afraid of it now... but I'm glad Pip got through it alright.

[Tiamet]

LOL!  Poor Pip... feel so sorry for him.  Hm... that Vizard of Vine challenge really is a mystery XD  I'm afraid of it now... but I'm glad Pip got through it alright.

I can't figure out how it works either, but I'm so glad it did!  I was worried for a while. 

Chapter Fifteen - Growing Up Gimli

"I want a divorce!" Amber screeched from the kitchen.  Dishes crashed and there were sounds of sobbing.

"Of course you do!" Pip yelled back.  "You've been having a midlife crisis for ten whole minutes!  Me, I'm the one who has it rough..."

"Well, there they go again," Aragorn said resignedly to his father.



"Yep," agreed Legolas, rocking baby Gimli.  "Just think, when she's finished, it'll be his turn.  We'll have to find a place that sells dishes wholesale..."

While his parents argued about whose life was worse, Gimli, content with his great-grandfathers, aged up to a child.  Like every other child in the Dynasty, he received his imaginary friend from his Auntie Galadriel.



He spent the next twenty minutes trying to twist its head off.

Gimli was a demanding toddler, stubbornly refusing to get off the spring riders or to wear anything but his sleepers.  He claimed bottles were for babies and would only eat in the high chair.



"What are we feeding him anyway?" Merry asked his son.  Gandalf raised an eyebrow at him.

"It's brown, and he likes it.  I wouldn't ask too many questions."

"Where's Amber?  She should know, she's the cook."

"At the spa again," Gandalf sighed.  "It keeps her happy and keeps her from flirting with Great-Grand."

"That would explain why he and Erond are out of the greenhouse, then.  Whenever she's around they both have this sudden urge to weed things."

Pip came in and cleaned up Gimli before he left for work.



"You look tired, son," Gandalf said.

"Probably because I haven't had a night's sleep since I was nine!"  Pip snapped.  "Whatever happened to that, 'Oh, no, we shan't abuse the potions' strategy of Great-Great's?"

"You're not getting any ops, Pip.  He's worried.  Here, give me the baby, and you get to your job."  Merry said soothingly, taking the sleepy toddler.

"Music this week?"  Gandalf asked.

"Yes, and I'm supposed to be an Acrobat.  I can feel it in my bones.  Or at least a Firefighter."

"Everything in the town blacked out when you joined that career, my boy.  Four seconds of firefighting is all you're ever going to get."  Gandalf patted his son on the shoulder.  "Off you go.  Once you get your ops, you can be anything you want.  I promise."

Late that night, Legolas and Aragorn were woken from their naps by strange sounds coming from Gandalf's alchemy room.  Concerned, they banged on the door.

"Gandalf!"  Aragorn cried.  "What's going on?  Are you barking?"

Gandalf unlocked the door to let them in.  They were surprised by his new shaggy companion.



"This is Bellaboosh," he told them enthusiastically.  "I've just adopted her."

"You adopted a dog called Scaramouche?" Aragorn asked.

"Bellaboosh."  Gandalf corrected him.

"Bless you." Legolas said, bending down to read the tag on the dog's collar.  "It's B-something," he said, as he straightened up.

"Bill it is, then!" Aragorn said happily.

"She's a girl."  Gandalf pointed out.

"Bill."

Gimli, oblivious to the madness that seemed to be overtaking his family, aged up.  He stared at Legolas in dismay.



"Right, then.  What happened to my beard?" he asked him.

"You're eight.  It'll come in time."

"Eight?" Gimli exploded.  "It should be long enough to braid by now!"

"When you hit young adult, we'll get you something.  But you won't like the selection."  Legolas told him.  "Now drink this elixir and get your homework out."

"Gandalf!"  Aragorn called a few days later.  "Bill's not doing his job.  We've got rats!"



"She is doing just fine, Granddad."  Gandalf said.  "I adopted a puppy."

"Great, what do you call this one?  Fandango?"

"That's Kimo."

"Well, she seems to be an ambitious little thing."



"That turkey is bigger than she is."

Elrond spent the last week of his life happily in the garden or spending time with his family.  When he hit one hundred, he decided it was time.  Grim came and Elrond said good bye to everyone before shaking the Reaper's hand.



Legolas refused to come out of the greenhouse to say goodbye.  Elrond understood.

[Shewolf13]

Awww, goodbye Elrond!  You will be missed!  I giggled a little at Pip and Amber's fight.  Mid-life Crisises are a pain, particularly when it comes to Dynasties and the fact that no one can be moved out XD

[Tiamet]

Awww, goodbye Elrond!  You will be missed!  I giggled a little at Pip and Amber's fight.  Mid-life Crisises are a pain, particularly when it comes to Dynasties and the fact that no one can be moved out XD

Pip and Amber threw up no less than eight wishes for divorce between them!  And their relationship status was good!  *shakes head*  'Course, she did want to flirt with everyone from Legolas to the paper boy to the dogs...

Chapter Sixteen - Pip and Ambrosia

Gimli climbed off his rocking horse and beckoned to Aragorn.  "Great-Great?"

Aragorn was still a little shocked to find himself addressed by Pip's name for Legolas, but time was marching on. 

"What's on your mind, Gimli?" he asked gently.

"Why did Uncle Elrond have to go back to Mandos?"



"Well, the Halls of Mandos are only for very special people.  Uncle Elrond was one of those people."  He picked the child up and settled him on his lap in the rocking chair.  "He had a very special job to do..."

"You only need one more op, Pip," Legolas said, after catching his great-great-grandson in the sprinklers.  "I'm very tempted to let you pull a couple weeds to see if another gardening one fires."



"Nope, I'm switching over to Private Eye."  Pip said.  "I've done enough gardening in this lifetime."

Legolas laughed.  "You can never get enough of green growing things, Peregrine."

Gimli shot up into a handsome teenager.



"Still no facial hair, I see," he grumbled. 

"It's coming."  Amber said, putting more leftovers in the fridge.

Gimli continued Gandalf's proud tradition of being brought home by the police after curfew.  He was grounded, of course, but almost instantly forgiven.  Gandalf shrugged at Pip.  "He was out.  Things happen."



"I remember being chained to a vat at his age.  He's got school in the morning!" Pip protested.  "And I hate being a private investigator.  None of my cases are getting solved!"

"Switch back to music."  Merry said calmly.  "And you hated school, Pip."

Grumbling, Pip went back to work at the theater.  Everyone else was getting calls for opportunities every day.  So when the call came for him to sort sheet music at the bookstore, he was out the door like a shot!

"So that's Dad done," Gimli crowed.  "We're actually going to do this!"

"Cautious optimism, Gimli.  This is Pip, he still has to stay alive long enough to become an elder and eat the ambrosia."



Pip came dancing through the house, all his requirements finished save the elder portrait.

"Free! Free!" he sang, grabbing Amber around the waist.  "I'm gonna be the best acrobat the world has ever seen!  I'm going to juggle fire and knives..."

"You see what I mean?" Legolas grinned.

Gimli fell in love with a classmate, Meaghan.  He was on the phone with her constantly.  He didn't care that she had Agnes hair, that she was Evil and a Slob. 



They even talked about marriage.



"Let's hope she doesn't get the aging bug that's going around." Merry said, watching his great-grandson.  "It would break his heart to lose her."

"I'm pretty sure I've got a potion for that," Gandalf added, rocking contentedly.

"You're getting awfully free and easy with those potions, old man," Pip put in, doing cartwheels across the living room.

Since birthdays were now being celebrated with cakes, Gimli aged up to a gorgeous young man in the middle of the night.

"Can I please have my beard back?" he asked, as soon as the candles were out.



He found a hairstyle he could live with, but true to Legolas' prediction, none of the beards available impressed him.

"Maybe I can find something by the end of the week," Tia said.

"This will do, then," he told her, tossing his braids.  "Where's that dynamite?"

"Grandad, you don't look happy," Merry said, settling on the sofa.  "What's going on?"



"Where do I start?" Legolas sighed.

"Aragorn has been breaking space rocks for twenty two hours and fourteen minutes.  I can smell him from here."



"It keeps him busy," Merry pointed out.  "What else?"

"Gandalf keeps banging away on the drum kit at all hours.  Amber is showing signs of having Incipient Boromir Pumpkin Syndrome."



"It's only been two jack-o-lanterns, Grandad," Merry soothed.

"Pip," Legolas snorted, "is spending all his time in bad clown makeup pretending to be locked in a box.  I think we messed up with him somewhere.  Maybe he's right and all that invigorating elixir did something to his brain..."



There was a tremendous roar and the house shook.  Legolas waited until the debris stopped falling on the roof.

"And of course..." he went on,



"Gimli is blowing up sports cars in the driveway."

To everyone's surprise, the school called and informed them about graduation.  Somehow the entire family piled into one of the un-detonated sports cars and zoomed off to see Gimli become Valedictorian and Most Likely to be Electrocuted.  Since it wouldn't have been a Fellowship Family Outing without someone pulling out the sleeping bag, Legolas obliged so Aragorn could spend more time at the punch table.



Two days later, the house held it's breath as Pip blew out his candles.



"Finally!" he yelled. 

"I don't know why you have to be so dramatic about everything," Merry told his grandson, setting up the easel.  "You don't even have that trait."

"Yikes!" Tia said, as Pip posed for Merry.  "You look too much like your grandad."

"Here," Gandalf said, handing something to Pip.  "It's Elrond's hat.  He wanted you to have it."

"Okay, ambrosia, here I come," Pip said, heading for the locked room.

"WAIT!" Tia hollered.  "Your portrait disappeared!  Get back over there."

Merry quickly started another.



"Hurry, Merry," Tia urged, flipping through Pip's relationships.  "Kimberly's not getting any younger!"

The portrait in place, Pip rushed into the ambrosia room.  The entire family breathed an enormous sigh of relief.



Pip had made it to immortality.

Peregrine Fellowship (Gen 5)
Traits: Loves the Outdoors, Daredevil, Good, Athletic, Natural Born Performer
LTW: Bottomless Nectar Cellar
Property: Appaloosa Plains Public Pool
Building: Heuber Associates & Kim Gould Steakhouse
Supermax: Nectar Making
Career: Master Nectar Craftsman
3 LTR: Engaging, That Was Deliberate, Change of Taste
6 Black Ops: Don't Cry, Great Plums, Logic 101, A Stimulating Experiment, Save the Herding, Sheet Music Mayhem
6 Best Friends: Amber Fellowship, Sterling Wilde, Kimberley Mena, Quinten Reeder, Dane Reeder, Irfan Guinn
Portraits: Toddler, Child, Teen, Young Adult, Adult, Elder

[Shewolf13]

Congrats on Immortal number #5!  Go Pip!  And I love Gimli!  It is sad that the facial hair in Sims is so disappointing.

[Tiamet]

Congrats on Immortal number #5!  Go Pip!  And I love Gimli!  It is sad that the facial hair in Sims is so disappointing.

Thanks!  Pip is a lot of fun and a lot of worry all rolled into one.  I'm glad to see Gimli, the last three generations had clones.

Merry, Elrond, Pip



Chapter Seventeen - "Stands on the Edge of a Knife"

Now they were five, and a night of celebration seemed in order.  All the elders in the family popped out for drinks at Flying V's.  A good time was being had by all when a sudden commotion started up, startling the family and causing a return of Tia's hives.



Grim had a double pickup that night, and one of them was wearing Merry's hair.  Since Merry had started dressing like Tony Curtis on reaching elderhood, it took everyone a minute to realize the ghost was really the woman they had just met.

Gimli, now that the fun and games of his teen years was behind him, had settled down to cranking out the inventions his supermax required.



Pip had cheerfully given him Uncle Boromir's travel rations, Gandalf had given him lots of Invigorating Elixirs and what Aragorn sardonically called "Joy Juice." 

"Can't I even talk to Meaghan?" he asked.  "I really want to marry her, you know."

"That depends on your mom," Legolas told him, lingering in the doorway.  "You finish the Flying Fighters and you can have some fun."

He wasn't quite finished when Pip told the family to come up to Performance Park to watch his first official gig as an Acrobat.  He'd been performing for tips, but this was the big time for him.



Aragorn brought the sleeping bag, of course.  He wasn't even tired, it was just habit.  The show was exciting and the reviewers were kind.

"A great show! Look at that, right in the paper, Dad!" Pip enthused.  Gandalf hugged him proudly.

"You set your hair on fire, Pip!" Legolas exclaimed.  "I'll be out looking for more death flower seeds, if anyone needs me."

Amber was thrilled with her husband's success, and they had a private celebration at the Spring Festival.



"I love the music they play here," she said, spinning happily.  "I think it gets stuck in my head, and I can even hear it when I'm at home."

"You can," Pip told her, grinning.  "The bathroom is right opposite the speakers.  That's why the dogs sleep in Gandalf's room."

The next afternoon, something in the yard caught her attention.



"Gimil!  Why are there hundreds of dishwashers in the yard?"

"It's only sixty, Mom," he told her, looking up from his conversation with Pip.  "It's for my supermax."

"Are you going to upgrade them all?" she asked, appalled.

"Not exactly," he told her, with a wry smile.  "Want to watch?" he asked his father.  Daredevil Pip did not need to be asked twice.



Gimli was used to hearing his mother cry over dead plants, due to her Green Thumb.  He now realized that her Frugal trait was making her cry at the destruction of perfectly good appliances.

And the the next night, Amber did something that shocked everyone.



She was only ninety. 

"This is horrible!" Tia said, in a strangled voice.  "Aragorn, get the moodlet manager!"  She tried very hard to keep the glee from her voice.

There was a quick consultation with the head of the family.

"If we use the same pattern that we saw with Nikia, she should be just the right age."  Tia whispered furiously.  "And he's got his heart set on it."

"If it doesn't work, we have to wait who knows how long."  Legolas protested.

"Yes, but it doesn't matter how old he gets, he can still father a child."

"You don't have another one of your 'feelings' about this, do you?" he asked, curling his lip.  "Like the one about Merry being an Equestrian."

"Nope, this is based on observation."

Legolas rubbed his temples.  "I never had migraines until this.  Go ahead.  But I'm holding you responsible."