[littlemanpoet]

"Fléin!" Anakron called.

"I'm right here," came a gruff voice. "In front of you."

Anakron looked down. But of course. Fléin the Dwarf stood there glowering, awaiting his doom.

"Yours, Fléin, is an interesting situation. You gruffed, intimidated, befriended, assaulted and battered, religiously fanaticised, and infatuated your way through these challenges."

"I what?!?" Fléin's brows formed a "v" rivaling those of Spockú.

"Trust me. The important thing is that you passed every specific test, although not always to perfection. My reason for describing your methods with a series of adjectives is to reveal the way you approached the challenges. To that end, some of those with whom you had dealings, have requested to speak regarding your case." Anakron looked up. "Come forward!"

Fléin looked behind him. There came a sparrow, an inebriated man wearing bathtubs, a beaver, a pair of bespectacled psychologists, and a Dwarf.

"Ketchupkin!" Fléin cried.

The Dwarf smiled and winked.

"He just about killed me!" came a squawking voice, interrupting Fléin's brief happily infatuated moment. It was the sparrow. "I don't care if I was part of some weird battle regarding the incarnations of Johnny Depp, A Slan, or the swamp thing! He just about killed me!"

"But I didn't!" Fléin asserted.

"But you did kill me!" yelled the Beaver, somehow free of his lisp.

"Oh. Well. Yeah. But you came back to life! That was the werewolf game! And that whole thing was a set-up! And you're only an animal anyway!"

"A talking Animal, Dwarf!" cried the Beaver. "You do not deserve freedom from Mordor! You deserve death!"

"Whoa now, just hold up a minute," Fléin said.

"Do you have a defense, Fléin?" asked Anakron. "Or is there someone to speak in your defense?"

"I do!" Ketchupkin said boldly. "Fléin joined the forces of A Slan."

"And this helps him, how?" asked Anakron pointedly, "seeing as it put him on the opposing side from me?"

"Lesh not confuzhe zhe issue," interrupted SpaM. "I wuzh a lawyer in my preevush exishtinsh, and yer clouding thingshup (urp)."

"Maybe you would care to enlighten us, sir," Anakron smirked.

"Thadeyewood! Shir. Firsh regarding the shparrow. Izh it not ture- tar- - ah - a fact that thishparrow attacked Fléin?"

"It is!" Fléin cried. "It was self-defense!"

"It was not!" yelled the sparrow. "It was a duel!"

"In (hic) that cashe, shparrow, it wuzh ashault between two conshenting parteezh an' theref- (urp) thushly, you have no recoursh!"

"Aw dagnabit!" the sparrow said, and stalked off.

"But he murdered me!" cried the Beaver.

"You don't seem very murdered," Fléin accused.

"You still did it!"

"Dwarf, did you know it wuzh a talking Beaver when you killed it?" said the somewhat not so inebriatedly seeming SpaM.

"Um, yes."

"Oh. Well then. Wuzh it an aksheedent?"

"Um, no."

"Oh." SpaM made a gesture of surrender and backed away.

"One count of open murder," Anakron intoned, "confessed to. That will count against you, Fléin."

"But it's just a beaver!" Fléin roared.

"A talking beaver," the beaver insisted.

"Oh you shut up, you little orc!"

The beaver swore at him.

"Tut tut, Mr. Beaver," drawled Anakron. "Are there any other complaints against Fléin the Dwarf?"

"He is insane," said Sigmund.

"What proof have you?"

"He is delusional, thinking some kind of spiritual being has given him a special purpose."

"Oh shut up," said Jung. "I'm sure he's quite right!"

Freud looked at Jung, scandalized. "You maniac!"

"You atheist!" cried Jung.

"You religious fanatic!" retorted Freud.

"You sex-obsessed lecher!" shouted Jung.

"You traitor!" bellowed Freud.

"Enough! Shut up, both of you!" roared Anakron. They stared at him, confounded. "Get out of here. You're neither helping nor hindering Fléin's case. Go!"

They turned and scurried back to Shelob's Lair to harrass and victimize other unfortunates.

"Are there any other complaints?" Anakron waited. Nothing more was said. "Any good words for Fléin?"

"He voted shmart and came up with the sticksh method for keeping track of votesh back in Dol Gaurgauroth," SpaM remarked.

"He fought on the side that he thought was right," Ketchupkin said.

"These things shall be taken into account. Now to it! Ten points for Lûndûn. Six points for the road rage. Eight points for Johnny Depp's integration. Eight points for DolGaurgauroth (you voted against two innocents). Ten points each for your physical, your psych eval, and your final exam. Of the thirty points I would give for general gamesmanship, I take away two for getting into an unnecessary duel, and twenty for open murder of a talking beaver. But I award ten points back to you for fighting on the side that you thought was right. Total points, eighty-two out of one hundred. You pass. You may pass through the gates and go to Ithilien.

"But he should be tried for murder!" cried the Beaver.

"There is one problem with that," Anakron said, "you cannot produce a corpse, so there can be no trial."

"Deeyayemen!" the Beaver swore.

"Hah!" Fléin crowed and swung his axe jubilantly. The beaver and Ketchupkin ducked.

to be continued...