Tanglinna goes Gollum.

Summary: The Tricksy Trio have planned for Tanglinna to be their next victim. Tavor prepared a sleeping draught and they head off to put their plan into action. But they don't find what they expect too…

Disclaimer: Any canon characters belong to Tolkien. Brethil, Tavor and the one and only Tanglinna I have to admit belong to the great TreeHugger, with whose permission this story was written.

A/N - This story is set probably some time between TreeHugger's 'Elrond's Most Forgettable Birthday' and 'The Tricksy Tales #1'.

Tanglinna groaned slightly as he awoke, the memory of the previous night rising in his mind. It had been a wonderful Midsummer Eve Feast. He had even indulged a foolish young warrior in a drinking competition. Needless to say, the master archer had drunk the youth under the table. Perhaps that was the cause of his current splitting headache. He went over to his mirror that hung over his side table.

"Don't be a fool." His reflection told him, "You've drunk others under the table before and it take much longer and this not happen to you."

'True' Tanglinna though, turning away from the mirror, 'but then why-'

He swung around to face the mirror again. His reflection had spoken to him! He stared into the glass but only his own, slightly pale face stared back at him. It wasn't talking and it looked right, down to the tousled silver hair. Tanglinna shook his head, regretting the motion as soon as he made it for it made the pounding worsen.

"I must have imagined it." He murmured softly, turning away once more.

"Are you sure about that?" said an amused voice from behind him.

Tanglinna spun round again. His reflection was smiling at him.

"You've never let your imagination run away with you before. Why would you start now?"

All the poor master archer could do was stare. For possible the first time, he was speechless.

"Nothing to say?" his reflection smirked, "Thranduil would love to see this."

"This isn't real." Tanglinna breathed, placing his palms on the tabletop. "This cannot be happening!"

Meanwhile, three young elflings were creeping towards their archery instructor's house.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Brethil whispered as the three friends made their way round the side of Tanglinna's house; "He may not like it."

"Of course he will Brethil." Legolas assured him, "It'll look very pretty with his hair."

Brethil bit his lower lip with a frown, "If you're sure…"

"We're sure." Legolas said confidently.

They stopped just under the window of Tanglinna's bedroom, and peered cautiously over the ledge. The sight that greeted them was not the one they were expecting. Rather than Tanglinna still being asleep, the Master Archer was very much awake and did not look happy.

"This cannot be happening!" they heard him say, "This must be some sort of joke. Surely Thranduil didn't tell Little Greenleaf about Celeborn's little escapade."

The three elflings stared in amazement at what they were seeing, but their surprise was doubled when Tanglinna replied to himself.

"I assure you, this is no joke on anyone's part. Little Greenleaf is still unaware of Celeborn's 'little escapade', as you call it Celebavorn."

"Don't call me that." Tanglinna growled under his breath.

Legolas and his friends ducked their heads back down. The young prince motioned to the other two to follow him and he led them away.

"What's happened to him!" gasped Brethil once they were well out of earshot.

Legolas turned to Tavor, "You made the draught, did you even look at what was supposed to go in it?" he asked incredulously.

Tavor looked annoyed and slightly hurt.

"Of course I did!" he said, "I put in exactly what you wrote down and followed your instructions to the letter."

"You can't have!" Legolas cried, "It was a simple sleeping draught that the healers use, it shouldn't have done that. What did you put in it?"

"What you said!" Tavor said angrily, pulling out the list of ingredients Legolas had given him and began to read them out. About halfway down, Legolas suddenly stopped him.

"What do you mean, three large leaves of aegloth? I never wrote that." Legolas asked, frowning in puzzlement.

"That's what it says here." Tavor said, pointing to the smudged writing.

Legolas gaped at the piece of paper; it did look like aegloth.

"But, but, I put three large leaves of aewloth, not aegloth! The writing must have smudged when you put it in your pocket!"

Brethil looked nervously between the two, "But what's it done to Master Tanglinna?"

A/N - hehe, let's just hope Tanglinna doesn't get his hands on me or I'll never finish this. R&R!

Translations

aewloth - little bird flower

aegloth - fell flower

A/N- ok, I know the flower names are a bit odd but, it was just two words that looked similar and one was nice and the other not so nice.