Lost in Middle-Earth

[Narya]

Summers were always good, and in Lanie Fox's dictionary, it's even better. It means beaches and handsome hunks and wild parties in a yacht owned by her so-called bestfriend, Amanda Jenkins. She was getting ready for the invitation she was so sure would come any minute now. She brushes her long blonde hair, the envy of the entire school, and adds a little more blush on her soft, smooth, blemish free cheeks. She smiled at her reflection in the mirror, flashing her pearly white, newly polished teeth like a toothpaste commercial model. She takes a deep breath of air fluttering her long lashes and caught a glimpse of the renaissance gown hanging on the closet door. She looked at her watch --- 10:30 am -- it seems the invitation would be a bit late. She decided to log on to the website she had been visiting for the last five months.

"Let's see what's happening in Middle-earth today." She said to herself as her computer connected to the Internet. She opens up a browser and at once the familiar green message board appeared. There was an announcement on the board but before she could read it properly, a private message notification box popped up in front of the screen. "What the...?" She clicked on it and it was from Scott.

It read: "You going to the convention, sweetie?" Scott was a guy from Ireland Lanie had been flirting with on the forum. They've exchanged pictures, talked on the phone, and chatted endlessly for two months now. She had been saving up most of her allowance so she can go meet him in Ireland next Christmas. He was quite attractive and very nice on the forum, and though she had been dating Daniel Samuelson, who is the captain of the football team and an overall hearthrob, she feels that he is dating her for all the wrong reasons. It is expected though, since all he knows is her alter ego. Scott, however, knows the real Lanie, and if he's as good as he appears to be on the forum, Lanie will drop Daniel in a heartbeat.

Smiling from ear to ear, Lanie replied, "Of course I will." She was about to click on the send button when she realized she doesn't know what convention it was Scott was referring to. She decided to change her message to, "What convention?" And then she sent it.

She clicked the home button on the upper-left-hand corner of the screen and the announcement more or less answered the question she had just sent over to Scott.

MEMBERS CONVENTION DAY, it said; ALL EXPENSES PAID, it said further; SIGN UP HERE IF YOU'RE GOING.

"What?" Lanie exclaimed excitedly, and she clicked on the link on the screen. According to it, there was an anonymous donation made by someone and now they are setting up a gathering for all the members to meet in person. "Lanie, you lucky girl!" She signed up, and wrote down instructions on how to get her plane ticket and where she would be staying in England.

She went back to the private messaging service and sent a message to Scott saying she will be there, and that she's very excited to meet him. The doorbell rang right after she clicked the send button. No doubt it was the invitation to Amanda's yacht party. The convention was happening on the same day as the party and everyone who is anyone in school will be there. All the cute guys, all the popular girls.

"Nope," Said Lanie, smiling while she tore the invitation in half; "I'm not going this time, Amanda. You can have Daniel if you like. I'm off to England to meet --- Scott."

She phoned Amanda and told her she won't go to the said party because of personal reasons and then headed for the mall to do some shopping with her mother's platinum credit card.

[YayGollum]

Nick lounged by the pool in his backyard. He sipped at his pink lemonade and dimly considered jumping in to cool off. After losing the thought and trying to find out what it was again ---> "Boo!" He spilled the lemonade as he shot out of the chair.

His crazy old uncle laughed as he rounded the chair and handed him an envelope. "There you are, Nicky! And I thought you'd be playing video games. oh well. Gotta work on that tan, I guess." Nick laughed along with the guy, quickly forgetting his annoyance. When his uncle provided a pause for him to ask questions, he registered the fact that he was holding an envelope, along with his empty glass. "What's this?"

"Figure it out, kid! You graduated from that high school of yours, right? Although I can't imagine how." Nick just rolled his eyes at his uncle's usual ribbing, then ripped the envelope open. A plane ticket, a couple pieces of paper, and a hundred dollar bill was all it had. "Huh? Is this another camp thing? I wanted to take a cruise this summer!"

"Oh, stop whining! It's just a week long. I was right in thinking that you'd enjoy getting out of the house for a while, at least. It's a convention for a little website that I go to, every now and then. Remember those books I gave you for your birthday? It's about them!" Books were just about all his uncle ever got him. He searched the skies for a good lie to tell but was happily interrupted. "Well, don't worry. I'll tell you all about it on the way. You wanna get packed, or what?"

[Narya]

Lanie unfastened her seatbelt and gasped as she looked out the window;That's England out there.. She looked into her handbag, grabbed a compact, and powdered her nose a bit. Satisfied that she looked cute, she joined the crowd who were slowly inching their way out of the plane.

"Alright," She said, craning her neck to see if the welcoming committee was anywhere in sight. "Where are they?" She looked to the far left, and there they were, carrying a huge placard that said, "WELCOME TOLKIENITES!" Lanie waved her hand and strained her eyes to see if Scott was there. She printed out the picture he emailed her and kept looking at it all throughout the flight memorizing the face that had been filling her dreams.

"'ullo!" Greeted a nice looking young lady wearing a purple turtleneck and jeans. "Are you a member of ze Tolkien Forum?"

"Yes, yes I am!" Lanie replied. Still looking around to see a sign of Scott. He's not here.

"What ees your 'andle?"

"Oh, it's Luthien."

The young woman's face beamed in delight, and she said, "Luth? eet ees me! Yavannah!"

"Oh my---!" Gasped Lanie, placing a hand over her mouth. This was Yavannah; a very good RPG player, Tolkien historian, and a moderator in the forum. They have been buddies for a long time and all the while Lanie thought she was this old spinster who doesn't know how to do her own make-up. It turns out she was not much older than her and quite attractive, and she's French. "Yavvie!" They hugged and Lanie felt a bit awkward because she didn't expect this.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, a doubt about Scott's true identity kept nagging like the buzzing of a mosquito. If Yavvie turned out to be different from what she was on the board, there is a possibility that Scott could have invented himself. He did seem a bit too custom-tailored for her.

After the perfunctory small talk between them, and because more and more "delegates" were coming in from around the globe it seems, Yavannah gave the "exit" line. She handed Lanie a large white envelop apparently containing the schedule of events for the convention. Then she wrote Lanie's username Luthien on a piece of white sticker then stuck it to a small card and placed it inside a plastic ID holder with a white lace and handed it to her, and said, "'ere's your ID, we need to tag everyone to make sure we get only zhose who are members. By the way, my name ees Sandrine."

"Sandrine! It was really nice to finally meet you in person. My real name, by the way, is Lanie."

"Lanie! Nice to meet you too!" Katie said. "You can go to ze bus, eet ees outside near the front gate."

Nodding her thanks, Lanie proceeded to the bus. Her anxiousness now turning into fear; These are people I know only by their usernames, she thought. There are many of them that she would like to meet personally, but now that it has come true, the realization that she may not like their real personality was making her regret she decided to make the trip.

"You're being paranoid, Lanie." She chided herself. Shaking her head crowned with that luxurious blonde hair. Pushing back all doubt, she walked gracefully towards the swinging doors. She was almost out when suddenly someone collided with her from the right. Lanie felt like a bus hit her as she fell to the floor.

[YayGollum]

About as quickly as she had fallen, she was easily lifted back to her feet by a flustered Nick. "Oh, uh, sorry. You okay? Yeah, you look okay." Without even really checking, he picked his luggage up again and peered around for his uncle, who had disappeared into a crowd of geeks. After giving up and deciding that he'd be found eventually, he took more time to examine what he figured was some clumsy English lady. "Oh! Heh. You must be lost, girl! You don't wanna hang out with those nerds, do you? Naw, I'm gonna ditch 'em, soon as I can. Maybe you can give me a tour, huh?"

His grin was interrupted as he swung his baggage around again, barely missing her this time, looking for where he had heard his uncle's voice coming from. The small, balding, and rotund man trundled up with a smirk on his face and an ID card in his hand. "Here. I took the liberty of signing you up for a few things. Found a friend?" Nick forgot the girl, since he had to frown at the name on the card that had been draped around his neck. "Aragon's_c00l? What's that?"

The still unnamed uncle waved a hand distractedly, since he had recognized Lanie's handle as a member that contained at least a couple of interesting points and was introducing himself as one of the older, well-established, and highly respected Tolkienologist types. "Hm? Oh, I thought that'd be the sort of name that you'd pick out. Don't worry about it, Nicky. Now, why don't we all catch that bus? Food soon, I promise."

[Narya]

Lanie was still dizzy from the fall when she caught a glimpse of blonde hair and a whiff of cologne. A tight grip lifted her from the floor like a sack of potato. She glared at the guy even though her eyes were still a bit blurry.

She was about to give him a dose of angry words when he said, "Oh, uh, sorry. You okay? Yeah, you look okay." He didn't even look at her or asked if she was alright. He just assumed she was fine, picked up his bags, and moved on. Lanie was still gaping at his inconceivable rudeness when he came back and told her she looked lost.

"Oh! Heh. You must be lost, girl! You don't wanna hang out with those nerds, do you? Naw, I'm gonna ditch 'em, soon as I can. Maybe you can give me a tour, huh?" He said in one breath. Tour? Nerds? The guy was a fortified jerk. Lanie gritted her teeth in annoyance and narrowed her eyes while the guy grinned at her like an imp. However, before she could say a word or make a move, he turned again, picked up his bags, swung them around and headed off. Lanie moved back a bit to avoid getting hit by the bags and cursed the guy in an undertone.

"What a jerk!" She cried. He was already outside though, talking with a short, round, older man. Must be his father, she thought. She had a mind to tell this other man what she thought of the blonde rude guy. So she approached them and surprisingly they were headed for the bus that she was supposed to take. "No. They can't be ..." The old man caught sight of her ID and recognized the handle. He waved his hand at her. Lanie walked closer to them and looked at the ID the blonde guy was wearing.

"Aragon's_cool" it read. Lanie rolled her eyes.

The old man was very friendly and introduced himself as TomBombadil. Recognizing the username, Lanie smiled sweetly at the old man. He was one of those who was always nice on the board, barely getting involved in senseless debates or discussions. Now she knows why.

"Hm? Oh, I thought that'd be the sort of name that you'd pick out. Don't worry about it, Nicky. Now, why don't we all catch that bus? Food soon, I promise." TomBombadil told the younger arrogant guy, who surprisingly was named Nicky, much to Lanie's delight.

Nicky. How appropriate, Lanie thought, remembering a movie about one of Satan's sons who came to Earth to capture his brothers and bring them back to hell. The title of the film was Little Nicky.

Frowning angrily at Nicky, Lanie went ahead and entered the bus, taking a seat in the middle row, near the window. TomBombadill took a seat right next to a guy who's username was Thorin. Lanie took several deep breaths to calm her shaking nerves. Her anger was quickly subsiding when suddenly someone sat beside her, not too gently, and she caught the scent of that cologne again.

"You again?" She exploded. He looked at her and grinned and said that there were no other seats left. "You know you didn't even ---" But he was already putting on earphones and Lanie could tell his mp3 player's volume was turned to maximum as she could hear the music from her seat. Sighing laboriously, Lanie took out her mp3 player as well, and decided to just ignore this awful person until they got to the convention and never see this demon-of-a-man again.

[YayGollum]

Nick was a bit embarrassed at being called Nicky in front of some girl who looked to be around his age as he had been attempting to pour on the charm, so he decided to ignore his uncle for the rest of the trip. He had learned not to try to argue with the guy, since he could never remember what his point was, afterwards. Bobbing his head to his music, he had only sneaked a few good glances at the girl next to him before his uncle forced him to close his eyes and act as if he was getting really into the music, since he kept getting poked and talked at whenever some landmark whizzed by. A lot of stomping and head banging finally got his uncle to stop trying.

When the bus stopped at their hotel, Nick turned his music player off and glared around at the people behind him. "Ugh. Finally! It's too cramped in here, with all you fat nerds! I hope this place has a gym. Huh! You wouldn't be caught dead in there!" After a not entirely friendly slap and a shove towards the door, his uncle motioned placatingly at the others. "Well, what would you expect from a kid called Aragon's_cool? I just brought him along in the hope that he'd get a little sense from you guys." Whispered to the Lanie lady ---> "Heh! I misspelled his name on purpose. That's how he always says the name, anyway."

[Narya]

Lanie didn't even realize she had fallen asleep until she was awakened by Nick's relentless complaints. She straightened up and TomBombadil told her (and everyone else) that he mispelled the name Aragorn on Nick's nametag on purpose because apparently, Nick couldn't spell. Lanie politely nodded and smiled at the old man but paid no attention to Nick.

When Nick was already out of the bus, Lanie decided it was time to get out as well. She felt sorry for TomBombadill, trying hard to pacify the angry crowd forming beside them because Nick couldn't keep his opinions to himself.

"What a brat!" She said not to quietly. All those within hearing-range nodded in agreement. Before stepping out of the bus completely, Lanie checked if the pair were still there. Happy to be rid of the rudest guy she's ever met, Lanie sighed deeply in relief. "Finally, the real adventure begins." Her bags were already in a small gold trolley waiting for her at the front of the hotel. Beside the bellhop who was waiting patiently for her was another girl.

As Lanie came closer, the girl was looking at her with a shy smile. Lanie smiled back, flashing her perfect set of teeth to the girl whose mouth glistened with braces. She was about to say "hi", when the girl sought for her ID; Lanie pulled at the lace and took it off then flashed it in front of the girl. The girl's smile quickly disappeared and turned into a violent frown. Surprised at the sudden change, Lanie tried to see who the girl was, but she covered her ID and left before Lanie had a chance to do or say anything.

Flusterred with all the animosity she's been getting since she got here, Lanie looked around her and cursed under her breath. This was not what she expected in this trip.

"Scott, I certainly hope you're worth it all." She whispered.


***

It was three o'clock in the afternoon. Lanie had a nice nap and a hot bath in the hotel, which, in her opinion, made up for the rather rowdy introduction she had that morning. Lanie looked at the schedule of events before she took a nap and the first day of the convention begins in an hour. There was going to be a picnic near Stone Henge since they were not permitted to actually hold a convention inside the ancient landmark. Lanie decided to wear her best outfit for that afternoon; she wanted to make a good impression on everyone, not just Scott. She was convinced that her username said it all, prettiest elf in Middle-Earth, and now they'll see how true it was for her too. After she was convinced that everything about her at that moment exudes beauty and femininity, Lanie decided to go down and join the rest of the delegates.

To say that she was shocked when she reached the hotel lobby and saw people in renaissance outfit and hobbit-wear, while she was wearing a short skirt and turtleneck top with prada knee-high boots, was an understatement. She tried to see if there was anyone wearing "normal" clothing, and found no one; all the deligates, young and old, wore some kind of Middle-Earth costume. Panic was engulfing her; the last time she stood out like a fish out of water was in second grade when she showed up at a friends birthday party as Pooh Bear while everyone wore adult clothes. If there was anything Lanie hated it was to be embarassed in the middle of a large crowd.

Suddenly she felt a heavy hand tap her shoulder. She turned around abruptly and saw that it was TomBombadil, wearing the character's signature clothes (hat and boots included).

"Looks like you didn't get the email!" He said.

"Email?"

"Here, wear this." He added, handing her a silver-blue cloak with a hood. "It should cover many tales." Lanie could not believe her luck. Accepting the cloak, Lanie kissed the old man's head and thanked him repeatedly. "Just be sure to give it back in one piece. I want to give that to my neice when we go back home."

"Yes! I'm gonna take very good care of it! I promise! Oh, you are just a lifesaver!" Lanie exclaimed.

TomBombadil nodded and then walked out to a waiting shuttle bus outside the hotel. Lanie draped the cloak around her shoulder and ripped a piece of green ribbon from a boquet of flowers near the concierge's desk, tied it around her head, and ran outside hoping to find a decent seat in the bus.

It took only ten minutes for them to get to the convention site and Lanie felt goosebumps all over her body she saw the blue-gray stones of Stone Henge.

"Magnificent!" She whispered, and her mind slowly drifted to a dream of riding through vast open plains, crowns and knights, men of honor and chivalry. Then the thought of Scott -- her Knight in shining armour -- made her bite her lower lip.

A huge tent was setup a few meters from the monolithic structure and there were attendants warding off guests from crossing the line that was between the tent and Stone Henge. No one was allowed to go near it. Not even to take pictures.

When she alighted from the bus Lanie's first thought was finding Scott. She took out the printed picture and looked at every single guy who had chestnut brown hair, blue eyes, and a body to die for. Lanie described him as a younger Mel Gibson. Walking down to the middle of the tent, Lanie met a few online buddies; Galadriel, and Arwen (real names were Jessica and Sandy, respectively), and Maedros and Valar, who Lanie thought were cute but realized they were very much taken. For one thing, Valar was wearing his wedding ring -- though not on his finger, but rather it was on a chain around his neck. Lanie didn't stay with them long. She had to find Scott as soon as possible, because one week is too short a time to spend with a guy you really like.

She made it to the other end of the tent and found not a single sign of Scott.

"Where are you?" Lanie cried in frustration. She was near tears and suspected that Scott didn't actually come. "Maybe he's sick...or maybe he's stuck at the airport..."

[YayGollum]

Nick, who had slipped away from his uncle during an especially joyous meeting with a fellow poster, perked up from his seat on the grass and headed, he figured, gallantly over. With plenty of money for a custom job to be done for him, his uncle had forced him into a costume that he insisted to prattle on about being far more fitting for Aragorn than the one that was used in some movies. Although he had argued, he was convinced to wear the thing due to the facts that noone important would see him in it, and it came with a cool sword, tied down into its scabbard, of course, to prevent injuries, which didn't stop him from attempting to fling it out every now and then to attempt a few moves.

After recovering from another slip of the hand off of the thing ---> "Hey, you can't be sad, now that I'm here! Sure, we're in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of nerds in a circus tent, but, uh, I'm here! That's cool. So, what do you wanna do, huh? Hey, wait a minute. Aren't you that girl from the bus and the airport? Yeah, why haven't we ditched these guys yet? Oh, hey, what's the drinking age in this country? I passed some beer or something back there." With suggestive eyebrows, he grabbed Lanie's arm and attempted to herd her back into the tent.

[Narya]

"You?" Lanie exploded, wrenching her hand from Nick's grip. "I am not going anywhere with you! Okay?" Probably stunned after that display of nastiness, Nick just stared blankly at her, shaking his head a bit. "I don't know who you think you are, but you and I, we're not friends! Alright? So please, just stay away!"

Not wanting to hear any comment that might cause her migraines to erupt, Lanie walked briskly away from Nick. The farther the better. She knew what she did was uncalled for but he was asking for it: bumping into her at the airport, badgering her in the bus, and now --- pretending to be her friend.

"He can't even spell Aragorn correctly!" She spat. "The nerve of that guy!" Then she realized this was happening because of Scott -- because he wasn't there. Lanie could feel the chunks rising to her throat, choking her, forcing her eyes to water. "I'm not going to do this..." She commanded herself.

It was embarassing enough that Scott stood her up to cry over it, publicly, was too much. She was Lanie Fox- the most popular girl in her school, the envy of her neighborhood, and, looking at all the girls at the convention, the prettiest one in that forum.

"You know, they've come here to meet old friends."

Lanie swung around to the source of the baritone voice. It was an old man, wearing a Gandalf costume, complete with the pointy hat, the large black boots, and the pipe.

"What?" She asked after a while.

"They are your friends aren't they?"

Shaking her head in disbelief, Lanie replied, "Y-yeah...well, we're not real friends. Just ... we go to this message board on the Internet and chat. But that's it."

The old man puffed his pipe and with a stern look said to Lanie, "These are the people that know who you really are inside. The others only see the one you are pretending to be."

"H-how...? Who are you?"

"DOn't you know me already?"

Lanie rolled her eyes and nodded. "Gandalf. I thought you were supposed to 17. Or are those wrinkles prostetic makeup?"

"Wrinkles?" The old man echoed.

Lanie sighed, "Look. Can we cut through the charade? Okay? I didn't come here for this? I was supposed to be on a yacht party, okay? I gave it up to see someone I thought was a great guy and instead I met the biggest jerk in the world. I've had nothing but bad luck since I got here, so please, don't add your stupid acting, and cheap costume and special effects make-up ruin this already ruined day."

She turned on her heels and headed straight for the exit.

"Hey, Luthy!" Cried Karen, who was Nenya on the board. "Where are you going?"

"Home!" Lanie cried.

"Home?" Karen asked. "No, you can't go home. Scott's over there."

Lanie felt her heart skip a beat. "Scott?"

"Yeah, he just arrived. Turns out he got lost. He's been looking for you."

Lanie strained her eyes to see through the throng and, there, at the center of all the commotion, was the cutest guy on the forum --- Scott McGregor. The moment that Lanie had been waiting for was finally here and she was more than ready for it.

[YayGollum]

After watching her leave and snapping his fingers resignedly, Nick drifted off in search of food, mostly expecting to make fun of how bad English food was supposed to be. Sniffing around, he was attracted to the smell of smoke and found some old man in a wizard costume blowing smoke rings. He swept his gaze around a couple of times to make sure that nobody was close enough to hear him express enthusiasm for much. Fortunately, they were close enough behind a display of large movie posters that only a few would have seen him talking.

"Hey, cool! How'd you do that, man?"

A little smirk came to the man's face as he removed the pipe from his mouth. "Years of practice. Not something you'd be interested in, Mister Collins."

At first, Nick nodded his head with relief that the guy knew how busy he'd be with...stuff...of his own to practice much at anything, but he knit his brows in confusion at being identified. "Huh? How do you know me, old man? What, are you one my uncle's geek buddies?"

The old man sighed, stuck the pipe back in his mouth, and seemed to look through Nick with contemplation. "Hm. Now, why would you think that? I have not had the pleasure of meeting your uncle. I was looking for you, actually."

Nick shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably but crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at the guy. "Huh! Not too well, hiding back here! What do you want, huh? I'm just here because my uncle's dragging me along. I don't really care about this nerdy stuff."

"Oh, yes? Why are you wearing that costume, then? If you don't like this 'nerdy stuff,' why are you here?"

Nick tilted his head to the heavens to wonder about that but easily shrugged it off and scowled at the man. "What do you care, stalker freak? Huh! I can still have fun, even if the place is filled with losers like you." After taking a step away, he noticed his I. D. badge flapping against his chest and decided that it must have been how the old man had recognized him. He flipped the thing to the ground and stomped off in search of food again.

[Miss Insanity]

As the second bus pulled in, Adi Panikkar leaned her head against the window and waited for the others to get off before her. She nervously played with a curl of her hair, listening to the other people walking by but not daring to look at any of them. Her parents had sent her because they thought she needed to get out of the house... Well, out of the country. When the invitation had come, she had been excited at first. A chance to meet some her best friends, the only people she felt comfortable around. But that was online. What would they think of her when they saw her for real? She no longer heard the sound of footsteps, and checked to make sure the bus was empty. She looped her ID tag around her neck and grabbed her old brown backpack.

She only just reached the bottom step when a girl next to her screamed, "Oh my god! Lady?!" Adi turned and looked down at her name tag. She looked back to the girl's tag which read ShieldMaiden. "Oh my god, it is you!" ShieldMaiden jumped on Adi and gave her a big bear hug. Even though the two had been friends for three years now, and talked through instant messengers frequently, Adi felt deeply uncomfortable. "Well don't just stand there, say something." Adi swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. "Hey.." she began sheepishly, "how are you? You, uh... Don't look like I thought you would." That doesn't make sense, she thought. I've seen pictures of her before. Oh! I don't belong here!

"Oh... Well, I had no idea what to expect with you, Lady, but you look gorgeous." ShieldMaiden smiled genuinely and put her hand on Adi's arm. That made her uncomfortable, but she tried to speak. "Thank you. You're beautiful yourself. You look a lot like Eowyn." Another lie. The girl looked nothing like her favourite character. Her hair was short and blond and her skin was tan.

At that instant a short balding man cut in, saving Adi from her awkward conversation. His tag read TomBombadil and he was wearing a fitting costume. Adi looked at her own costume, which consisted of a large green cloak, boots, and a black gown underneath that covered her body entirely. The old man started talking to ShieldMaiden and Adi used the situation to sneak off in the opposite direction. She tucked her name tag into her gown to avoid being spotted by anyone else. She noticed an old man dressed like Gandalf and blowing smoke rings while talking to a boy wearing a costume that looked like a more traditional Aragorn. Something about the old man made her feel comfortable, but he was still too nervous to talk to him. Instead, she sat at the nearest table and started playing with that curl of hair once more...

[Firawyn]

Shane stepped out of the bus, casually looping the nametag reading Alisonia around her neck. It really would be up to this stupid little peice of paper for her online buddys to pick her out, because she'd never put her picture on the web for all to see.

Shane didn't particuarly think she wasn't pretty enough, being chased by every man in the area told her she was, but somewhere in the back of her mind she was afraid of being found my her father's killer, a man they'd never been able to put behind bars. They knew exactly who he was, Mr. Joe Devont, but he was too powerful in New York for the prosicuters to even get near him.

She glaced down at her nametag again. Her handle, Alisonia, was acctaully her middle name. When she'd been born, her mother had insisted upon Shane, even though it was a boy's name, for her daughter's first name. Shane's father had comprimised by giving her Alisonia for a middle name, thus more often calling her 'Ali', or Ali-cat in reflection to her lanky figure. She's always been so thin, just like him. She would have made a good drug runner, but criminal life stopped appealing after her dad died.

"Ali?" a voice said, interested.

Shane turned around to face a brunette about her hight with an athletic build and still very pretty. "Libra." she mumbled, glancing up and down the young woman. Then she mentally kicked herself back into reality, remembering that she was not here to pick up a date, and for that fact no one here knew she was a lesbian.

The girl, Libra, held out her hand. "I'm Tina," she said smiling. "It's wonderful to meet you at last Ali."

"I'm uh...acctaully my name is Shane," she said as she took Tina's hand.

"Isn't Shane a..." Tina said awkwardly.

"A guy's name, yeah, I blame my mother for that one." she finished. "It suits me though. Alisonia is my middle name...my dad called me Ali."

"Cool," Tina said. "My screen name is just my zodiac sign. My birthday is October 15th."

"Yeah, my birthday is August 27th, I'm a Vigro."

"Oh!" Tina said, "Vigro and Libra are usually very compatable!" Then she turned a deep shade of red. "Sorry, I'm uh...well you're probobly not..."

Shane chuckled, knowing those lines perfectly. Knowing exactly what Tina was playing at. "I'm gay."

Tina lit up again. "No kidding! Me too." she said smiling.

"Let's go meet some of the other's, you know?" Shane shrugged. "I wanna meet Lady and some of the others."

"Yeah," Tina said cheerfully. "Let's go."

[Miss Insanity]

Adi heard the final bus roll in and glanced over. She noticed another friend get off the bus - Alisonia. Adi and Shane had been friends for a long time, and she probably new more about the girl than anyone else here. She'd known for sometime now that Shane was a lesbian. Now that she saw her, Adi felt excited again. She forgot about her hair and pulled the tag back out from her cloak, straightening it out, so that it looked nice. What would my parents think? The thought startled her. Why should she care? They would hate me if they new I was friends with her. They would hate me if they knew about me... She tried to put it out of her mind, but the thoughts of her parents wouldn't leave. Her brother was the only one who knew everything. Ever since the car accident four years ago, he'd had little to do but talk to his sister. He no longer played sports, even though there were many options offered for people in wheelchairs. He could understand, because there was something different about him too.

"Hi, Lady." Shane was suddenly right in front of Adi. She hadn't noticed her approaching. She suddenly felt very self conscious, and shrugged her shoulders forward, hoping to hide her breasts and maybe even curl up into a little ball and wait for everyone to go away. "Hi, Shane," she started awkwardly, "I can't believe I'm meeting you here. I... I've thought about you a lot." Shane raised an eyebrow at that. Did she know? No, of course not! I'm just being paranoid! "You know, because I'm - well, I was really looking forward to meeting you... Not that I'm not still, it's just... Oh! I've already made a fool of myself! How are you?" Gods, I am so stupid!

[Firawyn]

Shane looked at the ground, grinning ear to ear.

Here she was, the beautiful Lady, Adi, standing right in front of her. Maybe it was the look on her face, or maybe on Adi's, but Tina just raised her eyebrows and shook her head. "See you later on Shane." she said, turning away.

Shane turned her attention to Adi and was surprised when her gay-dar went off. It was this weird thing she could do, she could always tell when a person was gay. It was her gay raidar, her gay-dar.

There was a look in Adi's eyes, something that you can only see in person, so even after how many years they'd known each other, this was the first time she'd gotten a hint of it.

She wasn't out of the closet though, that much was just as obvious. Adi was her freind, and Shane had a feeling that they would be talking about some non-Tolkien related things throughout this trip. She was acctaully kinda surprised that Adi had never said anything before, since Lady Adi was the only person from the site who knew she was gay herself.

"So um...do you know what the plan for what we're doing here is?" Shane asked, trying to move the convesation along.

[Miss Insanity]

Adi tilted her left foot towards her right and absent-mindedly bit her lower lip. She reached for her pockets but realized she didn't have any in this costume. She wanted to cover herself up as much as possible, so she pulled her sleeves down over her hands. "Well," she started shyly, "all I know is that after everyone mingles there's going to be some kind of presentation back at the hotel, and maybe we'll watch the movies..." Adi hoped Shane would want to watch the movies with her. She thought about sitting beside her for such a long time, just being close to her. The thought made her skin run chills, and her stomach knotted with anxiety. "Maybe you'd like to sit with me?" Shane smiled and said, "That'd be nice." Adi smiled and loosened up a little bit, letting her hands back out of her sleeves. "Do you.. um.. want anything to drink?" she pointed over to the table covered in leafy designs with a white semi-transparent punch bowl in the center, the long swan-carved ladle drooping over the side. Shane nodded and the two walked over. As Shane was reaching out for a cup, an old man dressed in a very convincing Gandalf costume stepped into their way.

"Hello girls. I hope you don't mind if I grab myself a drink before you. I am an old man after all." Shane nodded politely and Adi just looked at the ground. "So," continued the old man as he dipped the ladle into the punch, "are you two here together?" Adi quickly looked up and said anxiously, "No! Well... We're, um, walking here together.. But.. Um..." she trailed off, embarrassed at her outburst. Great, now Shane will think I don't like her! The old man just let out an "Mmmhmm.." as he filled his cup with the punch. "Well, I have no doubt I will be seeing more of you two later. I hope you both have fun, and learn something from your time here." Learn something? What did the old man mean? It's not like there were any lectures or debates happening. "Thanks," said Shane, clearly the bolder of the two. "Yeah," stammered Adi, "Thank you.." she searched for a name tag and when she found none just said "Gandalf."

As the old man walked away into the crowd he pulled out an old-looking pipe and started to blow smoke rings. He turned back and winked at the girls before disappearing into the masses of Tolkienites. Only his pointed hat and the smoke rings were visible. Well, thought Adi to herself, that was weird...

[Firawyn]

Shane shifted, trying despratly to mask her feelings. This girl, this Adi, was beautiful, and yeah, she liked her. She'd always liked the Lady. She never thought she'd ever meet her in person, nor did she ever dare hope that Adi would be gay too, and even now she was telling herself that there was as slim to none chance that Adi would be into her. As if. she muttered to herself.

"What?" Adi replied.

"Oh, sorry," Shane said quickly. "I was just talkin to myself...I do that alot."

It took an enormous amount of self control for Shane not to smack herself then and there. And now she must think I'm a crazy person!

Despite the look of self confidence that Shane often portrayed, she had just as much, if not more insecurities as Adi did. But as per usual she was giving off the appearence that she knew what she was doing.

Thinking about people knowing what they were doing, Shane turned to Adi again.

"What was with that Gandalf dude?" she inquired."I don't even know of a Gandalf on the forum. Just Gandalf_White and The Grey Pilgrem really, all the other registered Gandalfs are non-active."

[Miss Insanity]

"Yeah, he even put that little symbol from the Hobbit on there. Well, at least he's authentic." Adi suddenly realized that she had stopped slouching and quickly resumed her former pose. There's no way. I'm not going to tell her. If she said "no" I... "Well. Do you... um.. want to go see who else is here? We could," she coughed on her words, "go together?" Vasuman could help me. He was always the outgoing one. At least, until his accident. Few of his friends had lasted after that. A few tried coming over, but quickly ended up disappearing. If only he was here... Suddenly Adi's thoughts returned to the present. Shane was walking into the crowd, her hand on Adi's, pulling her along with her. Adi gripped back, a part for fear of the unknown, and a part for love.

[Firawyn]

"You wanna go meet some of the others?" Shane heard Adi say.

Shane wanted to roll her eyes, but didn't. This poor girl was so insecure, she wondered what had happened to her to make her that way, to make her unable to just say 'I want to be with you.'

On the other hand, Shane thought to herself, she wasn't about to say what she was feeling...Adi I want to kiss you so badly! but at least she knew why. Shane had been hurt too many times, had lost too many lovers to risk it again. Right now, she was only going for friends.

On the other hand, she thought, where would she get in life without taking a little bit of a risk. She grabbed Adi's hand, feeling a prickle in her spine, and began to inch her way through the crowd towards the bus that was getting ready to start taking passengers back to the hotel before the event the next day.

[Narya]

Walking through the crowd as though she was on her way down the aisle, Lanie felt like a Queen on her way to meet her handsome King. She kept her eyes steady on Scott's handsome features in an effort to keep everyone's head turned. In her mind, she could see their thoughts as, no doubt, their attention had focused on her and Scott, and this momentous meeting of the forum's crowned King and Queen. She held her head high, regally asserting her position in their midst. If they think there is someone more appropriate to be Queen, she thought, they better think again. No one is more fitting for the role...except... “What the—”


The old man who was dressed as Gandalf had blocked her path.


“Excuse me,” she said contemptuously, “will you please move?”


However, he just looked at her disappointedly. He shook his head slightly too, further fraying Lanie's very thin tolerance for annoying strangers. She returned the man's judging gaze with an angry glare. Suddenly, the old man spoke and something made Lanie start. It wasn't the way he said it that made the hair on her nape prickle and stand on end, it was what he said.


He told her, “You need to change, Lanie Fox. The council has chosen you.”


Lanie's eyes narrowed. “Chosen me? Chosen me for what?”


Gandalf shrugged. “For the better.” Then he walked away, and though Lanie followed him with her eyes, he quickly disappeared in the thickness of the crowd that had surprisingly swelled up around her. She weeded a path through them, hoping to catch the old man and get a better explanation of what he had said.


“Where—?” she whispered, turning her head to every direction, craning her neck, and standing on tiptoe to get above the shoulders of taller people who would not let her through. She had practically scoured the entire place and there was no sign of the old man anywhere. “The nerve of that guy!”


She turned around, straightened her dress, and let out an exasperated sigh. Then suddenly she remembered Scott, with a pang she ran back to where she had last seen him almost tripping on loose wires and overly long dresses. However, like the old man, Scott seemed to have disappeared.


Lanie wanted to scream. She went to the nearest chair, sat down and took her shoes off. She massaged her aching heels hoping to ease the soreness caused by her relentless walking. She could feel chunks of angry sobs making their way up her throat. She looked around trying to see if anyone was looking at her, but they were all occupied with something and someone else.


“I shouldn't have come,” she said, covering her face now wet with hot tears. “I should have just stayed home and attended the Yacht party.”


A soft, cool breeze began to blow and Lanie suddenly felt tired. Her mind began to wander, and soon she was yearning for a bed, soft pillows, and a warm blanket. I'm not that tired, she chided herself, but her body disagreed. She was almost asleep. The wind kept fanning her face, and it was lucky that she was sitting down or she would have fallen to the ground, face first. That would be very embarrassing.

[Miss Insanity]

Adi and Shane walked back towards the number three bus, which had a line up outside the door. They maneuvered their way through the crowded pavilions and had nearly reached the line when Adi remembered her backpack. She had left it at the table where Shane and her had first met face to face. "I forgot my bag," she said, feeling rather stupid. "I need to go back and get it, save me a seat?" Shane laughed and said that she would come and get the bag with her. As they were walking back to the table, Adi noticed a cool breeze moving in and shivered. Shane seemed to notice it too, holding her arms closer to her body and putting her right hand in her pocket. Adi blushed as she noticed another effect of the cold on Shane and hid her cheeky smile in the shade of her hood.

They reached the table and Adi breathed a sigh of relief to find the bag there. Suddenly the world seemed to grow dark... no - someone was standing beside her and blocking the sun. Adi and Shane had to tilt their heads back to look at the man towering over them. It was the weird old Gandalf man again. He stared down at both of them with a raised, bushy eyebrow. "Hi," said Shane, "can we help you?" The old man just shook his head and blew another smoke ring up past the brim of his blue hat. After another moment, he pulled the pipe from his lips and spoke. "You two both have a world of discovery ahead of you. Only together can you fully understand your potentials, but to do that you will both have a lot to overcome. It is for these reasons that the council has chosen you." Shane and Adi looked at eachother questioningly. "What... council?" they asked together, turning back to the old man. He was nowhere to be seen. He'd just... disappeared. All of a sudden, the cold breeze started again and Adi felt very tired. "I've... got to sit... sit down," she said. Shane yawned, and the two collapsed into the plastic chairs behind them. Adi wanted nothing so much as sleep. It seemed almost as if she were lying in a bed of clouds... Drifting... Drifting...

[YayGollum]

OOC: Okay, then. I shall follow the suit.

IC: Nick caught his uncle peering at him through a few stalls several times, but he always managed to evade him. After buying something that some pitifully enthusiastic geek had called lembas, he skirted the edges of the area. A few too many geeks over there for him to antagonize, he thought. He did bump into a few of the more anti-social sorts, but after finding that they didn't know who he was and that he didn't know much else, they left him alone.

A breeze blew some lembas wrapper into his face, so he spun around and almost knocked the old wizard over. "Woah! Watch where you're going, geezer!" He brushed past the guy but did a double-take when he remembered bumping into the same guy before. "Hey, you're that stalker freak, aren't you? Stay away from me, man." The old dude brushed some lembas crumbs out of his beard and sighed. "You, my young friend, should learn to bear more responsibility. In fact, I believe that you may get some practice, soon." With a nod, then an exit ---> "Until we meet again, Mister Collins."

"Weirdo," Nick muttered. Another spin on his heel later, and he almost ended up lying on the ground when a sudden wave of exhaustion struck him and his knee almost gave out. "What was that? Ugh, gotta sit down." Plopping himself right down on the grass, he took a last nibble of the lembas before drifting off. "You know, it's not bad."

[Firawyn]

Shane woke up under a large tree, noisily surrounded by uncountable...hobbits?

"What the heck?" she said aloud. "Am I still dreaming?"

Shane gasped as she heard her voice, changed from it's usual tones to somthing more male like, though still she knew it was her talking. Then she caught a reflection of herself...she thought...in the nearby pond.

"Okay, this is weird." she said, seeing that she herself was a young male hobbit. "I have so got to be dreaming."

Still, somthing inside of her was telling her that this wasn't a dream, that somehow it was a reality of sorts.

"Merry, come help me with this banner!" a voice called.

Shane looked around, hoping to spot this Merry who was being summoned.

"Yes you Merry," the other hobbit said, staring blankly at Shane. "Come on! Help me!"

Shane pointed at herself, staring questioningly back at the other hobbit. "Me?"

"Oy! Did you fall out of the Party Tree?" the hobbit asked, now looking worried. "Master Baggins told you not to climb it, but of course why would you listen to him now? Brandybucks never heed good advice, do they Merry?"

Shane shrugged, not really knowing what to say. She stood, and brushed off her unfamilier cloths and body. "Yeah, I must have fallen from the tree," she agreed, decided that until she knew what was going on here, she'd better just go with the flow.

"Okay Merry, come on then and help me set this banner up. We've got less than two hours before the Party starts. Good lord, Mr. Bilbo is 111 years old. I can't believe it myself."

Shane moved toward the other hobbit, and did as she was told, wishing despratly that there was someone here who would tell her what was going on.

[Narya]

The smell of chickens was all over the place. The noise was getting to a point where it's unbearable to have hearing. For one thing, the sound of wooden wheels relentlessly scraping the ground was maddening enough to rouse the dead, but to hear that, along with a hub-bub of voices talking, laughing, and screeching, and of thudding feet thumping the floor--to and fro, to and fro--was torture. She wanted to scream, but she realized it must have been a dream and you can't scream at your dream and expect it to follow orders.

I need to wake up, she thought and, willing herself upright, she slowly opened her eyes and looked around for her watch. She rubbed her eyes when she saw hay all around her. The skin around her eyes were stinging when she decided to stop, but the hay was still there, still all around and underneath her. The chickens were around her as well. She stood up quickly realizing that it wasn't a dream. Her heart started racing, her eyes began to well, and she could feel a scream eeking it's way out of her when something began to nibble the seams of her hideous shirt. She turned sharply and saw a small billy goat. It baa'd at her. She backed away, slowly. She opened her mouth, but before her voice went out something else caught her attention. Her eyes were fixed on them. They couldn't be real, she hoped but as she bent down and touched them with her finger she realized, since she could feel her own hand, that they were real. They were hers.

A scream so loud it made the chickens fly out of all the windows smote the air.

"This isn't happening! I am dreaming this..." she kept mumbling. Someone, an old man, kept yelling at her. Calling her Sam or something. She ignored him and ran off in search of the police--or a phone booth. She needed to call the Mayor, or the Prime Minister. She would even call the Queen if she had to. Someone had to make things right again.

"Hullo, Sam!" said an odd looking fellow. He had brown curling hair--they all had brown curling hair--and that thing they had for feet was also there. "Off to the party tree?"

She shook her head.

"What's the matter?" he asked and he began to follow her. "Are you ill?"

She cried in alarm and tried to run, but one of the overly large things got caught in a root and she fell, face first on the ground.

"Sam!" he cried, picking her up by the arms. "Are you alright?"

She stood and stared at him. "Am I... alright? Am I... ALRIGHT?"

He was looking at her with deep concern, patting her head gently with his hand--stubby, short hand. "Is it too much sun? Have you been gardening all morning?"

Gardening?

She wrenched her arm from his hold and tried to walk fast as far away from everyone as possible. Fortunately, the strange fellow decided not to follow anymore. She went into what looked like a forest. She heard voices not far off in the distance. She followed the voices that sounded awefully familiar. She froze when she heard the word "Dude!".

"I'm saved!" she said. Bursting with excitement, she ran faster toward the location of the voice, muffling her cries as she stubbed an overgrown toe every now and then. It didn't matter. She was saved.

When she found the origin of the voices, her heart sank, and her fear slowly turned into rage.

"YOU!"

[YayGollum]

Nick awoke with a start when he felt a bug crawling on him. Perplexingly, the usual amount of force that it took for him to push himself up from a lying position wasn't enough this time, and he fell back and hit his head on a tree. "Ow! Hey, where'd that come from? Huh? Where am I?" Not so concerned about his whereabouts as he was about his physical condition, he examined an arm. It looked like he hadn't worked out in a while. Raising an eyebrow and losing his calm, he noticed his feet. "What?! What's going on?!" Casting about for someone with answers and finding no one, he struck the tree with his foot with frustration, even though he was sure that it would hurt. Surprisingly, the thing was tougher than its bulbous appearance had led him to believe. This did little to calm him, at the time, and he ended up sort of shuffling along to keep from falling over with his new feet.

Not too much later, he heard the sound of an old wooden wagon's approach and headed dazedly towards it. The top of the wizard's hat filled him with hope. "Hey, it's you! What happened? Where am I? Wait." Suddenly backing off and looking suspicious ---> "You didn't do this to me, did you?" The wizard smiled and halted the wagon. "It's good to see you again, too, my boy! All of your questions will be answered in time. The council, in what wisdom it possesses, has chosen you for a singular honor. Now, don't carry yourself that way! Stop scratching there! Frodo was a gentleman. Or a gentlehobbit, I should say."

The old man puffed a bit on his pipe, giving Nick time enough to give the excuse of, "Well, there's a bug in my pants!" and to try to figure out what this guy was telling him. "Wait. What? What council? What honor? I like the sound of that. What hobbit? Frodo? Did I bump my head too hard or something? You're talking about that geeky stuff at the convention! Is this some prank by my stupid uncle?" A roll of his eyes later, the old guy pierced him with a glare that quickly disolved. "Frodo Baggins! - A name which you should learn to respond to, by the way - Listen! You've never been very observant, or you would already know where you are. Take this to heart: You will not always have someone to provide for you. You must learn to make your own decisions. Study is one way to make the decisions easier. Frodo was a scholar. I suggest you read a book or two. But you won't be alone. Why, here comes Lanie Fox, now!"

Nick had been scowling at the suggestion but turned and, easily believing that it could be the girl he had met before by way of her mannerisms, even as she stumbled through the trees towards them, "Dude!"

[Miss Insanity]

Adi felt like she was in heaven. The pillow beneath her head was the softest she had ever felt, and the sheets around her were like clouds. She gave a long sigh and turned her head, the sun warming her face. She could feel the warmth flowing through her all the way from her feet to her curly head of hair. Curly hair? Adi's eyes burst open as she sat up. What the hell is going on? she thought as she took in the room around her. It was unlike any place she had ever been before. There was a large wooden dresser, the shapes of leaves carved into it and stained a rich green. Beside that there was a trunk and a table with a map spread across it's surface and a candlestick, wax frozen in its dripping path to the paper. A large rounded window was on the north wall letting in a thin stream of sunshine through the slit between the shutters. This wasn't her room at home, or her hotel room for the convention. The convention. What had happened? How did I get here? She remembered feeling very tired and... an old man. Gandalf. Where was he? Everything was so confusing... With a sudden start, Adi realized that Shane was nowhere to be seen either. A small painting of a stout woman with long golden hair was her only companion.

This must be part of the convention. Some kind of weird trick. Suddenly Adi noticed a tall mirror against the wall and walked over to it. When she looked into it she let out a whimper of shock. That isn't me! Instead of herself, Adi saw a young man dressed in a yellow vest with a green jacket beneath. His short pants were wrinkled, but she could still see the intricate designs in the brown cloth. Below that she saw what startled her most. A pair of long hairy feet. He was a hobbit! His face imitated her confused expression and she noticed that he moved with her, mimicking every motion perfectly. "Well," she began, but stopped instantly. That wasn't her voice. "What the-" again she stopped. For some reason, whenever she talked a boy's voice came out. Before she had anymore time to think a voice called from beyond the door. "Pip! Pippin Took, wake up! We need to get ready for the party! Oh what will I ever do with you?!"

The door opened and the stout woman from the painting walked in. She looked much older than in the painting, her hair now silver and wrinkles visible in her skin. "Well, it's nice to see that you're up and about, but how about getting ready then?" Adi shook her head in confusion. "Don't tell me you're going in those! The least you could do is put on some nice pants for Mr. Bilbo's party." The strange woman came over and opened the wooden dresser. "Here," she said, holding a pair of neatly folded trousers. "Put these on and get outside, we need to hurry if we're going to make it there on time." and with that, she scuttled out of the room and shut the door. Adi didn't know what to think as she picked up the trousers from the table. As she did so, she noticed the map underneath it. The title read 'The Shire of the Third Age of Middle Earth'. A legend showed little trees and hills and rivers flowing all over the map. Little doors were drawn in some of the hills and a name beneath. Bolger, Proudfoot... Baggins. It couldn't be true. Adi ran to the window and unlatched the shutters, opening them wide. Sunlight poured in and it took her eyes a moment to adjust. Once her vision had cleared she gasped, and put her hands to her lips. Spread out before her she saw The Shire. Not a painting or a poster, but the actual thing. A cart with a donkey rolled along the dirt road outside and across the river she could see a big water-wheel spinning. Hobbits strode to and fro along the streets, and many seemed to heading to a clearing with a big tree in the center. The tree was covered in lights and decorations, and large pavilions and banners were being set up around it. "The party tree," she said aloud, as she stepped back from the window. As she moved, she tripped over a large hairy foot and fell hard onto the wood floor. Looking down, she saw, with horror, that it was her own hairy-toed Hobbit foot. As she was about to cry out, the door opened once more and in walked someone she had never expected to see. "Merry?!" she said.

[Firawyn]

"Adi thank God! I am so glad I am not the only one whose...whatever the heck is going on here." Shane in the form of Merry gasped.

Adi never had a chance to reply because to more hobbits, both looking as perplexed as Shane and Adi were, ad just walked in, followed by a tall elderly man...who was the Gandalf the Grey they'd met at the convention!

[Narya]

"Don't you "Dude' me!" Lanie cried, pointing a stubby forefinger at what seemed to be Nick in a Frodo-costume. "I should've known you were somehow involved in all this!"

"Me? Involved?" Nick asked.

"Yes!" Lanie exploded. "Don't you dare deny it!"

"Deny it? I can't even admit it," he said cooly. Then he looked at the taller person in front of them both and only then did Lanie notice him. "Did you have to include her?"

Nick kept talking to the man, who appeared to be a giant by the size of him, and though her name was mentioned a few times, their conversation sounded like babbling to her. She slowly looked down at her body again and then she looked at Nick. They were the same size. They both had rag-like clothes and then her eyes strayed downward. The feet. They both had it. Large, hair-covered feet resembling that of a rabbit's. Bushy, brown curling hair--like the one she and Nick had on their heads. I'm a Hobbit, she said to herself. Then, gaping at the gigantuan man before her, Lanie tried, as best as she could, to comprehend what had happened and why she was there. Was it real? Was she dreaming? Had she lost her mind? While she pondered these questions in the hope that her brain would be able to process them and provide a favorable answer, Nick suddenly took another jab at her.

"Well," he said with a melodious note, "looks like you're stuck with me kid!"

"No..." she said softly.

"Say what now?"

"No--No--No--No--" she kept repeating the word while her voice rose one-note higher each time. She took a deep breath, and then she made the most ear-piercing, migraine-stimulating shriek she could muster. It lasted for almost a minute, and when she stopped she didn't stay to hear anymore explanation. There was only one thing she could do in a situation like this.

She ran wildly to the opposite direction. She didn't go far because a few feet and a couple of lewd curses after, she managed to stump her foot on a branch, loose her balance, and bump into a tree. The blackness was calming until she saw Nick looking down at her.

"Bring her where?" he asked.

"To your house," said a deep, male voice.

The old, gigantic man no doubt.

"Alright," Nick said. Lanie saw him bend over and then it was dark again.

[YayGollum]

After being dropped off at the hobbit hole that he was informed his body usually lived in, Nick tossed Lanie into the nearest chair and dropped into one nearby to massage his burning muscles. "Agh! Why'd I have to get stuffed into some midget body? I didn't even like those movies!" He spotted a few books and papers around and merely gave them a snort. After pacing around in front of Lanie for a bit, he smacked his head with the sudden realization that he should be doing something useful. He thought about finding some water to toss at the fat hobbit Lanie had become but couldn't remember if they had sinks in whatever time period he was stuck in and decided that performing a few push-ups would be better. A sweat was produced after only a few of the things, so he took his seat again and grabbed a book and started grappling with the title. "Whatever! If it'll get me out of here!" When the girl started to wake up, he glared at the book and started waving it under her nose. "Hey, what took you so long? Get up and get us out of here! You're one of those geeks! Figure it out, huh?"

[Narya]

Lanie’s head felt like it had been kicked in by a horse—a huge horse with a very heavy shoe. She tried to recall what had happened to her before getting—wherever this place she was at now—when she heard someone ordering her around.

"Hey, what took you so long? Get up and get us out of here! You're one of those geeks! Figure it out, huh?"

“W-what?” she mumbled.

“I said figure this out!”

The small, angry-looking midget seemed to have the same attitude as Nick and she would have discarded it all for a dream—a weird dream, but reality kicked in too soon and she began to remember what had happened and where she was. Suddenly, she felt like crying.

“What is it now?” Nick grumbled, for it was Nick, wearing Frodo’s face and body. Lanie took one look at the stubby fingers in front of her face and then cried even louder. “Oh! Shut up!”

“Shut up? Shut up?” Lanie said. She was fed up with all of it, and she wasn’t about to let this Tolkien-moron boss her around just because she had the unfortunate fate of being turned into his gardener. “Listen here, you pathetic turd! I didn’t want to be this—this—this GARDENER! Okay? This is not my idea! So don’t you think for one second that I will treat you like you’re my boss!”

“Ah, Lanie, like you have no choice,” said Nick. “I am Frodo and you are Sam.” He looked Lanie from head to toe. “Yeah—you’re definitely a Sam. And that Gandalf person said we get out of here if we play the parts right.”

“Yeah! Well he’s wrong!” Lanie cried. “He’s wrong about everything! Because I am NOT a SAM! I am NOT A SAM MATERIAL! If I were to be changed into someone from Middle Earth I should have been turned into ARWEN!”

“Ar-who?”

“And you,” she said, ignoring his query, “you should have been turned into an Orc! Or a Goblin! Or Smeagol! But you’re definitely NOT a Frodo!”

“What? You think I like this gig?” said Nick sardonically. “For your information, brown and green with this kind of fabric doesn’t suit me. And brown curly hair is certainly not my kind of fashion.”

“I don’t care!” Lanie snapped. “I never cared about you!”

“Well, I don’t care about you either!” Nick returned angrily. “I want out of here! And if you want to get out, too, then you better start acting like that Sam person!”

Lanie knew Nick was right, and though she despised him he was the only way out of this predicament. She had to play the character or she’d never get out and be Lanie again.

She wiped her face angrily with the sleeve of her tunic and then turned to Nick, took the book from his hand, and with her stubby finger pointed at his face she said, “You’re right. Okay, shorty, I’ll be Sam—”

“Good. Now, teach me how to be—”

“I will tell you how to be Frodo,” Lanie cut him, “only if you stop acting like my freaking master!”

“But I thought—”

“You thought wrong! Because whatever it is that Gandalf wanted us to do here, we are only going to do it when we need to do it and only because we both want to get out! Understand? So, I don’t need to work for you and you do not order me about. Until we get to the part where you and I actually NEED to work together, I am my own hobbit! Got it?”

Then she stormed out of Bag End and went straight to the nearest pub.

[YayGollum]

Nick tossed a, "Hmph!" at her, grabbed another book, and sat back down to try to study. The old man told him to read books. Maybe that would be all it would take to get back to England. He hated reading, had never really gotten the hang of it, and quit after half a paragraph. He looked out the window to see if he could find where Lanie had run off to. Nothing but a bunch of people in period costumes looking busy setting something up around a big tree. With that Gandalf person gone to speak with someone called Bilbo, he really didn't feel that much like a midget anymore. The weird feet weren't that hard to get used to, and he enjoyed kicking at things and not feeling much.

He decided that walking around and talking to some of these people would help him to get into his character. Someone who was obviously a Dwarf but looked like a giant bear of a man to him bumped into him on his way outside. The Dwarf grunted, bowed in apology, and stomped off with a, "Pardon me, Mister Baggins!" The loud clomping that the Dwarf's boots made seemed unusually annoying to him, but it reminded him to look for socks and shoes before heading out.

He was still frowning with confusion after checking the whole place twice when an older (and shoeless) hobbit trotted in and slammed the door. The guy smiled at him as he bustled about, prattling about how busy things were and how bothersome it all was. Nick interrupted with an exhausted whine, "Where're all the shoes?" The hobbit gave him a baffled look, then seemed to understand and peered down the hall. "Has one of our guests lost their boots? Ah, well, I haven't the time to go looking! I still have gifts to address!" Nick noticed that he didn't have any shoes on, took another peek out of the window, noticed that none of the other hobbits had any either, and winced. He hovered around the older hobbit as he scribbled away on little labels.

After a couple of beats, the guy sighed and half turned to him. "Have you seen all of the guests? I hope they all received their invitations. Have you seen Gandalf recently? He was here just yesterday. Oh, and, apart from the missing boots, are the Dwarves behaving themselves today?" Nick blinked and wondered if he should have kept his nose in a book. He quickly offered, "Yes! Yes! Yes! Everything is good! Ah, I'll just go check on them!" before exiting, just to make sure that he didn't slip up in some way, oblivious to the fact that Bilbo just wanted to keep him busy.

The party went by. Nick, after finding that it was also his birthday, sulked because everyone paying more attention to his uncle. He was just as surprised as everyone else when Bilbo disappeared. When Gandalf told him to take care of the the old ring, Nick knew that the thing was supposed to be important to the plot, but he was never really sure what the big deal was. He just nodded and looked around for a chain to put it on. While waiting for the wizard to come back, he annoyed lots of hobbits in pubs when trying out different dialects on them. His accents were horrible and mostly all the same, but he eventually just tried to stick with sounding more intelligent that he was, although he would sometimes slip up when his mind started to wander. He read bits of the different books that he had been left with but couldn't really enthused about it. He got most of his information from socializing, just like his old life. He did gain a bit more muscle, but not enough to satisfy him. The frequent meals and mostly sedentary lifestyle was starting to grow on him, though.

He saw Lanie around quite frequently, but she always seemed impatient for the wizard or fuming at her chores. When Gandalf finally did show up, he was very contentedly full of food and beer. "Well, look who it is! It's the stalker freak, come to tell me nothing again!"

[Firawyn]

OOC: This should speed things along a bit. :)


IC:

The events that followed in the next few weeks were – in a word – exhausting. Lanie, Nick, Adi, and Shane met daily to plot and plan. They were already falling into character, into the story they were about to live, by doing this. However, it was not the same plotting and planning that Sam, Frodo, Pippin, and Merry had done – rather they were talking about how they were going to survive to the end of this adventure, and how they were going to do what fictional characters in a book did, all for the sake of getting home.

After one brief speech at Bag End two days previous, Gandalf had disappeared. “You four were chosen for this journey by the council. Your task is to take the Ring on the same journey it went on in the story you know as, as Frodo Baggins wrote, the Lord of the Rings. If you alter events, the future will be altered and you will no longer know what will happen next. By sticking to the story, you will have the edge of foresight. If you change events, and the future does change, you must still destroy the Ring, or you will never get out of Middle Earth. Now I must go – assuming you don’t mess up anything in the near future, I’ll be back to check on you in a few weeks."

Gandalf did not give them time to ask questions. He left Bag End on that note, and, true to his word, returned a few weeks later.

“It’s time for you to go to Bree. The Black Riders have left Minas Morgul. They will be in the Shire in less than a week.” Gandalf told them.

Shane, or Merry as she was growing accustomed to responding to, listened. With Gandalf there, she was reminded of the conference and how she and the others came to be here. She and Adi (or Pippin, rather) had both shunted aside any conversation about themselves in the real world, owing to that there was just too much going on. Secretly, Shane was afraid that by the end of this journey they were about to begin, the four of them might forget who they really were, and go on living in Middle Earth forever. She thought about The Chronicles of Narnia, and how in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy had come to believe that they were a part of that world to begin with, and that if they ever remembered their previous life, it was only as one remembers a dream.

[YayGollum]

OOC: Argh. *wishes that he owned those The Lord Of The Rings movies, or a D. V. D. player*

IC: Nick glared at the wizard as he trundled around the house and stuffed things in a pack. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say. Nothing I can do about it." He grunted with satisfaction at the weight of his assembled pack, then held a list up to consult. With a grin, "Alright, ladies! Looks like we've got everything. Follow me!" Upon reading the last bit of his list, he frowned with a bit of embarrassment but gave them all a serious look. "Uh, do you all have your handkerchiefs? I was reading some of my uncle's - well, old Bill or whatever's - notes, and he seemed to think that they are very important." With a glare and a shrug, "I don't know! I brought extra, anyway." He balled up his list and tossed it into a waste basket, and after a necessary, "Two points!" he whipped out a map from his pocket and strode out the door. "First stop, Bree! Barely a hike!" Gandalf gave him a concerned look but mounted a horse and trotted along beside them.

They cut through the Shire, the book-readers pointing out landmarks to each other every now and then, Nick sighing and grumbling about the fact that there were most probably more exciting stories to get sucked into. Once safely distant from any habitations, Gandalf looked down at them, "Be careful, the four of you. The enemy has many spies in his service: birds, beasts." To Nick, "Is it safe?"

Nick looked to the sky for inspiration and twisted his face with concentration. Lanie elbowed him in the chest, digging the One Ring into him. He glared at her and was about to shout a protest when he grabbed the thing while rubbing at his probably bruised chest. He laughed at himself then gave the old guy a nod. Gandalf nodded back and gave his final warning, "Never put it on, for the agents of the Dark Lord will be drawn to its power. Always remember, Frodo, the Ring is trying to get back to its master. It wants to be found."

Nick gulped and watched as the wizard left. "That's creepy. Huh! Big help he is!" Feeling a wave of anxiety, he pushed Lanie back then gripped his map in a fist. "And don't elbow me again! I'm, like, the savior of the world now, so you'd better be nice to me!" He spun and tossed Adita and Shane a satisfied grin. "Heh! But we're supposed to be friends, right? Check out this map. Looks like the quickest way is through these woods. What do you guys know about a way through? You read those books, right?"

[Narya]

Being Samwise Gamgee had its ups and downs, and for Lanie it was mostly down. She was not used to serving other people. She made it a point to always get soaked in alcohol by the end of the day if only to prevent her from doing something she knew she’d regret afterwards.

Aside from the very annoying Nick who was very good at pretending he was the boss of her, Lanie discovered that there were others like them stuck in Middle Earth from the real world. A certain Shane and Adi were introduced to her by Nick and though she hardly knew the two, she remembered getting into hefty debates with them in the Tolkien forum more than once about obnoxious canon information. She just had to have the last word on things, and the two were not always tolerant of her temper. Strangely, the two were able to understand Nick quite easily and were adapting well to this world that more often than not, Lanie found herself wondering whether they had already left for the real world or they were still humans in hobbit bodies like her. It would sound stupid to ask them so she didn’t bother to do so, but it was something that nudged her like an annoying fly. The thought that she and Nick were alone in Middle Earth again made the days longer and the nights uncomfortable, until finally, the day she dreaded the most came. Nick was being his usual irritating self when Gandalf (who had conveniently turned into the real one before their journey to Bree began) saw them off. He had just asked Nick about the ring and Nick, being his ridiculous self, looked up to the trees and was stupidly quiet for so long that Lanie had to elbow him in the chest. The move seemed to have caused him pain and he glared at her, opening his mouth in protest, but then he grabbed the One Ring and rubbed his chest.

"Never put it on, for the agents of the Dark Lord will be drawn to its power. Always remember, Frodo, the Ring is trying to get back to its master. It wants to be found," Gandalf said. Then he galloped on his huge horse and was gone.

"That's creepy. Huh! Big help he is!" said Nick. And then he pushed Lanie back and added, "And don't elbow me again! I'm, like, the saviour of the world now, so you'd better be nice to me!"

“Why you sonofa—” Lanie cursed, but she was cut off by Nick again and she had to bite her lip to stop herself from screaming out loud.

“Heh! But we're supposed to be friends, right? Check out this map; looks like the quickest way is through these woods. What do you guys know about a way through? You read those books, right?" he said to the other two.

Lanie found it the perfect opportunity to smack him down with her standard sarcasm. “Oh, come on, Nick! Everyone knows you’re the only one who doesn’t read in this group!” Then she cackled at the end of the sentence just to put more sarcasm to her words. “Our goal is to reach Bree. It is not near and we don’t actually have long legs so I suggest we get going.”

[Firawyn]

Lanie, or Samwise, had been correct. They did have short legs and Bree was I long way off. Shane was musing on this fact when Lanie came up to her.

"I was thinking", Lanie said. "That Gandalf guy said that we had to come to the same end that the books did, you know, that idiot Nick has to get the Ring to Mount Doom."

"Yes?" Shane replied. "You're point is coming soon I hope."

Lanie rolled her eyes. "I was wondering if we could get to the end without running into some of the things that the real Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin ran into."

"Like the Belrog in Moria, Gollum - I don't need a guide! -, maybe a huge creepy spider..."

"...Frodo getting stabbed at Weathertop," Shane added.

"Well that might be good for Nick!" Lanie scoffed.

"What might be good for me? Food?" Nick asked cheerfully, coming up behind them.

[Narya]

As Gandalf galloped away from them, a thought crept up to Lanie’s usually blonde head: Nick was completely in her power. He didn’t know what to do next; she can order him about, make him do things, no matter how ridiculous they were as long as they ended up with the results as told in the book.

However, there were the other two Hobbits, Adi and Shane, who could prove to be deterrent to her plans—unless, of course, she turned them into accomplices.

"I was thinking", she said to the other two. "That Gandalf guy said that we had to come to the same end that the books did. You know—that idiot Nick has to get the Ring to Mount Doom."

"Yes?" Shane replied. "You're point is coming soon, I hope."

“I was wondering if we could get to the end without running into some of the things that the real Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin ran into.” Lanie looked back and saw Nick staring at them with confusion. "Like the Balrog in Moria, Gollum—it’s not like I need a guide—maybe that huge creepy spider..."

"...Frodo getting stabbed at Weathertop," Shane added.

That wasn’t too appealing to Lanie, who had been wanting to give Nick a kind of punishment for bringing her here—because she blamed all of this on him, of course, and this disruption to her otherwise perfect life was not only uncalled for it was cruel, and cruel people need to be punished.

"Well… that might be good for Nick," Lanie scoffed.

"What might be good for me? Food?" Nick asked cheerfully, coming up behind them.

Lanie turned around and smiled at him as she grabbed Shane’s hand and squeezed it. “Yes, Master Frodo. Food! Of course! There will be plenty of that in Bree!”

Lanie saw Nick grin and slowly put his map away since none of them seemed interested in looking at it. Inside, Lanie felt awkwardly happy because Nick was playing straight into her plans. He was beginning to give her the reigns (even though there were the other two, to Lanie, they were nothing more than Extras to be dealt with. She was the star of this show and she was going to run it the way it ought to be run--her way!)

Suddenly, Nick seemed to have caught wind of something edible for he began to wander faster down the road and then bent down on some... Mushrooms! He was picking them when the other two eventually noticed that he'd stopped, and he managed to swipe a bit more before making room. He laughed and pushed one back, grinning, "Aw! But they're mine!"

"Morons!" Lanie whispered, crossing her arms. Her stomach wasn't exactly agreeing with her mind because her palate was sending signals to her brain that say MUSHROOMS = FOOD. However, she still resisted the temptation to huddle with the rest of them because something was prodding her to pay attention. Were they doing something wrong?

Something about what was happening didn't quite feel right, and she tried very hard to remember what was supposed to happen here when Nick suddenly straightened and said, "Huh! Sounds like a horse. But there weren't any horses back home. Er, in that Shire joint." Then, he shrugged his shoulders and walked down the path, looking for more mushrooms. Then, he stopped again and looked back. "Yep! Sounds like a horse! Ah, Gandalf, maybe?"

It was then that Lanie heard the hooves and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. She suddenly remembered what they were supposed to do here and realized this was a scene from the films; Frodo was supposed to warn them...

“Nick!” she said, muffling a cry with her hand. She grabbed Nick by the arm and pulled him away from the mushrooms.

Nick, being his disgusting self, licked Lanie's hand to get it off of him and he was about to protest, but then he tripped over a root and fell off the road. Lanie grabbed the other two and all four of them huddled together in a tight pack under a very large tree-root. Nick rubbed his head, looking at all of them. Then he said, "Well, I'm Nick, I know that!" and Lanie had to stiffle him with her other hand this time as the sound of very large hooves thundered down the path and stopped right above them.

[Firawyn]

Like living a dream, Shane and Adi both felt a wave of dejavu as the Nazgul sniffed the air for the presence of the Ring. Lanie was struggling, at the moment, to hold Nick down, so he did not put on the Ring.

Shane threw a rock, and the startled Nazgul took off. "Come on!" she called to the others. "We have to get to Buckleberry Ferry! The Black Riders will have to go twenty miles to the Brandywine Bridge to cross!"

The others followed Shane's lead, but Nick fell behind. He looked exhausted from fighting with Lanie. "Come on!" Shane called to Nick. "Keep up Mr. Athletic."

Then the Nagul was back, and he brought friends. Nick was cornered. The other three made it to the ferry, all calling for Nick to hurry as the ferry started to drift away from the shore...

[YayGollum]

Panting his favorite curses over and over with his short legs and his low endurance in mind, Nick almost stopped when it dawned on him that he was a main character in some silly story, so he couldn't be in any real danger. The nearest Black Rider's shriek, though, brought an unexpected lightness to his feet. "Woah!" <--- while dodging a hoof and rolling under a horse. He gave a laugh of triumph as his feet reached the wooden dock, but it was cut short and almost turned into a yelp when he thought that he felt the horse's breath on his neck. The beast had managed to turn and pursue faster than Nick thought they could.

One desperate leap later, he was too relieved to wonder how he managed it. Shaking and bouncing the boat ---> "Go, go, go! Let's go!" He watched the Black Riders turn away then slumped. "Whew! Safe forever!" He noticed a red spot on his shoulder. "Huh? Am I bleeding? Did I hit something when I rolled?" Still excited, he grinned around at his companions, then looked at his shirt again, "That thing stunk! I think this might be horse blood. Ugh. That's gross."

[Narya]

It was exciting and scary at the same time. Lanie’s heart was pumping like crazy and she knew somehow that most of her running was done with her feet in the air. Hobbit on steroids. In the movie, she knew that Peter Jackson had used actual horses that were about 8-feet to chase Elijah and company, but the ones chasing them were extraordinarily huge and they smelled nasty! For a moment, the thought that she’d be squashed under one those big hooves hovered in her thoughts, making her squeal a bit as she ran.

‘If only I wasn’t this short!’ she said to herself. ‘Run, feet, run! Hurry-hurry-hurry-hurry! Don’t look back!’

Lanie could see the others running like rabbits in the corner of her eye and knew where they were heading for—Buckleberry ferry—where a raft waited for them. They needed to get to the next crossing, which, according to Shane was 20 miles from where they were. 20 miles didn’t sound that far in the movie. But then she saw the raft, and suddenly 20 miles sounded so far away.

“That boat won’t sink, will it?” Lanie said aloud. Nobody answered her. Shane and Adi—or rather, Merry and Pippin, jumped the low fence and were already untying the raft (which looked even shabbier than the film version). Lanie got on the boat and pushed the edge of the wooden dock to send the raft on its way.

“Wait!” cried… someone. Lanie wasn’t sure who it was between the two.

“What?” she cried.

“Nick!” Shane said, pointing at a small person running like crazy towards them.

Lanie was about to say, ‘leave him’, when he suddenly jumped from the edge of the dock and landed right on top of her. She could have sworn she heard something crack and worried that it was her ribcage.

Luckily, Nick got off her quickly and looked at the horse and rider as Shane and Adi maneuvered the boat. “Go-go-go! Let's go!” he cried. "Whew! Safe forever!"

Lanie stood up, brushing anything that Nick left behind off her quickly. She looked back at the rider and saw a few more of them riding away. ‘They’re going to follow us’, was the sickening thought that kept rolling inside her head.

"Huh? Am I bleeding? Did I hit something when I rolled?" Nick said, disturbing her line of thought. "That thing stunk! I think this might be horse blood. Ugh. That's gross."

“Lanie,” Shane said.

“What?”

“We almost lost Nick back there.”

“Yeah, so?”
“He’s Frodo, Lanie!” Shane said, sounding impatient.

“I know that!” Lanie snapped.

“Yeah, well, you’re not acting like you do,” Adi added.

Lanie glared at them both. “Oh, that’s nice! Gang up on the blonde! Look—I’ve gotten nothing but **** since I got here, okay? So—so—and this isn’t helpful! What—you think I don’t know how stupid it is that I have to serve this moron until he destroys the Ring? You think I like knowing that?”

Both Shane and Adi gaped at her.

“That’s not the point, Lanie,” Adi said.

“No?” Lanie said snippily.

“No!” Shane said. “The point is we need him to get out of here! You need him! You’re supposed to look out for him!”

“What?” Lanie cried. “I don’t have to take care of him!”

“We never said you should take care of him,” Adi cut in. “What we’re saying is that you should start acting like Sam. He’s Frodo, you’re Sam, and you should be looking out for him. We almost left him behind back there! If he got captured by those Nazguls the story will change—”

The thought hit her like a mallet in the head. Her attitude towards Nick nearly changed the story.

“Well—if it did, then maybe we get to start all over again,” she said. “This time maybe I get to be an elf, and—“

“What if it doesn’t restart?” Nick asked.

“What?” Lanie echoed.

“He’s right,” Shane said. “What if the story doesn’t restart at all? What if, after we change the story, we have to continue with the outcome—what then?”

The thought made her throat dry. She didn’t know the answer. Being in Middle Earth was one thing, but being in an alternate Middle Earth was something else. It was hard enough being a Hobbit.

Lanie nodded and then looked down and for a while, there was silence in the raft.

“Okay,” Shane said shortly. “Since we have time to kill before the whole chasing thing starts again, I suggest we fill Nick in on what is going to happen next.”

[Firawyn]

“Okay,” Shane said shortly. “Since we have time to kill before the whole chasing thing starts again, I suggest we fill Nick in on what is going to happen next."

"What'd I miss?" Nick said.

We need to fill you in on what to expect." Shane said. "While we keep up with the story, the story will stay the same, giving us the advantage of knowing what will happen next. If we change even the smallest thing, it could change for the worse and we wont know what to do."

"Or it could change for the better," Lanie muttered. "Like Nick gets kidnapped by Nazgul and I get the Ring."

"Lanie!" Ati said reproachfully. "You don't mean that!"

Shane watched silently, wondering if the power of the Ring would corrupt them quicker than it had corrupted the Hobbits in the real story.

[Narya]

Lanie saw the logic in doing what Shane suggested. Nick was, despite her displeasure, the lead character in this story. She hated the supporting role, especially if she had to be supporting someone like Nick; she despised his kind all her life: the cute, popular, full-of-himself type of guy who, until of late, never even looked at her. Before she hit puberty, Lanie was the fat kid the other kids made fun of; she was also near-sighted, so she had to wear thick glasses, which made her eyes smaller, and she had large, front teeth. She was the ugly duckling that nobody wanted to befriend. Then, one summer after her thirteenth birthday, her mother took her to a nutritionist who gave her a better diet plan. She started loosing the baby fat, and before school started, she was down to regular size clothes. Then her glasses were replaced with contact lenses, and her mother took her to the salon where she got her first hair style done. Since then, all Lanie did was grow more and more into the proverbial swan, and suddenly the Nicks, who used to ignore her (and sometimes threw ice cream and peanut butter sandwiches at her), started to notice Lanie Fox, asking her out on dates, which she would always turn down. Soon, they were groveling at her feet. The people who used to order her around where now hers to command and she became the person she had hated all her life, but she’d rather be this monster than the ugly duckling.

“We need to fill you in on what to expect while we keep up with the story; the story will stay the same, giving us the advantage of knowing what will happen next. If we change even the smallest thing, it could change for the worse and we won’t know what to do," Shane said to Nick.

Lanie wasn’t prepared to go back to being ugly duckling again, even if it meant her exit out of Middle Earth. "Or it could change for the better," she muttered. "Like, Nick gets kidnapped by a Nazgul and I get the Ring!"

"Lanie!" Adi said reproachfully. "You don't mean that!"

‘Oh, yes, I do!’ Lanie said to herself.

Shane and Adi were glaring at her, so she decided to play it low until she would get Nick to herself. ‘That’s when I’ll start to have fun. Those two turds won’t be with us for long, you know. I will make sure you end up in the Dark Lord’s tower, tortured for eternity, Nick, which is what you deserve for getting me stuck here!’ Then a wonderful idea struck her—she had always wanted to write a fan fiction story wherein Sam (who, in her opinion was the real hero in the story) was the one that destroyed the ring. ‘I mean, what if? I don’t see how it would mess anything up, I mean, the goal is still the same, we have to get the ring to Mordor and destroy it in Mount Doom. I can be the one that throws it in, or,’ she looked at Nick surreptitiously, ‘I can push Nick in with the ring!’

“Did you get that, Nick?” Shane asked.

Nick looked flustered and began rambling about what the two had told him.

“Oh, stop it!” Lanie said.

“Lanie!”

“Look—he’s not gonna get it all in one day, okay? He hasn’t read a single book, he might have seen the films—and probably slept through all of them—and now he’s in it. You want him to remember details that took several books to explain,” she said. “He’s not that smart.”

“Hey!” Nick cried.

“None of us are!” Lanie cut in. The statement made the other three hobbits look at each other incredulously, as if wondering what Lanie was driving at. “Well, if we,” she pointed towards Shane and Adi, “were as clueless as he, that is.”

Shane and Adi nodded. Nick was still glowering, but eventually nodded.

“So,” Lanie said triumphantly. “Let’s get the basics down first: We are heading for Bree, it’s a town much like the one we left behind except in this place there are other people aside from Hobbits. We are heading there to meet Gandalf.”

“Except he won’t be there,” Nick supplied.

Lanie looked at Shane, who smiled at her, cocking an eyebrow towards Nick. “At least something registered.”

“What do we do when we get there?” Nick asked.

“We’ll eat,” Lanie said.

“That’s good!” Nick exclaimed.

[Firawyn]

The four of them managed to not argue the rest of the way to Bree. At least, until it started to rain.

"Give me your cloak Nick!" Lanie demanded. "My maps are going to get wet!"

"What, you don't have the maps memorized?" Nick retorted. "Use your own cloak."

"Knock it off guys," Shane said. "We're there."

"Good," Nick grumbled, pounding on the door which was built into the larger gate.

The upper hatch opened.

"Down here Bob," Shane called, looking up.

The lower hatch opened and an old man's face peered at Shane. "Do I know y'uns?"

Shane bit her tongue. Bob, the gatekeeper, had not yet, in his time line, met them. However, Shane had always loved Bob, thinking him a highly unappreciated character in this story. "I'm Merry, my companions and I are friends of Gandalf the Grey - we're to meet him at the Inn of the Prancing Pony. Will you let us in, please?"

Bob nodded, and opened the gate. "Go on to the Pony, but you wont find ol' Gandalf waiting. I was just talking to Butterbur this morning, we've not seen the Grey Pilgrim in months."

"He said he'd meet us, but if he couldn't, he'd send someone else to help us in our errand," Adi put in.

"What errand is that?" Bob asked.

"Our business is our own!" Nick put in, suddenly remembering a line from the movie, which contrary to what Lanie might think, he had watched.

"Alrighty then," Bob said, ushering them through the door to the Prancing Pony. "I meant no offense. It's my job to ask questions after nightfall. There's talk of strange folk about - can't be too careful these days."

Bob left them then, with a friendly nod, and the four of them took a table far from the door and clear of any windows. Shane was taking no chances the Nazgul would catch up quicker than expected.

"So now what?" asked Nick. "What the heck are we supposed to do with this stupid ring?"

A deep, dark voice answered him, stepping from the shadows. "That Ring is no mere trinket, Mr. Baggins."

The four of them jumped, and both Adi and Lannie impulsively reached for their swords.

"You can no longer wait for the wizard, little hobbits," the stranger said quietly. "They are coming."

[YayGollum]

Listening to the instructions on what was supposed to happen next, Nick started feeling sick, like he did back in school when an important test was coming up. At first, he thought that it'd be easy, like a drama class. Try to get into character, so even when you don't get it exactly right, you'll be close enough. But with all of the specifics being given, he started thinking that even the smallest change could get him an "F" or killed, in this case. He trudged along behind the others, watching them for cues.

When he lost interest in that, he grumbled to them, wishing that his uncle had been transported here instead of him. He grumbled to himself, wishing that he could remember the tales from Middle Earth that his uncle used to tell when he was little. At one memory of his uncle, he brightened and started leading the group again. He banged on the gate at Bree, smiling at the thought that this was very like that one Halloween when his uncle had dressed him up like Frodo. While walking around inside, though, he drifted to the back of the group again. The hobbits seemed nice enough, but the humans were like giants, and some didn't look very friendly.

At their table at the Prancing Pony, Nick kept his head down, wanting to avoid any interaction he wasn't supposed to get into, hoping for one of the others to order something for him to eat. When some human surprised them, though, he jumped and glared at the guy, nervousness apparent. "Hey, who asked you?" A quick glance at the others. "Wait a minute. Is this that guy? Aragon? Awesome! He's like, my favorite character!" Nervousness gone, he grabbed the guy's hand, shook it, and grinned around the room. Chagrined from the many suspicious looks he saw, Nick zipped back to his seat, shoved his hands in his pockets, and accidentally slipped the Ring on.

[Narya]

"You can no longer wait for the wizard, little hobbits," the stranger said quietly. "They are coming."

The sound of the voice was unfamiliar, sending chills up and down Lanie’s spine. She was supposed to expect that line, but for some reason it sounded alien to her, as if she was hearing it for the first time.

She only had time to look up and see the looks on Shane and Adi’s faces, when Nick, startled by the sudden entrance of the hooded man, snippily said to him, “Hey, who asked you?” Lanie wanted to stop him, but Nick stood up and turned to face the tall stranger (which Lanie knew was someone important only she could not figure out who it was).

“Wait a minute,” Nick said. “Is this that guy? Aragon? Awesome! He's like, my favorite character!"

Lanie gasped and sharply turned to the other two. They were just as shocked as she was and before she could make a move, Nick turned around, sat back down, and disappeared.

“Oh, cr@p!” Lanie cried, then swiftly covered her mouth as Aragorn (who was, at this point in the story, should have been called Strider) glared at her. She knew he didn’t understand what the word means, but hearing a foreign word like that was going to make this Ranger even more suspicious of them than he already was.

Shane and Adi jumped up from their seats and Lanie tried to grope the air that Nick used to occupy and found him still sitting there.

“Hey, watch it!” Nick snarled. “Look, if you’re gonna start groping me—”Lanie winced at the thought and she slapped Nick’s shoulder to stop him from finishing his sentence. “OW!”

“Nick! I mean… Mr. Frodo, sir!” Lanie rambled, looking at Aragorn frightfully.

“Are you frightened?” asked the Ranger.

‘You’re a giant, I’m a Hobbit—of course I’m frightened!’ was the thought in Lanie’s mind, but she could only nod at the Ranger.

“Not nearly frightened enough; I know what hunts you,” Aragorn added.

Lanie gulped.

“Lanie!” Shane cried, tugging at her sleeves. Lanie’s eyes darted to the far-end of the room and saw that something was making its way towards the exit, jumbling chairs and pushing patrons aside in an effort to get out.

“Stupid!” Lanie quipped, pushing Aragorn aside as she ran towards the door. It had only opened a few inches, when Lanie rammed herself against it, closing it abruptly, hitting someone from the other side and, apparently, hurting Nick at the same time because he yelped and then started whimpering.

“You idiot!” he cried.

“Take the ring off!” Lanie yelled, and grabbed something she was sure was Nick’s ring finger.

“That’s by dose!” Nick said shortly after he re-appeared.

Lanie removed her hand from Nick’s very pronounced nose and apologized for squeezing it so tightly.

“Ed' i'ear ar' elenea!” (“By the sea and stars!”) Aragorn hissed; he had grabbed them by the collars of their tunics and carried them outside and into another Inn across the Prancing Pony.

“This is so NOT dignifying!” Lanie muttered angrily as she was lifted indecorously with her feet dangling a few feet in the air. She and Nick were then thrown into a room, and shortly after came Shane and Adi before Aragorn shut the door and locked it.

“You draw far too much attention to yourselves,” said Aragorn, looking at them as if he was about to trample them. Then he looked out the window and turned the candle off with his fingers.

Nick saw it and gasped. Lanie knew he was about to say something again so she stopped him, grabbing him quickly, and covering his mouth with her hand.

“Shhh!” she said, shaking her head. Somehow, Nick understood her cryptic message—something he rarely did, and nodded. “Really?”

“Shh!” Shane chided.

Lanie let go of Nick and all four of them decided to climb up on the large bed.

[YayGollum]

Nick watched as Aragorn moved around the room, then peered eagerly at the faces of his companions. "This is where it starts to get good, right? I wish I had some popcorn! Hey, this guy is the Aragon guy, right? You gotta remember that I don't know these things. We never even got that food we were supposed to. Are we gonna die now?"

His impish grin receded when Aragorn regarded him. "Nick, was it? Or is it Frodo? You already seem to know of me. Good. A hunted man sometimes wearies of distrust. Tonight, we will all remain together and bar this window and the door. But first, I will fetch your luggage and supper. They are sure to have found which rooms are yours."

While Aragorn was gone, Nick bounced around the room, routinely peeking out of the window with little concern, sure that this regular-sized human would be all the protection they'd need. "Huh. He looks shadier than the guy from the movie, I think. But he seems okay. What was it? Aragon or Ara...gorn? That sounds weird. Aragon is easier to say."

He frowned at the others apologetically as he took the Ring out of his pocket. "sorry about that earlier, guys. It just slipped on, I guess." He peered at the thing suspiciously then broke into a grin. "But it was pretty sweet going invisible. Would it make a horse invisible too, if I rode it? That'd be easy, right?"

[Firawyn]

Shane rolled her eyes, and smiled when she saw Adi do the same. After the past few week in Middle Earth, Shane had almost forgotten the Adi that she’d been attracted to back in their own world. She wondered if when…if ever…they got back home, she and Adi could build off of the friendship they’d been developing here.

“It’s Aragorn, Nick, or Strider as he’s called at this point in the story,” Shane said. “And I don’t know if the horse you’d be riding would go invisible. If you pay attention here, when we get home you can join the forum and post that as a discussion topic. Even if we find out while we’re here, the others would be interested in debating it.”

The others, Shane thought passively. She wondered if there were more of the forum members here in Middle Earth, or if they’d had their own Middle Earth adventures previous years, and not told anyone. But why wouldn’t they tell? Shane answered that very quickly – who would have believed them? Who would believe us? We’d be considered crazy.

“Shane?” Adi whispered, settling down on the floor beside Shane.

“Yea?”

“Do you think we’ll ever get back?”

Shane pondered for a second, again reflecting on The Chronicles of Narnia, and how the kids in that story had been whisked off to another world, practically forced to save it from all evil, and then years later returning to their own world, in fact only seconds after they’d let. Shane had the feeling that this was a similar situation, and related her thoughts to Adi.

******************************
Adi listened as Shane assured her that they’d get back, even if it seemed like a lot of time had passed here. Adi was comforted, not really even by Shane’s words, but by her voice. Shane was a very compassionate person, and Adi was glad to have met her, and to have been swept on this journey with her.

Then, Aragorn walked back into the room. “Here are your things, little hobbits. You should try to get some rest now. We leave at sunrise, and we will not stop all day. It is a long, hard road through the wilderness, but it is the safe way to Rivendell.”

“Rivendell!” Nick said. “Like where the elves live?”

Aragorn nodded. “Some of them; Rivendell is the House of Elrond.”

“Hey, what about breakfast?” Adi asked suddenly.

“Haven’t you had breakfast today?” Aragorn asked.

“Today, yes.” Adi said impatiently. “But what about tomorrow?”

Aragorn reached into his sack, and pulled out a big, red apple. He tossed it to Adi. “There’s your breakfast tomorrow. We do not stop till nightfall, once we leave tomorrow morning.”

Adi looked over to Shane. “What about Lunch? And Dinner?”

Shane looked as irritated as she, but merely replied, “I wouldn’t count on it.”

[Narya]

It was dark too soon and Lanie felt as helpless as an ant. They reached Weathertop and Aragorn left them at the top to scout the area. Lanie remembered this scene well and knew what was in store for Nick. Shane was very good at keeping Nick informed, but even she didn't have the heart to tell him about the knife in the dark. Lanie wondered if she should say anything.

'He might run away,' she said to herself. She looked at the other two and they were looking at her, giving her some kind of signal. Lanie shrugged. 'I'm not gonna tell him!' Deep inside, she knew Nick would blame her for not telling him the truth. 'Well, he'll blame me for everything anyway...'

"...So can we find another way back, right? I don’t want to go through marshes! No way!" Nick said; he stopped poking fun at Lanie's weight (after placing incredible emphasis on how much he'd lost) and began recounting tips that had been tossed to him since this journey began. He was pacing around as he obviously wondered where Aragorn had gone and why he was taking too long. "This place is creepy. Where's our next stop? I gotta get out of here."

Lanie wanted to tell Nick to shut up, but then he suddenly froze. Lanie looked up and saw Nick staring at the edge of what used to be Amon Sul. She couldn’t see anything—yet—but she was too familiar with the story to be complacent. Nick had seen something, and judging by the way his breath came in short, sharp gasps, Lanie knew he had seen the Ringwraiths.

‘Should I tell him?’ But it was too late to do anything; as soon as Lanie stood, a loud shriek smote the air.

“What the hell was that?” asked Nick.

Lanie looked at the other two Hobbits, and they stood up and drew their swords. Lanie did the same and pulled Nick’s arm.

“Stay away from the edge!” she cried.

“Will someone tell me what is going on?” Nick ordered. “What is that?”

[Firawyn]

“Ringwraiths!” Shane hissed. “Come on! Form a circle, back to back, so we can see where they come from!”

“Wh..ere’s…Ara…gorn?” Nick stammered.

Shane whipped around to see Adi standing near the edge, stock still, and white. She moved away from the circle she and the other two were forming, and grabbed Adi by the hand. “Get a grip! We’ll be fine, just follow the story!”

Adi nodded, and followed Shane quickly back to the center of Weathertop, reforming the defensive circle.
Shane, who had none of Lanie’s hesitations about how much to tell Nick, turned around and grabbled ‘Mr. Frodo’ by the shoulders. “Nick, you are going to have to put the Ring on before this is over.”

Nick looked startled. “But I thought Frodo wasn’t supposed to do that.”

“No, he wasn’t supposed to, but he did, so you have to as well.”

“When? For how long?”

“Right before the Witchking stabs you,” Lanie interjected.

“Stabs! I don’t wanna get stabbed!” Nick objected.

“Tough,” Lanie said with a smirk.

“Just do it Nick,” Shane ordered.

“Why to I have to get stabbed? Do you guys get stabbed? This isn’t fair!”

“If you must know,” Adi said, finding her voice. She was probably the most familiar with the books of the four of them. “You get stabbed three times First here, second in Moria, and third by a giant spider. Lanie is going to almost drown, get beaten up by Gollum a couple times, and fall down the Hidden Stairs. Shane will get beaten up by orcs, then get trampled by Oliphants, then hurt her arm when stabbing the Witchking. I will also get beaten up by orcs, and subjected to the Eye of Sauron via Palantir.”

They were silent for a moment, and then Nick turned to Shane. “Why don’t you stab the Witchking now, before he stabs me?”
Shane couldn’t help it. She laughed. “I don’t know.”

“Because we have to stick to the book!” Lanie stated firmly.

“Do you want to get beaten up by Gollum?” Adi asked Lanie, point blank.

“Not really.” Lanie replied mildly.

“I doubt Nick wants to get stabbed either.” Adi snapped. “So cut the poor guy some slack.”

But there was no time for Lanie to cut Nick any slack, because just then, the loud screech of the Nazgul sounded, and black hooded figures emerged out of the darkness.

“Just remember to put on the Ring right before the Nazgul stabs you, Nick,” Adi said softly. “If he can see you clearly, he could kill you. If he can’t, he just stabs your shoulder, like in the book. You live. The elves heal you. After this is over, you will wake up in Rivendell, and Gandalf will be there.”

Nick looked somewhat less frightened now, knowing what lie ahead. "Got it," he whispered, as the Nazgul moved closer.

[YayGollum]

Nick whimpered to himself, mantra-like, "Right before they stab me. Right before they stab me." He glared at the barrier they'd formed around him, wishing that he knew of another way out of there. Then the figures slowly advanced. Terror overcame Adita and Shane, and they threw themselves flat on the ground. Lanie shrank to Nick's side. He was hardly less terrified than his companions; he was quaking as if he was bitter cold, but his terror was swallowed up in a sudden temptation to put on the Ring. The desire to do this laid hold of him, and he could think of nothing else. He knew that the Ring was supposed to be evil in some way and putting it on was supposed to be bad, but even through his suspicion that these people wouldn't mind getting rid of him, something seemed to be compelling him to disregard all warnings, and he longed to yield. Not with the hope of escape, or of doing anything, either good or bad: he simply felt that he must take the Ring and put it on his finger. He could not speak. He felt Lanie looking at him, as if she knew that he was in some great trouble, but he could not turn towards her. He shut his eyes and struggled for a while; but resistance became unbearable, and at last he slowly drew out the chain, and slipped the Ring on the forefinger of his left hand.

Immediately, though everything else remained as before, dim and dark, the shapes became terribly clear. He was able to see beneath their black wrappings. There were five tall figures: two standing on the lip of the dell, three advancing. In their white faces burned keen and merciless eyes; under their mantles were long grey robes; upon their grey hairs were helms of silver; in their haggard hands were swords of steel. Their eyes fell on him and pierced him, as they rushed towards him. Desperate, he pushed past the others and ran. Two of the figures halted. The third was taller than the others: his hair was long and gleaming and on his helm was a crown. In one hand he held a long sword, and in the other a knife; both the knife and the hand that held it glowed with a pale light. He spra