Hey everyone, I've been getting a lot of reviews for my story 'Once in a Blue moon' lately and it gave me an idea for a sort of parallel story… not quite a sequel, nor is it a rewrite of the story… its more like a parallel universe or something. You may see some things happen in this story that happened in the other, simply because I LOVED how that scene turned out… if you like once in a blue moon you'll like once on a blue moon… please read and review.

PAY ATTENTION! I'm only doing this once because I hate writing the same dang thing every chapter…

I DON"T OWN LOTR or any characters, languages or plots that they (the movie and the books) may entail. BUT I do own my original character Alana. I would add Vanmoriel and Alagos to this but they are just names and horses, feel free to use them if you want but Alana is mine and unless you ask permission I'll sick my vicious puppy on you. She'll lick you to death!

Once on a blue moon

Chapter one

Time is a mysterious thing, one moment your ten years old begging your parents to take you to the fair that is in town for the summer, the next moment you're twenty three years old and watching your life fall apart. Time passes quickly when you want it to sit still and creeps by when you are anticipating a future event. Yet no one can control time or what happens, except the fates, if you believe in that sort of thing.

Back in high school I took an astronomy class and learned about the blue moon, my grandmother use to always say 'as rare as a blue moon' and for the longest time I thought that the blue moon was as rare as a solar eclipse. In reality it came about every two years or so, a rare occurrence, but not as rare as grandma lead me to believe. I always love to watch out for the blue moon, and this year had a blue moon in January. The first moon was on new years so when a second full moon occurred on the thirtieth but only in part of the world, it was a strange occurrence… not only would there not be a full moon on new years until 2028 but to have a blue moon in the same month I just had to spend some time watching the moon, even if it was freakishly cold that night.

I dug out my favorite heavy blanket and curled up on the hood of my baby, an old white 1992 Pontiac Sunbird convertible, the sky was mostly clear only a few stray clouds in the sky though the ground was bare from snow the air was frigid with the wind chill it had to be around negative fifteen degrees outside. Other than the blanket I was wrapped up in I had on a heavy camo military style jacket, thick winter camo pants, heavy combat boots, thick wool boots, gloves and hat kept me from feeling to much. As I lie back looking up at the moon I start to think back onto all that had happened in only the last four months. My mom and stepdad, who had raised me since I was three, got a divorce, Dale had two strokes and couldn't see out of his left eye and my mom had moved down to Florida leaving me to fend for myself. True I was 23 and old enough to take care of myself just fine, I was in school and I still had my family for support. It was a bit overwhelming at times but I was learning to deal with the new stresses in my life. Luckily my friends were keeping me sane. Bella, a girl I met almost ten years ago at Civil Air Patrol and has been my best friend ever since, would drag me out of the house when I buried myself to deep in school work and depression.

The sound of thunder drew me out of my reverie, it was strange to hear thunder at this time of year. I searched the sky for what might have caused the sound but I saw nothing but the stray cloud. I brushed the sound off figuring it might have been a loud simi on the nearby highway. I closed my eyes again sinking into the memories of my youth. I spent six years in Civil Air Patrol learning military skills, how to survive in the wild, search and rescue skills and even some basic first aid. I hadn't been in CAP in nearly four years, school had kept me too busy to truly stay active, but I still loved to spend time looking at old pictures and catching up with many of the friends I made there.

Again the sound of thunder pierced my ears, this time I jumped at how close it sounded. My ears actually were hurting and ringing. I quickly opened my eyes and was startled to find that instead of the dark partially cloudy sky that I had been periodically watching for nearly an hour there were thick trees and the periodic peaks of sunshine. The air on my face was warm almost too hot at times, like the late summer. I was confused and a bit stunned so thinking I had fallen asleep I blinked a few times and rubbed my eyes but the scene didn't change. I even tried pinching myself, and that only caused a sharp pain and stressed how awake I really was. Looking around the forest I tried to get my bearings but the heat was only causing a distraction. So I shed my heavy winter coat, gloves, hat and blanket. I tucked the gloves and hat in the pockets of my jacket then folded them all placing them on a log.

Part of me really didn't want to let the coat or blanket out of my sight but they were bulky and the forest was rather dense, the blanket would get caught on everything so I resolved to leave them there and hopefully come back to get them once I found some civilization. Luckily I kept a heavy duty pocket knife in that jacket so I had some sort of defense and a basic survival tool. After stowing that in one of my cargo pockets I tried to find out which direction was north, moss didn't help because the forest was so dense it grew evenly on all sides. Luckily it was either early enough or late enough in the day that what little sun came through the tree tops came in at an angle so as long as I watched them and kept them going in general the same direction I would know I was going in a strait path instead of circles.

I walked for hours, come to find out it must have been morning when I started my trek because soon the sunbeams were shining strait up and down and I had to stop because they weren't helping me any more. Beyond that fact I was exhausted, I had been up since seven in the morning when all of this started and apparently it was noon… though I lost some time in what ever transition I made I had still be up for at least twenty four hours and walking for about six of those. The noon heat was reduced because I was in the shade but it was still really warm so I decided it was the best time for a nap. I could get a few hours sleep and by the time I woke up the sun should be slanted again and I could start my search for civilization again. Hopefully I was heading in the correct direction because the only downfall with my plan is that I could be making a beeline for the middle of nowhere with a city only minutes in the opposite direction I started off in.

It felt like only seconds after I closed my eyes that I was started awake by a mysterious sound. My eye snapped open and I went to jump up but an arrow pointed between my eyes only inchs from my face kept me rooted to the tree where I had chosen to make camp. The man who was behind the arrow was glaring at me and it was only when I heard a second and third voice that I noticed that he wasn't alone, yet I never took my eyes off the arrow nor the man who controlled it. He was a mystery to me, with long brown hair and flawless skin. In short he was beautiful, beautiful to a fault. I wanted to smear mud in his pretty face just to make him look more normal.

He spit out a few strange words to me and I rolled my eyes "I don't understand you, try another language if you want me to do what ever you're growling about"

He glared harder and if looks could kill I would be dead on that strange forest floor, but luckily they can't. "Who are you where do you hale from and what are you doing in the forest of Rivendell?"

I blinked a few times then started laughing softly "Hale… Rivendell… dude, I think you've gone off the deep end."

The pointy, and sharp… very very sharp arrow came even closer and my laughing stopped. I tried to slowly inch my hand towards my pocket but with the first move the man drew the arrow back but not in retreat he was about to shoot me in the face. I stopped moving and gulped. I quickly decided to answer his strange questions, even though I thought that he was insane. "I'm Alana Wood and I have no clue why I am here. Sorry to say but I got lost and am just trying to find some sign of civilization. Now could you please get your pointy stick out of my face?"

He didn't remove the arrow from my face until one of the other voices came up resting a hand on his shoulder. They spoke a few words in the strange language, it sounded familiar but my step dad liked watching subtitled films so it could be that I just heard the language in passing. The arrow wielder seemed reluctant to remove the arrow from my face but he listened to the other man and soon he took a step back and the other man was holding a hand out towards me. "Sorry about my companion Miss Alana but the forests are not as safe as they once were, threats lie around many corners."

I took his hand quickly raising to my feet and brushing off my pants then gave the nicer pretty boy a half smile "That's all well and good but let me tell you that is probably the worst way to wake up from a nap. You guys could have just told me to wake up without the sharp pointy object shoved in my face."

The pretty boy seemed confused by what I said but after a few seconds he seemed to have translated what I said and seemed a bit ashamed "I am truly sorry about that miss. Perhaps we could make it up to you by escorting you to Rivendell, I am sure lord Elrond will have someone escort you back to you village."

I sighed finally looking at the three men that had found me. All of them had overly long hair pulled back in some strange fashion, were wearing tunics and breeches and what looked like hand made leather boots. They looked like they had stepped out of some medieval movie or something. Maybe they were going to a convention or something. "That would be um… good. I would appreciate the help. Though perhaps you could tell me your names if I'm going to travel with you"

Pretty boy nodded his head and stood up straighter "This is Daugion" He pointed to the man who had pointed an arrow in my face "This is Taurhassdorien" he pointed to the man who was silent "and I am Legolas"

I sputtered for a few minutes and it was only then that I noticed that all three of the pretty boys had pointy ears and boy did they look REAL! " Ni…. Nice to meet you all"

I may not have been a big lord of the rings fan, to tell the truth I had only watched the movies with some friends but even I knew who Legolas was. Part of me didn't want to believe that I could be in middle earth, that same small part of me was screaming that these people were insane and I needed to run away, but a small part of me hoped that this was real. It would be awesome to really meet a real live elf. I decided to listen to the small part of me who was estatic about meeting an elf and smiled warmly at the three elves "Well it is wonderful to meet you Legolas, Taurhassdorien… I really can't say its nice meeting you Daugion, you did just have an arrow poking my nose"

He frowned at me but Legolas laughed and my attention went right back to him. He was gorgeous, his long sandy blond hair and ice blue eyes looked wonderful in his sun tanned skin. If I remembered right the elves in the movies were pale and had perfect skin, this Legolas was very tan though his skin still looked flawless. Quick glances at the other two elves showed they had more of the stereotypical skin tone. Legolas must love being outdoors and away from shade.

"We are running behind M'lord, we need to get going" Daugion interrupted us and Legolas stopped laughing and quickly nodded his head. He turned back to me and smiled "We are on a bit of a deadline to reach Lord Elrond's home. We need to get moving, I am sorry but we've only got three horses, you will have to ride with one of us"

I nodded briefly and each of the elves let out a low whistle. The beautiful horses came trotting into view and I let out a gasp as on the rump of a black and white horse was my blanket and coat. I slowly walked up to the horse reaching out to touch the blanket "You found my quilt…"

Legolas walked up and smiled "Yeah we found the blanket and followed your trail then found you."

I wanted to be upset about leaving a trail but part of me was really happy because if I had been more careful I might not have been found. "Great, I really hated leaving that blanket behind, it has sentimental value"

Legolas gave me a puzzled look but finally nodded "You can ride with me, this is Vanmoriel."

I walked up to the beautiful mare and reached out letting her sniff my hand then I softly rubbed her velvety nose "What does her name mean?"

He was rubbing her neck while I got to know her "Her name means Dark Beauty, she was named by a really good friend of mine"

I smiled up at him but one of the other elves made a disgruntled noise and Legolas helped me onto Vanmoriel's back before getting on her himself. It was only moments before they took off and I grabbed onto a handful of Vanmoriel's mane and held on for dear life. I had taken some basic riding lesions when I was young but we never really got into riding bare back or riding at a run through a forest. Apparently I was projecting my nervousness because Legolas wrapped an arm around my waist "Just relax, Vanmoriel won't let you fall off and neither will I"

I nodded and took a few deep breaths before letting myself trust the elf and the horse. It didn't take me very long to become comfortable with the pace and soon I was enjoying the strange landscape. In Indiana we didn't have dense forests only sporadic trees and lots of fields. I was amazed at how easily the three horses were maneuvering around the many trees and vines. We rode for what felt like hours and soon I felt myself slumping into the warmth that Legolas provided. Just before I slipped off to the land of nod I felt Legolas' arm tighten around my waist.

AN

I hope you liked this chapter. I know it is similar to once in a blue moon but soon the differences should start showing up… though please do remember this is an Alternate Universe from once in a blue moon.