Westron, Elvish

English

Disclaimer: I wish I was J. R. R. Tolkien, but I'm not. So I don't own Lord of the Rings. Wah.

When I wake up, I normally don't open my eyes for awhile until I'm sure I'm not going to fall back asleep or the sunlight isn't going to blind me. For some reason, when I woke up this morning, I had the odd sensation that my bed way small, way too small, and I was struggling to pull the covers over my entire body. "God…dammit!" I muttered, eyes still closed. I would've been able to go back to sleep, too, if I hadn't heard someone walk into my room and let out a shrill scream.

I shot upwards and immediately fell off the seemingly too small bed onto the wooden floor. "Ow! Mom, why are you scr-"

I stopped dead.

In front of me, a little person no more than three feet tall was staring back at me with wide eyes. My mouth dropped open, and that's when I realized this wasn't my room.

"What?...Where…am I?" I asked out loud, practically hyperventilating. I could probably manage to stand up with only leaning forward slightly, I mused, but this clearly wasn't my house and I didn't want the creature to attack me. Even though it was half my size. Plus, my butt still hurt from falling out of bed.

Looking at the girl, who I now saw was just a tiny woman who looked about forty years old, I turned to check out the bed. Yep, I was right. The reason I felt cramped was because I WAS. The bed was way too small for me. Actually, it was too small for anyone over four feet.

"Who are you? How did you get here? I didn't hear anyone come in…" The woman spoke, but to me it was a bunch of garbled sounds and syllables mixed together.

"Excuse me?" I started o chew my lip, a nervous habit. And boy was I nervous.

The lady tilted her head and put her hands on her hips. Now she just looked confused and spoke again, "I do say, what are you wearing? Never have I seen garments such as those. What language are you speaking? Oh dear, I should get Olo. Oh my, oh dear." The strange, small lady glanced up at me. She looked worried. I'd be worried too if I walked into a room and a stranger was sleeping in my bed. Although I wasn't sure how I got here. It wasn't on purpose, though.

"Wait here, please." She held up a hand that looked like the "stay" command for a dog, so I assumed she wanted to me to wait. I nodded and crossed my legs Indian style. I hope I don't get arrested for breaking and entering.

Thinking of that, I moved on to ponder about where I was. Was I still in Massachusetts? Or maybe someone had kidnapped me and moved me to this room. Maybe I was getting Punk'd. My eyebrows furrowed and I began chewing my lip again. Dammit, I had to break that habit!

Soon I heard two pairs of tiny footsteps coming back into the room. I looked up and saw the lady enter with a small man, maybe an inch taller than her. He looked to be around forty five, with golden honey colored hair, like the woman, and…WAIT A SECOND.

THEIR FEET. Their feet were HUGE! And hairy! And that only reminded me of one thing…

Lord of the Rings! The man began to speak, "So, how did a human girl end up in Michel Delving? We don't get many travelers around here anymore, not since they shut the Downs Gate. And how did you get inside our home?" He narrowed his eyes. "You aren't a burglar, are you?"

I blinked, confused, and tried to answer him. Or what I thought he said. "I went to sleep in my own bed, I swear to god, and I woke up here!" My arms were flailing wildly and my voice rose a bit. "You know where Massachusetts is? Oh, probably not…anyways, I woke up and I was HERE! I didn't break in or anything! Please believe me!"

Man, I would suck if I was ever interrogated by the police.

The man looked at the lady and she nodded as if to say, 'Yeah, I told you there was a giant girl who can't speak to us in our house. See? SEE?' He turned back to me and adjusted his breast coat.

That's when I noticed what they were wearing. The lady was wearing a flouncy dress that came to just below her knees, with a bell-sleeved blouse and looked positively medieval. The man wore shortened breeches, a breast coat and something that looked like a pea coat over that. In 2012, you don't see anyone wearing things like that.

The man thought for a second, and then pointed to himself. "Olo. My name is Olo."

'I bet he's telling me his name' I thought. He'd repeated Olo twice, so I slowly pointed to myself and said, "Beth." He raised an eyebrow while the woman looked on curiously. Houston, we've made contact!

"B...eth." He seemed to get the pronunciation down pat. I offered a small smile and answered, "Olo." He suddenly broke out in a grin. Who knew these Hobbits were so trusting? Unless I'd been kidnapped and dumped off in a colony of midgets. Although that wouldn't explain the feet.

Olo gestured to the woman now and she shyly smiled at me. "Ruby." She patted her chest. Oh, a normal name. "Ruby." I repeated. At least we all knew each other's names now.

Olo turned and said something to Ruby, who nodded and left the room. He raised an eyebrow and tapped his rather ginormous foot against the floor. "So you don't speak Westron, I can see. Elvish perhaps? Oh…but you're no elf. Hm…" With no idea how to communicate with these people, I couldn't ask where I was. Pretty sure I was screwed.

My fingers unconsciously rapped against my knees and it was pretty tense, waiting for Ruby to get back into the room. Where was she? Maybe they WERE calling the authorities. I frowned at the thought, but shook my head, earning a wary glance from Olo. They probably still didn't trust me that much. After all, I randomly appeared in their bedroom and couldn't even speak the same language.

Olo and I both jumped as Ruby banged into the room, a bit flustered with another little woman in tow. This one looked a bit younger than Ruby, maybe twenty five or thirty. Her eyes widened at the sight of me, and I tried to look friendly. She turned to Ruby and shook her head. They began speaking in that strange language again.

Ruby pointed towards me, first, and said to the new midget lady, "Beth." She nodded, and Ruby then pointed to our newest addition to the room, which was starting to get pretty cramped. "Camellia." I nodded. "Cam…ellia. Camellia."

Interesting name. So we all stood-or sat, in my case-for a good ten minutes in silence. The hobbits/midgets were probably contemplating how I got into their house and who the heck I was, while my mind was wandering around the thoughts of bacon and breakfast. Man, was I starved.

My stomach decided that it was the perfect moment to make that fact aware to everyone.

I laughed when the three turned to me, surprised. Everyone had a straight face, when suddenly, Olo began to laugh. It reminded me of my grandfather, a deep chuckle emitting from his belly and flowing over his lips. It seemed to brighten the room, because the other two started to laugh and even I giggled at the queer noise my stomach had made.

"Poor dear, haven't had breakfast yet, have you? Olo, she doesn't seem to be of any harm. Maybe she could stay awhile, and we could help her find her family or get her back to where she came from. What do you say?" Ruby jittered excitedly and Camellia nodded in agreement. Olo seemed to think for a second, and also shook his head yes. I, of course, had no idea what they were talking about. My mind was still on bacon.

I looked down when I felt a tug on my hand. Ruby was smiling kindly and trying to lead me out of the room. Camellia and Olo were waiting at the door. Oh no! What if they were going to kick me out? Inside I pouted, but on my face I had an indifferent expression.

"Come now, we're going to get some food in you." Ruby was pulling me through the doorway now, and I had to duck slightly to avoid hitting my head. When I left the room and took a look around the rest of the house, I gaped. It was so…so quaint! We were heading down a little hallway with a curved ceiling. I turned and saw a rounded front door.

'This is just freaky,' I thought while looking around and marveling at the cuteness of everything. There was a small sized parlor area, another bedroom, some other closed doors, and finally, we entered a kitchen. "Wow." I breathed. The three must've known I was impressed, because Olo grunted in a pleased manner and Ruby hurriedly sat me down on a too-small chair while Camellia was busy going through cupboards. My stomach growled again when I saw some bread and cheese being brought to the table. Food!

Not wanting to be rude, I waited until the other three had sat down at the table. Ruby beamed and cut a slice of bread and handed it to me. "Thank you." I said, knowing they couldn't understand my words but figured they would get the meaning.

"Thank you." Camellia said, and as an afterthought, added, "Thank-yew. Thank you."

I could tell what the thank you in English meant, obviously, but she kept switching back between this other language and mine. And suddenly, it clicked.

She was teaching me how to say thank you.

"Thank…you." Slowly I repeated the strange phrase. The words felt foreign and smooth at the same time on my tongue. The language was softer than the sharp sounds of English. It was like water flowing out of the mouth; easy but difficult at the same time. I liked it.

Now everyone was silent, thinking while chewing. The bread was good, a bit hard, but it had a slight sweet flavor to it. The cheese was rich with spices, and we had some water in tin mugs to wash it all down. Either these people really were hobbits, or they took the medieval thing very seriously.

Finally, we'd pretty much finished eating. Olo was conversing with the other two and I sat back, listening to them speak and trying to get the gist of what they were saying, although I had absolutely no idea.

"I think we should keep her here. Teach her Westron. Then we could understand where she came from and if she has family." Ruby told Olo while I raised an eyebrow. Hm. What were they saying?

Camellia jumped in, "I could help teach her, if you like. She seems nice." She flashed me a quick smile and I grinned in return. I hope it wasn't a sketchy looking grin. It probably was.

Olo grunted. "Yes, well, I won't mind having her stay, but it is one more mouth to feed. And she's big! But…" He glanced my way and we made eye contact before he looked back at the two woman. "I think it would be a good idea. Besides, it's been awhile since I've been in the company of a human."

"Wonderful! We shall start right away!" Ruby squeaked and it startled me. Her voice could be very shrill when called for, and the scream this morning didn't appease my fear that if she started yelling, I'd go partially deaf.

The three turned to me, Ruby and Camellia smiling, Olo looking indifferent but with a twinkle in his eye.

"First…" Camellia began again, me still lost, "We have to get her proper clothes. Look at those pants!"