ALRIGHT FRIENDS, GATHER 'ROUND FOR AN EPIC TALE IN THE MAKING! HAVE YOU-YES, YOU RIGHT THERE-EVER WANTED TO JUMP RIGHT INTO A MOVIE AND STOP SOME STUPID SHIT FROM HAPPENING? WELL NOW YOU CAN! Kind of, at least. Your insatiable Tolkien thirst coupled with some very generous stars has set you up for the adventure(s) of a lifetime.
On a scale from 1-10, how proud of myself do you think I am? xD
Disclaimer: Tolkien owns Tolkien, you own yourself!
You open your window and carefully step out onto the roof, feeling proudly elf-like when you don't immediately slip on the shingles. You attribute this steadiness to your cosplay that is finally completed after weeks of meticulous work. If only you had someone to stand on the ground and take a picture of you, then you could Photoshop some trees in place of the angular roof and edit in some more Tauriel-like hair...
But it's one in the morning, and all of your friends as well as your family are asleep, so you get as comfortable as possible on the rough surface to do some star gazing. It's a warm, clear August night, and you'd seen somewhere that there was supposed to be a meteor shower. You didn't know if you were within range to see anything, but that was fine. You'd always enjoyed the night sky whether it moved or not.
You quickly lost yourself in excited daydreaming about the upcoming convention. It was the first year you'd really been able to make a costume. You couldn't wait to find all the other Tolkien cosplayers and get some sweet, sweet photo ops.
Something streaked across the velvety black sky. You blinked and grinned at the tail end of the shooting star. One by one other "stars" zoomed around in the infinite expanse of space. You couldn't help a delighted giggle. The show was breathtaking. You imagined the real Tauriel would love it just as much as you did.
"Wow, I'm behind on my wishes!" you realize. Did wishing on a falling star count during a meteor shower when there were so many chances? You decided to harness the desire-fulfilling power of all the stars for one giant wish. "Okay, my wish is to go to Middle Earth and have a few adventures, because regular earth is getting hella boring."
You hold out your arms to the sky like suddenly Eärendil itself would zap you through the fabric of reality to the rolling green hills of the Shire. No such thing happens, obviously, and it's not that you're disappointed, but it would have been really awesome if the laws of the universe could make just one exception. It would have been a great way to get into character for the con, after all.
You watch the skies until the meteor shower slows to a meteor trickle, at which point you realize the balmy night has turned a bit chilly. You stretch and rise to head inside, intending on putting on pajamas and popping in An Unexpected Journey.
Your fingers just touch the window when your dainty boot slips on a shingle. You shriek as you lose your balance and go down hard on one knee. The abrupt shift in your weight coupled with the angle of the roof causes you to topple onto your side and begin the downward roll. The only thing you think as you feel the roof disappear from under you is how pissed you'll be if this fall tears your cosplay.
You land hard on your back. It knocks the wind out of you and sends the shock radiating to every extremity. A light pops up in front of your eyes. You grunt in pain, but at least you landed in the lawn instead of on the driveway. You lie there to catch your breath before you open your eyes and squint past the dazing light. And you continue to squint, because said light is not a figment of your jumbled brain, but is in fact the sun blazing overhead.
You're horrified to think that the fall knocked you out all night. Had your parents woken? Had they seen you yet, or did they assume you were safely in your room? Had anyone walked by and noticed you passed out in the yard? You find that you can still move all your limbs, so you quickly rise to return inside before anyone could bear witness to the most embarrassing night of your life.
Your head spinning, you look around for your house. You don't see it. In fact, you don't see the car, the mailbox, or any of the houses in your neighborhood. What you do see is thick, rich green grass covering luxuriously rolling hills. There's a fence nearby enclosing a beautiful garden. Sunny daffodils frame a large round door set right into one of the hills.
You drop back to your knees and grip your head. Your breathing comes out in gasps. You are now very aware that the fall left you with a measure of brain damage, because nowhere in the world did people actually have large round doors with gleaming knobs in the middle that led into an underground house.
You peek up. The round door is still there, and now you can see it has neighbors. Smoke rises from tin chimneys protruding from the ground like strange plants. There's laughter in the distance along with the quiet rush of a river.
You rationalize in a shaking voice, "I'm still asleep. I'm still asleep. I have to still be asleep. So that means I can fly!"
You jump all of six inches into the air before gravity heavily damages that hypothesis.
You move down the cobblestone road in a trance. There is only disbelief in your throbbing head as you take in more and more of the village that you knew well despite never having been there. And since you knew the village well, you are more than able to navigate right to the most important burrow in the land. A cheerful green door with a polished brass knob is all that stands between your tenuous theory of a dream and an epic meltdown. You knock with numb fingers.
The seconds tick past like days. Finally the door opens and a small man with curly locks on his head and equally curly ones on his large feet stands before you. You swallow hard and attempt to speak before your overloaded brain completely shuts down.
You wake up in a soft bed and are relieved before you even open your eyes. It was just a dream. It was a terrifyingly realistic dream, but a dream nonetheless. A cool washcloth touches your forehead, making you jump slightly before you smile. Your poor mother is probably just waiting to let you have it. To stave her off, you mumble a very heartfelt, "Thanks."
"Oh, you're awake!"
Your eyes fly open. That was not your mother's voice and that is not your mother's face gazing at you with concern and curiosity. You let out a squeak of disbelieving distress.
"It's alright, I won't hurt you!" he continues. "You fell down right at my door, so I moved you inside. I'm very glad you're not hurt-"
You scream. It's not the most logical thing, but it's the only sound that will come out of your mouth. Your attendant hastily and unsuccessfully tries to calm you and is left standing helplessly until you quiet.
"It's not real!" you shout at him like he was the one imposing this impossible yet distantly wonderful reality upon you. "It is not real!"
He stares at you, at a loss.
"It isn't real, is it?" You knock on the wooden walls. The wood does not give way and instead causes your knuckles to smart with the impact. "Is it? I'm actually in the Shire?"
"Yes!" he exclaims, relieved that you are now making some sort of sense. "Yes, you are in the Shire. You're in Bag End, my home, and I'm Bilbo Baggins, very much at your service!"
"Bilbo Baggins," you repeat faintly. "Bilbo Baggins. It is real. Oh my god."
"You certainly are welcome to stay here until you get well, but perhaps there are some elves nearby you'd like to send a message to?"
"Elves? Why?"
"I-I assume they'd worry, especially if you've wandered off while so ill..."
"Why would elves worry about me?" You find the notion somewhat amusing.
"Well, I just assumed by your-pardon me, I hope I did not offend-"
Your clasp your ears. There's an extra point at their tips you are not used to. You press a hand over your mouth to prevent another outburst that would probably frighten poor Bilbo further. You can't help but whisper, "I'm an elf."
"Goodness," Bilbo murmurs. "Perhaps you should lie back down."
You sink back into the pillows, breathless from the impossible revelation. Bilbo hesitantly dabs at your forehead again. All is silent as you attempt to gather your thoughts. At last you sigh in a much more even voice, "Thank you, Bilbo Baggins. I'm glad you of all people found me."
"I'm very glad someone found you at all!"
"Yes, I imagine I'd've made quite a scene, blundering through Hobbiton and carrying on like I was..."
We shared a laugh. You gulp down yet another scream when you realized you'd just laughed with Bilbo Baggins. You'd really have to rein in your reaction if you were to pass as any sort of normal.
"Do you have a name I can call you?" Bilbo asks.
"My name?" The question sends you into a frenzy. Your plain, normal earth name would not pass for elvish! Your tongue tripped silently over strings of consonants and vowels. If only you had a computer, then you could just generate a random one! "I-I'm...Aniel?" It's the best combination of sounds you can muster off the top of your head. If only you had time to think! But the word was already out of your mouth, so it was set in stone.
"Well, Lady Aniel, do you feel well enough to drink something? I can make you some tea."
"Yes!" you exclaim a little too forcefully. "I mean, yes, I am well. I mean-I mean that I'm sorry for acting so bizarrely. And for screaming. And for, uh, passing out on your doorstep. There's no way I could even begin to explain why all of that happened, but I'm not sick, and I would love some tea. Can I get up?"
Bilbo has no idea to deal with an elf woman who speaks acts like a child, so he simply nods. You slowly rise and slip into the boots your caretaker had so kindly removed. You follow Bilbo through the halls of Bag End and drink in every tiny detail. Everything is just like in the movies. The chandeliers, the pictures over the mantle, the various books scattered on the table, the kitchen-you bite back a dreamy sigh.
Once seated at the kitchen table-at the actual table in Bag End!-you watch Bilbo's every move like a hawk. He seems a tad uncomfortable under your scrutiny, but you can't help but stare. Making tea may be a daily routine for him, but for you, it's something you would pay a kidney to have a ticket to see. He sets out some biscuits when the tea is served. You immediately take a drink and burn your tongue, but the fact that you burnt your tongue on tea made by Bilbo Baggins makes you smile anyway.
"So..." Bilbo clears his throat, unsure of what to say. "Where are you from?"
It's yet another innocuous question that puts you on high alert. You struggle to recall the layout of Middle Earth. "From the forests of the West," you reply. It's a perfectly vague answer; Rivendell, Mirkwood, and Lorien are all west of the Shire, assuming you remembered correctly.
"So far! And what brings you to the Shire and my front door?"
Your mouth opens, but this time no clever lie comes out. There was still a part of you that refused to believe you were actually in Middle Earth, so you had no idea what brought you to the Shire.
"Stars," you whisper.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I-the stars! I was following the stars! Walking's a bit of a habit of mine, you see, and I got a bit carried away..." Except you didn't like walking-you wouldn't walk to the Seven-Eleven down the block if you could drive to it. It was just a jumble of conveniently coherent words to cover up your monumental epiphany.
"Yes, it is easy to lose your feet on the road! I've taken plenty of walking holidays myself..."
You try to listen to Bilbo's anecdotes-when would you ever get another chance to do so?-but you can't help but focus on how your last lie wasn't really a lie at all. It was impossible to think, though no more impossible than what you were currently doing, but there was no other explanation. The stars *had* brought you here: the hundreds of them that you had asked for exactly this.
Your chest constricts slightly when you remember that there had been two parts to your wish. The first part, to come to Middle Earth, was fulfilled. Now the stars owed you an adventure.