***
Fangirls In Beleriand
by Shauna (wind3213@hotmail.com)
Summary: With the removal of the PPC, there's been a certain lack of nice, mean snarking. My attempt to make up for it. Feedback of all kinds appreciated.
Disclaimers: All characters, unless indicated otherwise, are the property of the Tolkien estate. The Mary-Sues are mine, and that means I can torture them as much as I want.
***
Really, it had all been a bit of harmless fun. Her best friend's snotty older sister had tossed her a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring and said nastily, "If you're not going to shut up about how hot Legolas is, why don't you try reading the book? He *is* in that, too, you know."
Normally Mary tried to ignore Rae, but she couldn't pass up the chance to find out what other elf kingdoms besides Rivendell and Mirkwood there were in Middle Earth. She was planning on writing a fanfic where she and Legolas were betrothed. In it, she was going to be a unicorn-riding elven princess with magical powers, and she wanted to be authentic.
After skimming through the pages, she finally found the name of another land of elves. It was in one of those long, boring poems that she usually skipped over (she also skipped over anything mentioning Gimli or containing words that were more than three syllables long). The Kingdom of Thingol. Mary wondered what a 'Thingol' was.
Happy with her find, she closed the book. She didn't need it anymore - she already knew how it ended from watching the movie (eighteen times). She decided to walk over to her friend Sue's house, so she could return the book and maybe, with Sue's help, get started on that fanfic.
"Is Sue home?" she asked Rae when the girl came to the door. Rae sighed when she saw who it was.
"No, maybe in a half hour."
Mary nodded. "I can wait. Hey, here's your book."
Rae looked at her suspiciously. "You read it that quickly?"
"Nah. It was kinda boring."
Rae's expression changed from suspicion to sadness. "You know, you seemed so happy to have that book... I thought there was some hope for you."
Mary shrugged. "Can I use Sue's computer?" She wanted to get started on her fanfic right away. Rae opened the door wide enough to let her in, then closed it on the back of her foot. Mary stumbled and almost fell. She started to complain to Rae, but the girl was already walking off, mumbling under her breath,
"... boring... I'll show her boring... maybe if I sit down outside her door and moan, 'oh, Legolas is so handsome!' until she beats her head against the wall..."
After rubbing her heel and sulking for a little while, Mary walked to Sue's room. She pulled up a chair to her friend's computer, opened up a word processing program. Biting her lip, she began to write.
"In the Kingdom of Thingol, where many elves lived, their lived a beautiful Princess."
Hmmm. What did she want to name herself? Laestariana, or maybe Lailatrieana. Her rule about three-syllable words didn't count for names. Smiling, Mary continued.
"Thru the peacful meadows torwards the shining castle, danced the beautiful Princess L - "
There was a knock at the door. Rae stuck her head in.
"Sue just called, said she'd be home in fifteen minutes," Rae reported, her lip curling in disgust as she said her sister's name. The two girls didn't seem to know how they could be related. "Wait a sec - what are you doing?"
"I," Mary said, brimming with pride, "am writing a fanfic."
Rae was despondent. "I suppose I can't stop you. I mean, if Harpwire can't evade the law, how can I?"
Mary looked at her oddly. "Um. Yeah."
"Anyway, just... try to stay close to canon, okay?"
"What? What do cannons have to do with anything?"
Rae groaned. "It's useless. I'll let you know when Sue gets in." She headed towards the door, then paused, spying a pack of gum on the desktop. She leaned over to steal a piece, casually read the screen, and -
"What are you *doing*?" Rae gasped in horror. "You're not - writing a self-insert - no! I won't let you."
"What are you talking about?" Mary cried, throwing herself in front of her friend's computer. "It's just a little harmless fun!"
"With the PPC gone, it isn't harmless anymore!" Rae cried. "And it was certainly never fun! At least not to read," she added, massaging her temples, and giving Mary the glare of a discriminating fangirl who's waded through way too many horrible fics. She feigned weakness until Mary relaxed, then she pushed the girl out of the way and took in the screen. "The Kingdom of Thingol? Beleriand! How did you find out about that? Never mind. I won't let you do it, that's all. I won't! I'm making a citizen's arrest. And I'm confisticating this story!"
She leaned over to press delete, but Mary in desperation jumped at her, knocking her fingers over just far enough to hit 'save'...
A sudden, blinding light was followed by blackness. Distantly, Mary heard Rae's call, "Eru save the Silmarillion!"
***
Mary sniffed. Flowers. Flowers smelled pretty. She opened one eye. Flowers looked pretty, too. Flowers probably felt pretty, as well, but Mary was relatively sure that it wasn't a flower beneath her head. She shifted experimentally. Yeah, that was a rock.
"Ow." She said, rolling over and laying her head down again, someplace gentler.
"You didn't write very much, Mary. It was up to the continuum to get us here however it wanted, and it wasn't in a particularly good mood." That was Rae, who despite being both upside down and sideways in a particularly thorny bush managed to remain snarky. "I wonder why."
Feeling the back of her head, which was bumpy but not bleeding, Mary stood and helped Rae out of the foliage.
"So, um. What happened? Are we in the Kingdom of Thingol?"
Rae looked around, for the first time taking in where she was. It was absolutely beautiful, enchanting, majestic - oh, there simply weren't words to describe it. At least not in this language. She had a rudimentary knowledge of Quenya, but knew that wouldn't help. Except for a brief period after the arrival of the Noldor, Quenya was either unknown or banned here.
The city in the distance seemed elegant, rare peaks or towers jutting out from the forest. The trees seemed woven together, grown with the exact purpose of looking beautiful. And the fields looked pretty, and pretty harmless, except of course for where they had landed. She wished the continuum would stop blaming both of them. *She* hadn't done anything. But Rae was willing to bet they wouldn't find a thornbush anywhere else in Beleriand.
"Beleriand," she mused aloud, and at Mary's strange glance she added, "That's the name of this place. Well, Doriath, actually. It's a part of Beleriand that's protected by the Girdle of Melian."
"A girdle? What? What is that? No, wait. Isn't that something you put around your waist so you look thinner? Why would elves need that, they're already so pretty... like Legolas..."
Rae groaned, exasperated. "It's magical. Now shut up."
She looked around again, but a bit of her wonder was gone. Now she felt some guilt - after all, she had no right to intrude. Or worse, to allow Mary to do so. And this wasn't Rivendell, either, where rips and tears were commonplace. This place had an air of unbroached peace. She felt criminal.
But what was she to do? Short of committing a murder-suicide she wasn't sure how to get out of the continuum. And that was a step she wasn't willing to take, not when so many things could go wrong. What if self-inserts lost something of themselves when they returned to the real world? Besides, she didn't think dying would be that pleasant.
The sounds of music and laughter startled Rae from her musing. For a moment she listened, enchanted. That must be Luthien, Tinuviel, with a voice like a Nightengale and a face like a goddess...
Panicked, Rae shoved Mary behind a bush and leaped down after her.
"What are you *doing*?" Mary hissed.
"What do you mean, what am I doing? I'm trying not to distroy the plot continuum. Which would certainly happen if these elves caught sight of *humans* walking around their kingdom? Now hide. Don't speak. Don't look, even."
Despite her words, Rae risked a peek. She gasped in silent delight to see Luthien emerge from the forest, her step leisurely and light. Even her hair moved like she was dancing. For a moment, she stopped her singing, and called, "My dear Strongbow, however do you manage to lead my father's troops when you walk so slow? Certainly you must lag behind, and reach your battles once they're over!"
In spite of herself Rae was disapointed that she could understand the language - she had been looking foward to a challenge. Then Luthien's words sunk in.
"My dear Luthien, however do you manage to capture so many young hearts? Certainly you must open your mouth, and release their hearts with your cruel teasing?"
Luthien laughed and took the arm of the elf warrior who strode into the clearing. Then she continued her singing, which became gradually softer as the distance back to the edge of the forest grew.
Glancing at her companion, Rae realized Mary had been watching, too.
"You cheater! You said we weren't allowed to see the elves!" Mary complained. But Rae only sighed and sank into the soft grasses, a dazed look on her face.
"Rae?"
"... Beleg Cuthalion!" she sighed again.
"Rae?" Still no answer. "Whatever," Mary snapped, growing impatient. "I like my elves blond."
This statement brought Rae back to her senses. "Um, Mary? Hate to break it to you, but Legolas has brown hair."
"What?"
"And he doesn't exist yet."
"What?!?!" Mary howled, shattering eardrums and destroying propper punctuation. Rae shoved her back into the forest before anyone else heard, and before Beleg and Luthien could come back to investigate.
***
A little while later the two humans were wandering around the forest, for lack of anything better to do. Mary peppered Rae with questions, which pleased the elder girl immensely, at least at first. After all, Mary was finally showing some interest in book canon.
"So, who was that girl? With your Beleg fellow?"
"Princess Luthien - "
"Princess!" Mary shouted. "But I'm the princess."
"I can assure you, you're not anything of the sort."
"But that's what I wrote!"
Rae stared at her intently, considering. "Really? I don't know, then..."
"Well, maybe I didn't get a chance to say that I wanted to be the princess. But that's what I was gonna write."
"Tough luck," Rae muttered, and sat down. After a while, she realized Mary was being strangely quiet. Rae welcomed the change. Then Mary shouted, "Yes!"
Rae jumped up as she felt the earth sway beneath her. Aghast, she stared at Mary, who seemed oblivious, holding something tightly in one hand and wiping sweat from her forehead with the other. "What is that, Mary?"
Mary opened her hand to reveal a Kit-Kat bar. At the look of outrage on her companion's face, she said meekly, "What?"
"How. Did. You. Get. That." Each word was punctuated by a stomp of the foot.
"I just - er, I just sort of wished for it. Really hard. I'm hungry, you know."
"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU JUST - " Rae started, then stopped. "WHAT KIND OF A MORON WOULD - " she stopped again. Words could not convey her anger any more than they could describe Doriath. Very softly, she asked, "Why, in the name of all that's holy, would you think it's not okay to let elves see us but to introduce their world to junk food? And celophane? And all sorts of nasty chemicals that are in that chocalate?"
"I don't know, I - " Mary looked contrite. "But I am hungry. And tired. Where are we going to get all the stuff we need?"
She was right. They would have to enter the world of elves, as discretely as they could. Mary had long hair which she could use to cover her rounded ears, but Rae's was cut short and wouldn't hide a thing. She supposed they could settle for stealing a hat. She was willing to bet making new fashion statements would be less disruptive than Mary introducing any more Mars-bars products.
They set off towards the city.
***
After several hours of walking the girls had teached the outskirts, in the form of a small town. Behind one of the dwellings was a rock, upon were stretched a few cloaks. Feeling decidedly Ungoliant-ish, Rae crept over to where they lay, trying to make no noise as she did so. Grabbing one of the cloaks, she pulled it on, flipping up the top to cover her ears. Then, taking another for Mary, she turned to leave and -
"You must be the loudest elf I've ever come across in my entire life, and mind you, I was born right after Cuivienen. For what purpose are you taking my daughters' cloaks?"
Rae gulped and slowly turned around. "I was, um, ah. Um. Ah."
The elf woman's frown turned even deeper. "Answer me, girl. Are you mad?"
"Um. Ah." Rae tried desperately to think of an excuse.
"You are, aren't you?" The elf woman said, taken aback. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry. Not that you can understand me, but, oh, I'm sorry. So many of us have lost bits of ourselves to the darkness. Body or mind. But we're protected now, by Melian, Eru bless her."
As she talked the woman walked slowly closer, and despite Rae's tenseness she felt something like implicit trust. The elf ran a hand down her shoulder, comforting, and continued on.
"You don't feel right, somehow. You feel different. Not evil, not like one of the dark one's elves, but different. Perhaps my lady should see you. Yes, I'll take you to her, that's what I'll do."
Saying so, the woman led her into the house. Clutching the cloak tightly around her head and glancing back nervously to the forest where Mary waited, Rae followed her in.
How can I understand what she's saying? Rae thought to herself. Maybe the continuum feels bad about landing me in a thorny bush? Or maybe the reason why all self-inserts understand the language is that an author writes in English. So it's, like, inherently understandable to us.
This intelligent-sounding yet really quite nonsensical babbling occupied Rae from worrying about whether the woman was taking her to see more elves, what they would do when they saw her ears (or saw her try to sing, dance or fight for that matter - she hardly had elvish grace) and whether or not Mary was going to be all right in the woods. Or, more to the point, whether the woods would be all right with Mary in them.
"Be productive," Rae muttered to herself, making sure she only mouthed the words. The elf woman was maybe ten feet away but Rae didn't doubt she could hear the slightest rush of breath.
Be productive. Okay, what could she figure out by what she had seen? Where was she, for starters?
She didn't know if she was anywhere near the King's halls, because they were underground. But she hadn't seen Luthien's tree scraping at the sky, so they weren't very close. Well, *when* was she? Luthien and Beleg were here, so the world was still relatively young. And she was betting the humans hadn't come yet, because otherwise the woman would have recognized her for what she was. When had humans awoken? Right, after the felling of the trees and the making of the sun...
"Oh, you idiot!" Rae couldn't help herself from saying that out loud. The sun was shining! It must be during that brief period between the fall of the Noldor and the coming of men...
The elf was staring at her, unmoving and curious. "So you aren't mad, then?" She slowly circled around Rae, her steps cautious. "Then what are you?"
END PART ONE
Fangirls In Beleriand
by Shauna (wind3213@hotmail.com)
Summary: With the removal of the PPC, there's been a certain lack of nice, mean snarking. My attempt to make up for it. Feedback of all kinds appreciated.
Disclaimers: All characters, unless indicated otherwise, are the property of the Tolkien estate. The Mary-Sues are mine, and that means I can torture them as much as I want.
***
Really, it had all been a bit of harmless fun. Her best friend's snotty older sister had tossed her a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring and said nastily, "If you're not going to shut up about how hot Legolas is, why don't you try reading the book? He *is* in that, too, you know."
Normally Mary tried to ignore Rae, but she couldn't pass up the chance to find out what other elf kingdoms besides Rivendell and Mirkwood there were in Middle Earth. She was planning on writing a fanfic where she and Legolas were betrothed. In it, she was going to be a unicorn-riding elven princess with magical powers, and she wanted to be authentic.
After skimming through the pages, she finally found the name of another land of elves. It was in one of those long, boring poems that she usually skipped over (she also skipped over anything mentioning Gimli or containing words that were more than three syllables long). The Kingdom of Thingol. Mary wondered what a 'Thingol' was.
Happy with her find, she closed the book. She didn't need it anymore - she already knew how it ended from watching the movie (eighteen times). She decided to walk over to her friend Sue's house, so she could return the book and maybe, with Sue's help, get started on that fanfic.
"Is Sue home?" she asked Rae when the girl came to the door. Rae sighed when she saw who it was.
"No, maybe in a half hour."
Mary nodded. "I can wait. Hey, here's your book."
Rae looked at her suspiciously. "You read it that quickly?"
"Nah. It was kinda boring."
Rae's expression changed from suspicion to sadness. "You know, you seemed so happy to have that book... I thought there was some hope for you."
Mary shrugged. "Can I use Sue's computer?" She wanted to get started on her fanfic right away. Rae opened the door wide enough to let her in, then closed it on the back of her foot. Mary stumbled and almost fell. She started to complain to Rae, but the girl was already walking off, mumbling under her breath,
"... boring... I'll show her boring... maybe if I sit down outside her door and moan, 'oh, Legolas is so handsome!' until she beats her head against the wall..."
After rubbing her heel and sulking for a little while, Mary walked to Sue's room. She pulled up a chair to her friend's computer, opened up a word processing program. Biting her lip, she began to write.
"In the Kingdom of Thingol, where many elves lived, their lived a beautiful Princess."
Hmmm. What did she want to name herself? Laestariana, or maybe Lailatrieana. Her rule about three-syllable words didn't count for names. Smiling, Mary continued.
"Thru the peacful meadows torwards the shining castle, danced the beautiful Princess L - "
There was a knock at the door. Rae stuck her head in.
"Sue just called, said she'd be home in fifteen minutes," Rae reported, her lip curling in disgust as she said her sister's name. The two girls didn't seem to know how they could be related. "Wait a sec - what are you doing?"
"I," Mary said, brimming with pride, "am writing a fanfic."
Rae was despondent. "I suppose I can't stop you. I mean, if Harpwire can't evade the law, how can I?"
Mary looked at her oddly. "Um. Yeah."
"Anyway, just... try to stay close to canon, okay?"
"What? What do cannons have to do with anything?"
Rae groaned. "It's useless. I'll let you know when Sue gets in." She headed towards the door, then paused, spying a pack of gum on the desktop. She leaned over to steal a piece, casually read the screen, and -
"What are you *doing*?" Rae gasped in horror. "You're not - writing a self-insert - no! I won't let you."
"What are you talking about?" Mary cried, throwing herself in front of her friend's computer. "It's just a little harmless fun!"
"With the PPC gone, it isn't harmless anymore!" Rae cried. "And it was certainly never fun! At least not to read," she added, massaging her temples, and giving Mary the glare of a discriminating fangirl who's waded through way too many horrible fics. She feigned weakness until Mary relaxed, then she pushed the girl out of the way and took in the screen. "The Kingdom of Thingol? Beleriand! How did you find out about that? Never mind. I won't let you do it, that's all. I won't! I'm making a citizen's arrest. And I'm confisticating this story!"
She leaned over to press delete, but Mary in desperation jumped at her, knocking her fingers over just far enough to hit 'save'...
A sudden, blinding light was followed by blackness. Distantly, Mary heard Rae's call, "Eru save the Silmarillion!"
***
Mary sniffed. Flowers. Flowers smelled pretty. She opened one eye. Flowers looked pretty, too. Flowers probably felt pretty, as well, but Mary was relatively sure that it wasn't a flower beneath her head. She shifted experimentally. Yeah, that was a rock.
"Ow." She said, rolling over and laying her head down again, someplace gentler.
"You didn't write very much, Mary. It was up to the continuum to get us here however it wanted, and it wasn't in a particularly good mood." That was Rae, who despite being both upside down and sideways in a particularly thorny bush managed to remain snarky. "I wonder why."
Feeling the back of her head, which was bumpy but not bleeding, Mary stood and helped Rae out of the foliage.
"So, um. What happened? Are we in the Kingdom of Thingol?"
Rae looked around, for the first time taking in where she was. It was absolutely beautiful, enchanting, majestic - oh, there simply weren't words to describe it. At least not in this language. She had a rudimentary knowledge of Quenya, but knew that wouldn't help. Except for a brief period after the arrival of the Noldor, Quenya was either unknown or banned here.
The city in the distance seemed elegant, rare peaks or towers jutting out from the forest. The trees seemed woven together, grown with the exact purpose of looking beautiful. And the fields looked pretty, and pretty harmless, except of course for where they had landed. She wished the continuum would stop blaming both of them. *She* hadn't done anything. But Rae was willing to bet they wouldn't find a thornbush anywhere else in Beleriand.
"Beleriand," she mused aloud, and at Mary's strange glance she added, "That's the name of this place. Well, Doriath, actually. It's a part of Beleriand that's protected by the Girdle of Melian."
"A girdle? What? What is that? No, wait. Isn't that something you put around your waist so you look thinner? Why would elves need that, they're already so pretty... like Legolas..."
Rae groaned, exasperated. "It's magical. Now shut up."
She looked around again, but a bit of her wonder was gone. Now she felt some guilt - after all, she had no right to intrude. Or worse, to allow Mary to do so. And this wasn't Rivendell, either, where rips and tears were commonplace. This place had an air of unbroached peace. She felt criminal.
But what was she to do? Short of committing a murder-suicide she wasn't sure how to get out of the continuum. And that was a step she wasn't willing to take, not when so many things could go wrong. What if self-inserts lost something of themselves when they returned to the real world? Besides, she didn't think dying would be that pleasant.
The sounds of music and laughter startled Rae from her musing. For a moment she listened, enchanted. That must be Luthien, Tinuviel, with a voice like a Nightengale and a face like a goddess...
Panicked, Rae shoved Mary behind a bush and leaped down after her.
"What are you *doing*?" Mary hissed.
"What do you mean, what am I doing? I'm trying not to distroy the plot continuum. Which would certainly happen if these elves caught sight of *humans* walking around their kingdom? Now hide. Don't speak. Don't look, even."
Despite her words, Rae risked a peek. She gasped in silent delight to see Luthien emerge from the forest, her step leisurely and light. Even her hair moved like she was dancing. For a moment, she stopped her singing, and called, "My dear Strongbow, however do you manage to lead my father's troops when you walk so slow? Certainly you must lag behind, and reach your battles once they're over!"
In spite of herself Rae was disapointed that she could understand the language - she had been looking foward to a challenge. Then Luthien's words sunk in.
"My dear Luthien, however do you manage to capture so many young hearts? Certainly you must open your mouth, and release their hearts with your cruel teasing?"
Luthien laughed and took the arm of the elf warrior who strode into the clearing. Then she continued her singing, which became gradually softer as the distance back to the edge of the forest grew.
Glancing at her companion, Rae realized Mary had been watching, too.
"You cheater! You said we weren't allowed to see the elves!" Mary complained. But Rae only sighed and sank into the soft grasses, a dazed look on her face.
"Rae?"
"... Beleg Cuthalion!" she sighed again.
"Rae?" Still no answer. "Whatever," Mary snapped, growing impatient. "I like my elves blond."
This statement brought Rae back to her senses. "Um, Mary? Hate to break it to you, but Legolas has brown hair."
"What?"
"And he doesn't exist yet."
"What?!?!" Mary howled, shattering eardrums and destroying propper punctuation. Rae shoved her back into the forest before anyone else heard, and before Beleg and Luthien could come back to investigate.
***
A little while later the two humans were wandering around the forest, for lack of anything better to do. Mary peppered Rae with questions, which pleased the elder girl immensely, at least at first. After all, Mary was finally showing some interest in book canon.
"So, who was that girl? With your Beleg fellow?"
"Princess Luthien - "
"Princess!" Mary shouted. "But I'm the princess."
"I can assure you, you're not anything of the sort."
"But that's what I wrote!"
Rae stared at her intently, considering. "Really? I don't know, then..."
"Well, maybe I didn't get a chance to say that I wanted to be the princess. But that's what I was gonna write."
"Tough luck," Rae muttered, and sat down. After a while, she realized Mary was being strangely quiet. Rae welcomed the change. Then Mary shouted, "Yes!"
Rae jumped up as she felt the earth sway beneath her. Aghast, she stared at Mary, who seemed oblivious, holding something tightly in one hand and wiping sweat from her forehead with the other. "What is that, Mary?"
Mary opened her hand to reveal a Kit-Kat bar. At the look of outrage on her companion's face, she said meekly, "What?"
"How. Did. You. Get. That." Each word was punctuated by a stomp of the foot.
"I just - er, I just sort of wished for it. Really hard. I'm hungry, you know."
"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU JUST - " Rae started, then stopped. "WHAT KIND OF A MORON WOULD - " she stopped again. Words could not convey her anger any more than they could describe Doriath. Very softly, she asked, "Why, in the name of all that's holy, would you think it's not okay to let elves see us but to introduce their world to junk food? And celophane? And all sorts of nasty chemicals that are in that chocalate?"
"I don't know, I - " Mary looked contrite. "But I am hungry. And tired. Where are we going to get all the stuff we need?"
She was right. They would have to enter the world of elves, as discretely as they could. Mary had long hair which she could use to cover her rounded ears, but Rae's was cut short and wouldn't hide a thing. She supposed they could settle for stealing a hat. She was willing to bet making new fashion statements would be less disruptive than Mary introducing any more Mars-bars products.
They set off towards the city.
***
After several hours of walking the girls had teached the outskirts, in the form of a small town. Behind one of the dwellings was a rock, upon were stretched a few cloaks. Feeling decidedly Ungoliant-ish, Rae crept over to where they lay, trying to make no noise as she did so. Grabbing one of the cloaks, she pulled it on, flipping up the top to cover her ears. Then, taking another for Mary, she turned to leave and -
"You must be the loudest elf I've ever come across in my entire life, and mind you, I was born right after Cuivienen. For what purpose are you taking my daughters' cloaks?"
Rae gulped and slowly turned around. "I was, um, ah. Um. Ah."
The elf woman's frown turned even deeper. "Answer me, girl. Are you mad?"
"Um. Ah." Rae tried desperately to think of an excuse.
"You are, aren't you?" The elf woman said, taken aback. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry. Not that you can understand me, but, oh, I'm sorry. So many of us have lost bits of ourselves to the darkness. Body or mind. But we're protected now, by Melian, Eru bless her."
As she talked the woman walked slowly closer, and despite Rae's tenseness she felt something like implicit trust. The elf ran a hand down her shoulder, comforting, and continued on.
"You don't feel right, somehow. You feel different. Not evil, not like one of the dark one's elves, but different. Perhaps my lady should see you. Yes, I'll take you to her, that's what I'll do."
Saying so, the woman led her into the house. Clutching the cloak tightly around her head and glancing back nervously to the forest where Mary waited, Rae followed her in.
How can I understand what she's saying? Rae thought to herself. Maybe the continuum feels bad about landing me in a thorny bush? Or maybe the reason why all self-inserts understand the language is that an author writes in English. So it's, like, inherently understandable to us.
This intelligent-sounding yet really quite nonsensical babbling occupied Rae from worrying about whether the woman was taking her to see more elves, what they would do when they saw her ears (or saw her try to sing, dance or fight for that matter - she hardly had elvish grace) and whether or not Mary was going to be all right in the woods. Or, more to the point, whether the woods would be all right with Mary in them.
"Be productive," Rae muttered to herself, making sure she only mouthed the words. The elf woman was maybe ten feet away but Rae didn't doubt she could hear the slightest rush of breath.
Be productive. Okay, what could she figure out by what she had seen? Where was she, for starters?
She didn't know if she was anywhere near the King's halls, because they were underground. But she hadn't seen Luthien's tree scraping at the sky, so they weren't very close. Well, *when* was she? Luthien and Beleg were here, so the world was still relatively young. And she was betting the humans hadn't come yet, because otherwise the woman would have recognized her for what she was. When had humans awoken? Right, after the felling of the trees and the making of the sun...
"Oh, you idiot!" Rae couldn't help herself from saying that out loud. The sun was shining! It must be during that brief period between the fall of the Noldor and the coming of men...
The elf was staring at her, unmoving and curious. "So you aren't mad, then?" She slowly circled around Rae, her steps cautious. "Then what are you?"
END PART ONE