This series of five vignettes was inspired by a conversation on the Henneth Annun mailing list about the pros and cons of actually waking up in Middle Earth. While the conversation focused more on things like the warfare and violence, and the lack of cell phones, laptops, and modern medical care, this is where my fevered brain went with it.
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Each night, before going to sleep, some people pray that they will wake up in Middle Earth. Sometimes, it even works, though the results can be unpredictable...
***
1.
Mary opened her eyes to find herself not at home in bed, but on the rocky ground
beside a river. "Hot damn," she said, sitting up, "I made it."
Looking around at the wilderness in which she'd awakened, she started to feel
a little nervous. "What now?" she muttered to herself, standing up.
Suddenly, she realized that the noises she was hearing in the distance were
the sounds of fighting, and of many heavy boots trampling through the forest
at great speed. Then, a horn sounded. She perked up. "Amon Hen!" she
cried. "Boromir's in trouble - Legolas will be there soon!" With that
happy thought she started though the woods towards the deep baying of the Horn
of Gondor, but before she'd gone a dozen yards, she found herself facing an
oncoming company of Orcs, their armor black, their black blades drawn. "Oh,"
she said, stopping. "Oh, hell." The Orcs reached her in short order,
and made her shorter by a head.
***
2.
Glenda was surprised to discover, upon awakening that morning, that her room
had been transformed. No longer the pink-and-white gingham that her mother had
chosen, now it was golden and silver, warm light cascading in through open windows.
Outside she could hear musical voices, and, delighted, she quickly put her fingers
to her ears. Pointed! "It worked! I'm an Elven princess!" Grinning,
she leapt out of bed and hurried to the mirror, to find the face that gazed
back at her was beautiful beyond comprehending. Fairest skin, like white lilies,
and eyes the color of new green shoots of grass, except when she moved her head
a little and they became the blue of a summer sky, long hair cascading in a
waterfall of gold down her back. "Ooo!" she said, "this is perfect!
This is better than perfect!"
There was a knock at the door.
Spinning delightedly, she called, "Come in!", her voice as silvery as the chiming of bells.
There was a pause, then a more tentative knock.
"Come in," she said again.
The door opened, and an Elf maiden peered into the room, and spoke in Elvish. ["Are you well, my lady? You were to join your father at breakfast an hour ago."]
Glenda frowned. "Come again?" she said. "I didn't quite get that."
The Elf spoke again, still, unsurprisingly, in Elvish. ["Are you one of those blasted body-switchers we keep getting around here? What have you done with the princess?!"]
Glenda shook her head, scowling. "I can't understand a word you're saying," she said.
Blanching, the creature slipped back out and shut the door. A few moments later, three armed Elven soldiers came to Glenda's room, and she didn't have any trouble understanding when they marched her at sword point to the King's chamber. "Look," she said, facing the King, "I don't know what's going on here, but I'm supposed to be traveling to the council at Rivendell, to meet Legolas and have him fall in love with me. So can we get on with this?"
At the words "Rivendell" and "Legolas," the King started. ["What do you know of this matter?"] he said in Elvish, but of course Glenda had no idea what he'd said. The King turned to his advisers. ["Clearly it's another case of body-napping. Take this vile creature to the sorcerers and have them find out where my daughter is."]
In a pink-and-white gingham room, Princess Aradora woke up in a decidedly unElvish body. "Dammit," she muttered in Elvish. "One of these days I'm going to have to learn their language, so I can at least get a cup of friggin' water when I'm here." And she lay back and waited for her father's sorcerers to find her. Again.
***
3.
Sue woke to darkness, but beneath her was not the soft mattress she was accustomed
to, but hard earth and prickly grass. She sat up, trying to make out where she
was, and slowly the distant mountains resolved themselves in the moonlight,
and the rolling hills that stretched as far as she could see. "Hey!"
she said, "I think this is Rohan! Whoopee! I'll bet Legolas will be here
soon," and she grinned delightedly at the prospect of causing the handsome
Elf to fall madly in love with her, and to abandon his home and family when
Thranduil rashly objected to the match. "Yay!" she said.
Then she heard growling behind her. Turning, she could just make out the silhouette of an enormous wolf, teeth bared and glinting in the dimness. Then the beast attacked.
The sun was high when two Riders came across the oddest carcass they'd ever seen. Dismounting, the Third Marshall of the Riddermark knelt to examine the remains, where blood and flesh mingled with clothing which appeared to be printed with strange and unskilled drawings of kittens. "I think the prey was human," he said. "A girl-child, I'd judge, by the size of the hand. But what is this strange jewel?" He picked up the severed, gnawed arm, and slipped off what had been Sue's Timex watch. "It has been been much abused," he said, "yet has not been destroyed entirely." Indeed, the crystal was crushed, and there were what appeared to be tooth marks in the leather of the band. "But..." and Éomer paused, then held it to his ear, "what magic is this?" He looked up at his companion. "It ticks!"
***
4.
When Carol woke up that morning, she was astonished to discover that she was
no longer in her own bedroom, but on the side of a snowy mountain. It was frigging
cold, too. Carol began to shiver. "Damn," she said. "This wasn't
what I meant." She stood up, looked around, and realized it was probably
that mountain where Frodo fell and Boromir had that moment with the Ring. "Legolas
is hardly even in that scene," she muttered irritably, and, wishing she'd
worn her slippers to bed the night before, started off through the snow.
Some time later, the Fellowship of nine walkers and one pony came across her tracks. "What's this?" said Aragorn. "I would say a Hobbit, for who would go barefoot over the mountains, but the size of the tracks are so small!"
"And they start from nowhere," Boromir added, his voice amazed. "Did one of the great Eagles swoop down and drop off a passenger on the side of Caradhras?"
Unnoticed by any but Sam, Frodo had walked further on, following the strange tracks. "Mister Frodo?" called Sam, worriedly, and the others looked up.
"Frodo!" Boromir called, and Aragorn started after the wayward Hobbit.
"I'm just looking to see where the tracks go!" he called back, wandering in Carol's footsteps further and further from their path.
"No - Frodo - the way is treacherous! You do not -"
With a sudden cry and a brief look of panic, Frodo disappeared from sight.
"Nooooooooo!" Sam screamed, and started plunging through the snow after him, but was caught up in Boromir's arms before he could throw himself after his friend, while Aragorn reached the spot in a few long strides, and looked after the fallen Hobbit. "Legolas," he called, "come here - tell me what your Elf eyes can see."
Light as a leaf on the breeze, Legolas joined Aragorn near the edge of the cliff and looked down. Far, far away were two small figures, and a glint of gold. He shook his head. "All the way down," he said, scowling.
Aragorn looked back at the others. "Well," he said wearily, "we'd better go and get it."
"I get to carry it this time, right?" said Boromir, now covered in sobbing Hobbits, whose backs he was patting comfortingly as best he could.
Aragorn just scowled.
"Come on. Fight you for it," said Boromir hopefully as they started retracing their steps. "Two falls out of three?"
***
5.
"Goddammit," Nancy muttered as she looked helplessly around for something
to cover herself with. "Of all the times for that stupid prayer to work,
it has to be when I'm sleeping in the buff!" Suddenly, behind her, she
heard a low whistle, and with a little shriek she spun around, to find herself
facing a huge Uruk-hai. "Hey!" she said in sudden recognition. "I
know you! You're Lurtz! You're a bad-ass."
Startled, the Orc seemed almost to blush. "You know of me?" he asked.
"Oh sure," she said, modesty forgotten in the face of the utter madness of her situation. "Yeah, you're, like, famous. Big warrior guy for Saruman." She hesitated, then said thoughtfully, "You could do better than him, y'know."
He scowled. "Better than the mighty Saruman, who created me?"
"Oh, yeah," she said. "Yeah, you know he loses in the end anyway. You get killed by Aragorn for murdering his buddy, and - well, it's just no good, a big handsome guy like you."
"Killed?" he said, disbelieving, "Lurtz?"
"Mm-hmm. But you don't have to, y'know." She sidled up to him and slipped her arm through his. "You could play for the winning team, I'll bet. The good guys. They're here somewhere," she said, looking around.
"Yes, we seek the Halflings," said Lurtz, "and we will kill the others. As soon as we find them."
"Ah," said Nancy, stroking the smooth skin of his heavily muscled shoulder, "screw the Halflings. The guy with the Ring is gonna get away anyway, if he hasn't already, and the only Halflings they're gonna have with 'em won't be carrying anything more exciting than a couple of pretty accessories. You don't want 'em." She smiled prettily up at him. "I'll bet I could give you something more fun to play with," and she batted her eyelashes.
Three days later, when the Uruk-hai finally found the Fellowship, Lurtz gathered his men back to him and said, "Screw the Halflings. Saruman's a loser, we don't want to work for him anyway. Get the Men and the Elf - they seem to be in charge - and if we can't talk 'em into letting us help them take over Middle Earth, well, hell, we'll just take their stuff and go get drunk, whaddaya say?"
The others seemed skeptical.
"Come on," said Lurtz. "A naked chick appears out of nowhere in the middle of the woods, and she's hot for Orcs, and we're not going to do what she wants?"
That convinced them. Later, when Sauron was defeated with the help of Lurtz and his Uruk-hai, Lurtz was put in charge of the defense of South Ithilien by a grateful Aragorn (who, incidentally, decided to form a triumvirate with Boromir and Faramir, hence taking the first tentative steps towards Democracy in Gondor), and Nancy finally got some decent clothes.