I can't believe I'm starting ANOTHER one. Ugh. While I've got two in the works already, no less. And I'm uploading this at 2 AM, because what the hell. I don't need sleep or have a French exam tomorrow that I need to study for. I'm beginning to think I'm more than a little ADD. And it's completely caffeine-induced, as usual.

This story is one of those Mary-Sue-Crashes-Into-Middle-Earth things that, let's be honest, I despise. And okay, my OC may or may not be roughly based on me at the age of fifteen, but is not a Mary Sue. At least, I hope it doesn't tun out that way.

So I was thinking. Because my brain is weird and it does that. And I came up with the idea of a language barrier (since I have my nose in a French textbook, and all). Because whatever the common language is in Middle-Earth, it probably isn't English. I mean, speaking in terms of if Middle-Earth actually existed.

This is why I shouldn't write at 2 AM.

5/20/15 EDIT: Wow. I never expected this story to get so popular. In fact, it's my most popular. Thanks! I know some of you have been waiting for my return to writing, but I've been really busy the last couple of months and didn't have the time or energy to write anything decent. As I actually want to be a published writer someday, I take my writing very seriously and tend not to upload anything I think is crap. When I started this, I really didn't know which direction I wanted to take it in, and countless revisions have been made to the outline between then and now. I had the basics down but really didn't know how to flesh it out. Thanks to my reviewers and PM'ers, I have a better idea now.

I'm reworking what I already have written before I continue with new chapters. I've been working on this in bits and pieces and realized I didn't have anything anywhere near as developed as I'd like it to be towards the end. So before I got too far, I figured I'd add in some stuff that should have been put in in the first place. I'm not going to delete the story entirely and start over, so the narrative might be confusing for a while, but please bear with me. I'm hoping to rework a chapter every few days to get the story back on track. Hopefully, you'll be seeing new material soon, and this might clear up some major questions and concerns some of my reviewers had.

Thanks!

S. S.

Not all those who wander are lost.

But some are.

My name is Bridget Davis. An ordinary name for an ordinary girl. I'm not much to notice, middling height, mousy hair, green eyes. Fairly average, you'd say. That's what I thought too, until the extraordinary happened. Quite frankly, I'm surprised I lived to tell the tale. But that's at the end of my story, and as we all know, stories must start from the beginning.

I've read enough magazines and trashy romance novels and seen enough soap operas—believe me, not my idea—to be familiar with the concept of the coma-fantasy-alternate-universe trope. I hate it. Fortunately, my story isn't a coma fantasy. I hope. Because if it is, I never woke up. I'm still here—wherever here is. I'm told it's called Arda, and it's apparently on another planet. I'd like to think, as much as I like entertaining the thought—which I don't—that it was fate that brought me here, reason still unknown. To me or anyone else.

I live, or I should say, lived, in a relatively small town where the streets are narrow, the buildings are old, and everyone knows each other. I lived alone in an apartment above a bookstore. Needless to say, I was a frequent visitor. This particular day started out like any other—I went out for a coffee and to get a new book. Come to think of it, there's more to me than just my bland looks. I was a bookworm and proud of it. I was, at the time, very particular about which books I read. At the moment I had recently discovered dystopian novels and was eagerly devouring any I could get my hands on. Looking back now, I wish I would have read more fantasy. It would have helped me in the long run.

For the most part, I kept to myself. Close friendships were not something I was accustomed to, not for anyone else's lack of trying. I just didn't feel the need to be constantly surrounded by people. Once in a while, a group of people I'd been hanging out with would get a little too invasive for my liking, and I'd up and leave. No goodbyes, no notice. One day I'd be there, the next I wasn't. I didn't consider myself to be attached to anything or anybody. I couldn't be.

This was the longest I'd stayed in one place, and I was hoping I wouldn't have to leave it. All my life I'd felt like there was something threatening just out of my view, something that would hunt me down till the very end of my life. It was a secret I'd kept for as long as I could remember, from my family, from friends, from anyone who tried to get too close. They'd think I was crazy. And so it was better that I be alone. Besides, if my suspicions were true, I didn't want anybody else to get hurt. Call it a ghost, or a demon, or whatever you will. But something was definitely following me.

I'd felt it return that night. It woke me up from a sound sleep, a change in the air that I took to mean it had found me. But I was determined not to let it bother me again. It had chased me far enough, and I wouldn't let it drive me further away. I was just getting used to life here.

I was an idiot. I should have packed up and left that night. But I didn't. I had made up my mind to stick it out, and stick it out I would.

In my foolish determination, I went out the next morning as if it were any other day. I stopped in the little corner store and bought a coffee, a bunch of bananas, a box of tea, and some cookies, took them back to my apartment, and then headed downstairs to the bookstore. I spent maybe twenty minutes perusing the shelves before I decided on a book, thanked the shopkeeper, and headed out. I was destined for a favorite reading spot of mine, on a cliff-like rock overlooking the beach a few blocks away. But no sooner had I stepped out the door than it started pouring rain. I crossed the street to go back to my apartment, but just before I stepped onto the curb, my foot slipped on a clump of wet leaves clogging the storm drain, and I fell into a puddle. That was the last thing I remember of my life prior to the Adventure, as I now call it.

If I have to come up with a theory as to how I got here, I'm going to go with the wormhole theory. It was like I was vacuumed through to some other dimension and crash landed in another galaxy, at the very least, if not a parallel universe. All I saw was blackness and spots, like driving in a blizzard. To this day, I have no idea where in the universe I am, or how to get back. I probably never will.

I landed on my side on the floor of a dirty tavern.

Rubbing my shoulder, I struggled to my feet. I had crashed down in front of a table of no less than thirteen men. Thirteen very short, hairy men. Thirteen dwarves, for God's sake. One of them said something. I didn't understand a word, merely shook my head. The men leaned in over the table and muttered to each other in a strange language, with the occasional point at me.

"Balin," said one after a few moments, gesturing to himself.

"B...Bridget." I tapped my chest in reply.

He stared back at me, sizing me up, though I stood a good foot or more above him, and then made an eating gesture and shrugged, a questioning look at me. I shook my head again.

Another dwarf pulled a chair up from another table and motioned that I should sit. I complied, and a mug of ale was passed to me. Against my better judgment, I drank some. I felt fine, but it was bitter, more so than anything I'd ever had.

After more discussion amongst themselves, the dwarves introduced themselves to me via pointing to themselves and stating their names. There was Balin, who had first spoken to me. He had a white, forked beard, and Dwalin, who was massive and with scalp tattoos. Then came the trio of Dori, Nori, and Ori, all of whom had the most complicated braids I'd ever seen. Oin and Gloin had the largest beards. Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur—one with something protruding from his forehead, one with a cheeky grin, and one excessively fat. And last were Fili and Kili, the youngest and most jovial looking. There was one more at the end of the table I hadn't seen immediately,he'd had his hood up and was shrouded in shadow . He took it down to reveal black hair just starting to gray, blue eyes, and a look that could freeze over hell. His name was Thorin, the last part of his name I couldn't make out. It had something to do with the wooden armguard he carried; he tapped on it to indicate his surname. I didn't really care to know his name, or who he was. He terrified me. He was somehow more imposing than Dwalin, who carried two battle axes slung over his back.

Balin, the designated speaker, waved his arms to indicate a wide space. "Bree," he said. Then, motioning to the party, he said, "Ered Luin." Then he pointed to me. I guessed he was asking where I was from.

"Nowhere," I said evasively. They shook their heads.

Just then a tall grey form swept into view with a small barefoot man following behind him. Balin tugged the grey man's sleeve and spoke rapidly, pointing to me. The grey man—a wizard, I gathered, by the pointed hat and staff, turned to me and asked me something in the same language the dwarves had used. I shook my head. He tried another. And another. Head shake after head shake, he eventually gave up and presumably told the group as much. Turning back to me, he pointed to himself and said, "Gandalf."

The smaller man stuck his hand out and I took it, shaking it lightly. Bilbo Labingi was his name. Evidently, the fact that I knew what a handshake was for gave them some insight, or perhaps relief. I wasn't some savage as they probably thought at first. For a few minutes longer, they argued amongst themselves and came to a conclusion that involved me, Thorin seeming irate over the whole thing but at last conceding.

They stood to leave, and Bofur took my hand and started leading me away with the rest of them. Mindlessly I slapped his hand away and tried to run, but Dwalin caught me and hustled me outside, where a group of ponies were waiting tethered to a hitching post. I tried to protest, but my pleas fell on deaf ears as I found myself sidesaddle on a pony in front of Bilbo. I was glad it was him, at least, and not any of the others.

From there we rode out in the bright morning sunlight, I with no clue where I was, where we were going, or what was to become of me.

"Durin's beard!"

"What in the…"

"Did you see that?"

A chorus of chatter broke out amongst us as we took in the sight of a young human woman fall to the floor, along with a large amount of thatching from the roof.

Balin was the first to speak, seeming completely unaffected by the fact that we'd just saw a woman fall through the roof of the tavern from out of nowhere.

"Are you all right, Miss?" he asked gently. She didn't seem to understand, said a few words in a strange language and shook her head.

After some discussion, we decided to introduce ourselves and offer our assistance. A woman shouldn't have been in a place like this. What was she doing here? We offered her food and drink, which she refused at first but at last took. She cringed at the taste of beer and only picked at the bread and cheese.

"She thinks we're poisoning her," Gloin said.

"Well, we're a group of dwarf men in a seedy tavern, somewhere she shouldn't be in the first place," said Dori. "Of course she does!"

"What should we do?" asked Ori nervously, offering the girl a kind smile.

"Ask Gandalf, when he gets back here with Baggins." grunted Dwalin.

"We won't harm her, lad." I offered, trying to ease him. "But I don't think she knows that, and we don't know that anyone else here won't."

When Gandalf returned with the hobbit, he questioned her in every language known in Middle Earth. Westron hadn't worked, so he tried Elvish, Khuzdul, Ent-speak and some crude Orc language. She didn't answer to any. "Her dialect is similar to those of Rohan," he told us. "Though her accent is quite unfamiliar. Perhaps she speaks a long forgotten ancient language."

"If that's so, why would she know it?" Thorin sneered. Gandalf merely shrugged sheepishly.

"Well, we can't leave her here. Bree is no place for a lady." said Dori.

"Indeed right," agreed Gandalf. "You're heading East. I would suggest you take her with you as far as Imladris. Perhaps Lord Elrond might know where she came from, and how to help her."

Thorin slammed down his mug and stood up, fixing Gandalf with an angry stare. "My company," he spat. "Will have nothing to do with elves."

"Your company," Gandalf countered, "will have minor dealings with elves and only deliver a very lost young lady to them. Surely your sense of propriety can allow for that much?"

"She is human," Thorin argued. "And human women are quite common. She's just the same as the next, regardless that she's foreign. Our duty to protect ends where Man's begins. Not that they care."

"Thorin!" admonished Bilbo, who had been quiet up until now. Quite the nerve on him, seeing as he'd only met Thorin yesterday. "She's alone, she's obviously frightened and we don't know what will happen to her if we leave her here!"

"Fine." Thorin grumbled. "She's in your charge, then, Master Baggins. Or whoever wants to take her."

"I will!" piped up Kili eagerly.

"No you won't," Thorin snarled. "I'll not have my kin involved with any human girl. Now, let's go."

"Come now, lass." I tried to calm her. We had to leave if we were going to get a good head start on our journey. I tried to lead her outside as the rest were gathering their cloaks, but received only a slap for my troubles as she broke away and ran. "Dwalin, stop her!" I called. He did, and roughly marched her to a pony, where we got her settled as best we could with Bilbo behind her. We figured she'd be less frightened that way.

All the same, I couldn't imagine what the girl must have been thinking as we began our journey. Dwalin shouldn't have been so rough with her, I'd seen how she shrank from us after that. She must have thought we were leading her to her death…or worse.

Okay, so yeah. That just happened.

Tell me what you think! :)

"Not all those who wander are lost" is Tolkein's quote, not mine. If I were that profound I wouldn't be writing fan fiction.

Yay.

EDIT: Please review and tell me what you think of the updated version!