AN: Inspired by Dreaming of You by Zoop, Don't Panic by Boz4PM and by the Rohirric Cycle by ZeesMuse. Cloak marriage invented by ZeesMuse and explained in "Love!Rohirrim" style Chapter 12.

Olga dropped into Middle Earth in the summer of 3018, was dragged to Imladris and impressed into the Fellowship. I feel no need to retell the story of the Fellowship between Imladris and Parth Galen. The fun starts here :)

Olga's helm can be found googling for "spectacle helm". For some reason she considered the protection of the malar bone important.

Chapter I

26th February

The sight of the Argonath left Olga speechless and in open mouth fly catcher mode. This was vintage stuff, almost on the level of the pyramids, if she remembered the books (and understood what Aragorn was saying) correctly. The Sphinx, which she had seen on a last-minute tour before the Arab Spring, didn't even come close – these two brothers were larger and of higher artistic quality. They had even managed to capture the "you shall not pass" facial expression of UK Immigration Officers perfectly.

Not to mention the fact that they were Aragorn's great-great something's. Shit, talk about living with your family's expectations of you to end up equaling your forefathers. She gazed and gazed, hardly aware of the fact that her mouth was half-open – a good thing that for once Gimli kept silent on mannish versus dwarrow stonework comparisons. The hobbits also seemed to be affected as there was an unusual silence from them, even from Pippin.

She noted that even Aragorn was changed, somehow, in such vicinity. For a moment he stopped looking like the shifty-eyed, back-alley, small time drug peddler he so resembled and instead looked like somebody. Besides the wisdom and leadership (which he occasionally gave glimpses of under normal circumstances anyways) there was majesty in him now, an aura that made one want to unthinkingly address him as "Lord".

At the camp she was still torn between not saying anything at all and recklessly blurting out some "better" course of action. She diddled and fiddled until she noticed that the time was almost up – Boromir had come back after making his ring-grab attempt. It was now or never. She wanted to wail her anguish into the cold blue sky. How desperately she wished she remembered how exactly the hobbits were taken! And taken they must be – no Hobbits in Fangorn meant no Ents, and no Ents meant ... Fucking dominos! Changing things even a little could let Sauron win – and she didn't want that to happen.

She had to try and juggle two contradictory requirements – the capture of Merry and Pippin versus trying to keep Boromir alive. But "losing" the Halflings was a priority. If necessary, she'd trip Boromir herself. And even if that ended up killing her; that hardly mattered at this point – after all, she had already lived the best vacation of her life. She wiped a tear away lest anyone noticed she was upset (not to mention the fact that it made her even more unattractive, raising her from "just-below-plain-but-not-strikingly-ugly" to something a bit closer to "profoundly" ugly. Some girls looked attractive when they cried. Olga was not one of them).

Besides, if she did end up dying, she'd probably get a nice quazi-viking burial together with the Gondorian.

As unobtrusively as possible she prepared herself. She had long (meaning since three months ago in Hollin) learnt to keep her single-edged dussak by her side at all times, so she only had to prepare a medical kit and ready her crossbow and shield. She stuffed some bandages and a pouch of athelas into a bag that hung from her belt. Spying Pippin following her actions, she smiled and said, "Woman's things."

He looked away, ears reddening, hastily returning to the raised voices of the increasingly concerned "Where is Frodo?" discussion.

She wasn't even lying (much) – the rags she used every month were of the same material as the bandages, and she did drink athelas tea for her cramps. She shuddered at the memory of having her courses start when they began to climb the Caradharas – it had been awful. It made the cold even colder, and there had been no way to clean up. She had barely managed to wash them in an ice cold stream on the morning after coming down, but with no available fire she had to dry them against her body. Ugh! Having taken two spares saved her from having to sacrifice some item of clothing to keep her from the ignominy of entering the Golden Wood bleeding into her clothing, last day or not.

She sighed. This month's first day was yesterday, which was typical – always, always, at the most inconvenient time. As usual she had washed that day's rag and discreetly (if that word even applied to the actual situation, considering the fact that the menfolk seemed to conveniently disappear or contemplate interesting cloud formations whenever they saw her slinking back towards the camp with a handful of damp rags) dried it at night close to the fire. After washing and drying today's, she was good for four days more. She had expanded the common wisdom of "one on, one ready and one drying" to two ready. She knew that she could not to hope to reach Edoras before the evening of the 30th so she had to find someplace to wash before then, yet she still was one day ahead.

If she lived through this, of course.

She slung her crossbow over her shoulder and arranged the quiver at her generous hip. She then focused her attention on the Steward's son – the discussion now bordering on a row fully justified such interest, and it kept others' eyes away from what she was doing. She checked her boots and various other lacings (so many she had never had to deal with before, that had taken some getting used to) and corrected if necessary. She waited.

Once the commotion had reached its peak she slung all her ordnance where it belonged and prepared to run. The moment the appropriate hobbits took to the woods she almost followed them immediately, but saw Boromir move into the forest without his shield. That would never do. She detoured to pick it up and ran behind him, her own slung on her back. He quickly outpaced her – no wonder, with over a foot of height on her and with long legs to boot! Up to a certain point, Pippin's and Merry's voices shouting "Frodo! Frodo!" were a reliable guide as to where she should be heading. Afterwards she simply panted in the general direction she had last heard them, hoping her sense of direction wasn't completely unreliable.

Orc cries eventually told her the correct direction, thought these gradually fell silent as the last goblins died or fled. She arrived just as Boromir butchered or drove off the last of the prospective kidnappers. Not wasting breath on speech after the uphill slog she thrust the shield at the Gondorian, to his great surprise.

The shield immediately paid off when two black fletched arrows thunked into it a moment later. A new wave of goblins was coming over the hill. Boromir made impressive sounds on his horn. Among the goblins she saw some big, ugly bruisers – easily the height of Men she had seen in Bree and of broad, strong build. Well armoured too, with shields, mail shirts, and helms bearing the white hand.

While Boromir fought like a man possessed against the beasts with said helms, the hobbits at his side, she began a long range duel with the archers. A score of yards behind the knight, she reloaded, facing away from the enemy, with the shield on her back pressed against the tree she was leaning on for balance. This protected her to a large degree from return fire.

Aim, shoot, turn, back against tree, bow, foot in stirrup, two handed grip on drawstring, PULL, straighten back, put bolt in slot, turn, aim, shoot, repeat. The wonders of adrenaline and having a tree to lean upon! Some goblins kept on shooting into the melee, not caring whom they hit, or perhaps hoping that height issues would limit hits to Boromir rather than their buddies.

In short succession two roars from the big orcs announced the capture of the Took and Brandybuck. The minions of darkness began to fall back carrying the two Small Folk while simultaneously keeping Boromir at bay. His shield had long since been shattered, and she saw him take an arrow in the chest and stagger back. She screamed, fired off the already drawn bolt and ran into the melee.

The fight was a furball of thrust and parry, be it with the dussak or the shield. Poke at soft bits, no slashing, she kept reminding herself, but this was by far the hardest battle she'd been in yet. She more felt and heard than saw Boromir still fighting somewhere near her despite the arrow in his chest. She was distantly aware of the fact that she was slowly collecting injuries on various points of her body but had no choice but to ignore them.

Suddenly, there was a red-white flash of pain in her face. She backpedaled a few steps. She could barely see her opponent through the growing darkness and somehow managed to parry the rain of powerful blows. Her shield was being hacked to bits and there was a growing pain in her left arm.

She let the remains of her shield fall and raised her sword, trying to stave off what could the final blow, when a voice came echoing through the trees.

"Elendil! Elendil!"

Her opponent half turned and was skewered by the Ranger. The fight was over.