No, Sam, I Don't Want Lembas Anymore A "Lord of the Rings"/ "Forever Knight" crossover

Note and Disclaimer: I know it's not typical to do a crossover between a TV show and a book (as in, it's almost impossible) but I had fun here. For those of you who don't know, "Forever Knight" was a three season television show in Canada that also played in the USA. It was about Nick Knight, a vampire, who didn't want to be a vampire anymore, and was working as a homicide detective. "The Lord of the Rings" is a book by Tolkien, and if I describe it, you may as well read the book, because it'll be just as long. In any case, I own neither. This is set at the beginning of Book 4 in The Two Towers, and anywhere in the Forever Knight series.

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Nick Knight was angsting. Again. Oh, it hadn't been so bad for the first few centuries, but now LaCroix was getting more than a little tired of it. Already, he had been donating the last few decades to "getting Nicholas back." You see, Nick was a vampire, and LaCroix his master. And master's are very attached to their "children", and will do almost anything to keep them close. You'd be amazed at what he'd already gone through on his "son's" behalf. But still, Nick was very sad about being a vampire. It probably had something to do with being alive for 800 years and killing thousands of people and sucking their blood.

As LaCroix was thinking very deep thoughts and watching Nick make himself miserable, the sun came up and shone through the window. Nick stayed in it. But it's a funny thing about vampires: sunlight kills them. So Nick started to burn.

Even though it hurt himself, LaCroix quickly darted into the sunlight and grabbed his son, pulling him into the safe shadows. "Why do you do that?" he said in a very mean way. LaCroix was not a nice vampire, even though he liked Nick. "Why do you forsake the gift I have given you? The gift of immortality!"

"It is a curse," Nick replied, still smoking a little. "You have made me a murderer!"

"I have made you a god!" Then LaCroix said, as he had so many times before (it was his favorite expression) : "Morals die, Nicholas, does it matter how or when?" And Nick looked very sad, and shook his head. But he did not want to argue with LaCroix. His master always seemed to win. Instead, he turned back to look at the sunlight. It was so beautiful. He took a step towards it.

Suddenly, and without warning (which is, I suppose, what 'suddenly' means,) the floor opened up beneath Nick and LaCroix, and they fell through it. Then the floor settled back and looked like nothing had happened. But if you listened very, very closely, you could hear a quiet "burp."

Nick woke up looking into the curious face of a very worried person. He seemed to be a man of sorts, but was much too short by any standards. The person had curly brown hair and a cheerful, if care-worn, face. Nick was instantly alert. What was going on?

He quickly stood up and looked past the short person to another short person! This one was rather thinner and looked very sad. His features were fairer than the other's, but, otherwise, he didn't look much different.

"He's awake, Mr. Frodo," said the one Nick had seen first. He spoke in Westron. Westron is a language. But Nick knew a lot of languages, and understood him. He also noticed the little man was holding a sword at him, small though he was. He was also glaring at Nick.

"Yes, I see that, Sam," the one called Frodo answered, sounding even more tired than he looked. Then he looked up into Nick's eyes, and Nick was surprised. Even though the little man was tired, he had a bright look about him, as if he were very old and wise. Could he be a vampire? No, Nick thought; he isn't.

"What are you?" Nick asked very suddenly. He didn't want to be rude, but these people were very strange.

"What are we?" the fatter one asked in surprise. "Why, we're hobbits!" Nick noticed that Sam - that was his name, right? Yes, it was - looked a little less worried, but still stood a little in front of Frodo, as if guarding him.

Vampires are funny creatures. When faced with something new that reminds them of something else, they will often go back in their perfect memories and re-live an event. This is called a "Flashback." Something that Sam had said - it was "hobbits" - triggered a flashback in Nick. His eyes got all glazed over, and he remembered.

iNick had been running away from LaCroix again, but now had to stop for a moment. His master had found him, and had Janette with him. Janette was Nick's girlfriend. She was also a vampire. Nick knew they had caught him, but he mustn't make a scene, so he walked very quickly and quietly over to a corner.

Nick's ears were very good, and he heard an old professor talking about his book. As Nick listened, he heard the man - whose name was "Tolkien" - explain all about hobbits and Middle-earth and some kind of Quest. Then LaCroix took him by the arm and led him away. He was a very mean vampire./i

Nick's little memory ended, and his eyes unglazed. The hobbits were looking at him very curiously. Why had he just stopped all of a sudden? Sam frowned at him, but Frodo looked at him very sternly and said: "Who are you, and for what reason do you travel these lands? For they are forsaken, and we have met no others. Are you a servant of the Dark Lord? Speak quickly, and we may spare you."

A servant of the Dark Lord? Nick thought about this. A dark lord didn't quite sound like LaCroix. "No, I'm not," he said. "I'm a homicide detective. Is this Middle-earth?"

The older hobbit's eyes narrowed. "You are indeed a stranger," he said, "to not even know the name of our world! Yes, this is Middle-earth. Though, if you are a visitor, there is no fouler place for you to be. See yonder," he pointed towards Mordor, "is the vilest place in all the lands, and we are headed toward it. Run far away from here that no destruction may come to you!"

Now Nick was very taken aback, but he wasn't scared. He was a very powerful vampire, and places with funny names that happened to look evil didn't bother him. They couldn't be any worse than LaCroix.

LaCroix! Where was he? Nick looked around him very quickly, but even his super-vampire eyes couldn't see his master. That had to be why he was here! It was another of LaCroix's plots! Just like that one only last week which involved some scarred kid called "Harry Potter."

But while Nick was glancing around, he also noticed there weren't any animals! Now, Nick was a very good vampire, and tried to only drink animal blood. But the only life here was Frodo and Sam! And he was already very hungry. Soon, he might not have any choice but to bite one of them.

"I will go away," Nick said. "But which was should I go?"

Frodo and Sam looked at each other. Which way? They knew - kind of - where Mordor was, but . . . "I'm afraid we can't. We've lost our own way and cannot even get to the place we most dread - and where we must get to.

Nick looked very sorry to hear this. Would he be stuck in Middle-earth? He began to angst again. "Well," he said. "I suppose I'll come with you a little way, if you like. I can be very helpful." Sam looked doubtful, and tightened his grip on his sword. "I can fly," Nick added. This was a strange land, and they had probably never heard of vampires. Anyway, it was better than being left alone.

It was the wrong thing to say. Sam's eyes narrowed, and he glanced to his master, as if for permission. Frodo lifted his weary head again to stare at Nick with a strange intensity. Maybe people around here didn't fly after all. "You can fly," he said softly, remembering an old wizard who had once told him to fly. Now Frodo wondered if Nick was what the wizard had meant. He was always talking in strange riddles like that. Frodo thought hard for a moment. He was very good at understanding people, and Nick looked like a good person to him. "What is your name?" Frodo asked.

Nick thought about this for a moment. His real name was Nicholas de Brabant, but he never told anybody that. "Nick Knight," he said. That was his name when he was a detective. "That's Knight with a 'k.'"

Frodo almost smiled a little at this, but Sam looked even more worried. "I know what you're thinking, Mr. Frodo," he said. Frodo was Sam's friend and master, and they knew each other very well. "But no good'll come of trusting him."

"You're probably right, Sam," Frodo said. "But I can't see any way around it." He looked up at Nick. "But we move only by night, and you must swear to do nothing against my will!"

Nick nodded. He was glad they were only traveling at night: the Yellow Face hurt him. "I won't," he said. "I swear it." Frodo nodded. He seemed content with this. He almost trusted Nick.

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Nick, Frodo and Sam traveled for a couple more days. They met up with a funny and mean creature called Gollum who also swore to obey Frodo. Nick did not trust him. He was obsessed with something he called "My precious," and Frodo acted strangely around him. He almost hypnotized him, and looked very powerful. Like a vampire.

Nick had to explain to them that he sunlight hurt him, but that was okay, because Gollum didn't like the sun, either. They weren't lost anymore, because Gollum knew the way, but Nick was almost crazy with hunger, and there was no food around. Even if he flew as quickly as he could, Nick wouldn't be able to find food in time.

All vampires are very strong, so Sam and Gollum didn't notice how hungry and weak he was, but Frodo did. One morning, while the others were sleeping and hiding away from the sun, Frodo came over to Nick.

"You are not eating," he said softly. "There is something strange about you, and I do not know what. Tell me: what are you?"

Nick looked at Frodo very sadly. He knew he had to tell Frodo the truth. "I am a vampire," he said. Frodo looked at him like he didn't understand. "A vampire," Nick repeated. "I am an immortal who is cursed to live forever in the darkness and drink the blood of humans . . . or even hobbits."

"You drink people's blood?" Frodo asked. He looked a little frightened and disgusted, but also fascinated.

"Yes," said Nick. "And I can fly, and am much stronger than any mortal. But I can never see the sun!"

Frodo nodded, looking out to see that very sun. "What happens when you don't eat?" Nick sighed, for he felt very hungry indeed. "It makes me crazy," he said. "And the vampire takes over, and I will kill whoever is closest to me, and drink his blood."

After a moment of silence, Frodo looked up into Nick's eyes. They were yellow, and the vampire's teeth were sharper, though he tried to hide it. "How did you become a vampire?" Frodo asked, his voice almost a whisper. "You seem to be a normal human, and if you were born a vampire, why would the sun matter?"

"My master, the one who brought me over, LaCroix, turned me into a vampire. He bit me and drank my blood, but didn't kill me. So I became a vampire. A killer," he added, sounding very bitter. Nick did not like being a vampire.

Frodo looked very woeful at this, but then took a deep breath and straightened his back, though he was still very weary. "Then bite me," he said. "Turn me into one of your kind - into a vampire - and then maybe I will have the strength to finish my Quest, and you to find your way home!"

Shaking his head quickly, Nick said that would be impossible, that he wouldn't curse Frodo like that. But Nick was very hungry, and when Frodo insisted, he bit him on the neck and sucked his blood! But he did it very quietly, so Sam and Gollum wouldn't wake up.

When night time came, Nick flew away as quickly as he could to find LaCroix, who might know how to get him back to Earth. Frodo (who looked very pale indeed,) Sam and Gollum woke up.

Sam went over to his master with a bit of Lembas bread in his hand, and held it out to him. "Mr. Frodo," he said. "Eat this."

Frodo shook his head.

"Eat it, Mr. Frodo!" Sam insisted. "You've got to keep your strength up!"

"No, Sam," Frodo said, his fangs lengthening and his eyes turning yellow. "I don't want Lembas anymore."*

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Nick flew around all night for several nights, going many miles, until he finally found his master, LaCroix in a high tower. LaCroix was talking with an evil wizard dressed in many different colors, making plans to take over the world. Nick landed in the tower and glared at his master, who turned to him. Suddenly, the floor opened and a slight "Prub" could be heard as Nick and LaCroix were transported back to Canada. LaCroix didn't look very happy. He had been having fun making evil plans with the wizard.

A moment later, someone knocked at the door, and in stepped two very, very old vampires. Both of them were no more than three-and-a-half-feet tall, and one was missing a finger. "Hello, Nick," Frodo said, smiling. "It has been a long time."

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*When Frodo and Sam got back to the Shire, they began a new reign of vampires in Hobbitan, which eventually spread to the rest of Middle-earth. Eventually, though, most were killed or died out, and only Frodo and Sam survived to present times when they met up with the human vampires and discovered the others had seemed to evolve totally separately - not because of Nick and LaCroix's inadvertent time travel. When Frodo and Sam found out about this, they spent centuries trying to find the vampire who brought them over. And, finally, they had . . .

===================================================================== - Author's Notes: thank you for sitting through this extremely odd story; I hope you enjoyed it. Any comments would be appreciated. If need be, you can e-mail me at: nienna_telrunya@hotmail.com Thank you.