The Long Road Ahead

Chapter One

Disclaimer: I don't own Lord of the Rings.


The thing was, I knew about the Rifts, I mean, everyone did, but, like most people, I didn't think that I could possibly be affected. I mean you heard about it all the time on TV people getting caught in a Rift and disappearing, never to be seen again. And that was tragic, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't about to stop me from going out and living my life, because after all, it wouldn't ever happen to me.

Well, I say that but I'm not the kind of girl who likes to gamble, so at least when I fell through that day I had a basic Rift kit (even though it was three or four years passed the expiration date) in my bag. It probably saved my life.


Drea liked to think she had a pretty level head on her shoulders, and people told her that she was good in a crisis, but when she woke up feeling a little like she'd been struck by lightning and a lot like she was lying in the cold snow and found herself surrounded by a group of very strange looking strangers, she couldn't help but scream and flail a bit.

"Get away from me!" she shrieked scrambling to her feet only to have all the strength go out of her limbs and find herself toppling to the ground again.

Her head was spinning, and there was a weird echoing in her ears, and aside from having no balance to speak of her whole body felt like it was pins and needles.

One of the strangers, a dark haired man with an easy two weeks accumulation of scruff, knelt down next to her, saying something in a low cajoling voice, in a language that Drea didn't recognize off the top of her head.

It was then that she realized that at least part of the problem was that her implant was off. She reached up and quint-tapped behind her left ear and winced at the sensation of the implant activating from standby mode it's various tendrils unfurling in her mind, lighting up the world with an extra level of awareness.

The stranger was speaking again, reaching out to her with grimy hands, palms up in the usual gesture of surrender, his tone was soft and measured like he was talking to a small child or a frightened animal. Even with the implant active she didn't recognize the language either, and with the implant she had a much deeper database to draw on, that was more than a tad alarming. Still she started to gather information, not only from the stranger in front of her but also from what she could discern of the mutterings of his buddies, arrayed out behind him in the pure white snow like ducklings.

More insistently the scruffy guy in front of her touched her wrist drawing her attention back to him.

"I'm sorry I don't understand you," she said, shaking her head.

There was another barrage of softly spoken words, lilting upwards in a traditional questioning tone.

"I don't understand," she repeated tapping at her head and then her lips and shaking her head again.

The stranger sat back on his haunches in the snow and called out to one of his companions, or at least that's what Drea assumed happened given that the old man in the pointy hat came to crouch down in front of her and speak at her in languages that she still didn't recognize. All Drea could do was shake her head every time the man gave her a pointed look and try not to flinch and squirm too much while the scruffy guy poked and prodded her.

He was looking her over for injuries she finally realized as he was probing around her skull and she had to warn him away from her implant lest he accidentally flick it into standby again.

Finally apparently satisfied that she wasn't badly injured if she was injured at all and that she didn't recognize any of the languages they'd bombarded her with the scruffy guy helped her to her feet where she swayed dangerously, her knees threatening to give out on her again.

Scruffy guy was quick to steady her putting a solid hand on her hip and letting her grab onto his arm to keep herself balanced.

The world pitched and tilted under her outlined in green-gold auras, where she wasn't all but blinded by the light on the snow. And there was snow as far as the eye could see, deep fluffy looking white dollops of it spread over the crags of the mountain tops arrayed around them, the silver-white stark against the cornflower blue of the sky.

Drea blinked and blinked, wondering if maybe she wasn't seeing things correctly, because, after all, it was only early October and although it was chilly when she left the house they couldn't expect snow for another month. Besides that there were no mountains like this anywhere near her house in the city, in fact she'd have to drive nearly clear across the country just to see some.

When the realization hit her it nearly knocked her off her feet again.

Taking it all in though it was obvious what had happened.

"Rift," she squeaked out past the lump forming in her throat, "I fell through a Rift. Fuck. I'm Rift-Lost. I need to sit down, shit, but seeing as how I just got up that'd be counter frigging productive," she babbled to herself, scraping a hand through her hair.

The strangers gave her some odd looks but a few of them seemed to realize she was panicking because the old man's steely blue gaze softened and he gave her a grandfatherly pat on the arm repeating one of the phrases she'd heard out of the scruffy guy. Well, it was almost the same. There was a sound's difference here and there that she was able to pick out with the implant's gift of word-perfect memory, but the intent to sooth and comfort seemed to be the same.

The scruffy guy said a few things to the group at large, his tone stern and scolding, and she could feel the rumble of his voice at her back.

It was then that she noticed how much taller a number of the people around her were. Scruffy guy had to top out at six foot five or six, and the old man wasn't much shorter, the slender blond was of a comparable height, maybe taller by a few centimeters and the bearded man with the dark auburn hair and neatly trimmed beard who answered the scruffy guy's scold with a few short and presumably diplomatic words of his own had to be at least six foot six himself, and seemed like he might be taller as well.

Now at five foot seven Drea wasn't a short girl, in fact she was about average for her family and one of the tallest among her coworkers but she was easily dwarfed by these towering guys. In contrast the last five members of the group, the ones who were mostly quiet for the discussion going on above her head, only piping up here and there, were incredibly short. The tallest of them wasn't more than five feet, although he had a stocky build, and the other four hovered somewhere around the four foot mark.

They looked like small children with their smooth faces and softly curling hair, but their features were adult, and they were standing barefoot and ankle-deep in the snow.

And the more Drea came back to her wits and examined the people around her the more different they looked, the slender blond had eerie blue eyes, an impossible shade of blue, and his ears tapered to an elegant point. And he was standing on top of the snow as though he weighed nothing at all. That was definitely strange.

Beyond that their clothing was like something out of a renaissance fair or dungeons and dragons gathering, and they carried axes and swords and bows and arrows like it was normal.

Somewhere in the midst of all her gaping it was decided that they should start walking, and so Drea allowed the scruffy guy to loop an arm around her waist and guide her as she attempted to stagger forward through the snow that seemed to pitch and heave under her.

What she really needed was a nap, a chance for her brain to reset and readjust to having the implant all up in its business. Well, a nap and some dry clothes, preferably a set of good winter clothes. Her little stint in the snow had soaked through her leggings and the hem of her sweater and her boots and jacket were meant more for show than actual protection from the elements. Although good leather and her religious use of waterproofing spray kept her feet dry even if they weren't particularly warm, so there was that to be grateful for.

That and the ratty edge of the cloak that scruffy guy draped over her when he noticed her shivering, keeping out the worst of the wind and letting her leech off some of his body heat.

"Thank you," she said managing to tilt her head up enough to smile at him without overbalancing.

He smiled back at her, saying something himself with a small nod of his head that somehow felt like a bow, and nudged her forward insistently.

As it turned out there was nothing to do but concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other, but since scruffy guy was steering her she let her thoughts wander, turning over her situation in her brain.

There were only two reported cases of the Rift-Lost returning to Terra Firma, and both of those were induced for scientific study. She'd actually read some of the studies back in high-school for a project but reviewing that information wasn't really helpful.

All it told her was that she wasn't going to be able to get back to Terra Firma, so she should put that out of her mind, and it reminded her of the importance of keeping an updated Rift kit, one that was stamped with the approval of the Bureau for the Location and Containment of Interdimensional Rifts on her person at all times.

She'd stopped buying new Rift-kits early on in her university days, because those things were frigging expensive, but she might have an old one still stuffed into the bottom of her bag.

She craned her neck a bit, looking around, she'd had her bag on her when she'd fallen through, or so she assumed, she'd certainly had it on her when she'd started running to catch the shuttle bus to campus and then after that everything was fuzzy. She thought she might have tripped, had she lost the bag then?

No, she finally spotted it over the slender blond's shoulder and it looked fine, nothing torn or messed with.

Okay so first mission, a nap, second mission, retrieve her bag and get out that Rift kit. Third mission-

She honestly wasn't sure what she was going to do once she had the Rift kit. What could she do after all? She had no money, nothing much to trade, couldn't speak any of the native languages yet, and besides all that seemed to be in the middle of the wilderness. So maybe she should make the third mission to follow along with this group of people and hope that if she was very quiet they'd let her tag along.

Scruffy guy seemed nice enough, the chivalrous type at the very least since his hands hadn't strayed an inch from her waist except in the necessary course of keeping her from flopping face first into the snow, and he'd received her good manners with some of his own.

The old man too, he'd treated her kindly, tried to be soothing.

So it was probably okay to assume, for now, that these were good people. She could always reevaluate if it seemed like they were trying to sell her to a slave market or harvest her organs or sacrifice her to their gods. She shook her head firmly to clear it of such thoughts. No negativity, she was going to assume these were good people until they gave her a reason to disbelieve that.

The language problem would solve itself soon enough, already her implant was collating the data gathered from listening to the group speak so soon enough she should be able to understand what they were saying and after that she should be able to make a go at communication.

She just needed to wait. Walk and wait and try not to freeze to death in the meantime. Piece of cake.


Author's Notes: And that's the first chapter! Thanks for reading!

I've always wanted to write one of these GiME tenth-walker fics (they're my guilty pleasure) and so has my better half Albatross so we decided to make an account together, she'll be posting her story here too under this penname so follow us if you'd like to read it!

I'm always looking for advice and suggestions about my writing and the plot, so feel free to review or PM me with your opinions! Every little bit helps me improve as a writer so I really appreciate it!

-Inky