Prerna likes to look back on our many Middle-earth misadventures and call them our own little Unexpected Journey.

You know what I call it? Shit Narnia.

[Alright, I know at this point you're all panicking. Like, another one of those ridiculous 'girl-falls-into-Middle-earth' fics? No. Not exactly…]

The thing you have to understand about Prerna is she's not a Ringer.

Not really.

I mean, she's watched the films with me, done the midnight showings for AUJ and DoS, puts up with my book purism, even thinks my ability to write in at least five different modes of tengwar is kinda cute in that adorably awkward way girlfriends do…but she's not that die hard fan who could tell you that Haldir doesn't die in the books, or that Eomer is actually the one who slays Uglúk (Lurtz in the PJverse) in hand to hand combat. Hell, she's still confused as to what Merry and Pippin's full names are.

She doesn't like video games, My Little Pony, has never made it all the way through Dr. Horrible or Firefly, couldn't tell you the difference between Star Trek and Star Wars and hasn't a clue what the initials in J.R.R. Tolkien stand for.

But you know what? I fucking love my girl to death.

Prerna's not like me. Hardly at all. She's limber and lithe, petite and just a bit pudgy in all the right places. She's into all this organic tea stuff, buys fair trade organic coffees and chocolate, does pilates and makes homemade yogurt. I mean, last year I bought her a fucking juicer for her birthday and us a membership at the local co-op. She likes art and anthropology and history, works as a curator's assistant at the Young Minds gallery with her eyes on the curatorship and being an author one day. She's got her bachelor's in anthropology with a psych minor, and a master's in Fine Arts (Creative Writing, nonfiction). And—despite the long hours and what seems to me thankless effort—she's still pursuing her PhD.

Yeah. And me? I'm just a Custodial Assistant at a local hospital. Prerna says it's a euphemism for janitor, I think it's a load of shit, but hey. She's an optimist, and she makes my life all the much more brighter for all those smirky little quips. Euphemism, onomatopoeia, there's all these things, all these words and worlds she introduced me to that I'd never have known. She's made my life bigger in such small ways that I still can't believe it's possible.

[She still can't believe I managed to blunder my way through a book as thick as The Hobbit, let alone The Lord of the Rings*.]

You know once as a kid I sort of dreamt of being a doctor, but scrubbing stuff on the wards is about as close to it as I'm ever going to get. I made some mistakes early on. Messed up big time. Not the 'got-pregnant' didn't go to college sort of messed up, but the real, career, labeled as a felon, spent some time in juvy and prison sort of fucked up.

But if Tolkien taught me one thing, it's that the Road Goes Ever On. And if I hadn't veered from the pristine Elven path in the Mirkwood Forest of adolescence, I'd never be with the woman I love today.

There's only three things I've ever wanted in life: To love a Luthien, save a Silmaril, and Defeat a Morgoth. I never wanted a Damsel in Distress, I wanted a life partner who was capable and comfortable with herself. Someone I could adventure beside, rather than looking out for constantly. And sure, I've had my fair share of shitty relationships (most of them shitty because of who was in them: me) where it was all about the sex or social statement, the sending a 'fuck you' to the people who tried to tell me what to do with my own body…but I've grown up now. Matured. I met Prerna two years ago and ever since then there is nothing and no one I have ever wanted more than just another moment with her.

I just had to find the perfect way to tell her.

Now the movies indoctrinate us all with one thing, and one thing only: the engagement is all about her. What ring she wants. How she wants you to ask it. What she thinks is the most romantic. It's either manipulative and behind-her-back, or the sheer wonder of surprise and delight is pulled right out beneath her feet by that obligatory trip to the jeweler's to get "the one". I think that's bullshit. I think that's unfair. I think—regardless of whatever anyone else might try to tell me—that marriage is all about two or more people who love each other, who want to spend however much of their mutual lives together as they pledge. And I think this whole idea of attainment objectifies women, objectifies the submissive partner and contributes to the fucked up way we view sex as a culture.

I mean, it's my life, my wedding, my engagement, too. I wanted Prerna to know that I loved her, more than any of the other things in my life that she knew were important to me. That even though I'd never do something as stupid or immature as giving up video games, cosplay, LotR, or my raging ladyboner for all things Joss Whedon or Scifi for a girl that those same experiences would never be as great, as meaningful to me as when I'd had her there by my side.

I wanted to invite her to share my life. My interests. My bed. Myself. For the rest of my life.

That's how we got there. Met them. That's how this whole entire clusterfuck happened.

So when I tell you how I proposed to Prerna at New York Comic Con (with a platinum 'silmaril' ring I'd commissioned off Etsy), how all this came between us, and how I literally fought the summoned hordes of Sauron* himself to win her back, you've got to understand something:

For not being especially excited about it, my girl looks fuckin' fine in Tauriel cosplay.

*She does like to say The Hobbit isn't all that surprising, it being a kid's book and all. In her defense, my copies of The Silmarillion, The Book of Lost Tales, and The Children of Hurin (and how many dozens of other Tolkien-related lore or biographies I own?) are all on tape.

*Okay, okay. It's been pointed out to me that this is a bad use of the term literally, so to all you nay-saying grammar Nazis out there, let me point out this is a Hobbit fanfic. I didn't FIGURATIVELY fight the forces of personified Evil (even though I already had and still do in so many ways), I literally did the whole Isildur thing. You know, took up some dead guy's sword and got me some yrch blood. It's the twenty-first century, bitches. It's high time we all took up Eowyn's mantle and stopped waiting for fictional male characters and saved ourselves. I mean, the Legs and the Gim-man are damned handy in a fight, but out on the battlefield you can't bet your life they'll always have your back.