Disclaimer: I own nothing! All lotr related places and characters are a gift from on high. Rita and Steven are on loan from the zoo. Bridget is my alter ego more commonly know as Mwarg. (I no it sounds weird but that's her name, honest.)
Legolas was escorting the delegation from Gondor thru the more northern regions of Mirkwood. The evil that had once resided there had been wiped-out by himself and his people, but he was keeping an eye out all the same. After all, his good old friends Gimli and Aragorn were with him, as well as Aragorn's young son and his wife, the beautiful Evenstar.
"So how is married life treating you Aragorn?"
"Well, its quite tiring, if you no what I mean." Gondors king replied with a smirk.
Legolas was frankly horrified that his friend would insinuate about his lady thus. Gimli cracked up laughing at the look on the poor elf's face.
"You obviously have still to find yourself a lass lad! When you do I'll stop calling you lad."
Legolas's look could have made mosquitoes pop. "You know very well that it's not like that for elves. We can not just fall in love willy-nilly, we can not handle the heart-break."
"I no lad, but a lady friend would certainly help loosen you up, your far to up-tight."
Gimli had started to run as he said this, as he knew the blond elf would throw a hissy-fit, and Legolas had just started to chase him when the dwarf saw his friend stop, a look of bafflement on his face.
"Gimli, look at that." He was staring at something just behind the dwarf.
Turning, he saw something he did not expect.
There was I shining square of light, just hanging in the air. Slowly it cleared until the entire delegation of men and elves, and one dwarf, could see it for what it was. A window. A window in to an entirely different world than the one they were standing in. It was a street, with strange metal carts without horses driving along it. Three young people were walking alongside it, two girls and a boy. The boy was tall with sandy-brown hair, he was holding one of the girls hand. She had shoulder length golden-red curls and a pretty, pixen-like face. The other girl was shorter than both of them, with dark brown hair down past her waist, braided along the sides away from her face. She was wearing a long, forest green coat.They were all laughing, and the dark haired one was skipping in circles around her two friends.
"Riiiita!" Bridget screamed, falling of the side-walk into the gutter.
"Serves you right for being such a dork Bridge, all your teasing is making you clumsy." Rita-the fiery-red-head laughed as her crazy friend resumed her dammed circling. "You're such a nut case."
"Weeeee! Peanuts! You'd know what those are, wouldn't you Steven?"
"Silence slave!" Steven said, looking down his nose at her.
"Damm I hate being short…" she mumbled, much more demure now.
"Ha Bridget, you almost look sane."
The delegation was watching in amazement. They were actually watching another world! The young people had started to cross the road, they obviously couldn't see the window. They were about half way across when it happened. The dark haired one, Bridget, seemed to trip over her own feet and fall over, a few of the elves present snickered, it was so typical of mortals. Bridget was just getting to her knees when one of the cart things appeared in the distance, driving very fast. Legolas looked on with growing horror as it came closer, not slowing down. The girls' friends had noticed and Rita started to run back, calling out. Bridget looked up in time to see red ute that hadn't seen her smack into her at 60kms per/hr.
The she-elves and mortal women in the group screamed as the girl was thrown forward by the impact, the ute hitting her on the upper arm, she landed with an audible 'crack' as her head hit the ground, and was then partially dragged across the ground because the ute couldn't stop in time to avoid running over her.
Once the screeching of tires had subsided, there was silence. Nobody, on either side, moved. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the window was gone. Legolas looked around him, some of the ladies were crying, most people looked scared. He walked forward to where the window was, looking for a sign that it had actually been there. There was nothing, just empty air. He sighed, baffled as to what had just happened. The tall blond elf was about to return to the group when he heard a sound, like a small groan, looking down he saw a small forest green bundle, slowly changing to a dark, wet brown as it soaked up the life blood of the girl lying unconscious on the forest floor. Legolas almost had a heart-attack.
To be continued…