A Mary-Sue

Grit your teeth and get it over with

Disclaimer: As usual, all copyrights lie with Tolkien, his heirs and estate.

This is an authorized translation of a German fanfic by zita. Both zita and I worked very hard to be able to serve this to you.

This fanfiction was a response to the challenge below. Amélie, the one who issued it, is the beta-reader of zita.

"I wish for… I wish for…. A Legolas Mary-Sue…
Only conditions: a suffering Thranduil, and a musical Boromir should appear in it
And all that I would like to have arranged by zita." (Amélie)

To which zita's answer was: "I am lucky enough to have a really great betareader – said Amélie – and if she utters a wish, then of course I will set to work. Even if I had the impression THAT wish WAS the revenge for all the mistakes she ever had to correct."

For each of the ten chapters, I will add all notes zita made at the beginning of a chapter, and her disclaimer.

I swear solemnly that everything was as close a translation as I could manage.

Many thanks here to my betareader, True Colours, for nitpicking and helping me polish this chapter.

On with the show.

Chapter 1: And it got worse

Or: Is your OFC from Modern-Day Earth? Got to Middle-earth by mysterious means?

Do you know that feeling? One lives through the darkest hours of one's life and thinks it couldn't get any worse. Oh, you know that feeling. Then I won't have to be too detailed about what I felt that morning.

Which morning? Well, it was that one morning when I entered the office and found my boss, the esteemed dentist Horace Wilbur, sitting dead at his desk. Bad enough in itself, but it was Monday and as I was informed by the nice police officers – after finally having stopped retching in the bathroom – he had probably died Friday afternoon. Horace had been dead the whole warm, nice summer weekend, in his practice, which just happened to be my means of existence. It was warm, as I had turned off the air conditioning when leaving on Friday, and Horace didn't look very much like himself anymore. To be precise, he was beginning to fall apart and stank to high heaven.

Yes, the smell should have really made me think. On the other hand, as an assistant to a dentist, one is used to some foul smells if one or the other patient opens his mouth. And I'm not exactly at my best in the mornings. It takes time until my brain has sorted through external stimuli. And who would expect to find his boss dead? Heart attack, said the coroner, who greatly resembled Rumpelstilzchen. I don't know how he managed to identify it as such, but at least there was no scalpel in Horace's back and no mad serial killer had tried to gouge his eye out with a drilling machine.

Anyway they sent me home and told me I shouldn't worry about any crimes and just rest. And how? I would like to have yelled at them. This is Long Island, the rents are high and the job offers not many, either.

And so I spent long hours that day in my tiny apartment, stared at the wall and brooded over what would happen to me now. At some point I found myself in front of the mirror in my bathroom and stared at the person that had been robbed of her comfortable, quiet future, meeting my stare with undefined brown and something coloured eyes.

"Hello, Lucy," I greeted her with a humourless smile. On the side I noticed that my most beautiful features were my teeth. Very regular, very white – what you might expect from a dentist's assistant. The remainder is not worth any mention. I am twenty-four, average height, average weight and with average shoulder-length hair the same undefined brown as my eyes. "Your savings last for two months. Find another job."

Despite my grief for Horace I would do precisely that. But only tomorrow; it was already too late for today. It was already exceptionally dark outside, but that didn't keep me from changing into my running shorts, grey tank top and the somewhat worn shoes that had seen better and cleaner days, and then setting out to run away my worries.

Yes, run away, and not from them, even if ill-meaning tongues might say that, but simply to forget them. That's what happens to me when I run through the expensive neighbourhood, in which, as an average mortal, one is not exactly in paradise – I forget my worries for a while.

The inhabitants of the expensive mansions fared better, sitting in front of their designer fire places, wearing designer house robes and being nicely cooled by their designer air conditioning. I'm not the jealous type, but on that day I was predictably not in the best mood.

Maybe it was because a thunderstorm was looming ominously over my head. One of which I hoped I would be home before it began. Did I tell you that it wasn't exactly my lucky day? It began to rain, no, downpour, as I rounded the corner to a path that led to a nice wooden bridge, which crossed a small stream.

The thunderstorm decided to begin in earnest as I was about fifty yards away from the bridge. A really impressive bolt of lightning lightened up the otherwise ink-black sky and my heart almost stopped as I saw a small shape that prepared to hurl itself over the railing of the bridge.

"No!" I screamed, because it was clear what the shape there in front was planning. Nobody took a swim in this weather, which caused the stream to swell and become very dangerous.

I could have saved that breath. The suicidal person of course jumped over the railing, and I still ran a bit faster. One corpse a day was enough for me. Two corpses were not to be borne, and additionally people could be led to the conclusion that one was bad luck.

I really was prepared to jump into the floods to save that poor suicide, but as I arrived at the bridge and looked over the railing into the churning masses of water underneath that moved with the speed of a race car towards the Atlantic, I couldn't care less about my reputation. I'm no hero; I am a dentist's assistant. We save teeth, not human lives.

So I stood there at the railing, stared down and wondered if maybe I had trodden on the toes of someone really important in a past life. Maybe I had just been born with genes calling bad luck. I don't know; my parents had preferred to leave me in front of a hospital and disappear very quickly. Soquickly that not even surveillance cameras caught more than a shadow of them. Oh yes, I really was loved from the hour of my birth on!

I stood there quite a while, above me the raging thunderstorm, below me the raging stream, and on me several litres of rain that transformed me into a soaked piece of human misery. Maybe I should also jump and all my problems would end… I dismissed that solution very quickly. There would always be bad teeth, dentists, too, so I would find a job somewhere. If I didn't die from pneumonia before that.

Well, in the end I didn't die from pneumonia. It was quicker, a lot quicker, and mainly had to do with lightning that struck the bridge a yard away. I remember that, and also being thrown through the railing.

This is it, was my last thought. Say goodbye to the world, Lucy, it won't miss you.

I fell.

Not very long, but long enough to have a few thoughts about this falling. Actually I had expected this tunnel at the end of which a light would await me. Of course I could be on my way to hell, and the way to there, which somehow would lead down, forewent the tunnel and the light. The details might be different in both directions.

Anyway, I was merrily falling, there was a dull roaring – the river might have been responsible for that – and I wondered if I would catch up to the guy that had thrown himself of the bridge shortly before me. Before I could arrive at a conclusion the fall ended.

The impact, which was definitely not on a watery surface, was so strong I remained lying and winded. I kept my eyes closed tightly, trying to delay the inevitable encounter with Lucifer's receptionist. It wasn't warm, I noticed after a while. More like shadowy, but at least dry. But the ground rocked somewhat, and it felt soft.

And it smelled.

I didn't mean that it smelled bad. It just smelled strange. Very unfamiliar. Eyes still closed, I felt my surroundings. The softness turned out to be sort of mattress on which I had landed. And the smell… It seemed to be made out of leather or something similar. But not only leather, directly below me was something hard... Yeah right, understood, I didn't mean THAT.

I decided after all to finally open my eyes.

One will time and again reach a wrong decision, but of course one will only know afterwards.

To open my eyes was a wrong decision like that. I saw, and clearly and defined at that, the face of a man.

A DEAD Man!

He lay below me or I on top, but however one put it, there was a corpse and I was in close contact with it. The third dead in one day, one may forgive my nerves. That was too much!

With a piercing cry I crawled away from him, noticed I was in a boat, became completely hysterical, jumped up and… well, we capsized. Head first I met the cold waters, closely followed by the body, which further pushed me underneath the water. I struggled and hit, dislodged it, reached the surface fully and screamed again. The boat had drifted quite a bit by now, directly towards the waterfalls…

Time to faint, I thought, still screaming as I realized what these really big, loud waterfalls were about to do to me. I just really wanted to implement the fainting optionas next to me a long blade rose from the floods.

Have you ever seen any of the movies about the Arthurian legends? Almost always there is a scene in which Excalibur rises from the water. One has to imagine this similarly, but without the screaming woman in the water. Because that's me and the sword was not Excalibur, but the dead clung to it.

With wide-open eyes and gasping for air his head broke the surface. He seemed somewhat confused, not really on top of things and seeing me didn't exactly make him overjoyed if I interpreted the pure shock in his noticeably beautiful grey eyes correctly. The zombie liked neither me nor the river and after a short cry, which after a manner sounded pained, he slowly submerged again.

I hesitated for really only a short moment, but then I willingly took the chance to get the third dead in one day off my list. I grabbed dauntlessly into the water, where funny little waves and a few bubbles marked the place the dead man had sunk. I managed to grab hold of long hair and ruthlessly pulled them, until the ex-dead man surfaced close in front of me.

I really didn't have much time to worry about his eyes, turned upwards and into the skull. It was slowly but surely becoming a pressing matter to get away from the waterfall. A short look around told me that we should steer towards the shore as fast as possible. Sometime in my youth I had had a class in lifesaving. Though I have to say that it was far easier to grab a classmate of the same age and drag her to the edge of the swimming pool than to try and navigate a relatively big man in heavy clothes through the current of a river.

I don't think I was overly gentle with him, and he surely swallowed some water at one point or another while I moved us both very inelegantly towards the shore on my left. I only wondered that I managed at all to escape the current. My arms in fact got ever heavier, and additionally my legs, but with the determination of a survivor I fought towards the shore that was closest to us.

Nobody can imagine how relieved I was when I finally felt the riverbed underneath my feet and instead of swimming could walk through the water until it only reached my hips. My alarmingly lifeless companion I supported so that he floated on his back on the surface and was a lot easier to pull. I would have liked to finally get on dry land, but the shore was simply steep, trees and bushes reached to the water and I could have never gotten that man up there.

So I continued to wade, the eyes fixed hopefully on an area about a hundred metres in front of me, where the shore was extended into the river less steeply. In addition, there rose a huge bollard from the water. Sign of life, civilisation! Hooray, rescue was near.

The worried, helpful crowd was a long time coming. I had to drag my charge onto the pebbly beach all by myself. No easy task if one is already totally exhausted and the rescued makes absolutely no move to help even a little. I dragged him by the shoulders over the hard ground, and didn't even feel a twinge of conscienceas his skull collided with a somewhat bigger stone while I – with a gasp - flopped down on my behind next to him.

Saved!

Still winded, I squatted on the stones and observed my surroundings absentmindedly. The lightning had to have set in motion some sort of scientific phenomenon, which had whisked me from the small wooden bridge to a different location. An unknown location, without a doubt. The river in front of me was very broad, more like a lake, and disappeared into the mist five hundred yards to my right in the middle of which a rather impressive rock could be spotted. Going from the roaring, which thank God was no longer that loud, the river ended in a rather not small waterfall. Of the boat I had landed on nothing was to be seen. I figured it drifted in pieces in the river somewhere further down.

Whatever I could make out from the shore was not really reassuring for an urban human, even one from a small town. This was pure nature, really. Trees, bushes, just this little bit of shore on which I was resting and in addition the air had this strange smell that could only stem from the fact that it was unpolluted. I had landed in a goddamn wilderness!

I turned and suspiciously eyed the undergrowth behind me. In a wilderness there were wild animals. With my luck, any moment a hungry bear would stumble out of the forest.

But to my relief everything stayed silent and with a sigh I turned to the problem lying next to me on the ground. In the water he had seemed tall, but sprawled like that on land he seemed even taller and more unfriendly, to be honest. And he definitely had a screw loose going by his clothes and the sword he still held tightly in his right hand.

I moved away a little. A crackpot with a thing for knighthood. And I was stranded here with him. I probably should be glad he was unconscious. Guys like him I knew far too well. My last boyfriend, dear Kevin, had the same psychological affliction. In the six months I went out with him he dragged me along to two medieval festivals and a Lord-of-the-Rings convention. I had met enough guys there who wore clothes like that and waved plastic swords about.

Though I noticed with slight panic that my special friend here was holding a real sword and additionally he had the most sophisticated costume I had ever encountered. The long leather tunic with the ornate rivets and his boots had to have cost a fortune. Kevin would have been pale with envy.

I paled more out of fear. The guy looked really authentic, everything about him, even the cuts.

One might forgive me for becoming slightly dizzy. He really had cuts and holes in his clothes. The whole affair was getting ever creepier. A few of these freaks might have met here, nicely secluded, performed their sword fights and this guy had been left behind.

Again I looked around hectically. It could after all be that instead of a bear a group of these crackpots would show up and be displeased with me saving the alleged murder victim. I was lucky yet again; they had to have left already. Had probably returned to their vans and were driving back to their families that had no idea that these medieval fanatics had just massacred one of their buddies.

I bit my lip anxiously. What should I do with him? He was not faring well and it didn't look like as if a rescue helicopter was about to show up. If he died while in my care the park-keepers might think I had killed him. Also it would distract me.

I crawled closer to my knight and began to divest him of his expensive costume. It should actually be a delight to undress good-looking men. It probably is, if they are really alive and the clothes not dripping wet. As it was it was quite difficult. After my time with Kevin I at least had some experience with these antiquated articles of clothing and all those strings and buckles were not too big a problem. Despite that, it is not exactly a joy to get a motionless limp body out of wet leather. Every now and then he groaned. I admit, I did not have the practised touches of a nurse and at times I pulled his arms a little roughly.

I should have let him in a dressed state, honestly!

He was a really handsome fellow, muscles without end, but beneath his left shoulder was a really ugly hole in his flesh. It was definitely not from a sword, more like a lance or something similar. I couldn't care less, it was there and it was a problem.

Did I tell you that I take a belt with a bag with me whenever I go for a run? Always prepared, is my motto. There are a few band aids, a bottle of spray-on band aid, an adhesive dressing for sprained joints, healing salve for encounters with brambles, a few handkerchiefs for mopping up after surprising indigestionand a comb for the unexpected meeting with the man of my life.

The comb I didn't need at the moment. A band-aid was better. One had to be an optimist and treat a stab wound with band-aids and healing salve. Who knew that it wouldn't do wonders? After all, he had survived until now just like this. The band-aid was almost high-tech medicine.

Nonetheless, something wasn't right with my knight. He simply seemed too exhausted for a single stab that didn't even bleed anymore. I hesitated for another moment, and then seated myself behind him. The guy was heavy, but I managed to lift his shoulder and heave him into an upright position.

"Jesus!" I groaned as I saw the disgusting stab wound in his back. Apart from the slight dizziness that befell me again, it was rather clear to me that I couldn't do get any further with a band-aid here.

A hand! The wound was a whole hand long and looked really bad, and additionally it was gaping apart. The guy would die faster then I liked. It was horrible. My stomach revolted.

"Think of something, Lucy!" I murmured and swallowed back down what the activity this morning above the toilet bowl had left to come back up into my throat now. "Stitch him back together."

That would have been a brilliant idea if I had a sewing kit with me. With rising despair I went through my options and concluded that the band-aid would have to be enough. I would simply have to hold the edges of the wound together and keep them there with a band-aid.

It took a while until I was willing to grip with my thumb and index finger and put my plan into action. Almost immediately I shrank back. That prickled in my fingertips. No idea what the fellow had on him, but it was like having contact with an electric fence.

I furrowed my brow. Did that have to do with the lightning? Whatever it was, it did not let up as I, with renewed determination, pushed together the wound's edges and then placed the band-aid with my free hand after I had pulled of the protective cover with my teeth. It wasn't overly sterile, but I would like to see the knight complain!

After that I was sapped of energy. My knight lay with a bared torso in the sunshine on the shore and slowly dried. I sat next to him, stared on the water's surface and slowly dried as well.

What was I doing here?

Actually, where was I?

And how did I get here?

I did not find an answer to any of these questions. On the other hand these questions have kept mankind occupied since the Stone Ages, so it was unlikely that of all people I would be able to answer them now.

Around me it was nearing dusk, my clothes had dried in the meantime, except the shoes of course, which I had taken off and placed on a flat stone, and I had gotten no step further. There was as of yet nothing to hear of the rescue helicopter. The only noises emanated from the forest and those weren't really to my liking. Nature is quite the loud business, I noticed, and it didn't help that my knight moaned every now and then. Such a painful, tortured sound from the depths of his throat that sent a shiver down my back.

"Stop that!" I hissed at him at some point. "You only have yourself to blame, mister! One does not play around with sharp, pointy blades. What should I say? I was just standing on a bridge and was struck by lightning! Am I crying?"

I did that, some time later. Lonely and alone, in the middle of the night, clad only in a cotton shirt and shorts, a half-dead man next to me and without a job! One may cry under these circumstances.

At least for a while. Before it became too dark, I pulled myself together to look around the near perimeter. It could be that there was a parking lot behind the next bush, with the knight's car on it.

No, it was not there!

Surprised?

No, I didn't think so.

But I found something different. A boat or canoe or whatever. The hobby-knights seemed to have fought on water as well. The boat was really nice. All wood, nicely ornamented and probably obscenely expensive. Maybe it belonged to my knight. And if that was the case, then - hidden beneath the awning – the gear, at which I took a closer look, probably belonged to him as well.

Great, judging by the food, I was in Sweden!

At least the piece of crisp bread wrapped in leaves seemed to be a clear hint. So, I wouldn't die of hunger until tomorrow morning. And also not freeze to death, because there was a blanket that seemed somewhat thin but at least was nice and dry. And a water bottle, I mean, this drinking thing made from leather or whatever for medieval heroes. There even was a bit in it.

I took the crisp bread and blanket out of the boat and then contemplated the bow and quiver with arrows that were lying around. Maybe I could use the quiver to strike a decrepit rabbit dead with and spice up the crisp bread meal. Or I could use an arrow to skewer a fish. Sushi is healthy and not difficult on the stomach. I didn't have any hopes for grilled fish. There was no fire lighter here and I wasn't even going to try rubbing two stick together in the hope they would give up at some point and go up in flames.

With the gear I groped back to the shore with naked feet, where the half-dead knight slept the sleep of the healing. His breast rose and fell at least, so he couldn't be dead.

For all intents and purposes I had earned the right to the blanket, but his skin was chilly and it simply was not nice to see a fellow like him shiver from the cold. Overwhelmed by my generosity I covered him and pushed his scrunched up, again dried shirt underneath his head. At least now I had the opportunity to take a closer look at him.

He looked quite handsome, actually. The face was narrow and even, though marred by a three-day beard that seemed to come with knighthood. Dark blond hair that had to reach his shoulders framed his features, which probably had a healthy tan if not for blood loss and drowning causing insufficient blood circulation. And his eyes were grey, I remembered.

In normal life he probably was a banker or architect or something that brought a lot of money each month. Enough at least to keep this strange hobby and be killed by like-minded people.

And he had a really beautiful sword. I know that stuff, thanks to Kevin. That fellow had turned my apartment into half an armoury. Only none of the stabbing implements he had would measure up to what lay a little ways beside my knight. If his mates had had similar weapons, I wasn't surprised that he was in this bad a state.

I just couldn't resist. Carefully I reached across him and took the sword. It lay in my hand quite well, even if it wasn't quite custom-made for me. I moved it from side to side somewhat critically. The sword was heavy and I had to use two hands to really be able to hold it.

But it was sharp and pointy. So a short while later, I stood there, up to the thighs in crystal clear water, held the sword with the tip downward and waited for a package of fish-burgers to swim by me. One of course had no other hobbies…

Time passed and a tiny one swam by my feet, one that wasn't even suited for an appetizer. I stirred the water a bit – with the sword – to scare it away and make room for a big fellow, as a noise came from behind me. I froze in the middle of moving. That had sounded like an ill-tempered bear or an enraged aurochs or a monster. No idea, I had never met one of these three species before.

The noise repeated itself and I remembered that the knight lay on the shore completely defenceless. With the courage of a hysteric I grabbed the sword somewhat harder and turned around to demonstrate to the unknown attacker that one didn't simply grunt about here.

"Wah!" I cried in surprise and let the sword drop.

My knight didn't lie anymore, but sat upright and stared at me most irritated.

"Don't move!" I warned him in the next step and then fished around in the water to find the sword again. "I am armed."

He raised an eyebrow and watched on as I recovered his sword from the river to brandish it in his direction.

"There! With a sword!" I cried triumphantly.

"…That's my sword," he said after a short break andwith a slightly hoarse voice, and tilted his head.

"So what?" I hissed nervously.

"Keep it steady, my lady, else you will hurt yourself," he sighed after another pause.

Heaven, was that a distinct crackpot. One with a wonderful voice, but definitely overdue for a long therapy. Lady! He didn't even find his way back to reality when one slashed open his intestines.

He fingered his shoulder a little, pushed a hand into his back and cut a slightly strange face. Then he got up slowly, all the while in undeniable pain.

"I would remain lying if I were you," I advised with my best Florence-Nightingale-impression. "Those stabs are rather impressive."

"They are from Uruk'hai," he clarified with a shake of the head and looked around slightly uncomfortable. "Are you alone? Where is Aragorn?"

Since I had spent half a year with Kevin, it was unavoidable that these words caused certain alarms to go off. Moreover, I had watched the movies, read the books a few years back without much interest but a strong sense of duty to a complete education and spent whole evenings with Kevin and Kevin's mad friends who took apart every detail of the movie. Well look at that, my knight was a Lord of the Rings fan, one of the hardcore kind who re-enacted the scenes.

"Aragorn is gone," I helped him along. "And the whole company as well. They exaggerated a bit, my friend and almost left you here to die."

"I was dead," he said more to himself. "And I remember that I was on the way to my sires. Then I was drawn back and I saw your face."

I nodded in a friendly way. If he went on like that, he would remember where he had put his car tomorrow morning. And where the keys to it were…

He stalked up and down the waterline a little. For a near dead he had recovered rather quickly. Maybe the wounds weren't as bad as I had thought. Both were good, it saved me another dead.

Suddenly he stopped near me and stared at me piercingly. "Did the Lady of the Golden Wood send you?"

"Huh?" I said, somewhat monosyllabic.

"Tell me your name," he required, still rather deep within his role.

"Lucy," I stuttered, alarmed.

"Lucy," he repeated slowly. "That is an unusual name for an Elf-maiden."

Ah, an Elf-maiden. My Boromir-double – for nobody else fit – had to be extremely short-sighted in his real life. The journey in the river water had probably dislodged his contact lenses. I pass for much, most probably an oversized Hobbit, but definitely not for an Elf. Although…

I swear, I didn't intend to do it. Honestly! But some strange compulsion overcame me and my left hand moved up to my ears. Boromir performed a real jump as I wailed as soon as my fingers touched the pointy ends of my formerly so normally rounded ears. Next I stared into the water surface beneath me and didn't pay attention to the fish but to my mirror image.

Despite the waves, it was sufficient to undo me. That was me – and again, it wasn't. An Elf-maiden stared back at me, with wide, violet blue eyes, long dark lashes and incredibly beautiful features. My dark hair gleamed and, at my temples, was plaited into thin braids, which vanished behind the pointy ears towards the back of my head.

Suddenly my throat was dry. I had heard about that. Even read about it. One of Kevin's acquaintances – that woman with whom he had cheated on me after half a year of relationship – really liked those and always talked about them.

I was a goddamn Mary-Sue, imprisoned in Middle-earth!

And the first chapter is done... Thoughts, impressions, criticism will be forwarded to the original author. Mistakes are my due. Flames will be used for a nice barbeque.

Answers to reviews will be at the end of the next chapter.