Hello, this is the prologue to our story. It is not mandatory to read, but if you want to know a bit of background about the OCs and how they came to Middle Earth (to some extent) read it. If you just want to get to the Hobbitness just start from chapter 1! Home is behind, the world ahead!

In a bomb bunker in the ruins of London, there lived two survivors. It is the year 2019, and a nuclear war has torn most of the world to shreds. Major cities were abandoned at the start of the conflict, leaving behind vast quantities of valuable resources. Recently, volunteers have begun forage missions to gather the lost wealth. Firearms were all confiscated early on in the war to prevent dangerous riots. Defended by old world weapons, the sword and the bow, two such survivors search the ruins of the once great London. But there are no weapons that can defend against the power of a nuclear bomb.

Their temporary shelter consisted of a collapsed subway tunnel, rubble blocking up both ends, a single crevice, leading to above city, acting as an entrance to the dismal hide-away. The lodging was dark; poor quality bulbs hanging loosely from wires illuminated the enclosed space. Broken containers, picked over for useful items, sat abandoned in the dust ridden corners, while an impressive collection of weaponry was displayed on a long low table; twin swords in their matching scabbards and an elegant black recurve bow, besides which layer a selection of arrows, their steel heads gleaming in the low said table sat two large canvas sacks, bulging with a varying selection of food. The owners of this humble abode descended from a match shift entrance, by the means of a rather rickety ladder.

The first of the figures appeared in the bunker; her arms full of food salvaged from the city nearby. She headed over to the area of the hideout where the food sprawled across the floor and dumped the heavy cargo on the floor with a sigh of relief. She wondered over to where the weapons were being stored and pulled one of the swords off the wall.

She sat down in an old, bedraggled chair and began to diligently sharpen the sword using a worn down whetstone. As she gracefully moved the whetstone over the blade, her long blonde hair lit up in the moonlight which was shining through the entrance to the bunker. She sighed again and turned her storm-grey eyes up to the ceiling, once again flicking her long, slightly tangled hair out of her face. Her face looked ghostly pale against the darkness of the room and the dusky clothes she was wearing. As she turned back to her sword, her hair once again fell into her eyes and she irritably brushed it away, only for it to fall back down again. She let out a sound of irrepressible anger as she grabbed her hair and tied it into a tight pony-tail at the base of her neck so that not a single hair was covering her eyes. Happy again, she went back to sharpening her sword, not long after an unfastened lock of hair shifted into her view. Seething with anger, she grabbed her sword and swiftly chopped off the loose lock of hair, leaving a satisfied look on her face but a strange section of hair awkwardly hanging on her head. Turning back to her sword, she frowned again. It seemed she always had a look of displeasure on her face; her rather thick eyebrows arched inwards giving her a constant scowl, which disappeared as she heard someone else enter the bunker.

Her companion hoped down from the unstable ladder, carrying a bundle similar to the one which she had dispensed of by the table. She was significantly shorter than the first girl, and had dark brown hair, streaked with natural highlights, pulled up into a neat high pony tail, leaving her eyes free of any hanging strands of hair. Beneath a pair of thin arched eyebrows, which matched her hair in colour, lay two blue-grey eyes, speckled with patches of light blue and dark blue, the pupils rimmed in pale green. She quickly surveyed the room, and hopped lightly over to the table, dropped her baggage, and completed the movement with a quick twirl, spinning in 1800 before gliding over to where the first girl still wrestled with her blonde hair. Bending over, studiously avoiding the lethal point of the sword.

"Helloo Em, what ya doing?" she inquired, jabbing a finger dubiously at the lock of hair lying abandoned on the arm of the chair. "What happened there?"

"My hair was annoying me on purpose. It was simply asking to be cut off, and got what was coming to it. Watch the sword Poop"

"Silly Em"

Poop, or Poppy as she was more formally known, straightened and away waltzed over to where the black bow lay on the make shift table top. As she held it up, it was illuminated in the darkness by the moon (which was glowing brilliant through the narrow opening) its midnight blue and black pattern shining into the night. As the moon's beams hit the bow, it appeared to light up, emitting rays of sparkling silver light from the wood. Reaching for a torch which sat on the counter adjacent to the bow, she flicked it on and turned to the wall furthest from the opening, opposite the table and the chair in which Em, or Emily, sat. By the light of the torch, it was possible to see that the rough cracks and niches formed by the uneven collapse of rocks now acted as a make shift shelf for a huge variety of books, from relatively modern copies complete with cheap paper covers to older manuscripts bound in rough leather. The girl reached out a small hand, clad still in fingerless gloves, and perused the books, finally withdrawing a well-thumbed novel entitled 'The Hobbit'. Sitting on a piece of falling masonry, she opened it and began to read. Emily looked up from her sword care and watched her friend for a while.

"Reading that again?" she asked, mildly disapproving. "You still haven't finished 'The Silmarillion.'"

"It would appear so, yes" Poops muttered, lost in the novel. "Besides, I think that we deserve a break. Today's forage mission was hard, there were more of those hunters again, and we got a decent amount of food for camp."

"Aren't you in the least bit worried about the number of people in the city? What if 'they' launch another bomb, cause they think that we are regrouping again?"

"Don't be ridiculous! Just put down your beloved sword and come read some Tolkien. Honestly, who doesn't love Tolkien? I would give anything to go to Middle Earth. Just to escape this pointless war." The girl seated in the chair muttered the last part mainly to herself and her book than her friend sitting across the room.

Em conceded the point and put down her gleaming sword and now reduced whet stone. Heaving herself out of the chair with much exaggerated moaning, she wandered over to examine the shelf at close quarters. Instead of reading one of the older books, she withdrew a new, magazine like book. A large image of Thorin Oakenshield was printed over the cover. Without preamble, she sat directly on the floor and opened it. She ran her fingers over the brightly coloured images of the thirteen dwarves, one hobbit and the towering grey figure. Engrossed as they both were in their various novels, a low whining sound in the distance went majorly unnoticed.

At first it was just at the bottom of the human hearing range. Gradually it grew, the sound increasing to a bone shuddering hum. The unstable roof above them began to shake. It was only when a small pebble dropped onto the open pages of Poppy's book did she look up. Instantly aware of the increasing noise, she dropped her book and shot to her feet, sprinting across the room to grab up her bow and sling the quiver of arrows across her shoulders. Jerked out of her reading trance by the sudden movement, Emily dropped the book and rose to her feet, spinning around in a vain attempt to see the oncoming missile.

"What the HELL is that?" Poppy exclaimed.

"No clue," muttered Emily still trying to see through the solid stone ceiling.

"It might just be a plane. Nothing important," Poppy said hopefully

"Indeed, but it could be an enemy plane, which would be important. We need to check it out."

"Fine." she said with a shrug.

They made their way to the surface, via the rickety ladder. The surrounding city was a mass of fallen skyscrapers and rubble. Overhead, the sky was ,for once, clear and deep blue. The incoming missile stood out from the blue backdrop, the sun glinting off its metallic outer shell. It shot towards the two girls, leaving a trial of murky smoke in its wake. They had only a moment to face each other.

"It's a nuclear bomb!" Poppy called over the rumbling noise of the missile

Emily turned to her companion and then back to the bomb which was rapidly approaching; giving her just enough time to yell;

"We're f*cked!"

before the world dissolved into chaos.