The Adventures of a Tenth Roadie.

Yes, it's another annafan/TommyGinger collaboration, in the form of yet another plot outline (feel free to adopt this – no, really, please, it's yours if you want it). You know, there's a lot of tenth walker stories out there, where a teenage girl from our world with a suitably angsty back story dies in a tragic car crash and gets pitched into Middle Earth. But the universe requires balance, the Light Side and Dark Side of the Force, Yin and Yang, marmite and... err... things that actually taste nice. So what would happen if this sort of thing were to happen the other way round, and a teenage girl from Middle Earth were to be pitched into our world...

Fade to black...

Camera comes into focus on a dark haired young woman, lying unconscious next to a dumpster in a dark parking lot. She is incongruously dressed in a long dark blue woollen kirtle laced up the sides and a white linen wimple. [Authors' note: Yeah, yeah, we know, how can we see her luscious dark hair if she's wearing a wimple? Details, details. You want internal consistency from a crack fic? Or indeed from any sort of 10th anything fic?]. She gives a deep groan, then sits up holding her forehead. A young man comes running to her aid, brushing his impeccably gelled hair back from his face.

"Are you okay?" he asks, which is clearly a dumb thing to say given that she is dressed like something from a Medieval Fayre and has a cut on her forehead, and has only just come round from being unconscious.

"Oh my, how my head hurts. What has happened to me? Ah me, it is all coming back to me now. I was fleeing an arranged marriage to a barbarian Horse Lord from the wilds of Rohan who never combed the food out of his beard. Not that my father cared for anything but doing as he was bid by the Steward Faramir, who, despite the cuddly image fostered by the chroniclers, was in fact even more of a bastard than his father, Lord Denethor Firestarter. And Faramir, being married to that Rohirric tart of his, believed that the tow-haired barbarians could do no wrong. So it was that I was betrothed against my will to Marshal Pintelhelm. Thus it was that I fled in the night, taking my trusty mare Dapple Snowdrop and a cart with my prized possessions. But someone had severed the brake lines on the cart, and the last thing I remember was a horrific cart crash, followed by seeing my body as if from high in the air like a bird, then one of the Valar asking me if I wanted to live on in a different world."

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. You're like from a parallel reality. That's just so coo-ell".

"My name is Firiel." [Authors' note 2: yes, that all-purpose Sindarin name which simply means "mortal maiden." Look, all our creative juices have gone into coming up with the Real World – henceforth RE – cast, leaving none left for clicking on Sindarin name generators, besides which, we don't want a repeat of Borys' unfortunate "Gweth Minas" incident.]

Firiel looked up at her rescuer. He had finely chiselled good looks and smelled strangely alluringly of... she wasn't quite sure; there was nothing remotely like it in Middle Earth. "May I ask the name of the fair knight who has come to my aid?" she said, peeking up at him through long dark lashes.

"I'm Barry Piles," the young man said, in a boyish, yet strangely attractive voice.

Firiel gave a delightful blush, then whispered, "Would it be forward of me to say that you smell wonderful, better than any man I have ever smelled before, especially the King who never bathes."

Barry gave a shy smile, and said huskily, "Axe/ Lynx." [Authors' note 3: delete according to the reader's nationality – anyway, whatever boggingly horrible shit teenage boys spray all over themselves in your neck of the woods to compensate for the fact that they shower even less frequently than King Elessar Telcontar].

~o~O~o~

Anyhow, that's quite enough of that... We will now sketch the rest of the plot (as far as we've got).

Barry Piles is of course a singer in massively successful boy band, Lost My Direction. Firiel becomes a tenth roadie and joins them on their quest to throw the evil platinum disk of rival boy band Blah-de-Blah [Authors' note 4: look, we're middle aged women, we've only heard of one boy band, and that's one more than we actually wanted to] into the fires of the Tri-County Rubbish Incinerator [Authors' note 5: Toy Story 3 cross-over potential here]. They are guided in their quest by their manager, the Gandalf-like figure Simon Dowell, and pursued by the evil Nine Paparazzi, evil henchmen of Aussie newspaper magnate and fount of all evil, Prufrock Burdock. Not to mention countless legions of crazed fangirls.

And of course Firiel suffers all the usual angst of a teenage 10th roadie, only Middle Earth style. So instead of worrying about not being able to shave her legs, she worries about not being able to starch her wimple. And worries whether Barry loves her. And instead of worrying about having to crap in the woods, she faints first time she encounters a hand drier in a toilet. And worries whether Barry loves her. And instead of worrying about the absence of tampons, she actually gets introduced to these by the band's female make-up artist, resulting in several weeks worth of angst over losing her maidenhood prematurely and whether this means that Barry will never be able to love her.

On the way, they visit the prime minister in the country retreat of River Bell (he's always trying to establish his hip credentials with the "yoof of today" by hanging out with popular beat combos – in this case, the lord of the monobrow, Elrond-alike nasal Mancunian erstwhile Brit-Pop star Vole Babbler), and also the golden wood of St John's Wood, presided over by Indie Female Vocal sensation Gazelle and has-been Irish stadium rock sensation, older than the hills Probono. Not to mention having to avoid national treasure turned baddie, Sir Saul McFartney, who is trying to breed his own race of evil boy bands, erm I mean, evil beings.

And Firiel and Barry will of course fall in love. And the rival platinum disk will go into the flames. And Babbler, Gazelle and Probono will leave these shores for ever to sail for the utmost West, aka breaking into the US market.