Prologue: The Capture of a Sue

Disclaimer: The Lord of the Rings, et cetera, are owned by the Tolkien estate and were written by JRR Tolkien. This is written by me, and I am making no profit on this story. It is purely for entertainment.

Author's Notes: Many thanks to Miss Cam, who has allowed me to make references to the Official Fanfiction University of Middle-Earth. Also, all misspellings of place names and general abuses of Canon by the 'Sue are deliberate. Lyam belongs to SV.

Aldamiel, Princess of Rivendell and second daughter of King Elrond, shook back her long, sunlight-golden locks and gazed at Prince Legolas with her ever-changing eyes. For a moment, she heard a faint noise, and then she dismissed it. No-one would dare interfere with her, the beloved princess of Imlardis. Or something like that. Not here, in the quiet woods of Loth Lorien, her mother's kingdom. Only she and her beloved prince were here, amidst the daisies and buttercups, the oaks and the soft grass.

"Oh, Legolas Greenleaf," she sighed, feeling tears filling her crystal eyes. "However canst thou find myself as worthy of even a second glance?" Aldamiel gazed appealingly at him, her perfect lips parted. A beam of sunlight lanced down from above the treetops and illuminated her silky white dress. There was another noise – a murmur of derision? No, impossible, she thought.

The elven prince took a step towards, his arms stretched out towards her. "Oh mine love, though I have known thee such a short time, how canst thou ever think that thou art not worthy?" A keen observer would have seen a woodenness in his movements, and a faintly panicked expression hidden under a face schooled into adoration. Aldamiel, of course, noticed nothing.

She sighed happily. It was all so perfect. He was close to her now, and she closed her eyes and turned her head up to his expectantly. The taste of his lips on hers would be sweet . . .

What she got, though, was not at all what she'd been expecting.

"Right! Get her!" said a male voice, completely unlike the golden sound of her Elf's musical tones." Hands grabbed her before she could react, slapping a gag around her mouth and tying her hands behind her back. Aldamiel's currently purple eyes opened in shock, and she saw a slim, brown-haired and rather ordinary young man standing before her. He was shaking his head in a reproving fashion. "You're the fourth one we've caught today, you know." Turning his attention to a blonde woman in Rohirric clothes who was administering some sort of spray to Legolas, he asked, "SV, is he okay?"

SV nodded. "A simple case of Sue-shock, Lyam. Canon should reassert itself . . . now."

Legolas vanished, and Aldamiel let out a muffled wail of protest. How dare they take her Leggy away? She barely noticed the shockwave of changes that rippled out from where she stood: buttercups and daisies turned into yellow or blue flowers of a kind she had never imagined. Her oaks grew far larger than anything she had envisaged, their leaves turning to gold. Instead of watching the change, though, she started humming a tune in her liquid voice – a spell to release her bonds and banish these cruel people.

She received a second shock when, instead of her bonds falling away, they tightened on her wrists. She yelped in a most unladylike fashion and stared up in mute horror at her two captors. Then the alteration of her surroundings finally made their impact.

The sound of Aldamiel's body hitting the ground like a sack of potatoes was music to the ears of Lyam and SV.