Disclaimer: As already said, all copyrights lie with Tolkien, the Tolkien estate and his heirs.

zita's notes to this chapter: "I had forgotten this with the first chapter, but wish to add this now. The subtitles are free translations of the just genius Mary-Sue Litmus Test of Gil Shalos. There, too, no violation of copyrights is intended. The list was of enormous help to me, even if I could only follow a tiny part of the rules."

I wish to point out that the subtitles of the chapters were then freely retranslated to English. They probably will be close, but not exactly what the original in the Litmus Test is.

Another note: OFC is an acronym for 'Own Fiction Character' or 'Own Female Character'. Means a character a fanfiction author created.

And in this place, once again many thanks go to my betareader, True Colours. You rock, girl!


2. Chapter: It didn't get better, anyway

Or: Does Boromir fall in love with your OFC? Is their togetherness tender and moving? Do they cry?

'You've done it again!' The clear accusation in the speaker's voice couldn't possibly be missed. 'Why don't you take better care?'

'I know. But it was an accident. There are simply so many at the same time that I didn't look closely enough.'

'It disturbs the harmony. He doesn't like it when the harmony is disturbed.'

'Couldn't he bring her back?'

'The disturbance can't be undone that way.'


"Are you better?"

Automatically I tried to raise my head, but a large hand came to rest on my neck and pressed my skull back between my drawn knees. "Wait a while, my lady, you still seem somewhat hysterical."

I babbled something indistinct and continued to stare at the stones, as far as I could make them out in the light of the fire that the ever-helpful Boromir had started. No idea how he had managed that. Probably witchcraft. I giggled hysterically.

"Lucy?" The son of the cracked steward of Gondor, who probably was more normal than I at the moment, sounded seriously concerned. "I didn't mean to frighten you like that."

"Di… Di…" Somehow the word didn't want to go further. I raised my head after all and stared at him with tearful eyes. "Didn't. No, you didn't. I'm not scared. Not me. I never scare."

One could clearly see that he didn't believe one word of what I had said. Shaking his head, he took the blanket and placed it around my shoulders, patted my head a little helplessly and sat down on the other side of the fire. Boromir didn't seem on top of things either. I think that having been slain and returned from the dead in one day wasn't even the thing that was troubling him the most. Worse was probably my little show after I had realized what had happened to me.

If I what remembered and had pieced together from Boromir's politely reserved remarks was correct, he had saved my life not once, but twice. In the first place he had been in the water fast enough to bat away the sword, on which – with my grace – I would inevitably have fallen during my collapse, and additionally the hero of Gondor had kept me from falling head first in the river and drowning. We were definitely even.

"Were you robbed?" he ended the break in conversation.

"Robbed?" I echoed, not overly bright.

"I just thought…" he murmured, and his gaze involuntarily slipped over my naked legs, which showed beneath the blanket.

What does a Mary-Sue say in such a moment? The truth? I doubted that this experienced warrior would really believe me if I began telling of another world, portals and Tolkien. He already thought me cracked, and after a speech like that he would probably tie me up and throw me back in the river. What was its name again? Antonin or something like that, I wasn't sure. Moreover, the lake had a different name altogether. I decided it would be better if I circumvented the name giving.

"I don't know." It wasn't even that much of a lie. After all, I am no physicist. I didn't even know how electricity came out of a socket, nothing to say about how lightning could transport harmless runners to fantasy worlds. "I only remember being hit by lightning, then I woke up in the boat."

"Ah." He even believed me. Great, apparently everything was possible if one had pointed ears. "Where are you from? Lothlórien?"

Welcome to the minefield, I thought. It couldn't be Lothlórien, as Boromir had just come from those woods, and in the end he might decide that we should return to them. I am not very good with remembering names, but when one perforce watches the movies several times, things tend to stick. Even if one was knitting a pullover, reading books or doing jigsaw puzzles at the time. "No."

Though the friendly ex-dead opposite me remained silent, his gaze was really piercing. Boromir was waiting for an answer.

"North," I explained with a grand gesture to the right.

He furrowed his brow. "That is west."

"Really?" Should I after all confess to this 'I was dead and transported to Middle-earth to steal the best scenes from the Fellowship' story? "I'm confused."

"I hadn't noticed," he murmured dryly, stoking the fire with another branch. "Where did you learn to speak our tongue so well?"

I paused. Did I? We spoke English. Or didn't we? Then it could only be Mary-Sue-Magic that dealt with the language barrier. I wondered what other special skills I had been given. Sword fighting was probably not among them. I hadn't even been able to stab a fish with it and the hilt hadn't exactly felt familiar in my hand.

"Good teachers."

That was sufficient for him; how nice. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he suddenly looked very exhausted. The day hadn't been easy on the poor man. First almost massacring the Hobbit, then saving the other Hobbits, slain by a black-skinned monster, having a boat ride, capsizing, saved by a mad Elf, saving a mad Elf… That's what I call stressful.

"We should follow Aragorn," he sighed, and sleepily blinked at me.

"Tomorrow," I consoled him. "Better get some sleep."

"Milady…"

He meant me. There was nobody else. "Yes?"

"This frank manner of speaking…" Boromir cleared his throat. "Your instructors surely made a mistake there."

"We nearly drowned together; that creates bonds. Call me Lucy." I couldn't bring myself to adopt his formal style of speaking. That would be as if I was accepting what was happening here. I still had a slight hope of awakening tomorrow morning in a hospital and appearing as a lightning victim in the local news.

For a short moment I considered if we shouldn't keep watch in turns. Hadn't there been Orcs around? But then I remembered that all of them had either been killed or were on their way back – where were they headed again? – to deliver the Hobbits. Nothing much could happen to us. And additionally Boromir, the only capable guard of our team, had just fallen asleep sitting and was squatting in front of me like a Peruvian mountain-mummy.


Boromir sat on the edge of the canoe and watched me, shaking his head. "That is not very appropriate, Lucy."

I decided it would be better to keep my silence about the fact that in my world or time or whatever this would have been called very modest. Boromir, like a gentleman from a fairytale, had sacrificed his tunic so I that I was at least halfway normally clad. Not that it made much difference for him; the guy still wore a beautifully embroidered shirt with sleeves to the elbow and the long leather tunic which wasn't exactly cut sparingly.

His dark red tunic, made from light wool, was to me an almost knee-length dress. A leather strap from the gear substituted as a belt, and the blanket, which wasn't a blanket but a cape from Lothlórien, hung from my shoulders. Underneath the dress a pair of really nice Elven legs glimpsed daylight. Certain aspects of this mishap I did find enjoyable, such as the total absence of cellulite.

Some, however, I liked less, among them that I had to squat behind a bush this morning. Not a pleasant experience. Even at camping places there were toilets and bathrooms. Here there were bushes and the river – Anduin, I had remembered – that substituted as a shower. Soap? Nope. Toothbrush? Heh, they had naturally white teeth around here, it seemed to me. I didn't even want to think about morning breath, even if a little test by breathing against my hand had let me to conclude that Elves apparently did not suffer from it.

"If you would put on your strange footwear, we can set out."

I repressed any renewed protest. I actually would have preferred to remain here for a while. I was hoping for another thunderstorm and swear solemnly I would have grabbed the nearest tree. With a bit of luck lightning would have hit and brought me back home. Boromir however was of the opinion that there would be no thunderstorm for the next few days.

He had even offered, with clear despair, to row me to Lothlórien. I had declined.

Friendly, but determined!

He was thankful – and I was, too!

Lothlórien!

Elves in abundance! They wouldn't have needed five minutes to see through me and throw me off the next talan. They automatically had to take me for Sauron's new devilry. No, if I couldn't wait for a thunderstorm here, then I would prefer to march with Boromir through the prairie to find his former companions.

"I can take the gear," I offered, and speculated that I would walk demonstratively slow with it.

"Thank you for the offer," the Gondorian sunshine boy with the heart of gold, who apparently had managed to overcome his weakness for ring-shaped articles of jewellery, smiled. Valiantly he shouldered the cloth roll with our provisions and began marching.

What other option did I have but to follow him? I didn't like it that he intended to go off so shortly after being critically injured. He could overstrain himself; drop dead for good and then I truly would be alone. A day in this nightmare had been sufficient to get used to him. Actually – get used to him? Hah! I would be lost should he decide to simply leave! Therefore it should be understandable that I worried about his welfare.

But it seemed he was healing quite well. In the morning, during an inconspicuous look through the undergrowth on the riverbank, where my hero was floundering about in the water with a naked torso, I had been able to see that the stab wounds were barely worth mentioning anymore. Well, at least they were becoming encrusted. 'Twas a good sign, I thought.

Anyway, he marched up the rising terrain without any signs of strain until we reached a fairly big clearing. There he suddenly stopped and looked around grimly.

I looked around to be careful and noticed with stunned horror the amount of charred bones lying around. "That's disgusting!"

"Uruk'hai," murmured Boromir and stood there with lowered head and tense shoulders. "This is where I died."

"Not quite," I reminded him.

The charred Uruk'hai were already horrible, but a guy like Boromir who fell to his knees and began crying was a lot more horrible. Embarrassed, I stood next to him and fingered one of my magic braids, which were still as perfect as the previous evening when I had curled up to sleep. These things seemed to survive quite well. "Boromir…"

"I should have protected the Hobbits," he whispered, most depressed. "Instead I hunted after the Ring and scared Frodo that he fled. The Hobbits were unprotected and it was my fault that the Uruk'hai succeeded in capturing them."

Quite true, but I couldn't really tell him that. Imagine this: This tall, strong guy, who did have an eerie similarity to the actor in the movie, dissolved here and whined. I was sorry for him, but I had always imagined that a battle-hardened protector in the wild would be a bit more robust. On the other hand, I was used to these emotional outburst from job experience. Even the greatest conqueror of the world had his weak moments when he heard the sound of a dentist's drill. Only motherly solace could help there. I'm good with that.

So I dropped to my knees in front of him and took one of his giant hands into my delicate Elven ones. "Everything is predetermined," I explained to him, hoping I was wrong. That, after all, would make my presence here very ominous. "And you resisted the Ring."

Wrong statement. His head rose in slow motion and he stared at me suspiciously. "What do you know of all this?"

"Only that which is told among my people." Or put into three movies, but that would have overwhelmed him. "The Lord of Rivendell sent out Nine Companions to destroy the Ring. From what I have heard the Fellowship came to here and broke apart."

He nodded silently. The suspicious gleam in his eyes had luckily vanished. It would surely have returned if I had told him the other details. Though I wasn't sure whether I was in Movie-verse or Book-verse. "The temptation of the ring is great. But you reacted quite well, right?"

Hm, that phrasing seemed to irritate him somewhat. I hadn't really gotten used to the formal manner of speaking yet. He would have to live with it. Anyway, he got up again, pulled me to my feet and began, in front of my astonished eyes, to walk to and fro' across the clearing.

"We have to get you a weapon, Lucy," he explained in the end, holding up an ugly black bow. "Can you handle a bow and arrows?"

Could I? I furrowed my brow. "I am not sure."

A few moments later I was standing at one end of the clearing, holding this bow in my hand and brooding over the question of whether the tree across the clearing would be terribly angry if I shot an arrow into it. On the other hand I might just as well hit one of the exemplars next to it, or my own foot. I took the arrow Boromir offered.

The Mary-Sue-Magic hit relentlessly!

The immortal with the incredible body, the violet eyes and the raven-black silky hair, who had crash-landed by means of lightning on Boromir's death boat, definitely knew something of archery. Mentally I stood beside myself, while my Alter Ego notched an arrow, drew the bow and perforated the tree just like that. I have to admit, I was flattered as my companion patted my shoulder, obviously thrilled.

The elation at least got me through the morning, which we spent walking through the woods like madmen.


In comparison to the march we took the next day, the trip through the forest had been a mere stroll. After a quiet night underneath the last trees at the forest's border, Boromir, the Resilient, suggested we walk to Rohan. Always westward then, with just the slightest heading south. I had nothing against that, but either important scenes in the movie had been left out or we were in Book-verse, where the way led over many steep and thus impassable precipices littered with rocks.

"I thought Rohan consisted of grasslands," I growled around midday, as still walking, I bit with my miraculously clean teeth into the Elven crisp bread. It was colourless, tasteless and enormously filling; the Elves were the inventors of the emergency ration pack.

"It won't be far now," my companion murmured, his gaze heroically and diffusely fixed to the distance. "Then it will be less difficult to read the tracks. What luck for us that of everyone the Dwarf is the easiest to recognize."

"Yes, what a luck," I repeated lamely. No idea what tracks Boromir was following. I couldn't recognize anything but rocks and dirt.

Moreover, my Mary-Sue-Magic was nowhere near full throttle. I always thought the nice Firstborn could run to the horizon without breathing any faster. As if! Either I was onlysometimes Elven or Tolkien had lied and Legolas was simply an exception because he exercised in secret. Without my running back home I would only have lasted an hour before I collapsed out of my shoes, which were not quite as good for cross-country as the producer had lauded them to be.

Thus we continued to the evening over rock and branch; then, to my special gratification, Boromir was exhausted first. The fellow looked a little pale. My malicious joy vanished with the notion that he could leave for his fathers for good.

"Are you still up to it?" he asked me, gasping for air.

I wouldn't be mean. "I could use a break."

We dropped to the ground where we stood and it took a while until we were somewhat revived. We had no desire for a campfire anyway, and moreover, one didn't have to be that obvious in this landscape.

"We will not be able to catch up to them," Boromir declared grimly at last, playing with two pebbles. The clicking noise seemed to calm him down, but it got on my nerves. "Maybe we should travel towards Isengard immediately, for that is where the Uruk'hai will bring the Hobbits."

"Saruman?" I cautiously asked.

"It could be nobody else. These Uruk'hai did not come from Mordor. They carried the sign of the White Wizard. I wish I knew how I should decide. My heart yearns for Minas Tirith, which shall soon be endangered by attacks from the East, but my heart also tells me that I cannot leave the Companions without help."

I had better not answer to that. Boromir was alive, and thus Canon was dead. Who knew what else would become a mess or how many other Mary-Sues were blundering about and creating confusion. It could very well be that I would meet one of my colleagues, and find that she had single-handedly saved the Hobbits from the Orcs, gone with Aragorn and Legolas to Isengard and convinced Saruman of the evil of his deeds. Or that the Evil had already triumphed and we would get into real trouble if we travelled further east.

"Let us follow the tracks for one more day," my friend, the wise warrior, decided after longer consideration. "If we haven't found them by them, we go to Edoras to find shelter. It may be a big detour, but in times like this one can only trust old friendships. Theóden King would never betray them. He is a friend of Gondor, even if my father has let the alliance rest for a long time. He will provide us with horses and provisions so we may survive the way to Gondor."

"Well, that should at least be something."

"Lucy, sometimes you really talk in a strange manner."

"Hey, I am an Elf who was hit by lightning. What do you expect?"

To my delight he laughed. Boromir had a very nice laugh that warmed one's heart. When he wasn't occupied stealing rings he was, without a doubt, a nice, helpful and honourable man, who didn't look bad in addition…

The panic attack hit me unprepared.

"Sleep, I will keep watch the first hours!" I snapped at the surprised Boromir, grabbing my shabby Orc-bow and scrambling up the nearest rock. There I cowered, with my back to the camp, and pretended to watch the wild landscape.

My hands shook, my knees anyway, and my heart had jumped into my throat. Horrified, I had just remembered that as a Mary-Sue, I still had to complete a love story. What if the poor Boromir was my victim? He had no part in my mishap and I really liked him too much to make him suffer from it.

The chances sadly were too good for this variant, if I thought about it. I had saved him, we were travelling together through this prairie, and as an Elven beauty I could really take him off his feet. Furthermore, I was a master in archery, wasn't I? The man had no other choice, if push came to shove.


I was in a dilemma. In the next days the thought resurfaced every now and then, and I caught myself watching Boromir suspiciously, searching for the first signs of him following me like a lovesick idiot. There wasn't anything to notice yet, though, and anyway, we were occupied. We followed a track that led us further and further West, with said slightest orientation south. If Boromir's expert remarks were to be believed, we were on a rather used track. Men, Uruk'hai, Dwarves, horses. Though one shouldn't really be surprised by the latter.

At a different time, in a different body, I probably would have enjoyed the journey very much. Rohan was a beautiful county, almost endless, gently wavy pastures, lush and brilliantly green. Sometimes, if the wind blew across the grass, it seemed as if waves moved through it, and it was a single ocean all the way to the horizon. To be honest, wind blew more or less constantly here. But then Rohan was a very abandoned country. We really met not a single soul. Just a few hares that sadly had to end up as our dinner, for Boromir was also very good at handling a bow.

I showed female sensibility about this, though; and Boromir ended up having to skin and clean them. I did help him with eating them. It was a welcome difference to the crisp bread.

Boromir was quite the undemanding tour guide. He did not expect any lengthy talks, and if we did talk, then it was usually in the evenings at the fire, about the hares or what would be ahead of us. Furthermore he was quite informed concerning this part of the country, and I was an attentive listener. Which did not keep me from watching him suspiciously as soon as he got too nice.

While I was running behind him during daytime I concocted plans to keep the poor man from the damnation of falling in love with a fake Elf. Also, I had not given up hope to come back the same way as I had come here. Every small cloud in the sky caught my attention.

"That is just a cloud," Boromir said at some point, shaking his head. "It is too small for a thunderstorm."

"Am I that easy to see through?" I asked dejectedly and stared at my shoes. They wouldn't last much longer. Brand quality, pah!

"Just concerning the thunderstorm," he solaced me. Then, to my horror, he put his hands on my shoulders and waited until I looked at him. "I promise you, Lucy, that I will get you back to your home as soon as we get through this."

I confess that I had tears in my eyes involuntarily. He would be unable to keep that promise, but it was still moving. "Thank you, Boromir."

And then he winked at me before turning around and heading to a heap of burnt Orcs that uglified the landscape not too far from where we were. I already knew what this meant, and I also knew that I would absolutely not enter the dark forest that was distinguishable behind the pyre. I had never really liked the forest, and this one was a good deal more scary than the one in the movie.

Luckily, Gondor's hero did not feel like a walk in the forest, but he walked to and fro, like a pointer on the hunt around the Orcish barbeque, and examined the different tracks. I decided to unleash the Elf maiden within and helped him. It wasn't too difficult, as I really remembered these scenes.

"Many riders," I proclaimed dramatically and stared at a few flattened blades of grass, over which a rover of the army could have driven just as well. I wouldn't really see the difference.

"And the tracks of feet in between lead to the forest," Boromir stood next to me, doubling over. He turned the head and looked at me. "We could follow them."

"Not a wise decision," I claimed in pure self-interest. Ten horses wouldn't get me into the forest. The actual main characters had left it anyway, and I really didn't have to meet Ents. I had been spared the stranger creatures of Middle-earth so far, and I planned to keep it that way in the near future. "This forest is old. Very old."

A stolen line, but it worked. Boromir didn't seem very fond of the prospect of marching through Fangorn, either. He smiled rather lopsidedly and clapped me on my back. "To Edoras then, Lucy."


'To Edoras, then' meant a few days of foot march across the prairie. I have to confess, I always thought that the distance that Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and Gandalf the White travelled before Gandalf had his show as a decrepit old man at the doors of Meduseld had been shorter. One must remember though, in Boromir's and my defence, that they had had horses.

Edoras lay on a hill, a single, lonely hill in a valley, through which a constant wind blew. I did not find anything new in that, but I was not prepared for the unreality that cloaked this place.

Elven eyes are keen, almost like binoculars, even if they look nicer, especially ones coloured like violets, like mine. Almost half a day's journey before we finally reached it, I saw the place for the first time with clarity, even if diminutive. During our approach I had sufficient time to get used to the strange atmosphere it emitted. At first I thought it was simply because I was seeing a settlement in this world for the first time. For a while that was true, even, but slowly I became aware of a different reason for my disquiet.

"It seems abandoned," I stated a few leagues away from the hill.

"They will be inside the cottages," my companion, who was slowly beginning to distinguish something, contradicted me."These are dangerous times, in which the safety of the wall is the only protection."

"If you say so."

A few hours later, during early afternoon, we both stood in front of the closed gates set into a really high wooden fence, and waited to be let in.

Boromir had called and finally hammered against the gate like a berserk. No one had looked across the top, even to drive away the troublemakers.

I gave Denethor's heir a long look.

"Abandoned," he got out, and I could see he felt the bitter taste of defeat. "You were right."

"Helm's Deep?" I proposed and felt really great. So superior!

"That will be it," he admitted and sighed. "We will have to continue marching. I know from descriptions where the Hornburg is located."

"Excuse me?" The beginning of hysteria in my voice came from sleep deprivation, hurting feet in destroyed shoes and the strong wish for a bed for the night. It wouldn't have to be a water mattress, but at least something that was more comfortable than a night on naked ground.

Boromir pointed at the door slightly angrily. "It is locked."

"I don't see a lock. So it had to be closed from the inside. They will have left at least a watcher here."

"No, they didn't. Don't ask me how they did it, but Edoras is empty and the gate closed from the inside. We have no way inside."

"As if!" I hissed and pushed away the appeasing hand that tried to touch my arm. "That would be a laugh."

I put myself in front of the gate and tried hard to think of a way to break into a king's place. Climbing up, the first solution, I dismissed in the face of the smooth logs from which the six meter high wall had been built. The Rohirrim, who were obviously not stupid, had peeled away the bark, which would have given at least a bit of hold.

"Although…"

I turned around. Boromir was standing behind me, holding a silvery, shining rope. He blinked at me, then tied this delicate thing to one of his arrows, took aim and placed the arrow true to aim in the structure of the gate.

I waited for him to begin with the climbing, but one look in his happy face told me that someone else had been elected for this job. He wasn't even wrong: an Elf should be better suited make a climb like that. A real Elf at least. In an ill mood, I snorted and grabbed the rope, scarcely thicker than a finger, in both hands, pulling on it to test the strength of the knot.

"What are you waiting for?" Gondor's hero desired to know.

"I don't have the faintest idea if I can climb," I mumbled without turning around. "The bolt of lightning, you remember."

"Of course you can climb," he stated, grabbing my waist to lift me up a way. "You are an Elf. Your folk can even walk on snow."

Shocked at his actionI really did manage toclimb up a bit – then immediately shrieked in indignation as I felt his hands underneath my behind. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm pushing you up!"

"And I will push a knife between your rips in a moment. Let me go right this instant!"

To be cautious I climbed a bit further, to get out of the reach of his hands, before I looked down. Boromir, ever the honourable man, stood beneath me with his arms crossed in front, and looked at me underneath the tunic, a wide grin on his face.

You wouldn't believe how fast one gets if one wants to spoil a man's view of one's jogging shorts. I was on top of the wall in less than ten seconds and leaned over it to threaten the still grinning Boromir with my fist. He waved at me in amusement.

"It can't continue like that," I growled and stormed to the closest ladder that led me down the back of the gate.

Now the mystery of the bolt in position on the inside was solved. On one side a long rope was tied that lay on the ground in disarray. The Rohirrim had probably kept the bolt suspended with it from the outside until the last had left the city. Then all they had to do was release the rope and it fell into place. I presumed that the riders also had a few who could scale the walls to open the gates upon return.

One of my Elvish moments overcame me, and blessed with the strength of the Firstborn I had little trouble pushing up the heavy wooden bolt. Forcefully, I pulled one of the gate wings open, and placed myself inside the passage with a wide stance. As I had already decided, it couldn't continue like that. I couldn't always be on the watch to see if Boromir was the destined object of a Mary-Sue romance I had no clue about.

With slight confusion he stopped in front of me, because I wouldn't let him pass with my arms stretched to both sides. "Lucy?"

"Boromir, kiss me!"

Silence lay over Edoras; only the wind sang its lament. Well, and Boromir coughed and choked because he had swallowed in shock, sadly into the wrong pipe.

"Oh please!" I cried indignantly. "You act as if…! I'm not an Orc!"

"No," he said hesitantly. "An Orc you are not. But why should I kiss you?"

I furrowed my brow over so much thickness. "So that we both finally know if we are only good friends or maybe a bit more. I don't want to be worrying about it all the time."

"Hm, is there a possibility that we are more than good friends?" He smiled apologetically. "Not that haven't thought about it. I am still only a man of flesh and blood. You are a beautiful woman. I mean Elf maiden. Really beautiful, but…"

"Boromir!" I reminded him sharply.

Still, I was a bit surprised when he ended the discussion, grabbed me by my upper arms and drew me to his hero's breast. Before I could make any proposition as to the procedure, his lips lay on mine. I was treated to a nice kiss surprisingly gentle in execution. But nothing more.

After a few seconds we both gave up this venture, then he let me go and we looked at each other. Almost simultaneously we shook our heads. No, Boromir was not my victim. That was a great relief, and I smiled.

"Friends?" he asked and offered me his hand.

"Friends," I agreed, and took it.


Many thanks to janelover1, Wing Commander Arnica Vinyaya, Indilwyn and Eleniel of Ithilien for reviewing and/or adding this story to their favourites. If I forgot anyone, please tell me and I will add him or her.

I also have a message from zita for all the reviewers: THANK YOU!

janelover1: I am glad you liked it!

Wing Commander Arnica Vinyaya: Me like, too! The reason I translated the whole thing in the first place. Does your penname perchance have anything to do with the 'Artemis Fowl' series by Eoin Colfer. There was a Commander Vinyaya on the council, right?

Indilwyn: Well, here is more! And to be honest, sometimes I am tempted, too…

Eleniel of Ithilien: Here you are! 'Daughter of Star' would be the right translation of your name, wouldn't it? My Elvish is a little rusty…


Comments will be honoured and forwarded to zita, as well. Answers can be found in the next chapter. Flames will be used for the fireplace.

Many thanks for reading!