I sorted through my mail after a stressful day at work. Most of it was ad mail, asking me to buy high-priced junk. A letter concerning an increase in taxes, a utilities bill. And a green parchment envelope.

I assumed that it was a wedding invitation from a long-lost coworker, so I shuffled it under the pile to be looked at later. The utilities bill was much more pressing. If tomorrow wasn't pay day, then I might have had a problem. I was good at flying by the seat of my pants when it came to my finances.

I stuffed the mail into the side pocket of my purse before hurrying up the lobby steps to the elevator. Once inside, I hit the button for the sixth floor and watched as the red numbers clicked by.

Once inside my apartment, I crumpled into a couch and put my feet up on my coffee table. Newspapers, books, and marking were piled around the room on the furniture. The mail sitting in my purse was forgotten for the moment. Fuck this, I'll mark those papers later. Just a quick nap.

The grey wizard rode hard through the forest, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the grieving couple. As his horse galloped further away, his grip on the child in his right arm loosened. He had been afraid that he would turn back and give in to his heart. Lúthien had already experienced so much grief.

If this was for the best, he would trust to the wisdom of the Valar. It was probably best to part the child from her mother before she grew too attached. If she was to be raised elsewhere, it would be better if she knew nothing of this world. Petty justifications.

The Valar had allowed Lúthien exit from the Halls of Mandos in exchange for her immortality. There had never been mention of this. Her only daughter. And he was charged with transporting her between worlds. The wizard would forever owe a debt to Lúthien Tinúviel and her mortal husband, Beren. All of Middle Earth would owe them a debt before the end of the Third Age.

Again I had dreamed of that strange place. Middle Earth. The woman and her husband were an enigma, as was the grey wizard who had taken their child. He had not wanted to take the woman's baby, but he still felt the guilt just as acutely. Did these people, these Valar, not take accountability for their actions? And why did they need a baby to fight a war that would not happen for centuries?

It was not a riddle worth pondering too long. I would never go to Middle Earth, or meet its strange inhabitants, with their ridiculous names. They sounded like characters from one of those Japanese video games my students were always bringing to class. I was scarcely ten years older than the kids I taught, yet the generational gap was more pronounced than the gap between myself and those ten years older than me.

Thinking of my students reminded me of the stack of health reports I had to mark tonight. They had to get done. I had a reputation for being a slow marker that had reached the ears of the school principal. She'd been critical, chiding me on efficiency and punctuality, "how can you expect students to hand thing sin on time when you don't demonstrate the same expediency in returning their assignments?"

Truth be told, marking was just dull. I had the time and I had the energy, but I hated looking at page after page of the same material, the same template, and the same things to look for. Damn the curriculum. If it wasn't for essay requirements, I would give every assignment as a multiple choice test and have them marked by a machine.

Grumbling, I tugged the stack of reports out of my bag and set them down on my coffee table. I retrieved a green pen and began to read through the papers, one by one.

A line of Rohirrim rode steadily ahead of me. I preferred to ride behind my men when we were journeying over the open plain. Not out of cowardice. Just the opposite – away from battle, the majority of enemies attack from behind. Orcs cared nothing for honour, only for brute strategy.

"Éomer!", called Hammwen from ahead.

"What is it?", I yelled, my voice muffled by the steady pounding of hooves on rocky ground.

"A party of Uruk-hai far ahead. They haven't sighted us yet. They're moving fast."

I urged Firefoot to the front of the eored to gain a better vantage. Sure enough, a large cluster of black dots were running in the distance. They were on a tight mission. Uruk-hai seldom traveled over open plain in the daylight. Whatever their purpose, it did not bode well for the Mark.

"We'll attack under cover of nightfall. With any luck, they'll stop to rest.", I ordered.

I held the green envelope in my hands, inspecting it carefully. The flap was trimmed with gold and my address was embossed in gold on the front.

Celestina Petrovna

Home #1041

52nd house on West Dundas St.

Toronto, Ontario

I rarely went by my given name. Celestina was the kind of name you gave to a princess, or an angel. Not to a gym teacher in Toronto. Since childhood, I'd been called Celeste by preference. If this was a wedding invitation, it was from some distant relative.

When I opened the envelope and read the first line of the enclosed letter, I found that it was not, indeed, a wedding invitation.

Lady Celestina,

Your presence is required immediately. You are not, as you have been raised to believe, just the adopted child of Anita and Mikhail Petrovna. Your parents were of the highest royalty in the realm of Middle Earth: Beren, prince of mortals; and Lúthien, princess of elvenkind.

As their second child and only daughter, you were promised to the Valar at birth in exchange for their place in the Valinor. You will meet with them once your task, and your life, is complete. You were born to lead the free peoples of Rohan into victory. A war greater and more terrible than any that has besieged this land is drawing nearer.

As the daughter of Beren and Lúthien, you are required by birthright to come to Middle Earth and fight. I, Gandalf the White, whom you may know as Olórin, will retrieve you at midnight tonight. Any farewells to the people in this realm should be done before said time.

As token to your parentage, I have included a gift from your mother. Inside the crystal vial is a single drop of potion that will cure any wound when drunk by an afflicted person. It will not revive the dead. When worn around your neck, the vial will glow purple when you have met your match. History will be repeated once this happens.

Now is not the time for carelessness.

Gandalf the White

Disbelievingly, I pried open the envelope a little further. Inside was a small transparent crystal, the size of my smallest fingernail. As I picked it up, a chain as fine as a human hair followed it, the links locking into hold as I lifted. There was no clasp.

"A necklace that you cannot wear," I commented dryly.

I turned to the mirror on the wall behind my couch and held the crystal up to my throat and draped the chain around my shoulders to see what the necklace would have looked like.

When I tried to pull the charm away, it held fast around my neck. I pulled a little harder, thinking it was caught in my hair. The chain cut into my neck. I would the chain around, looking for the snag. Instead, I found that it formed a seamless circle around my throat.

I was too annoyed to figure out the trick to this. Someone was obviously prank mailing me and I didn't have the patience for it. Only – there was mention of Olórin the wizard. No prank mailer could have known that. I contemplated whether or not the letter was real. I was sure that I hadn't told anyone about the dreams.

Dreams that were growing more frequent and more detailed. People who had previously been shadows had become sorrowful characters. Lúthien. Beren. If they were my parents, then I was the red-headed child they had given away.

In half a second, the whole scene formed a picture in my mind. I was the child. They had been my parents. The Valar. The necklace.

But wasn't there a book also? And some kind of fight that I was supposed to undertake? I was a gym teacher, a runner, a brown belt in karate – but not a soldier. I rode horses on my weekends – I'd never held anything sharper than the blunted foils used in the fencing classes I'd taken when I was a teenager. And I didn't lead anyone. At least not my own age.

My God, this was stupid. It was 9:00 already and my stomach was objecting to not having eaten since lunch. With a grunt, I moved into my apartment's kitchen to resurrect last night's leftover Chinese.

We surrounded the Uruk-hai at nightfall, taking them by surprise. We speared as many as we could from a distance, picking off any strays before swooping in on horseback, swords drawn. We lost two riders. These were brute creatures. They pillaged, burnt, and killed indiscriminately.

We left none alive, knowing that they would have given us the same courtesy. When we were finished, we piled the bodies into a heap and set it ablaze. It was the only way to dispose of the filth.