A/N: Thank you so much for your reviews, mollyjr3, TheDiamondSword400, Ghost in the Computer and Rossi's Little Devil! I'm so glad you like it and now, we have chapter two!
I do not own Lord of the Rings or anything else mentioned here. All I own is Lacey and she's a bit upset about that.
Chapter Two: Crash Landing
The baby girl's name was Lacey, and her hair was the color of fire in the sun.
Every night, she would have the most amazing dreams about moving things without her hands, never realizing the miracle tapped beneath her floor.
Eventually, Lacey grew to be a young girl who enjoyed sleeping under her bed to the horror of her mother.
They decided to move Lacey from that room and renovate it.
They dug up the floorboards and Lacey cried in her guest room every night.
One day, Lacey crept away from her new room and tiptoed down the hall to where she used to sleep.
The ground was gone and so walking was much less noisy on the dirt as she strode over to the place where her bed used to be.
Lacey knelt in a similar way that the Wind did many years ago, and dug a hole in the ground.
The magical hair had long since withered away, and all that was left was magic-rich soil.
As Lacey put her hand into it, she felt a jolt of electricity and was sent flying backwards.
When she looked down at her hands, they appeared normal, but when she chose to, she could do amazing things.
The ground was hard. Rock hard. Lacey found this out in a way that wasn't much fun as she managed to land on it; from the sky. That must have hurt.
"My spine." Lacey said weakly as she rolled over onto her stomach after hitting the packed soil. She cracked her back and sighed as something popped and the pain went away. She sat up on her jean-clad knees, wondering where she was.
All around her seemed so bright and yellow, if that made sense. Dotted around her were many, many trees and it took a moment before she realized that she was in a forest. It was not like green-leaved, broad trees that grew tall and proud from rich soil at home. Instead, the leaves were skinny and sickle-shaped. The pale trunks of the trees were skinny and smooth. It was obvious to her that she wasn't in Kansas anymore, Toto.
Lacey dug her nails into the soft soil, muttering about how real it felt. The grass was soft under her feet as she finally decided to stand up, realizing that she had no shoes on. She grumbled and took a step forward, wincing as she step on a rather pointy rock.
"Mother of..." She trailed off, grumbling as she took another few steps, being careful of where she put her feet shook her head and tried to recall what happened and how she got there. It took her a moment, but she soon remembered and the sound of her swearing her face off flooded the forest for miles.
She looked down at her hands with angry green eyes, balling them into fists so tight that her veins began to bulge from under her skin.
"I thought I had better aim than that!" She wailed half-heartedly, glaring at her hands. "This is all your fault!" She said in a way that stated she was close to finishing her pity party. Lacey looked up the the sky which was barely visible beneath the canopy of gold leaves. She shielded her eyes from the golden cascades that were made from the sun shining through the leaves as she surveyed the area.
Lacey thought for a moment and then glanced back at her hands again, which had relaxed from their tight fists. She lifted her arm and focused on a tree, intending to cut a mark in the pale wood, but nothing happened. She felt a familiar sense of of worry gnawing in her stomach as she tried again with the same result.
"Work!" She commanded, gesturing her arm towards a tree. "Work now!" Again, nothing happened. Hot, angry rage directed at none save herself coursed through her veins as she walked up to the tree and hit it with all her might. Nothing happened. She hit it again and again and again.
She couldn't be stranded, she just couldn't! She had a life, almost, she had friends, not really, but still! She willed her magic to work and get her out of here but to no avail.
"Are you kidding me?" She shouted at the sky. "What kind of fantasy land has no magic! I am done!" She let out a final scream of rage and then sunk to the ground.
She sat flat on the soft earth, picking at the blades of grass and twirling them between her fingers as she willed herself to calm down.
"I have to get out of here." She told herself quietly. "I can go find some people and ask them. Maybe I'll get lucky and they won't think I'm crazy." She said, pausing a moment later to laugh.
She looked down at her dirtied jeans and T-shirt, sighing and shaking her head. She ran a hand through her hair and found it to be dirty and matted with leaves, she could only guess that her face was a mess as well. Anybody who she encountered would never believe she had magic, especially because she couldn't prove it, not to mention how homeless she probably looked.
"Alright." She said, standing up, her anger entirely gone by this point.
She would have her work cut out for her with trying to get home. Lacey had never gotten into this kind of mess before, and nobody had ever tried to do what she accidentally did. When Lacey first found out about her powers, she'd done enough research to know that science and magic didn't mix. The radio waves emitted from a telly cancelled out the sorcery Lacey had. Finding a source powerful enough would not be a walk in the park.
"Should I go left or right?" Lacey asked, cocking her head to the side. There were two paths, one leading away from her and the other also leading a way from her in the opposite direction. After a moment of thinking, she shrugged. "I guess it doesn't matter. Getting lost is a talent I seem to have." She closed her eyes a took a step to the right. Smiling brightly, she continued on down the path.
Night began to settle in as a strange, blue glow appeared in the distance. Being a fan of horror movies, Lacey knew that she would officially have no common sense if she went anywhere near that light. Only stupid girls did that and the stupid girls died first.
Instead, Lacey found a large tree nearby where she could make camp. The bark was rough against her palms as she clawed her way to one of the higher branches. She couldn't help but laugh at what her mother would think of her. The old bat didn't like it when Lacey climbed things. Then again, she didn't like anything very much at all.
The old woman sneered when Lacey mentioned getting away from the busy city five years ago. It was really her magic that drove her to leave, which she was only beginning to understand and control despite having it since she was ten. It was harder than she thought to keep it under wraps and she was certain that her mother would blow up if she ever knew about her baby girl's little "problem".
Lacey chose the castle she'd grown up in as her hiding spot and she hid herself well. She didn't own a cell phone for the first four years of her retreat, but was eventually given one by her mother as a Christmas gift. Lacey doubted it was more than a message than a present.
Lacey's room had been demolished after the little family moved away to the big city. A living room was build over the wreckage where magic still pulsed in the air and it smelled a bit like lightning. Lacey found herself doing everything is this room, as no other power source could be found for the next thousand miles.
The young woman learned quickly that magic was not infinite. She couldn't carry it with her, it existed only in structures or people in rare cases, and magic sources could be depleted as she was using it up. Magic wells were hard to come by, as the industrial revolution had tapped the ground of it accidentally while looking for oil.
Lacey still had problems with keeping her problem under wraps, as any source of magic no matter how tiny or easily exhaustible would be latched onto by her. The retreat made her feel a bit more in control and less completely insane, it was nice for her to feel that way.
Lacey stopped climbing and sat down on a tall branch, resisting the urge to look down. Lacey hated heights, but she also hated wolves a lot more and she was certain she heard a pack howling in the distance. Lacey shivered in the slight breeze and hugged her knees to her chest. Her feet hurt from stepping on so many sharp rocks and she could feel blood underneath her hands.
Lacey was not someone to cry when she got herself into sticky situations, but if one were to listen carefully, they would hear the sound of a sobbing girl high in the air.
I want to go home. Lacey thought as her stomach rumbled. I can't believe this is happening, this is so not normal. She shivered again as the sound of paws running across the ground was heard by her. They were so light that she barely heard them over her own mourning of her predicament. Lacey didn't know that wolves could run so quickly or so softly, as if they were sprinting on air.
She covered her hand with her mouth to cease her shallow breathing as she huddled deeper into the crook of the tree. The bark was rough against her back and chaffed her in a way that would leave a rash later. Lacey honestly didn't care. All she wanted was not to be found out. She didn't want to be eaten, she didn't want to die. She wanted to go back to her castle and find out what happened in Lord of the Rings safe in her living room!
Lacey strained her ears for any more sounds and leaned a bit to the left. She heard nothing a dared herself to breathe for a moment. She closed her eyes and leaned a bit farther, attempting to drown out the normal sounds of the forest. As one may know due to Lacey's inability to stand on her head, her balance was not the very best. Any doubt that one might have had in respect to that fact would have been immediately erased as poor Lacey leaned over a bit too far and ended up falling from the tree branch.
She let a single, loud scream rip from her lungs as she managed to grab hold of the branch. She clung to it tightly, ignoring the splinters of wood that dug into her palms. She looked down against her will and quickly closed her eyes. Below her, she heard the sound of wolves getting louder.
The sound of footsteps ceased and it was not a very long wait before Lacey heard voices. They were high, clear and rich voices speaking a language unlike nay she had ever heard. It sounded Welsh. Welsh and... German. Lacey let out a muffled gasp which ceased the talking for a moment. She'd heard that kind of strange, fluid language before at the beginning of the movie but she didn't know what creature it belonged to.
Lacey dared to look down when she heard the speaking stop again. She wished that they wouldn't keep doing that. Their language was calming at seemed to dull the ache of fear in her stomach. It was too dark to see anything save shadows cast from the blue light that was glowing dimly on the horizon. The shapes below her did not look evil or scary. They didn't look twisted and malformed like the Orc things she saw near the beginning of the film with the siege against Mordor, nor did they appear Hobbit-like. Dwarves they were not as their shadows were tall. That left but one creature Lacey knew about. The people below her were Elves.
"Do you speak the common tongue?" A full, deep voice with a light edge finally said. Lacey opened her mouth to sigh at the sound of English. It felt wonderful to know that she could understand at least one of them.
"Y-yes." She croaked after a moment. "If you mean English, I do." She heard a mutter ripple through the small crowd.
"Where do you hail from?" The voice asked again and Lacey stifled a throaty laugh.
"Does that matter right now? I'm on the fence of life and death right now!" She let out a small scream as her hands began to slip.
"Be still." A new voice said. This one had a heavy tone. Lacey could tell that he held more power above the rest. "I am the Marchwarden of Lothlorien. What is your name?" Lacey opened her mouth to again ask why he wanted to know this when she was clearly in need of assistance but she then glanced up at her shaking hands. She had never been more afraid in her life and at the rate her grip was slipping due to her fear, she wouldn't be alive much longer. This new Elf was attempting to calm her, and she allowed him.
"Lacey Maccabee." She said after a moment. "My name is Lacey Maccabee and I think I need some help." She clarified, trying to keep the note of fear from her voice. The new Elf, the Marchwarden did not reply straight away.
"Very well," The voice finally spoke. "But you will have to do exactly as I say." Lacey nodded but then remembered that they couldn't see her.
"Yes, I promise." She croaked.
"Good. Now, as difficult as they may be, I must ask you to let go." Lacey stared down at the shadow with wide eyes.
"B-but I'll die." Lacey said, letting a few tears slip past her radar. The voice below her chuckled.
"I assure you that you will not." He said and Lacey shook her head.
"How can I trust you?" She asked in a suspicious way.
"You cannot." The Marchwarden replied and Lacey nodded.
"Alright then," She said. "Ground, here I come... again." And with that, Lacey let go of the branch and found herself crashing to the ground for the second time that day.