Hey guys! I'm back. About 23 or so of you have read this, so I'm going to take that as a complement! I hope that this gets as popular as some of my other stuff, because I honestly love this story, but as long as some of you are happy reading this, that's enough, right? Let me know if you have any feedback. I hope you enjoy chapter two!
Disclaimer: If I owned LOTR, I would have enough money to pay off so many debts. And I really wouldn't need an education, because I would be famous enough without it! So, obviously, I don't own it…. All rights reserved to Tolkien.
Chapter Two.
"I will bring you back to my fellowship for now." Aragorn declared, and Aisley nodded. Go with the crazy sword dude, or be lost in these woods forever? Tough choice…
"Yes. That sounds fine." Aisley shrugged. Might as well get the lay of the land. Find someone who knows which way America is.
"Lady Aisley, I must warn you. You cannot travel far with our fellowship. Even being near us will put you in grave danger."
"That's fine. I do not plan on travelling with you, once I find my way to America."
"Wait here. I should warn my friends of your presence." Aragorn declared. "And another thing- if we are in a public village, you shall call me by the name Strider. Do you understand?"
"What, are you a wanted criminal?" Aisley asked, stepping away. Freaking crazy dude!
"Far from it. I am a king who has abandoned my throne. There are those who would kill me if they knew who I truly was." Aragorn replied, and Aisley blinked.
"Was not expecting that…" She muttered. "A king, huh? So, are you English then? Dang, I've still got a whole ocean to cross. But if you're English, why couldn't you understand me?"
"I am not English, as you say. I am heir to the throne of Gondor."
"Not England?"
"Gondor."
"Are you sure?"
"GONDOR!"
"Ok, sheesh! King of Gondor, got it." Aisley rolled her eyes.
"Not so loud!" he cried, clamping a hand over her mouth. Aisley licked it, and he pulled it away, wiping it on his shirt disgustedly. She made a face as well.
"Your hand tastes like dirt." She complained.
"Are you trying to get me killed? Stay here!" Aragorn demanded, and rushed off. Aisley rolled her eyes. Adults. The crazy ones were just like all the others.
Whatever. She could roll with this weirdo until she found America. Just like ol' Chris Columbus. But Columbus didn't have some certifiable guy with a sword as his guide.
Well, then again…
Aisley leaned back on a tree, waiting for this Aragorn guy to get back to her. She hadn't really had a chance to assess the situation yet, but now that she was alone, she really didn't want to think too hard. Mostly because she was stranded in some foreign land. She inched away from where she was leaning as she noticed a spider crawling towards her. Apparently, though, the spider was the least of her worries. She let out a shriek as she stepped back into a trip-wire, a rope seizing around her ankle. Within seconds she was dangling upside down with 9 men (she thought men, but some of them were way too short. Maybe they were midgets?) pointing weapons at her.
"Um… hiya." She declared. Aragorn was the first to lower his weapon, recognizing the girl caught in the trap. The other's followed his lead, and Aragorn cut her down from the tree. She landed nimbly on her feet (which is to say she stumbled but managed not to fall. With Aisley that was about the best you got) and waved at the others.
"Friends, this is Lady Aisley, daughter of Grant, from the land of Ire." Aragorn introduced in both Elvish and whatever language he was using earlier, so that Aisley could understand him as well. "She only speaks Elvish, though she is no Elleth."
"That isn't true!" Aisley argued. "I also speak English, French, German, Italian, Norse, Latin, Spanish, Japanese, and of course my native Gaelic."
"Ah, but none of us understand any of those." Aragorn replied, chiding her as if she were a child. "Are you sure they really exist?"
"Would I be fluent in them if they did not?" Aisley asked defensively, and began to rant in all eight languages angrily. Her thoughts often switched back and forth between languages, but she rarely spoke them all. There were, of course, times when there was no English word for what she was trying to say, so she used a Gaelic one instead, but for the most part she kept her languages straight.
The small red-haired man with the axe asked something that Aisley could not make out, but Aragorn generously translated for her. The little man thought that she was a raving lunatic. Her. With all her multilingual brilliance, he thought she was the lunatic?
Not likely.
"What business does a mortal girl like yourself have wandering around Middle Earth alone?" The pale blonde man asked. Thankfully he spoke Elvish, so Aragorn had no need to translate. What were the odds? "Especially in perilous times as this."
"There was an accident." Aisley replied sadly. "I have lost the people I was travelling with when we crashed. I do not know if anyone else is alive. When I awoke I was alone." She glanced at the ground sadly, until the man's words clicked in her brain. "Wait, Middle Earth? Do you mean Middle America? That's one of the twelve realms you know. If I'm in Middle America, Seattle shouldn't be too far away."
"No. I meant what I said, mortal."
"Aisley is fine." Aisley interrupted, tiring of this man's condescending 'mortal' speak. What, did he think he was immortal or something?
"Aisley Elizabeth Maguire, you are no longer in your world." The old man said with a sad smile. "There is a chance you might find your way back, but it would be wise to pay attention and learn all that you can about your new home."
Aisley nodded. At least one person here made sense. Even if he was talking in lies. Because she was so finding her way to Seattle, weather they liked it or not.
But how did he know her full name?
The men all consulted in the language Aisley didn't understand, and Aragorn didn't bother to translate this time. Aisley strained her ears for linguistic patterns, picking up a random word (she hoped) here and there, until they abruptly switched back to Elvish.
"Well, we cannot take her with us. You know what we carry. The burden Frodo endures. It would endanger her." The condescending blonde man declared.
"She is wounded, Legolas. Have heart." Aragorn defended. At the mention of her wound, Aisley's stomach turned. She could still feel the hot, sticky, blood churning down her face, but she remained calm, remembering that head wounds bled the most. Even if she was still rather dizzy. "She will not be travelling with us long- only until we reach a village we can safely leave her. Once our journey is done, there will be plenty of time to teach her to adjust to Middle Earth."
"Adjust to Middle Earth? Hang on, I'm not staying here. You've got your quest thingy, and I've got to find my gran! She'll freak if I don't show up. Tarynn said something about you guys… and a ring? Yeah, I never paid much attention to her obsessive tangents, but I know you've got a lot of saving the world to do, and I'm not going to stop you. I'll just be finding my way to Seattle on my own."
It took a moment for the three men who could understand her to decipher her speech, seeing as a lot of the stuff she was talking about wasn't exactly classic Tolkien Elvish speech, and had been adapted by fanboys and girls to grow into a language people could fluently speak in her modern day. They got the jist of her speech though.
"What do you know of the ring?" Legolas roared, his knife at her throat before she could blink.
"That it's evil?" Aisley guessed quickly, trying to stave off her death. She should have paid more attention to Tarynn! "And that you're trying to throw it in the fires of Mount Kilimanjaro so you can save Mordoom from that guy with the eye in the sky? Or maybe it was Mount Vesuvius. This isn't, by any chance, Pompeii, is it?"
Evidently it was enough for Aragorn, because he rested his hand on Legolas' arm, and the man sheathed his knife with a second glance at Aisley. She waved at him.
"Aisley, if there is a way to return you to your home, we will find it, after we complete our task." The old man declared, turning to the others. "For now we will tend to her wound, and leave her in civilization as quickly as possible."
Aisley, unfortunately, had no choice but to agree.
