An alternate take on Maddie's first travels in Middle Earth. This takes place somewhere between Leurbost and Rivendell and not long before Bilbo's 111th birthday party.

Alternate Start

I couldn't believe how far this forest went on. Leurbost was days behind me but it felt like I'd been marching for years, and I'd be marching for a dozen more at the rate I was going. Why hadn't I taken up jogging when my coworker joined that running group? Why hadn't I ever taken a wilderness survival course or even paid attention in girl scouts?

I was so busy beating myself up over my former sedentary life that I jumped a foot in the air when I heard a loud BANG and then what was likely a curse in Westron.

"Hello?" I shouted immediately, before realizing it might have been a gun that had gone off–no wait, they didn't have the technology for guns unless I was back home. What could have made that noise then? "Hello?"

No one answered, but I was quite sure the noise had gone off on my left, so I stumbled and climbed up the short but steep hillock through the bramble to find at the crest that the far side of the hill dipped into a beautifully hidden green carpet of grass and a big tree with low-hanging branches. Beside it was a wagon and a grazing horse, and under that shady tree was an old man with a long white beard wearing all grey, his pointy blue hat askew.

"Hello?" I called again. "Grey man?" What was the word for old? Butterbur had taught it to me…

He looked up at me, then back down to the long, rounded stick he was fiddling with disinterestedly. I jogged down the hill and slowly approached him, wondering if I was mad to talk to a random stranger I'd met off the road, or if I hadn't just lucked out. It had been getting lonely after a little more than a week of no one to talk to.

"Hello? I am Maddie."

He waved his hand at me and said something I couldn't understand. He seemed to be screwing the top on to the long, hollow stick in his hand, and not knowing what to do I watched him fumble with it before something connected and it stuck.

"There we go. Now, you said you are Maddie, yes?" I stared at him uncomprehendingly. His eyes were startlingly wise, even for a man of his age, and it pinned me for a moment. "Well, what in Middle Earth is a young woman doing out here?"

I was pretty sure he'd said my name, but the rest was lost to me. "I speak no Westron," I said instead.

"No Westron?" His bushy eyebrows went up, one disappearing entirely under the brim of his hat. The edge was scorched a bit from the explosion, though I couldn't see what caused it. "Hm, and where are you from?"

"Where?" I repeated. "Bree."

He looked skeptical, but I wasn't sure why except that maybe he hadn't asked me where I'd come from at all. "Going where?" I asked him.

"I'm off to the Shire. That's out West," he said more slowly, but I still hadn't caught anything understandable. "And you?"

"Me going? Home."

"Where is home?"

"America." I crossed my fingers behind my back that this mad old man might know something. Alas, he furrowed those brows, looked at the wooden tube in his hand, and stood up with more agility than I expected.

"I have never heard of that place. Is it far?" he asked, stooping to look down at me a little harder. I got the feeling he wanted to tell if I was lying.

"Far?" I asked stupidly.

"Long walk," he supplied. He relaxed back a bit on to his knobbly staff that had a strange crystal in the top. Pointy hat. Staff and crystal. Long robes. Long beard.

Dwarfism was a real condition. Tiny, fat little adults were… well, strange, but not impossible But magic wasn't real. Surely not, I thought to myself. But I wasn't so sure actually, because hadn't I been at my apartment that night, with a bag of fruit and plans to watch Netflix? And then hadn't I suddenly appeared in a field of grass in a world that was way bigger than I could have imagined?

"Very long," I said quietly, watching him add the hollow tube to a whole stack of them under the blanket in the wagon. Many had bright colors painted on them, some shaped with wings or designs. Were they staffs also? Were there whole communities of these wizard-like men? Did he sell these?

"What?" I pointed at one, moving to poke it except he batted my hand away and snapped at me unintelligibly. When I just looked confused he used his staff to draw a picture in the dirt of a line going up and up and then BOOM in the sky. Fireworks!

"I understand!" I said delighted, and he actually smiled under all that hair. So that's what the bang sound was. Apparently they had fireworks in this world. And men dressed like wizards sold them. "Sell these?" I asked.

"Oh no," he said cheerfully. "For a birthday party."

"Birthday party?" I asked, but he ignored me and settled his wizard staff in the front seat of the wagon and whistled to the horse.

He said something to me as he pulled the horse around, but I didn't understand any of it until he said, "Tell me about America."

"America? It is home. Big. Mountains and water," I said, realizing how limited my vocabulary was again. My description was going to be useless. "I don't know here. Very long far," I added uncertainly.

"This is Middle Earth. Also called Arda."

I shrugged. Neither of those names were familiar to me.

"Hmmm…." he said, giving me a good look over. He seemed to be judging me as I stood there in my tattered dress, scuffed shoes, and loose bag. I didn't make a very remarkable sight, but I hoped I looked pathetic enough to give a lift to. "Yes well, I could use more paper for decorating these, and perhaps someone to carve that big one into a dragon shape. Bilbo would appreciate that," he muttered to himself, while I looked on blankly.

"Perhaps you had best come with me to the Elves then," he said more loudly.

"What?"

"Come with me. To the Elves," he said more slowly with extra enunciation.

He didn't seem so terrifying, maybe a little dotty, but I found myself trustingly getting into the wagon nonetheless. Something about the blue eyes that studied me so curiously. Even if he was a crackpot wizard or just dressed like one, I felt better traveling with someone else who might be able to help me. Maybe this place called Elves would have answers.