The panic hit with a jolt to her stomach, sweating of her palms, and weakening of her knees. Her forest was not so big and the trees not so large and old. Josephine wasn't in her woods anymore, but then who's woods had she stumbled into?

She'd only gone out for a walk, to spend an hour or so wandering the familiar paths behind her house. There hadn't been any preparation for a hike. Her phone was on her desk and her wallet right next to it. All she's taken was a light jacket, her house key, and a single granola bar.

How could she be lost? The woods she'd gone into were barely large enough to lose sight of the surrounding field except in the fullest parts of spring, and until a half hour ago that had stayed true.

"You're shitting me, you're fucking shitting me." Her voice quivered.

Her heart was still pounding but she forced herself to take a couple of deep breaths. Losing her shit wouldn't get her home and she repeated that to herself several times before setting off again.

Pick a direction, start walking, don't get turned around.

The sun had started to go down behind her when the jolt of worry hit her stomach again. It had been at least two hours, how had she not found the edge of the woods yet? Night was coming and a chill was setting over the air. A third of her granola bar was also gone, eaten in haste on the assumption the woods wouldn't be an overnight companion.

"This is just fucking wonderful." She muttered as she stubbed her toe on a hidden rock. "Even a moron couldn't get lost in the five acre wood." The words came out as if she still believed she was in the trees behind her house, or even in her neighborhood, but doubt had begun to settle in as reason became harder and harder to find.

She continued on, more intent than ever to maintain a straight path as she stumbled over the rocks and fallen branches. When the sun slipped under the horizon and the forest was plunged into darkness she finally stopped. The moon shone only a little through the leaves and left only shadows and shapes distinguishable around her.

Curling into a ball beside a large fallen tree she pulled her arms out of her jacket and wrapped them around her chest, hoping for sleep. There were also no wolves in the trees around her neighborhood, but the howls she heard during the night suggested otherwise.

Josephine woke early with a parched throat, grumbling stomach, and aching body. With the sounds of animals all around her and the cold that settled into her bones she had slept tense and nervous, seeming to wake every half hour at an animal's cry or a snapping branch.

It was colder that day, she could already tell despite the early hour, the nip of fall that came on the breeze was unmistakable. Pulling her arms back into the sleeves of her jacket she set out again, keeping due east. Any direction should've been a safe bet, it wasn't as if she lived on the edge of the wilderness, she was bound to come across civilization sooner rather than later.

A headache grew between her eyes as the day progressed on, barely touched by the third of a granola bar she ate when the pangs in her stomach had become more painful. Dehydration was becoming her chief thought, she hadn't had any water in twenty-four hours. At the rate she was going she'd drop from that before a lack of food.

Again the day dragged on, much like the afternoon before, with nothing in sight but forest until the evening and once that came, so did break in the trees, letting her out onto a grassy plain.

Blinded by hope she ran out into the short, brown grass and looked around. Surely now she could spot a road or a house? How far had she traveled by now? Miles and miles, it had to be! But all around her it was empty. There were no roads, no cars, and no people.

She sank to the ground, shaking and sobbing, unable to come up with an explanation for what had happened. Why was she in this place? How could there be no houses around when she knew the woods she entered had been surrounded by them?

Her second night was spent just inside the tree line, trying to find refuge from the rain which had come just after nightfall. It was cold and shivers racked her sore joints, but at least she was able to collect some water to drink and wished she had a way to store it beyond a cupped portion of her rain resistant jacket..

By morning she hadn't slept, but her headache had abated some. The water had done a bit to bolster her spirits but her sleepless night attempted to drag them right back down again.

Still, she walked. Her wet socks rubbed the blisters on her heels, a product of her cheap tennis shoes. Her stomach grumbled painfully once again and the sun did little to warm her through her damp clothes.

As the day wore on her heart grew as heavy as her tired feet. She was going to die out there in the grassland and clumps of trees if she didn't find help. Her legs shook with hunger at every step and she regretfully ate the last piece of granola. There wasn't a thing she could think of that she wouldn't trade for her bed and her refrigerator. All she wanted was to see the bland siding of her apartment building again, with the noisy upstairs neighbor and drafty bedroom.

Josephine had just begun to think about what was in her fridge and what the first thing she would eat would be when she heard a noise that made her stop in her tracks. Not the sound of an animal or the rustling of the grass in the wind, not even the soft rumbles of her empty stomach. It was a voice, a low voice in the distance but it was silent just as quickly as it had come. She was half convinced she'd hallucinated it when it came again, a soft leisurely tune rising over the crest of the hills to the south. If the land hadn't been so deserted she probably wouldn't even have heard it, but now that she had, her legs pressed forward, switching direction to find the one responsible for the voice. It was a human being, the first human being she would see in almost three days which meant food, water, a way home!

Stumbling and tripping, she slid down the side of the hill, landing on her ass right where she'd heard the voice, finding nothing but a few thick trees and scattered rocks. Nothing dissimilar to what she'd been walking by for hours. Disappointment ached in her chest as she looked around frantically, not ready to believe she'd imagined the noise. "Hey! Is anyone there?" Her tone was sharp, demanding the voice to be real. "I've been wandering around this god damn place for three days I didn't imagine you!" The sentence caught in her throat as the glade stayed empty and quiet. Tears pooled in her eyes, though not for the first time that day. "I didn't hallucinate you!"

From the shade of the trees a pair of grey eyes watched her carefully. They were days of travel from any village and she was not dressed for it. She had no cloak, nor supplies, which explained her desperate pursuit of him when she'd heard him singing to himself a few moments before. She could have been from a larger group, set upon by brigands or orcs perhaps. It wouldn't have been unheard of and regardless of his task, he could not leave her.

He stepped out from the shadows and made himself known. "You did not imagine it, my lady."

Josephine jumped quite noticeably and stared at the figure now standing in front of her. With one glance at him she realized she'd been more certain of her sanity when she'd heard the voice than when she could see who's voice it was. Now she was hallucinating about fictional characters rescuing her. She rubbed at her eyes with her dirty hands and looked back up at him. He was still and keeping his distance from her, waiting for her to make the next move.

Her laugh cracked dryly in her throat and she bent her head forward to rest on her knees. "God, Josephine, this is how you decide to torture yourself before you die? You have to be unoriginal enough to imagine the character who's name is actually 'hope'?" Her shoulders shuddered as she closed her eyes and started to cry again. Things were always bad when you started to hallucinate, it would probably be an easier way to go if she just accepted it and didn't torture herself any longer, at least the glade was sunken into the terrain and somewhat sheltered from the wind because of it. She was just so tired...

His brow furrowed slightly as he tried to understand what she was speaking of. Her accent was clipped and rough more like a Dwarf's than that of the race of men and she seemed to ignore him as quickly as she'd jumped at his presence. He had come across weak travelers before, they would stumble and babble and see things that were not there, but he had never had one disregard him so.

Moving slowly he came to her and knelt, pulling his waterskin from his belt. She said she'd been travelling for three days and but for the rain the night before, he doubted she'd found any other water during that time with how her cracked lips sank in on themselves. Her eyes still closed, she hadn't seemed to notice him there and he gently laid a hand on her shoulder.

The darkness had surrounded her all too quickly as she tried to figure out, just one last time, what had happened to her. How had she wandered so far only to find nothing but more empty land. There wasn't a place anywhere near her home that she could walk for three days and see nothing so how had it happened? The darkness was the same though, the heaviness of her body sinking down into it. But then a hand touched her shoulder and her eyes snapped open again. He was kneeling in front of her, and somehow still towering over her despite his hunched position. His hand was on her shoulder, she could feel it. Were hallucinations that realistic? Were they so persistent and did they also smell so...irrefutably like someone who's gone days without bathing?

Josephine's mind snapped into overdrive as an idea came to her, one that made her out to be just about as crazy as someone who hallucinated about fictional characters but somehow began to make sense. The vast expanse of unpopulated land, the lack of light pollution and airplanes above her. No, no no no that wasn't possible it wasn't possible at all! He was a character, a fictional character and nothing more.

She jerked back away from him, looking confused and afraid. It didn't make any sense but at the same time, nothing had made sense since she'd gotten lost and him being a real person could start to explain it.

Aragorn withdrew slightly, holding his hands up, palms open. "I will not harm you." She had seemed confused, but rather unworried about him before, willing to let her guard down so easily in his presence at least until he had touched her. Startled, perhaps. Uninjured, he hoped. Given her rambles and erratic behavior she would not get far without assistance.

She'd backed away from him slightly when she'd pulled away, the feel of his hand on her shoulder still fresh in her spinning mind. He was real...he was...What else could it be? Dehydration, hunger, and lack of sleep was what it was. That's what it had to be because Aragorn was definitely not real. She was running on next to no water so she was hallucinating one of the best survivalists in her library to come and save her. "You're not...you're just. No, no no I'm definitely losing it."

That was what she kept telling herself, but of course that kind of logic didn't help her explain her long journey nearly as much as his presence did. If Aragorn was real then that would mean she was in Middle-Earth. If she was in Middle-Earth that would explain how she could walk so far and for so long without seeing anyone or anything. She was also very lucky to have run into Aragorn instead of something else if that were the case. But there was still that little nagging voice saying Middle-Earth wasn't real. Saying the man crouched in front of her, holding his hands open with a furrowed brow, was only a figment of her imagination. Josephine couldn't believe that voice, not really, as level headed and true as it made itself out to be.

Lightheaded, her shaking hand came up and gripped at her hair when she realized she was believing her eyes. "Oh my god...oh my...fuck! Fuck! Oh my god this isn't happening." She needed to calm down. She'd already worried herself half to death the past three days but it wasn't exactly news she could take lightly.

With slow movements, making sure she was watching, he stretched out his hand again with his waterskin open for her to take. The day was late and the tree ringed dell was protective enough, he would stay there for the night and could afford to take things slowly. There would be no harm in taking her with him to Bree, from there she could find safety and hopefully even a way home. He could not delay his own task beyond that.

"You must be thirsty." He spoke softly with a dip of his chin.

His voice was just enough to cut through her panicked succession of thoughts such as where she was and rather, when she was, how she got there and why she was there at all. His tone was low and soft and the water skin in his outstretched hand looked like it wasn't even half empty yet. Josephine was only slightly less dizzy and shaky than she'd been during her ramble but that didn't stop the ache of thirst from being crystal clear, as crystal clear as that water probably was...

Mind made up with little choice but to believe he was real she reached for the water skin, taking great care not to spill it, the same care not being taken once it actually reached her lips. Once she felt the smooth water run over her cracked lips and down her sore throat she tipped it further and some spilled down her chin. Josephine wasn't sure she'd ever tasted water so wonderful in all her life and it took a very great effort to limit herself to a few gulps, measly in comparison to what she was craving.

A smile tugged at his lips as she drank but it quickly sank as he thought further on her situation. Now that he was closer he could see how strangely she was dressed, how oddly she spoke, and how her fear seemed not to be so much from hunger and brigands but from…something else he could not place. He would have to think on it as the night drew on and hope that she would have answers for his questions. "Where were you going that would bring you to be stranded here?"

Where had she been going? Precisely nowhere when she'd set out, nowhere but around and then back home for tv and a snack. It made answering his question difficult, no, impossible because she'd have to completely explain herself to him and then she wouldn't be the only one who thought she was crazy. But Josephine also didn't like the idea of lying to him. As a character she had a great deal of respect for him so now sitting in front of him and knowing he was real made it even harder to consider misleading him. Also she was pretty sure he'd be more likely to believe her crazy truth than a well educated lie. "I was out for a walk."

She looked him over for what seemed to be the twentieth time since he'd stepped out of the trees and tried to work out a tactful way to explain more. For every moment or two of clarity she had there was a moment of disbelief. If she glanced away from him it wasn't for long in case he disappeared on her. In fact she was afraid he would. If he did then she would be alone again. The water she tasted would only have been a dream and she'd die there in that glade, there wasn't enough strength left in her legs to pull herself up over the hill anymore. "And the woods by my apartment aren't big. I should've been out of them in a half hour but then they kept going on and on. I didn't get out of them until the next day and then I was out here and there was just grass and I'm nowhere near home and now I'm pretty sure it's not someplace I can just walk back to." The words she finally came up with spewed out of her mouth in a somewhat garbled mess and she didn't even bother to try and hide the quiver in her voice. "Where are we?" She finished with some small amount of finality.

"North of Dunland. Some days from Bree." He offered, trying to process her explanation. If she had gone for a simple walk near her home she would have had to be out much longer than a few days. Had she taken provisions when she left? Such a simple stroll shouldn't have warranted such preparations but here she was, at least a week from any known town or settlement. She was either lying, mad, or offering him a very strange truth. The fire in her eyes, the one that became a little brighter every time she looked at him made him want to believe the latter. "I will see you to Bree, from there you may find your way home." After a moment he asked another question. "Where is your home?"

Her family...Oh god her family they were back home. She'd been missing for three days; they were probably losing their minds! Her parents would've called her brothers and sister and her grandparents and everyone would be worried. The thought made her stomach churn and her face pale. How the hell was she supposed to get back when she didn't even know how she ended up there? Those damned woods sucked her into some godforsaken mythical land full of comforting rangers and flesh eating orcs so she could wander around to die and never see her family again. "Nebraska." She finally blurted out, gaining some control over her stomach. "And if you know where that is then I'll eat my god damn shoes." Finished off with a resentful hand of sarcasm she loosened what had become a very firm grip on the water skin and pushed away at thoughts of her family. She'd think about that tomorrow, Josephine decided. Now, this afternoon was definitely not the time to be dealing with much of anything. Her thoughts were too muddled and confused to be useful anyway. "You can't walk me back there so don't bother asking where it is." Her body hunched over her knees much like it had when he'd touched her shoulder to first offer her water. Energy she hadn't had much of to waste was all but used up after her revelation. As much as she needed to know and as much as he wanted to know, Josephine hoped he wouldn't ask many more questions.

A name he didn't recognize from any book or map, and a place she said he could not take her back to. Every word that came from her mouth seemed only to create more questions and less answers. Perhaps she was still confused and once her thirst had been quenched and her belly filled she would have more to say?

"We will camp here for the night and perhaps you can tell me more of this place to which you cannot return. You may call me Strider."

Strider, among nearly half a dozen other names he had or would have, all of which she knew. That was definitely something she would keep from him until...someday. No, right now she needed food and sleep. "Josephine." She sniffed and rubbed her arm across her eyes, sitting heavily on the fact that she'd just introduced herself to the future king of Gondor in the middle of a glade in what was for all intents and purposes, the middle of fucking nowhere. Which put her odds at running into anyone, especially him, too low to measure. Everything she gleaned from that train of thought left her feeling nauseous again. Josephine didn't want to think about how set up she might've been to get involved with someone as important to the war as Aragorn, or instead how incredibly lucky she'd been to find him and what a tiny change in her path might've done to keep that from happening. She couldn't help her eyes from scanning across his face again in slight disbelief, looking for the reassurance of his solidity.

Josephine. He let it pass through his mind several times, trying to think if he'd heard anything like it before. But there was no recognition. Perhaps she was right, perhaps this Nebraska was a place to which she could not go. "Josephine." He repeated, pleased when she looked back up at him when he said it. Despite its strangeness, Aragorn decided he quite liked her name.

With one hand Aragorn unlatched the pin to his cloak, and with the other he took the water skin from his new companion. His eyes softened to show that he posed no threat, and very carefully with slow movements brought the cloak around Josephine's shoulders, huddling the extra fabric to her front. "I won't go far. He spoke softly, keeping his eyes trained on the woman's tearstained face. "You'll be safe here." It wasn't a question. He needed to collect kindling, and Josephine needed to know that she wasn't being abandoned.

You'll be safe here. In her mind she had shortened it to the idea that she'd simply be safe in general. It was a notion that had become foreign to her over the past few days and something, she reminded herself, that she needed to put more stock in at least while he was there. Aragorn's rough hands tugged carefully at the edges of his cloak to pull the thick fabric around her shoulders. It was stiff and very big around her curled frame but the warmth was anything but unwelcome.

Josephine didn't want him to leave, the feeling started in her gut and clenched at her throat as he stood, making her feel like a child who didn't want their parents to leave them with the babysitter. But he seemed to know she feared him leaving. His grey eyes offered a gentle reassurance that had no doubt given others comfort in the past just as it did for her. She nodded to him and he gave a slight dip of his chin before turning towards the trees to gather wood for a fire.

There was so much she needed to be thinking of and planning for. The conclusion wasn't a light one to come across but she had a feeling it was one she needed to deal with much sooner than she was ready for. But until that time, her stomach was aching with hunger and her body was almost too tired to move. All she could hope to do that evening was to rest and to resist staring at Aragorn in disbelief for the entirety of it.