A/N: Okay so I feel like death warmed over... Twice. Between my head and my stomach and my healing jaw I really don't want to get out of bed right now. If one isn't acting up the others are. Ugh. Yeah, so short Authors Note.

Now as I hope I have made obvious I write fanfiction for practice in the craft of writing. And if you like my writing style, my original works are much the same style, although varying subjects and genres. I just need to get over my own nerves and publish them. Can I get a supportive hug, please?

Like, Subscribe, Favorite, Follow, Kudos and Review, (and consider following or supporting on P-atreon and Ko-fi. Cause you know adulting.)

Much Love

JR

P.s. P-atreon and Ko-fi update: Why aren't there tiers and goals yet on either? Mainly because I'm trying to get used to writing regularly on them. I don't want to promise my patrons something and not be able to deliver. So I'm working on building slowly and getting my routine down, then I will be doing some patron-only content like polls for story design and personalized thank-yous and inspiration videos or packages that contain some of the things that inspire each story and other various things. Maybe even some world-building polls. I dunno. I'm winging it. So hang in there with me, I'm still learning, and sign up to follow me so that when the tiers and goals go live you'd be the first to know. (Edit: There is a poll up on my P-atreon page now! You can help me choose my 2021 NaNoWriMo project!)

Pps. I've caught up on posting on my older stories to Ao3. I am now free to post any deleted "scenes" and extras in conjunction with the older stories and the ones I am currently working on. They will only appear after a story is completed. And after Patrons get the first crack at them. Sorry. What do I delete? Mainly anything that needs to be edited out to meet the rating rules on this site. But also little interesting snippets that just slowed down the pacing. I will not be posting them here on this site. Apologies. But it has more "interesting" rules.

Chapter 1 Waking Up Part 3

Hours later found Sherilynn kneeling in the small chapel-like area. It was absolutely nothing like what she expected. No stained glass. No priest. There was candles. There was arches. There wasn't even a roof. It was a small space, but instead of walls, there were trees. Branches grew from one tree to the other in the shape of windows, and those same branches formed the "roof" of green leaves. In all honesty, if churches back home had been like this she might actually go more. She felt closer to, what would you call it? God? Eru? The almighty? The powers that be?

Caelann certainly did. She was kneeling in the corner, silent as a statue but her lips were moving. For some reason, she seemed to think it was important that Sherilynn see her do this. After a few minutes, she stopped and moved into a cross-legged position with her eyes closed. Resting the backs of her hands on her knees, it looked like she was meditating. Maybe that was why she wanted her to see, Lynn thought because there was a process. Ask, then meditate and get an answer? Maybe. Worth a shot.

"I don't know if you listen to these things or not." Lyn mouthed silently, trying not to disturb her meditating friend. "And I'm not quite sure how I feel about a higher power." She sighed, running her hands through her peach blossom pink hair and grimacing. She desperately needed a bath, her hair was starting to become hard. And was there mud in it? Scratching her scalp, she pulled her hands away and saw that there was indeed dirt under her fingernails.

She grimaced and rolled her eyes. "But I need answers and you're the only ones that have any. So here goes. Why am I here? What am I supposed to do? Where am I supposed to be? What's going on? I'm not the Singer y'all trained so what's going on? Help me out here okay. Just tell me what is going on."

Breathing heavily, Lyn looked to Caelann and saw that she was flickering. Sort of. Normally when she faded in and out it was a smooth transition. But this was like she was the light of a candle flickering. Well if that wasn't odd… in this world that somehow she got transported into… surrounded by things that were to her very odd to begin with. Okay, it was an oddness overload at an odd fest that was drinking oddness like it was water, but that was beside the point and she'd figure out that oddness later.

Now though, she followed the older Singer's example and folded her legs to sit and wait for an answer. Closing her eyes, Lynn took a deep breath and began focusing on it. How it flowed in and out of her lungs. She pulled air slowly into her lungs on each inhale until her lungs ached with it before letting each breath out in an equally slow steady and stream. Again and again, she forced the air in and let it out.

She was just about to give up when she felt herself floating.

"Took you long enough." A male voice growled.

Blinking her eyes open, or at least she thought she did. But when she did, it wasn't the elven chapel in Middle Earth that she saw. It was a beach. But not like any beach she had ever seen. The water glittered. Not like it did back home when the sun was shining but like every single drop of water was radiating and shimmering with light. It was blinding.

The beach itself was nearly glowing and every shell and pebble that littered the shore was nearly shimmering with life. It was like there were new colors in the world that she could never in a million years imagine. "Where am I?" She whispered.

"Complicated answer." The voice answered. Turning to it she saw a male the likes of which would make her brothers and father drool with envy. The was someone that she could, without much exaggeration at all really describe as a mountain. He was at least seven feet tall and she had seen football linemen with more fat on them. "Technically you are in three places. Your earth, sort of, considering we took you from a moment in time. Your body is in Middle Earth still. And here in mind."

"You would be Tulkas," she guessed, taking in the golden braided hair and beard. Okay, so she had asked a few questions from Caelann in the normal world.

He smirked, crossing his arms, making them bulge inhumanly. "What gave it away?" He laughed, a great booming laugh that echoed around them. His shoulders shook and she was entirely too tempted to punch his arm, a holdover from her own enormous brothers she assumed. "Anyway," he began, his laughter fading away. "You asked a question."

"I asked several."

Shrugging at the just shy of confrontational tone in her voice, he pulled her to one of the fallen tree trunks that lined the shore and had been carved into animals or seating benches or any number of other things. "First of all, both of you answer to Ulmo. I am only here because he is currently being harangued by your counterpart for the two thousand years that she hasn't been allowed back in middle earth. Her punishment for being Legolas' mother. Singers were never meant to change the world at all. Only record the songs and ballads and stories."

"To be witnesses of the big events." Lynn guessed.

"Indeed." He agreed, leaning back on an upturned and twisted root. "But while the other singers that have been brought followed that edict, your friend could not watch people suffer and do nothing, no matter how small. And somehow that suffering included Thranduil's. He would have married a suitable Noldor she-elf with less heart than a teacup and more ambition than a dragon loves gold, but he fell for Caelann's warmth and determination. I dare say that will bleed over into their son given time."

Finding herself unable to stop the smile that broke out over her face at the idea of Caelann bucking all rules and convention. She could and would do it too. Without hesitation. But she frowned at the idea that her friend's family had been split apart for years because of it. "Caelann said her job was to mitigate the pain and suffering. Not just to record it."

The corner of Tulkas' mouth twitched up, pride filling his gaze. "That's because she's a fighter." He snorted, pointing down the beach. When she turned, what she found was Caelann standing toe to toe with what defiantly could only be described as the god of the sea. It was like watching two titans squaring off. Caelann never raised her voice or a hand or anything at all that would outwardly say that she was arguing. But it was obvious to her. And as for Ulmo, hurricanes were less intimidating.

"She refused to bow to pressure when the war started. Before then she was content to just watch and learn."

"But the war changed all that," Lynn murmured with a nod. "It would for an army medic fresh from the front lines and a bad injury. It would be forefront in her mind."

"Indeed." Tulkas agreed. "So the requirements changed. The job changed. Now you, as she said, mitigate disaster. You cannot change the large events, none of us have the power to do that on our own."

Lynn nodded. "And my event to see or mitigate? I'm guessing it's Smaug."

"Five Armies actually." The Valar answered with what she would have described as an evil glint in his eye had it been her brothers. "Although if you could save people at Laketown and possibly fix relations between the Elvenking's realm and everyone else that'd be grand. Smaug will die with or without you. The battle will happen as it always would. But, and I must stress this, The Mountain, Esgaroth, the Greenwood. I know you have not looked at a map so I will explain, they hold the north. If they are not strong by the time the final battles happen, there will be no one left to save. This is why we asked the one you know as Gandalf to help the dwarves go after the mountain. If Smaug still held it… Or the goblins? Or the orcs?"

"Links in the chain." Sherilynn sighed, slumping against a crooked branch that formed the back of her seat. Her father used to say that.

"More like links in chain mail." Tulkas corrected kindly. But she understood. Abruptly he changed the topic and from the set of his jaw it was not one he was well pleased with. "Your friend is to act as your guide. Your, I think you call it, cheat codes. Unable to do anything to help other than provide you with information though. This is to be the last of her punishment." Snorting a laugh, the gleam of humor returned to his eyes. "Although I do not expect her to take that without a fight."

Nodding, she had to agree. "She's a scrapper."

"Indeed." The Valar said, pushing to his feet with a quiet groan of an active person who sat for much too long. "'Tis almost time for you to return, but before you do I give you this last bit of advice. Although the singers answer to Ulmo first and foremost, if you need any of us you must clear your mind. Your friend has more practice with this, but your mind is like disordered static. Very hard to breakthrough. And most of us are reluctant to answer, to begin with."

Jaw-dropping, she gasped. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. First, they pull them out of their own world into an entirely foreign one, and then they didn't want to answer cries for help? What the heck?

Anticipating her, Tulkas waved off her objections before they became fully formed on her tongue. "Guilty conscious, most of them. Ulmo and I are some of the only ones who never trusted Melkor. Now that he's been dealt with they are reluctant to get involved with the whole Sauron mess."

"Well, that's bull." She growled only to get a rolling laugh that sounded like thunder in return as she felt her mind fading, bringing her back to the body in the tiny chapel in the Imladris wood.

Blinking, she opened her eyes and looked around to see a furious Caelann pacing back and forth. If she could throw things or kick them, Sherilynn had no doubt that everything in the small space would be broken and overturned. "Bad news?" Thank goodness Caelann couldn't throw anything. Lynn had no interest in picking hot wax out of her hair as well as dirt.

Her friend's face was positively scarlet with repressed fury and Sherilynn began counting seconds. Either her sister in all but blood would calm down or explode.

She had gotten to ten when Caelann abruptly turned to the candles that lined one wall and screamed out all of her impotent rage at the situation. In a wave, the candles went out. Blinking, Caelann wobbled on her feet and then fell to her knees, her gown puddling about her as she stared into the darkness that flooded that side of the room at the unlit candles. "Well that's something," she gasped fading from sight.

"Caelann!" Sherilynn screamed, pushing to her own wobbly feet. Apparently talking to the Valar took more energy than she thought it would. "You there?" She asked worriedly, making her way to where she had last seen her friend.

"Still here." The Scot answered, fatigue almost dripping from her voice as the words melted together. "But that too' 'lot out o' me."

"Emergencies only then." Receiving a tired chuckle in answer, the tension and worry bled from Lynn's shoulders. If Caelann could laugh and tease, she would be okay.