The Lord of the Rings Lovers

Chapter One: Unfamiliar Surroundings

     Rose opened her eyes slowly and blinked as fresh sunlight washed over her face. She pulled herself up into a sitting position and looked around. To her amazement and surprise she found she was in a bed! This was, in turn, in a very small room, or at least, it seemed as if it should be small. The room was very homely and quite old fashioned. In fact, Rose noticed, there seemed to be nothing modern about it at all! There were candles instead of lamps, wooden shutters on the windows (which were open at this particular moment). Rose carefully climbed out of the bed, reluctantly as it was extremely comfortable and cosy. She walked over to the mirror, and gasped. Staring back at her was not the familiar green-eyed, dark red-haired face she saw every morning, but a face with long fair curly hair, blue eyes and rosy cheeks. She started at her reflection open-mouthed then jumped as she heard a noise outside the window. It sounded like metal banging together softly. She peered out of the window cautiously, as not to be seen, and had to clamp her hand over her mouth to refrain herself from screaming. There was someone there, in the garden, gardening, but not just anyone.

    'It can't be,' she thought to herself, 'not, not Sam. Not the Samwise Gamgee outside here, gardening! I must be dreaming. That's it, I'm dreaming, and soon I'm going to wake up and I'll be at home and none of this will have ever happened.' She smiled, as if to reassure her self, then a thought emerged at the back of her mind.

    'But what if it is real. What if something happened when the limousine crashed and we all got sent…here. To Middle Earth, to The Shire!'

    'Don't be stupid,' said the more sensible side of her conscience, 'It's just a dream!'

    "No," she said aloud, "I know this is real." Another thought struck her, 'I wonder where the others are, and how am I going to find them if they're all different people! Ok, think about this,' she told herself, taking a deep, calming breath, 'if I took the place of Rose Cotton (supposedly that's who she was) then the others must be someone who is related in some way to the characters they like! Of course, it's so simple!' She hurried over to the wardrobe and opened it. It was full of dresses all with some frilly undergarment that went with them. Rose groaned. She'd never been one for dresses and especially frills.

    "I suppose they're not too bad," she muttered, "after all, I don't really have much choice." She picked out a blue one, if she had to wear a dress, it might as well be the right colour. The dress had a corset-type top with frilly sleeves and a plain blue floor-length skirt along with a, yet again frilly, underskirt. She looked at it doubtfully. It didn't look very big. To her surprise, it was a perfect fit, but then again, she was a hobbit now, not a human. The idea would take some getting used to. Once she was dressed, Rose cautiously opened the small hobbit-bedroom door and peered outside. To her left was a tunnel going on, it seemed, forever with many more turning along the way. To her right was a much shorter tunnel leading to a very cosy-looking room. She decided to go this way. At length, her face appeared round the side of the door and looked about the room she had seen at the end of the tunnel.

    'This is stupid,' she thought, 'I shouldn't be creeping about the place as if I were a burglar, I live here!'

     After a pause, she straightened up and walked into the room. There were two huge comfy-looking chairs set by the fireplace, which was currently occupied by a few burning embers, crackling gently. On the opposite side of the room there was another doorway leading to the kitchen. Rose suddenly remembered she hadn't eaten for hours and began to feel rather empty. Just then, there was the sound of a door opening and someone entering the house-No, hobbit hole, she corrected her self. It was Sam. He came in through the doorway to the kitchen, which must have led outside, looking very hot and exhausted and covered in soil from the garden.

    "Hello Rose." He said, coming over to her and kissing her on the cheek. Rose was speechless for a moment and then found her voice,

    "Hello Sam." She said, rather faintly.

    "Is something wrong?" Asked Sam, seeing her faraway expression.

    "Oh, no I'm fine!" She said, coming back to her senses. She was more than fine, in fact. She was in Middle Earth, in The Shire, with Sam who had just kissed her! This was her dream come true!

    "But…" Rose continued, after part of her brain reminded her she shouldn't be here.

    "What's wrong?" Sam looked concerned.

    "Well, it's rather hard to explain and quite unbelievable."

    "Go on," said Sam, growing ever more confused and intrigued.

    "I… I shouldn't exactly be here."

    "What do you mean?"

    "I'm not who you think I am. I don't belong here. I'm not from this world." Rose knew this sounded extremely ridiculous but it was the truth. As much as she wanted to stay here, in Middle Earth, it wasn't her home.

     She continued to explain what had happened since the morning of the meet-up and the film premier and everything up until this very moment. All the while Sam was silent and listened.

    "…So you see, I have to find everybody until I can go back home." Rose finished finally, then added, "I know it's hard to believe but I really am telling the truth."

Sam stared at her with a blank expression.

    "I knew you wouldn't believe me," said Rose, after a long silence.

    "No…I do." Rose looked up at Sam, "I do believe you."

    "Y-you do?" Said Rose.

     Sam smiled, "yes."

    'Mithrandir…" Rose thought to her self, "he believes me!'

    "But why?" She asked. Sam smiled again and rolled up his sleeve revealing a tattoo on his wrist. It was the number 9 written in Elvish.