"Sigh."
That's how life seemed to be for Miss Amy Seru, a Californian beauty with long, shimmering, blonde hair that fell down to her knees, and big, bright aquamarine eyes that sparkled like delicate crystals and glowed in the dark. She was young, pretty, popular, smart, a good cook, and rescued helpless puppies. But still, her life was just one big-
"Sigh."
Yep. Life sure did suck for Amy.
"Sigh. Sigh, sigh, sigh," Amy sighed some more. She had just see the new Lord of the Rings movie and had fallen deeply in 'love' with the most beautiful man she had ever seen in her seventeen years of existence: a tall, blonde, gorgeous Elf named Legolas. Orlando Bloom to some; "Hottie" to her. And twenty thousand other fangirls, but that's beside the point.
She had gone home and poured out her excitement about the movie to her parents. They had seemed very happy about this, and then had suggested something that turned the look of rapture on Amy's pretty face to one of horror:
"Why don't you try reading the books now?"
Their suggestion was based on the grounds that, when they were kids, the books had been very popular and wonderful to read. They claimed that it was actually some guy named TOLKIEN who came up with Middle-earth, NOT Peter Jackson, and that this Tolkien fellow had created a whole history for the cultures and races of his world that was beautiful and fascinating to read and study. Amy just wanted to ogle hot guys, not actually enrich her mind. The very idea seemed presumptuous to her. For some reason, though, her parents had thought it to be perfectly logical.
"I think you would especially enjoy reading about Faramir," her father had said with a nod of his balding head.
"You would," her mother had assured her. "He's such a sweet man: so caring and sensitive. I used to have a crush on him when I was younger," she had said with a soft sigh and a slight smile. "And I also think you would like Éowyn a lot. She's so strong and much more well-developed than Arwen—not that I don't think Arwen was valuable to the plot. It's just that Éowyn did and suffered through so much more. You know, Éowyn actually killed—"
"Mother! Daddy!" Amy had shouted. "Don't ruin the endings of the movies for me!"
"So…you're not going to read the books?" her father had said incredulously.
"Daddy!" Amy giggled. "You're silly! Reading is for losers and little kids! Not for cool, mature adults! Like me!"
And with that, she had flounced off to download half-naked pictures of Orlando Bloom.
Was it mentioned that Amy was grossly misinformed?
After finding all the information about Orlando Bloom that she could ("Oh, he was born in Kent? An Englishman! Yummy…Moved to London, blah, blah, blah…) and downloading some two hundred-odd pictures of Legolas in various positions, Amy was lying on her bed, bored out of her mind.
Knock-knock.
"Come in," Amy said dejectedly.
Her mother entered, a smile on her face—and three books in her hands. Amy wrinkled her nose in disgust. "What are THOSE?" she asked, recoiling from the books as one would do from a venomous snake, as if expecting the books to leap from her mother's hands and bite her.
"These are the three parts of The Lord of the Rings, Amy sweetie," her mother responded, handing a green book entitled The Fellowship of the Ring to Amy. "Since you liked the movie so much, I thought that you might enjoy reading the books. Just give 'em a try, hun."
Sighing yet again, Amy took the book and opened in up to a random page.
" ' "The stroke on the left might be a G-rune with thin branches,' said Strider." Eugh, who wants to read about that scummy Ranger?" Amy said. Amy's mother twitched slightly, but said nothing.
"Thanks, Mother, but I don't think I'll be reading these anytime soon," Amy said, raising a perfectly-sculpted eyebrow and depositing the book on her bedside table.
"Well, I'll just leave them here, in case you change your mind," her mother said through gritted teeth (she had been a very avid Tolkien reader in her younger days, and still clung to the 'outdated' idea that reading something was much more rewarding than actually watching it. That, and Aragorn had been her favorite after Faramir).
"Right," Amy said as her mother walked out of the room.
" 'Scummy Ranger' my foot," the woman muttered as she closed the door behind her.
Amy cast a sidelong glance at the books. Pfft. Books. Reading was stupid. Reading was a waste of time. That, and the words often confused her. It was hard to distinguish between "they're", "there", and "their", after all!
But, then again…only the best books got made into movies.
With a sigh, Amy picked up The Fellowship of the Ring once more and flipped through it until she came to something she recognized: the doors of the Mines of Moria. Was that what they were called? She couldn't remember; she had been too busy trying to see Legolas. God, that Dwarf annoyed her! He was always standing in front of Legolas and she could never get a full view of her Elfie!
Absentmindedly, she traced her finger over the designs of the trees that curled around the two columns, then she flipped to the next page. Italicized words stuck out:
"Annon edhellen, edro hi ammen!
Fennas nogorthrim, lasto beth lammen!"
"Wasn't that what Gandalf said?" she wondered aloud. She tried saying the incantation herself: "Amon edhelem, edtro hiare! Fenass norgorthrim, lasto beth l...lammen!"
This accomplished nothing, just as it had done in book and movie.
"Hmph." Scowling, Amy turned back to look at the Mine-doors again (hadn't the Dwarf said something about the Doors of Durin? Ah, who cared). To her great shock (and ours, OF COURSE), the door was now growing bright silver.
Thinking quickly (and blowing several brain cells as a result), Amy did what any sensible person who had read The Lord of the Rings would do:
"Melon."
The book flashed with bright silver, marring Amy's face temporarily by contracting her pupils to a practically unheard of size. For an unknown reason, she swooned, and knew no more.
Coming Up: Amy finds herself in a very much-known world in a very peculiar situation, and a familiar one at that. No, she's not dead. She'll wish she was.
Remember the Fords,
Simbelmynë
~Simmí~
