When I awoke, I was lying in bed. I could feel the soft pillow below me, and a sheet over my body. Good, I thought, when I remembered what I dreamt. I am at home, in my bed.
And then I opened my eyes.

This was not my bed.

I was in a large room, filled with light that came from big windows. I looked around, and the interior was incredible.
Beautifully painted wall hangings. The floor made of finest wood; etched. The ceiling seemed to be an intricate artwork of woven leaves.
And on the chair, next to me, sat a woman. She was reading in an old, leather wrapped book, and did not seem to notice that I turned my head to her.
Her face was of this incredible beauty, just as the face that I saw on Haldir; with that flawless skin, these deep, dark, bright blue eyes; the absolutely even face - and these pointed ears.

Did I just think 'Haldir'?

I turned my head towards the ceiling and stared.
This cannot be, I thought; I need to wake up from this dream.

The she-Elf remarked as I turned my head and looked at me with a distant, still friendly and warm smile.
"So you woke up, finally; we thought you would never wake up."
She laid her book aside, with a grace in just the simple movement of her arm that would have put a perfect ballet dancer to the shame of imperfection, and looked at me with an intensity that I had never experienced from anyone that ever looked at me before. It seemed that this look could see to the very bottom of my soul.

And then, like a flashlight or daydream, I could see a pair of even more intensive blue eyes looking at me. A voice filled my head; more a whispering, but loud, as if it had been spoken by someone close to my ear; but there was nobody.

"The Border Crosser is awake.... a human woman crossed the border between the worlds..."

The woman sitting by my bed didn't seem to hear or see what I just saw, but got up. "The Lady would like to see you. She is very curious how a female became a Border Crosser."

I got up to sit on my bed, discovering that I was not wearing my gown any more, just the corset.
"Who took my gown from me? Where is it?"
She still did not take her eyes from me.
"We took the gown off when they brought you here, two days ago; but we were not sure about your... foundations... we thought you might wear this for medical purposes, so we just left you wearing it, especially because we do not quite know how to remove it."
This explained much, especially the pain around my hips, where the boning of the corset had twitched to my skin while lying.

Just a moment.

"Two days? You mean I have been here, sleeping, for two days?"
"Yes... the Lady thought that you should sleep, after the shock that you might have been in."
"Shock. Yes." I murmured, still thinking that I still had to sleep, but still wondered about if this was a nightmare or a good dream.
"What's your name? How are you called?", I asked the elven woman.
"My name is Uruviel", she replied.
Uruviel. Yes, I had heard that name before...

"I am Dana Michaels," I tried to introduce myself. Dream or not, I always tried to be polite.
"We will get you in some clothing, Dana Michaels; the Lady would like to see you."

"What Lady?" I asked, even if I could imagine, yet not believe.
"Lady Galadriel, the Lady of light."

This definitely had to be a dream. Slow down, Dana, I thought, you will wake up in a matter of time. Where are my cigarettes? I never wanted one as bad as I did at that moment.
Uruviel brought my dress. I slipped into it in trance, and stared at the image of my face in the mirror, when she brushed my hair. I am waking up soon, I thought, no need to worry.
When she finished brushing, which seemed to take ages, she asked me to follow her, and I did without asking anything more. The door of the room, which seemed to have been grown instead of being built into the wall of the room, opened and offered the view of the treetops, which were covered with beautifully built (or grown?) houses; little lights on stairways between them... and a deep, deep look down to where the ground should be. I stepped back in a shock.

"I cannot go out", I said, with my eyes wide open.
"Why not?"
"I am afraid of the height."
"Just follow me - keep your eyes on me, do not look down. It is not dangerous."
I tried to obey her, not to look down, just follow her... it was not easy.

Her moves were the ones of a perfect being. When she walked in her floor length dress, it did not look like walking, it looked as if she slid over the ground, without making any sound. I became so impressed with her moves, that it suddenly became easy to follow her command.

I just tried to imitate her moves, which, of course, didn't work out. I was used to swinging my hips while walking, show my legs moving while walking. What she did was more some kind of flying than walking, or at least it looked like that.

The air was filled with the smell of flowers; and in the distance, I could hear singing, beautiful singing, which seemed familiar, but which I did not understand. Dream or not, I thought, it was interesting to observe this place, to look at everything.

The walking stopped, and we stood in front of a small, yet wide staircase, which was bordered by the evenly grown branches of the tree that it was built upon. Anything within these buildings seemed to be perfect. I quickly forgot about all home designer magazines, which I considered to be perfect until then. This was absolute perfection, being built by the nature itself, as it seemed.

And then, she came down the stairs towards me.

She seemed to glow from the inside of her skin. The blue eyes were intensive, almost as if there was a hidden blacklight somewhere. I have no idea how to describe this; it was as if she filled the room with her presence. I could actually not only see, but feel her coming closer. She had such an intensive aura that it almost took my breath away, and her eyes that rested on me all the time when she came down that staircase seemed to looked into my heart, my brain, my soul. I knew these eyes; I had seen them before in my daydream.

The feelings that I had when she came down the stairs were mixed. Her presence seemed to give some of her own mood to me, and I shivered. There was melancholy, a lot of melancholy. And sadness. Also wisdom in unbelievable amounts. Before I had seen her, the wisest person I ever had known was my grandmother at the age of 86. Now, seeing this Elven woman, the lady of all of them, I understood what wisdom really was.

I resisted to ask where the famous Celeborn was. And then, when she stood right before me, just two yards away, I was overwhelmed by her presence and beauty, and fell to my knees.

"My Lady, I am honored to..." Lack of words to describe what I felt came over me.
She reached out to me, lifting my chin up to look at her face with a perfect hand.

"I know what you feel, so do not be ashamed, Dana. I have waited for you, I knew you would come."

Her voice was dark, not as dark as Haldirs, but still unusual for a woman. I finally had to give up the thinking about expecting normal human voices here, I guessed.

"You are welcome to our land, Dana... Border Crossers are rare, and special; and we never had a woman crossing the border."

*I* was rare and special? This Lady who would have beaten the presence of any famous person that had any kind of charisma I heard or experienced before, told me I was special?

"Please, My Lady, I do not want to be unkind, but would you explain to me what happened? I have no idea what I might have done to cross the border you are talking about; nor do I have any idea on how to get back." Thinking that I might have offended her, I added: "It is not that it is not beautiful here, I mean, I would really like to stay here, but I would like to know, well, can I ever go back?"

The lady smiled, the sweetest smile I had ever seen. Slowly but surely it came to my mind that I saw many things here that I had never seen before.
"Come with me, Dana... I will explain to you what happened."
She turned around, sliding up the stairs as if she had no feet but wings below her skirt.

I followed her, surprised, a little afraid, and also ashamed; even if I did not know why I had this feeling. Was it because she was so perfect? Was it because I knew that never in my life, even if I practiced for years, would I be able to move up stairs as elegantly as she did?

We ended up in a great, dark room, lit with candles. Books stored all over in it; in shelves, on the floor, on a large table in the middle.

"This is my husbands library", she said.
"Celeborn?" I asked.
"Yes," she answered, and for the very first time I saw something like a surprise in her eyes.

We both sat down at the table; she folded her hands before her, and looked at me.

"Dana, you are a Border Crosser. This is what we call people that have found the way on how to travel between our worlds - yours and mine."

"But how is this possible?" I asked, as I had no idea how else I could ask this.

"Our worlds - yours and mine - exist in the same space, but in different dimensions and different times. There are some places in our both worlds that allow beings from both worlds to pass between them. You are not the first one who found this entrance; and I guess you will probably not be the last."

A very strange idea came to my head; and I thought about asking.

"One of the Border Crossers - he must have come here some time ago - was he called John? John Tolkien?"
She smiled, again with this secret smile.
"Yes, he has been here, and will come back soon."
"Will come back soon? But then he cannot come any more, he's dead!"

She smiled, again.

"As I have told you, we are dealing with different time - and kinds of time - here. If something happened in your world before your time, it is not necessary that it will have to happen here before your time as well. You see, this world is in some kind of constant repeat. We have discovered that we, if our time repeats, forget what has happened the last time; almost all of us do not know what they have done before what they are doing now some other times before."

She took a deep breath, and the emotion that she was sending out changed to - agony? Despair? I didn't know, but the room seemed to become darker under her sadness that I could sense.

"Some of us, nevertheless, do not forget what happened the last time; and this is what makes us their leaders. People like you - Border Crossers - are for these ones of us a very welcome change if they appear; as your behavior can change many things and make us learn new things if you appear the first time."

"So you mean I am here now the first time?"

"Yes, you are. And therefore, I cannot foresee completely what will happen. I sensed that there would come a new Border Crosser, but nothing that would come afterwards. Please, be careful with my people and land."

"My Lady, I will be careful with your people, be assured."

"There is something else - your return to the other world. Every fortnight, you will have to return for at least two hours to your own world - to equalize the weight in both worlds. You see, you brought your own weight - not only the physical, but also the mental weight - of yourself to our world, and it is missing in your world now. If the weight is missing for more than a fortnight, the passages between the worlds might collapse due to the weight that is missing or too much in either of our worlds.
But there is something else I will have to tell you; for each day that you spend here, only a minute in your own world will pass, but not vice versa. This means, the people in your world will not remark too much that you are missing; but if you go back for your two hours, we will have to wait two hours for you as well.
There is only one way to avoid having to go back; and this is by exchanging the weight of the worlds. If a Border Crosser of either worlds would like to stay in the other world, he or she must find someone from the different world to take his or her place."

"But why should anyone want this? If you can cross the border so easily, and with almost no loss of time?"

"Because you can cross the border only ten times within your life; afterwards, it is closed for you forever. You may, even though, give some of the ten times given to you to another one. You can even bring someone with you, but your staying time here will then go to half; this means, both of you can only stay a week here, and you loose two passings instead of one when bringing someone here."

This made me think of the possibilities; but I also thought about something else.

"My lady," I asked, "you said that the timeline might be different for different Border Crossers. If this is so - which age are we in your time? What about the one ring, has it been destroyed yet?"

"What do you know about the ring?" she asked, and the mood in the room became fearing.
"Well," I said, "as I have told you, I know Mr. Tolkien who is yet to come. I do not know him in person; I just know his books. His books are very famous in our world."
"He wrote books?" Her eyes widened.

"Yes, he wrote "The lord of the rings", and some other stuff, which became very famous in our world. Many people have read and studied these books. It is something like a fairy tale in our world.".

"LORD of the RINGS?" Her voice was loud and amused. She leaned back, the mood in the room switched to brightness, happiness. "So he told our story?"

"Yes, he did; and he was very successful. And then there was Peter Jackson, who..."

The Lady of Light interrupted me, for the first time. "Peter-the-Jacks-son, the hobbit-like human Border Crosser?"

I started giggling, and was surprised. "He is a Border Crosser?"

Hobbit like human Border Crosser. The words came to my ears, and I started laughing immediately. The hobbit of them all. I remembered having seen that man in his pink shirt and short trousers on the set, when I watched some of the "Making of".

"Yes", she added, "he is; a traveler. He travels around middle earth for quiet some time now, and has seen many places that are in reach for a Border Crosser; he even brought people with him twice, so at the moment, he is having his last but one stay here, if he finds nobody who is willing to take his place in his world."

I was rather surprised. "Peter is *here*, at this moment?"

"Yes, he is. He is down in the gardens with my husband, and they are discussing Elvish history, as far as I know. He has twelve more days; then he will have to go. But he is awaiting the arrival of John in a week."

"It does not affect the weight of the worlds if different Border Crossers are here?"

"No, it does not seem to."

And then, something came back to my mind, from my world.

"Lad Galadriel, may I go back to my world? I have someone there, she is a very dear friend of mine, and I would like to show her this world here. It would mean so much to her."

"Sure, you are a Border Crosser... you can do whatever you want; but be careful of the affects that your actions may have on my people."

"Just one more question. The ring... the war... when will it start?"

"It has already begun. The nine are currently in Moria, and expected here in some days."

"Some days? You mean, Peter and John came here for this event? I mean, to see them arrive in Lothlorien?"

She smiled, again the room without windows seemed to fill with sunlight.
"Yes, I guess this is their plan... however, think of what I have told you... be careful what you do and say towards the nine, it might affect their journey, and I am not sure what will happen if the ringbearer fails on his attempt to destroy the one ring."

I went quiet. She had forgotten that they were only eight she would see here.

"Yes, I will be careful."

...the mixer stirred up my brain again...

"Lady Galadriel, I would like to take a look around your town, your woods, to learn more about you and your people. May I?"

"Certainly, Dana, feel free to walk around. I will give you Uruviel to guide you, so that you can ask her if you have questions."

"Thank you. Right now, I would like to take a walk on the ground... I am not yet firm in walking around on treetops."

There it was again, this incredible smile that made one forget anything that was experienced before.

"Just go out, Uruviel will be waiting for you."

On the outside, I took a deep breath to tidy up my thoughts.

My God, what a chance. A chance to learn, a chance to live. A chance for experience. And Chris! What eyes she would make if I showed her this!

Uruviel looked at me, with her even face. I smiled at her.

"Uruviel; please, I need a guide."
"Yes, the lady already told me so."

"Please... teach me anything. Show me anything. I want to learn as much as possible."

She laughed, but it was not the warm laughter that I experienced of the Lady Galadriel.

"Teach? You? You would need more than your lifetime to learn just a little piece of what I could teach you; and in best case, you only have 140 days. What could I possibly teach to you?"

I knew that Elves did not like the humans, as well as I knew that Elves were considered arrogant; but this was really hard.

I tried to catch up the subject in a friendly way, as I thought that if she would be my guide. I would prefer to have her friendly towards myself instead of being 'just the silly human who cannot learn anything' to her.
Women, at least the human, were always affected by compliments to their own person; and I thought that Elvish women would not be too different.

"What about - hair and skin care, to start with? You look so beautiful; I would like to know how you care for yourself?"

She tipped her head a little aside, seemed as she had to think about it, but just for a second.

"I agree", she said, as I hoped for, but not without adding "and I would like to learn how the women of your world keep their waist so small. Can you teach me?"

Ah, the corset issue, and I congratulated myself again on being corseted.
"Yes, I will tell you how that works."

~ TBC ~