Even If You Were The Last Person On Earth

By Colorain

Disclaimer: This was written while I was away on vacation, and heavily edited when I finally decided to type it up (meaning: the day it was uploaded). Most of what was added were Susan's thoughts; they appear in the large blocks of italicized text. Susan Blackweld belongs to me. Legolas Greenwood—aka Spock (you'll get it when you read it)—doesn't belong to me. He's Tolkien's. And Spock isn't mine, he's Roddenberry's. And I mean no offence to the children of Texas—I have a thing against Bush. Norolinde is an Elvish word—you'll find out what it means soon enough—but if you want to cheat and look it up, I found it at: http://www.dragons-inn.org/Ifreann/eng_elf.html. Now read the weird chapter!

If Susan Blackweld had been prone to fainting spells, she had no doubt she would have been lying on the forest floor, unconscious and at the mercy of some freaky play actor who was a little more lost than she was. Mentally and physically.

The actor had drawn his bow and was pointing one of his rather nasty-looking arrows at her. "Are you the witch who has brought me here?" he demanded in accented English.

Susan managed a short laugh—rather hard, actually, since her abdomen hurt so much. "Do you go randomly falling out of the sky, threatening girls and then asking them if they're witches? Cause if you do, I forgive you, but if you don't . . . Let's just say that I haven't had the best day—best night, even—so far, and you don't wanna mess with me. 'Kay?" Susan managed a sour grimace for a smile.

The man kept his bow trained on her. Gosh, is he thick or what? "Where have you brought me?" he demanded. "These look not like the forests of Mirkwood."

Mirkwood. This is great! Where's this guy from? Texas? Susan pulled herself up, no thanks to her tights-loving companion. Her temper flared. He falls down on me. Shoots an arrow in my bag. Has the gall to call me a witch! Okay, I admit I can be a little PMSy sometimes, but so can every other female on the planet. And he doesn't even offer to help me up. Jerk!

"Listen. Cut the act, Spock." she spat at him. "I'm lost. I fell off a cliff. You fell on top of me. There's an arrow in my backpack. I lost my parents tent, and," Susan paused for maximum dramatic effect. She showed him the crowning achievement with much glee. "I broke a nail." It just happened to be the one on her middle finger (if that wasn't irony!), but the Spock-man wasn't even fazed.

And what a way to tell him off, too. Tell him everything you were just thinking! Smooooth operator, aren't we? Susan ached all over. Where had she put her aspirin bottle, again? Taking a step towards her backpack, her legs buckled and she felt herself sink into Spock's arm. How embarrassing, she thought. This is the last thing I need.

"Norolinde," he murmured, so quietly she could barely hear him. Or maybe what her parents said was true: getting lost in the woods really did make you deaf. "You are only human, no witch."

"And since when is being 'only human' such a bad thing?" Susan asked, taking offence. She took offence on a lot of things. "Despite those . . . freaky ears and the way you traipse around in the woods shooting real arrows into people's backpacks, you're human too." Good job, Susan! her internal cheerleader sarcastically commented. Mention the backpack enough times, maybe he'll start to feel bad!

A slight smile crossed the blonde's lips. "I meant not to shoot your pack. Though I am an excellent archer—" Don't toot your own horn, or anything like that, bud! "I had little control over this particular arrow when it left my bow." He bent down and plucked it out of her bag with a quick tug. Susan desperately hoped her CD player was still in one piece. "And I'm not human."

~*~

Susan wasn't quite sure how to deal with Spock's younger, blonde, hippy cousin. Either he was smoking something, he was taking this acting thing way too seriously, or he was mental. Susan was hoping for the second option. But if he was mental, didn't the experts say to play along? God, how it sucked to have a bad memory.

"Um, okay . . . if you aren't human, then what are you?" Might as well play along. Susan had the feeling this would make one hell of a story when she got home. If she got home.

The man made a slight bow. "I am Legolas Greenleaf, of Mirkwood. And I am an elf."

Oh, dear lord, he really was mental. Susan suppressed a hysterical giggle. Play along, she warned herself mentally. Don't push him. When crazy people are pushed they . . . do crazy things. Crap.

"Hi, Spo— Legolas. I'm . . . Susan Blackweld. Um, of New York." Curse her lack of imagination! Mirkwood obviously wasn't real. New York was. What was wrong with her? That part, obviously, needed to be omitted from the final version of her story.

"Is this where you live, Norolinde?" There was that Norolinde thing again. Susan shook her head.

"No, I was just camp—I mean, journeying through these woods and . . . crap." She trailed off. Wherever she was, it sure as hell wasn't where she had been camping. The trees . . . the grass . . . the flowers . . . all were different in such a slight way she couldn't describe it. Only . . . that things weren't quite right. Like she was viewing things through a filter . . .

Susan pulled her cell phone from her pocket. Despite the remarkable number of things that were falling on her lately, it still worked. Or so she hoped.

The small screen still flashed "No reception", but Susan keyed in her home phone number and pressed "send" in hopes that something would make it out. The phone beeped once, forlornly, and would not dial. Susan shut it off and sighed in exasperation. The day from hell had gotten a hell of a lot worse.