Disclaimer: Most obviously, I own nothing. Everything here belongs to J. R. R. Tolkien (well, Christopher Tolkien now, I suppose), R. A. Salvatore and a few other nameless people. I believe you can guess what is whose.

A/N: I'm very tired while typing it so please either overlook the mistakes I made or let me know about them so I can correct them.

+ Switched Places +

Chapter 3

In the Middle-Earth sun was about to rise. Drizzt realised that as soon as he woke up together with the fact that he never noticed falling asleep in the first place. It seemed more as if he got lost in thought for a whole night. It wasn't possible though to be in thoughts deep enough to completely ignore one's surroundings for a considerable time so the sleep was most probable explanation.

He watched as the first rays appeared on the horizon and wondered what surprises were still awaiting him. He tried to go through his memories to see some flaw, inconsequence or just lack of logic that could prove them fake but he found none. The best decision was to adjust to the situation as much as he could though.

He had no way to prove Aragorn's theory either right or wrong but he could see that, no matter what the truth was, his new companions had far more serious problems than this situation and he wasn't about to place more troubles on their shoulders if he could only help it. After all his memories, real or not, showed that he was able to solve problems by himself, even t now it seemed impossible to do anything about the situation. But even if that was to be the case he could at least try to adjust. For some time.

"Legolas, have you awoken yet?" come Aragorn's voice from his side

"Yes, Aragorn, I did. Didn't you notice though?"

"It's hard to tell, my friend. My sight isn't as good as yours and your kind is known to sleep with open eyes."

Drizzt nodded in acknowledgement of Aragorn's answer but at the same time his mind was racing once again. His kind? From all Aragorn said last night he was a surface elf now. And being an elf for his entire life, he never slept with open eyes and he doubted daithiri and ilithiri were much different in this particular matter.

He stopped dwelling on those thoughts as Strider started to wake Gimli. He smiled at a thought that no matter the situation or place dwarves were grumbling in the same way when woken just after sunrise.

Legolas was caught once again by the woman and led, without her listening to his objections, into the darkness in the cave. As soon as they went out of reach of the sunlight, when e was sure he won't be able to see anything net second, he suddenly discovered, with a great surprise, that suddenly everything he saw was in white-red-black colour scale but ha could see still Surprised by the discovery he ceased protesting and allowed the woman to lead him to a room that, from what she said, belonged to him.

"Now you go to bed, Drizzt, maybe whatever it is that happened to you will go away after you have some sleep" she ordered in the tone saying that any discussion was pointless and turned to leave

"My lady" he started, hoping to get some source of light to look around the room. His newly gained strange vision didn't allow him to see any details properly and he was hardly used to it yet "Would you mind giving me a lighted candle so I can see the room?"

The young woman just stood there looking at him for a long moment. Then she sighed in defeat.

"Whatever you say, Drizzt." She came to something he suspected to be a desk and lit a candle standing there "But I sure hope you'll get better tomorrow." She said before leaving the room. In her eyes Legolas could see both worry and disbelief. He could only assume that he was somehow the reason of both.

Now that the woman left he could finally look around the room. In the dim light of the candle he could see, surprisingly clear, that it was furnished rather ascetically.

He walked towards the desk, opened a drawer and started looking through tings, supposedly his, that were placed inside. Suddenly a worn-off book in the corner of the drawer caught his attention. He took it out and opened.

It appeared to be a diary of some sort. He hesitated for a moment if he should be reading this but e dismissed those thoughts reasoning with himself that not only was this supposed to be his diary since the woman said it was his room (no matter how obvious it was that it wasn't), so it was no sin reading it, but it could also help to solve the mystery of him being here in the first place.

He selected a page somewhere in the middle.

'For all the years I've spent on the surface I had to encounter distrust and fear caused by the color of my skin, my heritage. And much as I tried to cut all the connections with my past among my kind I found it impossible. After all I am what my life curved me to be and letting go of that would mean losing my own self. On every path we encounter both good and evil, even if they are not rightfully balanced. If I was to erase from my life everything connected to my kind I would have nothing. I would have to forget Zaknafein with everything I learned from him and I can only question myself if without him I would ever be able to become who I am now. – Drizzt Do'Urden'

Legolas stared at the words until he was half-expecting them to move under his gaze. He started to feel, every minute stronger, that he took somebody's, still warm, place. But how was this even possible?

He looked once again at the words he just read. The part about the colour of his skin caught his attention. He slowly rose his hands to look at them. No matter what he expected to see it was not what he did. His skin was black, as deeply as possibly imaginable. For a long moment he could say nothing and ha just sat numbly on a chair, hardly able to gather his thoughts.

He sat there unmoving when the first question appeared in his mind – how could he not notice anything before? The only answer that came to his mind was that he was confused and was hardly concentrating on such 'details'. His subconscious probably just wrote the skin colour off as him wearing gloves or something along the lines, without signalizing anything that could worry him to the conscious part of his mind.

Even he, as its' author had to admit the theory wasn't very believable or proved that he was very seriously disturbed by the situation.

He looked once more at the diary. Whoever the dwarf and the woman were it was entirely possible they were going to keep him in this room as long as they think there is no 'improvement' in his 'amnesia'. And if he intended to search for the reason he was here that would be quite an obstacle.

He sighed wondering how did Estel and Gimli react to his sudden disappearance. Then he adjusted the chair so it would be more comfortable to sit while reading. After all he intended to spend the whole night doing it.

A/N: I know it's very short but I decided to upload it because recently I hardly have time to work on any writing and I decided that a bit is always better than nothing. I hope you understand that.

And while I usually don't answer to reviews like that I decided that I should make an exception in order to clarify something

Tsuchi: As far as I remember Moriquendi was a term to refer neutrally to Avari and Umanyari. The term can be used to refer to Silvan (Woodland) Elves, Nandor (and Laiquendi) but then it's an offending term. Generally it's not used to refer to Sindars because

While Legolas usually thinks of himself as of Silvan Elf (The Fellowship of the Ring II 3, The Ring Goes South) because of living among them he is, in fact a Sindar like his father (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien No 297; History of Galadriel and Celeborn in Unfinished Tales). And because of Thingol's origin (and the fact he was the king of Sindars of course) Sindars are not referred to as Moriquendi.

That's about it. But I'm afraid that while I'm not in favour of changing facts pointlessly some lincentia poetica is unavoidable in a story like that so some changes are going to take place.

Guest: Please PM me when logged in. It's impossible to respond to anonymous reviews.

A/N [update]: I have been asked (in an anonymous review, unfortunately) if this story is up for adoption. I have to confess that its creation was a bit of a spur of the moment decision, made well over a decade ago. I have since learned not to post stories without a clear idea where I want them to go. While in the ideal world I would one day go back to all my unfinished stories to give them some (much needed) polish and bring them to a satisfying conclusion out of respect of all those who found themselves liking them, I have to reluctantly admit this scenario is not the most probable. With that in mind, if you find yourself liking this story enough to continue it, you are welcome to do so, even if I would be grateful for a PM letting me know