A:N: Well, I had so much fun writing the first chapter, I'm going to write the second as well! ^__^;;;; Obviously. Anyway, this will be quite interesting. I hope you guys like it. Here's a sneak preview: Lee gets her first good look at Middle-Earth—as the Mary Sues have distorted it! She's not exactly your average avatar, ne? Who knows where she'll end up—I certainly don't. Have fun reading!

Disclaimer: I own Lee! Wai! ^______^ Unfortunately, I don't own Lord of the Rings or anything that has to do with Middle-earth whatsoever. Tolkien is God. Yes he is. .:holds up her three "Bibles"—her Lord of the Rings books, The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, and the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman:. By the way, I'll be doing a fic off of His Dark Materials, so all you fans, hang on!

«~*~»

Chapter 2

Of Secret Councils and Liv/Arwen

«~*~»

Lee looked up after having done a nasty faceplant. "Chikuso kisama I will get you for that" she muttered, picking herself up. Something long and shiny fell out of her pocket. "Hey! My glasses!" She picked them up off the ground and wiped them off, using the front of her T-shirt. "Leo no baka got them all fucking dirty," she growled, jamming them on the bridge of her nose. She rolled her eyes.

"Where the hell am I supposed to—" She stopped as she realized where she was.

Lee had landed smack dab in the middle of Rivendell.

"Holy muffins," she whispered, pushing her glasses back up the bridge of her nose and blinking. Lee had always wanted to visit Middle-earth. Ever since she had picked up The Hobbit as a curious student in her middle-school library (the only one, by the way—no one wanted to hang out with a geek like her), she had been drawn by the intricate descriptions of the lands that Bilbo had visited. As she had progressed to The Lord of the Rings trilogy, she had longed to see the sights that the various members of the Fellowship had seen and had also called home.

Granted, if she'd had her way, she'd be in a place like Moria, Mirkwood, or Shelob's lair, which had fascinated her most, not the warm city of Rivendell. But beggars can't be choosers.

As Lee stood, enspelled by the glorious sights around her, an Elf hurried up to her. "Excuse me, miss," he said, bowing, "but are you here for the secret Council?"

She glared at him, astounded. "How do you know about the bloody Council? Hell-o, what part of secret Council' do you not understand?!" She paused. "Wait, what language are we speaking that we both understand each other?" As she had explained—or tried to, in any case—to Leo, she didn't speak any Middle-earth languages.

The Elf frowned, his vacuous eyes blinking. "English, of course. What else would we speak?"

Lee's eyes widened in horror. "No!" she screeched, calling the attention of many Elves walking by her. "You speak Sindarin, or Weston. I speak English. You—wha—how do you know about English, anyway?!"

The Elf's eyes suddenly flickered with something strange. "Sindarin?" he questioned slowly.

Lee nodded vigorously. "Yeah! Sindarin, and Weston, and all that good stuff!" She sighed. "How could you possibly know of English?"

The Elf's eyes went back to their vacant state. "It's the Common Tongue around here, milady," he replied in a firm tone that signified the end of the conversation. Lee opened her mouth to argue, but he rushed on. "If you are here for the secret Council, let me escort and present you to Princess Arwen."

"ARWEN IS NOT A BLOODY PRIN—" Lee's scream of rage was muffled as the Elf grabbed her arm and jerked her along.

After what seemed like an eternity of the Elf tugging firmly at her arm and Lee shrieking curses in various foreign languages, he finally stopped and bowed to a woman hidden in the shadows—of what, Lee was uncertain of. "Princess Arwen, this young lady needs to be dressed in appropriate attire. Please attend to her, then escort her to the secret Council."

"Again, what part of secret' do you not understand, you bloody moron?" Lee hissed. The woman stepped out of the shadows, and Lee stopped fuming.

Liv Tyler stood before her.

"Good, thank you, Elarhor," Liv said, waving her hand. The Elf (apparently Elarhor) bowed again and scurried off. Meanwhile, Lee's jaw was scraping the ground. This was not how she pictured Arwen Undòmiel, daughter of Lord Elrond, to be.

Then she remembered, vaguely, the girls in her Bio class last year chattering about The Fellowship of the Ring: The Movie. "Arwen was soooooo pretty!" one of them had cooed.

"Like, yeah," another commented. "Liv Tyler is, like, y'know, totally gorgeous."

Lee had stared. "Please," she remarked acidly. "Liv Tyler, pretty though she may be, can in no way capture the true beauty of Arwen Undòmiel, or she who so resembles Lùthien Tinùviel."

They blinked at her. "Who the heck are you talking about?" the first one asked.

"Probably some weirdo from those weirdo books she reads," the second girl replied snottily.

Lee twitched. "Listen—" she began hotly, but another girl interrupted her.

"OK, are we done talking to the loser freak? I have more important things to do, like find pictures of that hottie Legolas." All the girls sighed dreamily. Lee snorted.

So that was why Arwen looked like Liv Tyler. OK, who screwed around with Middle-earth? Lee thought angrily. As soon as I find them, I'm going to I'm going to think of something extremely unpleasant to do to them! (As justly noted, Lee wasn't too good at making threats.) How dare they taint the beauty of the Evenstar! Somebody's going to die today.

As Lee fumed and wished more than ever that she was a hanyou and could rip said person to pieces, Liv Tyler/Arwen poked her. "Hey," she said, raising her voice. "Hey! Don't you need a change of clothes?"

Lee snapped out of her angry reverie. "Huh?"

Liv/Arwen sighed. "I believe, milady, that you are in need of a new gown, as yours has been ruined, somehow." She eyed Lee's torn-up blue jeans warily.

"Uh, no thanks, I'll just wear this," Lee replied, switching into adult-courtesy mode. Not that she would admit it to the loveliest being since Lùthien Tinùviel, but she hadn't owned a dress-like garment since she was a toddler.

"Nonsense," Liv/Arwen said, frowning a little. "You will need to wear something appropriate for the Council."

Lee blinked. "Well, then, can I just wear some leggings?"

"No."

Lee suddenly remembered that women stuck to the plain old gown-dealy-majig in Middle-earth. "Alright," she replied courteously. "But may I wear something er, not too girly?"

Liv/Arwen stared at her. "Well, let's just see what I have in my wardrobe," she answered, beckoning for Lee to follow her. She did so reluctantly, wondering if Tolkien's Elves knew what wardrobes even were. "So, milady, what is your name?" Liv/Arwen asked politely.

"Lee."

"Li that is very beautiful," Liv/Arwen sighed. "It has a very foreign air about it—"

Lee twitched. "L-E-E," she spelled curtly, trying to hold in her overflowing anger—and failing miserably. "Why does everybody think it's bloody spelled that way?" she burst out. "Come on, people! Do I look like I'm bloody Chinese or—sorry, Lady," she immediately apologized. "You wouldn't know about Chi—"

"No," Liv/Arwen said thoughtfully, "you don't look particularly Chinese to me."

Lee's jaw scraped the ground yet again. "How—wha—can you tell me how you know about Chinese people?" she demanded. "There is no fucking China here!"

Liv/Arwen raised her eyebrows. "Please do not curse here," she said coolly. "If my father overheard you, he would have some choice words of his own for you."

"It's not a bloody swear word here!"

"Now, Lady Lee—"

"I'm not a goddamn lady!"

"—please choose your gown," Liv/Arwen finished, glaring at her. She huffed to the side of the immense wooden wardrobe. Lee's shoulders drooped miserably. Great, she thought. I've made Arwen mad at me. Good job, Lee.

She swung the door of the wardrobe open gloomily and blinked.

Inside were gowns of every color—even some that changed color. One was switching off between orange and blue, and Lee had to avert her eyes before she damaged them even more. She pushed that one aside and was faced with an emerald green asymmetrical dress. Did they have asymmetrical dresses in Middle-earth? she wondered as she slid that one down the rack. Next up was a bubblegum-pink ballgown with off-the-shoulder straps and a huge, poofy skirt. Lee pushed that one, too, down with the other two rejects. Pink is evil, ran through her mind repeatedly as she went through five more dresses in different shades of pink.

Ten minutes later, Liv/Arwen was tapping her foot impatiently and Lee had rejected every dress in the wardrobe. "Well?" Liv/Arwen snapped. "Have you picked a gown out yet?" She rolled her eyes, and Lee decided not to comment on how modern that was and ask Liv/Arwen how in the name of the Valar she had learned that.

"Um, don't you have something well, plainer?" she asked, chewing her bottom lip.

Liv/Arwen glared daggers at her "guest". "I'll look for something," she said snottily, reminding Lee of the condescending brats from school. She jerked open one of the drawers below the main bureau area of the wardrobe and started throwing things on her bed. "Here," she sniffed, finally holding up a long white dress, simple and plain. "You can have this old rag. I don't even know why I have it anyway, but if an urchin like you wants to wear it in front of all those honored guests, you can make an idiot out of yourself."

Lee twitched as she wondered how Liv/Arwen knew modern slang. "Thank you, Lady," she said politely. Liv/Arwen merely sniffed again and dramatically swept out of the room. "Talk about a drama queen," Lee muttered, pulling off her T-shirt with regret. "Wish I didn't have to do this," she said aloud, "but there's no other way I could blend in. I'm surprised that the Elves didn't shoot me on sight." She pulled the dress over her head. "Come to think of it," she continued, her voice muffled, "why didn't they shoot me on sight? A stranger, wearing strange clothes, looking like well, a freak, in these unsure times? I should have been killed immediately."

There was a pause as she tugged the gown downwards. "Not that I wanted to be killed or anything," she added hastily to no one in particular. "I'm just speculating on how how weird Middle-earth seems to be." She smoothed the long gown down and took her jeans off from underneath the skirt of the dress. "OK, guess I'd better go find Arwen," she muttered, throwing her torn jeans on the bed with her T-shirt and slipping her shoes and socks off. "Even if I am barefoot."

Liv/Arwen was, amazingly, waiting outside the door. "I was waiting for you," she squealed. Lee blinked. Was this the same girl who had called her an urchin and dissed her taste in clothing? She seemed to have had a total turn-around. Liv/Arwen grabbed her hand. "Come on," she said, smiling and tugging at her arm, "you're going to be late for the Council, and I don't want you to miss it." Taken by surprise, Lee just nodded dumbly and let Liv/Arwen pull her around where she would.

The next thing she knew, Liv/Arwen was shoving her through a door. "They're outside," she whispered, then wrinkled her nose. "Do you want to keep those glasses on? Why don't you get contacts or something?"

Lee hissed, "How in Eru's name do you know about contacts?", but Liv/Arwen was already pushing her through the door. Lee blinked as she stepped into the bright sunlight and adjusted her glasses. A group of Elves, Men, and Dwarves turned to look at her, and Lee could see a person roughly the height of a child. Her breath caught. She was definitely looking at Frodo Baggins, if she really was in the Council of Elrond. A tall person stood behind him, and as Lee squinted at him, she recognized Ian McKellen?! What in the name of Eru?!

A tall Elf stood and gazed at her kindly, yet stern. "So, you are the girl that my daughter has told me about, that will join our Council?" he asked gently. Lee blinked, figuring that this was Lord Elrond.

"Uh, I guess, unless there's any women joining the Council." She smiled courteously—after all, he was Lord of Rivendell, and she was a commoner, if she really thought about it.

"You are," another Elf said bluntly.

"I wasn't invited!" she shot at him. "They just found me wandering, pushed me into the Lady Arwen's rooms, and said, Pick out a gown for you to wear to the Council'!"

"It's not much of a gown," the Elf replied, wrinkling his nose. "Couldn't you have picked something more becoming?"

Elrond frowned. "Don't you mean, Princess Arwen'?"

"No," Lee said automatically, "she's not a Princess, she's the daughter of Lord Half-elven, so I mean Lady Arwen." She suddenly realized to whom she was talking to and turned scarlet. "Uh, Lord Elrond, I'm sorry. Forgive me of my trespasses on your courtesy," she immediately apologized, bowing as low as humanly possible (she'd never learned how to curtsy).

Elrond's frown deepened. "You will address me as King Elrond in my own kingdom, mortal," he thundered.

Lee's eyes widened. "Yes, Your uh Majesty." Apparently Elrond was suffering from a severe case of megalomania. She hoped it wasn't quite as bad as Sauron's. "I didn't mean to infringe on your kindness."

The Elf who had spoken out against her earlier rose. "Your Majesty, who is this girl?" he asked, frowning. "Where dost she hail from?"

"Oh brother," Lee muttered under her breath, hearing the bad case of Olde English.

"I was just about to ask her that," Elrond replied. He looked down at Lee, who was bowing in a Japanese fashion. "Get up, milady, and do tell us where you hail from and who you might be."

Lee rose to her feet. "Your Majesty, I am Lee, spelled L-E-E, and I hail from" She paused, thinking of a suitable place to be from. She couldn't very well say she was from Earth. "Er, uh, um, what I mean to say is"

"Out with it!" the Elf from earlier snapped.

She glared at him. "Hold on! Um, it's on the tip of my tongue Gondor!" she blurted out, the first dwelling of Man that popped into her mind. "Yes! I am a woman of Gondor."

Elrond turned to a tall, fair man. "Did she arrive with you, Boromir?"

Lee gulped. Crap, she thought, I forgot Boromir was here! I just blurted without thinking. Gods, I am so stupid.

"Not that I can remember," Boromir replied. He winked at Lee, who blinked. "I would remember one so fair riding in my company."

There was a silence, then.

Lee let out a huge snort of horse-like laughter. "Yeah right!" she cracked. "Me, fair? I am hardly blond and pretty'," she added in a mocking voice.

The Elf with an attitude problem glared at Boromir. "You mortals obviously suffer from incredible blindness if you find this wench fair'."

"OK, I understand that I may not be the most gorgeous woman to walk on two legs, but that does not give you the right to disrespect me and call me a bloody wench!" Lee snapped. "Who the hell do you think you are, anyway?"

There was another sudden silence as the Elf rose in fury. Lee realized that maybe her mouth had gotten her in over her head again when he replied frostily, sending her an icy glare, "My name is Legolas, Prince of Mirkwood and son of Thranduil, King of Mirkwood."