Amelia and her brother led Shayla into the lounge room and sat down on the longest couch. They patiently waited for her to sit on the armchair across from them before Amelia spoke once again.

"This is my younger brother Joshua; Josh, this is Shayla, the girl I told you of on the way here." Shayla looked closer at the man in an attempt to understand just how he was younger than Amelia. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, and while quite attractive for someone of that age, Shayla thought that Amelia was in her late twenties at most. She realised that both of them had the same piercing, mossy green eyes and chocolate brown hair; hers now fastened in a low braid that reached just past her chest, and his tied loosely behind his head, where it reached his shoulders. He had quite a beard growing, though it was nowhere near as long or extensive as the other men that she had come across here.

"Where are you from?" Josh asked, his voice surprisingly soft for someone who looked so big and strong. It helped Shayla relax from her initial intimidation.

"I'm a Dharawal woman from the Nattai region in New South Wales, but… I've been living in Sydney… We had been in the Nattai National Park when we got lost... I don't know how I got lost though. I grew up on that land... I-I know the area like the back of my hand..." Shayla had started to ramble in her nervousness, until she realised that it probably wasn't helping.

"We need you to explain everything that happened leading up to Riley and yourself becoming lost, until you found Kili's camp. It will help us to understand why you are here." Shayla looked between the two hesitantly; it wasn't that she didn't feel she could trust them, but rather she felt her tale would be too ridiculous. These people would just laugh at her.

Nonetheless, she sighed and summoned her resolve. She had no other choice. So Shayla, feeling as small as a mouse, explained from the beginning how they had ended up wherever they were.

It took longer than Shayla expected to tell Amelia and Josh of what happened to her and Riley. She did not raise her gaze from clasped hands the entire time, her fingernails nervously scratching at the skin of her palms. It was only until after she had finished speaking, when a silence filled the air that Shayla looked back at the two.

She expected to see Amelia and Josh laughing between themselves, sniggering at her story as though it was just some dream. However, there were no laughs, no jests about Shayla. Instead, Amelia and Josh looked at each other without speaking, their eyes seemingly enough to communicate what wasn't verbalised. Shayla shifted uncomfortably in the chair before Amelia finally turned back to her, and began to speak.

"There is no easy way to explain to you what has happened, Shayla. Just please, will you promise me one thing?"

Shayla took a few moments in an attempt to weigh up what could possibly be so bad that they were finding it hard to explain. Maybe she had died? Maybe this was the afterlife? Shaking her thoughts away, Shayla just nodded her head slightly in answer to Amelia's question.

"Just keep your mind open to what we are about to tell you. It will sound insane, and you will be confused, but we know what you are feeling." Amelia took a quick breath, before continuing with eyes closed.

"Twenty-nine years ago, Josh and I were wandering through a forest near to our house in the outer suburbs of Brisbane. Well, I say wandered. We were actually running, but that isn't important now." Shayla could see a small smirk from underneath Josh's beard as Amelia spoke, though Shayla's ears pricked up in recognising where they were from.

"You're Australian as well?" Shayla frowned, continuing as Amelia nodded. "But you don't have an accent.." Amelia smirked, and Shayla could see yet another similarity between the two.

"I think we have been here for much too long to retain our original accents." Josh laughed, a wide grin across his face.

"Wait, twenty-nine years ago? You don't even look twenty-nine?" Shayla exclaimed, this conversation confusing her more than helping her understand a damn thing.

"I'm sorry, I'm not doing very well at this whole explaining thing," Amelia said, rubbing her temples as if it would help her think of an easier way to help Shayla understand.

"Just hear me out, and it will hopefully make some sense."

"We were running through the forest, and by the time we decided to go back, we realised that we couldn't. Something had changed around us, and we didn't know what it was." Shayla listened to Amelia with her eyes glued open, feeling a rush of déjà vu come upon her. That was exactly how she had felt after coming to her senses at the river side.

"We kept walking towards where we believed the houses were, but it wasn't our houses we had found. We thought we had passed out and found ourselves in another world, and we weren't all wrong."

"Shayla, if you've ever watched science fiction movies, then it may make it easier to understand." Josh chimed in, an almost humorous glint in his eyes. Shayla nodded slowly, trying to wrack her brain for a memory of any movie she had watched. There weren't many in that list, and she couldn't for the life of her think of any science-fiction films she had seen. Most of those she had watched were silly rom-coms that Riley would watch religiously. She nodded anyway, hoping that they would get on with what the hell was going on.

As if Amelia could read her mind, she slapped Josh on the shoulder and shot him a half-hearted glare.

"Stop distracting yourself, fool." With a small wink, she continued. "The point is that this is something that doesn't seem real, no matter how we say it."

"In those movies, they were able to travel through time and space, through wormholes or something of sorts. When I was twenty and Josh was seventeen, we stumbled through one of these wormholes, you could say. Really though, we were brought through into this Realm from Earth- from our Earth- to Middle Earth. You are no longer in the world that we grew up in, Shayla, and I'm so sorry to tell you that."

Amelia seemed genuinely apologetic, but Shayla wasn't focusing on that. She was focusing more on the fact that she was apparently in another world- another world. Fantastic joke, truly, she thought. She looked around the room, searching for a video camera she was sure would pop up to film her reaction. She was being duped, of course she was.

Shayla opened her mouth laugh, to tell them how much of a great joke they had played and that she wasn't playing their game anymore, but no words came out. Nothing, no matter how hard she tried to verbalise her thoughts. Closing her mouth shut, she looked down at the floor with wide eyes as what they were saying sunk in.

Why wasn't her body allowing her to argue, to yell, to cry? Why did she feel as though any logical reaction was being blocked by some part of her?

Something stirred deep within her, something that unsettled her as much as it calmed her. A raging mixture of emotions and reactions to these feelings collided within her being. Why did something inside of her make her feel as though she was at ease with what was happening? Closing her eyes, she focused on that feeling. She focused on the most confusing emotion that bubbled up from within her chest and spread through her bloodstream like a calming sedative.

Finally, she felt herself becoming as under control as she could be.

Did she still feel confused? Yes.

Did she still fail to understand what was going on? Yes.

Did she feel relaxed, more so than she had in the past few days? Surprisingly, yes.

"Explain more." Shayla said calmly, much to the surprise of Amelia and Josh. And so they did.

"We found out that we had travelled through Realms, different worlds accessible only to few. We found out that there is an Old Magick that exists in this world and ours, though it has become something of close to a myth. It's rare, and there are very few that have the ability to manipulate it and use it. The Old Magick not only allows travel through Realms though."

Amelia looked at Josh with an odd expression, before they looked once again to Shayla.

"Physically, I am around my mid-thirties." Josh said, glancing down to himself. "But I've been alive for a total of forty-six years. It's the Magick; it leaves a mark on those who have used it, almost like it sticks to your being and never truly washes away. We didn't find out til a few years after we had been in Middle Earth as to why we weren't aging like normal humans."

After some time, Shayla found her voice to speak again.

"B-but.. How are you younger than Amelia but look older than her?" It was Amelia's turn to answer that question.

"I should look like a forty-nine year old woman, but I don't. I look like I'm in my late twenties. Josh only travelled through Realms a total of once, however I needed and was forced to travel between Realms and different times more than once. Because of that, I have aged slower. My aging process, as those in Rivendell so kindly pointed out, is now closer to that of a Dwarf. How convenient, seeing as I am married to one." Amelia smirked again, before focusing on Shayla's shell-shocked look.

The feeling of calm was quickly dissipating, and Shayla couldn't get her questions out quick enough.

"What do you mean Dwarves? They're midgets? Wait, what does that mean about my age? What's going to happen to me? How did I land here? Why me?"

The words tumbled out of her mouth before she could even absorb what it was that was running through her mind. Amelia and Josh seemed to understand though, and they continued to explain.

"You've heard of Middle Earth before now, am I right in guessing so?"

Shayla nodded her head slowly at Josh, her brows furrowing in confusion. How did he know that she had heard that name before?

"It's because there are books written about this place in our world. It's fiction there, nothing more than a fairy tale. What no one but ourselves know, is that Middle Earth is real. The books are more like recounts of the history from another world."

"So I'm not on the moon, but I'm basically on a different planet." Shayla whispered, her stomach in her throat as she thought of the implications. She thought of her parents, and how worried they would be to find out that she was missing.

"How do we get back?" Shayla spoke through a choked voice, though the determination was there for both Josh and Amelia to hear.

"There is a way to get back, and that is where you will find solace. However, there is some bad news." Amelia continued, though her voice lost any trace of light-heartedness.

"The lands are becoming more dangerous. There is something moving in the darkness of the Lands of the Free People, we have all seen and felt it. As you saw several nights ago, there has been more frequent Warg- wolf- attacks than we have seen in thirty years, and the roads are often ambushed by criminal Men and Orcs alike."

"The only way for you and Riley to travel back to your home is to make way to Rivendell, an Elf household that is several months travel from here under favourable conditions. You would not make it thus far under the current circumstances."

"Wargs? Orcs? What the hell are they?" Even Josh's eyes lost all youth in that moment, as though he truly did look as old as he was.

"Think of the monsters from your nightmares, Shayla, and triple them." Amelia's voice became low, and Shayla watched as Josh looked at the ground and rubbed at his neck, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.

Shayla's heart dropped. Her throat felt dry again, as she tried to verbalise what her mind didn't want the answer to.

"What are we supposed to do then?"

"Our King, and my husband, will not allow you both to travel. He fears the risk is too great, but I disagree. You need to find out why you both are here, because there is a reason. When Josh and I found ourselves here, it wasn't for the lack of purpose."

"I want to propose something to you. It is going to be a hard decision, though the only one that you have at this point in time. I offer to you both to stay within the halls of Erebor until both of you have healed completely and until a time where both of you has had training in wielding weapons and have a better understanding of the dangers of this world. Truly, it is nothing like your world, Shayla. It is both amazing and terrifying."

Shayla just sat still with her hands cupped in her lap, fiddling with the corners of her fingernails. It was taking a long time to wrap her head around what was happening, though it was only her mind that was struggling to keep up. Closing her eyes, she focused on two things.

The feeling of her heart beating within her chest, and the thought of her parents kept her together. There was something calming about these two things; it was almost as if her heart gave her being the strength to accept what she had been told, despite what the logical side of her thought.

Then the thought of her parents overtook her mind. Shayla thought of her father, and how he would take her out to the reserve to watch the birds in the early hours of the morning, or sit along the river bed and catch fish for dinner.

With feet dipped into the edge of the stream, they would laugh together about the most obscure things; Shayla remembered the way the skin around his eyes would crinkle each time he smiled, and she found that she missed that almost as much as the way he spoke about the land he grew up on.

There was one thing that he said that always stuck with her, and refused to leave her mind as she sat in the warm living room of these strangers.

Trust the ground beneath your feet, and the wind in your hair. But above else, trust what you feel in here, he would say, pointing to Shayla's heart.

Shayla knew that deep down, there was a part of her that understood what was happening. There was a part of her that felt strangely at ease with being there. She held onto that for as long as possible, knowing that so long as she kept that feeling at the forefront of her mind, then she would be able to keep calm.

There was one more thing that she needed to know, more important than anything they had just discussed.

"Riley.. Is.. She's going to be okay, right?"

Hey guys! So I'm not too sure if I'm happy about this chapter. Obviously I needed it to explain to Shayla what was going on; however I don't know if I like it, though I'm not sure how I can change it. If anyone has any suggestions or constructive criticism then that would be fantastic :)

Thanks to Wynni and fardreamer333 for your lovely reviews, as always! :') Please review, and hopefully next chapter will be a bit more exciting!