Chapter 1 – Bear Mace, Bear Hugs, Bear Necessities
Zed didn't start to feel strange until the third day of what should've been a two-week hiking trip. Even then, she chalked the momentary bouts of fatigue and dizziness up to slight dehydration or heat stroke and made sure to take more water breaks and to nap during the hottest afternoon hours. The remedies seemed to help, and she managed to keep herself moving at a decent (but not ideal) pace, with only the slightest hint of lingering malaise.
On the fifth day, her symptoms returned with a vengeance. She started experiencing intense nausea and shortness of breath, and her vision kept blurring and… Well, it was hard to describe. Vibrating, maybe? Like the visual equivalent of scanning between glitchy radio stations and hearing both for fleeting but cacophonous microseconds. It was shocking and disorienting and downright annoying… and then it was agony.
Her muscles cramped and shuddered. Her joints throbbed. Her ears rang and weirdly seemed to be trying to adjust to altitude changes that weren't even occurring: Zed had long since stopped walking and struggled through setting up a basic camp. The shoddy arrangement was just a weak fire and her water bottle within arm's reach and a mylar space blanket for a bed and her bulky backpack for a pillow. At any other time of year, she probably would've frozen overnight, but thankfully, the ambient temperature, much like her own, remained quite high.
She wished like hell she'd invested in a satellite phone, but she hadn't wanted to carry any electronic means of being tracked.
She suspected that she was having a stroke or an aneurysm or a heart attack or some other equally severe medical episode. She'd been a year old the last time she had a serious health problem, and of course, this latest event had to happen while she was stranded alone in the middle of nowhere and well away from even rudimentary facilities. Hiking by herself hadn't been her greatest idea. Her brother would've probably spouted off I-told-you-sos and other insults to her intelligence, but, well, he—her usual hiking/camping buddy—had up and died on her, so that asshole no longer got to have an opinion on anything…
She tried not to think about the fresh pain of his loss or about the unlucky schmuck who'd eventually stumble upon her rotting corpse. If an animal didn't find it first and indulge in a convenient snack. Circle of life and all that jazz. As long as she didn't suffer overly much, the girl wasn't too upset about ending up a lower link in the food chain. And anyway, she could see her brother again…
An uncomfortable, entirely sleepless night passed. Zed got worse, almost (or maybe actually) shrieking in an effort to drown out the horrific ripping-wrenching-grinding sensation that seemed to be coming from inside her body as well as from all around her and smothering all rational thought. Her skin felt too tight, some force stretching it outward in every direction at once while another power did its best to match that torture with an equal but opposite crushing pressure that left her poor feverish body squashed between.
She panted and sweated and held her breath and thrashed and tried to stay still. Absolutely nothing granted even the slightest measure of relief.
Then, in one single instant, the inward and outward forces seemed to sync, and Zed experienced the sensation of being shredded out of one existence and crash-landing in another.
xxXxx
"Something is… amiss," Gandalf observed, bushy eyebrows pulling together and grim mouth drooping downward in a somber frown. The company of Thorin Oakenshield was two weeks outside Bree, and their wizard already had a strange feeling of impending…
Well, he couldn't name the feeling that he was feeling, but he was absolutely certain that he was feeling it.
And that it meant… something.
"Amiss?" Thorin challenged. He barely bothered to look up from his meager midday repast of hard bread and dried meat. "In what way?"
Huffing, Gandalf replied, "I've yet to determine the specifics."
The king responded with a grunt and a barely concealed roll of his eyes. "Well," he said, lazing regally against a convenient log in the light-dappled clearing of their current patch of forest, "Keep me informed, but until the threat makes itself known to you, I don't see much point in panicking the company. They are already tense and alert, and I would not make them more so without reason. It is far too early in the quest to have them jumping at shadows and disheartened by impending doom that may not be impending at all."
"Who said anything about threats and doom?" Gandalf groused, clearly perturbed by the dwarf's lack of perturbation. "A situation is not necessarily dangerous just because it is amiss." He puffed thoughtfully on his pipe and muttered, "Amiss is simply that: an unusual or odd development, perhaps something out of balance or out of place or out of order. It may indicate nothing more than unexpected change."
Thorin scoffed and growled, "Anything unexpected is unwelcome on our journey. Should we be on our way to avoid this potential for vague oddity?"
Before the wizard had time to answer one way or another, the world flickered—as though it had suddenly decided to try its hand at being a mirage, an illusion born from ripples of heat.
Fortunately, that reality's momentary indecision regarding its resolve to remain reality passed quickly, so quickly that the dwarrow were left unsteady and blinking but almost not believing or comprehending what had just happened. All around them, the forest stubbornly reasserted itself… only for the bright blue sky to spit a jagged white lightning bolt straight downward, straight into the earth just inches from Fili's boots.
Unfortunately, he happened to be wearing them at the time.
Their golden prince, who had been standing in a battle-ready crouch, weapons held aloft as he scanned the area for signs of imminent attack, was blown off his feet and quite a distance backward into a stout oak trunk that would from that day forward bear a dent made by a dwarven skull and a stain made by dwarven blood. Said skull made a sickening crack (lost in the instantaneous boom of thunder) as it met the wood, and said blood immediately began to gush copiously into the golden hair that mostly hid the resulting wound from view (and was otherwise standing comically on end wherever it was not braided or in some way secured). The owner of said skull, blood, and hair slumped limply to the ground like a discarded rag doll.
"FILI!" Kili shrieked, seized by hysterical terror. Later, the younger prince would reveal that from his vantage point, he would've sworn he'd seen his brother struck rather than narrowly missed by lightning. Still, the dark-haired archer rushed to Fili's side and did not hesitate to begin searching for signs of life.
Despite chaos in the camp, Oin as well as Thorin, Dwalin, and Gandalf were not far behind. Frantic but careful repositioning and examination of the elder prince revealed that he was breathing but deeply unconscious. Alive but bleeding profusely from a nasty gash that had split open the back of his head down to the bone. Not burned but quite singed around the edges—his fair face had reddened as though it had spent far too long baking in the sun, his eyebrows and the tip of his beard had crisped ever-so slightly and still smoldered, and the metal beads in his moustache braids had heated so much that only Oin's quick and timely removal of them (as well as all dwarrow's slight degree of natural resistance to intense temperatures) kept the accessories from burning matching holes through the underlying facial hair and lower lip.
Finally standing back and dragging his kin back as well at Oin's offkey shouts to "Give me some bloody room already, will ya?! And somebody fetch my bag!" Thorin rounded on the bewildered wizard and snarled, "What in Mahal's name happened, Tharkun?! Is this what you meant by amiss?!"
Continuing to stare blankly at the spot where the lightning had hit, Gandalf cleared his throat, gestured weakly with his staff, and cautiously pronounced, "Actually, I believe it may have been that."
Thorin whirled toward the destruction site, expecting to see an ugly, smoking, blackened crater, a hideous stain on an otherwise pristine stretch of Arda. Instead, his weary, still rather light-blind eyes beheld a perfect ring of crackling white flame that circled… Well, he wasn't sure what it was: a lump of something that looked silvery but wasn't any kind of metal his finely tuned senses could identify.
"Put out the fire!" the king bellowed. Despite his creeping suspicious that it was something… otherworldly or perhaps even divine (what else would make such a perfect shape in such an intense color?), he didn't need to add a forest fire to their rotten luck.
Bofur and Nori were the quickest to start kicking dirt on the blaze and had it smothered within minutes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the pair were also the first to curiously approach the silvery not-metal thing. They elbowed each other back and forth a few times and traded challenging looks before Bofur picked up a long stick and… poked the thing.
It crinkled and curled away and groaned.
Groaned.
"By my beard," Bofur murmured, utilizing his poking stick to find the edge of what was revealed to be an impossibly thin not-metal sheet that covered…
A female.
Not a full dwarf but—by her short height, stocky shoulders, and wispy sideburns that didn't quite reach past her round, generously large ears—maybe a half- or quarter-dwarf.
The sight of her at all was strange, but that added to her means of arrival as well as her appearance and attire compounded the oddity-
Ah, Thorin thought, The wizard warned of an oddity…
A purple-haired part-dwarf lass appearing from a lightning bolt definitely fit the label of oddity. And that was before he even considered her indecently tight leggings and… whatever she was wearing on her rather generous bust. The garment was also indecently tight and left her arms and shoulders and half her back and chest bare; given the fact that it was held up by nothing but flimsy strings and didn't quite cover down to where her leggings began, Thorin suspected that the contraption was some form of underclothes. In fact, if not for the stuffed pack beneath her head and the strange boots on her feet, he'd suspect that she was taken directly from a sick bed. That would explain the revealing outfit and the fevered sweat soaking her shuddering, far too skinny frame and the way she seemed to be trying to ball herself up to escape discomfort even in unconsciousness.
"A little miss indeed," that old meddler whispered, chortling dryly but with more than a hint of unease barely hidden beneath the forced mirth.
Thorin was so busy glaring at the wizard that he missed Bofur's next move of using his poking stick to nudge the strange girl in the shoulder, rolling her from her side to her back. Her only protest was a weak moan as her head lolled and her limbs reluctantly unfurled.
Bofur gasped and stared down at the girl's breasts… or, really, the long scar that slashed between them from just below the hollow of her throat, down under the immodest neckline of her underclothes, and presumably across the covered area of belly before ending slightly above the small round navel exposed by the high hem of the shirt and the more reasonable but still scandalously snug waistline of the leggings.
Even the mass of deep violet hair in its disheveled topknot and the multitude of studs, hoops, and bars that decorated both clearly dwarvish ears (not a hint of an elvish or hobbitish point, despite delicate facial features, freckled skin, and unruly curls) and the vivid, colorful, and intricate tattoo ink on the previously hidden right arm and shoulder weren't quite as shocking as the scar. Someone or something had sliced the girl open from her neck to halfway down her stomach. And judging from how well healed the scar was, the attack had to have occurred at least a few decades prior.
Thorin would bet his beard that she was Kili's age or younger by a decent margin (meaning probably still a child). The king also suspected something else strange about the wound… He took a long moment to piece together what that strangeness was, but when the realization hit him, he started to feel a bit ill.
The scar was straight and clean and precise, almost… deliberate. Not a slash or a gash or a stab from battle; the edges weren't right for that. More like… like someone or something had purposely carved into her chest.
"Big scar for such a little lass," Nori observed with a frown. He was far too canny to not have come to Thorin's realization about three seconds faster.
Bofur, who had far less experience with battle but plenty with mining injuries, awkwardly joked, "Little lightning lass and her legendary laceration. The ballad practically writes itself."
Despite obvious evidence that she was not, in fact, dead, Thorin found himself squatting down beside her and reaching two fingers forward to feel the pulse at the side of her neck.
As soon as his skin touched hers, the girl sucked in a startled, stuttering breath, and her eyes shot wide open in panic and fright.
For a moment, Thorin thought that she was blind, but no, the girl did not have the thick, cloudy film of cataracts most often seen on wizened elders; she just had very pale bluish-gray, almost bluish-white eyes with normal pupils that were currently contracted into barely discernible black pinpricks.
Caught in that split second of shocked horror and relieved comprehension, Thorin didn't pull away fast enough and had his wrist quickly seized in the girl's surprisingly strong grip. "Calm, child," he murmured, falling into Khuzdul without any conscious decision to do so. (The vast majority of dwarvish children learned their people's tongue first and all others second, so Khuzdul was not only more likely to be understood but also very likely to be a source of comfort.) "You are safe." Despite her explosive and rather disastrous entrance, Thorin didn't have the heart to be needlessly cruel to a small, scared female who probably hadn't reached her coming of age or been responsible for said explosive and rather disastrous entrance.
His mistake became obvious just seconds later when she showed no signs of understanding and even fewer of calm. She panted and shoved and kicked, trying to push him away and crawl away from him at the same time. He maybe could have salvaged the situation if he had been faster with switching his reassurances to the common tongue; however, before he could, the girl's erratic gaze swept over every blade within her general vicinity: Thorin's, Nori's, Bofur's. Among just those three dwarrow, they had quite a lot of visible weapons. And with each one she saw, the girl grew more terrified.
Thorin really should not have let his guard down, regardless of the stranger's age or sex or size or health or general aura of confused helplessness. He really should not have. And he learned that very valuable principle anew courtesy of the boot that connected squarely with the center of his face.
xxXxx
The huge shaggy fucker fell back with a bitten-off oath, his hands flying up to cover his injured nose and already doing a rather poor job of stemming the blood leaking through his fingers.
Zed didn't stop to gawk. She scrambled upright, only stumbling and falling a few times as she did so, and grabbed her bag and dragged it along with her, freeing her bear mace from the quick-release keychain that dangled from the side pocket. She had practiced hurriedly locking and unlocking the spray mechanism one-handed so had no trouble at all doing the latter and brandishing her weapon at the gathered crowd of gruff strangers.
"Easy there, lass," said the one with the ridiculous… everything. Hat. Moustache. Pigtails. Dear goddess above, who in their right mind let him go out in public looking like that? "Bit of a misunderstanding between us, I think," he insisted, broad palms open and held out in a universal gesture of No stabby things here (pay no attention to the stabby things hanging from my belt). "We mean you no harm."
Struggling to catch her breath, shaking and swaying with sickness and exhaustion, Zed eventually managed to growl, "Just stay back!" (Well, less of a growl, more of a squeaky croak, but hey, who was really keeping track?)
The ridiculous idiot and the even more ridiculous idiot beside him (holy shit, that hair; it was obviously the faux-hawk's dramatic, dweeby brother: the starfish-hawk) nodded and pointedly stayed exactly where they were standing. Idiot 1 agreed, "That's fine lass. No danger here. I hope we can set your mind at ease. How 'bout we introduce ourselves, ey? Strivin' to be civil an' all?" He grinned brightly, exposing deep smile lines around his dark eyes and wide mouth. "Bofur son of Bodur. At your service." After doffing his hat and sweeping into a downright theatrical bow, Idiot 1, now identified as Bofur, motioned to Idiot 2 and declared, "And this is Nori son of Jori."
Idiot 2, now identified as Nori, arched a truly absurd braided eyebrow and offered a slight bob of his head, not taking his calculating but curious gaze from the mace.
"And that," Bofur continued, gesturing a bit weakly to the still swearing and bleeding huge shaggy fucker on the ground, "Is… eh… his majesty Thorin Oakenshield son of Thrain, son of Thror, King Under the Mountain…"
As the ridiculous speech trailed off (with a distinct implication of So, you boot-bashed a monarch… Good luck surviving the royal hissy fit that's sure to follow…), Zed froze. She knew that name. From books and movies. And the reminder helped her frazzled brain connect the names Bofur and Nori to characters from the same franchise. "Seriously?" she drawled, somewhat relaxing her arm but definitely not lowering the mace. (The fact that they were cosplay nerds didn't make their swords and knives and other assorted kill-sticks any less real; she could spot a blunted blade from a razor-sharp one at fifty paces, and these weirdos were sporting some seriously wicked edges.) "Bunch of fucking larpers in the middle of nowhere?" She blinked at her surroundings, which definitely did not match her last coherent recollection of her campsite. The vegetation and landmarks and even the altitude and season seemed wrong. "Where the hell am I? How'd I get here?"
A slight sideways flicker of Bofur's eyes gave Zed almost enough time to avoid being grabbed from behind.
Almost.
But almost wasn't good enough, and the hulking brute that had somehow managed to sneak up on her (likely only because she was still flipping out and generally weak and disoriented) clamped one massive paw around her wrist (squeezing so hard that she cried out in pain and shock and immediately dropped the mace) and the other gigantic arm around the rest of her torso (pinning her own other arm and plucking her right up off her feet and squashing her against his wide chest and voluminous beard). She shrieked and cussed in response, kicking at his knees and trying to smash his face in with the back of her head; all she accomplished was getting subdued even more securely into the awkward and aggressive bear hug and nearly concussing herself on whatever rock-hard contraption he was wearing beneath his clothing.
"Relax," the hulking captor rumbled, tightening his grip in warning of more to come if she didn't quit her flailing.
Having clearly proven that she was not going to be able to fight or squirm free, Zed forced herself to still. She didn't want her damn wrist or ribs broken. Unfortunately, that pragmatic and logical decision did nothing to stop her body from quivering, practically convulsing in fear.
The hulking captor responded to her obedience by easing his crushing grip. Not enough for any chance of escape, of course, but enough to show that her cooperation would be rewarded. "Name," he gruffly demanded.
"Zed!" she spat (seconds before she could think to lie her chubby ass off), shaking ever harder from the effort of not making further efforts to free herself. "Daughter of no one! Queen of nothing! No services on offer! Get the fuck off me, you big hairy freak!"
Coming a few steps closer but remaining well out of kicking range, Bofur flashed another bright grin and chirped, "Beautiful name for a beautiful little lass. Well, now that we're better acquainted, let's try to sort out our unfortunate misunderstandin', aye?"
Because he seemed to be cheerfully waiting for an answer and utterly ignoring her predicament and because she didn't have much of a choice otherwise, Zed ground out, "Fine."
"Excellent," said Bofur, clapping his hands together and making the girl flinch rather horribly at the abrupt motion and sound. He spared her an apologetic smile before continuing, "Now, if I'm surveyin' this situation correct, you seem to be under the impression that we were tryin' to attack you? Must've been startlin' to wake with us all hoverin' over you like that?"
She swallowed thickly, gaze darting around the small clearing for any sign of help or familiarity or just something that could explain what the fuck was going on. Finally, the young woman reluctantly nodded. The expression of weakness stung, but what else could she do?
Bofur nodded as well, announcing, "And we're real sorry for that. We were tryin' to see if you were hurt or… Well, we sort of… found you, aye? And the circumstances were… strange. But rest assured, lass. As long as you mean no harm to us, we mean no harm to you. Agreed?"
Zed nodded again, a bit disbelieving but willing to play along. For the moment, it was better than any viable alternative.
"Excellent," said Bofur. "So, we'll have your word and you'll have ours that there'll be no unprovoked attacks from either side, and then Dwalin will set you down. Oh, that's him behind you, by the way. Dwalin son of Fundin."
"At your service," the hulking brute grumbled, not sounding particularly pleased or sincere.
Zed huffed, "Clearly."
He answered with a slight growl but otherwise did not respond to her sass.
"How 'bout it, Miss Zed?" Bofur chimed, looking open and hopeful and generally quite nonthreatening as he worried his furry hat between his hands in a gesture that was both absurd and endearing. "We're all peaceful folk, aye? No harm from us, no harm from you. Do we have an accord?"
Unsure whether she could speak past the sudden lump in her throat (did she really have any choice about trusting them, regardless of the consequences?), the girl nodded her surrender.
In short order, she found herself carefully but firmly plonked onto a log, wrapped in a thick blanket, and plied with a mug of steaming tea. It all happened rather fast. One second, she was deathly terrified that Dwalin would finally get angry or annoyed enough to snap her spine; the next second, she was free and warm and breathing in soothing chamomile vapors while "Dori son of Jori," a large but apparently gentle silverback, fussed over her hair and clothes and temperature and general comfort.
So… yeah. The whole thing (and maybe some other recent events) kind of caught up all at once, and Zed was completely horrified and mortified to find her eyes welling with tears, which spilled over and were soon accompanied by loud, ugly sobs, which were promptly muffled against Dori's broad chest as he drew her into a loose embrace and petted and soothed her through the worst of the shocked, overwhelmed, probably delirious wailing.
She knew that went on for a while but not how long. For the first time since she was a small child, Zed allowed herself the luxury of crying herself to sleep.
(It wasn't safe, passing out in front of armed strangers, letting herself be at their total mercy. She knew that and fought hard to stay alert. But her body didn't have the energy to resist switching itself off for a while. Her dreams, though, weren't restful—urgent and paranoid and still so very confused…)
xxXxx
All who weren't tending to Fili watched in bewildered guilt and pity as the poor girl quickly exhausted herself and slipped back into unconsciousness. She wasn't well, obviously, feverish and shaky and so thin, and no one doubted that her terror and confusion were genuine.
She didn't seem to know where she was at all, let alone how or why or that she'd been deposited there by a random lightning strike.
"Didn't hurt her, did I?" Dwalin wondered, voice pitched a lot lower and quieter than normal as he hovered well away from his frightened victim.
"I'm fine, thanks for your concern," Thorin complained, still trying to scrub away the blood on his face before it dried and started to itch. His nose had long since stopped bleeding, fortunately not broken or seriously crushed. (The girl wore rather soft-soled boots, which was embarrassing for any dwarf and would have to be remedied as soon as possible.) He didn't mean to be nasty about the incident, but the king definitely couldn't help feeling annoyed; he didn't often get kicked in the face by anyone, let alone by small flailing females he'd startled into violence.
Tutting aloud but softly, Dori continued to rock their mysterious Miss Zed (Daughter of No One! Queen of Nothing! No Services on Offer! And didn't that give them all a good chuckle?). He reported, "Bruised at worst. Don't fret, lad. It had to be done. There was no sense in letting her carry on and injure one of us or herself with such behavior." He sighed. "She had a bad fright, is all, and she's got a fever- Nori! Put that down!"
The girl barely stirred other than flinching and whimpering at the sharp shout, but the rest of the onlookers turned to see that their thief had picked up and was inspecting her odd weapon.
"We should search her," said Nori, ignoring his brother's indignation as a matter of principle, "And her bag. Not sure what this is, but she was confident enough pointing it at us. And she went for it over the knife in her boot, so it must be something good."
Despite Dori's outraged but whispered squawk about invading a lady's privacy, Thorin sighed, "Yes. Do it. She's not to have any weapons until we have answers." Under his breath, he added, "At least the indecent outfit means we don't have to strip-search her."
Nori and Dwalin quickly and efficiently emptied the large, rather clever pack (so many pockets and such strange closures!) and sorted its contents into piles of food, clothes, bedding, tools, weapons (to which the boot knife was added, after Dori took off her flimsy boots and tucked the girl into his own bed roll), books, and mystery items. Even the items that weren't mystery items were quite unusual, in many styles and materials that none present had ever before encountered. The cylindrical object she'd brandished at them was also added to the weapons pile, but they definitely wouldn't have known to do so before she'd done the aforementioned brandishing. Nothing else about… whatever it was looked particularly threatening, but they were smart enough about weaponry not to attempt to try it out for themselves.
"A map, I believe," Ori ventured, curiously poking through the unknown objects and pulling out and unfurling a large, oddly thin parchment. He pointed at a few spots and observed, "Rivers and lakes and other landmarks are labeled, see?" After spending a few more moments carefully examining the lines and colors and tiny writing, he declared, "I've never seen any map like it though, and I'd have to guess at how to read it. Blue for water, I think, but all the squiggling lines… I don't know. But not a single brushstroke or penstroke that I can see, despite the perfectly uniform letters and detailing." Excited at his find, he held it out to Balin and gushed, "An entirely new mapping system and drawing technique! Isn't that fascinating? Do you think she'll tell us how they're done?"
Fond and trying not to convey any of the impatience he was clearly experiencing, Balin patted his apprentice's knit-clad shoulder and replied, "Perhaps, lad. But what is it a map of? If you can tell?"
Ori took the page back and spent another few moments pouring over it before announcing, "Nowhere I recognize. I haven't heard of any of these places at all."
"She's obviously from quite some ways away," Nori pronounced. Unlike most of the rest, who were poking curiously at the mystery items or evaluating the weapons and tools (two hunting knives, a whittling knife, a small set of chisels and files, a hatchet, a clever shovel that folded into itself, a thin saw that did the same, two knives that did the same, and an even more clever little contraption that appeared to be many small blades and tools all tucked neatly into their own shared handle), the thief had focused his attention on the collection as a whole. "Even of the things we recognize, none are truly familiar. One or two peculiar objects are strange but not significant. An entire kit made up of them is…" He trailed off, not quite sure he knew how to put his observation into words.
"The phenomenon is exceedingly rare," Gandalf interrupted, finally finished keeping the golden prince's head in one piece and hopefully functional. Heavy eyebrows knitted together in deep thought, the wizard intoned, "If this is what I suspect… A fortuitous sign, I would think, but quite the complication… Hmm…"
The dwarrow stared at him expectantly before Dori grew impatient and demanded, "Well?"
Seeming to come back to himself with a start, Gandalf huffed and groused, "Forgive me. The matter is quite uncommon and not easily explained… but I suppose I shall endeavor to do so, now that I've had a few moments to gather my thoughts." He briefly patted himself down and then seemed to realize that he'd dropped his pipe in the initial commotion (which felt like so long ago but had been barely two handfuls of minutes). With a disgruntled sigh, the wizard leaned heavily onto his staff and gravely began, "A lesser known fact of this world is that it is not the only world-"
"OH!" Ori gasped, just about bursting with wide-eyed realization that he quickly and bashfully stifled, ducking his head and not offering further commentary.
Amused by the display and in a bit better spirits, Gandalf continued, "As young Ori has likely read in some obscure tome, other worlds exist alongside ours. Connected, but not by land or sea or even air. The pathways are of a more… mystical and mysterious nature. Ephemeral as well, opening and closing at their own whims or perhaps at the Valar's whims or even at utter random. A woodland trail that you've walked a thousand times might one day lead you to another world. And you might stay a day or a lifetime. You might or might not return. But in the end, no one but you, the being for whom the path was meant, may walk it in either direction."
"OH!" Bilbo gasped. He shrank back a bit sheepishly but stood up better than Ori had at being the center of attention. "Hobbits have a story," their hobbit explained, as though lecturing a crowd of eager students, "My mother's family, actually, the Tooks. They are said to be descendants of an adventurous lass who strayed too far from home and into the realm of the fae. She fell in love and married and got with child and was happy, never intending to return to the Shire. But her husband, the crown prince of the realm, was poisoned and killed by his jealous younger brother, who wanted to take the throne. The hobbit lass knew that her babe would be slaughtered next if she stayed, as it also posed an obstacle to the jealous brother's lust for power. So, she fled back down the old worn path that had led her there to begin with. She arrived home to find that mere hours had passed, though she had spent nearly a decade falling in love. She told her story and would not have been believed at all except for the fact that she was quite visibly older and quite visibly pregnant, when she had not been so just that morning. A few months later, she had a son-"
"Who was driven half-mad trying to return to the fae realm to avenge his father," Gandalf finished, slumping further into his staff. "His mother never would walk down her own path again, but she showed it to her son, when he was old enough to try. For him, it was merely an old track through the woods, and he took up reckless adventuring in an attempt to find another way to travel to his father's world… Ultimately, though, the lad met his own love and decided that she and their children were more important than any vengeance in any world… The legacy of that half-mad half-fae Took was that his descendants have a distinct tendency to wander, perhaps unknowingly still searching for a path to the other realm."
The group was silent for a long moment before the wizard started up again. "What fewer still realize," he drawled, "Is that had the lad been more than a bulge in his mother's belly when she fled, she never would have been able to take him with her. Each path is unique and works only for the being meant to walk it. Even a babe at his mother's breast would not have been permitted passage. Travelers cannot take even a single other being, even down to the smallest insect, with them between the worlds." After another lengthy pause, Gandalf continued, "And therein lies the heart of our current situation. When two people from different worlds have a child together, in which world does the child belong? One might think the world in which it was conceived or born, but that is not always the case. No matter what, the child is still a child of two worlds, half belonging to both but not entirely belonging to either. When both parents stay in one world, the child stays there and proceeds normally, anchored firmly by both mother and father, who are both meant to be present. When one parent is in each world, the child tends to survive but not thrive, pulled in twain between those worlds. I've only heard of that occurrence but once, and it did not end well for anyone involved…"
He heaved a great breath, seeming to meet each of their gazes in turn before continuing, "A child who does not have a parent in one world but does have a parent in the other will be pulled toward the remaining parent and eventually ripped from one world and deposited into the other, usually quite close to said remaining parent. So." His eyes narrowed and became piercing. "Which of you lads had himself a bit of an adventure?"
There were some quiet expressions of astonishment and disbelief, some awkward shuffling and some inquiring glances all around (and maybe Dori glared furiously and was building himself up to erupt at his wandering miscreant of a brother). However, everyone else very quickly noticed that both Bofur and Bombur were staring open-mouthed at Bifur, who looked about two shades past curdled milk.
"No," he insisted, shaking his head, axe and all. "No. T'was a dream… I dreamt it…"
"'Eyes like moonstones,'" Bofur murmured, close to falling over in shock. "That's what you said about her-"
"NO!" Bifur bellowed. His deep gray eyes were huge and frantic, and he took to beating his fists against the sides of his skull, utterly frustrated by his fragmented thoughts, the bits of fantasy trying again after decades of suppression (for his own good, he'd been told and told and told and finally convinced) to reassert themselves as truth. "Impossible! I dreamt it! The healers said it was naught but a fever dream!"
His cousins were quick to rush to his sides and catch his elbows as his knees gave out, as he sank to the ground and sobbed and continued pounding at his head.
Everyone stared at the spectacle, aghast but unable to look away.
xxXxx
Zed woke up remembering why she'd stopped crying herself to sleep—other than the fact that doing so was pathetic and pointless. Her eyes felt swollen to about twice their normal size, and her nose was too stuffy to breathe through, which meant that she'd been mouth-breathing, which left her mouth and throat desiccated and tasting disgusting. She'd probably inhaled a spider or something equally vile. That commonly known statistic about how many spiders the average person eats in his or her sleep every year had apparently been disproven, but she'd never be able to erase the concern from her mind.
There was absolutely no acceptable number of involuntarily eaten spiders. None. Ever. Ugh.
"C'mon, cousin. Down the hatch. You'll feel much better for it. We'll steady those nerves even if it takes us three more wineskins-"
"You most certainly will not be drinking three more wineskins! Not while there is a child present!"
Years of practice allowed Zed to refrain from tensing or jolting or otherwise giving away her wakeful state to whoever the hell was lurking nearby… And then her situation came rushing back. She remembered the cosplayers and the "misunderstanding" and the freaking out on the Dori.
Forcing herself to remain calm, she tried to gauge with her massive ears alone just how close the people were, just how likely they were to notice if she just… slipped away. Even if they weren't dangerous, they were certainly weird. And they'd witnessed her rather spectacular breakdown, which made them personae non gratae in her book.
"Have a heart, Dori! How else do you expect poor Bifur to overcome this sudden shock?"
"Not by getting sloppy drunk in front of a sick, terrified child!"
"She's asleep! It doesn't count!"
"Stellar parenting."
"High praise coming from the bloke who raised Nori."
"And just what is that supposed to-"
"Shazara!"
The sharp shout very nearly made Zed give herself away; she recognized the voice as belonging to the Dwalin, the hulking brute who'd snuck up on and restrained her. Apparently, he did not approve of or enjoy listening to Bofur and Dori bicker
However, instead of more of said bickering or commands to stop said bickering, Zed heard only charged silence, which was very swiftly accompanied by distinct prickling on the back of her neck: a clear indication that she was being stared at.
After growing up short and fat and ugly and slow, Zed was quite familiar with the sensation. However, instead of packs of mean girls sniggering behind their hands or clusters of rude boys miming lewd acts and the expected falling over dead that would result from engaging in them with such a hideous specimen, the culprits were armed and very dedicated cosplayers who were likely cobbling together some way of shoehorning her into their extended fantasy.
"Miss Zed?"
But as much as she wanted to tell them all to fuck off, she couldn't bring herself to be rude to their Dori character, who had been kind and gentle and had comforted her in her moment of confused hysteria.
Turning over, sitting up, and opening her eyes in one smooth, unhurried motion, she let the dusty swath of an old-fashioned sleeping bag fall away from her top half, and she steadily met the gazes of the gathering of stocky weirdos in dwarf garb. With a sigh, she deadpanned, "Yo."
For a moment, they seemed genuinely confused by her greeting (and really, she had to admire their acting skills, even if the dedication to the craft was currently standing between her and getting the hell out of the forest and toward a hospital). "Good evening, Miss Zed," said the one that was clearly playing Balin. He swept into a polite bow and then smoothed down his long white beard as he straightened back up, smiling in a genial and grandfatherly sort of way. "How are you feeling, my dear?"
"Peachy," she replied, definitely sticking to one-word answers until someone deigned to break character and explain where the fuck she was and how the fuck she'd gotten there. And, come to think of it, why the fuck that blond kid in the other sleeping bag was bleeding from the head!
Staring in horror, she struggled to convince herself that it wasn't real blood staining the crown of otherwise-off-white bandages wrapped around his skull, that the idiots had obviously mixed corn syrup with red food coloring for some storyline… Because not even the most dedicated larper would pick staying in character over properly treating a severe head injury…
"Um," Zed drawled, trying not to panic or at least not to outwardly show her panic as she flapped an arm at the unconscious cosplayer on the other side of the clearing, "That's fake blood, right?" Forcing some levity into the moment because levity was always better than a complete meltdown, she chuckled, "You guys didn't, like… get a little too overzealous with the medieval weaponry?"
They stared back at her like she was the one making absolutely no sense.
She looked at the brawny young man again, taking in his ashen-and-otherwise-flash-fried pallor, bruised eye sockets, and shallow breathing.
Doing her best to control her own stuttering, increasingly frantic breaths, she finally blurted, "Holy shit, he's really hurt?! What the hell is wrong with you morons?! Head injuries are serious! He needs an ambulance! Probably a helicopter, actually! Definitely a frickin' MRI!"
More looks of blank confusion and polite pity.
Ok. So. Maybe they weren't just harmless nerds. Maybe they were deluded sociopaths who'd bashed in their friend's skull and were content to watch him die slowly from a brain hemorrhage rather than abandon their weird little game.
Zed was so not down for that shit. Et tu, Dori? she thought to herself, throwing the befuddled silverback a look of abject disappointment and betrayal.
Aware of and annoyed by the fact that she would be leaving behind her pack and even her damn boots if she, for example, picked up a handful of dirt, flung it in the cosplayers' eyes, climbed a tree, and Tarzaned her way to civilization, she settled for very slowly explaining, "He. Needs. A. Doctor."
"Lass," said the Balin, "I gather you're concerned, but he's been seen to as best as we can manage. Both our healer and our wizard-" she almost scoffed aloud "-are confident he'll pull through. The only thing we can give him that he hasn't already gotten is time to rest."
Letting her head drop back and her eyes close and a groan of frustration escape her throat, Zed muttered, "You're really gonna do this? Seriously? Grown-ass adults?" Well, she was just assuming that they were adults; if they weren't, they had some damn good special effects makeup going on. After another moment of gathering her patience and composure and being gaped at like a mental patient, she looked at them once more and warned, "Being a stubborn delusional moron is not a valid legal defense, just so you know. If he dies, you fry, and you'd better kill me as well 'cuz you can bet your furry face-warmers I'll happily testify."
That was a stupid thing to say. Reeeally stupid. Goddess, why the hell did she say that? Why was taunting potential murderers somehow always her go-to plan of action? She wasn't actually trying to get herself killed, and the fact that she hadn't yet was an honest miracle.
(Somewhere at the back of her mind, her brother's quiet voice admonished, I don't care if you have to bite through your tongue. Just shut up and don't get thrashed.)
The idiot cosplayers still seemed confused, also quite insulted, but remained firm in their dedication to… dressing up like fictional characters and ignoring the marvels of modern medicine. The former was forgivable; the latter was not.
"Fine," Zed huffed. "If you'll point me toward the closest trailhead, I'll haul ass and come back with medics dressed in stupid costumes. How's that? You can keep up your little game and not kill your friend. I can probably even scrounge up a few leeches for some really real realism. Totally authentic stuff. Pinky swear."
"Is she makin' sense to anybody else?" the Dwalin drawled, clearly addressing his companions even as his shrewd gaze remained firmly locked on her.
"The lass seems to be speaking an odd dialect of common," the Balin proclaimed, thoughtfully stroking his beard. "Quite fascinating, really. Familiar yet at times incomprehensible."
"Your face is incomprehensible!" Zed shouted, making a few of the "dwarves" jump but most just stare at her in perplexed astonishment. She kicked the rest of the way out of the sleeping bag and then stood, only swaying and wincing slightly as her lingering nausea and weakness and bare feet made themselves known. "I'm officially done playing along!" she insisted. "And I'm leaving! And if you try to stop me, I'll consider it a kidnapping in addition to… whatever other weird shit this has been so far! Just… Ergh! You are such assholes! Where the hell are my boots?!"
The one with the rather impressive axe-in-the-forehead prop made a sound like a wounded rhino and frantically signed something to he-of-the-fuzzy-hat, who piped up, "Don't be runnin' off just yet, lass! You're in no danger at all and still quite ill. How 'bout some tea? Or stew? Cram?"
Rolling her eyes, Zed jokingly agreed, "Oh yeah. Roofie colada on the rocks sounds like just what I need." She dropped the act a moment later, drawling, "Do I look stupid enough to take drinks and snacks off strangers?"
"Good point, lass," the Bofur agreed with a beaming grin. "Quite sensible, really. So let's get the rest of us introduced! Then we won't be strangers no more!" He turned to the axe-in-the-forehead character and began, "This is-"
"Bifur," she cut him off, pointing to each surprised character (the ones who hadn't already been introduced) in turn as she added, "Bombur. Ori. Oin. Gloin. Balin. Fili. Kili. Bilbo. Gandalf, also known as Tharkun, Mithrandir, Olorin, and bunch of other names I've never bothered to remember." While they were still gaping at her (the wizard in particular had dropped his pipe and was openly bug-eyed), Zed added, "I can't fault the costumes. You guys really nailed the whole aesthetic." She blinked back down at the Bilbo's feet, observing, "And those are some excellent prosthetics. They almost look real… but how in the hell do you walk in 'em?"
The pudgy little ball of sass blustered, "I beg your pardon?!"
"Aw, no need to beg, sweet cheeks," Zed purred, winking audaciously just to enjoy the ensuing outrage (mainly from the "hobbit" and, strangely enough, the Bifur character). "Just ask real nicely. A polite fella like you is easy to accommodate."
There were more wounded-rhino noises from the Bifur, which were accompanied by a stream of guttural exclamations that could only be expletives while the Bofur held his pseudo-cousin back from determined attempts to commit hobbicide (HA!).
As confused as she was, Zed couldn't stop herself from feeling quite amused (and a little impressed: did the dude actually learn conversational Khuzdul for his role? That was a truly strange level of dedication).
However, she also couldn't stop worrying about the blond kid—who was playing the role of Fili, obviously, and even more obviously needed a doctor. Every time she as much as caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye, her anxiety became more and more of a physical affliction—like heartburn or indigestion or some Alien xenomorph trying to claw its way out of her chest.
If she'd had any kind of luck at all, the hubbub would've been enough of a distraction for her to slink away with the pretty pretty princeling thrown over her shoulder in a fireman's carry (and subsequently save his life and be rewarded in a delightfully carnal fashion). However, the Dwalin and the Nori were far too sharp and had yet to take their eyes off her—psychos. So, she settled for crossing her arms and huffing loudly and proclaiming, "I have a flare gun! Let's shoot it off and hope that someone with sane priorities sees it and comes to help! I'll even let you make up a stupid old-timey name for it!" More bargaining sprang to mind and was immediately babbled into being. "Guys, I'm perfectly willing to go along with any story you think of for how your little buddy ended up leaking from the dome," she swore. "And, hey! It's probably not a gunshot wound, so there's not even any mandatory reporting! You think ER docs really give a shit about a nerd fight that got outta hand? No, they don't. Those jaded mofos almost never ask questions about anything short of the really atrocious stuff, kiddie-diddling and straight-to-hell shit like that. So, yeah, you're in the clear. No need to thank me."
"I'll thank you to cease your racket," said the Thorin, rubbing his forehead and sighing rather dramatically. "If you'll just allow us a moment to explain-"
Zed cut him off with a high-pitched scream and frantic gesturing to the area just behind the crowd of nerds. When they all jumped up and whirled around with their weapons at the ready—only to find fuck all—she took the opportunity to bolt the other way.
Unfortunately, they were faster than they looked. On a good day, maybe Zed would've been just a bit faster than they were and had more of an advantage for being lighter and smaller. However, that day was not a particularly good one, and she struggled to dodge and duck and dart and roll and weave around the sudden flurry of arms coming at her from all directions.
"Stop!"
"Miss, we're not-"
"Careful!"
"Don't let her get-"
"Really, all this fuss-"
Somehow, despite being breathless and drenched in sweat and very close to fainting from barely a minute of exertion, Zed saw her chance: an opening near the unconscious blond kid. She could jump right over him and scramble up a tree and, assuming she didn't immediately fall out of said tree, escape her captors and find her way back to civilization and get some help for the blond kid-
"SHI- OOF!"
She didn't expect said blond kid to reach out and grab her ankle as she jumped over him. The sudden seizure of one of her limbs caused the girl to perform an awkward belly-flop–face-plant combo right onto ground.
With the wind knocked out of her and most of her body sprawled at a weird angle across the previously unconscious asshole who clearly didn't deserved an ounce of her concern or assistance, Zed kicked and flailed but didn't manage to even somewhat avoid being hauled up by the Dwalin and gruffly admonished, "Don't try that again."
"Obviously," she huffed, attempting (and failing) to shake his huge hands off her shoulders but not bothering with another dash for freedom. Spitting out her mouthful of dirt, making sure that her teeth and nose weren't broken, and recovering her bruised dignity were far more pressing concerns for the time being. Her new plan (to be concocted) would hopefully be better and more successful anyway.
She was frog-marched to the nearest log and once again gently but firmly sat upon it and pointedly wrapped in a blanket. Despite the fact that most of the larpers were clustered around the blond kid (who was sitting up but looking bleary and woozy and generally miserable), a decent guard remained—otherwise known as Dwalin, Dori, Nori, Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur. Remembering how fast the Bombur character was in a straight sprint, Zed chuckled bitterly to herself and wondered if the chunky dude playing the part had mastered the mystical power of momentum. If he had, she'd never stood a chance.
"Share the joke, lass," the Bofur prompted, still wearing a cheerful, friendly grin and that hat.
Deciding to take the opening, Zed dramatically proclaimed, "A man was sitting at a bar, crying into his pint. The bartender asked, 'What's wrong, pal?' The man answered, 'It's terrible! I just caught my wife in bed with my best friend!'" She ignored the scandalized choking from the Dori, the Bifur, and the Bombur and continued, "The bartender said, 'Oh, that is bad! What did you do?' The man sobbed, 'I told her to pack her shit and get outta my house!' Nodding, the bartender agreed, 'Of course, of course. But what about your best friend?' The man gulped down the rest of his pint and slid the glass across the bar for a refill. While the bartender was getting it, the man explained, 'I looked that son of a bitch right in the eye and said, "Bad dog!"'"
There were more choking noises. The Dwalin remained stoic but turned about six different shades of red. The Nori smirked and sniggered under his breath. The Bofur let out a loud guffaw but, at the furious glare he earned from the Bifur, valiantly tried to stifle his obvious amusement; doing so involved slapping both hands over his mouth and doubling over and almost convulsing.
"Do you get it?" Zed wheedled, zeroing in on the poor Bombur, who was wide-eyed with mortification. "It's funny because his wife fucked his dog-"
"And that is quite enough of that, young lady!" the Dori practically shrieked, seizing her ear and stomping away.
Because she didn't want to be left behind in that equation, Zed scrambled to follow, complaining, "Ow! Assault! Ow! Ow! Let go! My ears don't need to be any bigger! Let alone lopsided!"
xxXxx
While he was flying backward, and he certainly remembered flying backward and the brief but all-consuming pain that came from his sudden halt, Fili saw… Well, he wasn't quite sure what he saw. What he thought he saw was a purple-haired girl in a metal blanket come tumbling out of a tear in reality that was doing a very accurate impression of a lightning bolt.
What he heard, before he heard the crack of his skull against (what he later found out to be) a particularly dense tree, was a voice. A deep male voice that he felt in his bones and in his heart and in his soul. A thunderous, cavernous, cataclysmic voice that filled him with comfort and awe and dread.
She is yours. You are hers. Protect her. Cherish her. Heed her. Or Durin's line is doomed.
Then, well, tree. And nothing else for quite some time.
When Fili woke, it was to sounds of a scuffle, and he opened his eyes just as someone leapt over him.
Someone with unfamiliar, clearly non-dwarvish boots.
He grabbed the someone by the ankle and got a knee to the gut for his troubles.
His head hurt.
Quite a lot.
So did the rest of him.
"Fili?! Fili?! FILI?!"
And his brother's idea of rendering aid, which was sitting Fili up and shaking him by the shoulders and screaming frantically in his face, certainly wasn't helping.
"Stop," the golden prince managed to groan, squinting wretchedly and praying for someone to turn off the sun, "Or… vomit…"
Kili replied with a watery laugh and a clumsy hug that made Fili's entire sore body blaze in further agony. "You're alright!" murmured the younger dwarf, shivering slightly. "You're alive and not a simpleton or a cripple!"
Stiffening momentarily, Fili turned his unfocused gaze toward his hovering uncle and grunted, "That bad?"
"Thank our ancestors for the gift of a phenomenally hard head," Thorin rumbled, sinking to a knee beside Fili and carefully bumping their equally hard heads together, which was touching but quite agonizing.
At the mention of ancestors, Fili found himself practically choking with confusion and fear. That voice… "Uncle," he declared, "I… Something strange… We must speak…"
"Calmly," Oin admonished, prodding at Fili's rather large bandage. "Don't exert yourself, lad. You're making a remarkable recovery, but you're not in the clear just yet."
Fili nodded. He was exhausted, achy, muddled. He probably should've insisted that the crowd around him leave, but he didn't have the energy or inclination to even make his explanation sound any less insane, let alone keep it secret. "I was knocked back by the lightning bolt," he reported, patting his brother's back when the wee limpet tightened his grip. "Only it wasn't a lightning bolt! It was like… like the air tore, and this girl with purple hair and a metal blanket fell through-"
"Yeah, that'd be Miss Zed," Kili reported, motioning toward the other side of the clearing. "She kicked uncle in the face, and she seems to think that we've kidnapped her and tried to murder you, and she might be Bifur's daughter from another world."
Blinking in bewilderment, Fili decided that maybe his head wasn't hard enough. "Wha-"
"We will discuss it later," said Thorin. He took a moment to knead his temples and was wearing an expression usually reserved for the aftermath of Fili and Kili's most outlandish escapades. "What else, nephew? You would not have given credence to such an absurd vision unless you had reason to."
Again, Fili swallowed thickly, only somewhat to battle back the persistent nausea that threatened to expel what little of his lunch he'd managed to consume before all the action. "There was a voice," he murmured, his own voice breaking. "It… I can hardly explain…" Breathing became a struggle, and he actually felt faint in a way that had nothing to do with his injury. "I think it was Mahal."
Everyone around him just stared.
"It was deep and old and… and I felt it like… I'm sorry. I can't…" He would try later, he swore to himself. But at that moment, he just… couldn't…
"What did it say?" Kili prompted, wide-eyed and fascinated.
Fili repeated the words, reverent yet horrified.
Clearly, his kin felt the same. Balin froze as still as a statue. Oin and Gloin just about toppled over in shock. Ori squeaked like a stepped-on mouse. Thorin looked sick. Kili looked as though he might cry.
Gandalf remained solemn. The hobbit seemed confused but concerned.
From across the clearing, Dori's shriek of "And that is quite enough of that, young lady!" interrupted the tense moment.
They all glanced over in time to watch the silver-haired tailor seize the purple-haired girl by the ear and drag her toward her pile of belongings—the ones (Fili later learned) that had been deemed not likely to be dangerous weapons of some sort.
"Ow! Assault!" she complained, stumbling along in his wake and wearing a pained and annoyed expression on her otherwise very pretty freckled face. "Ow! Ow! Let go! My ears don't need to be any bigger! Let alone lopsided!"
Fili certainly had no complaints about her ears… or any of the rest of her, most of which he could freely admire thanks to her strange clothing… which Dori was in the process of making her cover with a big baggy tunic that had a painting of a winged pig (of all ridiculous things) stretched across the front.
"We cannot let her escape us," Thorin declared, by which he probably meant, We must convince her to stay with us.
(Fili and Kili and their amad had occasionally debated whether Thorin was unapologetically insensitive (socially, emotionally, and politically tone deaf, was Princess Dis's favorite description) or just a bit inept at Westron. He did tend to express himself a lot better in Khuzdul.)
"So she's yours, and you're hers," Kili wheedled, starting to grin. "You know, that sounds an awful lot like-"
"Don't scare her with such talk, Kee," Fili warned. If she was… even if she wasn't… well, either way, the poor girl didn't need to hear the possibility until she was more comfortable with them. Until they convinced her that she hadn't been kidnapped, at the very least.
Scoffing loudly, his brother argued, "I'm only talking to you! Well, and Uncle and the rest. Maybe not Bifur. He'll probably kill us all. But really, do you think she might be-"
"HEY! WHAT DID YOU ASS-HATS DO WITH ALL MY SHIT?!"
xxxxxxxxxx
In case you couldn't tell, I hate writing accents.
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