PART ONE: ANACHRONISM

Chapter XVIII: I Get A Date

"All right, I know you teleported this time. I saw you jump off the building, and then two hours later you appeared back on the roof."

It took my eyes a few blinks to become accustomed to the light of Ohio sun. Jack stood on the other side of the roof. His arms were crossed, and he had a stubborn set about his jaw and mouth. A cup of coffee and book rested on the ground at his feet, which meant he'd probably camped out after seeing me jump a second time. I sighed. Why did cute guys always have to end up being weird?

"I don't suppose I can say that I locked myself out of my apartment again?" I asked, hopefully.

"No."

I glanced longingly at the door to the stairwell, but Jack had once again positioned himself between me and the exist. He had thought this ambush through very thoroughly.

"You're not getting out of this," said Jack.

Fighting back another sigh, I asked, "Out of what? Telling you? I can just not tell you. I can stand here and refuse to tell you 'til the cows come home. We'll stand here and glare at each other until I disappear again, and you wait for me to come back again. But it could take weeks, even months, for me to come back. Then I'll appear here, we'll glare at each other for a long time, and then I'll disappear again. This can go on and on and on. I'll eat and I'll sleep. You, however, will never be able to move from this spot—even to go to the bathroom. Because the moment you leave that spot, I'll come back here and run away. So, you can glare at me, but this is a competition I'll win no problem."

"So, you admit it then," said Jack.

"Admit what?"

"That you can teleport."

I groaned. "Damn it, I don't teleport. I just—never mind. I don't want to tell you."

"Tell me."

The more he asked and tried to trick me into telling him, the less I wanted to admit anything. I shook my head and asked, "What do you think I am?"

Jack frowned. Apparently he had no solid answer yet. We stood there awkwardly while he thought of a response. Unfortunately, standing in silence gave Jack's cuteness time to work on me. My earlier frustration faded. Even when he pondered stupid question and would most likely come up with a stupid answer, he was still really cute.

Finally, Jack lifted his head. "You're a witch, aren't you?"

Of course. It was always a witch. There was no creativity anymore.

"Not the witch thing again," I whined. "Been there done that. It ends with burning buildings, and a crazy soldier pointing his sword at me. I am not a witch. Try again."

"Burning buildings and a crazy soldier?" asked Jack.

"Yeah. That's my life. Deal with it."

"Are you like some sort of medieval woman come to the future?"

I stared at him for a second and then burst out laughing. Well, I had asked for creativity. "Me? Medieval? Oh hell no, I'm as modern as they come. I live on Starbucks coffee."

Jack stopped to consider this. "So you're not a demon or an angel?"

"Angel?" I could just picture myself showing up in front of the Company or the Fellowship, trying to show off my new fancy wings and divine abilities. Even better was the image of me as a demon. I'd try to tempt someone into sin, but fail so miserably that they became a priest or monk or something pious. My ribs hurt from all the laughing. "This is fun. Guess again, come on."

Jack scowled. "I'm being serious here."

"I know. That's why it's so funny." I grinned. "I really should make everyone who asks try to guess. It'd make things much more entertaining at least."

"What are you?"

"Nuh-uh." I waggled my finger at him. "You have to guess it."

He ran a hand through his short hair. "I'm out of guesses."

"Too bad then," I said. "Because I'm not telling you. Come up with new guesses, and we'll try again some other time."

I took a step towards the door, but Jack moved in front of me with a cry of "Tomorrow!" When I stopped in my tracks, he grinned in triumphant and added, "You're not going to keep this a secret for long. We'll get coffee and I'll figure out what you are."

"Tomorrow?" I shook my head. "Don't make plans. I never keep dates."

"It isn't a date," said Jack.

When I said date I meant an arranged time of meeting… But hey, if Jack heard romantic date, who was I to complain?

"It's a date and you know it." I couldn't keep a smug smile off my face. "I guess I can try to meet you for coffee tomorrow. Though don't have high expectations that I'll show up. What time is good for you?"

"It's not a date," said Jack stubbornly, "but I'll stop by your apartment tomorrow morning around ten."

"All right then," I said, stepping past him and heading for the stairwell. "It's a date!"

I heard Jack yell "It's not date!" before I closed the door firmly behind me. A huge grin spread across my face and I skipped (the actual action of skipping, not jumping worlds) down the stairs to the sixth floor.

I, Ana Stonbit, had a date. A real date with a real guy. We were going to get coffee. He was going to fall in love with me. We were going to be a normal couple with normal couple problems.

Okay, before you point out that Jack doesn't seem nearly as excited about the date as I was, you have to understand that a date is a big deal for me. It's hard to maintain a relationship when you accidentally Skip to another world every other week.

My dating history contained a whole two guys. The first guy, David Horne, was when I was thirteen. We went on a date to a movie, and afterwards, he said I was cute so we became boyfriend and girlfriend. We lasted for a frigging week before he said we should break up because I never answered his text messages. Well, yeah, it's kind of hard to answer text messages while I'm running away from giant white oxen in Gondor! My second relationship was in high school. That one lasted a record two and a half months. Then Aiden cheated on me because "I was never there" for him. You'll never guess where I was instead.

In short, my dating history was a disaster thanks to the Skipping. So the fact that I actually had a date with this adorable next door neighbor (don't remind me that he refuses to call it a date) was an exciting thing. Even better, he at least had some idea that I was not normal, and perhaps if we did fall in love and start dating, he would be more tolerant of my absences than David or Aiden had ever been.

Now, all I had to do was not Skip to Middle Earth for the next twenty-four hours, and I was good. I could do that, right? Right?

Wrong.

I got to my apartment and fixed myself dinner (microwave macaroni and cheese like the proper adult I was). After a shower, I changed into my pajamas—an oversized t-shirt and boxers. Usually, I wore leggings and a cotton shirt, which was at least passable in Middle Earth, but that night, I decided to be optimistic that I wouldn't Skip. But, of course, just when I was getting into bed for a good night's sleep…

Skip.

That had to have been one of the worst wardrobe Skips of my life. I think it's tied for second place with the time I Skipped in a swimsuit—but that's still to come. The undisputable worst, of course, being the time I Skipped to Rohan in the nude.

Anyways, I wore nothing but my pajamas. Oversized t-shirt, no bra, and boxers. And I was in Middle Earth…where women wearing pants were considered scandalous.

You can already see the disaster coming, can't you?

I went from sitting on my bed to sitting on top of a dwarf's round, squishy stomach.

"Ow!"

"Bombur, get off me!"

"Where are we?"

"Ana, what are you doing here?" cried Bofur. "And what are you wearing?"

I looked down and saw that I was sitting on Bombur's stomach. In a huge heap beneath him was the rest of the Company. Bofur sprawled on top of Glóin and Dori with Bombur's leg digging into his back, while Balin and Bilbo were buried beneath Dwalin and his fur coat. The Company, I realized, had been trapped in a sort of crusted, claw-like cage with an open roof. We were inside a mountain, the rough walls sloping upward to form a low ceiling above our heads. Glowing orange torches revealed a lone pathway leading from the cage deeper into the caverns. The pathway was narrow with step sides the dropped off into a black abyss below.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"Inside the Misty Mountains," came Balin's voice from somewhere below me.

"We have been captured." Óin's voice was muffled. I think because Fíli's hair was in his mouth.

Bofur still looked scandalized. "Ana, why are you dressed like that?"

"I was getting ready for bed," I explained, tugging at the hem of my t-shirt.

"You sleep in that?" Bombur looked up at me perched on his stomach.

"Do you not get cold?" asked Ori.

"It's called pajamas. Which means I would be curled up in my nice warm bed while wearing them." I paused, and then the realization that I was in Middle Earth instead of my apartment started to sink in. "Oh shit! I can't be here—I have a date tomorrow! The one time I really didn't want to Skip… And now I'm going to miss my date with a cute guy."

"I am certain you can set up another date," said Bofur kindly.

I let out a long sigh. "In my experience, guys don't like it when I can't be there for them."

"If you grew a beard," said Glóin, "perhaps you could acquire more dates."

"Somehow, I don't think that would help me very much," I said. "Unfortunately, human tastes aren't the same as dwarvish tastes." I stroked my chin and sighed. "I would like to have a marvelous blonde beard though."

"We are all impressed you managed to get a date, Ana," said Thorin darkly from somewhere at the bottom of the pile. "Now, get off us."

"Thorin," I cried. He'd been so quiet that I hadn't even realized he was there. Then, it occurred to me what he'd just said. I crossed my arms over my chest. "Just for that comment, I'm staying right here."

A series of loud protests rose from the dwarves. I'm pretty sure I was cursed out in some very colorful Khuzdul.

I decided I couldn't punish the rest of the Company for Thorin's rudeness, so I hopped off Bombur's stomach and then helped the fat dwarf to his feet. Like a jigsaw puzzle, one by one, the dwarves and Bilbo disentangled themselves. Bofur, it seemed, still could not believe the clothes I wore. Thankfully, Ori leant me his cloak, worried that I would get cold.

It turned out that I had Skipped to right after the dwarves had fallen through the floor of the cave in the Misty Mountains. Nori pointed out to me the cracks in the low ceiling and explained that they had been dumped into the cage.

"Whose cage is this?" I asked, examining the iron bars.

Fíli inspected the rusted metal carefully, while Kíli podded it with his index finger.

"Most likely goblins," said Balin. "They would be remnants of the great goblins who dwelled in the Misty Mountains before the War of Dwarves and Orcs."

"War of Dwarves and Orcs?" wondered Bilbo.

I actually knew the answer to this one. "The war took place one-hundred-and-fifty years ago. In revenge for his father's murder, King Thráin led an army of dwarves into the Misty Mountains to conquer all the orc and goblin strongholds."

The dwarves all stared at me in horror. My gaze shifted to Thorin, whose expression was hard and grim. Oh. Right. King Thráin was his father.

Thankfully, Thorin saved of from any more awkwardness by saying, "Which means our captors will have no love of dwarves. We must keep our wits about us."

"What does that mean?" I asked. "What wits should I keep?"

Thorin glanced at me and then said, in a low voice, "Do not mention our quest. Do not mention my name or my majesty. Do not mention who you are. Do not mention Gandalf, Elrond, or any of the important people you know."

I winced. "So I should just say nothing?"

A ghost of a smile crossed Thorin's face. "That would be best."

"If anyone asks," added Dori, "we are dwarven merchants traveling from Bree to visit our kin in the Iron Hills."

"If you can avoid saying anything, however," said Balin, "that would reassure us all."

I fell into silence and watched as the dwarves tried to find a way out of the cage. The dwarves still had all their weapons, so Dwalin used his warhammer to strike the iron bars. However, despite their rust, the bars held in place. After about fifteen minutes of trying to break out, most of the dwarves had given up and sat on the floor of the cage with me. Only Dwalin, Fíli, and Kíli remained battling the iron bars with whatever weapons they could find.

"Tell us about this man with whom you have a date, Ana," said Dori.

"Well, I don't have a date anymore," I grumbled. "Unless the Skip very kindly brings me back soon. But his name's Jack and he moved in next door and he's cute."

"A romance with the neighbor," said Glóin wistfully.

"My brother still has not forgotten the dwarfmaid who was our neighbor in Dunland," explained Óin.

"Oh?" I looked between the brothers eagerly. "I haven't heard about this before."

"She has one of the loveliest beards I've ever seen," said Glóin. "And she has some of the best stone craftsmanship in the village."

"He married her," Óin added for my benefit.

It occurred to me that if Gimli was Glóin's son then of course Glóin would have married at some point. How weird to think that years from now, Glóin's son and Bilbo's heir would set out on an adventure together.

I wished I could know my own future, know if I was going to get a happy ending or if I was going to end up losing my mind like Atanalcar. Keeping the date with Jack, I thought, would be a good step in the "happy ending" direction.

"Do not look so sad, Ana," said Bofur.

I smiled across the cage at him. "I could still Skip back in the couple few hours and make it on time. And even if I miss the date, I can probably still wrangled him into setting up another one."

"Somehow," said Nori, "I do not think this Jack agreed to this date freely."

"But we wish you the very but luck with him," added Ori quickly. "I hope you two will be very happy together."

The rest of the dwarves started offering me congratulations and well-wishes. You would have thought Jack and I were getting married instead of just going on a first date. Nori and Bombur remained still skeptical that Jack would want to go on a date with me when I was lacking a beard. Ori offered to help me braid my hair in preparation for the date, and soon the rest of the dwarves began debating what hairstyle would look best on me.

The only person who said nothing was Thorin. He stood above the rest of us, his arms folded over his chest in his usual majestic pose. His gaze remained fixed on the stone pathway leading deeper into the caverns. Suddenly, he hissed, "Quiet."

A hush fell over the dwarves.

On the stone pathway, there had appeared a group of grotesque goblins. At least twenty of them—enough to outnumber the Company—made their way to the iron cage. They leered at us, grinning and showing their crooked teeth. They hissed something in their foul language as one of the goblins opened the metal door. Pouring into the cage like a swarm of insects, the goblins grabbed the dwarves, Bilbo, and me one by one, stripped us of our weapons, and forced us along the pathway. The dwarves started to shout insults, struggling as best they could. Ori very nearly took a goblin's eye out, and Óin kept trying to throttle them. Since I was fairly incapable of fighting and could very easily be killed by a goblin, I just made myself as small as possible in the hopes that they would ignore me.

It didn't help much. One of the goblins spat on me, and I shrieked in horror as the spit landed on my arm. I tried desperately to wipe some of the saliva off with my t-shirt, saying, "I'm going to contract some deadly disease."

"That is the least of our concerns right now," said Thorin, who was right behind me on the pathway.

One of the goblins prodded me in the side, his sharp fingernail jabbing deep into my skin. I yelped and clung onto Dwalin's back. Thinking I was a goblin, Dwalin shoved me away. Unfortunately, he shoved me into a goblin. The goblin snapped at me, baring its teeth and its knife.

"I don't like this," I cried, stumbling into Thorin.

"Yes." Thorin grabbed my wrist, pulling me out of the way as he shoved the goblin aside. "Because we enjoy being captured by goblins so much."

I opened my mouth to respond, but yet another goblins pushed me.

Thorin still hadn't let go of my wrist, and I ended up dragging him with me. We almost fell off the edge of the stone pathway, down into the depths of the abyss, but Thorin managed to keep us on solid ground. Then, as soon as it was clear we weren't go to fall to our death, he released me.

"Walk straight," he muttered. "Try not to d—"

Goblins yanked us apart before I could hear the rest of what he said. Knowing Thorin, though, he was probably telling me not to do anything stupid.

I pulled my hands close to my chest and tried to do as Thorin commanded. However, it was hard to walk straight and not do anything stupid when the goblins were shrieking and jostling.

The dwarves shouted protests when they saw the goblins carrying their confiscated weapons. The swords, axes, knives, and bows were passed along by the goblins. All the weapons except for mine. I didn't have a weapon with me. The Sword Breaker was at home, lying on my bedside table. That was the last time I ever went to bed unarmed.

"Don't eat me," I said, eyeing one particularly deformed goblin. "I don't taste very good. You can eat the dwarves though. A troll once told me they were delicious."

Somewhere to my left, Dwalin snorted. "You still sing the same tune. It did not work the first time, why would it work the second time?"

"We don't like the beards," said one of the goblins, who knew the common tongue. "Dwarves are all hairy. The strands get stuck between the teeth. We like humans though. Humans are very tender."

I gulped.

Dwalin accidentally elbowed me in the stomach, and I stumbled backwards into Kíli. Kíli said something not very nice to one of the goblins in Khuzdul. I think it had something to do with eating one's own innards, but I could be wrong.

"You could eat Kíli instead of me," I told the goblin who spoke the common tongue. "He doesn't have a beard."

"Hey!" cried Kíli. "I have more of a beard then you!"

"That's not saying much."

"I do not taste good," cried Kíli, looking around at the goblins frantically. "I taste like gravel! Like gravel!"

The goblin cackled and then said, "Or we could eat both of you."

My response was cut off by a sharp elbow to the ribs. Another hard push, and I slammed into the shoulder of another goblin, knocking him off balance and off the edge of the pathway. The goblin tumbled into the black abyss below, his knotted hands reached up towards me before he disappeared from sight, consumed by the darkness.

With a shill shriek, I leapt backwards. The goblins around me hissed and jeered angrily. But for the most part, they didn't seem to upset that I had just accidentally killed one of theirs.

I slunk to Dwalin's side, clinging to his back in the hopes that the dwarf would protect me. I should have known better, of course. Dwalin did no such thing. He got into a fist fight with one of the nearest goblins, stepping away and leaving me exposed. Someone hit the back of my knees, and I stumbled forward yet again. I would have fallen onto my knees and probably been trampled to death if Bifur hadn't grabbed my arm and held me upright.

You can, I suppose, think of the walk from the cage to our destination as a game of pinball where I was the ball and the dwarves and goblins were the bumpers. I bounced about, trying to avoid being kicked or punched or bitten or knocked off the edge of the pathway (why does no one in Middle Earth believe in handrails?). For a while, I managed to used Bifur as a shield against most of the pushing and fighting, but then Bifur got knocked to the ground and I was left on my own.

"The Great One remembers you," snarled one of the goblins next to me.

I looked up to see the goblin wasn't looking at me but leering at Balin. The goblin was taller than the old, white-haired dwarf, and yet Balin did not seem intimidated in the slightest, merely annoyed with how foul the goblins smelled.

"I do not remember this 'Great One'," said Balin. "I slew too many goblins in the Battle of the Coldfells to remember one arrogant fool."

The goblin snarled, moving as if to strike Balin, but at the last second, Balin stepped to the side and the goblin missed. For the first time, it occurred to me that Balin was badass.

When one of the goblin's snapped his teeth near my hand, trying to bite off a few fingers, I screamed and caught hold of Nori's arm. I clung on for dear life until someone grabbed me roughly by the back of the shirt and peeled me away from Nori. When I regained my bearings, I found myself facing an extremely annoyed Thorin.

"I told you to walk straight," said Thorin, dragging me by the wrist along with him.

"It's hard," I said right before a goblin almost took my eye out.

Thorin pulled me away from the goblin just in time to save my eye. "Keep your head down. They are more likely to kill the irritating captive than the quiet one."

I nodded. "Yes, your majesty."

Thorin sighed and pushed a goblin away from him. "Why do I tolerate you?"

"Because I have so much majestic potential?" I said with a small smile.

Despite being surrounded by goblins, despite being pushed down a stone pathway that dropped down into a black pit on either side, despite being taken somewhere we did not know, and despite the threat of being eaten by vengeful goblins, Thorin laughed.

"You? Majestic? Only in your dreams."