I have decided what direction I am going to take this in and therefore will try to update at least twice a month. I must admit I believe there can be good Mary-Sue stories. However, this is not going to be one. It will not be a Mary-Sue story at all. There is a Mary-Sue in my story and I have purposely made her the worst kind of Mary-Sue possible. Don't run away yet! I promise there is a good reason for this, two actually. They are: 1.) For mere entertainment value and comic relief because there will be mocking of the Mary-Sue. 2.) To serve as contrast to the other character and shake things up a bit. Too often does the perfect Mary-Sue end up winning the affections of the hero in the story. No more! No, a merely average girl is to be our heroine. She isn't absurdly beautiful or courageous. She just tries to get by and do her best. Hopefully you'll be able to relate and thereby enjoy the story more.

Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing associated with the Lord of the Rings books or movies. If I did I would be rich and partying on my own private island right now. However, I do own the two characters in this chapter. Go me.

Chapter 2- It had to be you.

Don't panic. Just don't panic. Everything would be alright. This could all have been some sort of bad dream. I mean, I hadn't eaten that day, I passed out, and now I was dreaming. But as much as I wanted to believe that, I knew it couldn't be true. I mean, I was in a completely different (not to mention fictional) world. And I had absolutely no idea how I had gotten there, which also meant that I had absolutely no idea how to get back. As I sat there trying to absorb everything, I began looking around me, trying to get a feel for my surroundings. I had to be fairly deep within the forest because the trees were pretty close together, creating a slight canopy up above me. The forest floor was shaded and covered in grass, with various fern-like plants and flowers covering it as well, none of which looked familiar.

"What are you waiting for?"

"Huh?" Her annoyed voice startled me. I hadn't been paying attention and had no clue as to what she was asking me about. It was then that I realized she was standing with her hands on her hips, staring at me with a perturbed expression on her face.

"Well?"

"Well what?" I replied just as confused as ever.

"Why aren't you getting up?"

"Why should I?"

"Because we have to be going!" she cried, clearly exasperated.

Oh yeah, because that explained a whole lot. "Going where?"

"Further into the woods."

"Why would we do that?" As far as I knew, neither of us had any idea as to where we actually were. So why she would suggest we travel further into the woods was beyond me. Not to mention, that no matter which direction I looked the scenery looked the same. That being said, I could not discern how she knew which way was deeper into the woods.

"Duuuhh, so we can be rescued."

"Obviously I missed something. Why would traveling deeper into the woods equate to us being rescued? You said you didn't know where we were so how could you possibly know we would be rescued if we went farther into the woods? And how do you know exactly which direction would lead us deeper into the woods? "

She heaved a long-suffering sigh, gifted me with another eye roll, and began to speak very slowly in the most annoyingly patronizing voice I had ever heard. "Because we have to wander helplessly throughout the woods, until we are on the very brink of despair. And just as it seems that we won't make it, a prince or some sort of noble man will ride up on his white steed and rescue us. Then, of course, we will fall in love and live happily ever after. So you see, it really doesn't matter which way we wander just so long as we become distressed and are in as much danger as is possible."

I couldn't speak. I was literally stunned into silence. I mean, she couldn't have been serious, could she?

"Good plan, huh?"

"ARE YOU DERANGED?" (I didn't actually scream this, but it was getting close. After all I did not want to scream because I still had no idea who or what was out there.)

"What?" So much for hoping she wasn't serious. I would have felt so much better if she hadn't actually looked surprised that I had not approved of her idea.

"You don't honestly expect me to just wander aimlessly through a forest, purposefully trying to endanger myself, do you?"

"You want to be rescued, don't you?" It's official ladies and gentleman, the woman was absolutely crazy.

"Where on earth, or wherever we are, would you come up with the idea that this is the way to be rescued? Even if we manage to survive putting ourselves in danger- doubtful, very doubtful- who's to say we would be rescued?"

"Because that is the way it happens in the movies. Duh. Besides, why is it so hard to believe that we would survive?"

This had to be some kind of joke. No one could have been this stupid. I barely managed to restrain myself from screaming my response at her. "First off, we have no idea where we are. Second, seeing as we have no idea where we are, we don't have any idea what creatures live in these woods. There are all kinds of dangerous creatures like Orcs, Trolls, Goblins, and if we are in Mirkwood, perhaps Spiders. Third, we have no weapons to defend ourselves against said creatures. If we happen to run into any of those creatures, we're toast! Speaking of toast, we also have absolutely no food."

Throughout my tirade she had grown paler and paler, and interrupted me here to whisper, "Spiders?"

"Yep, big ones."

"Like bird-eating big?"

"Try human-eating." I'm not going to lie. I did get a slight satisfaction watching her eyes widen in horror. However I was not pleased with what happened next.

"WHAT!" she shrieked.

Oh, good now anything that might have wanted to eat us within a ten mile radius knew exactly where we were. This day just kept getting better and better.

"I'm too young to die!" She was by now practically sobbing.

"Oh, and what, I'm not? I'm 18 not 85."

"Yes, but I am also too pretty to die."

Oh, that was right, I forgot. I was practically a troll. "Look, if we run into any spiders, I'll just tell them to eat me first and you can make a safe get away. How's that sound?" Any mildly intelligent person would have known I was being sarcastic, but not my companion. That would have been too much to hope for.

"Really?" she asked between sniffles.

"No!" You'd think I would have learned. Shame on me, shame.

"Then I'll just have to rely on my Prince Charming to save me."

"Don't you understand? We have absolutely no connection to anyone in this world therefore no one would be looking for us. And the chances of some handsome lord on a white steed just appearing out of the blue are pretty much slim to none. And even if he did manage to find you, what makes you so sure that he would fall in love with you? I mean he could be married, or worse- gay."

"He won't be. That's just not how it works. Look at me! I'm perfect. I am beautiful, kind, and intelligent. Not to mention talented. I can sing, dance, swordfight, cook, anything. You name it and I can do it. That being said, who wouldn't want to love me?"

This sounded way too familiar. I mean, no one was this perfect except… And then it clicked. Oh dear sweet god. She was a Mary-Sue. I was trapped in Middle-Earth with a Mary-Sue. Looking at her then, I was surprised I hadn't realized it sooner. It was so obvious. From the loose curls of chestnut hair to her wide green eyes and flawless complexion to her tall, willowy figure the girl's appearance practically screamed "I'm a Mary-Sue!" Then something occurred to me. What if I was a Mary-Sue too? The changes of species, the situation itself were both a little too suspicious for my liking. Startled by that thought I walked up to my companion, grabbed her shoulders, and asked in a panicky voice, "What do I look like?" I was curious and at the same time not entirely sure I wanted to know. At her blank stare, I said, "Just describe my appearance to me."

"Well, you're short. You have a pasty complexion, brown eyes, and limp, lackluster hair that is a boring shade of brown. And you are way too curvy to be a real elf." Was it just me or had I asked her to describe me, not put me down? True, I asked for it by asking for her opinion, but even so her appraisal was a little harsh. But as harsh as it may have been, it sounded fairly correct. I'm 5'4", fairly slim. The curvy part is true, as is the part about my eye color. In my defense, I would like to say my hair is very nice. It's thick, layered, and a very light brown. Limp, lackluster hair, too curvy to be a real elf, who did she think she was? If that was true, when was the last time an elf had chestnut hair and green eyes, huh? I may have only been an elf for a few hours but I had my pride. But there really was no use getting angry. At least I don't look like a Mary-Sue. On the other hand, I was still trapped with one.

I sighed and quietly muttered to myself, "Out of all the billions of people on Earth and this is who I get?" It could not possibly get any worse than this.

And let me just say that when I'm wrong, I am really, really wrong. At that moment, a group of six elves came out of hiding and surrounded us, bows drawn and arrows pointed directly at our hearts. On the brighter side of things, if I was going to die at least it wouldn't have been as some eight-legged beastie's snack. Yeah, I was grasping at straws but when it came right down to it, being shot was a whole lot more appealing than being devoured.

By now my companion had placed the most pathetic and heart-wrenching pout on her face that would have put any puppy to shame. Well, you have to use the gifts God gave you. And seeing as I was blessed with a modicum of intelligence, my mind was racing trying to come up with a way to keep these guys from turning me into a human …well, Elven pin cushion (ugh, I am never going to get used to that.) Trying to convince them I was from another world didn't seem like the best course of action, as it would have probably resulted in my getting shot. Invaders from another world generally aren't viewed as a good thing. So unfortunately, aside from all of us being elves, I had nothing in common with them and therefore no logical reason for them not to kill me. It was at this point that I decided to follow my companion's lead and promptly put on what I thought to be a fairly decent attempt at a pathetic, heart-wrenching pout. Hey, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

After a moment of tense silence in which our captors seemed unmoved (if not disgusted) by our attempt at survival, I heard the sound of hooves and what seemed to be the tinkling of tiny bells. And then he rode into the clearing, on (yep, you guessed it) a white steed. Not only was I in a life-threatening situation, but I had to be proven wrong by the only person who would have somehow found a way to fail an IQ test. Beautiful, absolutely beautiful.

Speaking of beautiful, this elf was probably one of the most attractive males I had ever seen. He dismounted just outside the circle our captors had made around us and began walking towards us. He was awfully tall, easily 6'5" with long, golden hair. His face was young and fair, but in his eyes was such wisdom and experience that I knew he was old enough to be my great-times-infinity-grandfather. However, there was something familiar about him, something I was forgetting.

"Who are you and where are you from?" he demanded. It wasn't until he spoke that it all came rushing back to me. His voice, the white horse with bells- it all made sense now. There standing before me was, "Glorfindel," I breathed and before I'd even realized what I had done he had fixed me with the most intense glare I'd ever experienced in my eighteen years of existence. Needless to say, I was absolutely petrified. I had a feeling that no amount of pouting would get me out of this. But before I had time to come up with a reasonably decent or even bad plan he was right in front of me.

"How did you know my name?" he asked his voice deadly calm. However, the look in his eyes and the fact that he was easily a foot taller than me made up for his less than intimidating tone of voice. How to answer that? This should have been good. Somewhere Lady Luck was laughing at me.

"Ha ha…funny story that. You see…um… where I-I'm from… there is this book, well books actually…and I never thought they were real, no one did, but they are and now I know and… I'm making no sense. Alright I, we, are from…um…There's this place… and it's well, I don't really know where it is in relation to here (nervous chuckle) but anyway…oh, this is not going well. " Try as I might I had absolutely no idea how to broach the subject of how I got there. Nor did I have any clue as to how to explain we were from a completely different world where the entire history of Middle-Earth was common knowledge, or at least easily attainable. So far off to a bad start.

My pathetic attempt at stalling didn't help the situation either. At this point Glorfindel looked about ready to have my head and be done with it.

"Let me try this again. See we aren't from here…and now that I think about it I have absolutely no idea how we got here. So anyway…"

"Would you just answer the question already!" he shouted.

His sudden outburst made me jump and without thinking I yelled back, "I'm trying! It's just not an easy question to answer!" Smooth, real smooth. Yell at the man who was in charge of at least six elves waiting to kill you. Nicely done.

"I did not think that stating your name and where you hail from would be such a hard question nor how you knew me, seeing as most people have a fairly easy time with answering them. But apparently you are different. Pray forgive me for stringing three such difficult questions together." His slightly mocking tone and the emphasis placed on 'different' only served to make me more frustrated, something I thought to be next to impossible.

"Look, I don't know who you think you are…" I started to reply, miles away from calm, but before I could make a complete ass out of myself, my companion jumped in.

"My Lord, you will have to forgive my companion. We are weary from our travels. We have journeyed far from our home, a place most people have not even heard of, and we miss it greatly. Therefore, you will have to excuse us if we have difficulty speaking of it. Forgive me for not introducing myself sooner. My name is Almira."

As if that wasn't the most conspicuous wannabe-princess name in the history of mankind.

"And your name? That is, if it's not too difficult for you." Alright, he did not need to get smart. He started this; he was the one who got angry first. Well I'd show him, I could actually answer this one.

"Kate. My name is Kate."

"Now tell, why have you traveled such a long way with absolutely no weapons and such strange baggage?"

Baggage? What the hell was he talking about? I hadn't noticed any of my stuff making it. Seeing our confused looks he motioned to the side, where three more elves appeared with two purses, my suitcase, and some random graduation gifts. If I had not still been surrounded and on the brink of death I would have done my happy dance.

"Uh…hehe…about that…" Almira stuttered. Not so easy to answer his questions, now was it? Ha, see how the mighty had fallen! My internal victory party was cut short when Lord Glorfindel interrupted in a pensive voice, "It is time you reveal yourselves. Your unwillingness to reveal your identities makes me question your intentions which I first believed to be fairly harmless. However, now I am beginning to doubt that assumption. You are both dressed oddly, you have unique accents, and possess a physicality uncommon to most elves. Perhaps you are half-elves truly from some distant land. Or perhaps," and here his tone became cold, "you are spies, in service of the Dark Lord and should be killed immediately." At this last part, I noticed a shift in our captors' attitudes. Though they had never once lowered their weapons, they had relaxed a little. But not any more, now they were fully alert and awaiting their lord's command. Now would probably have been a good time to say something.

"My lord, our story is a very long one and rather complicated to explain. We are not purposefully trying to deceive you. However there are some aspects of our story you might find hard to believe. It would probably be best to discuss it somewhere more private," I stated in what I hoped was a somewhat convincing voice.

Lord Glorfindel pinned me once again with a penetrating stare, then announced "Bind their hands. We go to Imladris where Lord Elrond may hear their story and decide their fate."

Yeah, that definitely did not go well.