A/N: The OC appearing here is one that I thought up on the spot (Inspired by Two-Face from the Dark Knight and the Phantom of the Opera).

Elvish will be inBold Italics and Black Speech will be inBold Italics and Underlined.

I own NOTHING but my OCs: Elizabeth and Elizabeth's Ex-BF! Enjoy! *Bows Low*

Chapter 4: Meeting a King and Truth That Burns

I had decided to have another Name to go by since 'Elizabeth' and 'Anna' were unusual names here. I remembered a site on my computer back home that suggested an Elvish Name for you. I adjusted the commands on it to suggest two different names for me. I racked my brain to try and remember what they were. . ."Lúthien Mithrandír"

. . .

NO WAY! Mithrandír is Gandalf's name…But I'll keep Lúthien. . .

. . .

"Lúthien Rhuiviel". I liked it. I could not remember what it meant, but it was good enough for me. Lúthien Rhuiviel. Lúthien Rhuiviel. Lúthien Rhuiviel. I repeated the name in my mind til I had it memorized.

I had ridden almost non-stop for a whole week, so my horse and I had to rest. We slowed down and stopped by a river. I tied his reins to a nearby tree that was close enough to let him drink. I took off his saddle and set it aside. "Ethel, you have ridden hard. Rest, dear heart, and thank you." I kissed its' nose and smiled. I bent down next to the river and scooped up some water to drink. The cool sweet water soothed my rough, dry throat. I bent down again to splash my face…only then did I see my reflection.

God! I look…well I've looked better. In truth I didn't look THAT bad. I had a few cuts on my cheeks from where I was riding hard between thick trees and was scraped by the rough branches. My eyes had dark circles beneath them and my hair... I looked as if I was about to drop from exhaustion. I splashed myself a few times…but in the end I just knew I had to have a decent bath.

I got some towels that I had packed and some soap and a bottle of what I learned from the Elves was their version of Shampoo. I then removed my clothes and slowly entered the water. Valar! It is freezing! I shivered, but quickly washed every inch of myself. When I finished washing my hair, I took a deep breath and went under. After being under for a while, I came up for air.

That's when I heard a sound from the trees. I turned towards the sound while slowly wading over to my bag on the shore to grab a knife. Suddenly a Human Male came out of nowhere. "Who are you?!" The man's eyes widened and he turned his back to me. "I'm sorry, my Lady." I slowly climbed out of the water, dried myself off with a towel then slipped on a fresh pair of pants and a light shirt. "I am decent."

The man turned around and I got a good look at him. He was tall, like all the males of this world no doubt, and was dressed like one of the Rangers of the North Thranduil told me about. His hair was black with some grey in it and came down to his shoulders, and he had a nice cut beard. Then I saw his eyes; they were a grey color but had such kindness and wisdom of many years. My eyes widened. It can't be…"Who are you sir?" I asked him again. He bowed low to me. "I have many names. Estel is the name given to me by the Elves, and I am Strider to the Bree folk. But I am Aragorn son of Arathorn of the Dunedain. What is your name and why is an Elleth like yourself traveling with no escort?"

I stared at him with raised eyebrows. He thinks I'm an Elleth? "My name is Lúthien. . . Lúthien Rhuiviel." I paused wondering if I should tell him my real name. I knew I could trust him but I still needed to be cautious. "And I'm no Elleth." I tilted my head and brushed back a bit of my wet hair behind my ear to prove I was human. I reverted back to my native language known here as Western. "My true name is Anna Elizabeth Jones. You may call me Lúthien or Elizabeth." He frowned. "No human so young knows the tongue of two races." "I have been living with the Elves for a couple of months now. I was taught by a good teacher. He. . ." I faltered thinking of Legolas. "My Lady? Are you alright?"

I simply nodded. I then began to take some food from my pack. "Come Aragorn, dine on what little I have here with me, and I'll tell you my tale." I sat on the ground and held out an apple for him to take while taking a bite out of mine. He hesitated a bit then sat next to me taking the apple.

I swallowed my bit of apple then began: "My Tale begins deep in the woods near the college, a school for grown men and women, I was attending. . ." I told him of all that happened, from my captivity to my leave of Mirkwood. He listened to my tale and would often ask questions about what words form my home meant. I answered all the questions to the best of my abilities. "I am now traveling west to see the land for myself. Sure, maps and books are fine, but the best way to learn about something is to experience it, which brings us to this moment."

He did not say anything for a while. "Though you did not say it, there is another reason you left Mirkwood." I kept a blank face taking another bite of the apple. "You have your reasons, of course. Still it is not safe to travel alone these days with so many Orcs and Goblins around." I nodded. "Yet you travel alone yourself. And I have been well trained with sword and bow. I can defend myself." He narrowed his eyes at me. "I will still feel better if you traveled with another."

I sighed. There was no other way. This HUMAN was a stubborn one, like all humans are…! Did I really just think that? I shook my head. I've been around the Elves too long. To make it worse he WAS the descendant of kings. I did not want to get on the bad side of the Future King of Gondor. "Alright, if you wish for me to travel with you to calm your nerves, I will travel with you. But we will separate in Rivendell." He nodded in agreement.

-
Aragorn and I have been traveling together for five months and a week, and he became like a father to me. He was so much like the man from my book, which was hidden within the wrappings of my bag, but looked like Viggo Mortensens' presentation. . . but with more grey hair. He seemed to be the ideal leader and father, but I knew he doubted himself. . . especially when it came to being King. I wanted to assure him he would do a great job, show him his future using my book, but I had read enough fan-fiction and books on time and space to know that you can't reveal the future to anyone. Knowing your fate could lead to someone changing it. I really didn't want to be the reason Strider didn't take the crown.

I had asked Aragorn why he thought I was an Elleth the first time we met and he replied that I had spoken to him in Elvish.

I smiled. "True. But can you blame me? I've been speaking Elvish for two months! Once you start speaking it fluently it's hard to stop!" We both laughed.

"Indeed. From what you told me of your home, the only language anyone can speak is the Common Tongue, correct?" "Mostly. Most people in America speak the Common Tongue. But America is known as a 'Melting Pot' which means there are many people of different races there. Many speak The Common language, which we call English, but they also speak a language called Spanish. Don't ask me about that one! I don't know it well enough to teach you."

We had camped in a small clearing with the Misty Mountains not that far to the west of us. The Sun was high in the sky. I had cooked some of the rabbit meat he had caught us into a stew. As we ate, he decided to bring up a topic I had tried to avoid. "The book you always keep in your bag, why do you not talk about it?"

I bit my lip. "I…" "'Lord of the Rings' is a strange title…" My head snapped up. "You have been careless. You know you can trust me." I sighed. I didn't want to explain it but he was right. I can trust him. "'Lord of the Rings' is a popular book back home. It has been read by millions of people, it's been performed on a stage, and it has been turned into a series of three movies. Movies are basically like plays, save you watch them on a screen you can watch over and over again. Anyway, the whole story is considered fictional, the world within its pages as well." I licked my dry lips ready to tell him the big secret. "That world is called Middle Earth."

He stared at me in shock. "So, that book holds the history of Middle Earth?" he asked.

I sighed and pulled it out. "Well… yes and no. The entire thing is separated into books and parts. There are three parts in the story: 'The Fellowship of the Ring', 'The Two Towers', and 'Return of the King'. Each part has two books in it so all together its six stories in one." I held it up to show him the symbol. "The rune on the front of the book is actually the authors' initials: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien or J.R.R. Tolkien." I traced the letters as I spoke his name. I turned to the very back of the book, to the Appendix.

"It also has maps of this world and Appendixes that tell the history and some of what is not explained completely in the stories themselves. There is a timeline of the complete history of this world, maps of certain Family Trees and a section on how to properly pronounce certain languages that are spoken in the stories."

I showed him the timeline of the First and Second Age and part of the Third Age of Middle Earth. "I am not sure completely what year it is because I never asked the Elves." "It is the year three thousand and one." I looked again at a certain year and counted on my fingers. "That makes you seventy years old then, correct?" I smirked as he groaned. "It says when I was born?"

"Not the exact date. Only the year which was…" I pause to look. "Two thousand nine hundred and thirty one."

He groaned again and I laughed.

Later that night as he slept I laid down staring at the stars.

"Elizabeth.~"

I sat bolt upright. I thought heard a voice that I thought I would never hear again. The fact that my name was sung the same way it was when the college preformed the musical 'Elizabeth' was saying something. I grabbed my bag and my things before following the voice, determined to find out if it was who I thought it was.

"Come rest in my arms. I will comfort thee. Make haste, and thou shalt be free and everything will be over.~"

I ran til I reached a clearing. No one was there.

"I must have been hearing things. He's been dead for over a year now." I muttered. I turned around to return to the camp.

"Elizabeth.~"

I gasped and turned around. There in front of me was a man I once loved.

"Joshua Patterson?"

He smiled and pushed some of his brown hair out of his face. He was exactly like I remembered him: Tall, Dark and Handsome. The only thing different now was that he seemed to have a menacing aura about him. He was dressed all in black armor and he had a black mask covering the right side of his face. "It's been a while, love."

There it was, that British accent that took my breath away. That I use to love so much before…

"You're dead." He chuckled. "Yes I'm dead in the other world. In this one I'm very much alive."

I bit my lip. The way he said that made me nervous. "Why are you here? It's been over a year since the fire. How did you get here?" He smiled at me.

"Anna Elizabeth Jones, I came here for you. We were made to be together. It's part of our destiny, our blood, and our people."

"Our… People?" I was confused. "Are we not Americans? Born and bred in the southern part of Virginia?"

He frowned. "This isn't good." He said to himself. "If she doesn't remember then my plans can't continue."

"What are you talking about, Josh? I remember all the time we spent together all the way up to the accident."

"Oh, Elizabeth." His eye grew eerily red. "That fire was no accident." Suddenly huge black and silver wings sprung from his shoulder blades. Black and silver scales surrounded his eyes and appeared over his neck. His gloved hands became black paws with silver claws. A black and silver tail curled around his feet. His eyes were now sliver and slit and fangs produced from the corners of his mouth. All in all, he looked like a Dragon/Human Hybrid.

But the scariest thing was when he tore off his mask. There was nothing but some muscle and bone left on that side of his face. The eyeball was still there and the teeth as well. To tell the truth it looked as if he was a mixture of Two-Face from 'the Dark Knight' movie and the Phantom from the stage play.

I could not move. I was terrified of this strange new creature yet something about it seemed familiar at the same time.

He smirked. "This is my True self, Jones: I am Black Bone of the Mordorina Dragon-Blood Clan. Also known as the Clan that watched over the inhabitants of Mordor before its fall." His voice had become both terrifying and seductive and he kept my eyes locked with his.

"Let me tell you a story. When Eru created the Valar, he wanted a race that could deliver prayers and protect all other creations that he might create. So he created the Dragon-Bloods, a race of half-human half-dragon protectors. Immortal, and death only by a poisonous sword, a black arrow or beheading. He then created the other races and divided the Dragon-Bloods into clans, each protecting a certain race. Our people thrived and prospered. Years later the Great Eye murdered my clan but told me the truth of my people: We had become corrupt. Our people had no love for the other clans and would kill anyone from a clan not our own. He opened my eyes and gave me the power, strength and the promise that I may restart my people.

"You see love, every male is given a vision of their mate, and on the day He fell to Isildur, I viewed mine. The problem was she hadn't been born yet. The mother was of the Rohaniana, the Rohan Clan and was due any day. The father having been of the Gondoriania, The Gondor Clan, had loved the mother and was killed protecting her. She, the day after the fathers' death, went into hiding with the Ten Elders of our race. The last living members of our entire race. They had had a vision that the child would be marked by the moon and rebuild our race to the old ways. They could not allow me to get my hands on her, so they created a portal to another world where the mother and the child would be safe, but I came in as they finished the spell. As the Orcs under my command killed the Elders I jumped into the portal after the mother. I somehow hit my head on the way there and soon became a human child name Joshua Matthew Patterson.

"I did not have any memory of who I really was, nor did I see the mother or my mate… until September 9th two thousand and nine."

My eyes widened, that had been the year I had started high school. The day he saved me from the bullies that were going to toss me into a cafeteria trashcan. The day he, a tenth grader, became the protector and later boyfriend of a ninth grader.

"When I first saw you, something seemed right. It felt like I had known you my whole life. After saving you from those bullies, when your hand touched mine I felt a spark and knew I would do anything to keep you safe. I begged the supervisor to put me in all your classes so that I could keep an eye on you and they said yes. From then on out I protected you and later asked you out. When I met your parents, your mother recognized me. She took me to the kitchen and questioned me cruelly about my past and who I was. When she realized I had forgotten everything, she relaxed and said that she was sorry and was only being over cautious. I protected you til your graduation.

"I had every intention to ask you to marry me and be my wife on the night of the fire. I carried you almost all the way out of the burning building with a broken hand and you with a broken leg. I gave you one last kiss goodbye before pushing you out the door into the safe night air as the house collapsed on top of me. I awoke with this deformity within the Tower of Barad-Dûr. It was my Master, Sauron who started the fire, and it was the only way for me to reach him. I remembered everything that night. My past, the prophecy and my mate: YOU."

He was now directly in front of me. One of his clawed hands softly caressed my face. "I must admit it took me longer than I thought to get the spell right that would bring you here love, but I must have messed up somewhere. You were supposed to appear in my arms in my private rooms in Mordor, not near the Lonely Mountain." He then pushed his lips upon mine in an intoxicating kiss.

My mind couldn't process all this. If what he said is true, that I am his 'mate'… then that would mean that he…

"NO!" I pulled away from his grasp and began to run towards Aragorn. Behind me, I heard him growl out something in what I knew to be Black Speech.

"Bring me the Girl and kill all others with her!"

"Aragorn!" he bolted up, knife in hand. "Elizabeth, what is it?"

"Yrch!"

As soon as I said that, an Orc jumped out and tried to stab the man who had been like a father to me. Aragorn sliced the Orc with the knife and it fell down dead. He then stood up, drew his sword, and we stood back-to-back as we stood in the center of our little camp, watching for more. "How did this happen, Liz?" he asked using the nickname he gave to me.

"Remember me telling you about that man from my world that had protected me and fell in love with me?" I didn't wait for an answer. "He apparently is from this world, chased my mom from here, protected me for four years, was brought here by the Dark Lord Sauron to reclaim his title as the Dark Lords' Top General, is a traitor to his race called Dragon-Bloods, and he is going to force me to become his wife for all eternity."

He looked back at me with a raise eyebrow and I shrugged. Then Josh stepped into our camp still in what he called 'True Form', orcs stepping out beside him, and just looking at him made Aragorn step back wide-eyed. Grabbing me, he pushed me behind him and pointed his sword Josh. "I don't care if you are the last of your people, I will kill you if you try to take Elizabeth."

Josh growled. I tuned out what he said as he began to walk towards us making us back up. I tried to step back but found absolutely no ground beneath my foot. When I looked back I saw I was at the edge of a cliff, a high one at that. I stepped forward and tried to stop Aragorn from stepping back further.

The next thing I knew I was falling. I could see Aragorn and Joshua looking over the cliff yelling my name. A loud roar filled the air and I was suddenly in the claws of something big and I was being carried away from my former lover and the man who was a second father to me. I was roughly thrown onto the hard floor of a cave. I coughed and tried to regain the air that had been squeezed out of my lungs.

Torches flared up all throughout the cave and I could see the whole room was civilized. There was a large amount of carpet in a corner of the room, a large shelf that reached the ceiling filled with scrolls covered one wall, and a pile of gold and other jewels was on the other side.

"Now that you are safe, we can talk."

I turned around to see who had talked only to scream and stumble backwards.

I was face to face with a Dragon.