An Old Amulet

Chapter Three

So I'd followed Gandalf into the drawing room half-heartedly, not quite sure what to expect. And we'd been sitting in almost absolute silence for a few minutes. I had no idea who he was, the old man, aside from the name I was given. But he seemed to be someone rather important by how the "dwarves" were respecting him over their own host. And he was carrying a big stick that I thought he'd smack me with it if I didn't go along with his notions. That's what my gran would do. But Gandalf was only sitting in a chair much too small for him by the fireplace, fiddling with a pipe. Not doing anything threatening at all.

"So, you say that you're lost?" He said, coughing lightly, suddenly shattering the silence and I couldn't've been more thankful for it. "Where is it that you're from?"

Now I wasn't so thankful. I really didn't want to talk about myself and on top of that I felt like there was a second question somewhere in there, but I decided to answer almost truthfully. Or as truthfully as I could. "Over the river and through the woods a ways."

Gandalf narrowed his eyes at me slightly, speculating my every word. "Hmm…"

I watched him carefully as he snapped his fingers, producing a flame, and using it to light the tobacco in his pipe. I tried not to stare, hoping I'd missed a match in his hand or something of the sort. Perhaps a lighter. But I knew those probably did not exist in this world of wood and stone. I'd surmised by that point that technology wasn't really a thing in those parts.

My first impression of Gandalf was that of wizardry, and I was coming to find that along with hobbits, wizards were quite real. And that didn't set well with me at all. Not in the slightest.

"Did you know that smoking is bad for your health?" I brought up randomly, trying to fill the silence with something, not matter how trivial. Lest I started to freak out, thinking about all of the odd things around me. I needed sound, noise, distractions. I needed them bad.

"Is that so?" He asked, rather sincerely. Looking up at me, sucking on his pipe.

I nodded. "Yeah, there was a bunch of research done where I'm from. Excessive smoking can lead to lung issues later on in life. It makes your teeth yellow, bad breath, holes in your cheeks, it's pretty nasty. Doesn't stop people from doing it though-"

That's when I realized Gandalf's eyes had narrowed even farther and he was looking at me quizzically. I felt like I'd shot myself in the foot a bit.

"My dear, you have a very odd way of speaking." He stated, exhaling smoke

He wasn't really chipping away at my façade, but he was calling it into question, my identity. I didn't speak like him or the others. It was only a short time before he figured it all out and I was done for. And that clock was striking, singing the song of my demise.

I laughed nervously, scratching the back of my head and looking anywhere except for his piercing blue eyes. "Sorry, I'm not from around these parts."

"So you've said," he started, cool as a cucumber, "yet I've heard from the others that you've told them that you're from the Shire. I'm starting to wonder which part of your story is true, young Bronwyn." He paused, inhaling on his pipe once more.

Realizing that I couldn't go on for much longer, I exhaled loudly. "You and me both, old man."

"Old man?" Gandalf questioned, slightly brazen, taking a break from his smoking to lecture me a bit. "I do believe I deserve a bit more respect than this."

I shrugged, knowing he was probably right. "Sorry. You and me come from two different worlds. And I have no idea who you even are. Aside from Gandalf, probably a wizard. I'm just having a hard time believing that. Where I'm from wizards aren't really real. In fact, they aren't. They're only a part of Harry Potter. Wands and Dark Lords and what have you. Wizards are completely fictitious."

He seemed to be quite perplexed by what I was saying. And I was almost kicking myself for saying it. But it all just came out of me in one rush, I couldn't've stopped it. I was ranting, almost. Besides, it felt good to finally tell the truth. And Gandalf wasn't looking at me like I was crazy. That made me feel a tad better.

Huffing some more on his pipe, Gandalf nodded slowly. "Different worlds you say?"

"Well, I don't know for sure." I reiterated, sighing a bit. "I could tell you what happened to me and you could gauge that for yourself."

He gave me a small smile. "I think that would be quite wise."

"The problem is," I started, letting out a small chuckle, "I'm pretty sure by the time I'm done with my tale, you're going to think I'm a complete nutter."

"I promise to reserve judgment until you've finished your story." He promised, giving me that sincere smile of his.

I couldn't help but laugh a little, I didn't know if it was hysteria or what, but I was in a laughing mood. "Well, where to begin. The beginning's always a good place to start, I think. I'm mostly just talking to myself now, Lord. I've gone completely off my rocker. I'm just going to let it rip and hopefully you can keep up!

"My name's Bronwyn, I'm from Dublin. It's a really big city in Ireland, but I currently live in Bristol, England. Where I'm from, there's no such things as hobbits, or wizards, and when people say dwarves they mean people who've got a growth condition, not whoever's roaming around this little hobbit hole. There's no need for weapons like swords and stuff, and I don't think I've ever seen a green pasture in all of my life, to be perfectly honest.

"And we don't talk like you all do, we call that sort of way of speaking "Shakespeare", where I'm from. The whole world over speaks more like me, with varying languages and accents, but not- like you. Not anymore, anyways. We certainly don't live in holes, not anyone sane, at least. We don't wear cloaks, we don't carry swords- wait, I already mentioned that.

"But getting to how I got here! It's not a very long story. I literally just threw my bag down on my bed and I magically showed up here. Butt naked, naked as a wee babe, whatever. No clothes, nothing. Just this blasted amulet dangling around my neck and I already know you have suspicions about it, and I do too. I'd love to figure out what's up with it, and there's a bunch of chicken scratch transcribed on the back but I can't read it. It's jibberish. A bunch of lines, that's all I can make of it.

"I think that's all I've got to say." I paused, just to confirm that. "Yeah, I think that's it."

I inhaled deeply, and exhaled just as powerfully. Glad to finally have gotten all of that off of my chest. I leaned back in my chair, relaxing, knowing that I'd only probably have a minute more of it before someone came in and gave me the royal boot. I didn't care. I was more than likely just insane and I could check myself into a loony bin at my earliest convenience.

But, the boot never came. Gandalf was just looking at the ground, stroking his beard and still sucking persistently on his pipe, mumbling over and over again, "Very curious…"

Sitting up, I watched him carefully, wondering what he'd do next. And then he looked up at me with a hand extended.

"May I see your amulet?" He asked honestly.

I nodded, pulling it off from around my neck and laying it down gently in his wrinkled old hand. He rolled it over in his grasp, examining it and making several different sorts of indecisive noises. Several times he looked to the back, narrowing his eyes and making some very logical deductions, I was sure. A well to do man such as him, I'm sure he was cracking the case at breakneck speeds.

That's when he opened his mouth and I no idea what he was saying to me. It was complete and utter- I don't even know what it was, I just couldn't understand a single lick of it.

"What are you even saying?" I asked, looking at him in exasperation. I didn't want to listen anymore. It was just giving me a headache.

He still continued speaking in whatever language he'd switched to, but then he handed the amulet back to me and I put it on in one swift motion.

"Thanks, but what the hell were you saying? I didn't understand any of that." I explained, hoping he'd switch back to English already.

And he did, thankfully, or so I thought. "I was explaining to you what the inscription read." He said, stroking his beard a bit. "You're telling me that you did not understand me?"

I nodded. "Yeah, didn't you hear me saying that over and over again?"

"I heard you speaking in a tongue that I am not familiar with." He informed me, and shocked me.

"Same here!" I exclaimed, sitting up a bit straighter. "One second you were speaking perfect English, and the next you were speaking- whatever the hell that was!"

Quirking a brow at me, Gandalf seemed a bit confused. "English? I do not know what that is, my dear. I was speaking Westron, the same language that you're speaking at this very moment. And doing so rather splendidly."

"Westron?" I asked, becoming more bewildered by the moment. "I don't even know what that is!"

He raised a hand to me, instructing me to settle as I was about to leap out of my chair. "Please, give me a chance to tell you what the writing on the back of your amulet truly means. And then I can tell you my thoughts on your situation."

Relaxing a smidge, I nodded. "Please."

"'A trick of magic and here we lay
"No hope to return, ne'er again to be seen
"Yet with this amulet, if the King's in need
"If bearing the blood, we creatures of clay
"The wearer shall return, til Durin's day.'"

And with that, he finished. Closing his eyes he exhaled some smoke he'd inhaled from before the telling of the oh-so mysterious inscription.

"Wow." I breathed, not understanding what any of that meant at all.

Gandalf bowed his head slightly, coughing into his cloak. "I do believe it's by pure accident that you're here, young Bronwyn. You were simply wearing this charm at the right moment, and you possessed the lineage that the magic required."

I couldn't help but snort at that. "Lineage? I'm the daughter of metalworkers, and my mom's the daughter of miners, and my grandma's the daughter of a smith and my gran. There's nothing special about us. Just a lot of dirt and metal."

"Perhaps, but your line does descend from this world, of that I'm most certain." He continued, quite sure of himself.

"And what line would that be?" I asked, deciding to humor the coot.

"The line of Durin." He said low, quiet, almost a whisper. "The same blood as the men that've come to the Shire in search of a hobbit. The blood of dwarves."

My jaw would've dropped, had the muscles in my neck not locked up. But my eyes widened, widened more than I thought physically possible. I knew I was short, very short, but this man was calling me a dwarf. And I was pretty sure I'd figured out what sort of dwarves everyone'd been talking about. Like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, like the other fairy-tales where dwarves were small little men, living in caves and under mountains, mining precious stones, coveting precious metals, and wielding axes and hammers into battle.

Like my family. Like my hammer swinging gran. With her swords and her shields and her helmets and her gold. It made- it made sense. I just couldn't admit it. That would mean I accepted wherever I was as a magical world with wizards and everything else I've already listed a dozen or so times. I didn't have the patience to go through all of them again.

"You're telling me that you think I'm a dwarf?" I asked, in utter disbelief once I found my voice again. Dwarves just simply did not exist. But I'd come to accept the existence of hobbits, mostly because I didn't really know what they were and there wasn't anything like them on Earth.

Gandalf nodded slowly, gauging my reaction. "Yes. That this amulet's magic performed accordingly, provides all the proof I require. Even if it's the smallest percentage, you belong to the House of Durin."

I closed my eyes, pressing my palms into my sockets, trying to physically get a grasp on what the hell was happening in my life. I was a college student, with a 3.8 GPA, I had a boyfriend for the past five years, I had a car, I had a life that was easy and carefree, no swords, no dwarves, no hobbits, no nothing. And now I was coming to realize that that life was all behind me. My new life was starting, and I was not prepared in the slightest.

Author's Note: Thank you for reading! Please review! xoxo, Momma Love