Dagor Dagorrath Delivery Service

by Lasgalendil

"If you're like me—if you stumbled across this trying to find a way to send someone back to Middle-earth—then congratulations. You're either insane or you've actually had an encounter." For Dagor Dagorrath to work in his favor, the Elves and Dwarves must remain enemies. Rather than letting Legolas and Gimli ever reach Valinor, Melkor sends them someplace unexpected.

3. An Unwelcome Guest

"Honey, I have something to tell you—" Sarah bit her lip several evenings later.

"Oh, dear God," I sat heavily. "You're breaking up with me via Skype—?"

"What?" She jumped up half-way across the world. "No!"

Might as well ham it for all it's worth. "You're pregnant?"

"As if!" she snorted. "I—they—"

"They offered you a PhD position." I finished for her, feeling both elated and dead inside.

"Yes!" she lit up and began babbling away about how great it was and that she'd be able to study right where Tolkien and Lewis and all the Inklings had all hung out at the Bird. I was sort of a fan—I mean, they're both staples of fantasy/science fiction literature, sure—but not the sort who'd read any of their works more than once or twice, not a real fan of the movies but they were palatable enough (as long as Sarah wasn't sitting next to me with scathing commentary), and the only reason there were multiple copies of their entire published opus in my house was because I happened to live with Sarah. She was one of those überfans, you know, went to things like RingCon, got her photograph with Richard Taylor, actually got an autograph from Christopher Lee before he lived happily ever after forever and never died, as Sarah always insists tearfully. But in addition to that, she's also one of those weirdos in constant contact with people with really weird, European sounding names who run Tolkien language web-sites in Italian and German and invent freakin' Neo-Khuzdul, for crying out loud. I mean, the girl publishes original poetry and makes translations in Quenya.

So needless to say I'd never understand her excitement, but it was hers, and it was something she loved, and even if it meant she'd be gone for a few years instead of months and I might have to move to God-forsaken Europe, I was happy.

We chatted, made dinner together, popped corks off champagne bottles from different time zones, stayed up way past midnight (Central Time, at least, it was morning where she was) then went to bed alone.

…I woke up the next morning with a disturbingly life-like miniature Legolas covered in cat spit on my pillow.