A/N: See disclaimer in Chapter 1.

Big thanks to NixNox

Chapter 2: Many Facets Of The Force

The first sense that slowly started returning was that of touch. Mainly, she felt her face being touched by bony but gentle fingers. Next, slowly and quietly, she could hear a low and deep whisper in an unknown tongue. Her body started to slowly come to life as the unknown words slowly repeated, as if chanting. Only, she wished it wasn't waking. She felt as if she'd been ran over by a bantha on fire. She could even feel the tell tale hints of burned flesh.

Linshara blinked slowly and the hand from her face withdrew. Slowly, her vision came into focus from a blurry spattering of colour to a clear image. An image of a tall, narrow faced old man, dressed in tattered gray robes, a long bushy gray beard, similar looking eyebrows, a pointed nose and a very large gray pointed hat. Slowly she blinked at him and opened her mouth, trying to form words.

He spoke instead but she couldn't understand him. The words sounded ethereal, beautiful but at the same time like gibberish. Normally her first instinct would be to defend herself and assess the situation, but everything ached so much. The strange man didn't seem like a threat either but she could sense he was very powerful.

"I don't understand your words, strange one," she managed finally.

A smile formed on his features, "a stranger calls another strange. Strange circumstances brought two strangers together, but does that not make them normal?"

This time she understood his words despite them being a little antiquated as opposed to what she was used to. His accent sounded Imperial, but the restraint and power he emanated almost made him feel,

~Like a Jedi,~ she thought, ~but that's….~

"Apologies, I.." she tried to sit up, realizing she was actually leaned against a tree trunk in the middle of a field. The field so green and luscious it was remarkable.

He poked with his long wooden staff at the small fire he'd built in this makeshift camp. "Perhaps we should start with names and see where the path leads on from there?" He offered with a kind smile. His eyes though were calculating, he too assessing her.

Slowly, she managed herself into a seating position, wincing as her wounds tugged at her, yet not as much as she'd expected them to from what the Sith had put her through. Had the Gray Man healed her?

"I am Linshara…" she said finally, her green eyes focused on him.

He nodded slowly, "they call me Gandalf the Gray, and I am…"

"A Jedi."

"A Wizard."

They'd said it together and frowned. "What is this...Jedi?"

"Wizards are stuff of children's tales!"

He chuckled deeply, "yet I am very real. You possess a similar power yet you are not of the Istari. You are of Men."

~Istari? Men? He must mean Humans. Alright, so I traversed space and it would seem time.~ Linshara thought to herself.

"I am of a different world, very different." Her eyes held his, "my kind is known as Human. I am of a world called Chandrila."

He leaned his head left to right slowly, watching her intensely. "Strange concept, though the will of Iluvatar is never fully known to all, even to the highest of beings."

Linshara pulled herself upright a little more, wincing, "I can't understand your riddles, Gandalf. I've told you the truth and I believe you can sense it. Your turn. What is this world…." her eyes held his.

Slowly, he nodded. "You find yourself on Arda, in Middle-Earth, more precisely, beneath the Brandy Hills in Breeland, near the entry to the Shire." He narrowed his eyes at her again, "which means very little to you."

She nodded chuckling bitterly, "not a lot, no. Did you happen to see how I arrived here? My last memory is being hit and flying backwards."

He removed a small metal cup he'd been warming in the coals of the fire. "Drink this, medicinal herbs, they will help clear your mind. As for how you arrived here. I had sensed a disturbance in the fabric of the world, before I saw a lilac flash of light and heard a massive explosion. It took a great deal of convincing and some spellwork not to have the Hobbits from Buckland and the Guard of Bree to come investigating. When I arrived...I found you lying twenty yards away, smelling as if you had been burned, which I later learned you had been…"

She took the cup with some care and smelled the liquid. It smelled almost like the medical salves shamans on Voss used in healing practices. Taking a careful sip she rolled the liquid in her mouth before swallowing. The liquid burned down her throat and esophagus initially, making her cough, but after a short while, she began to feel the pain ebb away.

~Internal and external burns, check~ she thought to herself as she listened to him. "Thank you for your aid. You said you felt a disturbance?"

He nodded, "as if something was reaching from beyond the veil of the world."

"You are describing what we would call a disturbance in the Force. It is...the ability we share. Though I suspect you can use it in different manner to me. I was engaged in a battle before I arrived." She started her story, trying as best and as simply as she could to describe the Jedi, the Sith, the Clone Wars and the Sith takeover, what she was doing in the Rakata facility and the subsequent battle.

He was mostly murmuring and nodding quietly as he listened, his eyes never leaving her. "In this world, only the select few have the...ability to use this Force as you call it. The Five Wizards, certain Lords of the Eldar, the odd Necromancer of Men and…"

She was looking at the state of her robes and shoes as he stopped in his words. Linshara looked over at him, scrutinizing him. He was afraid of even uttering the name of whatever it was. Scared, respectful, mistrustful of his own ability to counter them.

"It would seem you have your own Sith in this world." She supplied softly.

Finally he nodded, "you could call it so, yes."

Thannis nodded, "your world, from what you describe, has very little technology, if any. Doesn't it?"

"I do not understand what you mean by tekh-nologee." Gandalf tried.

Managing to sit herself up fully finally. "Probe my mind. I will release the barriers. I've little choice but to trust you, you've not hurt me so far, I do not believe you would."

Nodding slowly he stood up and walked over to her. Being tall and wrapped in long, loose robes it took him a few moments to sit on the ground next to her.

She flinched little as he extended a hand to her face. "So I can probe you." He explained.

Nodding her ascent, she closed her eyes and let out a deep breath, mentally relaxing and dropping her internal barriers. "Proceed."

Bony fingers touched her face again, like they had before. She could feel him enter her mind and sift through her past, her knowledge, her world. He seemed focused mostly on the moments before she arrived, her battle with the Sith, the strange rift that had formed behind her as they fought. She tried to reverse probe his mind in the process, but only found herself able to see what he projected to her.

She learned that he didn't originally have a corporeal existence, but was a very powerful spirit. His name was Olorin and he was a Maia. The closest she could approximate it to was a lesser deity. He and four others had been sent to this world to guide the corporeal races to oppose the evil that stirred every so often in this realm.

~If the Sith learned of this world's existence….~ she spoke in her mind.

~All would be doomed, both your worlds and mine.~ He spoke back gravely.

His fingers left her face and she opened her eyes with a gasp. Among other things she'd learned another uncomfortable truth. At present, there was no known way for her to return home, to the war, to what was left of the Jedi. If anything.

"Apologies, this is difficult to process." She said finally, sighing.

He nodded, "I can understand your plight, young Linshara Thannis of the Jedi. I will help you find a way if there is one. But I hold little hope."

"Thank you, I hold little hope as well. From what you've shown me of this world, it would appear only high…" she still had difficulty wrapping her head around the concept of, "magic could possibly help. Only…"

"You would need to know exact circumstances and spell work to even begin to recreate the necessary conditions." He said, smiling at her surprised look.

"That was surprisingly scientific of you."

"Scay-entific?"

"Scholarly."

He nodded, "I've had a lot of time for scholarly studies."

She believed him. "So...what do you suggest someone like me does here? I can't very well let the world known what I can do."

Suddenly, his smile grew even more. "My dear, I have just the vision. A noble quest to claim a strategic position against a very powerful enemy,"

"A suicide mission wrapped in noble intentions. Just the right sort of work for a Jedi." Linshara chuckled at him.

He said nothing, just smiled enigmatically as he prepared his pipe. "Let me tell you of Thorin Oakenshield and the Kingdom of Erebor."

A/N: Reviews are love!