kippurbird | I don't know where to publish this, FP. or FF

Bamf'ed

It was the end of the midnight showing of the Return of the King. Three hours of blissful torture, for Arty at least. She had gone to see the end of the trilogy and ended up sitting next to three Lego-lusting girls. Throughout the entire film whenever Legolas was on screen they would gush excitedly. “He’s so hot!” “Isn’t he wonderful!” “I want to marry him!” “You? You think that his last name was Greenleaf!” It was enough that Arty almost dumped her popcorn on them. Free from them now that the movie was over she hit the bathrooms. A large soda during a three hour movie she didn’t want to miss a minute of lead to a very full bladder. Unfortunately, the three girls had the same thought.

In the bathroom she had to suffer through the same endless prattling.

“Did you that the novelization of the movies got so much stuff wrong? I mean they had some elf dude rescue Frodo instead of Arwen… not that I mind, because she’s such a bitch!” One girl said as they were washing their hands.

Arty had enough. Throwing down her crumpled paper towel she glowered at the three girls. “The Lord of the Rings was a Book long before it was a movie. Glorfindel is not some elf dude, Peter Jackson took him out of the movie for God only knows what reason, and Arwen is not a Bitch,” she snapped at them and stalked out of the bathroom, to the sounds of “Gee, what’s her problem?”

Shaking her head Arty pushed open the door and froze. The outside of the bathroom didn’t look like a movie theatre any more.

“Move it! Miss knowitall.” One of the girls said and shoved her forward. Arty stumbled and found herself on slightly muddy ground. The sort that came from rotting leaves in a forest. The three girls followed her out and the door to the bathroom shut with a resounding thump. Standing up, Arty looked around to see that she was in a forest with large dark and old trees that seemed to look down at them menacingly. Sunlight poked through at intermittent intervals like hard rays.

For a moment all four girls were silent in contemplation of the impossibility that had just happened. Then one of them squealed.

“OHMIGAWD WE’RE IN MIRKWOOD!” she cried out, “I had a dream just like this last night!”

“Mirkwood? Really? You mean we could meet Legolas?” one of the others cried out. “I could try out my elfish!”

“I could try out my sword and archery skills that I’ve learned! I’m so good at them! I bet I could be Legolas!”

“Ha!” Arty said at this. “Did any of you even think to wonder exactly what happened? Where are we going to get food? And in which way to go to get back home?”

The other three girls looked at her blankly before the first one said, “Legolas will save us.” Before walking straight in some random direction away from the bathroom. Or at least away from where the bathroom used to be. Now it was only forest. The other two girls followed her.

Sighing in frustration, Arty trailed behind them, after all they were the closest thing she had to home, and besides she didn’t want to be alone in this place, something might eat her. If she was with them, then it was a one out of four chance that she’d get eaten.

In another part of the woods Greywolf leaned on his ax and looked at Alec, his younger brother with an amused expression on his face. His brother looked considerably disconcerted, tugging at strands of his now blond hair.

“You look good little brother,” he said, “Though I thought you were trying to move the firewood, not change the color of your hair.”

“I was,” Alec snapped back, before looking at his hands despondently, “It just seems like my magic has been acting strange lately.”

“Strange? Is that what you call turning Laruna’s cat into a lizard when you sneezed?”

“I’m allergic to cats,” Alec grumbled, pushing back his hair.

“You still have to turn Buttons back, you know.”

“I will… as soon as I figure out how.”

Greywolf gave a bark of laughter at that. “Come, let’s try doing this the old fashioned way,” he said, bending to pick up some of the logs. He picked up a few, before noticing that Alec was staring off into the woods. “What’s the matter?”

“I hear something… someones… coming this way.” He stepped forward, drawing his sword.

Four girls stepped out from the trees at this point. Three of them were laughing and talking. The fourth was trailing a little bit behind with a disgusted look on her face. They all stopped when the saw the two brothers and began talking excitedly.

Frowning, Greywolf looked at his brother, “I don’t understand anything that they’re saying. Do you?”

“I… I don’t think so.” Alec said with an identical frown. “I wonder where they came from. They don’t look like they came from over the mountains; they aren’t dressed for traveling. But the only thing in the direction is the end of the valley. And I know they don’t come from the city, no one dresses like that there.”

“Strange. Do you think they could be fey?”

“Ears aren’t pointed.”

“Point,” Greywolf said before giving a laugh at his unintentional pun. “I wonder if they’re harmful.”

At this Alec shook his head. “No. They aren’t. I don’t sense anything like that from them.”

“Should we approach them you think?”

“They look like they’re coming our way.”

They had been walking for about fifteen minutes when the four of them came upon a clearing in the woods. It was the longest fifteen minutes of Arty’s life. While she was wondering about the practical things of life, like where were they? How were they going to get food? How were they going to get home? What had happened? Could she get away with killing those three girls? The three friends were chatting about Legolas, Legolas, Aragorn, Legolas, and Legolas. So involved in this discussion they didn’t notice the two men standing in the clearing with a pile of wood around them. At least not right away.

One of the men had an ax. He looked to be in his late twenties with straw blond hair and gray eyes. He was dressed in clothes that looked rather like he came out of a fantasy novel. The second man, who was holding a sword of some sort, looked to be a fair bit younger, but definitely related to the first. He was also blond, but with brown eyes and large pointy ears. He had a tattoo of some sort on the right side of his face and he was wearing some sort of leather armor. He held the sword like he knew how to use it.

“Look! An elf!” one of the girls cried out, pointing to the young man with the sword. “I wonder if he knows Legolas?”

“Talk to him, see if he does.” The second one said, pushing at the third.

“He has a sword!” Arty said in exasperation. “I don’t think he’s going to talk to you!”

“He won’t hurt us. I speak his language!”

“And what are you going to say? Take me to your leader?”

“Well… yes. Or something like that. Duh.”

“You do realize that Legolas’ father is their leader… if in fact that is a Mirkwood elf.” Arty was having doubts about that. The elf looked more like a human with pointy ears than an elf to her.

“Oh no… not Trandil? He’d throw us in his dungeons!”

“Thranduil and wine cellars,” Arty corrected absently. Her parents had read the Hobbit to her as a child. She had grown up with it. Not heeding her warning the girls walked eagerly forward, the one who could talk elfish in front. Arty stayed back. She wasn’t going to approach the men with a sword and an ax.

The elfish speaker held up her hand in greeting and started to say something that Arty couldn’t understand, her two friends right behind her. From the looks the two men gave her, they could understand her either.

The younger one leaned over to the other whispering something, to which the older shrugged. The girls seemed to be getting frustrated at their friend who said, “I don’t know what’s wrong…he should understand me!”

The older one pushed at the younger in that way that siblings do when one is trying to coerce the other to do something the other doesn’t want to do.

“Come on, try it!” Greywolf said, “What’s the worse that could happen?”

“I don’t know? They could… explode or turn into dragons or … something!”

“Then they wouldn’t be our problem! Come on little brother!”

“Don’t call me little brother!”

“But you are,” he paused, “I won’t call you it if you do this.”

“Promise?”

“Of course.”

“Alright… but I’m not taking the blame on this one. It’s your idea!” Alec said before glancing at the girls. He flung out his right hand, the left was holding his sword, and a spark of gray energy flew out from it.