Chapter Text
Stuck. You were stuck. You read the last few sentences back to yourself, but they didn’t make anything click. You’d lost your steam and now, you were stuck once again.
Writing was a lot harder than it looked, that was for sure, but writing something fantasy? You were finding the task nearly impossible. When you’d started the project several months before, it had seemed so fun. You’d grown up on Narnia, on Lord of the Rings. Building your own fantasy world would be quite the task, you’d known, but perhaps you didn’t know quite how time consuming it would be, let alone when you added in the characters and their characterizations, which fantasy creatures to include, how the magic would work, how the weapons would work and so on and so forth.
Thinking about it too much gave you a headache, so you sat back in your chair, closing your laptop. Maybe you needed a break. Some more caffeine, maybe, some stretches for your strained neck and sore wrists.
You stood up and walked to the kitchen to make yourself an iced coffee, filling a glass halfway with ice before pouring in some cold brew and milk. You slipped a bamboo straw into your drink and stirred the liquids until they were better acquainted with one another.
You looked around the kitchen, thinking. This was your parents’ house. You’d moved back in with them after graduating college until you could figure out what to do with your degree. Your dream, of course, was to be a full time writer, to adventure, to find inspiration for a great story, but for now, you were working part time at the local book store, writing your stories in the time you were at home.
Most days, you were left to your own devices, your parents out of the house and the place all to yourself. It was quiet. Kind of lonely, if you were honest, and so you spent most of your days escaping into movies, books, and your own fantasy world. It was kind of monotonous. You couldn’t even count how many days you’d lost this way.
“Is this what burnout feels like?” You wondered, chuckling and shaking your head. It probably was, you reasoned. You’d spent so long at school that now that you were done, you didn’t really know what to do with your life, and…even if you did, you didn’t have the energy to do it.
You let out a long sigh, which was interrupted by the ringing of your doorbell.
Maybe it was the lap desk you’d ordered on Amazon, you thought in passing, walking in that direction. But when you got there, there was no box sitting on the porch. Instead, there was a tall man in a gray cloak and a gray pointy hat standing there.
“Um, hi?” You asked, your eyes narrowing at the stranger, who you were beginning to believe wasn’t just someone cosplaying Gandalf.
“(Y/N) (L/N),” He grinned. “I’ve been waiting to meet you for quite some time, now.”
“Gandalf?” You asked, and he nodded, seemingly proud of your answer.
“Hello, dear girl.” He tipped his hat to you. “May I come in?”
And while there was some part of you telling you this was simply too good to be true, another, more desperate part of you knew if he was real, he wouldn’t be here without good reason. “Uh, yeah, of course. Come on in.”
So, you made him a cup of tea and the two of you settled in to the couch in your living room. Gandalf looked around, amused by your house. He’d seen many houses in his time, although none quite so…modern. It wasn’t often he got the pleasure of travelling to your realm.
“So you’re…the Gandalf. Gandalf the Gray. From…the Tolkien books and stuff.” You wondered, sipping your iced coffee, still in a state of total shock. Maybe you’d fallen asleep at the keyboard and this was nothing more than an exhausted hallucination, cooked up by your writer’s block.
“Quite the same.” He nodded, a glimmer of amusement in his wise eyes. “I’m sure you’re wondering what I’m doing here.”
“Yeah, I…I am.”
“You see, I’m in need of some assistance. For an adventure. One you are…quite familiar with.”
You stared at him for a long time before remembering you should say something. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Oh I think you do.” Gandalf took a long sip from your Captain America mug. “Is there not a book you read in your youth that you wished…had a different ending, perhaps? One you loved very dearly, but…one of the characters you cared for had their own ending cut short…”
You gulped and thought for a long moment, the pieces clicking into place, despite the fact that you were afraid to put them into words. “Are you talking about…?”
His eyes glimmered. “You know what I’m talking about. If you want to come with me, take me up on this offer, all you need to do is follow me out that door.” He pointed to the front door and you stared at it. It didn’t look special, altered, but you knew his magic worked in mysterious ways.
“Why would you want me?” You asked quietly, suddenly unsure. The hope in your chest began to dwindle. “I’m…I mean look at me, I’m not much of an adventurer. I’m a writer. A college burnout. I don’t…” You chuckled pathetically. “I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.”
“You know, I had a Hobbit tell me this very morning that he wasn’t much for adventures either.” He shrugged. “But I believe you know the outcome of that as well. All of this time travel business is rather complicated, isn’t it?”
“What’ll my parents think if I just disappear? How long will I be gone?”
“When I bring you back, it’ll be as though you never even left.” Gandalf reasoned, tilting his head. “And after all, won’t an actual adventure help your story along?”
He drove a hard bargain, that was for sure.
You glanced down the hall towards your room. “Should I…grab my book, then?”
He winked. “You’ll need it.”
You walked to your room and scanned the shelf where you kept your fantasy books. There it was, nestled in there next to Narnia. The Hobbit.
You’d loved the book as a tween when you’d be forced to read it in middle school, but in all honestly, you hadn’t really touched it since. You’d watched the movies, sure, but they were hardly accurate. Your fingers tingled as you took it off of the shelf, and when you got back to the living room, Gandalf was gone.
“Gandalf?” You called. No response. “Gandalf?” Nothing again.
You looked down at the book and back up at the front door. It hadn’t changed at all. It looked ordinary. And yet, you felt a tug in your chest pulling you to see if what the wizard had said was true.
You chuckled and sighed. Or, you’d made the whole thing up in your head. Gandalf had never been there and never would. He didn’t exist.
And then you looked at the coffee table only to find your mug still sitting there, full of steaming tea.
And so, at the risk of feeling like an idiot, you walked to the door, opened it, and stepped over the threshold…into a cozy hobbit hole.
Immediately, you looked back, wide-eyed, expecting to find your front door from the outside, but instead seeing the wide, round door that stood at the entrance of Bilbo Baggins’ home. There was plenty of chatter inside, the deep voices of several rowdy men and one panicked, flustered hobbit.
“H-hello?” You called into the house softly, tentative. You walked a little further, following the voices. “Hellooo??”
Faintly, you heard a now-familiar voice. “Kili, would you go fetch our guest? Seems she’s a bit late.”
You heard a few voices murmur “She?”
Your heart raced as you stood there, waiting. You heard heavy footsteps, and then finally a figure came around the corner. There he was. Kili, the Dwarven Prince, the youngest of the dwarves in the company. He stood a head shorter than you with shoulder-length raven hair and a dusting of stubble across his chin. He was handsome, very much so, in fact. Just the way you’d always imagined him to be.
“Kili.” You whispered, the breath stolen from your lungs as you stood there, bewildered. This was real. He was real.
His breath hitched and he stared at you for a long moment, eyes sparkling as he looked up at you. “I-I’m sorry, have we met before?”
You blinked and shook your head. “Oh. Uh, no. Sorry. I’m (Y/N).”
Kili smiled, charismatic as ever. “You must be this Book Keeper Gandalf speaks of.”
“I guess I am, yeah.” You nodded, staring down at your shoes, shy all of a sudden. You’d been dreaming of this moment for years. Meeting him. Changing things. And yet, being here, doing it…it was terrifying to say the very least.
Your eyebrows furrowed when you got a good look at yourself, though. These were not clothes you were familiar with. Well, you were in a way, you supposed. These were the clothes you’d described the main character of your book to be wearing; a long orange hooded cloak, leather armor on top of a flowing white top. Around your right ring finger, its point facing outwards, was a claddagh ring with a green gem set into it.
You reached up to see if your ears came to a point, and surely enough, they did, just like the Sunset Fae at the heart of the fantasy story you’d been writing. Weird.
“We’re all in here.” Kili motioned behind him, to where he’d come. “Are you from around these parts?”
“Oh! No, I’m from…pretty far from here, actually.”
“Whereabouts?”
Gandalf saved you from having to answer that question. “Dwarves, this is (Y/N) (L/N). The Book Keeper. She’s come all the way from another realm to help you on this journey.”
The rest of the dwarves murmured amongst themselves.
“What does that mean, Gandalf?” One of the dwarves asked.
“Another realm?” whispered another.
“It’s true, what he says.” You confirmed, nodding and letting the words come to you. “Where I come from, there are many tales of this adventure, the things that…have yet to unfold for you. I’m pretty familiar with them. Gandalf thinks I’d be able to steer you in a better direction at some points.”
“Prophecies?” Asked a deep, stern voice. Looking at him, a regal dwarf with dark brown hair, a streak of gray near the front of his head. Your heart raced. He was Thorin, no doubt, and he was every bit as intimidating as you’d heard he’d be.
“Sort of. Where I’m from, it’s presented as a work of fiction, actually.” You nervously tucked a strand of hair behind a pointed ear.
He stiffened. “Are you an elf?”
Your eyes widened. “What? No, I’m not. I’m, uh…”
“She’s human.” Gandalf stated. “Where she’s from she’s human, that is. Our realm’s magic has changed her, it seems.”
“Human?” Kili whispered. Until he spoke, you’d nearly forgotten he was standing beside you, staring at you. In fact, his eyes hadn’t left you since you walked through the door.
You nodded, taking in the company for all that they were. Thirteen dwarves, one hobbit, and one wizard who had whisked you away from your normal life into something much more exciting, it seemed. You couldn’t help but get a little choked up, looking at all of them. They had so much left to endure, to survive, to experience.
“I want to help.” You assured them, your voice cracking and a tear slipping down your cheek. “I want to help you. If you’ll have me, your highness. I ask nothing in return. I’m merely…along for the adventure.”
Thorin thought for a long, hard moment. You waited on pins and needles until finally, he relented, “how could we refuse an offer like that?”