One Geek to Rule Them All

An Unexpected Journey

"Ah, excuse me!" Devin called after the man, stopping him. "What's today's date?"

"Why, September the 29th, of course," he replied with certainty.

"And the year?" she pressed, furrowing her brow slightly.

"3018," he answered, furrowing his own brow. It was one thing to loose track of the days, but the years? "Now, begging your pardon miss, but I have to get back downstairs," he excused himself with only a brief nod of his head to her before he continued on his way.

"Let me guess, Mr. Butterbur?" Devin asked Strider while she and Kitty stared after the retreating man, stunned by what they had just heard. There had been no lie in the man's eyes. He genuinely believed they were in the year 3018 of the Third Age of Middle Earth. That meant either the entire town was full of crazies, or something in the universe was seriously out of whack.

"Yes," replied Strider calmly as he reached for the door and held it open for them to step inside, thinking she simply must have read the sign above the door and used common sense to figure out that they had been speaking with the owner. Once they were all inside he shut the door. "Now talk."

"Don't look at me," said Kitty defensively and glanced at Devin. She was the real Lord of the Rings geek.

"Well, I suppose we'll start of with the simplest part, which is where you can  find Frodo Baggins. He'll be coming to this very inn sometime tonight with three other hobbits looking for Gandalf, but they won't find him, so they're gonna need your help," Devin explained as calmly as she could before she felt the need to pause and take a breath. Now for the awkward part. "As for how we came to know this information..." She glanced briefly at her friend before turning back to the ranger. He was watching her carefully with a piercing gaze. She thought he would probably be able to tell if she was lying, so she decided it would be better to stick to the truth as much as possible. "We come from a place far, far away from here, where there is a very special book containing legends and portents pertaining to these lands. We know of the Ring and what it will mean if the Enemy gets his hands on it, and we have no intention of letting that happen. We just want to get home, but there are certain... complications," she concluded vaguely.

"Such as being lost?" Strider asked with one eyebrow raised. He could tell there was more to her enigmatic answer than she was letting on, but everything she had been willing to tell him seemed to be the truth.

"Well, that's part of it..." Devin replied with a hint of hesitation. She didn't want to go into too much detail until she learned more about the situation.

"Very well," said the ranger after a moment. It was clear that he would not get any more from her for the moment. "If you ladies will pardon me, I believe I had better go back to the common room to wait for our hobbits to arrive," he said to excuse himself and left the room. The two girls had the room to themselves.

"Okay... So what's going on, and what's with all the secrecy? Why didn't you just tell him we're from the real world?" Kitty asked with crossed arms once they were sure he had really gone. " 'Cause that's where we are, right? The Tolkien-verse?  It totally breaks the laws of physics, but it would explain everything we've seen since falling into the river."

"Oh my God, Kitty—we can't just go around telling these people they're fictional characters!" Devin exclaimed in a low voice even though they were alone, shooting her friend a look of exasperation. It was a good thing Kitty had let her do all the talking, or who knows what might have happened.

"Why not?" Kitty inquired innocently. She really didn't see the problem.

"Well,  think about it. How would you feel if some stranger came up and said that to you? How would you react?" Devin asked with a reasonable tone.

"I'd call 911 and have their crazy ass thrown into the loony bin," Kitty answered without skipping a beat.

"Exactly," said Devin as she crossed the room to look out the window. "We can't tell him the whole truth, or he'll think we're nuts."

"So you agree with me that we're in some alternate world? I know we're both Doctor Who fans, but I expected a little more resistance on your part to such an illogical idea," Kitty stated honestly.

"It's crazy, but not completely illogical..." Devin replied a bit absently while she stared out the window at the night sky. She frowned at what she saw, or rather, what she didn't see. "Look," she said, stepping back so Kitty could come have a look for herself. "Notice anything odd about the sky?"

"You can totally see a million stars out there?" Kitty asked with her brow  furrowed slightly. Was this really the time to be stargazing?

"Yeah. That, and the constellations are completely screwed up," Devin said, shaking her head and pinching the bridge of her nose. She could feel a stress headache coming on. "None of them are where they're supposed to be. We're looking at a totally different sky! Building a town and filling it full of people in elaborate costumes is one thing, but they can't rearrange the stars. We are definitely not in Kansas anymore."