LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT (English)

Chapter 2

"There's no need to test me," she added with a grin. "I'm neither a poser nor a hipster." Sitara and the other two laughed and looked at each other, knowing that Wrench hadn't expected such a confident answer.

"Wow, I've rarely seen him that speechless," Josh grinned.

"...and impressed," Wrench added, his head resting on his hands. A heart flashed briefly on his display and made Max laugh.

"Don't take him too seriously," they guy next to him laughed. "I am Horatio, nice to meet you!" Max smiled and took his hand, he offered to shake. "And this is Josh," he added with a nod in his direction. He shyly raised his hand to a slight wave. "...and, well...you already got to know Wrench."

"Cool, I'm Max," she smiled. "But apparently y'all have heard more about me then I did about you."

"Well," Josh began. "Sitara didn't want to tell us that much either. We didn't really get something out of her."

"Yeah, because I know you would have annoyed me all the time and even worse you'd also have annoyed Max. It's bad enough you're doing this now," Sitara laughed. "Also I wanted to get to know her better first and don't cause any false hopes. I just had the feeling she could suit us very well."

"Well, she passed my test though," Wrench joked.

"But you haven't passed mine yet. I'll think about something," Max grinned back.

"She passed mine too," Josh smiled, watching the fire. Max looked at him questioningly.

"Your tattoo," he said. "Tengwar, you seem to be a Tolkien fan."

"Oh, that gives you a lot of plus points with Josh," Horatio explained.

"Yeah and it's a beautiful sentence, it's one of his quotes, isn't it?" Josh asked.

"...you can read Tengwar? Just like...fluent? I didn't even really show you..." Max was a bit impressed.

"Josh has many hidden talents," Sitara stated. "But what does it mean? For all of us who can't read it."

"Maybe I'll tell you another time," Max grinned. "But wow, much respect for your reading skills. With a bit of time I can also decipher most of it, but this is incredible," she complimented still impressed. "I have never met anyone who could read it...nor anyone who understood it. Even if I tell them what it means. People just love to ask stupid questions about tattoos."

"Indeed," Wrench agreed with her.

"Thanks," Josh smiled sheepishly.

"Then you're probably a big Tolkien fan, right?"

"Oh yes, he is," Sitara laughed and answered the question for him.

"Okay I got a question for you then," Max looked at Josh who raised his eyebrows. "What...is your opinion on the Hobbit movies?"

"I really don't understand how Peter Jackson could screw up like that. The Lord of the Rings was so amazing and you really notice how much love and hard work is involved. I don't know why he failed the Hobbit like that. I mean, he had all the financial resources he needed to do the same amazing things with the Hobbit, he just didn't and made this heartless CGI shit instead," Josh explained his thoughts on this obviously sensitive subject to him.

"I completely agree. They probably just got too greedy, otherwise there would have been no reason to make three movies out of it. So...they just messed it up," Max replied sadly.

"Well, and then there's Tauriel..." Sitara added.

"Yes! That's the worst part! She's not even canon and no Tolkien character, but that's something I could deal with somehow. I'm the last person who'd complain about more women in a story with so much 'straight-old-white-men-representation'. But they just made her up so it's her only purpose to have a relationship with that man," Max got upset.

"It's disgusting and pretty much the most anti-feminist thing they could have done, in this case it would have been better to have no women at all than making up a token character so all the males can crush on her," Sitara nodded.

"Yep and in addition this completely destroys the meaning of the relationship between Gimli and Legolas – and also some of the other elves – which is actually really special for their current situation and relationships between dwarves and elves," Max continued her thoughts.

"Fortunately we agree on this. I'll be mad at this forever," Josh grumbled.

"Yeah, same to be honest. For me personally I decided they just don't belong to the canon. I see them more as 'Tolkien-inspired' or like a fanfiction or something, because...that's basically what they are," Max told.

"Well, good thing he doesn't have to see this."

"Yes, he really wouldn't deserve to see that. He was pretty cool I think," Max agreed.

"Was he though?" Wrench asked. "I mean, sure he wrote some great books but I don't know about him as a person."

"He was an anarchist...well, kind of..." Max explained.

"Really?", he asked.

Josh nodded. "Yeah, in a weird...conservative way."

"Well, he wrote it more in a literal and philosophical way, considering the abolition of control and stuff like that, than about his own political actions, but that's better than nothing. He's still cool though," Max added.

"Now that we're already talking about incredibly cool anarchists..." Wrench paused dramatically and made a clear gesture that of course he meant himself by that. "...I could use some help in the garage tomorrow, if anyone of you has some time."

"Do you need help with the robot?" Josh asked. "Maybe I could help a little, I wanted to continue working on the drone anyway."

"You sure it won't be a helicopter when you're done?" Horatio asked. "I mean it's huge. You could almost fly yourself with that."

"She can...I mean...she could, if she was done," Josh replied.

"Wait a minute, you're building a drone you can fly yourself with?" Max asked incredulously. "How big is it?"

"Something about two meters diameter actually..." Josh answered.

"Wow, that's impressive!"

"I could show you someday if you like," Josh smiled proudly. Apparently, he was really happy, that someone was interested. Max nodded.

The time kept moving forward and Max was surprised they got along that well. They talked about everything and Max started to feel more and more comfortable around them. For a long time, this was probably one of the best evenings she had experienced. Of course, she always had a lot of fun with Sitara, but it was also really cool to hang in a larger group.

___________________________________________________________________________

Since I am writing this story in german, it will always take some time to translate. I unfortunately don't have much time for this so I decided, to keep the chapters shorter in this version and split a few of them. So I sould be able to update more regularely :) I really hope you like the story so far and it would mean the world to me if you'd leave some comments or feedback ♥