Chapter Text
The gentle warm breeze carried with it the delightful scent of wild flowers. There were soft murmurs of other people chatting amicably somewhere in the distance, the cheerful birdsong interrupting at different intervals. Everything was calm, peaceful even.
That was not normal.
She lived in a city.
Opening her eyes, she hissed and rolled over in the surprisingly soft grass to hide from the far too bright sun. Reaching up and curling into herself on her side she groaned trying to remember where she was or what was happening. Had she passed out? Her head felt a little fuzzy, like it had been known to when she had passed out before. But she felt no pain really, just sleepy. Taking in a slow deep breath she got another strong waft of some sort of floral element, trying to drag her brain into awareness.
"Okay, okay okay okay, I'm awake, I'm awake. I am here, I'm here I'm good, I'm fine and good and fine…"
She slowly started blinking again, trying to jog her memory as to what happened. She probably hadn't hurt herself, which was a relief. Usually she could at least remember how she came about the injury.
The flowers were new.
They were big and bright, the stems bending easily and springing back. Did she know what these were called? Maybe, but they were such a nice bluish purple color.
Lovely.
Rolling onto her stomach she started to at least slowly move into a kneeling position. These flowers were really soft, which was lucky. The grass too was that really nice soft grass, the kind she used to like to lay down on as a child. Maybe that's all that happened? But that was dumb, she never took a nap outside, always far too busy.
She finally looked up from where she was seated. It was light out, which really meant anywhere from 9am to like 3pm, she was terrible at telling time without a watch or her phone.
Where were her things?
And where even was she?
Okay priorities, focus.
She seemed to be in the middle of a whole Sound of Music looking field, the hills were alive and full of flowers, though it looked like farther away there were some fences and… blurs.
Oh, her glasses were missing.
That was not ideal.
She didn't have totally horrible vision, but it wasn't the best at long distances. Shifting around and looking at the grass and flowers around her she spotted the glint of lenses not too far away. As well as her trusty tan Naruto backpack. Will wonders never cease? Putting on her glasses she jumped as they knocked against the tip of her ear, causing a shock wave through her nerves.
That was NEW.
Reaching up she delicately touched her left ear, jumping again as the same sensation occurred.
Were those…
Ignoring the sensation she focused and… her ears were pointed. Her ears had become pointed. They were still small, hadn't gained any height it seemed, but those were actual points, and they were sensitive.
Why were her ears pointed?
Her ears were pointed, she was in a flower field, and she had no idea how she got there.
Was she finally living her Isekai fantasy adventure of a lifetime?
Focus.
She crawled to her trusty backpack and decided to try and take inventory. Rummaging through her bag she found that she really kept a lot of junk in there, when had she last cleaned this thing out?
"Ha, I am a child. Jeez."
Her bag looked more like it belonged to a teenager then her 32 year old ass.
Not just because she kept a lot of her favorite old fandom and nerdy stuff in there either. When she was in fact a silly teen, she had taken to packing her bag with what she believed could be useful in case, hypothetically, she was ever in a situation where she was lost somewhere unknown. Apparently that niggling thought had been a mild premonition because wherever she was, she had at least some supplies.
She had a bunch of snacks that she had taken to packing for if she needed to nibble while at work. Little biodegradable baggies of pretzels and GORP(or trail mix, as it could also be called) were all stuffed into crannies of the bag.
In the back pocket there were two hardback notebooks, one brand new she'd picked up recently that had a nice teal and lavender flower motif, and one that was half full of doodles, math and physics equations, song lyrics that she was adapting into parodies for her friends and her to laugh at, and random thoughts. It was originally a plain light blue with a little dark purple cartoon owl, but she had doodled all over the cover. In fact the covers of both were filled with doodles of owls, stars, and moons that she had added in sharpie. She had her Totoro pencil case, holding a hilarious amount of colored pencils, metal mechanical pencils, a lot of lead to replace said metal mechanical pencils in their own metal tube, a few black and blue pens, of both capped and clicky bits alike, said previously mentioned sharpie, and two red clicky pens. She also had her geometry toolkit, two rulers, a protractor, and two compasses(the geometry kind), all made of decent sturdy metal.
"At least I won't forget my math, wherever I am… might come in handy." Considering the pointy ears she was probably in some form of fantasy world, possibly one of the d&d campaigns she either watched or played? Or an anime like That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime? Digging in her bag she noted that most likely this wasn't video game based, since she couldn't just randomly grab from her inventory. Boo.
She also had her colorful metal crochet hooks, a bunch of different sizes and colors, her metal blue size 4 knitting needles, and three balls of acrylic yarn, dark green, dark blue, and powder blue. Looking inside she luckily had a bunch of her other bits of crochet and knitting supplies, could never remember the name of them but the thick sewing needle looking things, and a bunch of little plastic tabs that were used to keep track of knitting and such. Why had she packed these? Normally she kept her projects at her desk.
"Well I can finally start that scarf at least…"
She had her trusty eclectic toolkit, a collection that consisted of a mini screwdriver set, measuring tape, a brand new roll of purple duct tape with owls on it, a few coils of copper wiring, needle pliers, and some packages of batteries all put into a crocheted deep green and teal bag that her best friend had made her, decorated with little anime and fandom pins.
Another crocheted bag, this one red with pink heart-ish shapes done into it and lined on the inside with plain white linen, had what she called "medical supplies". A light blue pill container holding an odd collection of aspirin, Advil, peptobismol, and some dayquil and nyquil capsules that she kept with her as a just in case. A bunch of different bandaids with Disney princesses, star wars, owls, space, and Halloween themes she'd been throwing in her bag anytime she thought about it. Finally a nice compact mirror, depicting The classic image of Mount Fuji on the cover. She never remembered it's actual name.
In the front pocket of her bag there was a Brunton compass she had gotten from her mom, a sturdy one made for geology purposes that her mother had used when she was younger, as well as one metal lighter, a Swiss army knife, a small purple travel brush, and her bamboo traveling flatware. Thankfully she had her trusty headlamp, a nice silver color, which those batteries she had in the toolkit were used for. Wrapped in a set of dark blue knit gloves she had her 12 hole light blue Legend of Zelda ocarina, thankfully not damaged. Attached to one of the straps on her pack was her metal Starry Night water bottle, currently empty unfortunately.
"And my mother made fun of me for always packing some survival stuff. Who's laughing now ma?"
At the very bottom of her bag was her super light weight light blue windbreaker, rolled up into a tight roll. Next to it she also had about three different decks of cards, each from one of her fandoms either past or present, her wooden kalimba with an acrylic inlay that looked like a bunch of galaxies within a deep blue background that was safely inside of a stiff brown leather case, one of her beloved keychain plushies of her favorite digimon, a pale blue bandana wrapped around a set of marbles. and about four sets of D&D dice in yet another crocheted bag, powder blue on the bottom and white on top this one, also made by her best friend.
Looking at the dice she poked at her ear again. Was she an Elf now? Actually… now that she was paying attention she realized with a cold feeling that all of her things looked… bigger. Much bigger actually.
Standing up she found that her backpack was now half her height, coming up to just past her legs. If she was in some fantasy d&d based world she was either a gnome or a halfling then, because she was now SHORT. Luckily her superboy graphic tee and her jeans seemed to have shrunk with her, not to mention her unmentionables…
It was at this point she saw her feet.
They were fuzzy.
Furry even.
Possibly, wooly?
Wiggling her toes in the grass, she noted that she could barely feel the ground under her. She blinked.
"Holy shit I'm a Hobbit… what the hell my feet are still the same proportion, the fuck?"
She sat back down on the ground and pulled her foot up to try and see the bottom of it. Sure enough the bottom of her foot looked dark brown, like leather. Poking it with her finger she barely felt any pressure, like when stepping on a rock through a thick set of hiking boots. The top of her foot had curly golden bronze hair, much like her actual hair color. Running her fingers through it was a weird experience, but she had to admit that it was warm at least. Putting her hand on her head she felt her hair, which was put back in a simple braid, elastic bands apparently still in. Pulling the end of her long hair forward she made a soft noise of bewilderment seeing that the ends were a tad more curly then before. That was new, but the color was the same.
So maybe she still looked the same, just… Hobbitified?
Pulling out her mirror she pulled together her courage and opened it.
Looking back at herself was a very similar face to what she was used to, but not quite.
She looked… younger almost, closer to how she had looked in highschool. Not that she had really changed much over the years but still. Same roundish face, chubby cheeks, thick eyebrows and bright blue eyes. Scar over the bridge of her nose from smacking her face against a sink when she tripped as a kid, a few freckles sprinkled around… no acne at all though, that was new.
She also noted that her usual sporadic hair growth that happened around her chin and upper lip was still there, unfortunately.
When was the last time she had plucked or waxed?
She hummed softly, pouting.
Her mouth looked the same at least, plump lips a deep pink color.
She made a few exaggerated funny faces to see if she still could, and if anything she looked even more expressive than ever.
Almost cartoony, like Jim Carrey.
She could even wiggle her ears now like her grandfather used to.
"So I'm probably a Stoor then… at least part Stoor, good then I can swim… hold on, Hobbits reach majority at 33… holy shit I'm basically a teenager again? Fuck… okay okay so… So I'm in Middle Earth? Okay cool, cool cool cool, Middle Earth circa… okay are these the movie verse, bookverse, Lord of the Rings, Hobbit, or Rings of Power? Silmarillion maybe? Shit what's fanon versus canon, what is my magical Valar given destiny, is Westron the same as English? Fuck, uhhh focus. Stop. Where am I?"
She had to keep calm. Again, priorities. She had to figure out a few things.
She put away the mirror.
Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How.
So far she only knew one thing.
What: She was now a Hobbit in Middle Earth.
A young Hobbit at that, wearing modern day clothing and with definitely not enough innate knowledge of the Tolkienverse to be of much help. She knew a little about a lot, and a lot about a little. This was going to be… interesting. Her mom had been the super Tolkien nerd, not her. Hell her name had nearly been Galadriel because of how much her mother loved the books!
Alright, before she was discovered by anyone, she needed to figure out a bit.
No matter what universe this was, names had power, so she did not want to go around saying her actual name, right? Especially since she had never actually gotten around to trying to find out what her name translated to in either Elf speak or Dwarf. What if her name was an insult or something in Silvan and Khuzdul? That wasn’t the Elf language …Sindarian? Definitely not Quenya at least.
She had translated what the meaning of her name was though. She had literally looked it up like a week before, and used her middle name too to create some names for a Dwarf or Elf d&d character either for her campaign as npcs or possible player characters. Maybe she could go by one of those? Hell as a Hobbit name she could just use the translation. If Westron translated into English that is. Either way, she knew what to call herself at least. Though Dwarves… Dwarrow, they would probably be pissed if she spoke their language, even if just a name. Well she could just claim it as a secret name then.
"Mahal as my witness, my secret name shall be Zigilibnim'abad." She grinned to herself a little, joking around as she sat in the meadow, speaking out loud because why not? It was not even two seconds before she was jumping as she swore she heard actual thunder like from a lighting strike somewhere far too close.
And shall it be.
The thunder had a voice.
"... What the fuck?" She whispered to herself, feeling her heart beating what must have been a mile a minute as cold sweat went down her back. Was that… no, that couldn't…
"... Holy shit it actually could though… uh… thank you? Sir? Lord? …Areyougonnasayanythingelse?" She looked around, then up at the still clear sky, which was just even more terrifying since she had HEARD that thunder.
Her question was met with silence.
So the Who was partially answered at least, whether it was just the one Valar or more was a new question.
Swallowing her fear she pulled out her already written in notebook and opened to one of the already doodled on pages. "Alright I know it's a secret but legit I'll forget this in like a week so… please don't like strike me down or something for writing it down." Along the bottom of a doodle of a Rowlet, her favorite pokemon, she wrote down her apparently Aulë sanctioned secret name, staring at the black ink.
"I swear this is the weirdest dream I've had. It's probably a dream at least. But last thing I want is for it to be real and I fuck up, so I'll treat it as real, but it's probably a dream. Shit do I even know other the other valar? Manwë, Varda, Yavanna, Aulë… uh… there was a weaver… which one sent Gandalf? Shit. Mom was better at the history bullshit."
She got up finally and looked at her bag, realizing a new problem. "Oh you are gonna be heavy… alright, we're doing this, lift with your legs, not your back, let's go." Pulling on the straps and clipping the bottom clips together in front of her, which she assumed was to prevent the bag from bouncing while running, she slowly stood up with the heavy pack. "It's just like camping, only no clothes, no tent, no sleeping bag… maybe I can get a cart like those Rings of Power Harfoots? Oof. Alright… Oh shit it's the Shire."
Now that she was focused on what was around her, the blurry shapes from before could now be identified as fences surrounding a bunch of Hobbit holes.
"Smials." She muttered the correction to herself, beginning on her walk forward before stopping again. She was going to look so out of place… Looking back down at the flowers she crouched down slowly and picked a few, putting the long stems into her braid and around her head. If she was going to look odd, she would go all the way, maybe she could pass off as a little too wild.
Why was she lying to herself? She always wanted to braid flowers into her hair, that was reason enough to do so, she didn't need an excuse.
At least this narrowed down the When a little.
Finally standing back up with some difficulty she took a breath, enjoying the floral smell. "Alright, I've never been too religious but Vala help me figure out my path, I guess? Is that the plural of Valar? Holy shit one of them talked to me…" Shaking her head she looked to the hills. "... You know maybe I should hide, and watch a bit. Figure out more of what's happening. Yeah, Hobbits are sneaky right? Hhh…"