Chapter Text
Hannah stood on the irregular cobbles that made up the main road through Bree. Shivering and out of place in her leggings and sneakers. She’d folded up her umbrella and tucked it into her pocket before entering the city.
In front of her was a large well-lit building marked by a wooden sign—a fat white pony rearing up on its hind legs.
It was pouring rain and she was soaked through, but she couldn’t bring herself to go in just yet.
It was one thing to be told, oblique and guileless by farmers up and down the river, that you’d tripped over a crack in reality and ended up in Middle Earth, it was another thing entirely to believe it.
After a week of begging the kindness of strangers and camping out in barns and haylofts, all to get to right here, she was finally starting to accept the evidence in front of her eyes.
Impossible as the journey had seemed when that first farmer had told her to follow the river down to the Brandywine Bridge and then take the main road into Bree. Here she finally was.
Bree.
The Prancing Pony.
And if she went in there was even odds that she’d find four familiar hobbits looking out of place among the rowdy Breelanders and perhaps a brooding Ranger in the corner.
She didn’t know what she’d do if they weren’t there.
Beg Barliman Butterbur for a job maybe. She had enough experience bartending and bussing tables from her university days.
“Fuck it,” she muttered, squaring her shoulders.
The inside of the Pony was busy, crowded with locals and travellers alike and the noise spilled out of the common room and into the front hall. Hannah tried to wring the worst of the water out of her jacket and sweater and kick the mud off her shoes so that she wasn’t tracking a mess everywhere and then bulled her way into the common room before she could change her mind.
She let her eyes flit into every dark corner until she finally found what she was looking for.
Tucked away in a corner booth with one long leg propped up on the stool in front of him, was a solitary man nursing a tankard of probably-ale and chewing on the end of a pipe. His face was hidden, tucked up into his hood. But Hannah would’ve bet all the money she didn’t have that this was her man because he was staring at a quartet of hobbits.
Now there were plenty of hobbits making merry in the common room of the Pony, but these four kept themselves apart from the rest, picking tentatively at their food until they determined that, oh, actually it was good and then digging in with a ravenous hunger.
But Hannah wasn’t here for the hobbits. Or at least, not yet.
Frodo Baggins would have to be utterly stupid to trust her, and Aragorn would probably gut her if she tried too hard to sit down and make the Ringbearer’s acquaintance. Which meant that her best hope was to talk to Aragorn and somehow convince him that she was, if not trustworthy, then at least useful and not a threat.
She needed to get to Rivendell and talk to Lord Elrond and Gandalf.
If there was anyone in Middle Earth who would know what the hell was going on with her it would be them, or maybe Galadriel with her magic mirror.
She’d been thinking about how she was going to do this since the moment the fourth farmer and his wife told her that to get to ‘town’ she’d need to follow the river to the Brandywine Bridge and take the road into Bree. She’d finally started to accept the idea that she was somehow trudging through the world of her favourite fantasy novel.
At least it seemed like whatever power had dropped her here had also given her the ability to speak and understand Westron—or the people of Middle Earth all spoke English regardless of what Tolkien’s canon had to say about it. It would have been tricky enough trying to pull this off without people treating her like a raving loon or a suspicious foreigner.
She’d had ten long days and nights to ponder the exact words she would use and the arguments she could make, but at the end of it, when she finally reached the Prancing Pony and spotted Aragon—Strider, still, she supposed—she made a beeline for him sat herself down across from him and said:
“You need my help.”
“Oh, indeed?” he said. “And what help would that be?”
“I know why you’re here. And I’ve seen your future,” she said with more bravado than she felt. “You’ll be caught before you reach Rivendell without me.”
Strider’s eyes burned, and Hannah knew she had his attention now. She fought the urge to fidget.
“You’re sure?”
“Very sure.”
Strider leaned back into the booth with all the airs of a man at ease. But his impossible grey eyes were locked on hers. Weighing and measuring.
“I have known your kind before,” Strider said finally. “A young woman strange in garb and manner came to Rivendell when I was a boy, accompanying a party of dwarves. She called me by my name before we’d been introduced. Do you know what she called me?”
“Estel.”
“And by what name would she have hailed me if we’d met again tonight in Bree?”
“She would have called you Strider,” Hannah said.
He gave her a nod of acknowledgement, and chewed thoughtfully on the end of his pipe for a long moment, watching the room over her shoulder.
“You’ve really met someone like me before?” Hannah prompted.
“Yes. Lord Elrond has met more. Wanderers, lost from beyond the sphere of Arda. Clear-seers and prophets. Almost always young women. Your coming is an omen of chaos and war.”
“The Nazgûl are riding around the Shire and my coming is an omen of war?” she said bristling.
“Peace,” said Strider, bemused. “I meant no offence.”
Hannah was tempted to be offended anyway, but where would that get her? Instead, she took a deep breath in through her nose and let it out slowly.
“Look,” she said. “I don’t know what you know about my kind or whatever, but I was just dragged out of my universe with nothing but my bag and the clothes on my back. Unless you know how I can get home I need you to take me to Rivendell. I know you’re going there anyway and I can make the road a little safer for all of us if you’ll let me.”
“These are dark days,” Strider mused. “What you’re asking for is trust, in a time when being too trusty is dangerous.”
“You don’t need to trust me,” she said. “I’m smaller than you. Weaker. Unarmed. I couldn’t threaten you even if I wanted to.”
“And it is for that reason only that I am even willing to entertain your offer,” he said. “Though you haven’t even given me the courtesy of your name.”
Hannah flushed slightly.
“Hannah,” she said.
“Pardon?”
“My name. It’s Hannah. Hannah Weyland.”
“Hannah,” he repeated carefully. “Well met.”
“Yeah,” she said, laughing a little bit. “It is. Say what you want about the dangers of trust. I’m glad to see a half-way familiar face.”
She tried to scrape a hand through her hair and grimaced when she remembered that it was a tangled haphazard knot piled on top of her head at the moment.
Something in Strider’s expression softened a fraction.
“How long have you been on the road?” he asked.
“Just ten days. Eleven, maybe. Depending on how long I was out.”
“And you’ve been on short rations, without coin,” he said.
“If that’s you offering to spot me for dinner, I accept,” she said. “If it’s not, I have some advice. You should buy me dinner, Ranger. Prove chivalry isn’t dead and secure my undying loyalty.”
Strider smiled a bit and it lifted some of the grim seriousness from their dark corner. He nodded at the lad bussing tables and held up two fingers. The lad went scurrying off and returned in two shakes with two plates of cold chicken, bread and a selection of baked root vegetables. As well as two more carved tankards filled with ale.
“That’s a good friend to have,” Hannah said, digging into the meal with gusto.
“Barliman’s son, Barton. He’s young enough to still be enamoured by tales of adventure and far off battles.”
“And old enough to tell who has the best stories on offer.”
Strider raised his cup in a wry salute.
Hannah took a sip of her own beer and was surprised to find that the flavour was rich enough that it was good, even at room temperature. She kept herself to small sips, trying to keep her wits about her, and ate quickly.
“You have some notion of my mission,” Strider said after both their plates were clear.
He’d lit his pipe and had his boots propped up on a stool.
Hannah glanced over at the four hobbits alone at their little table. Their pale and wary faces a sharp contrast to the merry-making and gossip mongering happening among the clusters of hobbit-folk in the rest of the room.
“They must be escorted to Rivendell. That is my task, and I will brook no delay nor interference. Do you understand?”
“I do,” Hannah said, easily. “And I agree. You can’t delay. Fortunately, I’m not interested in delaying you. Getting to Rivendell quickly and safely is in my best interest too.”
Strider made a ‘we’ll see’ sort of noise, neither agreeing nor outright disagreeing.
“And in aid of that, I am off to attempt to prevent disaster,” she said, rising from their table.
“Hannah,” Strider warned.
“Just let me,” she said.
Strider weighed her expression for a long moment.
“Leave your coat and bag,” he said finally.
A hostage against her good behaviour. The nights were getting cold she wouldn’t be able to slip away without her coat, that was without taking into account that everything she owned in the world was in that bag. A very effective hostage.
She shrugged out of her jacket and hung it over the back of the chair leaving her in her sweater and leggings, and plopped her bag down in her seat.
“Satisfied?”
She raised her eyebrows at Strider, and he settled more deeply into his corner.
That was probably as much permission as she was going to get.
She stood and grabbed her ale, still mostly full, and took a quick swig.
“Wish me luck,” she muttered to the ranger, leaving the table and trying to think quickly.
The Nine were hunting Frodo and the Ring and the incident in the common room as well as the spies of Saruman among the men here in Bree had given away his exact position to his enemies. If she could prevent that incident, it might buy them a little more breathing room.
Merry and Pippin had already gone off to mingle with the hobbits and the Breelanders lured in by the relative size and pricing of the Pony’s fine ale no doubt.
Sam was glaring around the room in suspicion while Frodo stared at the bar glassy-eyed and unfocussed.
The Ring was hypnotizing him. Tugging on the threads of self-interest in the men. Trying to draw in the Nazgûl.
She had to stop that, but gently.
She crossed the room making a winding beeline for the bar and faked a stumble, slopping ale onto Frodo’s shoulder.
Frodo jolted like he’d been slapped and Sam barked, “Here now! Just watch where you’re going!”
“So sorry, Master Hobbit,” she said, leaning down. “Your fine waistcoat is all wet.”
“It’s alright,” Frodo said warily.
Hannah thought she saw a flash of gold. The Ring slipped back into the relative safety of Frodo’s pocket.
She lowered her voice to a bare whisper.
“The Ranger would like to speak with you,” she said. “He is a friend of the Grey Wizard if my word means anything to you.”
Frodo’s eyes flashed with something like fear.
Hannah offered him her best reassuring smile.
“At your convenience, Master Hobbit.”
She stood again and made her way directly over to Pippin at the bar who was talking hobbit genealogy with a group of men and Bree hobbits.
“A Baggins?” Pip was saying, too loudly. “Sure, I know a Baggins—”
Hannah nudged him none-to-gently.
“Your friend wants you Master Hobbit,” she said pointedly. “Over there. Mister Under-something.”
Pippin blinked and looked over at Frodo and Sam who had their heads together and were talking urgently. He looked at his mostly empty pint of ale and winced just a little. Just enough that Hannah knew he’d caught his near-blunder.
“Right, sorry about that, lads,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll find you tomorrow and tell you all about it.”
Pippin went to get Merry from the other side of the bar and rejoined Frodo and Sam.
Meanwhile, Hannah made her way around the outside of the room and back to Strider in his corner.
“What would have happened, without your intervention?” he asked, his voice thick with curiosity.
“Let’s just say that the Nine would have known we were here and leave it at that,” Hannah said, shuddering. “We might still be in danger tonight, but at least they won’t know for certain that Frodo has been here.”
“And that is no small thing,” Strider said.
“That was my thinking,” Hannah said.
“Are you not concerned?” he asked, tilting his head a fraction. “The more you meddle in events the less certain the future you know becomes. Is this not so?”
Hannah had considered that but ultimately it was a risk she’d decided to take at least until they hit Rivendell and she had a chance to speak to someone who would know why the hell she’d been dragged out of her world.
“Maybe,” Hannah said. “But I think it was worth the risk. At least in this case.”
“Have a care,” Strider said, but at least he didn’t seem upset by her interference.
It took another few minutes of furious debate at the hobbits’ table before any action was taken but eventually Frodo got up from his table and made his way over to their corner. Stopping just out of arm’s reach, his expression wary.
“Mr. Strider,” he said. “I am Mr. Underhill. Your friend said you’d like a word.”
Strider gave her another look from under the drape of his hood.
“I would like more than one,” he said. “But in private.”
“What about?” Frodo asked.
“A matter of some importance to us both,” Strider said, pinning Frodo with one of his looks. “You may hear something to your advantage.”
“Very well,” said Frodo, smoothing a hand over the damp front of his waistcoat. “I will talk to you later then.”
Frodo scurried back over to the small table to report this to the other hobbits and Strider put out his pipe, apparently satisfied.
“I have arrangements to make if you are to accompany us to Rivendell, but they will not take long. If you’d like you may go to my room and refresh yourself before we meet again with Frodo, elsewise I bid you stay here and try not to draw attention.”
“Yeah, I’ll take refreshing,” Hannah said. “I smell like something an orc spat out.”
“Not quite that bad,” Strider said amused. “I cannot spare coin for a bath. But there should be fresh water set out and a fire.”
“Good enough,” Hannah agreed.
He slid a mid-sized brass key along the tabletop.
“It is the last room on the right side from the top of the stairs. Number seven.”
“Thanks,” Hannah said, standing and gathering her coat.
Strider stood as well, drinking the rest of his ale in two short swigs. Watching him move Hannah was swamped by a wave of something. Something like nostalgia, gratitude and simple fondness all rolled up in a ball of all-encompassing relief.
“Strider,” she said when he turned to leave her. “Thank you. I mean it.”
The ranger offered her a nod of acknowledgement too regal for the taproom at the Prancing Pony and then turned and strode off through the crowd.
Hannah stared after him for a long moment.
“Missus?” Barton said, nudging her and jolting her out of her reverie. “Are you done with your ale?”
“Oh, er, yes,” she stammered, flushing. “Thank you.”
“Get your shit together,” she muttered to herself grabbing her bag and heading for the door.
*
Strider’s room at the inn was a simple one. One bed only just big enough to share with a man his size. There was a fire burning low in the fireplace and a basin with fresh water a linen set out on the stand by the window.
In the corner among a set of saddlebags Hannah spotted the bundle of his bow, quiver and bedroll. As well as a cloth-wrapped bundle that she’d bet money she didn’t have contained four short-swords somewhat poorly maintained but sized for hobbits.
Hannah draped her coat over the foot of the bed and peeled and slithered out of her wet clothes and sneakers.
Letting her bare skin warm now that she was out of her wet things. She spotted a small wooden rack tucked into the corner and unfolded it to reveal what may or may not have been a drying rack for laundry but was going to serve that purpose all the same.
She hung her clothes as close to the fire as she could get away with and turned to her bag.
Her aunt used to call it her Hermione bag. Seemingly bottomless and filled with stuff that Hannah had put there and forgotten about.
She’d already eaten everything she’d had in there, including a handful of dinner mints that she suspected she’d swiped from the table last year on her birthday. But there was still plenty of useful stuff.
She set aside her phone, keys, charger, headphones and wallet. All useless. As well as her battered copy of Jurassic Park, her notebook and a handful of pens.
She dug out a pair of dry socks and her beauty bag.
The makeup in there was all useless, but she did have a makeup wipes, hand sanitizer, a small toothbrush, floss, paste and a half empty travel bottle of shampoo and the deodorant that she usually used at the gym. There was also a small hairbrush and some spare elastics right at the bottom of her bag.
She wet one of the linens and gave her face and body a quick scrub down with the lukewarm water using a dab of sanitizer under each of her arms to tackle the smell and then swiped a thick layer of deodorant over the area hoping that it would keep her a little fresher than it had been.
She unpicked her tangled mass of hair from its bun and leaned over the basin to dunk the whole mess of it in the water, carding her brush through the snarls without getting very far.
She tried to be a sparing as she could with the shampoo, but she needed a fair bit to undo the damage of nearly two weeks of neither washing nor combing the mess.
Still with a bit of persistence and the miracle of man-made chemicals the knots came loose and she was finally able to get the brush through. Careful not to drip she wrung the great mass of her hair out over the basin and then went to go stand on the hearth rug to towel it dry as best as she could.
It was lovely.
There was something about being full, clean, warm, and dry even if she was sitting in a medieval-style inn that made everything feel both more manageable and more daunting.
These past weeks she hadn’t had time to sit and think, really, too focused on surviving day to day. She’d cried herself into a fitful sleep those first few nights, listening the shrieks and screams of things being killed out in the wild in the darkest hours of the night. Sure, that she’d be one of them. And she very easily could have been, because upon reflection those were probably orcs.
But now she had a few minutes at least and she needed to just…process.
Somehow, she’d ended up in Middle Earth.
For reasons she couldn’t fathom, she’d just happened to fall into the time period she knew best. The War of the Ring and the end of the Third Age.
In a reckless move that she couldn’t believe had worked she’d also prevented Frodo from accidentally putting on the Ring and disappearing in the middle of the common room at the Pony. As Strider had said, that would have consequences. Repercussions she couldn’t predict.
She hoped that one of those consequences was making it easier to avoid the Nazgûl, but she was painfully aware that if they caught up and Frodo was stabbed there was no guarantee now that he would live. If indeed their ever had been such a guarantee.
She’d changed the story. Just the smallest amount, sure. For the better, probably.
But she’d watched enough sci-fi to know that sometimes a tiny bit of change was just enough to cause havoc and that knowledge was burbling in her gut. A sickening swirl of deepening anxiety.
Please, let her not have just unleashed butterfly effect levels of havoc on a delicate and unsuspecting Middle Earth.
Fuck.
What if she had?
Who besides her would know the difference?
The whole enterprise of the quest to destroy the Ring and everything else that was about to happen, there had only ever been the smallest glimmer of a chance that the quest would succeed. Lord Elrond had been sure they would fail. Lady Galadriel had warned that they were dancing on razorblades and even Gandalf had admitted that the quest had never had much hope.
A fool’s hope.
And now she was the fool who needed to ensure they could still pull a victory out of thin air, or she was the fool who had doomed the people of Middle Earth to a second darkness and generations of bitter enslavement to a being who desired nothing more than ultimate power and control. Dominion over all life.
Fuck.
Okay, well.
She would just have to hope things weren’t too badly screwed up and then talk to Gandalf when she reached Rivendell.
Maybe he’d be able to get her hurricane-causing butterfly butt out of the spheres of Arda and back on Terra Firma where she belonged.