Summary:

If you had known the magician's vanishing box would actually work, you might have been more careful what you wished for. Middle-earth is scarier than you thought, but when you are saved by the golden-haired elf of your dreams, you decide your situation is maybe not so bad after all.

For Natalie

♡

Sent to Middle-earth – Part 1(3): Spider's Web

The huge spider took another step towards you. You tried to back away, but there was a tree behind you, and you could get no further. Trapped.

A hairy foot crushed the basket of bilberries you had worked so hard to gather. As you stared into the monster's multiple eyes, helplessly awaiting your death, you cursed the magician for sending you here – and not for the first time. Middle-earth was not a cosy, romantic world with exciting adventures around each corner, and where everyone was a badass fighter. It was dark and dangerous, you were still your normal, non-warrior self, and you hated being here.

"Go away," you told the spider in your broken Sindarin, the language your new family had taught you.

It did not reply, and instead came closer. Its stench filled your nostrils, making you dizzy, and you could not look away from its black, dead eyes. In a last effort to protect yourself, you covered your face with your cloak.

It did not help. You felt a sharp sting through the stout wool and straight into your belly. As the poison spread through your veins, your body went limp.

Still awake, but unable to move or even speak, you were dragged up on the spider's web. It swiftly spun you around, covering you head to toe in sticky silk. Instead of devouring you directly, it left you hanging there like a big burrito, perhaps wanting to wait until you were dead.

When you were alone, you felt utterly miserable. Your stay in Middle-earth had been no picnic so far, but this topped the list as your worst experience. And likely your last one, too.

Why had you ever gone into that stupid box?

But it had been a funfair, and he was not a real magician – or so you had thought – and you had played along. After entering his vanishing box, you had said where you wanted to be sent (Middle-earth, of course!), and the next you knew, you stood in a dark forest outside a cabin, with an elf family staring at you like you had popped into existence right before their eyes. This, you later learned, was exactly what had happened.

That was over a year ago now, and still you had no idea how it had been possible, or if you could ever return home. If you became spider-food now, would you wake up in your own world again?

There was a rustle above you. The spider returning? You tried to see, but your eyes were partly covered, and you could only perceive vague shapes.

You heard a twang, a shrill screech, and then something big and dark fell past you, hitting the ground with a soft squelsh.

"Got it." The voice was strong and melodious; an elf voice, but none you recognized.

"Well done," said another. "Now let us destroy these eggs."

"We continue tracking its partner, and you catch up with us when you are finished." The third voice sounded further away.

Whoever the elves were, they had not seen you. You tried to call out, but your mouth was full of sticky web.

"Mpff! Mph!"

"Did you hear something?"

"Up there. It has caught someone."

You felt the web tremble and heard the voices mutter and grumble as they tried to avoid getting caught in it while cutting you loose. And then you fell, crashing down, hip first. The impact would probably have been painful, but the spider poison had made you numb, and you felt nothing.

"Sorry about that. It was the only way to get you down," said the first voice kindly, as its owner began to peel away the cocoon from around you. When your face was freed, you could see him clearly. It was a male elf – an ellon, as they were called – with an unusual golden blonde hair color. He wore a hunter's green tunic, and a quiver of arrows strapped across his chest. Could it be...?

"I am Legolas of the woodland guard. Who are you, and why does a human walk alone in these woods?"

Legolas. The elf you had loved since the first time you saw him on screen, in the first Lord of the Rings movie, when he walked into Rivendell and curiously looked around. The movies had got his appearance slightly right, but even in his youth, Orlando Bloom had never been as handsome as this elf. You felt your heart beat faster.

The poison made you unable to move your lips and tongue, and your speech came out unintelligible. "I ah ooh..."

"Did the spider sting you?" Another elf came into view; this one had dark hair.

"How unfortunate," said Legolas. "And your hip is swelling up. I hope the fall has not broken it."

"So, what do we do? The rest of the company is already far ahead."

"We have to go to the camp." He turned back to you. "Don't worry. We are going to treat the sting wound and clean out any remaining poison. When your speech returns, you can tell us where you live, and we will help you return there."

You blinked your eyes and made another noise, hoping it sounded grateful. These elves had saved your life.

Legolas picked you up as if you weighed nothing, and carried you in his arms along a nearly invisible path, closely followed by his friend. You felt your face heat up, starstruck to be this close to your idol, and you were almost grateful the poison made you unable to speak – for you suspected whatever you said right now, would be incredibly stupid.

After a long walk, you came to a glade with a fireplace in its center, surrounded by a couple of tents in the same green color as the elves' clothes. Legolas carried you into one, and placed you on a blanket. He took off your cloak and folded it into a thick roll, placing it under your head as a pillow.

Then he called to his friend outside: "Can you go after the others, explaining my absence, and ask Niphredil to come back here? Meanwhile, I will do what I can, but I am no healer."

The elf agreed, and was gone.

"I have to cut this off, to find where you were stung. The sooner I can wash off the poison, the sooner you will get your mobility back." Legolas looked apologetic as he ruined your outer garment, but you did not mind. The elvish family who found you all those months ago had given you clothes more suitable for this world, and you were sure they would understand. They were kind people, and you hoped they were not too worried that you had not returned home yet.

In only your undershirt you felt a bit embarrassed, and it seemed Legolas was not entirely comfortable either when he found where the wound was. He folded the hem up and exposed your stomach. Looking down, you saw the ugly mark from the spider's stinger and felt nauseous; it was round and even, and as large as a coin. A black, oily mess covered the area, mingling with your blood, which seeped out in a sluggish trickle.

"The poison holds the bleeding back, but if I leave it there it will keep leaking into you and prolong your immobility, and possibly do some lasting damage to your nerves as well. I have to get it off, and then quickly bandage the wound. It should be painless, but with the poison gone, your sensations will slowly return. I hope the healer will have come by then; she knows better what to do about the pain."

He soaked a cloth in something herbal-smelling, and washed the area carefully. As soon as the black filth was gone, fresh, crimson blood welled out of the hole. Legolas was ready with a wad of linen and pressed it firmly against the stinger mark, winding a long bandage around your waist to keep it in place.

Next, he checked on your hip. As he gently prodded the swelling, you felt a numb ache.

"Ahh..."

"Does it hurt?" he looked worriedly at you.

"Little," you managed to get out.

"I'm glad your speech is returning. I had better check this before your senses return entirely; it will probably be less painful if I do it now. May I?"

"Yeshh," you slurred.

"I, uh, have to roll down your hose a bit." He blushed.

"Yeshh," you assured him. Of course he could not know you were from a world where showing one's leg was not a big deal, especially not for medical reasons.

Legolas fumbled a while with your hose strings; apparently he was not used to the kind of knot you had tied them with.

Hose were an interesting garment, and worn by both men and women around here. They resembled a pair of very long socks, though not as elastic; reaching from the toe all the way to the crotch. Unlike pants, they were not sewn together, and tied to an underbelt to stop them from sliding down. Underneath the hose, you wore linen underwear, looking a bit like large, baggy boxer shorts – these too unisex.

Legolas had finally loosened your hose, and uncovered the leg which had hit the ground first. Your hip and upper part of the thigh had gone dark and looked twice as thick as normal. He felt along the bone, and the ache returned, a bit stronger now. You grunted.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

"'S alright."

"It could be broken, but it's not easy to feel." He sighed.

As he started to roll the hose back up, you stopped him. "No. Leave... Swell. Hurt." The pain was steadily growing worse now, a sharp throbbing with each heartbeat.

"Of course." He covered you with a blanket instead. "How are you feeling?"

"It hurts," you said.

"Niphredil should be back soon. She can give you something to drink. It tastes horrible, but it will take away some of the pain."

You nodded. Your sensations had returned to your arms and hands now, and you experimentally wiggled your fingers.

"What were you doing alone in the forest?" He took on a somewhat stern tone, and you remembered the Elvenking did not take lightly to strangers roaming Mirkwood. Legolas probably helped his father guard the borders.

"I was gathering berries, but strayed too far from the others, and lost my way... I called back to them, but then the spider came." You looked at him apologetically.

"Humans are not allowed in this land." He frowned.

"I know, but... They took me in. A family of elves." You described how you had been sent here by magic, but on purpose kept most of the details out. It was too hard to explain how different your world was; it was easier to make it sound like you were from another part of this world.

Legolas looked a bit sceptical, but to your relief he did not question you further.

Not long afterwards the rest of the elf company returned, and their healer took over your care. Like Legolas had predicted, she gave you a bitter draught for the pain, but it actually did help a little and also made you drowsy. Soon you were fast asleep.

♡

In the morning, the healer returned to check on you. When she removed the bandage from your stomach, she drew in a sharp, surprised breath. "It's almost healed!"

You looked down, and your eyes popped open. She was right. The hole was nearly gone, and had scabbed nicely. It still hurt, but much less. Uncovering your thigh, you saw that the swelling was down, and it was less dark in color, but when you tried to move your leg a searing pain shot up.

"Keep it still. The hip bone is broken," said Niphredil. "But it still surprises me how much better it looks. If you were an elf, it would have been expected, but for a human to heal this fast... I have never seen that before."

Legolas came inside the tent, and heard the last part. He too examined your wounds, looking very puzzled. "Are you an elf?" he asked. "You don't entirely look like one, but with a stamina like this, you must be."

"Maybe the magical box did it?" you pondered. You actually had noticed some differences in yourself the past year. You were physically stronger and had more energy than before, and slept a lot less – you had accounted it to your wholesome lifestyle with lots of fresh air, healthy food and exercise – but what if your transport here had changed your body somehow? It was no less strange than you coming here in the first place.

Legolas seemed intrigued that someone could change from a human into an apparently immortal person, and resumed his questioning about your arrival here. This time, you told him more than before – the truth about where you came from.

"So this is why you speak with an accent. If you had been from Gondor like you said at first, you would have learned Sindarin at an early age."

"Sorry." The accent embarrassed you, and there were still many Sindarin words you did not know.

"Don't be. I like your accent." He smiled, and you felt your cheeks heat pleasantly.

Strangely, your being sent through time and space did not surprise Legolas as much as you had thought, and instead he seemed mostly curious about you and your world. But then, this was Middle-earth. Here were fire-breathing dragons and rings of power, giants who turned into stone in sunshine, talking spiders and cursed swords; here they used to have trees and lamps instead of a sun and moon, and one of the stars was a guy in a boat sailing across the sky. Magic was normal here.

All through the day and well into the night you talked, telling Legolas all he wanted to know about the future. You only hid one thing from him: that Middle-earth and all its characters were fictive – including him. That was just too weird. I mean, how do you tell someone they are the figment of a 20th century author's imagination?

Besides, you were beginning to suspect this was not made up. Everything felt real, and looked real. What if Tolkien too had been transported to Middle-earth, and only wrote what he had seen? It was a curious thought, and you wanted to ponder over it more before you said or did anything stupid.

♡

The following day, the elves had planned to return to the palace, and to your delight Legolas asked if you wanted to come; both because he wished to question you more, and so the healer could make sure your leg healed properly. If you agreed, he would send a messenger to the elf family where you lived and explain the situation.

"I would love to see the palace," you said.

"Good, that's settled then. I should make it up to you for breaking your hip."

"Don't say that!" you objected. "You saved my life. Had you not come, I would have become spider food." The thought made you shudder.

"I should have cut you down more carefully. One of us ought to have stood below, catching you."

"I'm just grateful to be alive. Think no more of it," you assured him.

Legolas lended you one of his tunics instead of the garment he had been obliged to cut when examining you, and when you had put it on, your nostrils filled with his pleasant smell.

The elves had made a pair of crutches for you, and though your hip still hurt, you found it worked fairly well to limp along with them. Legolas adjusted his pace and walked slowly beside you, telling you about the places you went past. Despite the increasing darkness, there was some beauty left in Mirkwood.

You listened, and tried not to gaze at his attractive face too much. Before, you had loved your imagined version of him from the movies and books, but here he was real – and greatly surpassing your imagination! His kindness towards you had only made you like him more.

A/N:

I had originally planned to make this a one-shot, but the story grew longer than I had thought. In the next chapter, which I post tomorrow, we shall meet the Elvenking!