The Stumble Prevents the Fall - Chapter 1, Part I

The world was peaceful and green. Birds sang their melodious songs and hopped from branch to branch in statuesque trees who were filled with fruits of all different sorts, gleaming in the sunlight. The soothing sound of a little rippling river found its way over the glowing landscape and a soft sweet-smelling breeze made the grass dance in a harmonious rhythm.

My hands stroked the tickling blades of grass, slowly trying to comprehend where I was and if this was real.  

If this is a dream,  I thought to myself, then it is a good dream.

But as my hands touched the ground beneath me, I was suddenly very aware of the fact that I could actually feel it. The soft breeze was not just imagined, it was gently caressing my cheeks and my nose could properly smell the sweetness in the air. My eyes -who had been closed before- blinked rapidly to adjust to the morning rays of the sun. I held up my hand in front of my eyelids to shield them from the warm sunlight and  looked around warily.

I was lying on my back on a grassy green hill, my head resting a bit higher then my feet and encircled in a bed of daisies. My hair was spread out and my hands had been folded over my stomach as if I had just taken a much needed nap; or as if I had just woken up from my deathbed, a morbid thought that I pushed back under the surface of my conscience.
On my right I could see a clump of trees filled richly with apples, pears, cherries and the like; and on my left I saw a stream filled with pure white pebbles rolling down the little hill.
At this point I was starting to get very confused. If this wasn't a dream and the scenery around me wasn't just a fig of my imagination, then where in the world was I?

"Well, hello there!" A deep voice called out.

The sudden sound startled me and I rapidly pushed myself upward with my elbows, only to be met by the pondering gaze of an extremely tall man dressed in grey. He was an older man, hunched over slightly and seemingly steadying himself on a wooden staff he held in his hand. Just like his robes -who reached the ground- his beard was grey and came to his waist and a pointy grey-blue hat rested on top of his long mane of equally grey hair. His height made him a frightful sight and I would've probably tried to get away from him if his smile hadn't been genuine and his eyes hadn't been sparkling with mirth.

"Err... Hello." I greeted back awkwardly.

"And what is a lovely young Lady-Hobbit like yourself doing here, so far from her Hobbit hole I imagine?" He asked me merrily, a few laugh wrinkles in the corners of his eyes.

I tilted my head and arched my eyebrows slightly in confusion. 'Did this old man just call me a Lady-Hobbit?'  Now, I admit, he was very tall, but that really wasn't a reason for him to call me a Hobbit! The nerve.

"Excuse me, but I am certainly no Hobbit!" I tried to sound polite enough but still couldn't help myself from raising my voice in indignation.

I had heard of these little fantasy-creature long ago when a trilogy of fantasy-movies -'The Lord of the Rings' I remember it was called- came into theatres and my sister had begged me to accompany her, seeing as she was too afraid to face the foul beasts that made their appearance in these films on her own. If my little sister hadn't asked me to come along, I probably would've never watched them myself; Fantasy has never been one of my interests. But I was actually glad that I had seen them because I ended up really enjoying them and even saved up together with my sister to buy ourselves the Extended DVD boxes. The memory made me turn up the corners of my lips in a small smile and yet my heart didn't seem to agree because it ached in melancholy.
I shook my attention back to the present and thought that even though it had been more than eight years since I had last seen those movies, I still clearly remembered what a Hobbit was and I, for one, was not a Hobbit.

"Oh?" The old man questioned. "Are you quite certain of that?"

He kept on smiling as if he had great pleasure in this conversation, but to my taste, it had just gone sour. I parted my lips to give him a snarky reply and make it clear that I was not pleased with the comparison, when my eyes flitted over my feet and I choked on the words in my mouth.

They were huge! Much larger than I remembered them to be.

I gasped in shock and started to look myself over minutely, trying to see any other changes, and to my horror I discovered many. My rear and chest area seemed to have enlarged somewhat, my hair was slightly different, more curly, and my ears felt bigger and pointier then I was used of them.
I shot upward and ran, stumbling, towards the little streaming river so I could hold my face over it and use the clear water as a mirror. To my relief my face itself hadn't changed, but my hair was now a wavy, almost curly, mess of red whereas before it had been as straight as an arrow. The ears looked completely alien to me; at least twice their normal size and going upward until their pointy end.
I began to stroke my hair and touch my ears gently, as if I was afraid they would fall off if I was too rash and impatient. I was so engrossed in my own reflection that I didn't notice the old man had come to stand right behind me, casting a long shadow in the grass just next to me.

"Are you not feeling well, my Lady?" He asked me, curiosity in his voice and a hint of concern.

For the second time his voice startled me and I quickly pushed myself on my feet and looked up into those smiling blue eyes, framed in grey.

"I... Well, that is to say... I- I just..." I was too astonished to properly answer him. Instead I felt dizzy from the height difference and asked him the first thing that came to mind and bothered me. "How tall are you?"

"Pardon me?" The old man asked in confusion.

I took a breath and calmed myself before politely asking again, "Could you tell me how tall you are, sir?"

The old man drew his eyebrows together and looked at me with an inquisitive eye, giving me the feeling that he was able to see inside my head and read my thoughts. He took his time to answer me and my calm and independent nature seemed to falter under his gaze. I sucked in my bottom lip out of nervousness, a bad habit I had had since as long as I could remember, and had a good mind to just turn around and run to safer havens when he finally graced me with an answer.

"I am about six feet tall, my Lady."

"Six feet?" I was taken aback. "That's not possible." I managed to exclaim, craning my head in order to see his face properly.

"And why is that?" The old man switched his staff to his other hand and inclined his head further down so he could study my facial expressions better.

"Be- Because..." I stammered. "Because I'm 5.7 feet tall." I faltered. "Or I was..."

The old man arched an eyebrow and peered even steadier into my eyes as if he wanted to see if I really told the truth. That guess wasn't so far from the reality because the next thing he told me made my head spin in a very unpleasant way.

"My Lady, I am sorry to tell you that you are incorrect. From my guess you are about..." He looked me over and measured me by levelling his hand with my head and comparing it to the length of his staff. "... About four feet tall. Which is actually not that small for a female Hobbit."

My heart started to pound rapidly in my chest and I widened my eyes in shock at his statement, nearly popping them out entirely in the process.

"Not possible." I mumbled to myself. "This is not possible."

My head suddenly felt very heavy and I screwed my eyes shut, lowered my head slowly and clutched my sides while I tried to keep my breathing steady. I swallowed hard and managed to calm down, getting myself together before the old man -who stood now directly in front of me- would accuse me next of being mentally instable and carry me to some sort of insane asylum.

I looked around again at the green landscape and hoped my next question wouldn't get the answer I feared. "Do you know where we are? I mean... What is the name of this place?"

Now the old man really looked intrigued. -Which was rather odd because I had assumed he was going to look at me as if I was crazy for asking something that was probably a very silly question in his eyes.- He just tilted his head to the side quizzically and answered me with an honest expression.

"We are just beyond the low hills of Bywater and alongside the road to Hobbiton." He looked at my confused face and added, "We are in the Shire, my Lady."

As I was used to by now, my fears had just been realized and I groaned in silent frustration. A pounding headache started to rise between my eyes and I scowled at the painful beats of my heart that resounded in my ears. I rubbed my eyes in frustration and willed my mind to think of a logical explanation for this.
My discomfort must have been easy to read on my face because the old man could barely contain his curiosity any longer and found it was now his time to ask me a question.

"Why do you look so surprised by this news, my Lady? Surely, this is where you live?"

There was no disbelief in his voice, no judgements or hints of suspicion; he sounded as honest as gold and it made my usual defensive walls crumble ever so mildly.
No, this was not where I lived. I wasn't a Hobbit, I was just a normal Human  girl living in the East End of London, England. In a flat that was far too small for my own taste and still reeked faintly of mould and dust after several vicious spring cleanings. I was 23 years old and worked in a cosy coffee shop, earning just enough money to accommodate myself with the bare necessities.

"No." I Breathed. "No, I- I don't..." I shook my head. "I don't live here." The panic resounded in my voice and mirrored itself in my facial expressions as I rambled on. "I am not even supposed to be here... No! What am I saying?! This place shouldn't even exist! The Shire... That's just an imaginary place in an imaginary world! This cannot be real! It's a dream, it's a dream..."

In my panic I didn't realize I had been pulling on the ends of my hair in frustration until big warm hands enveloped my own gently and untangled my fingers from the messy red curls. I swallowed the last of my exclamations and looked up into those bright blue eyes of a man who must by now probably think that I was completely insane. But instead I found he was just smiling mildly at me and softly squeezing my little hands in an effort to calm and comfort me.

"There now, little one." He shushed me, like a father would soothe a distressed child. "Why don't you tell me what made you react so frightfully to my question?" The crinkles around his eyes deepened as his smile grew in an attempt to encourage me.

I shook my head no, my frown once more in place. "You will not believe me." I said barely audible, afraid of this odd man judging me.

He laughed at that, a deep rumbling sound that vibrated in my own chest through our connected hands. He squeezed my fingers one last time before releasing them and setting himself cross-legged beside me on the grass. "I might surprise you, young one." He said. "And I might also be able to help you." He added before bringing out a very long pipe from his right sleeve and lighting it with a snap of his fingers.

I stared it this clear show of magic with astonishment and looked the old man over with a different eye. "Are you a wizard?" I asked bluntly before I even had the chance to stop myself.

He looked straight into my eyes and nodded once, taking a long draft of his pipe and blowing out a cloud of smoke that materialised itself into a galloping horse, its mane flowing in the breeze, running ever higher towards the clouds before it vanished from view.
My eyes had been mesmerized by the smoke-figurine and my mouth was the perfect shape of a small circle as I rounded my head back to the old man, who I knew now was clearly a wizard.

"I am called Gandalf the Grey and I am one of the five Istari who guard the lands of Middle Earth." He said it so casually, as if it was no great deal or as if it was common knowledge to most.

I decided that it must be the latter and wondered why it was that his name spoke to me. It was like I could hear the 'click' of realisation in my mind as I realized I knew this old wizard's name and I barely managed to keep my footing any longer as I sat myself on a flowery patch of grass next to him, staring wide-eyed to the side of his face.
I studied his profile quietly, noticing the intelligence that shone in his bright blue eyes and the long years of wandering that showed in the lines on his face. If I had been more attentive before then I would've probably noticed these details sooner and wouldn't have seen him as just an old man. I cursed myself silently for the panic I had displayed before him and needed to prove now -if only for my own pride- that I would not be so easily charmed in revealing my past by the show of some cheap magic trick.

"Why should I believe you?" I challenged, scowl back in place. "Who says you are not just here to laugh at my expense?" And I mentally jested in afterthought. Who says this is all real and not just a very lifelike illusion?

The wizard turned his head slowly and gazed down at me with stern eyes. He took another long draft of his pipe before he answered, and I could hear in his voice that he was not at all too pleased with my accusations.

"I have no bad intentions towards you, my Lady." He said. "Nor would I laugh at anything you have to say. I can sense that you are in some sort of distress and the only thoughts I have regarding yourself is to help you."

He didn't sound particularly angry, but his words made me somewhat cringe none the less. A deep feeling of shame settled over me and reached my cheeks in a matter of seconds, colouring them rosy-red and showing the outside world that I was not proud of my plaint.
I pulled up my knees to my chest, hugging them with my arms and bowed my head, making my chin rest on my knees. In doing so, I successfully avoided the wizard's unwavering gaze as I meekly apologized for my rudeness with a half-hearted and barely audible "I'm sorry".

It was apparently enough of an apology for Gandalf as he chuckled lightly at my motions. "Now, why don't you start telling me where you live, if not here?"

My earlier suspicions made place for a longing feeling to tell this kind old man who I was and where I actually came from and I tried to blink the headache -that was still pounding away- from my mind and lifted the scowl of my face.

"I think I come from another world." I started.

I told him about my mouldy flat in London, about my underpaid job and my lack of luxuries. I told him my age and that I had  a younger sister named Audrey. But when I wanted to tell him more about her, my memories failed me and the only thing I could seem to remember was her face: round and friendly with big blue eyes and wavy chocolate locks of collarbone-length hair. I racked my brain for more, but it was like someone had opened up my skull and had taken most of my memories out, leaving only enough for me to enjoy the most basic form of my past. All the rest was pitch black.

"Ugh!" I groaned as I screwed my eyes shut and gripped my head firmly, hoping that more would come to me if I just squeezed my brain hard enough. "I know I had parents, but I don't even- I- I don't even know what they look like... Or if they're still alive."

Gandalf hushed me in an attempt to stop me from squashing my own head together, but needed to actively take my hands again to halt my jerky movements.

"It seems like you have lost part of your memory." He told me in a serious tone of voice.

I needed to repress the sarcastic comment of 'Oh really?' that came bubbling up from the pit of my stomach but eventually couldn't stop myself from raising my eyebrows with the same intention. Either Gandalf didn't notice this or he was just to engrossed in my story to care, since he didn't say anything about it.

"Tell me, little one, do you remember anything -anything at all- of the moments before you woke up here?" He asked.

I looked from our entwined hands to the wizard's face and scrunched up my features, searching my memories thoroughly to try and remember something, anything. As I closed my eyes again to concentrate, a little vision seemed to light up into the back of my head and enlarged like a flame in front of my closed eyes. When I had a clear sense of what it was I was looking at, I silently started to phrase out loud what I was seeing.

I was wearing a somewhat torn skinny jeans, black brogues, a green tank top with a grey knitted cardigan covering my shoulders from the windy day and a large leather bag was slung over my left side. My hair was pulled back in a straight ponytail, making the freckles on my face impossible to be unseen and I had big glasses atop of my nose.

This simple fact almost made me slip out of the memory, because I was clearly not wearing glasses anymore and I wondered how it was possible that I could see so sharply. But before I was completely distracted, I willed myself to concentrate back on the moving image in my head.

I pulled out a bundle of keys from my pocket and proceeded towards the large grey building right in front of me. I unlocked the door and took the stairs, quickly jumping from step to step until I reached the seventh floor. There I walked into the adjacent hallway towards a burgundy coloured door -the only door in that colour- and unlocked it with a different key then the first one. I entered the small flat that I somewhat had managed to decorate in attempts to give it a cosy feel. I swung my bag on the chaise-longue and skipped towards the kitchen where I started to boil some water in order to make myself a cup of tea.

When I saw myself humming an upbeat tune and sporting the small smile on my face, I was certain that at that moment I must've felt really happy because of something. But as hard as I tried to remember what was making me almost skip around in joy -an act, I could recall, did only happen rarely- it just wouldn't come to me. So I begrudgingly settled on watching this weird display of the movie that was my life.

I steadily put my steaming mug of tea on the coffee table before flopping myself onto the sofa whilst kicking of my shoes. I searched around the cracks in its tattered fabric until I found the remote and started watching the News on television.

So far I had the feeling this had been my every day routine and thought I wouldn't find anything unusual to explain why I had suddenly woken up in the Shire, as a Hobbit. That was until my Human self dropped her mug of tea and it splintered loudly into a thousand pieces on the floor.

I was staring wide-eyed at a news report and had bleached visibly to whatever information it had showed me. Before I could really concentrate on the news report itself and find out what on earth had scared me so, there was a knock on the door and my past self sprung up from the sofa as if she had just been pinched. I spiralled back the way I had came and approached the door while asking the person on the other side to tell me who it was. There must've been an answer because my skin resembled the colour of a sheet now and my hands shook as a grabbed for the door handle. I saw the muscles in my face change from fear, to a thoughtful expression, to complete anger and I furiously pulled the door open.

And then there was only blackness.

My eyes shot abruptly open and I looked at Gandalf with a frightful expression on my face. Something on the other side of that door made my blood run cold, and that something -or someone- had made me end up here.

"Can you remember anything else after that?" The wizard asked me, his inquisitive mind peaking and his eyes filled with something akin to anxiety. "Do you know who stood on the other side of the door?"

He still had a hold on one of my hands, enveloping it with his own, and he kept on squeezing it reassuringly, trying to encourage me into remembering more. I shut my eyes again and tried to feel around in every corner of my mind. But the more I tried to reach a memory that I knew had been there once, the more I could feel the piercing pain behind my eyes magnify. I knew I had come close to something important, something I should know about, but the ever-growing headache became too much to handle, so I reluctantly opened my eyes and released a breath I didn't know I had been holding.

"No." I said defeated. "I cannot remember who it was, nor anything else." I looked up into the wizard's eyes and frowned unhappily. "It's like something or someone has wiped away my memories."

Gandalf hummed thoughtfully, releasing my hand for the second time that day and taking another long drag of his pipe. It seemed to me that whatever content he was smoking was doing a good job in calming his nerves down and I longingly wondered if it would do the same for me. But I shook that thought away as quickly as it came. I didn't smoke, or at least I remembered I had quit smoking long ago and didn't intend to start again.
The wizard looked very thoughtful and started mumbling things to himself, both in English and in languages that I didn't understand. Suddenly he straightened himself onto his feet and stuffed his pipe back in his sleeve.

"Well, it seems that you will have to accompany me, my Lady." He said.

I arched an eyebrow in confusion. "Accompany you?" I asked. "Where to?"

"To a Hobbit, like yourself, who will be encouraged to share in an adventure." He smiled warmly at me. "I think you would better do the same."

To say I was dumbstruck was an understatement. I had just spilled my heart and soul out to this wandering wizard and the only thing he could come up with to ease my mental suffering was the mention of going on an adventure. Now, that really didn't sound very helpful to me at all.
I stood up as well and noticed for the first time that I wasn't wearing jeans anymore, but a snowy white dress that reached just above my bare feet and was drawn together at the waist. It gave my small -and somewhat widened- frame a smooth hourglass figure. I would've admired it longer, if my thoughts hadn't been somewhere else completely and I started frowning again.

"And how will going on an adventure help me?" I asked with pursed lips.

Gandalf gathered his staff and turned around to face me again, the laugh wrinkles around his eyes forming once more. "If it is in my power, we will pass a place on this quest where there lives a wise Lord -wiser then me- who will be able to help you, young one."

"Oh." I said surprised, not thinking he was actually going to offer a helpful reply.

"Are you coming?" Gandalf asked me but didn't wait for an affirmative.

He turned around, his robes flying softly in the breeze, stepped down the little hill and towards the winding road ahead. I sighed momentarily. This whole adventure-business didn't sound like something I would want to be a part of, but if it would lead me to someone who could answer my many questions and who would perhaps be able to send me back home... That longing thought made my feet move on their own, in pursuit of the wandering wizard.
Besides, it was not like I had anywhere else to go.

I managed to catch up with Gandalf's long legs and tried to keep my footing as he strode along the sandy road.

"Ah!" Gandalf suddenly exclaimed and turned to look at my half-running form beside him. He slowed down considerably as he realised my short legs had difficulty keeping up with his long strides and chuckled mildly. "Forgive me my Lady, I've forgotten my manners!" He laughed.

"How so?" I asked, thinking his manners had been far more pleasant than those of anyone else I had probably met before.

"I have told you my name, but I did not even ask for yours." He said. "Would you be so kind as to tell me your name, young Lady?" His eyes twinkled in delight.

I let out a small laugh at the wizard's amused face. It was the first joyous sound that had come out of my mouth since I had first woken up here.

"Lillian." I said. "My name is Lillian Darrow."

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