Chatterbox: Inkwell

Middle-Earth Solo Write

The ripples fall, silver-white under the moonlit sky, in Long Lake Esgaroth. It's the middle of the night, the moon is in the middle of the sky, and the land is Middle-Earth. Danger is lurking in the Misty Mountains and in the depths of Mirkwood, and no one knows it. The land is peaceful. The dwarves are unsuspecting. It is Middle-Earth as it always has been.

Far, far away, it is also the middle of the night, but not Middle-Earth. Unfortunately. The CBers are together for once, eating popcorn if they like it and something else if they don't, rewatching the LOTR movies or just standing in little groups and reminiscing about reuinions or SIs, or catching up on threads, or beating each other on the Last to Post. All laughing and talking. They're together because it was just the reunion and, well, if that isn't a time to celebrate what is? It's the CB Hall they're in right now, with walls lined with all the books they love (the Chronicles of Narnia, for example, because Amethyst insisted, and Keeper of the Lost Cities, and of course all of Tolkien's books, because there never was anyone like the CBers for reading Tolkien) and high, narrow windows through which the moonlight is falling. Some of the older CBers are still around, too, and they're all enjoying themselves, regardless of being supposedly too old for these things. And even an admin or two has shown up, which automatically makes everything more interesting. And yes, it's the middle of the night, but that's never daunted a CBer, has it?

And then suddenly, there's a flash of bluish light that drowns out the moonlight, and someone is standing in their midst - an old man, with keen, wise brown eyes, and a staff and a wizard's hat and dark robes that look, amazingly, like something out of Middle-Earth. He looks like something out of Middle-Earth. He is something out of Middle-Earth.

"Well, CBers," he says. "I meet you at last. I would never have come - I thought I wouldn't come - but then I reflected how you all love Middle-Earth, and I thought perhaps you were the right people to come to after all. I am Gandalf."

There's silence in the hall, sudden silence that closes down suddenly and completely. Gandalf? It's impossible, right? Or - is it possible? There he is, anyway.

Gandalf waits for them to think out their thoughts and decide whether he is or isn't himself. Then he explains, "I need you to come back to Middle-Earth with me. There's trouble about (as usual!), and I want you to help me. You don't have to, but I know you won't turn down a chance of seeing your heroes and friends. They don't even know there's trouble, and you must help them. Well, who'll join me?"

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Another solo write! I haven't read LOTR itself (although I have read The Hobbit), so I can't put in that many characters which most of you probably know, but there will, with a fine disregard for what Tolkien may have been thinking when he wrote his books, be Legolas, Gandalf, maybe even Elrond, and hobbits, dwarves, elves... almost everything! Have fun!