Disclaimer: Josephine, possibly, may be mine, and certain undignified situations and bits of dialogue may be, as well, but everything else belongs to either J.R.R. Tolkien or the makers of the movies. Lord of the Rings, obviously, not Love Actually or Harry Potter. Not making any money, not doing anything but satisfying personal grievances.

A/N: I was browsing through the livejournal community deleterius once upon a time, and found myself getting almost physically ill to see the perfect American Mary-Sues that were just dropped into Middle-Earth and somehow managed to survive and come out tops in everything and made everyone fall in love with him. But, seriously? What would really happen if an American kid was just dropped into Middle-Earth? Would her nose-hair get frizzled by the vicious Balrog, or would her ankles attract mad bunches of fleas? Would she prove to be so dazzlingly incompetent that the Fellowship drops her at the nearest farmer's they come across? Or will reason triumph, and will they just knock her off with a very large rock?

American Incompetence

Of Accidental Pyromaniacs and Unexpected Visitors

It was raining dismally, and the Fellowship of the Ring had long since lost its glittering lustre of heroism to its members. They had been plodding towards Mordor for eighteen days, had not washed since they left Rivendell, were already running out of pepper, and everyone, including Pippin and Merry, was ready to kick Pippin and Merry across half of Middle-Earth for accidentally setting fire to one of the packs of food. Gandalf had made a few choice remarks at the time involving his staff and just exactly how hard certain hobbits were going to be hit with it if they did something as inconceivably careless as that again, and no one was jumping about with sunshine in their boots.

Frodo was quiet. Now and then, his hand would make a move towards a chain that hung about his neck, but, generally, he mused silently, a double wrinkle in his forehead, and nearly bashing his brains out by tripping over rocks that he failed to see. If anyone spoke, it was either Gimli, who would grumble under his breath about the folly of letting an Elf come along on such an important mission, or Pippin, who would occasionally "Oh, look!" at an oddly-coloured flower or a rabbit with a bald tail.

They plodded on, not through elegant streams of rainwater, but through ankle-deep mud and rain that smelled faintly of manure. Mud squished up between the hobbits' toes, splattered onto their calves and trousers, deposited pieces of muddy, dry grass all over their feet, and surged away again, only to cling to someone else. All nine were caked with mud from the knees down, and Gandalf found himself wishing that he had worn something in the breeches category, as nearly two feet of his robes and cloak were weighed down heavily by wet, clingy dirt.

"Should we stop to eat, Mr. Gandalf?" Sam asked hopefully, as his stomach gave an enormous rumble. "We had breakfast nearly five hours ago. It's time, sir, isn't it?"

"It is not," Gandalf said tersely. "We will be limiting ourselves to two meals a day. I present my thanks to two estimable hobbits, and concede that they deserve to be kicked soundly."

"From here into the depths of Moria, to have their blasted necks snapped," Gimli agreed, glaring at the two accidental pyromaniacs. "There are many deep mines there for prattlers such as yourselves."

The addressed had given up trying to defend themselves, settling instead for the course of sticking together and scuttling about five feet behind everyone else. They hadn't meant to set the pack on fire, of course, but if one was trying to roast slices of hare without warning anyone else, and then someone else set the pack down inside the decently-sized fire without paying attention to it, the outcome was obvious. At any rate, the Fellowship was hungry, moody, dirty, snippy, and even the Hobbiton jokes that received hearty laughs in taverns failed to raise so much as the hint of a smile.

"What I would not give for a diversion," Aragorn muttered, trying futilely to keep from thinking of Arwen, to keep his tunic at least slightly clean, and failing at both.

Suddenly, there was a whistling sound, not unlike the noise of wind through a long, open-ended cave, the sun flickered ominously, and, bringing with it the same excitement that came with a tornado, a gaggle of limbs dropped out of the sky, hurtled around itself for a bit, and then landed with a crack and a definite thud just to the right of the Fellowship.

"Ow," it said in a muffled voice through the mud. "Ow."

"By the lands of Mordor," Legolas whispered, "what—"

"Where am I?" the muffled voice asked, raising something that might have been a head and trying to wipe its apparent eye-sockets clean of its layer of mud. "Why's it raining?"

As disconcerted as everyone else, Gandalf stepped back, pointed his staff at the muddy thing, and asked, in a ringing voice, "Who or what are you?"

With another shake of mud, the thing revealed itself to have something of a humanoid form. It coughed, and spit out a collection of dry grass and mud.

"Josephine," it said. "Smith. Where am I, and who are you?"

"I am Gandalf the Grey," Gandalf the Grey replied. "What are you?"

"I'm American," Josephine said through the mud, trying to get to her feet. "Say, wait, is this—No. Where am I?"

"You are close upon four hundred leagues south from Rivendell," Gandalf clarified, still confused, as was everyone, as to what this strange thing really was, besides muddy.

"Bugger," Josephine grumbled. "I knew I should've read those books."

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