"Um, I said you're fictional?" Kate squeaked through her fingers.

She hadn't meant to say that. Nope. Not at all. You aren't supposed to say things that will make the angry attacker/hallucination of a fictional character even angrier. And yet…

When Kate Voss had heard the clatter of something against her coffee table, she had jumped nearly a yard in the air off her bed. Her writer's mind leaped immediately to the worst conclusion: a burglar! Or worse, a serial killer! Then Gogurt had meowed—blasted cat!—and Kate had steeled herself to see what terror lay waiting in her living room. She had hardly expected to find a costumed man with a sword stuttering over his sentences and demanding to know his location. Despite the danger, she couldn't help but admit to herself that he was ethereally beautiful in the yellow light from her room: with long platinum-blonde hair and glinting eyes, dressed in silvery robes, light armour, and a shimmering scarlet cloak. Throughout the encounter a vague little thought had been tugging at the back of her mind, insisting he looked a lot like those Elves from Peter Jackson's movies, and even bore a strong resemblance to the pretty boy—what'shisname, Legless? Close enough.

Then the man mentioned Nazgûl and Gandalf and she didn't know what she thought of that. Soon Kate had theorized that this was a madman fantasizing himself into the role of a fictional character, but that didn't explain the sword or the frighteningly accurate appearance. He had to be a hallucination, a illusion of her caffeine-overloaded mind. If he was, then her brain was doing a damn good job at tugging her heartstrings. He looked so lost and confused. Kate knew that hallucinations could be tactile, so she put no trust in the cold tip of the blade against her neck. She would have to find another person to verify the physical-or-not presence of the stunning man—or Elf, she supposed—before her. If he turned out to be a figment of her imagination, then Kate knew she'd feel pretty stupid after talking to, obeying, and squealing in terror at a hallucination. And if he was real, well, then… She didn't want to think about it right then.

At the moment he was staring at her quizzically. "Fictional?" he echoed. "What do you mean by that?" God, he looked so familiar. What movie, though? The Lord of the Rings? The two Hobbit movies? She couldn't judge well on the Hobbit. She had seen the first a measly two times and the second while she was half asleep, only waking up for the glory of Smaug.

Kate shut her eyes. Why her? Out of all the people on this Earth, it was she that had to deal with this, and not a Tolkien fanatic that would know exactly what to do. "There are books here, written by a professor called Tolkien, and, um, they, uh… well, they're stories about Middle-earth. Gandalf is in them, or at least most of them—that's why I recognized his name—and they all deal with the story of the One Ring." At his sharp look, she sped up, staring at her hands in her lap. "Where it came from, how it was lost, et cetera. I haven't read any of Tolkien's books, but I have seen the movie adaptations, and going off what I remember from those, you've gotta be an Elf from Sauron's time as a Dark Lord."

He quirked an eyebrow when she mentioned movies—of course, he wouldn't know what a motion picture is—but did not pursue the subject. "Sauron has been a Dark Lord more than once," he said.

She had a mini-panic attack. He wasn't supposed to come back after the Ring was destroyed! What time was this guy from? Should she risk it all and detail the events surrounding the Ring's destruction in hopes that he would recognize them? Oh, what the heck, he couldn't be real anyways, so who cares?

The Elf continued, "He was first known as the Dark Lord when he rose to power with the creation of the twenty Rings; after his downfall at the hand of Isildur, he went into hiding for hundreds of years before resurfacing in Dol Guldur as the Necromancer."

"Oh, right! When the whole…" She flapped her hands about to illustrate her point. "'I am Thorin and I shall defeat Smaug with only a few Dwarves, a burglar, and my majestic hair' thing was going on." She muttered to herself, "I saw that movie, I know this stuff." But who the heck was he?

Much to Kate's surprise, her comment about Thorin earned a reserved smile from the stern Elf. "Yes. That is one way to put it. Sauron fled to Mordor after the attack of the White Council and he has been growing in power there ever since."

"Sooo…" So it was after the Hobbit, but before the Lord of the Rings. The Ring was still with Bilbo. "Okay. Right. Yeah, I'll—right. No spoilers." Just in case. She nodded and crossed herself in a faux-solemn manner. "I shall not spoiler. I shall not be like River Song, no matter how awesome she is."

"River Song?" The eyebrow rose again.

"Yeah. Long story."

The whisper of a blade made Kate look up in alarm, but he was only sheathing his sword. He stared at the world map with a wooden tone to his voice. "It appears that I have been taken from Middle-earth and placed in a world completely foreign. I apologize for my hostility, milady. I shall not bother you any longer." He inclined his head.

She swallowed, finding herself overcome with pity all of a sudden. After all, what would it feel like to find yourself in a strange world by unknown means for an indefinite amount of time, speaking a strange language, with a strange person knowing all about your homeland? Kate couldn't imagine. Hallucination or not, this guy was really getting to her. She opened her mouth to either say something consoling, or possibly offer him his choice of her comfort food, she didn't know, but what came out was, "I still think I've gone crazy and you're just a trick of my mind."

The Elf didn't say anything. Was it just her imagination, or did he stiffen a bit?

Blushing—thank the Lord the room was dark—she backpedaled. "No, I mean, well yeah I do, but still. Figment of imagination or not, I'm not gonna just dump you on the street. 'Do unto thy neighbor what thou wouldst have done unto yourself,'" she quipped.

Now she was certainly crazy. Offering her house to a stranger, never mind that she was fairly he sure wasn't real, was a giant overstepping of her boundaries. What would her dear mother say?

"That is… an interesting proverb," he murmured, looking her up and down as if reevaluating her. "You would open your home to me?"

Kate swallowed all her fears and objections and nodded. "Yes," she declared. "You shall stay with me until you find a way back or wish to leave."

In a second the Elf had stepped up to her and taken her hand. He bowed over it, brushing his lips across her knuckles. "An eternity of thanks, milady. I am in your debt." The ends of his hair brushed her knees and Kate suddenly felt ashamed of her old polka-dot pajama pants. "What is your name?"

"Uhm," she stuttered, blushing again. "Kate Voss."

He withdrew. "Thank you again, Lady Kate. I am Thranduil, King of the Elves of Northern Mirkwood."

She tried mouthing his name but got horribly confused. "Thran-wha-huh?"

A smirk twitched at the corner of his mouth. "Thranduil."

"May I just call you Thrandy please?"

"No."

"Wait…" What Thranduil said settled in. "You're… a king. The king of Mirkwood. You're, like, really important." She gulped. "Uh, your majesty." Kate tried to do a little bow from her seat but nearly fell off.

He glanced at the map again. "I am not a king here."

"Right. So—right. Okay. I'll just—well if you don't mind, I mean—could I then… um…"

As if sensing her uncertainty, the Elf said, "You need not trouble yourself with formalities, Kate. My title has no meaning at this time."

"Um. Right. Okay then, Thranduil," she said, sounding out the name carefully.

What had she just done?

Oh well, he was a hallucination anyway, so no harm could come of it.