I'm sorry, Lan, but I really won't be able to make it. I'll start a tab for you in Rudi's next time I'm in there; buy yourself a drink on me.

-A.G.

"Who's 'Lan'?"

Kaitlyn yelped and attempted to close the message at the same time as she span her chair around. This resulted in her whirling like a top, the console and Selene flashing alternately in front of her - but at least the message was gone.

"Whooooo," she said as the Mobile Throne of Glory executively pivoted to a stop. "That was a rush. What's up?"

"You tell me," the vampire said. "Who's Lan?"

Kaitlyn contrived to look even more like a rabbit caught in the headlights. "No-one," she said. "I don't know what you mean. What's a Lan?"

Selene gave her partner a puzzled look. "Kaitlyn, you were just reading it. You're not so cork-brained as all that."

"Oh, that." Kaitlyn waved a dismissive hand at the console. "Wrong number. Nothing to worry about. I'll let them know when we get back."

Selene continued to look dubious. "Back from where?"

"Back from…" Kaitlyn paused, looking expectantly at the console.

Nothing happened.

Selene coughed. "Kaitlyn?"

"Right, yes." Kaitlyn gave the console a scowl. "Sorry, I figured the Laws of Narrative Comedy would kick in-"

[BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!]

"-aaaand there we go." Without looking down, Kaitlyn slapped the button and pulled up the Intelligence report. "We're off to Middle-earth, courtesy of… Isildor's Heir."

"So it's an Aragorn story?" Selene stepped up to the disguise panel. "Where and when - and what flimsy excuse are you going to use to argue for Hobbit disguises?"

Kaitlyn pressed a hand over her heart. "You wound me," she declared. "I'm not that one-note."

Selene arched an eyebrow. "You're really going to try that?"

"Ehh, it was worth a shot." Kaitlyn tapped on the console, setting up the portal. "But seriously, not this time. And also: nope."

"Nope?" Selene frowned at her partner. "Nope what?"

"Nope, it's not about Aragorn." Kaitlyn tapped a finger on the screen. "This is about the other Heir… of Isildor."

"..." Selene peered in at the screen. "... a mini-Balrog has an heir?"

"Apparently!" Kaitlyn double-checked the coordinates, then leant over and prodded the neglected disguise controls. "And she's hanging out in Gondor, so… there we go." A few more stabs at the controls, and the portal popped open. "After you, m'lady."

The vampire gave her partner a deeply dubious look, but Kaitlyn's expression was entirely unforthcoming. Shouldering her pack, Selene stepped through the portal.

The agents emerged into a small and dingy room. Three of the walls were white, the paint flaking off in places; the fourth was covered by a faded purple curtain. Selene eyed it with the caution of an experienced PPCer. "That's never good."

Kaitlyn, now disguised as a not-even-particularly-short Gondorian lady, frowned up at the Words. "We should be in the prologue," she said. "It doesn't say anything about tiny rooms - just the expected stuff about the Heir of-"

With a creaking clatter and a shower of dust, the curtain rattled painfully up towards the ceiling. Behind it was revealed a small stage, upon which lay a long, black box.

After Sauron was defeated at the hands of Isildor, Middle Earth found itself at peace. The voice was thin and tinny, emerging from the box accompanied by a high whine. A hard won peace at that. The Ring of Power supposedly lost in the sea of time.

A disgruntled "raar" from beside Kaitlyn made the agents look down. "Ah!" Kaitlyn said, grinning at the two-foot-high demon crouched next to her. "You must be Isildor!"

Selene frowned at the mini-Balrog. "Is he wearing… a collar?"

Sure enough, the mini had a cast-iron collar around its neck. Kaitlyn knelt down and tried to read the tag. "The trick is not touching the metal," she said, half to herself. "Looks like he's been adopted by… 2-A-2? Oh, no, it's 'Zaz'."

(Isildor's bloodline has thinned, the voice droned on in the background, with direct descendants scattering in the wind.)

"Minis with collars." Selene shook her head. "Now I've seen everything."

Kaitlyn blinked up at her partner. "I thought they were pretty standard," she said. "I had one for Galadria back in the day… did yours not wear them?"

Selene considered the pair of mini-Balrogs who ostensibly shared their RC, but in actuality lived secret lives of their own somewhere in HQ. "I can't… really see Thanduril with a collar."

Kaitlyn chuckled. "No, nor Elberath. Well, some minis tolerate them."

But what if Aragorn wasn't the… last… of… t...h...i... The raspy voice stuttered and stalled, dropping in pitch as it stalled. There was a clunk from the stage, a long whir, and then it resumed, as dry as ever: After Sauron was defeated at the hands of Isildor…

"I am not listening to that again." Kaitlyn hopped up onto the stage and crouched over the box. "Any idea what this is supposed to be?"

Selene approached, shadowed by Isildor. "It's a cassette player, isn't it?"

Kaitlyn frowned, and then her expression cleared. "Oh, right, I've seen those in movies. How do we stop it?"

Selene cocked her head as the tape rattled on. "In movies… how old are you, again?"

"Twenty-nine." Kaitlyn prodded the box with her foot. "Why?"

"You're just a fountain of carry witchets today, aren't you?" Selene bent over and clicked the tape player off, then looked up to meet her partner's scowl. "What?"

Kaitlyn's voice was unfamiliar in its sharpness. "A fountain of what?"

"Oh." Selene smiled, careful not to show her teeth. "Sorry, I got carried away. Of riddles, or puzzles."

Some of the tension eased from Kaitlyn's face, but a lot remained. "I don't think I am," she said sternly.

"No, you are." The vampire popped the cassette out of the player and held it up. "Like, how do you not know what this is? You're old enough."

"We didn't use them in the PPC," Kaitlyn told her. "Memory crystals are just better."

"Which only raises more questions," Selene murmured. "See what I mean? And, for example, since when did you have a mini-Balrog?"

"Since I went to OFUM, obviously." Kaitlyn pushed her hair back from her face in a jerky motion. "She lives at the university these days, that's why you've never met her. So now can we-?"

"Right," Selene cut in. "And who's Lan?"

"- move on to-?" Kaitlyn stopped, her scowl deepening again. "I told you, that was a wrong number."

"I saw the address," Selene said. "It was for you."

"Then it must have been a typo for 'Lyn'." Kaitlyn pulled out her Remote Activator and stabbed in the coordinates for Chapter Two. "Will you just drop it already?"

Selene opened her mouth to reply, but paused before speaking. "Of course," she said after a moment. "I'll start on the charge list, shall I?"

"Good plan." Kaitlyn huffed, slapped the cancel button on the RA, and started over more carefully. "You can add claiming Isildor-"

"Raar," Isildor said solemnly.

"Right, that's you - as king of Gondor, and scattering his descendents 'to the winds', to the list." Kaitlyn sighed in relief as the portal opened at last. "Also terrible interior decor."

Selene looked up from her notepad. "I believe that was constructed by the Word World to house the prologue," she pointed out cautiously.

"Don't care," Kaitlyn said, "add it anyway. Come on, Isildor, we've got work to do."

Minas Tirith gleamed around them, oblivious to the corruption written at its heart. Despite the Words scrolling across the sky, Selene couldn't help but smile at the ancient city. She glanced over at her partner, but met only stony silence.

"So Boromir," Selene's smile broadened ever so slightly as she named her Lust Object, "Boromir is just coming out of a meeting with his father, where he's boldly defended Faramir against Denethor's… well, approval, the Words say, but we know what it means."

Kaitlyn gave her a suspicious look, then sighed. "That sounds OOC to me," she said. "Didn't Boromir steal Faramir's thunder - if you'll pardon the expression - over the dream business?"

Selene wobbled a hand in a display of indecision. "I've always understood that to be a way of ensuring what Faramir thought important was accomplished in spite of Denethor's resistance. I think it's fairly accurate."

"Hmph." Kaitlyn scowled up at the White Tower. "I don't like it, but fine. It's your charge list."

Selene pursed her lips, but was saved from answering by the arrival of a furious Boromir. He stomped past the agents, paying them no attention whatsoever, and stalked off into the city.

Kaitlyn pointed down the path he had taken - a path Selene was pretty sure hadn't been there thirty seconds before. "And is that canonical?"

Selene looked past the low buildings to the forest now growing within the walls of the city, right where Mount Mindolluin should have risen. "I'm going to go with no."

"Should be right up your alley, then," Kaitlyn said. "And speaking of alleys: come on, Isildor."

The two agents and the tiny demon walked down the inexplicably long path in silence. As they passed under the eaves of the wood, Selene glanced over at her partner. "Kaitlyn…"

Kaitlyn shot her a look. "Don't."

Selene held up a hand. "I wasn't going to."

"Good. Don't." The younger woman cocked her head. "Do you hear that?"

"Singing," Selene confirmed. "And it's… is that from 'Sweeny Todd'?"

"I'll take your word for it." Boromir had struck off the path in pursuit of the voice, and Kaitlyn led the way after him through the undergrowth. "A Suvian singing modern music, and sticking the entire lyrics into the fic?" she mused, pushing a branch aside. "That's classic, that is; like, Jay and Acacia classic."

"Raar," agreed Isildor, doing his best not to set the plant-life on fire.

"I suppose some things are stereotypical for a reason," Selene said, peering through the canopy. "Did we get turned around? Surely that's the White Tower ahead of us."

Kaitlyn glanced up at the Words and sniffed. "No - it's a knock-off. We're looking for 'a hidden clearing where a tall ivory tower stands. Here it sits surrounded by flowers and a tiny stream flowing through it down to the rest of the city.' There's a woman sitting in a high window."

Selene raised an eyebrow. "Are the flowers rapunzels, by any chance?"

Kaitlyn grinned at her, then seemed to remember she was supposed to be mad and scowled accordingly. "Doesn't say. I can't say I know what a rapunzel flower looks like anyway, so it's not like we can check." She stopped in her tracks, pulling down a branch to peer past it. "We're here."

Selene stepped up next to her and sighed softly at the sight of Boromir gazing, entranced, up at the mysterious tower. "He really isn't the sort to go swooning over a woman," she said, tapping her pen on her notepad. "If he was, I- he would have been married long before the Quest."

"No stalkerish first-person comments about Lust Objects," Kaitlyn said vaguely, squinting up through the leaves towards the tower. "Also, what woman?"

"You mentioned her earlier," Selene said. "A 'lovely young lady… stitching into a handkerchief'. She has a caged bird and everything."

"I know what the Words say, Selene." Kaitlyn fumbled in her pack for the RA. "But I'm using my eyes, and… how high would you say that window is? Thirty feet? I'll go with thirty feet."

Selene eyed her partner. "We don't know whether there's any space to hide up there," she warned. "Are we really ready to charge her already? She hasn't done anything."

"If I'm right, that's not going to be a problem," Kaitlyn said. She pushed the button to open the portal and returned the remote to her pack. "Come on, let's-"

Selene caught her arm. "And if you're wrong?" she demanded.

Kaitlyn shook her off and folded her arms tight across her chest. "I'm not," she said, and stepped through the portal.

Selene muttered something in Mandarin that would have made the entire cast of Firefly blush. She threw a quick glance at Boromir - still oblivious - a second up at the tower window - not currently host to a falling wannabe Hobbit - and then clenched her fists, took a deep breath, and followed her partner into who-knew-what.

… which turned out to be an undecorated room, little more than a space hollowed out of the featureless white (possibly actual ivory) of the tower. By the window, a broom was propped up, with a long wig stuck on top and a paper mask hanging down. Kaitlyn stood next to it, looking smug. And on the windowledge itself:

"Another tape player!" Kaitlyn knelt down and patted the black box, from which the mingled sound of birdsong and ripped off Sweeny Todd soundtrack was coming. "You see, the Suvian was so totally undescribed that all the fic needed to create was another recording, and-"

Selene stalked over to her and stabbed a finger onto the Eject button. She yanked the tape out, dropped it into her pack, then rounded on Kaitlyn. "What the hell are you playing at?"

Kaitlyn blinked, leaning back away from her. "I wanted to get the mission done with," she said. "We don't need to hang around-"

"You don't confront a Suvian without support," Selene snapped. "That's how agents get killed. Do you want-?"

"What Suvian?" Kaitlyn demanded, taking a long step sideways into the open area of the room. "It's a cassette player, Selene, there's no-"

"You didn't know that!" Selene grabbed the wig and waved it in her partner's direction. "You guessed, and you took a stupid risk; I don't care how angry you are, that's not-"

"Who says I'm angry?" Kaitlyn snatched the wig from Selene's hands and tossed it over her shoulder. "You're the one biting my head off over me doing our job, you're the one who-"

"Who what?" Selene snarled. On the side of her face, the Key stirred, cogwheels spinning up. "Who asked a perfectly reasonable question? Who doesn't like her partner lying to her - and not even a clever lie, it was just-"

Kaitlyn had fallen very still, her eyes going wide. "Selene," she said, her voice quiet, "your eyes are glowing…"

Selene took a deep, ragged breath, reached up to press a hand over the brass device whirring on her cheek, and let the tension ease out of her. The fiery light in her eyes faded with it, and the Key fell silent once more. "I'm sorry," she said, into a silence that suddenly seemed very loud. "That was… I'm sorry."

Kaitlyn nodded. Taking off her pack, she set it down gently on the white floor and took a seat on it. After a moment, Selene did the same. "You were right about the tape," the vampire offered.

Kaitlyn closed her eyes for a moment, then met Selene's gaze again. "Mom can't come to my party," she said. "That's what… the message was from her. She's too busy. She's… always too busy."

Selene watched her partner carefully. "So Lan is you?"

Kaitlyn's lips twitched into the slightest smile. "I've been 'Kaitlyn' for two decades, but you know how moms are. It's short for…" She rolled her eyes, straightened out of her slump. "It's short for 'Iolanthe'," she admitted. "Which, you can see why I prefer Kaitlyn, and why I didn't want you…" She stopped, shook her head slowly. "No, it wasn't about you. I really thought she'd come this time, but…" She sighed, hanging her head. "Sorry."

"It's all right." Selene's tone was gentle enough that Kaitlyn looked up in surprise. "I remember how family can be," the vampire said, then, with a chuckle, "and prying partners, for that matter. You've forgiven me a lot in the past; I'm not going to…"

She trailed off, her face falling into a frown. "Kaitlyn," she said in an entirely different voice, "did we leave Boromir just sort of standing at the bottom of the tower?"

"Ummm." Kaitlyn chewed on her lip, then dropped onto all fours and crawled to peer over the lip of the window. "Kind of yeah?" she reported. "He's just sort of waiting there with a vacant look."

"That's because the story says he has to wait until the song finishes," Selene mused. She contemplated her notebook for a moment, then looked up and saw Kaitlyn's huge grin. "What?"

"He's your Lust Object," Kaitlyn said. "And you do know the song."

"No." The vampire grimaced. "No, Kaitlyn. It's totally inappropriate."

"Well I'm not doing it." Kaitlyn folded her arms. "You can think of it as an apology for your behaviour."

"My-?" Selene spotted the twinkle in her partner's eye just in time. "The song doesn't even fit Middle-earth."

"So pick a different one." Kaitlyn gestured in the general direction of the window. "How else are you going to get him to leave?"

"Neuralyzer," Selene said. "That's what they're for."

"Hmm, let me check my pack." Kaitlyn didn't move. "Nope, forgot it."

"Then we'll burn the forest down." A red glow started to build in the vampire's eyes. "That should-"

Kaitlyn coughed. "He's standing in the middle of it."

Selene pursed her lips, then pushed off the bag and walked over to the window. Boromir was waiting below, and Selene felt the touch of the story on her mind as he saw her and smiled.

"'Green finch and linnet bird'?" she murmured, feeling the way it was pulling her. "I don't think so. This story's over." She smiled down at Boromir, felt a light breeze swirl over her, making her hair flutter in the wind, and began to sing:

"I saw the light fade from the sky

On the wind I heard a sigh

As the snowflakes cover my fallen brothers

I will say this last goodbye…"

The world seemed to lean closer as the canon song (even if only movie canon) flowed out across it. The words rippled through the air like a spring breeze, carrying change in their wake: a gentle untwisting of reality, returning it to the true canon.

Selene sang of walking beneath the trees, and the uncanonical forest that surrounded them withered away. She sang of snow on a clear morning, and a white frost dusted the ground. She sang of those who walk with us on the longest journeys, and before the tower Faramir faded into existence, laughing with his brother. She sang of silver streams, of companionship and memory, and of taking the road home at last; and arm in arm, Boromir and Faramir walked down the dancing river towards the White City that gleamed below.

As the final farewell echoed off the mountainside, Kaitlyn stepped down from the boulder that was all that remained of the badfic's tower. She looked down at the departing brothers, then up at the white mountain above them, then finally met her partner's eye.

"... it sounds better in a Scottish accent."

Selene smiled faintly, noticing the tears in the corners of Kaitlyn's eyes but not saying anything. "It was that or The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins," she said. Walking across the thin snow, she knelt down next to Isildor. "I'm sorry; we left you behind, didn't we?"

"Raar." The mini-Balrog looked utterly miserable, shivering in a small puddle of melted frost. "Raar."

Selene chuckled, then rooted in her pack and produced the two cassettes. "Why don't you take care of these for me?" she said, handing them to the mini.

Kaitlyn strolled over, drawn by the crunching that quickly turned to fizzling as the mini gnawed on the tapes. "Do you think Zaz will mind that you're feeding her mini on plastic?" she asked.

"What she doesn't know won't hurt her." Selene straightened up and raised an eyebrow in her partner's direction. "Speaking of which: what was that about a party?"

Kaitlyn groaned and covered her eyes. "Oh, I knew I shouldn't have said anything…"

Disclaimer: The PPC belongs to Jay and Acacia. The Lord of the Rings belongs to Tolkien, and the movie version to Jackson. There Is Another belongs to ZabuzasGirl, and is quoted, paraphrased and dissected here for the purposes of parody and humour; no claim of ownership is made by SturmUndSquee or any other members of the PPC. Thanks to Kaitlyn for betaing an unfinished version.

SturmUndSquee's Author's Note: Shortly before this mission was completed, the topic of how to write a PPC mission - particularly a short one - came up on the PPC Board. To further that discussion, I offer a brief summary of how I wrote this mission.

A mission is a confluence of two things: a badfic that needs sporking, and a story to tell with the agents. In this case, the latter came first. I needed to introduce Kaitlyn's real name for a couple of upcoming stories, and wanted to do so in a mission. The basic idea that she would fob Selene off with a couple of false explanations before finally revealing the truth came along with that idea, and I wrote the opening paragraphs before choosing a badfic.

To keep Driftwood missions short (I have a target of under 6K words), I try to stick to short stories for them. FFn has a 'less than 5K words' filter which is perfect for this. I browsed the summaries, looking for something fairly light, but with no specific charges in mind - Suvian, slash, crossover, geography, anything would do for Floaters. Once I opened 'There Is Another' up and found the mini-Balrog Isildor in the very first line, I knew I had my target.

With Driftwood, I have deliberately chosen to give my missions HQ-based intros but not endings. That lets me set the scene (usually by looking through the Intelligence report) and bring up a few running gags (hobbit disguises and Kaitlyn's chair) without making an ending that just drags on. With other missions I might do things differently; this certainly isn't a One Right Method.

Speaking of One Right Methods… a prologue is a tricky thing to deal with, because it's usually just a voice shouting into a void. I try to handle them differently every time, because just doing the same thing is boring for me and for the reader. I needed to have Isildor make an actual appearance; the idea of making the prologue a tape recorder appealed to me, and the scene grew around it. (The 'theatre' shares a colour scheme with FFn, and this is entirely deliberate.)

Long PPC missions do their best to pick up every possible complaint about the badfic, but for a short mission that's neither possible nor desirable. What I like to do is choose two things to focus on: one plot thread with the agents, and one common theme from the badfic. I already had the former, and when I realised that the Suvian was literally just a song, I knew I had found the latter. It meant discarding my vague idea of having 'Ophelia' be a mini-Balrog herself (after all, she was heir to one), but you should never be afraid to throw out ideas that no longer fit the story.

Things change along the way. Kaitlyn getting angry surprised me, and meant I had to reshape the rest of the story as I wrote it. My original idea of her throwing out more and more ridiculous explanations was out, but I wasn't comfortable with the idea that she was literally angry about Selene going on about her name (which is an incredibly banal reveal). The fact that her real anger was at her mom let me turn their argument into a character moment for Kaitlyn, and I think came out much better than the original idea.

Not that I wasn't nervous; I didn't want the fight to come off silly or overwrought. I asked Author!Kaitlyn to take a look at the unfinished mission, and made a few tweaks to her suggestions. I also went back at that point and made sure to bring Isildor along into the forest - I had completely forgotten him! Skipping around in a mission to make sure things hang together is always good practice, and nothing to be ashamed of.

Once the agents had made up, I had to work out how to end the mission. I wanted to have Selene burn the forest down - she enjoys that - but Boromir was still standing in the middle of it. I hit on the idea of one of the agents taking on the Suvian's singing role but using a song that had to do with endings, in order to drive Boromir away. When The Last Goodbye occured to me, I realised that by using a canon(ish) song, I could turn a generic Burn It Down ending into something a bit different.

I briefly considered going full songfic, quoting the entire lyrics, but Author!Kaitlyn talked me down, and a good thing too. I think this version is what a songfic should be, making use of music without throwing it in the reader's face. (I've drawn inspiration from Gregory Maguire's Wicked, which has a scene that quotes no lyrics, but still makes it clear that Elphaba - the Wicked Witch of the West - is singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow.)

Of course, after spending four paragraphs on a very serious semi-exorcism, I had to break the mood in a PPCish way; as Kaitlyn is the DCPS caseworker for Pippin, and The Last Goodbye was sung by Billy Boyd, her 'Scottish accent' quote was entirely fitting. Then it was just a matter of feeding Isildor the tapes - a way to get that 'burn the Suvian' feel back - and deciding precisely how much info I wanted to dump into the final exchange.

The very last thing I did, even after writing this extended note, was to go back and put the Key into Selene's angry section. There's always something...

Agent Kaitlyn's Concrit: This story falls at the intersection of two really interesting ideas. First, what if there was someone with a stronger claim to the throne of Gondor than Aragorn? That's entirely plausible: Aragorn came from a separate royal line that split off three thousand years before his time. Second, what if Denethor was a raging hypocrite who opposed the return of the king? Again, perfectly plausible: the first Ruling Steward threw out any and all claims to the throne in favour of taking the power for himself.

Unfortunately, it falls down when it comes to the execution of the ideas. Denethor would never keep his great secret within walking distance of the city, and a lone girl in a tower doesn't fit with the idea of an ancient, secret lineage. If there is an Heir of Anarion, she and her family must be well hidden indeed, and not likely to tolerate the upstart Steward meddling in their affairs.

That being said, drawing on fairytale imagery is quite appropriate for a Tolkien fanfic. The professor used the Rapunzel story himself at least once (Luthien's imprisonment in Hirilorn); a story which takes the same basis and spins it off in an entirely new direction could be a very interesting read.