This one is for Kayla Rane
No matter what,
I'll only ever be a click away

"Every exit is an entry somewhere else."
-Tom Stoppard

Amelia glanced up at her customer, a tall, blonde woman chewing gum, as she took her money out of her hand and added them to the total.

"Thank you. Everything adds up. One latte coming right up." The woman didn't smile or acknowledge that she had heard Amelia's words, but merely walked away and took a seat at an empty table. She looked quite bored with the café already. Amelia rolled her eyes discretely and looked up at the large, round clock hanging over the entrance to the café.

"Simon?" She called to a young, dark-haired man arranging a plate with muffins in the display so they looked just right. "Would you take over here? I'm going home early today."

"How come?" Simon asked as he took over and began to serve an elderly man with a rather voluminous beard and, strangely, clad entirely in grey.

"No reason." Amelia answered with a shrug. "Just… want to do some math."

"Again?" Amelia gave him a small, teasing smile.

"Takes my mind off things. And I have a habit of working overtime anyways, so why not?" Simon nodded, already busy taking the customer's order and Amelia turned away, content with the knowledge that the old man was in relatively safe hands. Then, she half-turned back again and said over her shoulder

"By the way, did you finish that book I borrowed you?"

"The Fellowship of the Ring?" Amelia nodded. "Yeah, sorry, I forgot to bring it today. You can have it tomorrow though." Amelia noticed that the old man was looking directly at her. She pointedly ignored him.

"Great. Opinion?" Choosing to wait until she had finished her conversation with changing her clothes, she turned fully towards Simon again.

"Good book. A little old, but, well… And shit, that ending, huh?" Amelia gave an affirming hum. "I mean, I get it, sacrifice for the greater good and all, but…"

"Yeah, I get it. I never had much particular affection towards the so-called 'greater good' myself."

"Is that so?" The old man interrupted. He looked like he was amused by the two baristas in front of him. Amelia could see that there were no other customers waiting and decided to indulge him.

"Yes, that's so. Besides, we only know the outcome of that guy's death. Yeah, sure, great and noble thing right there, but maybe he could have done even more if he'd lived. But hey, we'll never know now, since Tolkien is pretty dead." Amelia finished with a decisive nod and crossed arms, daring anyone to oppose her. The old man merely smiled below his long beard and nodded slightly to himself, as if deep in thought.

"Yes, I suppose we will never know. Not now." Amelia gave him an odd look and turned away, to change out of her barista uniform and back into more comfortable clothes.

As she stepped out onto the street and, pulling her heavy coat closer around her, she nearly slipped on the icy sidewalk, but steadied herself by holding onto the wall of the building. Living in Vermont was cold, particularly so in the winter, but it gave Amelia the opportunity to live in obscurity, out of reach and mostly out of tune with the rest of the world. She preferred it that way, as opposed to her two brothers who lived in bigger cities in other states. She found herself thinking that it was rather strange. It was a cold day and yet there had been no customers wanting a hot drink after the old man. Thinking back on it, Amelia couldn't recall the woman's name being called out or whether she had even received her beverage at all.

"Whatever." She mumbled to herself as she walked down Church Street and crossed the road to get to the left side. A gust of an icy wind blew through the street and she pushed her light brown hair out of her view and continued on, hurrying to catch the next bus before it drove without her.

Amelia pushed the key into the lock and twisted, pushing open the door to her diminutive house. She heard Bruno scuffling around in the kitchen as she hesitantly debated whether she ought to take off her coat or not, but then continued into it with her coat still on. She rubbed her forehead as she dropped her keys on the small kitchen table shoved up against the wall, Bruno hurrying over with a meow to greet her. He trotted up and rubbed his cheek against her leg and she bent down to stroke him twice, swiftly, before she twisted her head, cricks coming from her neck, and picked up her cat. He meowed at her and she kissed the side of his head as she carried him over to his bowl. It was still a bit early for her to feed him, since she had left work early, but she still filled his old bowl and scratched his neck.

"I need to think." She mumbled to Bruno as he licked up a few mouthfuls of water. "I know it's weird but… Ah, what the heck, no one's around to tell me I'm crazy. I'll be right back."

Amelia's house was small, by American standards, but she didn't need anything roomy or grand. She didn't have anyone to show it to and liked it that way.
She pulled her heavy, plum purple tighter around herself, put on her large, black boots lined with fur and glanced back at the kitchen, still lit behind her. She got a strange feeling in her stomach and stood with her hand on the doorknob, contemplating something unknown to even herself.

"Yeah. Just in case." She mumbled and hurried back in. She didn't care to take her boots off, but just grabbed her 'just in case'-bag from where it was leaning against her armchair. It was a black backpack with red zippers. She always had it ready in the event that she got the sudden urge for a walk in the woods around her house, as it had that afternoon. Taking random walks in solitary surroundings to clear her head wasn't wise, but it wasn't rare for her to do either. In the backpack was a personal favorite of her books, of which she owed a fair amount, a small flashlight with a pack of batteries, twenty dollars, some fingerless gloves and an old postcard from her one brother back when she had just moved to Burlington.

She hurried out the front door without looking back again.

The thin layer of snow crunched beneath her feet as she walked down the street, with her backpack slung over a shoulder, as she thought to herself, of everything and nothing, simply letting her mind wander. She turned left, as she always did, and into the forest made of tall, dark trees. In the months where she wal still adjusting to her new home, she had been quite hesitant to wander alone, but that trepidation waned and disappeared when she dared to go further and further into the woods and the worst she ever encountered was a dead mouse.

The silence and the slowly falling snow around her seemingly pressed down upon her and wrapped itself around her, not as a vicious predator strangling the life out of her body, but like a thick blanket cutting her off from the rest of her world.

Amelia adjusted her backpack and continued onwards and deeper into the forest, knowing full well that wandering into dark forest in the night wasn't exactly a smart thing to do, but she continued on, having done this many times before.

She rubbed her eyes as she walked over a fallen log and her feet made a soft sound as they landed on the leaves covering the forest floor. She rolled her shoulders and pulled the other strap of the backpack up on her other shoulder so she could swing her arms around better. However, after a few more steps, she stopped abruptly and looked down.

The forest floor was covered in leaves.

Not snow or sludge, but leaves, some of them looking pretty fresh and a few even green. Amelia's eyes narrowed as she even spotted a few patches of healthy, green moss growing merrily.

Winter always came early to Vermont, and with it came snow, though most often if was simply a deluge of sleet or freezing rain. In that October, the snow had come early in the year and the floor of the forest had been covered in it when she left her home, unmarred by human footsteps.

A nearby sound made her jump and she turned to her right, slowly taking steps backwards until she had her back pressed against a tree. An oak tree, not pine, as in the normal woods in Vermont. Amelia shuddered, despite the sudden warmth of her heavy coat, but steeled herself.

A huffing sound reached her ears and a gruff voice said loudly, in the distance "Could we not stop and rest? The Council will not be upon us for days still!" His choice of words seemed curious to Amelia.

"Courage! We will reach the valley soon. Do you not hear the distant sound of its waterfalls yourself?"

Amelia knew by then that it was an impossibility for her to have ever actually walked out her front door. She had probably fallen asleep stroking the neck of her cat and this was but a realistic dream, conjured up by her own mind. Granted, her dreams were rarely as clear as this, but everything had its first time.
As it was a dream, by her logic, she was in no real danger and thus, she could either indulge it or try to wake up.

She had no desire to meet the owner of such gruff a voice and continued on her own, somewhat parallel with those who still chattered amongst themselves, but still in the same direction. The ground came to an upwards slope and Amelia briefly put down her backpack to shrug off her coat and tie its arms around her waist, displaying her grey sweater with the name of her state printed in green across it for a nearby red squirrel to see. That was another thing that did not match up with the world she knew; where she came from, squirrels were usually grey.

Amelia found it weird that she was still tired from her day of work, and she had risen early that morning out of restlessness, and yet it seemed to be nearing noon wherever her mind had decided to take her. She looked down and annoyance blossomed in her chest as she realized that her clothes in general weren't exactly suitable for wandering around in a forest either. Loose jeans, with scruffy knees, mismatched socks, heavy black boots lined with fur, a white undershirt beneath her sweater and a heavy coat would quickly become very hot in a fresh, clear forest where the air wasn't cold, but merely comfortably cool.

Her coat nearly touched the ground as it made a strange half-skirt around her waist, but it didn't drag and Amelia had been through worse.
She hoisted her backpack up against and soldiered on, content to just let herself enjoy her surroundings instead of worrying about the technicalities of her predicament. She hummed a nonsensical tune to herself as she swiped a branch out of her way and promptly gaped at the sight before her.

A city made of elegant architecture gleamed like a jewel in the sunlight, nestled comfortably in a valley, with soft waterfalls falling around it. Its walls, made of some material she couldn't decipher from such a distance, were whiter than snow and in the sunlight, just looking at it nearly made Amelia's eyes water from the brightness. Marble paths twirled and arched, forming elaborate patterns and somewhere, it seemed that the twitter of a bird mixed with the gentle sound of the falling water.

Amelia made a low whistle, impressed by the glorious sight in front of her. She noticed that she stood on a ledge that had been obscured by the low branches of the trees around her and would have dropped straight to her death had she not been captivated by the sight of the city on the valley. She wasn't worried, seeing as she still firmly believed it was a mere dream and she would have most likely just awoken from the shock. She had no desire to hurl herself out over a cliff just to test whether she'd wake up or not and instead looked around herself, to see if there wasn't a path leading closer to the city. For there not to be one, her mind would have had to have a peculiar sense of humor.

"Have you lost your way, my lady?" A male voice called from behind her and Amelia swore that her heart jerked out of her chest and fluttered over the ledge in shock. She spun around, nearly hyperventilating from the sudden interruption of her contemplation.

"Jesus!" She exclaimed, both from shock and the notice that the owner of the voice was on a horse. A pretty tall and pretty living, actual horse. "Oh, you scared the crap out of me!" It was difficult to tell, with him atop such a steed, but the man seemed tall, with a muscular build beneath his peculiar, but fine clothes, a strong jaw and brown hair reaching his jaw. Amelia hadn't seen a man with such long hair before, but it suited him in a strange manner.

"Your pardon, my lady?" The man looked puzzled and cocked his head ever so slightly. Amelia huffed a bit and crossed her arms as the horse shook its head. She eyed it wearily. Then, the man dismounted in an easy, smooth movement, so easily that Amelia might have missed it if she'd looked away for but a second. The man was obviously an experienced rider. He rested a hand on a hilt at his belt, seemingly out of instinct and approached her slowly, cautiously. Amelia jumped a bit when the horse snorted loudly. The corner of the man's mouth perked upwards a bit. She grimaced at him.

"Yes." She simply stated then and the man's brow furrowed. "Yes, I'm… I'm lost. Like, really lost. I've never been here before."

"You seem unnerved." The man stated calmly when she glanced at his horse again, who was waiting for his rider.

"Yeah, well… this is kind of my first time actually seeing a horse this close, so… yep. Yeah. It's big. Wonder if they're actually that tall." The man raised his eyebrows, surprised.

"You have truly never?" Again, the way he spoke seemed odd to Amelia, but then again, he was carrying around a mother of a sword, with a horn hanging from his belt and a silver tree on his dark tunic. "You are not from Rohan then." Amelia nearly laughed at his assumption. Middle-Earth then. She was well acquainted with the world, having read both books and watched movies with her sister-in-law about it.

Her mind was stiff and calm, forcing down the slight hysteria rising within it.

"No. Not at all. And you're from Gondor." She nodded towards the sigil displayed proudly on his chest. She noticed that her surroundings were remarkably calm compared to how she felt. It was her dream. She would have assumed that they would change along with her emotional state, but the opposite appeared to be the case.

"That much is true, my lady." Amelia snorted at him. "Have I caused offence?"

"No, but you sure have caused… Never mind that. And never mind that… ladyness either. I'm not a lady."

"Your clothes and speech may seem strange, but you are a woman and as a woman I shall treat you." Amelia whistled lowly at him again.

"Wow. Alright then. I've been called a lot of things but a lady isn't one of 'em." She half-smiled, forcing herself to remain calm. It was a dream. "Name's Amelia. Amelia Jones. Pleased to meet you and all that, out of the way, done deal, pleasantries over with. And you?" The man was suppressing a smile at that point, studying her like she was an interesting equation. He inclined his head politely, obviously not keen on letting the most basic formalities go.

"I am called Boromir, son of Denethor, the Steward of the white city of Gondor." Amelia nearly had a heart attack at that revelation, but her mind had gone weirdly numb in something akin to resignation. She forced herself to appear calm, despite the minimal shake that had come to her hands.

"I've heard of you." She answered her revelation slowly, carefully. She found it difficult, but not impossible to imagine the man reaching out for a golden ring, filling his head with whispers and promises of power. "Boromir." A nauseous feeling rose in her gut and she forced it down. She began to acknowledge that something else was at work than her own mind. She had a good imagination, but not such an amazing one to imagine the living person in front of her to such a detailed extent. "God, I think I might be going mad. Or I'm dreaming. It's one of those two." She said aloud, paying no mind to Boromir any longer.

"Perhaps we should make for the city? It seems to be…"

"Yes. Yeah, you're right. Sorry." Amelia waved her hand at him. Then, her eyes widened. "Wait. Hold your horses and back up a moment." Boromir looked confused at her expression. "Time out. You… are a polite person. Good guy. At least, you're making that impression. You could still be a creepy stalkery sort." She felt the fine hairs on her back rising, thinking of a small, dark-haired hobbit kicking the man down a slope covered in leaves. "So you wouldn't just ride ahead. But… you want to make a fitting entrance because you're a man of importance, big deal, yadda yadda. On horseback." She looked at the horse and her shoulder rose up in an unwilling defense-mechanism. "No way. No friggin' way am I getting on that thing."