Dreamcast I: Become A Believer Chapter 12: Shatter Glass Rating: R (for mild language, suggestive themes, some sexuality) Summary: Rivers is thrown into Middle Earth in a freak car accident. Somewhere between killing orcs, riding fell beasts, and snogging elves, she realizes it's more than just a dream and living hell . . . because there is no going back! Feedback:

That is not me in that morgue bed.

She lurched off the floor, sending the flute flying, and hurled her herself over the edge of the mattress. Dumping herself onto the metal sheet, she gasped. Cool flesh met her fingers as her feet mindlessly scrambled into balance. A hand met her own, and she shoved hers into their grasp. Fearful tears brought the picture out of focus, so she anxiously blinked them away.

Legolas' elven face swarmed her vision. She was squeezing his hand, so much that his fingers had arched over hers. This was the first time they had made flesh-to-flesh contact and it was not the last. He struck her skin with a ripple of cold fire, so distant, yet erotic. Instinctively, her hip jerked, ripping their contact. The thrust turned her around, facing the empty marble wall that was stretched over a framework of elven magic.

The flute lay at the foot of the wall. Legolas followed her gaze, and gasped mentally. He picked it up graciously. It seemed holy in his grip as he presented it to her.

"I am very interested in where you found this."

"Rílaisseth said it was from Galadriel."

"This vanished from history when the Ring was taken into the hands of Gondor. Sirion played it as a lament for Middle Earth a thousand years ago."

Rivers said vaguely, "Who?"

"Sirion. The demigoddess of the elves."

"Where is she?"

"She hasn't been seen since that day."

"So this is cursed?" She pulled her hands away, fingertips spread in an aching anxiety to caress the crystal cylinder.

"No," Legolas said, pushing it into her hands and closing it in her fingers. "It just has many a sore memory sown into the glass. But Galadriel did give it to you, so I'm sure there is a reason for it to be in your possession."

Rivers' head swam; everyone expected so much of her! Galadriel believed her to be a prophet, Gandalf regarded her as a beacon of hope, and... Legolas! What does he think?

Her voice masked her inner grief. "Legolas, what do you think of me?"

His answer was immediate. "As a little sister, one whom I shall watch for the rest of their existence."

"I live, remember last night?"

"I think not." He left the room, an elvish zephyr sifting through his hair. "I think not."

They camped on the shore after four hours of canoeing. Rivers' fingers were smote with blisters and they stung as Legolas submerged them in water and wrapped them. He felt her hands toughen, calluses capping her scars. She smiled at him, despite the pain.

However, her slumber surprised her most of all.

She awoke to voices on the wind. A soft breeze breathed a whisper through the trees. She heard them whistle past her ears, too low to decipher them, yet loud enough to wake only her.

Her favorite cloak was tucked away, and so placating were the voices, she lumbered out into the forest without it. Luckily, she was so exhausted her wore her breeches to bed.

The whispers erased all memory of her conscious self. She was only capable of stumbling through the branches of an ancient wood, forward, always forward, never tarrying. In her oblivion, she had wandered out of the wood and into a spring. Her foot crunched on the crisp grass and she awoke a second time. The voices had gone.

She gasped, not seeing anything. Looking inwardly, she mentally kicked herself for following the unknown. She remembered the waking, the voices, but forgot the walk, yet the ache in her foot told her there was one.

At last, she returned to the outside and sat on the grass, hopelessly lost. In that time she fell asleep and she dreamed of Legolas.

He was flawless. His gorgeous hair, his slender eyes, and his grace captivated her thoughts often. She couldn't help herself.

She knew she would never be as pretty or as graceful as the elven women he had met. She knew him well, and he did too. She disliked being a little sister, secretly wanting more.

Something was shoved into her stomach. It pierced her skin and sank deep into her juicy insides. Her brain shut her down, the blackness crowding out the pain.

Orcs! They were everywhere! Legolas could have shot aimlessly into the woods and still hit some. The beasts tripped over their own dead and floundered into battle. Arrows whizzed past Aragorn's head and buried themselves into the hearts of the ugly monsters.

His panic from his waking had subsided. She was gone when he had woken!

He tore off over the hill, unaware that he was fleeting Boromir's rescue. Over the hill, he saw two hobbits scampering away from the wreckage, a pack of orcs on their tail.

Skewered like a hitchhiker's pack and hang from the lead orc's shoulder was Rivers, blood spewing from her stomach and flying from her mouth as her coughed violently. From her perch, impaled upon the spear, she smiled deliriously. He recognized the smile; it was the one she gave him when he cleaned her blisters.

Then, he watched, with his virgin eyes, a piece of her stomach tear, and she swung off of the rod.

A/N: Reviewers whom I cannot contact: Book II is complete! Please read, I am continuing this story over there!