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Sometimes Darcy is convinced that her entire existence is just an elaborate acid trip. Not that she’s ever done acid. Anyway, the point is what happened was this:
Jane was doing her usual mad scientist thing, trying to recreate the Bifrost, and Darcy was doing the hench-person thing, meaning she was sitting in a rolling chair propping up the weird made of wires thingy that was duct taped to the other thingy while watching youtube videos on her iPad. Currently she was smiling at that one Legolas video where he just chants “They’re taking the hobbits to Isengard!” over and over, and she had a few other old faves and some new ones queued up in other windows to watch next - when it happened.
Wind started to pick up in the lab, machines started spinning, electricity started crackling. Jane tossed her head back and gave a good mad scientist cackle, shouting “It’s alive! IT’S ALIVE!” (Actually no she didn’t, she got all silent and focused and monitored her equipment readouts, but Darcy liked her way better.) A circle of blue light that looked oddly liquidy started to form in the center of the room, fluctuating like it might collapse on itself any second. Darcy thought it looked like sparkly jello.
And then someone (Darcy chose to blame Tony Stark, because everything ever was his fault) opened the door Darcy was sitting in front of, knocking into her rolly chair with enough force to send her wheeling across the floor, directly into the not-quite-a-portal, Legolas still warbling about taking the hobbits to Isengard from the tinny speakers of her iPad.
Everything went black, and Darcy was pretty sure she was dead, her molecules scattered across the universe.
-l-
And then she woke up. And boy was she not in Kansas anymore.
She also wasn’t wearing the same clothes, and she was shorter than she remembered. Maybe.
Oh and she had a beard. She was still a woman though - bitchin’ curvitude still in place. Just plus beard. It was pretty luxurious actually. Kind of wicked cool, since it was all braided and there were silver beads in it and shit. Maybe she’d been reincarnated as a pirate. It would make as much sense as anything else.
Darcy stroked her beard, just in case it really did help you think.
Looking down at herself, she found that she was wearing leather leggings and sturdy boots and a long navy blue tunic. There was a belt looped around her waist in a complicated knot, from which hung a dagger and several pouches. Shrugging her shoulders revealed she was wearing some kind of chainmail under her tunic, over a quilted shirt thing and a sports bra feeling garment. The whole outfit was capped off by a voluminous cloak, and accessorized with silver armbands and a giant two handed axe that matched her beard-beads.
Huh. Probably not a pirate then.
At that moment, Darcy heard a very familiar voice shout, “They’re taking the hobbits to Isengard!”
And then she knew. Jane’s not-Bifrost had interacted with Darcy’s iPad somehow and used her youtube video to set a destination.
She was in mother fucking Lord of the Rings.
Darcy immediately burst into hysterical laughter. Because omigod really?! She read fanfiction. Yes, even the self insert Mary Sue ones where a genre savvy normal girl ends up in the Lord of the Rings and becomes an elf and marries Legolas. She’d even written part of one when she was fourteen, though she had the sense not to post it anywhere, because a writer she was not.
So in a way, this was a fantasy come true. Except for the part where it was really happening to her (At least she thought so. Pulling at her beard hair hurt, so…) and instead of turning into an elf, the universe had taken her short, curvy, cute self and decided that dwarf was the path of least resistance. Which she could totally see. Just make her a bit shorter and give her a beard, and there you go.
“There is a dwarf on the next hill!” Legolas’ voice came again, probably using his elf eyes to figure out where the crazy laughter was coming from.
Abruptly aware of her surroundings, and realizing she was standing in the middle of a beautiful sweeping landscape that was probably part of Rohan if the hobbits were indeed in the process of being taken to Isengard, and further that the land was right in the middle of the war to fucking end all wars, Darcy did the sensible thing and waited for them to come find her.
Realistically, she was probably stuck here forever. Jane would have no way of knowing where the portal had sent her, had no way of tracking her, and the fact that Darcy was in the middle of what was a story in their universe was hinting at multiverse theory shit, so Darcy could either wallow and probably die and be eaten by orcs, or she could put on her big dwarf panties and get shit done.
And maybe marry Legolas.
Except when three men who were recognizably Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli approached her (And how weird was it that they looked pretty close to how they did in the movies?) Darcy realized that becoming a dwarf had changed her perceptions. Because Legolas? Looked like a super tall baby-faced child while Gimli was super mega foxy awesome hot. Unf, dat beard tho.
New plan: Marry Gimli.
Aragorn was okay. He’d look better if he let his beard fill in more, and stopped towering over people. It was rude, being that tall.
“A dwarrowdam?” Gimli blurted in surprise. Darcy smiled and twirled the end of her goatee around one finger, giving him a coy look. His cheeks reddened.
Legolas and Aragorn said something to each other in elf speak, which rude. They were probably confused about her having a beard. Darcy would have been too if she hadn’t read the books forever ago. All adult dwarves had beards, regardless of gender.
(No, what she really wanted to know was how she could understand Common Tongue, but not Elvish. Had knowledge of the language just appeared in her head, or was it weirdly somehow exactly like the English of her universe? Could she speak Dwarvish?)
“What brings you here all by your lonesome, lass?” Gimli asked her, averting his eyes from her glorious facial hair, his cheeks still red.
Darcy’s brain hiccuped, and then went into overdrive. What should she say? The truth? A story about being separated from her tribe? Did dwarves have tribes? She couldn’t remember. And what if they thought she was crazy? Or if she derailed their storyline because they were trying to help her get home, something she already acknowledged was next to impossible?
Oh god, she was never going home. She’d never see Jane, or Thor, or her Mom or listen to her iPod - Nope! Not going there. Big dwarf panties. Hysterics could happen later when she had a bathroom to lock herself in.
Oh hell, plumbing.
After what felt like an eternity of thinking, but was in reality (for a given value of reality) only a few seconds, she told them the truth in what she hoped was a believable way.
“I was separated from my kin by forces beyond any of us. If I see them again, I’ll be way - erm, much surprised. They won’t know where to look for me, and I can’t get back to them.”
There. Let them assume magic or orcs or goblins or whatever, instead of mad science and youtube videos.
“Then you must come with us,” Gimli said at once. “Never let it be said that Gimli, Son of Gloin, would leave a dwarrowdam by her lonesome in lands infested with orcs!”
Darcy smiled and latched onto Gimli’s arm. “My hero,” she praised him, pressing a kiss to his cheek, making him sputter and blush yet again. Oh yeah, she still had it.
Legolas snorted a laugh and said something else to Aragorn in Elvish. To get him back for being so rude, Darcy leaned into Gimli and stage whispered, “Why does he not have a beard? Is he a child? Or a eunuch?”
Gimli and Aragorn both let out loud guffaws when Legolas huffed.
“No, lass. He’s an elf. That’s how they all look.”
Darcy made a show of blinking and staring at Legolas. “Huh.”
They chuckled again, but soon grew serious as Aragorn filled Darcy in on their situation - hunting the orcs that had taken the hobbits. Darcy listened, even though she knew more of what was going on than any of them did.
“Then it is my pleasure to join in such a noble quest, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas,” Darcy said when the explanations and introductions were done, nodding to each of them in turn. Channelling her inner Thor, she said, “I am Darcy Lewisdottir.”
“Be welcome among us, Lady Darcy,” Aragorn said. He turned to face the horizon. “Now, let’s hunt some orc.”