2 Secrets Uncovered: A New Adventure?

I've always been the type of person who follows the old saying of 'Seeing is believing', so finding Mairon's reflection in every mirror I came across is probably the reason why I never let myself think that my dream-walking, multiversal shenanigans that landed me in Middle-Earth as a supposed-to-be-dead Maia were anything but real.

The first time it happened I completely freaked out. Seeing my face reflected on the mirror like that was almost too shocking for my poor heart to bear. At first, I thought my whole physical appearance had stayed as Mairon, but later, when I could think straight again, I found out this was thankfully not the case.

I only ever saw myself as Mairon whenever I looked at my reflection.

It didn't matter if it was on mirrors or water. I tried it with every reflective surface I could find, and nothing changed.

And that's when I freaked out again, because what would my friends do when they saw me like this? Would I be the opposite of Narcissus, doomed to avoid my reflection for the rest of my life??

I almost fainted when I thought about cameras. What if someone took a photo of me and instead of, well, me, Mairon's face appeared on the freaking screen?!

They would lock me up in a damn lab.

The remaining time of my miserable life would be spent inside of a cage, being fed whatever they gave to the rats or being cut open with a sharp razor by a psychopathic scientist who would only care about whether I bled red like the rest of humanity, or I was some sort of weird, new magic specimen to experiment on.

Luckily for my sanity and general well-being, thanks to the scientific method and my trusty smartphone's camera, I discovered that this new…condition…didn't apply to technology.

I even tried taking a photo of my reflection in the mirror, and the photo showed my regular, human face.

Good heavens.

Such had been my panic, that my mind had already been making urgent plans to follow in Obi-Wan's footsteps, fleeing the country to live the rest of my days as a hermit in the desert.

It would have been horrible, so to say I was relieved when that scenario was no longer the case would be an understatement.

Still, it bugged me that Mairon's appearance had somehow followed me after I woke up.

What if it happened again? What if I went to sleep one day, ended up in Middle-Earth, and once I woke up, if I did at all – 'cause who the fuck even knew how this thing really worked – my body changed to permanently become Mairon?

If that ever happened, there's no way I could hide it, not in a million years.

My previous identity would be forever lost because there's no way people would actually believe me when I said it was me while looking like a fairy tale character.

Yikes.

The situation was not good, even if going to Middle-Earth had been absolutely amazing. The shittiest part of all this? I couldn't actually tell anyone about it.

My friends would think I was pranking them, and my parents would think I'd gone crazy and would take me to an asylum, where I'd live the rest of my days inside a padded room.

I mean, would you believe it if someone suddenly approached you and told you they'd ended up in Sauron's body, from the Lord of the Rings, in Middle-Earth while they were dreaming, and now their reflection looked like the Maia Sauron had been before falling to the Dark Side?

Best case, you'd probably be laughed at. Worst case…I shuddered to even think about it.

So the only option I had left was going to school and pretend like nothing ever happened, which majorly sucked. How did Peter Parker even do it? How did the guy go from fighting aliens and traveling the Universe with the other Avengers to sitting in class, pretending to be the uncool, nerdy student people thought him to be, and listening to the teacher drone on and on about something or the other without going batshit insane??

Honestly.

I was so stressed about it all that I didn't even protest when my parents pushed me to visit my grandmother, who was an actual hermit whose presence I always tried to avoid whenever we had those rare, family dinners once every five years. 

Grandma was just…very odd. She was that type of person that spent all the time inside her house, only getting out to buy food and water the plants every once in a while. She lived in a three-story old mansion in the middle of the mountains, with only animals to keep her company, and her house was full of trinkets of all sizes that would have looked at home at a witch's abode.

Also, she didn't have a phone.

Who in this day and age didn't have a phone? Most old people had at least a landline, but my grandmother didn't even use basic electricity, she just lit some candles as if she were still living in the freaking Middle Ages and got her water directly from the river.

It was almost enough to make me recoil in horrified bewilderment.

I mean, I would understand if someone lived like this because they didn't have any other choice, but my family was loaded.

Most of the money came from my great-grandparents on my grandmother's side, so why the hell did the woman live like this?

And that wasn't all, oh no.

The most terrifying thing about her was the way she would look at me.

Especially me.

She would just stare with those piercing, blue eyes, and then a glint that would make her seem a thousand years old would appear in the depths of her gaze while she gave me that look that almost seemed to say, I know something you don't.

But of course, the moment would then pass, and the woman would continue saying whatever she had been saying before while she soaked her slightly burned cookies in hot chocolate and acted like nothing happened.

Needless to say, I was a ball of nerves.

I gulped as I got out of the car and my parents drove away, leaving me alone in front of my grandmother's house, where I was supposed to spend the whole week, keeping company to the forest's fauna, flora, and a crazy old woman who could give the Mad Hatter a run for his money.

Great.

Absolutely fantastic.

Why had I agreed to this again? Right, I hadn't. My parents had just decided for me once they noticed my head had been in the clouds for three weeks straight.

I looked back at the road and pondered whether it was too late to make a run for it. It would probably take me a few hours to get back on my own, but it would be absolutely worth it.

Unfortunately, as if she had heard my mind's plans of escape, my grandmother chose that moment to open the door of the house. With her back slightly hunched, she squinted her eyes while leaning on her wooden cane, as if trying to see me better, and tutted, impatiently.

"Well? Are you going to get in, sonny? I haven't got all day, you know! Tch, keeping a poor, old lady like me waiting…the nerve of young'uns these days…can't do anything right…," she reentered the house while grumbling under her breath, and I had no choice but to follow after her.

I pretended I didn't hear the gates of the property shutting loudly behind me, as if a chapter of my life was over and now a new mystery unfolded just out of my reach, waiting to be uncovered.

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I gave what felt like the hundredth glance at the tea that was sitting untouched in front of me while I tried not to fidget under my grandmother's heavy stare.

"Are you not going to drink your tea, Michael?"

I inwardly grimaced at my first name – only my close family actually used it - being spoken aloud and took my teacup with trembling fingers. It was scary to think about, but since the day I woke up with a Maia's face looking back at me from every mirror I came across, I had begun to think myself as Mairon.

To be honest, the fact that I used that name – besides being a stroke of genius on my part - wasn't that surprising when you thought about what my full name was.

Michael Aaron Blaze.

A combination between the first two would form Mairon, and Blaze basically meant fire, which was Mairon's primary ability. It was almost like some force was playing a part in this, and it was freaking me out.

That, and the fact that my grandmother seemed to be looking at me longer than usual.

I took a sip of my tea – which wasn't disgusting at all and actually tasted quite nice, not that I would admit that aloud – and set the cup back on the table.

I cleared my throat awkwardly when I saw my grandmother still looking at me. "So…how have you been, Grandma?"

I offered a nervous smile when the woman simply hummed in thought, completely ignoring my question with all the grace of a raging bull.

I almost wanted to jump to my feet and hysterically yell please say something!, just so that the silence wouldn't be so stifling.

After a moment which seemed to stretch forever, my grandmother leaned back on her armchair, her walking stick still on her hands – and why the hell did she still have that with her? – and let out a sigh.

"Something has changed in you, sonny," she began, and I tried to fix an oblivious smile on my face that wouldn't look terribly fake.

"I don't know what you mean, Grandma."

"Bah!" She scoffed, tapping the ground with her stick, and I wearily kept an eye on it to avoid being smacked – my father had told me stories about his youth, and I was not impressed – "you know exactly what I mean, young man! Now, was it the wardrobe? Or did you get in some other way? A tunnel, perhaps? …What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

I quickly closed my mouth to pretend I hadn't been gaping and tried to formulate words to answer the woman.

"Grandma…what are you talking about? A wardrobe? A tunnel?? What's going on??"

The woman simply looked at me and her eyebrows shot upwards. "You're telling me…you haven't found anything? Something…special? Are you sure you haven't visited any forest lately, Michael?" She asked me slowly, as if trying to make me understand a secret message that I was supposed to get somehow.

And then it clicked.

"Wait…," I started, a feeling of incredulousness starting to form within me, "are you asking me if I've ever been to Narnia? As in, the Chronicles of Narnia?"

If my grandmother had been any less dignified, she would have probably thrown her arms upwards. "Now he gets it! Although, in my time, those books weren't even out…So how was it, boy? Did you meet Aslan? Because if you did, I'm going to be very cross. I never saw tail of that lion and I have words for him."

I tried to contain any hysterical laughter from leaving my lips, but a small snort still escaped me. "I've never been to or seen Narnia except from the other side of the screen, Grandma. Are you telling me you've been to Narnia? When? How??"

Was the woman pulling my leg? Or could it really be true? After all, I had visited Middle-Earth, hadn't I? Why couldn't Narnia be real too?

Although, now that I thought about it, if my grandmother had actually been to Narnia, then that meant magic portals existed, but if so, why hadn't I gone to Middle-Earth through one? Why did I go to it through a dream? And why was it still affecting me?

The woman looked at my eyes searchingly, but something in my gaze must have convinced her to tell me whatever she had been trying to say before.

"It was many, many years ago," she started, her gaze fixed in something I couldn't see, as if she were trying to remember a memory almost out of her reach, "before I even met your grandfather. I must have been so young," she chuckled, and I almost did a double take at the woman's complete change of personality.

"It was 1951. We went on vacation at the English countryside that year, and a friend of my father's lent us his house to stay for a week straight, as he would be gone to London for some conference and the like. My parents and my elder brother had just gone to bed, but no matter what I tried, I just couldn't fall asleep. There was something that almost seemed to be…calling out to me. It was like a breeze, a whisper that I couldn't quite hear right, so I followed it. It was very dark, but I wasn't afraid. Somehow, I knew that whatever I would find, it would certainly be worthy of remembering."

My body leaned forwards, almost out of its own accord. "And then? What happened then?"

"I found a room," my grandmother said, "a room with a very peculiar wardrobe inside it."

"No," I exhaled with a small smile, feeling as if I were about to burst from excitement. "Was it The wardrobe?"

"Yes," the woman chuckled, "although I didn't know it at the time. I was just standing there, a little girl no more than 5 years old, and I only wondered how it was possible for the wind to be felt inside, if all the windows were closed. And then I opened the wardrobe's door, and I felt the very same breeze flowing from it. So I, being the curious child that I was, entered the wardrobe and passed by all the thick cloaks and coats and winter boots, until I suddenly found myself in a snow-covered forest."

Grandmother took a sip from her tea. "At the time, I was too young and naive to understand that it wasn't supposed to be possible for a forest to be inside a wardrobe, but of course, I didn't even question it at the moment. It seemed as normal as breathing to expect a magical land to suddenly appear before my eyes."

"And what did you do then? Did you walk around? See anyone?" I asked, and suddenly thought of something a little terrifying. "Wait, if it was covered in snow, that means you entered Narnia during the White Witch's reign! How come she never found you? Or one of her spies?"

The old harpy chortled, her cane tapping the ground, and if I didn't know any better I would have thought my grandmother to be Master Yoda in disguise.

"That's because I didn't stay there for longer than an hour!" She exclaimed. "A curious little girl I may have been, but I was also a coward. I had been walking for some time, never getting too far from the wardrobe's entrance, but then I heard a noise, as if a big animal were walking towards me, and instead of staying there to figure out what it could be, I ran and ran until I found the wardrobe again and I left."

I stared at her. "Just like that?" I asked incredulously. "You happened to find a magical world, from a book, may I add, inside a wardrobe, something which is supposed to be impossible, and you just left?"

Grandma huffed haughtily. "What was I supposed to do? Stay and risk being discovered by an animal? No, thank you. I'd rather be back in my bed, where I know it's safe, than eaten by a wild beast."

I laughed nervously. "I mean, when you put it like that…Wait, if you were only there for an hour, why did you complain before about not seeing Aslan? It isn't as he would just appear, even if a human being in Narnia isn't exactly common…Back then he was ghosting everyone, so he wouldn't have been anywhere near you."

"Bah," she scoffed, "That overgrown cat doesn't deserve to be in my presence. He can go chase some butterflies, for all I care. Who does he think he is, ordering a bunch of kids around and telling them they're the focus of some bullshit prophecy," the woman completely ignored my scandalized grandma!, "making them soldiers of their own army and telling them they have to rule a whole kingdom because the same prophecy said so? I've never heard something more stupid in all my life! And I married your grandfather, bless his heart."

"Isn't Aslan some sort of angel?" I hesitantly asked. "I'd actually compare him to a Maia, or maybe one of the Valar from the Lord of the Rings?"

My grandmother looked at me from under her round glasses. "Michael, I never read those books, you know that. What even are those things?"

I sighed. "The Maiar are basically angels, the Valar are lower deities, I guess. Although they probably wouldn't like being called that very much…," I muttered under my breath.

"Bah, what does it matter? The fact that Aslan just does what he wants, damn the consequences on the children, is what's relevant here. I couldn't care less if he's an angel or God himself incarnated."

I chuckled nervously and finished my tea.

How was I supposed to tell my grandma that I was technically one of those angels now, anyway? Part time, at least. Or maybe just one-time, really. It's not like I had visited Middle-Earth again after my little crusade.

You know what? I'd just go and say it.

"Well, grandmother, the fact is that I have never been to Narnia, but I have been somewhere else."

The woman tapped her cane impatiently when I didn't say anything else. "Well? Spit it out, Michael! I haven't got all day!"

"IsortofwenttotheLordofTheRingsUniversewhileIwasasleepandIsomehowpossessedtheDarkLordandtookoverhisbodyandnowI'mhimbutnothim?"

Grandma stared at me blankly. "What?"

I took a deep breath and let it out. "I sort of went to the Lord of the Rings Universe while I was asleep and I somehow possessed the Dark Lord and took over his body and now I'm him, but not him? It's just that I see him, well me, whenever I look at my reflection, so I don't know if it's gonna stick or go away someday…or something."

The woman then sighed.

"I was afraid this would happen someday…"

"What would happen?" I quickly asked.

"Delusion," grandmother dryly stated, and went on under my incredulous gaze, "now, don't be scared, Michael. This has often appeared in our family. I wasn't expecting it to happen to someone so young, but-"

I sputtered. "Grandmother! I'm not delusional! I'm telling you, it really happened! And why are you accusing me of delusions? Shouldn't you be the one who is delusional, then? Telling me all that about finding Narnia and whatnot…"

"But I didn't go there in my dreams, Michael! I was awake! How can you be sure you didn't just dream the whole thing up?"

I was going to continue arguing with her – not that it would have been useful, because it was like talking to a brick wall – but then, I had an idea.

"You know what? If you can prove to me you were actually in Narnia, I'll try to prove to you I went to Middle-Earth. How's that?" I said.

Grandmother huffed. "Are you telling me we have to go all the way to England, now?"

I crossed my arms and leaned back on the armchair. "Take it or leave it. Besides, it's not like we'll have much to do around here anyway…"

"Speak for yourself," grandmother muttered, but she didn't say no.

"What about your parents, boy? Won't they realize you're missing?" She asked then, and I gave her a sharp grin.

"And how are they going to do that? I'm supposed to spend a whole week with you, right? And they won't even think to call me because there's no service here," I cackled in delight, "it's perfect!"

"Conniving brat," the old woman grumbled, "go get the car, then. We'll get the plane tickets at the airport. And get them first class! The other seats always hurt my back…"

"Now she remembers she has money," I mumbled under my breath while I left the room, hastily ducking the pillow grandmother suddenly threw at me. 

I couldn't wait to see the wardrobe.

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"So…," I drawled, looking up at the mansion in front of us. "It actually looks just like in the movie! Talk about weird. How would that even work?"

Grandmother ruffled through her bag, from which she got an old-looking key that she then inserted into the front door.

"Don't ask me. The only thing I know is that there was never a Professor Kirke living here, so I doubt the kids made it here either. The fact that the house looks just like the one from the story just happened to be a coincidence."

I frowned. "Wait, so does that mean we aren't in the same universe as in the story? But then why is there an identical house with a supposedly identical magical wardrobe here?"

"I just told you, Michael, I have no idea," grandmother grumbled, and I quickly followed her inside the house before she got any funny ideas, like leaving me outside with the bags.

Once the door was safely closed - behind me - I looked around in awed silence, noting the differences – or the lack thereof – of the mansion from the one in the movies.

It was exactly identical. It seemed as if the movie had actually been made in this house, not in a set.

A thought occurred to me then.

"Wait, how is it possible for the house to be standing, still? I thought it was supposed to be destroyed when Professor Kirke lost most of his wealth – at least that's what they said in the story…"

"Hmph. They were going to destroy it," the woman admitted, "but not because the former owner was broke. You do remember me telling you this house belonged to a friend of my father's, right?"

I nodded.

"Well, that friend decided to move out one day, didn't say anything about it, and he tried to sell the place, but for some reason nobody wanted to buy it. Must have been because it was so old…In any case, tearing it all down eventually became the only alternative he was able to find, and they would have if I hadn't stepped in."

"So you bought it?" I asked incredulously. "Why?"

"Why do you think? While I didn't stay for long in that forest, I never forgot about it," grandmother admitted, "I knew that what I had seen was real, something which would have shaken the world as we know to its foundations if it had ever been known, although nobody would believe me…until now."

She took her cane from the seat she had left it hanging from and started walking towards the stairs.

"Now, be a dear and help this poor, old woman to the second floor, Michael. I think it's time you see it with your own eyes."

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I could almost hear my heartbeat as we steadily went up, getting closer with each step to the room Lucy Pevensie had found, in another world, thanks to that fated game of hide-and-seek.

I was almost sweating when we finally reached the second floor.

Funnily enough, I tried opening the first door just to see if it was closed like in the movie. It was.

Curioser and Curioser.

The second room, though, was the one that truly interested me.

Grandmother opened the door and I quickly followed after her.

And there it was.

Looking as if Lucy had never found it at all, there was a big, wooden wardrobe covered by a wide sheet.

I was pretty sure I was gaping.

"Well? Are you going to get that off, Michael?" Grandmother interrupted my moment with her usual dry manner.

I pointed at myself. "Me? Are you sure?"

"You aren't expecting me to remove the sheet, are you, young man?"

Why did I even bother?

"Of course, grandmother," I said with a tiny bit of sarcasm, which hopefully flew over her head.

I grabbed the sheet and pulled.

I wondered if this was how Lucy felt when she uncovered the wardrobe hiding beneath the white linen.

The wardrobe sure looked imposing. And it gave off some sort of feeling, as if it wanted you to open it.

Freaking weird.

I swallowed and opened the door of the wardrobe. Nothing. Not a breeze, or a sound, or even a light.

There were only a bunch of old-looking coats that had a musty smell to them, although oddly enough, they didn't seem to be decomposing or anything. Huh.

Aside from that little tidbit, though, the wardrobe was just your average wardrobe.

Which, if grandmother was actually telling the truth and Narnia was real, made this suspicious as hell.

"Well?" Grandmother's voice brought me back from my musings. "Now that you've seen it, what do you think?"

"I haven't actually seen anything…this looks like your average, run-of-the-mill wardrobe," I remarked, "although it may be possible that the portal won't appear if I don't believe in it…or maybe it's because I'm too old?"

"If you are too old, I'm too old," grandmother chortled, "you're only 16, boy. Still a child if you ask me," she studiously ignored my pout at being called a child, "no, I think the problem is that I'm here. This whole thing only works on children, I've heard, or adults with childish hearts, and I'm not one of them anymore, even if I do still believe."

She leaned on her cane and walked towards the door again. "You should enter this room by yourself tonight, Michael. Only then, will you be able to find out the truth. Do tell me how it goes tomorrow, though, won't you?"

She left before I could say anything.

I took a last look at the wardrobe and got out of the room as well.

Tonight, huh?

Well, this would certainly prove interesting.

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My grandmother already in bed, I put on my mountain boots and walked towards my goal, fully clothed as if I were about to go out on a stroll.

The room where the wardrobe was looked almost ethereal because of the moonlight coming in from the large windows.

I stopped in front of it and simply took it in for a few seconds.

Do you believe, Michael?, I asked myself.

I remembered the dream from that day, my arrival in Middle-Earth, getting to meet people that I had only ever met through books and movies, becoming someone terrifying yet beautiful, who could have originally been so much more if only he hadn't given up…

Do you believe, Mairon?

I opened the door.

A blast of wind came through, and with it, the smell of spring and sounds of laughter.

I followed after it, passing by all the coats and other winter clothes hanging from their hangers, and after a moment that felt almost endless, I finally saw the light at the end of a tunnel through the thin branches of a tree that let the sunlight pour in.

I was in a forest. But somehow, I knew that this forest was not the same one grandmother had described.

I started walking towards the sounds of people I could still hear, feeling the wind blow against my long hair…wait. Long hair?

I caught a strand between my fingers and yelped.

It was red.

"Oh, hell no!" I exclaimed, looking at it again, as if expecting it to be some sort of illusion.

I gave it an experimental tug. "Ow!"

Alright. It was very much real. Which meant…

"I'm Mairon again. Holy shit. Holy shit."

I looked at my clothes which, fortunately for my sanity, hadn't been altered.

Then I rolled up my left sleeve and took in the fair complexion that certainly hadn't been there before.

And that wasn't the last of it.

My whole body freaking glowed. 

"I look like a fucking lantern," I grumbled, covering my skin again with the fabric. I hadn't checked my eyes yet, but I doubted they would be anything but golden, seeing as the rest of my body had changed accordingly.

"If anyone sees me like this they're gonna flip," I muttered, glaring at the golden hue my whole body seemed to emit as if I were some sort of giant, deformed firefly.

Between the glow, the hair, the skin, and the eyes, not to mention my divine looks, I was surprised no one had caught sight of me yet.

Then again, I was in a forest. Or at least at the entrance of one, as the sounds of people could reach me here.

"If I could only tone it down a little…," I grumbled, "maybe look a little less shiny…"

I hadn't even finished speaking that I started feeling my whole-body prickling, as if a swarm of insects had descended upon me.

I was going to scratch myself to relieve some of the worst tingling when it stopped as suddenly as it had appeared. 

On a whim, I took another look at my skin and gaped. It wasn't glowing anymore.

I quickly looked at my hair again only to sigh in disappointment.

Unfortunately, it was still that eye-catching shade of red.

Figures.

I just hoped that my eyes, if they were still golden, weren't at least glowing with inner fire or some shit like that.

Once I checked - again - that I wasn't in fact, glowing anymore, I started walking down the path that would hopefully lead me to the mysterious people I had heard before.

It didn't take long for me to figure out where I was.

And it definitely wasn't Narnia.

I looked down from the hill I was standing on and gazed at the green and maroon hues that made up Hobbiton.

Even from up here, I could still discern the unmistakable shape of Bag-End.

I was in Middle-Earth once more, and this time I was very much awake.

At the very least I'd be able to tell Grandmother the wardrobe still worked, just not in the way she was probably expecting it to…

I took a deep breath and began the trek down the hill. 

"Let's just hope I ended up in the right time. Otherwise, I'm in deep shit."

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It seemed as if not one of the Hobbits had ever set their eyes on a human before – not that I was a human right now, but they didn't know that, did they? – from the way they stared at me as I walked by them.

Was it the hair, the eyes, or my height?

I was pretty tall, even by elf standards; in fact, I distinctly remembered me, as Mairon (because as Sauron everyone was the David to my Goliath), being taller than Glorfindel, who was said to be 6'8'', so I must have been somewhere around 7 feet tall.

And that was without considering the height of other characters from the books.

Aragorn himself was supposed to be 6'6'', which was almost as tall as most elves, not to mention some other characters who were taller than 7 feet.

Heights in Middle-Earth could be fucking ridiculous.

I could understand why my height might make the Hobbits uncomfortable, though. I was a giant compared to them – then again, everyone was a giant compared to Hobbits.

I hastily sidestepped a group of running, giggling kids who were playing some variation of tag.

"Get back here, Hamfast Gamgee! Don't think you can escape us!" One of the children yelled at a young man that seemed to have joined in the game, laughing all the while.

Holy shit, that was Sam's father! He looked so young!

He seemed to be somewhere around 25 years old, actually, but considering Hobbits had longer lifespans than humans and therefore always looked younger than they actually were, he was probably older.

It was likely that the events of the Hobbit hadn't happened yet, then, and I didn't really know how to feel about that.

And there lied the problem; I had completely forgotten about the dragon. Smaug was still alive and kicking.

I had solved the problem of Sauron – hopefully, the bastard was gone forever – but there were still many factions that sided or would side with him, even if he was gone.

I hoped Elrond and the others were able to kill most of the remaining orcs, goblins, and whoever else still supported Sauron along the way – it had been 2900 years, give or take a few decades, so I hoped they had.

If not…I'd better learn how to fight with a sword, and fast.

If Bilbo still had to go on that stinking mission, I would follow him, but to do that I'd need to be able to fight, and do it well, otherwise my whole story about being Mairon wouldn't fly.

I pushed those thoughts from my mind once I reached Bag-End and I almost laughed in gleeful excitement. Seeing the real place instead of the one in the movie, watching the real thing, was so awesome that it almost made me cry.

I quickly knocked on the door in order to avoid any awkward waterworks. 

"Be there in a second!" A young voice called from the inside.

I was almost vibrating out of my body when the door finally opened and the unmistakable face of one Bilbo Baggins stared at me with open curiosity, which turned into a shocked double take once his mind actually registered how I looked.

I was so glad I wasn't glowing anymore.

If Bilbo had seen me as I was before, I'd be worried he'd faint or something.

"Well," Bilbo said, shifting slightly on his feet, "well," he repeated himself, as if words had completely failed him, although his Baggins side eventually won out and he gave into that peculiar politeness that only respectable Hobbits seemed to have, "Good morning. W-Who might you be, exactly?"

I wondered if I should introduce myself as Mairon but promptly discarded the thought.

I didn't think Bilbo had reached his 50th birthday yet – he didn't look it, at least, so once Gandalf inevitably came, bringing all his meddling ways with him, if he heard Bilbo calling me Mairon there would certainly be trouble and too much explaining to do that I would only do when it became absolutely necessary.

Also, I was lazy, and I had yet to make up a more believable story than just saying, oh hello, I'm the new Mairon! By the way, I possessed Sauron a while back, but now he's gone and I'm not, but don't worry, I'm good!

Yeah, that wasn't going to work at all. It may have before, but Elrond and the others were in shock and weren't exactly worried about being rational at the time.

Well, I'd just use my name, then. Or better yet…

"You may call me Kael," I said, smiling kindly at Bilbo, who suddenly blushed like a schoolgirl with a crush.

Oh, for the love of...

"Bilbo Baggins, at your service," he eventually stammered, and went on, "are you a traveler, mayhap? You look awfully young to be travelling alone around these parts…oh, but where are my manners! Please, do come in! I was about to serve breakfast when you arrived at my door. You must be awfully hungry…"

His initial, flustered response to my greeting seemed to disappear completely in favor of the hospitality I knew he so valued, for which I was glad.

He was probably just shocked at my appearance. Just like with the elves, the Maiar were said to be fair and beautiful beings, and I was one now, although I doubted this was Mairon's true form – shouldn't I have been taller then?

Maybe this was a form I took as some sort of new being, similar to the Istari, who took the form of old men but were in reality Maiar, only I had Mairon's original body and face, but they were toned down like 75%.

Did that mean his – my - powers would also be 75% weaker?

Well, if that was true, I was certainly curious about how fast I could really go, seeing as I had carried Elrond out of Mount Doom while running so fast that I would have called bullshit if I had been any faster.

Back to the point at hand, though…

"Are you quite sure?" I asked him, "I would not want to impose…I have to admit that I do not have any money at the moment…," Because I certainly planned to have some in the near future, seeing as it looked like I'd be staying here for a while.

"Oh, fear not, dear lad, fear not! Why, I would not be a very good Baggins if I refused you just because of a trivial matter such as money! No, here, in Bag-End, any traveler is welcome to stay for as long as they need to find their footing! Now, come in and watch your step! I will have some food prepared for you in a jiffy!"

I blinked at the quickly retreating figure of Bilbo, who was certainly going to make one of his delicious breakfasts, and I couldn't help but chuckle.

Let it not be said that Bilbo wasn't a welcoming and kind being.

Thorin was truly right when he said that if people valued home above gold like Bilbo did, the world would be a merrier place.

And Bilbo's home was certainly merry.

Even though he lived alone, Bag-End gave a homey, warm feeling that made you want to stay there forever.

I softly closed the little door behind me and watched my head.

I didn't fancy smashing it against the wooden ceiling or the chandelier. That was Gandalf's job.

And as I watched Bilbo prepare breakfast, I was so glad that I ended up in Middle-Earth again and not Narnia.

Although Narnia would have also been awesome to visit.

Oh, well. Maybe another time.

Right now, a bunch of delicious food, and delightful company, awaited me, and I couldn't be happier.