That Which They Defend: Prologue

[caitri]

PROLOGUE: BEYOND THE DAYS OF MORTAL LANDS




Beneath the Moon and under star
he wandered far from northern strands,
bewildered on enchanted ways
beyond the days of mortal lands.
--Song of Eärendil, “Many Meetings,” The Fellowship of the Ring


Jim Kirk has seen some weird shit in his life, but this really does take the cake. He must’ve said this out loud, because the guy sitting at the fire with him answers.

“I miss cake,” says the Hobbit. That’s what he said he was when Jim asked. “When we get back to the Shire, we’ll all have a real tea, with cakes, and clotted cream.”

“Hush, Merry,” says the other one, Pippin. (Jim remembers his name because he sounds like a Dickens character, and Jim was always fond of Dickens.) He turns to Jim. “So people from the sky have cakes then, do they?” he asks. “Do they have pie, too?”

“Shut it, Pip,” said Merry, flashing the other Hobbit an irritated look. They dissolve into bickering, and Jim chuckles at the nonsensicality of it all.


Three days earlier

The planet is M-class, beautiful, and uninhabited but for one, tantalizing humanoid lifesign.

“It registers as Human, Captain,” Spock reported from his station.

“Human? All the way out here? That can’t be, Spock!” Bones glared at the Science Officer as if the Vulcan’s statement were a personal affront.

Spock swiveled in his chair to face the Doctor, who was standing by Jim’s command chair in his accustomed place. “All the same, Doctor,” he said in a tone that only the senior bridge crew could identify as snarky, “there it is.”

Jim grinned at his friends. “Sounds like we have a mystery, gentlemen,” he said. “Let’s check it out.”

The three of them beamed down to the planet’s surface with two security officers, Matthews and Davison. They materialized in a fantastical garden, with elaborate stone statues of beasts and humanoids who looked very much like Human men of Earth’s past.

“If I didn’t know better,” Davison said, peering at the sculptures with interest, “I’d say that these depicted Vikings in action. But look—their armaments are Mongolian in style, and these elaborate patterns are distinctly Celtic. It’s a mix—bizarre!”

“You a historian, son?” Bones asked the younger man. Davison flushed anxiously, but Bones smiled at him, working his Southern charm. “You sound awful knowledgable about the subject.”

Jim smiled to himself; Bones was a gruff man, and a terror unless you knew him well. What’s more, he knew that, and despite appearances took care to not frighten people too badly.

Most of the time.

“It’s a, uh, hobby, sir,” Davison said hesitantly. When Bones didn’t bite his head off, he continued, more sure of himself now. “I’ve never seen anything like this, though, Doctor. The mix of Terran historical cultures—and all the way out here?”

“Doesn’t make sense,” Matthews contributed. Davison nodded.

“Fascinating,” said Spock, eyes glued to his tricorder. “These constructions appear to have been built some hundreds of millenia ago.”

“That old, Spock?” Bones said dubiously. “They’re in good shape, if so.”

“Hello?” Jim called out inquiringly. Facing them was a tall temple structure, with five giant statues of men in robes with long beards facing in different outward directions.

“Come inside!” answered the voice of an older man. “I’m making tea!”

“Tea?” Jim asked curiously. He turned to Bones with a cheeky grin. “How’s that for hospitality all the way out here?”

Bones stared at him. “Jim?”

Jim nodded in the direction of the temple. “The guy up there is making tea…” His speech slowed as the four men with him looked increasingly quizzical. “Didn’t you hear him?”

Spock shook his head. “No, Captain,” he said. Bones was pulling his tricorder out now, as well, the two of them scanning the area curiously.

“Up ahead,” Bones said, nodding at the curious edifice with its oddly familiar yet exotic architecture. Jim felt a niggling in the back of his mind, as if something was calling to him—like an old song, half remembered. He frowned to himself, trying to put the pieces of this puzzle together—but something was missing.

They mounted the few steps into the construction proper—it was a beautiful building, almost like an old Earth stone cathedral that was open to the air.

“Welcome, my friends!” said an old man clad in long brown robes and a matching brown hat. “I have been waiting for you for some time,” he continued.

“How did you know we were coming?” Jim asked, frowning.

“Jim, who are you talking to?” Bones stared at him in concern, and ran his tricorder over him. “Your vital signs are all reading as normal—“

“I knew you would come because you came—before,” said the man in brown robes at the same time. “I am called Radagast. The Brown,” he added as if that meant something.

“—but your brain waves are spiking,” Bones continued, oblivious. He glared at Jim as if this was his fault. “I don’t understand—“

Jim was only half-listening to his friend and medical officer. “Am I the only one who can see you?” he asked Radagast.

“Just so,” Radagast said. He nodded cheerfully. “You’re catching on quickly. You’re an impressive young man, Captain Kirk.”

“Thanks,” Jim said sarcastically. The odd feeling in the back of his mind was growing, becoming more like a physical headache—a migraine even. He closed his eyes, swallowing heavily. “What’s happening to me?”

“Captain, what do you see?” Spock asked, looking around curiously. The two security officers looked about them curiously as well, hands on the phasers still at their belts.

Jim opened his eyes again, looking at the man in brown. The figure before him seemed almost to waver, but maybe that was a trick of the light… “I see a man in brown,” he answered his First Officer slowly. “He says his name is Radagast.”

“All the same,” Radagast said, ignoring the other officers, “we must be on our way now.”

“Fascinating,” said Spock.

“Jim, something is happening—“ Bones started.

“Off we go!” said Radagast, and they were abruptly—

--Elsewhere.

~

The shift was instantaneous: there was no dazzle of a transporter beam, no bright light, no sensory shift to indicate they’d left—except, of course, all the evidence.

The temple was much the same, but the air was colder. It was night, and there were torches burning around them.

Jim felt sick; he felt an acute pain all over. He also found himself covered in sweat, as if in fever. “What—what did you do to me?” he stuttered through a coughing fit. He swallowed heavily; the urge to vomit was overwhelming.

“Look here, there isn’t much time,” Radagast said hurriedly. All his good humor from earlier had evaporated; he was deadly serious now. “I must get you to Gandalf. You are suffering from the magic, I think.”

“Magic?” Jim echoed. “Gandalf? What?” But then his stomach was upheaving, and he lost the contents of his stomach followed shortly by his consciousness.

~

What followed after that was something like a dream. A really weird, painful fever dream.

Where’s Bones when I need him? he thought with crystal clarity at some point. I will never complain about hypos again, never…

His experience was sharded, words and images falling around him like pieces of glass over bared nerves:

A tall, old man, like a Skinny Santa. “You gotta long beard, you know that, right?” Jim heard himself ask as if from a great distance.

Radagast, speaking quickly, something about beasts and birds and apologies for Curumo. “He will help us, Olòrin,” and “Gandalf, I swear I knew nothing of Saruman,” and “Please. Trust me.”

Radagast leaving, and the old man looking at him with something like pity.

“I know not how he brought you to Middle Earth,” the man in the white robes who was called Olòrin and Gandalf said.

Jim has lived most of his life on Earth. This ain’t it. He wanted to say as much, but found himself unable to do so. Instead he just stood there, barely, while an odd assortment of individuals stared at him curiously.

“The stranger looks not like one of Saruman’s creatures,” a dark-haired man said. He spoke with the natural confidence of a leader, though his clothes were worn and his face was haggard. “But if the work of the Maiar has made him ill—“

“He looks like none of Man I have seen, but he will live,” a man with long blonde hair and pointed ears said. He seemed solemn as a Vulcan, and then unexpectedly smiled as he turned to his compatriot, a very short stout fellow with a huge beard. “If he were to join our number, he may enliven our counting game considerably.”

“We’ll see aboot that,” said his his friend doubtfully, “ye damned blathering Elf.” He spoke with an accent remarkably reminiscent of Scotty’s.

“Hold, friends,” Skinny Santa said. He touched Jim’s forehead gently, then. Jim felt something brushing within his mind, not unlike a mindmeld. It only lasted a few minutes, and then he lost consciousness.

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Comments

[firstlaw.livejournal.com]

OMG! This sounds sooooo gooooodddddd! I've been very careful in reading this particular crossover nut this sounds really really promising!