Chapter Text
Chapter 1
The cushioning beneath her feet felt soft and coarse at the same time. Slowly she circled the rough surface, steadying her feet at every step she took. Her adversary eyed her, sweat on his forehead. She felt sweaty herself, as dark strands of hair clung to her face where the moisture had collected. The rest of her hair was tied tightly at the back of her head, the tied curls dancing on her back, only just short of reaching her backside.
She kept a close eye on the person in front of her, who looked like he was just about ready to jump. His predatorial movements betrayed him. She was one step ahead of him, only he didn’t know it yet. She was ready for him, even though he outranked her in size and strength. She could take him, a look of determination on her face.
Then almost without warning, her assailant lunged forward, his hands in front of him, ready to take her in an overpowering grip. He managed to put one hand on her shoulder, the other on her wrist, but she was too quick and she had already seen his plans of attack in the way he moved.
Within seconds she threw him to the rough surface beneath her feet. She managed to flip him over and pulled his arm back, while her foot pressed down on him between his shoulder blades, effectively pushing his torso down, his face barely touching the surface below. He had no more moves left except the wiggling of his legs, which were not able to free him from his trapped position.
“Do you yield?” the woman asked.
“Yeees… ow, ow, ow…” the assailant now screamed.
She let go of his arm and removed the foot from between his shoulder blades.
She took a few steps back to look at her attacker, resting her hands on her sides.
Slowly the overpowered adversary got up, rubbing his shoulder to comfort the sore feeling in the joint.
“Jesus, Maya, you could have taken things easy on me a bit,” he shot at her.
“What… and let you beat me?” Maya asked mockingly.
“C’mon Ray, your whole stance betrayed you,” she was now laughing.
“It’s not funny. No matter how subtle I am, you always manage to notice the slightest movement I make, knowing exactly what I’m going to do next,” Ray sighed.
“Your powers of observation are so astute, I don’t know of anyone who could ever beat you, not unless you were blind,” he admitted.
“Well, I learned… I had to… since…” she stopped talking.
Ray knew exactly what she meant, but didn’t go into it.
“C’mon, I will buy you lunch,” he said to her, clearly attempting to change the subject.
Maya just smiled and nodded, as they both made their way to the locker rooms to get changed.
Within fifteen minutes she met up with Ray, who now sported a black suit with tie, while she herself wore a dark blue suit, the white button shirt underneath open at the neck. She had clipped the FBI-badge to her lapel, clearly indicating that she belonged.
Slowly they both strolled to the Quantico Training facility’s lunch area for a well-deserved break.
***
Maya was prodding around her salad with a fork, waiting for Ray to return to their table with a coffee refill.
Maria Pedersen was a good-natured young woman, who had made a name for herself within the FBI. She had an impeccable track record of solving cases. Not only was she intelligent, but she was known for taking on adversaries, not by tackling them with the assistance of fire arms, which she also excelled in, but by facing them in hand-to-hand combat. Her melee-skills were more than commendable, as she always indicated she preferred taking criminals down without using any weapons. She didn’t like killing, but would if she had to. Others at Quantico were always eager to challenge her, to see if perhaps they had learned enough to take her down for a chance. No one had been successful so far. She had an incredible sense of observation and it allowed her to predict adversaries’ movements even before they had thought of them themselves.
Several years prior, she had been an unfortunate victim of a sexual offence. Her attacker, Adam, had been someone she was somewhat dating at the time, but had turned from charmer to asshole overnight. To make matters worse, he pulled the necessary strings to make things awfully difficult for her in court afterwards. He was only reprimanded, and started harassing her. She had decided to take up self-defence lessons and martial arts. She had initially started with Krav Maga, but as she developed her skills, she had decided to immerse herself in Aikido. She had in fact shown to be quite talented in both, but her Aikido-skills proved to be unparalleled.
After another moment of harassment, she had decided she had enough and had put her acquired skills to good use. She had in fact managed to put the Adam’s sorry ass in the hospital. He never bothered her again, but she was damaged goods from that moment onwards. He had violated her, physically and mentally and she would never be the same because of it.
Only a few in the FBI knew of her history. Ray Davison was one of them. Ray had always been a dear friend. If it were up to him, they would be more, but she had never regarded Ray as such. Or at least not enough for her to be persuaded to become intimate since her horrific past. She was happy on her own. She never had an eye for male suitors anyway, even though her outward appearance got her quite some attention. Her long dark hair, her sparkling grey eyes and delicate features were definitely ones to be admired, but she wouldn’t let anyone near. She was fine with that notion.
“Hey Maya, penny for your thoughts,” Ray piped as he again approached the table she was sitting at.
Maria was never addressed to as Maria by anyone. She was Maya and she had always been called that, by her father and her friends, even by herself. She liked it. The name Maria always sounded so formal in her opinion. Besides, her father, originally Danish, had a habit of swallowing consonants, which was not uncommon in the Danish language. Maria had quickly turned into Maya when she was still very young. As for her mother? She had left Maya and her father when she was only two years old. It had made her bond with her father a special one.
His death broke her heart, but he would always be close. Not only in her memories, but in her heart. And as a reminder, she wore his old Viking-ring on the thumb of her left hand. The band of intricate Viking knots was simply too big for her to wear on any of her other fingers. She didn’t mind, and even if she had minded, she would have worn it regardless.
“Are you okay, Maya?” Ray wondered, genuinely concerned for his friend, as he reached over to hold her fingers.
She quickly withdrew her hand, which left Ray looking down at the table in disappointment.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” she didn’t finish her sentence and rested her hand on his wrist instead.
She didn’t mean to hurt his feelings, but she found physical touch, other than melee-fighting, something difficult to handle. And while Ray knew this and how it had come about, his heart broke a little, every time she was startled at his touch.
“So what are you doing this weekend?” he asked light-heartedly, desperate to make her thoughts dwell on something else.
Maya sighed.
“I’m flying back to Seattle tonight and then tomorrow and on Sunday I’m hoping to maybe do some hiking through the woods,” she said, all smiles.
Maya had always been fond of walking and hiking and Washington’s nature allowed for plenty of it.
“Care for some company?” Ray tried carefully.
Maya went quiet.
“It will have been two years ago tomorrow,” she explained without using too many words.
“I think I would like to be alone, you know, clear my head,” she continued.
Ray nodded, understanding all too well that she wasn’t done dealing with her past.
***
Maya was driving east bound. She had decided to spend the night in one of the remote cabins, just to get away from things. No wi-fi, no mobile phone signal. Just the trees around her, a fire place, a good book and a bottle of red wine. She would completely disconnect herself from civilisation. She was looking forward to it.
The Washington landscape looked beautiful this time of year. The red and orange glow that adorned the tree tops were quite the spectacle. She enjoyed it tremendously. The low sun was glaring in her face. Maya was wearing sunglasses, but was squinting regardless. The sun was simply too bright. Because of the glare, she didn’t realise a car had been behind her for a while. She didn’t think much of it first, but as she looked closer in her rear-view mirror, her heart stopped. She recognised Adam. Her breathing accelerated and her thoughts ran wild as she had no idea how to outrun him.
She figured she would stop at a busy diner or something and then turn to make her way back to the city. The sun was slowly disappearing and the glare that obscured her initial vision of the car behind her had faded. It wasn’t quite dark, but the sun that hid behind the tall trees, instantly made her surroundings darker than she would like.
All of a sudden the car behind her started to accelerate and within moments, was almost upon her. The vehicle however did not overtake her and it worried her. The next thing she knew, she felt herself lose control over her own car, as it was being pushed into a swirling motion. The car pushing her however, lost control as well and before she realised it, both cars crashed through the barrier on the side of the road, both toppling over, somersaulting until both coming to a halt at the bottom of the slope below the road.
Seconds passed as Maya managed to collect her thoughts. She was dizzy. She felt warmth running down her face and found blood dripping from the side of her cheek onto the Quantico-sweater she was wearing. As she looked up slowly, she noticed Adam’s car, upside-down at a stone’s throw distance. There was no movement.
In a daze, Maya managed to remove herself from her car. She pulled her duffel bag from the passenger seat and in an utter confused state started walking away from her car, in the opposite direction of where the road was. She was able to create some distance between her and the car, before her legs gave way beneath her and she slumped against the mossy surface below, her duffel bag beside her. Everything had gone dark.
***
Maya didn’t remember much of how she landed herself in a world that was not her own. At first she had genuinely thought she had lost her marbles, but as time passed, the more she realised that, even though she had no idea where she was, this was not her home, nor her country and certainly not her world, she was stuck there. So there she was.
Men, elves, dwarfs and orcs were her fellow inhabitants of this new world. At first, she was in total shock, but as years passed, she no longer thought much of it. She had learned that this was in fact her new home and in time she would come to pass like the men and dwarfs she knew well. The elves however were destined to live forever. She had never met a more interesting people. Everyone looked like they were in their mid-thirties. Yet there she was, a member of the Woodland Realm, a woman in mere servitude of a noble people, the Woodland elves.
Maya never complained. She kept mostly to herself. She worked hard and kept her head down. She had no desire to stand out and risk being banished from King Thranduil’s realm. She understood that the dangers outside the borders of the land, were ones she could not face, not on her own. Instead she felt safe within the walls of the palace.
After her car accident, the elves had found her, as she had somehow been whisked away from the Washington forest. She had been severely injured, yet the elves had managed to patch her up within days. She had never seen anything like it, though she was forever grateful. In return, she had offered her service to repay their kindness, as she had little else to offer in this strange world. The elves had accepted her offer, more out of obligation than anything, but they soon found that she had in fact talent for a number of things. They were happy to give her a home in return for her contribution to tending to the palace needs.
And so time passed. She barely remembered what her own world had looked like. In order to remind herself, she often went through the content of the duffel bag. The only item that seemed to have made its way to her new home, while everything else around her had evidently disappeared. At first she had cried, every night when it was time to lay her head to rest. Now she only cried when she looked at her father’s picture that she had still kept in her wallet.
Five years had passed while she had lived in Middle-Earth. Sixty-four moons as the elves counted. She had been twenty-eight when she was pulled from her home, yet she looked like she hadn’t aged at all. She regularly observed herself in the mirror, but she found no additional lines in her face, gravity was still kind and her hair was showing no signs of growing older. She didn’t understand.
Elvish life was good to her. She worked hard and all seemed to have taken a liking to her. Everyone knew of the outlander that had crashed into the Woodland Realm, but all had accepted her as a contributing member in the palace. Everyone had been so kind to her, that she truly felt blessed. She had even formed friendships of sorts, but she mostly did things by herself, much to the annoyance of some elves. She often ventured to just outside the palace walls, where dangers did lurk. And even though she looked for the safety inside the palace, at times she felt trapped and padded into the woods by herself, taking with her nothing else but what looked like a walking stick.
King Thranduil had heard of the outlander in his palace, though he generally paid no attention to her. This by no means meant she hadn’t caught his eye. He knew of her and in a way he seemed intrigued. She did not look elvish, what with her curvy build. Elvish women were typically slender, elegant and gracious, yet this outlander was beautifully curvy, moved light-footedly with agility, had shown strength and certainly had no fear of standing up for herself. While he never gave her much attention, he observed her from time to time, mildly interested in what this odd creature did and who she really was. She stood out from his people. She could certainly be considered a beauty, even among elves, none could deny it, but there was more to her.
The less Thranduil saw of Maya, the more fascinated he became, though he could not fathom as to why he would feel this way. Their paths had never formally crossed in all the time she had lived among his people. After all, he did not know every elf in his kingdom personally. Maya was no exception, but he knew of her and she was always lurking in the back of his head, until there were days at a stretch he gave her no thought at all.
Maya too had noticed King Thranduil, but he was as far away from her as was her own world. The physical distance between them was perhaps little, but as far as hierarchy went, they couldn’t be further apart. A pity she thought, because he was one beautiful elf to behold. She often observed his long beautiful silver blond hair and strong profile, not to mention his impressive height. And whenever he turned his face in her direction, she could drown herself in the most beautiful silver blue eyes, like they were beckoning her.
Even among those who were in service of higher ranking elves, often spoke of King Thranduil and what a fine specimen he truly was. Gossip spread among the female elves. Talk of what Thranduil looked like under his tunic and of his performance in the bedroom. While the ladies giggled, Maya just rolled her eyes. She felt like she was back in high school all over again. She was too down-to-earth for that. Or was she?
She had no desire to discuss Thranduil with others. She just wanted to live out her life and make it count as much as she was able to in a land that was foreign to her. Besides, Thranduil’s general demeanour was cold, arrogant and at times harsh, when she heard him bellowing orders at his kin from his elevated throne in the vast halls of the palace. She had no immediate love for Thranduil. His son on the other hand was a different story. He was pleasant, kind and easy-going. Her path had crossed Legolas’ once. Legolas indicated how pleased he was to meet her, as he had heard much about her. She had blushed at his kindness, but the encounter was brief and she had not spoken to him since. She was after all only his subject.
***