Tolkien has some explaining to do. (Closed to Valk)

They started trekking, and soon after a tall old man appeared in the middle of the path. And by this description the narrator does not mean the man walked out of the shadow of a tree or something. The narrator would like to stress that the man simply materialized in the middle of the path. No flashly noises, sparkles or anything of the sort. He wasn't there one moment, and then he was.

He was a tall man with a long white beard. He wore blue robes decorated with mystic runes, and his hat (and what a hat it was! Pointy and easily as tall as the man's head itself) followed the same theme. He wore tinted glasses, making it impossible to see what color or shape his eyes were. Despite all this, he wore a kindly expression, perhaps that of a nice, but a bit eccentric, grandfather.

"Hello." the man said, in a slight British and Celtic accent. It was a strange mix of the two. "Have a seat." A table with three chairs appeared next to them in the same manner the man himself did.

"You just teleported and then created some furniture out of nothing." Sachin said, his voice emotionless as though his brain hadn't fully understood the concept.

The man laughed. It was a hearty laugh, and though most hearty laughs are when people are trying to fake cheeriness for children, this one seemed genuine. "Well, you see, I'm a wizard." the man said. And waited for their reaction.

After the initial shock, Nina was overwhelmed with frustration. Things were out of her control, and she hated that more than most anything. She folded her arms and cocked a hip, giving the strange man a very serious glare. ''Hold the phone.'' she bit out, flipping her hair to accent her frustration. ''You expect us to just join you for a sit-down here in the middle of a snowy forest after just showing up from nowhere?''

With a roll of her eyes and a sneer, she turned sharply on her heel and faced the other direction, looking at nothing in particular. ''Yeah, I'll do that. Right after I give a complete stranger my social security number.''

The wizard sighed, and a wall materialized right in front of Nina. "I'm quite afraid that I can't let you go yet." Nina would then be floated over to the table and seated, and would find herself unable to get up. The wizard raised an eyebrow at Sachin, who gave a shrug and sat down. The wizard sat down as well. (Blatant godmodding to advance plot.)

"I'm sorry about that." he told Nina. "I know you must be furious, but I had to do that for your own safety. It's not safe out there, and if you stray away right now, I expect you to live less than an hour, and if you survive longer, you'd undoubtedly be pleading for death. You're not on Earth anymore. Where you are right now is a place where you are in danger every second, and if you don't hear me out..." he gave a grim chuckle. "The Lords and Ladies will get to you."

At this point, Sachin was listening to everything with interest. "Alright, what the hell do you have to say?" he asked the wizard. The wizard adjusted his hat. "Will you hear me out, like your friend will?" he asked Nina.

Nina frowned and grumbled as she was levitated into a chair. She hated being told what to do, and she showed her displeasure by spitting off to the side, barely listening to what the stranger was saying. She cast Sachin a dirty look, judging him for being so obedient.

'' 'Lords and Ladies' ...pft, bite me.'' she mumbled, looking up at the stranger with a raised eyebrow. ''I'll listen, old man, but nothing is out there but snow and a bunch of scared people from a fast food place.'' Her arm flung out in an angered gesture, sweeping around to show off the empty landscape.

''There is nothing else out there!'' she stressed, ''No lords, no ladies, no bogeymen, no monsters in the closet.'' To stress her displeasure, she folded her legs and leaned back, gazing up at the sky. ''But if you're so scared, I'll hear you out. Valkyrie can squash your little problem like a bug.'' She poked herself in the chest. ''Just point me in the right direction, old man.''

The wizard raised an eyebrow.

Then they were in a busy town square. Sachin jolted, stunned. "How the hell?" he asked, as a man walked through them. Literally walked through them, as though the table and the people on it were ghosts. He looked around. It seemed like a busy marketplace, but odd...Nobody was speaking. Everyone seemed scared, and once in a while he'd see glances toward the east. Nobody was able to see them either.

"Would you like to hear me out?" the wizard asked Nina politely.

Bump.

Bump.