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Phantom of the Opera and Pirates of the Caribbean are my only real fandoms at the moment. I love Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and Star Wars, but refuse to read fanfiction for those continua because I don't want to see them desecrated. There's also a handful of things I'm fond of, but I'm not really in any of the fandoms, if that makes sense.

Thanks for the notebook! *goes off to set basilisk on unsuspecting Mary Sues*

Thanks! I'm sure I will!

That was excellent. Poor Jenni.

If Jack ever remembers, he is so looking her up in the future. :P

... since I saw someone go *wibble*.

This was fun. ^_^

hS

As I hit "Post," I noticed the radio was playing that one sad, slow funeral processional. {X D

~Neshomeh

Surprisingly, getting into the department without being seen had been easy. Jenni had her suspicions about this, but seeing as it had been too late to back out gracefully from the word go, she surrendered to the moment. Why not? It wasn't like this was some sort of premeditated, lust-fueled plot to get into his pants. It was an accident. A happy, raunchy accident between two happy, raunchy people. No harm, no foul, right? And Jack was the British image of a cocky, handsome American fly-boy. He was fun.

Of course, the Powers That Be couldn't simply let them get away with it. Oh, no. Upon exiting Room B-9, slightly disheveled and grinning, they ran smack into Head Nurse Suzine.

Suzine narrowed her eyes in immediate suspicion. "Nurse Robinson...?"

"Uh-oh," said Jack. "Are we in trouble?"

Face frozen in its rictus, Jenni latched onto Jack's arm. "I found him!"

"What?" said Suzine.

"What?" laughed Jack.

"Jack, you naughty boy," Jenni said, shaking a finger at him. "You can't go wandering off like that! Come on, back to your room!"

"Um..." said Jack.

Suzine crossed her arms and didn't budge. "You... found him."

"Yes."

"In Section B."

"Yes."

"Wearing a cocktail dress."

"Totally random happenstance," said Jenni, wishing she'd gone with fewer sequins.

"Hey, I'm starting to feel a little sidelined here," said Jack.

Jenni made what she hoped came off as an apologetic grimace and not obvious guilt to both her date and her boss.

Suzine's skepticism was etched on her face like a stone carving. "Riiight. Captain Harkness, why don't you come along with me? I think there's an immediate release form with your name on it."

She made a curt gesture. Jenni let go of Jack's arm, and he, having the sense not to piss off someone who could get away with wearing those heels with that skirt, shrugged and went along.

"Nurse Robinson, I'll see you in the Kudzu's office in fifteen minutes," said the Head Nurse before turning away.

Jack looked over his shoulder, raised a hand with the thumb and pinky spread apart, and mouthed "Call me!"

Jenni waved. Once they'd rounded the corner, she slumped off to Section C and her impending doom.

About twenty minutes later, she stood in front of the Kudzu Vine with Suzine glaring at her from the side.

And you say this was a case of mistaken identity? said the Flower.

"Yes, Ma'am."

Why did you not say so and excuse yourself in the first place?

"Embarrassment and stupidity, Ma'am."

I see. And why did you not simply tell Nurse Suzine the truth right away?

"Panic, Ma'am."

The Kudzu rustled its many leaves, giving the impression of a disappointed sigh. I thought you were more mature than that, Nurse Robinson.

Suzine gave a cough that sounded suspiciously like "Yeah right."

Jenni pressed her lips together, but held her tongue.

Dear oh dear. What are we to do with you? Clearly No-Drool Videos will not be an effective remedy. Unless... If it were possible for a vine to smirk, the Kudzu was doing it. Perhaps, with your clear expertise in this area, you might be able to suggest some... improvements to the regimen?

Jenni winced. Ellipsis improvements. Dear oh dear indeed. "You want me to come up with something so awful it will put off the likes of myself? That... seems pretty cruel. To everyone else."

Oh, don't think of it like that. Consider it a public service. A small contribution on your behalf for the sake of a PPC free of wanton lusting. We will have to mount a plaque on the wall to honor your dedication. Won't that be nice?

Jenni went *wibble*.

Then that settles it. You're dismissed. I know you'll want to get to work right away.

"I hope it was worth it," said Suzine, who at least seemed somewhat taken aback herself.

Jenni muttered something incoherent and went to write her last will and testament.

---

Disclaimer: I don't know Jack's character especially well. I hope I managed not to throw him OOC in just a few lines of dialogue. ^_^;

~Neshomeh

...via bad translation.

This is turning out to be one of the most interesting dates I've had in a while!

... And that's how I got written up for egregious fraternizing with canon characters! Wanna get a jump on the No-Drool Videos with me? They're actually kind of fascinating. ^_^

I certainly hope it's a tradition. Though I assume part of the tradition is that a given writer can't do it more than once. (Otherwise, you understand, I will probably write a dozen more.)

Is it a human thing? I think it's probably a combination of two (well, three) things:

1/ A Human Thing. We've got a culture which places immense value on romantic relationships, to the point where people who aren't in one get asked why. They're seen as the end-state for your closest friendship, so when your writing consists of your characters getting to know each other, there's a tendency to slide that way.

2/ which actually probably comes first: writers in relationships teeeeend to have difficulty keeping their characters from falling into them as well. There've been a lot of couples in the PPC over the years, and some of them - Kaitlyn and I included - have written fairly prominent agents. It's not hard to imagine newer PPCers seeing at something that Should happen to their agents.

3/ which I think applies exclusively to me: some people just like making up family trees. ^_^

hS

Welcome to the board, hope you enjoy yourself here.

Have a self-inking quill, it saves a lot of time.

etc etc

(Which is actually evidence that 'coming of age' has nothing to do with drinking age - Pippin was only 28 or so during the Quest, and yet drank quite happily. Best guess, knowing Hobbits, is that it's the age you're allowed to sign contracts.)

If it helps, I always forget I'm younger than you, too. ^_~

hS

Am I shorter now? Am I losing body parts like Vader? Has my hair dramatically receded? Am I a Mintakan and have just changed sex? Are we gambling with body parts? Am I only allowed to speak in Iambic Tetrameter now? Is it New Year and I've lost my 'walking in with a lump of coal' privileges?

What's going oooooooon?

hS

(It's like the Age of the Dinosaurs: "Never before... has life on Earth... been this pretty.")

What you've got there is a pretty good estimate of Agent Dafydd's age: he lived through all of that stuff as Maglor. His age is actually going to be crucial to figuring out Agent Huinesoron's, so let's go over this piece by piece.

1/ How old were the Feanorian boys when the Trees died? Tolkien Gateway handily has a timeline of the Ages of the Trees, which tells us that Feanor was born in the adjusted Year of the Sun 11,201, and made the Silmarils in 13,894. Somewhere in that ~2600 years, his kids were born - but when?

There's several approaches to take here, but I'm going to take the simplest: Maedhros and Fingon were friends, which suggests they're about the same age. The timeline has Fingon's siblings born in 12,457 and 13,051, which suggests Fingon might have been born around 12,000.

That actually seems a bit early: Finarfin hadn't even gotten married at that point, and Finrod acts like a contemporary of at least the middle Feanorions. So perhaps we should assume Aredhel was a late birth, and take the spacing of Finarfin's children, who were all born in that same period. Dividing that up gives us ~150 years between children, placing Fingon and Maedhros in 12,300 (just after Finarfin's wedding), and Maglor in 12,450.

The Sun and Moon rose in 14,373, so your estimate of 2000 years in Valinor is spot on for Maglor.

2/ How long is there between the end of the Third Age and the present day? Tolkien estimated 6000 years (I wonder which Archbishop of Armagh he got that from... ^_~) so let's just accept that. That puts Dafydd's age at 15,000 years, but a different Third-Age-to-Now number would change that.

3/ Why do I keep going on about Dafydd? Because of the interesting fact that Agent Huinesoron had a friend who was friends with Maglor. That means they're about the same age; hS is probably a little younger, let's call it 1800 years before the Sun rose.

4/ What happened next? For 455 years, hS lived in the cities of Finrod Felagund. And then... he died. Yes, there's a story to that; it's in an upcoming mission.

(Running age: 1800+455 = 2255 years.)

How long did he stay dead? We know that Finrod was released from Mandos before the end of the First Age, and Glorfindel by the middle of the Second, but they were very special cases. There's no indication that anyone else got out by the end of the Third Age - which is when the last of the renegade Noldor returned, which would be a good time to reconsider things. So let's guess at ~100 of the Fourth Age for hS's release.

We don't count time while dead in his age (... obviously?), so he picks up at 2255. He pokes around in Valinor for a bit, indulging his interest in geology and archaeology - but those disciplines are kind of pointless when you can just ask the people who lived there - and the Power who made the rocks in the first place. How long could you handle that - 200 years maybe?

And then he steals a boat and leaves.

(That's not quite as bad as it sounds - hS is half-Teleri, so he had a hand in building said boat. In fact, let's add 50 years for that 'interest' to get him far enough for his plan to work.)

At age 2500, Huinesoron returns to Middle-earth. If we take Tolkien's figures, it's now ~3600 BC. Stonehenge has not yet been built, horses are on the verge of domestication in Russia, and what was once Middle-earth is about to enter the Bronze Age. It's about 400 years to the time of the Pharoahs.

Alternately, it's less than 130 years since the death of Eldarion of the Reunited Kingdom. Unless the New Shadow affair ended with the complete destruction of Numenorean civilisation, Minas Tirith should still be thriving. A quick speculation: maybe Gondor gets hit by a cataclysm around 350 years from now, wiping it from the map, and the survivors flee to northern Harad to become the First Dynasty of Egypt?

Anyway, that doesn't matter, for one simple reason: Huinesoron still uses Quenya as his preferred language. That's the act of someone whose most recent long residence was in Valinor, not someone who spent thousands of years watching mortal civilisation grow. I don't know how he wound up in HQ, but I estimate he did so within 100 years of landing on the Hither Shore.

Agent Huinesoron joined the PPC about 20 years ago (give or take 5). Adding everything together, his age comes to 2620. That makes him probably older than our Time Lords, but I wouldn't be surprised to find an older active agent among the non-human population of HQ.

hS

...I'm certainly not about to turn down an invitation like that! What do you say to tomorrow? ;P

What are your fandoms?

For your newbie gift, have a notebook which totally won’t posses you if you write in it. Just don’t set the Basilisk on me!

Mainly because it contained Middle-earth references, of course. And because it was cute and fluffy.

And, just for fun, my (very inaccurate) estimate of Agent hS’s age (assuming he actually lived all those years and didn’t fall through a plot hole from Middle-earth)

I have absolutely no idea how long he spent in Valinor. Two thousand years? I take it he did leave Middle-earth, so:

The LOTR wiki says that the First Age was approximately 590 years long, which is at least better than my last estimate.

The appendices inform me that the Second Age was 3441 years long and the Third Age was 3021 years long.

This is where we get into the whole “how long is there between the end of the Third Age and the present” thing. I don’t have much of an idea, so I’m going to say fifteen thousand years.

So that gives me (hopefully my mental arithmetic works) 2000+590+3441+3021+15000= (oh, stuff it, I’ll use a calculator) 24052, which I’ll round to 24000 years

How did I do? Am I vaguely along the right lines? Probably not, but it’s good fun anyway.

Weren't we supposed to get coffee sometime? ;)

~Jenni