[Diamond18]

Skittles watched Anakron flee. She felt a strong sense of satisfaction, for it meant (she had no doubt) that he was fleeing from her vast and impressive store of arcane Tolkien knowledge. Surely, he was intimidated by her and could not hold up under the pressure of her academically marvellous presence!

"So who's Tolkien?" asked Hissyfit.

"Who is Tolkien!" Skittles cried, alarmed that her companion knew so little of such a great subject. "Why, he is the man who created Middle-earth!"

"You mean, this Middle-earth?"

"Yes, this very Earth upon which we stand!"

"A man created the world?"

"Well, not exactly. See, it's a sub-creation."

"I don't understand. How does a man create or sub-create the Earth?"

Skittles shook her head, still apalled at Hissyfit's ignorance. "He wrote it in a story, or rather, a series of stories. Or rather, he invented the world and then wrote stories about it. Or something like that. It's been a while since I read them. I'm mainly bluffing my way through this."

Hissyfit looked at her with extreme skeptism. "So, we're in a story? How can we be in a story and also be able to read the story?"

"Well..." Skittles paused, furrowing her brow. She decided that she had no idea how to answer that question, and so dodged the point. "We're not actually in Tolkien's story, we're in a fanfiction."

"What's fanfiction?"

"Argh!" cried Skittles. She had a feeling this was going to be a very long conversation.