"Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me.

"Also, aren't you supposed to be blond?"

Legolas, who has dark hair, laughs.

"That's what he said. I laughed at him and walked out."

"What who said?"

"The director of that awful movie. Finrod dragged me all the way back to Middle-earth to audition for the role of well, me, because he thought it'd be hilarious. It's why I learned English.

"Anyway, director told me I did perfectly and it's like I was born to play the role, then asked me if I was willing to dye my hair blond. That was when I walked out."

"That may be the most meta thing I've ever heard. It's nice to meet someone who speaks English in this bizarre fictional universe, though."

"I assure you we're not fictional. Actually, you're quite the legend yourself, here—well, mostly among the Noldor, but I have friends in Tirion so I've heard of most of your exploits."

"Well, I can't complain about that.

"Me specifically, or the Avengers in general?"

"You specifically. There are, ah, historical reasons for your appeal among a certain subset of the Noldor—let's just say that 'asshole genius who likes redheads and shiny objects' is a pre-existing archetype among them. Makes you controversial, actually, but you haven't yet screwed up as badly as the original example, so they have hope for you."

"There's slightly more to my character than that.

"Anyway, nice chat, but I kind of have a large hole in my abdomen. Also, a giant purple dude just killed half of everyone, and I kinda need to do something about that."

"We'll get you to a healer right away. And I'm aware—not that the new Enemy is giant and purple, but one of the people that was killed was my father, so I am very aware of the killing part."

"I'm sorry."

Tony is taken to the healers. They do a surprisingly good job with his wound, considering their total ignorance of anything Tony can recognize as modern medicine.

When the probably-magical anaesthesia wears off, he falls into an ordinary but dreamless sleep.

He's awoken by arguing in Elvish outside his door. One of the Elves, by his voice, is probably Legolas, but the other has an accent different from any he's heard in his short time on Eressëa.

"Ugh—FRIDAY, what's going on?"

It appears that a representative of the Noldor, who are one of the groups that live on the mainland, has arrived and is demanding to take you with him. Legolas is perfectly willing to let you go if you choose, but the High King of Tol Eressëa has standing orders that all mortal arrivals are to be brought to him at once.

"The High King?—I thought Legolas was king."

The political structure of Tol Eressëa is an attempt to recreate a number of partially overlapping states that originally existed at different times over a period of several thousand years. It has, accordingly, something of an excess of kings.

I strongly suggest that you sneak off with the Noldor as quickly as possible. The one whom I believe to be the High King is known to dislike humans, but the Noldor are renowned as the 'most skilled of all the Eldar in lore and craft' - it's unclear if that's Tolkien's Old-English rendition of words that would be better translated as 'science' and 'technology' -

"Some technology would be nice. I have to repair a suit of nanite armor and these people have bows and arrows."

Most Noldorin engineering effort appears to have been directed towards magical artifacts whose workings may or may not be possible to explain within the known laws of physics. It is unclear if typical modern conveniences would have been developed by any society in this post-scarcity, post-hardship environment, although the Noldor would be the most likely group to do so.

Legolas appears at his door.

"Mr. Stark? Do you feel well enough to walk? I'm—really sorry about this, but I need to take you to see someone.

"I couldn't help but overhear your conversation, and I agree with your computer. But the law is the law. I don't think he'll try to have you executed for trespassing in the Blessed Realm—satellites pretty well confirm you didn't arrive here by your own power—"

Some parts of this are reassuring. At least they know what computers and satellites are. Other parts are very, very concerning.

"Try to have me—" he blurts.

"Again, it's not likely. He wouldn't do it himself, anyway, he'd just hand you over to the Valar expecting them to do it, and since they presumably brought you here I'm pretty sure they didn't do it just to kill you."

"What are Valar?"

"The Valar—singular, Vala—are the Powers of Arda. You might call them gods."