My first Bridge to Terabithia fic!
Rather heavy with my Multiverse spanning characters but then I expect most fanfiction I write to have them appear in some way, shape or form. Some of you may not like it and some of you might. I tend to run away with ideas for good stories without ever being able to actually finish writing said stories, so this is just a one-shot.
Please R&R!!!

-------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------

There was a snap, then coldness surrounded her.
A sharp pain, then cold darkness filled her.

-------------------------------------------------------

She came to in a place she'd never been before, she was lying on a stone block and all she could move was her head and her eyes, AND her head HURT.
Some time passed, but she doesn't know how long. Two people have appeared and are looking down at her, she's as paralysed as before so she turns her head to study them.
They're a brown haired man and a blond woman who seem somehow connected, and more than human.

The man speaks to her and his voice seems powerful and commanding.
"Salutations, we don't normally do this so bear with us a moment." he looked at her a moment as if waiting for her to respond, she helplessly flicked her eyes to the woman and found them widening in surprise at the gem that seemed to grow from out of the center of the woman's forehead.
The woman jabbed the man's side with a long pointed finger nail and her crystalline blue eyes smiled comfortingly on the girl.
"What, oh right, sorry." the man shot out, his voice rumbling strangely. "Now then lets have a look at you... seems you fell and hit your head," a pause, the girl thought 'Well that explains the headache' " and then you- You do understand that you're dead don't you?" this took her by surprise.

"Dead?" the word somehow escaped her unresponsive lips.
"I'm afraid so." for the first time the woman spoke in a voice similarly as alien and earthly as the man's. Both of them spoke with such strange voices that were somehow primal and ancient, somehow... Elemental.
"You drowned." the man said bluntly.
"Oh, hush you, can't you see the girl's in pain."
"Pain?" the man blinked at the woman before narrowing his eyes, which flicked in colour from grey to red to white then black and finally a slowly swirling blue, at the girl.

"Oh spare me the trials of an indestructible husband," the woman moaned but the love in her eyes as she looked at the man told the girl that this was an old joke for the two. "It's her heart, her soul that's in pain, she left someone important behind, though she might not have realised how important yet, she isstill quite young as mortals judge things afterall, regardless her heart and soul recognised them for what they were even if her body and mind hadn't yet."

The two shared a glance and the man seemed to accept the woman's knowledge on such matters, if the woman's smile was anything to go by when the man turned and called out "Dragon! This one is in your court!"
The woman then took the mans arm and lead him to take a seat on a bench that the girl thought wasn't there a moment ago.
As another figure approached as though through a mist the girl felt herself drifting.

"-And so he called you." the woman's voice finished as she drifted back.

She turned to see who the new figure was.

"Jess?!" the incredulous whisper escaped her still lips but then the figure seemed not to be a man at all but a woman who she somehow realised was herself if older than she could ever be since she was... dead?.
'Is it a he or a she?'
The figure looked at her then down at themselves before resolving into an unfamiliar male figure.
This shockingly pale skinned, black haired man nodded to her and said

"Leslie." his voice could only be described by saying that it was like a billion different voices totally synchronised and saying exactly the same thing all the while each speaking an entirely different dialect and yet somehow it was only in the listeners native tongue.
Leslie could have sworn that in that one word she had heard the voices of all her grandparents, both her parents, Jess, all the children she never had and all of the children they never had, and a hundred more generations of her family tree in both directions: past and future and yet that was just the smallest portion within all the voices completely foreign to her.
She pulled a face with her eyes; still the best she could do, and was surprised when the question was understood.

"Dragon Alterum at your service. I'm to be your Meddler for this performance." he said with that strange and complex voice of his adding to it a bow complete with a courtly flourish.
"Hey everyone, Dragon's finally acting like he's having fun!" the seated man called out, causing a number of shadowy figures to come and sit on suddenly appearing chairs however they stayed too far away for Leslie to note any details about them.
Dragon sighed, evidently not one for being in the limelight, and approached Leslie's still form.

"This may feel disconcerting, and you may never truly be entirely separate from me again, but I'm going to be sending you back to where you belong." he told her somberly, giving her some idea of how shadows seemed drawn to him, his own and those of others.
He laid one hand on her forehead and his other just above her navel.

-------------------------------------------------------

*GASP*

Leslie coughed up the water in her lungs and took a deep breath of clear, sweet air and felt a ghostly hand slip from her stomach and another brush through her hair and pat her on the back then vanish as real hands wrapped around her in a hug even as she still lay on the ground trying to catch her breath.
"Thank God you're alright Leslie! I don't know why but I suddenly got really worried about you!" the boy holding her exclaimed.

In Leslie's mind she heard again that strange and powerful voice:
"-I'm going to be sending you back to where you belong." and it seemed to her that she was still connected to that entity and even some of its' vast experience and for just a moment understood just what had been given back to her AND Jess.

"Oh, Jess!" Leslie finally managed "I- I... I've got a splitting headache!"

After Jess had looked around the museum he had indeed found himself very worried about Leslie, and unable to remain focused on his surroundings, not even the person shaped cloud of dust that helped provoke their early departure.
He certainly didn't notice how time distorted when he got to the flooded creek just in time to see Leslie plunge in, or the foreign voice(s) in his head guiding him through EAR and earlier advising him to 'Go to Terabithia!'.

The only thing he noticed was his heart cry out and prompt him to action.

Later the same voice(s) congratulated him and for just that moment he realised how important Leslie was to him, but as with Leslie the knowledge was buried until they had of themselves the knowledge and experiences needed to understand it of themselves.

"I- I... I've got a splitting headache!" at that Jess laughed and admitted with a wince.
"Now that you mention it: so do I!"

-------------------------------------------------------

As Dragon and Will retreated through Terabithia, Dragon took a portion of his soul and crafted from it the life of a small dragon, canine in appearance except for a pair of leathery wings with a dappled brown colouration, telling it to "Guard them well and keep them safe."
The two entities from beyond the world then continued out the far side of Terabithia, and onwards towards their home.

END

-------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------