Title: The Ring of Power
Category: Pendragon and Lord of the Rings
Pairing: none, at the moment
Rating: T overall, but most chapters will be about PG-13 or so.
Warnings: Spoilers for all of the Pendragon series and probably most of the Lord of the Rings series as well. There might be violence in some parts, and it'll probably be somewhat graphic. I'll try to warn for it on a chapter basis, though.
Summary: Pendragon and the rest of the Travelers thought that their hob was done. They were wrong. The battle for Halla isn't over. After the events on Third Earth, the universe changed. It couldn't go back to the way it was, and so instead it expanded. There are more territories now than ever, and all of them are heading toward their turning points. In response, the Travelers have changed as well, and are headed for the first of the new territories, Middle Earth.
Disclaimer: I really don't own any of this. I wish I did, though.
Author's Notes: I don't know where this came from, besides the fact that I'm reading the Pendragon series and watching the Lord of the Rings and somehow it got mixed up in my dreams. Oops. Well, I'll run with it and see how far it takes me. Also, this totally ignores the final chapter of Soldiers of Halla, and takes some liberties for the rest of the series. Anyway, here's the first part.
JOURNAL #1
MIDDLE EARTH
Sorry, Mark, Courtney. It looks like I've gotten myself into it again.
First of all, let me apologize for the mess this journal is. I didn't exactly have paper or pens or anything like that, so I had to make do with what I could find. And what I could find wasn't that great. Also, there really isn't much light in this place. Make that, there's pretty much no light here. At all. But before I tell you about 'here' let me tell you about how I got here, and the changes I went through getting here (those things are more exciting, anyway. Trust me).
I know that we all thought that things were over, and that we'd finally gotten the chance to settle down and live the lives we should have lived (but, you know, through all the rebuilding and war stopping and world re-separating), but it looks like that isn't how it's meant to be.
At least, not for me or the other Travelers. I still hold out hope that neither of your guys will be pulled back into this. You've already done more than anyone expected of you, and you've already sacrificed so much- I couldn't ask anymore of you. I know you guys, though, and that you'd do anything I could ask of you, and that you'll try to help me, no matter what I say. But it's okay. You guys have done enough, and now you've got jobs of your own. You've got to rebuild Halla (at least, the original one, and more on that in a minute), and I know that you two are the best for the job. Actually, I'm only sending you guys these journals so that you don't worry.
And you shouldn't worry, because I'm not here on my own.
The good news is, the other Travelers are here too.
The bad news is, they also kind of aren't.
It's confusing, I know. It was confusing to me, too. I guess the best way I can explain it is to say that now the rest of them are even more like spirits than they were before. I can see and hear them, and they can see and hear each other (and me!), but as far as I can tell other people (and animals… or, things… I don't really know what they are, exactly) can't see them. At least, none of the people/things/living beings I've met so far have, but I haven't exactly been attending galas here, so I don't know if that holds true for everyone and everything here.
Mostly, the nine of look the same as when we last saw them- only, somewhat transparent. And yeah, I said nine. Uncle Press isn't here, and neither is Elli- Nevva is instead.
Yeah, Nevva.
I know that we were pretty much certain that she was dead and gone, like, totally. But- and this is only as far as I can understand it, which really isn't much- apparently the good deeds she'd done at the end of her life had qualified her to return to the lighter side of Solara, and allowed her to be reborn again when Saint Dane was defeated and Solara was rejuvenated. Or something.
And yeah, as you've probably figured out by now, Mark, Courtney, us Traveler's have gotten or powers back. Not that we're suddenly all powerful or anything- Solara is still recovering, and with this new stuff that's going on, it's especially important that we be careful about how we use the powers we have. Anyway, we've gone back to being the spirits we always were, long before we knew it. But things aren't all back to how they were.
I'm different now. And not only on the inside. I'm fourteen again, guys. At least, near as I can figure. I'm not sure why, but maybe it makes me look less threatening? But I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually- it's not like I'm in some sort of messed up fiction where everything that happens is just at the whim of some kind of insane author.
Anyway, I don't exactly look as I did when I was fourteen. For one thing, my eyes are no longer brown, apparently. The others tell me that they've turned an incredibly light blue that looks eerily like Saint Dane's (I really hope that there's nothing behind that). I have to take their word for it, though, because I haven't really been able to get a glimpse of myself since I got down here.
For another thing, my entire body (though I'm not sure it's entirely mine anymore) seems to have become a combination of all the Traveler's bodies, (though it has mostly remained my own). It's not freaky looking or anything, either. At least, I don't think. Again, there isn't a lot of light here.
Most of the changes can probably be contributed to Kasha, most likely because she's the most different from the rest of us, seeing as she's a klee, or giant cat. One thing that's all her is that my arms are a little longer, which makes it easier to go around on all four feet (which I actually do sometimes, without even realizing it- it kind of freaks me out). Also I'm a lot more flexible than I've even been before, which is totally Kasha, unless one of the others isn't telling me something. The skin on my feet, palms, and finger tips is also a lot tougher, which isn't so bad, and also kind of lucky, since I don't have any shoes, and the ground in this place really sucks. Though it was kind of weird getting used to using the skin between the tips of my fingers and my palms to feel things, as the toughened skin everywhere else on my hands deadens feelings. Another thing I'm sure Kasha's at fault for is the fact that my nails and teeth have lengthened, sharpened, and become a lot more durable (but I don't actually mind that change so much, except for when I forget about it and end up cutting myself accidentally).
Unfortunately, I didn't get any of Alder's build, and I actually seem to be skinnier than when I was last fourteen. And a bit shorter, too. I blame those on Siry and Aja, tiny little reeds that they are. Though I suppose that considering where I am now, it's better to be smaller and thin. It's a lot easier to hide, that way, especially quickly, and boy do I need that ability now. But more on that later, I promise. Let's get back to my changes.
One thing I've still got and that I've taken from the others is scars. One for each traveler, and one for each territory. I'll actually describe them for you now, and give you the stories behind them, as they were told to me.
The small, straight scar on my right hip used to be Alder's, from where he fell from his horse when he was young. He broke his hip and they had to cut into him to set the bone. Te multitude of small scars on the back of my neck, however, are my own, something I gained when I walked through the hailstorm on Denduron to reach the flume.
The deep gash on the bottom of my left foot is from Spader. It was created when he was thrown from a spinny fish during his first attempt at spinny-do and ended up landing on a sharp piece of glass. But the small, shallow grove on my right shoulder is mine. It's where one of the bullets that once killed Uncle Press on grazed me on Cloral.
Gunny's scar is obvious, as it's a faint trail of scars that encircle my left wrist, a reminder of the hand he once lost to a Tang. The slash low on my ribs is all me, though, a remnant of the car crash I got into when we were desperately trying to make sure history played out correctly on First Earth.
The nasty slashes and almost shredded skin on my left calf are Aja's, from a time when she was walking on one of the high pathways through the Lifelight pyramid and fell through a rusted and ill cared for piece of flooring. She ended up stuck there for hours, before someone came, and that's why the scarring got so bad, despite the incredible technology of Veelox. But the gash that goes the full length of my lower right arm is something I got from the dream quig-bear while in one of my few jumps on Veelox.
And then there's Kasha's scar, and it's one of five of which I call 'death scars'. It's a mass of scar tissue on the back of my head. I don't like to think about that one, much, because I don't like to remember how Kasha died. The one that's mine from Eelong is something I like to think of even less, a gash on my lower back suffered in the fight for my freedom with the gar from the holding pens. I'm glad it's on my back, so that I don't have to see it and be reminded of that miserable time.
Then the next death scar, Loor's, from when Saint Dane stabbed her through the heart right before my eyes. Scratch not thinking about Kasha's scar- I don't like thinking about any of the death scars. The pain of that scar out weighs my own from Zadaa- a handful all over my body from the beating I suffered at that monster's hands. The most prominent is a scar on the left side of my face, that goes from my eye to my mouth, where the healers had to cut into my skin to reset my broken cheek bone.
There's the third death scar, this one belonging to Nevva. It crosses lengthwise over Loor's scar, straight through my heart, from when she was stabbed in the back by Saint Dane, right before her mother's and my eyes. My Quillan scars are on the inside of my hands- small jagged scars left when I struggled to keep my grip on the broken glass domes of the Tato platform in that fateful last battle between Challengers Red and Green.
In some ways, Siry's scars hurt me the most. But in others, I know that it is not my place to judge, Ibara is a different society, and that their ways are not my own. But I still don't like to think about the whip scars that now criss cross and curl over my back, and the things that Siry may have done to get them. My own scars from Ibara, the small slices across my forearms and the sides of my face from the glass that almost killed Loque, pale in comparison.
My own death scar, when held against all the others, is faint, and only a fading reminder of my failure on Second Earth. It's the scar across my throat that I got from the shattered windows of the falling helicopter.
Lastly, there's Patrick's death scar, the deep gash across my stomach from the car crash that killed him. The scar on my right arm is my own, suffered at the claws of a quig on Third Earth, before we knew how everything was starting to go wrong.
I know you're probably wondering why I'm describing all these different scars to you instead of just telling you something like, "guess what, guys! I've got, like, a million different scars now, and they aren't all mine!" But there's actually a reason.
You know how old people always say that they know when a storm's coming, because they can feel it in their old scars? Well, I don't know if that's true, but I do get indications about what's ahead from my scars, though I think it has more to do with the power of Solara, and how it influences me, more than anything about air pressure.
So the scars on the back of my neck tingle when a storm's coming, and Nevva's scar burns when I get snuck up on, while Spader's twitch near water, and Kasha's spasms when rocks are about to fall.
I'm not sure if the other's give any warnings about anything, because honestly I haven't experienced much since I got here. But the indications I do get have been useful so far.
However, giving indications of the weather and the surrounding earth isn't the only thing these new scars of mine do. Which actually brings me back to something I hadn't mentioned yet.
I said that the others were once again like the spirits they were. But that's not exactly true. They're actually a bit more like the ghosts we would hear about when we were kids. Mostly in that they can possess me.
Yeah. I said possess.
But don't get freaked out, because they can only do it when I call their names (which is actually kind of annoying, because it happens any time I say one of their names- I've had to start calling them by their territories in conversation to prevent it from happening all the time). I think this new possession ability of theirs is part of the reason why my body has changed- it's been remade so that there are parts of all of us in it, so that the transfer between… spirits, or souls, that it goes through when we switch isn't so jarring.
And the scars that were once theirs but are now mine are a connection between us, I think. Especially because whenever one of them takes over, their scar starts to bleed.
It's not like it starts gushing or flooding blood or anything, mostly it's just a trickle, but the wound doesn't close up until I'm once again back in my body. I think that in part the wounds continuously bled so that the others won't be tempted to stay in my body endlessly.
Which is good, because I'm not able to try and convince them to give it back over, as whenever the transfer happens, I end up unconscious.
Yeah, it's not very fun. But sometimes it's necessary, because the others have skills I don't have, and sometimes, in this place, we've had need of those skills.
Which of course brings me back to the subject of 'here'.
I bet you guys are dying to know how we got here, and why, and where here is, and everything, so I'll put you out of your misery. At least, I as much as I can, I will. Because honestly, once we get past the question of why the ten of us are here, I kind of run out of answers. So I guess it really is just like last time, with all of us fumbling along without really knowing what we're doing, but still trying to do the best we can.
Anyway, I know you're asking what happened to lead me to here, so I'll answer that, first.
I hate to tell you this, guys, but Saint Dane's back.