**Re-edited 12/16/03

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Discoveries

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When I was clear of the room full of books, I broke into a sprint and ran as far away as I could in ten minutes. Meaning when I finally slowed down, I was nearly a mile and a half away from where I had started. While running I had taken no notice of where I was running or how the number of people I was forced to dodge declined rapidly into nonexistence.

Looking around at the little clearing I found myself, I felt tears slowly begin to prick my eyes. I did not know where they came from or why, but they continued to slowly trace their way down my cheeks as I tried to catch my breath. Willing with all my heart and soul, I gradually stopped my childish crying and began to meander around the edges of the clearing with the golden sun smiling from above. Judging from the number of initials engraved inside of hearts into the bark of the trees I figured it was probably some sort of lover's haunt. Smiling a little as I began to read the poetic verses and tributes to loved ones.

I had nearly finished my circuit of the meadow area when I read a haunting poem written in Elvish. The verses about a love the writer was waiting to find was not nearly as chilling as the signature and the shape of the tree in was chiseled into. The signature was of no other than a Karalin Inthoyun. I was shaking so hard I collapsed against the tree. I traced the grooves of the poem with my fingers and began sobbing uncontrollably, despite how much I tried to stop. The surname of my dead friend Kara was the same as the writers, Inthoyun, and in my world there was a tree exactly like the one I was now holding on to as if it were my lifeline.

Then I began screaming towards the sky, at first in Elvish but I must have switched into English somewhere along the way. "WHY?? Why did you take them from me? You call yourself a god, but you could not save your purest child !! She never killed any one, and now I find she was in this world first. SHE was my only friend!! She knew me better than I have ever, You HEAR THAT? EVER known myself. She was the sister I never had. We were a family! Alex, her and me! AND YOU LET THEM DIE!! They had never done anything to deserve to die the way they did. NEVER! You are no GOD, but a MONSTER worthy of damnation! WHY do you torment me? Was it something I have done? Something I did not say? WHY did they have to die? Why did I not die in their place? WHY? WHY?? TELL ME!!"

Pounding on the tree where Kara had once carved her exquisite poem my fists began to bloody the poem. Her poem. And still I kept ranting at the heavens for an answer that would never come. Instead I screamed out my rage, sorrow, frustration, helplessness even beyond the hour I lost my powers of coherent speech. In a hoarse voice I kept demanding why they had died, why I still lived, why had I not been killed instead, why them? "Why, why, WHY, WHY????!!" I demanded of the setting sun as the air around me began to take on a cold edge and I was wearied past the ability to move. Even when I could no longer speak, I stared into the moon's face and mentally howled my previously pent up emotions. Finally I wore myself into a tormented sleep where all I dreamed about were happy memories of the three of us together.


~*~


A year and a half had passed from that day until I made another discovery: I could change my body as I wished. If I wanted a fiery butterfly to be on my ankle, it was there after a few moments of thought. One day I wished to be free of my pains and I sprouted wings and was able to soar above the highest mountain. There was even a time I wished to look as the Elves around me did, and scared the bejeezus out of Elrond when he saw the taller, paler version of myself. Who had pointed ears.

Some nights, when I was particularly lonely and missed Alex and Kara, or rather, Karalin, I would transform myself into a golden retriever and race the wolves through the forests until dawn broke. Other times I would disappear and go on adventures, traveling among the Elves and to the far corners of their world known as Middle Earth.

Few Elves besides Elrond knew of my powers and none knew I mourned. However, all Elves knew that if they were suddenly missing an interesting trinket, it was mostly likely to be found in my hands. Most were understanding, only a few took my thieving curiosity for some dark evil. Those people generally had the least interesting items carried on their persons, so I seldom raided their pockets. Occasionally I would see Sleeping Beauty coming out of the Library Room, as the place where I originally found him was called (You can see the Elvish are very creative with their room-naming), or practicing his fighting skills in one of the many courtyards with other Elves. On the latter of the occasions, I would be tempted to go down and fight him myself, but decided to observe before I efficiently scared him.

Two more uneventful winters passed. They were generally dull and uninteresting. Most often I was to be found 'borrowing' a trinket or two, reading books in a remote corner of the Library Room, or working on my own fighting skills. By this time I had quite the odd collection of odd Elvish knickknacks, bruises from trouncing or being trounced by other fighters, and nearly a third of the through with my twenty-seventh bookcase.

In fact, it was when I was reading another massive volume in my favorite niche in the Library Room when Sleeping Beauty decided to pick a fight with yours truly. Well, maybe he didn't quite pick a fight but he sure got the ass whooping his ego was just begging for. It's not my problem he didn't listen to me. Well, maybe it is. But anyways, he just sorta saunters up to me, interrupting this extremely (cough, right, cough) interesting tome about this big bad ring that some evil guy named Sauron or something made so he could take over the world.

Like I , and every other person, have nneeevvvvverrrrr heard of the bad guy ever trying to, oh, take over the world. Nope, totally original concept, world domination is.

But there he is, trying to figure out which book I had in my hands. It turns out, it was the exact book I had found in a room a few days before. So, I took it and decided to return it for the previous borrower, after I read it, that is. And Sleeping Beauty demands I 'Return that book back to its rightful reader'. Rrigghhhhhtt. So naturally, I politely, a first for me, refused and, stood up, and began to walk away.

Did he get the point? Oh, nooo. He had to follow me twittering on about he was researching something about a powerful object, one that would, in fewer words than he said, rain doom down upon our poor, unsuspecting heads. Okay, maybe that was more words, but who cares? The point is still the same: same nameless guy from my world was following me around demanding that I return the book I stole from him, which I was NOT about to do.

So while he was trying to make me stop in Elvish, he made the major mistake of cursing me in English. His exact words were, "Damn it, bitch, knock the fuck off!" And this being me, Dri, I was not about to stand for that, even if it would blow my completely obvious cover of being from around here, turned around and began cussing him out. In Sindaren and any other language he had even the remotest chance of actually understanding me. Including English.

Here I was, calling Sleeping Beauty an impolite asshole in fifty four languages when I finally get to English. His blue eyes went wider than the biggest grapes I have ever imagined, let alone seen when he heard his native language being used to totally diss him. And then all the idiot could say was " Umm, may I please have the book you have in your hands?" At which point I had run out of verbal steam.

So I slapped him. Now, I have a very pretty ring of an arrow wrapping itself around my finger, and it was as sharp as a real arrow head. It caught him just below the jaw line and a few drops of blood seeped out. I was inwardly ashamed at myself, but was rather cranky because I had turned into a bear the day before. I muttered a warning about that being just a sample of what he would get if he ever got near me again and stalked off.

I went to my room, opened a drawer and placed the book in it. Then I went over to my chest and brought out three knives, two of which went around a belt at my waist and the third into my combat books. I started to grin like a maniac. The dude was obviously blind, 'cuz if he couldn't tell the boots weren't from Middle Earth, he was most certainly a few logs short of a roaring fire.

Feeling like a quick flight, I walked onto my balcony and stood on the railing. I turned around and swung myself on top of the roof and started running along the peak of it. When I was close enough to the center of the roof I knelt down and thought about becoming a peregrine falcon. A few minute later I was off and free of earthly troubles. As I soared over the grounds I noticed a familiar head. Plop. Well, lets just say Sleeping Beauty has a few gray hairs now. Chuckling, I took off into the setting sun, happy and carefree.

**Re-edited 12/16/03: Probably the last one of the day. Finals tomorrow. Damn them.