Disclaimer and/or Plea For Mercy: We do not own anything. Except our two characters, which are our own creations. Please don't sue us!
We've been working on this since . . . a very long time ago. February's about right. Anyway, a briefing on the personalities of Lina and Anddra:
Lavinia: Atled Willy's character. Raab about sums it up. She's mine, mine, mine, mine, mine. And that is why I shall not tell you any more about her here. And whenever she's referred to as Lina, that's Anddra narrating.
Anddra: Raablyn's character. Optimistic, kenderlike, with an elf's love for beauty and a gnome's love for jokes. A BIG Star Wars fan. (The drow invented TV. More proof that it's evil!) Likes to mess around with just about anything, and takes deep delight in pulling ponytails, but not braids. She knows a little about just anything, and is prone to being random, and when she is angry, she gets very sarcastic. Loves to annoy, especially speaking backwards, and knows a variety of insults and swears in many different languages.
Pronounciation Guide:
Lavinia: lav-in-ee-ah
Lina: Lee-nah
Li: Lee
Calanddra: Cal-lan-drah
Xiloscient: xye-los-see-ent (it's Goldpetal in Elven)
Anddra: and-drah.
The Chronicles of Lavinia and Calanddra
or
What Mayhem Two Magical Quarter-Breed Girls Taken From The World of Faerûn/Krynn And Placed In Hogwarts Can Cause.
by
The Wonderful and Awesome and Humorous and Brilliant and Melodramatic Authors Atled Willy and Raablyn.
Chapter One
"Oops!"
"Are you sure about this?" Linalooked at the strange-looking machine with a mixture of doubt and apprehension.
"Yep." Anddra nodded to her best - and only - friend. "A mixture of magic, machinery, chemicals, and quite a few prayers. I'm quite sure it'll work."
Both eleven-year-olds turned to regard the machine.
"Well," Anddra admitted, her almond-shaped, tilted, amber-tinged blue eyes surveying the unlikely looking machine with less than her usual optism. "I'm pretty sure it'll work. Trust me, Li."
Lina narrowed her own blue-green eyes at the girl, the gold flecks sparking in the multi-colored lights in the small room. With Anddra, 'Trust me, Li.' was the same as a human hearing 'Oops!' from a kender. It just did not bode very well.
"Oh, come on, Li." Anddra said cheerfully, twisting her pale, gold-brown hair around her slender, woody brown fingers. "It'll work. I told you, I fixed the last mistakes on the last one. Granted, by the time we were getting out of Jurassic Park, we had a big T-Rex after our blood, but we got out of there in record time."
"We were nearly dinner!"
"Well, we weren't. And if we were, I believe we'd've tasted wicked sweet, anyway."
"Your kender side is showing."
"My kender side is always showing, Li."
"Don't call me 'Li', Anddee." Lina responded.
"Fair enough. Riaf hguone. And don't call me Anddee." Anddra nodded her heat-shaped face, eyes narrowing slightly.
They were unlikely beings. Lina was a quarter kender, quarter gnome, quarter Moon Elf, and a quarter Halfling. Anddra was a quarter Drow Elf, a quarter Kagonesti elf (Wild elf, to those non-DL people), a quarter gnome, and a quarter kender.
Anddra's grandmother, Jaree, had been a peaceful female gnome who had been captured by drow raiders and brought to Menzoberranzan, the horrible City of Spiders, as a slave. A few years later, her first child, a half-breed half-drow half-gnome was born, and named Ellywyn. Ellywyn had lived the first few years of her life as a slave, hearing her mother's wistful tales of her homeland, Latan. When Ellywyn's mother was beaten to death, for the amusement of the particular drow spider-kisser, Ellywyn had run out to the streets. She had turned an adult on the streets of the Braeryn, thieving to stay alive. Though Ellywyn was half-drow, she was pure gnome, heart and soul, and hated the Drow.
Anddra's other grandmother, Merrilee Lockpicker, (the non-gnome one) had been a kender who'd fallen in love with a Kagonesti elf. Well, OK, not love, but they were fond of each other. Their half-elven half-kender child, who went by the name of Aust, was born and lived for a few years in Wild Elven society, but at the age of 5 Merrilee had taken them both to Kendermore. A little trouble with a wizard (Black Robes could be so rude!) plunked Aust smack in the middle of Faerun a few years later.
Ellywyn, who'd finally escaped Menzoberranzan and the Underdark, literally bumped into Aust that fateful day. The two half-breeds had been friends, comrades, and eventually husband and wife, having 'accidentally' stumbled on the way back to the DragonLance world.
The result was Calanddra Lia Xiloscient, a quarter kender quarter drow quarter Kagonesti quarter Gnome. Calanddra - Anddra to parents and friend - had been born in Kendermore, lived there until her fifth birthday, where she had been taken to live with the Kagonesti with her parents. At the tender age of ten, Anddra had, along with her parents, gone back to Faerun to live with the Gnomes in Ellywyn's mother's homeland, Latan.
There she had met Lina.
Lavinia's maternal grandmother, a charming young kendermaid named Madina Swiftstealer, had been in the process of emptying a moon elf's pocket, just to see what was inside, of course. But the elf caught her. The two become acquainted, and you can guess what happened. They fell in love, yadda yadda yadda, married, and had Lina's mother, Aerwen Swiftstealer. The elf's name was Silvaticus Lunis, by the way. He was quite a crazy one.
Lavinia's paternal grandfather was a gruff carpenter gnome named Robyn Goldwing. Her grandmother was halfling gypsy named Valerie Wandreff, who sometimes turned rogue. She worked mostly as a dancer and tumbler in various cities. One day, Valerie happened to stroll into Robyn's shop in search of some good arrows. The two of them chatted, and it was pretty much the same thing as Lavinia's other set of grandparents. They had 2 sons, Fletch Goldreff (Lina's dad), and Harper Goldreff (Lina's favorite and only uncle, who had named her.)
Then while the Goldwing/Wandreff Goldreff family was traveling (as Lightfoot Halfings often do), along the borders of Kendermore, the Swiftstealer/Lunis family's home, Fletch wandered away. He bumped into Aerwin, who was also wandering, and I'm sure you know the rest of the story.
Two years after that, the couple left for the Moonwood. There they had a baby boy, Ilvin Harper Goldreff.
Two years later, a baby girl, Lavinia Iris Goldreff arrived. Five years later, they moved to Latan. A little while later Lavinia met Anddra and the two mischief-makers immediately became friends.
At ten years of age, Lavinia become decided she didn't really like her last name, so she studied her family tree and came up with Swiftfeather.
Now, back to our story:
"It's actually very simple, Lina." Anddra flicked a few switches and spread her hands over one of her spellbooks. "I cast the portal spell while we step in, and, in order to get us to another world I pull this lever and flick this switch, give this thingy a shove, and boom, we're there!"
"But remember the last one? We found out that we can't enter precise coordinates, and could end up hundreds of miles away from where we want to be! And the portal spell can easily malfunction!"
"No, it can't, not if I say it right. And I fixed the problem . . . at least I think I did. And look on the bright side; we'll still land, and anywhere's good for an adventure! We could find an ancient ruin, a dragon's lair, a Death Star just waiting to become operational, or-"
"Or we could end up in the ocean, and even if I could swim, we'd both because extremely dehydrated, and die before we drift to shore!"
" . . . Yeah, that could happen . . . " Anddra twirled her hair around her finger distractedly. " . . . but it won't . . . "
"How do you know it won't?"
Anddra waved her hands dramatically in front of her face and spoke in a hypnotic voice. "I have Foreseen it. Everything will proceed as I have Foreseen."
Lina narrowed her eyes. "Ihate Palpatine."
"Well, no, I don't like him either . . .but that's beside the point. Stop envisioning what could go wrong and start envisioning what could go right!"
"That's not my job, you're the optimist. I'm the pessimist here that envisions horrible, dreadful, terrible things happening."
"If I tickle you, maybe it'll put you in a better mood." Anddra leaned over and began fiddling with the wires, watching her friend's horrified expression out of the corner of her eye.
Lavinia looked very, very, very, very suspiciously at Anddra, waiting for her to strike. But she seemed busy enough with the wires. Lavinia began typing in the instructions to the computer and also watched Anddra out of the corner of her eye.
The two were silent for about two seconds, than Anddra announced, "I'm altering the plan. Pray I do not alter it any further."
"I will. And I ask you, how on Faerûn are you altering it?"
Anddra looked up slyly. "Do you really want to know?"
"Yes. I want to know how you're altering the safe plan we agreed on. Are we going to end up being slaves to the Abominable Snowman this time?"
"No . . . "
"Will we end up being eternally bound in the lair of Ouroboros?"
"Luca luca lula." Anddra turned away and began to sing under her breath, rolling her eyes. Just to be annoying.
"I don't like the expression on your face. It's scaring me. If you don't cut that out now, I will desert you. And you know it's impossible to handle this thing without at least 5 arms."
Anddra blinked. "We don't have 5 arms."
"The mechanical arm over there makes five."
"You know, that does look familiar . . . but I'll tell you. If you ask politely. If."
"I shouldn't have to ask politely. It's in my rights to know where I'm going."
"What rights? We're all under the Thumb of the almighty Emperor of the Dancing Pineapples."
"I told you, it's the Humming Kiwis, for the last time!"
"Whatever!" Anddra tossed up her hands. "Vel'bolrin'ov!"
Lina scowled. "So how did you alter the plan?"
"Oh, fine. Instead of landing in Egypt like we planned, and exploring those old tombs, I thought we'd take a detour to the British Isles. Cooler. Less chance of sunburn." despite her rich, wood-brown skin, Anddra burned easily and the sun stung her eyes, weakened by her drow heritage and numerous tendays of spending nearly all day in the dark confines of her room.
"Oh. Well, that doesn't sound too bad." Lavinia was satisfied. But that's because in a momentary lapse of her pessimistism, she didn't notice that tell-tale kender glimmer in Anddra's eyes.
Anddra turned away so that Lina missed her telltale kender grin and silently reached over and keyed in something that Lina, who was working on the wires, didn't notice. Satisfied, she turned away and settled down with the spellbook to finalize her memory of the spell. It was quite complex, especially for the minor mage, barely a novice. But Anddra had found someone willing to help her when she'd gotten the book, and that someone had made it a whole lot easier to cast. "Danke, Lunitari." she murmered as she flipped the pages.
Meanwhile, Lavinia finished up the preparations and settled down in a seat. Anddra grinned broader. Lina had no idea about the surprise Anddra was planning for her friend, in honor of their friendship. She really hoped Lina liked it. Confident as she was, Anddra could not imagine life without her friend. It would be so . . . boring, even though Lina was the more cautious one of the two, and unwilling to take as many risks, she was still every bit as crazy as Anddra was.
Likewise, Lavinia's mind was on a similar track. Anddra could be reckless at times, but she was the one that always encouraged her to try out her kooky, impossible ideas. With Anddra's knowledge of spells, and Lavinia's knowledge of machinery, the two friends could come up with some rather interesting things . . ..
. . . like painting wherever they went pink, for instance.
"By the way, Li, do ya have the paint cans?"
"Right here." Lavinia scooted sideways, showing the four-and-a-half cans of shocking pink paint (complete with gallons of dark pink sparkles mixed in), and big paintbrushes, that they were bringing with them, along with her and Anddra's chests of belongings and a big case of . . . actually, she wasn't sure of what was in the case. It was Anddra's, and she had trapped it with various magical cantrips that tickled Lina mercilessly until Anddra decided to remove them.
Evil Anddra.
Speaking of evil Anddra, Anddra, who had finished fine-tuning her spell, knelt down by her chest and examined it. It was very large, and black with silver lining on the inside. It contained a blue orb necklace, several lockpicks, spider ring, snakewhip that she'd gotten off the Faerun equivalent of E-Bay, minor spellbook, silver bracelet, scrolls, her pet rock named Sachiko, vials of strange liquids, illusionist tricks, boxes of a certain item, and a blue lightsaber, along with several other items and clothing. She rifled through her stuff, finally pulling out a particular necklace.
It was a small, detailed silver dragon in a ring of thick silver. Set in the ring where red stones and Zodiac symbols. The whole necklace hung on a thin silver chain, with the quarterbreed quickly clasped around her neck. It gave her good luck . . . and it was familiar. She clasped it briefly, then locked her chest and began tugging it into the machine.
"C'mon, Li, help me . . . hey, I rhymed! Cool!" she called to her friend.
"Coming!" Lina said and started rummaging through her own trunk. It was a black hole, like Anddra's. It was painted a dark, dark blue, with stars and a moon on the sides. Inside were various Items of Curiosity, including a charm bracelet. It was a rather special one, with no ordinary charms. They were not merely trinkets, they were... well, you'll see.
"So, Li, y'know, y'could stop talking to people and, y'know, come and . . . help me?" Anddra called, struggling with the durn stinkin' chest.
"I was just narrating the story... and I'm coming already, Anddee," Lavinia called back as she strode over and stuck a particular charm into another slot in the machine. Slowly, then picking up the pace, the machine started to whirr and hum.
"Take your seat, Anddra, we're taking off!" Lina said in a fake captain's voice.
"Ok, ok . . . wait while I cast the spell." Anddra's eyes closed. Slowly, she raised her arms. and began to chant:
"Black Dragon.
From darkness to darkness/
My voice echos in the emptiness.
White Dragon.
From this world to the next/
My voice cries with life.
Red Dragon.
From darkness to darkness I shout/
Beneath my feet, all is made firm.
Blue Dragon.
Time that flows/
Hold in your course.
Green Dragon.
Because by fate even the gods are cast down/
Weep ye all with me."
Slowly, she brought her arms down until they were straight out to her sides, and tilted her fingers in. Beams of black, white, red, blue, and green light flashed from her fingers and formed a swirling portal . . . just where it was supposed to be.
"Hey . . . isn't that Raistlin's spell to open the Portal to the Abyss?" Lina questioned.
"Yeah, the authoresses couldn't think of any other good ones. But I modified it so that it works towards our advantage." Anddra said, eyes still closed. "Now, pull the durn lever!"
"I told you, it's not a lever, it's a trigger! And I still don't trust that spell, even though you say you modified it," Lavinia said suspiciously, pushed exactly 13 buttons in a series of patterns, and pulled the trigger/lever/thingies.
"Trust me, Li!" laughed Anddra, the exultance that filled her with the magic flowing more strongly than any sugar-high.
Lavinia started to get scared. "Trust me, Li," was never good. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, had that turned out good.
The machine slowly rose off the ground, moved towards the portal, and in the flash, was enveloped inside it.
"I stated that earlier!" protested Anddra, though her voice was lost in the rush of power and sound. Suddenly, the portal flashed . . .
. . . pink . . .
That was never good either.
"Uh oh." Anddra whispered. She stared at her portal.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, UH OH?" screamed Lina in terror.
Anddra just stared in horror, than began to riffle through her spellbook. "Major uh oh," she murmured. "This isn't right . . . nope . . . . not at all . . . but who cares?" she finished, with a shrug and a grin. "Don't worry, I'll fix it!"
"You had better!" Lavinia was brinking upon hysterical now. "I told you I didn't trust that spell!"
"Well . . . " Anddra turned away and began fiddling with a wire. Her eyes went wide as she noticed that the main one was .. .
. . . broken.
Uh oh, indeed.
The last thing Lina heard before she was thrown forward into a swirling pink vortex was the most dreaded thing anyone near anybody with a speck of kender blood in their veins could ever, ever hear.
"Oops!"
Well . . . do you guys like?
Please, please, please, please review!