bwahahahaha...I hope you all enjoyed the cliffie! I'll have you know I was cackling madly while I was posting it.

Wild Woman--i just remembered---you mentioned a LotR marathon. If you're an Eomer fan, I have an Eomer OC fic called Skylark that you might enjoy.

whoever asked me: I've been riding on and off for years but time (and money) always seems to run short and I have to stop my lessons.

to the general public: I've got about 130 odd pages already written, so that's why the chapters are getting posted so quickly. Once I go through all that I have, things are going to go MUCH more slowly.

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Codi could only stare, utterly speechless. When she found her voice, she answered angrily.

"My mother is dead," she snapped. "She--"

"Went missing," the woman answered for her. "When you were three years old. They never found a body."

Now that Codi looked at her, she could see that the woman bore a remarkable resemblance to the photographs of Morgan Ross. The woman in the pictures was younger, yes, and with short hair, but they were uncomfortably similar. Codi found herself comparing the eyes and nose and cheeks, becoming more and more distressed. It was impossible! It simply couldn't be.

"Will this convince you?" her mother asked, speaking in Codi's original tongue, and smiled. "You look just like your father...but you have my eyes. And my figure, if not my height."

"How?" Codi managed. "How is this happening?"

"Come inside," Morgaine said. "I think a cup of tea is in order."

Codi looped Dancer's reins lightly around a low branch and followed Morgaine inside, where she sat at a small table. Morgaine set a cup of tea in front of her and sat down across the table. She looked at Codi, then down at her tea. Then she sighed and began to tell her story.

"I was born in a small village on the other side of the forest. My mother was a goatherd's daughter and I don't know who my father is to this day. I was conceived on the eve of Beltane and my mother never saw him again. When my grandfather found out my mother was pregnant, he kicked her out of the house. She was taken in by the Woads and bore me in their village north of the wall. She married soon after and had another daughter."

"So how did you have me?" Codi asked, having accepted the fact that she was her mother.

"I was five," Morgaine said, remembering. "I'd only gone out to pick some flowers for my mother, but I got lost. I kept wandering and wandering and suddenly found myself next to a river of stone. That in itself terrified me. I nearly had a heart attack when this huge, roaring beast swept by and nearly got me." Morgaine smiled a little. "Cars are scary for five year olds born in that world, much less one who had never even seen a paved road. The next car that went by stopped and came to ask me if I was lost. Of course, I couldn't understand them, but they took me in and raised me as their own. I learned English—modern English—fairly quickly. I grew up like any other girl."

"What happened when you started taking history lessons?" Codi asked. "Surely you still remembered."

"I convinced myself that it was just a dream," Morgaine shrugged. "What could I have said? They would have thrown me in a mental institution. Anyway, I met your father in college—he was on the track team with my foster brother, who introduced us. We had you not long after we were married. It seemed like a miracle, all these wonderful things happening at once. Getting married, having a baby—and your father had just gotten the trainer's position at Sheridan Acres. But I felt like something was missing. Like I needed something--"

"That was just out of your reach," Codi finished hollowly.

Morgaine nodded, regarding her daughter compassionately, and stroked her raven's chest lightly. "I believe that's why I was called back to this world, and why you were called here. You're destiny lies here, my lass, not in modern day America. I don't know why I was sent ahead in time in the first place, but I returned to find my village burned and my kinfolk nowhere to be found."

"I thought you had convinced yourself that it was a dream," Codi said.

"Yes, well, it's hard to keep thinking that when you fully recognize the woods you're in and know your way around." Morgaine sighed. "Once I realized where I was, I was so excited...I thought I would see my mother again. When I finally found my kin, I found that my mother and sister were dead."

Codi looked at her mother shyly. "I never dreamed I would get to see my mother again. And I do remember you. Sort of."

"Oh, Codi," Morgaine whispered, and reached across the table to grasp her daughter's hand. "So many years stolen from us...I want to know everything about your life—everything I missed. Did you take to horses like your father hoped?"

"Oh, yes," Codi laughed. "My filly out there—Dad had really high hopes for her. I was just taking her on a run on the trail when we found ourselves here. And then these riders just started chasing us--"

"No, no," Morgaine said, waving her hand. "I want to know about your old life—you know, what your first day of school was like, what your friends were like, what classes you took; that sort of thing."

"My first day of school was scary," Codi remembered. "I was too shy to talk to anyone and then this big third grader stole my lunch money. I got picked on a lot, because I never resisted. I didn't have many friends." Codi grimaced. "Dad's been telling me for years that I need to learn to stand up for myself. I get it even here."

"You got that from me, I'm afraid," Morgaine laughed. "I was always a push over...but I grew out of it, and so will you. Were you all about horses or did you play sports, too?"

"Track and field," Codi said with a grin. "I was offered a scholarship at NC State and a couple of schools in California, but I wanted to stay close to home."

"Are you a sprinter or a distance runner like your father?" Morgaine asked curiously. "He placed third at nationals his senior year, you know."

"I know," Codi said, smiling. "I'm a jumper. But I guess you could say I'm a sprinter, too. My best event is the high hurtles. My coach said I had a shot at placing at nationals this year."

"How old are you now? Time seems to pass differently somehow."

"Nineteen," Codi told her. "I was a freshman. The upperclassmen weren't too happy with me."

"I wish I could have seen you race," Morgaine said wistfully. "I always like the hurtles best—it's exciting. I never told your father this, but watching the distance races is so boring."

Codi giggled. "That's what I said when I first started. Distance is boring."

Codi told her everything, from her first kiss to the 'spank me' shorts to the chase around the fortress to Summerfair. Morgaine laughed and commiserated and congratulated her and assured her that she would grow a backbone eventually. When she came to Gawain and the problems he posed, Morgaine frowned.

"Well, it's natural to be attracted to someone close to you in age," she shrugged. "But Tristan is quite right. You need to tell this Gawain fellow to back off and stop treating you like a baby."

"How do you know Tristan?" Codi asked curiously. "Gawain said he had some 'dealings' with you and came back a changed man. Complete with tattoos and a hawk."

"I taught Tristan everything he knows about tracking and herb-lore," Morgaine said. "As I will teach you, if you are willing to learn."

"Of course," Codi cried. "Anything is better than taking care of babies all day and serving drunks all night."

"Well, you'll still serve drunks at night," Morgaine said, "but I can rescue you from babies, at least."

"That's more than enough," Codi said, rolling her eyes. "When can we start?"

"Now, if you like," Morgain said with a shrug. "No time like the present."

"Alright then..." Codi paused and looked at Morgaine. "Can—can I call you mother?"

"Well, I am your mother, aren't I?" Morgaine said with a smile. "You can call me anything you like. Except Mommy. I refused to be called Mommy by my nineteen year old." Finally the tears spilled out of her eyes. "Oh, God...my little girl..."

Codi knelt and laid her head in her mother's lap. All her life, she'd been jealous of other girls. On her first day of school, she'd been dressed in the overalls and tiny sneakers that her father had bought for her. All the other girls had worn dresses and bows in their hair that their mothers had picked out. When Codi had her first crush, she told no one. When her boyfriend in eighth grade broke up with her, she cried alone. When she had her first period, the school nurse helped her. Perhaps Codi was receiving her mother a little late, but better late than never. Perhaps she had a mother now because she needed one more than ever—someone to teach her how to live in this strange new world and guide her through its trials as her father had tried to do in her old world.

"I miss Dad," Codi whispered.

"I know, sweetie," Morgaine murmured, kissing her daughter's hair. "Me, too."

"Why do I have to trade one for the other? Why can't I have a mom and a dad?"

"I don't know," Morgaine said sadly. "The pain will fade, I promise. It won't disappear, but it will fade. And someday you'll find someone to make it worth the pain—someone to help you bear it."

Codi thought of Gawain and sighed. Perhaps someday he could be that someone.

When Codi returned that evening, Vonora read her an impressively long winded lecture. Codi merely smiled and went to work, saying that she would be out all the next day, as well. Gawain went at her too. Surprisingly, it wasn't all that difficult to blow him off. She merely shrugged and told him, quite calmly, that she wasn't a child and it was just something that she had to do.

"I'm going with you, then," he said. "It's dangerous out there, Codi—there areWoads and thieves—wolves--"

"You will not," Codi said firmly. "This is mine to do and I'll thank you not to pry. It doesn't concern you."

Gawain was flabbergasted. "Codi--"

"Gawain, leave be," Tristan said. Codi could see the approval in his eyes.

"Are you daft?" Gawain said incredulously. "You would let a girl go out unprotected, unarmed--"

"Not a girl," Tristan said calmly. "A woman. And, judging by the knife at her belt, hardly unarmed."

"As if she knows how to use it," Gawain scoffed.

Codi gave her would-be suitor a look of deepest disgust and moved on, filling cups. Morgaine had given her the knife and had begun to teach her how to use it along with a bow and staff. The first thing to learn, she said, was how to defend herself. Codi could hear her mother's voice in her head even now. No sense in wandering around the forest completely defenseless—whatever you're hunting will end up hunting you. Codi was a quick study. She hadn't mastered any of her new weapons by far, but she wasn't completely incompetent.

Gawain made his apologies later that night. Codi allowed herself to be placated by tender words and kisses, but flatly refused to let him accompany her the next day. When she set out alone the next morning, she had her bow slung across her shoulder and her knife on her belt. Hearing the cry of a hawk, Codi looked up to see the familiar form wheeling above her and smiled. Not so alone, after all.