2 - Troy
A lone laugh rang out from the dusty street corner as two small children ran past, pushing and shoving at each other playfully, Niera rose from where she had been crouched up against the stone wall, arching her back as she stretched her limbs from their recent cramped position. Life was so different here, everything had changed. There would have been major complications to her arrival here she would have thought, but no, Niera's speech was completely understandable to those around her, to the natives of this land, she sounded different from them, there was a certain inflection to her words that was not in the others but the important thing was that she could understand them in return.
While everything had changed from the very culture around her she found with a sense of familiarity that humans were in fact the same, they had not changed, they still could be greedy, kind, cowering, arrogant... Niera found all those characteristics still there and it was oddly enough comforting to her, if she had been dropped among alien people that she could not relate too... Niera closed her eyes briefly, a tremour passing through her body. She was still mastering the panicy fear that seized ahold of her at times, the fear that whispered that she would be forever lost in this world, that she was helpless in the events that would take place.
It had been only several months after her arrival that she heard rumours, the gossip that Prince Paris had returned, and had scandoulously abducted a Spartan king's wife. There were no details included but that was all that was needed to tell Niera she had come to a turning point in history. Since that time she had been dredging up all memory and recollation of the Trojan War and any time period close to it. Niera was more a brain-child that anything else, she had read extensively, oddly and fortunately enough into the works of Homer which depicted the Trojan War. That in itself did not trouble her, but... A single disturbing thought had crossed her mind. What if Homer had not been so accurate as historians would have thought. What if there were events and happenings she could not possibly know about and therefore endangering her position in the war. The fact that she was within the walls of Troy, and therefore part of it if war came, was alone a frightening.
She could not tell how much time it would be before the black ships of the Acheans reached Troy's shores.
All these thoughts had whirled endlessly in Niera's head, causing many a time a troubled expression to cross her face. So far the odds had been against her since arriving from the dream world, the improbability of that matter (the dream world) itself Niera had not even tried to fathom. She was young but she had realised be-latedly that she was not quite so young as she might have supposed, the Trojan culture and that of the mediterraen world put age in higher standerds than did modern times. Her fifteen years would be treated as one pratically an adult, except in pampered high-born families. Another odd against her, her sex, Niera had read enough to know that females were treated with a sense of under-dog from males, at least outwardly, but she had never really imagined it.
Even the very slight sexists she had been exposed to in the modern world had enraged her, now... Niera shook her head ruefully, she would have to learn to be in better control of herself. A rather unfortunate inn-keeper, when asked for work, had looked at her boggle-eyed after making several sexist observations on her gender which had, at the time, so infuriated Niera that she had lost her temper all-together, lashing out with a few well-chosen curses and all-together degrading language. It seemed, interesting enough Niera had observed when she had time to think about it, that the bad language today was still held in the same light as to it's meaning.
That incident had only furthered her caution in approaching the mannerisms of ancient culture. There were times, at night usually, when she realised the how unreal her situation was, but it was so real, a scratch on her hand bled, a collision with another still caused bruises, life was life... just so different. After the first several days Niera had recovered from the numbing shock that had overcome her, realising with effort that she could no longer tell herself it was a dream. That fact had not thoroughly come across until months later.
Shaking her head quickly Niera touched one hand to her stomuch which had shrunken somewhat since her arrival, food had to be gotten. It had taken quite a while before Niera had realised that work for females was not open, it had taken another period of time before she had found out about the beaches and the fishing industry. Niera had always been shy in public, she never had gone, voluntarily, into stores and other public places without someone with her, she always felt uncomfortable, feeling closed in. Continued exposure to people around her every moment, Troy was the center of industry in the medditeraen, had made her bolder, bold enough to approach an old man, a fisherman and ask for work.
Her first words had earned her a wide-eyed expression, much like she had gotten from the inn-keeper, but without the infuriating comments. There had been a long pause and abit of shameless urging on her part before the fisherman had almost grudging granted her work, mending nets precisely, the job was unfamiliar to Niera and she had never so much as picked up a needle in her life-time but with impatient pointers from the old-man she managed to get along well enough. Several days of the work resulted in rising blisters which later hardened into callouses in places Niera had never before exposed to work. She had worked well enough to be fed by the old-man's wife, who had treated her from the start like some ignorant foriegner, as Niera supposed later with a grin, she was.
Since then her life had settled into a disturbed pattern, when she was hungry she went down to the beaches to mend the everlasting pile of rent nets that was always available, the remainder of her time was spent wandering through the city, by now she had gone through most all of it she could, the higher section towards the center were barred to the common-folk as she realised with a jolt she was unless she could put-on otherwise, not likely in her loose-jeans and baggy T-shirt that had also earned her some intereseted stares. Women, she supposed rightly, did not just dress like that.
She had gone out of the city many times usually to gaze to the horizon that some day soon she knew would turn black with the oncoming sails of the Acheans ships. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On a first note I'd like to put in that I'm following TROY (the movies) timeline, I'm not going through the ten years that Homer gives us. Mostly because that makes way to long a fanfic and you'd all be falling asleep by then, either that or dead of old age. Second note: Review! Give me anything, your critisism is also yearned for, unless of course it's just stupid, critisism is the key to writing better. Third Note: Give me good suggestions and I'll follow them, I'm making up the story as I go along and I want to make it fit together nicely. Peaches and Creme02 : Thank you for the encourgement! It's always great to know the story is going well Mel0Yel0#03 : I'll follow your suggestions and in the next chapter I'm looking more into my character, I want it to unfold bit by bit Queen Arwen : Thank you! I do love detail and I am looking forward to the other characters sweetypie15 : Glad to know the storyline looks to be going somewhere!