1Howdy y'all! This is Ethuiliel, and I'm back (sorry, ya can't get rid of me that easily) With a new and improved ficcy! For those of you who read the first version, I am sorry for taking so long to upgrade it. Now on to our scheduled program: Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore...

Nessa was a normal 14 year old girl. She got decent grades. She wasn't popular, but she had a best friend and several other close acquaintances who were deemed worthy of friendship, and she liked to blow things up on her computer. Her short brown hair hung around her face, and she was dressed in simple blue jeans with a large black T-shirt on.

"Bye Mom, bye Dad! I'm going to hang out with Chelsea for a little bit," Nessa shouted over the roar of their neighbor's lawnmower.

"Okay dear, be back by five!" her mom shouted back.

Nessa darted around the corner towards an old vacant lot to wait for her friend when something caught her eye.

Now I wonder what that is... she thought when she stopped to further investigate it. I have about five extra minutes before Chelsea will show up.

Nessa slowly inched towards the shadowy corner where she had seen movement. She crouched down and spread her arms, succeeding to look like a drunk duck and continued creeping forwards. When she was only three feet away from the black smear, she rolled on her stomach and marine-crawled the rest of the distance between her and it. Not knowing why she was so wary of the dark hole, Nessa stuck her head inches from it, and felt a short jolt in her core.

Farther and farther down she fell, her lungs seemed to stop working and when Nessa tried to gulp a breath it felt like she was breathing in acid. Eventually, Nessa stopped her decent and was suspended in midair. She was lightly perched upon an invisible floor and all around her a voice echoed across unseen walls.

"Child, you have been chosen for an important task," Nessa was hard pressed to decide what gender the voice belonged to, and eventually decided that it was neither masculine nor feminine, "The Fabric between Worlds is starting to fray, and only you can fix this problematic dilemma."

So some Fabric-thing is getting ripped up, and that is bad? She thought, and was very surprised when the words boomed out around her.

"Correct. Worlds are slowly melting into each other, and soon there will be no way to distinguish them," the voice once again floated around her, teasing her senses. For one word she would hear it and the next time she might taste it, and another sentence might be communicated to her through smell.

What do you mean...Worlds? She asked the thing.

"Each World has a universe, and a thin veil of Fabric -for the loss of a better word- keeps these Worlds separate. Of course, some things are going to be seen by other Worlds, creatures with the ability to see more than others have more 'creativity' than those who can see very little. You are going to a world that a woman called Tamora Peirce has written about," the voice explained, "Some Worlds are very similar, and others are nothing alike."

Well Bob, what do you want me to do about it? Nessa was perplexed, she was 14! What was she supposed to do, get onto the school board!

"Child, you have the power to shut the doors in the Fabric, the one that you went through, it leads to a place you are familiar with," the newly-named Bob told Nessa.

You mean, I get to go running around some place that I have only read about before now, and search for these little shadow-things, and then use some power that I didn't even know I had to close them... cool. Nessa could have sworn that Bob rolled his eyes, before he let her go.

The thing holding her up fell away, letting her drop again. It was almost like she was in zero gravity, but as she drifted down from her old position, she started to see things. To her right there was a large pine tree, and there was snow everywhere. The longer she fell, the more she could see. Nessa was lying in the snow with a rock digging into her back. She could only half-feel the snow that was lightly falling on her, and it was cold. The air around her was brittle, and she could almost feel the one jarring note among the rocks. Slowly turning, Nessa saw the tear that she came through.

What do I do? She asked Bob, hoping he was still listening to her.

Something in her subconscious shifted, and she raised her arms so she made a 'T' shape with her palms in and brought them together with one swift clap.

"Master Numair, are you sure that the surge came from over here?" Nessa heard two people coming towards her.

"Yes, the woman that the Goddess told Alanna was coming should be right...about...here," suddenly, the people came around a tree, one of which Nessa immediately recognized to be Numair Salmalin from The Immortals series.

"Hello, I am Nessa Ancolimon, and I was sent here to fix some things," she said, bowing to the mage and his student.

"Yes, we are very grateful to Mithros for finding you, the Goddess said you would straighten out some of the strange things that have been happening," Numair smiled warmly at Nessa, and did not expect what she said next.

"Your deities had nothing to do with it, this is bigger than anything you have encountered before. Your gods may have power over you, but anywhere else they would just be mages," Nessa held her head high and said what she did with confidence. They need me, I have the same, or maybe even more status than him.

"Really? Well, one way or another I was sent by his Majesty, King Jonathan of Tortal to escort you to the palace and make sure you are treated respectably," Numair nodded to hisstudent and the young boy quickly held out a richly-embroidered cloak and Nessa wrapped it about her shoulders.

How the hell did I get talked into this? Nessa asked herself angrily. She was sitting at something she could have sworn was an early shot at vanity-desk-things and was being poked, tugged on, and dusted with various torture devices the ladies-in-waiting called "hair curlers". Claiming that they would make her an angel on earth. This lulled her into a sense of false security, and then they pounced.

"Oh my Miss Nessa! The color orange looks so good on you!" One them screeched when she came out in a horrid orange thing with a disgustingly low neckline made acceptable with red gauze, pink roses around the hem, and all topped off with red and pink streamers woven into her gently curled hair. Why me?

When Nessa stepped onto the staircaseleading down to the tables, she knew Tamora Pierce did not glorify Tortal at all. The only thing that distinguished this as not a vision was the fashion choice that most of the occupants of the room had. Leotards! Well, that's what it looked like to her anyway. The world's first manly pantyhose. Glory glory. She thought in monotone. The next thing she saw, though, took her breath away.

HAHA! Cliffy type thing. I'll tell you one thing, it has to do with her powers. Now, please tell me, is it better? Worse? Am I a better writer than when I was nine! The only way for me to know is in a review! I want three of those jolly things before I update, right Owen?

Owen: Sounds like a jolly plan to me!

Ethu-chan gets bopped on head by somesortofperson and pansgod You can't say that word!

Ethu- Heheh, don't ask...