AN: Hello again. God, that was quick. I just wanted to let all of you know a few things about his story. First off, the chapters will be longer than the first one, which was a prologue. Second, I rated this story T for language, and the rating will eventually go up because of violence, etc. Finally (I think), I doubt I will but I do not wish to offend anyone with what I say (or write, in this case), and if I do, that sucks and I apologize but I likely won't change anything.
PS: You should be happy I posted this because I have an AP Chemistry Lab to type up *sigh*.
Chapter 2
Rachel tried to turn her head but instead coughed and asked dryly, "Guys?"
She heard a trio of groans.
Using them as motivation, she attempted to sit and get a better view of things.
Before she could, however, she heard one thing.
"…Goddamnit Rachel, what did you do?"
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Said teen was still lying on the floor so she craned her neck back to look at their surroundings.
They were in a clearing of sorts. Zi was tangled up in some dead vines, writhing on the floor while Mikenzie just stared at her. Maddy had shakily gotten to her feet and was looking around. The clearing was ringed with tall, ancient trees that creaked and moaned in the breeze. The ground was covered in layers upon layers of pine needles and leaves, both dead and recently fallen, making it cushy. High above, Rachel could see the blue sky and an occasional wisp of cloud. Her backpack was on the ground close to her.
The blonde braced her hands on either side of her and once again attempted to sit up, only to find something on her chest. She looked down…and stared. And stared. And stared some more.
Sitting on her chest was a white dragon's egg. It was perfectly shaped and smooth, lighter than it should have been. It was about a foot long and half a foot wide. It was the color of polished ivory, with veins of an eggshell-silver color. It was…beautiful.
"Woah, dude, that's a really big rock." Zi was looking at her.
Rachel looked at her friend in a daze. "It's…it's not a rock. It's an egg."
Maddy eye's bulged. "From what?" She shrieked. "What beast could have created such a thing?...Oh my god, the dinosaurs have returned!"
"Rachel…" Mikenzie whispered.
The blonde turned to her, only to find the source of her friends worry. Mikenzie was also holding a dragon egg, this one bathed in a deep royal purple. The brunette looked at her friend with a strange fire that they now both shared.
"Hey, how come I didn't get a pretty rock?" Zi pouted.
"Well, if you would like your life to remain uncomplicated and un-dangerous, then I think it's a good thing you didn't get one."
Her friend raised an eyebrow.
Mikenzie was looking from her to the egg in her lap. Her mouth opened and closed, like a fish out of water.
"Umm, guys…where are we?" Zi asked, looking up at the trees and turning in a circle.
Rachel looked around as well. "Certainly not Kansas. Or California."
Mikenzie looked at the blonde, serious in thought, then said, "You don't suppose…?"
Rachel shook her head furiously. "That only happens in fanfictions." She didn't seem convinced though.
"Then…what was that mist? And do you wanna pull the magical explanation of why we have dragon eggs in our laps out of your ass? Cuz I certainly don't have an explanation."
Maddy's laughter filled the clearing. "Haha, dragons? Seriously guys? You read too much."
The girls glared.
Maddy smiled. "To prove it, I'm going to walk into those trees to show you that the school is on the other side and that someone is playing a really elaborate trick on us."
The brunette disappeared into the trees determinedly. About two minutes later, they heard a scream and said brunette came crashing back.
"WHERE THE FUCK ARE WE? WHERE'S THE SCHOOL? YOU DON'T THINK WE DIED, DO YOU? IF THIS HEAVEN I HATE IT!"
The girl ran around in circles, screaming and tugging at her hair.
Rachel looked at the egg in her lap. They couldn't possibly be…could they?
The blonde looked at Mikenzie, who looked back at her, the same thought running through their heads.
Rachel took a deep breath. "Well, someone better call the cavalry, because girls, we are in Alagaesia."
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After both Maddy and Zi had exhausted themselves trying to convince everyone that they were either dreaming or high, the remaining two girls calmly tried to explain the situation. Not that there was much of a 'situation' to begin with.
They saved the details for later. They kind of assumed they might be here for a while, so they told them the basics: they were in a different dimension, one similar to medieval times, there were power-hungry kings and magic users, there probably wasn't a way to get home, they were gonna die, etc.
Mikenzie grinned at Zi. "Ha. I bet someone's wishing that they had read more than sixty pages of the book now."
Zi glared at her and stuck her tongue out.
"Okay guys, I still think this a dream, but since we're not waking up anytime soon…what do we do? We're all gonna die, out here in this cold, miserable, pathetic forest and I'm never gonna see Anthony again!" Maddy cried dramatically.
"Haha, serves you right…cougar." Rachel muttered the last part.
"Well, at least he's only two years younger than me, unlike you who only finds guys attractive if they're at least 5 years older than you!"
"Seven" Rachel corrected.
Maddy shuddered. "You're gross."
Rachel grinned and high-fived Mikenzie.
Maddy looked out through the clearing, worry etched on her face. "Okay guys, I'm now seriously freaked. We need to do something. Let's go down this mountain and…find someone. Let's find a town and call home."
Rachel snorted. "This is an era of dragons, elves, and magic. There are no phones here. There's not even electricity."
Maddy looked about ready to die. "Well, we should still go look. Someone might help us find a way home."
Rachel stood. "And what are you going to tell them? 'Hello, sorry to bother you, but my friends and I just came from another dimension and are seeking a way back. Do you happen to have a multi-dimensional travelling device?' Cuz that will go over really well. All you'll do is attract attention to us."
"Then what are we supposed to do? It's not like we have options." Maddy sulked.
Rachel pondered. "Actually, we do have one option. We can't go seeking help in just any place. We can't attract attention to ourselves. We can't show ourselves to the King. And…we can't let anyone about this" she pointed to the eggs, "except for one person."
She gestured around her. "You forget that I, well we," she said, gesturing at Mikenzie, "know a fair amount about…this. Assuming we are in the correct time frame, and if we aren't we're screwed, then I know someone who can help. Judging from the trees, we aren't in Du Weldenvarden, and this forest is too vast and…untamed to be any other than the Spine. That means that we are too far from the elves, the Varden, or the dwarves."
Here she looked at Mikenzie. "You know what I'm talking about."
"Yes," Mikenzie nodded and grinned widely, "I like this train of thought you're having."
Rachel grinned too. "So, we have no other option. We must seek out Brom!"
"Yay!" Zi fist-pumped the air. "Now who the heck's Brom and what the bleeding hell is the Varden?"
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Tired and exhausted, Zi and Maddy listened when Mikenzie and Rachel said they would explain everything in more detail later.
Zi yawned, "So since you're not gonna tell us now, can you at least tell us how we find this Brom?"
Rachel bit her lip. "We've gotta find out where exactly in the Spine we are, then formulate a plan, then execute said plan, then-"
A loud growl emanated through the clearing.
"Whoops, sorry" Zi blushed. "I'm hungry."
Rachel frowned. "Well, the first thing we have to do is find food and water. Otherwise everything is pointless."
She glanced around the clearing. "Okay guys, bag check! In an emergency such as this we need to take inventory of all our supplies and the supplies that we need."
"Uh," Maddy looked around, "my bag's not here."
"Well shit."
They grabbed their belongings and sat in a circle, up-ending their bags and letting everything fall to the floor.
"So," Rachel picked through the meager pile, "we have a fruit bar, a granola bar, and one of Zi's terrible sandwiches."
"Hey!"
"What? They're gross."
Zi stuck her tongue out. Rachel smiled and turned her head to the sky.
"Anyone know what time it is?"
Maddy reached into the pile and took out her phone, fiddling with it. She snapped it shut. "It's dead."
"Everyone take out your electronics."
There was a snapping sound as they each checked their phones. Rachel grabbed her laptop from the pile.
"Nothing guys" Zi sighed. "The phones are all dead."
"Hey," Rachel said. "The laptop's working."
Mikenzie all but flung herself over Rachel, the other girls crowding close.
"Oh, wait. False alarm. It's alive but I can't get an internet connection."
Maddy punched her friend in the arm. "Well what bloody use is that?"
"What are you British now? And it's plenty useful. We've got Word and PowerPoint, some games…"
Maddy rolled her eyes. "Yes, of course, we have an urgent need to create a slide-show!"
"But of course," Rachel said, and then a big smile crossed her face. "Heeeeyyyy, guys…I've got all the movies I downloaded, and pictures."
There was a synchronized fist-pump from the girls, and then their attention was drawn back to the pile.
"So what else we got?"
"Let's see…ooh, a lighter, nice Kenzie. Kenzie's limited supplies of toiletries, courtesy of our sleep-over. My cards, thank Morgan Freeman! And…yes, my pocket knife! Complete with mini-scissors, mini-screwdriver, and mini-bottle opener!" Rachel hummed and hugged her knife close. "Zi's jewelry, Kenzie's make-up, ooh that's gonna run out quickly, and a whole lot of mother-frickin school supplies!"
Zi sighed. "So basically, we have no way to get home, no way to contact home, almost zero food, no water, and we're in a different universe?"
Maddy nodded. "That about sums it up."
"Well fuck. Excuse me if I go into panic mode."
"Nope, no panic mode," Rachel warned. "Predators will sense your adrenaline rush and eat you."
Maddy's eyes widened. "I…uh, I think I wanna go home now."
Rachel looked up. "Yeah…"
They fell into silence and leaves rustled in the breeze around them.
Rachel placed the laptop on Mikenzie's lap and stood. She walked to a pine with low-hanging branches and began to climb it.
"Um, isn't this a bad time for a leisurely climb?" Zi asked.
The blonde flipped her off. She kept climbing and eventually stopped about 10 feet from the top, where the branches were too thin to support her. The girls could only see the bottoms of her black Converse.
A few minutes later she climbed down and landed next to them.
"What'd you see? Ponies and rainbows?" Mikenzie looked so hopeful.
"Forest. A whole lot of forest."
Mikenzie's lip quivered. "No ponies?"
Maddy pat her head. "No Mikenzie, no ponies."
Rachel looked thoughtful. "Okay, so we fell into this world, or at least left ours at 8:05 am; however, we don't know how long we were unconscious, it could have been a minutes or days. Also, this world might not even be on the same time frame." She paused and took a long breath. "If we go by the sun, and that's assuming I'm reading it correctly, then it should be about 6 p.m. …we need to find water before it gets dark."
"YAY!" Mikenzie jumped about. "We're going on an adventure! To Candy Mountain! Yaaayyy!"
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The girls repacked their supplies, shouldered their backpacks and headed out. Since it was an adequate shelter, the girls left neon pink sticky notes on occasional leaves in the event they could not find a better place to stay. As they trudged, Rachel felt the dragon egg bumping into her back, despite her having wrapped it in her jacket.
Following Rachel's never-ending common sense, the girls looked for water by searching for the 'signs' Rachel mentioned. The closer they got to water, the more abundant and dense the trees would get. Animals tended to flock towards a source of water. And of course, they listened.
After a while, a dull thunder met their ears, vibrating up through the mossy forest floor.
Maddy shrieked 'Airplane!' and fell flat on her butt.
"Nope," Zi said, "waterfall!"
The girls looked at each other.
"WATER!" They shouted their victory in unison and ran towards their destination.
A wall of thick vines and leaves blocked their path, and as they tore through it they gasped at what was on the other side.
"Guys, I don't think we have a need to go back to the clearing," Zi said wide-eyed.
That was for sure.
They were in another clearing, a bigger one, and the only word that seemed to describe it was paradise. A long, graceful waterfall stretched before them, creating a light mist that kissed their faces. It fell over the edge of a sturdy, stone cliff and into a pond that sparkled. The water was a clear turquoise, perfect for swimming. A sandy beach graced one side of the pond, its tan length stretching back for yards. Trees of all kinds ringed the clearing: pine trees, maple trees, oak trees, aspen trees, apple trees-apple trees?
"APPLES!"
The word had barely left Mikenzie's mouth when Zi smacked into her from behind, rushing with all she possessed to the tree.
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They hadn't been this happy in a long time. The four girls sat on a rock that jutted out over the pond, dangling and splashing their feet in the water. A pile of delicious, fat red apples sat between them on Mikenzie's jacket. They were laughing and making jokes, forgetting at the moment they were so very far from home.
The sun was fading fast so they opted to sleep there for the night, deciding to deal with their situation in the morning. They spread out there jackets on the sand near the cliff wall. The humidity from the waterfall made it difficult to locate any good firewood nearby, so they found another source of fuel.
"Sayonara, biology homework!" Mikenzie cackled evilly as she added the paper to the blazing pile of other unfortunately hated assignments. The fire lay between their 'beds'.
They sat around the warmth quietly, each buried in their own thoughts. Rachel found hers constantly driven to the egg in her backpack. With hesitant hands, she reached in her bag and took out the clothed bundle. Unwrapping the egg, she placed it near her feet, close to the fire. For all she knew, the little guy was also cold.
The violet egg sat in Mikenzie's lap as she rocked back and forth slowly, humming 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'.
It was fitting. In their world, the stars were often masked by clouds and city lights, but here they truly did sparkle.
It was silent and peaceful until, "We need smores."
They laughed.
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AN: Hey, I know we haven't met yet anybody of importance yet, just hang on to your skivvies-that time will come!
A million thank-you's to those who have reviewed, alerted and favorited, you made my day! I will love you always :)
It's nearly midnight and I still have to get in the shower, so see you later, and here's a doughnut!
Remember, review, review, make my day :)