TW: Mentions of body shaming, abusive relationships, sexual assault.
The thinning of the lines between worlds is not only for Thedas and Earth, though no one knows that. It isn't like there is a well known forum thread or a hashtag to follow on social media. The people drawn through the cracks between worlds don't get to talk to one another. They don't even know about each other.
To date, Elyria Duke remains the only person to figure out how to get home and how to go back. The others are not so fortunate.
Chapter 1
"The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before." - Albert Einstein
Erdene, a woman who is a month into her thirties, tawny skin that was somehow always rosy even in winter, freckles everywhere and a voluptuous frame, southerner by birth, was washing dishes at work. She held a bookkeeper/management position in a fairly small but popular bookstore and cafe in Sparks, Nevada. The air conditioner had been pumping at full blast, and yet sweat still trickled down her temple, her hairline wet from the indoor humidity. Nevada spring heatwaves could be unbearably hot, but add in an ounce of humidity and life becomes miserable.
She was silently debating having something from the Cold Stone across the street or going to Walmart after work for ice pops. Wiping at her forehead with the back of one gloved hand. Cold Stone was probably the better idea of the two.
Her roommate, a fifty plus year old divorcee named Tracy, was known to eat food not belonging to her because Erdene was too 'big' to begin with. I don't know how a 'Southern Belle' (she had said it with air quotes) let herself get so chunky. The drama queen would then gorgeous herself on her keto friendly snacks and eye Erdene with no small amount of contempt. Or acknowledgement that she was also quote unquote 'chunky.'
"I need a new roommate," Erdene told the soapy, dirty dish water with resigned irritation.
She hadn't planned on living with Tracy, but with the price of rent it was becoming increasingly obvious she wouldn't be able to live in most of the state for much longer without having a roommate.
You should be settled down and married at your age. Uncle Ward's voice cut its ugly way through her brain as it had a dozen times since she visited her family in Georgia in February. It was the same thing at least one of them said to her every time she went back.
Without fail. Every. Single. Damn. Time.
Their marriages were nothing to be envious of.
She had to go back for Betty's wedding. If only to try to talk Betty out of it. The girl was barely nineteen marrying a man who was at least nine years older. She called three weeks prior to tell her older cousin, Erdene, that she was thinking about giving up her scholarship to Georgia State and had confided that he was pressuring her to go off birth control and quit college.
There's no telling someone in an abusive relationship that they're in one. All you can do is listen, hold their hand, tell them it is okay to want their own dreams and not cave to the demands of their significant other. That no, it is not okay to be called fatty, or be shown 'skinnier' women on Instagram whose age was questionable. Especially when you're already thin to begin with. It's not okay to be pressured into having unprotected sex when you're not into it. It's not okay to have your birth control be taken from you as a 'joke.' To be told you'll be happier without your family in the way of our love. To be slapped when you're trying to get your environmental design homework done and he wants dinner.
He has his own two fucking hands, he can make his own damn dinner.
Betty told her, even when they were switching cell phone numbers, that she could change him. Her love could change him. Erdene knelt before the cousin she helped raise, gently taking her hands, tucking fawn color hair behind a pale ear as she listened.
They couldn't be more different. Betty's cornflower blue eyes, blonde hair, flawless pale skin to Erdene's tawny skin decorated with random moles and freckles, dark hair and hazel eyes. Beatrice Candace Lancer, the epitome of what her family wanted to be and Erdene Juniper Thoroughfare, a hint to the secret her family was keeping.
Tears spilled down pale cheeks to her pristine white wedding dress. "I think I made a mistake, E."
The thing about mistakes is there is always a fix. Erdene added Betty to her phone plan, changed her cousin's phone number, put her cousin in an Uber with some money and one Erdene's credit cards. She took Betty's keys, left the wedding and packed her cousin's things.
Hell hath no fury like two families demanding to know where their missing bride went. The fiance got in her face like she expected. Threatened her like she expected. Sicked his disgustingly, equally abusive family on her. Grandmama and granddaddy were incredibly unhappy to say the very least. Aunt Lola, Betty's mother, was absolutely livid. Uncle Ward tried to browbeat her into submission. Her mother, as always, looked distantly into nothing and said nothing.
While they were all shouting at her, at each other, demanding someone find Betty, Erdene sat down next to her mother, so pretty in her plum colored cocktail dress and her dark blonde hair up a waterfall braid. Her mother's caretaker made an effort to make her look nice, despite her mother being mentally absent. She took her mother's left hand, kissing the back of it, and told her mother in low tones that she wouldn't be coming back to Georgia again. She was sorry. She can't be around the family any more.
Her mother's head hadn't turned. Her mother hadn't made any sign she understood Erdene. She, as always, stared into the distance with a far off look. With one kiss on her mother's cheek, Erdene left with a bottle of champagne and had a glass on the balcony of her hotel overlooking Atlanta. Unless her mother suddenly came to her senses, there was no coming back here.
She had told Betty not to contact anyone. Turn off your socials and don't look at them. Disappear for a bit. Find yourself. Call me if you need me. Betty took off on a plane to Germany of all places and Erdene went home to Nevada.
Judith, the lovely woman that employed her poked her head through the doorway between the manager's office and the kitchen. "Beating our dish towels to death is not the way to vent stress, young lady." She dangled a tall shot glass labeled Utah at Erdene. "Shots are the way we vent stress, doll. Vodka or Don Julio?"
Wrinkling her nose, Erdene attempted not to smile, but it failed in the face of her very kind, very generous employer. Granted, shots were not the way Erdene was planning to vent stress today. The plan was to head to the dojo after work so she could teach some dumbass that shorter and thicker does not mean weaker.
"I take it we are closed for the day?" It was only six thirty on a Monday. Though it was late April most college kids weren't going to try to sell their textbooks to anyone just yet.
Judith waved her hand at the front of the store. "I locked the doors. Come on in sis, let's have some fun."
If Judith wasn't nearly double Erdene's age, she might have been her sister from another mister. She laughed at the over exaggerated wink Judith shot her. "Two minutes." Erdene replied, reaching into the water to open the drain.
It is in this moment the lines between worlds thinned.
When one universe collided with another.
It might have been the binge watch of the whole of the Hobbit trilogy over the weekend that did it. Or that Erdene had attempted to learn Tolkien languages on her own this morning after opening the store. Though if it was language learning, wouldn't it have made more sense to drop her somewhere like Deep Space Nine or Westeros?
It could be the fanfiction she wrote quickly the night before, her brain still brimming with ideas. A story about Kíli and Tauriel finally being able to be alone. She hadn't published it yet. She had it saved to upload once her beta, editor and internet buddy had taken a quick look.
Erdene shed her gloves, the blue rubber settled wetly on the counter. They would dry overnight and she would wear them again tomorrow to clean the cafe's dishes once more tomorrow night. Judith's new hires wouldn't start until summer officially began.
She reached down grabbing her purse and gym bag, heavy with her gear. She had to grab her katana from Judith's office anyway. Erdene couldn't just leave it on her motorcycle in the back of the bookstore. Some dumbass might steal it for shits and giggles.
She straightened.
And someone knocked her into the solid wall of the building next to her.
She blinked in the warm daylight, at the man's back as he walked briskly down the cobblestone walkway to wherever he was headed. Erdene reached to steady herself. Had she set her hand down on the metal rim of the sink which was still beside her in this place that was between and not fully formed yet, she might have stalled the blurring of different worlds. Instead, because she could not have known, she grabbed the wooden post of a shop.
With that, and her solidifying in a world not her own, the sounds of the market picked up, drowning the pained moan from her lips at the awful debilitating spike of a cluster headache took hold.
The only person to hear it was the vendor whose stall she had appeared before. He too, was not looking up, instead he had been sorting through his wares, counting the number of- He stilled as a woman, no dwarf, his gaze narrowed, brown eyes calculating, too tall to be a dwarf perhaps? Her clothes were odd. She leaned on the wooden post next to her, in front of him and let out a small, pained sound.
"Are you all right, miss?" He asked with concern.
Her eyes, so light in color were almost sage in the sunlight, blinked at him. Her brow furrowed. She shook her head, tight mahogany curls around her face. "I don't," her hand came up to cover her right eye, a low hiss escaping her lips, "I don't feel well."
He turned his head to the left where his daughter was finishing with a customer. "Catherine, would you see to the young miss?"
Erdene was lucky. Or mayhap the universe was being kind. She had appeared next to a shop run by a widower and his four daughters. He was by no means a wealthy man, his wife came into their marriage with some money and they had saved and invested wisely over the years. His daughters were skilled in artisan work and pottery. Combined the family did well enough to spare money at the end of each week and set extra food on the table.
Catherine brought her inside.
As Catherine gave her a cup of water, Erdene's hands shook. The clothing was odd, old fashioned and the air much cooler than Nevada had been. The girl was young, fourteen maybe, with skin that had never seen a chocolate or potato chip induced pimple. Her hair, even a little dirty, was shiny. No ridges in her nails. No dry spots on her face or arms or hands. And her clothing while old fashioned was lived in, not costume.
A sinking feeling began in her gut. "Where," she licked her lower lip, the water tasted different from any tap water she'd ever had, "where are we?"
The girl smiled patiently at her, and told her the name of a town.
A sinking stone formed in her stomach. "South Yard." Erdene repeated the name of the town slowly.
"Yes, in the west, near the tail of the blue mountains." Catherine was so confused by the questions. The woman's clothes alone were borderline scandalous with only a small dark green shift to cover her torso and the pale pink straps of her breast binder visible. The material on her legs looked like a soft dark blue though faded in spots as if the dye wasn't distributed correctly. Her hair was loose and dark with a shine to it Cathrine had never seen before.
This was definitely not Kansas, Erdene sipped slowly. There was nothing like Kansas. She'd been to Kansas on a layover flight for six hours due to an unavoidable supercell. Kansas was flat and dusty but they had modern buildings and the people dressed like she did.
One slowly blown out breath later, "What is the name of the country we're in?" Please say something in Europe. Please, please, please say something she would recognize.
The girl blinked at her, "country?"
Oh fuck. Hands shaking, head pounding, blood roaring in her ears as it rushed through her bringing adrenaline and stress hormones, "the world, this world, what is it called?"
The girl's eyes widened, "Arda, miss. Commonly known as-"
Erdene nearly dropped the cup. Water sloshed over the side as she gasped out, "Middle Earth."
I'm not bored with A Fate Unknown. I have no inspiration for it. I've been trying to play DA:I on my new computer. I just don't feel inspired. This, however, I have been writing for weeks. Literal. Weeks.