Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza

It feels strange to start a second thread, but my photography and my writing are two such different .. arts that I would rather not mix one up with the other. Most of what I put here will be either old poetry, short stories, or some of my SCA related writing. I am keeping this as a header post so I can add links or stuff in here!

- I will first start with: Here and there, a short story written out of a challenge to do something I had never written before. Since usually I stick to history or fantasy... this was definitely a challenge.

Here. And then not here. It was a strange feeling, with everything sliding on and through and within. Old and new colliding as she settled into the new frame.

Breath. Sound. Body. Yes. Yes. It was all there. All here. The shifts stopped, the near dizzying changes that accompanied each new settlement slowed and then she was. Again. How many times had she gone through this? She would say she couldn't count the times but she had not forgotten any.

A strange place. A new place. A chance to start anew? Or a duty. Observing. Observing this new world came first, as it always did. New place, or new time, or both. She would not know. Not until she moved forward from here and discovered. And then she would rely on time to reveal her purpose here. Why was she sent? To be a memory? To bear the reminder of something that would forever be forgotten by all others. To change something? To be a part? OR to take apart and destroy. She never knew. Not in advance.

Nor did she know how easy it would be. Or how hard. She'd been ripped apart. Mentally. Emotionally. Physically. Her body thorn to shreds in pain that left her screaming, while flesh was rended, blood pouring, flowing until she could not hold on to consciousness. And yet she had not failed. Not there.

She breathed in. Found lungs. Found how they worked. The body strange still. Foreign to her. She tried to find the mechanics of it. What needed to be done, what needed to be thought about. And what did the body know how to do by itself? It took a few more moments, dizzying and strange to realize most of it... worked by itself.
Human. Humanoid. Humanish? Female. Reproductive. An inventory of traits, though no memory. That was an inconvenient lack. Intentional or malfunction. It could be both. The process was not perfect, though it grew better organically, each time.
Time. Time. Time was a big part of what needed to be found out. Time and place, as always, would be the beginning.

Water. Something was wrong. Something was glitching this time. She had done this so many times. Why wasn't she settling in. Why were things not staying? It was a rare and strange awakening almost again. Trying to find the body, trying to learn it once more. She could feel something underneath her. Wood. Moving. Strange.
And then she realized. She was on a vessel. On the water. Somehow. That wasn't right. She'd been somewhere near rocks and grass. Just a moment ago, wasn't she? Why wasn't she there? Had she lost time? Had she reset? In so short a time?

Her head hurt. Was that intentional or just a coincidence? She did not know. That annoyed her. By now she normally knew, if not her purpose here at least where here was. What she was. The body seemed the same. The place was not. The time? She could not figure that out from staring at the sky. The deck was wood. She put hands flat against it to sit up. To see more than that dark blue sky. The movement hurt. Hurt. Was she defective? She sat up and managed to see a wooden mast. White sails. Hurt still. SHe pressed the hand against her side and found it red. Blood. Defective. Yes. But why? Was there a reason. She tried to think. It wasn't the first time she was hurt in a form like this. But not at the outset. Had she ever been brought in hurt?

The blood was sticky, coating her fingers. Why was she hurt? Had it happened between being brought in and now? Did she just not remember? Was she reset? The question again. Reset. It wasn't customary to reset unless there had been a mistake. Had there been one? Was she still in the same place? But why the blood?

She was trying to figure it out still while the blood kept spreading through her fingers. Defect. Heartbeat slowing. She was aware, so aware of life leaving her. Not scared. Half annoyed perhaps but mostly puzzled. Something wasn't right. It was too soon to be recalled. Too soon to disappear. She hadn't had the time to learn, to fix, to do anything. Nothing but the barest awareness of where she was. Nothing to do, to remember, to learn, except the pain itself. She winced this time, putting the feeling to memory in case it was this but.. it could.. thought became harder as she slipped away.

Awakening. That was how it was called usually. Once you were through the process and found the new body. Only this was.. wrong. It seems she had done nothing but awakening. Where had she been? Blood? Was her form still defective? Was something going wrong in the process? It's almost as if she hears shouts in her mind.. glitch? SHe tries to hold on. Tries to keep in control of the process. Her awareness anchoring. Here. Here. Where is here?

She didn't hurt. Not this time. The movement of blinking eyes felt foreign. Humanoid. Still. Again. What? Something moved beside her. She could feel the wind as it stirred grain. Could smell it. Each sensation was new again. She'd adjusted to so many bodies over time. But not like this, not in quick succession. She barely had the time to grasp what she was. where she was. Something was WRONG.
She breathed in, her hand going back to her side, trying to find the wound. It had been THERE. It HAD been! The form was defect and now it was whole. Why was she being reset? Again? Once, there might have been a mistake. But twice? Three times? Where was she? Why was she pulled out again and again?
Maybe it was done. Maybe..maybe she was here now. She opened her eyes and could see the sky again. Movement beside her. She turned her head and could see plants. Grain. She was in a field. Didn't narrow things down. Not immediately. She'd need to know what kind of grain. It had been exported far and wide across. She could hear. Wind. Yes, wind rustling. The movement of her head made her spin. No. No. It wasn't supposed to make her spin.
She moved her hand, reached out to grasp that grain, put her fingers around a stalk and felt them pass through. No. NO. It wasn't supposed to be like this. She could feel the body. Why didn't it work? THings around her spun back. Dark. No. Light. No Dark. SHe tried to ground herself. Tried to be here. HERE. No. No. SHe moved her fingers once more, tried to grasp as much of the grain. She felt nothing.
Her hand passed through as if it was no more than light. No. she could feel the body, feel the blood rushing through her veins. Why could hse not.. the spinning intensified, pushed and pulled at the same time it seemed, something inside her seemed to burst. It wasn't TIME yet. It couldn't be. It...*

Gone. Nothing. Blackness again as where she had been was nothing but the field and the indent of a body that had bent stalks of grain, those unbroken already slowly starting to rise.

Will the fourth time be the charm? I want to say “poor .. whatever she is” but I’m not sure whether I want her to succeed! Way to build the suspense.

NO!! *She woke up screaming* That was the first thing she noticed. Voice. Sound. Realizing the voice came from the body she was in. The heart rate fast from the outset. One second there was black. Nothing. The next there was everything. She could feel. See. Senses started working, with whatever sensor this body had. Humanoid. Female. Panicked. No. The panic was it's own. Was not related to the body.

She was somewhere again. How many times now? Five? A hundred? In a row? Never long enough. What was wrong? Was it the body that was defective? Then why didn't they get her out? She'd done thousands of these. Why didn't they get her out? Eyes. Eyes opening. She could see trees above. The scent was.. different.

Wood. Again. Had she been in a wood before. This time. Had she been in a wood before this time? She could not remember. SHe remembered water. She remembered grain. She did not remember trees. Large trees. She could hear them. Smell them. Maybe. Maybe it was fixed. Maybe she was here? The heartbeat seemed to slow.
And then it rose again, the body bending, bucking. No gentle slip away this time. No soft glide out. She could feel darkness approaching. Fighting it. She could hear voices again. Yelling. Wrong. Everything was wrong. Why didn't they fix it? Why did they keep sending her back??? Pull her out. Pull her out completely. Let her rest. Regroup. Study what was wrong.
Pain seared through darkness. It hadn't hurt before. Not like this. Like a furnace. No. She'd been in a furnace. But that had just been the body. The host. No. She tried to roll over, to grasp onto something,t o feel. Almost as if she could anchor herself down by just a touch.

"kiran!" Her name. She could hear her name. No that was wrong. No one knew her name. Not here. Was it them? Was she called out? Called back? Did they have her? Her hand grasped, felt the bark of the tree this time, damp, coarse, slightly slippery. Feel. Feel. She was here. She was...
Gone. Darkness. Nothing. No. Not nothing. She could hear. Hear wasn't the right word. She could feel voices. The Others. They were around her. She could feel them. Inside her. Her name. Loud. Trying. They were trying to say something. Make her do something. She didn't understand. She wanted to be here. Or be gone. She wanted out of the loop. Lag. LAG. She was in a LAG.

"Commander? Commander! KIRAN!!"
She could hear the words. No, she could feel them inside herself as it seemed as if she was pulled out of a swamp. Still. The first thing she 'felt' was a body again. Breathing. No. Still here. And not here.
Where was here? The scent was different, a stench of old waste and something else. Eyes opened. Eyes. Humanoid. Still the same place? The same time? She could see walls within the darkness. Stone? Bricks. For the first time she could identify a time. Somewhat. Graffiti. Earth. It hadn't been her first time here. Where was... She wanted to reach out a hand again, then realizing where she was decided against it. She was seated. Against a wall.

Her heart was racing. Fast. Too fast for a human. But it was the first time she'd been able to gather her wits for so long. This time though she wasn't trying to stay. Something was wrong. Something had been wrong for a long time now. How many times had she glitched in and out? Five? Six? Twenty? The process didn't work like this. Each settlement in took strength, had a toll on the traveler here.
She tried breathing, tried to see if the form worked this time,but that heartbeat was racing still like the woosh of the ship at start. It rolled through her. "Commander? KIRAN? KIRAN. Oh good! Wait... give me that... I think we got.." Voices again. Familiar voices. Esther. Braiz. And Trail. She knew them. She knew their numbers. They were there. They were there when she went under. Esther had been joking.
The noise intensified and she felt as if ripped out of her existence. The human mouth opened, screamed as she now reached out, heedless of waste or refuse, trying to claw at the wall. The pain leaving her features a tortured mask. And then the body slumped. One strange and unexplained death for the police to pick up. No more pain. No more screaming. No more confusion.
"Welcome Back" She heard trails voice. Heard it. Felt it. Felt him in her voice and the smile that was an answer was there. She couldn't move, but she was no longer worried. The panic faded. She'd been a veteran in this. So many missions. But she'd never had this happen. A few more moments and she would open her eyes. Just a few more. And this time things would be steady.
Eyes open. There she was. There she was. And there was Trail. And there was Esther. And Braiz.
"Do not move, Kiran." Braiz voice. Stern, as he adjusted something on the controls. Her body was bound. The sensors on her body where still whirring. Home.
And then she was here. Fully. Completely. Here. Smiling. Trail tugging on the straps that held her down, too impatient to think of the buttons. She wanted to ask what went wrong. What happened. How long? She still didn't move, too scared to be sucked back. She didn't get a chance to do either, move or ask. Trail managed to undo the straps. Braiz scooped her out of the opened pod, and Esther started to cry. Cry? How bad had it been?

"Steady there, Commander?" Traiz voice again as she was moved. "Steady." She heard her own voice, sounding strange in her ears now,the vocalizations different from human. How could it be that she'd gotten used to a voice when she hadn't gotten the chance to use it?
Trail's voice. Sounding angry. The pod malfunctioned. You cycled through over thirty times in less than three hours. I lost track. Trail's voice sounded rough, angry. Relieved. All in one. "Over thirty?" "At least. Perhaps more. We lost.. we lost track. Of you. Of everything. Braiz couldn't get you out!"
"You're here. You're back. You're safe." Esther's voice. Yes. Yes. She was back. Safe.
For the first time she lifted a hand and tried to touch.. something. Esther. Her face, tears streaming over soft greyblue cheeks.

I'm back.

I felt the pain and tears in your work, and found myself holding my breath through the staccato sentences. The journey was beautifully emotional.

Hmmm... Maybe I should add some things here as well.

How come I had not seen this before? *reads*

@Pele Alarion Different from most of my writing..