Writewraiths in Middle Earth

[Lubyla]

~Right. I thank you though, for not telling him to look, you know where.~ I scribbled down a poem, but tore it out, and let it blow in the wind.

[Fred Baggins]

I held up my right hand, where the scar remained. I had insisted on doing it. It would bind me to the promise. ~You think I would tell after all the pain I went through?~

[Lubyla]

I had to smile a bit.~Sorry about that...it just...well... Sorry!~

[Fred Baggins]

I laughed an hugged her. ~It was my own fault! Course, I think i did it wrong. It didn't hurt so much when Farmboy and I made that kinda promise. Didn't leave a scar either. Almost wish it did, for I'd have something to remember him by...~ By the time I got to that last sentence I was barely thinking in the link, so that you would have to strain to hear it. But what was wrong with me. I was acting like Adrian, a child in love, when I was never in love!

[Lubyla]

"Well, even though it was an accedent, I was just starteled, and didn't need to scratch, poke, Stab you with that arrow." I was a bit enbarassed now, I didn't use the link and all could hear me.

[Silverstripe]

Silently, I sat near the fire, a little ways apart from the others.

Calien... I heard a voice call to me softly, from somewhere deep in the forest. I stood up and began walking towards it, but then hesitated. If I went unprepared, I could be walking into great peril.

Yet I knew that this would not lead me into danger. I was as certain of that as I was the existence of Middle Earth ... as the thought came to me, I smiled, remembering a time I was not so certain of my home's existence.

Come, Calien!

I heard the voice again, and began walking towards it. Suddenly there was a thick mist all around me, and I couldn't see a thing. Still, I somehow managed to avoid running into anything, as if I already knew what was there. The mists grew thinner, and I came running to meet me.

No, not "I," of course. Katharine Welsh. Although she didn't look anything like I had when I was in Mundane Earth. In fact, there is really no way to describe exactly how people look in that place, for appearance is constantly changing.

"Hey, you, er... Katharine?! How did you get here?"

She gave me a wry grin. "Call me Kathie. Don't you know where we are?"

I thought about it, and discovered that I DID, although the idea of being where we were frightened me a little.

"Between Worlds," I whispered. "Where Danger wanders..."

"The very same. But not Danger only. I can come here sometimes, though I can never go back into Middle Earth. And," and here sadness crept into her voice, "I will not remember Middle Earth when I'm not here, save as the world of The Lord of the Rings and other books."

I tried to speak, to express sympathy, but she held up a hand, warning me not to go on.

"I don't regret having gone home. And I'm don't really want to remember Middle Earth. It's not like I can share my experiences with anyone at home, you know. So I chose not to remember."

I nodded, and realized how different the real Kathie was from me. I could never stand not to know, and I would've wanted to remember Middle Earth, if I'd been in her situation.

"I have some things for you, Calien," said Kathie, with a warm smile.

She handed me my blue notebook, the one which was supposed to be used as a journal but never was. Then she gave me a black ballpoint pen to go with it.

"As a Writewraith, that might be all you need or want to be happy," said Kathie.

I grinned. "Thanks."

"I do have one more thing, Calien."

With that, she whipped out a beautiful sword, powerful and light. I noticed that she held it in her right hand, which puzzled me greatly. I'm left-handed! Well, "my" sudden change of handedness must have really confused Mr. and Mrs. Welsh! But there was something extremely familiar about this sword.

"It is yours, though it went back to the other world with me." said Kathie, "Called..."

"Caralor," I whispered. Not the prettiest of names, but it had great meaning in the language it came from. "Thank you, Kathie."

"'Welcome."

With that, Kathie disappeared, and I knew it was time to leave. I ran back through the mists, to the portal that led to Middle Earth.

My sight Between Worlds had gotten much better. I shivered as I saw what I had so carelessly gone around before ... bottomless pits, steep cliffs, a labyrinth (the all-who-go-this-way-are-lost type), and other horrors. I avoided them all; I knew the path to tread.

I found the portal that led back to Middle Earth, and went through, rather grateful that we'd taken a "short cut" the first time we came.

Then, carrying my sword in one hand and my journal in the other, I went back to the rest of the Writewraiths, filled with hope.

[Fred Baggins]

*I looked up to the empress. For the first time, just from one look at her I saw it all.*

"It was always you. So...I've lost my best friend. I wonder if Katherine is anything like Kathie." It was quiet, so no one was able to hear it. I'd hoped.

I also noticed the sword she wore, and smiled. The sword of the Empress.

"M'lady, I ask to ride at your right hand as your advisor."

I was a quetsion, even if I addressed it as a command. Compleatly by accident though. Then I saw the hesitance in her face, and read it like a book. "You don't trust me? But you will regain all trust of everyone by the time the third new moon rises. But by then I shall be no more."

[Lubyla]

I looked up, Faith was gone off talking to Katie...or whatever her name was again. I stood up, and wandered a bit, and placed my cloak over my head, so I could at least FEEL like I was in the "Room," I needed to go, to sketch, to pour my heart on a page as I so often had done before, but there was no more home, no more secret shaks, I sighed and started writting more in my notebook, smelling it a bit, just to remember home.

[Fred Baggins]

I looked at her, and smiled. "I read much in your face Empress. There will be many years of happieness because of you, after a perod of death, and pain. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have spoken about that. It's none of my buisness." I walked away. reprimanding myself for my behavior. I sat down and leaned against Buddy.

[Lubyla]

I wrote a few things down in the book.:

"...I once read, that home is where your heart is. And also, that your soul is what goes with the love you have. If this is true, and my heart and soul are at home, where I loved to be, how can I be here, and live. Or do I live? Have I ever lived? What if I am not real, but reality is a figment of your imagination it is said. Whatever. I'm not sure of much in these times, and not unsure of very little. Things have changed, I feel it in the air, and in the Earth..."

[Adrian Baggins]

I took Elijah over to Calliman, Grace, and Celrond and sat him down, taking the notebook he handed me. "Papa said you forgot this and that I should take it just in case I found youso that you could write. Read some of it to me please, Aunt Adi," he said pulling me down. "Oh, alright. But just oone story for now, okay, then you have to go home and tell your papa that I will be late tonight and that I might not come home today, okay." "Okay, read." I sat there and read him my longest story. It was one of his favorites and it still wasn't done. He had good ideas for where I needed to add stuff.

[Silverstripe]

I smiled, a somewhat sad smile, for I knew that Faith was finally thinking of me as Calien, not Kathie. I wondered if she understood, yet, that the Faith of Mundane Earth was gone, replaced by Faith the Blue.

I watched her face then, and knew that I had lost my best friend, for she did not see Calien as she saw Kathie. And neither did I. I was whole, now, free to act in Middle Earth without thinking of who I had been, of Kathie.

Katharine Welsh was back in Mundane Earth, and she had all of my memories from when I was there. I knew that for certain. When I saw her, all of "my" memories from Mundane Earth that had actually been hers and hers alone, had departed from me. Personally, I'd only known Faith for about five months.

It was disconcerting, this sudden loss of memories. But I knew that it was necessary for Katharine Welsh to have no memory of Middle Earth... for I had the memories of her time here, not even a full day.

We had done an exchange; my false memories of Mundane Earth (which were righfully hers) for her true memories of Middle Earth, which she didn't want. I was relieved to have only my true memories of Mundane Earth, because it told me how long I had really been there, and that Kathie (not I) had been Steph's true confidante, so that I need not worry about her.

So I wasn't even gone for that long! Less than a day of our time!

I knew, too, where Faith had been for that hour: Mundane Earth.

[Lubyla]

Illali padded over to the moving blob, me. 'What are you doing under that cloak?'

"Trying to find my heart, and myself."

'Did you look in your pocket?'

"Illali, dont be silly. I ment to find the real me. I want to go home. To the land i love. I love Middle Earth, but only to dream about it."

'I can understand that.'

I sighed, pulling the cloak off of me, and hugged Illali. She had always been there for me. I forgot to not use the link and thought, ~You can't understand Illali, no one can, and no one will be able to.~

[Fred Baggins]

When I heard that I knew. I knew that it was all dead. I wasn't meant to be here, nither was Star. And both of us where there for different reasons, that neither of us would ever understand. I was just as dead as all that. Not me, but Faith.

No, stop thinking like that. Faith isn't dead. Not yet. She's still here. That wizard won't take my body over yet! Not till...

[Lubyla]

I walked back with Illali, and tried to smile to Faith. It was no use, I couldn't fake a smile, it wasn't easy. Faith would know.

[Fred Baggins]

*As Lubyla walked past I flinched, buring my head deep into Buddy's fur, to advoid her. Would any of us ever be the same again? Well, Star and I anyway, we weren't supposed to be there. I flinched again, as that feeling came over me, in a shudder, from the top of my head to my toes. That feeling that if I stayed in Middle-Earth I would be the cause of great suffering, by enemies and friends both. It only made me curl into Bud's fur even more. before I knew it I had drifted off to sleep. And I had another dream.*

*I trotted along the path at a slow trot, as though I knew it well, and found that I DID know it well, if only from my past. As I came out into a clearing, I approched a great castle. As I followed the path up to the great gate, I was greated by many servants. They called me countess. I dismounted Wind Rider, and was lead through the gate to my chambers. As I walked in I heard a familar voice. It was Buddy in his elf form. I was surprised, he didn't change into an elf often. It started to massage my neack, gently, then harder and harder, then he was strangling me! As I took my last breath and looked up at him, I nearly had a heart attack before I died. It wasn't his elf form, it was his natural one.*

*I woke up in a clod sweet, to find all around me had fallen asleep. I climbed into my packs, and tried to do the same. But he didn't leave me. He just lay nearby. How I wished I could trust him enough to let him lay off by himself.*

[Lubyla]

Illali knew me well enough. Before Faith, she was the only one allowed in the room. In fact, she was sitting in it when I found the room. 'I will be back, I have to run and find something.' She took off into the distance.

I sat down in the damp grass. The clouds were lighter, and night was falling. I sigh. There was no one there to talk to really. Faith was sleeping, Illali was gone, Lubyla is no fun to talk to, and I dont know many of the others. I decided to just rummage through my pack and see what I did have.
Dumping out the contents on the grass, I tossed the brown backpack purse thing that I it was all in to my right. Inside it, now laying on the grass were a few quills, a pencil, my notebook I had written in earlier, a few assorted items, my glasses,(thank goodness), and another notebook, one a bit smaller than the one I had written in. It looked simmilar, leather and old, just like all the books I wrote in, for they all came from the same place. This one was my first book in Ireland. I shoved all the other stuff back in my pack, and put on my glasses. I took the book aside and began to read it.

[Fred Baggins]

*As I woke up with the morning in my eyes, I knew we where late in starting. I folded up my blankets, as the others woke up, and was ready to be started before I'd even had breakfast. But of course I did sit down and eat with the rest. I wasn't THAT antsy!*

[Lubyla]

I hadn't slept that night, I was busy reading through my past life. One entry really got to me though. I rewrote this in my new book. I was down to the last page.

...I met a new friend a while ago...She seemed to be someone I could relate to at the time, maybe talk to a bit, but now I've really started to like...Bond together with her. When I met her the first time, its like I found myself, my home, my...heart....
I put my book away. 'Great' I thought 'Now I dont even have a book to write in.' I walked over for breakfast, Illali still wasn't back,

[Fred Baggins]

*I caught the familar look on Star's face as she came over for breakfast. She didn't have anything to write in.*

"I brought back a book for you Star. It's in my pack, so I'll give it to you after breakfast."

*I smiled up at her, as she sat down. My best friend. The girl who had been closest to me. The only one who really understood me. The one who had been there after the fire, a sholder to weep on, a friend forever, and had been there when I first found Fred. I was very grateful.*