There have been many stories about alternate universes, where you
can step from one world to another as easily as entering a
doorway.  This is a tale about two girls who find that they are
inexplicably wound up in the affairs of another place, another
world.  No tie-ins to any anime or manga.


>>>>>>>>>From Badningo:  First page, first paragraph:


"Lori!"

My exclamation caught her off guard, as it usually did.  She
snapped her mouth shut in defiance and turned to me.

"Well, he is!"

"Maybe so, but you shouldn't say such stuff in public!"

"All I said was that he was a...."

"Lori, please?  This is a library!"

Lori favored me with one of her calculated looks, her smoky hazel
eyes rebellious beneath half-closed lashes.  She was thinking
about it.

I tried again.  "Please, Lor?"

"Oh, all right.  But if I don't tell him while I got the chance,
how's he ever going to learn better?"

"There are some people you cannot teach," I said, gathering my books.
"Besides, if you make a scene it won't hurt him and it will get us 
in trouble.  After all, he has the faculty on his side.  Let's get 
out of here."  I almost had her convinced to walk out of the building 
quietly.  Then I stepped away to drop off my magazines at the desk, 
and she continued to rant.

Lori was steamed. "I'd like to meet him in some dark alley,
sometime.  Jack with OUR grades, will he?"

I stopped her from going back toward the teacher's lounge and
guided her through the front double doors.  We went to JoJo's for
a double Greenberry Malt.  It was the only thing which could cool
us off.

The teacher's name was Cranfeld.  He was old and cantankerous,
with a bad eye, a worse disposition, and a trick of grading
students on his own personal curve from hell.  I couldn't blame
Lori for her outburst, but you don't beard the lion in his own
den.

Lori has a hard time understanding that.  For her, deciding that
something should be done and doing it are the same thing. In
addition, she has a speech defect.  She says what she thinks, and
she thinks dirty.  I hate to keep telling her to shut up, but 
sometimes riding herd over her is the only thing that keeps her 
from getting kicked out of high school.

She doesn't really want to miss school.  Unless it would upset her
mother.  Lori's mother is...well, she is a bit obsessive about
Lori's eligibility for the Debutant Of The Year Award.  Her
mother has this notion that Lori will marry some high society
jerk and keep her mother in credit cards for the rest of her
life.

So, Lori has been groomed like a pet pig for one purpose: to meet
and bag a rich doctor, or lawyer, or maybe a corporate executive
with a big pension plan.  Anything that will get her mother into
the local society hoi-de-doi.  Lori hates it.  She does things to
tick her mother off, like wearing unfashionable clothes, using
horrid makeup, and exploring new frontiers in profanity.  She
hasn't pierced her tongue or anything - yet - but I expect her to
do it any day now.  I believe the only thing keeping her from 
studding her tongue is the fact that the silver link would interfere 
with her enunciation.

----------------------------------------------------------

>>>>>>>>>From Badningo:  Later on in the story:



      The tent flap whipped open, and an armed guard entered,
      followed by the camp commander.

      "The girl," demanded Trapus, "where is she?  My men would
      have her."

      And not you, my brother?"  Stebon's lips drew back into a
      grimace.  It could have been a smile.

      Trapus swung slowly about to view him, and there was no
      smile in his eyes.

      "I am not your brother.  I was never your brother!"

      "Nor I yours.  The girl is here.  I shall get her."  As the
      guard moved after him, he placed his hand on the worn
      pommel of his sword.

      "No one follows!"

      ---------

      "What happened?"  Meera hurried out of the shadows of the
      cave to clasp him.

      "The bandits of the Vicroix.  They have found me and seek
      you.  If one of them trailed me..."

      There was a scrape of leaves at the cavern mouth.

      Stebon whirled about, his long sword purring out of
      scabbard and sweeping over and down in a death blow for the
      shadow in the cave entrance.  He stopped his thrust in time
      to avoid executing the intruder.  It was not Trapus or his
      henchman.  It was a mere child, a girl from the village.  A
      blond girl.  She jerked away from the singing death, but
      lost her footing on the narrow ledge.  Stebon heard her
      body strike the trees below.

      For a moment he stood, listening in vain for more movement.
      There was none.  He jerked his head toward the dying light
      in the west.

      "Come.  We must travel."





----------------------------------------------------------

Though the wendwoman had healed the bones, I had to work on
the muscles. I used a rocking chair as my strength slowly
returned.  Beginning immediately after Muffin had brought
breakfast and far into the afternoon, I would 'race' to build
my wind, slowly, for a few painful minutes before I had to
call for help to ease the searing pain.  Later, I would rock
until tired, sleep, rock some more, until I could fast-pace
for hours.  I was walking in weeks, and back on a horse in
months.  Hosbat accused me of trying to kill myself to shame
him, or, worse, preparing for revenge on the dark warrior.

It was not revenge which pulled me.  The negro warrior had
done nothing I would not have done, that is, protect himself
and those he loved.  The enemy I sought was within, and the
only way to defeat that foe was to go back to the mountain,
back to that ledge, and ask him to forgive ME.

Shortly after I could ride, another incident gave me courage
and renewed my hope.  Dizzy came to visit, and with her came
Lori.

----------------

"Alright, where do we go from here?" asked Lor, as she settled
into the hay and gazed out over the southern fields.  A breeze
carried the scent of ripening apples and pears from the nearby
orchards.

"I want to find out where Johnathon went," I began, "Until I
know that he is okay, I won't feel comfortable."

"Hey!  Ding-ding!  Reality calling!  Nobody knows where Johnny
went.  They can't tell us, and we sure as hell don't know our
way around enough to track him."

"Muffin said she could ask someone."

"Yeah.  Some lady over at the village.  Probably reads tea
leaves. What the hell would she know?"

A stem of straw had caught in my hair while I climbed into the
loft.  I untangled it and chewed on it absently.

Over beyond the vegetable patch a lean graceful shape bobbed
into sight, disappeared, shyly stepped out to graze.  Watching
the doe, I mulled over the prospect of spending the winter in
this land.  It was peaceful, quiet, and the Hosbats were what
Pop would call 'good people'.  If I had to be stuck anywhere,
this was as good a place as any.  But this was not home.

Lori had been watching my face.  "Homesick?" she wondered aloud.

"Yeah, a little.  You?"

"Not in a thousand years.  Well, maybe after about two or
three hundred.  Mom ought to go through menopause by then.
She could mellow....  Yeah, it could happen."

She scowled, and a ray of sunlight caught her turned up nose and
illuminated the hazel depths of her eyes.  She added, "I'd still
like to nail the bastard who left us here.  I'd strap him to the
nearest tree by the balls."

"Lori!"

"Well, I _would_."

I gazed out over the pasture and wood where the doe had gone.
I could almost see the bluff where I had fallen.

Some day I will go back there, and try to find the tree which
had broken my fall, along with my arm, both legs, my head...
Perhaps it is lost forever among the forest, but if I ever do
find it....

I still don't know whether I will thank the tree spirit for
saving my life or chop the darn thing down for firewood.

-------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>>Badningo Teaser:  END