Heard of Musical Chairs?

Annafrid

Uhura pauses, then says: "I feel that she is not far away, but perhaps because she's so close the direction isn't clear."

"Alright then, maybe you should try the tricorder?" I suggest after stretching a littl bit to get a kink out from sitting too long in that car, "Believe that Chekov and you said that you might have better luck in detecting our target with yours than we might have with ours."

Honestly, though, I would have thought differently considering that our tricorders are of a newer brand than what Uhura is carrying. However, it had been established that some of the more esoteric features found on the older style of tricorder were no longer being used on our's, so thus it goes.

Sure there is some kind of lesson in that, but right now I'm not really interested in figuring it out. We have more important things to worry about, however, than philosophy lessons. We have to find the last of the three victims of the Oracle before it is too late and all three suffer for it!

Checking the readings proves enlightening. It also explains why some of our troop are now back in more normal attire (per Terra Prime standards). Oh, the demifoxes are still disguised as human beings, but now as children dressed up as wizards and such.

See, those readings took us to the very doorstep of a hotel where this unexpected event was going on that I'm sure that Ragan is familiar with but will be a new experience for us. We seem to have stumbled into Alexandria while there was a big scifi/fantasy convention in town. Even has a selection of some of the more familiar Scifi TV stars running around (past and present).

Oddly enough we arrived here before our friends did. Then again, I guess that Andrea lucked out and got past a few "choke points" on that highway before "rush hour" as I heard it called. Guess that the Doctor will be along....sooner or later....

In the meantime, I'm back in armor and walking around, listening and watching for anything....more out of the ordinary than usual here. Goodness knows there are enough weirdities about to satisfy any taste, considering that this is a big event....

It's nearing the end of the convention and we've got a lot of places to still cover....

Turning back to Uhura, who's dressed in the old style red Starfleet uniform again so as to freely be able to use tricorder without raising too many eyebrows. As I do I idly note that we from Terra Prime could have all gone as "Starfleeters" but decided to stick to a fantasy milieu for our own, more familiar resources (i.e. can quietly pretend to pretend to cast spells and use our less "showy" magical items without fear of drawing too much unwanted attention). Got quiet a few compliments on that, as well as a few stares at my and my female friends figures.... While not as showy as some of the other "pretend" warrior lasses, our shapes do give no doubt about our gender! Uhura gets a few whistles even, but oddly enough she looks a little befuddled by that...and perhaps a bit pleased as well....mixed in with a bit of annoyance at the whistlers....

Guess it has to do with the "flipflop" in certain tastes. Likes the male attention, but then again doesn't like some of the lewd comments I've overheard. In fact, the worst comments I've heard was from two young teens (pure examples of arrested development at age ten, no doubt) were commenting on Uhura's skirt line...and then went on to make fun about this one older gentleman.....

That's when it happens.

I have enough time to see Uhura take on a distant look as she gasps, looking down in fear at her stomach...and then I see her take on a glazed look as she starts to collapse!

Jarlath is near enough to her to catch her before she hits the ground.

We soon rush off to a side room in order for some people to look after her (i.e. some convention folks with first aid training) when she starts to come back around while the one "nurse" is away to get something.

"Wha....?" Uhura mutters, looking confused around the room and then at us, "I was in my room and...."

Joan is looking at her strangely, as if something is oddly wrong (or more so, all considered). However, what happens next....

Joan

"Sister, are you alright?" I ask Uhura, swiftly coming over to her side, throwing aside an odd feeling I have about her all of the sudden, "Was it something from Nyota Ubura, the one we are hunting for?"

She shakes her head, confused.

"What are you talking about?" she asks, drawing away from me a bit if a bit leery of me, "I'm Nyota Uhura and I...."

She then takes on that frightened look as she reaches down as if to cradle her unborn child, gets a glazed look herself for a second, and.....

Faints.....

Faints for a few minutes, and then stirs and rises quickly (if unsteadily).

She pushes aside the nurse and protests she must rest....

"She's nearby," she says, trying to push past us and out the door.

"What happened?" I ask, a bit confused myself at just what happened.

I have a feeling that whatever just happened has something to do with my odd feeling that has just vanished within a few seconds after Uhura fainted (again) here. It's almost like, for a moment there I felt...within my heart....that the person before me named "Uhura" wasn't the analog sister that I knew her to be. It was like....somebody....

....

No....

"Uhura, were you somewhere else for a minute?" I ask her softly after giving the sputtering nurse a look that means to "go away."

She looks a bit haunted and nods slightly.

Later we shall find out that for a few moments while she was....elsewhere....she wasn't even sure who....or what she was. Oh, she knew something was wrong, but couldn't remember who she was....or if the body she wore wasn't....as it should be.

We rush out in a direction that Uhura believes to be where she had been for a few moments, only to find that nothing is there now. That or it might have moved about. See, she has a vague memory of a....box lid that she had pushed open in confusion?

Also a vague memory of a little girl (perhaps) making a shushing noise and shaking her head, as if to tell her not to show herself.

"But I believe I have a fix....." Uhura mutters out in the parking lot, and then nods fiercely, smiling.

"They went that way!" she says excitedly as she begins to rush off to the car...only to slow down for a second as she looks down and tries to calm her unborn child (who appears to have just awoken from a bad dream, perhaps).

We do find out that the unborn was shaken up by something that frightened him. Something unsettling....like perhaps what happened to Uhura had also happened to him.

Whatever the case, we are still discussing what we've found out (like the readings of Uhura's tricorder seem to match those givn off by Fred the fairy), when we see a rather annoyed Inquirer (sans cloak) and gang being escorted out of the convention..... All except for Elrondir, that is.

"What happened?" I ask, perplexed.

"He did," Ace sighs, pointing at an embarr1assed Chekov.

Funny as that could have been, it didn't happen, alas. See, Dr. Who's party parked over in another parking lot, away from Jarlath's group.....

Alas....

Inside....a few minutes earlier....

"Did you see that?" one teenage male says to his friend, "That little girl with that old Star Trek reject? What she was carrying in that box?"

"Realest looking doll I've ever seen!" the other says, nodding. Then, putting it down as nothing important (though that doll....looked awfully alive there for a second), laugh and mutter about this and that.... And even make a joke about the the "geezer" dressed as a Star Trek crewmember in the hearing of a certain invisible elfin man....

"Brill, what have you stumbled into here?" Elrondir mutters to himself, heading outside.

Now, you might wonder what happened here? Well, not to give too much away, it has to do with that short time that Uhura D'Honaire was....elsewhere. In a confused panic, she forced open the box she was in and was glimpsed by those young teenage boys. After switching back, the magical spell causing amnesia and such was no longer in effect (stayed behind in that other body). So the "other" who'd been with Jarlath's group...for a bit remembered who she was (if only to loose it again).

Needless to say, however, something is up and the Champions are beginning to realize what's up....

However....

The pixie awakens again, and screams! She doesn't remember much, but remembers enough (unfortunately) to jump to a wrong conclusion! She thinks that whoever did this to her (the amnesia and...maybe more), was now after her!

1. That scream, anyway, nearly causes Brill to sideswipe a car!

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