Jumping the gun...

The Never Ending Quest - Episode 22615

Aaron

"That of course," Astra explains, "Means that we need to list the resources we have so that they can be the bricks that we will build such a foundation. That and we also might wish to wish to hash out the obstacles we face, for a simple reason.

"Now, being strangers in a strange land," she continues, looking around at the gathered, "I hope I am not being too forward in asking on possible allies that you 'natives' would know of . . . . that might be within something approaching in a reachable distance?"

"Considering that any friends would have been the least strained with the business of the New Amazons Cuthbert begins," looking towards me, "Perhaps we should start off with Prince Aar...?"

"Just Aaron," I correct him quietly, "Just Aaron and nothing more for now on. It goes with that Vow of your Order that I shall take..."

That pronouncement of mine was met with silence for a few seconds, then...noting the ring that I have in my hand, Cuthbert nods and guesses what I....what my heart says I must do."

"I see you didn't wait despite our talk last night," Cuthbert sighs, shaking his head a bit ruefully. I see he was about to say more, but he and everything and everyone else except a new, leather clad figure freezes in place.

.....

Pardon if the next seems a bit disorganized in the retelling. My nerves are still a bit jangled from it all, to be totally frank (something I could rarely be outside of my sister and now Joan)....

Anyway, I never figured that a personification of something called "Entropy" or "Chaos" could be....so charming....

That and having a rather pronounced sense of humor....

Meeting the other novice Champions on the TARDIS (as well as the Doctor and his friends) was also rather charming as well. The two novices that really stood out in my mind were the ones named Jenny and Ti'mma, if only by how much they stood so much above their more "mundane" analog sisters. The Champion named Jenny, whilst looking generally like those who stayed in Xanth due to having NOT receiving some kind of mental call for help (and not being able to get away due to a veritable plague of family crisis....sort of something I heard the others call a "Catch 22" situation). Well, whatever exactly that meant and whatever exactly happened in this "Xanth", I must say that whilst they are pretty enough, their Champion sister is stunning! Has an ethereal beauty to her. As for Ti'mma, whilst she and her sisters (who looked different from each others but were all lovely elfin women) have spirit...she edges them out by quiet a bit! She has that "hero" quality to her that her sisters.....lack.

Upbringing, I guess for the later and as for the former...

Must say I have much to learn, even though I did get something of a "crash course"....

Ah, but I jump ahead of myself and risk a time paradox! Something I only had contemplated in some of my more esoteric philosophical discussions with friends!

But in one thing....

Yes, I can see you have figured out from what I have said what has happened. I also can see why now Cuthbert was so rather anxious over my budding relationship between myself and Joan! My little rather....impulse stunt there seems to have brought about that Test of Championship (as I will call it for lack of a better title for now). An Agent (Agent 4) stopped time for a moment so I could be "picked up" and whisked away back in time for a test....and I passed.... Meaning....

Meaning what everything you already know already about being a Champion... Including that my "Validation quest" is to see that my friends are successful with Rebecca.

Anyway....

Cuthbert had been rather worried I was rushing head long into things, blindly. Dare say I can see why he might think so, but then again I am rather sure that if things (though I have trouble believing it could have happened) had been different and another relationship had developed with another..... Well, I am sure I would have picked up on it just as swiftly as I had with this one....

Or, maybe not. Who is to say?

I must say, though, that I almost envied those Champions native to Terra Prime that they got to stay stationed on their homeworld...until I learned how the Rules and Agents go about setting up "homebases". The criteria that a world must meet (i.e. a major, earth shaking event) like....this Enemy/Alliance war I only heard in passing. Something like that so that the future "oddities" that will come with BEING a Champion "homebase" won't disrupts things any further (than they've already been disturbed). Don't know the full details on that...but what little I heard made me feel that I'd rather NOT have my homeworld meet such criteria....

Uh, right...

When I get back and Agent 4 "unfreezes", I see that the other Champions know that something has changed about me....

Heh.

You know, I had known that something was up that was.....odd. Oh, not that what has happened so far wasn't by FAR, rather I'd known that my new friends had not been totally forthcoming about everything they'd known. Considering that I now know what I know....I rather do not blame them for not saying everything! Hell, I would NOT have believed it myself by any means....before now....

But I do truly wish I could be totally truthful about everything with my sister, alas.

Will have to plan some truly believable looking death scene for myself (coupled with a disappearance of what we shall continue to call "Rebecca" for convenience's sake). That will make it that much harder for those opposed to Illura being uplifted to propose a better candidate.

This is what is shared during that meeting, anyway. Those who are NOT Champions, of course, don't get the full story. I feel . . . .that some news just would not be . . . . Well, I doubt that some news would be believed. Or if believed, would not be well received at ALL. It should be rather obvious what is shared with by all and with only the other Champions.

.....

That is a rather drastic understatement. Then again, it seems to go well in hand with what has happened to my sister and what I had thought was my cousin Rebecca.....

My sister is becoming more and more a true Amazon like those of Terra Prime . . . . due to another unfortunate from the very PLACE my fellow Champions were trying to save my world from.

The woman who's spirit now dwell within the living shell of my cousin, Rebecca, is the "trophy" in some weird Celestrial challenge that the Rules and Agents did not want to have to happen....but the alternatives were rather unappealing.... Well, whatever the case, this fugitive from "New York" (a truly immense city undreamed of from those of this world I've seen and heard) will be that shell's owner from this point forward . . . . no matter what the outcome.

But despite it all....I.....

I feel, as foolish as this may sound to you, that she is STILL family.....

Mayhaps something of the D'Honaire spirit is catching..... Whatever the case I do not reveal her odd nature to my sister or the rest of the Amazons....er.....New Amazons. Would be both counterproductive as well as....a betrayal of trust.

As for my "real" cousin, I at least caught a glimpse of her (I think) and the "real" Karen on Terra Prime....at the beach!

Oh, they look and sounded like them, but I rather doubt that anyone would really push to place a mermaid on the throne over Illura.... That or Karen's father trying to push onto another man a wife with a tail...

Yes, at least come what may those two will be safe where the Celestrials placed them to be out of the way during this Challenge....

....

Lord above, what a strange set of family and friends I am getting....and will grow stranger when I actually do ask for Joan's hand in marriage from this Duke D'Honaire..... Or maybe given the Amazonian ideals of Aqualaria I might be better advised to ask Duchess D'Honaire.

At least I won't have to face anything really eldritch like, say, more than one set of parents for Joan! I find it odd enough that we have fairy blood in the mother's side of the family to thank for how gracefully Duchess D'Honaire has aged. That's just par for the course, you see. However, if there were TWO mothers and fathers....now THAT would be odd indeed!

Still, much to learn here....

....

Oh, pardon. Mind went off on a tangent.

As for courses of action, we all decide on heading to one of the nearest allies of mine that I "introduced" Illura to so she could get arms and such for her struggle. I'll see if my friend can be....swayed on giving more open support now that Samuel will be soon be making a bolder move here to gain power in this land. One of the key things here is that whilst my friend might not believe strongly in Illura's cause, he rather is more against Samuel gaining power over his lands! That is, after all, how I was able to gain his aid in the first place....come down to it.....

And if nothing else, we can at least get news on what's going on now better than by just staying out in the wilderness, risky as it might appear. Frankly, I would say we being clueless out here is a worse risk than anything else. Will at least give us an idea on what we now face....

Won't do to tell my friend, the Baron, about my renouncing my title, alas. Another plus of him helping Illura and me in the past was the visions of what I could do for him in the future....as a prince and perhaps King later on....

Politics are politics, alas....

  1. Thing is, I and a few others must meet a trusted messenger to arrange a meet.....

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11/27/2002 11:46:23 AM

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