At first. . .

Aeryn-Pip

"Ah, you're awake," Aeryn-Pip sighs, looking at me from across the way in another cell. "Had been wondering about when you'd finally wake up there."

The others are still sleeping off . . . whatever these Atlans did to them. I'm kinda surprised that my . . . my sister (that's the only thing I can really call what I feel towards her). But then again I don't really understand this . . .

This "magic" dren these Atlans kept babbling about just confused me to no ends. I'd come to halfway believe that stuff my sister had told me about, thinking that perhaps some kind of . . . of confusion was going on here. She'd and her friends somehow gotten snatched while en route. Somehow this Atlantis turns out to be more alive than ruin.

....

Looking over at my twin, I see she's dressed now in the same simple gown I'd been forced to put on soon after our "hosts" had accidentally released me from the suspended state I'd been in. Only difference was the strange, drad looking necklace that I'd overheard one of the guards say was to keep the dragons and magic users under control. Meaning that my sister cannot change into her "natural" form, nor can she call upon her psionic powers that for some fahrbot reason she calls magic!

Still trying to make sense of it all, but of all the dren that's happened to me I feel (though I have doubts about sometimes about her sanity . . . with her saying she's a magic user or something)....

But I trust her . . . and through her her friends....

But when I'd woke up...

Frell, and at first here I'd thought I'd FINALLY gotten to this Dark Tower, only to find out that something else had interrupted the trip!!

At first I'd figured that this was just another, usual frellup that seems to have become a part of my life, but. . . .

"What the frell happened?" my sister asks, making as if to try to take off her necklace (and finding it impossible to do for some reason).

"Short of it is it appears that Atlantis is still open for business," I chuckle, not really amused.

I explain what little I understand of this mess. Not much, but what I'm able to tell her.

Seems that not long ago this city had been underwater, but some kind of Signal had broken their sleep a few days before we'd made the scene. From what I'd been able to pry out of them while they'd been grilling me was that they were in REAL bad way here. While great masters of power, they don't have FOOD! No real handy ways at getting more here without drastic measures (heard talks about going to the Continent and take what they needed, and frell the consequences). That dren had been met with shouts of disdain from another faction, saying that's what the Grecians would do!

Seems that these Atlans were the mirror people of the yotzes that Inquirer and friends were familiar with. See, learned about that somewhere along the lines last time I was . . . out.

They'd been grilling me, hoping against hope that some kind of solution to their problems would fall into their lap but something I must have said had scared them . . . grotless. Continued on and they'd gotten more and more scared.

Tried to hide it, but I'd saw it in their faces. Something about this Dark Tower dren had startled them. When I'd mentioned something about Rules and Agents . . . scared them grotless!

Wonder why?

Share all of this with my sister, and she's seems to have some ideas, but nothing really for sure.

By now we know, unlike the Nebari female here (who's a newcomer) we know what's up with the Atlans here. They fall into a similar catagory as the Zerm that Jarlath's group and the Doctor's group ran into earlier here. They're "non-Grecian" as they put it. Basically, they're not the fiends that had pillaged and plundered across so many Terras. No, these Atlans are different. They're mirror images of the evil ones.

But due to the betrayal done them they're in a bad fix. Facing starvation here soon enough if drastic measures aren't taken and wanting desperately to know what the outside world is beyond their barren shores.

Some are, in their desperation, proposing desperate measures. Food raids, basically.

....

Won't endear them to the neighbors, folks. Oh, it'll keep body and soul together, but won't be good, long run strategy.

Another thing, the Atlans here aren't sure about the world around them. Know that's already been said, but it bears repeating. They're unaware that their enemies (and for that matter the rest of their friends of the Atlan Confederation, a loose confederation of cities also named Atlantis which spanned a LOT of parallel worlds) are dead and dust so are a bit defensive, shall we say. Almost paranoid, shall we say.

Seeking enlightenment of the world outside, they first snatch up an Allarian ship called the The Heart of Oak but didn't get very much from that. Magic phobic Allaria shuns magic, using instead more mundane means of traveling and navigation (and such). To the citizens of the newly awakened Atlanis, it's totally alien and incomprehensible. Every facet of their life and culture revolves around magic. Tools of magic. Everything magic.

Very alien cultures have met here and now. And even when communication via translation spells started working (finally), things STILL weren't working out. The Allarians proved to be . . . . uncooperative. Xenophobic and unwilling to explain to their increasingly desperate captors that their means of navigation and such was NOT magical in nature but science based....

That might have opened up a few doors, but pride and prejudice blocked the way....

Long ago, when their ancient ancestors from Midworld had escaped the cataclysm which had swept that world, they'd have understood. Despite their having distained the ways of science and such, they'd enough interaction with the rest of those of Midworld who'd used it to know what it was. However, the original founders of Atlantis have gone the way of dust. History has distorted in the passing down from father to son (due to part at the deliberate attempt by the original founders to free themselves from the "stain" of what had brought their homeworld low, as they saw it).

....

Oh, if you haven't figured it out by now the original founders of Atlantis were part of a cult.

....

Well, science and scientists became the stuff of legend to the Atlans. A form of magicks belonging to a school of magery unfamiliar (and lost) to the Atlans.

The truth had become distorted to the point of becoming something of an almost religious thing for the Atlans. But legends of the Dark Tower remained.

Also along the way somehow they'd met Celestrials and knew about Champions (if not this stuff about Rules and Agents). The Celestrial courts they'd met had been for Good and Evil. Whatever the case, these guys had learned well enough to leave that business well enough alone IF that could be managed.

And if they SHOULD (as they had) stumble into it, then it was their moral duty to either AID or hinder, depending on the Court the Champions worked for, you see.

Note: the Zerm that the Champions had encountered earlier, the "good" one, was kind of . . . odd. To put it simplely, his values and beliefs had grown . . . strange over the years. Mutating into something a lot different that what would have been acceptable to his peers here and now. And that's why he'd been less than helpful, at first, to the Champions. Go figure.

That they'd mistakenly thought that these intruder's to their airspace had been a possible new source of information, but now that (after confirmation through their high priests) these unconscious people (odd people to be sure) were Champions. The Atlans HAD inadvertently stumbled into the Champions business, so now were committed!

Just how, had remained to be seen. Thanks to the universal translator that Aeyrn-Pip (a "drad" gift from her sister, Chiana), they'd soon determined (mistakenly) that these Champions were of the Seelie Court. . . . .Well, that's what they thought. The Priests had determined that the Champions were Champions, but further than that had been . . . murky.

See, in all their theological studies the thought that the Rules and Agents should someday have been allowed Champions never came up. Real oversight on their parts, I fear.

Well, the priests declared the still unconsious Champions of the Light, so that's good, I guess....

So, just remained to be seen just WHAT these Champions business was. Best way for them to recover without ill result was to let them sleep off all the magicks that had hit them....

But somewhere in the shuffle of things the barracks guards failed to get their orders right. The Champions had been stripped of their equipment and placed in stuff that limited their abilities. As Chiana would say, the dren's going to hit the fan when that reaches the right ears....

Like right now....

When the high princes see that their "guests" are dressed in what amounts to prison clothing, heads roll! Not really, but...

Well, that's not important right now.

So, the princes are soon almost falling all over each other in appology, begging to do whatever they could to make ammends.

Chiana rather likes the attention, let me tell you....

Well, with the usual Chiana flare she manages to broker a deal of sorts. First thing she needed was a special wand that some mages had taken aside to study. That returned she'd been able to track down the last two Component Carriers (a male and female centaur down in another part of the barracks, as it turned out). The male was standoffish and . . . rude. The female (having gotten thoroughly now tired of her companion) was more friendly, but as it turns out was missing a LOT of her memories. A request by Chiana got THAT fixed and the centauress remembered that she was...

"I'm Astra Thessamer,"she whispers, awed that she should forget that. She then looks down at herself and. . .

"Can they do something about this?" she asks the gray girl, worriedly. "I mean I'm supposed to be . . . human and I want to be so again."

She then looks a bit odd, noting that . . . that last part didn't ring true in her heart. Such power she felt in this new body. It felt . . . right....

"Uh, get back to you on that," Chiana said, thinking to herself that Artizza was the PERFECT person to break the news to this changed woman. "Friend of mine can explain what going no here best!"

Better her than she!

As for the Atlans problems, Chiana had been promised that she'd . . . talk with some friends. See what help could be sent to aid the starving ones here before it was too late.

When her sister, Aeryn-Pip had frantically whispered just who she knew that could feed a city!?

"Well . . . if not you or Astra the centaur?" she quips, remembering the boons that Champions get upon coming into the fold. "If you're allowed to become Champions and decide not to . . . . say . . . wish that that the Establishment grand plans of spreading their 'greater good' dren across the galaxy by wishing that mindcleansing no longer works for anyone? Well, can't really see you not wishing for that . . . really."

Meanwhile, Aeryn-Pips eyes are going wide at that one.

"You're saying these guibos could do that?" she blinks, finally managing to sputter it out.

"Well, they did it for me." her sister says softly, looking at her twin. "Yeah, but anyway, if not you or Astra back there? She'd been kinda antsy about wanting to prevent some kind of rampaging something or someone called a Snark or something was going to go on if she failed in her Quest to retrieve the thing's lover . . . companion . . . whatever."

She goes onto to say that she had . . . a friend with connections to an Actual Star Fleet. You know, the guys that Crichton had talked about? One with that Kirk and Spock from that TV show? They're a bunch of do gooders with LOTS of resources. Surely B'Elanna can talk to someone to . . . get help?

"If she can talk herself around that damn Prime Directive dren," she adds to herself. "Still, worth a shot . . ."

Aeryn-Pip, her sister, only hears that with half an ear. Her head's now kind of spinning with what Chiana had said, just a few seconds ago about just WHAT these Celestrials can grant. Before then, Aeryn-Pip had been toying around with lesser, more selfish wishes IF she was going to join up. A mass of Fire silk for her bed, maybe? Now?

"Hey," she interrupts Chiana's train of though. "If you're right about this Champion dr....stuff? Where do I sign up? I wanna join! Do I get to go with you on-on the TARDIS?"

The last part of her declaration is kind of tentative. Undertones of deep, soul hurting wishes for . . . someone to replace those she'd lost to the Sheyang back in her old home on Moya. Wanting to . . . be with her new sister, now that she'd lost her brother (and just so damn close to having finally GOTTEN back with him after so long)....

"I . . .I don't see why not," Chiana says, after a second.

Honestly, now that E'eysha and Gilmuriel had set up shop back on Terra Prime to raise family, Chiana's husband could take in apprentices again. Maybe she could talk her husband into taking in Aeryn-Pip as a student?

1. Beside . . . would kind of be nice having . . . family around.

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