FicWad

Chapter Two
"Any Landing You Can Walk Away From . . ."

She woke up.
And there was darkness.
And then there was a light.
A powerful, brillant, flashing light that nearly blinded her.
Marlena's head was pounding. Everything was floating around her like small boats on a stormy sea.
The flashing light split and was gone.
Space and stars came before her eyes.
She saw a planet that looked like Earth . . .
. . . But wasn't Earth. This world was different and strange to her.
And it wasn't Earth.
She felt dizzy.
Sparks splashed from the panels in front of her.
The ship shook.
Marlena's head began to pound again.
She began to pass out again.
Just as she did, the cabin got hot.

*

Again, she woke up, but this time it was shorter.
Her eyes ached, and her whole body felt sweaty and hot.
Sparks fired again before her.
It was so hot.
And her head hurt so much.
It was hot.
She passed out again.

*

She only half-woke this time.
She was shaking.
The ship was shaking.
There was a terrible, awful grinding noise.
Marlena was bouncing.
The heat was gone, for the most part.
She passed out again.

*

Once more, Marlena woke up, but just barely and she would hardly remember this time.
The heat was mostly gone, and the shaking had ended. There was noise that sounded like searing. Her weak eyes registered sparks.
It ended and grunted was heard.
Air!
Pure, natural air filled the cabin.
Looking towards the origin of all this, she made out two male figures and a blue sky behind them.
"Be careful, your highness! Let me in there first! We can't risk you getting hurt."
"It's a girl, Duncan. A woman. She looks Eternian, but I don't recognize these marks on the controls and the ship."
"Randor, we need to get her out of there. She needs medical attention."
And with that, Marlena was lifted out her dark ship and into the light.
She passed out again.

*

The horses galloped into the city gates, the medics meeting Randor, Duncan, and the injured female (and possibly alien) pilot. The first thing Randor after their steeds got moving was just how pretty this woman was. She was beaten up, dehydrated, feverish - but beyond that, there was nothing fatal.
And Randor thought she was beautiful.
"Right here," Duncan said, lifting the woman off the steed and handing it the medics. Duncan had insisted that he take the pilot on his steed, 'just in case.'
The doctors got her onto a gurney and made for the infirmary. Randor followed closely as Duncan went about getting a team together to salvage the ship that the pilot had crashed.
"Your highness," said Duncan, catching up with his old friend, "we need to contact the Elders. After the last time something like this happened . . ."
Randor nodded, but gazed as the doctors tended to the woman. "Yes. Morgoth. I'll contact their emissary here and we'll make the proper arrangements. But get to the salvage first. We're losing daylight."
Duncan gave his old friend a smile and walked off. Randor watched once more as the doctors and nurses prepared the room for Marlena. His heart sank when the door shut.
Randor sighed and walked down the corridor. Rohad would be fascinated with this new piece of technology. Beyond the fact that this was, indeed, a beautiful woman that literally dropped out of the sky while Duncan and Randor were out hunting - this was also a visitor from another world.

*

There was a voice. ". . . around."
Marlena's eyes slowly opened and she began to make out a few forms above her. "What?" she asked to no one.
A man dressed in a long, white robe smiled at her, then looked to another man at the other side of the bed. This other man looked strong and had short, brown hair and was wearing (of all things) a crown. Marlena blinked. What country did she land in?
"Where am I?"
The man in white - one she immediately identified as a doctor - smiled at the guy with crown. "She speaks the language of Eternia."
"High Speak, yes, Man Speech," the crowned man replied and looked down upon Marlena. "Welcome, traveler, to the planet Eternia!"
Marlena blinked. "What? The planet Eternia? Oh no . . . heheh. I thought everyone just called it Earth. Where am I? What country did I land in?"
"Country?" asked the crowned man. "Aye, yes. Country. You are in the, er, country of Eternos."
Marlena slowly sat up. "I've never heard of Eternos before." She felt dizzy and weak, but pressed on with questions. "It's not that big, is it?" she rambled, saying whatever came form her mouth.
"Oh no, milady. Eternos is the largest kingdom on all Eternia! We have even been called it's capital!"
Marlena glared stupidly at the crowned man. Where in the hell was she? This wasn't making any sense. The doctor gently put his hands on her and leaned her back onto the bed.
"What is your name?" the doctor asked.
She looked over at him dazedly. "Captain Marlena Glenn." She then looked at the crowned man. "What's your name?"
"King Randor, Lady Captain."
She smiled. "No, no. Captain is my rank. My name is Marlena Glenn. Has anyone contacted NASA? Where's my ship? Do they know I'm here?"
The crowned man looked towards the doctor. "I . . . I'm not sure if they you're here or not. Your ship is in terrible shape. We're still checking it out."
"What?!" she gasped. She shot up, sitting rigid, pulse heightening. "No, you can't! You have to wait for NASA to get here! The nuclear material it's . . ." She stopped and suddenly remembered. "It was ejected. I . . . was pulled through some sort of . . . a vortex, maybe? No . . . it was something else . . ."
Randor looked to the doctor once more. The doctor put his hand on Marlena's shoulder. "Lady Marlena Glenn, if you'll sit back and just relax."
Her head snapped up. "A wormhole!" she exclaimed.
Randor stepped forward and gazed at her like she was crazy. "A . . . what?"
"It's a hole that . . . it's a theoretical tunnel through time and space . . . I found one just beyond Earth orbit and it started to . . . I had to . . ." Marlena trailed off. She then grasped Randor arm and looked at him with glazed-over eyes. "There was an accident, wasn't there?"
Randor nodded slowly. "It seems so."
Her hand fell into her lap. Memories began to rush back to her. "My God . . . that planet I saw. It wasn't Earth, was it?"
Randor shook his head. "No. It was Eternia."
Marlena went silent and looked down at her weak hands as they lay in her lap. "I'm on a different world," she said quietly. As soon as she did, all of the stress and the entire experience broke through her and she began to sob. Her hands went to her face and they grew wet with tears.
Randor felt a sudden urge to wrap his arms around her and hold this woman as she cried. He fought it, and the doctor lead him out of the room.
"She's exhausted," the doctor told Randor outside the door.
"Will she be okay?" wondered Randor.
The doctor nodded. "Yes. Our two peoples seem to be very similar. From what my readings indicate, her normal body temperature seems to be 98.5 degrees, not 99.8 like Eternians. She seems quite healthy. But your highness . . . she's exhausted. She needs to sleep. It's late. Why don't you check up on Man-At-Arms? I'd like to know more about her ship and if there's any indication as to whether or not she's associated with Horde, or maybe another traveler altogether."
"Friend or foe?"
"Yes."
Randor nodded in compliance then took one last gazing look back into the room. Even upset as she was, this Captain Marlena Glenn was still very beautiful.

*

"It's definitely not Eternian," Man-At-Arms said as the salvage truck pulled into one of the huge storage bays. "I can not even begin to tell you where it came from."
Randor perked an eyebrow. "She said something about a place or group called 'nassah.' Has anyone ever heard of that?"
"Not that I know of," Man-At-Arms replied. "You may want to check the historical readings."
Commander Duncan walked over. "Your highness, there's no Horde markings on this ship. Honestly, sire, I've never seen anything like this before. Other than the Horde incursion some fifty-sixty years ago, there's been nothing like it."
"Could it be a ship launched from Etheria?" questioned Randor. "We've all seen the satellite pictures. The vegetation suggests life."
Man-At-Arms shook his head. "There's no evidence of intelligent life on Etheria."
"What about the moon nations, Rohad?" Duncan asked.
Randor shook his head. "Neither Bright Moon or Dark Moon have this kind of technology. And the markings would tell us if they were involved in this." He sighed and stepped towards the crashed alien ship. "She speaks Man Speech."
Man-At-Arms grunted. "Most aliens do. Don't even begin to ask me why, your highness."
"She could very easily be Horde, sire," Duncan told him honestly. "You know the old stories as well as I do. About Hordak, and his betrayal of the Council of Elders . . ."
Randor breathed heavily. "Yes. The truth of it is, Duncan, I'm not sure if I believe that. I will tell you, though, there's another old story I recall about the Horde."
"What's that?"
Randor looked deeply at Duncan. "That during the Horde Incursion lead by Morgoth, it was Castle Grayskull that aided heavily in its ending."
Duncan's heart skipped. "You want me to see the Sorceress?"
"Yes," Randor said, and gave a glance at Rohad. "This may not be Horde, but if it is, I want her to be involved. She may even be able to help us figure out where she came from."
"Are you serious?"
Randor nodded and leaned in close. "If anything good came out of what happened two years ago, it's that I trust the old stories and legends moreso than ever before."
Duncan patted his old friend on the shoulder. "I will go first thing in the morning, then."

*

When Marlena Glenn awoke next, she was sure only a few hours had passed. She looked over at one of the walls and saw there was a window with the curtains drawn. Marlena, feeling woozy, pushed herself out of bed and for the first time since she launched, was on her feet.
She scuffled over to the window and drew open the curtain. The biggest shock of her life was before her and there was no one word to describe it.
Below, sprawled out in the moonlight, was a small city. But it was a city unlike any she had seen before. It was so many colors, but mostly only red, pink and salmon. There were statues, bridges, walls, buildings, towers, brick and dirt roads, and all the like. But there were no cars. No planes. No pollution, no sirens, no yelling or screaming or honking. It was so . . . pure.
A huge wall rimmed the city, and it all looked elevated above a huge plain. In the distance, there were mountains that were full of green trees. A river ran through the fields, mighty and beautiful.
And then she looked up and saw the second biggest shock of her life.
"The stars," she whispered. "The stars are different."
The North Star was gone, and all of the constellations were erased the sky, replaced with new formations and new stars. Some were brighter than any on Earth, others were so dim, they could hardly be seen. And there were, much to her complete horror, three moons. One large one and two smaller ones.
"What . . . what is this place?" she questioned in such a low voice. She backed away from the window and felt shock filling her every thought. Her body shook and she forced herself back over to the window and she looked out once more.
"I'm not on Earth," she declared with realization. "This isn't the Earth . . . this is Eternia."