The castaway and her clothing are in shocking condition. This raises many questions, some of which dare not be answered by those who know. Examination of her belongings reveals yet more puzzles, and the time taken means that the Visund will not reach her intended stop for the night. Once a suitable place for camping has been found, a furious argument then develops...

The Voyage of the Visund

A tale of Anmar by Penny Lane

4 - A Night on the River

Flight Lieutenant Second Class Jason Cole is the fifth generation in a long line of military family members and the third of the current generation. Unlike his older brother and sister Jason cannot be fitted with a bio-A.I. This one fact will led him on the greatest adventure of his young life.

With the news of the impending visit from Lucy's Mother the pair sprang into action. Not only did they have to prepare their home but themselves as well. As ever, Andrea was the more organised of the two. She prepared a seemingly endless list of things to do before the evening of Good Friday. Lucy both applauded and cursed her partner in the project. Applauded for the way Andrea just didn't panic and got on with it without much fuss. Cursed because Lucy had a lot to do just when she should be working on her dissertation.

CHAPTER 57
The water was nowhere near as warm as it had been in Cuba, but it was still delightful. The beach was clean, and both Mam and I had someone suitable for the application of sun cream. The stress of the flight, and the aftermath of the adrenalin-fuelled minibus ride, all evaporated under blue skies and on clean sand. Sparkling company that I am, I fell asleep. Dad woke me a little later.

We only spent a couple of hours there, as none of us fancied spending the whole of our holiday suffering from sunburn, so we settled back into our little chalet for a cuppa and some unpacking before setting out to explore the site.

This story was originally conceived to be a stand alone tale, but it fit Dorothy's M.Y.T.H. universe without too much modification. It starts about a year before Help! My girlfriend is a Unicorn!

My life changed when I was taking my evening hike through the back forty. I just didn't realize it at the time.

From the previous chapter: She dutifully filled "Victoria Catalina Lupo" into the appropriate space, went through the rest of the information with me, stuffed the paperwork into an envelope, and sealed it up. Then, she gave me a hug. "Welcome to the family, Vicky!"

Linda, I mean Mom, had baked and decorated a "Welcome to the Family" cake. Once I gave her my new name, she put it on the cake. We took some pictures and had a private family party. Then, as an afterthought, they asked me for a name for my current teen male form.

They sure know how to make a guy... or girl feel welcome.

It’s been two months since Lupita found the boy and they still didn’t know the boy's real name. Black Wolf had gone ahead and gave the boy a new name. Haloke was what Black Wolf and Lupita were calling him. Black Wolf had the tribal police run his fingerprints and face to see if he had been kidnapped, but nothing had come back about him.

CHAPTER 56
I found work a little bit of an anti-climax after that, and it took me a little while to calm down. Life had been edge of the seat for so long I was finding it difficult to relax in the office. Fortunately, or not, Jon and the New Chums had been piling up the information on Mersey View’s former staff and ‘guests’, and their computer skills were well above mine. I had expected a great pile of A4 paper, and instead received two USB memory sticks.

“Staff on the red one, Diane, and inmates on the blue. Set them up as spreadsheets, so if you get into Excel and…”

CHAPTER 55
Life settled down for a short while after that, but it wasn’t exactly ‘normal, as it had changed so much. I felt all the hackneyed effects of the trial, as so many weights that had hung on me fell to the ground and disappeared from my world. To be honest, life would have been immeasurably better even without those gifts, for I had my man.

CHAPTER 54
I caught up with Deb in one of the little patches of green around the outside of the court, where she and Kimberley were wrapped round a sobbing Charlie, Paul, Paula and Candice not too far away, as the former high-flier-to-be puffed frantically on a cigarette, and I wondered how her addiction was treating her at that exact moment. Blake was at my shoulder.

“You’ll be thinking how lightly you got off, won’t you, love? Compared to the others?”

I reached for his hand, and it was there, along with a little of my resilience.

Notes: Sorry this took so long. On top of my usual issues, I got a head cold that hung around for at least two weeks and decimated my energy to do things. I'm still not fully recovered, but I'm about 85 to 90 percent recovered.

I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made. Not by me, anyway.

A Gentle Soul - Conclusion

Here is the conclusion to the story. I apologize to those who liked the fairy tales in the story. The Grimm brothers do not play much of a role in this one: Dawn.

The company made its way into Southfarthing, where they broke up. The hobbits left for Fangorn with the pony cart containging the wood (and Entwives) while Ruth rode her little donkey cart pulled by Hansel and Gretel on towards her home.

Time on My Hands

Chapter 9: 198-199 CE: Dancing With a Caravan

Behind the main buildings on the middle pastures a finger of the mountain ridge surged skyward. The ridge ended in a cliff running northwest to southeast soaring 150 feet high. There was a rockfall scree 600 feet wide, 65 feet high at the cliff sloping down at a 45° angle. Tents were set up for the slaves and the things Raben had brought. The trees that had grown atop the scree were cut down for logs and lumber. A bridge of sturdy logs with a plank surface was built over the diverted stream Raben and Ulixes had created years before. Starting in the middle of the scree, Raben had them dig out the footprint for a sturdy stone and log building that he named the Elder House. The layout would be half into the scree and half beyond.

The third leg of their voyage sees the Visund tackle the toughest leg: upstream with no wind assistance, crossing the main current. This involves almost everyone taking an oar. Once past the obstacle, the next reach proves easy sailing, but just before they reach their stop for the following night, the lookouts spot something.

The Voyage of the Visund

A tale of Anmar by Penny Lane

3 - Crossing the Current

CHAPTER 52
“I was never a real boy, and that didn’t go down at all well in Connah’s Quay. Not the done thing there; men are men and sheep bloody run away to England. I am babbling, aren’t I?”

“No, Deb. You tell it your way”

We had left the café, and the airlock room was cleared for us by the girls. I had sent Blake off to look at some more properties, just to get him out of the way while the older woman gave me her potted biography.

Penny goes to White Gate Farm with John and the girls

This is the story of Penny. A closet Transwoman thrust into the outside world 24-7 when she would rather go and hide away. Perhaps the title should be Welcome to Penny’s Paranoid World…

CHAPTER 51
I won’t belittle the real pain and suffering we were told about, but it became routine after a while. I don’t mean that we got blasé, rather that each case Paul brought us went through what was becoming a very smooth and practised system.

Each one was, in the end, similar, and as the similarities piled up, so did the list of ‘further to’ charges awaiting Dai Pritchard, Bob Evans, one call-centre worker and two civilian employees in Cardiff and Swansea’s control rooms.