shifted_logs | a curse for every mile of ocean crossed

Entry tags:

a curse for every mile of ocean crossed

Characters: Morgana and thou!
Location: Across the Multiverse
Time: Throughout the day
Summary: Magic is banned in Camelot, which is clearly why Morgana is getting magically shunted through the multiverse.
Warnings: Your princess is in another universe.

[Feel free to just comment here, starting off describing your character doing whatever, and Morgana will randomly appear beside them. Use log-style prose or spam-style brackets, as you prefer]

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Christine had just finished assisting one of the Enterprise's doctors with a patient and was now updating the patient's med file as both doctor and patient went back to their duties.

She was humming to herself as she touched the screen to bring up the page she needed, then started typing in the cause of the injury and treatment given. Pretty normal stuff on this pretty normal day.

The second arrival was more disorienting than the first, because at least Gallifrey had a proper sky. This room was even more foreign to Morgana with the look of its machines and the style of its clothing. But it was easier now, because it had happened before, and she could hope that Christine, like Leela, knew the Plane. "I'm sorry to interrupt you," she said. She hoped it wouldn't be too alarming a surprise for the other woman. "But I find myself in need of some aid."

Christine's heart leapt into her throat at the sound of the voice, simply because she hadn't heard anyone approach. But she calmed herself and turned towards the voice, ready to aid her fellow crew member.

Instead, she was greeted by a woman who most definitely was not a member of Starfleet. She wracked her brain to think if any ambassadors were on board, but she remembered that the ship was three days out from its next mission and was warping through space. So who was this?

"Er, o-of course." She swallowed, trying to hide her surprise. "Are you injured?"

Morgana's smile was the one she learned at court. It was for smoothing over and brushing past, for acknowledging that they were both not quite certain of where they stood. "I am well, but I do not know what place this is. Would you be able to direct me?"

"Sure." Christine's mind was racing from thought to thought, trying to work out from where this woman could have come. Mr. Scott had proven that transwarp beaming was possible, but if that was what happened, someone had either done so without this woman's knowledge, or she didn't end up where she planned.

There was the other possibility that she was some powerful being. The ship had come across them before, out in the middle of seemingly empty space. But, Christine thought to herself, there was a third possibility now. This woman could have come from the Plane.

"This is the U.S.S. Enterprise, a starship of Starfleet. It's a peacekeeping and exploratory vessel under the jurisdiction of the United Federation of Planets." All that rolled easily off her tongue, and it was only after that she wondered if any of that made sense to this woman.

It was all foreign to her. A star ship? She could not imagine how a ship would sail through the stars, unless the Northern legends of a river of stars was the truth of the skies. "Thank you." She drew her hands together, half-wringing them, trying to suppress the nervousness.

What to ask next? "Is there a place I could stay briefly? I would not be in your way." But she could not control her coming and going, and she was snot sure if she would be moved on to the next place if she tried to wait it out on the Plane.

Christine knew that the protocol here was to take this stranger to security and have them ask her some questions until the Captain arrived. But if this woman was from the Plane... well, Christine hadn't told anyone onboard the ship about that place, because who would believe her?

Drawing the privacy curtain around the biobed to hide them from the medical staff, Christine offered a smile.

"If you could just stay here for now? You're not supposed to be here and I don't want you to get in trouble. But first things first. Did you happen to come here from the Plane?"

Relief broke across Morgana's face. "Not from it, but I am able to go there, and I think it is somehow the cause. My name is Morgana. I was worried you would know nothing of the place."

She knew what Uther would have done to anybody who appeared as if by magic, looking entirely of another world.

"No, I've been there plenty of times. I'm Christine." She gave the woman a soft smile, hoping to put her at ease. "But as far as I know, no one else here on the ship knows about the place."

Moving to sit on the edge of the biobed, she added, "So where did you come from?"

Christine's smile had a calming effect, and Morgana relaxed. She paused before answering, remembering how Oliver had responded to her mention of where she was from, but she pushed onwards. "From Camelot in Albion." She took a seat beside Christine.

"Camelot?" That sounded like-- no, that was the place in those legends about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. And wasn't Morgana or, rather, Morgan le Fay a character in it? But, Christine reasoned, if the crew could beams to planets where everyone wore togas, or Nazi uniforms, or suits from 1930's Earth, anything was possible.

"I'm originally from New Orleans," Christine replied. "That's a city, on Earth." She moved on to wondering why the Plane was messing with people when they weren't even on it at the time, and suppressed a shudder at the thought that she might pop up somewhere foreign next.

"So, Morgana, can you tell me if anything strange has happened to you lately? Maybe if we find the cause, we can get you back home." It was better than sitting around doing nothing, in any case.

There was that response again. She grew increasingly curious of what the legends might say about Camelot, about Arthur and her time, but now was not the time for it. "I've never heard of New Orleans." Camelot was so bound by its borders. The more she saw of the Plane, the more Morgana longed to travel to places far away and see what else the world had to offer.

Perhaps her wish was being granted in this. She nodded at Christine's question. "Aside from the Plane, I can think of nothing. Nothing to do with the Plane. There had been no magical attempts at insurrection in the past month at least." She frowned. "Arthur and I had just had a fight about—it doesn't much matter. But I had been wishing to travel beyond the castle without an escort."

Could the Plane pick up on wishes and twist them to its design? It did not seem beyond its powers to Morgana.

And there was the name Arthur. This whole thing was making Christine very curious. It was as if Morgana had appeared out of a storybook.

"Maybe the Plane picked up on that and sent you on a big trip." Christine shrugged, trying to think about what to do next. "You know, recently, a few others and I got these books out of the library on the Plane. They talked about how we could bring people from the Plane back home with us. Did you get one of those books?"

"I have not heard of it." She had spent some time marvelling at the library and wonder what sort of materials they were using, and what scribes they had found who could write so uniform across all these texts. But she had not read any books, nor would have known where to start to find one such as this. "Do you have it here?"

"I do. It's in my quarters, but I only skimmed through it since I never planned on bringing anyone here." She stood up, smoothing down her uniform skirt. "But maybe it says something about what's happening to you too. You'd better stay here. If people see you walking through the halls, there'll be too many questions."

She turned to the computer and started typing rapidly. "Could you just lie down under the covers and pretend to be asleep? I'll make sure no one bothers you."

Morgana got to her feet. "Of course." She unbuckled the belt that kept her weapons and slipped it under the sheets. Sneaking around was something of a Camelot pastime. Or at least it had been.

Before she played ill, she smiled at Christine. "Thank you for your help."

"You're welcome, Morgana." Christine returned the smile and slipped past the privacy curtain, rolling the cart with the patient chart up on the computer out where others could read it before closing the curtain completely around the bed. She'd come up with a fake patient file and had written that the patient was not to be disturbed. It was all she could do to hopefully keep Morgana's presence aboard the ship a secret.

Quickly, she signed out for a break, headed to her quarters, and grabbed the mysterious book from the Plane.

Morgana waited patient and silent, thinking over this world and its strange, magic-like devices. But she knew, though she could not say how, that there was no magic in it. When Christine returned, she immediately got back out of bed.

"Not vellum or parchment," she noted. It was like most of the Plane's books that way.

"Nope." She sat on the edge of the bed and started flipping through. "I'm not sure if there's anything in here about traveling to other dimensions on your own, but it's at least worth a try." She patted the bed for Morgana to sit beside her so they could look together.

Morgana sat, frowning as she looked through. "It mentions returning to the Plane, but I have tried that. It did nothing to bring me back to Camelot."

"Hmm, that's weird. It's as if you're being blocked from getting back by some invisible force." Biting her lip, Christine wished she could confide in one of her crewmates; someone who might know about things like this and could help, like Mr. Scott.

"When you went back to the Plane, did you get pulled somewhere else against your will, or was it only when you tried for Camelot that you ended somewhere else?" It was possible that the difference meant nothing, but Christine thought it better to have a bunch of useless information, than no information at all.

"When I tried it, I was returned to the same world I was in. The movement to this place, like the place before it, was completely at random." She was suddenly very grateful that she had been out of sight when she had been moved. As unwilling as Arthur was to accept she had any magic, others might not look so kindly on spontaneous disappearances.

Christine frowned, wondering what tricks the Plane was pulling now. "I wonder if you're the only one experiencing this or if others are too. I mean, you're the first person with access to the Plane that's turned up in my med bay, and I hope you're the last."

She flipped through the book, looking for any keywords that might relate to what was happening to Morgana.

"I can see no reason to it." She looked as well, but there was nothing. "I may go to the Plane to ask if there are others."

"That might be the best solution," Christine replied, closing the book with a sigh of defeat. "I'm afraid I haven't been much help to you, but maybe you can find the answers back on the Plane."

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ex_oneiromancer912 - 2011-03-18 19:16 (UTC) - Expand

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