wrfmlogsarchive | Oh Hey, Another Forced Adventurer! [Narrative]

Who: Jenn aka Riv aka Fresh Meat
What: Jenn took a nap on Earth and woke up in Narnia. Wut. Panicing and forced shapeshifting occurs within.
Where: Narnia, the woods a few miles from the Telmerine castle
When: Wednesday
Warnings: None, other than that I tl;dr with the best of them. Plz read anyways. ^^

As Jennifer slowly came awake, the first thing she was aware of was a terrible pounding in her head. ‘Ow, ow, ow, ow…what hit me owww…oh man I need more sleep…’ Her eyes stayed shut for a moment longer as she clamped a hand to her forehead. One of THOSE mornings. Figuring this was just another headache induced by too little sleep in the middle of the day, she sat up and stretched, ready to roll out of bed.

There was no bed. There was a lot of grass, however. Jenn did not have grass in her bedroom. Or leaves. Or sticks and bushes and trees and open sky and-!

The 19-year-old sat bolt upright, staring around her in startled wide-eyed confusion. ‘Why am I outside?!’ Jenn was 100% positive she had lain down in her bed to take a short nap. She’d fallen asleep and woken up forgetting where she was before, but that did not generally include outdoor places that she did not recognize at all.

“Okay, Jenn…breathe. Calm down and figure out what’s going on…” Taking her own advice, the teenager breathed deeply a few times to slow her heart rate. Surely there was some sort of explanation for all of this. Maybe…why was there a goat lying next to her. Jenn’s thoughts blanked out as she stared at the ground by her waist. Sure enough, there was a pair of thick-haired, brown, hoofed legs lying there. ‘Okay,’ she reasoned, ‘I must be in a pasture. Those are the biggest goat legs I’ve ever seen, though. Now where-?’

It was then that she turned around and realized that there wasn’t a goat behind her. It took approximately three seconds longer for her to properly comprehend that the goat legs were HERS.

An exceptionally loud scream of absolute shock rent the previously peaceful morning air.

“OH MY WORD what…what-!??!” Jenn leapt to her feet and almost toppled over again as those goat legs moved with a lot more agility than she was used to. Her arms pin-wheeled a few times before she got her balance, and then she was looking herself over frantically.

Her normal human legs had been completely replaced with some sort of hoofed animal legs…and she wasn’t wearing pants anymore for some reason. An odd sensation led her to spin in a circle, trying to see behind herself and see if…yes. There was a little goat tail sticking off her lower backside. Jenn stared at that for a really long time.

“How…what…how is this…” An idea suddenly occurred to her, and the girl lifted both hand to her head and felt along her scalp and-! Her blue-green eyes widened in further shock. Two small horns. “I’m…I’m a FAUN!”

Dizziness overcame her again out of nowhere and Jenn thumped to the ground, her eyes filling with confused tears. What was going ON? Nothing made sense! She wasn’t supposed to be a FAUN! Fauns didn’t even EXIST! Where was she? This was NOT home; she was surrounded by a thick patch of woods with trees towering all around her that she had never seen before, and what the heck her shirt didn’t even look familiar! It was some sort of sleeveless crimson vest over a brown short-sleeved shirt and if she hadn’t been so freaked out right now it might have looked cool and-! Her thoughts jumbled into chaos again until she finally just buried her face in her hands and screamed, “WHAT IS GOING ON?!!”

“Ahem. Excuse me, madam. Are you in need of assistance?”

Jenn started at the sudden new voice, and a rush of momentary relief filled her. Thank goodness, someone else was here! Maybe he could tell her what had happened. Struggling to her feet - er, hooves - again, she turned to try and find the speakers.

It didn’t take her long, because the speaker and his companion stuck out like sore thumbs. Standing roughly six feet away, just inside the edge of the small glade where she stood, were two very interesting figures. One was a mouse that was roughly one and a half feet tall; the dark-gray-furred creature wore a sword belt and had one hairless paw placed readily on his rapier handle, as if prepared to draw it at a moment’s notice lest some imminent danger jump out at them. The other was a beautiful adult cheetah, who was watching with an expression halfway between bored and mildly interested. The cat sat placidly next to the mouse, obviously not as worried about there being a threat.

Jenn had to seriously suppress a squeak. Two thoughts were crashing against each other in her head, vying for attention. The first was: had one of those animals actually just talked? Seriously? Talking animals?! First she was a faun and now there was a giant mouse and a cheetah talking to her!

The second thought was ‘Oh my word that’s a cheetah, this is the first cheetah I have ever seen in my life and it’s so pretty!’ Thankfully, she had enough of her wits about her to pick which revelation was the most important. “Uh…um…” The young woman swallowed hard, trying valiantly to remember how to talk properly. “Did…did one of you just say that?”

The mouse was the one who stepped forward, and he performed an elegant sweeping bow. “’Twas I, yes. I am Silandro, and this is my good friend, Zeti. We were just passing by when we noticed your distress, and being that we could not call ourselves honorable and leave a maiden in possible danger, we hastened to see what was wrong.”

“You hastened, you mean.” The cheetah spoke for the first time, very dryly. “I told you not to bother. She’s a faun, they’re always erupting about something, and she probably wants us to leave her alone until she gets over it herself.”

Jenn watched them both with that sort of horrified fascination one has when viewing a train wreck or a particularly frightening horror movie. This simply could not be happening. She couldn’t be in the woods, talking to a mouse and a cheetah, like something out of one of her fantasy stories. But when the cheetah said the words ‘She’s a faun’… Jenn lost it completely. The girl-turned-faun collapsed on the ground in an enormous burst of tears.

Silandro and Zeti startled at her sudden display, and then both just stared for a long moment at the bawling faun. Silandro cast a glare at his cheetah companion and said tartly, “I suppose this is just a faun’s ‘usual’ emotional outburst, Zeti?” When the cheetah said nothing (very obviously beginning to feel some doubt over his theory), Silandro took a few tentative steps forward. “Miss? Lady Faun? I’m sorry if we have upset you in any way… Please, tell us what is the matter.”

Jenn sat upright again and stared at the mouse through tear-filled eyes. After a few eternity-spanning seconds, she inhaled, and all of her thoughts came tumbling out of her mouth at once. “This isn’t right at all, I’m NOT a faun I’m a human, and animals aren’t supposed to talk but you’re standing right in front of me talking and I don’t know where I am or how I got here and that’s a CHEETAH, cheetahs don’t live in woods like these and…and…” Yes, even now her obsession with obscure logic (like the type of landscape cheetahs are supposed to live in) was kicking in a little. She blinked a few times as if coming to her senses, smeared some of the tears across her face with one arm, and then looked between the two again with a pleading expression. “Please tell me you know what’s going on! I have no idea what’s going on and it’s scaring the crap out of me!”

Both talking animals looked incredibly confused after her rushed burble of information, but Silandro made a valiant effort to be comforting. “I’m sorry, miss…ah, Lady Faun. I’m afraid I don’t understand what the problem is. But if you are not sure where you are, then perhaps it would be best if we moved further into the woods. You’re terribly close to Telmarine land, you know!”

The cheetah nodded his head, and a disgusted look came across his feline face. “Exactly. Let us finish this conversation elsewhere, please? I don’t like patrolling the borders as it is, and staying this close to the castle has my back fur prickling.” He gave the faun-girl a speculative look and added thoughtfully, “You know, in all that babbling she DID mention something about humans. Perhaps she’s just escaped from them! That would explain her disorientation and obvious trauma.” A smug smile filled Zeti’s face at his brilliant theory, and he licked a paw as if to say, ‘There, that’s that. It’s all cleared up now.’

But it wasn’t cleared up, because Jenn was starting to think clearly again. And several things that the mouse…Silandro? That the mouse had said were clicking into place. When they mentioned the Telmarines… Jenn suddenly leaned towards Zeti with an urgent look in her eyes. “Wait, did you say Telmarines? Like, the people of Telmar Telmarines?” Her thoughts were racing. No way, it couldn’t be, it just couldn’t…but…

Her eyes snapped to Silandro with ever-growing apprehension. “Wh…what’s the name of this country?”

Silandro gave her a very surprised look, which would have been incredibly cute on that enlarged mouse face if not for the circumstances. “Why, Narnia, of course! Where else could a lovely faun such as yourself be found?”

A long silence filled the air as for a few brief moments, Jenn’s eyes glazed over in shock. “Narnia…” she whispered. Ironically, it explained a lot. “But…but this can’t be right!” she gulped, not even realizing she was talking out loud. “I…there’s no way. Oh my word, my mom was right, I’ve finally watched so much TV and read so much fiction that I’ve gone off the deep end, and now I’m hallucinating.” Her eyes refocused, and she stared at the mouse and the cheetah. Then down at herself. When she looked at Silandro again, the shock was gone, but now only fear and confusion filled her face. “You…you’re serious. This is really Narnia?”

Zeti sighed loudly and stood up, stretching. With a few graceful steps, he moved over to the side of Silandro and Jenn. “My dear lady faun, I’m not sure what ails you, but we would greatly appreciate it if you would come with us into the deeper woods. Whatever insanity has gripped you, you’d be best taking care of it away from the very epicenter of danger that lies only a mile or so beyond the border of these woods, to which you are frighteningly close. And I would rather not risk all our necks by staying here much longer.”

Jenn was trembling, and she stared at the cheetah for a long moment. But then, swallowing hard, she nodded and tried to push herself to her feet. “Okay…okay, I’ll go with you two. Maybe you can help me figure out what happened or…or take me to your leader or something,” she mumbled. Her senses had finally returned to her, and while Jenn wasn’t enjoying the situation at all, she was reminded once again of her uncanny ability to focus when she should still be freaking out. It was weird, but in this case, extremely helpful.

The dark gray mouse interrupted her stumbling efforts by pointing at something in the grass. “Is that object over there yours? I wouldn’t want you to forget it.”

Jenn blinked in surprise before turning to see what he was pointing on. She yelped slightly in even greater surprise, then hop-skipped (these legs were weird) over and tried to kneel, which was in itself a bizarre experience. Her eyes widened in shock as she beheld her old, black, pizza-box-shaped Dell laptop, calmly sitting there in the grass. “What the heck is this doing here?” she exclaimed. A quick glance around confirmed that it was the only other one of her personal possessions in the area, which just made it all the more strange to see it here. “This day is getting weirder and weirder by the second,” the girl/faun growled irritably. “I wonder if it still works-“

An arrow zipped by and landed in a tree nearby with a loud thunk! Jenn startled backwards, instinctively rising to her feet – hooves, whatever. Zeti and Silandro were on their feet as well, and Zeti snapped at her, “Telmarines! We have to run NOW!” Without waiting to see if she took his advice, Zeti bolted off into the trees, the talking mouse grabbing the ruff of his neck and vaulting himself onto the cat’s back as he passed. Jenn stood stock-still in terror for a split second, hugging the laptop to her chest. Then she took off after them.

A branch almost clotheslined her in her sudden burst of speed, and Jenn ducked it with a small gasp. Adrenaline coursed through her body as her new goat legs came to life, carrying her along with ease at a rate she had never experienced before. Soon she had actually caught up with Zeti, and the voices of the invisible attackers quickly receded into the distance. Jenn felt a rush of excitement course through her veins. This was amazing! She loved to run, but this was unbelievable! Even keeping up with a cheetah! (Of course, the intelligent part of her brain reminded her that that was likely because the cheetah wasn’t actually able to go full speed in dense woods like this, but she wasn’t about to let that dampen her joy.) After a short while, Jenn’s fears were almost forgotten as she found herself actually enjoying the experience. Whatever crazy dream this was, she was starting to like it!

They ran for a good ten minutes, Jenn keeping pace behind Zeti the entire time. She couldn’t believe she wasn’t running out of energy, but apparently being a faun had certain advantages. When the mouse-mounted cheetah finally began to slow his pace, Jenn braked gently, only mildly out of breath. She hadn’t felt this alive since scaling thT cliff on her New York Science Trip! As she crouched down and laid the laptop on the ground, she couldn’t help the smile on her face.

Zeti apparently didn’t care much for her new happy demeanor, as he made clear with several very dry comments. “Well, I’m glad that little bit of death-defying adventure has woken you up, miss. Would you happen to be so kind as to tell us your name now?” Silandro hopped off his back and gave the big cat a stern glare for his rudeness, but then directed his gaze back to Jenn in hopes of an answer.

Jenn looked surprised again, and then gave an embarrassed smile. “Oh, I’m sorry…I didn’t realize, with all the chaos and the…I’m Jenn.” She almost held her hand out to shake, but then faltered as she realized that one of them didn’t even have hands. Oh joy, social awkwardness on top of everything else.

Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly), Silandro solved the problem by stepping forward, taking her partially-outstretched hand in one paw, and bowing to it in a courtly manner. “We are honored to make your acquaintance, Miss Jenn. Please, if you would be so kind, tell us more of what ails you so that we can find a way to help. Were you attacked by the Telmarines before we arrived?”

By this time, Jenn’s thoughts were whirring in a much more orderly fashion. Of course these two wouldn’t believe she was supposed to be a human; if she really WAS in Narnian, then this must be sometime before or during the Prince Caspian story, and humans were the enemies. But what was she supposed to do? If this WAS some magical Narnian story, then she would have arrived as a human like in the books! Something was definitely off…

Her eyes wandered to the laptop lying on the ground, and one eyebrow perked. What if…? After all, it was the only thing that had come through, which was extremely convenient if her theory was right…

Sitting down on the ground by the computer, she flipped it open and stared at the blank screen for a second. Honestly, she’d be stunned if it even turned on; her laptop had a battery life of literally three seconds when not plugged in. But it was worth a shot. “I want to check something, Sil…Silandro, right? If this…uh, device works, I might be able to…I don’t know.” She gave him an apologetic look. “Can you two wait a bit while I try something?”

Zeti and Silandro gave each other identical curious looks. Then Silandro smiled at Jenn and tilted his head in agreement. “As you please, Miss Jenn. We will wait for you.”

Jenn smiled with relief, and a little bit of good humor. She was really starting to like the talking mouse, all this weirdness aside. “Thanks. And please, just Jenn is fine.” Then she turned to the laptop, took a deep breath, and pressed the button.

It blinked on immediately, the familiar load screen coming to life. Jenn’s eyes widened again. “No WAY. I can’t believe it’s on!” she said under her breath. Well, so far so good. The lack of her wireless card was another worry, but if things were going the way she thought they were going…yep. Within minutes, she was connected to the internet. A disbelieving laugh fluttered out of her throat, and she shook her head. “This is insane. The world has officially stopped making sense.” Shaking her head again, she said to herself (although the two animals could probably hear her, too), “Well…might as well give it a try.”

With that, she did the first thing that came to mind: she went to her Livejournal and posted a message. It took her about ten minutes to compose something that actually made SOME sort of sense, but then it was posted, and she sat back. Now the only thing she could do was wait and see…well, see if anyone from Earth would actually get this.

Strangest. Day. Ever.