[Child of the 7th Age]

Child was preparing her gear for immediate departure. She had an awful lot to carry: all of Mith's backpack and her own, plus food for that dratted little dragon who did not appear to be of much practical use. She didn't see why Birdland who was approximately 13 times her own height couldn't lug some of this junk herself!

She went over to Samwise and Frodo to wave goodbye. Frodo looked awfully glum, and she wished she could cheer him up. Oh, well, Samwise was best at that kind of thing. She wondered what Frodo was staring at in that keychain palantir. He looked even more green than he had an hour or two ago.

She also made a point of going over to Sind and welcoming him to the party, if you could call it a party any longer! Oh, well, his bow would certainly be a good addition.

Finally, she turned and glared at Birdie. Birdland still seemed a little miffed about her giving the tiny palantir to Frodo. Child made a note in her mind to search through her ample provisions of mathoms at home and locate one keychain palantir to give to Birde on her own birthday which was coming up. That is, if she managed to make it home by her next birthday!

She also noted Birdie complaining about the lack of a REG. She heard Birdland growling to herself......how in the world are we going to transport ourselves anywhere without that stupid REG?

Child went up to Birdland and pulled on one of her lower branches--Bird was again back in Ent character. "Hey, Birdland, don't you remember? We have the laptop which Mith programmed to track down the REG. Just press this button, the one over here with the big green question mark, and it will send us to wherever the REG is at that particular instant."

"Not only that", declared Child, "but Frodo can even program that little palantir keychain to keep open a visual and spatial pathway between here and wherever the laptop is. That way, if anyone comes late and wants to help us, they can just continue on that same pathway and join us."

Birdland looked dubious since Child's ineptness with computers was quite legendary throughout the entire Shire and even beyond. Even Pio and Sind looked doubtful.

Veritas was still holding the laptop and was babbling on at some length about possible distortions caused by the REG, and how strange shifts in time and space seemed to be occurring because of its operation by Rose.

Child, however, was in no mood to wait or argue. "Here, give me that thing!", Child growled.

She felt quite angry. Just because they were all bigger than she was didn't mean they were always right and she was always wrong. She wanted to show them that she could also make important decisions. She tore the laptop open........There it was.......a large green button. She put her finger on the button, and whoosh.......

In the background far away, she thought she heard the sound of Frodo's voice garbling something about "Rose Cotton" and "Mordor" and "You don't know where you're going!"

[ June 03, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]