[Saxony Tarn]

LMP -- good point about gratuitous thread-lengthening and well taken. We certainly do not wish to anger the guiding spirits of this board! On that note, since you asked for some snippets of the POV shift internal dialogue, i suppose that since this is the "Boromir in Purgatory" tale, it might get away with being dubbed "Tolkein-related"... B)
Longest example of internal dialog, pivotal plot point snipped from Chapter 20. Scene - North side of Emyn Arnen. In a grove in the woods, huddled under a thicket with a familiar dark-red roundshield stuck in the branches overhead to make a crude rain-block is a slumped figure in black plate armor, with an unresponsive, comatose body in its arms, both covered by an awfully familiar-looking Lorien-made cloak. Time: wee hours of May Day morning, TA3019, as the man in plate slowly wakes from a nightmare...

A bird perched in the branches about his shield dispelled the haunting with a tuneful chirping, bringing him to a groggy half-lucid state in a grove so silent that an acorn dropped by a squirrel overhead rung off his helmet with the low tone of a bell.
This cannot be real. This cannot be happening to me!
Of course it can, Denethorsson, you fell asleep on the watch again. Damned shoddy performance for one of your lofty rank and lengthy experience, if you ask me. And for how long were you out, pray tell? Long enough, perhaps, for seven to become eight?
Do you dare open your eyes?
Do I dare open my eyes, he thought in defiant answer, do I dare take your bait -- could it be that this is merely the foul trickery of that creature?
Oh, NOW you begin to get wise to this game! Better Latent than never, they say...
Do you want to take that chance?

I want very much to disbelieve this, he admitted, I want very much for this to be an illusion!
Of course you do -- how humiliating can it be for a Captain to lose a force of one troop? Then again, you have lost far more comrades of far longer acquaintance, truly, what difference does this relative stranger make?
I have lost friends and good men by the score, I have stopped my father from attempting to take my brother's life -- I have taken missile fire that would drop many men and still kept fighting to the last, and yet if I open my eyes to find that she has died while I slept, then I shall know pain and I am not willing to take that chance!
A parry, a feint, a thrust straight at his heart -- a chill darting through his chest from which the armor could not protect him, with all the pain of that third arrow: gotcha!

(camera sweep of grove, 3P narration resumes as he works up the courage to ascertain whether or not his incapacitated companion is still alive)

This is freshly written story meat from last week -- hope you find it tasty!

s.t.

(Note to Nar & Aragorn the Ranger -- yes, this is the same story you volunteered to test-read. bon appetit!)

[ June 20, 2002: Message edited by: Saxony Tarn ]