thelostworldfanforum

Well that was a truly scary, highly motivational thought to hit me with first thing in the morning, SunKrux!

There I was, enjoying the amazing realization that the Plateau's shifting planes of reality (or at the very least, the evil genius otherwise known as Zakiyah) had somehow drawn me not merely to The Lost World, but directly into Lord Roxton's bedroom, when you had to go and toss in that bit about Marguerite coming back and finding me in his room.

Do you have any idea what I had to go through to log in here so I could extract myself back to the beach and out of Marguerite's potential crosshairs?! Apparently I haven't posted on the Board since '07, and my password didn't survive the conversion process. Believe you me, I hustled to get that situation resolved, all the while peering over my shoulder in case Marguerite showed up.

Now that I've made it as far as the Board...

*Pam hops off Roxton’s bed and looks around desperately, but doesn’t see anything remotely resembling a Tardis or the sheen of time waves.*

Why can you never find a shifting plane of reality when you need one?! Zak? D? Any chance you’d come back and get me out of here? Much as I appreciate waking up in Roxton’s bed, there’s still a lot I’d like to do before I die. Also, my hubby’s not gonna be any more amused than Marguerite if he finds out I’m not at the beach where I’m supposed to be… a little help here?

*Pam waits hopefully for a few minutes, but nothing happens other than her jumping nervously at every little noise that she notices – and there are quite a few noises to be heard in the jungle. Fortunately, before she’s a total nervous wreck she remembers that the e-card sent to her that very morning by Zak had included a b-day cupcake. A quick search locates the cupcake, its candle still alight, on Roxton’s windowsill. With a relieved sigh, Pam closes her eyes, makes a wish, and blows out the candle. She holds her breath, waits a long moment, then smiles.*

I know that scent! Salt air. I smell ocean! I hear the ocean!

*She opens her eyes, and is delighted to find herself back at her beachfront hotel, where the breakers are gently rolling into the sandy coast in view from her balcony. She heaves a sigh of relief, then frowns darkly.*

Where are those two?! They’re gonna get an earful about sucking other writers willy-nilly into their challenge threads and then leaving them there to fend for themselves!

*Pam signs off, grumbling under her breath about having to use up a perfectly good b-day wish.*

*As Pam sits on the beach with her hubby enjoying (well trying to enjoy) what's left of her birthday that is, when suddenly a huge basket with all Pam's favorite things appears out of now where. Attached is a note...

Pam,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Sorry I didn't wake you before I left but you were sleeping so peacefully I didn't want to risk the wrath of Pam by waking you too early. Hope this basket of goodies makes up for it. Sorry I couldn't come back and help you, some times my telepathic powers revolt and stop working, I was actually quite lucky to get out of there and where I am now (Where the hezmana am I?). But thankfully they decided to allow me to make it up to you by transporting your gift to you. Good luck with the challenge!

Hugs,

SunKrux

I think there's been just as much creative writing going on in this thread as there's been in fic-dom. Love it! Love all the challenge fic entries, too! Thanks to SantaCrux, SunKrux, and Pam for their wonderful fics! Zakiyah and I will soon be picking and posting the winner. It ain't easy, let me tell ya!

Pam, welcome back to the board! I'm glad you made it and also made it back safely to the beach. Wouldn't want to get you into trouble with anyone on the Plateau or off. A very happy, if a bit belated, birthday to you!

~DNash

*A wheezing, groaning sound fills the great room at the Treehouse, followed by a mysterious BANG and a bright flash of light.*
Z: *voice echoing into the room from a vast distance* What the hell?
D: *sarcasm evident in her voice even as it too echoes distantly* We don’t appear to have materialized at the Treehouse. Where did you land us this time?
Z: Um… I don’t think we’ve managed to materialize anywhere, actually. I think we’re stuck.
D: Stuck? Stuck where?
Z: Nowhere. Well, specifically, stuck somewhere between dimensions of time and space, which isn’t nowhere, but isn’t anywhere, either. I think we blew out one of the dimensional stabilizers.
D: You’re joking, right?
Z: Do I look like I’m joking?
D: *audibly annoyed* But today is Monday! We have a winner to announce! Places to go! People to see!
Z: Well, the dimensional pocket we created for getting scones to the Treehouse is still active. It isn’t big enough to travel through, but maybe they can hear us?
Faithful readers and Treehouse dwellers, in unison: WE CAN HEAR YOU. GET ON WITH IT!
Z: *wryly* That answers that question. D, would you do the honors?
D: Gladly. I’m rolling the tape.



D: Congratulations santacrux!
Z: And major props for the poetry! In public, even!
D: Z and I are both hopeless at poetry.
Z: Thanks again to everyone. Maybe we’ll see you again sometime.
D: Assuming we ever make it out of limbo, that is. Have you tried giving the console a good smack? It always works for the Doctor.
Z: It’s worth a try…
*A thumping sound echoes into the great room, followed by a loud crashing sound. A faint wheezing and groaning noise is heard briefly, and then silence.*

Congrats santacrux.

Congratulations, Santa Crux.

But thank you again to all five writers, DNash, Zakiyah, Santa Crux, SunKrux, and Pam for making the plateau live again with new adventures. TLW will never be 'lost' as long as we have you to bring us exciting new looks at our favorite heroes!

rann

Three cheers for santacrux! Your fic gives the Roxton ring an intriguing voice and purpose of its own in the Lost World's mythology - very appropriate. :D

I don't want it to end!

I've had such a good time with Hot Water for so long - 14 weeks of great writing and suspenseful plot, not one but two threads of witty narrative and repartee, a chance to write a challenge fic - like in the good old days that I mostly missed out on, to read the great stories written by SunKrux and Pam, and now this fantastic surprise... but that means it's over.

Thank you co-authors Zakiiyah and DNash for liking my story - and for calling it poetry (maybe it lacks meter and rhyme but it does have stanzas so it must be a poem, right?)

Congratulations SunKrux and Pam on your stories - beautifully written and thoughtfully plotted. I was amazed by certain similarities on how we all worked through Marguerite and Roxton's thinking - yet in the different paths our stories took. I love that part of writing/reading fan fics.

Thanks most sincerely to rann who beta'd my story which I sent to her at the last, last minute, found my most outrageous mistakes and sent it back right away despite her hectic schedule and still managed to be kind in her comments.

This story started in the middle of writing I Never Let You In and once I had Old Gold running around in my head I barely finished the other one. The title came from a line in Hot Water that kept rolling off my tongue:

The old, cold gold was an unfamiliar weight on her right index finger (Round 14)

And so that was the start of Old Gold.

My appreciation to everyone involved - Zak &DNash, co-authors of Hot Water which is a great story, to Pam and SunKrux for taking up the challenge with gusto, and the readers and writers who still make it fun to be involved in The Lost World fan fiction.

santa crux

*The elevator creaks and rumbles as it rises to the treehouse.

*Somebody should be doing maintenance on this thing, thinks Marguerite as she rides up. The nagging thought strikes her that it might actually be her turn for that chore and she puts her mind to more important matters.

*Another successful trading trip to the Xanga village. She has woven goods and cured raptor hides that she thinks she might make a vest from. John would look quite dashing in it, she decides. Even now the man in her thoughts is storing the root vegetables in the cold room below the treehouse. They had even acquired a gourd that looked remarkably like a pumpkin.

*She arrives at the treehouse and unburdens herself, tossing all their new possessions on the table.

*I'm ready for a shower, she mutters to herself, then sniffs the air. Pumpkin, I smell baked pumpkin. Impossible, must be my imagination. She looks closer. Coffee mugs on the table that hadn't been there when they left. Had the others returned while they were gone?

"Veronica? Challenger? Finn?" No answer meets her shouted query. She unbuckles the flap that protects her pistol. Robbers! Human or primate?

*She checks the rest of the treehouse. During her inspection she notices nothing amiss other than a mysterious package near the entrance to the elevator; she must have stepped right over it coming in. Curious, she finds herself unsealing the wrapper and looking within.

*Chocolate! She inhales deeply enjoying the heavenly scent. Her sensitive nose notices an undercurrent - coffee! Coffee beans to be exact, covered in chocolate. She investigates further - a type of bath salts of a brand she knows to be of great quality. Damn the shower, she thinks, I'm having a bath.

*Marguerite is delighted at her find. Clearly someone had planned this marvellous gift for her! Who could it be? A slow smile spreads across her face. She knows the likely gift giver and imagines how she might thank him.

*There was more - pumpkin scone mix. Odd, she thought, Roxton knows I don't make scones but the smell is heavenly. Perhaps just this once. She goes into the kitchen.

*The trapdoor to the attic opens more fully as santa crux looks down, mournfully scanning the room below, taking in the scattered packaging, opened chocolate boxes and unwrapped bath bombs.

sc: My prize, she sighs, my wonderful prize! I'm too late. The infamous Marguerite Krux has it now and she'll never give it up.

*The trespassing fan fic writer has read enough of Edward Malone's journals to be aware and wary of "the dangerous - possibly deadly - Miss Krux" Making not the slightest sound she makes her way to the treehouse balcony and quickly slides down a strangler fig vine to the jungle floor. She creeps under the electric fence and disappears into the jungle.

*John Roxton comes out of the root cellar and walks toward the elevator. A slight movement in the jungle catches his eye and he stares intently into the dappled foliage for a moment then, reassured, shrugs and goes on about his business.

*Marguerite Krux emerges from the kitchen, a little flour dusting her nose, a cookie sheet covered in uneven blobs of dough brandished in one fist. She settles the pan in the flaming coals of the cooking fire and smiles at her effort. She picks up the bath salts and turns to the elevator as it rumbles to a stop.

MK: John, could you run some water for the bath? And while you're at it, could you keep an eye on the pumpkin scones? *With those words Marguerite disappears in the direction of her room.

*Lord Roxton sighs as he sees the 'baking', the edges burnt and smoking while the insides remain near-raw. He rescues the scones before they are ruined and puts them into the small oven below the fire. He can hear Marguerite complaining in the distance.

MK: I don't hear water running. It's going to take some time to fill that tub, John.

*Thirty minutes later, Marguerite reaches out of her soothing bath to pluck the last chocolate from the box and pop it in her mouth. Divine! she murmurs. Without a doubt Lord John Roxton was the most adorable man.

*From beyond the electric fence, hidden behind an ilama tree, santa crux watches the last of the chocolates disappear, her stomach growling in protest. And yet the memories of the Hot Water Fan Fic contest still bring a faint smile to her face. It had been fun.

SC: How am I ever going to explain this to the contest prize committee?

*With one backward look she trudges off toward the dormant volcanic vent that had led her to the plateau, the smell of coffee, chocolate and baked pumpkin following her all the way.


****

DNash, Zakiyah

Got my prize in the mail yesterday. What a marvellous bundle of goodies. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
For the fic, for the contest, for the prize. Thanks

santa crux

I'm glad it arrived safely, and I trust there was no real-world Marguerite to sneak away your hard-won prize!

Thanks for this little bonus fic, too.

~DNash