What in tarnation, Thunderdome? What am I doing on this throne again? The thought of confronting who knows how many terrible stories while I munch on leftovers and trim the tree makes me want to flee to some far land, where everyone knows how to punctuate dialogue and no one would ever spell “all right” any other way. Such a beautiful dream....

I'll just have to live it vicariously through you guys. In your stories this week, your character or characters are pilgrims arriving in a new land, far from home, that they have never seen. They can be traveling for reasons religious or otherwise. Their destination can be any country, real or imagined. Tell me what happens when they get there.

Any genre but erotica is fair game, though I’d like to see some stories that don’t involve voyages to new planets. You know what else I’d like to see? Endings that resolve the story’s major conflicts or questions. Do not drop your damn plot off a cliff and call it good. Make me care what happens to the characters! Make that conclusion matter!

ADDENDUM: I'm looking for actual, physical travel. Don't send a character to a different "state of mind" and call that a pilgrimage, or I will cut you.

Fanfiction, nonfiction, erotica, poetry, and GoogleDocs are forbidden.