AN: Hello possible future reader :)
This is my first story published on ffnet and also my very first one written in English.
As you could guess by that, I'm no native speaker.
I started this piece as an exercise for myself, but soon I got too many good ideas for the story to keep it all to myself :) So I think I will continue and (hopefully) complete my first story completely written in English.
Story: Girl falls into Ivalice, without the actual existence of the game. So no "drag-in-by-PlayStation". I will keep the storyline intertwined with the main story of the game with wide explanations of it, because I have one reader, who does not know the game at all.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, everything belongs to square, but Jasmine. She is aaaall mine!
.
.~.
.
Prolog
The sun burned down on her, as she continued to walk toward the south. Or what she thought that would be south. She didn't know what her goal was, but she was sure it was in that direction. The skin on her bare arms and her face has been long burned by the unforgiving sun and started to blister. She was too tired to care anymore. Her only thought were those about water. Lots of water! She would give up everything just for a glass of cold water. And with that, she put one foot in front of the other and kept on moving. Head kept down, she offered as much protection as she could to her burnt face. The next time she glanced up she thought she could see the outline of a city on the horizon. Slowly recognition began to set in. This was her goal! The goal of her long journey! There she would finally see them...
DRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
The pesky sound of her alarm clock shook her out of her deep sleep. Tired and disorientated she sat up in her bed and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. That dream again. It has been an unsteady recurrence in her whole life, but in the last weeks it started to come more regular. She still had no idea what the dreams meant. Usually they started to fade shortly after getting up, not that she had time to think about some stupid dream...She let herself fall back down into her pillows and was just about to drift off again, when the door to her bedroom flew open and her little brother barged in.
"Rise and shine, rise and shine, my dearest sister!", he chanted happily while walking around her room to open the curtains and let the dim light of the autumn morning inside.
"Shut up and get out!" Jasmine groaned, as she pulled her pillow over her head, to block out the much too cheery voice of her brother David.
"Oh come on Jessie", he muttered. "It's the same with you every morning. You will be late for work and tonight you will kick my butt, because I did not wake you up." Without mercy, he yanked her blanket away. Being robbed of the warmth of her bed, she sat up quickly and threw her pillow at her brothers head.
"Hey, not fair! That's assault with heavy weapons!"
"Don't be such a crybaby! Be happy it was just my pillow and not my night-lamp", she grumbled and finally got out of her bed and trotted towards her closet to gather her clothes for work.
"Well, now that I finally have your awakened attention: I will be late tonight - another study group for the exam next week. Adam insisted that we should look through our notes again."
"So you just stay away from home, when its your turn to cook tonight", Jasmine said with a wink as she started to dress – black leather pants, lavender halter top and gray pullover over it.
"Not that you really care", David said with a laugh. "After all you food is so much better than mine."
"Flattery will not help you to avoid your chores, you know? So you just volunteered to clean the bath tomorrow", she grinned and put on her glasses.
"Yeah yeah, whatever it takes to make my sister think she won an argument", David grinned back and hugged his 'big' sister (actually she was about a head smaller than him and a lot more slender).
"Be careful David and call me if it gets too late. I'll come over and pick you up."
"Don't worry, Jessie. If we don't finish by eleven I will stay over at Adam's. If you drive me with your bike I can not sleep after that. I will get nightmares for sure", he said with a wink.
Jasmine hit him playfully on the shoulder. "Are you trying to say that my motor bike riding is bad?"
"No, never", he drawled. "After all, bad is a too good word for your riding style."
And with that, he jumped out of her hitting range and grabbed his backpack from the floor.
"I'll call you tonight Jessie. Don't do anything I wouldn't do!", he called over his shoulder as he left their small apartment.
'Don't do anything he wouldn't do.' She snorted. Sometimes he just forgot who was the older one of them. But maybe it was because both of them had to grow up too fast. She has been seventeen, as old as David today, when both of their parents died in a car accident. It was up to her since then to care of her little brother and herself. She had to drop out of school at that time and start to work to make a living for both of them. So today, eight years later, she already had her fill of different jobs and finally found something that she really loved to do. She was employed as an apprentice for watchmaker now and tinkering with the small gears really fulfilled her. She had a hand for figuring out how the things worked and improving them. Before that she worked at a car garage, which was great as well but she has been fired for some shady reasons. In her opinion the guys there could not stand that a girl was so much better at fixing cars than them. Damn male pride! They should choke on it.
After finishing her breakfast, she stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom, where she fixed her dark brown shoulder-length hair into a low ponytail with some strands of hair falling out to frame her face. Then she put her contact lens in – after all she wanted to ride her bike to work today and her glasses did not fit under her helmet. She fiddled around with them a bit until she finally had a teary eye and the lenses in them. She was still not good with them and preferred her glasses after all. But unfortunately she had no choice, because she was as good as blind without them and that was definitely not good for her driving methods. Not that she would admit that she did not drive well... She stared into the mirror a few moments longer and her gray eyes stared back at her. While gray was not quite the right word for them... more like foggy or maybe misty. Yeah, like mist at an early autumn morning. Just like today's weather...
"Stop goofing around and get to work, silly", she chided herself in the mirror and with that she stuffed her glasses into her bag, after setting them in their case, put on her leather jacket and finally left her home to drive to work.
Jasmine was really tired as she left the shop late that evening after finally figuring out how to fix that damn Rolex. Mr Berkley, her boss, had left about two hours ago while muttering something about women her age and having a social life and relationships. Yeah, as if she had time to care about something like that when she had a great job and tried to graduate from evening school. The only two man in her life were her boss and her little brother and she definitely did not need another one, thank you. She stifled a large yawn while she put on her helmet and then started to drive home. Her day has been a bit strange so far, because every time she closed her eyes she could still see the desert region of her dream. Which was very unusual, as that dream normally did not linger in her head over the day. She yawned again, while she sped up to get home before David called her. He was in his last year of school and after that she could finally consider him an adult who could care for himself, like he always claimed he already did. Another huge yawn made her jaw crack a bit this time. She absolutely would need coffee when she got home and then she would try to study a bit. 'Yawn' Goddammit, she really was tired.
Later, Jasmine did not really know what happened. Maybe she just closed her eyes for a second or the darkness hid a pile of leaves on the street. But as she tried to drive around a curve, she felt that she lost her balance and her back wheel slipped away from under her. Her last thoughts before she collided with the trees on the roadside were about David. He would have to start cooking more often for himself now...
