Ahem. I disclaim all ownership of Natsume, Mikan, etc. etc. etc. I only own the characters I made up, so there.

Where is "here"? What is "reality"?

I woke up. Staring at my reflection in the mirror, I tried to arrange my hair into pigtails. It didn't work, it didn't work at all. It had worked five years ago, but I had long outgrown such frivolity. A thirteen-year-old just couldn't wear pigtails…

I sighed. Just a month ago, I had started having such wonderful dreams. There was a girl who looked just like me, only with wearing pigtails, and she talked to me. I sighed again, wistfully. It had been just so wonderful to be able to talk to someone! From then, she had come almost every night, as if to help me keep away the loneliness.

"Yuzu! Come down here!"

"Hai, Oka-san."

I walked down the stairs. She wasn't my real mother, because my parents were faraway royalty in some distant land and I was sent here to avoid kidnapping. Or at least, that was what my foster grandfather told me. Of course, I knew the truth – my mother abandoned me, and my grandfather took me in.

"Yuzu! If you don't hurry up…"

My foster-mother was the meanest lady in the village, so everyone kept away from me. Not that they had much chance to – Akuba-san – my foster mother – kept me so busy anyways that I barely had a chance to meet anyone in the first place.

Tripping on the last step, I managed to safely reach the kitchen. "Here I am, Oka-san." The only reason I called her Oka-san was because she insisted that I do. I never really wanted to – it felt like I was throwing my real mother away. I knew that my real mother loved me, because she had left my name in the heavy, warm bundle she had left me in, and she had included a small, but beautiful necklace made of a gold chain and a bright red crystal stone, shaped like a ball.

I touched the necklace. I was still wearing it, because it was the only thing I had, besides my name, from my real parents. I kept it tucked in my tunic, though, because I didn't want anyone to find out that I had anything so valuable.

"Yuzu," Akuba-san said briskly, "I got you a job."

"A… job?" I asked disbelievingly.

"I… got a job for you. At the palace." She looked worried. "She wouldn't want you to stay cooped up, but… Just be careful!"

I was still in shock. She hadn't done one good thing for me in all my fifteen years, and yet here, she was letting me go to the palace?

"Don't you want to?" Akuba-san had mistaken my shocked silence for reluctance.

"No, no, no! I want to! I do!"

She shook her head. "Be careful! You must be careful!"

Jii-chan laughed. "Just don't get carried away. The palace… is full of treachery these days. Although, a kitchen maid wouldn't have to worry too much, I suppose."

As I went to do my chores, I was still numb with disbelief, and the thoughts occupied my mind even as I went to sleep.

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"Yuzu!" Mikan's face appeared in my dreams. "I found out where Hotaru is!"

"Hotaru? You found her?" I smiled happily. "Great! Are you going to visit her?"

"I'm going to follow her." Mikan said determinedly.

"Follow…" my eyes were round. "It's dangerous!" Before I could protest any further, Mikan's image dissolved. I frowned. What?

Then, she started to come back. She was… in a strange room. And there was an old man, snoring. She took some paper things out of a… fake pig? Then, she ran out of the room. My vision seemed to follow her, somehow, as she ran towards some sort of shelter. Then, a giant carriage – a "train," my mind seemed to say – appeared.

The place blurred. Now she was inside a moving room. My mind told me it was the inside of the "train."

It blurred again, and now she was surrounded by giant buildings that were so high they touched the clouds. I could feel her shock and wonder as she wandered around looking for some "Alice Academy," I would have been shocked, but the dream part of me kept me from it. It made me feel like it was "supposed to be."

Then, it started to blur again. I was waking up. No! I tried to shout, but I couldn't stop the morning. But, I was afraid. Some part of me felt that Mikan was walking straight into danger. That I would soon be walking straight into danger, straight into the trap.

"Yuzu." My foster-mother's face appeared above me.

"What?" I mumbled incoherently, then opened my eyes in panic. "Mikan! Don't!"

My foster-mother looked stunned for a second, then reverted to her annoyed expression. "You want a mandarin? We don't have any, you know. It's rich people's food."

"No! She… can't go to Tokyo!" My eyes were still dazed, then they cleared. "Oh…Sorry, Oka-san. I had a dream."

My foster-mother looked worried, but shrugged. "The carriage is leaving now. One of the merchants agreed to send you to the palace. Send back some letters, okay? Please!"

Jii-san yelled at me. "I didn't raise a daughter who'd go on a journey and not send letters. So, if you don't, I'll be quite mad!"

I smiled. "Yes, of course, Jii-san, Okaa-san."

And so, I got on the wagon, towards that feeling of danger.

And I hoped that I would be able to survive.

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