I'm so grateful for all of the positive feedback I've gotten on my FFTA2 stories! I just love the characters so much that I couldn't help but take them for yet another spin. Enjoy, and may they take you to a happy place like they do for me.

It wasn't that I hated school. It appealed to my not-so-inner workaholic.

No, it was the other students that drove me crazy.

If all of my education consisted of sitting in a room by myself, reading books, writing essays, and taking exams, I'd be perfectly okay with that.

Instead, I was stuck on a campus full of other young adults, and they sometimes made me wish I owned a flamethrower.

Take today, for example. I'd showed up early to class – as always – and promptly opened a book and begun to read while waiting for the professor. Unfortunately, thick fantasy prose couldn't adequately distract me from the inane conversations going on around me about parties and gossip.

I had to restrain myself from rolling my eyes and groaning at the utter pettiness and immaturity of my peers. I don't fit in here, I thought. I stick out like a sore thumb—but there's nowhere else to go. There's no place for me.

I glanced at the clock. Two minutes to class time. Someone pulled out her laptop and started watching some sort of crime documentary, with the volume turned up nice and loud. Students crowded around with morbid fascination, providing all sorts of commentary I didn't want to hear.

With a sigh of utmost helplessness, I rested my head in my hands, plugged my ears, and stared out the window at the blue, boundless sky. Wasn't there anywhere I could belong?

The classroom door burst open. "Nobody move!" a deep, rough voice bellowed. "This 'ere's a raid!"

Naturally, I moved, whipping my head around. This was definitely not my professor.

Shuffling into the room was a motley group of creatures that looked straight out of a fantasy video game. A tall rabbit-woman had her longbow drawn—next to her, a petite dragon-girl brandished a comically enormous broadsword. An orange crocodile in a flight jacket and goggles had a bazooka perched on one shoulder, and above him hovered a purple-winged rabbit-thing with a dangerous-looking arsenal of gadgets in her toolbelt. From behind them stepped a sturdy, tan-skinned man with flared ears, a long nose, and a curly black beard, gripping a spear.

And leading the troupe was an enormous blue ogre of a boar with long, floppy ears and a battleaxe. He grinned dangerously. "Didn't think yer day was gonna get this interestin', eh, mateys?" he asked in a pirate's brogue.

Several girls shrieked, and a few guys shouted and stood up. "Nice one," one of them said with a chuckle once the initial shock had worn off. "Nice costumes."

The boar-ogre placed a clawed hand on his belly and laughed. "Y'hear that? He thinks we're costumes!"

His companions snickered. "Bad misstake ter make, hume," the crocodile said with a smirk. "Wonder if you'd sstill be thinkin' that after me hand-cannon blowss a hole in the wall." He shrugged the shoulder on which his weapon was propped.

Rabbit-Woman smiled serenely, although there was a fierceness like an obsidian blade behind her dark eyes. "They know not with whom they deal."

"You're talking to the Pirate King, bub!" Dragon-Girl offered helpfully.

"Real funny," the student continued, although he now looked a little less sure of himself. "All right, yeah, you got us." He rolled his eyes and moved to sit back down.

Boar-Ogre reached out and snatched the kid by the front of his shirt, lifting him clean from the ground and poking his snout in the human's face, grinning through his tusks. "We ain't costumes, lad."

The guy let out a shout that turned into a scream. The Pirate King laughed and deposited him back in his chair while the rest of the class shrank away from these strange intruders. A few people fumbled with their cell phones, trying to call the police.

And me?

Well, I was sitting there with a smile on my face like I'd gotten everything I wanted for Christmas. "Qrrog!" Unable to take it any longer, I leaped out of my chair and scrambled over to the best friends I'd ever had, and the creature I was privileged to call my husband.

"Terra!" He caught me up in his arms and held me close. "Let's get you outta here, love! The Juggernaut's parked outside!" Cradling me in the crook of one arm while the other still held his axe, we made a break for the classroom door.

I knew I could have looked back and had the satisfaction of seeing the utter bewilderment on my classmates' faces.

But I was too focused on the happiness that lay ahead.

Then Qrrog suddenly turned into a chocobo.

"What—" The sound of my own voice woke me up and I blinked in confusion up at the ceiling of our bedroom. The cold light of early morning, filtered through sea mist, filled the room. "Mmph." I rubbed at my face groggily.

"You okay, love?" Qrrog was propped on one elbow next to me.

I rolled over to look at my husband and nodded, blushing. We've been married for a few years now and I still can't get over being embarrassed when I talk in my sleep. Qrrog says I sing in my sleep sometimes and he thinks it's adorable. I'm just glad no one else can hear it, since the stone walls of this massive fortress are so thick.

He grinned and mussed my hair. "What were you dreamin' about?"

"Oh golly, Qrrog, it was awful," I said. "I was back in college and everyone was an idiot."

"Bleh," he sympathized.

I perked up. "But then you and the clan came and busted me outta there! It was awesome!"

The giant of a seeq laughed and mussed my hair. "Can't get rid o' us that easy, love."

"Don't worry," I said. "I'm not ever leaving you. And I'm never going back to Earth. I belong here in Ivalice with you. With my clan." I sighed. "It was just a fear-dream. After I graduated high school, for years afterward I had nightmares that I had to go back for whatever reason. But they faded after a while."

Qrrog nodded. "You know what else'll help? Breakfast!" He picked me up and swung me around.

I laughed in delight as we headed for the great hall of the castle. "Oh, and then you turned into a chocobo!"

"Really? What color?"

"Just a regular yellow one."

"I imagine I'd be something with a li'l more pizzazz." Qrrog buffed his claws on his vest. "Like blue with flames or somethin'!"

"That would be epic!"

Yep, it's true. I, Terra Thatcher, am an expatriate of Earth, and now the fantastical world of Ivalice is my home.

And there's nowhere I'd rather be.