Author's Note:
None of the in-game characters belong to me, and the game world does not either. Those are owned by Marvelous and/or Natsume. However, the plot is mine! Also, Jenny, Lillian's parents, and other folk she interacts with before arriving at the Two Towns are original, if relatively unimportant, characters.

I also am not a doctor and nothing in this story should be construed as medical advice. I can only offer my personal advice, which is "Go see a doctor if you are worried about something."

This story is being simultaneously published to the Ushi no Tane forums under the name of "Clove" and is dedicated to my fellow Ushians. I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter One
(In which Lillian has a headache)

She had been feeling unwell, but she hadn't been feeling that unwell. Her main complaint was a headache that she'd had almost every day for a year.

"Caffeine sensitivity," said her mother.
"Overwork," said her father.
"Are you still talking about that?" said her best friend and roommate, Jenny. "Go to the doctor if you're so worried."

So Lillian had alternately tried quitting caffeine, and drinking more of it. Neither helped. She considered slacking off a little in her studies, but she was in her second year of law school, affectionately known as the "work you to death" year. Her scholarship depended on her class rank, and she couldn't afford to slip even a little, however much her father told her to take it easy. As for going to the doctor…

"What would I say? 'Oh help, I have a headache?' They'll just tell me to take some ibuprofen. So forget that and please pass the ibuprofen," she told Jenny, who did, and Lillian decided never to mention the headaches again.

She was halfway through her second semester when the dizziness crept up on her, and she began getting nauseous.

"Are you… pregnant?" whispered her best friend, who was holding back her hair. "Oh my god, what are you going to do?"

"NO, Jenny, I'm not pregnant!" snapped Lillian. "I haven't… I mean there isn't anyone… I mean that one guy in my Evidence class is awfully cute but he never even … I mean, It's just stress, okay?"

"Well, that's an awful lot of 'stress' coming up," Jenny said after a short pause. "Maybe you should lay off the ibuprofen, and go see a doctor."

"I don't. Have time. To see. A doctor," said Lillian, with exaggerated patience. "I have a twenty page memo due in the next week, and I can hardly keep up with the readings in my other classes. I'll go in the summer if I'm not better. Okay? You worry too much."

Jenny frowned at the crown of Lillian's head, but dropped the subject. Instead she bought Lillian a bottle of vitamins and a tin of tea, and left both by Lillian's computer. There wasn't anything else she could do.

She didn't know about the dreams Lillian was having of a green-haired lady who had a faint shine around her, because Lillian never mentioned it. Lillian was too pragmatic think much about nonsense that came from her unconscious mind. She could never hear what the shining woman was saying so urgently, anyway.

At least, not until two weeks before her finals started