Okay, I do not own anything from Dragonlance. Valerie is mine, and all mine. This story takes place in AU. But I get to that in the story, so just read and hope you like it! I apologize for the seeming Dalamar bashing. I have nothing against him, really! Also, make sure to review! I live for reviews!

Valerie's alarm went off promptly at ten am. She shut it off and rolled over briefly before opening her eyes and staring at her star-specked ceiling. She sighed loudly before getting up out of bed, her tangled red hair falling into her face as she reached down to pick her glasses up off the floor. She put her glasses on over her dark blue eyes and headed into the bathroom for her normal routine of a shower before work. Looking at her pale face in the mirror, she dredged up a smile for her reflection. "Thank the Goddess it's Friday."

When she was dressed in a full denim blue skirt and matching top, she was out the door and off to the library. At twenty-one, she worked part time as a page for a little branch library in Greece, New York. Valerie used her job partly as a means to get new books that she liked, seeing as she could have anything from the other libraries sent to hers for her, and thus she didn't need to worry about when to pick it up. She did really enjoy her job, though she spent a good deal of time daydreaming about characters in her books.

As Valerie went to go to the back room that day, she happened to glance down into one of the totes that carry the books between libraries. Inside it was one object, an old, leather bound book that had no visible title. Instead of continuing on to put her purse in the closet, she knelt down to open the book and see what it was about. The page she opened it to had no page number, and at first seemed to be filled with gibberish. Valerie looked closer at the words and decided they must be in a foreign language. Just for the fun of it, and to see how they sounded to her, she said a few words out loud, sounding them out as she went. The words didn't sound like any language she had ever heard, and when she reached the end of the passage, she shrugged her shoulders.

A second before she was about to put the book back in the tote, a bright light surrounded Valerie, and she vanished from the library, to the amazement of her co-workers. Valerie felt as if she were falling from a great height, so she was surprised when she hit a carpeted floor with only enough force to knock the breathe from her. As she lay there gasping for breath, she heard other people in the room. It sounded like there were three of them, all male, and one did not sound too happy with her. As she sat up, she carefully readjusted her glasses on her face before looking up into the angry eyes of one of the three people.

He was wearing long black robes, had almond shaped eyes, and had pointed ears. Valerie stared at that feature for a moment before taking in the other two men. One of them was also in black robes, but the hood of his robes was pulled up to cover his face. He sat behind a large desk in what appeared to be a large study room. The other man was what looked around middle age and was dressed in seemingly medieval style armor. He seemed to be looking at her in a concerned manner. Apparently the pointy-eared person had been waiting for some sort of response from her, since he made a sudden noise of frustration.

"Well, who are you and how did you get here?" He said this slowly as if speaking to a child.

Valerie promptly stood up and looked about the room. A fire burned in a hearth, and the walls were covered in books. She finally brought her gaze back to the man before her and shook her head briefly before finally saying, "Holy shit."

This seemed to take the elf back a bit. "Excuse me?"

Valerie came back to herself. "Right, sorry about that." She looked closely at the elf. "You're Dalamar the Dark, aren't you?" She seemed quite amused at this idea.

The man folded his arms across his chest. "Yes, what of it? You still have not answered my questions."

Valerie rolled her eyes at him, before turning toward the warrior. "And you, you must be Caramon, right?" He nodded at her. Finally she turned to the third man. "That means, that you can only be Raistlin." The man didn't say anything, just folded his hands before him on the desk and leaned back a bit. Valerie did notice, however, that his hands looked decidedly gold in the light from the window nearest to him. She finally turned back to Dalamar, who seemed to be practically fuming at the mouth at her sheer audacity. "As to your questions, I am Valerie Schriller, and I have not one solid clue how I got here. For all I know, I'm suffering from a brain tumor and you are nothing more than a figment of my imagination. Of course, I could also be crazy, but I think I like that idea less."

"What about that book you have?" Raistlin's quiet voice came from the desk, startling Valerie and making her look down to where her right arm still held onto the book.

"This? I got this at my library."

Dalamar raised an eyebrow at her. "Your library?"

Valerie huffed. "I mean at my public library. Where I'm from, there are a number of libraries in every town that are open to the public."

"Where you're from?" Raistlin got up from his desk and came around to where Valerie stood. Even though she couldn't see his eyes, she was sure they were scrutinizing her closely.

"I'm not exactly from this planet." She smiled a little lopsidedly at him, waiting for his reaction.

"How do you know about us then?" Raistlin's tone was still quite mild.

Valerie looked down at the floor. "Well, ah, you see, you are all characters in a group of books I've read for fun." She looked back up at him.

Dalamar snorted. "Why are we even listening to this rubbish?"

Raistlin reached up and lowered the hood of his robes. Unlike his brother, he looked around the age he was when he died in the books. His golden eyes gazed clearly at Valerie, whose dark blue eyes looked back as steadily, which Raistlin found interesting. "She does not age in my sight. There may well be good reason to believe the idea of her coming from another world, if she can try to explain that phenomenon."

Valerie looked startled. "I don't know why I don't age in your sight. Technically I should since I am only a human, but," she stood there thinking for a moment, "maybe it has something to do with time-space and inter-dimensional travel. If I am really on Krynn now, then I had to go through one or maybe even several dimensional barriers." Valerie paced back and forth as she thought. "Or, another idea, is that since I'm not part of this time stream, then maybe your eyesight only works on people who are a part of your own time line." She looked back at the other people, and found both Dalamar and Caramon looking at her in a decidedly puzzled manner. Only Raistlin didn't look completely out of his depth, which may be since he had crossed time once or twice. She looked at the other two apologetically. "Sorry if I sound a bit weird, I'm really good at coming up with really strange theories."

Raistlin smiled slightly. "Not so strange." He turned around and went back to his desk.

Dalamar walked over to Valerie and extended his hand. "Let me see that book."

Valerie took a step back from him and wrapped her arms around the book. "No way! This may be my only ticket home, so no one is going to get their hands on it but me!"

Dalamar snarled at her and came another step toward her. "I said, give it to me!"

Valerie continued to back away from him until she reached the wall. Caramon took a step forward, but Raistlin raised a hand to forestall him. Valerie paid no attention to either of them. "Just, go away, would you already! I said no!" After she said this, words appeared in the air before her. Dalamar stopped to try and read them from behind, but Valerie quickly said them out loud. Dalamar immediately vanished from the room.

Caramon blinked. "Where did he go?"

Valerie smiled brightly. "I sent him to Crystalmere Lake. The middle of it. I hope he can swim well." She looked worried for a second, but them shrugged and smiled again.

Raistlin looked amused. "You do realize what he may do to you when he gets back, right?"

Valerie looked at him seriously before opening her book and plopping down on the floor. Caramon looked at his brother, who raised an eyebrow at him before looking back at the very bizarre woman sitting in his study on the floor. She apparently was looking in her book to see if there was anything that could help her with the irate dark elf when he returned.

Raistlin continued to look at Valerie as she sat there reading the book, looking proud of herself for sending Dalamar anywhere. Caramon couldn't decide what to do, so he opted for sitting back down and watching his brother out of the corner of his eye while keeping his other eye on Valerie. After a few minutes of silence, Dalamar reappeared in the room, thoroughly soaked and looking fit to murder anyone. His gaze quickly fell on Valerie, who looked up in alarm and squirmed backwards so she was pressed up against the wall.

"You…little…" He could hardly get the words out for how angry he was. As he stalked toward her, Caramon got up to go and intercede, but Raistlin's voice stopped him, and Dalamar, where they were.

"You will not touch her, Dalamar." There was just a touch of venom in his quiet voice as he spoke.

Dalamar whirled around looking furious. "Why not? She just…just…"

"She just cast a very clear, concise, and complex spell at you." Raistlin steepled his fingers before him. "So until such time as I am finished learning about her and where it is she is from, you will not harm her." The look on his face was deadly serious, and Valerie was with the other two men when she looked at him nervously, though for other reasons she was sure.

Dalamar bowed stiffly to Raistlin and Caramon, before vanishing from sight, presumably to put dry cloths on. Caramon looked between his brother and Valerie before speaking carefully. "Maybe she should come with me when I return to Solace."

"Ah, well," both men turned to look at her, "if it's all the same to you two, I think I might rather stay here. I mean, if Raistlin doesn't mind and doesn't stick me in a dungeon cell." Caramon looked at her as if she was a bonafide lunatic. She looked at him apologetically. "It's not that I don't want to go, quite the opposite. It's just that the Tower in Palanthas is, well, a lot cooler."

"Why is temperature a problem?" Caramon really looked confused now.

Valerie sighed loudly. "Not cooler as in temperature, but cooler as in more interesting. It's…kind of…a slang where I come from." Caramon nodded in understanding, though he still looked uncertain.

"Come now, brother," Raistlin was trying hard to be patient with his sibling, "you don't really think I'd 'put her in a dungeon'. Do you?"

Caramon looked at his brother steadily. "Yes, I do."

"Ah ha!" They turned back to Valerie as she stood up. "I could probably just transport, or teleport, or whatever out of here if anything bad happens, right?" She smiled happily at Caramon.

"I suppose." Caramon said slowly.

"Great!" Valerie clapped her hand against the book. "The only problem I have now is with my medication. I guess I could go without it for a while, I mean, it's not like I need it to live…" As she spoke, a small burst of light appeared at the ceiling and vanished as quickly, but a few bottles fell from the light. Valerie walked over to them in surprise. "Holy cow! This is my stuff!" She looked at the book. "Cool."

Raistlin was looking at the bottles she now held. "What sort of medication?"

She smiled at him and walked over to sit in one of the chairs set before his desk. She put the book on her lap and showed him the first bottle, which had several lines of writing on it. "This is my Singular, which I take for my asthma." The next bottle was a little thinner. "And this is my Zyrtec for my allergies. Most of which are asthma related."

"What is asthma?" Caramon sat in the other chair, but kept a slight distance from Valerie.

"It's what he has, I'm sure of it." She pointed at Raistlin, who quirked an eyebrow at her. "Okay, you know how you've always, and I mean always, had some problems breathing?" He nodded. "Well, reading about it in my books, it sounded just like asthma symptoms. The lungs get thrown into a spasm due to running, or allergies, or even just when you get sick, and you can't breathe for anything. I was diagnosed with asthma when I was two, so I know all sorts of things about the illness. And it's treatment, since on my world it is a very treatable problem. In fact," she snapped her fingers in sudden insight, "that tea stuff of yours may have some level of medicine I take, but in a less concentrated form, especially since you need that tea guncus several times a day." Valerie smiled wider at him. "You know, I've always wanted to tell you that. Maybe you should try some of my stuff, especially an inhaler. They work wonders and could even cut that cough of yours a bit."

Raistlin looked rather surprised. Caramon looked like he was seriously out of his depths. "Maybe I should be getting along back to Solace." He stood up and looked at Valerie. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather come with me?" He didn't really look pleased about that idea anymore, and seemed relieved when she shook her head. Caramon turned back to Raistlin. "We'll keep in touch." With that, he held up a pendant Valerie hadn't noticed before, and tapping it three times, vanished from the room.

"Well, that's a cool new little trinket." She shrugged and looked back at Raistlin. "So, what now?"

Raistlin stared at her for several minutes, so that after a little time she turned to look around the room, clearly still doubting whether or not she were really there. Raistlin was surprised by her reaction to him, most importantly when she first laid eyes on him. She seemed neither intimidated, nor fearful, nor pitying. In actual fact, he was quite sure she was pleased a great deal just to be in the same room with him. The concept was, to say the least, odd for him. Her skirt was of no material he had previously seen, and her language was certainly different, meaning it was indeed possible she came from where she had said. However, how she had gotten here was still not clear. That a book could just have brought her here seemed a tad unlikely.

"Were you brought here just by touching the book in the first place?" Valerie turned back to him as he spoke.

She thought for a moment. "No, I think I came here since I opened the book and read a page." She looked at the book. "I don't remember which page, since there are no page numbers, but maybe with some looking, I could find it again." She shrugged and looked back up at him, another smile creeping onto her face.

Raistlin shook his head. "You're certain I can't get that book from your grasp?" There was a slight warning note in his voice.

Valerie violently shook her head, making a few strands of hair shake free and move in front of her face, which she swiped behind her ear irritably. "I'm sorry about that, but under the circumstances, I think it may be safer for my own well-being if I keep a constant hand on it. No offense or anything, really!" She looked ready to bolt if he made a move to cast a spell at her. Which wouldn't have likely done much good, but the idea was clear.

Raistlin shook his head. "Just make sure you can keep a hand on it at all times. Everyone needs to sleep, after all." Valerie blushed crimson.

"Ahm, speaking of sleeping, where will I be sleeping?" Valerie rubbed her neck slightly.

"I'm sure Dalamar would volunteer his bed." There was just a touch of bitterness in his voice.

Valerie looked insulted. "Are you kidding? Do you have any idea the number of diseases he's likely picked up from all the women he plays with? I mean, really, not to be rude at all, but he is something of a slut. And I don't really want to try and get some icky little illness from him when there isn't anything remotely similar to a hospital here. Besides," she blushed slightly, "he is not really my type."

Raistlin studied her briefly. "There are other rooms in the Tower, I'm sure one will suit you."

"As long as it isn't with the Live Ones. No offence, I think they'd stain my cloths." Raistlin looked at her in surprise at the mention of the Live Ones. "Other than that, I'm pretty good with most any room."

Raistlin stood up from his desk. "I'll show you a room now. I think that it might be best if you avoided Dalamar for a while until he calms down from your first encounter." Raistlin still smirked at the mental picture of Dalamar looking so drenched. He reached for his staff, noticing how Valerie looked at it in wonder. He stepped around the desk, wondering how best to do this. "You realize, it would be easiest to take us there by magic. If you know anything about this sort of spell, you know it can only be done when you stand near to me." Valerie nodded. Raistlin stepped forward and wrapped one arm around her waist, noting that Valerie was nearly his height. He concentrated on the spell, speaking clearly while Valerie listened. They disappeared from the study and reappeared in a well-furnished room higher in the Tower. Valerie's face was almost the shade of a cherry, but she had a silly sort of smile on her face.

She watched Raistlin step back from her and looked about the room. The bed, to her right, had a high canopy done in black lace. To her left was a dresser with a large vanity mirror. There was a window on the far wall from her, looking out onto the city of Palanthas. It lay open, the sun shining brightly off of the white buildings. Valerie looked at Raistlin. "This is amazing! It must be at least twice the size of my room at home!" She walked over to the window to look down on the Shoakin Grove. "That really is one creepy looking group of trees." She turned back around to face Raistlin, who was once again watching her. "Thanks! This is a really great room!"

"Yes, well, many of the unoccupied rooms are like this." Raistlin was unused to such thanks from anyone, especially when it was so blatantly sincere.

"Well, that may be true, but you could have given me some little hole in the wall." He supposed she had a point.

"There are things I need to do, so I suggest you stay here, for the time being." Raistlin didn't wait for a response, and vanished from the room.

"Well, I suppose the first meeting could have gone worse." She looked around the room once more before jumping up onto the bed and settling down to look through her book.

Not the longest chapter in history, but not the shortest either. Please review!!!! I'll write more, I swear!