Chapter One – What the Hell?

There was too much light. Jessica knew she'd pulled her bedroom curtains across last night, so her room shouldn't be so bright. She muttered a swearword and flung her arm across her face. She yawned, then winced. It was too hot as well. Her skin felt as though it was burning. She jumped convulsively as jerked her eyes open as a cultured voice drifted lazily to her.

"If you do not get out of that sun soon, you're going to get the most awful sunburn. Just a warning."

Jessica stared in horror at the owner of the voice. "Oh, no," she gasped. "Ohhhhhhhhh, no, I'm dreaming. I have to be dreaming." She pinched her arm, really hard, and then yelped at the pain.

Balthier, who, according to the laws of reality shouldn't be sitting there on a boulder cleaning his gun, tilted his head to one side and smirked. "What one earth did you do that for?" He sounded genuinely curious. Jessica tried to ignore him. "I can't be here…" she muttered, scrambling to her feet. "It's impossible."

"Why?"

Jessica whirled on him, silvery eyes furious, black hair a tangled mess around her slightly pink face (yes, she was getting sunburnt, it had to happen, really). "Because I don't even belong in this world!" she hissed. "This place doesn't exist! None of this is real!"

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yes!!"

"Duck. Now."

Jessica's mind was stilling trying to process what the hell was going on as her body instinctively flung itself to the ground. There was a loud bang as Balthier shot something, then a thud as a dead monster landed beside her. It looked like a big, nasty wolf. She couldn't remember what they were called, but she remembered that they were found in the Estersand, just outside of Rabanastre. It had a bullet hole in its head.

Jessica had a small amount of its blood on her face and arms. She wiped it off as though in a dream. She actually was still hoping that this was some sort of bizarre, too-real nightmare. Failing that the fumes from the dope addicts next door had crept into her room while she was asleep and she was tripping. Well, either way she hoped that it would all end soon. She didn't think she could stand this.

There was a light crunch of sand as Balthier jumped off his boulder and walked towards her. He offered her a hand. She stared at it blankly. "Well, come on."

She just lifted her eyes and stared at his face instead, then looked at the body beside her. He sighed and shifted his gun to its stand by position on his back. Then he crouched down in front of her. "Are you alright?"

"Not really. I'm in a different world to the one I normally live in, I'm talking to a guy who I'm not sure exists, and I just nearly got eaten by a fiend. It's shaping up to be a pretty shit day."

"On the plus side, I can offer you breakfast and possibly a change of clothes. You do realise that you're wearing pajamas, don't you?"

Jessica looked down at her t-shirt, smeared with a little blood from the monster, and then up at Balthier. "My partner Fran might be able to work out how to get you home," he added coaxingly. Jessica sighed and stood up, swaying slightly. "Where to?" she asked in a monotone. She wanted to go back to sleep again – she was tired and maybe she would wake up in her own bed and find out that this had all been a nightmare. But for now, she'd accept this bastard's offer of food and clothes. She hadn't eaten last night and she was pretty hungry now.

"That way," Balthier said, pointing. In the distance she could see a glint of light off smooth metal: the Strahl, Balthier's airship, most likely. Jessica nodded then started to trudge off in that general direction, Balthier wandering along at her side. He was pretty tall – she only just came up to his chin – and his legs were much longer than hers, so sadly she wasn't able to outpace him. She actually ended up being the one who had to just about jog to keep up, which did nothing to improve her growing fury.

Finally they reached the Strahl, and as Jessica stepped into the shadow cast by the airship, she couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. The trouble with having porcelain skin, or whatever, was how quickly you got sunburnt. She was probably resembling a cooked lobster by now.

Balthier walked up to the one of the hatches and banged in a couple of numbers on the entry pad. The hatch slid open and Balthier smiled and gestured Jessica to pass through. "After you."

She just gave him a filthy look and stalked inside, inwardly screaming with delight that she was off the hot sands and into the cool. Her bare feet were burnt from the sand though, and they hurt like hell.

Balthier led her through the ship to the cockpit, where a tall, white haired woman with long hare's ears protruding from her head was sitting, fiddling around with the controls of the ship. She twisted around and was half-way through a smile to Balthier when she caught sight of Jessica. She jumped to her feet, staring in shock. "You… are not from here," she gasped, pointing at Jessica.

"No, I'm not," Jessica replied quickly. "I'm from somewhere so far away it's scary. Do you have any idea how I could get home? And how did you know that anyway?"

"Your Mist… feels very strange. It… I don't know how to explain it. How did you get here?" She walked slowly towards Jessica as Balthier stepped around the girl and headed over to fling himself in one of the seats. He gestured that Jessica should sit down as well, she did so warily, not really liking the idea of doing anything this arrogant jerk told her to do. But she was tired so there wasn't really any point in arguing. "I don't know, Fran," she said in answer to the viera's earlier question. "I went to sleep in my own bed last night and woke up here. I really don't understand."

Fran looked surprised. Balthier sat up straighter from his slumped position on the chair. "How did you know Fran's name?" he demanded.

Jessica gave him filthy look. "You've already told me what her name is, Balthier, when you said that you'd bring me back to talk to 'Fran'. Anyone with a brain would've picked it up. That excludes you, by the way."

The sky pirate raised his eyebrows and smiled easily. "Fair enough. Now, how did you know my name?"

Jessica realised she'd been caught out with a sinking heart. Damn. She winced and muttered, "Now that is going to take a lot longer to explain…"