This chapter was reloaded for aesthetic reasons.

I don't own Dragonlance, though I wish I owned Raistlin. Please review!!! I'll write faster if I get reviews!!!

Semi-Automatic Bunny – I'm glad it's entertaining, and I hope you like the rest of the story as it unfolds!

Sometime around sundown, something brought Valerie a bowl of fruit. She starred at it in openmouthed wonder before taking the food. Much of the fruit seemed quite similar to things from home, so she ate it down and had a glass of wine that had been provided. She stood for long minutes at the window, watching the colors as they spread over the city. She also watched in fascination as two of the moons rose into the sky. Lunitari, the red moon, was just a sliver, while Solinari, the white moon, was half full. She wondered briefly if she would be able to see the black moon, but thought it not the most likely.

When the room was thoroughly dark and there was no chance she could read more of her book, Valerie took her skirt and shirt off and put on a long shirt she found in the closet. She curled up in the large bed, put her glasses on the table beside the bed, and made sure the book was securely settled in her arms, wanting to make absolutely sure no one came and took it while she was sleeping. She was soon asleep, the tower quiet around her.

Raistlin appeared in her room a few hours later. He walked silently over to her bed, looking down at the book in her arms somewhat wryly. She was curled around the book, making it an interesting prospect to get the book away from her. He reached into one of his pouches, and pulled out a few dried rose petals. Sprinkling them over her, he put her into a deeper sleep, and then reached out to take the book. Bright words flared along the cover, and he snatched his hand back as a shock went through it and up his arm. Valerie stirred even in her spell-induced sleep.

"Well, well, well, so it seems only you are supposed to have it then." Raistlin's voice didn't carry very far, and he chose to leave for the night.

--

When Valerie awoke the next morning, she was a little surprised to see the rose petals around her, but happy to find the book still in her possession. She dressed in a long green dress that she found had appeared in her closet. She also found a large purse-like bag that matched the dress. She decided not to ask about the appearance of the clothing, since she wasn't sure it was Raistlin or the book. When she stood in the middle of her room ready to go, the book tucked firmly into her bag with the bag strapped to her shoulder, she thought about how she was going to find her way to the study when words appeared in the air before her. She spoke them aloud, making sure to think of the study in the Tower, and a moment later was standing in the familiar room. Raistlin sat at his desk, writing on a piece of parchment. He looked up when she appeared, not seemingly surprised by her entrance.

"'Morning." She smiled and came over to the desk. He shrugged at her and went back to his writing. "Ahm." He looked back up at Valerie in irritation. "I was just wondering, what am I supposed to call you? Do I call you Master Raistlin, Master Majere, Mr. Raistlin, what?"

Raistlin sighed. "What would you prefer?"

"I would prefer just Raistlin."

He sighed again. "Fine. I would rather be left alone at the moment. I'm working on copying a particular spell, and it takes a great deal of concentration." He returned to writing again, hoping she'd take the hint and leave.

She didn't. "Can I go up into the laboratory?"

Raistlin looked up in very clear annoyance. "Yes, just go away."

Valerie raised her hands in apology. "No problem, I'm going." She thought about leaving the room, and once again a spell appeared before her to speak.

Raistlin watched her disappear from the study. He went back to his copying; only he'd been distracted now and was having trouble getting back to it. For some reason, the woman really seemed to annoy him, while at the same time making him want to sit and actually talk with her. She didn't act like anyone else he'd ever met, and to top it all off, she was fairly pretty. He did not need this distraction in his life, any more than he needed any woman taking up residence in his Tower. He tried again to copy the spell, but gave up when he almost copied a line twice. He stood up, deciding that he wasn't going to get anywhere with his work if he didn't ask Valerie a few questions that were eating at him.

--

Valerie was looking into one of the cages in the lab when Raistlin appeared. He walked forward quickly and pulled her away before her nose was bitten off her face, much to her happiness.

"Yikes! What is that thing?" She was tilting her head to look at it, as if that would make it more recognizable.

"Something I got from another dimension." He watched her in amusement while she kept tilting her head first one way and then another. "That won't help, you realize."

She glanced up at him with a quick smile. "I know. But it's something I can't help but do. Basic human nature, you know?" She looked back at the thing in the cage. "Weren't you busy?" She seemed amused by his sudden appearance, which annoyed him further.

"Perhaps I should have let him have your nose." Raistlin muttered.

Valerie straitened, looking indignant. "That would have been very rude though." She turned to look around the rest of the lab. "So why are you away from your work anyway?"

Raistlin watched her as she moved about the lab. "I was wondering. You said that we are characters from books you've read? What sort of books?"

Valerie looked at him from the corner of her eyes. "Well, fiction. Actually it was a series of books. They all take place on Krynn and if you read them correctly, they go in chronological order." She ran her fingers over the table in the room. "The first book I read was called Dragons of Autumn Twilight. It was about a group of people who were meeting after being five years apart."

Raistlin nodded. "At the start of the War of the Lance."

"Right. So I followed the adventures of these people for three books, and then immediately began looking around for other books about them. There were a few series, not all of them about the companions. Then I found the Legends series," she smiled slightly, "it was about you and Caramon." She looked at him directly now. "I need to ask about what has been happening here. I don't know that I ended up in the actual dimension I read about. The way I think the universe is made up, is that there are an infinite number of possibilities out there. So I don't know if what I read in the Legends series, and then the book Dragons of Summer Flame actually happened."

Raistlin stared at her for a minute before replying. "There are a number of dragons that have recently taken up residence around Ansalon." He smirked. "They fancy themselves overlords, much to the indignation of the Gods. Takhsis is especially angry, since she was the one who brought them here."

"Right, okay, did the Chaos War take place?"

"Yes, and the Gods fought with us and Chaos was locked back into the Chaos Gem. Since I was willing to help, I was allowed to remain on Krynn, without any decrease in power." He looked around the Laboratory. "However, it is expected that I not get any ideas about becoming a God. Apparently that would be frowned upon."

Valerie smiled at him. "I am glad to hear that. I was so unhappy when you died." She blushed and looked away from him toward where the portal lay covered by a curtain.

"Indeed?" He walked around the table to keep an eye on her as she walked over to the portal.

"Well, you have always been my favorite character." She glanced back at him for his reaction.

"Why?" Raistlin had not really been expecting this.

Her eyes widened a bit. "Well, let's see now." She turned away to avoid looking at him. "You are very intelligent, and powerful, and a few other things. I mean, I don't know, you're just, cool." Valerie waved her hands around in circles. "Does it really matter?" She turned back to him.

He didn't look too convinced. "Right. And it has nothing to do with my brother being goggle eyed over Tika."

Valerie's eyes narrowed. "No. He's not even close to what I like. He's all, big and muscley. Eww." She looked at him like he was nuts.

Raistlin walked over to his bookshelf. "And why should I believe that? It's not as if there is any proof." He pulled a book off at random and opened it. He was quite sure she was lying, trying, unsuccessfully to get in his good graces. "It doesn't matter, in any case."

"Now wait just one damn minute!" She stalked over and grabbed the book from him. He glared at her and she glared right back at him. Suddenly a book appeared between them. Valerie grabbed it before it fell onto the floor (dropping the other book in her hands in the process) and stood looking at it in disbelief. It was a black and white composition book, and had Valerie's name written on the front, with the words Human Relations.

"What is that?" It didn't look like any other book he had ever seen.

Valerie smiled. "This is the proof that I most definitely like you more than your bonehead brother. I took this class in school on my home, where one day," she opened the book and began looking through the pages, "we had to give the physical and mental characteristics of what we wanted in a mate. We all had to share afterward, and when it came to be my turn, everyone looked at me like I was nuts until someone said that I 'really must have thought about this a lot.' Aha!" She held the book out to him. "This is what I wrote."

Raistlin took the book from her. The handwriting was slightly cramped, but quite legible. The heading said 'What I want in the opposite sex:' and was divided into Physical and Personality. The physical characteristics were listed as: Silver or unique colored eyes, pale, little taller, thin, sleekly muscular, soft voice, graceful, long fingers, and soft lips. The personality was listed as: arrogant (around others), intelligent, good sense of taste, cold-blooded when necessary, gentle, honorable, charismatic, genteel, has masseuse skills, good conversationalist, sense of rhythm, ambitious, sarcastic. Raistlin stood looking at the list in the book for a few moments before looking up at Valerie. She had a look of positive superiority on her face, which he had to fix. "Sense of rhythm?" Valerie turned bright red and snatched the book back from him.

"Yes, well, a girl can have her priorities, right?" She turned away from him and once more went over toward the portal. "But it does prove that your brother is not now nor has ever been my type."

Raistlin, watching her not look toward him as best she could, couldn't help but enjoy making her blush. Since she seemed to end up doing it around him with amazing frequency, he might as well take some pleasure in her, however slight, discomfort. "And did I actually read that you would want someone who is sarcastic? Rather unusual personality trait to desire."

Now she did turn to look at him. "No, I added the sarcastic in there because I thought it was the list for what I don't want in a guy." She said this with a perfectly strait face and smiled slightly. Raistlin caught the sarcasm present that most would have missed, since it was so subtle. Valerie noticed this when he raised an eyebrow at her. "I come from a family of sarcastic people. My dad is the master at it, but most of the humor used in our house all comes from sarcasm." Valerie suddenly walked up close to Raistlin, stopping just a few inches from touching him. He tensed, ready to do nearly anything to her if she tried to assault, or heaven forbid, hug him, as she looked like she might do. Instead, however, she just looked up close at his eyes, tilting her head to the side as she had done with the creature in the cage.

"Yes? What is it?" Raistlin couldn't keep the irritation out of his voice.

"Do you have any idea how few up close pictures there are of you? I'm just looking at your eyes, which are really pretty, actually, not to mention really cool. My friend Kandy would flip if she saw them!" The idea didn't seem to distress her much, based on the smile on her face.

Raistlin closed said eyes and shook his head in exasperation. "You may be one of the most confusing women - no people - I have ever met in my life." When he looked at her again she had a sheepish smile on her face and shrugged her shoulders slightly.

"Congratulations, you've just come to the same conclusion as almost everyone else who knows me or has ever known me." She turned back away and went to put her composition book on the table.

"You say you wrote that in school, how long ago was that?" He wanted to read more of the book, to get a bit of insight into the world she claimed to have come from.

"Well, admittedly it was a few years ago, during my senior year of high school." She ran her hand along the outside of the book, a sudden look of sadness on her face. It was gone quickly enough as she moved to another part of the laboratory.

"Ah. And does the man in you life match much of this list?" He asked this carefully, watching for her reaction.

She didn't turn to look at him as she gazed at another of the creatures in the lab, this one with a dozen eyes along its body. "There is no man. I haven't dated, and I haven't any interest in any man I've met yet in college or work.

Raistlin starred at her incredulously. "None? Most girls your age are either married or close to that. And how can you not have been interested in any man you've met? I don't mean to offend, but that does sound somewhat unnatural."

Valerie reached out and petted the creature along its back as well as she could through the bars, a thoughtful look on her face. Raistlin was amazed that the creature hadn't bitten her finger off, and was more surprised to hear what sounded much like purring coming from it as she answered. "No one ever matched my standards, no one much liked me anyway, and I spent the majority of my free time day dreaming. So, no time for the males around me."

"Daydreaming about what?" Raistlin walked slowly over to where she stood, keeping an eye on the cage as he went.

"About people and places in my books. About you." She moved her hand and scratched under the things neck, which it seemed to enjoy as it arched its neck up further for her to reach it a bit better.

"It doesn't usually act like that. Most of the time it tries to bite off the finger of the person stupid enough to move their hand in close enough." Raistlin listened to the creature purr more before Valerie stopped petting it to turn and look at him.

"Well, maybe I'm just really good with animals." She smiled slightly and walked over to before the portal and pulled to cord to reveal the portal to her. The surface was blank, the dragons silent as the rest of the laboratory. Valerie looked closely at the portal, bringing her face to within inches of its surface.

Raistlin walked up quickly and pulled her back from the portal just as the form of a woman filled it. She was darkly beautiful, but looked more than happy to disembowel anyone who got within reach of her nails. Raistlin firmly pulled the cord and watched as the curtain fell into place, hiding Takhsis from view. Raistlin turned to glare at Valerie. "Don't ever go near that again!"

Valerie cringed under his glare for the first time since she had arrived. "I didn't know that would happen. And besides, since you said I could come up here, I didn't think it would be too dangerous."

Raistlin's grip on her arm tightened without his noticing it. "This is a mages laboratory. All such places are dangerous. If you are in here again, then you are to not touch anything." Raistlin kept his voice just above a whisper, but it was laced with venom. With that, he let go of Valerie and disappeared from the lab, leaving Valerie there to rub her arm where he had grabbed her.

"Well sure, take all the fun out of my visit up here." Valerie mumbled to herself before wanting to return to her room. As before, the words for the spell she needed appeared before her, and she too left the room.

After they had both left, a voice filled the room from the portal. "So, that's the little magic child the book found. I should tell my son about this." Laughter followed the statement, dark and cold as ice.