Authors Note One: Welcome to the Fourth installment on Levy's Journey. Don't worry... It won't bite... Probably.

"Character speaking"

'Mental Speech/Voices' (((for when you need to have one of them crazy moments of giant Crystals speaking to you.)))

(Actions that would be emotes)

Abilities Used

[Items]

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Chapter Three

Strength of Mind, Strength of Will, Strength of Body

Space...

It had been two weeks since she had awoken, things were different, that was for certain. Levy had been forced to get used to a great number of changes, her walking, her balance, her center of gravity, how easily she heard things with these twitching ears (did they ever really stop?), using the restroom, the constriction of her chest. The list went on, but thankfully it was growing shorter as time passed. Gods, this had been a horrible two weeks.

Her… benefactors, as she had taken to calling them mentally, (telling their captain she thought of him as such would go to his head far too easy, she had come to learn.) were very generous, and in some cases quite intrigued by a number of things pertaining to her. The Free Company – Gallant, was comprised of a sizable number of members, around 157. Most of them were away on other assignments, or so she had been told by her monitor, Miss Eira Jessan. The Free Company was lead by a man whose full name she had yet to hear, but everyone simply called him Captain, or Captain Kestral. The red headed Midlander had taken a strange interest in her, in various ways; the primary being the most overtly obvious.

Eira had not been lying when she mentioned that aspect of the man while they had been picking out clothing at the nearby trading hub of Highbridge. He had procured a set of clothes for her to wear, totally unasked for, when she was helping out around their company's mansion of a house. Helping keep the place clean was her way of paying for the small room and food while staying there. It hadn't even been a full day before she realized there was no way she was going to be able to leave right away. Her nearly month long sleep, and probably the bodily change she had undergone, had left her weak beyond reason. Things that should be easy to accomplish turned out to be quite difficult. She was grateful for all the help, but she wasn't the man's damn maid, and she had refused to wear that outfit! It was too frilly and fluttery, she wouldn't EVER wear skirts. EVER.

She'd already had to swallow her pride and wear panties instead of the pantalets that at least resembled the shorts she was used to wearing when she was male.

The red head was regularly flirtatious, and from one who had so recently been male, it was beyond blatantly obvious. Perhaps it had always been so when she had been on the gazing end of things and she had simply never noticed it. Would she have recognized those looks had she still been male and everything was still going this way? It was a difficult question to think on.

They were simple things like the points of contact of the man's eyes, the strange phrases, the overtly generous attitude, and the smiles were the slightly less clear indications. The places his hand touched at times were more obvious ones. She held no interest in any such thing at this point in time, and even if she ever had, it was just… weird in the first place. So she brushed him off, sometimes sternly with a punch (weak as it may be), and continued about her days of 'captivity' in the only way she could, bye preparing to leave.

She just needed to get moving again. She needed to get out of this Free Company's grasp and back onto the road. In order to do that she had to get used to ALL of the movements of her new body, work off the debt she had to these people for saving her life, and find a way back to how she used to be. If there was something in Allagan ruins that could change her this way, then surely there was something that could change her back. Levy wasn't exactly known for her brain power, but she was far from some simple minded meat shield. She made up for lack of book smarts with intuition and quick thinking… most times. Not many people lasted eleven years in the adventuring game without a serious injury or two. The most recent encounter had been her only one… though it had ended spectacularly badly.

The early morning sun peeked over the walls of the Free company's 'house', which was more like a small fortress compound, and poured into the front courtyard. It was calm and serene as the early morning bugs began their day; meanwhile the birds began their incessant callings. However, the scene without a single 'sentient' soul present was quickly disturbed by the advent of a Miqo'te sprinting at breakneck speeds around the corner of the large house. Sweat poured down her face, while droplets flung from her arms as they pumped at her sides, rolled down her back, and had soaked the black [Hempen Camise] through completely. The sand colored [Hempen Sarouel] clung to her legs then separated annoyingly while her [Leather Crakows] dug into the earth as she skidded messily to a halt. Hastily, and while panting heavily, the female Miqo'te bent over at the waist and placed her palms onto her knees trying fervently to catch her breath. Twenty times around the interior of the compound as fast as she could go was the best she could do.

"You made it over sixteen this time, and at such great speed as well," the voice of Captain Kestral reached her ears from the left. Levy's tail went rigid instantly as she turned to face him. She hadn't even noticed the man there in all her concentration to simply run as fast as she could for as long as she could. She must have become lost in her own mind while doing so.

"How… fast… was it?" She questioned him warily through her still heavy pants. Slowly but surely the Miqo'te righted herself and crossed her arms above her head to help her breathe. She took note of the gentle flickering of his eyes up and down and asked her question once more. "How fast… did I go?"

"Hmm, hard to tell, but it was far faster than you should be capable of so soon after rising from near death, faster than most anyone I know of." He paused for a moment and looked back the way she had come then pointed at something. "See there, look at where you tried to stop, you left small grooves in the sand and grass that we spent so much time trying to get that to grow." He started off serious, then jumped off and ended in a playful tone.

On her first day truly to leave her bed with Eira helping her she had felt weak, very weak. However, the next day she'd awoken to horrific muscle pain's like they had broken down and reformed overnight. It was hard to move at all, but she forced herself to stretch, which had held MORE strange implications and MORE feelings she wasn't used to. It was hard to not… explore things… and she was trying not to. She felt that if she did, then perhaps she would lose some part of her that made her what she was.

Her second day was much the same, and the next, and the next. The entire first week had been an absolute nightmare with her whole body aching all over by just doing normal everyday things and trying to help out around the house. By the time the start of the second week of her waking up like this, things were starting to calm down, and she had some measure of strength like she was used too before.

She was getting faster, stronger… 'better' every day. She assumed she should be thankful, but all she could do was think of it like some sort of curse. She screamed and raged in her head at night before being hit with surges of emotions she just couldn't beat back down into their little boxes inside of her.

Sadness, there were so many things pushing that feeling up inside of her at any given chance thoughts of her family… or truly, her situation in general. Fear, she was afraid, so very afraid that she wouldn't even be able to turn back, that she would be stuck like this, in this strange gray form, for the rest of her life; however long that may be. Worse, she might die before she could change back. It was the fate of many adventurers, her family would go on completely unaware of anything having happened to her. It wasn't like she ever truly wrote home in the first place. She'd sent a total of five letters over the last decade, and never once returned to her place of birth.

If the previous two emotions should combine inside of her then she would feel an overwhelming despair. Its icy tendrils wrapping around her heart threatening to crush it in its overwhelming embrace. Two nights in the first week, inexplicably, she had cried herself to sleep.

Resolve was a hard won thing at this point, and it was still nothing more than a creaky, rotting, wooden bridge beneath her feet. At the slightest of winds, the barest of missteps, she could plunge down into the rapid filled ravines below; probably never to crawl her way back up, to do anything, just let the waters wash over and drown her. Just stay like this, fade into oblivion, take up some random easy job and stop her adventuring days all together. The road ahead of her was too long, too hard… she couldn't even see that far down it. Untouched Allagan ruins weren't exactly common place in Eorzea.

It had taken her the two weeks since waking to get to this point, this place, just before the start of the race panting heavily while staring at the goal that was so very far away.

Her gray slit eyed gaze drifted past the Midlander and to the open door of the Free Company's house. "I'm going to get changed," she stated as her breathing came into some semblance of control. Every stride saw her chest slow its heaving for lung full's of the substance they desired so dearly.

"But you appear so ravishing the way you are now. Why not go about your day like this?" the red head intoned playfully while allowing her to pass.

"And give you the pleasure of it? That's not even an option," she stated blandly back at him before smirking. Levy had figured that by now the man believed her to some degree, the story of her change that is, and he just lived to mess around. Her 'condition' was one that opened the minds of those around her quite drastically, and racial-gender changes tended to take a grand scope of mind. From what she had seen thus far of 'Captain Kestral'; she couldn't quite fathom how a man like this could have started a Free Company of Adventurous sorts and retired Grand Company men and women. While Miss Eira seemed the capable, and very bookish, sort it was hardly enough to compensate. Perhaps there was something about the man she just didn't know. Sitting or helping clean around the house, doing odd jobs inside of the mansions walls, and working out a great deal was not exactly the place to get to know someone best. She would have to venture with him, fight with him, and most of all, talk with him when he wasn't being the flirtatious fool he may only be pretending to be.

After brushing lightly past the man, Levy made her way through the house and up the single flight of stairs to the small room she had been granted for the duration of her stay. All told, she was treated rather well for a 'confused Miqo'te girl'. They had levied very little of the funds she had gained from the selling of her 'Hyuran-midlander male' armor. She didn't have enough Gil to get the chain-mail and leather resized to fit her, not to mention the other necessities she'd been forced to acquire.

After closing the door behind her the gray haired Miqo'te walked slowly over to the bed and fell face first onto it. The light bounce back effect was a welcome one after her morning exercises. Levy wasn't quite sure how long she had lain there feeling the gentle ticks and twitches under her skin of her muscles before finally spinning around and sitting cross legged on the bed then staring at the mirror in the room. It was a daily routine she had taken up by the third day of waking from her apparent coma.

The task was for a simple enough reason, to force her to recall this appearance, and to remind herself that she was no longer her previous Hyuran self; as if the bodily changes that could be seen without a mirror weren't enough to do so. She fell into, if you went solely by the face, what most would consider the 'cute' category. She was trying to think up ways to make herself seem more… ferocious, or fearsome. Perhaps some face paint or tattoos would do the trick? When Levy was satisfied with the look over she pushed herself one scoot at a time over to the edge of the bed, then lightly onto her feet.

The strings that held the base of the Camise to her navel were annoying to loosen at first, not to mention finding out that they had had to be tightened enough to keep the stupid thing from riding up during heavy exercise. THAT had been embarrassing. Once the strings were loose she removed the still wet, and a bit smelly, torso coverage and laid it onto the back of the sole chair in the room. She had removed the crakows quickly at the door, but had to loosen the strings that held the Sarouel shin guards in place. Once that was done she pushed them down and off then turned to look for her change of clothes.

Miss Eira had 'understood' her decision to wear… more clothing than one usually saw a Miqo'te wear in the Ul'Dahn sun. Just because she had this female body didn't mean she was going to dress like some common street performer. Instead, she had bought a simple white and black [cotton tabard], a pair of white and black [Cotton Sarouel], black [leather moccasins], and black [finger-less leather gloves]. All told, she thought she looked rather good in the outfit… not that that was what she was aiming for in the least though. The clothing was suitably firm yet pliant, and the small bits here and there could help protect her from more than just the gazes of a Free Company owner if it came down to such a thing.

After getting dressed she brushed the hair she had cut on the second day, well Eira had cut it. The woman insisted that she shouldn't cut it too short and talked on and on about the reasons a girl should have nice hair. All Levy had gotten out of it was that things would be more annoying if she cut it too short. She decided to just leave it a bit above her shoulders and be done with it. It could be difficult in sudden battles where she didn't have the chance to put on the helmet she didn't yet own, but she would manage, or cut it off if it came to that. It was only hair after all. It was a pity she hadn't the money for a Helmet of any sort yet, but she could work on that as time passed. 'Luckily' her spear had still been of a mostly appropriate length for her.

The sturdy weapon was leaning up against the wall next to the door. A quick glance at it made her recall the man who had gifted it too her… the man who had lead the recent, for her, expedition that had ended in horrible failure. Shaking thoughts of those sorts from her head the steel eyed Miqo'te set her sights on the door, and her future.

It wouldn't be much longer and she should be able to leave this place.

Not much longer before her quest to regain her previous self would begin.

Space…

Space…

Authors Note Two: Read on my Minions. Don't stop now, there's still another chapter!

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