To say Irvine was surprised when he awoke aboard the Highwind would be an understatement. To say he was shocked as hell would be closer to the truth. At first he had been convinced that he was still asleep and that this was just a weird dream, but after pinching his arm several times he realized that this was not the case.
"Well look who finally decided to wake up," said a woman maybe in her late twenties to early thirties, with brown hair, blue eyes, and glasses. Behind her was a man maybe in his thirties with short blonde hair and blue eyes.
"Where am I?" asked Irvine, "Who are you?"
"Well I'm Shera and this is Cid Highwind," answered the woman.
"Heh you have the same name as Headmaster Kramer," he said to Cid.
"Huh? Whatever, who are you?" asked Cid.
"Irvine Kinneas, where did you say we are again?"
"I didn't, but to answer your question, we are currently aproaching Nibelheim by airship," answered Shera.
"Nibelheim? I've never heard of a place called that before..." Irvine said softly almost to himself.
"Oh I almost forgot, I believe these are yours," said Shera indicating Irvine's Exeter and a small pile of what he assumed were oversized marbles, while Cid left to return to the control room or the ship.
It was then that Irvine noticed the silence of his GFs. Alexander and Diablos were always in a complete war ranging from absolute refusal to speak to each other to incredible arguments that he was slightly surprised no one else could hear. He often wonder why he kept both of them as they never agreed on anything except to disagree. Doomtrain was a saint comparatively.
"What are the marbles?" he asked hoping that she would know.
"You mean you don't know?" when he shook his head she continued, "They are materia, condensed mako... You don't know what mako is either do you?"
"I'm afraid not Ma'am."
"Well then I hope you're comfortable because this could take some time." she said as she began to tell him about mako and materia.
Sorry for the wait... I hope this chapter was worth it.