Disclaimer: I don't own Escaflowne and the characters in it.

Chapter 2: The dragon slayers?

Cevena's eyes slowly opened. Trees surrounding her in a circle slowly wavered into focus. She felt like there was a huge weight down on her chest. She couldn't breathe, she panicked slightly, desperately sucking in air. Slowly, breathing got easier and she took deep calming breaths.

She pulled herself to her feet, every muscle and sinew aching. She could only remember one time that she had felt like this, it was when she was on a swing, and she had been dared by someone to flip over the top. She had tried to hard that she had flew off the swing and landed on her back some metres away. She grimaced at the memory. Cevena looked around, trying to be aware of her surroundings, was she still on Earth?

Apparently not, any doofus would be able to see that. Part of her was terrified at the strangeness of it all, another part, maybe the larger part was excited and felt alive and at home with this new place. She opened her arms and twirled around in circles, giddy and excited. She fell on her back, winding herself again.

The sky wavered slightly and then her focus sharpened on the two planets in the sky. "Why.that's Earth!" she exclaimed to herself. "I really AM on another planet." she whispered to herself. "This has to be a dream!!" she though fiercely. "Nothing, this awesome would ever happen to me! I must be back at home.or maybe I got killed in the park, some mugger shot me and stole my CD player, and this is heaven.or hell." She shivered. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her player. "Well, if I were dead.why would I have my CD player with me...?" She shoved it back into her jean pocket. "Weird." She said aloud again. She got up a second time, randomly picked a direction and started walking. No sooner had she walked 100 metres. Two figures stepped out from the trees.

She drew a breath quickly freezing like a deer caught in the headlights. One of the boys had a mushroom cut, blond short hair and big innocent blue eyes. The other was dark haired and had dark blue eyes. They were both dressed in black and blue armour and carried swords. "whoa, whoa, whoa."Was all Cevena's mind could do. But another deeper part of her felt calm. "Well I am in another world.what did I expect.yet this doesn't feel completely strange to me."

The dark haired boy spoke, and that was when she noticed something very strange about the two of them. "Unauthorized Subject, located and verified. Human. Female. GT scan verifies that the subject is 17 years old and not a Gaien but from the Mystic Moon." He wasn't even talking to her, she realized. Another voice came through, like from a walky-talky. This voice was deep and smooth, "Interesting.bring her in, Miguel and Chesta." The other boy, "Chesta" stepped forward suddenly and grabbed her by her arms. She started to pull away. "Hey, who the hell are you guys? What are you doing? Where are you taking me? Hey!" "Miguel" ignored her but started walking away.

Chesta held on gently but firmly. He spoke. "I am model number DSC-" Miguel cut in. "We are not authorized to converse with trespassing persons." He stated it as a fact, simple enough. Chesta made no expression. "Affirmative.however her small stature does not seem a potential threat. Her emotional levels are slightly unbalanced; I wanted to bring them back into accord." Cevena stayed silent. These guys were so weird. It was almost as if they were not human. She did a double take when they reached a clearing.

There were two huge machine robots there. She trembled a bit as Chesta pushed her inside and then easily slipped in himself. She closed her eyes as they took off, she trembled like crazy inside but Chesta didn't notice. It was actually rather spacious inside, better than she thought it would be. As the two robots cleared the treetops, she could see out through a visor. The forest was actually on a slope, the slope stretched upwards and over a huge mountain.

They flew altogether straight up and over the peaks effortlessly. Once higher however, she saw that the peaks continued all around and that they actually flew towards the centre of a large canyon. Inside the centre was a huge black fortress. The fortress loomed closer and closer as they flew nearer. She closed her eyes to suppress the sudden feeling of nauseating sickness and dizziness that welled up. "I guess I'm not a flying person." She thought numbly. They landed and Chesta pulled her out onto the hanger.