Disclaimer: FF9 is not mine (yet) however my as yet unnamed character is mine.

This was bothering me all today soI had to write it down, plus it got me out of revising.

Heritage

The sky was dark, dirty blue bordering on grey and wet wind whipped the curtains through the open window. This was Scotland and that was the way of things, in other words, dark, wet and not very friendly. This was also how this particular girl looked, standing outside, soaked to the skin waiting for a bus which didn't seem to be coming. After about half an hour later she gave up on it, not feeling too secure to be standing in a thunderstorm next to a large metal pole. She turned to walk back to her house and had been planning on taking a short cut through a field so; she turned and took a step, right into a bolt of lightning.

This, in true fantasy style, is her story.

Chapter 1

A moment ago it had been raining and now, it had stopped. That was the first thing I noticed and then the fact that I was sitting when a moment ago I had been standing, also, the fact that I appeared to be sitting in a puddle. Since it didn't occur to me at the time to stand up I looked up from the wet ground to the group of people who had surrounded me.

"If I ask where I am" I said, standing up finally "Am I going to regret it?" From the look of things it certainly seemed to be the case.
"How did you get aboard?" demanded a large... man?
"I just asked where I was. I have no idea how I got here" He asked me again and persisted in brushing off my attempts to explain that moments earlier I had been waiting for a bus. So I sulked. And I dripped.

As punishment for one of the above crimes, I was lockedin a cupboard where I stayed and waited while my clothes dried themselves painfully slowly.

You must understand that after spending an hour or so locked in a relatively dark, cramped space the sensible thing to do is to try and get out. The lock on the door wasn't picking proof it turned out and soon gave way to a couple of safety pins I pulled from a pocket.

It was wooden everywhere, ornately decorated and smelled like one of those shops you bought floors in, faintly like varnish and newly cut hardwood. Luckily there seemed to be nobody else in sight. I rounded a corner listening for noises. Perhaps, I figured if I could make it to the deck I would be able to hop off into whatever harbour the ship had docked at, find a pay phone and demand that a taxi take me home. A few doors later, I climbed a pole through a hole in the ceiling.

A city, albeit a city I did not recognise was faintly visible through the small windows as I progressed along the corridor. Somewhere, a crowd cheered.

It turned out that the ship wasn't parked at a dock at all. It was pressed up against the walls of a castle. Whoever had the idea of building a castle on the ocean border? I reasoned that it was probably a fort and slipped out of a window onto the wall. Anything would do. The sooner I figured out where I was the better. As it turned out, escape was not forthcoming. Guards in medieval dress stood at every possible exit and since the last one had told me to go back to my seat and stop insulting the Queen's hospitality I had given up on leaving for the time being. At least I was still in Britain. The accent had been British and nowhere else had a queen that I could think of. It must be some kind of medieval themed thing. I went to the back of the audience to watch with a couple of other people who, unlike most of the people, seemed as ragged as me.

Barely able to make out any of the play, I leant back against the wall and tapped the child next to me on the shoulder. He looked up at me and I blinked a couple times.
"Nice costume" I told him, trying to come off as friendly "Could you tell me how much longer this play is on for"
He didn't reply, just looked over my shoulder, yelped, turned tail and ran. I wasn't given long enough to feel offended. When you're being chased by people waving swords at you there's never time for that. Running away seemed like the intelligent thing to do. I chased after the other two, down through the isles and eventually onto the stage where I bumped into a familiar face.

"The hell did you get out here?" it demanded and gestured at the guards "And what's that"
"It's not my fault!" I protested but my explanation was cut short by a sudden eruption of flame from behind me. I leapt out of the way of the fire and screaming. I hadn't noticed it before but there had been somebody lying down just behind me for some reason. That somebody was now on fire and consequently, they were shrieking and flailing unhappily. Just as I was about to say that it would be a good idea to roll around until the burning stopped, they flung their cloak off, probably an even better idea. This caused some commotion, more commotion than you would expect from discovering that somebody is dressed all in orange.

"Move out!" called my former captor "It's time!" Nobody took much notice of me, arguing amongst each other about the right way to go about this, which at the time, I had no idea of. Two words, however caught my attention

"Seize them!"-two words which signalled to me that it was time to move out of the way. I headed past the fray after my former captors and let the door behind me close on its own.

Finding them wasn't hard. It was a matter of following the shouting which got me there in no time. The ship pulled away with a lurch.
"Make yourself useful"
I had no idea how to go about this but I figured I had better think of something quickly or at least occupy myself.

I returned to cupboard where I had become acquainted with the ship and removed a pair of daggers I had found earlier, attaching their scabbards to my belt. Best to well equipped, I figured, if random people with swords were going to keep chasing me around like this. Fearing a little that somebody not occupied up at the bridge would notice me and lock the door again I vacated the room. This was just as well. The entire ship shook, creaked and began to plummet very noticeably, all manner of heavy things from the cupboard collapsing all over the floor where I had, a moment ago been standing. More than the fact I had nearly been crushed, the fact that the ship seemed to be sinking worried me even more. The floor beneath me rocked and a vase slid my way. I jumped over it as it began to roll and headed upward to the deck, prepared to dive off and swim back to less imminent death.

Smoke obscured my vision as I opened the door and ran out, sliding, noting that the wall of the fort or castle, whatever it had been was getting progressively further away.
"What're you doing out here?" questioned a voice from my side incredulously. I turned my head and with that motion fell over again.
"I'm diving off and swimming back to shore" I announced and watched his face drop.
"You're going to what?" he stared at me and waited to see if I was joking.
"Dive and swim. You know" I said "As opposed to drowning"
"Look over the edge" he told me. I expected to see sharp rocks or something else of the like, sharks perhaps. "Go on"
So, I did.
"What the hell?"
"Airship" he replied simply
"Like a blimp?" I looked up for some kind of balloon or sign of a propeller and of course found absolutely nothing.

Still, the city passed beneath us, indifferent to the flaming lump of wood slowly descending on it. Somewhere, somebody was shouting to somebody else below us. A plan was formulating in my brain.
"Maybe we can jump off? You know... and land on a rooftop before the ship blows?"

And then, we sailed right over a cliff.

Encouragement? Advice? Review and tell me where I'm going right or as the case may (and probably will be) wrong.