~Sorry for any grammatical or structural errors, I wrote this really late at night and I think my eyeballs might fall out or something gruesome and horrible like that XD I'll look it over in the morning. Also, sorry if it sucks.~

When I came to, I was lying, tied up, on the ground of some place. I didn't know what 'some place' was, aside from the fact that there was grass, and it was on the top of a hill.

"Please excuse my friend's unorthodox manners," someone said. It was a woman, I could tell, and I squirmed in my bonds until I could see the speaker. She was tall and flame-haired, like me, looking regal in full armour.

"I can't say that you're much better, since I'm sitting here tied up," I mumbled, but instantly regretted the words. Disorientation had made me reckless. I didn't know what she'd do with that extremely sharp looking sword of hers.

However, I my premonition was baseless. The girl smirked slightly, making a hmph-ing noise and tilting her heads. "I suppose you're right about that," she said dryly. "Unfortunately, it can't be helped. We have no way of knowing whether you're friend or foe."

I felt like I'd slipped into a dream world. My heart felt like it was (badly) playing a drum solo all my itself in my chest, staggering and banging around, pounding incessantly. "I have no idea who you are," I stated helplessly. "Why would I be your foe?"

The woman shifted her balance from centre to her left foot, her armour clanking slightly. "That is yet to be seen," she said. "I am Erza."

Erza. Natsu had mentioned her earlier, I thought.

I groaned, suddenly feeling as if my head was being cleaved open with that sharp sword of Erza's, though she'd not moved. My breathing shallowed and my skin crawled, burned.

Well that escalated quickly. It might have been amusing had I not felt like I was being simultaneously burned alive and devoured by large, flesh-eating insects.

"What's wrong with her?" another voice piped up, this one younger. I curled onto my side, squeezed my eyes shut, and fell into my habit of forming senseless words with my lips as I did when I was experiencing extreme pain or distress. I thought this qualified. A face popped into my field of vision, eyes concerned.

And her hair was blue.

That's what captured my attention as she continued to talk, her face growing increasingly worried until it appeared that she was yelling. There was a flash of light and then I could see nothing, though I vaguely registered that, through the depthless agony, my bonds had been cut. The pain receded slightly, but then returned fuller than ever, and I thought I screamed. I should have screamed. The situation was definitely scream-worthy.

Once again, the pain faded, like the tide of the sea backing off. I sucked in a lungful of air. I couldn't see anything, although I heard garbled arguments and lots of yelling. I was floating in an endless sea of bright smoke, sweet acid caressing my limbs as I drifted, coarse silk sliding through my veins. What was happening to me?

It seemed like years that I lay there, each thought barely forming before it collapsed under the strain of it all, succumbing to the mindless urge to escape, always to escape.

But how can you escape when there's nothing really there at all? Nothing but the pain. That was one thing I could constantly count on, and I wasn't sure if it was keeping me sane or driving me closer to the brink of insanity.

Finally, there was relief. I felt myself settle, almost as if I was being brought back into reality or my body. Whatever it was, I blinked, distinguishing shapes. It was hard, however, to make out anything past the blinding glow of light that seemed to explode from somewhere near me. I cried out at its brightness, throwing my hands in front of my face as if to shield myself, but that didn't help. I squeezed my eyes shut as it dimmed. Slowly, I became aware that I was sitting in a vehicle. It had horrible shock absorbers, whatever it was, and I was being thrown around quite a lot. I was lying on a hard surface, long enough that my entire body stretched it's length before meeting a wall.

Finally, the light dimmed enough that I dared to open my eyes.

I felt great.

That omnipresent feeling of unbelonging had disappeared, as had that itch that seemed to crawl through my veins. The pain had totally disappeared. I was so amazed that I laughed. My body felt coordinated; it felt right. Is this how one was supposed to feel?

I sat up (wow, it was even semi-graceful), and looked down at myself.

I stared. I was glowing. It had faded to the brightness of a distant dying star, but it was still straining to stare even at my hand for too long. Even though my body felt better than ever before, I felt like I might spontaneously combust if I didn't understand what was going on real soon.

"Oh look at that, you're awake."

I knew that voice. It was the deep, baritone voice I had heard in the woods… Wow that seemed so long ago. I wondered how long it had been. I couldn't remember the name of the guy, so I tried to focus on him. Let me tell you: Not easy when your face is glowing as much as the rest of you.

"Who are you?" I asked to start with. My questions just seemed too large, too spectacularly unreal to be phrased, so I settled on something safe.

"Gray Fullbuster," the voice said, and I nodded, spotting a shock of black hair.

Oh yeah, I thought, you're the one who held a knife of ice to my throat.

I thought about asking him about that, but I wasn't sure how exactly to ask something of that… that level of weirdness. So I settled for giving him a glare for holding me at knife point, but looked away quickly to stare around my surroundings. The more the glow of my skin faded, the better I felt.

"I should probably tell Wendy you're awake," Gray said. I could make out more of his face now, as the explosion of light continued to fade. He stood, and I tried to figure out where the hell I was.

"What are we in?" I asked quickly, before he could leave.

"This is a carriage," Gray said flatly, as if I was an idiot not to have figured this out myself. Without another word, he pushed open what I assumed to be a window, but couldn't really see, and flipped out.

While moving? Where was he going?

I let out a big breath of air and leaned back against my seat. I was hopelessly lost right now. The best I could do was relax and roll with it, even thought I felt like my insides were quite effectively being transmuted into jelly.