Chapter Text
Lisa flops on her bed after a long, tiring day at school. She puts her headphones on and blasts some music to drown out the world around her. After about 5 minutes of peace, she can hear loud scratching and barking at her door. Letting out an annoyed sigh, she gets up to go and see whatever Pip wanted this time. Opening the door, she can see Pip looking at her expectantly, holding an old stuffed toy in his mouth. Lisa takes off her headphones and sets them on her desk, knowing that Pip is looking for someone to play with, and no one else is home right now to do it.
Once downstairs, she opens the back door and slips out after Pip. They play a few rounds of fetch, and Lisa is feeling a little less defeated than when she first came home, so maybe this wasn't the worst idea. Pip nudges her again, and she goes to throw the toy for what is probably the 50th time by now, until she sees Pip dart away out of the corner of her eye. She drops the toy and bolts after him before she can lose sight of him.
Pip is fast. Like really fast, and Lisa is having trouble keeping up with him. Fortunately, or unfortunately, as she almost tripped over him, Pip stopped in the middle of the clearing they were in and stared at the puddle in front of him. Lisa walked over to him slowly so as not to spook him, but he seemed entranced by the puddle anyway. Lisa looked at the puddle. It didn't look any different from any other normal puddle, although, now that she was thinking about it, it hadn't rained in a while, so it didn't really make sense for there to be a puddle here. Lisa didn't have much time to dwell on this, though, because Pip had taken it upon himself to jump into the mysterious puddle.
In hindsight, it was probably a bad idea to jump into a mysterious puddle after your dog, but Lisa wasn't really thinking very clearly at the moment, so here she was. In the middle of nowhere. With no one but Pip to keep her company. Not that Pip was bad company, just that it would have been nice to have someone to talk to.
Looking around herself, she could see only forest in every direction. Well, isn’t that just wonderful? At least, if there was anything good to come of this, she wouldn't have to worry about that one Chemistry assignment that was due a week ago.
***
Alright, so maybe it's been a while, and they are still in the middle of nowhere. And maybe, Lisa has no idea what time it is or how long they've been here or if this place is even safe to be in or -
Ok, so maybe she was panicking. That's fine. Just remember to take deep breaths. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. In through the nose. Out through the -
SNAP
Lisa's heart raced as she grabbed the first branch she could see, holding it in what was hopefully a convincing defense position.
"I've never seen anyone like you here before. Who are you?"
Lisa whipped around at the voice, but she couldn't find who had spoken to her. Maybe if she were fast enough, she could run before whoever this was decided they weren't going to be so kind -
Huh, that's funny. The ground definitely wasn't that close before. Guess I won't be running anytime soon, Lisa thought before slipping into unconsciousness.
***
Lisa awoke in a very soft and comfortable bed. Honestly, she didn't even really want to leave. But alas, the universe was cruel, and she had to figure out where she was, so she dragged herself out of the bed to take a look at the room around her.
And ouch, that was a mistake because the minute she stood up, her head pounded with a searing pain. She leaned against the bed for a few seconds in hopes of calming the headache, but it didn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. Oh well, it's not like she hasn’t dealt with migraines before.
She pulled herself back up, bearing through the pain, to take note of her surroundings. The walls were pretty bare, and the only things in the room seemed to be the bed that she woke up in and a dresser opposite the bed. The room wasn’t too bleak, though; the walls were painted yellow, and there was dark wooden trim lining them. It was actually kind of cozy, in a way.
Lisa’s thoughts were interrupted by voices coming from somewhere behind the door. Lisa walked over to the door and put her ear to it to get a better idea of what they were saying.
“...round ears. I wonder if its some kind of mutation.”
“Don’t be so rude about it, Kyle,” The second voice sounded annoyed. Maybe they were siblings.
“I’m just saying it’s weird-” The first voice - Kyle - was cut off with a yelp, “Hey! What was that for?!”
“That was for being judgemental towards our guest, and for hitting her over the head earlier.”
“Not my fault she wouldn’t answer my question. She also looked like-”
“I swear to god if the next word that comes out of your mouth is-”
“Gods above, can you guys please stop fighting? I am trying to concentrate on healing right now and you are not helping.” A third voice chimed in.
“Sorry, Kyle’s just being an idiot right now.”
“I am not! I’m just trying to point out things that might help us determine where our new guest is from.”
“Why don’t we just ask her then?” The third voice pointed out, “She should probably be awake by now.”
Silence followed. Then, a moment later, the second voice sighed, “I’ll do it.”
Lisa’s heart raced as she heard footsteps approaching the door. She rushed back to the bed to try to look like she had just woken up, but her head throbbed, and she stumbled right as she reached the bed. Resting the back of her head against the bedframe, she put her palms to her eyes to get some relief for the headache, but it didn’t do much.
The door clicked open, and a voice rang out through the room.
“Are you feeling okay?” Lisa could see the person behind the voice this time. She looked to be somewhere in her twenties if Lisa had to guess. She was also wearing armor with a large cloak drawn over top. Looking closer, Lisa could see that she had a dagger strapped to her thigh. Keep that in mind for later, Lisa thought. It could be useful. Looking up at the woman’s face, Lisa could see two scars: one that was practically the entire length of her cheek, going diagonally from her cheekbone to her jaw, and the other a small nick on her lip.
“Not really.” She pointed to her head, hoping that would be enough to convey what was wrong.
“That would be Kyle’s fault,” Lisa remembered the conversation she had listened in on, “I’ll make him go find something to help with that.”
“In the meantime, would you be up to answering any questions?”
Lisa thought for a moment. There probably wouldn’t be too much harm in answering questions, and it might help distract her from the headache, so why not? She shrugged in response.
“Ok. So then, where are you from?”
“Earth. More specifically the United States of America.”
“Do you know how you got here?”
“Well I’m assuming one of you knocked me out and dragged me here, but I don’t really know considering I was unconscious.” Lisa thought that response was fair given the situation. The woman didn’t seem to think so, though.
She received a blank look in return. “I meant, did you know how you wound up here in our world?”
“Oh,” That made more sense actually, “Well, I was just playing with my dog Pip, when he ran off into the woods. When I followed him, we came across this puddle, which was weird because it hadn’t rained in quite a while. But anyway, Pip jumped in, so in a panic I kinda jumped in after him. Next thing I know, we’re both here. Speaking of Pip actually, is he here somewhere?”
“Was he the blue wolf looking animal that you were traveling with?”
“Yep, that’s him.”
“I believe he’s in the healer’s room with Ivy.”
“Healer’s room? He’s not hurt is he?”
“No, he’s fine. Would you like to go see him?”
“Yes, actually, that’d be great.”
“Follow me,” The woman helped Lisa off the floor, and Lisa winced as she got up.
“Are you okay?” The woman looked at her with concern.
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just the headache,” Lisa responded, “I don’t think I ever asked, but what’s your name?”
The woman’s eyes seemed sad for a moment, as if the idea of a name brought back some terrible memory, but her expression shifted quickly.
“It’s Pearl. What’s yours?”
“Lisa.”
“Nice to meet you Lisa.”
Lisa smiled, “It’s nice to meet you too.”