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Shoneah Adoeete Silverbirch was a girl who was not afraid of anything. That had always been her boast. She was a rough-and-tumble sort of girl who had never backed down from a challenge, who had trained from her tribe's Grandmaster in the martial arts of her people. She had fought with the strongest men and women of her tribe and won. She knew the mountain range that was her tribe's home like the back of her hand.

But she wasn't in her tribe's mountain anymore.

She didn't know where she was.

And for the first time in her life, she was terrified.

"Okay, breathe," she told herself as she looked around. "Think, think think."

She brushed her long silver hair out of her face and squinted into the sun. It was warm, wherever she was. The sun was beating down on her from high above her. She was glad that for the moment, she was dressed in her usual light, loose clothing, but she hoped she could find shelter before nightfall. It was always cooler at night, no matter what daytime temperatures were anywhere.

The land was mostly rock, something that she wasn't quite used to; and it wasn't the usual gray rock that she was used to, but brown and earthy. There were trees off in the distance. Perhaps she would check that out. There was probably food there. Shelter.

She checked her weapons and was glad to see that they had come here with her ... however she had ended up here. She had been sent out that morning by her tribe's chief to scout out a new location for their camp, make sure that the area was clear. She had heard voices and climbed a tree to check it out. Unfortunately, the branch had broken and she'd fallen - and rather than landing on the grass beneath the tree, she'd ended up in this rocky world.

First things first. Water. There was none in sight, so she decided to take her best chance for it. She could survive without a lot of things, but not without water.

She loosened her blouse to keep herself cool and started off towards the trees.

Shoneah had nearly made it to the trees - a coniferous forest, it looked like - when suddenly the ground began to shake slightly beneath her feet. In her experience, that could mean only one thing.

Horses.

She didn't bother wasting her breath cursing, she simply took off at full speed and high-tailed it for the trees. Horses meant people, people meant attacks, and while she had every confidence in her fighting skills, she didn't know where she was or what kind of people were here, how many there would be, how they would fight or even what kind of weapons they would have - and attacking someone without knowing anything about them was suicide.

The moment she reached the treeline, she shimmied up the nearest tree and looked around for the horsemen.

Little did she know that there were no horses nor horsemen, but that it was a mild earthquake, something very common for the region but completely foreign to her.

The trembling didn't last long, and Shoneah was confused when it stopped abruptly rather than fading out as she was used to, and even more confused when she didn't see any horses or people anywhere.

She let out a silent sigh of relief and decided that while she was up there, she might as well try to find some water. She looked around, squinting deeper into the forest, and she was surprised when she saw something moving further into the trees.

Maybe it was an animal, she mused. She was growing hungry. She didn't know what time it was here, but it had been several hours since she'd last eaten.

She dropped silently from the tree and pulled one pistol from its holster. She held it low in front of herself as she skirted her way through the trees, trying to keep hidden.

Shoneah heard a voice, but she was still too far away to hear what it was saying, and she slowed her approach to where she had seen the movement, making she she would be neither seen nor heard. She kept her breathing steady to keep her heartbeat regular and moved stealthily forward.

She needed to find out who was there and whether or not they were dangerous.

Suddenly she spotted something bizarre. There was a person with pale skin and dark leathery wings wearing a white shirt dusting himself off. Beside him was a bulky case on its side.

While she was watching him, Shoneah's attention was caught by a movement on the far side of the man. Something small, stealthy, trying to keep itself hidden ... her eyes narrowed as she tried to identify it.

A dragon ...

It was coming up behind the man, and Shoneah reacted instinctively.

"Look out!" she shouted in her native dialect. At the same moment, she dove from her hiding place behind the tree and fired her pistol at the dragon. There was a squeal from the dragon, but the bullet ricocheted harmlessly off the dragon's scales.

It distracted the creature, though, and it turned its attention from the person Shoneah had found to Shoneah herself.

Shoneah dropped the now-empty pistol and pulled her second one from its holster.

"That's right, straight to me," she said through clenched teeth.

The dragon was small, but it was quick, and she had only a second to aim before she squeezed off her second shot. This one caught the dragon's left eye, though it wasn't at an angle to enter its head: the eye burst outwards and the dragon let out a shriek of rage and pain. It stopped coming towards her, though, and started scratching at its head desperately.

Shoneah took advantage of its distraction and drew her sword as she ran towards it. She thanked her lucky stars that it was a small dragon, probably just a baby: it wasn't even as tall as her knees.

The dragon twitched and turned to face Shoneah again, and she recognized the movement. This one was a fire breather. She dove to the side and landed in a roll just as a burst of flame shot past her.

"Got you!" she cried as the dragon took a moment to see whether it had hit her. She pushed off from the ground hard and launched herself at the dragon, driving her blade into its remaining eye, right up to the hilt.

The dragon roared again and thrashed about, trying to get her off it, but within seconds all the fight died out of it, and it stopped moving altogether.

Shoneah withdrew her blade and turned towards the winged man she'd saved.

"Are you all right?" she asked him, still in her native tongue. It didn't occur to her to use any of the other languages she knew - but if it had occurred to her to try another language, she wouldn't have known which one to use.

Shoneah's eyes widened slightly, and she let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, good, you speak a language that I know," she smiled at him. "I was so afraid you would not ... tell me, are you all right? The dragon did not hurt you at all?"

She knelt down and cleaned her blade on the grass, though she kept her eyes on the man in front of her.

Shoneah's heart sunk when the man asked his question, and her movements were slow as she sheathed her sword again.

"I ... was about to ask you the same question," she said quietly, rising slowly. "I also am not from here ..."

Her brow furrowed, and she reached for her pistols. "I do not understand," she muttered. "Both of us here, neither of us from here ... how did this happen?"

She holstered her pistols and looked back at the man. "I have been here a few hours," she told him. "What about you? And where are you from?"