AU. Spoilers for post-Macalania Temple FFX. What if?
Certainty
She falters a moment, footsteps pausing very briefly. The toe of her boot scuffs against the metal floor, dragging a long line of dirt and mud across it, and her head swivels back to stare at him.
He wants to tell her not to go; he wants to say that she is too young, and that he has seen the damage that the church can do to heathens and the faithful alike. An ache swells in his chest, and he considers showing her his proof—a scar fashioned in the shape of a Yevon-issued bullet. The words die on his dry and cracked lips, and he knows that she wouldn't have listened to them anyway.
Gears turn and pistons hiss—the airship hatch lifts and sunlight pours into the darkened corridor. It turns her hair to molten gold, and his breath catches.
"Rikku," he manages, and his good eye follows a line of blood and sweat up her jawbone and to her face. She's staring at him expectantly, a little surprised by the severity of his tone and the fact that he called her by her name, instead of his silly little moniker. "Jus'… watch yourself."
The gruffness of his voice makes her smile a little, and she draws away from her five companions to approach him. "I will," she promises in a small voice, green eyes glittering up at him like polished emerald. Then, her expression becomes solemn and she adds a little more firmly, "Myself and my Summoner. It's my duty as a Guardian to protect Yunie with my life, if I need to."
And suddenly, even though she's almost a full foot shorter than he is, he realizes just how much she's grown. She's no longer the spoiled teenager who would crash hovers just for fun, or who collected bottle caps and broken sphere fragments because they were pretty. She's bloodstained and covered in a sheen of sweat and dust, her clothes torn and dirty almost beyond recognition. Her braids are longer than he remembers—knotted and gnarled from inattention—and she has several scars now that she'd not had before.
She's not just Cid's girl or Princess; now she is Guardian Rikku and representative of her people in a way he could not have even have imagined. He can see in her the potential to someday be the leader of all the Al Bhed.
With a bright, sunny smile, she turns and starts walking back toward the hatch. Her fellow Guardians follow in her footsteps, and he feels a sharp pang at the all too familiar sight of her turned back.
"Wait!" he says, the words escaping him before he can even think of the consequences. "Let me come with you."
They all stare at him, varying degrees of surprise evident in their faces. The tall man—Auron, someone he knows by reputation—gives him an appraising look, chuckling darkly behind his cowl; the only other woman in the group eyes him calculatingly, before turning and muttering something to Rikku. Rikku just looks at him, shocked.
"What is your name?" the woman asks, voice low and throaty. She looks rather intimidating, dressed in a heavy gown of black leather and crisscrossed belts, fur lining a low collar. Her black hair is divided into dozens of Al Bhed-style braids that fall to her waist, a knot pierced with long hair sticks perched on the top. He notices that her lips are painted in plum-colored lipstick, and that her eyes are the color of blood.
He swallows hard. "Gippal," he intones quietly, feeling much less confident with her scarlet gaze focused solely on him.
Rikku whispers his name quietly, and he turns to look at her briefly before Auron diverts his attention again.
"Are you sure?" the man questions, his words grating like gravel. Gippal doesn't know it, but he's echoing the same words he used when Rikku first joined the pilgrimage party—it makes the others smile slightly in nostalgia.
He rakes a hand through his pale blonde hair, looking at each of the Guardians in turn: an orange-haired Blitzball player whose face he knows even while his name escapes him; the dark woman; a blue-furred Ronso male; a darkly-tanned boy who could almost pass for an Al Bhed; Auron; Rikku.
His eye lingers on Rikku. "I'm sure," he says, staring at her.