Part One - Leafing Through the Prologue
Chapter One
10 years Before Eternal Calm (B.E.C)
"Don't go, Yunie! Stay here!"
"You know I have to go, Rikku."
"But you will be all alone! Don't go! Your family is here!"
The older girl shook her brunette locks. "I still have Kimahri, and I'll send you a sphere when I can!"
The younger girl looked at her cousin with mournful sadness. "You can cry too, Yunie. You don't always have to do what the adults say to do."
The other girl gasped, her eyes filling with long unshed tears. Without a thought, she threw her arms around her cousin and hugged her tightly.
"I'll miss you so much."
"...I won't ask you to stay anymore, but do send me spheres when you can and let me know if you are okay, alright?"
"I will. I promise. But you, you must promise me that you will still laugh and smile. You are only you when you smile."
The blonde nodded. "And one day, when you really need me most, I'll come find you!"
"Promise?"
"Promise!"
----------
Gippal watched the five-year-old blonde girl hung the brunette one more time before the older girl departed with the Ronso (something he knew from the time when his dad had taken him to Luca for a Blitzball game a few months back). When she didn't move for a few minutes, he detached from the shadows of Home, looming high above them both under the hot Sanubian sun, and walked up to her, silently hugging her from behind.
Rikku squeaked and turned around quickly before quickly throwing her arms around him. "Gippal!" She clung to him as if Sin were upon them. "I missed you so much!"
"Yeah, I can tell," he laughed, the cocky sort of wisdom only a six-year-old could have. "Where were you anyway? You were gone for...," he paused and started ticking off fingers, "six months."
Rikku looked away from him, knowing perfectly well that what she was going to say next would be upsetting to him.
"Come on, Rikku, just say it!"
She sighed, "Fine. Bevelle. I've been in Bevelle."
"What! Why were you in Bevelle! Are you crazy, going to a city packed FULL of Yevonites?"
"Maybe. But, I had to go."
"Yeah, yeah. Who was that girl anyway?"
"That was my cousin. Her dad had to...do...something...so he came to ask if I could come stay with her while he was gone. Pops barely let me go, but my uncle got him to in the end."
"Oh. And now he's done and come back home so they sent you back?"
"Not exactly. He finished doing what he had to do I guess," she mumbled, tears creeping back into her eyes at the thought of the man who had been so loving on their long journey from Bikanel to Bevelle, "but he didn't come home."
"Why not?" Gippal asked, a bad feeling washing over him at the tears in her eyes.
"Because my uncle is High Summoner Braska. This is his calm we are now celebrating." At these words, she burst into tears again. "And now Yunie is all alone. She has nobody! And they won't let her stay here, those Yevonites! She couldn't stay with me and Pops! So now she is all alone and I can't do anything!" She started sobbing and Gippal, accustomed to the crying girl he had known since birth, pulled her back into his arms to let her cry it out.
"I'm sure you can do something, Rikku. It will work itself out now. They can't keep her away from Home. She's half Al-Bhed!"
"But she is High Summoner Braska's Daughter! They were calling her the Child of Yevon, some of them were. How could I even go SEE her? I'm the leader of the Al-Bhed's daughter. I'm Cid's girl."
Gippal sighed as he let his friend cry out all her tears, staring out over the waves of sand that made up the vast Sanubian desert. Even at the tender age of six, he knew she was right. But he also knew she could still try.
"These pilgrimages need to stop," he said. "Summoners need to stop dying."
"That is exactly what I say!" Rikku squeaked, pulling her head up from his shoulder, a fierce look awash on her face. It faded though after a moment. "But how do we stop them?"
The boy smiled at her, an idea coming into his head, and grabbed her wrist to drag her back into the Al-Bhed city of Home. "Come on!"
"Where are we going?"
"Well, Cid's girl, I think we should talk to your father. If anyone can stop the Summoners, it is that grumpy old man of yours."
Rikku laughed and raced along side him, confident that Gippal had something silly in mind...and that she would be perfectly happy to go along with it.
Okay several author's notes:
First and foremost, please no flames about how mature they sound. Anyone who has ever spoken with a small child can say how amazingly perceptive and intelligent they are. Plus, in Spira...children don't really get the benefit of growing up in a cushy world were everything will probably be all right. They are introduced into mature concepts (death, loss, fighting, hate) at an extremely young age...so I figure...they would talk a bit more maturely than our little ones might.
Second, time line: at one point Yuna mentions that it took her father 3 months to make his pilgrimage (or at least indicates it) since they start from Bevelle, go to Besaid and then backtrack back to Gagazet...it probably takes about 2 months to start from Besaid and end in Zanarkand...or a little over a month to get to Bevelle. And, via boat, probably takes about 3 weeks from Bevelle to Bikanel...or something like that...So at the START of my story, rather than having to continually update it throughout ...I'm going to list a rudimentary timeline so you can understand what is going on as it happens.
Year Zero (BEC..0...EC) is the very end of FFX when she defeats sin and brings the Eternal Calm...
10 years, 4 months BEC...Braska gets Rikku
10 years, 3 months BEC...Make it to Bevelle...Braska leave shortly after
10 years BEC...Braska defeats Sin
9 years, 11 months BEC...Auron tells Kimahri to take care of Yuna
9 years, 10 months BEC...Kimahri and Yuna drop off Rikku at Home on their way to Besaid
4 months BEC...Tidus winds up at Baaj Temple where he is found by Rikku and almost instantly lost again
3 months, 2 weeks BEC...Rikku heads towards Moonflow to capture Yuna there...Gippal sees the Crimson squad training in the Bikanel Desert and joins up
2 months 2 weeks BEC...Operation Mi'hen goes down...Crimson Squad training...disaster at Den of Woe
2 months BEC...Rikku joins up with group
Anyway...that's the rudimentary timeline for at least the first half of the story. Feel free to question it...it HAS logic behind it...even if it is entirely speculative.
This will be the last A/N probably.
Thank you for reading.