When the Sun Sleeps
Disclaimer: Square-Enix owns Final Fantasy X-2. I do not.
Author's Note: Just so you know, the format for this fiction is a little bit different. I wrote each chapter in triplets -that is, three one-shots from each character's POV make up each chapter. Each progression of chapters is meant to show a progression in their ages, their lives and their developing personalities. Also, this is somewhat of an AU because Sin does not exist and summoners are therefore, not required.
I only ask that you don't flame without an articulate justification of your reasoning.
In Defense of When the Sun Sleeps : Lastly, I wrote this out of bitterness for my own friends -two friends, which is ironic, really -though the story is mostly light-hearted at first. If you don't like the story, don't read. If you don't like interaction between Yuna, Rikku and Gippal, don't read. Crickets chirp If you ARE reading, just go with the flow of the story and ask yourself: why should Yuna be coupled with Tidus and Rikku with Gippal? In real life, things change and people change. If the situation had changed, maybe, so would the couples...
Chapter One
Yuna
1
When I first arrived in Besaid, I remembered thinking that it looked like an overturned hourglass. I remembered waves and the splash of water lapping at my heels, sneaking forward then stealing back. In my six-year-old mind, I remembered wondering when I would go back home…
Father's hand was warm and rough against mine. He could sense my anxiety and sometimes pressed his thumb against my palm to reassure me. I grasped for my mother's hand, but she didn't link her fingers with mine as firmly as father's had.
"When are we going home?"
Father looked down at me and smiled gently, "This is our home now, tynmehk."
Usually the Al Bhed name would make my mother smile but she let go of my hand to go talk with the boy unloading our belongings from the boat. Father followed after her. I couldn't hear their hushed voices, but I didn't have much curiosity for that either.
I felt a light touch on my back, fading and falling with gravity. I looked behind me, then to the ground to find a palm nut. A childish giggle forced me to look up to find the source. It was then that I saw her. Eyes so vivid green that they threatened the olive tinted palm fronds and the long, flowing tendrils of leaves that she hid behind. Blonde spilled messily about her shoulders and careless braids were tossed about as she suddenly dashed backwards with a spurt of energy and threw a deliberate glance backwards, willing me to chase her. She was bounding, leaping with legs that knew every tangle and curve of the jungle, and I stumbled and chased her feverishly because I thought that this was a fun game. Her scattered laughter was infectious, and long after we stopped running; we both collapsed on the ground and smiled true smiles at each other. And even without fully understanding it, or questioning it, we both knew that this was what true friendship was like. These were the moments for careless laughter and large but unbecoming smiles, tangled hair and sunshine.
She grabbed a pile of sand in one hand and let it slip from her fingers and then looked at me. In an unspoken understanding that only children have, I swept up a large mound of sand together with two hands and she poured her own handful on top.
"What's your name?" she asked simply, keeping her eyes steadily focused on placing a few choice pebbles around the edge of our sand pile.
I picked a white flower from a tangle of ferns near my feet and examined it, thinking it to be pretty. My fingers pushed the thick stem into the sand.
She looked at me expectantly, and in my shyness I looked down and pressed my finger into the sand and slid it across to form the familiar letters of my name.
A careful frown flit across her face as she tried to sound it, mouth forming the syllables of my name.
"Yu-na" she said, and then smiled. I smiled back.
We played like this everyday, wandering away from our parents to have fun by ourselves. I knew I was happy when we ran by the shore, collecting shells and she slung her arm across my shoulders and leaned her head against my own and said, "You and me. We're sisters now, Yuna"
Sisters, she had said with so much confidence and innocent faith. It was so easy to believe her.
Rikku
2
The first time I met Gippal, I remember a dash of custard coloured hair and mud. I can recall the impact of his arm on my chest as he ran, and an unwelcome taste of pain as I met the ground. I remember textures of pink and white and the stinging of my first wound…
And it was all because of him. Tears that promised to burn at the back of eyes kept my anger stirring.
I looked at him hard through my shifting braids, thinking, he's a stupid, mean boy…and I never want to be friends with him.
He tossed his head back with clumsy laughter that spilled and clattered with the chortling of his friends. Shaggy hair leapt across his eyes then fell to the side as he shook with laughter, holding his sides to keep anymore from escaping. I felt gentle hands fix my dress where it had twisted and torn slightly from the rough rocks and knew that it was Yuna, always trying to mend what was broken.
My lips twisted into as much of a snarl as I could muster at seven years of age, and heard a voice blurt out, "I don't like you."
Yuna's small hands, so similar to my own, stopped their busy work of trying to tie a ribbon securely, and I realized that the voice was mine – shaky and pitifully wrought with emotion that I should've hid to seem strong. Yuna tugged my hand gently, too shy and afraid to say that she wanted to go back home. I pulled her to my side, refusing to give in. We are strong together, I thought in my childish confidence.
His friends smirked at him with knowing and expectation, waiting for a comeback. Gippal sauntered over to us like he expected to take something from us and enjoy it secretly.
I pushed my chin up and straightened my shoulders defiantly, "I don't like you", I repeated.
Green eyes much like my own stared back at me. A shadow from a moving palm flitted across our golden bodies and his eyes almost looked brown.
"That's too bad", he said with ease, "…I like you."
He smiled at me funnily and glanced at Yuna who bowed her head immediately. His friends hadn't heard and he changed his smile to fool them into thinking that he had insulted me instead.
For no reason, the tears that I had been trying to keep back for so long began to fall. The boys' laughter faded as they ran off along the beach, and he smiled back at us victoriously.
When we ran back home, with tears on Yuna's pale cheeks to match my own, Pops scolded me for getting mud on my new dress and dried Yuna's tears because she didn't have a father to do it for her.
I felt angry as the soft texture of my dress became coarse with salt water from the ocean, and then scared at the same time when Yuna told me not to look down at my knee because the rocks had torn the skin and an unfamiliar red had left trails down my leg.
I remember the feeling of water lapping against our calves as we dipped the material into the water, using rough soap that hardly had any suds, to wash my dress. I remembered the funny smile and the green eyes, and then knew for sure that I want to play with the boy with shaggy, blond hair again –even if he pushes me in the mud.
Looking back now, it is easy for me to say that Gippal and I became friends and enemies at the same time.
Gippal
3
There isn't much that I care to remember from my childhood. The things that usually stuck out the most for me was repairing machina, a wicked scar that slashed across my arm from playing with shuriken when old man Cid told me not to, and tons of lectures. The embarrassing thing is, I can remember the stupid little nothings of everyday life in Besaid…
Our clothes are wet and itchy against our skin where the saltwater has made it harden roughly. The chaffing of it reminds me of the Old man's constant nagging: sometimes it is harder to ignore than other times, especially when his words come close to scratching me like brambles. He gets especially agitated when he sees me with Rikku though, and it gives me a small thrill to know that years of pranks could not affect him as my company to his daughter does.
Old man Cid is always warning Rikku not to "associate with the likes of that ruffian" –whatever that means –but she never listens.
But, I like it when others dislike me because it gives me a title, it means that I'm something close to dangerous, and that satisfies me a little bit more than it should, I think. Rikku doesn't mind because she's something close to daring, which is almost like being dangerous.
That is why I tease her, that's why I double-dared her to dive off the cliffs with me, and that's why we're both soaking wet through and through with stupid smiles on our faces that resonate accomplishment.
I should be thinking of the small sailing boat that Cid is helping me to repair…early morning weapons practice…something, anything, except the way that Rikku's shoulder is brushing against mine as we walk. I can't help thinking that I want to hold her hand, or place my arm around her shoulders like I've seen her do with Yuna. I don't know what to do with my hands, so I tug one of her braids a bit too roughly and sprint forwards, knowing that she'll chase after me. I'm older than her by a year, and my twelve-year-old speed will guarantee that she won't catch up to me until we reach the stone steps of the temple where Yuna is waiting.
What can I say? I was something close to dangerous, but I was nothing close to courageous.
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