Get Lost

by Chronic Guardian

A/N: Written for the Twelve Shots of Summer, Week 11(Maze Navigation)

Every year, in the land of Jylland, through the month of Goldsun, there happened in the town of Camoa a celebration of the summer's harvest. As was common practice, clanners would be hired out to help staff such an event in order to achieve the greatest experience possible. Despite this connection, many clans would only spend enough time in the area to drop off their loaned members before heading out again to accomplish further quests.

It was one such clan, Clan Gully, that one fateful year decided to stick around and see what the festival had to offer.

After that year, they paid full reparations for the damages and never attended again.

This is that tale.

"But we never hang around!" Luso pleaded, tugging on Cid's sleeves as the tall Rev relentlessly strode on through the streets of Camoa, ignoring the vibrant jubilation of the Great Land Festival. "C'mon! It'll be fun!"

"No," Cid answered curtly, his long, brown ears twitched in annoyance. "We have things to do and places to be, Luso. A clan can't make a living off of luxury."

Beside them, a silver haired Hume girl with a red ribbon binding her high-ponytail giggled. "Aw... you're such a stick in the mud, Cid. Let Luso have his fun, why don't ya? I mean, He'll be bugging us all the way to Grazton if he doesn't get what he wants here."

"Stay out of this, Adelle," the Rev ordered, pointing one of his enormous fingers her way for emphasis. "You don't care where we end up half the time so long as you get a kick out of it. I'm trying to look out for the clan here. Besides, I'm the leader."

"Not for the past few months you weren't," the young woman, Adelle, pointed out with a sly smile. "Or was it years? Hard to tell when you're having so much fun not being ordered around from place to place."

Cid snorted. "Very funny. Aren't there any other clans in the area you can sabotage for your own amusement?"

"Well, let's see..." Adelle put a finger to her lips and let her eyes drift towards the sky in thought. "None that wouldn't try to kill me for it," she answered after a moment.

"Goodness, and we aren't?" Cid drawled sarcastically. "Luso, why haven't we joined the fad?"

"Because it wouldn't be nice, kupo!" The fourth and final member of clan Gully's ruling circle piped up, trotting along beside the now belly-dragging Luso. "Adelle may be a kupo of a nuisance, but she's one of us, kupo. Wouldn't be a very kupo thing to turn on a fellow clanner."

"Tell that to the Khamja," Cid grunted, his hand subconsciously drifting to his still bandaged side.

"Hurdy's right!" Luso cried, still clutching the fringe on Cid's sleeve's. "You can't turn your back on a fellow clanner! We need to all stick together!"

Cid gave a cynical look over his shoulder and waited for the other boot to drop.

"Yeah, we should enjoy the festival together!" Adelle seconded, no doubt completing Luso's intended statement "How about this? If we stay and check out one attraction, then you can have Luso's share of the loot on whatever our next mission is."

"Wha—!?"

"Foolish girl," Cid cut in. "I'd already have access to Luso's share. Our clan shares its spoils in a community pool. "

"We do? Oh! I mean, yes! We do!" Adelle smiled and swung her hands behind her back innocently. "Of course we do! Every single one of us!"

The Rev groaned and ran a gloved hand through his blond hair. "How about this: if we stay and check out one attraction then you stop hoarding a twelfth of the spoils for yourself. Deal?"

Hurdy frowned and wrinkled his pink Moogle nose. "Kupo, it's more like a ninth, actually..."

Cid lowered his prominent eyebrows and gave Adelle a pointed look.

"But I won't be keeping that much for myself either!" She hastily finished, throwing her hands up defensively. "Look, can we just go to the stupid attraction already?"

"...Fine."

"YES!" Luso sprung up from the ground and hugged Cid's arm affectionately. "You're the best, Cid!"

The Rev simply looked away and stroked his forehead. "Don't make me regret this..."

As it turned out, the only attraction ready for service was the stonecumber maze, manned by a sleepy Nu Mou farmer.

"Biggest wan Ah've yit tae prodush," the doggish agrarian stated proudly out of the side of his mouth while gnawing on a cob-pipe. "Gwiranteed tae begwiul an' befoodle yae. Ah'd bit a boondle ahv litweng curstals yae kinnae soolve it wi'in the oofternoon."

"A bundle of lightwing crystals? Hah!" Luso grinned defiantly and stuck a thumb to his chest. "C'mon, Cid! Let's show this guy!"

"...He said... what, now?" Adelle asked, staring hard at the hunched farmer contentedly gumming his pipe. "Luso... maybe this isn't such a great idea."

"I'm with her, kupo!" Hurdy nodded vigorously. "This Nu Mou seems three buttons short of a nut case, kupo."

"But he's the only attraction set up," Cid sighed with crossed arms. Giving a resigned grimace, the Rev shook his head and stepped forward. "The sooner we do this the better."

"Awesome!" Luso pumped a fist in the air and rushed into the prickly labyrinth of hey-high rockhard vine-stalks. "You better have that bundle ready when I'm back here! We'll solve this in no time!"

Reluctantly, his clanmates put aside their better sense and followed.

"Right!"

A dead end full of spine covered stonecumbers.

"Left!"

About four yards before a four-way intersection.

"Right!"

A path that quickly doubled back in the direction they'd approached from.

"Luso, are you... are you sure this is how you do this, kupo?"

The brown haired boy shot a cocky grin over his shoulder as he continued to rush through the carefully pruned pathways. "'Course I do! Just alternate directions and we're sure to get somewhere. We can't be going in circles if I never give us a chance to turn that far!"

The young Moogle bard gave an exasperated groan and almost tripped face first into the pavement before Cid scooped him up onto his shoulder.

"Luso," the Rev addressed his Hume companion gently. "That would only work if every turn were our choice to make. What about the turns that aren't intersections?"

"Those are simple," Luso assured him, waving it off. "Those we don't even have to decide on."

"Oh, so you choose half and the maze chooses half, huh?" Adelle mock-speculated. "Guess that explains why we've been going in circles: the maze's been choosing terribly."

"Wait... what?!" Luso skidded to a halt and wheeled on the rest of his party. "We've been... going in circles?"

Adelle shrugged. "I thought you'd noticed."

"There's a bundle of lightwing crystals riding on this! Why would I want to go in circles?!"

"I dunno, maybe you like the look of stonecumber vine walls?"

Cid crossed his arms and interjected softly, "...Why don't you lead?"

"I am leading!" Luso cried indignantly.

"No, I meant Adelle."

The odd boy paused dumbfounded before perking up and giving the girl a challenging smirk. "Yeah, Adelle. Why don't you lead?"

"Because I don't want to bruise your stupid ego, of course," she casually remarked. Before Luso could register the insult and complain, she started moving again and cut him off. "But, if you insist, I suppose I can steer us out of here in a few ticks."

Luso stubbornly stood his ground, face beet red in wounded outrage. Leaning in, Cid put a hand on the boy's shoulder and whispered, "A bundle of lightwing crystals, Luso. A bundle of lightwings."

Struggling against his own will to be proven wronged, Luso mechanically marched after his sassy clanmate's springy step..

"...I am SO not putting up with her pub bill when we get to Grazton."

"Good luck with that one, kupo," Hurdy murmured from Cid's shoulder. "Most of the time, we're just lucky she's not trying to burn a hole in our pockets."

"Less talk, more moving, lads," Cid reminded them, slipping the Moogle off his perch. "We wouldn't want Adelle leaving us behind."

Hurdy covered his mouth and blinked his mapley brown eyes. "Kupo!" he squeaked. "Don't give her ideas!"

"We've been in here for hours," Luso murmured quietly to himself as he scribbled away in the Gran Grimoire, filling the pages with his current adventure. He'd already noted just about everything he could given the current situation; the five shades of gray the vine walls made, the dull, chalky scent they gave off, and the hazy weather conditions that were only getting worse. Of course, he was trying to fill up the book as fast as possible, so anything helped.

"What's with this anyway?" he grumbled, still trumping along after Adelle (Who also had yet to discover the exit). "Mist in the middle of summer? It's almost like—"

"—Like an enchantment! Kupo, that's it!" Hurdy cried, startling them all to a stop. "The Nu Mou! He-he must've cast confuse over the whole maze, kupo!"

"He WHAT?!" Adelle screeched, hands flying to her mouth as if she'd been scandalized.

Luso immediately dropped the Gran Grimoire and clenched his fists as he tried to discern which way was the one they'd come from. "What a swindler! C'mon, Cid! Let's—!"

"If we're going to get out of here, it's not going to be by losing our wits now," the Rev told him stoically. "We've got to get a grasp on our surroundings and make for the exit by whatever means make themselves available."

"Okay, get me up on the wall."

All eyes turned to Adelle, and none of them with a trusting look.

She shrugged. "What? I'm the more agile than Hurdy and a whole lot lighter than Luso. Plus, I'm probably the only one of us who can stand on that stonecumber wall without seriously injuring myself. All signs point to me being our candidate for scouting."

"..."

"You did say whatever means make themselves available," she reminded Cid, almost teasingly. "Well, I'm available, and we're still lost. Soo..."

"We get it," Luso sighed, shaking his head when Cid failed to respond. Putting his hands together in front of him, the boy took a power stance. "I guess I'll give you a boost. C'mere."

Adelle grinned and obligingly skipped over. Quick as a cat, she flew up Luso as if he were a human stepladder and landed daintily on the wall. Luso could've sworn she vaulted off the back of his head rather than his shoulder on purpose.

"Alright, can you see the way out?" Luso called up, rubbing the growing lump gingerly.

"...Yep."

"So? Which way is it, kupo?"

Adelle pointed south-by-southeast. A direction which shortly led to another series of walls.

"Okay, so how do we get there?"

"Beats me. All I know is how I'm getting there. Later!"

Throwing a wave and a smile down to her clanmates, Adelle promptly ran along the walltop and quickly disappeared as she circumnavigated their intended purpose.

The three clanners left stood in silence until Hurdy poked Luso.

"...You think she heard the idea?"

"What? Which idea."

"The one about leaving us, Kupo."

Cid grunted and stepped forward. "Perhaps. But I wouldn't put it past our wily acquaintance to come up with the notion on her own. Come on, lads, we've still a maze to solve, and I do believe I'm willing to solve it the easy way, given the circumstances."

"The easy way?" Luso and Hurdy shared a half-puzzled-half-worried look. "Umm... and by that you mean..."

"Stand back," Cid commanded, approaching a wall and winding up his fist. The Rev then set his feet apart, took a deep breath, and cried out as he rammed his hand into the ground.

A howling rumble shook through the maze as stonecumber vines cracked and buckled under the shock of the blow. Both letting out a startled yelp, Hurdy and Luso clung to each other and waited for the chaos to subside.

"Now, I'd suggest we away before we're noticed," Cid stated over his shoulder, stepping through his newly carved pathway.

The boy and the Moogle untangled themselves from each other and scrambled after their Rev companion.

"H-hold on!" Luso said, grabbing Cid's arm once he caught up. "You... could've done that all along, couldn't you?"

"Of course," Cid grunted. "I just didn't feel the situation was desperate enough until our wily acquaintance decided to abandon us."

"Why not?!" Luso persisted, tripping over stonecumber rubble as he kept his attention on the back of Cid's head. "I mean, there's a whole bundle of lightwings riding on this!"

"Yes, but there's also reputation to be considered. For example—"

As they exited the maze, they were met by a very miffed looking group of Bangaa wearing security garb. "Ssstop right there, ssson," their leader commanded, an odd fellow covered in tattoos and piercings. "You are hereby exssspelled from the fesstival on groundsss of property damage and unfair maze-sssolving."

"—This might happen," Cid finished, not bothering to turn to the clinking, ring covered Bangaa. "We'll be on our way then, officer," he said over his shoulder as he stalked towards the western outskirts of Camoa. "Take care."

Luso gave the glaring Bangaas a sheepish smile before stumbling after Cid. "W-wait! What about—!"

"Your precious lightwings? Or our wily acquaintance?" Cid rumbled, not breaking stride. "We'll find both on the way out."

"Huh? But... how...?"

"You really think she'd drop us there and not claim the reward?"

"...Okay, yeah, let's go."

And so happened the great banning of both Clan Gully and the Rotten Stonecumber Mazer from the great land festival. Luso still attempts to get the ruling overturned from time to time, but mostly it's just been accepted that it was all a bad idea. Especially when they found out the "lightwing crystals" they'd been promised were just painted rocks.

A/N:

Ahh... so I've been wanting to write Tactics A2 since, like, forever. Partly because I really wanted to write Adelle and Cid (probably one of my favorite dynamics ever, and totally nonromantic to boot) but also because I love the whimsy of Ivalice in general. Stonecumbers are actually my own invention. Originally it was going to be a corn maze, but then Adelle's escape wouldn't have worked out so well. Sooo... here we are!

I'll admit, I kinda wasted the potential of a maze under a confuse spell. Maybe I'll pick it up again in the future sometime... meanwhile, I suggest you hop ship and check out the other maze navigations concocted by the Twelve Shots of Summer community in this penultimate week of our challenge. As school starts for some of you and ends for others (southern hemisphere shout-out?) I pray you'll find yourselves in less confusing situations than those chronicled above.

Regards,

-CG