Crys looked over at Laya and smiled. She returned his friendly expression with a coy grin while rubbing the back of her neck both nervously and habitually. She knew he was making eyes at her, and she had to admit that she rather liked the attention. Growing up in cryogenic sleep was something of an oxymoron, since it wasn't the usual kind of "growing up" every other child experiences. Once every so often, though, her protectors would wake her up for brief periods, so that over the last 1,000 years she'd aged from 4 years old to 15. It wasn't what anyone could call a true childhood. Now she was no longer bound to her secluded safe haven beneath the whirlpool in Aridia, freed by Crys no Satera, Prince of the Kingdom of Landen, who was only a few years older than Laya. Both of them were royalty, and both of them had been too busy with their abnormal adolescence―Crys growing up spending his time training for war and subsequently joining it, and Laya prolonging her lonely, isolated childhood over a millennium―to pay attention to the opposite sex. Now they were very much stuck together and not by choice, either.
Not that they were complaining.
It was another of life's little ironies, that the first time either of them were sent out into the great wide world―make that worldship―on their own, their human companion was someone of the right age and right sexual compatibility. Destiny? Perhaps, and it certainly felt that way to the pair of starry-eyed teenagers, yet neither of them had bothered to make the initial move since they met a handful of days earlier.
Speaking of stars, the view out the spacecraft headed to Dahlia was phenomenal. Romantic, even. Crys almost wished he didn't have his two "chaperons" in tow, the always-faithful androids Mieu and Wren, who made getting closer to Laya nearly impossible. Though the two androids might have been under his command, they were also there to look out for his interests. Crys was sure that didn't include much alone time with Laya, since they were to act as team members fighting for a common good on a quest to save their worldship, not as lovers. Admittedly, Crys hadn't tried anything with Laya, so he was only guessing on what they could and couldn't do together based on his battle training. There wasn't any romance in that, anyway, so why would there be love in actual battle?
He continued to smile as he turned his attention from the lovely, blonde Laya, sitting across the aisle in the small ship, to the window on his side. Mieu was sitting directly between him and the window. She slowly cocked a wizened, red eyebrow while looking at his smitten expression; Crys was unable to avoid her gaze while trying to take in the view of the heavens. She wore a wry-but-friendly grin and shook her head slightly at the prince.
"You know," began the ruby-haired android, amused, "I remember while traveling with your father on the ship to Azura that he also…"
"Mieu," whined Crys, "don't mention Dad again, please." Crys was reminded of the second reason why he hadn't pursued Laya presently. "Yes, I get it. Dad fell madly in love with Mom on the trip to Azura." He was thankful for the noisy cabin, so that he wasn't worried anything he had to say might be overheard by Laya. Crys continued in a dramatic tone, putting his hand over his heart, "It was the stars and the anticipation of finding a new home and the exotic looks of Mom compared to Layan women…" he trailed off in a groan and rolled his eyes. King Ayn was much more sentimental than Crys; in fact, it was almost embarrassing how lovey-dovey his father was. He wondered why his mother had put up with it all these years, as she was the more serious of his two parents. It worked for them, however, if their success as King and Queen of Landen and their horde of children―Crys the eldest of nine―were any indication.
Mieu rested her elbow on the arm of her seat and put her head in her hand, staring at Crys warmly but inquisitively. After a moment of quiet contemplation, she urged, "Sit next to her."
"No. This is a diplomatic trip to Dahlia, not a first date."
Mieu snorted. "That didn't stop your father, and he was on his way to stop Siren's reign in Azura, not to make friends."
Crys slapped his forehead and leaned back into his seat. "Back then Dad would have hit on anything at any time, probably. I bet he hit on cousin Thea."
"Yep," Mieu confirmed. Crys winced.
"Ugh!" groaned Crys. "I really didn't need to know that."
"What?" shrugged Mieu. "Thea is only his second cousin, which mean she only shares…"
"Don't finish that, Mieu!" pleaded Crys as he put his hand over her mouth.
Mieu swatted his hand away. "Good grief, you sure do have some hangups about relationships, don't you? I would hope for your sake you're never in what was your father's position of having two very different women close to his age as teammates. You wouldn't know what to do with yourself, Crys!" She looked up and continued nostalgically, "He was always such a gentleman to both your mother and Princess Thea, despite how harrowing our journey was and how dire the situation was with both his own people and Queen Sari's kingdom."
Yes, that was admirable, Crys thought proudly of his father. All right, so maybe it was only he who was putting pressure on himself to keep Laya at arm's length and treat her as more a comrade than a potential love interest. Mieu kept reminiscing about Ayn's journey of 20 years prior, and Wren wouldn't care what Crys did with Laya as long as the android was equipped properly for battle. If love could get in the way of that, then Crys might as well let the Alisa III fall into the fireball Siren had steered them towards. Plus, Wren wasn't even in the cabin right now. Still, now it was plain awkward to get cozy with Laya, with Mieu being right there, even if she promised to turn off her optical sensors and recorder. Would there ever be a good time to have at least a nice talk with the Layan royal, though?
With a nudge to Crys's arm and a nod towards the blonde archer, Mieu made it abundantly clear that she wouldn't leave well enough alone until Laya was sitting in Crys's lap running her fingers through his hair, or at least that was the mental image Crys came up with. It was a nice image. He grinned stupidly at his own visualization until Mieu finally had enough and shoved him with a thrust of her boot heel to his side, sending him without warning out of his seat and into the aisle, beside Laya.
Laya jumped slightly at the sudden arrival of Crys under her feet. "Um, hello? Nice of you to, uh, drop by for a visit, Prince,"she joked, offering him a hand. He refused politely, coolly rising to his feet on his own and gesturing to the seat next to her. "Of course," she agreed happily, watching him take the seat and turn towards her with a toothy grin. She began absentmindedly rubbing the back of her neck again. Was she still glowing? She tried stealthily looking down at herself to observe her peculiar luminescence, an effect from cryo-slumber. To her chagrin, she confirmed she was still giving off a faint blue aura anywhere there was exposed skin. As if she needed to be more of an odd bird, being a 1,004 year old artifact and having the same name as her sister was strange enough without the glowing epidermis. Pimples? She'd gladly take them. Couldn't she have some other, normal skin problems for a girl of her age? She could only imagine what she'd look like on her wedding night at this rate. Honey, I'm a damned lights show in bed. Literally! Yeah, that would go over really well, certainly. She wondered what Crys thought of her aura.
"Hey, Princess," Crys broke Laya's reverie, startling her a bit.
"Oh, please don't call me Princess, Prince Crys. Ha! That's a mouthful, huh? 'Princess, Prince Crys!' Say that five times fast!" she chuckled at her nonsensical interruption. She cleared her throat. "I hate it. I hate it so much. I have no real kingdom anymore, I never wanted a kingdom, I never wanted to live underground on ice for a thousand years being raised by books and a throng of old men, I never…"
"Laya?" Crys stopped Laya's rambling, putting a hand on her shoulder. "It's all right. I won't use Princess, and you can call me Crys. Like friends!" his voice cracked on the word 'friends.'
"Okay!" Laya replied enthusiastically, then immediately grimaced at her over-eagerness. "I've never really had a friend before. Well, except for a pet rappy I had once. But then I had to go back to cryostasis and the next time I woke up he'd already been dead for fifty years." The accompanying lull turned Laya pale from its awkwardness. What in the world had she just said? Her hand immediately went to her neck.
Crys stared blankly at Laya. "I'm… sorry?" he struggled to think of anything more sympathetic to say.
"Oh, it's not a big deal," Laya attempted to minimize her earlier statement. "After all, we Layans also eat rappies for breakfast!" Oh, what a wonderful bit of conversation, Laya thought sarcastically as she chastised herself for managing to add more spice to her stew of weird conversation. She wilted in her seat, looking down shamefully at her lap and wished Wren would emerge from the cockpit and tell them to prepare for landing.
Suddenly Crys laughed. Laya was taken aback at first, feeling rather injured at his audacity to make fun of her, but he didn't appear to be laughing because she was making a fool of herself.
Between attempts to quit his guffawing, Crys put a kind arm around Laya and patted her shoulder, telling her, "I had a pet blink once," he chortled, wiping away a mirthful tear, "and… oh yeah, you probably don't know that's a robot… Anyway, he was like a giant, flying eyeball, but his processors were so buggy and no one in Landen knew how to fix him. So he'd fly into things all the time. One time it was right into the back of my sister's head, but Sabrina is just like my mom, ready to defend herself at a moment's notice. She instantly spun around and whacked poor Bonky right into the stairs, smashing him into a thousand pieces. I rushed into the hallway to see what was left of Bonky, shouting at my sister for being so rough with him. She replied, 'Well, keep your eye on him once in a while!' and just then, what was left of Bonky's big optic turned on and flashed a light, right next to Sabrina's feet. She screamed like she'd seen Orakio's ghost, ran upstairs and didn't come down for the rest of the afternoon!" He erupted into more laughter and recounted other tales of growing up with his big family. Laya was enthralled, envious of Crys's family as she daydreamed of having siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins of her own.
"I wish I had a brother," she interrupted during one of his stories.
"Pfft," Crys dismissed. "No, you don't. Trust me."
Laya looked at Crys curiously. "Why not?"
"Because they do this!" he answered with a sudden, crazed expression, putting her in a headlock and giving her a noogie.
Laya squealed in surprise. At first she had no clue how to react, but after a moment of pondering what the prince was doing to her, she found herself enjoying Crys's rough playfulness. She joined him in laughter as she sent her fingers into his sides, tickling him until he was forced to let go of her. She could have stopped once Crys had freed her from his grip, but something in her snapped. She'd never had so much fun before, so she leaned into him even more, ignoring his pleas between uncontrolled chuckling for her to stop, until he fought back, sending them both to the floor of the cabin in a frenzied ball of roughhousing fun. At one point Crys tackled Laya, put her in a hold she couldn't escape from and stood up, flinging her over a shoulder and carrying her down the aisle.
"Laya," his voice boomed theatrically, "I do take thee as my wife, to have and to hold… "
"Oh no, thous dost not, fair Prince, taketh me anywhere!" she giggled as she bobbed upside-down in his arms while staring at his back. She used her strange position to her advantage, pulling up his shirt and blowing a raspberry on his side. She didn't even know what a raspberry was, but she still felt compelled to try one out, anyway. It caught the prince off-guard, made him drop her, and sent him to his knees as Laya attempted to flee in the opposite direction down the aisle.
"Get back here!" Crys laughed again, twirling around and grabbing Laya by the ankle. She couldn't quit her happy shrieks as she was tripped and dragged across the floor back to Crys. The cycle of chasing, tickling and tumbling went on for several minutes. Even Wren left his post as copilot momentarily to see what the ruckus was all about. Unamused, as always, he merely asked Mieu if they were hurting each other, and once he received the reply no, he left the two frolicking youngsters back in Mieu's ward without further comment.
"So much for gazing longingly at each other," Mieu sighed as she watched Crys and Laya roll past her once again, calling each other juvenile nicknames. "It's a different ride every generation," she told the stars out the window and chuckled.
Author's Note: I made fun of the issue of marriage quite a bit, I realize, but I feel somewhat justified, as the third generation characters aren't forced to participate in Choose-A-Bride at the end of their journey. Laya's personality in this story comes from her being sent to cryostasis at a very young age. There's not a given age for the start of her cryo-sleep in the game; she only says she was put on ice when she was "very young." Somewhere out there, there's a Sega resource (I think) that says that she was awoken periodically during her cryo-sleep so that she would mature, but I don't remember her starting age. Toyo Ozaki's character book has her listed as age 15, and Crys as 18. It's a bit young for my taste, but all of the main characters aside from Ryan are young. In any event, Laya's "upbringing" might make her personality a bit strange, methinks. Since I'd rather not believe she's the most mature 15 year-old ever, as a perfectly perfect demigoddess, I think she might be a delightfully awkward character. Maybe not a good romantic option, but still lots of fun. Of all the third generation heroes, I think Crys would handle "fun" better than the others. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. :p