Braska, needless to say, was in somewhat of a pickle.
The Summoner, Warrior Monk, and oddball Blitzballer who made up a pilgrimage group on their way to Zanarkand had recently decided it might be wise to stop for the night. The sun was fading rapidly over the rolling hills of the Calm Lands, casting Spira in gentle orangey-red hues.
Jecht, placed abysmally on stick duty, had been sent out to locate sufficient fuel for a fire: not an easy task, since trees were sparse on the expansive savannahs of the Calm Lands. Auron was occupied in setting up the tents and digging up a nice fire pit. And Braska, summarily relieved from duty by both of his compatriots – mainly Auron, who'd felt the Summoner needn't worry himself with such menial tasks – was merely wandering about, taking in the nice scenery.
Or, rather, he had been. Until the hapless Bevellian had fallen face first into what seemed to be a small, shallow hole. This would not have been such a worry had the hole been composed only of dirt: in this case, however, Braska found himself coated in a thick, viscous fluid, rather like mucus. With a shriek of disgust he clambered out of the pit.
Brushing long threads of goop from his face, Braska wondered abysmally if that little trip had spelled his doom. Spira was, if one did not keep an eye out, very dangerous, and held many secrets: for all he knew, Braska may well have just plopped straight into a Fiend that would enter his body through the mucus and attack his cells. The thought filled Braska with dread, and he flailed about on the ground, ruing for once his overactive imagination.
In little time, Auron, who had been carefully pounding away at a tent peg, heard Braska's cries. His head flew up – just as his hammer went down, crushing one of his fingers quite nicely – and he gazed about, instantly alert to the absence of his ward. Auron was already on his feet, yelling out in a panic for Braska, before the pain registered in his finger, though he hadn't a clue as to what caused it. "Treachery!" He bellowed, collapsing and grasping his hand momentarily.
The moment passed quickly. Hammer forgotten, Auron snatched up his sword from nearby – albeit rather gingerly, as his finger still throbbed – and took off at a mighty gallop, homing in on the cries of his distressed companion. "Where are you, my lord?" He called out.
Braska waved a stringy hand, beckoning to Auron from the tall grass surrounding him. Greater amounts of panic were beginning to set in, as he could feel the colourless slime coating his clothes and face begin to set. And he had no intention of being the newest candidate for a wax museum.
Auron waded through the grass in desperation, arm already outstretched to aid his beleaguered comrade. "My lord, what's wrong? Tell me quickly!"
Braska grabbed a tight hold of the proffered hand and rose with a mighty tug from Auron. "I fell into a pit of slime, I'm not sure what it might do to me." With an accusatory finger he jabbed at the pit, as though the predicament was solely caused by it, and not his short sightedness in watching the path he carved across the plain.
Auron neared the thick pool, eying it cautiously. "You are not hurt, my lord?"
Braska shook his head. "No, I don't appear to be. But I would enjoy getting this. . . stuff, off of me." He cocked an eyebrow, albeit with some difficulty, as the slime gelled on his face. "You can let go of me now, Auron."
The Warrior Monk, somewhat abashed, realized that he was still holding Braka's dripping hand. He released his grip.
That, unfortunately, did nothing.
"Auron? I said you can let go."
Auron, a little confused, attempted to tug his hand away. It held fast. He couldn't even twitch his fingers. "Uh. . ."
Braska was beginning to clue into the difficulty. He, too, attempted to retrieve his hand, with equal amounts of success. "This. . . is not good, is it?"
Auron did not answer. Instead, he tried another mighty heave – which accidentally sent the much lighter Summoner flying into his half jacketed chest. He could feel the goo solidly adhere to his body.
They looked at each other, faces separated by mere centimetres and both doing their best to keep it that way. "Oh dear Yevon," Auron growled, rather exasperated. Despite his usually level temper, Braska did not look much happier, clearly quite cross. His brow had furrowed in fury, and he was now very put out upon realizing that it would not un-furrow itself upon command.
---
Jecht, oblivious to it all, was off in the field, a very small bundle of sticks gathered amongst his bare, muscular arms. He was half daydreaming, half dwelling on the fact that the Calm Lands were so stupidly huge, and wholly not paying attention to his task – the fact that he daintily snapped a twig underfoot without so much as noticing the sharp snap it elicited made this fact known.
As his mind travelled far and wide, it settled on something he had learned earlier in the day, just before he and the other two stooges had left a small way station positioned out in the middle of the prairie: the man had warned Jecht that there were, out in the midst of the Lands, things known as "glue drops". Nobody really knew what caused them,, but there had been speculation that the gooey substance – which made for an incredibly powerful adhesive, given some time to dry – was, indeed, another form that unsent took when they had nothing better to do with their day but flit about and annoy people.
Jecht had largely waved the man off. He wasn't stupid enough to find himself knee deep in glue. Nobody in his little entourage – for he was indeed egotistical enough to think, in less frantic times, that Braska and Auron were his cronies, not vice versa – could fall for such a thing.
Unlike the first time, he heard the next snap underfoot, cursed, and gathered up the shattered remnants of his handiwork regardless. Needless to say, the professional Blitzballer was mighty sick of looking for twigs.
---
Now both Auron and Braska were, so to speak, immersed in the pickle. They were so far beyond the pickle that a more substantial vegetable, such as a stalk of celery or a head of lettuce, may have been more appropriate.
Talk of food aside, it occurred to Auron that he and Braska were only getting into more and more trouble every time they moved. The structural integrity of whatever Braska had fallen into only tightened as time passed. Their bodies were now – rather lewdly, in fact – stuck together, from the midsection of their chests down to bottom tip of their stomachs. Happily enough, they found their hips and everything below independent of sticking, and did whatever they could to keep things that way. Braska's left hand and Auron's right were, of course, still welded together – along with most of their forearms – and bent at the elbow, hands pointed skywards while everything north of the elbow ran parallel with their shoulders. Their other arms, still freed, remained rather adamantly swung behind their backs.
Neither spoke. What was there to say, really? Both were trying desperately to formulate some kind of plan while avoiding the rather embarrassing implications of the situation.
Eventually, Auron came to some kind of idea. "Um. . . okay, let's see. I think, maybe, if we both pull in opposite directions, we can weaken the. . . strength of this. . . stuff? Maybe?" He tried valiantly to shrug.
Braska knew the plan was weak. Every fibre of his being screamed towards that fact being wholly true. What a boneheaded idea. But what else was he to do? "Alright, if you think we can get apart. . . shall we do it on three. . .? And where shall we start?"
Auron considered this a moment. "The chest. I think. Make as though you're falling back, and push hard. That. . . might just do it. And yes, on three." He swallowed hard.
Out of silent agreement, Braska started the count. "One."
Auron's eyebrow twitched. He couldn't help it.
"Two."
Braska grimaced inwardly. The slime prevented him from doing much of it outwardly.
"Three."
They both attempted to fall back.
Tragically, it did not work. Boy, did it not work.
Both men had fair reactions, and their instincts automatically told them to grab a hold of something. Neither could betray this instinct. They simultaneously "whoa"ed and drove their free arms around the only pillars of support available – each other's backs. This brought their heads into close contact, and the men just barely managed to avoid locking lips: instead, Braska found his jaw neatly attached to Auron's shoulder, and vice versa. The loud rasp of suction instantly alerted each partner of the embrace to the fact that their arms, newly grasped around one another's back, weren't going anywhere.
This new predicament elicited a joint groan of dismay.
---
Jecht absentmindedly picked his nose, flinging the contents off into the brush.
---
Braska had a vested interest in getting away from this problem he'd literally stumbled into. He was a Summoner: any minute now, somebody could come along, and his already tarnished reputation – for consortation with an Al Bhed – would get even worse.
Auron, on the other hand, simply did not want Jecht showing up in the middle of it all. He could hear the tattooed man's jibes already.
Fortuitously enough, he already had a new plan, for the though of Jecht finding the two of them in such close quarters pushed his creative mind into overdrive.
"Okay, I remember there being a small lake being near here. Maybe we should try and. . . wash it of, or something. Maybe the water will make it more pliable. . .?"
Braska merely nodded – or tried to, anyway – and asked the ever-important question, "How are we supposed to get to it?"
Auron started to say something, then stopped slowly. He puzzled over the thought a moment. How indeed? They couldn't just walk to it normally, of course, as their bodies were somewhat welded together at current. But, maybe. . .
"Okay, it's not too hard: we just have to shimmy our way. Very slowly, and keep our legs apart. We can do a one-two count, too, so we can make sure to keep our legs in sync."
"Very well. . . allow us to implement the plan, such as it is." Braska's irritability was simply scathing, and Auron winced.
So they started off. Following Auron's murmured "one, two, one, two", the duo slowly shuffled their way through the grass, keeping to the path both men had trampled through the environs – regardless, grass continually stuck to Braska's legs, and he was soon dragging a veritable field on his pants.
They shimmied for a minute before Auron called for a halt. Which way was the water, again. . .? He thought about it momentarily. Braska, relying upon his oft excellent memory, recalled it being to the south, and began to move in that direction, dragging Auron along with him. They began to argue over this a bit, and eventually, very carefully, a sort of directional duel began, one that overcame the general hierarchical positioning of Summoner over Guardian as Auron constantly contested Braska's commands. This, naturally, got them nowhere, and the pair began to move in a roughly square pattern, one man trying to pull the other in one direction and both refusing to yield ground. So around they went, sweaty and frustrated, hand in hand, arms around one another, heads on each other's shoulder.
And that was how Jecht found them. He saw them squaring off as he was approaching from some distance off, and his initial summation of their predicament would have been, to any casual observer in his situation, perfectly acceptable.
"Why the hell're they dancing?"
For that is exactly what they appeared to be doing: a very formal, controlled dance. Their forced closeness looked incredibly intimate, as though Auron and Braska were a pair of lovers sharing a close moment together. From his position, Jecht could hardly be expected to hear their colourful language, or Braska's surprisingly numerous epithets.
---
"Damnable piece of Sin drool! When we get out of this, I swear-"
"Oh yes? Oh yes? I'll use my influence to get you left in the Bikanel desert for life, just watch me-"
The epic battle was interrupted by one mighty, completely recognizable bellow. Carried far on the wind, it managed to reach back to the man at the way station, who had no choice but to deny the application of the word to himself, even though nobody was around to tell him off in the first place, nor hear his rejoinder.
"Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaags!"
Both men stopped, dead cold, in their tracks. Auron spun Braska bodily around so he could witness, over the Summoner's shoulder, that which he already knew was happening: they'd been caught.
The bellow resounded again, far more loudly this time, which was a considerable triumph on the part of Jecht's vocal cords.
Auron, attempting to protest, began to move forward and intercept Jecht: but with little more than a shouted warning and curse from Braska, their legs flew together – thus completing the whole miserable scene – and they collapsed with a loud "whuff" into the grass, Auron on top.
By this point, Jecht had already realized something other than two out-of- the-closet men being discovered dancing was transpiring. But he simply couldn't help himself. Approaching the cursing heap of Summoner and Guardian, he crouched at their side.
"Auron's on top? Man, I woulda figured he'd be the receiver, not the giver. Guess that makes Braska there his bi-"
A wild string of colourful curses and threats silenced Jecht's tongue, but hardly stopped him from laughing wildly.
---
Fortuitously enough, water had managed to weaken the goop enough that Jecht could get his sword between the hapless duo and, essentially, pry them apart. Miserable and damp, the two men had immediately jumped their mocking cohort, demanding that he never tell a soul about what he'd seen, on pain of death. For Auron, it was a matter of pride: and as for Braska, well, he did not feel like becoming Spira's first gay Summoner.
The Summoner, Warrior Monk, and oddball Blitzballer who made up a pilgrimage group on their way to Zanarkand had recently decided it might be wise to stop for the night. The sun was fading rapidly over the rolling hills of the Calm Lands, casting Spira in gentle orangey-red hues.
Jecht, placed abysmally on stick duty, had been sent out to locate sufficient fuel for a fire: not an easy task, since trees were sparse on the expansive savannahs of the Calm Lands. Auron was occupied in setting up the tents and digging up a nice fire pit. And Braska, summarily relieved from duty by both of his compatriots – mainly Auron, who'd felt the Summoner needn't worry himself with such menial tasks – was merely wandering about, taking in the nice scenery.
Or, rather, he had been. Until the hapless Bevellian had fallen face first into what seemed to be a small, shallow hole. This would not have been such a worry had the hole been composed only of dirt: in this case, however, Braska found himself coated in a thick, viscous fluid, rather like mucus. With a shriek of disgust he clambered out of the pit.
Brushing long threads of goop from his face, Braska wondered abysmally if that little trip had spelled his doom. Spira was, if one did not keep an eye out, very dangerous, and held many secrets: for all he knew, Braska may well have just plopped straight into a Fiend that would enter his body through the mucus and attack his cells. The thought filled Braska with dread, and he flailed about on the ground, ruing for once his overactive imagination.
In little time, Auron, who had been carefully pounding away at a tent peg, heard Braska's cries. His head flew up – just as his hammer went down, crushing one of his fingers quite nicely – and he gazed about, instantly alert to the absence of his ward. Auron was already on his feet, yelling out in a panic for Braska, before the pain registered in his finger, though he hadn't a clue as to what caused it. "Treachery!" He bellowed, collapsing and grasping his hand momentarily.
The moment passed quickly. Hammer forgotten, Auron snatched up his sword from nearby – albeit rather gingerly, as his finger still throbbed – and took off at a mighty gallop, homing in on the cries of his distressed companion. "Where are you, my lord?" He called out.
Braska waved a stringy hand, beckoning to Auron from the tall grass surrounding him. Greater amounts of panic were beginning to set in, as he could feel the colourless slime coating his clothes and face begin to set. And he had no intention of being the newest candidate for a wax museum.
Auron waded through the grass in desperation, arm already outstretched to aid his beleaguered comrade. "My lord, what's wrong? Tell me quickly!"
Braska grabbed a tight hold of the proffered hand and rose with a mighty tug from Auron. "I fell into a pit of slime, I'm not sure what it might do to me." With an accusatory finger he jabbed at the pit, as though the predicament was solely caused by it, and not his short sightedness in watching the path he carved across the plain.
Auron neared the thick pool, eying it cautiously. "You are not hurt, my lord?"
Braska shook his head. "No, I don't appear to be. But I would enjoy getting this. . . stuff, off of me." He cocked an eyebrow, albeit with some difficulty, as the slime gelled on his face. "You can let go of me now, Auron."
The Warrior Monk, somewhat abashed, realized that he was still holding Braka's dripping hand. He released his grip.
That, unfortunately, did nothing.
"Auron? I said you can let go."
Auron, a little confused, attempted to tug his hand away. It held fast. He couldn't even twitch his fingers. "Uh. . ."
Braska was beginning to clue into the difficulty. He, too, attempted to retrieve his hand, with equal amounts of success. "This. . . is not good, is it?"
Auron did not answer. Instead, he tried another mighty heave – which accidentally sent the much lighter Summoner flying into his half jacketed chest. He could feel the goo solidly adhere to his body.
They looked at each other, faces separated by mere centimetres and both doing their best to keep it that way. "Oh dear Yevon," Auron growled, rather exasperated. Despite his usually level temper, Braska did not look much happier, clearly quite cross. His brow had furrowed in fury, and he was now very put out upon realizing that it would not un-furrow itself upon command.
---
Jecht, oblivious to it all, was off in the field, a very small bundle of sticks gathered amongst his bare, muscular arms. He was half daydreaming, half dwelling on the fact that the Calm Lands were so stupidly huge, and wholly not paying attention to his task – the fact that he daintily snapped a twig underfoot without so much as noticing the sharp snap it elicited made this fact known.
As his mind travelled far and wide, it settled on something he had learned earlier in the day, just before he and the other two stooges had left a small way station positioned out in the middle of the prairie: the man had warned Jecht that there were, out in the midst of the Lands, things known as "glue drops". Nobody really knew what caused them,, but there had been speculation that the gooey substance – which made for an incredibly powerful adhesive, given some time to dry – was, indeed, another form that unsent took when they had nothing better to do with their day but flit about and annoy people.
Jecht had largely waved the man off. He wasn't stupid enough to find himself knee deep in glue. Nobody in his little entourage – for he was indeed egotistical enough to think, in less frantic times, that Braska and Auron were his cronies, not vice versa – could fall for such a thing.
Unlike the first time, he heard the next snap underfoot, cursed, and gathered up the shattered remnants of his handiwork regardless. Needless to say, the professional Blitzballer was mighty sick of looking for twigs.
---
Now both Auron and Braska were, so to speak, immersed in the pickle. They were so far beyond the pickle that a more substantial vegetable, such as a stalk of celery or a head of lettuce, may have been more appropriate.
Talk of food aside, it occurred to Auron that he and Braska were only getting into more and more trouble every time they moved. The structural integrity of whatever Braska had fallen into only tightened as time passed. Their bodies were now – rather lewdly, in fact – stuck together, from the midsection of their chests down to bottom tip of their stomachs. Happily enough, they found their hips and everything below independent of sticking, and did whatever they could to keep things that way. Braska's left hand and Auron's right were, of course, still welded together – along with most of their forearms – and bent at the elbow, hands pointed skywards while everything north of the elbow ran parallel with their shoulders. Their other arms, still freed, remained rather adamantly swung behind their backs.
Neither spoke. What was there to say, really? Both were trying desperately to formulate some kind of plan while avoiding the rather embarrassing implications of the situation.
Eventually, Auron came to some kind of idea. "Um. . . okay, let's see. I think, maybe, if we both pull in opposite directions, we can weaken the. . . strength of this. . . stuff? Maybe?" He tried valiantly to shrug.
Braska knew the plan was weak. Every fibre of his being screamed towards that fact being wholly true. What a boneheaded idea. But what else was he to do? "Alright, if you think we can get apart. . . shall we do it on three. . .? And where shall we start?"
Auron considered this a moment. "The chest. I think. Make as though you're falling back, and push hard. That. . . might just do it. And yes, on three." He swallowed hard.
Out of silent agreement, Braska started the count. "One."
Auron's eyebrow twitched. He couldn't help it.
"Two."
Braska grimaced inwardly. The slime prevented him from doing much of it outwardly.
"Three."
They both attempted to fall back.
Tragically, it did not work. Boy, did it not work.
Both men had fair reactions, and their instincts automatically told them to grab a hold of something. Neither could betray this instinct. They simultaneously "whoa"ed and drove their free arms around the only pillars of support available – each other's backs. This brought their heads into close contact, and the men just barely managed to avoid locking lips: instead, Braska found his jaw neatly attached to Auron's shoulder, and vice versa. The loud rasp of suction instantly alerted each partner of the embrace to the fact that their arms, newly grasped around one another's back, weren't going anywhere.
This new predicament elicited a joint groan of dismay.
---
Jecht absentmindedly picked his nose, flinging the contents off into the brush.
---
Braska had a vested interest in getting away from this problem he'd literally stumbled into. He was a Summoner: any minute now, somebody could come along, and his already tarnished reputation – for consortation with an Al Bhed – would get even worse.
Auron, on the other hand, simply did not want Jecht showing up in the middle of it all. He could hear the tattooed man's jibes already.
Fortuitously enough, he already had a new plan, for the though of Jecht finding the two of them in such close quarters pushed his creative mind into overdrive.
"Okay, I remember there being a small lake being near here. Maybe we should try and. . . wash it of, or something. Maybe the water will make it more pliable. . .?"
Braska merely nodded – or tried to, anyway – and asked the ever-important question, "How are we supposed to get to it?"
Auron started to say something, then stopped slowly. He puzzled over the thought a moment. How indeed? They couldn't just walk to it normally, of course, as their bodies were somewhat welded together at current. But, maybe. . .
"Okay, it's not too hard: we just have to shimmy our way. Very slowly, and keep our legs apart. We can do a one-two count, too, so we can make sure to keep our legs in sync."
"Very well. . . allow us to implement the plan, such as it is." Braska's irritability was simply scathing, and Auron winced.
So they started off. Following Auron's murmured "one, two, one, two", the duo slowly shuffled their way through the grass, keeping to the path both men had trampled through the environs – regardless, grass continually stuck to Braska's legs, and he was soon dragging a veritable field on his pants.
They shimmied for a minute before Auron called for a halt. Which way was the water, again. . .? He thought about it momentarily. Braska, relying upon his oft excellent memory, recalled it being to the south, and began to move in that direction, dragging Auron along with him. They began to argue over this a bit, and eventually, very carefully, a sort of directional duel began, one that overcame the general hierarchical positioning of Summoner over Guardian as Auron constantly contested Braska's commands. This, naturally, got them nowhere, and the pair began to move in a roughly square pattern, one man trying to pull the other in one direction and both refusing to yield ground. So around they went, sweaty and frustrated, hand in hand, arms around one another, heads on each other's shoulder.
And that was how Jecht found them. He saw them squaring off as he was approaching from some distance off, and his initial summation of their predicament would have been, to any casual observer in his situation, perfectly acceptable.
"Why the hell're they dancing?"
For that is exactly what they appeared to be doing: a very formal, controlled dance. Their forced closeness looked incredibly intimate, as though Auron and Braska were a pair of lovers sharing a close moment together. From his position, Jecht could hardly be expected to hear their colourful language, or Braska's surprisingly numerous epithets.
---
"Damnable piece of Sin drool! When we get out of this, I swear-"
"Oh yes? Oh yes? I'll use my influence to get you left in the Bikanel desert for life, just watch me-"
The epic battle was interrupted by one mighty, completely recognizable bellow. Carried far on the wind, it managed to reach back to the man at the way station, who had no choice but to deny the application of the word to himself, even though nobody was around to tell him off in the first place, nor hear his rejoinder.
"Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaags!"
Both men stopped, dead cold, in their tracks. Auron spun Braska bodily around so he could witness, over the Summoner's shoulder, that which he already knew was happening: they'd been caught.
The bellow resounded again, far more loudly this time, which was a considerable triumph on the part of Jecht's vocal cords.
Auron, attempting to protest, began to move forward and intercept Jecht: but with little more than a shouted warning and curse from Braska, their legs flew together – thus completing the whole miserable scene – and they collapsed with a loud "whuff" into the grass, Auron on top.
By this point, Jecht had already realized something other than two out-of- the-closet men being discovered dancing was transpiring. But he simply couldn't help himself. Approaching the cursing heap of Summoner and Guardian, he crouched at their side.
"Auron's on top? Man, I woulda figured he'd be the receiver, not the giver. Guess that makes Braska there his bi-"
A wild string of colourful curses and threats silenced Jecht's tongue, but hardly stopped him from laughing wildly.
---
Fortuitously enough, water had managed to weaken the goop enough that Jecht could get his sword between the hapless duo and, essentially, pry them apart. Miserable and damp, the two men had immediately jumped their mocking cohort, demanding that he never tell a soul about what he'd seen, on pain of death. For Auron, it was a matter of pride: and as for Braska, well, he did not feel like becoming Spira's first gay Summoner.