This is a short story I wrote while sitting at work yesterday. It is no secret to friends of mine that I am sick and tired of my work, so when I early yesterday morning sent a cell phone message to a friend, saying: "I'd rather pick up Chocobo-poo at Mi'ihen Highroad than sitting here!", the entire story came to mind.
Hope you will enjoy, reviews will be greatly appreciated.
She sat in her office, absentmindedly reading her e-mails with a cup of coffee in one hand and her head leaning against the other.
The pile of documents situated at her desk, and her inbox shining red with unread mail, was not particularly inviting. She took a sip of her coffee, feeling that the flavour and warmth of the few drops made her mood improve for the few seconds it took to swallow them.
Serina had been fed up by her work for quite a long time. The tasks that once felt challenging and interesting were now dull – dull and meaningless beyond comprehension. The sun was rising outside her window. "It should be illegal to be cooped up inside an office on a morning like this", she thought to herself, watching the stunning shades of pink and orange upon the sky.
The colours reminded her of one of the brilliant scenes in her beloved computer game, Final Fantasy X – Yuna and Tidus outside Rin's Travel Agency, looking at the stunning view created by the sun. The beauty of the sunrise outside her window, along with the thoughts of the wonderful world within the game, made her sigh heavily. Oh, how she would love to visit Spira! "It wouldn't even have to be a grand adventure", she thought, feeling somewhat annoyed. "Heck, I would rather pick up chocobo-poo at Mi'ihen Highroad than sit here at this desk shuffling paper!"
She had still not mustered enough motivation to start looking through her pile, so she closed her eyes, smiling to herself as her thoughts wandered to the catchy theme of Mi'ihen Highroad. She would start working quite soon; she would just relax for a minute – gather energy by dreaming of where she really wanted to be ...
The breeze blew gently and warm in her hair, as she found herself lying on all four on a dusty road. Where was she? She opened her eyes, only to look straight at a brown, well-trodden path. The dirt road looked oddly familiar...
"Hey, we haven't got all day – I do not intend to pick up all these by myself, you know!" A sharp voice broke her confused silence. Quickly, she got up and looked around. The road was leading almost endlessly in each direction, with green grass on both sides. But the scattered ruins gave it away – she was actually standing in the middle of Mi'ihen Highroad.
Serina was not able to ponder this newfound revelation any longer, though, since the voice she'd just heard started talking again. "Ey, Serina! There's some dung over there at your side. You clean that up, and I'll have a look behind this ruin. The chocobos love to dig for worms behind here, I've seen them..." the voice trailed off as the owner of it began walking behind the large ruin on the side of the road.
She looked around again. There wasn't much to be seen, except the back of the woman with the stern voice before she disappeared behind a bend. She looked down at herself – gone were the purple jumper and the black skirt she usually wore to work. Her clothes were now definitely Spiran; a white top shirt with green, red and yellow markings. Her pants were also green, matching the colour of the shirt. She raised her hand to her hair – she had a red hair band, too. "Cool!" she thought happily. "I'm Spiran! And I'm ..." she lost some of her enthusiasm when she finally realized what the other woman had said. "... here to pick up chocobo-poo".
Well, there was nothing to it. With a shrug she picked up the shovel and bag, and got to work. "It reminds me of horse poo," she thought with a small grin.
Time went by, although Serina wasn't sure just how much. She stretched her back just as the other woman reappeared from behind the ruins. Serina noticed she was dressed quite similar to herself, only her pants were red, and she didn't have a hair band. "Ok, I think we're done here," the woman said, her voice sounding a bit more appeased. "Shall we continue further up ahead?"
They had only moved a few steps before a wolf came jumping out from behind a rock. Serina gasped, her heart started racing. Inconveniently enough, the dream had not equipped her with any weapons. But before she had time to fret any longer, her companion had fished out a grenade from one of her belt pockets and thrown it at the wolf. With a yelp, it fell to the ground and dissolved into colorful pyreflies.
Serina was awestruck. Just like in the game! She wanted to reach out and touch the beautiful pyreflies ... Her hand was about to reach out when the woman's voice interrupted her thoughts again. "What are you doing, Serina? The wolf didn't confuse you, did he? Come on, let's go!" Serina just gave the woman a quick smile and trodded after her with her bag and shovel. And if she wasn't very much mistaken, Rin's Travel Agency would be around that corner – and there weren't many feces on the road either. She would love to step inside the agency, she'd always wondered about the books inside ... Serina was so lost in her own thoughts she jumped when she suddenly heard a bell ringing. It made her trip over a small rock on the road, and as she fell towards the ground, a small part of her mind wondered where that sound came from.
Serina awoke with a jerk, spilling cold coffee all over her desk as the phone rang insistently. Cursing under her breath, still in a remote daze after her dream, she managed to limit the damage by moving away her keyboard and the pile of documents before answering the phone.
"Yes, this is Serina at accounts receivable, may I help you?" She listened absent-mindedly at the man at the other end, which asked rather worriedly if his invoice had been paid or not.
"Yes," she thought to herself, grinning while searching for the man's invoice on her computer system. "It would be much better to pick up chocobo-poo than sit here on a day like this."