She walked in with her eyes trained to the floor. As soon as she had stepped through she began to get nervous again. What if the stories were true? Would he show up for her? Would they be unable to communicate? Would she ever get her answers?
She walked forward until the edge of the Glen platform came into her vision and stopped. Taking a very large and slow breath, she closed her eyes and thought of him. His sense of duty. His vigilance. His strength. She carefully tried to avoid picturing what he looked like. She was nervous enough about seeing him again anyway, regardless of her other concerns.
Taking one last giant breathe, Rikku lifted her head and opened her eyes. And gasped. Her heart had immediately jumped to her mouth and her eyes had gone wide. She even took one startled step backwards, bringing her hand to her mouth. And then she got lost in his appearance. It had been so long.
Starting at the bottom of the image, she worked her eyes up, slowly gaining courage to meet his eye. The steel reinforcements on the front of his dark boots. The brown leather that crisscrossed them. The pointed top where his pants were tucked in. The white stripes running up his deep grey slacks. Her heart started to beat a bit faster still when the deep red of his heavy coat - and more so when the ceramic jug tied to his side - came into vision. Then she saw a gloved hand… and a bare hand on the other side.
She noticed that his arms were both at his side and almost stopped breathing when she saw his skin. She'd had the same reaction then, so long ago, when she'd first seen it. As usual, however, only one arm was in a sleeve. His left sleeve and shoulder to the coat hung behind him.
The stiff and reinforced dark grey leather of his vest was patterned in the creases of the contours with gold. She gasped again as she saw his cowl was missing. At seeing this, her slow travel ended with her eyes immediately snapping to his face. What she saw made her eyes bulge.
She'd known he'd died at 25. She'd assumed he'd made himself seem to age in death. She'd seen the grainy spheres that depicted him. Even the transparent memory from Zanarkand could not have prepared her. But seeing this life-sized, very high definition version of him as a young man came close to making her drool.
He had his hair tied back in its little pony tail, but it was well kept instead of fly-away. Two strands of his ebony hair framed his face. She stared at him in a mix of awe and adoration, now unable to tears her eyes away from his. She'd only just walked in, but she felt she'd been staring at him for ages.
He had no expression, so instead she took in his face, almost cheering to see two beautiful brown eyes. There was very faint stubble lining his cheeks and mouth, which had thick, full lips. With an oval shaped face, he had a sharp nose with naturally flared nostrils. High cheekbones curved gently into his eyes which rested below his dark shelf of a brow. Rikku also noted that though he had both eyes, he also still had his scar.
"Heh. Hey again." She said sheepishly, mouth quirking into an awkward grin.