Ahoy, mates! Sit back and rest your peg-legs, while I tell ye a tale of the fair ocean blue… Uh…hehe. Got carried away there. . Sooo, Auron fell asleep…and now let's see what he'll do when he wakes up with an unusual pillow!
(Did some editing, and changed one or two things! Read it! Lol It'll come to play later on in the story. It won't be terribly important, but it'll be a touching, dramatic scene.)
I don't own FFX-2, or the characters…you know the drill…everything else is mine.
Auron awoke to the smell of the sea and the sounds of birds announcing the sunrise. He felt oddly rested. There had been no dreams that night, no nightmares. Only the memory of a song came to mind when he tried to remember if there had been dreams. It was serene, laying on the soft grass and listening to the world wake up. He laid there for a moment, before opening his eyes to the dawn light.
It was not the light he saw first, though. What his eyes showed him was a leg. A very shapely leg, but a leg none the less. He sat up quickly, turning to look at the owner of the leg. She was smiling at him, waiting for a reaction.
"Morning, Sir Sleepy-head! Sleep well?"
"Rikku." The nights events came back to him, which explained why he had slept outdoors, but not why he had used Rikku as a pillow. "I...hadn't intended to..."
"Use me as a pillow? Hehe. I know, but I thought you'd like that better than the ground."
"It isn't proper."
"Neither is drooling on my thigh while you were sleeping, but you don't hear me complaining! You really should learn to relax, Auron. You'll turn into a big lump of grumpy old man if you don't."
"And you're here to change my wicked ways? How kind of the fates to send me a savior in the guise of a scantly-clad woman." Her smile brightened slightly, amused by his comment. "We should have gone back to the village. Fiends roam the forest here."
"Duh! But, fiends don't attack me if I don't want them to. Either that or they count me as friend. I dunno which. All part of the magic of the dress spheres!"
"Dress sphere?"
"See this?" Rikku held up her arm, revealing a thick bracelet that he had not noticed before. "This holds all my spheres, and lets me change into them whenever I want. Different outfits have different powers. I just like this one a whole lot, so I didn't change out of it."
"Why didn't I see that last night? You weren't wearing it then."
"Sure I was! Its not made to be seen, really. It kinda hides itself from view. Its really neat though. I'll show you all my outfits sometime."
"Are they all as...revealing as your current one?"
"Most of them. Its an edge if I have to fight some lame-brained, throw-back-to-the-darkages guy. He's too busy looking at my chest, wondering why it is my boobs don't fall out of it, to watch out for an attack. Besides, they're cute and fun to wear."
"Indeed. What, exactly, is this one called? I've never seen its like, even in Luca."
"Its a mermaid! So awesome, too! I can breath underwater, which is so much better than having to surface every hour or two, I've got an affinity for water, I can talk to any fish or sea animal more intelligent than a trout, a really, REALLY cool trident to fight with, armor and poison. Neato, huh?"
"Hmm. And the ability to keep fiends away."
"Yup yup! And its pretty, too."
"Yes, it is. Distracting as well." He considered what would happen if he had to face her in combat before meeting her. He would most likely be distracted long enough for a hit, one that could end up fatal. "An intelligent design."
Rikku was about to respond when several voices became audible from the beach. She got up from her seat, which Auron thought she had not moved from at all, and brushed of the back of her skirt. This action caused her skirt to rise slightly, giving him a view of the rest of her thighs. It was a brief view, but Auron chastised himself for continuing to look.
"Who's voice is that? The calm one, without the accent?" Rikku was going through the greenery to the far right edge of the cliff. From there one had a full view of the main beach. Auron followed, wondering why she was sneaking around instead of simply going to the people and asking their names. She moved silently, and without leaving much of a trail for anyone or anything to follow. Such talents were odd for Rikku to know, it seemed to him.
"...I still don't like this, Wakka."
Rikku inhaled sharply, her eyes rivited at the group of men below. Auron looked as well, and found three of the islanders conversing. He knew all three, though why they were at the beach just after dawn was beyond him.
"The one in the robes is Lord Braska, the island's summoner. The other two are brothers, Wakka and-"
"Chappu...Braska...how are they still..." Auron frowned slightly at her tone. It was the same one she had used when seeing him for the first time last night.
"Do you know them too?"
"Uh-huh...and Wakka. But Braska and Chappu...they..."
"Had the same fate you seem to think I had? They're right here in front of you, Rikku, as live as I am."
Auron stood up, to much hissing and cursing from Rikku, and jumped down from the ledge. It was not far, only half again his height, but it startled the group of men. The look of relief on their faces was almost comic when they saw who it was that had dropped in on them.
"Sir Auron, you startled me." Braska said, taking a deep breath. "Are you still wandering the beaches? You never came back to the village last night."
"Somewhat, my lord. I apologize for worrying you, and for surprising you. Although you've startled my friend more, I think."
"You're friend?"
"Yes." Auron turned around and addressed the ledge where he knew Rikku was still hiding. "Are you going to come down or not? It's rude not to introduce yourself. Or are you afraid of heights?"
"Oh! I'm not afraid of heights, you big meanie!" With that, she jumped down. Rikku stood up and glared at him, hands in fists at her side. Auron smiled at her, which only infuriated her more. "Don't make me clobber you..." She said with a dark look. Just before he thought she would break and hit him, she noticed the others staring at her. Rikku squeaked and hid behind him, peeking over his shoulder at them. She had to stand on her toes to do so. A great deal of physical contact went on, with one of her hands grabbing his coat and the other on his chest. He resisted the urge to put an arm around her.
He moved his head to see what the islander's reactions were instead. Wakka looked confused by her behavior, while Chappu stared at her in a way that made Auron's hackles rise. Jealous, Auron? You barely know her, and yet you're ready to hit someone for looking at her. Lord Braska, however, had an entirely different expression. It was as though he were seeing a ghost.
"Lord Braska, are you well?" Auron moved slightly towords him, leaving Rikku out in the open. She stared at him, not with fright but with wonder. Braska, on the other hand, paled at the full view of her.
"Layna..." The summoner moved forward, tilting Rikku's head up with a finger so that he could look at her face. "No...not Layna...but you could be her twin...or her daughter."
"Layna was my mom's name. She died when I was born...how do you know her?"
"Hmm...no, you are not her, or her daughter. Layna was my sister-in-law. She departed for the Farplane five years ago. It's uncanny how you look like her." Braska shook his head in disbelief and stepped back from her. "Forgive me. I am Braska, Summoner to the Isle of Besaid. My companions are Wakka and his brother, Chappu." The other two nodded when their names were mentioned. Rikku waved at them, and smiled. It was a true smile, for all that she had been scared moments before.
"I'm Rikku. Nice to meet you!" Braska gave her a sharp look, but said nothing else.
"Hey, not to interrupt or nuthin, but we got things to take care of, ya?" Wakka and Chappu had left off blatently staring at her to look nervously at the ocean. "You're lucky nothin' bothered you out here, Auron. There's a nasty fiend in the waters. Nearly killed the crew of the Liki when it attacked."
"Ya, it's huge. We gotta take care of it before someone gets hurt." Chappu added.
"Fiend? In those waters?" Rikku gave them a puzzled look and went to the tide line. She hummed something, and waited for a moment. Then she smiled and put her hands in the surf, cupping them carefully around something. Rikku walked back to them slowly, humming slightly at her hands. "There's no fiend in the water."
"There is, ya! A dangerous one. What else attacks ships without cause?"
"I'm telling you, there isn't a fiend. There's a big animal out there, but not a fiend. And you'd be stupid to go attack it."
"So, what? We let it go on hurting people? That's crazy, ya?" Wakka said.
"No, but if you attack that thing, something a lot bigger is going to get here in a hurry. That animal is a Kraken. A baby Kraken. And if you hurt it, and its mother comes running, you can say 'Bye-bye!' to this whole island."
"That thing is the size of the Liki! You call that a baby!"
"Uh-huh."
"And you know this by looking at water? Gimme a break..."
"You really are a dunderhead. I don't see things in water that aren't really there. I'm talking to this little octopus." Rikku held out her hands slightly for Auron and the others to see. They all gasped at once, though Auron resisted the impulse to knock the creature out of her hands. It was a tiny creature, a tan color with blue tinted rings covering its body. The Bluering was one of the most poisonous animals on Spira. One bite, and paralysis sets in. After that, all the muscles simply stop working. Including the heart. "He's a smart one, too. The Bluerings usually are smarter than most. He says that the Kraken is just beyond the reefs, where the water's deeper." Rikku walked back to the water's edge and gently placed the octopus down. "I'll go find out why theres a baby Kraken here, but you guys have to stay out of the water."
"No." Auron had beaten the others to it. "You stand no chance against something that can take out a boat."
"Awww...worried about me already, Auron? That's sweet." She reached up to pat his cheek with one hand. "But I'll be fine. The only they they'll do is get that thing worked and call Momma on our heads. Besides, it doesn't belong this close to the surface. You guys should be more worried about what can seperate a baby Kraken from its mother and drive it to the surface. They HATE sunlight."
With that, she went into the water.
"She's nuts...pickin' up a Bluering and then jumping in the water with it still nearby. That thing'll kill her for sure."
"The Kraken, or the octopus she had? And I would put you in the same category of 'nuts' for going after that thing with only two of you. And isn't Chappu engaged? What would Lord Braska say to her? To the village?"
"Hey, there's no one else who can fight that thing but us! We supposed to just sit back and relax when the next boat from Kilika gets busted up? No way!"
"Please, stop this." Braska interrupted. Wakka crossed his arms and scowled at the ocean. "Auron, why didn't you stop her from going alone? She's putting herself at great risk. I would have felt better if at least one of them had gone with her."
"My lord, you would have an easier time stopping a chocobo stampede than to stop her from doing anything. She can handle herself." I hope. You had best come back to shore whole, Rikku.
Weeeeeeell, mates? What do you think of this stirring sea tale? Review this, and I'll make ye an honorary Cap'n!
Cap'n Tagg