The next four fights went like the first fight of the afternoon had; a bunch of one-hit wonder-boys. Rikku was a little disappointed that there were no more Marines to make her life a bit more interesting, but she supposed that most of them probably had better things to do with their lives (like protect her people) than to fight their Leader's daughter for her hand.

Rikku was glad to see the sun start noticeably westering. Another two hours or so and the first day would be done with.

"Next round, Rikku and Zintu. Fight!" her father announced. He sounded just as enthusiastic for this fighter (who was a complete greenhorn) as he had for the first contestant for that day. Hope sprang eternal, Rikku guessed.

He looked to be a young digger, perhaps even from the Machine Faction. He was armed with a shovel. Was that even a weapon? Oh well.

He went down with a Mug.

:I'm getting a little thirsty,: she thought.

That was the fifth one in a row she'd beaten, so she deserved a break. She had a little pavilion set up on her end of the sands for her to rest for a moment in. It was quaintly decorated with tassels and fringes and little yellow banners flapping in the breeze. It had a little rug spread out under the silk roof with a large comfy cushion for her to lounge on. Nearby waited a little serving-machina that chilled her drinks and fulfilled simple requests like "bring me a towel" or "give me ice water."

Rikku went back to her open-sided tent out of the sun to find Gippal lounging away on her comfy cushion! What was it with this guy and taking over her space?! First her airship and now he's sitting in her resting spot!

"Hey!" Rikku said, looking a little annoyed at his invasion, not to mention that she'd wanted to sit down and he was in her spot. With Gippal it was best to go on the offensive, if she asked politely he'd just take it as an excuse to start messing around with her.

"Excuse me! You're in my seat!"

"I don't see your name on it, Cid's Girl," he replied, not moving an inch and smiling up at her.

"You probably wouldn't recognize it even if it were there, seeing as you can't seem to remember my name," she replied. "Now move it, before I make you lose it."

"Now, now. Manners," he admonished, waggling a finger playfully at her.

She mentally debated the emotional satisfaction she might get by nipping at it, and decided against it on the same grounds as her previous decision. Why was it that she came out of every encounter with him feeling exhausted?

"I mean it Gippal," she growled, at least she'd been going for a growl. He didn't look very intimidated, but then, he never did.

"I'll tell you what," he said. "I'm a generous kinda guy, I'll let you share it with me."

He patted his lap.

"You can sit right here," he told her.

"I'll sit on the ground, thanks," she said tartly, picking a spot in the shade of what was supposed to be her little pavilion and ordering a drink from her little machina.

"I can't believe you'd rather sit on the hard, dirty ground than on my warm and comfortable lap," Gippal said, affecting disbelief.

Rikku shoved him so that he toppled over, but he didn't move from her cushion.

"Oh believe it mister," she replied. "I'd rather sit on a cactuar than on your lap."

"Are you two bickering again?" Lulu asked calmly, strolling over from her spot in Cid's spectator tent.

"He started it," she grumbled.

"I offered to let you sit on my lap, isn't that a nice offer?" he said cajolingly.

"No," Rikku replied. "The gentlemanly thing to do would get your butt out of my spot and offer me a seat."

"I'm not a gentleman," he replied.

"Ain't that the truth," she said triumphantly.

"But I never claimed to be one in the first place," he added. "Besides that, gentlemen are boring. Rikku, you wouldn't like them."

"I think I'd like them better than you," she said. "An annoying prig who keeps invading my turf and giving useless advice."

"You love me, admit it," he said, flashing his best charming grin at her.

"I'd forcibly evict you," she said, wrapping her arms around her knees and resting her chin on her kneecaps while she slowly sipped her ice water. "But I've got enough to deal with right now."

"Here, I'll give you a back rub," he offered. "Just take off your shirt."

"No way would I trust you anywhere near my backside, with the shirt or without it," she said.

Her heart wasn't in it though, the heat was making her a little tired so she didn't have as much energy for banter as she usually did.

"Well, I could evict him for you if you'd like," Lulu said. "I seem to have done well enough the last time with making him vacate his seat. Perhaps I should investigate a second career in pest control."

Lulu had sort of an odd sense of humor, sometimes. It wasn't really laugh-out-loud funny, but she seemed to find peoples reactions to her calmly threatening demeanor amusing. Like right then, she seemed to be enjoying the way Gippal's eyes widened a little as he tried to gauge whether the black mage standing before him was joking or serious.

"Your father is motioning that you should join your next contestant out on the sands. You break appears to be over with," Lulu informed her.

"Oh joy," Rikku said, her tone denoting anything but joyfulness.

"Next round; Rikku and Fintaj. Begin!"

Back to the grind.

& & &

Gippal sighed heavily, trying not to feel discouraged, as he watched her casually kick the crap out of some other poor unsuspecting newbie. She looked so cute when she was fighting, scratch that, she looked cute at anytime, but there was an ease of motion to the way she darted about the battlefield like a hummingbird that he found especially appealing.

:What am I doing wrong?!: he wondered to himself in frustrated bewilderment.

He just couldn't understand it. All the other women he'd paired off with, even if those relationships never lasted, had been happy to have him. More than happy, they had been eager to take him into their beds. All he'd had to do was pour on the charm, make them relax and laugh a little, and it had proceeded from there. He just couldn't figure out why Rikku was giving him such a hard time.

He'd thought at first that maybe she'd just been shy about touching people, some girls could be like that (ones raised by overly protective fathers certainly) they tended to have overly prudish sensibilities when it came to their bodies. Having dealt with that sort before, Gippal had figured that the only way to get her off her prudery was to get her used to being around him and being held and hugged by him. Well, that hadn't worked.

Next he'd tried being extra nice to her, tried getting on her good side by making her laugh a little, but she didn't seem to find him all that funny.

:Well, most of the women I hang out with are other mechanics,: Gippal thought to himself. :And as a rule their sense of humor tends to be a little more earthy, but Rikku never stuck me as the prudish sort before.:

Case in point, that outfit she wore all the time was an exercise in brevity.

She was quite the little mystery, Rikku was. The usual rules just didn't seem to apply to her. She wasn't eager to have him for a lifemate, so he was actually having to put a lot of effort into his pursuit of her. He'd repeatedly tried flirting with her and she'd shot him down at every turn.

:Come to think of it,: he thought with a realization that was slow to dawn on him.

:She actually seemed kind of offended that last time on her airship.:

He'd just been trying to charm her, get her to see what a good catch he was, make her interested in him, but it seemed like his usual strutting and preening was having the opposite effect. Her two Guardian-friends had certainly seemed to object to his behavior.

:That must be it,: he thought, brightening up. :She's been hanging around with too many Yevonites, and their bizarre courtship rituals have rubbed off on her!:

Yevonites and their senseless prudery and rules! No kissing in public. No touching in public. No intimate touching until after several dates. (Apparently) no sex during the daytime. No testing for physical compatibility (sex) until after a promise of marriage. The list went on and on it seemed. It seemed that it was against the rules to even imply any sort of physical desire, and that just made no sense to Gippal. Call if crude, but like it or not, physicality was part of a relationship, best to get it out of the way and see if there was something deeper there to work with.

He was and had been searching for a real connection, and he strongly felt that he could have that with Rikku... provided he could ever get her to be with him in the first place. Every single thing he tried with regards to her seemed to keep blowing up in his face. Maybe he should have expected that Rikku would be a tough machina to dismantle; after all... look at her legacy already and she was just barely grown. Her father was the first real Leader the Al Bhed had had since the end of the Yevon Wars five hundred years ago, and he'd united all the lost tribes under one banner and built Home with the goal of stopping the Pilgrimages and trying to find another way to defeat Sin. Rikku herself had been one of the few Al Bhed to ever go on a Pilgrimage, and not just any Pilgrimage but the Final Pilgrimage; she'd faced and fought Sin herself! Then a year later she turns around and lays the smackdown on Vegnagun's big metal behind, something that was supposed to have been Gippal's own great project.

:Maybe it's hopeless after all,: Gippal thought glumly. :How can I ever hope to impress her after all she's managed to do on her own?:

Perhaps he was just fooling himself, thinking that he had something to offer her that would make it worthwhile for flighty, adventurous Rikku to stay with him. He might joke around with her and call her Cid's little girl and try to act like he was so much cooler and wiser than her, but that was mostly because he was intimidated by all she'd managed to achieve. He was still at a loss as to what might entice Rikku into giving up her roaming for a while and settling in with him. Maybe he was coming at this from the wrong angle.

She wasn't impressed by him. Even in his area of strength, machina building, she was no slouch herself. He'd tried to amaze her with his expertise and knowledge and she'd shrugged off his advise and went her own way and still got great results (the lady had built her own airship form the engine core out!). Being a businessman which a lucrative and expandng business didn't seem to impress her either, Rikku wasn't the type to be impressed by money. With the way she was taking these guys out without barely having to blink, Gippal would have to do some serious practicing if he was ever going to reach her level of expertise in the area of fiend-slaying. In fact, she'd just fought a living legend among the Al Bhed and won, and if their converstaion on the airship was to be believed she'd even been holding back!

:And speaking of living legends...: Gippal thought, sinking a little further into agonized depression.

That Gelnin Steelwind looked like he was going to be tough competition. Gippal had never been shown up quite so thoroughly in his life before. Usually when he was competing with another guy over a girl all the advantages were on Gippals end; he was (reasonably) wealthy, successful, considered to be one of the three major leaders in the new world order, handsome, charming and witty, he was considered to be quite the catch. He hadn't realized until he had activly started to pursue Rikku, just how much he had relied on his status and reputation to get his foot in the door (so to speak). Now, not only was he pursuing a woman who, in many ways might actually be out of his league, but he had competion in the form of an older, stronger, possibly even more confident man.

:I'll bet he even has a lot in common with Rikku too!: Gippal thought, trying not to let his thoughts be tinged with worry.

After all, the man was a fighter of great reknown (even if he was old enough to be her father). Rikku herself was definitely no slouch in the arena.

:Yeah I'll bet they'd have a great life together,: Gippal muttered sullenly in the privacy of his own mind. :The two of them, going every where on her airship. He'd let her be just a flighty and fun as she wants to be, probably find treasure too.:

And Hadn't Paine said something about Rikku having once had a huge crush on a man much older than she during that Pilgrimage she had went on? Since she very much doubted that it was Khimari, the only other likely candidate was that guy in the red coat who had saved Gippals own skin ot in the desert just before the Guado raid on Home. Steelwind probably reminded her of her first crush. Worse and worse. Maybe he should just give up...

Gippal took another long look at her fighting out on the sands, the sunlight shining off her beautiful blonde hair, her lithe form practically dancing as she took down some other hapless victim. He sighed longingly. He couldn't give up on her, not when he was so sure she was the one! There had to be a way, some way to get her to really notice him. Everything else he'd tried hadn't worked. Maybe he should try going to one of her Yevonite friends and putting aside his pride and asking what would make her interested in him. He was getting desperate, with a woman like Rikku on the line and competition like the legendary Steelwind, if he didn't move soon he'd loose his window of opportunity.

Last update you'll probably see for a while. I'd like to thank Wakka for sending me the reveiw about Gippal, it actually helped out a lot. A friend of mine told me that one of the major reasons that people get writers block is that they write a scene where thier characters do things that are out of character for them and either that itself is the the block or they didn't give a reason why the chara acted that way. So, having it pointed out to me helped me figure out what it was that had been bugging me for months on end, I've had this thing collecting dust on my harddrive for probably about a year or so all because I was stuck at a point and couldn't move on, you were spot on to point out that my characterization must have been subconsciously bugging me. I couldn't figure it out, so thanks again!