Note 1: Sorry about the extreme delay in getting Chapter 8 out. Had some miscommunication with my Beta-reader. She thought I was too busy to re write and I thought she was too busy to edit when in actuality a couple of e-mails got sucked into a blackhole. Expect more Chapters soon.
Note 2: Thanks for the constructive comment in the feedback section. (You know who you are) I'm going to wade through the old chapters and attempt to apply it now :)
Aldon brushed his hands through his longish dark hair and frowned at the crowd surrounding his helm. The former summoner, blindfolded and silent, at the center steered. Two of his men, Balto and Rugger, watched her every move and plotted their course. Then you add a largish red-headed former guardian and one old mother Ina. It equaled a very crowded seven-foot square area. At least the lady guardians had had the good sense to keep their distance. Lulu had retreated below deck, and Rikku? Rikku was staring out at the ocean looking like she'd lost her best friend.
Aldon felt a stirring in his gut. Rikku had been a childhood friend, almost like a little sister, but he wasn't crazy enough not to recognize that that was no twelve-year-old sharing his boat. This wasn't the time for wooing or flirting though. "Bad timing is all," he muttered.
"Bad timing?" Lulu asked.
Aldon jumped. No one should move about so silently. "Where'd you come from, lady?"
"Below. I thought I'd come pry Wakka out of that mess and free up some room. He isn't helping," Lulu said. She cut her eyes toward Rikku. "You're her friend, yes?"
That was something he could be sure of. "Always have been. Well since I was seven. The Solomon was my dad's ship. We ran a lot of supplies for the Al Bhed so Rikku and I hung out a lot. You wouldn't believe some of the messes we got into."
Lulu smiled dryly. "You forget, I've known Rikku for some time now. I can imagine." She looked toward the horizon. "Time's funny you know. You wait for the perfect moment, the right time, but things are rarely perfect. You keep waiting for your moment, and sometimes it never comes." Lulu stepped away and headed for Wakka. "I believe in creating my own moments."
Aldon watched her go, cursed under his breath, and mentally berated himself. Since when was he so transparent? Rikku snuck a glance his way. Since when was he so cautious? Aldon took a deep breath and made his way over to Rikku. "Cheer up little girl," Aldon said. "All's going well. You should have my boat sunk before sundown." He tried to catch Rikku's eye to gauge her response to his teasing.
Rikku didn't quite crack a smile. "You're not funny." She tried not to look at the tall dark pirate grinning at her. He was Aldon, the big-eared mischievous boy who helped her secure her first tattoo. Rikku's hand went involuntarily to her stomach. Ten year-olds should not make decisions like permanent body art. Her little tuna fish was proof positive of that. Aldon had been her hero when she was little girl. Now he was a grownup, a captain. Rikku felt a laugh trying to escape. She could still see the big-eared boy behind his adult face. The laughter didn't escape but a tiny smile did. It wasn't right to smile and laugh with him when Yuna was in trouble. "You're really not funny at all."
Aldon could see the merriment Rikku suppressed in her eyes, and it made him unreasonably proud. "No? I'll have to work on that. I live to amuse you."
Rikku rolled her eyes. "Sarcasm doesn't become you."
Black, no sound, no light, only viscous putridity filled the world. Tidus was underwater, and he was going to drown. He tried not to panic. If you surrender to the disorientation then you drown. Only if you can find stillness, can you find up... up and air. There it was, the buoyancy that signaled up. Tidus kicked and tried not to surrender to the complaints of his burning lungs. He burst through into air, tainted by the vapors wafting off the black waters. Tidus sucked it in slowly. The air relieved the one burning in his lungs for oxygen while searing them with a different pain.
"Tidus, I found you."
It was her, his dream girl was back, and she could see him. Just seeing her face was enough to lift his spirits and fill the dark little world with light. A thousand questions came into his mind. Who was she? Was he Tidus? "Who?" He tried to reach out and touch her, but she vanished, and with her all the light went out of the little world. "Who are you?" Tidus called into the emptiness. "Come back!"
"Damn it, wake up Vern. Nobody's getting any blessed sleep with you shouting like that," Hershey hissed.
Tidus opened his eyes and sat up on his little bunk. He hated the name Hershey had come up with, but he could endure it. Hershey had a plan. That plan was going to get him out of here, out of Hell. "I want to hear the plan, Hershey. You talk about it all the time, but you never tell me what it really is."
Hershey punched his mattress and rolled over presenting his back to Tidus. "You been here a couple of days, man. Now you giving me orders? I tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it, okay meathead."
Tidus stared at his sort-of-friend's back. It had taken him a while to get used to the world, not knowing who he was or the rules he was supposed to be playing by, but he was beginning to feel like his feet were under him again. Waiting passively for an unexplained plan to materialize, wasn't working for him anymore. "Hershey, tell me something."
Hershey rolled over and glared up at Tidus. "Tell you something?" Anger and frustration boiled in that glare. Far removed from the calm almost jovial mask Hershey showed the world. This new face wanted to hurt something. "I grew up on a boat, an Al Bhed machinist, third generation. You're obviously some kind of Yevonite bastard, so you don't know how important that is."
Tidus stared. Hershey had always remained composed around him before. His eyes were wild now though. His calm facade was developing fissures. Was Hershey crazy? "I just." Tidus couldn't look Hershey in the eyes. "How does a machinist end up in a mine."
Hershey blinked rapidly and his normally good-natured expression returned. "Al Bhed society is complicated, part socialist, part communist peopled with pirates, heathens, and crooks. This is a debtors' mine. Some men owe money others just owe society. I... did something... when I was a kid. A bad thing." Hershey adjusted his pillow again and rolled away from Tidus. "Get some sleep, Vern."
Tidus stared at Hershey's back for a long moment. Crazy? Instead of going back to sleep, he started picking his way through the sea of sleeping miners. There had to be more to the world than the stinking hole he'd spent the last two days in. He caught glimpses in his memory sometimes. If he thought about swimming, he could see what an ocean was supposed to be like, blue and green, salty but alive. His dream girl, she could help him remember the sun and the stars. When he stopped to picture her, he could feel a cool breeze on his face and the smell of the wild flowers in the air. There was more to the world. He needed to see it, to remember.
"Hey, Vern, new guy, what-the-Hell-ever," one of the miners said. He tugged at Tidus's pants leg. "Ya' still buying Hershey's horse shit?"
"What are you talking about?" Tidus squinted in the low light. It was hard to judge age beneath the layers of dirt, but this man seemed older almost grandfatherly. Tidus imagined his hair would be white if it weren't stained muddy black. "You have a beef with Hershey?"
"A beef, nah, Hershey's okay fella. Prolly the nicest son of a bitch here. He just happens to be crazier than a Bessie-bug." The old man offered Tidus his streaked, stained hand. "Name's Oleander."
Tidus hardly hesitated to take Oleander's hand. His own hand was as grimy and no one was offering showers so there wasn't exactly anything to be done about personal hygiene. "I'm not sure what my name is. Hershey took up calling me Vern."
The old man laughed. "What a name." He sat up and patted his bunk. Tidus really hesitated this time. He didn't want to be disloyal to Hershey. Oleander already called Hershey crazy. Plan or not, crazy or sane, Hershey had helped him. In the end he took the seat, but he didn't sit in it comfortably. "Hershey been telling you he got a plan to get out of here?" Tidus didn't answer. "There ain't no way out. It don't exist. This is a debtor's mine. You never work off your debt. You don't escape. I been here ten years, longer than anybody. I'd know if there were a way out."
"Ten years is longer than anybody?" Tidus asked. "If people don't leave that doesn't make sense."
Oleander laughed hard this time, a laugh that died in a hoarse cough. "Water out there's poison. Some folks just last longer than others. I'm a tough bastard."
Tidus didn't laugh. "I'm not sure that Hershey's crazy, but I don't know that I believe he has a viable plan either. I am going to get out of here though. If Hershey can't help, I'll find my own way."
"You got a plan now?" Oleander asked.
"No, I have a purpose. I ever come up with a plan. I doubt you'll ever hear about." Tidus stood and patted Oleander on the shoulder.
"You'd keep it a secret?"
"No, I wouldn't get around to talking about it. I'd be gone." Tidus didn't let it show, but Oleander had really shaken his already unsteady faith in Hershey. He needed to find his own way out. He was only going to be able to depend on himself.
The latrine was thankfully empty, and Tidus went about his business. He didn't leave immediately afterwards. They were underwater, how deep was debatable. Slipping out a window wasn't going to happen. Things left the station though: waste water, whatever the heck that stuff was they were mining. He just needed to find a way to hitch a ride out with something. He examined the pipe sizes around the room cursorily. "Well, flushing myself down the toilet isn't going to work."
Tidus couldn't bring himself to head back to his bunk. There was too much to think about to just sleep. Instead, he headed for the mess hall, an incredibly long room full of metal benches and tables. A few other men had gathered together around one of the back tables. From what he could see they were playing a game, the only game he'd ever seen any of these miners play. They called it Poon Toose.
The men who participated actively sought out the small rodents, Poons, which were practically knee deep all over the compound. Poons were alopecia inflicted little lizard-like things. They came in a variety of colors. Tidus once saw a tiger striped one. The men caught them and kept them alive in crude cages they made from extra beds. Hershey hadn't told him what the purpose of the game was, how you won, or much of anything about it. He didn't play and Tidus had only been interested in surviving at the time. He worked his way over to watch how the game turned out.
There were more than a dozen of the little rodents scurrying frantically in a makeshift corral, on top of one of the tables.
One of the men smiled at Tidus and waved him closer. "Edger just went to get the Toose from the kitchen. You haven't seen a good Poon Toose before, eh?" Tidus shook his head and kept his distance. "Hey Edger, where's that damn Toose?"
"Got it man." Edger, a very tall fellow, came out of the kitchen area holding a two-foot long sleepy looking feline. It had two tails and was covered in wild spots. "Fluffer here was the only Toose around today."
It was suddenly very clear to Tidus why the players of Poon Toose were always catching new Poons. One of the men opened the coral, freeing the Poons. Then the Toose, Fluffer, came alive at the sight of so many of its prey. It launched itself into their midst, eviscerating the poons not bothering to eat its kill before attacking the next. Tidus hadn't thought anything could make the meals in the mess hall seem less appealing, but the bloody carnage of tiny mutilated corpses on the tables and smeared across the floor left him a little green.
"I won!" Edger called. He brandished the Toose's last kill. "I told you that little gray Poon was a fast bastard."
Tidus didn't stay to find out what the prize for winning was. Some of the men were collecting the dead Poons, and he didn't want to know what was done with them. His bunk suddenly seemed like a heavenly haven and he headed back toward the sea of sleeping men.
"Hey Vern." Tidus tried to ignore the whisper to his right, but an arm reached out and pulled him into the shadows. "You ready to get out of here?"
"Hershey?" Tidus whispered. "I thought you were asleep?"
"My plan is ready for action. Well, you like mining or you want out of this hole?" Hershey said.