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Chapter II
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"Uuhh..." I groaned, rolling over. The first thing I noticed was that I wasn't dead. The second... I was surrounded by bright lights when I creeked my eyes open.
Was this it? Was I dead? Maybe the Yevonites were right... maybe I was on the Farplane. That'd mean I'd died without ever getting to say goodbye to my friends. I'd died having had run away from them. They must think I hated them or something...
My eyes opened fully. I wasn't in a field of flowers or anything of the sort, as I'd heard the Farplane described. Just a bright room, full of all kinds of machina and instruments. Almost every tool here as made of metal, it seemed... even my bed looked like metal. At least, it had metal sidings on it. And I was wrapped in warm, white linens. My clothes had been changed - I found myself in some kind of strange paper dress now. Sitting up, I took a look at myself a little further.
Things were sticking out of me! ...or, were attached to me, or something. They were large white dots on me... with multiply colored wires sticking out.
Weird... I thought to myself. I thought I was dead for sure. Are these what's keeping me alive? I looked left, then right. Yeah, there was a door, but I probably shouldn't get up. I might lose one of these things attached to me.
As it turned out, I didn't have to leave the bed to find someone. They entered, probably having had seen me waking.
The woman who came in was tall, with fine features and blond hair, done in a tight bun at the back of her head.. Her eyes were as green as mine. I could tell right when she entered the room - they seemed to catch the sunlight perfectly, behind her small eyeglasses. I immediately imagined myself with her hair and glasses and felt envious of her looks. Her clothes were rather odd, though - she wore a long sort of white jacket and carried a clipboard.
"Up, I see?" She said, looking at me appraisingly. "Looks like you're doing a lot better than you were when you got here."
I was surprised when she didn't speak Al Bhed. Wasn't she one of us? She had our hair and eyes. The room was full of machina. How could she not be?
"Aren't you Al Bhed?" I asked, blinking.
"Excuse me?" the woman asked, looking up from her clipboard where she had been jotting down information, no doubt about my progress and how I looked. I wanted to see a mirror, to see if I had some bad bruise on my face or something else I shouldn't go out in public with. But more than that, I wanted to understand why a clear Al Bhed wasn't speaking our tongue.
"Al Bhed… I mean, why are you… oh, forget it," I said. I tightened my focus on her eyes. Oddly enough, they lacked the spiraled pupil that all Al Bhed babies were born with. That's so strange… there are only a few people with green eyes that aren't spiraled, and I'm sure they all know about us…
"I've never seen you around Garden before," the woman said, quickly scribbling things down. "Can you tell me your name?"
"Rikku, Bein-Cid."
"Rikku Bencid, you said?" She asked, writing it down slowly to get the right spelling.
"No no no… Bein-Cid. The daughter of Cid. It's not overly complicated…"
The woman cocked an eyebrow at me over her clipboard. "Cid? You're Headmaster Cid's daughter?"
"I don't know what a 'Headmaster' is, miss," I answered, shaking my head. "In any case, can I take these wires off?"
"Yes, you can take off the electrodes" she answered. "I'll be back in a minute…" the woman stood and turned to leave still writing. I stopped her as I removed the first of the sticky patches holding the wires to me.
"S'cuse me?" I tried, causing her to turn.
"What is it?"
"What's your name?"
"Dr. Trepe. But you can call me Quistis."
The woman in the jacket flashed me a smile and walked out the door and out of my line of sight, leaving me to take off the 'electrodes', and wonder where I could be.
***
I'd never gotten quite used to the Instructor's table. After all, nobody sat here but me, Squall, Selphie, Irvine, Xu, and, when he was around, Cid. Quistis never had time to eat her lunch with friends, and Rinoa spent most of the time with her kid.
Don't get me wrong - I'd eat lunch with these people even if I did have a choice. But there were some other people I'd like to sit with, who weren't instructors.
Just another one of the problems with being the same age as most of your students. There were respect issues, maturity issues on both their part and yours, and all the stuff about girls. Honestly, what did my mom expect? The girls at Garden were the same ones I was making do laps and push-ups! They'd never want to get involved with their Combat Training instructor…
"Saved you a 'dog, Zell," Irvine said as I plopped down in my chair. "Honestly, with all the prime grub they give us at this table, you'd think you'd find something better than these to keep eating…"
The one thing that hadn't changed about lunchtime. No matter how early or how late I got to the cafeteria, they'd never have a hotdog for me. Even if I came ten minutes beforehand, they either didn't have any that day, or something held me up just long enough to keep me from getting them. It was like some kind of bad status effect or something.
"Thanks, dude!" I took a bite out of it. More than worth having to ask a friend to get it for me, of course. Best hotdogs in the world! "So how's the kid, Squall?" I asked our 'fearless leader'. Funny I still think of him that way… but hey. I do. "I ain't seen her or Rinoa in awhile…"
Squall twirled his fork around his pasta cleanly, and without looking, ate it. After some pensive chewing and a swallow, Squall's face came back to normal. But something looked odd about him. His usually solid and placid eyes looked… annoyed with something.
"Well, we're not taking her around a lot because… Tira is… she's… she's going through a phase, at the moment." Squall looked down at his plate hard, so that we wouldn't see the worry on his face.
"Oh? What's up with her?" Irvine said absently. "Window breaking? I had that phase. I was around one too, when I started that… and it lasted until I was sixteen or so. Is that it?"
"No!" Squall answered, shaking his head at the utter dumbness of Irvine's comment. "No… she just…" he paused. "Look, it isn't important."
Selphie was trying to make a bunny shape out of her food with her fork. She didn't look up as she talked, just poked and prodded at one of the ears. "Well, we're like family too! You can tell us. We won't make fun or anything…"
"Uh…" Squall breathed. "Okay. See, Tira just figured out how to undress herself so now whenever we try and put clothes on her, she takes them off."
Selphie covered her mouth with her hand to stop herself from giggling, despite her promise not to laugh. I immediately choked on some of my 'dog because I'd started laughing while it was in my food. Irvine backwashed his coffee in surprise.
"What?!" Irvine asked with total incredulity, looking at Squall in shock. "She what?"
"She… she won't keep her clothes on." Squall sighed. "I've heard a few other couples say it's normal… but she won't even wear a diaper, which is causing serious trouble, if you know what I mean."
"Eew," Selphie said, then reached over and patted Squall on the back. "Poor daddy, doesn't know what to do with his little nudist daughter."
I would have put in my two cents, but there was still hotdog lodged in my throat, which Xu was trying to aid me in the removal of. None of my three other friends seemed to notice, so engrossed were they in conversation. Geez, sometimes I feel like comic relief. Isn't that weird?
"Cough, Zell!" Xu instructed me as she struck me on the back again and again.
Irvine ate a bit of his pasta, still looking like he was considering the situation. "Hmm… do you suppose it could be some kind of weird chemical in her brain? Because if it is, I was wondering if we could pump it into the water lines of the girls dorms and…"
"In any event," Squall cut him off before he finished the sentence. "Me and Rinoa are going to try and work past this… like I say, it's probably just a phase, right?"
"I dunno, Squall," Selphie kidded, giggling. "I don't think I grew out of that one for a few years… who knows how long it'll take Tira?"
"Whoa. You wouldn't happen to still do it, would you?" Irvine asked hopefully, looking at her with his specialized puppy-dog eyes. "At least, you don't often enough when I'm around…"
Selphie went into and uncontrollable giggle fit and punched Irvine in the arm. "Sweetie! You shouldn't talk about that in public…"
Squall shook his head. "Look, how's the teaching going, guys?"
"Well, to put it simply… they can't shoot. None of them have raw, natural talent you could just mold. You know… like I must have had." Irvine leaned back in his chair and smiled, looking as satisfied with himself as ever.
"And your department, Selphie?" Squall ignored Irvine again.
"I can't wait until the next Garden Festival! The people at FH said we can use the same spot again if we want, and then we have a plan to make it an annual event, and…"
Squall just tried not to smile and nodded. "Okay, so you're making progress. That's good… and you, Zell?"
I thought for a second.
"Can't complain."
Selphie, having had finished her bunny, was dinking her drink, so she couldn't comment on my opinion. So instead, she poked Irvine once. He fidgeted. Twice. He fidgeted again and said "Quit it, Sephie."
Selphie rolled her eyes and let Squall ask.
"You don't have anything else to say?"
I tapped my index finger on the table a moment… then shook my head. "Nah."
"Zell, that's not like you," Selphie said, putting down her glass. She then punched Irvine in the arm. "Irvine, you're so dense it just shocks me sometimes, you know?"
"Am not dense," he defended. Selphie continued to look at him, like he was going to follow that up with something, but of course that was his entire argument, from start to finish. He went on to look down at her bunny. "You gonna finish that?"
Sighing, Selphie looked to me and continued. "Anyway, you should be more enthusiastic about your work."
"I am!" I answered, grinning. "I just… well, there's not much to say. I have fun teaching them how to be good combat SeeD. That's it."
"So, nothing noteworthy happened this morning with your classes?" Selphie pushed, looking a little desperate. It's strange how someone so happy loses almost all their energy when they see someone unhappy. So what else could I do? I cast about to find something.
"Well, I found this girl ly-"
"Was she cute?" Irvine interrupted before I could finish the sentence. Selphie punched him in the arm. "Strroww! Just checking, okay??"
I laughed. Then I went on. "Well, I found this girl, lying at the gate. She was unconscious, and I dropped her off with Dr. Kadowaki."
"She was just asleep there?" Squall asked, obviously intrigued. "Hmm. It wasn't on my morning update."
"The doctor said she wouldn't bother you with it 'til she got some answers. The girl looked kind of beat up, maybe concussed, but the doc said she and Quistis could have her up in a few hours, so…"
There was a loud tone over the PA.
-Will Instructor Dincht please report to the Infirmary? Report to the Infirmary, please.-
I stood up, pushing in my chair. "Well, gotta go. They probably wanna ask me some stuff, so, see ya!"
"How could you have not mentioned this?" Selphie looked rather upset with me. "You're even thicker than Irvine, Zell! I was in such a nice mood, too…"
"Selphie, you're always in a nice mood." I walked off, not really paying attention to what she'd said. I wouldn't know until later that she was, in some ways, pretty right.
***
I was eating some of the food they'd given me. Weird stuff - some of it looked downright unnatural. Like this odd sausage inside some bread. I didn't want to touch it… after all, how does somebody go about eating that? How do you hold it when you bite it? Other than that there were some slices of tuber or something that were pretty good in the gooey red sauce that was on them.
Dr. Trepe was talking to some other woman, this one older and with darker skin, and the same kind of white coat. I watched them as they conversed. They kept making odd little glances at me and nodding. Eventually someone joined them…
He was a boy. Maybe my age, maybe a little older. In any case, he had a strange but becoming little twist of hair over his forehead, and very baggy shorts that reminded me of something my brother would wear. In any event, he was… well, nice to look at. Even if he looked a bit awkward while talking to the two women (at one point the scratched the back of his head and smiled, as though embarrassed).
After a minute or two, he nodded at Quistis and turned to come in the room. I had to get my affairs in order. I wondered if my hair looked like a mess? Making a bad first impression on this guy would make me feel horrible for days. I tried to pad it down, just in case I did have bed head…
"Hey," he said, smiling a bit nervously. And who wouldn't be nervous? Talking to some strange girl who was jabbering about nonsense…
What if I am crazy? I thought quickly. It'd make sense. I'm under observation. I might be a head case. What if my whole life was just a big delusion? I… I really don't have time to think about this, 'cause he's sitting down on my bed!
He just sat there and didn't say anything for a second, sort of smiling in this determined way - even if it was obvious in his eyes he was kind of uneasy. Then he saw something on my food tray.
"Aaah…" he began, looking at the tray. Then he pointed right at the sausage sandwich thing. "Are you gonna eat that…?"
I almost blushed.
"Um… I don't know how to hold it."
"Eh?" He looked up at me, not quite understanding what I'd just said.
Oh, great job, Rikku. Now he thinks you're an idiot.
"They don't have hot dogs where you're from?" he asked.
My eyes opened wide and I sat up in the bed. "It's a dog?!" What kind of place was this!?
"No!" the boy put his hands up and motioned for me to relax and lay back. "No! That's just what they're called… actually, I'm not sure why…" he blinked. "But, anyway, if you can't hold it… here," he put his hand down over the plate and, using his fingers and thumb as two halves of a clamp, gripped the hot "dog" on either side of the bread.
"And then you bite at the ends," he smiled, and proffered the food item to me. I took it like he had.
"Thanks," I said before taking a first bite. It wasn't bad at all.
"Well, you know, teach a man to fish and all that," he replied. "You might wanna try some toppings on that, though. Be even better."
"Toppings, huh?" I looked at it, thinking about this.
***
I don't think Quistis and Dr. Kadowaki knew I could hear them.
"What are they doing?" Quistis asked, obviously completely mystified.
"They're, uh…" the doc thought about it a second. Then she decided to just point out the obvious. "They're playing with ketchup."
I swirled the bottle in the air, spiraling the ketchup over the center of the hot dog in a nice curly-Q pattern. It wasn't hard; I had a cheering section.
"Yes! Yes! It looks perfect! But can he make the end perfect?!"
Rikku was offering commentary.
"Hah, don't try and threaten the master, girl, you know not who you mess wi-"
*Splurt*
An air bubble foiled my perfect pattern. Rather than a beautiful trail-off, there was a small splatter of ketchup at the tail of the 'dog.
There was a profound silence. I then hung my head in shame.
Rikku patted me on the back. "Don't feel bad, Zell. You would have gotten it if it weren't for those pesky laws of physics."
I frowned. "Stupid natural world."
Rikku giggled and I smiled. "Well, anyway, I think we've wasted enough of your hot "dogs"…" She cast a glance around at the many empty plates on which we'd been served more than a dozen hot dogs. This was the last one, and I was finishing it fast.
When I was done, I started piling up the plates. Rikku helped and handed them all to me. "Look, I've gotta go teach a class now, but, uh, would you mind if I came by last period? It's two hours from now and when I came back… well, I'd love to show your around the Garden…"
"Oh, sure," Rikku handed me the last plate. "See ya…"
"Bye," I turned away and walked off with the dishes, but I was still smiling. I smiled all the way to the cafeteria where I returned the plates and went back to the teacher's table for the last few minutes of lunch.
"Zell! Come on, man, start up, you barely ate any of your 'dog!" Irvine said when I got back, pointing to my half-finished lunch.
I sat down. "Dude, I had the biggest, best lunch ever."
Irvine just rolled his eyes and went about eating the head of Selphie's spaghetti bunny.