Sorry about the late update. I just haven't had much inspiration lately.-_- Usually, you can expect updates about every two weeks.

Fun Fact of the Day: I got the title from a song by Sting, Fields of Gold. Good song. ^_^ The song put the Calm Lands in my head...and the entire story kind of grew from there. O-o

Disclaimer: I own the characters and the plot, Square owns the setting and most of the concepts.

Chapter 5: Sudden Squall
"...and in roughly four hours, we will be stopping at Kilika to pick up passengers. From there it is six hours to Luca, where we will disembark at dock Three. We hope you will enjoy your voyage, and travel with ChocoBoat ferries again!" The captain of the S. S. Tsunami stepped back into the cabin in the center of the ship.

"ChocoBoat?" Sky asked, amused.

"Yeah." Nyk shrugged. "Down below the cabins, chocobos run around on giant wheels. That's what powers the paddles. Guess they thought it was a funny pun." He yawned and stood up from his seat, leaning against the side of the boat. "I'm beat. We were up most of the night packing. Think I'm gonna go take a nap in the cabin." He meandered down the steps to the cabins, and Liya followed. Sakura grinned.

"Not me! I'm full of energy!" To prove that, she managed to do a cartwheel and a half before tripping over a wooden box.. Sky giggled, and I sighed. I don't think it's possible for her to get tired, I thought. She'll be eighty- three and doing flips. I laughed softly at this mental image as Sakura sat up and rubbed her head.

"Hopefully the trip will be uneventful...the sea is an odd thing, isn't it?" I looked at Sky, who was leaning on the ship railing and staring at the horizon. "It can change from gentle to terrifying in half a minute..."

"Yeah, I guess so. It's pretty now, though, isn't it?"

Sky sighed and looked at me. Her face twisted into a wry expression. "I just wish I didn't get seasick so easily..." she then laughed. "But you're right, it is pretty now."

I stood up and stretched. "Ten hours to Luca, right?"

"Yes, but with a stop at Kilika...I don't think I want to disembark there."

"You're right..." I don't want to take the chance that I might chicken out and go running home, I thought to myself. But that would have been the wrong thing to say at the time. If I was Sky, I would sure as heck be nervous about what I was going to do.

Two hours passed. Nyk and Liya awoke from their naps and came upstairs. We passed the time by cloud-watching-That cloud looks like a flower, or That one is obviously a bird, or I think that one is a trunkless Shoopuf with a house on its back .
"Why would a Shoopuf have a house on its back?" Nyk asked, and stretched lazily.

"Dunno. That's what it looks like." Sakura sat up and squinted against the sun. "Hey, look over there!" She stood up and pointed over the left side of the ship. "What the heck...?" Following her finger with my eyes, I saw a dark splotch on the horizon.

"'Ilika?" Liya asked. She seemed to have gotten over her earlier shyness. Sky shook her head slowly.

"Too small... and we shouldn't be there for another couple of..." Sky stood up quickly. The blob was quickly approaching, and Sky seemed to know what it was. "Sin!"

I swallowed what I was about to say as my breath caught in my throat. Sin?! It couldn't be! But as it approached, even I could make out a large fin sticking up out of the water.

"Get below!" Sky yelled over the rising wind. I could hear shouts coming from the crew- I guess they noticed it, I thought as I ran towards Sky. "Rai, you can't do anything! If I summon, I can drive it off towards the west!" She held out her staff, which had been leaning against the side of the ship, and twirled it. As a light shone briefly around her, I recognized the Protect spell. "I'll come below if it gets too close! Go, Rai!" Unwillingly, my feet took me towards the stairs leading to the bowels of the ship. I stopped on the third stair, leaning around the wall to watch Sky. Sakura came up behind me, grabbed my wrist, and led me down the stairs.

"You'll get hurt if you stand out there," she said, sitting down and leaning against the wall. I hesitated, then nodded and sat down beside her.

"It's just...I'm a guardian!" I exploded, standing back up. "I should be out there protecting her, not sitting on my behind in here!"

"How are you gonna protect her?" Sakura asked, her eyes following me pacing back and forth. "Sin's at least a mile away. Her summon'll protect her, and there's nothing you can do to help."

I continued pacing for another minute, then sighed in defeat. I leaned against the wall next to her and crossed my arms. We waited in silence- the door to this room had shut behind me when I came in.

"I've been thinking about asking Sky to be a guardian," Sakura said after a long while. I kept staring at the wall across from me. "I mean," she continued, a little faster, "My grandpa and Nyk can take care of Liya, so there's nothing for me to do there. You guys both seem nice, and...I dunno."

"What?" I asked, curious now.

"I mean, I've never really had any real friends. Nyk and Liya, I love 'em, but they're my family. Besaid's pretty small, and there weren't any other girls my age. I was always tagging along with the older kids." Sakura shrugged. "I like you guys."

I smiled. "It's fine with me, but it's Sky's decision."

"Yeah, I know."

I paused. "What about...your parents?"

"Oh..."

"Ah, never mind," I said hastily. "I mean-"

"Naw, it's okay. Let's see.I was...twelve? Yeah. It'd been about eight years, I guess, since Sin was defeated. We didn't think it'd be back for...oh, two years, at least. That's why everyone in the village was out on the beach, you can't do that when you might get attacked. We had a bonfire going, and a nice little party. It was just me, mum, and dad-Nyk had a cold and was back in the village with Liya. She was only two, I think." Sakura looked up at the ceiling and squinted. "Yeah, two. We saw a shape over the water...it was dark out, and we thought it was a ship, so we didn't pay any attention. Only, it wasn't."

"Sin?" I asked quietly.

"Yeah. I was lucky, I guess. I made it back to the trees before it really hit shore. Only Dad was a Crusader, so he stayed. Dunno why...he didn't have any weapons. Mum got trampled by everyone running to the village, and Sin...he caught her, dad, half the village."

"Geez...um-"

Sakura made a face. "Don't say you're sorry. It's annoying. I guess that's another reason I want to be a Guardian, then. I think I'm gonna go check on- "

She was cut off by a loud fingernails-on-a-blackboard screech, one that seemed to come from all around us. We clapped our hands over our ears, but there was only one. Nyk poked his head out of a door down the hall as we approached the stairs. After that screech, the silence was deafening.

Suddenly we were thrown off our feet as the ship lurched. The breath flew out of my lungs as the next lurch tossed me into the wall. Down the hall, I heard Liya begin to cry. Nyk, who had been tossed to our end of the boat by the lurches, picked himself up and dashed down the hall. He stumbled once as a less powerful force struck the boat.

I don't know how, but between lurches I managed to make it to the door of the deck. I pulled it open, struggling against a force on the other side. A freezing blast of air hit me and nearly tossed me down the stairs. Gritting my teeth, I shoved against it and forced my way out on deck .

Lashing rain stung my face as I stared upwards. The blue sky had transformed into a roiling beast of gray and black, white fire lancing over it. Sky stood in the bow of the ship, grasping the short pole that stood there. A mighty force- a wave, I now realized- shook her grip free and caused me to slam to the floor. "Sky!!" I hollered, knowing she couldn't hear me. But something must have told her I was there, for she turned her ashy face towards me. She mouthed something, then launched herself across the deck.. Wind whipping her soaked dress behind her, she was tossed back and forth by the occasional wave hitting the ship.

I grabbed her as she was about to fall past me, yanked open the door- much easier now that the wind was on our side- and we tumbled through.

"What..." I gasped out as we made our way down the hall.

"A storm...came in Sin's wake," Sky replied. "The shriek... Valefor got hit, by, by something...Sin went back the way it came..." She seemed extremely disoriented, and collapsed on the bed in the small room that I helped her in to.

Nyk looked up from rubbing an ointment on Liya's forehead-I saw a nasty cut when I looked closer. "She fell when the ship lurched," Nyk explained. "Sakura?"

Sakura went to Sky, a bottle of some sort of potion in her hand. "She's out cold," she commented.

I sat down, leaning against the foot of the bed. "I wonder why...last time she summoned, she fainted. I could see why then-but it doesn't make much sense now."

"She went up against Sin, didn't she? And she's a new Summoner. It must have took an awful lot of strength to keep the Aeon alive."

"Mmm. Guess so."

There we sat, in the musty, small room under the ship, to wait out the storm.