Hallelujah! Let the world rejoice! I've updated-on time! And yes, the
chapter title is a Chrono Cross reference. ^_^
Weasleyfan-don't worry, if I'm not going to update I'll put a note in my Bio.
Thanks, Weasleyfan and Yunalesca, for putting my story on your favorites list! I don't have any cookies...want some pixie sticks?
Chapter 8
Kiyo joined your party!
"So. Sin has attacked three times in the past week."
Neither Nyk nor Sakura had quite remembered how to get to their grandfather's home, so we ended up wandering Luca for half an hour before finding it. He had welcomed us into his house-he wouldn't turn away his own grandchildren, and no one would turn away a Summoner. After a warm meal, we had all sat out on his balcony and told him why we had come.
Unlike the wizened elders of Kilika, who seemed as if they would break if you looked at them hard enough and who never walked without a cane, Sakura's grandfather seemed more thirty than seventy. Sakura had evidently inherited her shortness and wavy hair from him, while Nyk and Liya, straight haired and taller, probably looked more like the other side of their family. Well, Nyk was tall. Liya, being four, obviously wasn't.
"We don't know if it actually attacked anyone the third time," Sakura said. "It just swam at us."
"Ah, yes," her grandfather replied. "You wouldn't know, would you. An extremely harried messenger came a few days ago and alerted the governor of Luca that Sin was heading in our direction-however, apparently you were able to drive it away, my lady." He nodded to Sky in a way that conveyed he would be bowing if he weren't sitting down.
"Sin attacked Kilika?" Sky asked calmly. Kilika?! Well, where else could he have come from? Another part of my mind replied. But Kilika? It couldn't be! Sin hadn't attacked Kilika in years!
"Yes. That is where you are from, is it not?" Sky nodded. I was still too shocked to say anything, even though my mouth made a valiant attempt to open and get words out. "I am deeply sorry." He sounded as if he meant it.
I was halfway out of my chair before I knew what I was doing. "The....the messenger, is he still here?" I blurted. Sakura looked at me, alarmed. Her grandfather nodded.
"If you turn left from here, then turn right on to Spring Way, you should come to a hotel. He is staying there."
"Rai..." Sakura started to say. Sky cut her off.
"Go ahead," she said, and smiled weakly. I walked out the door without a word.
Kilika? I still couldn't believe Sin attacked it. But it's perfectly logical, my sensible side said. He does attack cities, you know.
I couldn't think about it now, I told myself as I looked for a street sign. Couldn't think about what happened, who lived, who-
Shaking my head angrily, I found Spring Way and turned on to it. I would ask the messenger. There was no point worrying.
But I have every right to worry!
Be calm. You'll know soon enough.
Where the heck's that hotel?!
Be calm, Rai. Look at where you're walking. This is your first time in a big city, remember. Look at how tall the buildings are, how white and shining the streets are, how everyone's wearing bright colors.
I almost walked right past the hotel, I was trying to distract myself so hard. I was also angry, which didn't help much with my navigation-- angry at myself for leaving, angry at Sin for attacking, angry at the people who don't mark hotels clearly enough. The front door was open, so I went inside.
Sitting on one of the couches arranged artfully among potted plants was a boy a few years older than I was. He was staring intently in to a recording sphere, an Al Bhed invention. Recently Yevonites had grudgingly started using them as well, but they were not very widely used, and I briefly wondered where the boy had gotten one. Wondering that, I realized he wasn't from Kilika, and I had never seen him before. He had blond hair tied in to a short ponytail, and he wore the usual shirt and breeches that I thought half of Spira must wear, I had seen them so often. I cleared my throat, and he looked up.
I walked over to him. "I've...heard you're from Kilika," I said warily.
"He looked up at me with a slightly perplexed expression. "Well....no. I'm just the one who saw Kilika get attacked."
I swallowed. "So it was, then?"
"Yeah. You're not from there, are you?" he asked worriedly.
"Um. Yes."
"Oh."
"I was just wondering if you knew who..."
He understood what I was trying to say. "No," he said. "Our ship was passing by, and we saw Sin swim away. We landed, but there wasn't much we could do. A Summoner was there, and we left as she was performing the sending." He sounded faintly put out, and I looked at him quizzically. "Ah. She didn't seem to want us there, practically pushed us on to our boat. This kid O'aka came here with me, so you might want to talk to him. He'll probably know more than I do. He's down the hall a bit."
I thanked him and walked down the hall. I knew O'aka; he lived about ten steps from where I did. Had lived. My house wouldn't be there anymore. I was faintly upset about that, but a strange calm seemed to have descended over me. Later I would realize it was partially shock, but then I was glad not to be angry at the world any more.
O'aka couldn't tell me any more than the boy had. He hadn't seen my family, either alive or dead, but he hadn't seen much of anyone. I asked what he was going to do now, and he said he would either open a shop or travel the world. I suggested he try being a merchant-he could sell things while traveling-and he said he liked the idea, and would think about it. We said goodbye, and I returned to the lobby of the hotel, feeling oddly that I had been talking to a casual acquaintance rather than someone I'd known since childhood.
I paused when I walked past the boy. "You said...another Summoner was there?"
"Yeah. Are you the Summoner I heard was in Luca?"
"No, I'm her guardian. What was the Summoner's name?"
"Um...Lady Rissa? Rilla? Something like that. You're a guardian?" I nodded. "Can I travel with you and your Summoner for a while? I need to get back to Bevelle, and it's not very safe to take that journey by myself. Oh!" He shook his head. "I'm Kazukiyo... Kiyo, for short. And you are?"
"I'm Rai. You'll have to ask Sky, the Summoner, if you can come." I never knew so many people would want to come with us, I thought as I distrustfully eyed the sphere he was still holding. "You're not...Al Bhed, are you?"
Kiyo's eyes flicked to the sphere, and he chuckled. He looked up at me and pointed to his eyes. They were green like Sky's, although a shade darker, and also like hers, they had no spiral pupil-the telltale "sign of the heathen", as my mother used to call them.
"My dad works with the Al Bhed, selling spheres and electric lights to people. Our family isn't exactly popular for that." He stood up. He was at least a head taller than my five-feet-six. "Can I meet Lady Sky, then?"
"Sure, I guess," I replied. We walked out the door, and I realized that I knew we were on Spring Way-but I had no idea how to get back to the others. I looked around helplessly for a few seconds, then saw a shop that looked familiar. We walked toward it, and I saw the place where I'd turned before. Another familiar turn brought us to the right street. "First Street. Hrm. Weird name," I muttered.
"First time in Luca?" Kiyo asked.
"Yeah. First time out of Kilika, too. There's the house," I said. I must have looked very confused, I thought, for him to know I've never been here before. I opened the front door, which I'd left ajar before, and we walked in.
"Hey," Sakura said as I walked on to the balcony. "Who's that?"
"Um. He'd better explain," I said.
"Hi," he said, nodding. Like Sakura's grandfather had before, he made it seem like a full bow. I idly wondered how people did that. "My name's Kiyo. Our boat was passing by Kilika when it, ah, got attacked," he said.
"So it was, then?" Sky asked.
"Yeah. We couldn't do anything there, so we made a detour to Luca and docked here. I left the ship to tell the Luca mayor that Sin was heading this way, but it was driven off by an Aeon-we saw the battle on the horizon, and we saw Sin swim off. The ship left-we were supposed to be in Bevelle about a week ago, and they didn't want to waste time-so I have to go back by land. I knew there was a Summoner here, and...." He shrugged. "I figure it would be safer to travel with a Summoner than by myself, with fiends and all, so I was wondering if I could travel with you."
Sky motioned for him to sit down. Sakura jumped up and trotted to the balcony door. "Rai? Could you come to the kitchen and help me? It's almost time for dinner."
I obligingly followed her, but once we were in the hallway, I said, "I'm not a very good cook."
"Doesn't matter. Look at the balcony." Kiyo was sitting next to Sakura's grandfather, across from Sky and Nyk. Liya had gone to bed earlier.
"And?"
"You don't notice?" she said impatiently. "I noticed right away."
"Yeah. And you can see the beach when we're fifty miles from land."
"Yeah, well. Look at Kiyo and Sky. They look a lot alike, don't they?"
I looked again. They both had blond hair and green eyes, that I saw immediately. "I guess their faces look kind of alike," I said, thinking out loud.
"Yeah. When you were asleep on the ship, she told us she didn't really have a family. So.I just think maybe they could be related, that's all."
"Huh," I said bemusedly. Neither Sky nor I had ever wondered who her family was, really. "Too bad no one uses last names anymore...we could tell right away, then."
"Yeah. Well, it's a possibility. Come on. I wasn't lying when I said I needed help. I can't make so much as a sandwich."
Sakura led me to the kitchen-she must have looked around a bit while I was gone; she said herself she had never been here before. She found a loaf of bread in a drawer, and rummaging in the icebox, I found some ham and cheese.
The icebox was a lot different than the ones we used at home. Our iceboxes were made out of wood, and we had to change the ice every day so none would melt and come through the cracks. Our food wasn't really cold, but it was enough to keep things like meat from rotting. This icebox, on the other hand, was made out of some sort of thin metal, and there was a drain in the bottom that apparently ran to the plumbing. This probably kept the ice from having to be changed so often, I thought, and the metal was probably to keep the food cooler. All in all, I was more impressed with this than the shops outside.
"I asked her!" Sakura said triumphantly, jolting me out of my wonderment for all things metal and cold. "I asked Sky if I could be her guardian, and she said I could!"
"That's great!" I said, and meant it. I liked Sakura, and had gotten to know her well over the past couple of days.
"Yeah. Course, wonders never cease-Nyk asked, too."
"He did?"
"Yeah. Sky said he could come, too...Liya's going to stay with Grandpa till we come back."
"I'm glad he's coming, too." Digging in the icebox, I found a head of lettuce. "Maybe we can make a salad. I'm no sure about Kiyo, though."
"Why not?" Sakura said. "Are there any carrots? Or onions?"
I blinked, then realized she was talking about the salad. "Um...yeah. We can cut up some cheese for it, too," I said, straightening up and taking my head out of the icebox. "I mean, he seems nice enough, but his story's a little...fishy."
"You'd better cut the bread. I'd end up beheading myself. What about his story?"
"When I talked to him in the hotel, he said there was another Summoner in Kilika...he didn't mention it to Sky."
"That's logical, I guess..."
"Well. Remember, it was raining when Sin attacked?"
"Not before, but during. Yeah."
"How could he have seen the battle on the horizon, like he said?"
"Hrm."
"And he said that he knew there was a Summoner in town...the people we asked for directions, we didn't mention Sky was a Summoner, and we haven't really talked to anyone else. He asked if I was the Summoner he knew was in Luca...'the' Summoner? How did he know there was even one here? I mean, usually Al Bhed know, with how often they try to kidnap them, but his eyes don't have spirals in them, so he can't be Al Bhed..."
"Hrm. Well, then. Let's keep an eye on him, shall we?"
"Yeah...I guess that's all we can do."
"And now," Sakura said, holding out a knife with a flourish, "cut the bread, please."
I took the knife and began slicing. My mind must have still been on Kiyo, though, because the second time I tried to cut a slice, I missed and hit my finger.
"Ow," I said, bringing my finger up to my mouth and sucking on it.
Sakura sighed. "I never thought I'd find someone more dangerous in the kitchen than I was. Let's just stick with sandwiches...if we try to make a salad, we'll probably burn the house down."
"You don't cook a salad."
"Yeah. I know."
Weasleyfan-don't worry, if I'm not going to update I'll put a note in my Bio.
Thanks, Weasleyfan and Yunalesca, for putting my story on your favorites list! I don't have any cookies...want some pixie sticks?
Chapter 8
Kiyo joined your party!
"So. Sin has attacked three times in the past week."
Neither Nyk nor Sakura had quite remembered how to get to their grandfather's home, so we ended up wandering Luca for half an hour before finding it. He had welcomed us into his house-he wouldn't turn away his own grandchildren, and no one would turn away a Summoner. After a warm meal, we had all sat out on his balcony and told him why we had come.
Unlike the wizened elders of Kilika, who seemed as if they would break if you looked at them hard enough and who never walked without a cane, Sakura's grandfather seemed more thirty than seventy. Sakura had evidently inherited her shortness and wavy hair from him, while Nyk and Liya, straight haired and taller, probably looked more like the other side of their family. Well, Nyk was tall. Liya, being four, obviously wasn't.
"We don't know if it actually attacked anyone the third time," Sakura said. "It just swam at us."
"Ah, yes," her grandfather replied. "You wouldn't know, would you. An extremely harried messenger came a few days ago and alerted the governor of Luca that Sin was heading in our direction-however, apparently you were able to drive it away, my lady." He nodded to Sky in a way that conveyed he would be bowing if he weren't sitting down.
"Sin attacked Kilika?" Sky asked calmly. Kilika?! Well, where else could he have come from? Another part of my mind replied. But Kilika? It couldn't be! Sin hadn't attacked Kilika in years!
"Yes. That is where you are from, is it not?" Sky nodded. I was still too shocked to say anything, even though my mouth made a valiant attempt to open and get words out. "I am deeply sorry." He sounded as if he meant it.
I was halfway out of my chair before I knew what I was doing. "The....the messenger, is he still here?" I blurted. Sakura looked at me, alarmed. Her grandfather nodded.
"If you turn left from here, then turn right on to Spring Way, you should come to a hotel. He is staying there."
"Rai..." Sakura started to say. Sky cut her off.
"Go ahead," she said, and smiled weakly. I walked out the door without a word.
Kilika? I still couldn't believe Sin attacked it. But it's perfectly logical, my sensible side said. He does attack cities, you know.
I couldn't think about it now, I told myself as I looked for a street sign. Couldn't think about what happened, who lived, who-
Shaking my head angrily, I found Spring Way and turned on to it. I would ask the messenger. There was no point worrying.
But I have every right to worry!
Be calm. You'll know soon enough.
Where the heck's that hotel?!
Be calm, Rai. Look at where you're walking. This is your first time in a big city, remember. Look at how tall the buildings are, how white and shining the streets are, how everyone's wearing bright colors.
I almost walked right past the hotel, I was trying to distract myself so hard. I was also angry, which didn't help much with my navigation-- angry at myself for leaving, angry at Sin for attacking, angry at the people who don't mark hotels clearly enough. The front door was open, so I went inside.
Sitting on one of the couches arranged artfully among potted plants was a boy a few years older than I was. He was staring intently in to a recording sphere, an Al Bhed invention. Recently Yevonites had grudgingly started using them as well, but they were not very widely used, and I briefly wondered where the boy had gotten one. Wondering that, I realized he wasn't from Kilika, and I had never seen him before. He had blond hair tied in to a short ponytail, and he wore the usual shirt and breeches that I thought half of Spira must wear, I had seen them so often. I cleared my throat, and he looked up.
I walked over to him. "I've...heard you're from Kilika," I said warily.
"He looked up at me with a slightly perplexed expression. "Well....no. I'm just the one who saw Kilika get attacked."
I swallowed. "So it was, then?"
"Yeah. You're not from there, are you?" he asked worriedly.
"Um. Yes."
"Oh."
"I was just wondering if you knew who..."
He understood what I was trying to say. "No," he said. "Our ship was passing by, and we saw Sin swim away. We landed, but there wasn't much we could do. A Summoner was there, and we left as she was performing the sending." He sounded faintly put out, and I looked at him quizzically. "Ah. She didn't seem to want us there, practically pushed us on to our boat. This kid O'aka came here with me, so you might want to talk to him. He'll probably know more than I do. He's down the hall a bit."
I thanked him and walked down the hall. I knew O'aka; he lived about ten steps from where I did. Had lived. My house wouldn't be there anymore. I was faintly upset about that, but a strange calm seemed to have descended over me. Later I would realize it was partially shock, but then I was glad not to be angry at the world any more.
O'aka couldn't tell me any more than the boy had. He hadn't seen my family, either alive or dead, but he hadn't seen much of anyone. I asked what he was going to do now, and he said he would either open a shop or travel the world. I suggested he try being a merchant-he could sell things while traveling-and he said he liked the idea, and would think about it. We said goodbye, and I returned to the lobby of the hotel, feeling oddly that I had been talking to a casual acquaintance rather than someone I'd known since childhood.
I paused when I walked past the boy. "You said...another Summoner was there?"
"Yeah. Are you the Summoner I heard was in Luca?"
"No, I'm her guardian. What was the Summoner's name?"
"Um...Lady Rissa? Rilla? Something like that. You're a guardian?" I nodded. "Can I travel with you and your Summoner for a while? I need to get back to Bevelle, and it's not very safe to take that journey by myself. Oh!" He shook his head. "I'm Kazukiyo... Kiyo, for short. And you are?"
"I'm Rai. You'll have to ask Sky, the Summoner, if you can come." I never knew so many people would want to come with us, I thought as I distrustfully eyed the sphere he was still holding. "You're not...Al Bhed, are you?"
Kiyo's eyes flicked to the sphere, and he chuckled. He looked up at me and pointed to his eyes. They were green like Sky's, although a shade darker, and also like hers, they had no spiral pupil-the telltale "sign of the heathen", as my mother used to call them.
"My dad works with the Al Bhed, selling spheres and electric lights to people. Our family isn't exactly popular for that." He stood up. He was at least a head taller than my five-feet-six. "Can I meet Lady Sky, then?"
"Sure, I guess," I replied. We walked out the door, and I realized that I knew we were on Spring Way-but I had no idea how to get back to the others. I looked around helplessly for a few seconds, then saw a shop that looked familiar. We walked toward it, and I saw the place where I'd turned before. Another familiar turn brought us to the right street. "First Street. Hrm. Weird name," I muttered.
"First time in Luca?" Kiyo asked.
"Yeah. First time out of Kilika, too. There's the house," I said. I must have looked very confused, I thought, for him to know I've never been here before. I opened the front door, which I'd left ajar before, and we walked in.
"Hey," Sakura said as I walked on to the balcony. "Who's that?"
"Um. He'd better explain," I said.
"Hi," he said, nodding. Like Sakura's grandfather had before, he made it seem like a full bow. I idly wondered how people did that. "My name's Kiyo. Our boat was passing by Kilika when it, ah, got attacked," he said.
"So it was, then?" Sky asked.
"Yeah. We couldn't do anything there, so we made a detour to Luca and docked here. I left the ship to tell the Luca mayor that Sin was heading this way, but it was driven off by an Aeon-we saw the battle on the horizon, and we saw Sin swim off. The ship left-we were supposed to be in Bevelle about a week ago, and they didn't want to waste time-so I have to go back by land. I knew there was a Summoner here, and...." He shrugged. "I figure it would be safer to travel with a Summoner than by myself, with fiends and all, so I was wondering if I could travel with you."
Sky motioned for him to sit down. Sakura jumped up and trotted to the balcony door. "Rai? Could you come to the kitchen and help me? It's almost time for dinner."
I obligingly followed her, but once we were in the hallway, I said, "I'm not a very good cook."
"Doesn't matter. Look at the balcony." Kiyo was sitting next to Sakura's grandfather, across from Sky and Nyk. Liya had gone to bed earlier.
"And?"
"You don't notice?" she said impatiently. "I noticed right away."
"Yeah. And you can see the beach when we're fifty miles from land."
"Yeah, well. Look at Kiyo and Sky. They look a lot alike, don't they?"
I looked again. They both had blond hair and green eyes, that I saw immediately. "I guess their faces look kind of alike," I said, thinking out loud.
"Yeah. When you were asleep on the ship, she told us she didn't really have a family. So.I just think maybe they could be related, that's all."
"Huh," I said bemusedly. Neither Sky nor I had ever wondered who her family was, really. "Too bad no one uses last names anymore...we could tell right away, then."
"Yeah. Well, it's a possibility. Come on. I wasn't lying when I said I needed help. I can't make so much as a sandwich."
Sakura led me to the kitchen-she must have looked around a bit while I was gone; she said herself she had never been here before. She found a loaf of bread in a drawer, and rummaging in the icebox, I found some ham and cheese.
The icebox was a lot different than the ones we used at home. Our iceboxes were made out of wood, and we had to change the ice every day so none would melt and come through the cracks. Our food wasn't really cold, but it was enough to keep things like meat from rotting. This icebox, on the other hand, was made out of some sort of thin metal, and there was a drain in the bottom that apparently ran to the plumbing. This probably kept the ice from having to be changed so often, I thought, and the metal was probably to keep the food cooler. All in all, I was more impressed with this than the shops outside.
"I asked her!" Sakura said triumphantly, jolting me out of my wonderment for all things metal and cold. "I asked Sky if I could be her guardian, and she said I could!"
"That's great!" I said, and meant it. I liked Sakura, and had gotten to know her well over the past couple of days.
"Yeah. Course, wonders never cease-Nyk asked, too."
"He did?"
"Yeah. Sky said he could come, too...Liya's going to stay with Grandpa till we come back."
"I'm glad he's coming, too." Digging in the icebox, I found a head of lettuce. "Maybe we can make a salad. I'm no sure about Kiyo, though."
"Why not?" Sakura said. "Are there any carrots? Or onions?"
I blinked, then realized she was talking about the salad. "Um...yeah. We can cut up some cheese for it, too," I said, straightening up and taking my head out of the icebox. "I mean, he seems nice enough, but his story's a little...fishy."
"You'd better cut the bread. I'd end up beheading myself. What about his story?"
"When I talked to him in the hotel, he said there was another Summoner in Kilika...he didn't mention it to Sky."
"That's logical, I guess..."
"Well. Remember, it was raining when Sin attacked?"
"Not before, but during. Yeah."
"How could he have seen the battle on the horizon, like he said?"
"Hrm."
"And he said that he knew there was a Summoner in town...the people we asked for directions, we didn't mention Sky was a Summoner, and we haven't really talked to anyone else. He asked if I was the Summoner he knew was in Luca...'the' Summoner? How did he know there was even one here? I mean, usually Al Bhed know, with how often they try to kidnap them, but his eyes don't have spirals in them, so he can't be Al Bhed..."
"Hrm. Well, then. Let's keep an eye on him, shall we?"
"Yeah...I guess that's all we can do."
"And now," Sakura said, holding out a knife with a flourish, "cut the bread, please."
I took the knife and began slicing. My mind must have still been on Kiyo, though, because the second time I tried to cut a slice, I missed and hit my finger.
"Ow," I said, bringing my finger up to my mouth and sucking on it.
Sakura sighed. "I never thought I'd find someone more dangerous in the kitchen than I was. Let's just stick with sandwiches...if we try to make a salad, we'll probably burn the house down."
"You don't cook a salad."
"Yeah. I know."
