"Thank the gods we made it out of there alive!" Steiner exclaimed,
running from the ship and kneeling to kiss the good, solid earth
repeatedly...before grimacing and spitting out a mouthful of soil. Avatar,
strolling from the ship, glanced over and gave the Knight of Pluto a thumbs-
up.
"Yeah! Way to use the tongue! You rock, Steiner! Whoo!"
"You...rock, Steiner? Whoo? What the hell kind of crappy dialogue is that?" Amarant demanded, stalking past and leaning against something, his arms crossed. This 'something,' which turned out to be Freya, was rather indignant. Until she fell over. Then they were both indignant. And rather dusty. And Avatara had a lengthy snicker at the sight. And then, of course, Avatara got a dagger thrown at her. Dagger was very annoyed by this. For once, Avatar shook his head in dismay.
"This is too silly," he commented, sweatdropping. This caused Avatara to leap upon him and beat him savagely.
"NAMAGOMI!!!" she howled. "MY GIMMICK!!! GIMMICK INFRINGEMENT!!! GIMMICK INFRINGEMENT!!!!!!!"
"But…" Avatar began slowly, peeling himself from the ground, "won't Filia be angry that you've stolen her gimmick?"
"No! I've already okayed it with Filia."
"Really?"
"Yeah! When we had tea together the other day."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"That…" Avatara put a finger to her lips. "...Is a secret."
"What's a secret?" Zidane inquired, wandering from the airship.
"Ummm...that!" Avatara replied cheerfully. Zidane raised an eyebrow. "Uh...kay..." he said, having something of a Nat moment. Then he glanced about him. "I wonder where we are, anyway..."
"Well, it's nearly dark, so I'd assume somewhere near Treno," Avatara said proudly. Avatar sighed.
"Or, you know, it could just be late..."
"Naw, she's actually right this time, believe it or not," Zidane commented, disbelief in his tone. He shrugged. "Should we head there?"
"Well, we should get Erin somewhere where she can lie down. Now she's beginning to talk to tiny, imaginary mountains floating around her head," Dagger informed Zidane mournfully. Freya sighed.
"Ah, sleep deprivation is a dangerous thing."
"Maybe it wasn't sleep-dep. Maybe she's been eatin' the wrong kinda 'shrooms!" Avatara suggested.
"Or maybe you should just shut the hell up?" Amarant suggested sweetly.
"I like that one," Steiner agreed. "Now, can we just go to the tavern?"
Zidane sighed heavily.
"But before that, we have to teach cat-girl and Sephiroth here how to fight. After all, we don't want them to get killed by some creature on the way there."
"Says you," Amarant muttered, crossing his arms and leaning against something, pausing first to be sure that, this time, it wasn't Freya. A moment later, Vivi gave an indignant yelp.
"Oh, sorry, hat," Amarant smirked. Zidane shook his head, exasperated.
"The point is, we gotta teach them to fight somehow."
"Great, Zidane," Eiko chirped. "Have fun!"
"What?!" Zidane was nonplussed by this. "Me?! Why can't Steiner do it?"
"Yes, Eiko, why can't...wait a second...I don't to! Yes, Zidane should most definitely be the one to teach them to fight!"
"Well...why can't Amarant do it, then?" Zidane demanded. The bounty hunter smirked menacingly.
"If I do it, we won't have to worry about some monster killing them."
Avatar's lower lip quivered.
"I don't want the mean big-armed man to teach us!" he whimpered. "He's all mean, and his arms are all big-like! Right, Avatara?"
He glanced in the direction of his similarly-named other half, and shook his head in despair at the sight of the young cat-eared psychotic bouncing around merrily, trying to snag a butterfly.
"Hey! Avatara!" he shouted. "Tell dude here that we don't want the Flaming Toilet Tissue to teach us to fight!"
"Huh?" Avatara stopped, tilting her head to the side confusedly. Zidane sighed.
"As tempting as it is, no, we won't have Amarant ki-uh, teach them. How 'bout you, Freya?"
"Hey, what have I ever done to you to deserve that?" she demanded angrily. Dropping his head to his hand in despair, Zidane heaved a long sigh.
"Okay, I'll teach them."
Avatar glared at the betailed young man.
"I don't need you to teach me how to fight! I am Sephiroth, the Mighty!!!"
"Okay, Amarant, you can teach them," Zidane announced.
"Heeeeeeey!" Avatara whined. "I didn't claim to be Sephiroth! I fully admit that I suck! Please don't kill me! I'm too cute to die!" She collapsed to the ground, tear-jets once again erupting from her eyes, sending Vivi flying. Amarant smirked evilly.
"Alright, you two, here's your first lesson. Attack me."
"Okay!" Avatara bounced up from the ground, standing beside Avatar. "I'm going to show that I have, indeed, learned something from Zidane."
"From me? What's that?" Zidane scratched his head.
"FLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!" she shrieked, turning around and sprinting away, for some reason chanting "run-run-run" as she did so. Avatar shrugged.
"I am not afraid of you!" he proclaimed proudly. "I will summon my mighty Sephiroth
powers!" He waved his arms dramatically before him. "Masamune! Sword of Death! I call upon thee! Let the fools who stand before me be destroyed by the powers you and I possess!"
"That's right," Amarant growled. "Keep digging, Pseudoroth."
"Uh...sword? Masamune? Where aaaaaaaaaaare yoooooooooou? PLEASE come to me? I demand you come to me! Fools! Before me! Destroy!"
"I'M the fool? He's waving his arms and calling for an imaginary sword, and I'M the fool?" Amarant chuckled incredulously. Finally realizing that the summoning of the fabled Sword of Death would get him nowhere, Avatar tried a different approach. He smiled engagingly, holding a small package out to the startled redhead.
"How 'bout some dope, man?"
Freya sighed, shaking her head.
"Look, I know he looks like some diseased cross between a chicken and a Rasta-man, but believe me, you can't win him over with dope."
In a frightening lapse of characterization, Amarant pouted.
"Freya!" he said reproachfully. "I don't really look half Rasta-man, do I?"
"Um..."She gazed thoughtfully for a moment. "Maybe a quarter..."
This was all the distraction Avatara needed to dart back onto the scene and whisk Avatar away to freedom, safety, and a nice, secluded room in a nice, secluded inn. Dagger watched them go, eyebrow raised.
"Um...should we go after them?"
Zidane waggled his own eyebrows suggestively at the lovely princess.
"Yeah, let's go get a room of our own."
"You are such a guy!" Dagger exclaimed, shaking her head.
"Yes, I am," he agreed, hitching up his belt. And now it was Dagger's turn, for the first time, to sweatdrop. Steiner shook his head.
"This is no time for elaborate discussions of Zidane's gender! We must decide what to do next. Shall we head into Treno and try to meet back up with Avatar and Avatara? Or shall we go somewhere?"
"I like the second one," Amarant announced, crossing his arms and – you guessed it! – leaning up against something.
"But, Amarant, if we go somewhere else, we might not find them again!" Vivi protested.
"What a horrible prospect," the bounty hunter commented sarcastically.
"Hey!" Eiko piped up. "I liked Avatar and Avatara!"
"Yes," Vivi agreed. "They provided a lot of cheap entertainment."
"Right. And they'd get themselves killed in the first fight they were involved in. Especially that idiot, Avatar and his imaginary sword. At least that cat-girl thing had the sense to know when to run," Amarant declared.
"Oh, and of course, running will help win a lot of battles," Freya shot back sarcastically. Amarant shrugged.
"Hey, I'm just saying, it's obvious where the brains come in that pair."
Meanwhile...
"Hee!" Avatara chirped, batting at the brightly-coloured ball of yarn. She clapped her hands delightedly as it rolled across the room and bounced off the wall of the inn.
"Why did we just cut away like that?" Zidane asked, scratching his head in confusion.
"I'm not sure," Dagger replied, casting Esuna to help Zidane out of his confusion. He rolled his eyes, exasperated.
"Dagger, what was that for?"
"You were confused," she replied. "I was un-confusing you."
"Alright, let's get to an inn," Steiner suggested. "We're all obviously tired."
And so the group set off on the long walk to Treno, coincidently forgetting that they had an airship perfectly capable of eliminating such a walk, although with a pilot in no state to pilot it.
Later on in a rather generic tavern in Treno…
"Geez, what a walk! I don't think we've ever been in so many random fights on one two-hour walk before! And what wondrous battles they were! Monsters of every size, description, and ability! I don't know how we ever survived. It would have been amazing to see," Zidane observed, flopping into a chair in the rather generic tavern which they had happened upon, upon their arrival in Treno. Steiner nodded in agreement, motioning for the waiter.
"It certainly was a harrowing journey."
"Yes! Eiko and I cast so many Curagas, I don't think we have another magic point left between the two of us!" Dagger proclaimed, collapsing into the chair next to Zidane. Everyone looked strangely at her for a time.
"Erm, Dagger, what are you talking about? What's a 'magic point?'" Freya finally asked, breaking a three-hour silence, causing the poor little silence to whimper painfully and scurry into the corner.
"Freya!" Eiko exclaimed. "That was mean! That poor little silence!"
The little purple-haired summoner scurried into the corner after the silence and cuddled it. Zidane watched her, blinking.
"Maybe we should have slept before we ate," he murmured. He dropped his head to the table...and then glanced up abruptly as a pained whimper from Steiner made itself audible.
"What's up, Rusty?" Zidane asked with a huge yawn.
"It's them!" he groaned, pointing to a nearby table where two very familiar, very annoying presences were...uh...present.
"You!" Avatar's mighty...okay, sort of mighty...okay, slightly wussy voice boomed...uh, squeaked. "I can't believe you would show your faces before us after the sound thrashing you received at the hands of the Mighty Sephiroth and the Sword of Death, Masamune!"
Next to him, Avatara, predictably, sweatdropped. However, in future recollections, Avatar would not recall this. He would instead recall her clinging to his manly bicep and uttering words of adoration.
"Thrashing. You mean, when you summoned that Imaginary Sword of Get-A- Life?" Zidane snickered.
"The very same!" Avatar proclaimed proudly, leaping up onto a table, nearly losing his balance, then recovering and striking a dramatic pose (although warily). "I split the heavens apart with the Sword of Death and cleaved the villainous Amarant in twain!"
"Uh...yeah. Split. Well, he did give me a splitting headache," Amarant conceded with a smirk.
"Actually, dear-" Avatara broke in, tugging on his arm and trying to drag him from the table. She got no further. Avatar's brows drew together as he peered darkly down at her.
"Silence, bicep-clinging wench!"
A dangerous flash came into Avatara's eyes.
"Alright, buddy, you are SO in full-on sleeping-on-the-couch mode! We ran away – or, rather, I ran away, and when I came back to get you, YOU were trying to sell 'the villainous Amarant' some dope!"
"That's not how I remember it," Avatar shouted to the gathering crowd, desperately searching for support that, sadly, just was not there. "With the blade of Masamune," he howled triumphantly, "I bore down upon the treacherous bounty hunter and cleaved him from top to bottom-"
"Funny, I don't feel very 'cleaved,'" Amarant muttered.
"I believe that's 'cloven,'" Steiner noted.
"-staining the landscape in his blood!"
"Why don't I remember this?" Zidane inquired, scratching his head. With a heavy sigh, Amarant beckoned to the young blonde man, and leaned down to whisper in his ear.
"BECAUSE IT DIDN'T HAPPEN!!!!!" he howled. Avatar glared down at him from his perch on the table.
"Silence, corpse! Can you not rest quietly in the grave carved for you by the unrelenting blade of Masamune?!"
"No," Amarant was about to say, but was cut off as Avatara, finally catching on that the 'bicep-clinging wench' remark was directed at her, stormed off angrily.
"D'oh!" Avatar intoned sadly from his makeshift podium before leaping down, landing on the wooden floorboards of the tavern with a thump. "Come back, Snugglekitty! Please come back!"
As she reached the door of the tavern and slammed it shut behind her, Avatar shrugged and turned back to Zidane.
"Hey, can we borrow some cash for food?"
"Why didn't you loot my corpse when you 'carved my grave' with your imaginary sword?" Amarant inquired, laughing in spite of himself.
"Because I'm honest! I'm not a thief," Avatar replied, pointing pointedly at Zidane.
"Honest?!" Steiner exclaimed. "You've spent the past ten minutes detailing your little exploits in a dream world, and you call yourself honest?!"
"AND you referred to your woman as a 'bicep-clinging wench!' As a fellow woman, I am offended and spit on you!" Dagger added. "Ptooey!"
"I think everyone has gone mad! Mad, I tell you!" Vivi piped up from his hiding spot beneath the table.
"Hi, Vivi. Room for one more?" Eiko asked, bouncing over and sliding beneath the table.
"Eeeew!" Avatar whined. "That's gross! I don't know where that spit's been!"
"Oh, would you go after her already?!" Freya exclaimed. Avatar's brow wrinkled.
"Eh? Who?
"Your 'wench,' you idiot!" a random waiter remarked in passing. Avatar's eyes grew wide and teary.
"Jaci...? Yezo...? Snuggle...kitty...? Avatara...? Babe...?"
"Stop listing names and go after her!" Freya commanded, shoving him toward the door. "Good God! Some men need all the hints in the world!" she glanced over at the bemused bounty hunter with fiercely restrained longing, before letting her gaze drift back to her entrée with considerably less longing. She sighed.
Avatar ran after his departed soulmate, his thoughts finally drifting away from Sephiroth and villainy to two more pressing concerns. Would he ever manage to convince his beloved to return to him, and if so, would he do it fast enough to stave off the growing hunger which threatened to engulf his very being? Avatar and Avatara; would they find food in time?
"Yeah! Way to use the tongue! You rock, Steiner! Whoo!"
"You...rock, Steiner? Whoo? What the hell kind of crappy dialogue is that?" Amarant demanded, stalking past and leaning against something, his arms crossed. This 'something,' which turned out to be Freya, was rather indignant. Until she fell over. Then they were both indignant. And rather dusty. And Avatara had a lengthy snicker at the sight. And then, of course, Avatara got a dagger thrown at her. Dagger was very annoyed by this. For once, Avatar shook his head in dismay.
"This is too silly," he commented, sweatdropping. This caused Avatara to leap upon him and beat him savagely.
"NAMAGOMI!!!" she howled. "MY GIMMICK!!! GIMMICK INFRINGEMENT!!! GIMMICK INFRINGEMENT!!!!!!!"
"But…" Avatar began slowly, peeling himself from the ground, "won't Filia be angry that you've stolen her gimmick?"
"No! I've already okayed it with Filia."
"Really?"
"Yeah! When we had tea together the other day."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"That…" Avatara put a finger to her lips. "...Is a secret."
"What's a secret?" Zidane inquired, wandering from the airship.
"Ummm...that!" Avatara replied cheerfully. Zidane raised an eyebrow. "Uh...kay..." he said, having something of a Nat moment. Then he glanced about him. "I wonder where we are, anyway..."
"Well, it's nearly dark, so I'd assume somewhere near Treno," Avatara said proudly. Avatar sighed.
"Or, you know, it could just be late..."
"Naw, she's actually right this time, believe it or not," Zidane commented, disbelief in his tone. He shrugged. "Should we head there?"
"Well, we should get Erin somewhere where she can lie down. Now she's beginning to talk to tiny, imaginary mountains floating around her head," Dagger informed Zidane mournfully. Freya sighed.
"Ah, sleep deprivation is a dangerous thing."
"Maybe it wasn't sleep-dep. Maybe she's been eatin' the wrong kinda 'shrooms!" Avatara suggested.
"Or maybe you should just shut the hell up?" Amarant suggested sweetly.
"I like that one," Steiner agreed. "Now, can we just go to the tavern?"
Zidane sighed heavily.
"But before that, we have to teach cat-girl and Sephiroth here how to fight. After all, we don't want them to get killed by some creature on the way there."
"Says you," Amarant muttered, crossing his arms and leaning against something, pausing first to be sure that, this time, it wasn't Freya. A moment later, Vivi gave an indignant yelp.
"Oh, sorry, hat," Amarant smirked. Zidane shook his head, exasperated.
"The point is, we gotta teach them to fight somehow."
"Great, Zidane," Eiko chirped. "Have fun!"
"What?!" Zidane was nonplussed by this. "Me?! Why can't Steiner do it?"
"Yes, Eiko, why can't...wait a second...I don't to! Yes, Zidane should most definitely be the one to teach them to fight!"
"Well...why can't Amarant do it, then?" Zidane demanded. The bounty hunter smirked menacingly.
"If I do it, we won't have to worry about some monster killing them."
Avatar's lower lip quivered.
"I don't want the mean big-armed man to teach us!" he whimpered. "He's all mean, and his arms are all big-like! Right, Avatara?"
He glanced in the direction of his similarly-named other half, and shook his head in despair at the sight of the young cat-eared psychotic bouncing around merrily, trying to snag a butterfly.
"Hey! Avatara!" he shouted. "Tell dude here that we don't want the Flaming Toilet Tissue to teach us to fight!"
"Huh?" Avatara stopped, tilting her head to the side confusedly. Zidane sighed.
"As tempting as it is, no, we won't have Amarant ki-uh, teach them. How 'bout you, Freya?"
"Hey, what have I ever done to you to deserve that?" she demanded angrily. Dropping his head to his hand in despair, Zidane heaved a long sigh.
"Okay, I'll teach them."
Avatar glared at the betailed young man.
"I don't need you to teach me how to fight! I am Sephiroth, the Mighty!!!"
"Okay, Amarant, you can teach them," Zidane announced.
"Heeeeeeey!" Avatara whined. "I didn't claim to be Sephiroth! I fully admit that I suck! Please don't kill me! I'm too cute to die!" She collapsed to the ground, tear-jets once again erupting from her eyes, sending Vivi flying. Amarant smirked evilly.
"Alright, you two, here's your first lesson. Attack me."
"Okay!" Avatara bounced up from the ground, standing beside Avatar. "I'm going to show that I have, indeed, learned something from Zidane."
"From me? What's that?" Zidane scratched his head.
"FLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!" she shrieked, turning around and sprinting away, for some reason chanting "run-run-run" as she did so. Avatar shrugged.
"I am not afraid of you!" he proclaimed proudly. "I will summon my mighty Sephiroth
powers!" He waved his arms dramatically before him. "Masamune! Sword of Death! I call upon thee! Let the fools who stand before me be destroyed by the powers you and I possess!"
"That's right," Amarant growled. "Keep digging, Pseudoroth."
"Uh...sword? Masamune? Where aaaaaaaaaaare yoooooooooou? PLEASE come to me? I demand you come to me! Fools! Before me! Destroy!"
"I'M the fool? He's waving his arms and calling for an imaginary sword, and I'M the fool?" Amarant chuckled incredulously. Finally realizing that the summoning of the fabled Sword of Death would get him nowhere, Avatar tried a different approach. He smiled engagingly, holding a small package out to the startled redhead.
"How 'bout some dope, man?"
Freya sighed, shaking her head.
"Look, I know he looks like some diseased cross between a chicken and a Rasta-man, but believe me, you can't win him over with dope."
In a frightening lapse of characterization, Amarant pouted.
"Freya!" he said reproachfully. "I don't really look half Rasta-man, do I?"
"Um..."She gazed thoughtfully for a moment. "Maybe a quarter..."
This was all the distraction Avatara needed to dart back onto the scene and whisk Avatar away to freedom, safety, and a nice, secluded room in a nice, secluded inn. Dagger watched them go, eyebrow raised.
"Um...should we go after them?"
Zidane waggled his own eyebrows suggestively at the lovely princess.
"Yeah, let's go get a room of our own."
"You are such a guy!" Dagger exclaimed, shaking her head.
"Yes, I am," he agreed, hitching up his belt. And now it was Dagger's turn, for the first time, to sweatdrop. Steiner shook his head.
"This is no time for elaborate discussions of Zidane's gender! We must decide what to do next. Shall we head into Treno and try to meet back up with Avatar and Avatara? Or shall we go somewhere?"
"I like the second one," Amarant announced, crossing his arms and – you guessed it! – leaning up against something.
"But, Amarant, if we go somewhere else, we might not find them again!" Vivi protested.
"What a horrible prospect," the bounty hunter commented sarcastically.
"Hey!" Eiko piped up. "I liked Avatar and Avatara!"
"Yes," Vivi agreed. "They provided a lot of cheap entertainment."
"Right. And they'd get themselves killed in the first fight they were involved in. Especially that idiot, Avatar and his imaginary sword. At least that cat-girl thing had the sense to know when to run," Amarant declared.
"Oh, and of course, running will help win a lot of battles," Freya shot back sarcastically. Amarant shrugged.
"Hey, I'm just saying, it's obvious where the brains come in that pair."
Meanwhile...
"Hee!" Avatara chirped, batting at the brightly-coloured ball of yarn. She clapped her hands delightedly as it rolled across the room and bounced off the wall of the inn.
"Why did we just cut away like that?" Zidane asked, scratching his head in confusion.
"I'm not sure," Dagger replied, casting Esuna to help Zidane out of his confusion. He rolled his eyes, exasperated.
"Dagger, what was that for?"
"You were confused," she replied. "I was un-confusing you."
"Alright, let's get to an inn," Steiner suggested. "We're all obviously tired."
And so the group set off on the long walk to Treno, coincidently forgetting that they had an airship perfectly capable of eliminating such a walk, although with a pilot in no state to pilot it.
Later on in a rather generic tavern in Treno…
"Geez, what a walk! I don't think we've ever been in so many random fights on one two-hour walk before! And what wondrous battles they were! Monsters of every size, description, and ability! I don't know how we ever survived. It would have been amazing to see," Zidane observed, flopping into a chair in the rather generic tavern which they had happened upon, upon their arrival in Treno. Steiner nodded in agreement, motioning for the waiter.
"It certainly was a harrowing journey."
"Yes! Eiko and I cast so many Curagas, I don't think we have another magic point left between the two of us!" Dagger proclaimed, collapsing into the chair next to Zidane. Everyone looked strangely at her for a time.
"Erm, Dagger, what are you talking about? What's a 'magic point?'" Freya finally asked, breaking a three-hour silence, causing the poor little silence to whimper painfully and scurry into the corner.
"Freya!" Eiko exclaimed. "That was mean! That poor little silence!"
The little purple-haired summoner scurried into the corner after the silence and cuddled it. Zidane watched her, blinking.
"Maybe we should have slept before we ate," he murmured. He dropped his head to the table...and then glanced up abruptly as a pained whimper from Steiner made itself audible.
"What's up, Rusty?" Zidane asked with a huge yawn.
"It's them!" he groaned, pointing to a nearby table where two very familiar, very annoying presences were...uh...present.
"You!" Avatar's mighty...okay, sort of mighty...okay, slightly wussy voice boomed...uh, squeaked. "I can't believe you would show your faces before us after the sound thrashing you received at the hands of the Mighty Sephiroth and the Sword of Death, Masamune!"
Next to him, Avatara, predictably, sweatdropped. However, in future recollections, Avatar would not recall this. He would instead recall her clinging to his manly bicep and uttering words of adoration.
"Thrashing. You mean, when you summoned that Imaginary Sword of Get-A- Life?" Zidane snickered.
"The very same!" Avatar proclaimed proudly, leaping up onto a table, nearly losing his balance, then recovering and striking a dramatic pose (although warily). "I split the heavens apart with the Sword of Death and cleaved the villainous Amarant in twain!"
"Uh...yeah. Split. Well, he did give me a splitting headache," Amarant conceded with a smirk.
"Actually, dear-" Avatara broke in, tugging on his arm and trying to drag him from the table. She got no further. Avatar's brows drew together as he peered darkly down at her.
"Silence, bicep-clinging wench!"
A dangerous flash came into Avatara's eyes.
"Alright, buddy, you are SO in full-on sleeping-on-the-couch mode! We ran away – or, rather, I ran away, and when I came back to get you, YOU were trying to sell 'the villainous Amarant' some dope!"
"That's not how I remember it," Avatar shouted to the gathering crowd, desperately searching for support that, sadly, just was not there. "With the blade of Masamune," he howled triumphantly, "I bore down upon the treacherous bounty hunter and cleaved him from top to bottom-"
"Funny, I don't feel very 'cleaved,'" Amarant muttered.
"I believe that's 'cloven,'" Steiner noted.
"-staining the landscape in his blood!"
"Why don't I remember this?" Zidane inquired, scratching his head. With a heavy sigh, Amarant beckoned to the young blonde man, and leaned down to whisper in his ear.
"BECAUSE IT DIDN'T HAPPEN!!!!!" he howled. Avatar glared down at him from his perch on the table.
"Silence, corpse! Can you not rest quietly in the grave carved for you by the unrelenting blade of Masamune?!"
"No," Amarant was about to say, but was cut off as Avatara, finally catching on that the 'bicep-clinging wench' remark was directed at her, stormed off angrily.
"D'oh!" Avatar intoned sadly from his makeshift podium before leaping down, landing on the wooden floorboards of the tavern with a thump. "Come back, Snugglekitty! Please come back!"
As she reached the door of the tavern and slammed it shut behind her, Avatar shrugged and turned back to Zidane.
"Hey, can we borrow some cash for food?"
"Why didn't you loot my corpse when you 'carved my grave' with your imaginary sword?" Amarant inquired, laughing in spite of himself.
"Because I'm honest! I'm not a thief," Avatar replied, pointing pointedly at Zidane.
"Honest?!" Steiner exclaimed. "You've spent the past ten minutes detailing your little exploits in a dream world, and you call yourself honest?!"
"AND you referred to your woman as a 'bicep-clinging wench!' As a fellow woman, I am offended and spit on you!" Dagger added. "Ptooey!"
"I think everyone has gone mad! Mad, I tell you!" Vivi piped up from his hiding spot beneath the table.
"Hi, Vivi. Room for one more?" Eiko asked, bouncing over and sliding beneath the table.
"Eeeew!" Avatar whined. "That's gross! I don't know where that spit's been!"
"Oh, would you go after her already?!" Freya exclaimed. Avatar's brow wrinkled.
"Eh? Who?
"Your 'wench,' you idiot!" a random waiter remarked in passing. Avatar's eyes grew wide and teary.
"Jaci...? Yezo...? Snuggle...kitty...? Avatara...? Babe...?"
"Stop listing names and go after her!" Freya commanded, shoving him toward the door. "Good God! Some men need all the hints in the world!" she glanced over at the bemused bounty hunter with fiercely restrained longing, before letting her gaze drift back to her entrée with considerably less longing. She sighed.
Avatar ran after his departed soulmate, his thoughts finally drifting away from Sephiroth and villainy to two more pressing concerns. Would he ever manage to convince his beloved to return to him, and if so, would he do it fast enough to stave off the growing hunger which threatened to engulf his very being? Avatar and Avatara; would they find food in time?