Disclaimer: Final Fantasy X, Spira, blitzball, and all related characters and locations are owned by Squaresoft, with the exception of a few original characters who will be noted as such. This is a work of fanfiction, meaning that it is both created by a fan for no purpose other than entertainment, and it is fiction, meaning that all characters and events are purely fictonal and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Ever wondered how the whole Sphere Grid thing works? Yeah, me too. Your friendly neighborhood flame mage--explaining game mechanics with a smile. I feel a little like Superman.
Author's Note: As always, Al Bhed dialogue is translated at the end of the chapter. Here, Linna and Naida have a brief exchange entirely in Al Bhed, so I've posted the translation of their whole conversation at the bottom so you only have to scroll once.
Green Eyes in Overdrive
by flame mage
round 12: Slayer
**********
My body was so stiff when I got up that I could hardly move. Before my eyes even opened, I knew I wasn't gonna get any coffee. A couple seconds after that I remembered why, and a couple seconds after *that* I said the hell with it and stretched my muscles enough to stand.
Zalitz was already awake and running around when I stumbled over to the fire. "G'morning, dude," he greeted me with a wave of his hand. "How'd ya sleep?"
"Like hell," I replied, wondering how many times I'd used the word 'hell' in the last two days while shifting my weight around to try to get the feeling back in my legs. "How can you stand to be awake?"
"I'm used to getting up early. At sea you sleep like this all the time--in shifts, at weird times, stuff like that. Rock isn't the worst bed I've ever slept on, either. Anyway," he continued, going back to the kabobs, "the whole time Reppi's been here, she had to hunt in the mornings, do everything herself. It was a crazy life, ya know? She talks to herself a lot now, just for the sound. But I figure if I can help her by getting the food and keeping the fire going, fine."
"Did you hunt this morning?'
He shook his head. "Nope. I can't make fire. I would have taken a torch, but that would mean leaving you guys alone, and if the fire went out while you were sleeping, you'd be toast. I'll have to do it soon, though, because this," he gestured at the four thin kabobs and the one marshmallow stick he was roasting, "is all we have left."
I wanted to ask where he'd gotten the marshmallows, but that probably wasn't the issue at the moment. "Hopefully we'll be gone before we need to hunt again," I said instead.
"Except for the plan."
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
We both sighed. "Ya know," he said after a while, "You and Naida...you're not what I expected. They told us Al Bhed were really weird."
I laughed. "I thought the same kinda thing about you...ex-Yevonites, I guess. Non-Al Bhed. Whatever you are. When I came to Luca, I was surprised that it wasn't the backwater dump I'd expected. I thought Home was the biggest place in the world. And you guys aren't weird like the Guado."
"The Guado aren't that weird," Zalitz said. "I spent some time in Guadosalam when I was on shore leave once--I did a tour in the Moonflow. The Guado are really great people."
"Or really great assholes. They live in trees."
"You live in metal tubes. Naida and Reppi live in straw huts. I lived on a floating hunk of wood. What's that have to do with anything?"
"But they attacked us. They bombed our Home and sent fiends to kill us all. And you say they're great?"
"People do strange things for religion, Linna. They probably thought they were doing Yevon a favor by trying to purify Spira so we could be free of Sin."
"What is there that could free us from Sin, Zalitz?" I asked.
"I don't now. But whatever it is...it better happen soon."
"Morning," Reppi said quietly, coming over to sit on her rock. "Thanks for getting the food, Zalitz. You didn't have to."
"S'okay. I had Linna here to keep me company," he answered. "You wanna eat now or wait until the little princess makes her appearance?"
"If by 'the little princess,' you are referring to the Auroch who rises with the birds as well, I'd say start without her," Naida cut in smoothly, arranging herself on her rock like a queen on a throne.
"Oui'na dra uhmo bnehlacc E caa, oui yht ouin cdumah Al Bhed bnehla," I muttered.
"Zaymuic palyica E nasutamat ouin drnuha nuus?"
"Hud y lryhla, pumdc-vun-pnyehc. Yd maycd E ryja y puovneaht fru lyh yldiymmo pmedw ehcdayt uv zicd ceddehk ynuiht fedr y pymm."
"Cbaygehk uv pymmc, drana yna y vaf drehkc E luimt sahdeuh ypuid dra unekeh uv dryd puovneaht'c helghysa..."
I was snarling now. "Rao, oui, dyga dryd pylg nekrd huf pavuna E ryja du vunla ed tufh ouin drnuyd--yht zys ouin kukkmac tufh drana fedr ed." "Crack, crack!" added my knuckles.
"Ahem." Reppi coughed and we looked up, surprised to find foreigners sitting there.
"Remember us, dudes?" Zalitz asked rhetorically, waggling his fingers at me. "Your fellow escapees?"
"Yeah, whatever. Let's just eat so we can get this whole miserable ordeal over with," I grumbled.
And so breakfast was terse and tense and silent, with all of us lost in our own thoughts. I rolled the spiked blitzball back and forth, making nails-on-blackboard screeches until Naida threatened to feed me to the fiend as bait. I shot a couple of choice words in Al Bhed back at her out of the corner of my mouth, but that was it. Neither of us had the energy for a real catfight and we both knew it.
"All right," Reppi said when all the food was gone and we were still licking our sticks to shut up our growling stomachs, "Zalitz, here's the sphere grid. I've already teleported ya to the right node, so just pop in an ability sphere and you'll be good to go."
The sailor took a small sphere out of his pocket and carefully dropped it into the right hole. The next instant, there was a flash of light and his head shot back toward the cave ceiling, his body twitching as the light seemed like it was sucked into his widened eyes.
"You okay?" Reppi asked when the light was gone. He nodded. She looked over at me. "It's always like that. We think the Moonflow in the spheres enters the body through the eyes, hits the bloodstream, and travels to the brain. S'not really painful, just a shock to the system. You got any spheres?"
I held out my hand and she picked through the choices with her nails. "Hmm...a speed sphere, that'll be useful...hah."
"Hah?" I asked.
"Hah," she repeated. "An ability sphere. Perfect."
"What am I supposed to do with them?"
"The first one'll make you faster. Easier to hit fast things like that floatin' eyeball critter that way. And the other one'll teach you an ability."
"She should learn an enhanced attack," Naida suggested. "If she insists on using that bloody blitzball of hers, something like Silence Buster or Dark Buster will increase her power."
"Sleep attacks pack the most punch...okay. We'll do that." Reppi turned to me and tapped one of the holes with a nail. "Put the first sphere in this node here. We'll increase your speed first; might be easier to take."
"Is it safe?" I wanted to know. Not like I was nervous or anything. I never get nervous.
"About as safe as recording your memories at the Sphere Theater, dude," Zalitz answered for her. "Ya never know what effects Moonflow has on the human mind. But you've basically been eating it, so if you're going down, you're going down. At least this way, you have a shot."
"Yeah, good enough." I braced myself, then remembered I still had my goggles on. This was not making things any better--all it did was make me even more nervous.
Wait, I wasn't nervous. I never get nervous. I whipped off my goggles, held the sphere above the node Reppi had pointed out, and dropped it. I realized just as it hit that my eyes were screwed shut.
Nothing happened. There was a small clinking sound.
"Where'd it go?" Zalitz wondered.
"Shit." I opened my eyes. I'd dropped it on the ground.
"Here." Reppi picked it up and handed it back to me. "There. Don't do it with your eyes closed, child. It won't work if ya close 'em and it won't kill ya if ya keep 'em open. Just calm down and *set* it in the node."
I gripped the sphere awkwardly between two metal fingers of the Golden Arm, forced myself to widen my eyes, and set the annoying little bugger in the slot.
Instantly I couldn't have shut my eyes if I'd tried, which I did instinctively first thing off the bat. My neck snapped back; I stared with bloodshot pupils at the blackness above me--
--and then it was over and I could breathe again.
"You all right?" Reppi asked, setting a hand on my shoulder. "Ready for the next one, or do ya wanna wait?"
"Bring it on." I held out my hand face up and she dropped the second sphere into my golden palm with a clank. This time I didn't hesitate as I held the sphere over the adjacent Sleep Buster node and dropped it in.
It was stronger this time. I was nearly knocked over and I wondered briefly as it happened how so much power could be packed into a little piece of gray plastic and a tiny marble.
When I was myself again, Reppi took the sphere grid back and stood. "Okay. Let's get away from the camp somewhere. Naida, get the jar. When we're a ways out where we can't damage anythin', I'll put the fire out. When somethin' finds us, kill off all but one of 'em if a bunch charge us at once. Then Zalitz will Threaten it and Linna will dribble the ball on it while Naida catches the Moonflow. Got it?"
Zalitz snapped to attention like he was still on the high seas and saluted. "Yes, ma'am!"
Naida yawned. "I've got it."
"Roger," I said. "Let's do it."
*****
I'm pretty bad with any distance longer than the diameter of a blitz sphere. I'm not sure how far we walked--it took us about five minutes, so it must not have been far from the place where Reppi found me. All I'm really sure of is that all of a sudden Reppi cried "Watera!" and the fire was gone.
I heard her footsteps as she moved away and crouched, and then I heard it as Zalitz strapped on the brass knuckles he'd picked up on the Luca docks.
"You still there?" I hissed in the general direction where Naida'd been.
"I'm not the one who's going to be running, priss," she hissed back.
Now that I knew I wasn't alone, I was feeling like a big shot again. "Get over yourself already, Naida," I snapped. "You're like me--you get pissed off when you're freaked out. But if we're gonna do this, don't take it out on me just because you're scared, got it?"
There was a silence, and then, "I'm sorry. I *am* scared."
"Yeah. Me too."
More silence.
"What happens if we die?" she asked, sounding a little like Naaga.
"At least it'll be quick this way."
Even more silence. I spent the next couple minutes cracking my knuckles uneasily before I heard a crash followed by a shout. "Here it comes!" Reppi's voice yelled.
I whirled around to face the direction the sound was coming from. Out of the corner of my eye I could make out a heavy form charging toward us.
"Hold it right there!" Zalitz bellowed, jumping straight into its path and slamming it in the face with the brass knuckles, which were not the best tool for the job.
I was expecting the fiend to laugh in a fiendish kinda way and knock him flat on his back, but instead it froze in its tracks and turned cold and gray, like stone. "Now!" Zalitz called to us.
"Let's go!" I cried to Naida and shot forward, my arm already cocked back to fire. She sprinted in front of me with the jar open in her hands.
I flung the ball; it glanced off the leathery back of the fiend and back toward me, nearly hitting Naida in the face. She let out an unladylike stream of curses at me but ducked and started catching the small stream of Pyreflies that trickled up and out of the fiend's body.
I caught the ball heavily with the Golden Arm and fired it again. This time it hit harder and the colored lights erupted in a frenzy. In the half-light, Naida was dancing like a summoner performing the Sending as she tried to catch them all. It was eerie, and for some reason it reminded me all too much of the dance I'd seen only a few weeks before at the bottom of Home.
This time the ball arced too far back in the air for me to catch it--not that I would have had enough free brain cells to grab it if it had flown straight into my hand. I snapped out of the reverie and dove for the ball. I overshot and landed a couple feet past it; as I fell, my elbow slammed into it and we both skidded along the ground. I think I cursed, because Zalitz turned to look. And at that moment, the fiend broke free and charged straight for me.
I saw Reppi raise her hands and open her mouth to cast a spell, but she was too far away; it would reach me before she could block me off with a wall of fire. So I did what you do right before a tackle in blitzball; get rid of the ball.
Just like a game, Linna. Nap Shot 3.
"Sleep Buster," I whispered.
I kicked one foot out into the only non-spiked spot I could find with my toes and slammed it hard at the fiend. It hit the neck hard, and I looked back just in time to see one of the spikes plunging deep into the throat. Instantly, Naida was on it like a panther, her arms wrapped around its neck as she struggled to contain the Moonflow.
And then the fiend was gone, and Naida was capping the jar, and that jar was full of glimmering Pyreflies. Reppi was the first to speak. "Fira!" she boomed, and light flooded the cavern. We'd done it.
**********
Translations:
Linna: Oui'na dra uhmo bnehlacc E caa, oui yht ouin cdumah Al Bhed bnehla.
Naida: Zaymuic palyica E nasutamat ouin drnuha nuus?
Linna: Hud y lryhla, pumdc-vun-pnyehc. Yd maycd E ryja y puovneaht fru lyh yldiymmo pmedw ehcdayt uv zicd ceddehk ynuiht fedr y pymm.
Naida: Cbaygehk uv pymmc, drana yna y vaf drehkc E luimt sahdeuh ypuid dra unekeh uv dryd puovneaht'c helghysa...
Linna: Rao, oui, dyga dryd pylg nekrd huf pavuna E ryja du vunla ed tufh ouin drnuyd--yht zys ouin kukkmac tufh drana fedr ed.
-
Linna: You're the only princess I see, you and your stolen Al Bhed prince.
Naida: Jealous because I remodeled your throne room?
Linna: Not a chance, bolts-for-brains. At least I have a boyfriend who can actually blitz instead of just sitting around with a ball.
Naida: Speaking of balls, there are a few things I could mention about the origin of that boyfriend's nickname...
Linna: Hey, you, take that back right now before I have to force it down your throat--and jam your goggles down there with it.
Ever wondered how the whole Sphere Grid thing works? Yeah, me too. Your friendly neighborhood flame mage--explaining game mechanics with a smile. I feel a little like Superman.
Author's Note: As always, Al Bhed dialogue is translated at the end of the chapter. Here, Linna and Naida have a brief exchange entirely in Al Bhed, so I've posted the translation of their whole conversation at the bottom so you only have to scroll once.
Green Eyes in Overdrive
by flame mage
round 12: Slayer
**********
My body was so stiff when I got up that I could hardly move. Before my eyes even opened, I knew I wasn't gonna get any coffee. A couple seconds after that I remembered why, and a couple seconds after *that* I said the hell with it and stretched my muscles enough to stand.
Zalitz was already awake and running around when I stumbled over to the fire. "G'morning, dude," he greeted me with a wave of his hand. "How'd ya sleep?"
"Like hell," I replied, wondering how many times I'd used the word 'hell' in the last two days while shifting my weight around to try to get the feeling back in my legs. "How can you stand to be awake?"
"I'm used to getting up early. At sea you sleep like this all the time--in shifts, at weird times, stuff like that. Rock isn't the worst bed I've ever slept on, either. Anyway," he continued, going back to the kabobs, "the whole time Reppi's been here, she had to hunt in the mornings, do everything herself. It was a crazy life, ya know? She talks to herself a lot now, just for the sound. But I figure if I can help her by getting the food and keeping the fire going, fine."
"Did you hunt this morning?'
He shook his head. "Nope. I can't make fire. I would have taken a torch, but that would mean leaving you guys alone, and if the fire went out while you were sleeping, you'd be toast. I'll have to do it soon, though, because this," he gestured at the four thin kabobs and the one marshmallow stick he was roasting, "is all we have left."
I wanted to ask where he'd gotten the marshmallows, but that probably wasn't the issue at the moment. "Hopefully we'll be gone before we need to hunt again," I said instead.
"Except for the plan."
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
We both sighed. "Ya know," he said after a while, "You and Naida...you're not what I expected. They told us Al Bhed were really weird."
I laughed. "I thought the same kinda thing about you...ex-Yevonites, I guess. Non-Al Bhed. Whatever you are. When I came to Luca, I was surprised that it wasn't the backwater dump I'd expected. I thought Home was the biggest place in the world. And you guys aren't weird like the Guado."
"The Guado aren't that weird," Zalitz said. "I spent some time in Guadosalam when I was on shore leave once--I did a tour in the Moonflow. The Guado are really great people."
"Or really great assholes. They live in trees."
"You live in metal tubes. Naida and Reppi live in straw huts. I lived on a floating hunk of wood. What's that have to do with anything?"
"But they attacked us. They bombed our Home and sent fiends to kill us all. And you say they're great?"
"People do strange things for religion, Linna. They probably thought they were doing Yevon a favor by trying to purify Spira so we could be free of Sin."
"What is there that could free us from Sin, Zalitz?" I asked.
"I don't now. But whatever it is...it better happen soon."
"Morning," Reppi said quietly, coming over to sit on her rock. "Thanks for getting the food, Zalitz. You didn't have to."
"S'okay. I had Linna here to keep me company," he answered. "You wanna eat now or wait until the little princess makes her appearance?"
"If by 'the little princess,' you are referring to the Auroch who rises with the birds as well, I'd say start without her," Naida cut in smoothly, arranging herself on her rock like a queen on a throne.
"Oui'na dra uhmo bnehlacc E caa, oui yht ouin cdumah Al Bhed bnehla," I muttered.
"Zaymuic palyica E nasutamat ouin drnuha nuus?"
"Hud y lryhla, pumdc-vun-pnyehc. Yd maycd E ryja y puovneaht fru lyh yldiymmo pmedw ehcdayt uv zicd ceddehk ynuiht fedr y pymm."
"Cbaygehk uv pymmc, drana yna y vaf drehkc E luimt sahdeuh ypuid dra unekeh uv dryd puovneaht'c helghysa..."
I was snarling now. "Rao, oui, dyga dryd pylg nekrd huf pavuna E ryja du vunla ed tufh ouin drnuyd--yht zys ouin kukkmac tufh drana fedr ed." "Crack, crack!" added my knuckles.
"Ahem." Reppi coughed and we looked up, surprised to find foreigners sitting there.
"Remember us, dudes?" Zalitz asked rhetorically, waggling his fingers at me. "Your fellow escapees?"
"Yeah, whatever. Let's just eat so we can get this whole miserable ordeal over with," I grumbled.
And so breakfast was terse and tense and silent, with all of us lost in our own thoughts. I rolled the spiked blitzball back and forth, making nails-on-blackboard screeches until Naida threatened to feed me to the fiend as bait. I shot a couple of choice words in Al Bhed back at her out of the corner of my mouth, but that was it. Neither of us had the energy for a real catfight and we both knew it.
"All right," Reppi said when all the food was gone and we were still licking our sticks to shut up our growling stomachs, "Zalitz, here's the sphere grid. I've already teleported ya to the right node, so just pop in an ability sphere and you'll be good to go."
The sailor took a small sphere out of his pocket and carefully dropped it into the right hole. The next instant, there was a flash of light and his head shot back toward the cave ceiling, his body twitching as the light seemed like it was sucked into his widened eyes.
"You okay?" Reppi asked when the light was gone. He nodded. She looked over at me. "It's always like that. We think the Moonflow in the spheres enters the body through the eyes, hits the bloodstream, and travels to the brain. S'not really painful, just a shock to the system. You got any spheres?"
I held out my hand and she picked through the choices with her nails. "Hmm...a speed sphere, that'll be useful...hah."
"Hah?" I asked.
"Hah," she repeated. "An ability sphere. Perfect."
"What am I supposed to do with them?"
"The first one'll make you faster. Easier to hit fast things like that floatin' eyeball critter that way. And the other one'll teach you an ability."
"She should learn an enhanced attack," Naida suggested. "If she insists on using that bloody blitzball of hers, something like Silence Buster or Dark Buster will increase her power."
"Sleep attacks pack the most punch...okay. We'll do that." Reppi turned to me and tapped one of the holes with a nail. "Put the first sphere in this node here. We'll increase your speed first; might be easier to take."
"Is it safe?" I wanted to know. Not like I was nervous or anything. I never get nervous.
"About as safe as recording your memories at the Sphere Theater, dude," Zalitz answered for her. "Ya never know what effects Moonflow has on the human mind. But you've basically been eating it, so if you're going down, you're going down. At least this way, you have a shot."
"Yeah, good enough." I braced myself, then remembered I still had my goggles on. This was not making things any better--all it did was make me even more nervous.
Wait, I wasn't nervous. I never get nervous. I whipped off my goggles, held the sphere above the node Reppi had pointed out, and dropped it. I realized just as it hit that my eyes were screwed shut.
Nothing happened. There was a small clinking sound.
"Where'd it go?" Zalitz wondered.
"Shit." I opened my eyes. I'd dropped it on the ground.
"Here." Reppi picked it up and handed it back to me. "There. Don't do it with your eyes closed, child. It won't work if ya close 'em and it won't kill ya if ya keep 'em open. Just calm down and *set* it in the node."
I gripped the sphere awkwardly between two metal fingers of the Golden Arm, forced myself to widen my eyes, and set the annoying little bugger in the slot.
Instantly I couldn't have shut my eyes if I'd tried, which I did instinctively first thing off the bat. My neck snapped back; I stared with bloodshot pupils at the blackness above me--
--and then it was over and I could breathe again.
"You all right?" Reppi asked, setting a hand on my shoulder. "Ready for the next one, or do ya wanna wait?"
"Bring it on." I held out my hand face up and she dropped the second sphere into my golden palm with a clank. This time I didn't hesitate as I held the sphere over the adjacent Sleep Buster node and dropped it in.
It was stronger this time. I was nearly knocked over and I wondered briefly as it happened how so much power could be packed into a little piece of gray plastic and a tiny marble.
When I was myself again, Reppi took the sphere grid back and stood. "Okay. Let's get away from the camp somewhere. Naida, get the jar. When we're a ways out where we can't damage anythin', I'll put the fire out. When somethin' finds us, kill off all but one of 'em if a bunch charge us at once. Then Zalitz will Threaten it and Linna will dribble the ball on it while Naida catches the Moonflow. Got it?"
Zalitz snapped to attention like he was still on the high seas and saluted. "Yes, ma'am!"
Naida yawned. "I've got it."
"Roger," I said. "Let's do it."
*****
I'm pretty bad with any distance longer than the diameter of a blitz sphere. I'm not sure how far we walked--it took us about five minutes, so it must not have been far from the place where Reppi found me. All I'm really sure of is that all of a sudden Reppi cried "Watera!" and the fire was gone.
I heard her footsteps as she moved away and crouched, and then I heard it as Zalitz strapped on the brass knuckles he'd picked up on the Luca docks.
"You still there?" I hissed in the general direction where Naida'd been.
"I'm not the one who's going to be running, priss," she hissed back.
Now that I knew I wasn't alone, I was feeling like a big shot again. "Get over yourself already, Naida," I snapped. "You're like me--you get pissed off when you're freaked out. But if we're gonna do this, don't take it out on me just because you're scared, got it?"
There was a silence, and then, "I'm sorry. I *am* scared."
"Yeah. Me too."
More silence.
"What happens if we die?" she asked, sounding a little like Naaga.
"At least it'll be quick this way."
Even more silence. I spent the next couple minutes cracking my knuckles uneasily before I heard a crash followed by a shout. "Here it comes!" Reppi's voice yelled.
I whirled around to face the direction the sound was coming from. Out of the corner of my eye I could make out a heavy form charging toward us.
"Hold it right there!" Zalitz bellowed, jumping straight into its path and slamming it in the face with the brass knuckles, which were not the best tool for the job.
I was expecting the fiend to laugh in a fiendish kinda way and knock him flat on his back, but instead it froze in its tracks and turned cold and gray, like stone. "Now!" Zalitz called to us.
"Let's go!" I cried to Naida and shot forward, my arm already cocked back to fire. She sprinted in front of me with the jar open in her hands.
I flung the ball; it glanced off the leathery back of the fiend and back toward me, nearly hitting Naida in the face. She let out an unladylike stream of curses at me but ducked and started catching the small stream of Pyreflies that trickled up and out of the fiend's body.
I caught the ball heavily with the Golden Arm and fired it again. This time it hit harder and the colored lights erupted in a frenzy. In the half-light, Naida was dancing like a summoner performing the Sending as she tried to catch them all. It was eerie, and for some reason it reminded me all too much of the dance I'd seen only a few weeks before at the bottom of Home.
This time the ball arced too far back in the air for me to catch it--not that I would have had enough free brain cells to grab it if it had flown straight into my hand. I snapped out of the reverie and dove for the ball. I overshot and landed a couple feet past it; as I fell, my elbow slammed into it and we both skidded along the ground. I think I cursed, because Zalitz turned to look. And at that moment, the fiend broke free and charged straight for me.
I saw Reppi raise her hands and open her mouth to cast a spell, but she was too far away; it would reach me before she could block me off with a wall of fire. So I did what you do right before a tackle in blitzball; get rid of the ball.
Just like a game, Linna. Nap Shot 3.
"Sleep Buster," I whispered.
I kicked one foot out into the only non-spiked spot I could find with my toes and slammed it hard at the fiend. It hit the neck hard, and I looked back just in time to see one of the spikes plunging deep into the throat. Instantly, Naida was on it like a panther, her arms wrapped around its neck as she struggled to contain the Moonflow.
And then the fiend was gone, and Naida was capping the jar, and that jar was full of glimmering Pyreflies. Reppi was the first to speak. "Fira!" she boomed, and light flooded the cavern. We'd done it.
**********
Translations:
Linna: Oui'na dra uhmo bnehlacc E caa, oui yht ouin cdumah Al Bhed bnehla.
Naida: Zaymuic palyica E nasutamat ouin drnuha nuus?
Linna: Hud y lryhla, pumdc-vun-pnyehc. Yd maycd E ryja y puovneaht fru lyh yldiymmo pmedw ehcdayt uv zicd ceddehk ynuiht fedr y pymm.
Naida: Cbaygehk uv pymmc, drana yna y vaf drehkc E luimt sahdeuh ypuid dra unekeh uv dryd puovneaht'c helghysa...
Linna: Rao, oui, dyga dryd pylg nekrd huf pavuna E ryja du vunla ed tufh ouin drnuyd--yht zys ouin kukkmac tufh drana fedr ed.
-
Linna: You're the only princess I see, you and your stolen Al Bhed prince.
Naida: Jealous because I remodeled your throne room?
Linna: Not a chance, bolts-for-brains. At least I have a boyfriend who can actually blitz instead of just sitting around with a ball.
Naida: Speaking of balls, there are a few things I could mention about the origin of that boyfriend's nickname...
Linna: Hey, you, take that back right now before I have to force it down your throat--and jam your goggles down there with it.