Author's Note:
This story starts out depressing and long-winded and for that I am sorry. But please, I urge you to stick with it; it will get better. I promise.
Despite the lack of interaction in this chapter, yes, this story is Rikku/Gippal, two characters who intrigue me greatly. I am rather afraid to admit that I have taken quite a few liberties with both their characters and the timeline, but I hope it was all for the better and not the worst. I had perused ff.net for some R/G and was sorely disappointed to only find a handful, some simply a cookie-cutter of each other*** so I felt an instant desire to break that mold. (Shows you just what kind of person I am, doesn't it?)
*** No offense is meant to those of you with stories housed here. I must admit that I have only read a few, not all, and there were some one-shots that caught both my attention and my breath.
I am an author who thrives on feedback. When a story stops receiving reviews, I tend to lose interest. So if you like what you read and want more, please let me know. I will forever be your friend!
For a Time in Silence
By jennie
Do you still remember our Age of Gold?
Full of bright hopes and brighter dreams;
Shattered moonlight and splintered rainbows.
Night fell soft and slow on the city and Rikku shifted with unease. The lights of Luca danced vibrantly across the water in the bay, but she remained untouched by them; a solitary figure on the deck of an immense ship, she melded into the darkness around her.
Tonight, the whole of Luca was caught in the whirlwind of a huge party, something that was not all that uncommon. If she listened carefully, she could pick out the deep throbbing of drums over the waves' gentle crashing, and she pictured the lights strung along the streets, the dancing, the giddiness. They laughed, and languished, and deluded themselves with the thought that it had all been a dream, something that could not touch them. But Spira had almost crumbled, twice now, and nobody seemed to acknowledge it.
Rikku hastily brushed an errant braid out of her face as she turned away from the lights and sighed, knowing she was a hypocrite. She was the worst of them all.
The day she witnessed her home destroyed, her people persecuted, when she saw the aeons die, when she watched as Tidus and Auron faded into the evening clouds, all those moments killed her; her life had stopped. When it had started again, it hadn't been her life any longer.
She had been irrevocably changed, her innocence had been stripped away, and she had been running from those memories ever since. She was a master at hiding now, for she quickly learned the subtle tricks. Immersing herself completely into sphere hunting, a preoccupation that took both Brother and Buddy by storm, she found that company and distraction worked.
By the time Shinra, and soon after him, Paine, joined the motley crew, Rikku had pieced together a resilient mask of normalcy to hide behind in the moments of silence. Most days, she still clung to her mask, her pretense that nothing was wrong. Her mask was her safety, her shield. It was the chatter filling the silence and the bright smiles and laughter when the night became too dark.
Some days, she would even find herself believing in it.
When Yuna came aboard, Rikku sometimes saw in her the same shadowed expressions and darkened eyes that haunted her own reflection. But Yuna's distraction was with finding Tidus, while Rikku's was merely to survive. Her cousin's obsession became such a driving force that it soon blinded her to anything, or anyone, else.
One night, Rikku had held her while she cried.
'He wasn't afraid,' she had whispered into the older girl's hair as they gently rocked to the rhythm of the engine's churning.
Yuna had stiffened. 'How do you know?' she asked, her voice involuntarily taking on a defensive tone.
Closing her eyes against the force of her emotions, Rikku whispered, 'He told me.'
It was many minutes later when all of the summoner's tears had dried up, that she had said, unable to meet Rikku's eyes, 'You miss him too,' as if she had never realized that this was possible.
It hadn't surprised Rikku. Yuna saw people only in terms of how she affected them or they affected her, not how they affected each other. She was accustomed to the world revolving around her, needing her, and now it didn't, and that was something that took time to get used to.
Suddenly, Rikku was pulled abruptly into the present as the generators behind her began their soft him, signifying someone was coming up in the lift. She quickly pulled herself together so that when Brother came out, she could smile and laugh and chatter away without shattering.
Rikku, I thought you were getting ready, her brother called from the doorway, a hint of sadness in his voice. Ever since the announcement of Yuna and Tidus' engagement, he hadn't been quite the same.
Letting her mask fall completely in place, she instantly felt safer, happier. Some days the mask felt real… it was real.
And I did, my dear, sweet brother, she mused, crossing to him to inspect his choice of wardrobe. And emerged to find you still primping and preening, yourself, she teased, and couldn't help but add, Buddy got tired of waiting and went ahead.
He had the decency to blush before jerking his head violently to the lift behind him. "Let's just go and get this over with," he said purposely in the common-tongue, something he had been avoiding doing since it served as a reminder of Yuna.
Rikku grinned and linked her arm with his. "Let's."
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The streets were so crowded that it was hard to believe that there could possibly be another living being elsewhere in Spira. Rikku darted ahead, navigating through the throngs of people easily and laughing as a few guys pulled her over to dance with them.
Brother soon took it upon himself to hold onto her arm as the walked, pulling her back or dragging her along when needed. The strobing lights, warm, sticky air, crushing bodies, and pulsing music ate at her from the inside out making her feel raw and vibrantly excited. They were almost a week early; Yuna's wedding wouldn't be until the following Saturday, but it was already turning into the public event of the year. Coupled with the fact that it was Blitzball season, she wasn't surprised to find that it took close to an hour to get to the restaurant they were meeting everyone at.
The table was long and boisterous, full of people from every walk of life. She breathed in the deep, exotic scent that permeated the room and bounced lightly on the balls of her feet. She hadn't seen many of the people there for months and she was slightly overwhelmed with the idea of facing so many of the faces she had gone to lengths to avoid these past few months.
Tidus solved that problem for her when he was the first to notice them. In an instant, he was on his feet and embracing her. For that moment, in his arms, she felt a warmth like she had not experienced in quite some time and she felt tears form against her eyelids. And then the warmth was gone and she was happy Rikku again, hugging Yuna from behind, making faces at cute little Vidina, and laughing at Wakka's proud protectiveness over his family.
"You're late," Paine acknowledged stoically, seated in between Baralai and Gippal. Lately, she had been spending most of her time with them and Nooj.
"Have you seen the party outside?" Rikku squealed, reaching over Buddy and snagging some biscuits.
Paine rolled her eyes but smiled fondly. "I should have guessed."
Fifteen minutes later, she was hovering over by her father and brother when she happened to glance up and meet Gippal's eye across the large table.
For a brief moment, he appeared wizened beyond his years, an ancient awareness in such a young and vital body, and he gave her a long lingering thoughtful look. But like all moments in time, it did not last, and she was jostled by a passing waitress. When she looked up again, his attention was elsewhere and the room swung into life once more.
Towards the head of the table, Tidus and Wakka were loudly re-enacting the week's controversial Blitzball maneuver and Rikku quickly focused on them, not wanting to analyze it too much.
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He remembered a day in the desert when she couldn't have been older than seven and him, nine. He had just gotten back from working with his father when he heard yells and cheers coming from one of the old radiator buildings. A fight had obviously broken out between a couple of the kids again and he bounded over anxiously. But when he peered in, he had been stunned to see little, gangly Rikku sitting atop of Ra'd, a kid who easily doubled her size, pounding her fists against his body, face and arms as hard as she possibly could.
There was such intense emotion on her face, in the way she held her body, that he had been taken aback. For that instant he had been terribly frightened of her and her seething anger.
The fight had been broken up by old man Sayyid, not even thirty seconds later and when Rikku had been pulled off the boy, her face had gone completely blank leaving Gippal's stomach twisting in the wind. She blinked slowly a few times and it was as if she were hurtled back into reality because she gulped in a couple of deep breaths, then calmly helped Ra'd up as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened and refused to speak about it ever again.
No one ever did find out what had made her snap like that and, as far as he knew, she hadn't done it since. Up until the day he turned sixteen and left to join the Crusaders, she had remained the buoyant, blond-haired darling of their people.
He observed her arrival to the restaurant with more interest than he deemed was necessary but lacked the conviction to look away. She was happiness and innocence personified and when she entered a room, it was as though suddenly there were spotlights trailing her and them music pronouncing her every move.
Although, he thought humorously, she had no need for theme music; most of the time she wandered around humming to herself, creating her own.
As she hugged poor Tidus for all he was worth, Gippal nodded in an overly friendly manner to Brother. The older man's eyes instantly narrowed and Gippal couldn't help but smirk. Sometimes it was just far too easy.
"You shouldn't provoke him like that," Paine murmured over her glass of red wine.
Without consciously doing so, Gippal sought out Rikku. "And why shouldn't I?"
"Because you have an unfair advantage," she responded, following his gaze but making no mention of it.
He turned to contemplate the woman beside him. "And what would that be?"
He never did find out because Paine conveniently chose that moment to start talking to Rikku, leaving Gippal feeling quite thoughtful.
There was a point, while Nooj and Baralai bantered across him and Paine in a very amusing fashion, when Gippal happened to glance up to find Rikku staring at him. He was instantly arrested, drawn in as an unwilling captive as her gaze seemed to move through him, touch him in places that had not been touched in a very long time.
It always seemed to be like that with her. Nothing was simple; everything was heightened, everything was complicated.
And then he heard his name being called and he turned to Nooj, feeling inexplicably guilty. When he had glanced back, she was off, fluttering over to Tidus and Wakka and seating herself comfortably on the edge of the table in front of them.
Apparently, she had something of an aversion to chairs.
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To Be Continued…
Do you still remember our Age of Gold?
Full of bright hopes and brighter dreams;
Shattered moonlight and splintered rainbows.
--The Age of Gold
And, just to reiterate, I am an author who thrives on feedback. When a story stops receiving reviews, I tend to lose interest. So if you like what you read and want more, please let me know. I will forever be your friend!