I've been working on the idea of this for a few months since I finished the game, and now I've finally found the time to post it, school and all. Funny, huh? Anyway, here's to hoping the demons of out-of-character-ness keep their noses out of it.

In the Nature of a Prologue:

It was morning! Warm, sunny, glorious yellow morning!

Flinging away the heavy blankets necessary to survive the freezing world of the desert night, Rikku stretched out her arms, yawning expansively and nearly cracking her jaw to do it.

Rubbing her jaw, she charged up, stumbling a little on the blankets she had thrown back, and hopped out of the tent.

Rikku staggered back as the full blast of the sun in its blinding glory lanced through her eyes and daggered into her brain.

"Gaah..."

There was a bit of laughter, and Rikku turned around, hands defiantly planted on her hips and eyes streaming from the sun's greeting. Although she couldn't see much (aside from sparks of dancing red blotches), she knew who was laughing.

"Not funny, Nhadala," she whined, stamping her foot and blinking away furiously.

"I fully agree," the blonde Al Bhed woman replied, chuckling.

(Although, come to think of it, practically all Al Bhed were blonde, so that could have just been described as the Al Bhed woman instead of wasting a few more bytes of space)

"Then why are you still laughing?" Rikku demanded dramatically. "Do you find something entertaining about this?"

"Actually, yes," the mirthfully amused Nhadala answered. "Oddly enough, yes, I do. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that it happens every morning, without fail."

"It's not my fault." Was that a tent? Rikku's eyes began focus a bit more. Ah, yes, the desert was yellow. Bright, sun-drenched yellow. Lucky bits of sand were born without eyes.

For some reason, the image of the whole desert flinching in pain when the sun rose tickled her sense of humor. The cool wind of the dawn, and then—AAAAGGGHH!!!! The sun!!

Aherm. Anyway.

"There's a reason we Al Bhed wear goggles, you know. They're fancy and stylish and all, but they're not completely useless."

"You've made your point," Rikku grumbled, rubbing away at her eyes. The slightly uncomfortable feeling of having her eyeballs roasting in their sockets slowly receded, and she saw the Al Bhed woman grinning at her.

"Don't sweat it, Rikku." Nhadala patted the younger girl's arm. "It'll sink in one day. For now, you can bask in the fact that your noble and daily sacrifices of dignity bring smiles to our hearts."

Rikku laughed. "I hate you."

"'Course you do. Just doing my job."

It's been, what, four years since the defeat of Sin? One year since they busted up Vegnagun? Rikku couldn't really remember. The days sort of melted into some weird mix of work and sandy sandals in the desert.

(Was that why they were called sandals? Were they designed to gather sand? Rikku found that getting sand in her toes was inevitable whenever she wore 'em.)

After their initial victory celebration of the second time they saved the world (which didn't quite last as long as the first one, since most people didn't really have a clue what Vegnagun was), things pretty much went back to what passed for normal, in her opinion, except maybe for the fact that Tidus finally decided to come back from wherever he was to hang out with them again.

Which was a perfectly perfect decision but not that perfect, Rikku concluded, since hardly anything assigned to either of the two lovebirds ever got done anymore. It wasn't that Tidus and Yuna were far too mushy now that they were reunited again. Actually, Rikku and the others were wishing that they would just get to that part already.

Absolutely nothing was happening between them, really. Which Rikku observed was absolutely absurd.

(Tobli did have a charming way of speaking, she also concluded conclusively.)

Yuna and Tidus were so busy tiptoeing around each other that being around them was an invitation to frustrated hair pulling. Honestly, there were far too many times when Rikku gave some thought to locking them in a room together.

Anyway, since their second epic victory over everything evil and extremely ugly (Shuyin wasn't really any of those, though, come to think of it), the Gullwings more or less drifted apart, in a sense.

Surprisingly, it was Brother who first decided to leave. He wasn't very articulate about why he was leaving (most likely because he hadn't worked idioms into his Basic yet), but he promised that he would be back. Rikku suspected that, having lost all of his chances of winning Yuna (which consisted of mostly negative something to some impossibly enormous number), Brother had turned his interest onto some other unlucky girl.

Next to leave was Paine (which didn't surprise Rikku very much.) After all, she had found what she wanted—her memories and all that. She didn't really bother to explain why she was leaving or what she was gonna do when she left, but Rikku had a feeling that that wasn't the last they'd be seeing of Paine.

Well, after that, everyone just sort of drifted apart. Yuna and Tidus went off to live on Besaid (in separate houses, for crying out loud). Rikku pitied the people of Besaid—there was nothing more agonizing than watching the two of them attempting to hold a coherent conversation.

Shinra went on to become the Sphere Break champion of Spira, totally trouncing that fellow in the funny hat with all the heavy R's. Of course, the ambitious little Wunderkind didn't stop there. He set himself up as one of the leading pioneers of international communication, with his glitchy little commsphere thingies.

Buddy flew off in the Celsius, going who knows where. Rikku thought that if he could spend the rest of his days flying around in it, he'd wet himself silly in all the happiness.

And here she was. She was hanging out in Bikanel, with Nhadala and Benzo and the others. It was really nice, she thought. It was relaxing to hang out with the Al Bhed again, especially in the desert. If there was one place Rikku loved the most in all of Spira, it would most definitely be the desert. Not just because it was in her blood (although that might have had something to do with it, come to think of it).

It was Home. Every single grain of it was home. Even if the fortress the Al Bhed had lived in was destroyed, it really was nothing more than a place to sleep when night came along because they spent most of their days popping around the desert, so the Al Bhed weren't really worried—much. In fact, it hadn't taken much effort for the Al Bhed to rebuild home—it was done within a year after being neglected.

Kinda useless, if you think about it, since hardly any Al Bhed chose to live there. It was empty, but for the enterprising merchants and other visitors to the Bikanel desert. In the three years since Home was taken apart, most of the Al Bhed figured out that it was much more fun to live in the open desert than to clutter around in one measly tower.

(Home wasn't exactly measly, but if you compare it to the desert, it kinda shrinks in comparison)

As a result, the Al Bhed now wandered the desert, setting up digs for the fun and excitement of finding new machina and living the desert life. Which involved lots of sand.

Even mornings like that one up there made her love the desert—

Was there was any better place in Spira to get a scalding eyeburn in the early morning? Hardly.