(AN: Personally, I like this chapter. It's a bit long though, sorry about that. But I was typing it upside down, so that was fun! And I only own Rayn!)
Chapter 3
Confusion
"Hm..." Rayn thought to herself for just a second. "Well, after that, I think I almost gave Auron a heart attack, the damned old geezer."
The two siblings laughed and then Tidus asked, "How'd you managed that?"
Flashback
After Braska and his male guardians entered the temple, Rayn was determined to better herself with her fighting. The staff she carried in her hand was made by the Al Bhed fisherman who had caught her in a net when she first arrived in Spira. The staff was a very simple example of machina.
She ventured out of the limits of Bevelle and back into the Macalania Woods where she challenged small fiends. Gradually, she built up strength to where she could beat down the larger fiends in a matter of a few hits. But there were those times when she didn't do so well in combat and the strong fiends would get a good hit in.
By the time she returned to the temple, the three were waiting for her and they stared at her in a bit of a shock when she strode up to them smiling. She was covered from head to toe in fiends' blood and had a gash across her stomach. The large claw of a three-headed, snake-tailed creature was stuck in her right arm; the girl didn't seem to mind though. There was one other claw mark, this one was on the left side of her neck, blood flowed steadily from it.
"A... Are you okay?" Braska asked.
Rayn nodded, "Yup, perfectly fine."
"What were you fighting?" Jecht asked, circling her and looking at the tears in her shirt and the masses of blood on the fabric.
"I think at least two of every fiend in the woods," she mumbled and scratched her chin, smearing the dark blood on her already dirty face.
Laughing, Braska said, "Well, let's get you cleaned up, because if it gets hot, that's really going to smell horrible, especially since we're headed to the Calm Lands." Rayn nodded and the four went to the residential district of Bevelle where they stayed in an inn for the night.
When the doctor came by request of Braska, the summoner and his two male guardians had to hold down their female companion so she wouldn't run while he stitched up her wounds and took the large claw from her arm. He was going to throw it out but Rayn asked to keep it. When the doctor left and the group settled down, Rayn looked to them, a bit peeved that they held her down. She was clean now, but still had blood stains in her clothes, which were still torn from her battles.
The next morning, Braska awoke Rayn and took her out to buy something else to wear, even though she told him that she was perfectly fine with her tattered clothes. From off to the side, Auron, now awake, said, "Take her out to buy something a girl would actually wear."
Looking to Braska, a false grin on her face, Rayn muttered, "I'm gonna kill him... I'm gonna do it... one of these days, I'm gonna do it..."
"Go for it," Jecht grumbled, covering his head with his pillow.
Standing, Rayn turned to the bed that Auron lay on and she ran over there and jumped on him. Auron flipped over onto his back and flung Rayn off the bed and into the wall with his right arm. Getting to her feet, Rayn rubbed her back and walked over to Braska. "I think I lost," she said as the two walked out of the room.
As the two scanned the shops in the industrial district, Braska asked, "Have you seen anything you like yet?"
The teen shook her head and looked over her shoulder at the summoner as he stopped in his tracks and looked at something in one of the shops. Rayn turned around and Braska lifted up a midnight blue long sleeve shirt that didn't cover the shoulders. Taking it in her hands, Rayn tried it on in a small back room of the shop under the supervision of one of the workers. When she walked out, Braska smiled. Under her breath, the girl muttered, "I feel naked..."
The blouse was bought for her and she wore it as the two continued on, now looking for something to replace her 'dead' gray pants. The summoner had thrown away the old blood-stained shirt right after they had bought the new blouse.
Upon passing by a shop that had skirts and dresses, Braska stopped Rayn who immediately asked, "Do I have a choice?"
Simply, the summoner replied, "Not if I'm buying it."
Biting the inside of her right cheek, the teen rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. Fortunately to Rayn, nothing looked good on her. In the end, she ended with a black metal duster around her waist and wearing a pair of dark gray pants that were sold from an Al Bhed shop. When the two returned to the inn, Auron and Jecht were still asleep. "Jeez, you think they would have woken up by now," Rayn whispered to Braska who nodded in response. "Check this," she said to the summoner and then looked to her father and then to Auron. "Hey, there's a naked woman out there!"
Immediately, Jecht sat up and said, "Where? Where?" The twenty-five year old Auron on the other hand just continued to sleep.
"Makes you wonder," muttered Rayn. Stretching vertically, popping her shoulders, Rayn said, "So can we leave him here? I mean, he is falling behind a bit right now. Since like, we're up and... he's still down."
Auron's eyes swiftly opened and he sat up. "I'm awake," he growled.
"Aw rats," Rayn said and snapped her fingers in slight disappointment.
Auron walked over to her got right in her face. "You're starting to get on my bad side," he growled.
"Which side is that? I didn't think you had a good side. It's more like a complete bad and horribly ugly side," she said smiling. The guardian raised his had as if he were going to hit her. Rayn just stared at him, her eyes narrowed and her teeth clenched. If he was going to hit her, she was going to hit him back. He dropped his had to his side and walked past her and out the door, the other three followed.
As they continued down the path, now headed to the Calm Lands, Jecht looked to his daughter. "When did you change?" he asked.
"When I went shopping!" she said happily. The summoner and the teenager's father laughed at the girl's enthusiasm.
Arriving on the Calm Lands, Rayn began to run down the slope, she got a forth of the way down before she tripped over her own foot and rolled to the bottom. The three men just laughed at her as she sat at the bottom, her body wobbling a bit as she tried to recover from the downward spin-cycle.
By the time the other three got down there, she was up on her feet again and walked behind Braska as the other two walked at the summoner's sides. Not far from the slope, a fiend attacked; Rayn was the first one to go at it, Jecht and Auron joined her while Braska took a nap. The large fiend, a giant Marlboro confused the three of them, Jecht whacked Rayn and she smacked him with the staff in her right hand, negating the effects of the confusion. Auron on the other hand, went after Rayn. Just as the finished off the fiend, he went at her and tackled her to the ground, his eyes clouded over.
Terrified, the girl boosted him off with her feet and took off running back towards Bevelle. The remaining guardian and the summoner stared at the two as they ran, Rayn running for her life, and Auron, his sword over his head, ready to cut the girl in half. Halfway to the city, Auron caught up to the girl and swung, Rayn ducked and then climbed into a tree. She climbed up higher and he swung again, this time getting his weapon stuck in the wood. The girl proceeded to laugh at him, but her 'victory' was cut short when he grabbed her barely dangling ankle and dragged her forcibly out of the large plant.
The girl landed heavily on the ground, a feeling of pain passing up her spine like lightning. The male guardian, his eyes still clouded over, put his foot on her neck, cutting off her breathing. The teen thrashed around, trying to get loose but he just pushed down harder. Angling her leg awkwardly, Rayn kicked him in the butt making him turn around and move his foot from her throat. Rayn then rolled out of the way but accidentally down a steep wooded slope, hitting every tree on the way down.
Lying on stomach at the bottom, Rayn got her arms under her and got up. She now realized she was down by the sparkling water she had been sitting at when she told Auron to go to hell. She limped over to the water's edge and knelt down. As soon as Auron's reflection appeared behind her, she cupped her hands full of water and flung it into his face; she then tackled him to the ground and brought out a small golden sphere which she turned into her staff.
The girl brought the staff down on her companion's neck as she sat on his stomach. "Snap out of it, Auron!" she shouted. He began to fight with her once more, trying to keep the staff from blocking off his air. Auron brought his left hand under the staff and threw a wild swing at the girl, catching her in the eye and breaking the skin just below it. Rayn flew to the side and just a bit into the water.
He got to his feet and made his way over to her, the light-brown haired girl brought up her staff and gave him a quick whack to the side and he snapped out of the confusion. Rayn clutched onto the golden stick, her facial expression still showing worried and frightened. "Rayn?" he questioned and knelt down to looked to her, "Why are you bleeding this time?"
Her eyes lighting up, the teen dropped the staff and wrapped her arms around his neck, silently she cried. Her entire body shook; she was still terrified from the previous experience. She reached down and put away the staff in her pocket as it had already turned back into its sphere form. She let go of her comrade as he stood up. She tried to do the same but fell forward, she was too nerve wracked to stand at all.
With a sigh, Rayn looked up to him, "Well, don't let me hold you up. I'm falling behind," she said. She then flopped onto her back. "So get out of here, I can't go on."
Without a second thought, Auron turned and walked away, he had no knowledge of what had happened; not one bit of memory at all. Getting back to Jecht and Braska, they looked at him awkwardly as he said, "Let's go."
"And what about my daughter?" Jecht asked, a bit angered.
"She fell behind," said Auron.
A small pit of anger in him, Jecht took off running to find his child, leaving Auron to watch him go in a confused state. Auron asked the summoner what happened and as soon as it was explained, the two took off running after Jecht who was now far ahead of them.
Rayn, now on her knees, held her staff in her hands as she listened to the sounds of movement in the forest. At hearing footsteps, she tightened her grip on the simple Al Bhed machina and opened her eyes. Yet when she saw her father standing in front of her, she dropped the staff and fell back onto her butt.
"Can you stand?" he asked. Rayn shook her head slightly and looked down. Her father turned around and knelt down. "Get on," he said.
"But... what about..." Rayn began to say.
Looking over his shoulder at his daughter, Jecht said, "Hey, you're supposed to listen to me, I'm your father. Now get on, I'll carry you." The girl felt small again.
She crawled over and got onto his back, he then wrapped his arms around her legs as she held onto him tightly. "Thank you," she whispered.
At the top of the incline stood Auron and Braska, they were waiting for them. Auron had retrieved his blade and was going to apologize to Rayn but she was asleep. Walking up next to Jecht, Braska said, "With her here, there's never a dull moment, is there?"
"Sure isn't," replied Jecht. Shifting the girl's weight, Jecht mumbled, "She sure has gained a bit of weight..."
"I heard that," Rayn mumbled in her slightly conscious state of sleep, she then went back fully under the influence of rest.
End Flashback
Rayn stood up and stretched a bit for a moment. "That, I swear to god, was the scariest few moments of my life. First I almost get killed, then I thought I was going to get left behind." She shook her head.
Leaning back and crossing his arms, Tidus asked, "So those scars you got from hunting alone, did they stay?"
"If you mean, do I still have them..." She turned her head to show him the pink scar marks on her neck where the skin was still recovering. She then lifted her sleeve to show him where the claw had been stuck, and then lifted her shirt just a bit to show him where the gashes were. "I still got them."
"And the claw?" His sister pulled at a thin black rope around her neck and brought out the claw. Tidus stared at it wide eyed for was the size of his palm. "You carry that thing with you?"
"Everywhere I go," she replied.
The two then laughed and Tidus asked, "So, did Dad ever talk about me?"
Rayn nodded. "I asked a lot of questions about you and he was happy to speak your name. But we'll get to that later." She pondered for a bit and then said, "Now, what happened next?"
(AN: By the way, I did mean to explain this earlier, but the thing about Rayn's last name, Terran, it's not Jecht or Tidus's last name, it was given to her by some Al Bhed when she was younger. I'll explain more in a later chapter.)
Chapter 3
Confusion
"Hm..." Rayn thought to herself for just a second. "Well, after that, I think I almost gave Auron a heart attack, the damned old geezer."
The two siblings laughed and then Tidus asked, "How'd you managed that?"
Flashback
After Braska and his male guardians entered the temple, Rayn was determined to better herself with her fighting. The staff she carried in her hand was made by the Al Bhed fisherman who had caught her in a net when she first arrived in Spira. The staff was a very simple example of machina.
She ventured out of the limits of Bevelle and back into the Macalania Woods where she challenged small fiends. Gradually, she built up strength to where she could beat down the larger fiends in a matter of a few hits. But there were those times when she didn't do so well in combat and the strong fiends would get a good hit in.
By the time she returned to the temple, the three were waiting for her and they stared at her in a bit of a shock when she strode up to them smiling. She was covered from head to toe in fiends' blood and had a gash across her stomach. The large claw of a three-headed, snake-tailed creature was stuck in her right arm; the girl didn't seem to mind though. There was one other claw mark, this one was on the left side of her neck, blood flowed steadily from it.
"A... Are you okay?" Braska asked.
Rayn nodded, "Yup, perfectly fine."
"What were you fighting?" Jecht asked, circling her and looking at the tears in her shirt and the masses of blood on the fabric.
"I think at least two of every fiend in the woods," she mumbled and scratched her chin, smearing the dark blood on her already dirty face.
Laughing, Braska said, "Well, let's get you cleaned up, because if it gets hot, that's really going to smell horrible, especially since we're headed to the Calm Lands." Rayn nodded and the four went to the residential district of Bevelle where they stayed in an inn for the night.
When the doctor came by request of Braska, the summoner and his two male guardians had to hold down their female companion so she wouldn't run while he stitched up her wounds and took the large claw from her arm. He was going to throw it out but Rayn asked to keep it. When the doctor left and the group settled down, Rayn looked to them, a bit peeved that they held her down. She was clean now, but still had blood stains in her clothes, which were still torn from her battles.
The next morning, Braska awoke Rayn and took her out to buy something else to wear, even though she told him that she was perfectly fine with her tattered clothes. From off to the side, Auron, now awake, said, "Take her out to buy something a girl would actually wear."
Looking to Braska, a false grin on her face, Rayn muttered, "I'm gonna kill him... I'm gonna do it... one of these days, I'm gonna do it..."
"Go for it," Jecht grumbled, covering his head with his pillow.
Standing, Rayn turned to the bed that Auron lay on and she ran over there and jumped on him. Auron flipped over onto his back and flung Rayn off the bed and into the wall with his right arm. Getting to her feet, Rayn rubbed her back and walked over to Braska. "I think I lost," she said as the two walked out of the room.
As the two scanned the shops in the industrial district, Braska asked, "Have you seen anything you like yet?"
The teen shook her head and looked over her shoulder at the summoner as he stopped in his tracks and looked at something in one of the shops. Rayn turned around and Braska lifted up a midnight blue long sleeve shirt that didn't cover the shoulders. Taking it in her hands, Rayn tried it on in a small back room of the shop under the supervision of one of the workers. When she walked out, Braska smiled. Under her breath, the girl muttered, "I feel naked..."
The blouse was bought for her and she wore it as the two continued on, now looking for something to replace her 'dead' gray pants. The summoner had thrown away the old blood-stained shirt right after they had bought the new blouse.
Upon passing by a shop that had skirts and dresses, Braska stopped Rayn who immediately asked, "Do I have a choice?"
Simply, the summoner replied, "Not if I'm buying it."
Biting the inside of her right cheek, the teen rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. Fortunately to Rayn, nothing looked good on her. In the end, she ended with a black metal duster around her waist and wearing a pair of dark gray pants that were sold from an Al Bhed shop. When the two returned to the inn, Auron and Jecht were still asleep. "Jeez, you think they would have woken up by now," Rayn whispered to Braska who nodded in response. "Check this," she said to the summoner and then looked to her father and then to Auron. "Hey, there's a naked woman out there!"
Immediately, Jecht sat up and said, "Where? Where?" The twenty-five year old Auron on the other hand just continued to sleep.
"Makes you wonder," muttered Rayn. Stretching vertically, popping her shoulders, Rayn said, "So can we leave him here? I mean, he is falling behind a bit right now. Since like, we're up and... he's still down."
Auron's eyes swiftly opened and he sat up. "I'm awake," he growled.
"Aw rats," Rayn said and snapped her fingers in slight disappointment.
Auron walked over to her got right in her face. "You're starting to get on my bad side," he growled.
"Which side is that? I didn't think you had a good side. It's more like a complete bad and horribly ugly side," she said smiling. The guardian raised his had as if he were going to hit her. Rayn just stared at him, her eyes narrowed and her teeth clenched. If he was going to hit her, she was going to hit him back. He dropped his had to his side and walked past her and out the door, the other three followed.
As they continued down the path, now headed to the Calm Lands, Jecht looked to his daughter. "When did you change?" he asked.
"When I went shopping!" she said happily. The summoner and the teenager's father laughed at the girl's enthusiasm.
Arriving on the Calm Lands, Rayn began to run down the slope, she got a forth of the way down before she tripped over her own foot and rolled to the bottom. The three men just laughed at her as she sat at the bottom, her body wobbling a bit as she tried to recover from the downward spin-cycle.
By the time the other three got down there, she was up on her feet again and walked behind Braska as the other two walked at the summoner's sides. Not far from the slope, a fiend attacked; Rayn was the first one to go at it, Jecht and Auron joined her while Braska took a nap. The large fiend, a giant Marlboro confused the three of them, Jecht whacked Rayn and she smacked him with the staff in her right hand, negating the effects of the confusion. Auron on the other hand, went after Rayn. Just as the finished off the fiend, he went at her and tackled her to the ground, his eyes clouded over.
Terrified, the girl boosted him off with her feet and took off running back towards Bevelle. The remaining guardian and the summoner stared at the two as they ran, Rayn running for her life, and Auron, his sword over his head, ready to cut the girl in half. Halfway to the city, Auron caught up to the girl and swung, Rayn ducked and then climbed into a tree. She climbed up higher and he swung again, this time getting his weapon stuck in the wood. The girl proceeded to laugh at him, but her 'victory' was cut short when he grabbed her barely dangling ankle and dragged her forcibly out of the large plant.
The girl landed heavily on the ground, a feeling of pain passing up her spine like lightning. The male guardian, his eyes still clouded over, put his foot on her neck, cutting off her breathing. The teen thrashed around, trying to get loose but he just pushed down harder. Angling her leg awkwardly, Rayn kicked him in the butt making him turn around and move his foot from her throat. Rayn then rolled out of the way but accidentally down a steep wooded slope, hitting every tree on the way down.
Lying on stomach at the bottom, Rayn got her arms under her and got up. She now realized she was down by the sparkling water she had been sitting at when she told Auron to go to hell. She limped over to the water's edge and knelt down. As soon as Auron's reflection appeared behind her, she cupped her hands full of water and flung it into his face; she then tackled him to the ground and brought out a small golden sphere which she turned into her staff.
The girl brought the staff down on her companion's neck as she sat on his stomach. "Snap out of it, Auron!" she shouted. He began to fight with her once more, trying to keep the staff from blocking off his air. Auron brought his left hand under the staff and threw a wild swing at the girl, catching her in the eye and breaking the skin just below it. Rayn flew to the side and just a bit into the water.
He got to his feet and made his way over to her, the light-brown haired girl brought up her staff and gave him a quick whack to the side and he snapped out of the confusion. Rayn clutched onto the golden stick, her facial expression still showing worried and frightened. "Rayn?" he questioned and knelt down to looked to her, "Why are you bleeding this time?"
Her eyes lighting up, the teen dropped the staff and wrapped her arms around his neck, silently she cried. Her entire body shook; she was still terrified from the previous experience. She reached down and put away the staff in her pocket as it had already turned back into its sphere form. She let go of her comrade as he stood up. She tried to do the same but fell forward, she was too nerve wracked to stand at all.
With a sigh, Rayn looked up to him, "Well, don't let me hold you up. I'm falling behind," she said. She then flopped onto her back. "So get out of here, I can't go on."
Without a second thought, Auron turned and walked away, he had no knowledge of what had happened; not one bit of memory at all. Getting back to Jecht and Braska, they looked at him awkwardly as he said, "Let's go."
"And what about my daughter?" Jecht asked, a bit angered.
"She fell behind," said Auron.
A small pit of anger in him, Jecht took off running to find his child, leaving Auron to watch him go in a confused state. Auron asked the summoner what happened and as soon as it was explained, the two took off running after Jecht who was now far ahead of them.
Rayn, now on her knees, held her staff in her hands as she listened to the sounds of movement in the forest. At hearing footsteps, she tightened her grip on the simple Al Bhed machina and opened her eyes. Yet when she saw her father standing in front of her, she dropped the staff and fell back onto her butt.
"Can you stand?" he asked. Rayn shook her head slightly and looked down. Her father turned around and knelt down. "Get on," he said.
"But... what about..." Rayn began to say.
Looking over his shoulder at his daughter, Jecht said, "Hey, you're supposed to listen to me, I'm your father. Now get on, I'll carry you." The girl felt small again.
She crawled over and got onto his back, he then wrapped his arms around her legs as she held onto him tightly. "Thank you," she whispered.
At the top of the incline stood Auron and Braska, they were waiting for them. Auron had retrieved his blade and was going to apologize to Rayn but she was asleep. Walking up next to Jecht, Braska said, "With her here, there's never a dull moment, is there?"
"Sure isn't," replied Jecht. Shifting the girl's weight, Jecht mumbled, "She sure has gained a bit of weight..."
"I heard that," Rayn mumbled in her slightly conscious state of sleep, she then went back fully under the influence of rest.
End Flashback
Rayn stood up and stretched a bit for a moment. "That, I swear to god, was the scariest few moments of my life. First I almost get killed, then I thought I was going to get left behind." She shook her head.
Leaning back and crossing his arms, Tidus asked, "So those scars you got from hunting alone, did they stay?"
"If you mean, do I still have them..." She turned her head to show him the pink scar marks on her neck where the skin was still recovering. She then lifted her sleeve to show him where the claw had been stuck, and then lifted her shirt just a bit to show him where the gashes were. "I still got them."
"And the claw?" His sister pulled at a thin black rope around her neck and brought out the claw. Tidus stared at it wide eyed for was the size of his palm. "You carry that thing with you?"
"Everywhere I go," she replied.
The two then laughed and Tidus asked, "So, did Dad ever talk about me?"
Rayn nodded. "I asked a lot of questions about you and he was happy to speak your name. But we'll get to that later." She pondered for a bit and then said, "Now, what happened next?"
(AN: By the way, I did mean to explain this earlier, but the thing about Rayn's last name, Terran, it's not Jecht or Tidus's last name, it was given to her by some Al Bhed when she was younger. I'll explain more in a later chapter.)