Whoo! I'm pretty tired now, and tomorrow I leave for Georgia, but right now I'm gonna try desperately hard to write chapter 2 up completely. This is considerably longer than chapter one, which will probably remain the shortest chapter in the entire story. I'm glad that those of you who reviewed enjoyed it. It makes meh happeh! ^_^
Yes. I own Final Fantasy X. Square paid me to use them! That is why I scrape through the sofa for lunch money and work at a crummy store…
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Chapter 2
The Witches Three (part I)
"How many days until winter break?" Rikku whined, drudging through fallen leaves as she, Yuna, and Lulu walked home from school. They'd been in school for two weeks and already it had become too much for Rikku to handle. Lulu, however, had the answer to her question.
"Ninety-eight including weekends," she said, face deadpanned.
"Really? Ninety-eight?"
"Hard to believe, isn't it?" Lulu absently played with balls of elemental light in the palm of her hand as they walked. She did this when she was bored, but only when she was alone or just with Yuna. She didn't want to be labeled a witch and a traitor to the Yevon religion by the Catholic students at the school. She had enough trouble with merely the rumors of her magic going about. Yuna never said anything about it, as she had her own background issues to deal with. She, like Lulu, was also a mage, but she was a WhiteMage. She was also a halfblood. "Halfblood" was a nasty name for anyone who was half Yevon Catholic, and half something else. In Yuna's case, it was half Al Bhed. No one knew it, though, and she intended to keep it that way. She wanted no one to have any reason to hate her more than they already did.
"At least it's Friday," the brunette said quietly. "It's about time, too. I can sleep until ten and not be in trouble." She had the nasty habit of sleeping in school. It got her detentions a few times, but eventually teachers would learn just to ignore her when she dropped off.
"Yunie, is school always like this? This tough I mean. Or does it mellow down after a while?" Rikku asked, hefting her backpack on her bare shoulders. Red marks were left by the straps; apparently, three textbooks were beginning to take their toll on her.
"Some people get worse, others will eventually mellow down," Lulu answered before Yuna could. "And Rikku—don't tell anyone that you are Al Bhed. People around here are serious Catholics and they have severe hostilities against the Al Bhed because they think that they're all heathens."
"I'm not a heathen!" Rikku protested. "What's a heathen?"
Lulu rolled her eyes. "Never mind… just remember not to tell anyone that you're Al Bhed."
"Okay." She seemed edgy. She didn't know that everyone around here would resent her for her lineage. Just the serious ones. But then again, just about everyone here was a severe fanatic religion drone. She wrinkled her nose and decided to change the subject. "So, are we going anywhere this weekend?" She asked in her usual perky voice.
"You can; I'm not," Yuna said. "Got my paycheck yesterday and I'm gonna go buy some paints and a few canvases."
"Ohh! Yunie! Well, what about you, Lulu?"
"Nope. Thanks anyway, though. I try not to leave my house. Witches don't do well in open spaces," she said, wrinkling her nose.
"The two of you!" Rikku snapped, exasperated. She threw her arms up into the air and sighed in defeat. "Oy vey, you never have any fun. Well, I'll just call Wakka and Tidus to see if they wanna go see a movie or something tomorrow."
At this, Lulu and Yuna exchanged glances. Wakka, the very definition of Yevonite Catholic, was friends with a pureblooded Al Bhed girl? It boggled the mind. Because of the death of his younger brother, Chappu, two years ago, Wakka had held pointless hostilities against the Al Bhed because the accident that killed Chappu was with Al Bhed machina. But the Al Bhed themselves were not involved. In fact the accident had been caused by anarchists from Bevelle who randomly chose the young boy on the streets and shot him to death. His body was nearly unrecognizable when the warrior monks brought it back to them.
Lulu soon left them for the street that led to her own house, and Rikku wand Yuna were again alone to walk home. Wind was starting to blow, getting stronger and stronger, unraveling Rikku's skirt and nearly blowing it over her head.
"I told you to wear pants," Yuna said as her cousin quickly refastened her skirt about her waist.
"Hey, Yunie, how come you never wanna do anything? Is there something wrong?"
"No," Yuna answered a little too quickly. "I just don't like leaving my house. You know that. People scare me."
"People are scared of you and you know it!" Rikku snapped.
"Perhaps."
They began to ascend a hill that led to Yuna's house. It was a sharp incline, leaving both girls winded before the halfway mark.
"Yunie, how come we're not takin' the bike?"
"Because someone's been driving it without my permission it seems… poor baby's outta gas and I had to get your dad to fill it up whilst we were at school."
"Well, it wasn't me!" Rikku said, looking quite upset that her cousin would so much as suggest something like that.
"Never said it was, Pypa," Yuna said. "Pypa" was her little pet-name for Rikku. It was the Al Bhed word for "babe," and this way no one would suspect something stupid, like incest, from the name because they didn't know what it meant.
They managed to make it to the top of the hill, where they unlocked the house and went inside. Cid was still at work, so they would have the house to themselves for a few hours until he got home. And if he wasn't home by dinner, they were ordering pizza—no two ways about it. Yuna just put her things down and went out again, looking for art supplies. While she was gone Rikku had a long conversation on the telephone with Wakka and Tidus and agreed to meet them at about eleven the next morning to see a movie. Once Yuna got back, the blonde immediately started to harass her about it.
"Oh, come on, Yu-na!" Rikku stressed the second syllable in her name. "Come and have some fun with me! You can't just stay locked up in this house for forever, you know! You gotta get out, do stuff… meet hot guys!"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"What if I accidentally let it slip that I'm Al Bhed?"
"Then you're screwed. Wakka hates the Al Bhed."
"Then what if, after that, I let it slip that you're my cousin and you're half-Al Bhed? What'll ya do then, huh?"
"Deny it."
"Yunie!"
Yuna turned around, growling at her cousin. "Look, if I agree to go with you, will you stop bugging me?" She demanded.
Rikku nodded, squealing.
"Okay… fine. I'll go!" She threw her hands up in defeat. "You happy now?" As an answer, the Al Bhed girl threw her arms about her cousins' waist and squeezed her so tightly that she gasped for air. "Rikku! Lemmie go… I need to breathe…"
"Oh, sorry!" She let go. "And you won't regret this, I promise! You'll have plenty of fun tomorrow!" She skipped down the stairs to order pizza. Yuna shook her head. She decided that she would just humor her cousin, rather than argue. She knew she would probably lose anyway, and it was best to save her breath for something worthwhile.
She flipped through her sketches to find a few suitable for turning into a painting. She agonized for a while over several before deciding on one drawing of her dog, Ursa, laying on the ground with her head on her gigantic paws and her eyes slipping shut, and one picture of Lulu, perched elegantly on a bench in the school courtyard, looking into the distance with a dreamy, far-off look on her face. She wondered briefly if she could draw her friend sitting on the ground with her dog, but decided that that would never happen. Lulu was just too dignified to ever sit on the ground.
The following morning came cold, damp, and drizzly. Yuna hoped that Rikku would see the weather and decide not to leave the house, but no suck luck—at nine-thirty, Rikku came into her room and let Ursa in, wet paws and all. The dog leaped onto her bed and nuzzled her mistress with a wet muzzle, wanting her to get up and play. Yuna, still very tired, covered her head with the blankets and tried to ignore the one-hundred-and-thirty-pound dog walking on top of her.
"Yuuuunie!" Rikku chirped. Yuna growled, groping for something to throw at her cousin.
"Go away," she threatened, voice muffled.
"Why?"
"Because I'm sleeping."
"No you aren't."
"Yea, I am."
"Nuh-uh!"
"Am, too."
"Daddy!" Rikku yelled, stomping out of Yuna's bedroom. "Yunie's in here arguing in her sleep!"
"Damn straight." She hoped that she had won this battle, but again, no luck. Ever-persistent Rikku was just as stubborn and determined as she was. The blonde bounded back into her room and leaped onto her bed, flinging off the covers and rolling her over so that she practically peeled her cousins eyelids open.
"Come on, Yunie! Get up!"
This was the last straw. Yuna lurched upright and shook her cousin off, rubbing her face tiredly when it was freed from the Al Bhed girl's grasp.
"Watch it, Rikku," she warned. "You know what they say: 'Let sleeping fiends lie.'"
Seemingly oblivious to Yuna's bad mood, Rikku picked through her cousins' clothes, looking to pick something out for her. She opened the closet and all of the drawers, searching for clothes that fit her own taste.
"You freak!" Yuna yelled. "Get out of my underwear drawer!" She stumbled over the sheets, her clothes, and her own two feet to confront Rikku.
"D'you own anything that's not stained?" Rikku demanded. "We're going out in public today, in case you'd forgotten."
"Oh, no, Pypa, I haven't forgotten—not that I've not tried, though," she grabbed the armful of clothes from Rikku's grasp and threw them onto the floor.
"Well, you'd best wear something nice!" Rikku said. "You don't want 'em thinking you're a slob, do ya?" She asked, hands on her hips.
"What do I care?" Yuna snapped back. "This is a one-shot affair. In, out, on with life—it'll never happen again. Besides that, guys never notice what girls are wearing."
"Yea they do."
"No, they don't."
"Yes they do! Trust me, I've got a brother. I know these things!"
"Rikku, the only way a guy would notice what a girl was wearing is if he was attempting to devise a way to get into them."
"You're sick!"
"No, I'm tired. Scat."
Rikku loosed a sigh. This was going nowhere fast, so she took action. She grabbed Yuna by the ponytail and dragged her out of the room, tossing her into the bathroom and slamming the door closed behind her.
"Stay right there, I'll get you some clothes!" She yelled through the door, scampering off to her own room to find some clothes. Yuna groaned, resigned to her fate.
'Choose your battles,' she thought to herself. Arguing long hours with Kimahri over the years had taught her that some things were worth fighting for, and others should just be ignored, and this was one of those petty things that should be better off ignored.
Rikku's desert rearing showed in the clothing she picked for her cousin: a short purple skirt and a white top that looked like it was made from a triangle of white cloth and folded to make a shirt. [A/N: Think of Yuna's summoner-shirt.] She wordlessly barged into the bathroom to give it to her. This startled the already agitated teenager.
"Rikku!" She shrieked. "You freak! You pervert! Get out of my bathroom!" She hid herself behind the shower curtain, eyes blazing as she stared at her cousin, who was again oblivious to her nasty mood.
"Oh, grow up will you? It's not like you've got anything I don't."
"Nice, luv."
"Besides, I brought you clothes."
"I coulda gotten my own. Just woulda had to walk to my room in a towel."
"First you get mad at your own cousin for walking in on you in the bathroom and now you're willing to risk letting Brother see you in a towel and no more?" Rikku asked, a disgusted look on her face.
"It's my house." Finally fed up, she picked up a bar of soap and hurled it at her cousin. Rikku dodged it and ducked, giggling, out of the bathroom. She stuck her head back in long enough to tell Yuna not to wear her boots or her sneakers, that she would lend her a pair of flip-flops.
Finally left in peace, Yuna showered and dressed, pulling on her boots just to spite her cousin. All of her leg that was visible now was her knee. She hated the skirt, but to humor Rikku she wore it anyway… just because.
"Yunie, we're leaving soon." Rikku knocked on the bathroom door for the first time that morning.
"I'm decent," Yuna said. Rikku walked in.
"The boots look nice," the blonde said, glancing down at her cousins' choice of shoes.
"Like I care. I just won't wear sandals is all."
"Oh, come on, Yunie, you look nice! There's nothing wrong with looking nice for a change."
"As opposed to what?"
"Like a starving artist who has to burn her paintings to keep warm."
"Nice, Rikku. So how you planning on getting to town again? You dunno where I keep my keys."
Rikku growled and screwed up her face. "You win," she said. She snatched up her helmet from the hall table and followed Yuna outside to her bike, setting off in the drizzle.
~*~
Whew… okay, so I didn't exactly finish this chapter before I left for Georgia because I got back yesterday! It's eleven hours in the freakin' car. Oy. I hated it. But anyway, this is part one of chapter two, because chapter two is a looong chapter. It's five written pages (front and back) and not even finished yet, so I'll post the other parts of this when they're done. Until then, just talk amongst yourselves!
Oh, does anyone else notice how infatuated Brother seems to be with Yuna in X-2?? I mean… he wants to see her dancing, and he seems to care for her a little bit past that "brotherly love" stage. He's her cousin! Ew! That's… nasty! *shiver* I am now off to beat my brother savagely until he surrenders the PlayStation. Adios and if you read please be so kind as to drop a review!