Here's the awaited Gagazet chapter! I know you're all anxious to read this, so I'll make my A/N nice and short. I'm writing this while we have no cable, which means no computer. So when I get this posted is a mystery to me as of right now. But I promise I'll find a way to post it by the weekend. If it's not posted, I promise you can all hit me with a baseball bat.
Disclaimer: I'm a watermelon. Therefore I do not own Final Fantasy.
Chapter 14
Gagazet
Auron read his newspaper quietly, but then look at his watch and then up the stairs in impatience. It was nearly 2:30 in the afternoon, and Tidus was still sleeping. He'd been back for two days but he hadn't even begun to recover from jet lag. The five hour time-change was quite a lot, though…
"Tidus, get up!" He pounded on the teenagers' door. When there was no answer, he stepped carefully inside. Tidus was sleeping like a baby. After nudging, poking, prodding, and yelling did nothing to disturb him, Auron was about ready to scream. Then the doorbell rang. Resigned to answer it, he merely flipped the mattress over and went to see who it was.
Standing at the door was a girl with brown hair and bicolored eyes. She had a slight tan, which looked somewhat recent. Under one arm she carried a black motorcycle helmet and slung across her arm and shoulder was a black purse. She looked nervous but strangely familiar.
"May I help you?" Auron asked, opening the screen door a crack.
"Yes—my name's Yuna. Yuna Bamarre. I'm looking for Tidus. Is he in?" She sounded far more calm than she looked. Auron opened the door wider to allow her to step inside, which she did after a moment of hesitation.
"I'm Auron MacLeod," he replied. "Tidus is in, but he isn't awake yet," he explained.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, backing up. "I didn't mean to—well, could you please tell him I came by? And that I'm sorry I'm late? I had trouble at the airports getting back from Luca." She turned to leave.
"Wait a moment, miss," he put a heavy hand on her shoulder. She turned to look at him. "Don't leave. Please, sit down. I have to wake him up, anyway and I'm sure he'll come down just as soon as I tell him you're here."
"Thank you," she said softly, shifting her helmet to the other hip.
"Why don't you put that down?" Auron said, indicating her helmet. "I'll be back in a second." He made it to the bottom of the stairs and saw a disheveled looking Tidus standing at the top landing, wearing only his boxers. "You finally decided to get up."
"You dumped me on the floor," he said thickly around a yawn. "I had no choice."
"Before you come down here, I might warn you to put some clothes on," Auron warned.
"Why?"
"You have company. It's Yuna."
"Holy hell!" This jolted him awake long enough to charge back up the stairs and into his room. Auron settled back into his chair in the living room to read his paper.
"He'll be with you in a minute," he assured Yuna. "He's putting some clothes on."
"Thank you," she said quietly. While he was reading, she studied him. Tidus had been telling her for a very long time to tell Auron of her problems with Seymour. She was so tempted to. She'd been plagued by nightmares the entire time she was gone at Luca and though she never talked with her friends about it, she was desperate for help. She wanted someone to listen to her, and from the way Tidus spoke, Auron may have been the man to listen. She didn't know for fact if he could help but she could tell that he was trustworthy.
"Are you all right?" Auron asked. "You seem tense. You're practically wringing your hands off."
She did not answer.
"Is something bothering you?"
Long pause.
"Yes," she admitted. "I suppose Tidus will have told you."
Auron shook his head and folded his paper, giving her his attention. He knew that this was important. And he was pretty sure he knew what it was about. "Tidus is a good kid," he said. "He hasn't told me anything. He's only said that you have a problem. He said that there is someone making…" he groped for a phrase. "Unwelcome advances."
"He's stalking me, that's what he's doing," Yuna hissed. Thoughts of all the things Seymour had said and done and suggested and even every look he had given her bubbled to the surface. The hatred she felt for him. The fear that she felt about no one believing her and being left to fend for herself once Kimahri and the protection of the Conflict of Interest rules were gone. She told him about the day he set eyes on her, when she was a lost freshman in the halls and had to beg for a pass so she wouldn't get a detention for being late when she got lost. She told him of the looks Seymour gave her, with the fire burning behind his icy gaze. The way he spoke to her and the way he stood near her and seemingly casually putting his hand on her shoulders when he spoke to her. She even told him of the grab he had made at her months ago which had ultimately turned her resolve from passive fear to an intense rage. She wanted something done about it. She couldn't live like this any long and she refused to be bullied forever. Her story spilled out and when she was through, she sat there panting, winded. She felt as if she'd run five hundred miles. Finally gathering her strength, she looked up at Auron, waiting for a reply. His face was stoic and his eyes showed nothing. Fear washed over her and she felt hot and cold at once. What if he didn't believe her?
"This is serious," he said finally. "If this is all true—and I have no doubt that it is," he quickly assured when he saw the fear in her face intensify. "If this is true, he can be stripped of his license to teach and will be jailed for years, probably. But you must be able to provide substantial evidence. Have you anything?"
"Photographs of the bruises," she said quietly. "Once Tidus told me to carry a tape recorder with me and I caught him being flirty with me. But other than that I'm afraid it's just my word against his."
"Tidus is a witness," Auron said. "And are your friends not also witnesses?"
Yuna nodded. She had surprised herself. All the while she told her story not a single tear nor sob escaped her. Even now that she was finished, she was not sad or remorseful or even slightly frightened. She felt… relieved. The weight of her problem was still there, but it had lessened now that she knew that someone was going to help her.
"I'll see what I can do. This will not go untended, that I promise you," he said gently. Before he could say anything else, there was some loud thumping down the stairs and Tidus appeared, wearing black shorts and a yellow t-shirt.
"Sorry, Yuna, I hadda find some clothes and put my mattress back on my bed since someone flipped it over," he panted. He noticed that Auron hadn't been reading his paper. "Were you guys talkin' about something?"
Yuna did not answer. Instead, Auron picked up his paper and said, "Until you came down. But I'll tell you of it later."
Tidus shrugged. He knew that either Auron or Yuna would tell him what they had been talking about in due time, so he didn't press it. "So where've you been?" He asked with a fake sternness. "You told me to call when I got back but your uncle said that you weren't home yet. Thought you said that you were gonna get home the day before I did, not the day after."
Yuna blushed. "I got back about an hour and a half ago. Rikku and Lulu went home and went to sleep but I showered and cam here," she explained hastily. "I didn't want you to worry, so I haven't really even eaten yet and I—"
Tidus put a finger to her lips and held her upper arms with his other hand. "Come outside with me," he said. "We can talk there." She nodded slowly and as they walked into the back yard where the trampoline stood, he studied her carefully. She'd gotten some sun while she was away. Her hair had also gotten lighter. She also looked a little less preoccupied. Even when they talked and laughed together, she still had a preoccupied expression.
"You just got back yesterday?" She asked, breaking the silence.
"Not really. I got back late the night before. What day was that? I can never remember what day it is when I'm on vacation."
"Day before yesterday? Hmm… Saturday. But the only reason I can remember is because the days are printed on my birth control pills."
Tidus promptly tripped over his boots and fell onto the grass. "You… you take birth control?" He asked in utter shock. He didn't think she'd be doing anything to get pregnant…
"For cramps. I used to get 'em so bad I missed school. I can't afford that."
"Okay. I just didn't know," he said. He felt a little weird talking about this even though Yuna didn't seem to care. "Why'd you come home so late? What happened, did you get into some problems at the airports?"
Yuna held back a giggle. "Okay, you'll need to sit down. It's a long story."
"Does the trampoline sound okay?" He asked in a somewhat childish manner. "I mean, I've been sleeping all day and I need to move around or I'll fall asleep again."
"I love trampolines," she admitted, taking of her boots and climbing onto the edge as Tidus did the same. "Kimahri would never let me have one as a little girl, though, and now I guessed I was just too old for one."
"Oh come on," he began to jump, gaining enough height for a backflip. "Who could possibly be too old for this?" He asked, grinning.
"Kimahri," she said, bouncing a little bit and tucking her legs up so she could land on her rear end.
"So, anyway, what happened? Why were you so late getting back?" Tidus asked, flopping down near her on the trampoline and making them both bounce from the impact. "Is everything okay?"
"Well, we are now," she said. "It's a long story."
"I've got time."
"Okay," she said. "But I warned you." She took a deep breath. "After we got to Luca, when we went to go get our bags, we got stuck in customs. The metal detector went off at Rikkus' belly button ring and my earrings and Lulus' dress. So we got held up for twenty minutes while we were al searched and one of the officers found a Moomba in Lulus' dress and thought it was concealing a bomb or something. Then when we finally got our bags and everything, it was late and we'd missed our train to the youth hostile where we were staying. So we ended up taking the later train to the hostile and it took us about an hour and a half to get there. After we got there, we discovered that there was no plumbing, and that we would have to pee in the woods and bathe in the lake. And someone had found a dead body in that lake about three weeks before. And no one told us we needed sleeping bags, either, so we had to use our towels as blankets and then our clothes for towels. Eventually we went into town and bought some woven blankets but for the first two days we had our towels for blankets. Anyway, when we were in town Rikku talked me into a lot of stuff. She made me get a dress! And she made me get… something else. She even talked Lulu into wearing lighter colors and getting a little sun but she wore so much sunscreen that she hardly tanned at all. But when it was time for us to leave, we were all ready to come home and come back to plumbing and running water and things like that. On the last day, we went to the beach but when we went back to the hostile to get our things, we wanted to wash up but we couldn't, so we ended up just going right for the airport with out things and smelling like beach and salt. Rikku and I smelled like beach and salt. Lulu didn't go swimming. But we got to the airport a little late so we just had time to run onto the airship but we just sat on the runway for hours. Then they just let us off the plane and told us that we'd be taking off in an hour. So Lulu and Rikku and I all went to get dinner but by the time we got back to the gate, the airship was gone. So all we had were our carry-on bags and our luggage was going to get back to Kilika before we did. By then we hadn't really showered in over a day and a half, so we went across the street to a hotel and had to beg and cry for a room for the night because we really didn't have much money. They gave us a room but I think it was just because we smelled so bad that they wanted us to go away. We finally got a bath but no one but me had clean clothes to change into. The only reason I knew to bring a change of clothes is because I travel so often that I've learned my lesson. But anyway, the next morning we ran to the airport and traded in our tickets for an airship. But that one was late in arriving, too, so instead of getting back before lunch like we planned to, we ended up getting back a little after noon."
Tidus stared at her with wide eyes. "You know, you sound like you have more fun in school than you had while you were in Luca," he told her finally.
"Actually, the time between misfortunes was pretty fun."
Playfully, he asked, "So what was it that Rikku made you do, huh?" He noticed her blush slightly.
"I can't show you. Well, I can but I don't want to."
"Fine, then," he said with a false sulk. "Be that way." He got up and began to bounce again, making it hard for her to get up. Every time she tried to, she ended up falling back over.
"I do have to ask you something, though," Yuna said as she finally gave up regaining her feet and stayed seated on the trampoline as Tidus leaped back and forth over her head.
"Whatcha need?" He asked, still jumping.
"Stop doing that and I'll tell you!" She yelled, covering her head with her arms as he made a particularly close jump. When he stopped, she looked up again. "I've already asked Rikku and Lulu and they've both said no. But every spring I got up to the Gagazet Mountains with the Ronsos, but this year I don't have anyone to go with and I don't like going alone. So, if you can get Auron to let you come with me, would you want to? Please?"
Tidus jumped for a moment and flipped a backflip before landing in a seated position in front of her. "Are you kidding?" He asked. "That'd be so awesome!" He paused. "When would we have to leave?"
"That's the downside—we'd have to leave tomorrow," she said with an apologetic look. "I'm sorry for such short notice, but I was supposed to go with Rikku but she backed down—"
He covered her mouth with his hand. "Yuna, it's okay. Really. I don't mind and Auron'll be happy that I'm getting out of the house for spring break. I told him that after Bikanel, I'd be staying home all day and sleeping."
"You're sure?" She asked, peeling his hand away. "It's no trouble if I go alone, I just like having someone around to talk to."
"Yuna, I wanna go. I've only passed through Gagazet on my way here from Zanarkand. What time are we leaving tomorrow?"
"Airship leaves out of Besaid Port at seven in the morning. It's a pretty small company, so they can dock their ships at the port. It's an airship line that just goes from Gagazet to Besaid and back. Usually for cargo but they allow passengers."
"So we don't have to take a ferry out to Kilika at some ungodly hour in the morning?" He asked. "Okay, I'm game."
"Thank you!" She yipped in a Rikku-like way, lurching forward and hugging him tightly.
"I guess my staying the night at your house wouldn't blow over too well, would it?" He asked.
"I'll see if I can pull some strings," she said.
"You serious?" He pulled back and looked at her. "You know I was just joking, right?"
"Yes, but I wasn't." She leaned in and kissed him.
"Tidus, wake up," Yuna rattled him. "Come on, you have to get up. Up! Come on, Tidus, get up!" She shook him violently. "Come on, we gotta get out of here or we'll miss our ship!" She growled, now, agitated. Finally she stood back and said in a rather loud voice, "Oh, darn, my bra came undone again."
"What was that?" Tidus immediately stood up. He was unsteady on his feet having just woken up. "Hi, Yuna." He rubbed his eyes tiredly.
"Morning, honey," she said with an eye-roll. "Come on, I just spent ten minutes getting you up! We gotta get to the docks in fifteen minutes or the ship leaves without us!" She said, dragging him to his bag where he had his clothes. She threw a clean pair of shorts and a shirt his way. "I've got your luggage in the back of Brothers' car. Just get dressed and brush your teeth and wash up and go, okay?"
"Sure, Yuna," Tidus said groggily. He couldn't even see his watch so he had no idea what time it was but he was pretty sure it was early because it was still dark out. "Don't I get food?"
"We get fed on the airship," Yuna said. "Now hurry up or I'll dress you!"
"Is that a threat or can it be my birthday present?" He asked.
"Move it!" She hissed.
"Yeesh, okay, okay," he said, not liking her sour attitude. He was far to tired to have any kind of attitude with exception of "obedience," so he merely dressed and washed and stumbed out to the car where Yuna was speaking with Cid and Brother stood nearby, looking sullen.
"…so if you just take the extra key you can come and get the car after we've left, okay? But if you take the car back you'll have to send someone to pick us up from the port when we get back in four days. Got it?"
"Okay, Yuna, I'll send someone down there to get you two that afternoon," Cid said in his gruff, sleepy voice. "Can I go back to bed now?"
"Go ahead. I just wanted to let you in on everything before it was too late, okay?"
Brother piped up then. "Yuna, why be you take this blondie playboy with you?" He asked. His Common still had not gotten much better even after being in Besaid for nine months. "I know what he want from you! He just want your purity and I will not have it! I say I will go with you and you leave this… this… jocularity here in Besaid where he not do anything bad to you!"
Tidus bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing but it was just too hard to resist. Brother had probably meant to say "jock" but it came out "jocularity." And he was completely infatuated with Yuna and was trying everything in his broken Common power to stop her from going to Gagazet with him, alone. But Yuna was strong-willed and smart enough to know better. She knew well enough that if she went with Brother, she may come back to Besaid without her virginity. She saw Tidus and smiled, relieved.
"You ready to get a move on?" She asked.
"More than ready," he said, slipping into the passengers' seat. When the doors were closed, he leaned in and whispered, "I was sick of seeing Brother hit on you, anyway."
"Nice, Tidus—really nice." She rolled her eyes and backed out of the driveway, heading to the port so that they could catch their airship. When they finally did make it to the port they had barely enough time to get their bags checked, run through customs, and find their seats.
Yuna was right—the ship was not crowded. Mostly there was cargo but there were seats, and they found two empty ones and settled in.
"Do you want the window seat?" Yuna asked.
"Huh? Sure!" He slipped into the seat and looked out the window, only to see the water and the dock.
"The view over Gagazet is beautiful," Yuna said, settling herself into the seat next to him. "But I've seen it so many times." Once she was seated she leaned back and closed her eyes. "Wake me up when we get there, okay?"
"Sure." He went back to looking out the window. He was looking forward to a little "alone time" with Yuna this spring break and it looked as though he'd be having more than he'd expected. He'd thought maybe they'd hang out and go to a movie or something. Instead she invited him two thousand miles from Besaid to Gagazet, to visit her old guardian, Kamahri Ronso. He had no idea where they were staying but he assumed that they were just staying with the Ronso in their village. He was anxious to meet them—he'd never actually seen a Ronso up close before. He, too, closed his eyes for a while and drifted off before he woke up.
Tidus leaned back and smiled to himself. Yuna had fallen asleep quickly some time ago, and was now slumbering peacefully next to him and was also beginning to droop onto his shoulder. Good. Yuna was very independent, not clingy like other girlfriends he had either had or met. She didn't beg him for things and she didn't ask for anything. She depended on him for nothing. That was why he sort of wanted her to fall onto his shoulder and sleep—he'd feel like she needed him for something. Even if it was just a pillow. Turbulence cause the airship to jump a little and Yuna fell over almost completely into his lap before she opened her eyes sleepily.
"Sorry," she said in a groggy voice, rubbing her eyes and yawning. "Did I hurt you?"
"Naw," he said with a grin. "I was waiting for you to fall anyway. I coulda died happy saying that a gorgeous girl slept in my lap."
"Who would that be?" She asked with her head tilted.
"You, of course."
She leaned in a whispered, "Flattery is going to get you nowhere with me."
"Yea but it's fun trying."
Yuna rolled her eyes and stretched with her hands way over her head.
Tidus absently looked down at her stomach and saw something, and he was pretty sure his eyes had actually come out of his head when he saw it. "Yuna—what is that?" He asked. She glanced down and then immediately pulled her shirt down, hiding the silver bar through her belly button. Her face was bright red.
"Oh, no, please don't tell anyone you saw that!" She begged. "Rikku made me do it. I'm going to let it close up soon but just don't tell anyone, please?"
"Yuna, chill! I won't tell anyone! But you gotta wear something that'll show it. I know you don't wanna hear it from me but a belly button ring looks damned good on you."
She cocked her head down and lifted her shirt to look. "You think so?"
"Sure?" He winked. "Why not?"
The airship rumbled to a stop in an enormous open field. There was a gorge to the northwest and a long, steep trail leading up to some forbidden, snowy mountains. Off to the east, there appeared to be a ranch of some kind, teeming with big yellow birds. Yuna leaned all the way over his lap to see where they were and then tapped him to get up.
"We're here," she said. "We've gotta take chocobos up the mountain but it doesn't take very long. I know Clasko, too, so he'll let me take the chocobos up the mountain for free."
"Chocobo?" he asked as he followed her off of the airship and onto the tall grass below.
"Yea, come on this way. What, haven't you ever ridden one before?"
"Uh… no," he said, then blushed. Was he going to delay their passage up the mountain? "Should I?"
"Not really, it isn't that difficult. I'll ask Clasko to explain it to you as I get the birds ready," she said, hefting her bag. "I'm afraid I have so little faith in my own skills as a chocobo rider that I dare not tell them to anyone else."
When they got to the ranch, a dark haired, dark eyed, and fairly dark-skinned young man stood with an enormous red feathered bird with long legs. It was big enough to bear a rider, maybe two, but it fought its' handler with fervor. Finally, he released the bird and it ran back into a big barn.
"Fine, be that way, Quinn, but I'll break you eventually!" He turned and noticed that he had company, and his expression softened. "Hey, Yuna. I heard from a Ronso messenger that you'd be coming." He caught sight of Tidus with his hand twined with hers and his eyebrows raised. He made no comment on it, however.
"Clasko, I need two chocobos. Mine and another for Tidus. I'll bring them out but I kinda want you to explain how to ride because I don't trust myself to teach him," she admitted.
"You've broken bones more times than I can count—good choice, Yuna. Go get Bow-Tie and also Adagio. He should be good for a beginner," Clasko said.
[A/N: I know that Tidus learning to ride a chocobo should be irresistible material to work with but I am so desperate to get this chapter out that I'm rushing from here on out!]
Yuna rolled over in her sleep and almost rolled right on top of Tidus. She smiled sleepily, thinking of the begging she had had to do with Kimahri to get him to agree to let her and Tidus share a tent while they were there. Tidus had sworn to be a gentleman, and Kimahri would every so often poke his head in through the tent flap at night or when they went inside to escape the unforgiving mountain winds. But other than the cold and snow of Gagazet, Tidus had had a good time the last two days. He'd gone hunting with the young male Ronso, the ones just entering adulthood. He'd managed to spear a deer but only wounded it, and they had to stalk it for almost a mile before it gave up. He'd even tanned the hide himself and said that he wanted to keep it for something, but he wasn't telling her what he wanted to keep it for.
Outside she could hear the Ronso beginning to get up and move around and prepare for the new day. Unlike most remote tribes, the Ronso did not start their day as soon as the sun came up over the mountain peaks. They had learned generations ago that tired Ronso were very hard to get along with. The Ronso started their day whenever they woke up, so some were up earlier and went to bed earlier, and some were up later but worked well into the night, so everything got done that was needed to get done. But today, Yuna didn't want to be stuck doing Ronso women's work, as much as it fascinated her. She liked doing beadwork on animal hides, but today she just wanted to relax. She smiled. Macalania. There was a lake in the fabled Macalania Woods, and it would only take them about two hours to get there and back, if they rode chocobo-back. They could go there that morning, bring some food, and then come back in time for an evening meal. She smiled to herself.
"Whatcha smiling about?" Tidus asked. He had to push the animals skins covering both of them aside so that he could sit up.
"How do you fancy going on a trip today?"
"We are on a trip."
"I mean going to a lake. In Macalania Woods. It's about two hours on chocobo-back, round-trip, but we can get there from here and then come back tonight," she said. "What do you say?"
"I say lets get some chocobos and go before someone stops us!" He said, almost leaping to his feet until he remembered the lack of height in the tent. He stopped himself from putting his head through the walls just in time.
Quietly, they gathered food, towels, and a blanket before they tiptoed to where Bow-Tie and Adagio were tethered.
"Okay, boys, you know the rules," Yuna whispered to the birds. "You need to be quiet on our way out of here. I wrote Kimahri a note so he'll know where we've gone and he won't worry and since I have someone with me, there's not a chance that anything will happen. Okay? Now be quiet and don't make a sound out of here and Kimahri won't try and—"
"Yuna go to Macalania Woods this morning," a deep voice behind them said, Yuna winced—busted.
"—stop us," she completed her sentence.
"Kimahri not stop Yuna," he said. Relief washed over both her face and Tidus' at once. "Kimahri wants to know when Yuna will return."
"We'll try to get back before dinner," she said. "We might be a little late depending on the winds in the mountain and how long we stay at the lake."
"Do not stay too long," Kimahri warned. "Wild fiends come out after dark. If you see fiends, spend the night at Claskos' ranch. Understood?"
Yuna smiled. "Understood, Kimahri." They bowed to one another, out of respect, and when they straightened, Yuna launched herself at him and hugged him tightly. "Thanks." She turned to Tidus and said, "Come on, lets go before he changes his mind." She mounted Bow-Tie with ease and watched with some humor as Tidus, still unsteady on the back of a chocobo, struggled to pull himself up.
Together, they raced down the mountain slopes and into the slightly warmer Calm Lands. The expanse of the Calm Lands was flat, and very easy for a chocobo to get across. They made better time than Yuna had expected. A little less than an hour after they began, the chocobos were wandering through Macalania Woods. Tidus, having never been to such a place before, stared, mesmerized by the glowing blue stones, and trees, and what appeared to be a path made entirely out of diamonds leading up into the highest trees.
"These woods are sacred to the Ronso," Yuna explained as she dismounted and began to walk alongside Bow-Tie. Tidus followed suit with his own chocobo. "And there are some creatures that live here, too. Fiends don't even live here. The Ronso say that it's because the goodness of such a sacred place suffocates them, and they die. I don't know if it's true but for whatever reason, the fiends don't come here and there's never any danger in the woods."
She stopped walking, and Tidus bumped into her from behind since he was still staring at the treetops. "Sorry, Yuna, I wasn't—whoa."
Now he was more transfixed than ever. A sparkling blue lake stood in front of them, the crystalline rocks at the bottom sending an eerie glow to the trees above. The forest was so dense that even the sky could not show through, giving the impression of an eternal night, and a few pyreflies drifted lazily about the surface of the water. He stole a glance at Yuna, who had taken the chocobos and tethered them. She was now staring into the water, and the blue-white-purple colors of the crystals in the water reflected off of her face. It made her look supernatural.
"It's beautiful, Yuna," he said softly. He saw her nod, then sit down to take off her boots and roll up her jeans past the knee. She carefully waded out into the water, bending every so often to pick something up.
"The water's warmer than it usually is this time of year," she commented, examining a flat stone and skipping it out across the water. "Usually it's so cold that it turns your lips blue after a while. It drains from the streams in the mountains." She bent again, picking something up in her hand but Tidus still couldn't see what she was getting.
"What're you picking up?" He asked.
"Stones and bits of shell," she said. "Also pieces of the crystals that fall off in the water. There's a woman in the village, Weetam, who makes beads out of them, then makes them into jewelry or a beautiful design on tanned hides. She's so talented. I tried to have her teach me but I could never get it down. Instead we trade. I'm mostly as good as any Ronso woman with pottery so I trade my clay goods for her beadwork. I'm going to have something made for Lulu. Her birthday is in a few weeks."
"How long's it take her to make something?" Tidus asked, pulling his own boots off and wading into the water. He got an idea from this though. He began collecting some stones in his own pockets.
"About and hour to create beads, then three to four hours for the rest of it," she said, picking up what she thought was a stone, and ended up being a crab. She squeaked and tossed it back into the water. "The best stones and shells are out in the deeper water."
"Why not go and get some?" He asked, handing her a smooth purple stone. "Here's one," he said.
"Thanks." She tucked it into her pocket. "And I can't go into the water, because I don't have a swimsuit—Tidus what are you doing?" She gasped, nearly falling backwards. Tidus had stripped off his shorts and his shirt and was wading into deep water in his boxers.
"Going for a swim," he said in a mischievous tone. "Come on! Just have to take your clothes off."
"Tidus, I can't do that! We shouldn't be doing this!" She said, beginning to shiver. She wanted to. But she couldn't, not here. And besides that, she was still nervous about him seeing her in just her underwear. She got up on dry land.
"Come on, Yuna!" He called to her, floating on his back. "The water's nice and warm, too." He held his breath and turned a front flip in the water. "What're you so afraid of?"
"Of what you'll think if you see me mostly bare," she admitted. If she wasn't going to do what he was practically begging her to do, she might just as well give him the honest answer.
"Yuna, I don't think I'm capable of thinking anything bad about you," he said seriously. "Please?" He gave her such a sweet smile that her resolve shattered right there. It was silly for her to think that he'd be critical, now that she thought of it.
"I can't believe I'm doing this," she said. She slipped her shirt off over her head and undid her belt and slid her jeans down her legs. Tidus watched her from a safe distance and was thankful that he was in the water to hide the drool he knew was forming at the corner of his mouth. Finally she stepped into the water wearing only her underwear and camisole. She swam out to him in the water, looking more than bashful.
"Why so nervous?" He asked. "You're beautiful."
She looked away and down into the water. She slid her eyes sideways. She'd seen him without his shirt on before but it was always at a distance. Forgetting decorum, she hugged him tightly.
"I was afraid, I'm sorry," she said. She backed up a little, putting some distance between them. There was a very long pause as she contemplated telling him…
"Yuna, you awake over there?" He waved a hand gently in front of her eyes. "Earth to Yuna?"
"Sorry," she said, shaking the daze from her head. How long had she been standing there staring at him like that? How embarrassing. "I was just… thinking."
"About what?"
Another pause, but not as long.
"I—I told Auron," she said quietly, immediately looking down at her feet. The water shifted a little as he moved closer to her, putting his hand on her shoulder.
"He told me. He said he's gonna help you if it kills him."
"He said that?" Yuna perked immediately.
"Yea. It really doesn't sound like something he'd say," Tidus grinned some. "I guess he really likes you." To lighten the mood, he casually slung his arm over Yunas' shoulders and said, "So, now that we're two hundred miles from human civilization and two-thousand miles from home with no guardians to watch us and no blonde cousins squealing in my ears and no enchanted Moogle dolls running up the back of my pants when I'm not looking—whatcha wanna do?"
Yuna laughed at his comment. In Besaid, even when they were alone, they weren't really alone. There were always people around them, talking laughing, joking, yelling, doing whatever. Now that they were in the isolated and sacred Macalania Woods, they didn't know what to do with themselves. For a while they went diving for stones. Yuna had been right—there were more and prettier stones out in the deep water than there were on shore. There were also more bits of Macalania Crystals sitting on the bottom of the lake. Tidus snatched several of the larger chunks up in his hands and slipped them into his pockets when Yuna was not looking. He still wanted something made for her.
The quiet atmosphere turned playful as they got bored with searching for stone and began splashing each other and trying to play an underwater game of tag, but Tidus was a far better swimmer than Yuna was. After a while, she swam out to the little islet containing one golden orb and a crystal tree and scaled the tree easily, sitting in it and pretending to be angry at him for winning the game.
"I'm not coming down," she said, pretending to be amused the one of the butterflies hovering through the branches. "I'm a bad sport. I don't like to lose."
"If you come down, I'll let you win."
"Too late," she said in an airy tone.
"Yuna, please?"
"Nope."
"Yuna, I—" there was a thump a splash, and several four-letter words. "Aw, shit, nosebleed. Nosebleed, nosebleed. Not good!"
This worried her, and she carefully slipped out of the tree and back into the water, where Tidus had his back turned to her and was holding both hands over his nose and mouth and whimpering.
"Tidus, what happened?" She asked. "Are you all right?"
No answer.
"Tidus, come on. Answer me." She reached to tug his hands away. "Come on, this isn't funny. I can heal it but I have to see what happened."
He began to laugh, and at her confused sound, he lowered his hands. "Nothing happened. I just wanted to get you down from there!"
"Tidus, you're terrible," she snapped, turning away. Arms snaked about her waist and his head rested on her shoulder and he was breathing in her ear.
"But you love me anyway," he said.
"Yes," she murmured, turning to face him with her arms around his neck.
"Do I kiss you now?"
"Either you do, or I will."
"Is that—"
With that she grabbed him by the back of his hair, pulled him down and kissed him. When he kissed her back, her knees almost bucked from beneath her and dumped her into the water but she managed to keep her balance. Then they pulled away and he jerked his head towards the shore. Without words, they wandered up the beach and sat down on a rock, wrapped in the blanket that she had brought with them.
They were content just to sit and watch the pyreflies float over the water. They slowly came back after they had been disturbed when a pair of teenagers had jumped into their water. The pair began to slowly drift off and had to keep themselves awake.
"Tidus?"
"Hm?"
"Where's 'home' for you? Zanarkand? Or do you consider Besaid your home?" She asked.
There was an unexpected question. He thought on it for a few moments. Home was… was it Zanarkand? He was born there. Spent his childhood there. But he never really thought that he was truly happy there. There were too many reminders of his father there, and he had hated his father. "I guess Besaid is," he said. "But that's just because you're there. What about you? I know you weren't born in Besaid but you think of it as home, don't you?"
"Yes," she said. "Bevelle is… too politically-governed to be a good place to raise a child. I think my… my parents were going to take us all to Besaid so I would have a place to grow up. But then there was that terrible accident, and Kimahri…" she took a deep breath. Remembering was painful. "Kimahri said that he was coming to take me away from Bevelle, far away. He said it was my fathers' wishes. I think there was a battle for a while over who would take custody of me—either Kimahri, the appointed guardian, or else Cid. But they didn't want me living where the political climate was so unstable that it was on the brink of war, so they let me go with Kimahri. He was my guardian ever since then."
The chocobos screamed. They were getting tired of standing there, eating Macalania Greens and watching Tidus and Yuna exchange tonsils. They wanted to run! Yuna glanced down at her watch.
"It's about time we left, anyway," she said, standing up.
"Hey, Yuna?"
"Yea?"
"I think maybe we should put some clothes on before we go," he said, indicating that they were both still in their underwear. "I mean, not only will we freeze to death up in the Gagazet Mountains but I'm afraid that if the cold doesn't kill me, then Kimahri will when he sees us like this."
Yuna giggled. She tossed him his clothes and a towel. Their undergarments were not totally dry but they were just going to have to deal with it. They could change again once they got back up to Gagazet. And he had some things he wanted to give this Weetam once they were back. He swung his leg up over Adagio, only to come up and completely over the chocobos' back. He landed with a thump on the soft earth below him.
"If I had five gil for every time I've done that, I think I'd be richer than the Maestors of Yevon," Yuna commented. "You okay?"
"I feel a lot better knowing that this doesn't just happen to me," he said. He tried to mount again, and succeeded. This time. "Come on, then, love," he put on a British accent as he spoke. "Tallyho."
"Do you mean that?"
"Mean what?"
"You called me 'love.' Do you mean it?" The expression on her face and in her eyes was impossible to read and he was almost afraid to answer. But he did anyway.
"Yes."
Cliffhanger! Am I mean? Yes. Am I cruel? Of course! But do you all love me because this chapter is well over seven thousand words? Uh-huh. But you may all take a swing at me with a baseball bat. I am days late in posting this and I'm not really sure what's gonna happen next. Hopefully the sheer length of this chapter will make up for it! Plus the little bits of fluff in there. Please review!