Did you see the sky, I think it means that we've been lost
Maybe one less time is all we need
I can't really help it if my tounge's all tied in knots
Jumping off a bridge, it's the farthest that I've ever been
Anywhere you go, I'll follow you down
Anyplace, but those I know by heart
Anywhere you go, I'll follow you down
I'll follow you down, but not that far

-"Follow You Down" by Gin Blossoms

"So, uh, what kind of music do you listen to?" I asked, pushing my voice out into the calm silence that inveloped the wooded area around us.

Auron grunted, and stared me down with his eye. "Music?"

We were walking slowly down the path, finally getting away from the evil innkeeper, even though I did hear him screaming,"MY DOOR! Oh, my precious DOOR! I'll get you Sir Auron!!!" in the distance. Other than the bit of thanks that I recieved for saving him, Mr. Wonderful hadn't said barely a word to me.

Well, that was going to have to stop. I don't risk my cute little hiney for just anyone, you know.

But, on the bright side, or maybe not on the bright side... Auron hadn't let go of my hand since I had single-handedly saved him from a lifetime of hairnets and pink plaid dishtowels. It was a spiffy, awesome, cool thing because my hand was warm and snuggly in his, and our fingers intertwined in the perfect order, and neither one of us was completely uncomfortable, as we all know sometimes hand-holding results in. On the not-so-cool, spiffy, awesome side, it made me confused about EVERYTHING. 'Cause, let's face it, rubbing fingers with the Legendary Guardian meant that I wasn't thinking about my rockin' caretaker, the man who smelled like it, and who I know wouldn't be mean to me one little smidgen of my life.

But, at the moment, I was just going to pretend that Auron was that guy.

"Yeah, music. You know, that cool noise that you sing and shake your butt to? What kind do you like?"

He looked to the sky in a way that spoke volumes, as if he was silently pleading for someone to save him from this little joywalk that we were going on. "I don't have time to "shake my butt" to pointless noise, Rikku."

Man, wasn't he just a little ray of sunshine.

"Oh yes, you do. Everyone has time to dance! I just think you haven't heard the right song to do it to," I said, my other hand waving around in the air, becoming more enthusiastic with every word that was coming out of my mouth.

"Dance?" he said, surprised. "I was a warrior monk..."

"Yeah, and Legendary Guardian to Lord Braska, and a million other things. Stop trying to change the subject."

"I don't dance, Rikku, or listen to music," he said, with a tone in his voice that was clearly a road block to any further discussion. Ah, but I don't pay attention to road blocks, obviously, or else I wouldn't have started the conversation in the first place.

Suddenly, though, I had a realisation.

"You don't know how to dance, do you?" I whispered in shock.

"What's there to know?" he grunted, not looking at me. "You move around, pretend to be paying attention to a beat, just so you can rub on someone in a mob of people. It doesn't even remotely interest me."

The truth was dawning on me more and more with every word that he spoke. I stopped slowly and turned, looked up at him over his, wait no, MY sunglasses, and he turned and looked down at me over his sunglasses, and I smiled. "The only reason why you pretend you're not interested is because you don't know how, Auron. And that is exactly why I'm going to teach you!"

"No," he said gruffly, shaking his head. "Absolutly not. I already told you I have no intrest in this nonsense. At the moment, we must go find Yuna and continue on. Stop wasting time."

"Yuna and the rest of them are waiting for us in Guadosalam, and if you really want to get into someone wasting time, I distinctly remember having to go after someone because he decided not to run at the appropriate time, therefore wasting all of our time. It will only take a minute," I giggled, grabbing his other hand, and starting to move his arms in the right ways, starting to spin slightly, "and then you'll be done, and I'm sure you'll want to dance every other chance that you can get."

Mr. I-Hate-Doing-Anything-Fun had a disgusted look on his face, and snatched his hands away from me. "No."

Great, now both of my hands were cold. I grabbed both of his hands again, stared him down, and said sternly, "You're learning."

He snatched his hands back, "No."

"Yes," I said, giving him the most evil of the evil eyes that I have ever given in my whole life. "The sooner you learn, the sooner we can catch up with Yuna. You're really just wasting all of her time, you know," I said, gleefully realising that I had him SO good with that statement.

He sighed, raised his hand to his forehead, and looked to the puffy clouds in the sky. "If I do this, will you leave me alone about it for the rest of this pilgrimage?"

"Of course, but you know, I won't have to leave you alone, because you'll be pestering me for some dances, and I'll be like "Oh, pooh on you, you don't like to dance," and you'll be like..."

"Get on with it," he said, exasperated, holding both of his hands limply in front of him, as if he was getting handcuffed by the Yevonite police.

"Well, alright then, hold your horses buddy, you don't have to be so enthusiastic," I said, giggling gleefullly, taking hold of one of his hands and placing it around my waist. "Okay, so you put this hand here, and you hold this hand, and here we go!" I smirked, starting to spin us around.

"Oh, someone help me please," he mumbled.

"Hush, you know you love it," I grinned. "Now, let's count out the beat, okay! One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two..."

"Look, Rikku," he interrupted, "If you're going to make me dance, please, spare me from the counting."

"Okay, then why don't I sing?" I asked as he groaned outloud, my feet still propelling us in a circle down the dirt path. "Ohhhhhhhh, ONCE upON a SUNNY MOOOOOOOOOOORNING, there was a PURPLE..."

"No, please, stop the singing, please stop the singing," he mumbled, shutting his eyes, letting himself being spun around in a dizzy twirl, clutching onto my waist and hand for dear life.

"Okay, how about this then?" I asked, ready to be serious. "Once upon a sunny..."

"How about some silence? That sounds great about now."

My feelings were kind of hurt, honestly, considering he didn't want to dance, he didn't want to sing, and he didn't even want ME to sing! Truthfully, I wasn't singing my best at that moment, because most of all, I really just wanted to annoy him at this point, considering I knew that I couldn't get in trouble because I saved his little tooshie from the evil innkeeper, and he was in my debt.

But, even though he wasn't that perfect man, and even though I knew he would never be the one for me, he was making it mighty hard for me to pretend.

"Fine," I mumbled as I stopped spinning, dropped his hand, and started walking away from him. "I'm not going to make you do anything that you don't want to do. If you don't want to dance, and you don't want to sing, and you don't want to hear ME sing, then fine. We can just walk in silence, for all I care."

"Rikku, wait," he said, walking quickly to catch up with me, as I tried to speed away. "Don't walk away from me. The last thing we need is for me to save you again from some fiend that you just decide to talk to."

He saved me? HA! Mr. Wonderful didn't have anything to do with that situation... did he? "HA! Hahahaha! You saved me? You make me laugh, Sir Auron. You didn't have anything to do with the situation with Chimmy."

He sighed in exasperation. "Why must you refer to the fiend as Chimmy?"

"Because that is his name," I said in a huff.

"What if it was a girl?" he asked, mouth starting to turn up in a grin.

"Chimmy is a great name for a girl!" I yelled, starting to get MIGHTY annoyed with him. "And why do you care anyway?"

"So I can figure out a way to call "him" back and have "him" eat you for good this time," he said calmly.

I stopped, shocked. "You... you wouldn't."

He turned back towards me, smiling a bit. "No, I probably wouldn't. Yuna would kill me."

"Oh, and of course that's the only reason why you wouldn't. It figures," I grumbled, brushing past him, avoiding the smile in his eye.

But, to my surprise, when I brushed past him, he grabbed my hand again. I looked back, questioning him, still mighty annoyed with him, but maybe just a teensy bit curious. "What?"

"If you don't change your attitude, I'm going to feed you to Chimmy. And I'm serious this time," he said, his eye definately not matching the tone of his voice. He was definatly trying to be serious, I'm sure, but there was so much laughter and expression in his eye that it lit up his entire face. It was an amazing transformation, really.

"Fine," I sighed. "But can we get going? I'm hungry!"

He burst out laughing, and it was the craziest, most fun, lovely, beautiful thing that I have ever seen. "As you wish, Lady Rikku," he said, starting us off walking again.

AN: Wow, I'm so surprised on the amount of reviews that I've gotten so far! Thanks alot all of you reviewers, I read each and every one with love and laughter, believe me. I really enjoyed writing this chapter, and a special thanks to Carrie, who I get to bounce ideas off of and amuse with this story on almost a daily basis. Hope you guys have a good weekend!