Dancing All Around Me : A Rikku x Gippal Fanfiction
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A/N : I'm slowly getting this thing all up. And just for those of you that are curious, the Rikku x Gippal is coming; these chapters are leading up to it, ya know? If I just made every chapter mushy like that, it would only spoil the fanfic, even though those moments are so PRECIOUS. So please be patient!
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CHAPTER SEVEN : Recognition
Meanwhile, Gippal and Teyha, the soft-hearted Black Mage, were making their way gradually down Mushroom Rock. The leader of the Al Bhed Machine Faction had attempted several times at starting a decent conversation with Teyha, and he had failed those several times. The responses he received were short and rather abrupt, but maybe it was because he had asked random questions that didn't take much thought to answer.
First thing on my when-I-get-back-to-Djose-to-do-list, Gippal thought, is practice on starting conversations with girls I've just met.
Now, though, the two had been walking in an awkward silence for the past ten minutes. Gippal could feel the uneasiness; the lengthy quietude was almost ear-shattering, for him. He had been staring down at his boots, finding something interesting about them to occupy his mind. Teyha was walking beside him, less than a foot from his body. He could feel the slight wind that brushed by in her wake.
He was just about to make another attempt at talking with her when she, unexpectedly, spoke first.
"So Gippal... do you have a girlfriend?"
It was bold, what she asked him. Usually, when girls asked him that question, they would ask him shyly or through a letter or something of the sort. But when Teyha asked him... her tone was normal; he couldn't find any sort of feeling in those words—just her sweet, melodic voice. He couldn't tell if she was hiding anything.
Apparently, he thought, giving the question to the air around them, I'm horrible at reading girls' minds. Either that, or I'm just incredibly dense.
When he didn't immediately answer, Teyha looked over at him, blinking her scarlet-tinged eyes in curiosity. She didn't think it was a hard question... just a simple "yes" or "no" worked for her. She couldn't understand why guys went speechless every time she asked them.
I guess it's just as hard to understand them as it is for them to understand us, she thought.
Gippal didn't answer for a while, actually. He was thinking about someone from his past, someone he had had deep feelings for... and, quite possibly, he still had those deep feelings. His thoughts were jumbled and messy; he couldn't think straight. But then... he wasn't really in that kind of a relationship with her anymore. She probably didn't even feel that way about him, and he had not seen her in more than a year.
And besides, Gippal thought, we weren't really meant to be from the start.
Teyha was just about to ask him the question again, but he replied. "No. No, I don't have a girlfriend." She smiled at him. She knew, from the way he had been thinking, that there was someone special he had been involved with. But she wasn't surprised. After all, he wasn't too bad in terms of appearance; in fact, she found him to be pretty cute, what with his eyepatch and spiked hair.
"Oh, I see," she said. "Was there someone you.. had feelings for?"
He looked up from his boots to Teyha's face. Teyha couldn't help it; she was a nosy person, and she tended to want to get to know more about guys she met. And, above all, Gippal interested her more than any other guy she had ever known.
Gippal looked back down at the ground as they walked. "Yeah. Sure was."
"What happened, if you don't mind me asking?"
He took in a deep breath, and when he let it all out, he replied with "Actually, yes I do mind. I'm sorry about being so... unrevealing. But that's just personal stuff, if you know what I mean."
Teyha nodded. "I know. People tend not to share things like that."
"Yeah," he said, looking up at the sky. The sun was still shining, beaming down from its peak position and warming Spira. Today, on Mushroom Rock, everything was tranquil. The Youth League people that had occupied this place a year ago were no longer there; occasionally, Gippal had seen Lucil and Elma, along with some Chocobo Knights. But now, no one was around and everything sat in silence, as if waiting for something to happen. He almost shuddered at the thought.
Teyha smiled at him, then looked away. She knew that something was on his mind, so she didn't feel the need to dig any deeper. He'd open up to her, eventually.
"So you're heading to Bevelle, too, right?" Gippal had turned his attention back to Teyha, and his curiosity had the best of him, provoking him into asking her the question.
He received a nod from her. "Yes, I am. For the Ribbonhunting Competition."
Gippal grinned. "Really? I was hoping you'd—oh, yeah, um." He mock-coughed, trying to hide what he had been wanting to say. "...Yeah."
She smiled and let out a soft laugh. "Yes... really. I suppose you're going there for the competition, too?"
He nodded. "Yeah. I needed something to get me away from all that work." He scratched the back of his head with a partially-gloved hand, watching his boots as they trekked along on the dirt road.
"Oh. Where do you work?" Her interest in him had gradually increased, ever since she had first saved him from the Lupus fiend.
Gippal blinked at her, almost too surprised to answer. "You don't know?" After all that had happened a year or so ago, he had assumed that she would've at least known who he was. He had become too famous for his own good... and not only because he was attractive appearance-wise.
Teyha shook her head innocently.
He frowned and eyed her suspiciously, but quickly changed his expression. "Being the leader of the Al Bhed Machine Faction, I'm supervising and helping with the machina construction and research projects at Djose."
She smiled. "I see. Of course. I've heard about you."
Who wouldn't have?, he thought. It was hard enough getting around without reporters and the like swarming over him. But that was about a year ago. The once excessive paparazzi had died down, yet every once in a while, one or two bothersome reporters would show up at Djose. And all he would do was send them away, refusing to even look at them.
In response to Teyha's comment, he merely nodded. He didn't know what to say. It was probably better off if he didn't say anything.
And thus, silence reigned for the next few minutes. The two had already entered Mi'ihen, and they were walking along now, until the blond-headed Machine Faction leader noticed someone just down the road. He saw someone clothed in a brown cloak, hovering over a rather familiar figure...
His eyes widened as he immediately recognized the figure lying on the ground, and he broke into a run towards the scene. Teyha was surprised, and she watched him go before jogging after him. "Gippal! What're you doing?"
Her question remained unanswered as Gippal approached the two people. "Hey!" He shouted at the brown-cloaked form. "Get away from her!" He pushed the mysterious person, who he now noticed was female with crimson-red hair, aside and fell to his knees beside the blond girl that lied on the ground. He heard the stranger yell back at him with a "What do you think you're doing?!" but he ignored her.
Gippal was almost too afraid to touch the unmoving form lying beside him.
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Rikku and Aure were just entering the Mi'ihen Highroad. Aure had remained silent, refusing to answer the questions that Rikku was bombarding her with. Her first opinion about Rikku had been that she was an "okay-girl," but she was about to change her mind.
"Hey, you know, you remind me a lot of my friend, Paine," the blond Al Bhed girl remarked as she trotted along beside Aure.
The crimson-haired girl turned her head to Rikku, her interest somewhat piqued. "Paine?"
Rikku grinned and nodded. "Yeah! She was a friend that I traveled with during the spherehunting times. Her and Yunie... and the rest of the Gullwings, too."
Aure gave a small "Oh," and averted her gaze to the ground as they walked. She was obviously thinking.
"Do you know Paine, Aure?"
After a moment's hesitation, Rikku received a reply from the mysterious girl. "... No. I've... never met this Paine of yours."
The Al Bhed girl blinked, canting her head to the side as she stared at Aure. "Really? I thought you would've known her... Oh well." She continued to prance along, lost in her merriment.
Aure stopped in her footsteps. She shifted her weight onto her right leg and crossed her arms over her chest. The dull brown cloak danced around her halted figure before hanging still. The expression on her face changed to one of provoked suspicion as she eyed Rikku, who had stopped too and turned back to her.
"What's wrong, Aure?"
"Why did you think that I would've known this Paine?"
Rikku blinked and laughed. She walked back up to Aure and stood before her. "Well, because you were acting all funny when I asked you. Like you weren't sure what to say."
Aure's tense gaze changed again; she seemed relieved. "Oh... right. Sorry 'bout that." She dropped her arms back to her sides and walked on, past Rikku.
The bouncy Al Bhed girl stared after her. "You're so weird, Aure. You didn't have to be all uptight about it..." Shrugging the matter off her shoulders, Rikku hurried along, following the enigmatic figurine.
They were about halfway through the first stretch of the Mi'ihen Highroad. The afternoon sun beamed down on them. The grasses lining the road were still and unmoving; not even a small breeze rustled by. The two girls walked along in silence, which was made all the more deafening without any sort of verbal conversation between them. Rikku was especially uneasy now; she wasn't one to sit in silence. As they walked along, something snapped, like a twig, to the right, from within the tall grasses. Rikku jumped, startled, and turned to where she thought it came from.
"Did you hear that?" Rikku tugged at Aure's cloak.
Aure looked at Rikku, then at the grass. "...What?"
Before Rikku could answer, something fast shot forth from amongst the grasses. Its body was thin, resembling that of an insect. It tackled the nearest person in sight, which just so happened to be the young Al Bhed girl, and the fiend let out a hiss as it pinned Rikku to the ground with its numerous insect-like legs. The Al Bhed girl let out a small cry as she struggled to free herself from her attacker: an Insect Matriarch.
Aure's violet eyes widened in horror, and she immediately released her sword from its confines in the scabbard at her side. She swung her sword deftly at the creature, and at the same time, she was careful not to hit Rikku by accident. The silver sword contacted with one of the Insect Matriarch's legs, but the hard shell-like exterior seemingly repelled it. Staggering, yet maintaining her composure, Aure swung again.
The fiend almost anticipated the crimson-haired girl's attack, and it shifted its attention from the downed Rikku to Aure, thrashing one of its legs into her. Aure felt a sharp pain in her stomach area as she was thrown back several feet. She landed onto the dusty ground with a groan before pushing herself back onto her feet. Her gloved hands grasped her sword more firmly as she neared the insect again.
The Insect Matriarch still had Rikku pinned beneath it. The Al Bhed girl had stopped struggling; she apparently had blacked out. Aure glared menacingly at the fiend, and just before she was within attacking distance from it, she summoned forth the power in her body and forced it into her sword. Her plain silver sword suddenly glowed a piercing white, humming with Holy power; Aure quickly closed the remaining distance between the fiend and herself, and she thrust the glowing sword into the Insect Matriarch's body.
It let out a shrill cry, something between a scream and a hiss, before it collapsed onto Rikku's motionless body, pyreflies emerging skyward from its form. Aure sheathed her sword, which had turned back to normal, and proceeded to push the insect's corpse off of the downed Al Bhed girl.
Once the corpse was off, Aure dropped to her knees, slightly shaking Rikku by the shoulders. "Rikku!" She received neither answer nor reaction, but her thoughts were interrupted when she heard a shout from just down the road. She turned to see a man, not much older than herself, with spiked blond hair and an eyepatch over one of his eyes, approaching at a fast run. Aure was a little startled and rose to her feet, backing away slightly as he yelled, "Get away from her!" before pushing her aside.
Surprised not only by his appearance but also by his voluntary rudeness, Aure cried, "What do you think you're doing?!" as she pushed herself back onto her feet. She remained standing where she was, watching the man examine Rikku.
"What happened to her? Did you do something to her?!" Evidently, the man knew Rikku, and Aure decided she'd have to at least be somewhat nice to him, even if he had pushed her.
"No, I didn't do anything to her. We were just walking down the road when an Insect Matriarch jumped outta nowhere and attacked. Rikku was... the unlucky one." Aure knew Rikku was not dead; she had only lost consciousness and would awaken sooner or later.
The blond-headed man turned his gaze to Aure, eyed her for a moment, then turned back to Rikku, as if he had decided to believe in those words. "She's still alive..." He seemed to breathe a little easier now that he had ascertained her status. "But... an Insect Matriarch...?"
Now, another person arrived to the scene: a young girl with wine-red eyes and wavy black hair, a plum-colored ribbon tied within the silken masses. Aure could tell she was a Black Mage; she carried a staff and wore a robe that resembled the attire of a Black Mage. "Gippal!" She seemed breathless, and panted as she came to a stop beside the man.
Gippal ignored the newcomer; he was obviously thinking. "Why would... an Insect Matriarch be here, in Mi'ihen?"
Aure remained silent, not knowing the answer to his question. The Black Mage shook her head, though Gippal was still focusing his attention on Rikku. His inquiry, however, was left unanswered for the time being; the Al Bhed girl had started moving again. She opened her eyes with a slight groan. Her blurry vision adjusted to the light, and when she recognized the person leaning over her, those emerald swirls widened in surprise. She could only manage to blurt out a solitary word.
"You!"
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A/N : I hope you like it! ;O Please review and tell me what you think! And see ya in the next chapter.