Part Fourteen

197S9.9.21

I smell sandworms.

I don't think any of the others know what a sandworm smells like… I don't even think I know what a sandworm smells like… but I certainly smell one. Or a bunch. It's probably a whole herd of them, or else I wouldn't smell them like this.

Actually, they smell like water. That makes sense, because they store water in their outer skin. If any of the ones we had run into in the desert had been small enough for me to catch, I would've gotten one instead of running around like an idiot looking for hidden springs.

We really have no need for more water now, but… well, their teeth make great knives. Only the finest Al Bhed-made weapons have sandworm teeth blades… normally, we shave them off and line the steel edges with the hard material of the teeth, but on their own, they make awesome, if old-fashioned, weapons. I haven't made a new knife in a long time… I don't really need one, but maybe someone else does.

…maybe it can be a gift.

Of course, I have to catch one first.

We're supposed to complete the last bit of the training today… but I think we were supposed to complete it yesterday, too. All this sitting around and waiting… but at least my sleeping schedule is a little bit more normal now. I think I slept something like sixteen hours, on and off, yesterday. I was only awake long enough to play beka with Lai, spill the beans about Noojster's pain, and get fucked. Well, that and sometime when it was dark – I'm not sure if it was closer to sunrise or sunset – I woke up to find Baralai all nestled in my arms like a small child seeking shelter. I think all this work he's doing with all the injured people is wearing him out. He was acting kind of like he was scared… but he was asleep. I knew he was asleep because he didn't flinch when I poked his stomach.

I couldn't get back to sleep for a few hours, but I couldn't just get up and leave him there. I watched one of the moons cross the sky through the mouth of the cave, listened to Noojster and Dr. P go at it for a while (against my will, of course -- no one wants to hear that), and then, when it got too dark to see, I thought.

I don't think much, and I know it. I don't give myself enough time to, and I never settle down for long enough to give serious thought to anything. But, well, I couldn't sleep and I think Lai would've been disturbed for the next few days if I moved, so I kinda had to.

I can't write down here everything I thought about, because I honestly can't remember half of it, but a lot of it centered around what I'm going to do after this. Who knows how long I'm going to be here? This is the military – I could be here for years. It's a commitment, and I have to do anything those damned Maesters say. But I think that in the contract they made us sign, it was for two years, or until the next Calm. A Calm? This soon? Well, the thing is that the last one was so short… everybody said that Calms are supposed to last twenty years or more, and that one was barely ten. I can only barely remember the start of this last Calm, but it wasn't nearly long enough.

But then, things bug me about the Calms. I mean, Yevon Summoners give their lives for it. It's not stupid, I think I've finally decided. It's honorable. Although it's kind of futile because Sin always comes back, the Summoners are at least doing something about it. It's kind of sad, though, that in order to do something about Sin, someone like Baralai has to die.

Yeah, he was a Summoner. He told me so, back when we first met. I can hardly see it on him, not that I really knew much about Summoners besides what they looked like in the thick nets we'd cast around them. At the same time, though, I can really see it on Lai… he so desperately wants to do anything he can. He's the kind of guy who hates feeling helpless.

I know that feeling.

Lai's up and making his rounds already… but not after a quick reminder that he can be intimate without his little magic sex alchemy. It was good to be reminded that I really am the dominant one in this… well, relationship-thing, whatever it is. Now, however, I'm restless and I want to get moving, but we can't just yet… our orders are to stay here.

Sometimes I wonder just how hard it'd be to rally all these guys against the Maesters, kill them, and run off and take over Spira for ourselves. Hah! The four of us, running Spira? That's a funny thought.

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I knew there were sandworms around! And, just my luck, one of the young ones breached the sand right in front of us. I totally got it! I wrestled it to the ground, freed its water, and once it stopped thrashing, snatched its teeth. I managed to get three of them… the fourth was broken off and impossible to remove anyway. I'll have to use one of the teeth to cut the other… if I can remember which one came from the top and which ones were the bottom. I have to use the harder top tooth to cut the slightly softer bottom teeth. Making one knife usually takes two teeth, sometimes three if you break one. I can make a handle out of the remaining tooth, or maybe another knife if I'm lucky. I don't know.

Anyway, we're about to set off marching again. We got attacked by a horde of the lizard things and a couple of people got injured, so we had to stop to take care of the poison. I guess we're marching toward the beach, and if we take it, we'll have finished this part of the training.

I'm relieved. Not to be leaving Bikanel – well, okay, maybe that's part of it, so I don't have to hide the existence of Home any longer – but to move on to a different location. This desert has been hard on all of us, even me, and I think anywhere else they send us will be better.

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I have to figure out something to do with these syacdanbecdumc. They're driving me crazy. I can't ever take them off, I can't ever let Baralai know where they are, or Nooj, or anybody. When Lai and I get intimate, I have to make sure they're concealed in the folds of my pants when I toss them aside. I can't let him undress me – even when he got all aggressive on me, I made absolutely sure that I was the one handling my pants. He couldn't surprise me out of that… though I wouldn't be surprised if he hadn't noticed them in his frenzy, even if he did put his hand right on the handle of one of them. (Luckily, he thought it was a vital organ of mine, because he just kept groping it… though I hope he doesn't expect me to actually get that hard… whoa.)

I want to ask Nooj what to do with them… but then, I'd feel like I was betraying him or something. I have to decide… maybe I'll just keep them with me, take them apart piece-by-piece and scatter the parts. I'll figure something out… sometime.

They clank together sometimes when I walk. Noojster gave me a look a few minutes ago, and I just shrugged. I hope no one gets a clue.

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Wow, that was quite a pack of fiends waiting for us at the beach. Maybe the Maesters planted them there, because nothing like that is ever natural. What kind of evil is this? Can they control the fiends, too? The world is not enough, they must have its creatures too… maybe they actually made up the supposed-truth that people turn into fiends when they die if they're not Sent. I mean, come on. No Al Bhed is ever Sent, and we have just as many fiends on Bikanel as they do anywhere else in the world.

It was fun, though. Beheading those serpents – a job I've never liked before, but it's the only way to really effectively kill them – was actually kind of enjoyable. And watching Baralai jump in the air to get the flying ones! It was incredible. And then Paine'd just step on them like she was stomping on the head of a Maester… it was pretty awesome.

It's good to see the ocean again. I smell the saltwater; it's kind of bizarre how I've learned to tell the difference between different sorts of water just by how they smell. I've always heard that the desert does strange things to those who spend too much time with her… I wonder what it's done to the other three.

I might ask them, but now they're all off doing other things – Lai taking care of that guy he's been leading around the past couple of days, the one who cries all the time; Nooj and Paine with each other doing something gross – and I don't have anything to do. Well… I do have those teeth.

No time like the present.