Thumping Noises?
"Come on, let's go people" Rikku called as she ran down the ramp of the Celsius.
Once on the ground she took a deep breath and turned around. She loved Kilika Island. It had sun, sand, and the sea. Not to mention, one of the Gullwings greatest coup had taken place here. All that aside, Rikku's favorite thing about Kilika, was the people who lived there.
It was hard to believe that the whole town had been leveled only four years ago. After Sin had destroyed everything, the citizens had vowed to make it bigger and better. And they had. In the two years since the Gullwings split up, they had almost doubled in size again. Rikku counted three new docks and a special platform that could accommodate six airships.
Not that they had six airships to land. Aside from Pop's old one and the Celsius, there were only two more in existence. One had been dug up just north of the Zanarkand ruins, and the other was a miniature version that the Machine faction had designed. As far as she knew, it ran all right, even if it wasn't anywhere near as large as the originals it was patterned after.
"Like what we have done with the place?" Drawled a feminine voice off to her left. Rikku grinned and turned to greet the speaker.
"Dona! How have you been? You look…" Rikku's voice trailed off as she examined Dona's form closely.
"Very pregnant." Dona finished for her with a slight smile. She gave an elegant shrug. "It's all Barthello's fault."
Rikku laughed at Dona as she noted all of the changes the former summoner had gone through. Her face seemed softer, and her skin and hair glowed with good health. Pregnancy obliviously agreed with her. Gone was her traditional outfit. In its place was a simple wrap, arranged to lie comfortably over her enlarged stomach. Rikku gazed at it in curiosity.
'May I?" Rikku asked, as she reached out to gently place her hand above the baby's resting place.
"Don't let me stop you. A pregnant woman's stomach seems to be public property anyway." Dona placed Rikku's hand against her protruding stomach. To Rikku's immense delight, the baby chose that moment to shift.
"OOOHHHHH!" Rikku squealed in delight. "It moved! It really moved!" Dona snorted in laughter.
"Yes," she replied. "I know." Dona watched Rikku with a faintly amused expression.
"Oh, does it hurt?" Rikku asked frowning in concern.
"No, it just feels…" Dona trailed off searching for the right word. "Odd. It's hard to describe how it feels to someone who has never carried a baby shoopuf strapped to their middle." Rikku giggled at this description.
"When is the baby due? You sure didn't look pregnant when I saw you last!" she exclaimed.
"That's because the last time I saw you was about six and a half months ago. I was only about two months pregnant at the time. Only half a month to go, then it's over." Dona smiled dreamily as she thought of being her normal size once again.
"Which are you hoping for? A girl or a boy?" Rikku demanded curiously.
"I don't care as long as it's out." Drawled Dona.
Rikku was about to pick on her, about her lack of preference, when footsteps sounded from behind her. She turned around.
"Well, well, if it isn't Cid's little girl." Gippal reached out and tousled her hair.
Rikku stuck her tongue out at him as she ducked her head trying to get away. Dona looked on with amusement and Rikku heard laughter from behind Gippal. A group from the Machine Faction stood behind him, most of whom she knew.
"Hi Gippal." She looked past him to the Al Bhed behind him. "Hi guys!" she waved at them and they grinned at her, waved back and offered their own greetings.
"Dona, you had best get back to the base. Barthello is about to tear up the whole of Fort looking for you." Gippal informed Dona with a great amount of amusement as he slung his arm over Rikku's shoulder. "I'll make sure that the Princess makes it to the meeting on time."
"Fine. Rikku, I'll talk to you after the meeting." She turned to make her way off the landing platform.
"Wait" Gippal called after her. "Shaami, go with her." He instructed one of the females behind him.
Dona put her hand on her hip, or where her hip used to be, and rolled her eyes.
"I'm pregnant Gippal. Not lost and helpless." She muttered something disparaging about overprotective men.
"Hay, just humor me. If Barthello found out that I let you walk three feet by yourself, I'd never hear the end of it. He has gotten down right scary." Gippal shuddered in mock terror.
Dona rolled her eyes. "Fine, come Shaami. Let us go save the Fort from the rampaging ape. Arm in arm they strolled down the platform.
"And as for you." Gippal looked down to address Rikku. "Everyone is waiting. What is the holdup?" He demanded.
"Well, we've had a hard time with… a package that … needs to be at the meeting." She haltingly explained. "We had a hard time getting it into a crate." Rikku was avoiding eye contact now. Gippal looked at her oddly then shrugged.
"We'll help you. Kwinn, let's go get this crate." Gippal called over his shoulder to his second in command as he started up the ramp of the Celsius. Kwinn gave him a mock salute, winked at Rikku and followed his leader up into the airship.
In a few moments, and after a considerable amount of cussing, Gippal, Kwinn, and Buddy reappeared carrying the large crate. Shinra and Barkeep followed a step behind filling in the supervisor position. Appreciative feminine sighs echoed from behind her. Rikku turned to look at the three Al Bhed still on the platform with her.
"What?" asked Kiyuri. "You have to admit, the three of them look really good. Rippley muscles mmmm… Although it would have been better if Brother was here too." She sighed.
"Brother?" spluttered Rikku. "You mean my brother, Brother?" she asked slightly horrified.
"Of course your Brother. Unless you want to give him away," Hildy asked hopefully. "He would look nice tied naked on my bed." She laughed at Rikku's expression.
"NO,NO,NO" Rikku cried as she covered her ears. "I'm not hearing this! The visual image is going to blind me!" She shook her head forcefully to remove the offending images. She looked imploringly at Mep who had yet to speak.
"Sorry," Mep shrugged. "He is cute."
Rikku whimpered in agony. There were certain things that could make Rikku cringe in terror, and thinking of her brother naked was one of them. She could certainly do without that mental image. The three Al Bhed's were now openly laughing at her. She made a face at them before she erupted in laughter as well.
"If your ladies are done, the meeting is waiting on us." Gippal reminded them as Shinra closed up the Celsius.
"Right Gippal." Kiyuri, Hildy, and Mep coursed. They grabbed onto Rikku's arms and drug her along behind the boys.
One thing was for certain, Rikku acknowledged, all of those straining muscles did look nice. She bit back on a sigh of her own as she watched the three guys carry the crate.
"Damn Rikku, what do you have in this thing, it feels like dead weight." Kiyuri demanded as he grappled for a better grip on the crate. "How did you think you could get this to the Fort without Brother's help?" he asked her incredulously.
"Well…" Rikku floundered.
"Speaking of Brother, where in Spira is he?" Demanded Gippal. "He has to be at this meeting."
"He will, ah… meet us there." Rikku answered evasively.
"Meet us there? Doesn't he realize how important this is? I know that we don't get along, but it is vital that we find…"Gippal's tirade faded off as a frantic thumping issued forth from inside the crate.
Gippal gave Rikku an odd glance as he knelt set the crate on the ground. Rikku carefully avoided all eye contact as she twirled a strand of hair between her fingers. The other four Al Bhed looked to Gippal for guidance. She snuck a glance at him and found that he was holding back his laughter.
"Er… are we going to find what I think we're going to find?" asked Kwinn as he watched Gippal reach for the latches holding the crate shut.
"Only one way to find out." He answered as he finished releasing the last latch and opened the box.
Rikku nervously watched Gippal. She, of course, knew exactly what he would find inside that crate. Brother, bound and gagged. And most likely very irate. She hadn't really been joking with Yuna and Paine when she suggested mutiny. But it was for the greater good! Besides, the last part of the flight had been blissfully silent and relaxing. Well, after they had gagged him that it was.
"Huh. Guess we shouldn't have taught her how to tie all of those knots after all." Gippal grinned as he addressed the furiously twitching form that was Brother.
A garbled mess of mumbling and thumping issued from the inside of the crate. Brother apparently had quite a bit to say, or mumble as the case may be. Rikku was reasonably certain she didn't want to know what he was trying to say.
"Oi, watch it. There are ladies present." Gippal admonished. "Well, we should be moving along now. The meeting is about to start." With those cheerful words Gippal lowered the lid and latched it again.
Once latched the three guys picked up the crate and started off down the dock once again. This time with heavy, and audible, thumps coming from inside. Brother had apparently taken exception to being relocked back inside. That was one unhappy male family member. One thing was for certain. Rikku was going to get someone else to open it up and set him loose. She planed to be far, far away.
"Well." Drawled Hildy. "This is bound to mark the start of an interesting expedition."
Rikku groaned. There were a limited number of places you could hide on an airship. Hildy was right; this was surely a sign of how smoothly things were to go after they got in the air. How was she going to keep them from throwing each other off the ship? How was she going to keep from throwing them both of the ship? Yuna owed her. Big time.
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Hi everyone. Sorry that I took so long to put of another chapter, but I'm bad, what can I say. This is just a reminder that yes, I am still here, but to be honest I probably won't update as much as you would like. This story is currently only posed when I get stuck with my other one. However, I do plan to finish it. Once I finish The Shadow Ways the chapters will be longer, and I will update more often. So until them I beg you to pardon my uneven updates.
Oh, as you notice, I seem to have several original characters, along with a whole plethora of actual characters. So please let me know if they start to confuse, annoy, and/or start to seem mary-sue-ish to you as the reader.
Thanks, Aleigh