A/N: -gasps- I know, I know! I'm not dead! -cheers feebly- Anyways, cos I've been sucky about not updating AGAIN, you guys have got the longest chapter I've written so far... and my chapters aren't all that short to start with... I'm talking 8000+ words of scintillating dialogue, enchanting plot devices... and cosmetic products of the DEVIL!
Well... it's all true apart from the scintillating and enchanting bits... Actually... the 'devil' bit's probably an exaggeration too, but it's a very real threat in MY mind! Anyways, I'm really back into the swing of writing now... AND I have a day off of college tomorrow, so you MIGHT actually get another chapter in UNDER a MONTH! I really need to stop Caps Locking words... -hangs head in shame-
-Rikku SWiRLS- As a fellow hypocrite... I was really hoping you wouldn't possibly... brutally assault and/or murder me for updating late... AGAIN... -cries- Don't hurt me! -flies the flag for Animal Crossing- Yaaaay distracting addictive things! Enjoy the chappie!
-Anon- I have no idea who you are, but THANKS for reviewing anyways! I've always thought the Rikku/Gippal banter in-game rocked, so I decided to keep it as one of their couple-y pastimes...I couldn't just thrust them together, tell them to play nicely and feasibly have them get along without at least a little mocking and partner-based-cruelty, so the banter stuck. That and cos it's fun to write... And poor Rikku can't help being scatter-brained... but it makes her more lovable... or at least more amusing... both work for me! Enjoy the chapter!
-K-Jaye- Woooo! You got your internet back! -sweatdrops- Two months ago! I'm soooo sorry I'm so bad at updating... I just get busy... and forget... -claps self on back- I'm reeeeaaaally good at excuses today... -hides face in hands- Anyways... I'm so glad you still like it! I mean, you are my constant reviewer of awesomeness! (it's a word, indulge me) And as to the frolicking kittens... would they in fact be giant dancing kittens? Like those you would find at a Gackt gig? Cos if so... -hastily constructs pathetic bishie-trap, using mouldy cheese as bait- Well... I'm SURE that'll work! -beams and joins the merry skipping into the sunset- Can we sing the Wizard of Oz song?
DISCLAIMER: -holds megaphone to mouth- I do NOT own Final Fantasy, or any of its characters... If I did, more than just two of them would be modelled off of Gackt... -laughs sheepishly- The story is mine, however, and I shall fight anyone who tries to steal it in Mortal Stick Kombat! (Sophie does not own Mortal Stick Kombat, Mortal StickKombatdoes not endorse Sophie to bludgeon would-be thieves to death with tree limbs)
"..." Normal speech
-italics- A rare moment when the Princess can control her 'inside voice' (thoughts)
"CAPSLOCK" Rikku attempting to write (she has distinctive penmanship, you see...)
Chapter Twelve: Love comes in many shapes and sizes... sometimes even dodecahedrons! But mainly triangles... (or: Seagulls, a much underlooked Al Bhed culinary delicacy!)
Inevitably, I must have passed out at some stage, because the first thing I heard upon reclaiming consciousness was more deafening and obnoxious than a klaxon. My eyelids peeled back as if a pair of my mental munchkins, slowly releasing the tension on invisible cords; had heard the noise too, and the poor buggers had gone into cardiac arrest, and hence let go of said eyelids, which had rocketed skywards like out of control roll-up blinds.
Managing to begin a preliminary interpretation of the situation, I retract my initial metaphor, as the sonic barrage did, in fact, come from a klaxon, which was so close to my face that I had to cross my eyes to bring it into any sort of focus.
"Where, in the name of everything that is wrong with the world, do you GET these things?" I moaned feebly, attempting to block out the infernal sun by contorting into the shadow Brother was casting. Unfortunately, my beloved sibling was too busy employing every curse in his copious arsenal, because like it or not, he was one of 'Cid's Kids' too, so I wasn't getting an answer anytime in the near distant future. Meanwhile, Gippal, who was sporting a nasty smattering of bruises across his abdomen, which was proving to be as, if not more, distracting than it had been last night, was just beginning to stir. Brother seemed to pause, almost as if he were on tenterhooks, and all of a sudden the bed became overcrowded.
Every single person on the ship had gathered around in an almost claustrophobic semi-circle; including a very hung-over looking Yunie, who I would've felt something more akin to pity for if she weren't spying on me! Gippal released me from his grip, which soon explained why I had a dead arm, and started to work some of the kinks out of his spine. If it were physically possible, I would have sworn that they all scooted forward slightly, and I realised what the sneaky blighters were up to.
I stretched over my bedfellow, rewarding him with a good morning kiss on the nose when he didn't decide to hinder me whilst on my newest death defying mission; snatched up a fist of ebon material, and placed the patch neatly over his eye.
Now alert, Gippal displayed one emerald eye to his highly disappointed audience, and proceeded to glare at them until they quickly scampered off.
"Don't mention it…" I drawled with a roll of my eyes when he didn't immediately move to inundate me with praises.
"Thanks…" He muttered by means of belated reply.
"Has anyone ever told you that you really need to work on your early morning affability?" I asked sardonically, quirking an eyebrow as he snuggled back into the pillow.
"Get me some coffee and I'll make a start on the cordial behaviour." He grumbled; wrapping the blanket around his fist and tugging. The sudden blast of cold air made me elicit a small squeak of displeasure, and I attempted to snatch back my designated half of the duvet.
Just to be irritating, Gippal decided to relinquish the eiderdown at the exact moment that I began to heave for all I was worth. Both actions were so seamlessly simultaneous, that inertia inevitably played its part in the little scenario, and I ended up in an irately muttering heap on the tiles. With Paine's loaned top pooling uselessly about my waist.
Eyes widening, I made sure that I was sufficiently concealed by my prized possession, newly won from the previous encounter, and breathed a sigh of relief that I probably hadn't given anyone an eyeful as I plummeted so gracefully to the hard, unyielding floor. Gippal was too busy chuckling at his perfectly timed piece of slapstick comedic gold to pay my dilemma any perfunctory attention, and unless Barkeep had periscope vision, it was probably safe to assume that no one in the immediate area was so traumatised they were attempting to gouge out their eyes.
My deliberations had consumed more time than I had hoped to expend, as Gippal suddenly stopped cackling to himself.
"Er… Cid's Girl, you gonna give that back? Some of us have poor circulation…" He sniffed indignantly, wiggling his fingers as if it magically proved his point. While I was more than aware that it was no fun at all to play victim to Gippal the heat-leech, he was going to have to pry that duvet from my cold, dead hands. Then again, my cold, dead hands would still be warmer than Gippal's, seeing as whenever he left the arid desert climate, his fingernails adopted this disturbingly vibrant shade of purple; leading him to a cursed existence with extremities like blocks of compacted ice… Hence the heat-vampirism; I don't think that anyone's actually survived direct contact with his feet…
"Some of us need to be severely punished for injuring their fiancées… I think someone's replaced my pelvis with broken glass…" I muttered, tone coloured with a mixture of irritation and pain. My bones aren't really cushioned well enough to absorb blows well, and the only reason I hadn't been moaning about it previously was cos I was so preoccupied with attempting to prevent a public relations disaster in the making.
Tucking a corner of eiderdown between my teeth with all the subtlety I could garner, which wasn't exactly much, seeing as Gippal was giving me a look that I translated into a monosyllabic: Eh? That's right, I kid you not… not only am I fluent in the only two spoken languages on the planet, I can also put words to your confusion! Nifty, huh? Interlocking my hands, I pushed out my elbows until my palms were resting neatly against my sternum, giving a motiveless and carefree impression of stretching myself awake. I tilted my neck back to yawn widely to the ceiling, carefully inserting one hand beneath the blanket. Wrenching up the top as soon as I found purchase on the silky material, I squealed when a hand that certainly wasn't mine wrenched the duvet away as it toppled slowly from my gaping mouth.
The travesty that unfurled is something that shall haunt me until the day that I shuffle off this mortal coil, in an utterly mortified manner. I squawked, much akin to one of the seagulls in the Calm Lands when under a rain of fire from heavy artillery grenade launching.
You can hardly blame me though, can you? I mean, while yes, it was hysterically amusing to witness 'he who must not be named in Yuna's presence' being pelted repeatedly by kamikaze winged scavengers, but after four hours, his enthusiasm hadn't died down even slightly, Lulu had snapped and set Wakka on fire, and Auron had hit the sake hard… I mean, he kept on glaring at me and sharpening his katana and then laughing somewhat maniacally. Once or twice I heard him mutter something about revenge, goggle-garrotting and hot-pockets, which still confuses me whenever I take a rather disturbing stroll down memory lane.
The Summoner herself was snoring and mumbling merrily away, using the heftily proportioned blue Ronso as a glorified cushion, and poor Kimahri was becoming more flustered and awkward with each passing second, and as everyone was either unconscious, dealing with their own neuroses or on fire; the task of removing the obstacles in Tidus' way so we could actually do something quest related was once again left to me.
Hence the decision to blow the opposition out of the air… Ti was just about competent enough to pop the balloons in his immediate path of wanton destruction, but the infernal seagulls were just crippling his chances to reach the theoretical time of 0 seconds.
You really had to feel sorry for the staff though… This little old man had to keep replacing all of the decimated balloons, making sure they were firmly tethered to the earth… that man had a hell of a lot of patience, well, I guess it's a hard earned virtue that derives from only being able to walk at a pace rivalling a brick on wheels inundated in maple syrup, but it was awe-inspiring nonetheless.
And the competition? She'd practically offered to forfeit rather than go through another sanity-melting Chocobo race. However, true to the stereotype of the ditsy blonde, Tidus was utterly oblivious to his newly presented option of a hideously easy victory, and had mounted his perch upon the flagging Chocobo, which was getting so beyond pissed off that it had bucked him off more than once in the twenty excruciating minutes beforehand, as we set up the tableau yet again, exclaiming that this time he really was going do it… possibly…
After he had conquered the seemingly impossible, our lovable, if slightly dense at the best of times, hero did notice the smouldering, charcoal coloured feathers floating down to terra firma like blackened embers from a seething volcano, but shrugged it off and continued his victory lap around acres of vast green expanse on a Chocobo that looked about ready to write its final will and testament.
However, the concluding statistics didn't quite show a 100 success rate, seeing as most people gave me a rather wide berth for at least four days after the event. Apparently, adopting a highly stylish victory pose with a grenade pin between your teeth was hardly something that inspired confidence in others. I personally think that they were all just jealous that I was the only one fantastical enough to take the initiative; but in Wakka's case? I think he was just really, really jumpy. He kept subconsciously fiddling with his inverted fishing hook hair and whimpering whenever Lulu stepped over the lines of the restraining order he'd mentally taken out against her.
I sighed… It was so sweet that love could triumph in the face of such adversity, like homicidal rage and mind-boggling fear of the possibility of spousal abuse.
However, back to business, and my eternal humiliation; seeing as masquerading as the 'Shiva de Milo', but with… arms… was hardly gonna fool my own future legally-bound significant other that I had legged it and replaced myself with an inanimate statue, clutching a fistful of satin over its chest.
"On second thought… Screw the coffee… I'm up…" He purred, swivelling to face me whilst tucking his calves under his thighs. Unfortunately, this wasn't doing wonders for my progressively more ludicrous attempts to formulate a plan to either assertively tell the man that there was no chance in hell that I was going to follow him up on that belligerent statement, or just run as if every denizen of the farplane and beyond were hot on my heels. Instead, I was more torn between gaping, which would eventually lead to pointing, babbling or passing out; or conducting an experiment to see just how far he could bend back in that position. I settled for the happy middle ground:
"Back the hell off, you deranged, sexy fiend!" I cried; half assertively, but with a mixture of damsel in distress and trashy romance novel heroine thrown in for good measure. It took a while for my poor, harassed mind to register the whole, 'sexy' aspect of the comment, and judging by our expressions, we'd picked up on the glaring slip almost in tandem. "Would you believe me if I told you that I'd confused the noun and adjective?" I pleaded, attempting to convey a sense of innocence only employed by new-born kittens whilst looking distinctly unattractive and about as wanton and flirtatious as a rather wizened looking boulder.
"I think I'm gonna call you on that. You think I'm attractive. Actually, you think I'm so good-looking that, in fact, I make you slightly more flaky and demented than is the norm." He stated, with perfect rationality, betraying the usual nature of his early morning incoherence. "By the way, when you feel the need to flee from the developing situation, I think I'll take you up on that unspoken offer of caffeinated manna… and bacon… do we have bacon?" He asked, playing upon my madly fluctuating hormones in order to pull-off the little-starving-boy-lost routine.
For some reason, I really wasn't in the mood to feign coyness anymore, which would have been distinctly influenced by whether the need for fight or flight prevailed anyway, so I guess overall, it was most likely a positive result for the pair of us. But then, a big, loathsome beacon began to flash in an insensitively blinding manner behind my eyes. I think I was rather clued in on the reason for that by the whole, 'honey, I'm conscious, feed me' argument that he had just put across so condescendingly.
"I wouldn't hold your breath if I were you. In order to eat, I've practically committed unspeakable acts of fish-man cannibalism, and it turns out that Hazhes are beyond unpalatable, suggesting that the cupboard is indeed bare, so I've pretty much given up on the culinary arts and buckshot hunting for a while." I muttered sourly, wrenching the flimsy straps back over my hunched shoulders, much to Gippal's disappointment.
"No bacon then…" He agreed, in a somewhat perturbed manner, as he wrinkled his nose in distaste.
"And no coffee either, unless you want to take the initiative and do battle with the percolator. Although it has been a whole DAY since you've been allowed to play with anything… Do you think you're still up to working the big, bad machina?" I babied somewhat cruelly, as I knew that Gippal would have a hard time removing himself from the bed without the promised rewards of caffeine or sexual favours, of which he was getting neither at the moment.
"Give me a twenty-foot long poking stick and we'll see what I can and can't do…" Gippal replied snippily, although it took me a while to allocate his annoyance to a particular ratio of two thirds sleep-deprivation grouchiness against one third affront to the ego.
"How's about I don't and we narrow your options to the 'can't' side of things?" I asked sweetly, and rhetorically, before beating a hasty retreat into the bathroom, as he was bound to fire back some scathing reply that would lead to another argument, and then we'd be at Bikanel and I'd still essentially be almost-naked.
I was more than slightly relieved to find my trusty belt, equipped with nifty little pouches for my various pieces of paraphernalia; hanging safely where I'd left it on the towel rack, because nothing made a dramatic exit collapse in on itself quite like tiptoeing back to ask where you'd left your stuff. Much like a botched one-night-stand; where you'd rather hack off one of your arms with one of the moth-ravaged coat hangers in the cheap motel closet than actually talk to the guy staring at you in a mixture of shock, horror and nakedness, that you also distinctly remember being far more attractive the night before. Unfortunately, you'd also be preoccupied with the little gremlin sitting atop your head whilst merrily striking it with a whopping great mallet; so much so, that you'd easily forget the burning question as to the location of said sex buddy's identical twin, who, if he were at all sensible, would have legged it from the building even faster than you were.
The climate in the desert wasn't something that you forgot in a hurry, so after much meticulous debate, I drew the line of compromise to bisect through the Songstress dressphere. After a few melodramatic flashes of light, that no doubt confused the hell out of people on the other side of the door, I paused to admire myself in the mirror. My braids had stayed in fine, thank goodness, so I didn't have to go through the lengthy process of re-plaiting them. Instead, I ran a brush viciously through my still rather tangled tresses and scooped a mass of flaxen hair on top of my head with the aid of my trusty rubber band and blue bandanna combo. My gaze lowered to fix on the hideously pretentious tie that graced the ruffled, blue tinged section of blouse that poked out from beneath the burnt umber of my waist-come-tailcoat. The skirt was slightly, non-existent, and the criss-crossing bands around my legs were as painful as they were pointless, but the frayed tops of my gloves and boots were cute, so I decided to let the matter slide.
Yevon only knew what I was gonna do with the honking great stick balancing precariously against the radiator, but I'd cross that bridge when I came to it. First, I was going to make the rest of me presentable, and how better to start than with a quick and easy facial peel? That was at least what the little innocuous sachet informed me, blithely reeling off its instructions as if nothing in the world could go wrong. I must admit, just so you don't think I'm completely idiotic, that I did begin to have my doubts when I saw the frighteningly orange goop ooze viscously out of its malleable housing, but those doubts were overridden quickly, as it smelt all citrus-y, and you could hardly rename an orange as the Fruit of Deceit… If it were apple-scented however, then I'd have had something to worry about.
As it turns out, I was destined for problems as soon as I read the fateful destruction guide, as I have renamed it, just to be petty. Slathering the frigidly cold miasma of slime over the various contours of my face, which to this day ranks as one of my most unpleasant experiences, I managed to spread it relatively evenly, although I couldn't help myself from making unfavourable comparisons to that particular process and grouting; the mask was so bloody thick! However, once my ordeal was at its end, I realised that I had to busy my self for a painfully long fifteen minutes, and seeing as there was no way in hell I was letting anyone witness the horror that was Rikku inundated in gloop, I was gonna have to kill my time confined within the tiled walls of the bathroom.
After rounding up every cosmetic product I owned, a process that took about a rather measly two minutes; and more due to the fact that I have a gift for putting things down and seeing those things disappear when I turn around to pick them up again than from the sheer quantity of my inventory; I released them in a chaotic, haphazard heap onto the small glass shelf beneath the vanity mirror. A stick of kohl eyeliner made a drastic bid for freedom, toppling from the shelf to ricochet off the dappled marble of the sink and roll beneath the clawed, bolted down feet of the bath. I reminisced, not for the first time, how having such an elaborate piece of bathing apparatus when we were so short on funding was just another reason never to re-elect Brother back into the coveted, for him at least, position of treasurer, seeing as, what with being related and all, he was as fiscally irresponsible as I was.
After little deliberation, I decided that if the inanimate pencil was going to be childish, it could stay there until I remembered where the hell I'd put the sodding thing. Examining the rather pathetic array of items, I quickly discarded the idea of applying foundation. Initially, I might well have had a perfect, slightly shimmering bronzed complexion, but about two minutes after we'd vacated the ship, I'm pretty sure it would have melted, and then there'd be uneven, multicoloured patches of varying textures, and the rest would've soaked into my tie and I would be mocked from here to eternity. Judging from the bottle, it was Paine's anyway, cos there was no way in hell that I was an 'ivory'.
That had still been one hell of a shopping trip, what with Yunie vehemently assuring me that I was a 'cognac', much to my internal confusion and horror; I spent the next few hours nervously worrying over the veracity of the statement, looking over my shoulder in case I was herded away to the circus, to entertain the masses with my transparent, ethanol-based orange skin. In the end, Paine thrust a small jar of a much healthier looking 'bronze' into my hand and we were good to go from there. Well… until I started buying glittery eyeliner and retina burning yellow eye-shadow, a scenario in which Paine threatened to disown me multiple times. I think I won her over when I added some matte black to my ever-growing purchases; either that or I bought her loyalty with the little pot of ruby tincture, but I prefer to believe that our friendship runs slightly deeper than allegiances procured by snazzy little trinkets.
-Whichever one of you little ass-hats in back just snorted and rolled your eyes… Well… you're in big trouble, mate… Yes…-
Well, asides from that brief fluctuation that tossed me, in a rather gung-ho manner, over the miniscule division between genius and insanity; it was a fond memory. Mainly because I enjoy buying shiny, quirky things, but also because it provided a much-needed alteration to the daily schedule of: kill fiend, find sphere, kill more fiends, ignore Brother, kill fiends, sleep; rinse and repeat until despondent and near-suicidal.
I tried to smile at my brief attempt at black humour, but found, much to my unrelenting disappointment, that my facial muscles had mutinied, making all of my physical expressions about as emotive and interpretable as those produced by a piece of driftwood. Touching a tentative hand to my cheek, I felt the thin, solidified film of the facial mask push back against my questing digits.
"Bugger…" I attempted to announce through a closed mouth. This wasn't too successful, seeing as if I ever quit my day-job; it sure as hell wouldn't be to become a ventriloquist. Hurtling at terminal velocity to the sink, I began the cleansing process, furiously swiping at the hardening mulch, which of course refused to budge. Water didn't help, and scrubbing my face furiously with a towel wasn't helping anyone, seeing as the towel was getting all clumpy and saturated with small gobbets of what looked like tangerine coloured wax, and the water was just making the mask slimier, and no less unyielding.
Twisting the lock, I pulled on the door until it was slightly ajar; in order to feed my hand through the gap and signal frenetically that I was in need of assistance. Coupled with the distressed noises I was making, I didn't present the most elegant and articulate of sights, but Yevon himself wasn't going to make me attempt to cry: Gippal! unto the world, especially not when I couldn't manage any hard consonants. The biggest irony was that, at this rate, I was going to receive one temporary speech impediment per day for the rest of my soon-to-be-married life, in increasingly more bizarre circumstances. With that thought to cheer me, Gippal came barging through my makeshift blockade of sorts, causing me to stub my toe and attempt to curse loudly. Said endeavour only managed to come out as a mildly pissed off, guttural noise of incoherence, but I doubt that was what Gippal was laughing at so damned hard.
My eyes spoke volumes, even if the rest of me couldn't string together a decent sentence, so Gippal found himself replying, through his unbridled mirth, of course, to my unasked question.
"I don't know whether that colour can be described as jaundiced, radioactive Day-Glo or lovechild of an Oompa-Loompa; but orange is simply too inferior an adjective." He managed to elucidate, through guffaws, all at my expense. My polite, tranquil demand for assistance went unanswered, possibly because it was indistinguishable from an alien dialect that consisted mainly of pained bellowing. As if to add another compound to my ever-growing amalgamation of problems, Gippal used this opportunity to stride briskly from the bathroom, leaving me to potentially asphyxiate if the mask saw fit to clog my nostrils.
He came back… eventually, although not with the sphere-corder I'd been sure he'd abandoned me in order to retrieve. My fingers were forced closed around a thick pad of cheap paper, as well as a biro, which had managed to fly under my radar, what with it clattering to the floor seconds later due to my inability to grasp solid concepts. As if sensing my atrocious pun, Gippal quirked a golden eyebrow in my direction, which I finally interpreted as a prompt to write something down.
"AS YOU DON'T SEEM TO HAVE NOTICED -NOT THAT I CAN FAULT YOU, AFTER ALL, YOU'RE PRE-COFFEE-FIX- YOU'RE NOT THE ONE WHO NEEDS TO PLAY PICTIONARY."I scrawled sardonically; returning his eyebrow and raising him a disdainful snort.
"Sorry for humouring you; I just thought you enjoyed solving your silly little mysteries. Or was it too taxing to put pen and pad together?" He sniped back, looking like he had half a mind to take back my precious wad of paper. Skittering out of his immediate reach, scribbling all the while, I pivoted to force my newest message into his face. Gippal had next to nothing in the depth perception department; and the scowl I received for my insensitive puerility reminded me of that overlooked fact after a minute of impatient foot-tapping. Retreating slightly, I saw him scan my distinctive penmanship, brow furrowing every now and again. "Is it just me, or is your handwriting getting progressively worse?" He asked, rather rhetorically, seeing as I was mute and he couldn't read my attempts at conversation. "Ilk was Lucky Tuna in the espouse loom wtf the leaf paging?" He narrated, somewhat bemusedly.
"IT WAS LADY YUNA, IN THE ENGINE ROOM, WITH THE LEAD PIPING." I painstakingly crafted the sentence into ridiculously overwhelming capital letters, going so far as to draw a stick figure Summoner beneath the font, brandishing a slightly chunkier looking stick, which had been used to club a patch-wearing stick man with poncy pirate boots, if the suspicious puddle surrounding its prone stick body was anything to go by.
While I did receive a chuckle for my quick thinking; although I believe it was more due to my inability to create a work of art -as my pathetically depicted frieze was bordering on becoming an abomination unto nature- seeing as the initial comedic moment had well and truly kicked the bucket, after being dealt grievous wounds in its battle with its nemesis: 'wtf the leaf paging?'
"The quiet's actually becoming rather daunting, so I feel bound to offer you my assistance, for what it is, of course…" He drawled, throwing in a humble bow that almost had his nose grazing the floor, even if it didn't do much to disguise the periodical claptrap that I was still trying to allocate any form of meaning to. "What smells like oranges?" He asked, at least dispelling the air of confusion and awkward silence that had descended with his inane question. Jabbing an index finger pointedly at myself, I came to my senses soon after, managing to reallocate my priorities into a neat little queue. I then recommenced my hasty jottings.
"GET THE DAMNED GOOP OFF MY FACE NOW OR I'M GOING TO SLAUGHTER YOU WITH THIS BIRO." I'm well aware that text is a rather poor means of attempting to convey threats and fury, but Gippal decided that in order to maintain the overall wellbeing of his person, it would probably be best not to dispute my ferocity with scribing implements.
Running his index finger along my cheek, hard enough for me to feel the heat of the friction, he crinkled his nose in distaste as he retracted the pad of the digit, trailing a wispy bridge of something that eerily resembled solidifying nacho cheese.
"Would it be prudent to ask you why the hell you voluntarily smeared this across your head?" He asked; invoking the right to a soliloquy I probably shouldn't have been privy to, as I was too busy brandishing my sign-board like it was a primitive, rectangular cudgel to participate in the conversation. "I'm taking that as a rather blatant 'no'…" He muttered wearily, whilst making small concentric circles with the index finger pressed against my cheek. The process was rather reminiscent of buffing the metal plates of a Hover, and judging by Gippal's whole-heartedness in his efforts, he wanted to see his reflection gazing smugly back at him when he was done.
However, before I could slap his hand away, he replaced the finger with what appeared to be an overgrown loofah. How the blazes he'd managed to magic such an elaborate scrubbing implement out of the void was beyond my feeble powers of comprehension.
"DID YOU KNOW THAT LOOFAHS ARE FRUITS? MOST PEOPLE THINK THEY COME FROM THE SEA, BUT THEY'RE ACTUALLY LITTLE CYLINDRICAL GOURDS GROWN FROM SEEDS!" I smiled, or at least twitched the corners of my mouth slightly, before attempting to distract Gippal from his vicious sanding of my precious face.
"You learn something new every day…" He grunted as he attempted to chip off a brittle, waxy stalactite, which continued to grimly clutch at my chin. With an inhumane roar, which made him sound like a man too near the end of his proverbial tether, he took a wild swing with the loofah, striking the orange icicle with accuracy borne from sheer luck.
It vacated the premises with a rather perturbing amount of suction, which sounded much like that one time I got bored and wondered what it would be like to attach the nozzle of a vacuum to my cheek. Wait… is it too late to go back and vehemently deny everything I just said?
"Crap…" I muttered, somewhat ineloquently. I mean, now that I could actually speak again, it was a hallowed event, like a baby's first words… but… again… It was like waiting for all of those painful months of no sleep whilst being subjected to other unadulterated forms of suffering and being rewarded with… Oh, I don't know… 'Pencil' or something…
-Hold on a second, I can SPEAK!-
"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" I cried exuberantly, tossing the unwieldy hunk of paper, like my cares, to the wind to practically glue myself to Gippal's side in gratitude.
"Ah… I see… the focal point resonated at too high a frequency for the brittle… orange-ness… to withstand… Hence, it shattered… Very interesting…" He muttered to himself, oblivious to the fact that I was half glomping him to within an inch of his mortal life. While Gippal the theologian was sexy as hell, he was also not paying attention to me, so I sought to remedy the situation immediately.
"As soon as we get off this bucket of bolts I'm buying you your own bodyweight in pigs and will then make bacon to your heart's content, or until you're too full and sated to move, or if I think your arteries are clogging in a possibly life-threatening manner… Oh sweet zombie Mika I said 'making bacon'…" I babbled nervously, screwing my eyes shut tightly and wishing I could slap my forehead and shout at myself for mixing my metaphors without looking even more deranged. Fortunately, I also had an inkling that Gippal remained blissfully unaware of the hash I had made of things.
"That's nice dear…" He muttered distractedly, resulting in me clutching my hands into fists so tight that my non-existent fingernails cut crescents into the palms. However, etiquette dictated that one good deed counteracts a moment of utter ignorance, so I brushed my lips softly against the corner of his down-turned mouth and took my leave of the bathroom.
I was walking along the connecting tunnel to the Bridge when I stumbled across Yuna, who pleasantly informed me that my face was all aglow, before chewing me out for apparently going AWOL. After apologising, and doing my best to look downtrodden and ashamed, she decided to let me go, although only after she and the Yevonite Inquisition had managed to pry Gippal's location from my ever-overloaded brain.
After further reconnaissance, I discovered that we'd been aground for little over ten minutes, and that the window for disembarkation was shrinking as I spoke to my fellow crew members. Having been born on Bikanel, I was hardly surprised that a sandstorm was coming our way, with all of nature's mighty, pant-wettingly scary fury at its disposal. However, now really wasn't the time to make a sensible or informed decision. We needed the money, desperately; we needed to complete our otherwise half-assed Gippal orientated courier service mission; and we needed to start exhausting the number of locales in which to nab us some truly heinous magenta Syndicate uniforms.
So, after we tied up a few last ends, including that alas, no, Brother would not be joining us on our merry quest, partially due to the fact that if Gippal was there we'd probably let him be the hero who could get any one of the three heroines he chose.
-I know, I know… Brother is deluded… really, really deluded…-
The other reason might have had something to do with him being as yellow as his Mohawk… Only a relative of mine could be scared of the WIND…
Anyways, there we were, sun blazing high overhead in the fathomless blue sky, its rays reflecting off each particle of fine white sand as if its sole purpose in life was to blind me. Did I mention that it was hot as the very fires of HELL? I know I haven't exactly been close to home base lately, but I had no idea you could get like… un-acclimatised to the place you grew up in.
Oh, and damn and blast him, Gippal didn't even look like he was perspiring. Even Paine's industrial-strength hair was already wilting, and the black leather was probably microwaving her from the inside out as I analysed her. Yunie on the other hand, looked about ready to call it a day and find a nice, leafy palm tree to take shelter under. I felt justified in avoiding telling her that the best shade she was gonna be offered would come from a ramrod straight cactus…
"Leave the trailblazing to me!" I eventually cried, rather feebly, as I jogged off into the arid desert. "Honestly, at this rate, the soles of my feet may combust, so if we get separated, just follow the acrid stench of Rikku fricassee…" I muttered to myself, though I was hardly surprised when I heard Gippal's low chuckle at about eight o'clock.
-Not the time… The direction… oh… why didn't I just say behind me at a slightly… left-ish angle?-
"Good thing I brought my handy-dandy fire extinguisher… you never know when you might need it… all you know is that with Her Majesty around, you probably will…" He uttered soberly, an effect that was rather spoilt by the wicked grin he was wearing. I turned around so I could slap his arm soundly, and I appreciate that that was when I probably lost my bearings.
"Umm… I don't think that sand dune used to be there…" I mumbled slightly fearfully. Then I realised that what with this wind, a sand dune was hardly going to stay in one place long enough to act as a good marker for me, which in turn meant that I was an utter pillock… possibly with knobs on.
"Rikku, you… DO know the way, right?" Paine asked tiredly, and with good reason for her distress. Stiletto heels were hard enough to walk on as is, let alone when one was trundling across the desert in the damned things. It was why desert Shoopuffs had such wide feet; they'd splay them out to reduce the overall pressure on the sand, and therefore wouldn't flounder and sink under the eerily unstable surface. Before I could answer snottily that of course I knew what I was doing, before striking her down coldly for her mutinous question, not that I'd ever, well… hit the woman, I'd probably end up in hospital if I accidentally trod on her foot… well, just to get back on track, well, topic, cos I'd pretty much come to terms with the fact that we were already hopelessly lost, Yunie butted in.
"Uh, Rikku? Are we in trouble?" She asked anxiously, although I inferred from her dubious tone that she pretty much already knew the answer to her own question. I was quite sure that we all had the answer when the high Summoner suddenly keeled over, panting and sweating profusely.
"A rest wouldn't hurt anyone…" Paine gasped woozily, before joining her team-mate on the sand. Unfortunately, the stoic warrior, possibly suffering from heat-stroke at this particular moment, hit the ground face first, looking rather like a startled mutant albino Chocobo trying to bury its head in the sand. Before I commenced with the last act of desperation, spur-of-the-moment pep-rally, I noticed a small machina, very much reminiscent of the small contraptions that had been tagging along behind some of the groups of Fiends we'd been fighting lately.
"Greenhorns eh nakeuhc B-5!" It chattered, its monotone mechanical voice ringing out across the desert sands. Rather than watch it scurry away back to base, I waved to trip its movement sensors.
"You think you wanna call your boss and your Princess greenhorns again when I'm close enough to dismantle you?" I growled at it, flexing my gloved fingers menacingly.
"I'd take her word for it, Picket; she's got a gift for totalling anything she touches." Gippal chuckled from behind me, air whooshing out of his lungs when I elbowed him nonchalantly. "See… what I… mean?" He wheezed, somewhat pathetically, before bending over, head between his knees, as if it would help him force the lost oxygen back into his body.
"Sure do boss-man, but I'd rather further violence be done towards your person, as opposed to mine." The newly named Picket snickered, well, so much as a robot could snicker, I guess.
"Do you even have a person?" I asked out of the blue, entertaining the notion of a transplanted Picket on human legs, wearing a fedora as if it would make a convincing disguise. "Oh… wait… you were being metaphorical… which weirds me out by the way, unless you were originally implemented as a self-learning AI programme, which would explain the whole, rhetorical imagery bit… Can we forget I said anything?" I asked sheepishly, wishing I would have just stuck with my silly mental picture… seeing as not much actually went wrong until I opened my mouth.
"Wow, Boss-man… This one knows five syllable words… She's definitely a keeper…" Picket joked, as roguishly as an otherwise inanimate object was able to, I suppose. He decided to use Gippal as a fleshy human meat-shield when I glowered in his general direction.
"I'm going to assume that the Machine Faction's droids aren't automatically instructed to swear fealty to their monarchs…" I accused petulantly, pursing my lips to convey my annoyance.
"Picket's just… special…" Gippal hedged, wondering if he could pick up the now unconscious Lady Yuna and use her fallen body like a stool utilised by a lion tamer.
"Thanks for that… You make me sound like the kid in the back of the class wearing the dunce cap. Oh, wait; please excuse me, that isn't DONE anymore… I'd be playing musical chairs in the 'Leg-Up Programme'." Picket groused from behind his boss/master/creator/mad scientist/boy genius. Please check one of the aforementioned boxes which can be applied best to the situation described.
All random thoughts were cast aside, quite possibly into the fathomless abyss, knowing how deranged I was, when the low whine of a Hover snatched at the aimlessly wandering tendrils that composed my sorely lacking attention span.
"Praise be to Yojimbo! I'm saved!" I bellowed triumphantly, flinging my arms up and out as if to embrace the sky itself. "I soooo call shotgun… better yet, let me drive!" I concluded merrily, landing awkwardly in the pilot's lap. Said pilot didn't seem too sure whether it would be worth it to put his life on the line if he copped a feel, but he managed to make the right decision after being prodded into doing the proper thing by Gippal's venomous glaring. He attempted to slide out from underneath me; as if his skin was practically crawling away from the prospect of physical contact, such was his extreme level of fear-induced aversion. I didn't really pay all that much attention, to be perfectly honest, because with him gone, it would be an awful lot easier for me to fit the seat to my height, or distinct lack-there-of…
After briefly fiddling with my rear-view mirror, not that I'd really need to use it in the middle of nowhere, I waited patiently for Yuna and Paine to be loaded onto and strapped into the vehicle… kinda like life-sized pieces of hand luggage actually. Giggling to myself, I turned the key in the ignition and gunned the engine, ramming the Hover into gear before letting the handbrake loose, sending the machina into an instantaneous U-turn. Whooping somewhat maniacally, I took the accelerating Hover over the crest of a sand dune, jiggling about in my seat as we crashed back to earth.
"You have actually got your license, right?" Gippal bellowed circumspectly, struggling to be heard over the deafening wails of the wind, which was being decidedly petty, as I was being pelted with itty bitty grains of sand which stung like blazes.
"Didn't I tell you? I finally passed!" I cried in response, keeping my eyes on… well… there wasn't even a path, let alone a road, so Bahamut knows why I was being such a diligent driver.
"Really? Good Yevon… really? Last time I heard from you you'd failed for the… what was it… fourth time?" He demanded, answering the roar of the wind with one of his own. I laughed, but my voice was lost in the gale.
"Seven overall, but I managed to pass, FINALLY… Unlike some perfect specimens that pass first time…" I mocked derisively, although it was mainly cos I was so damned jealous. I could drive fine; I just… panicked… badly… One test I actually smacked my head on the upper supports of the Hover while I was getting in… and let me tell you one thing, kiddies; never participate in a driving test when possibly concussed…
"You know I only passed because I revolutionised the rotor-blade system on the damned thing! And I wouldn't have even done that if I hadn't crashed into and consequently shredded one of the reflective traffic cones and almost blown myself and the examiner up in the process!" He laughed, and I found myself grinning with him. From brief amounts of experience, Gippal really wasn't the most… careful of drivers. In his not-so-humble opinion; if it didn't go so fast you couldn't feel the G-Force, it wasn't worth travelling on. Humouring him, I revved the engine harder, switching up through the gears as its gentle purring became gradually more strained. Catching a flicker of moss coloured canvas, I swung the vehicle out hard to the left, pushing it harder as we broke the top of the dune serving as a wall to the camp. Slamming on the brakes as I realised we'd run out of runway, I wrenched on the joystick and we careened sideways, coming to a spiralling stop just shy of the encampment's dubiously fragile living quarters.
"Would it kill the moment if I squealed: Again, again!" Gippal asked amusedly. I perused his dishevelled appearance with avid interest. His pulse had quickened, it was apparent from how erratic his breathing had become, and a pupil had dilated, devouring an emerald iris almost whole. Stripes of flushed skin decorated high cheekbones. I had never seen anything so provocative or sexy in all my young life…
"Methinks I snagged myself an adrenalin junkie…" I grinned, working at a pointed canine with my tongue.
"Do you mind?" He asked, breath hitching again as I continued to caress teeth with tongue.
"Yes… I'm utterly distraught that I have learnt your one weakness that can impel you from naught to salivating in 6 seconds…" I deadpanned, rolling my eyes when he pouted. "You think when we go on our much-deserved Honeymoon we can go bungee-jumping?" I wondered, wheeling out the cutesy voice to bring it to the fore. Gippal's expression went slightly blank, before adopting a quality strangely reminiscent of wonder and adoration.
"Sometimes… I think I love you a little bit…" He muttered to himself, before stumbling off into the distance, muttering to himself about finance reports.
Still beaming to myself, I forcibly quashed the urge to skip to my cousin, who was just beginning to stir.
"Muugc mega drao yna lusehk du…" One of the Al Bhed guards informed me as I made my way over.
"Paddan ku damm dra vunafusyh." His compatriot moaned good-naturedly, plodding off to go find Nhadala, who was probably raging about the maxes and minimums and beating poor Gippal to death with her polling data. Yuna's eyes were open wide by this stage, so I exchanged a few words with the digger before thanking him for his time.
"Good morning, sleepy-head!" I chirped; pressing an ice cold canteen of lovely, refreshing water I'd stolen from someone's refrigerator a while back into her grasping hands. The High Summoner quickly re-hydrated herself, and then passed the flask to a slightly worse for wear Paine. "Turns out I'm not as directionally challenged as we'd first thought, guys. They had to shift the whole camp to get out of the way of the oncoming sandstorm. If Picket hadn't come and saved the day, we could've ended up looking forever without finding it…" I concluded awkwardly. Dying of thirst in the desert was hardly on my top ten list of ways to kick the proverbial bucket.
The Hover pilot, and our would-have-been rescuer and knight in shining armour appeared, coughing nervously to get my attention. Obviously Gippal held a lot of influence over his employees… either that or there was an underlying, unadulterated sense of fear in regards to his tyrannical regime, but I think I'm going with option one.
"Wannabe diggers, right?" He asked in basic Spiran, for which Yuna was eternally grateful for.
"Cra'c pylg!" A voice cried from somewhere in the vicinity. It barely gave us enough warning to get the hell out of dodge when a figure on a motor sled came hurtling through the sand we'd previously been occupying.
"Y cduns? E RYDA cdunsc!" She moaned, ripping off some of her outer body gear.
I came face to face with the forewoman, probably for the first time in years, and realised that she had changed very little since our last meeting. Her flaxen hair was still cropped into a short bob, and it didn't look like she took the goggles off even when she slept. She also still wore the typical wetsuit-come-survival gear combination that most Al Bhed seemed to model nowadays, leaving me with a rather non-descript image for recognising her at a later date.
It wasn't that she was ugly at all… from what I could see of her figure she was in fantastic shape for a girl with a desk job… it was just that she was so… concealed by all of the paraphernalia that she was wearing that she looked just like every other worker on site.
I was about to open my mouth to inform her of our presence when she interrupted me.
"I'm busy, so make it fast, ok? I've got lots to excavate and no one to do it… And my damned boss hasn't turned up with his damned paperwork either…" She grumbled, possibly cursing the day Gippal was born. Oh how I knew that feeling…
"Yunie, show her Gippal's letter…" I encouraged my cousin gently, seeing as Nhadala was indeed as volatile and driven as ever.
"Uh… I've got this letter…" Yuna continued, rather redundantly.
"Oh! So YOU'RE the new guys!" She exclaimed amusedly. Gippal had most likely informed her that she'd be receiving some unusual guests, but a trio really didn't get that much weirder than ours. I made some agreeable noise of confirmation; I was feeling far too lazy to make small talk.
"Nice to meet you." Yuna uttered graciously, picking up the slack caused by my flagging social etiquette.
"Hmm… I guess the High Summoner's hard up too… Well, don't be expecting any special treatment!" She admonished, glaring at us as if we were only there to con her out of cash. In fact, I was still twitching slightly when Paine ushered me back to the Hover. Nhadala was DEFINITELY as neurotic as ever, and about three times as annoying. "Oh, before you start digging, I'd really like you to go check out the Oasis for me. Some strange stuff's been washing up there lately. I'd appreciate it if you looked into it." She dictated before waving us off with a languid hand and retreating in order to pursue her beloved facts and figures.
"So, she's got you doing errands now, has she? I heard there've been some weird folks hanging out around the Oasis. Better make sure you're ready before heading out there." The Pilot said, his information triggering warning bells in my head. Obviously this had nothing to do with digging; we were being called in as the extermination unit… again…
"I'll be back in a second, guys; I've just got to inform His Majesty of my whereabouts so he doesn't feel the need to start keeping tabs on us." I chuckled, waving cheerily as I turned on my heel and made a beeline for the inventory tent. "Heya Gippal, sorry about-"
The world stopped as she ran into his outstretched arms.
A/N: DUN DUN DUUUUUN! Stay tuned folks... -cackles-
TRANSLATIONS:
"Greenhorns eh nakeuhc B-5!" "Greenhorns in region B-5!"
"Muugc mega drao yna lusehk du…" "Looks like they are coming to..."
"Paddan ku damm dra vunafusyh." "Better go tell the forewoman."
"Cra'c pylg!" "She's back!"
"Y cduns? E RYDA cdunsc!" "A storm? I HATE storms!"
(Forgive me if my Al Bhed makes no sense whatsoever, I've got the translations here just so the gibberish means at least something, but feel free to correct my glaring typos!)