Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy, nor do I own Shakespeare.
Rikku skipped merrily across the sand, humming a happy tune. It was a lovely day in the desert, and, since she had way too much free time on her hands, she had decided to go digging in the Bikanel Desert.
"Hm hm hm hm hm hm..." Rikku looked around. "Ah! That looks like a good spot!" She started to dig.
"Hm hm hm la dee da... there!" She had unearthed a large box. Struggling, she managed to pull it out. She brushed the sand off. There appeared to be writing on the side of the box.
"Hmm..." Rikku said. "The... Collected... Works... of... William Shakespeare?" She scratched her head. "Who the heck is William Shakespeare?" Examining the box further, she discovered it to be full of books.
Well, I don't exactly have anything else to do today, she thought. I may as well get some reading done.
She lugged the box back to the hover, and boarded the airship.
---
Rikku sat in the cabin of the Celsius and started to read.
Soon, she became very grateful for all the footnotes. They helped to explain some of the phrasing.
The books were a bit hard to understand at first, but Rikku soon became accustomed to the wording. "That Shakey-spear guy was a genius!" she exclaimed.
Barkeep looked up. Shakesh shpear? Who ish Shakesh shpear? he wondered.
---
Yuna and Tidus finally returned to the airship after celebrating the one-month anniversary of Tidus' return with a picnic for two in the Zanarkand Ruins. They found Paine, standing on the bridge, looking unusually worried.
"Guys? I think something's wrong with Rikku," Paine said.
"What?" Yuna asked.
"Try talking to her," Paine replied. "She's in the cabin."
Yuna, apprehensive, walked to the lift. "Wait here, Tidus."
---
Rikku closed the book she was holding. She'd already finished a bunch of the books in the box, but there were still more.
And when I finish them all, I'll just read them over again!
She heard the lift door open and looked up. It was Yuna.
"Um, Rikku..." she began.
"Good cousin, how hath thy day gone? Thou hast been gone a good while: see, I hath read yonder books in thy absence."
"Rikku, why are you talking like that?"
"Is my speech strange to thee? How so?"
"You're using funny words..."
"Funny? You dare'st call these words, like those penn'd by the most exalted Bard, funny?"
"Rikku..."
"Begone, knave!"
Rikku shoved Yuna back into the lift.
---
"So..." said Tidus, "Paine told me Rikku's been talking funny."
"Yeah," Yuna replied. "She's using words that almost sound like Guado Oldspeech. I wonder if it has anything to do with those books she had?"
"Were the books about the Guado Oldspeech?" Paine asked.
"Well, I saw a few of the titles... I think there was one called, Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest and The Taming of the Shrew. There were more, but those are all I remember," Yuna said.
"Hm." Paine thought for a moment. "What we need to do is get one of those books so we can see if that's the problem."
"Good luck with that," Yuna said. "She kicked me out just for saying she was talking funny. She said something about the 'most exalted bard'."
"Well, I'll go for it," Tidus volunteered.
"Be careful," said Yuna.
Tidus strode into the lift.
---
When Tidus arrived in the cabin, Rikku was too absorbed in A Midsummer Night's Dream to notice. Tidus tiptoed tenatively foward to take a tome. He reached out his hand and snatched one off a bed, then ran for dear life back to the lift.
Rikku, hearing his flight, turned and noticed the conspicuously empty spot. "That dastard hath stolen a book!"
She got up, planning to get on the lift as soon as it came back and get her book back!
---
"Here! I got it!" Tidus said, handing it to Yuna.
Yuna opened it. "Yes! The book is written just how Rikku is talking!"
"So," Paine began, "The question is, what to do about it?"
Before anyone could answer, Rikku came tearing onto the bridge.
"Give'st me that book!" she yelled, charging toward Yuna.
Yuna, panicking, threw the book, which whacked Rikku squarely on the noggin. "Uhh..." Rikku moaned, sitting down on the floor. "I feel funny..."
"Rikku! How many fingers am I holding up?" Yuna said, rushing towards her cousin.
"Four fingers. I'm just fine, Yuna, really. But what was that all about?"
Yuna, Tidus and Paine looked at one another. "She's cured!" they cried simulaneously.
"Cured of what? What are you talking about?" Rikku asked.
"You don't remember?" Paine asked.
Rikku shook her head. She looked at the book on the floor. "Hamlet... I wonder if it's any good..."
"No! No, it's not interesting at all, really!" Yuna cried hastily, grabbing the book.
"Okay..." Rikku said.
---
In the end, the Gullwings (except for Rikku, who wasn't quite sure what this was all about, and was immensely curious about the books but was ultimately overruled by the others) decided to toss the books into the sea. They gathered all of the books into the box, and Tidus cast the box off the airship, where it tumbled toward the deep.
But it was not to be, for, in an unexplainable phenomenon, a fold in the space-time continuum much like the one that had brought the books to Spira in the first place sent the books to another world...
---
Yuffie was practicing with her ninja stars, trying to hit a target. The cry of a passing bird distracted her, and one of the stars went wide. She went into the bushes to search for it.
She discovered a box sitting in the foliage. Upon further examination, the box appeared to have writing on it.
"The Collected Works of William Shakespeare," Yuffie read. "Who's William Shakespeare?"