Glass Half-Full
Chapter 5: Origins in the Blinding Sun
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(Huzzah! Another chapter completed. I'm sorry it took so long, but things have truly been hectic around here lately. If I'm not sick, I'm scrambling to get projects wrapped up in the German Youth Academy. You know, writing papers and goosestepping my way to a better me. Ugh. Anyway, I really hope you enjoyed this one! I'm thrilled with the feedback you all have been providing...it never gets old! So yeah, please read and review and I'll churn out another chapter as soon as I can. -Lindsay-)
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Rikku stared back at her cousin for roughly 30 seconds of complete silence, until Yuna lowered her head.
"Yeah, I know. I'm terrible; you don't have to tell me." she mumbled, running her hand through her hair. Rikku snapped out of her paralysis and shook her head violently.
"No. No, you're not, Yunie. Listen, give me just two minutes and I'll be right out, ok?" she babbled, and ducked back into the shower. As quickly as she could, Rikku finished up in the shower, wrapped herself in a towel, and barreled into the main portion of the hotel room. Yuna sat curled up on the couch, so she softly lowered herself at her feet.
"Hey. It's alright, Yunie. You've saved Spira twice and found the love of your life already...the world had better not question your intentions to settle down..."
"But, Rikku! I'm not married! Little girls all around Spira have been looking up to me as their role model for as long as I can remember, and now they're going to think that sex out of wedlock is perfectly acceptable!"
"Not if we cover this up properly, they won't."
"What do you mean?"
Rikku looked down at her cousin, her emerald eyes shining with worry.
"Yunie, I don't want to force this on you...and I'm just saying that it could be an option..."
"What? What is is?"
"You and Tidus could always have a quick ceremony, ya know? And not really tell anybody about it, bridesmaids and groomsmen aside. The whole thing could be filmed, and you could release it to Spira later, claiming that you didn't want to leave anybody out when it came to invitations. That way, you could claim that it took place earlier than it did, and people would think that you got pregnant on your honeymoon!"
Yuna gaped at her cousin, disbelief lining her face, and Rikku blushed.
"I don't know. I've always had this thing for coming up with stuff off of the top of my head..."
"It's a good idea, but I do feel bad about lying to my people about an issue like this."
"Yuna. You saved all of their lives twice...a little, white lie isn't going to smash your reputation. And, like I said, it's just an idea. Talk it over with Tidus; I'm sure he's been dying to get you to the altar, anyway!" Rikku joked, giving her cousin a small smile. "Don't worry about work, ok? I'll talk to Nhadala without giving anything away."
Yuna stood, small tears beginning to work themselves down her cheeks, and embraced her younger cousin. There was an unspoken appreciation for her cousin's mischievious ways, though she meant well. Who knew how Yuna would have gotten through many of her uncompromising situations without the smiling Rikku backing her up the entire way...
"I'm gonna go talk to him...see you when you come home." the High Summoner choked out, hastily wiping the tears from her face, and Rikku simply nodded. Yuna left, and she continued to get ready for the day of digging ahead of her. Geez, what had started as a flawless day had immediately taken a turn on her, but she wasn't upset; if anything, Rikku had nothing but concern for her cousin. She'd started being her guardian when she was 15, and a guardian's duty is to protect the summoner until their death. Well, Yunie hadn't died in the Final Summoning, so technically, neither did Rikku's civic duties of protecting her. And now would be a terrible place to simply ignore those duties.
Rikku pinned the last braid up in her hair, gave it a healthy shake, and started out of the door. As she passed Yuna and Tidus's room, she decided to slow her pace down in order to listen in. The door had been shut, so it was easy for her to get close to it.
"You...you mean...you're going, to, ahh, h-have a baby?" she heard Tidus hoarsely choke out, though his tone was gentle. There was a slight pause, and Yuna replied,
"Yes, Tidus. You're going to be a father in roughly seven months."
Another pause. Then, suddenly, it sounded like a great mass was thrown on the floor.
"Oh...oh, dear. Tidus?" Yuna asked.
Rikku bit her lip. Yikes.
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The wind carried Rikku's blonde hair as she rode through the desert sands, contemplating where to start digging first. She'd arrived to work on time, telling Nhadala that Yuna simply was feeling extremely under the weather today. It was useless to tell anybody about her pregnancy if she wasn't even sure Tidus would regain consciousness in time for the baby to be born. Besides, Yuna and Tidus had to work things out with close family, hopefully tying the knot before all of Spira found out about the bundle of joy.
The hover landed in the Western Expanse and Rikku nodded her thanks to the hover's pilot. She scampered around with her metal detector in hand, waiting for the gadget to sound its small alarm. When it finally did, she lowered herself to the ground, equipping herself with the proper digging tools. She toiled away in the sand for quite some time, allowing her mind to wander while she did so.
Bundle of joy, huh? Wow...that's quite a statement; it's probably going to be more like bundle of extreme emotions. On one hand, you'll have Yuna's mellow disposition and tendency to think things through and on the other hand, you'll have Tidus's spunkiness and ADD-liike natu---OOH! LOOK!
A---piece of gil...cred...
Rikku pocketed the gil and stood up, wiping the sweat off of her brow. Once again, she set off to find something to dig up. She'd only dug up a simple piece of gil, and even though it had taken her a few minutes, it wasn't very hard labor. The only thing that could make her sweat like she did was the hot, Bikanel sun beating down on her. It wasn't that Rikku had grown out of touch with the sun and forgotten what it was to toil away in the desert; it was the fact that she'd never felt the temperature rise like this since...
It was so horrendously hot that day that the 13 year old Rikku would have preffered that Sin swallow her up as opposed to her having to work in the hover garage. That being the case, her father had called the day off of work for all Al Bhed people; they were accustomed to the heat, but this was ridiculous. At the time, Home was still on its feet and there wasn't much digging to do. There were just simple, day to day jobs like mechanics and merchants, food vendors and inn runners. And on this exceptionally hot day, every one of those workers were allowed to do as they please.
Rikku trotted into the makeshift recreational center that the Al Bheds had built. There was a huge sphere projection on the wall that ran the news and Blitzball games, as well as simplistic gambling games and other things for the youth to enjoy. Today, the place was packed considering there was nothing else to do. Most of the games were filled, so the blonde girl decided to simply take a seat at a booth near a window. The sun still poured in and covered everything in her vicinity, but it wasn't as harsh as the dry air that accompanied it outside. As she gazed out the window at the uncharacteristically still city, she heard a few other kids mumbling a few feet away from her. They had occasionally dropped her name, but she chose to ignore it. It was pretty commonplace for her to be mentioned, considering who her father was. Rikku was never conceited about her heritege; she just accepted it and moved on, never wanting too much attention drawn to her.
Suddenly, three or four of those kids piled into the booth she was in, all staring at her intently. When she turned to look at them, one rather fat one spoke up.
"Hey, you're Cid's daughter, aren't you?"
She shrugged and nodded a bit. Shyness wasn't normally Rikku's persona until her bloodline was brought up.
"Well, who are you gonna make your prince someday, huh?"
"Yeah! You gonna pick a stud like me or a loser like Lakkam?"
"Hey, shut up, Eigaar! I've got bigger muscles than you AND I'm a better kisser than half of you guys!"
"How do you know, Lakkam? You been making out with Nimrook lately? I bet I'm the best kisser, and that's what the princess wants."
"No, Berrick, Lakkam hasn't touched me. But I'll tell you who HAS, and I bet Rikku's better than all of them."
Nimrook winked and tried cornering Rikku, who gasped and opted to destroy him; fortunately, she was cut off when the job was done for her. Nimrook was picked up by the collar by a figure that she couldn't make out in the bright sun and tossed to the ground. He landed with a grunt, not daring to move once his body hit the floor. Either that or he simply couldn't. After that, the shadowy figure leaned over the table and growled,
"If you don't want to end up like your obnoxious friend, I'd leave right now.That, or I'll repeat what I did to him to all of you; if I can't, I'm sure Cid would be happy to kill every one of you."
The kids stared at him for a moment, then quickly got up and scrambled to the other side of the room. The figure, however, remained. Rikku shaded the sun from her eyes for a moment to make out the boy who had saved her from the rude boys. What she saw amazed her.
He stood proudly, watching the others run away from him through one narrowed eye; the other was covered with a black, studded eye patch. His hair was as golden as any other Al Bhed's, but his was spiked straight up. He was unbelievably good-looking, and what seemed like a badass as well. Not too shabby. But now wasn't the time to throw herself at silly boys; she was better than that!
After he was satisfied with his results, the boy lowered himself across from Rikku, making sure to give her enough space after being nearly suffocated. He blinked, cocked his head, then stated,
"I just saved your skin, Cid's girl."
Rikku, as defiant as she'd always been, pouted and crossed her arms.
"I have a name..."
"Bet ya do. Mine's Gippal."
BEEP BEEP BEEP. The metal detector sounded in Rikku's hands, snapping her out of her trance. She cursed to herself; the whole point of coming out to the desert was to forget about that creep, and here she was thinking about the day they met. Rikku scoffed. Happy memories like these were the reason she couldn't stand reminiscing; she wanted to stand her ground, avoiding anything that could sway her opinion. She hastily flopped to the ground, digging around in the hot sand. She hated hot days like these.
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Gippal glared into the bright sun as he stepped off of his airship and into the Bikanel sands. New Home stared him right in the face; it was very apparent that the Al Bhed people had been practically slaving themselves away at the rebuilding of the beautiful place. Fortunately, the people themselves didn't see it as slaving away; they saw it as an opportunity to start over and show the Yevonites how truly hard-working they all were. Nhadala just a few feet away from him, advancing towards him when the sands finally cleared. She was laughing.
"Crimany, Gippal! We both came from Djose today, but I've been here for hours!"
Gippal scratched the back of his head.
"Ahh, yeeeeeah. I didn't get to sleep till late last night, so I kinda let myself sleep in today."
"Aha. Well, follow me. I'll take you on a tour of the digging grounds."
Minutes later, the two were balanced on a hover, speeding through the Eastern Expanse. Nhadala was going on about something, but Gippal's mind was elsewhere. Where was Rikku? As pissed off as he truly was about the clock-tossing incident, there was something inside of him that simply forced him to forgive her. Accompanied with the slight forgiveness, there was the pain of her acid-like words. She'd called him a player and accused him of abandoning her. Well, he really hadn't said much when he had to leave, but it would have complicated things tenfold if he had. He'd wanted to be her hero---her prince----but she couldn't know what had happened. She would have hated her family and distanced herself from him as well. Joining the Crimson Squad truly was his best option, but the timing was completely off. And, come on! A player? Girls were all over him 24/7, but nobody said he ever took up their offers. His life was in the Machine Faction...and occasionally waiting for visits from the Gullwings. When those visits came, he'd played it off like it was nothing to make Rikku more comfortable. Unfortunately, that triggered her to build up some sort of wall. In return, he built up his, even though his heart told him otherwise. She'd understand someday...he'd make her understand.
"And here we are in the Western Expanse of the digging grounds..." Nhadala rambled on, and Gippal mutely nodded. Suddenly, a blonde figure was seen in the distance, and Gippal tightly gripped the hover's railing.
"Stop." he commanded, and Nhadala, shocked, blinked at him.
"What?"
"Stop the hover."
Reluctantly, Nhadala turned to the pilot and mumbled something; the airship slowed to a stop roughly 50 feet away from the girl. Nhadala gazed at Gippal expectantly, but Gippal just looked on.
She looked, perfect, really. Her bronze skin was shining in the bright sun, and some of her long hair had come loose and dangled in her face. She distractedly dug in the sand, not even taking in the sounds of the recently-landed hover. But this is how Gippal wanted it. He just wanted to observe how Rikku was years ago; hard-working, beautiful, and passionate about whatever she did. Unfortunately, Nhadala didn't seem to know how much Gippal didn't want to confront her.
"Hey, Rikku!"
Both Rikku and Gippal spun to look at the oblivious Nhadala, who was waving to her prized digger. Rikku waved back with one hand and began to shade her eyes with the other. Who was standing with her boss? Oh, Yevon. There Gippal was, looking as confused as she was, with the same studded eye patch and white-blonde hair. Her heart leaped for a moment, but she quickly remembered how angry she was supposed to be at him and stopped smiling. She swallowed, dropping both hands and turning back to her work.
Back on the hover, Gippal sighed and turned to Nhadala.
"Take me to Cid's tent."
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Cid sat his desk, paperwork scattered all around him. He was mumbling to himself incoherently, occasionally slipping in a curse word and wiping the sweat off of his forehead. He didn't even noticed when a slender man walked into his make-shift office and seated himself across from him.
"Hey, Cid."
Cid jumped about nine feet into the air when Gippal spoke, but tried to cover up his anxiety with a goofy grin.
"Hey, kid. What brings you to these parts?" he replied, adjusting himself in his seat and extending his hand to his business partner. Gippal's mind raced back to he and Cid's beginnings, but tried to forget them as he took his hand and shook it.
"Ahh, just wanted to check out the expansion of New Home. Not letting the guys off on a day like this?"
"Heh, didn't have to. They took it upon themselves to stay home while I sat in this blasted tent and filled out paperwork."
"Sorry to hear that!"
"Nahh...so what's going on with the Faction? You got anything new for me?"
"Well, I sent Nhadala back today with a new scout prototype to test out, but I'm not entirely sure today's the best day to do that."
"How come?"
"I added in a new heat-seeking attachment for the diggers in the field. That way, when their temperatures reach a certain degree, the hover driver will be alerted and can come to their aid with water or what have you. Today's pretty hot, though, and I'm not sure it would work as easily."
"I see. Well, good work! Need anything from Bikanel?"
Gippal paused for a moment, stepping off of his soapbox and leaning back into his seat. He ran his hands through his hair and looked up at the aging man earnestly.
"Cid? Do you, uh, have some old blueprints that I could borrow?"
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(A/N: Confused about Gippal's soliloquey on the hover? You should be. :grin: That was just my attempt to plant the seeds of...imagination...in you. All will be explained soon, I promise! But there has to be SOME air of mystery surrounding their past relationship, ya know? Hehe. Anyway, enough of my babbling, please review and tell me what you think. I love you guys hardcore! -Lindizzle-)