Author Notes:
> Some of your have asked if Zidane's appearance has or is going to change - a common occurrence in many post-Iifa fics. However, unlike the bulk of them, Zidane's physical appearance will not change in this story. He will remain the blond huggable thief we all know and love.
> On the other hand, his outfit is basically shredded (Alex hasn't seen this yet, because Zidane has been wearing a blanket over it the whole time they've known each other... a grand total of a few hours), so he probably will have to get a new one for a while. However, he will get his original outfit back near the end of the story, in order to keep game-accuracy... maybe he has extra copies back at the Tantalus hideout. Anyway, the new outfit will probably look quite similar to the original, and once he has it I'll put a link to a drawing of it in my profile. Speaking of which, I'm working on some picture of Alex...
I stretched my arms out in front of me to try and get the stiffness out of them, smiling at the sunlight streaming in shyly, making a few rainbows on the walls where it was scattered by passing through the ice. Behind me, Alex moved around as well, trying to get the kinks out of his back from leaning against a stone wall for most of the night. We had decided to take turns watching the fire, to make sure it wouldn't go out, but we both slept fairly well all the same. Admittedly, I had given Alex a couple more hours to sleep, knowing he would need it more than me... but he didn't need to know that. The old tent I had been using as a cloak while I had been trudging up the mountains was beaten to utter shit, now that I actually looked at it... So that meant I would have to take one of the less... ah... sturdy blankets from the cave. Alex meanwhile was cleaning up the place, which he explained with part of the rules of using the shelters - you had to leave them either in the same condition or better than how it was when you found it. However, the place had been pretty crappy when we showed up, and it wasn't like we had any new supplies to leave there... Eventually, he gave up on trying to make it better, and just settled for shoving the ashes into a corner. After that was done, we decided to see what we could do about pooling our supplies together into one big inventory, so we'd know what we'd have to take from the cave. It hadn't been a decision that we were going to travel together, per say. It was just kind of... obvious. I mean, I couldn't just leave Alex and go my own way - we were friends now, right? Why should I, anyway? It wouldn't really serve any purpose, and we'd both be better off traveling together. Besides, I didn't really want to. I had gotten pretty lonely traveling around by myself... I guess I was kinda spoiled after hanging around with seven other people for so long.
With all our stuff heaped together in a pile between us, we sorted it out into smaller ones, one for various restorative items, one for food, and so on. The food situation wasn't exactly... uplifting. We had next to nothing, two loafs of bread (courtesy of Alex), a small heap of random (though edible) plants that I found while climbing up the mountains (before I reached the snow-point), and some other scraps. I had more or less accepted at this point that it wouldn't be much of a problem for me, sense I didn't really have to eat much anymore. However... there was Alex to worry about. And it wasn't like I could just say "You have it all - I don't have to eat anymore for some reason... no worries."... I mean, common. There was no way I could just... you know... not eat, without causing some questions I'd really rather avoid. Hell, I didn't know the answers... Like I said before, I had left most of my inventory behind when I had chased after Kuja - but I had found some new stuff lying around in the roots of the Iifa tree, the desert, and the mountains... So I guess about half of the stuff in the pile was mine. Including the pouch sitting slightly off to the side, containing all of the jewels I had with me. I hadn't told Alex about them yet, though I guess I should have. I figured that sense he could only work on one stone at a time anyway, that it wouldn't really matter. There was more important stuff to worry about for now... There was a lot of them - rubies, sapphires, topazes, aquamarines, garnets, amethysts, peridots, opals... all of the gems that had held Eidolons that Garnet had been able to summon. Of course, there were others - diamonds, moonstones, emeralds, lapis lazuli, and a big pile of ore. I didn't have any of my Phoenix Pinions, Ribbons, Dark Matters, or Pumice's anymore, though. Those had been somewhere else, though I can't actually remember where, specifically. Anyway, we ended up with a fair amount of items between us - some I had never actually heard of before. I mean, a High-Ether? A Megalixer? I didn't even know a lot of this stuff existed. Alex said that some of them were native to his island, others not. Apparently most of them had been developed ages ago, and most people had forgotten how they were made. According to lore, the knowledge had been given to their ancestors centuries ago, by some traveling mage... or something along those lines, he didn't really remember. We had a ton of Potions, High-Potions, Ethers, and Phoenix Down's. We had a few Mega-Potions, a handful of Full-Potions, High-Ethers, Mega-Ethers, and Full Ethers. We had a single Megalixer, and 3 normal Elixers... and a fair amount of Remedies, Antidotes, Eye Drops, Vaccines, Annoyntments, Magic Tags, Softs, and Echo Screens. So yeah, we had a pretty good inventory.
It didn't take too long to split it up between us, maybe a little over a few minutes. I looked up as I heard Alex stand up and stretch out his arms in front of him. He yawned loudly, then scratched the back on his head.
"Are we done yet?"
I nodded and stood up as well, and leaned back in a stretch of my own.
"Yeah - I think we're done."
Coming back to an upright position, I rolled my shoulders a few times, a blanket still wrapped around me. Alex had taken his off a while ago, replacing it with his origional cloak now that it had dried by the heat of the fire. He looked at me questioningly, and I blinked at the expression.
"...What?"
"Why are you still wearing that?"
I looked down at the old blanket, then back at Alex.
"Because I don't have anything better...?"
He cocked his head to the side, and his eyes flickered to the mostly destroyed tent I had used as a makeshift cloak.
"I guess so. But..."
His eyes flickered back to the worn blanket, then to my face.
"Why not chose a better one? I mean, that one's almost as bad as that canvas thing you wore up here."
I shrugged at the suggestion, not really caring all that much about the condition of the blanket. I mean, unless there was another blizzard, chances were I wouldn't be all that affected by the cold... whereas anyone else would be practically frozen. I grimaced inside, but I was able to keep my face neutral. Somewhere along the line, I had decided not to tell Alex about my... problem... or any of the stranger aspects of my story. So, to keep up the pretence of semi-normality, that meant I couldn't make it obvious that there was something strange about me. So without thinking about it to much, I slid the blanket off my shoulders, with the intention of getting a better one like he suggested. However... as Alex's face suddenly turned very, very pale and he stumbled back a few steps, I remembered all of a sudden why I hadn't taken it off before. My eyes widened a little as I froze, the blanket lying forgotten on the ground.