Naimi gets ready to travel in her mother's airship.

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italics = denotes thought or memory (for the most part)

Not Mine

Airship - 4 Days Until the Coronation

Two dresses: one yellow and one silver lay on the bed in front of Naimi and she crossed her arms as she stared down at them. The yellow one was from her mother and the silver from her father. They had both been presents when she had turned thirteen a few months ago. Both dresses were lovely of course, but only one of them would make it into her bag as the dress she would wear to her cousin's coronation. Which, Naimi thought - how cool was it that her cousin was going to be the leader of Spira. Because Naimi didn't go to school, she had no classmates to brag to but that hadn't stopped her from talking an ear off to anyone who would listen. Since no one else would do it Naimi mused, it fell to her to let people know that she was related to Emissary Yuna. Her mom had long ago said to take pride in their Al Bhed linage, so she did. Blood relation didn't matter in this instance.

None of this answered her question about which dress to bring though and she looked over at Dusky who was currently digging bugs out of his fur and eating them, "What would you wear?" She asked the monkey.

He didn't answer of course, he never did. Still she didn't want to pick one parent over the other with her dress choice. In her heart Naimi knew they wouldn't care, but that didn't change how her mind perceived it. Finally she picked up both dresses and put them back in the closet and pulled out a red and gold one that had been given to her for Aeon Day by both parents and shook it out. The dress hadn't been worn in a few months and was a little musky, but it was still clean and could be washed when they got to New Zanarkand or if she had time aboard the airship,"Good choice Dusky." The monkey squawked at her in reaction to hearing its name.

This she put into her small duffle bag, folding it as neatly as she could to avoid wrinkles. The rest of the clothes in the pack had just been shoved in in little balls, and would wrinkle but she didn't want to ruin the dress she was going to wear for the big event. Next to the small duffle bag was a bigger bag, worn with age and overuse. Inside it were a number of gears and machina parts, the was also a small gun she had smuggled off her mother's work station. Her sus had yet to to notice that it had gone missing so Naimi was determined to learn all about it until she did. This was the most important bag to Naimi - even more so than the bag with the dress in it. Bellow her a voice yelled upstairs, "Naimi we are leaving! You better be all packed up."

Hoisting both bags over her shoulder she yelled downstairs to her mother, "I'm coming! I'm coming! Hold your Chocobos sus!"

"Don't talk back to your mother like that." Auron called up after her.

"Don't let anyone tell you what you can or can't do! Your words not mine!" Naimi called back down at him.

There was an odd bark and then the sound of laughter floated upstairs into her ears, "She's got you there." Naimi heard her mother tell her father.

Naimi clunked downstairs, feeling the weight of each bag as she did so. She hadn't expected them to be so heavy. As she walked downstairs Dusky jumped on her shoulder and chirped in her ear, "Alright let's go." She intoned upon reaching the first floor.

"Would you like help with your bags?" Her father asked holding out one arm.

"Thank you!" Naimi said.

In an attempt to be fair she handed him the smaller bag with her clothes and then readjusted the one with all the machina parts so that its strap sat more comfortably on her shoulder. Dusky nattered angrily at being displaced for a moment but eventually settled back down. Her father held the door open for both her and her mother and the three of them departed their island home.

Outside her mother's huge airship was waiting for them. The bright red ship gleamed in the sun and it cheered Naimi to see it. The giant fortress was like a second home to her and looking at it felt like being embraced by an old friend. The ramp lowered and her uncle walked down the stairs, "Brother!" Naimi waved to him calling his name.

"There's my favorite heala!" He said excitedly.

"I'm your only heala. You say this every time we meet." Naimi told him trying to keep a straight face.

For a moment Brother's face fell but seeing her uncle frown so only made Naimi burst out into a million giggles. This made his frown deepen, "That's not very nice." He scolded her.

"You'll be okay." She replied with her father's offhanded lack of remorse, "Where is Shinra. I have something I want to show him."

"Where do you think? Same place as always." Brother answered her.

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

Storing her packed clothes away forgotten about, Naimi rushed up the ramp and disappeared around the corner. Navigating the halls of her mother's airship she felt the change of vibration under her feet that meant that they had taken off and were officially in fight. She turned a hall and came to stop at a large metal door. She knocked three times, then once, then two times, and then once more. A pause and then a moment later the door in front of her rotated inward. With little preamble Naimi walked inside, "I have something I want to show you." She said excitedly.

"Come see what I've found first." Shinra told her not turning to back to look at her from where he sat at his workbench facing away from the door.

"You always show first." Naimi pouted.

"I'm older, it's my prerogative to do so."

"And I'm younger. It's your prerogative to be nice to me!"

Despite what she had said she wandered over to the bench where Shinra was hunched over, sparks coming off the small welding tool he was holding. He was working on something that looked like a commsphere. Next to it a small orb glowed with a spectral light that Naimi had only seen inside the Macalania Woods. She picked up the orb turning it this way and that trying to get a glimpse of what was inside of it, squinting until she could make out a very small piece of wood. The whole thing was very odd and she begun tossing the sphere back and forth. Seeing this Shinra reached out and snatched it from her, "Don't do that! What's in the orb is delicate. If it gets exposed to our air it will lose power."

"What is it?" Naimi asked.

"Wood from one of the trees of Macalania. After much hypothesis I've concluded that it gets its shine from pyreflies. However once disconnected from the tree the wood begins to lose its luster until it turns normal, dull and brown. It takes a bit of doing, but if you can remove it and place it into a glass orb where all the air is vacuumed out - it tends to keep it's glow longer. How long I'm not sure though."

Putting the orb down gently into its slot Shinra sighed. As he did so Naimi bent down so she could get a better look, now that she knew what she was looking at. "So what does it do?"

"It's a power source. So far the trees are the only things that can hold pyrefly energy for any extended period of time - it's how we made the spheres in the temples. But imagine if we could harness this power without the wood as a base. Cut out the middle man so to speak."

"How powerful is it?" Naimi inquired.

Picking up the large blaster on the table he inserted the sphere into the node on the side and then hefted the gun over his shoulder, "Follow me."

Unsure but just as curious Naimi followed Shinra out of his workstation and to the elevator that lead up to the deck of her mother's ship. Once outside Shinra hefted the gun on his shoulder and took aim at the empty sky. Naimi had seen a blaster of this kind fire before. Her mother had once sat her down and showed her different types of blaster fire and she had watched in rapt attention in love with the colors that they had made when they shot. This type had a wide fire range that was harder to control if you didn't plant your body properly, but not so hard that someone even her mother's size couldn't stand the push-back. This was different, the energy ray the blaster let off was larger and stronger than it had been previously. Shinra himself was thrust back almost half a foot. Although he did not fall over. Naimi swallowed, cousin Yuna wasn't going to like this one bit. But as someone who loved machina well, "Woooooooow." Naimi said in awe.

"It's astronomical the type of power that pyreflies provide compared to other magical energies, or the wind and solar power that cities often employ. I'm not saying it should be used to power weapons, but this is logically the best way to show the might of this sort of energy."

"You want to-"

"Use this to power cities. Undoubtedly. But the technology is still far from being ready for that sort of thing."

"That's so so so cool! That blows what I was going to show you out of the water." Naimi pouted a little.

Shinra turned to look at her, "What were you going to show me?"

Reaching into her satchel Naimi pulled out a flat square object with two empty node spaces connected with a diagonal line, "Ta da! Unerring Path, my very own garment grid! There are no garments yet, but sus and tyt agreed that it was time I had my own. Soon I'll be fighting alongside them. We should go hunting for some when we reach Besaid."

"What ones were you thinking of using?"

"I used my mother's thief garment yesterday and it was good but…" Naimi blew out a raspberry, "I like guns. And the heft of holding a sword. When I swing my tyt's blade in what little sparring practice they let me have, I knew I was gonna knock down some enemies. Do some serious damage. Maybe gunner? Oh or alchemist! And warrior …. samurai maybe? So many choices! It's really exciting." Across from her Shinra laughed at her enthusiasm and Naimi glared at him sternly, "Don't be rude."

One day she would master the glare she had seen her father use so many a time, and it would be fearsome indeed but for now it just caused Shinra to laugh at her harder. Realizing she was making no headway in the staring department she slugged him on the shoulder, "Ow!" Shinra said rubbing his arm.

"Don't be rude." She repeated.

"If you were not five years younger than me I'd give you back that in full."

Hearing him say that Naimi crinkled her nose, "No you wouldn't."

He laughed at her and Naimi crossed her arms frustrated at his tone. Eventually he smiled at her, "No I wouldn't. My calculations say your mother would kill me, and all signs point to your father lending a hand."

As he finished his laughing Naimi's eyes hardened, "They would."

How seriously she said it made Shinra rethink what had just happened, Naimi could see it in his eyes. Her father always said that while sometimes she could adorable her way out of things, even more scary was her glare. It was good to know he was right. Shinra stumbled over his next words, "How about I help you pick out a dressphere when we get down to Besaid. We can weigh pros and cons of each, a scientific exploration and gathering of data." He paused, "To say sorry for this debacle."

"Yes!" Naimi pumped her fist, she couldn't wait.

Their chatter was broken by the sound of her mother over the intercom, "Naimi wherever you are, your monkey seems to have found your tyt and is climbing all over him. Please come and save him." A small chuckle followed when her mother stopped speaking.

Naimi had the decency to look ashamed and she rushed towards the entrance back into the main hulk of the airship. She waved to Shinra as she left, "See you again soon!"

The door closed behind her and as she traveled down into the belly of the ship to find her father she wondered what kind of dressphere she would buy. There were so many choices and so many different types. She couldn't rush into it. It would take thought and planning and finding the very best one for her. It was her very first, and firsts were important - not something to be squandered away.

A/N:

Heala: Niece.

This chapter is as close as I'm going to get to Almighty Shinra (A boss from the International/HD version of FFX-2). He's not studying fiends but he is still messing with fareplane energy. Also nerd friendship is best friendship.