Chapter 17: Sweet Sixteen
"I was sick"
That was the first thought I had when I woke up to my sixteenth birthday, wiping the sweat from my clammy forehead I groaned and vomited on the side of the bed.
It was "Desert Fever" the mother of all fevers, I knew this because it isn't your average fever, it has a certain touch of severity you can't quite put your finger on. When you have desert fever, you know you have it.
Desert Fever was your usual headaches, blocked noses, cramping, vomiting, sore throat, fatigue and weakness and it was made a lot worse by the devastating sickly heat that you couldn't excape from
I was in for a terrible few days
I pulled the blankets of me because I was sweltering and laid my aching head on my pillow, trying to ignore the vile taste concocting in my throat.
I heard thumping footsteps down the hall, stopping at my door.
"Neeka!" My mum called banging on the door excitedly, "are you up?" she questioned, tapping the door impatiently and I could see the shadows of her feet under the door doing a little jig.
"Come in" I croaked
Mum bolted into my room shouting "HAPPY BIRTHDAY' in a loud sing song voice and before coming to a stop beside my bed, towering over me and sniffing the air.
"eww Neeka, what have you been keeping in here?" she questioned
I think she was referring to that time when I was little and I refused to believe my hamster was dead so I continued to keep him in my room for about a month until mum realized what was going on and buried him, I remember she preformed a proper Al Bhed service for the little thing.
I always loved her more for that.
"Nothing dead!" I croaked defensively as she gave a suspicious scan of my room
I turned my face around from my pillow and let mum take a look at me.
"Oh Neeka you look really awful" Mum gasped, she then took a seat next to my bed, while subtlety trying to cover her mouth so she wouldn't breath in any of my diseased air.
"Look at your face, your as pale as a corpse' She sighed sadly
"Is there still going to be a party today" I whimpered hoping that I could just stay in bed all day, eating icecream as an excuse to soothe my aching throat.
'Of course, of course" Mum enforced brightly, hoping that was what I wanted to hear
My head felt as though it was being repeat ably bludgeoned by hammers
In response I whimpered like a wounded dog in self pity.
"Oh Neeky-poo, it wont be that bad, your cousin Leia will be here, you haven't seen her for a long time, and there's Vidina and Asha who'll keep you company and there's going to be a really really big cake" she offered.
The thought of spending a whole day bedridden with Asha picking at my appearance made me cringe however cake compensated it a little.
I smiled weakly at mum and thanked her.
The morning passed very slowly
To distract myself from my blocked sinuses I migrated to the couch to watch SphereVision, it was tough crawling all the way from my bed to the couch, but I did it although mum told me to stop being dramatic and walk.
There was nothing much on the news, just a bunch of nervous looking Bevellion politicians plastered on the screen, nervously reading speeches about the Anti-Yevon Bandai terrorist movement, the left corner of the screen showed a site of a recent attack in a small town outside Guadosalam. There were many small fires that continued to blaze and a collection of rubble littered the site.
I felt guilt as I watched the devastation and my first instinct told me to help somehow but in the back of my mind I knew there was nothing that I could do.
I was a sixteen year old girl with desert fever living in the desolate Sanubia plains.
I heard a distinct banging on the fly wire door that could belong to no other human being but Khan.
"Let me in" he shouted happily
"Who is it?" Mum called back jokingly
"It's your son!"
"Oh yes, the son who forgets to visit me" she laughed, opening the locked door with a glowing smile
"Sorry, the Faction has just kept me busy" Khan mumbled sheepishly
"Yes well you can make it up to me today by helping me decorate the house, I need these balloons and streamers put up" mum ordered
"Oh and go see your sister, she's ill" she added
Khan walked into the living room where I was curled up on the couch in my dressing gown.
"Aww you got desert fever" said Khan as he knelt beside me.
It was funny seeing him again after so long, his new atmosphere seemed to of changed him. His eyes seemed a little greener, his smile a bit wider and his laugh a little louder.
"I'm in agony and need cheering up" I whined
"Is this your subtle way of asking me for presents Sissy?" Khan asked, cocking up his eyebrow with a look of amusement on his face.
"No … but now that you mention them"
"Now usually every year I rely on mum and dad to buy a present in my name and give it to you but this year I actually made the effort to get my dear little sissy a present myself"
"Is it Jame bearing well wishes?" I guessed with excitement and erupted into a coughing fit.
"Afraid not, but if I could buy him for you I would … it's actually something I think you'll like even better"
"Really?"
"I can't give it to you now … later when mums not lurking around but for now take this" Khan whispered and unzipped his backpack.
He handed me a Sphere called "Greatest wins of the Al Bhed Psyches"
"That's really … really … thanks Khan" I said with a hug
"When everyone's busy at the party I'll let you open your real present" Khan told me mysteriously.
Mum walked into the living room smiling with an apron on which was quite an unusual sight because she absolutely despised cooking unless it was sweets.
"What did you get Neeks?" she asked
I held the sphere up so she could see "Greatest wins of the Al Bhed Psyches".
"Didn't you get her that last year?" Mum asked Khan with a confused look
"No, that was greatest saves of the Al Bhed Psyches, there is a distinct difference mum" He told her rolling his eyes.
"Start blowing up balloons kiddo, Neeks is too weak to help me" she ordered
"I'll be back soon, watch the sphere, it'll keep you entertained"
Listening to my mum and Khan talk for several hours while decorating the house was strangely relaxing. I mean they are both very painfully loud and mum was practically screaming as they had a play fight in the hall which wasn't doing good thing for my headache. Yet there was something comforting about it all. I had grown so used to it just being mum and I but something about Khan being back with a huge grin on his face and mum actually being consistently happy instead of her rollercoaster ride of emotions made me feel at home … almost.
There were three quiet knocks at the door, I was surprised mum heard it; she came running to the fly wire door and unlocked it.
I already knew it was my dad, I can just kind of sense these things, the whole energy in the house seemed to change, mum and he were talking in low voices in the kitchen, I couldn't hear what they were saying but I heard her give a soft laugh and then she led him to the living room.
"My princess is bedridden on her birthday" Dad said sadly and begun stroking my hair.
"This is the worst desert fever I've ever had" I sulked
"It hits you harder as you get older … Rikku do you need help with the decorations?"
"Well Khan helped me mostly but I think there's one you can still help me with" She said smiling
"Lead the way, there way never a decoration I couldn't tackle" he boasted as mum lead him down to the far reaches of the house.
"What's going on with them?" Khan asked wrinkling his nose
"I am too sick to care right now, we'll gossip later"
Not a few hours later the party was complete, there were people everywhere which felt so odd since I was just used to it being mum and I. There were friends, relatives, colleagues of mum and dad, Khan had invited a few friends to try and distract me from Jame.
I'm sure I was making a dashing impression as I weakly mingled around the crowd in my dressing gown.
There was a nice guy there though named Saarit who was one of Khans main buddies, he had one of those rugged rough faces that makes the girls swoon and he had an infectious smile with the whitest teeth I had ever seen, he was nineteen and a very accomplished pilot that flew the diggers out to mine Bikanel.
"You're a strong girl for being able to handle desert fever and walk at the same time, I couldn't even move the last time I got it" Saarit laughed.
"Yeah well can't miss my own birthday party" I told him with a smile
Later on through the night after a few conversations he made a particularly flirtatious comment to me.
"As cute as the girls find Khan, as pretty as I find you" and then he left me to melt in a puddle of my own happiness.
It was nice to know there was actually one more guy in Spira, who found me attractive, mums words from a few months ago came back to me. "There are plenty more grains of sand in the desert"
Yet still, stupidly in the back of my mind sat the memory of Jame.
I was starting to feel slightly queasy so I decided to go into my room and lay on my bed for awhile; it was going quite peacefully for about twenty minutes when Asha barged through the door.
"Oh loves, thank you for inviting me, I am having the greatest time staring at your brother" she told me bluntly, she had clearly inherited Leblanc's obsession for romance.
"That's … that's nice Asha"
"Oh thank yevon you finally grew your hair … what did I always say about you and short hair Neeky?"
"It gives me pig face" I answered dully
Asha nodded in approval and begun inspecting my wardrobe, giving groans of disgusts at all the garments she disapproved of.
"When is Yunie, Leia and Tidus getting here?" I questioned her desperately
"They are hitching a ride on an airship with your odd uncle and his freakishly calm girlfriend" She informed.
I wasn't in the mood for more criticism so I left Asha to sift through my possessions while I rejoined the party. I didn't do much, chatted to dad for a bit, ate a fine selection of cakes, brushed past Saarit, and went to eat some more cake until Khan herded me away from the crowd.
"C'mon I want to give you your present now" he told me excitedly and led me down to the back of house where dads old workshop was, no-one really went in there anymore, every time I did I felt like I was trespassing on sacred Ronso ground.
He switched on the lights and handed me a poorly wrapped package.
"I couldn't find a person to wrap it properly so I had to do it myself" Khan told me sheepishly.
I laughed at how he could be one of the most competent machina technicians in Spira yet he still struggled to wrap a present.
"Be careful" he said nervously as I tore away the wrapping paper. I was puzzled to what it revealed.
It was a small earthly green leather box with strange ancient Al Bhed tongue written in it, it was the old language, the one only few elders still spoke.
It was the most beautiful box I had ever seen.
"Open it by pushing in the buttons on the side at the same time" he instructed me.
"What's inside of it?" I asked him excitedly
"See for yourself"
I pushed both buttons and the box clicked open revealing a large dusty folded piece of parchment. I gently unfolded it and gasped in amazement as I realized what it was.
"It was a map of Spira, an entire one, from every road, dirt track, major hill and town"
"It's amazing" I gasped
"Look, sometime you have to get out of this place on your own and because your clumsy with no sense of direction I thought you could use a map … that why I didn't want to show it to your around mum, she would probably confiscate it until your "of age"
I didn't know quite what to say so I hugged him, long and tight.
"The world is such a beautiful place Neeka, I hate how you haven't seen any of it" he shrugged
"How did you get this?"
"Well I was in Bevelle at this conference about the microchip I invented and one of the Bevellion officials took me for a little tour of the city which was fun and in one of the rooms was this box and I recognized our language on it immediately and asked what it was, the official told me it was a map they had taken from the Al Bhed many years ago during one of the old wars. Naturally I didn't think it belonged in Bevelle so I asked Baralai if I could take it back as a rightful heir to the Al Bhed throne and he gave it to me … and then I gave it to you"
"I love it, I'm going to cherish it for the rest of my life" I spluttered
"That's nice, I just expect you to use it one of these days sissy, not just stare at it and wonder what it would be like. I want you to do it" he said seriously, his intense eyes looking into mine.
All I could do was nod.
We joined the party again where not even desert fever could break how happy I was feeling.
Mum quickly lead me over to a enormous white cake embossed with "Happy 16th Neeka" in icing with sixteen unlit candles protruding from it.
"We are about to light it" informed mum with a giggle
"Everybody crowd around the giant cake" Dad yelled over the crowd
Mum dimmed the lights and dad begun lighting the sixteen candles with a distinct look of great pride in his face. As if on cue everybody started to sing the traditional "Pleasant day of birth" song. Some sang in Al Bhed, others in Spiran, Khan did his own version about me being an ugly fiend.
It was nice, though I was starting to feel increasingly sick from the previous cupcakes and desert fever.
"Cut the cake princess" Dad instructed me, dark swirled blue-green eyes gleaming as I blew the sixteen candles out.
I cut the cake in uneven quarters for everyone, or as mum said "interesting shapes"
I was about to start handing the slices out when the most dreadful thing in the world happened.
I tried to hold it back, I really did but I couldn't beat the unstoppable vile that was building up in my throat.
I couldn't stop it and I vomited all over my birthday cake … Saarit at least spared me some dignity by jumping in immediately to hold my hair back.
There was silence until Asha "eww'd!" quite loudly, which made everyone awkwardly go back to their previous conversations.
"I am permanently traumatized" I told Saarit with wide open eyes
"You certainty wont ever forget your 16th birthday" he laughed.
"Are you okay princess" dad asked as mum begun disposing of the cake.
"She needs to sleep in the warm gentle kiss of the sun Mr. Gippal" Fshea told him with her low earthly voice.
Brother nodded energetically in agreement, "Fshea is right, sleep the child needs!"
"Princess you should go to bed, you're really not well at all" Dad grimaced as he led me to my bedroom; he even tucked me in and turned out the lights.
The party must have ended fairly quickly after that.
Strangely enough I wasn't thinking about the embarrassing trauma I had just suffered that would probably affect me for the rest of my life … I was thinking about Khans map.
That map was exactly the on thing I had yearned for
It was freedom … but would I would I work up the courage to put the map to use?
A/N: One of my longest chapters, it seems shorter then usual because apparently I am not allowed to reply to my reviews at the end of it, could someone please tell me why this is and a way I can reply to them. It would be very greatly appreciated. So what did everyone think of this chapter? I wanted to give it a more light hearted feel then the rest of chapters and make it slightly humorous, if not mortifying which I hope I suceeded at. I introduced one new character named Saarit who will have significance in my next story. Does he sound like a better suitor to Neeka then Jame? I wonder. I like him but there is just something about Jame, and incase you are wondering it will be certaintly not be the end of both of them