Kamikaze Moogle

Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII, and I am most certainly not on crack. GOD people!

Chapter Three

Lily watched as the only non-Square Enix-created person on the Shera came toward her on the little awning that rested outside their rooms, which were right next to each other. She was in the process of tying back her wild golden curls into a ponytail when Thorn sidled up to her, hooking a finger into one of Lily's belt loops out of habit.

"I'll always think that's weird," said Lily offhandedly, putting an arm over her younger friend's shoulders.

"I know. But I'll always think you're weird, so it balances out." Thorn gave the first genuine grin Lily had seen on her since the incident with Cloud. It gladdened Lily to see this sign of actual life in the short girl.

"So get this," Thorn said. "We're on bishi-boat with Vinny and Cloud the emo-boy."

"The two most prolific angsters in the whole damn game!" Lily replied, grinning back. "But Chicken, have you completely lost all fangirl sense? It's not a bishi-boat unless there are at least a couple Remants, if not Sephy, and we need—"

"I know, I know, we need some Turks and Reeve and Rufus and all those guys. Fine. So it's a bishi-boatstarter-set or somethingBut we have Vinny and Wanna-be Vinny on the same airship. I mean, like, flesh'n blood. Not to mention Yuffie. I mean, you know Navi would spaz if she could see Yuff." Thorn was referring to hers and Lily's mutual brotha-from-anotha-motha. "Top that at some dumb gaming convention." There was a pause in which both girls reflected both that neither of them had ever been to a gaming convention, and that Navi should really have come along with them to this reality. "Lame cosplayers—we get to see the real ones."

"Question is, are we ever gonna get to see the lame cosplayers again," said Lily, with a concerned expression on her face. "We don't even know how the hell we ended up in eff-eff-seven bizarro world to begin with. How're we gonna get back into normal bizarro world?" At the mention of this, Thorn seemed to lapse into thought.

"I saw a lot of, you know, streaming pale green light. Like thousands of teeny strings, y'know?" she said, finally.

"Yeah, I saw that too. No idea what it was, though. Maybe a meteor shower?"

"Hmm. I talked to Vincent."

"'Bout what?"

"Where we're gonna go."

"And?"

"Didn't say. You know how he is. 'Yet to be seen,' apparently," replied Thorn, shrugging her shoulders. The vampiric-looking man was the most levelheaded in times of crisis, but when it came to logistical things in the calm tone of everyday life, the gunslinger definitely had his shortcomings.

"Some help that is," Lily said, voicing what they had both been thinking. It was nice, to share a lone moment of frustration, Thorn could not help but think, and helped to ease the knot of unease that had tied and tangled its way around her heart. Silence stretched comfortably between the pair, each staring dazedly into the blue-skied distance.

"I feel really chill," said Lily softly, still staring off into the distance.

"I'm totally gonna write a fic about all this when we get back home, y'know," said Thorn. "Wish I had my laptop with me."

"When?" said Lily.

"Yeah, when," said Thorn. "There can't be an if. There's no way we can be stuck in a world that until a couple days ago we didn't think existed for the rest of our lives."

"Why not?" It was an odd reversal of roles, Lily contemplated. Neither of them were exactly dreamy little optimists, but Thorn had always been the more cynical of the two. Yet here they were, in some game's reality, Thorn insisting that there was no if to the matter, and Lily stating that perhaps there might be no when. Thorn clearly had no answer for Lily, but there was desperation in her brown eyes that Lily had never seen before, so she decided not to pursue the matter.

"Anyway, if you wrote a fic about all this, everyone would just pass it off as one of those lame fics where the Oh-Sees are self-inserts of stupid fangirls, not realizing that they are inadvertently passing up something so much better," Lily said, a smile tugging at her lips. Thorn punched her lightly on the shoulder.

"Prob'ly right," Thorn said, shrugging.