the_merriest | Besaid, The Beach, Monday Midday, Fandom Time (NFB-Distance)

Besaid, The Beach, Monday Midday, Fandom Time (NFB-Distance)

Yuna was busy, most of the time now. It had taken a couple of days of missed calls and overlapping travel for her to find her cousin, just to pass along the simple message -- that she and Reno had taken care of the fiend in the Bikanel desert.

Of course, if it had just been that, she could have left a message, but there was more. She needed to talk to Yuna. Really talk to her. About ... about a lot of things she never said, before.

She sat by the edge of the water, watching the waves lap up at the shore, and waited for her cousin to arrive.

(just for the NPC High Summoner, played by the delightful

weldedtomyspine. the couple of days delay is for legitimate IC reasons and not because I was running around IRL, serious >.> )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yuna's footsteps pounded across the sand. She'd sort of given up on the whole 'walk in a very dignified manner' as soon as she'd spotted Rikku. Her cousin was here!

It'd been way too long.

It had. And for all her frustrations, for all the complicated undercurrents between them, Rikku had missed Yunie.

And so she had scrambled to her feet and had closed the distance herself, arms out for a rather epic sort of hug.

Yuna braced herself just in time to catch her cousin. "You're here!"

This day was so perfect!

"I'm here!" Rikku laughed. She didn't sound quite as giddy as her cousin did. But she was still happy about it. "I can't stay long. I have class tomorrow. They let me teach, Yunie. Isn't that awesome?"

This was a way better topic of conversation than the one she was kind of afraid of.

Yuna laughed happily. "I bet you're awesome at it, too!" She was sure that Rikku could do anything she set her mind to.

"I try," she smiled, letting go of her cousin with some hesitation. "I wanted to tell you -- Reno and I went to Bikanel. We ... took care of that fiend."

That was not all she needed to tell her cousin, but it was a good starting point, at least.

"Oh... Are you both okay?" Yuna asked, a tiny hint of worry sneaking into her voice.

"Fine," Rikku said tonelessly. "The fiend's dead. He didn't hurt either of us."

That much was true. The fiend had not hurt them. She was physically just fine.

That didn't really touch the past few days.

Yuna pulled her into another hug. "Thanks for taking care of it, Rikku."

This time, Rikku didn't hug back.

"I wish you hadn't asked me."

It was starker than she had intended. She had wanted to ease into it. And yet, there it was, flat and colorless.

Yuna stiffened, not letting go, but no longer really hugging Rikku anymore.

"I... why not?"

"Why not?" Rikku pulled away from her cousin, staring at her as if Yuna had grown a second head. "Why not? That was my home, Yuna! It burned to the ground and my friends died there! Do you have any idea ..."

She bit her tongue, hard, to stop her from saying anything else. She couldn't trust her words, right now.

"But... but..." Yuna blinked, swallowing hard.

"You never said anything."

Rikku folded her arms, feeling guilty for hurting Yuna this way. Feeling angry that Yuna was making her feel guilty. Feeling guilty that she was angry at Yuna. And then around again in a vicious cycle.

"You never asked," Rikku pointed out. "You knew what happened there. You knew you were asking me to do. You said that in your letter. You were really sorry, but, you know, you wouldn't ask if it wasn't important."

A fiend that was attacking exploration digs: important. Her feelings about going back to the site of her worst memory: not important.

"I thought... I thought..."

"If it was a problem you should have said something."

Rikku turned away from her cousin, hoping to try to keep herself from ... from what, exactly? Saying things that she didn't mean. Or, worse, ones she did.

"Why didn't it matter, to you?" she asked. "You were there, that day. Why would you think it was so ... trivial, to ask?"

"Of course it matters to me! Just--!"

Just...

Just...

Not as much as the world. Except that wasn't right. Rikku mattered so, so much.

"I know," Rikku said, softly, her voice sounding defeated. "It's saving people, and that's more important than anything else. So what right do I have to mind, anyway?"

Dealing with Yuna made everything all upside-down and topsy-turvy.

"Don't you ever get tired of it?"

"You have a right! You have a life!" Or... she was supposed to. That's why Yuna had done what she'd done. The Pilgrimage, all the diplomacy since then... It was for everyone. Rikku included.

"And... tired of what?" Yuna sounded confused, and she genuinely was. Because she wasn't supposed to get tired of it, so she never thought about whether she was or not.

Rikku glanced over her shoulder, to look at Yuna again.

"This," she said. "Deciding your personal life, your feelings don't matter. Deciding everyone else's shouldn't, either. Sacrificing everything for the end of the world, or just a monster going on the loose. It was just a fiend, Yunie. It was a bad one, but it was just a fiend. Not Sin come back, not the forces of Bevelle, but a fiend."

"Everyone's feelings matter," Yuna objected. Except for her own.

But Rikku's mattered.

"Then act like it," Rikku said, more pleading than accusatory. Although she couldn't deny there were strains of both, there. "You decided a long time ago that being a hero is the only thing that matters, to you, and you kind of act like it's the only thing that should matter, to anyone else. So it's okay to ask horrible things of people, so long as you're doing it for what you think is a good reason. Sometimes I ... sometimes I think you don't realize how much you're asking of me."

She was horrible, for saying any of this to Yuna. She was the worst Guardian ever. And yet, she couldn't stop herself from continuing.

"A-and that's still better than when ... I think you do know, and you just don't care."

... Yuna was going to hate her. Yuna couldn't possibly hate her more than she hated herself, right now.

The worst part was how relieved she felt, just to have those awful things hanging in the air like that.

Yuna was not going to sniffle. She was not going to sniffle. She was not going to sniffle.

Okay. Maybe a tiny little sniffle.

"Maybe... maybe you're right," she managed to get out around the lump in my throat. "Maybe I ask too much of you..."

"Don't," Rikku said forcefully. "Don't do the martyr thing, Yunie. It's not fair. I have every right to be upset right now."

She needed a few seconds not to say the one thing that had been on her mind for years, now. And then she realized she didn't care if she did say it.

"Did you think about what it would be like for me?" she asked. "An Al Bhed, on a Yevonite pilgrimage? Knowing how Wakka felt about the Al Bhed?"

Yuna blinked rapidly, looking shocked (and a little bit hurt). Her mouth opened, then closed silently.

Which was an answer in and of itself, really.

Her eyes welled up. How could she have been so... blind?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Besaid, The Beach, Monday Midday, Fandom Time (NFB-Distance)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject