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year 5, quarter 3
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Terra usually assimilated primitive, young planets. She simply thought these were one of the nomadic ones, where at most, people gathered in organized tribes at best. That was all she saw so far at the Crystalus Divider and as she wandered through trees and nature. But it seemed a shift in her perception was necessary to adapt. Three towns. She was indeed curious to see what they looked like. Even if he was right about her not having experience with one that could be remedied with a simple visit. “I would like to experience a town.” It was probably much bigger than the small villages the genomes or the black mages clustered into. And full of things much more alive.
There was his irritation again about her mentioning of the other genomes. Though her brow creased in concern at his words, her eyes still held that faraway look. Even a stillness to breathing as she thought. She very much understood the accuracy of Kuja’s words about the genomes. But she wouldn’t want her peers walking into danger. That’s why they were all carefully gathered and cared for in Bran Bal. She gathered Kuja would not help her search. She would simply have to do it on her own. Where Kuja saw useless containers, Mikoto saw potential if given the opportunity. Zidane, Kuja, and herself could grow, learn, and effect the world around them. The others could too if given the chance. Or perhaps, Zidane’s optimism was still ringing with her.
She moved to walk beside him to eagerly listen to his explanations of souls and technology. She looked up at him, as if hanging on his words. It seemed like there was more poor news about the souls here. She could still see the wisps flashing among the trees like twinkling stars as the woods grew darker as the forest thickened. Poor broken stars that wandered restlessly. She felt a pang in her chest, as if there was a small hope something could be done for them. But where was this feeling when Garland collected Gaian souls to never return to a life and dispelled as a mist. “Is there not already a divider here in this forest? The cause of corrupted souls and mist.” A poorly made one, perhaps? One that was failing to properly discharge the souls.
She shook her head, “The technology here may be rudimentary, but if there is potential…” Then what? She had no genomes. Still… “If the source for the corrupted souls is found, then it could make the creation of another divider easier and less noticeable.” She had not the knowledge of what this forest was. Maybe it was worth while to find out.
“Ah.” Kuja abruptly stopped her thought process with his own interjection. Something more useful? She turned her gaze from him and back to the ground. Her pace slowed and her tail fell low. More useful than looking and taking care of the others? She seemed to be failing even at the jobs she was created for. “I’m useless…” She murmured to herself. Perhaps, she really should have sunk with Terra. She shook her head, trying to dispel the thought. “I could start with understanding this world better.” She tried taking Kuja’s words as a suggestion instead.
Perhaps, she had to approach this world in steps. “How did you take your first steps on Gaia?” She looked up at him. He didn’t have anyone, did he? He was the first of the awakened. “It must have been difficult for you.” It most certainly has been a trial for her to understand the alien customs here.
Final Fantasy IX
27
YEARS
Agendered
Open
Pansexual
333 POSTS
Fin
Peace is but a shadow of death, desperate to forget its painful past.
“Is there not already a divider here in this forest? The cause of corrupted souls and mist.”
Of course. Why hadn’t he thought of that? It wasn’t as though he’d studied the components of the forest’s mists for months as to ascertain that very thing. He thrust his hair over his shoulder. ”I’ve found the core,” he said. ”But there’s a barrier. I haven’t managed to break it yet.” A sad admission for a mage of his status, but there’d always be magic he couldn’t understand -- at least not yet. In truth, there was nothing that couldn’t be learned without effort, and it was for that reason that he’d been excavating old ruins and places of power. ”I don’t see the point in another divider. I could make one, I’m sure, but it’s pointless.”
All that work for vessels they’d already lost? It had taken years to develop the black mages on a backwards planet. She had no idea what she was actually asking of him.
But it didn’t seem to matter. Her attention was quickly stolen away.
”Ah.” She slowed, her tail sweeping low. Kuja raised an eyebrow. Had that really hit her so hard? He supposed so because she followed it with a quiet, ”I’m useless.”
Yes, actually. She very much was. No magic. No intellect. No knowledge of a living planet. Still, he supposed it was a little harsh to say so. Even for him.
”Well you could not be,” he said without passion. ”You have plenty of time.”
He’d already grown tired of his own consideration. She wasn’t even someone he could use.
But she knew her own limitations at least. And her ignorance. That was a rare trait, and one had to almost respect. Or at least not hold entirely in disdain.
“How did you take your first steps on Gaia?”
Kuja paused at the question. He felt that good will drain away even before she added, ”It must have been difficult for you.”
He hated that condescension. He hated even more the feeling of being exposed.
”I spent most of it skulking in old Terran ruins,” he said. His lips turned sour. ”I grew rather acquainted with the guardians and that hideous tree. Garland still had me running his errands, after all.”
Kuja started walking again. The topic didn’t warrant his full attention. ”I learned what I could of Gaia. After the destruction of Madain Sari, I moved to the Mist continent and took residence in Treno. It wasn’t exciting.”Thieves, grime, the skittering of oglops across creaking floorboards. He’d started with nothing. ”And then I gained my fortune. That’s all there was to it, really.”
He tossed a careless glance over his shoulder. ”You have to have interests,” he said. ”I always cared for pursuits of the mind. Not that I expect you’re much the same.”
So, he did not know what was at its core just yet. It made her curious and want to see this barrier for herself. But to see a living town pulled at her more in this moment. He continued speaking as if she expected the burden of making one to be placed solely on him. She did not mind trying her own hand at it. Perhaps, by time it was complete they would have found some of the other genomes. Or perhaps he was correct. It may really be pointless. Struggling with both potentials, she lapsed into silent thought.
Though, her thoughts were punctuated by his words. The way he added she had plenty of time felt odd to her. Like she had dipped her hands into the cool waters of the river and the shiver of the sensation bit up her arms. She had sense enough to not ask about it. Garland left Kuja’s fate no secret. She was to replace both he and Zidane after all. She knew of the circumstances of why in both cases. But where she had felt nothing about it in Bran Bal, she now felt her heart swell and sink at the thought.
For now, she simply had to try to be useful to him.
She watched his mood drop at her words once more. It seemed she still couldn’t say the right things. But, instead of shouting at nothing this time, he spoke about what he had done. She continued to quietly listen. He had a starting point with Terran ruins from the first assimilation attempt, as well as Garland’s orders. Well, that most certainly couldn’t be her starting point. Neither were here. And Zephon had no data stored in the logs.
Though his words of Madain Sari, Mist continent, and Treno sounded familiar from limited information she read. However, she had no way to relate the data to anything other than letters and syllables. It was hard for her to imagine what these places were like or what the people looked like. Not even its magnitude could be imagined by her. But it seemed it was best not to ask too many questions with him. At least, for now. He was wrong about one thing. He made it sound of no consequence, but she knew it was not as simple as he made it. It really was impressive to her. “You accomplished so much in a short period.” She said softly. Perhaps with some respect. How could she hope to make such progress?
But he abruptly changed the subject on her, since the current one seemed to not be to his liking. Once more she did not quite follow what he was asking. She looked up at him and studied his face to try and understand. “What is 'pursuit of the mind'…?”
She creased her brow. The word, “Interests…,” rolled off her tongue. She mulled it over as she said it. There was a long, awkward pause. She raised a hand to touch the pink fascinators in her hair. She put them there for some reason. The other genomes had not done that. Was that an interest? Her eyes then looked up at the silver feathers in Kuja’s hair as they shimmered in the pale moonlight. “Attaching objects to my hair?” It was more a question.
“…Reading.” The data logs were the only outside access she had to Terra. She studied them quietly as she awaited further orders.
“Engineering and research.” She was starting to gain confidence in listing interests. These were things she had done on Terra to try and pass through the monotony of her peers. If she kept busy, then there was less time to ruminate on the building tension inside her. She remembered taking pleasure in fixing and rebuilding the tanks and getting lost in the data sets as another genome was created. It even took a little chemistry to create the pink dye she used for her outfit.
“Quina.” She was trying harder to use names. The designations were certainly easier to use than giving descriptions. “It showed cooking. It did not look that different than alchemical processing, though the product is different.” Her words implied that maybe she should try something like that. The resources for such efforts seemed abundant.
Another lapse in silence. That reminded her. She never had her questions answered at the Crystalus Divider. “Why do the inhabitants congregate and gesture at an empty gateway? It reminded me of Bran Bal’s but unresponsive.” It seemed quite irrational to her. “Isn’t it a waste of effort?”
Final Fantasy IX
27
YEARS
Agendered
Open
Pansexual
333 POSTS
Fin
Peace is but a shadow of death, desperate to forget its painful past.
Mikoto was quiet for a moment, considering his words. When she finally spoke, it was quiet, nearly awed. ”You accomplished so much in a short period.”
Kuja paused. He had really, but he hadn’t expected her to pick up on that. Perhaps it was because she knew of his starting point. She was living it herself to an extent.
Still, no matter his accomplishment or innate sense of pride, he felt nothing at her praise. He believed in results rather than intentions, and he smiled bitterly. ”Not that it mattered,” he said. Days, months, years, of sleepless plotting. All worthless. He wondered if Garland had laughed.
Maybe. If he’d been capable of humor.
Kuja had no interest in pursuing the subject, and thankfully the girl didn’t care to push the subject. Instead, she just gave him that puzzled look, half-vacant with a slight twitch of her brow. ”What is ’pursuit of the mind’...?”
Kuja gave her a disbelieving look, and when she didn’t waver, and touched at his forehead, thrusting back his bangs with a cold laugh. ”It’s like talking to a child,” he said. He’d never liked children.
”How do I explain it?” He considered his options, weighing them with the same care as the components of a potion. ”It’s...mental stimulation,” he decided. God, was this how he’d used to sound? So passionless. So cold. Nothing but analytics, but wasn’t that a genome’s natural state? His lips turned in a dismissive sneer. ”Science, logic, the arts.” Why was he explaining this? ”I’d rather not waste my time running around like an idiot.”
Or a certain someone he knew.
But the question he’d asked must have struck a chord. She considered her interests, eyes tight, brow furrowed. It was likely the first time she’d ever been asked the question. So young and naive.
And yet she liked ’attaching objects to her hair.’ Reading. Research. His tail gave another uneasy swish. How terribly familiar.
”It’s called expression,” he said, waving vaguely at the ornaments in her hair. ”I suppose you’d have had to do it yourself. I noticed the ribbon on your tail. It’s…”Plain. Basic.”Simple. You could find better in the city.”
Not that he’d bother to show her. Maybe he’d send her off with the gil to do it for herself. If she was going to follow him around, she might as well make herself a little easier to look at.
As for the others -- reading, engineering -- she’d find that in no short supply. She wondered how she’d react to the home he’d carved out of the desert. Her mind might short circuit.
”Cooking?” He raised an eyebrow. Who had she been talking to? ”It’s fine. If we’re talking alchemy, I’d rather synthesize something useful.” And not waste his time. While he was a staunch follower of hedonism, he'd often found the effort more taxing than the reward. ”I wouldn’t bother with it.”
More silence. More passing thoughts behind her eyes. Finally, she asked as thought out of nowhere why inhabitants congregate at empty gateways. Kuja gave her a strange look. ”What?” Was she stupid or just socially inept?
”I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. ”Look into it yourself if you’re so interested.” About doorways. And strange people. What kind of company had she stumbled into before now?
”I think I saw a clearing up ahead.” Finally. The life here had no beauty to it. Half the trees were dead and the other half were gnarled nests for rats and insects. He heard them buzzing about in noxious clouds. And that wasn’t even mentioning the Mist. ”I’ll call my dragon. If you still insist on coming along.”
Mikoto stopped in her stride to look up at him. His phrase ‘not that it mattered’ sounded much like her ‘what’s the point?’. Did he have similar struggles as her? Is this what she looked like when she said it? She was not Zidane, who seemed to know what to say in these situations. All she could muster at first was a, “It does matter.” She took a moment to try to grasp why it did matter. “The different situations helped you grow… just as much as your soul did.” It was an awkward phrase, but she was trying. “Isn’t that why you told me to live?” Would she be as expressive and knowledgeable as him if she put herself in different situations?
She pressed a hand to her chest and looked down. “If you did not go through your endeavors, then we would not have met.” True destroying Terra and nearly all the genomes was wrong. But perhaps it was necessary to break the chains.
There was a waver for a second, before she jogged to catch up to him. She either did not understand he was insulting her intelligence or chose to ignore it. After all, he agreed to teach her. She would have to learn under his conditions. Mental stimulation, science, logic…. all these she understood. Arts? She knew the definition. Terra had concepts of architecture and design. There was art in that. But as human expression? She gave a nearly imperceptible frown. She decided to try to pull out information from him a different way. “What kind of arts do you like?”
So, she was expressing herself? She took in his explanation. “Did you get ribbons for your tail in the city?” She vaguely looked at his skirt. “Do you hide it to fit in with the inhabitants?” Was it a method she should employ? She tilted her head to the side, “Sustenance seems useful.” She folded her hands behind her back. Her question song seemed to ring in the air now. “What do you synthesize?” She supposed she would see eventually.
Look into the Crystalus Divider herself? She tried, but after Quina gathered all human attention on them, it felt a proper tactic to retreat. Her tail swished behind her at the uncomfortable thought. Maybe when things had calmed down, she would try again.
She nodded to him to call his dragon. “Do they talk in this same strange tongue in this city?” She held out her hand with the back of it up, as if to mimic what she saw the elf do, but her voice was still without much passion. “Would thee prefer to kiss thine hand, Sir Knight, in a seal of good faith?”
Before she could say the line of the one responding to the greeting, a wisp materialized in front of her. It brightened and stretched, taking the form of the boy in her memories with light green hair and flowing clothes of a traveler. He leaned forward to take her hand and raise it to his lips. The coldness gave her goosebumps, ‘Ah, but would it gladden this heart of mine for the private weal of kissing thy hand, O noble lady of the forest?’
Mikoto seemed to jump out of her skin, her tailed fluffed so suddenly her ribbon nearly popped off. She took a step back in surprise.
The transparent boy flourished with a bow, and finished with, ‘For such a boon is not given lightly, and blessed will be this unworthy lips to touch the fair hand of thee.’ Then, its features twisted a little more darkly as it shifted back into a ghoulish spectre. It took advantage of her surprise and grabbed her wrist. It tried to pull her into the brush with the other glowing orbs. Those orbs seemed to want to rush in at any moment to block escape.
Surprised by the broken tranquility of the dark forest, Mikoto reached for the dagger in her boot and deftly tried to slice the enemy. Though, her dagger harmlessly passed through the ghost. It seemed to lose its own sound at the attack as it sneered at her attempt.
Final Fantasy IX
27
YEARS
Agendered
Open
Pansexual
333 POSTS
Fin
Peace is but a shadow of death, desperate to forget its painful past.
Mikoto was nothing if not endlessly curious. It was unbearable in its own way. ’What kind of arts do you like? Do you get ribbons for your tail in the city? Do you hide it to fit in with the inhabitants?’ Question after endless question. It seemed that a flood gate had burst inside her -- one held back for so long that she hardly knew what to do with herself. Kuja’s brow pricked with irritation.
Was he really supposed to answer it all? He was no guardian.
”All of them, no, and yes,” he said shortly. He didn’t owe her an explanation. Or much of anything at all, really.
”Potions mostly.” What did he synthesize? What kind of question was that? ”Charms. Weapons. The Black Mages, I suppose.” A dry smile touched his lips. ”Does that count?”
A sarcasm he doubted she’d notice. She’d give a straight answer as serious as the grave. Probably yes.
”Do they talk in this same strange tongue in this city?” Mikoto stopped, reaching out one hand in some kind of proper half-bow. ”Would thee prefer to kiss thine hand, Sir Knight, in a seal of good faith?”
”What?”
Kuja stared at her before he touched at his forehead, laughing. ”Did you learn that from a play?” He couldn’t keep the humor from his voice. Perhaps even a little fondness. He himself had learned the intricacies of the Gaian language largely from plays. It was, in its own way, nostalgic.
”No.” He lowered his hand, but his lips still twitched with his laughter. ”The people there are too stupid for words like that. It’s constructed. Or at the very least learned. You’ll do better speaking like Zidane. Or anyone else really, but I doubt you know them well enough to try.”
Who did she know, anyway? Zidane, himself, Garland. Maybe the Black Mages. Wasn’t there that one that Zidane kept as a pet? Pitiful company when all was said and done. It was no wonder she knew absolutely nothing of blending in.
Kuja had hardly opened his mouth to say so when he felt a prickle at the back of his neck. He stopped, jaw already set as he turned, expecting whatever terrible trick the forest spirits had to torment them with. Instead, he found a boy.
Or at least the image of one. Kuja couldn’t tell exactly who it was, but its aura set his fur on end. It was smarmy. Self-assured and hideously pretentious. It took her hand and brought it to his lips. ”Ah, but would it gladden this heart of mine for the private weal of kissing thy hand, O noble lady of the forest?”
Kuja struggles not to roll his eyes. What on all of Gaia were these spirits doing? Congratulations. You’ve managed to spook a one year old genome. Did it often try to seduce young girls off their path? It wasn’t even good at it.
”It’s just the Mist,” Kuja said. ”If you ignore it, it won’t-”
Then it grabbed her.
To be honest, Kuja hadn’t known it to be capable of such a thing. He’d always assumed it had no physical form at all. But there it was as undeniable as the sunrise. The spectre seized her wrist and pulled, nearly toppling her into the underbrush and the souls that threatened to claim her.
Kuja acted in an instant. He swiped his hand with a sharp incantation, and a crack of thunder erupted from the foliage in a brilliant flash of light. The Mist dispersed with a soft hiss, the spirits whispering their ancient curses. Kuja’s eyes cooled into quiet disdain.
It had only been a first level thunder spell. Mikoto could withstand it, and even if she’d taken the hit, she’d deserve the shock.
”Do you still want to save them now?” His voice was layered with a snide mockery. He turned and started down the path again. ”Ignore them. The souls here are desperate for company.”
The clearing was ahead. He saw its light like a faint pulse, and they reached it quickly. Kuja strode to its edge and then stopped, arms crossed. He looked up to the sky, already impatient. ”Come to me, silver dragon.” He cast the words out along with a thought. As a semi-intelligent native of Terra, silver dragons were open to psychic communication. They’d once proven a great ally to the Terrans of old. Or so he’d read in their archives.
Kuja raised a hand, tossing his head carelessly to the side. ”It will only take a moment.” He wondered how she’d take the flight. Terrified? Intrigued? He hardly cared so long as she didn’t fall off. ”Try not to wander too close.”
He seemed reluctant to answer. His first response was contradictory. Much like his behavior this entire encounter. It was difficult for her to make sense of him. Was her presence that irritating to him? Then why did he continue to allow her in it? Much of her end of the conversation was shut down with a few of his words. Now opening the exchange to be about him seemed to leave him terse.
Despite being so close in proximity, it still felt like there was much distance between them. Regardless, she was content with the encounter, even if it left her with little answered. Even if he simply tolerated her.
He asked if what he synthesized counted. “Yes…” She was unsure if that was right reply. “I would like to see more of your work.” Evaluate and improve upon products. Is that not what genomes did?
She was surprised to hear him laughing. Not the cold laughter from earlier, but a happier one. It filled her with warmth. “No. From a person in my first encounter here.” Zidane had talked about plays, but she had not seen one nor knew their syntax. A display of bravado that was displayed in front of many people. Perhaps, in time, she would see one for herself.
He made her think back on Zidane and his words. She flushed at remembering some of the silly things he told her to do. Bristling a little, she looked away at his suggestion of speaking like him. “Zidane is silly and oblivious. He shouts just so that others know he exists.” Her words held no hint of emotion, as if she was stating facts. Why would she need to shout and be foolish? Zidane knew nothing of Terra. Forgot his own purpose and lived with Gaians as allies. And yet, deep down, she knew that was only a part of him. He had some wisdom in him as well. He did not turn his back on the genomes in their time of need. There was a strength in him. He was just as confusing as Kuja, if not more so.
But of course, they were interrupted. The spirits were not keen to lose their sympathizer.
Mikoto felt the souls’ hurtful auras and pained incompleteness earlier. She thought those were the only dangers to them. She struggled the best she could in her own surprise. The cold of the wraith bit deeply into her wrist, as if it was a liquid close to the freezing point. Her arm was going cold. The brush and the spirits drew ever closer. Then, without warning there was a bright light. Her black shirt was specially designed to protect her from electricity. So, the spell did little harm to her.
Even so, she could not see the evaporation of the wraith over the spots she was seeing after such a flash. The residue of electricity left her hair fluffed and standing on end. It took a second to realize she was no longer in danger, as Kuja quickly carried on. She raised the palms of her hands to her eyes to rub spots.
Then, she blatantly ignored Kuja’s request to not give the spirits her attention. She did not even answer his question to avoid his displeasure, “…”
Once more, she looked to the spirits. There was a sadness for them. To be left in such an incomplete state must take its toll on them. Even Garland kept whole souls asleep until they were ready for a corporal form. Being a fragmented soul and left wandering…it felt wrong. She could not blame them for trying to make her stay. They had taken forms of people she had found fellowship in. Perhaps, she was as desperate for company as they were.
She tried to smooth her hair back down, as she lapsed into silence and followed him to the clearing. She stood as directed by Kuja. Nursing her arm, she crossed it across her waist to try to help it regain its warmth. She kept her questions to herself now, as she looked up to the skies to see if she could catch a glimpse of the dragon.
Final Fantasy IX
27
YEARS
Agendered
Open
Pansexual
333 POSTS
Fin
Peace is but a shadow of death, desperate to forget its painful past.
Mikoto said nothing. Kuja didn’t mind the silence really -- not over the alternative at least -- but he couldn’t say he wasn’t irked. No gratitude? No ’thank you for saving my life, I know I’m not worth the effort?’ Well there was nothing to be done for it. Kuja wasn’t exactly going to start fishing for compliments. Still, it would have been nice if she’d at least acknowledged it.
He felt his dragon approach. She’d likely been circling the area in anticipation of his call. It was nice, he thought. Having something he could count on. His dragon was competent, graceful, and intelligent. Really, she was the only thing he could truly trust, and as her wingbeats grew closer, he couldn’t help a slight twinge of appreciation.
Had he been lost to the wilderness, he would have rather set the whole forest on fire than trudge through the thorns and the mud for an hour longer. Mikoto would have likely met a similar end.
He tilted his head as a draconian shadow drifted past. It circled once and then descended, slow and cautious with a flurry of wingbeats aided by magic. Her natural wind spells swept the clearing in miniature tornados that caught his skirt and hair. He waited, arms crossed, until she landed.
”We’ll make our way to the city. Torensten. I’ll drop you off there. It shouldn’t be hard to find each other.” Not with their psychic communication. Really, it couldn’t be easier to find a single person in all of existence. Kuja started towards the dragon, taking a moment to stroke her snout. She chirped her pleasure.
”Climb on. Your model is supposed to be agile, isn’t it?”If Zidane was anything to go by. The idiot was so slippery that Kuja could hardly land a spell on him. Though hardly had proven more than enough. Kuja waited, calming his dragon until she was safely stowed between her wings before vaulting himself over her shoulders with a practiced ease. He ran his fingers through her down feathers and leaned forward, whispering, ”To the sky.”
She spread her wings and then they were airborne in short, shuddering bursts. Kuja looked down without interest. With every beat of her wings, his dragon cast her wind magic to catch the air beneath her and thrust herself a little higher. The motion twisted his stomach, but he was more than accustomed to it. He looked back to make certain his counterpart hadn’t slipped off while he wasn’t looking.
It was funny, carrying a genome on his dragon. Or anyone at all, really. What had gotten into him? A tinge of unease touched at his neck, but he thoroughly ignored it. She’d become too much of a pest to ignore. It would have been far more effort to deny her.
“Look at me. I’m Kuja. I blew up your home, killed your master, and doomed genomes. But I did a nice thing. So appreciate me more.” -sarcasm- (Mikoto’s writer has to humor vent because Mikoto won’t even if she could hear thoughts.) Kuja
[attr=class,paccent]
[attr=class,bulk]
The shadow passed by and she realized the dragon was already here. So this was Kuja’s transport. Her eyes looked up to the sky. The dust kicked up and hit her boots. The dragon and her magic was a magnificent display and she watched with wide eyes to see such a beautiful sentient creature. Teal eyes only averted when Kuja finally spoke. Torensten...she mulled the foreign name over in her head. But she was a little surprised at the final words about finding each other. “You will return for me? ...Or accompany me?” She seemed to perk up a little. Maybe she was not as bothersome to him as she felt.
[break][break] But, he was already leaving to greet his companion. He seemed quite happy to see her and it made her happy to see him in a better mood. It seemed she was so caught up in her blank staring that Kuja had to instruct her to climb up. Mikoto nodded silently and turned to look over the dragon. What was the proper method for climbing and sitting on a dragon? She never had to consider something like this before. Terran terrain was not alive, nor did she try to ride any of its fauna before. But she bounded up in a leap and tried to find a hold. It was a little clumsy because she did not want to hurt the companion by pinching her skin or pulling her feathers the wrong way. Mikoto’s tail gained leverage along the front of the wing, which supported her as she tried to get comfortable.
[break][break] Then, as if her efforts were completely silly, Kuja effortlessly perched himself right in front of her. Maybe Mikoto had not needed to be so careful with their ride. Then, at Kuja’s command, they were moving. Mikoto was not afraid of heights. Terra was full of plenty of high places. And she already experienced airships. But these two things had stability in common. The dragon was living with muscles that rippled beneath her and the ride up did not feel as smooth as the take off of an airship.
[break][break] She suddenly felt lighter with each rise of the dragon’s wings and her stomach twisted. She felt her heart flutter nervously in her chest as she tried to swallow her heart back down. Kuja’s warning did not help with the feeling either. It simply served as a reminder of what she was trying to avoid. She fell slightly forward into Kuja’s back, and wrapped her arms around his waist for stability. One arm was still slightly cold and damp from the spirit’s encounter.
[break][break] Her cheek pressed along his back. She found that his warmth and scent seemed to reassure her senses. And her turned eyes could see she was perched firmly between Kuja and the safety of the dragon’s strong wings. Her panic slowly subsided at least to a manageable level. Then there was nothing but the sound of the rushing air that rustled passed them. She closed her eyes to try to stave away the effects of the motion from coming back. ‘I appreciate what you did for me today.’ She gently reached out to him. It was hard to get her thoughts together, but it was easier than talking into the wind. ‘You came for me. Answered questions. Worried over my safety. Warned about dangers for my sake…’ He did not need to do any of these things. He could have simply left her in the woods or fried her with magic. ‘Thank you.’
[break][break] There was another brief pause then she offered. 'Is there anything in Torensten to retrieve for you?'
I'm foreseeing a sibling bonding makeover scene, and this pleases me
Why should the world exist without me?
Mikoto was not like Zidane. She was clumsy. Inexperienced. It seemed Kuja had an apology to give -- not that he would ever hold himself responsible for it. At least a portion of Zidane’s skills were well practiced. That was far more credit than Kuja would have ever dared to give him.
Kuja waited impatiently as she climbed onto his dragon, waiting impatiently. Had this been what Garland had felt when Kuja had floundered at his first spells? Had he known the same irritation, secure in the knowledge that Mikoto was capable of so much more than her first struggling attempts? It was strange seeing Zidane’s spitting image act without his trademark excitement, energy, or social aptitude. Then again, Kuja would have never punished her for her own incompetence. In that way, he and Garland were nothing alike.
She was even more graceless once they’d taken to the air. He saw a glint of panic in her eyes as she struggled to find something to brace herself against. Her tail swished dangerously and then she threw herself forward, grabbing him instead. Kuja stiffened. Her arms were tight around his bare waist -- almost in a kind of lover’s embrace. Kuja’s lips thinned as she pressed her cheek against him.
What exactly did she think she was doing?
”What I did for you?” He brushed her off with a wave of his hand. ”You were in the way. I’d rather you weren’t a nuisance.”Like him. Why did his thoughts keep landing on that idiot? It must have been the girl’s shared likeness. It offended him.
But it seemed the genome wanted to compensate him. How considerate of her. Perhaps she and that self-righteous moron weren’t so different after all.
”It isn’t much of a gift if it’s my gil, is it?” He tilted his head carelessly to the side. They’d reached the treetops now, and Kuja felt a breath of a relief. The sun still glinted in its waning rays. The sky expanded outwards in a sea of verdant green. From here, it was nearly impossible to tell the hideous corruption that waited for them below. Kuja thrust Mikoto from his waist, a spark of irritation in his eyes.
”Don’t touch me,” he said. He’d only allowed it so long so that she didn’t fall off during their ascent. From here, his dragon promised a much smoother ride.
His dragon cast one last gust below her wings, and they were sailing over the forest like a boat above water. Kuja looked down at the passing branches, thoughtful. Well, if she was going to offer…
”I suppose I could use a few magical components,” he said. ”A wind crystal, a few ethers, and…” He paused. His lips flickered with a smirk. ”Rouge, powders, perfumes. I’ll let you decide if you’re intent on self-discovery.”
He shrugged, head tilted. ”Perhaps something nice for your hair.”
