2021-07-11: YRP+Fish
- Log: YRP+Fish
- Cast: Rikku, Paine, Yuna
- Where:
- Date: July 12, 2021
- Summary: Backdated, before Gagazet, YRP go fishing to stock up on supplies for the mountain, and bond over a few questions.
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
It's a warm late afternoon across the Calm Lands. Not far from a camp nestled upon a grassy cliffside, three figures are arranged at the shore of a pond.
A trio of poles with sturdy twine vanishing beneath the surface of the water. Every so often disturbing the water only with the smallest of ripples, the sun painting a a scene of warm light upon it.
"Here fish - fish - fish!"
And then many ripples. Like a sudden rainshower just formed over the pond. As gleaming droplets patter on the surface with a symphonic array of their weighty forms breaking the surface in an uneven rhythm.
And then it settles. The light gleaming upon objects that just fell within.
A handful of scrap metal, nuts, bolts that have been torn from the Machina they'd encountered in their journey.
One of the three, Rikku hasn't caught a single fish as of yet. And her patience apparently is at its end. Rikku's on her knees now near the edge, having crawled up to it, both hands gripping the pole... as if waiting for a response.
And waiting.
And waiting...
"... No?"
She asks, as if there were countless fish in the depths just beyond her visual range, and she were in the midst of negotiation to coax them up, and yet she's notably out of funds.
"I get it. I get it. You're making a mockery of my peace offering... well fish. It's your funeral..."
Rikku nods her head as if she were putting on her own show...
"... Yunie..." Rikku suddenly turns to her... her eyes bright, and full of resolve... "... Summon Shiva."
She's definitely probably not serious.
<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.
"You can't bribe fish with junk like that," Paine remarks. Though she, unlike Rikku, has caught a few fish today, it has been a while now. Nonetheless she remains placid. "I'm not sure you could bribe anyone with that, actually," she amends.
Paine's lips twitch a little at Rikku's suggestion. Looking to Yuna, she nudges her with an elbow. "What do you think, Yunie?" she uses the pet name for once, out of irony rather than familiarity. "Shiva might side with the fish."
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Courtesy of Kimahri, Wakka, and Chappu, Yuna might actually be the most skilled fisherwoman of the trio. Line fishing, net fishing, spear fishing, stream fishing, lake fishing, ocean fishing... she's done it all, especially when she was younger. In those halcyon years on Besaid, before she showed other talents; that brief, fragile bubble of time where she was the closest she's ever been to a normal little girl.
So she's sat quietly with her pole. Not a big giver of unsolicited advice, she's endured Rikku's noisemaking politely. Well, that's not true -- she's enjoyed it openly, in her understated way, the little smile of her lips not lesser in integrity for its diminuitive size. It is unspoken but obvious that she values the journey a lot more than the destination here. The fish can wait.
Obligingly making a soft, play-acted 'oof' at Paine's elbow, she considers Rikku's request with mirth sparkling in her eyes, surely mirth enhanced further by Paine's invocation of her pet name.
"Are you sure you don't want Leviathan? Though... he might just eat them all himself... he's a growing boy, you know."
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
"And why not? Fish won't know the difference! They're fish!"
Rikku emphasizes back Paine's way, as she watches Paine nudge Yuna and...
"... she wouldn't!"
Rikku says plaintively, to the idea that Shiva might side against her.
Crawling up closer to Yuna on her knees, her pole still in hand, the line over her shoulder as she sees the mirth in her eyes.
"... Yuuuuniiiee..."
She lets out this small whine at the idea. Until... she makes her offer of another.
"... Can't we negotiate him eating only say a third? I can't bear the thought of Kimahri with a rumbly belly. He'd act all stoic - but in reality he'd be wasting away!"
A beat.
"Also there's no need to get Ixion involved. Nope. He uh... could use some time off!"
Ixion and Rikku have a complicated relationship ever since Luca.
<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.
Paine's hair and presentation may imply a preference for the private company of women, but most of her banter has taken place in the company of male soldiers. They would oblige her as well, if elbowed, but not in such a manner as Yuna. Paine blinks once at the reaction, still not accustomed to Yuna's softer mannerisms. It's nice.
"Still?" Paine asks Yuna laconically, as though Leviathan's continued growth was somehow tasteless. Then she looks to the other cousin.
"What's up with you and Ixion?" she asks Rikku. "Is he your ex?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Yuna's smile is also capable of possessing irony, and thins into her own bit of edginess at Paine's prompt, as though she's beign infected by her. Unlike Paine, though, she is not very good at playing along with jokes. It's a miracle she's come this far, and inevitable when she breaks down and admits apologetically, like it's some sort of surprise position for her to take, "Rikku, I mustn't take all the fish..."
As for Ixion, she replies in perhaps an unexpected way.
"I'm surprised I didn't think of it myself," she says reflectively. It is worrisomely (for Rikku) difficult to tell if she's being serious. "Djose's fayth was a fisherman, you know."
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
Rikku's shoulders slump with a sense of disappointment, though it's obvious she's mostly joking. "I knooooowwww... are you sure we can't just freeze them all grab a few and then... unfreeze the rest?"
It feels like a desperate, but mostly unserious last stand. Rikku isn't exactly good at sitting still. Just ask anyone who has ever served with her on an Al Bhed salvage ship.
Though then Yuna mentions... almost contemplatively...
And Rikku nervously answers, "Didn't think of... the..." She doesn't say it, though Yuna obviously knows she means the Lightning. Until Yuna clarifies that she means that he was a fisherman... and Rikku's voice becomes a tinny higher pitch for a moment. "O-Oh! That's... I didn't realize... that he was so talented."
As she frets over the idea of a lightning strike taking out the fish.
Paine's earlier question though, is so absurd that it actually shocks Rikku out of her fright, and she actually manages to compose herself to confidently spin a yarn Paine's way.
"Oh you know how it is. The two of us met near the Djose shrine and had a whirlwind romance that culminated in a romantic ride over Luca's bay... ultimately however... we decided that we were wrong for each other." Gesturing with her hand, "It was kind of a... It's not you-"
Rikku points to herself while gauging Yuna's reaction out of the corner of her eye, "-it's me kind of thing. You must know how it is!"
Rikku however then gives Paine an almost smug expression, catlike in it's sense of triumph as she drawls, "But heyyyyyy now that you're asking me about my Ex... it's only fair that you spill the beans yourself about your old flames..."
Now it's Rikku that's nudging Yuna with her elbow instead, a conspiratorial look out of the corner of her eye. She knows Yuna is too polite to pry into someone's privacy... but obviously she must be curious about the mysterious woman that joined her crew.
"... right Yunie? It's just common courtesy!"
And so, as a spur of the moment thing... she tries to recruit her, on a mission to discover... more about Paine's history.
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Yuna is a difficult friend to have. Difficult family. She puts everyone through THE WORST.
But she's also the best.
Not a twitch betrays Rikku's fear of lightning to Paine. That's her cousin's secret to tell (or, you know, make completely obvious next time they fight a lightning elemental, whatever). She just listens, earnest as ever, earnestly entertained by the talk of exes, earnestly curious when Rikku deflects to Paine.
She turns her doe-eyed lamps, huge and glistening and innocent, gorgeous green and brilliant blue, squarely upon the latter. Her sweet lips do not utter a single word, but they're parted, just the slightest bit, as though the unspoken question has gently impressed itself on the lower and fuller of the two.
No one expects the Yunish Inquisition.
<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.
Paine reels in her line in a way that somehow expresses her disapproval of Rikku's shenanigans. "Mm," she makes a dubious sound at the tale of Rikku and Ixion's relationship falling apart. As her hook breaches the water with a tinkle, she reels a bit more and pulls it back towards her face to check the bait.
Over the hook, her eyes regard Rikku coolly, though with her that doesn't rule out amusement. "If you're going to go asking questions, stick to useless ones like that," she advises. "I still won't answer, but at least I--"
With Yuna between them, Paine has to look past her to see Rikku. The trouble is, she can't. She's caught point-blank by a heterochromatic halo of sweetness, one which her prior life left her little defense against. She just stares for a moment, her red eyes more ruby than blood on a fine day like this, and reflecting such a fine beseeching. She parts her own lips in response, her tongue behind her front teeth, and she almost even manages a syllable, "thh." As in, "thhat's not fair."
Setting her teeth closed in the prim way one might close a jewelry box, Paine looks back to the water crossly, tossing her hook out to plop down further away than the other two. They've been taking turns like that, slowly reeling in until the closest hook is tossed out to become the farthest.
"I don't know if I have anyone I'd call an old flame. Just some old sparks littered around backwater towns and caravans. Most of them know the first time they see me that I'm not one for sticking around." Paine's eyes seem unaffected as she reels in a little line.
"Most of them," she repeats.
"So," she adds afterwards in an entirely different tone. "Does that earn me a question now? Because that Ixion thing was worthless."
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
Paine's initial reaction is one Rikku nearly responds to. Nearly. It's on the tip of her tongue, that eagerness. That curiosity that seems to try and constantly push and tug at Paine's boundaries to suss out who she is and what she's about.
Rikku's expression becomes nigh gleeful at Yuna's silent curiosity. That silence even more effective than all of her words put together... if Paine's reaction to it is telling.
"Didn't anyone tell you? I never fight fair!"
Rikku grins, as if to take all responsibility for it being unfair away from Yuna, on account of Rikku goading her into it.
Honestly she's a bad influence, but a bad influence might be the best kind of influence here.
Rikku then listens to Paine's talk, and she gets a sense of cynical wisdom out of it. Finding herself smiling despite herself.
"But not all of them."
She points out, the little hole in that wondrous qualifier of 'Most'. As if to push for the idea that maybe, maybe Paine will be sticking around with them.
Then however...
"Whatttt? You wound me...!" Rikku says as she darts her hand at her chest as if Paine were shoving a sword into it, "I'm disappointed in you missy - devaluing what me and my Aeon ex-boyfriend had together."
For as flippant as she was though...
"Sure though, why not? Everyone knows I'm an open book. Ask whatever you'd like!"
It feels like that's true, given how she acts... but is it really always the case? The rest of the Guardians might remember how Rikku acted when they all went to visit the Farplane...
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Yuna is an excellent audience, openly hanging on Paine's every word. It's hard to believe she's the only one of the three in a romance right now. But she hasn't really adjusted her identity to 'in a relationship'. There isn't room in her profile for anything but summoner, really.
So Paine is well-rewarded for her cracked-open door. Yuna is not the least bit smug about her impact on the Guardian; it's like she's somehow innocent of her own effectiveness. Which only makes her more effective. A dangerous girl...
Nodding agreement at the notional fairness of Paine getting a question, she turns that inexorable gaze back onto Rikku. It's like a spotlight. Center stage--!
<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.
Definitions of what makes an audience excellent may vary. Yuna's relationship with Tidus feels so pure and romantic compared to the sordid casualness of the history Paine related. It's a paradox, that few other than Yuna could have wrung that from her, and yet Yuna is one of the few people the confident Paine would have worried about hearing it.
And yet, Paine does not feel judged by her Summoner. Perhaps she's less innocent than Paine thinks, or perhaps she enjoys hearing about 'love' lives regardless of how different than her own they may be.
"I know," Paine agrees about Rikku's open nature. "It's one of your best flaws." She attended to the rest with a straight-man skepticism but no verbal disagreement.
That is the dynamic of the two, isn't it? Paine and Rikku give an appearance of arguing, but they have fallen easily into one another's company as Guardians, in combat and outside of it. Both good at taking what the other dishes out, and possessed of different but not quite opposite senses of mischief, they might almost be called friends by now. What is it that the taciturn Paine would want to know about Rikku's love life?
Paine takes a few moments to stare at a bubble that popped up near her sunken lure, but she relaxes a little when there is no nibble. She looks over to both Rikku and Yuna, actually.
"When I first joined, I pretty much wrote this one off," she says. "You've all been travelling together a while, after all. But I know the dynamics a little better now, and I'm curious."
Paine does not seem shy when she asks the question, fishing rod peacefully in her half-gloved hands. "Somehow, Dame Lulu is single, right?"
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
'Best flaws' is something Rikku owns proudly, with a grin. Rikku isn't even looking at her lure now, though it's theoretically behind her, still in the water, it's line listing a bit on the shore.
Rikku is however, on edge. As she realizes she may be hoisted by her own petard here. 'Ask me anything about my love life' is something she braves confidently, but internally she's flailing a bit on her own inexperience. It's one thing to joke about a theoretical Thunder Unicorn boyfriend... anything else though and she's more sunk than a Blitzballer in a slump.
Paine's relaxation causes her to tense up, though it's hard to see it at the moment, other than the small fidgets as Yuna's spotlight of attention shines down on her...
... as she braces herself for...
"Wait - Lulu?!"
Rikku starts, but instantly seems to start trying to answer, "I mean - I think... someone has an eye on her. And it's complicated because of... you know-! Stuff! Complicated stuff! But-"
Pause. And then a possibility finally occurs to her.
"Wait are you-" She points at Paine, "-asking me-" She points at herself. "-if I have a crush on Lulu!?"
Rikku flusters, embarrassed. "I mean! I really look up to her! She's so together - all grown up. She's like - a goal! Of where I'd like to be five to six years from now. So I have a bit of a girl crush I guess! But it's not like... that."
Another pause.
"Wait, unless you're asking... for... youuuuu?"
Rikku drawls out. She genuinely doesn't have a good enough read on Paine to understand in what way Paine was asking, so it's like she's coming down on the question from all possible angles and implications.
"Paine... did you become Yunie's Guardian just to sweep Lulu off her feet and take her away from us? You homewrecker! I'm surprised at you...! And honestly impressed too!"
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Yuna has her own dynamics with each of Paine and Rikku, and one of them is that she enjoys THEIR dynamic very much. Sometimes she's perfectly happy to be wallflower rather than participant. Sometimes it's amazing to not be the center of attention. Sometimes it's wonderful to just kind of come along for the ride.
But when called upon, she will answer. Inclining her head in acknowledgement of the question, she opens her mouth to reply, and--
RIKKU INTERJECTION!!
Her mouth closes, and, without making any fuss of it, she calmly reels in another fish and deposits it in their shared bucket. *bloop*
Once her cousin is done, she clears her throat. It is too gentle a sound to raise ripples in a teacup, let alone the waters of the lake. But after her long silence, it is, all the same, very noticeable.
"Yes," she confirms gravely. "Lulu is..."
---
Yuna looks at Lulu -- Lulu, here in this horrible place -- and a flush of grief washes over her. She burns hot and tight with shame and misery. Her gratitude and relief at finding her, at being saved, are not LESSENED by her all too keen sense of responsibility, but they cannot come to the forefront, either; it is BECAUSE she loves Lulu so very much that she feels so very badly. Tears the fiends couldn't force her to spend threaten, now. Her head hangs low, almost beneath her shoulders.
"--I'm sorry," she whispers. "I'm -- I'm so sorry, Lulu."
Lulu shakes her head, stepping forward and enwrapping the other woman in a hug, careful of her injuries but tight enough that perhaps Lulu is hanging on, fr a little while.
"I know," she says softly. "I know."
She could tell her 'don't be sorry', she could give her any number of reasons not to be, not least of which is that she promised she would come. But she doesn't; she doesn't try to sweep away that clear emotion of Yuna's so much as... accept it. Yuna will not gladly see her harmed, and that is, for all that it makes her job more difficult, a precious thing too.
The dearest person in either world to Lulu is in her arms for the next few moments. "It's okay," she does say; she is here, at least, they are together. Her voice is slow, deliberate, but not only because it is her way to speak slowly. She stands like that for what feels long (in such a dangerous place) and not long enough (it has been too long since they were together).
For a moment, the imprisonment, the difficulty here, all of it is distant not because Lulu is distant, but because someone else is closer.
"My dearest... Yuna."
---
Yuna swallows, and looks away from Paine and Rikku as she recasts her line with a graceful flick.
"...not alone."
That's not quite 'single,' is it? She worries her lip white, lost in thought and a profound emotion. And rather than try to explain that, she decides to explain something else instead.
"But she has lost someone," she continues. "Many someones, actually..."
For some reason this is not less personal nor less painful. Shoot.
"I think that's why she's..."
Uh oh, Paine, watch out. Those EYES are back.
"...actually, she reminds me a little of you, Paine."
<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.
Paine's eyes narrow a little in innocent confusion, as Rikku proclaims how much complicated stuff is involved in this situation. The dramatic pointing as Rikku has a brilliant (though at least 50 percent wrong) breakthrough and starts explaining her own feelings has Paine following along dutifully. It's nice that she looks up to the black mage so much. Then Rikku pauses.
"I--" Paine begins.
And then Rikku resumes. Paine abides, closing her eyes with a calm sigh that neither confirms nor denies Rikku's wild conspiracy theory. She opens them again afterwards, trying to cut in before Rikku keeps going again.
"I'm not going to take anyone from anyone," she says. "And don't get all impressed already. I'm sure I wouldn't be the first to take that shot and miss."
But when Yuna speaks, her mood could not be more different than Rikku's. Paine is caught with her lower lip open a bit, her hands forgetting the reel for the first time as she watches what forms in the space between Yuna's words. If Yuna were looking at her, she could not bear to gaze back without feeling indiscreet. But as she is not, Paine is able to lower rather than avert her eyes, watching Yuna all as one instead of Yuna's face.
Yuna answers the question only indirectly, and yet more fully than Paine was truly prepared for. When Yuna does lift her eyes, Paine follows suit, her red gaze so similar to that of Yuna's childhood Guardian. It flickers at her observation. What is it that Yuna finds familiar in Paine? Paine does not know her... or Lulu... well enough to answer.
Lowering her rod a little, Paine rests it against her knee. "Should I not?" she asks Yuna plainly, and glances at Rikku as well, at taht. There is a loyalty in her eyes that makes either answer feel safe. "I guess that's my real question." She shrugs one shoulder. "If you'll let me have two."
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
For whatever Rikku bulls through in not letting Paine get a word in... missing entirely some of the more subtle social cues in the situation from both Paine and Yuna.
"Hey - even if you're not - I'd still be impressed as it's impressive! To even... try."
Rikku feels like the majority of people would be cowed into submission without ever even trying.
Though the solemnity in Yuna's voice draws her attention entirely, as if she's stunned, and astounded by it. The very... feeling in Yuna's gentle voice holds gravitas.
"Not..."
Rikku can't get more than that word out. She's not certain what it means, but for once, she feels like it's not her place. Like she's overstepping into a realm that's special, or sacred, and that even if Yuna's speaking of it as she is, that it doesn't feel like an invitation to pry deeper.
"Hu-huuh."
Now it's Rikku's turn to look like she's caught flat-footed, looking at Paine as Yuna's eyes flash again with that look... feeling like Yuna possesses some insight into the mystery new Guardian that she doesn't have.
"I... don't know." Rikku answers Paine with a strange sense of emotional honesty, and uncertainty in this one - as if realizing in this moment she really doesn't know anything about either romance... or Lulu.
And so she looks towards Yuna... for the answers on this one.
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
It's a vulnerable moment. The reverse of Yuna's usual -- so often, in opening herself to everyone else's feelings, she finds it difficult to distinguish them from her own. But this time it's her vulnerability that seems to have opened up the other two girls.
She moves cautiously within this space, which she discovers is not so different from all of them being in the lake together. Even a small movement is magnified by all that weight connecting them. Tidus taught her that. This is nothing like Macalanian waters -- nothing like the pyrefly-lit Kilikan sea, either. It is a sea all their own, just the three of theirs.
Meeting Rikku's eyes first, then Paine's, both girls find themselves reflected within; Rikku's honesty, Paine's loyalty, those ARE Yuna's own. Nothing is ever completely flipped around.
"I could never let you have or not have. That is not up to me at all... and," she is not amused at this acknowledgement, but very earnest in her assessment of the situation, "Not up to you either, not really." Only Lulu can decide that.
She really wants to hide her hands in each other and in her sleeves, but the rod is in the way, and she's too dutiful to use it. So their white-knuckled grip is on display. Whatever she's holding onto so very tightly, though, is not anyone's fate but her own.
"But if you're asking me if I'd like you to..."
She smiles her summoner smile. It isn't a lie, but it is driven by a very specific motive force. It's the smile she smiles when she looks upon places for the very last time.
"I only want everyone's happiness. That's all... I've ever wanted. For Lulu, and for you." She nods at Rikku. "All of you." Back to Paine. "If you found it, if she found it... nothing would bring me more joy."
The great contradiction of Yuna is that the path to everyone's happiness lies directly through their misery. But she, at least, made her peace with that hypocrisy long ago.
Didn't she?
<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.
Paine lifts a hand in ready surrender (the other at least symbolically committed to obtaining fish for Kimahri, still). Unlike Rikku, she isn't assuming her success in this endeavor even if she should undertake it.
The frankness of Yuna's emotion is one of her defining traits, and yet it catches Paine aback every time. She hasn't heard someone wish for her happiness like that since she was a child.
But there's something very sad in how Yuna smiles at her. Paine is no Summoner, but she is a Spiran. A part of her understands.
"I know," she says quietly, inclining her head. She seems abashed at Yuna's investment in her, far more than she had been when asking her initial question. "It would be better for you to want something else. Something easier." Finally taking her pole up again, she reels it a little to make taut a limp line, her eyes briefly subdued. "I don't know about anybody's happiness." A brief pause, and when she continues, her tone is a less dark shade of grey, which is the best one can expect from her.
"All right. I'll take my shot, then. But that's all, you got it?" she scolds both Rikku and Yuna preemptively. "Getting a date with a woman like that isn't as easy as sniping Cactaur."
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
Yuna's words have this, raw feeling to them, like they're cutting in ways she can't even comprehend. Painfully emotionally honest. It hurts listening to them...
And yet Rikku doesn't appear pained even if she is paine-d... as if she'd grown accustomed to that feeling. Yuna doesn't mean to hurt her, or anyone.
It is still quite sad to her cousin.
"You'd have my full support too!" Rikku says cheerfully to Paine, rather than dwelling on that feeling. Or even the idea of Paine not knowing anything of anyone's happiness. The unhappy implications of that one seem to roll off her back as if it were covered with feathers.
Rikku then abruptly stands up... "Maybe it's not easy, but it's like my Dad always used to say..."
Holding the pole to the side, her voice takes on a parody of a masculine voice in that attempted mimicry, which falls short in the literal sense, even if it does not in spirit. "Be bold and just do it! Because you miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take."
Rikku opens her palm abruptly to reveal a grenade. The pin is missing. Her voice however is back to normal.
"Which is why I've decided to take this one!"
With a casual lob over her shoulder, the Grenade sails over her shoulder to break the surface of the pond with a simple plop.
"It was nice knowing you fishies!"
What happens next is likely... painfully predictable.