2023-03-01: Two Cousins, One Heart (And One Thousand Needles)
- Log: Two Cousins, One Heart (And One Thousand Needles)
- Cast: Rikku, Yuna
- Where: Bikanel Island
- Date: March 01, 2023
- Summary: One more heart to heart between the cousins before Sin.
==============================<* Bikanel Island *>============================== Bikanel is an island to the west of the mainland of Spira. It is a large, arid desert with one (singular) oasis, featuring palm trees and a drinkable water source. The rest of it is just desert, desert, and more desert. Some ruins and sand-swept campsites dot the landscape, but other than that - desert. Definitely nothing else here. Why are you here, anyway? Ku yfyo bmayca. BGM: Final Fantasy X - The Burning Sands
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
So Rikku's been busy!
It started with just a little scavenger hunt on the Highroad-! Then to the Calm Lands! Then all over the place there for clues.
Which brought her upon a word, 'Godhand'!
"Why does this thing even have password's on its navigation charts? Were our ancestors really so paranoid?" Rikku said as she punched it into the Fahrenheit's systems.
A hop skip and a jump to Mushroom Rock, a raise of a mirror and! And- "Well it looks awesome!" She says as she brandishes it, "But...! Hmm, it needs something I can't give it!"
-=-=-
Bikkanel desert-! She taps a chest! "Oh hey score! That was easy!"
-=-=-
Bikkanel desert still-! "So, it's taken us a while to find most of the little guys but - it's fine! It's just like a desert salvage run, if the salvage you know, ran away!"
Rikku throws open a treasure chest. A Cactuar inside freezes. Rikku freezes. He twitches. "Robeya. That's your name right? Robeya! It's nice to meetcha! Uh- so yeah, if I could ask you nicely not to-" The Cactuar tilts her direction, "No no no no NO NO!"
Her scream echoes across the desert.
-=-=-
Not long after... Rikku groans on the desert sands that are already blowing hot sand over her, her entire front covered in needles, all over, "Needles..." She groans, "...I hate needles. Yuuunniiiiieeee help...! He turned me into a Rikkupine!"
-=-=-
The end result is an almost accordion like, spiked knuckle. "Aha- don't really know how much help this is going to be against you know, Sin, but-! Maybe it makes a little difference."
She's sitting outside on the outer deck of the Fahrenheit, looking out at Bikkanel for a time, it's easy to imagine there's a lot of sad thoughts going on in her head right now. Almost certainly there are, but she's not showing it.
Before she leans back, puts her palms and the deck and smiles cheerfully at Yuna, "So how are you feeling about it all Yunie? Are you all hyped up for what's coming?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Yuna has gamely accompanied her cousin throughout this journey. She's climbed Mushroom Rock, she's dug in the desert, she's plucked a thousand needles out of poor Rikku. She's seemed... happier, maybe, lately. Like the deep melancholy she brought with her from Zanarkand -- an entirely different flavor than the one she had on her actual death march, where, paradoxically, she was almost more cheerful -- is finally starting to lift. Maybe it's the coalescence of a plan. The Hymn of the Fayth, and the knowledge of what they REALLY have to do to make the spiral of death finally end: defeat Yu Yevon, and summon all the aeons. No one has ever faced Sin with that knowledge.
But... other people have faced Sin before.
And that's on her mind, when Rikku fronts some cheer -- can't con a conman, Yuna is the ninja master of bullshit fronted cheer. She sits down next to her, and looks out at Bikanel too.
"Rikku..." she murmurs, not smiling back; not playing along. At her core, Yuna is an earnest, often solemn person. Perhaps too much so. But at least letting her cousin see her true self is itself an act of love and trust that even now she still only grants a very chosen few.
She leans back alongside her, and, very gently, rests her hand over one of her cousin's, in between them. Their hands are pretty much the same shape and size. It's one of the ways they're most obviously related. Hands really aren't all the same... except when they are.
"I wish... more of our family were there to see it. More of us."
It's rare for her to say 'us', when it comes to the Al Bhed. She's shy about it. Feels unworthy. But it is easiest, when it's just her and Rikku.
"Seymour... did it twice, you know? Here, but... on the Djose shore, too. He encouraged Operation Mi'ihen, knowing it had no chance to succeed. He and the other maesters, not Sin, are really responsible for all those lives lost. The Crusaders... and the Al Bhed."
She exhales.
"I believe in the plan, and in the fayth, and in everyone. But I... I sometimes think, that if we succeed... it makes it even more unfair, that they failed that day. It feels... cruel."
She looks down, then over, directly at Rikku.
"I'm so sorry, Rikku. For everything that's happened."
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
Its true, Yuna is the master of fronted cheer. Rikku can't even argue with that. She may be more effusive in how she presents it, but in the end - presentation doesn't matter if someone can see right through it.
When Yuna says Rikku's name like that, her smile just, thins out a touch, she keeps it but it's like she can sense something different in her tone. The hand comes to rest over hers and...
Rikku's green eyes, with the subtle spirals look at Yuna for a moment, then they close, the smile is gone now. There's a quiet nod, and...
"Yeah... yeah me too." The eyes open back up after a moment, and there's a subtle shift of posture to turn Yuna's way, "It hurts, thinking that he just thought it'd be... better for us. Better for everyone, but maybe us more than most. It makes me mad too but... mostly it hurts."
"It does. It's cruel in the context of what that guy was doing, but, I think every single one of them would be cheering us on. Pushing us to pull off what they couldn't. We Al Bhed, we're survivors. We have to be."
The smile returns in that moment, "It made me happy though that, all those people from Filgaia were on our side for, seeing them off properly. Feeling for us. For all the tragedy since then, we've come a long way. We found out where we came from. We're being acknowledged, treated with respect by a country for the first time in our existence? I think, I think Keyakku... everyone who didn't make it, they'd be happy to see how we're moving forward."
Talking about that, it's quite a shift maybe for someone who says she keeps her memories on the inside. There's a small wistful look, then her eyes meet Yuna as she apologizes, and there's this, small crack of her facade in that moment in the sad look on her face.
"Aw Yunie." She says after a moment, "You shouldn't have to be the one saying, I'm sorry. You're one of us. You're hurting too, you're grieving too..."
She squeezes her hand and gives her a more serious look than usual, "... So I have to be absolutely sure. You don't... blame yourself in any way for that right? You don't feel responsible for it?"
Rikku holds her eyes in this moment, trying to be, very sure of that.
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Yuna listens quietly to Rikku, as she pours herself out a bit. She holds her hand very gently. She bows her head forward at points, in agreement but also to... give them both a little privacy, by letting her hair fall forward between their expressions.
She is sad, and she is thoughtful. Always thinking, about the future and the past.
"I'm really glad... that you feel that way, about the future," she says. "About what's happening. I will always... want to do everything I can. For the Al Bhed. For my family."
Rikku squeezes back, and Yuna straightens, letting her hair fall back so that she can be seen properly. Her blue-green eyes meet her cousin's blue.
"Someone has to say it," she says firmly. "Seymour can't," because he's an insane ghost, "And Yevon never will. But I was part of Yevon. And I was... part of Seymour, in a way. Part of his story, at least. Even if it was because I was trying to stop him, I let him... use me. Use the idea of me, the symbol. I didn't... cause Mi'ihen. Or H-Home." The word catches in her throat. Yuna has such complex ideas of what a 'home' really is.
"But... soon. When we stop Sin. I want to do it for them, too. For everyone who got hurt... on my journey." She almost said 'because of my journey'; she course-corrected midway through the word. "And no one... got hurt more than you, and the Al Bhed. And I think it's important to acknowledge that."
She hangs her head, a little embarrassed, as though she thinks she's said too much.
"What about you? Are you... ready?"
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
"It has a really nice ring to it. Doesn't it?" She says cheerily to Yuna, despite the somberness of the conversation, "Your family. Like you're not just my cousin, or my Dad's niece, or Brother's cousin too - even though that's precious! You're just, a part of something bigger."
Rikku's cheery smile fades, "You deserve a big family looking out for you Yunie. Which is part of why we were doing what we were doing from the start, even if it was wrong-headed."
Rikku leans over to make sure Cid isn't listening in, he STILL might disagree. Yuna though says someone has to say it, and that Yevon won't, and that she was a part of his story, that she was used as the symbol. How she wants to do this all of them, acknowledging her hurt too, how noone got hurt worse than her and the Al Bhed. To hear it put like that, she wants to deny it, for herself at least but...
... she knows on some level she's correct. Rikku's quiet for a while, her eyes close, then when they open again they're shimmering.
"... the Guado did you know, kinda. I'm not sure I'm ready to accept their apology." Rikku says quietly, before she shifts even closer to Yuna, "But if it's important to you, that someone say it- from Yevon, someone that was a part of his story."
Her arms slide around her, in a hug, "I'll accept yours. Because I don't want this feeling like noone has, that you should take responsibility for it... to stay with you Yunie." She says to her quietly, "You have so much on your shoulders already, you shouldn't have to carry that too. Not for them. So-! I'll take it!"
Rikku manages a smile again, "Of course I am! I think... I think becoming your Guardian was the best decision I ever made, because for all the shared blood we have, all your acceptance of me from the start as your cousin. I think it was, somewhere along the way that 'Family' became true for real."
The grip on her hug is fierce, warm, and despite the shimmer of reflected water in her eyes, she's smiling again, "I'm with you all the way Yunie, no matter what. If this journey is where that really became true... then there's nowhere else I'd rather go."
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Yuna nods seriously. Though she does protest, gently, that she's always had some family. "Kimahri and Wakka and Lulu have always been there for me," she points out, with that sort of surprised-it's-really-true, heartfelt awe that she feels about anyone ever loving her. But then, she started looking that way when Rikku talked about her having a big family looking out for her, too.
"And I've... never blamed you, and everyone, for what you did."
When Rikku shifts closer, Yuna shifts closer too. And she brings up her arms to embrace her cousin fully, closely. Twisting her body, she gently rests her forehead against her cousin's.
"Thank you, Rikku," she whispers. "But don't... you don't owe anyone forgiveness, just for my feelings."
This time when Rikku smiles... Yuna smiles too. Even if it's a little bit watery. Lulu isn't here to chide her. And, anyway, Lulu might NOT chide her. Not anymore. She's still a summoner, but she isn't... Spira's hope. Not all by herself.
"I'm so glad you're here. So glad you've been here. So glad that we're... more than even family. More than I ever could have dreamed."
If a couple tears actually escape, maybe Rikku won't say anything. Yuna is content to be quiet for a few moments. Then she asks:
"What about... after?" Even relatively recently it was inconceivable for her to have this kind of conversation. And no one would ever have wanted to have it with her. But her smile, somehow, becomes easier, warmer. Genuinely relishing the topic. "What do you want to do... after Sin?"
After. Sin. It feels like a sunbeam just to say.
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
Rikku looks sheepish as Yuna notes they've always been there for her, and she self-corrects, "A bigger family!"
Though even as she says that, Rikku still is grinning, but looks sheepish, "You know you can a little! It'd be fine! Kidnapping is still kidnapping, even if its for a pretty good reason! I think I banged up Lulu and Tidus pretty hard with that Machina I was using."
She's told she doesn't owe anyone forgiveness, "I know I don't owe it, I want to give it. Look at it as a gift to you. I think that's what forgiveness often is right? Sometimes its a gift people give to themselves."
And if it puts Yuna even one step closer to giving it to herself for any perceived responsibility, it's one she'll gladly give.
"More than I ever could have dreamed too." As she echoes her feelings, before, that question is asked, "I! Think I'd like to fly!" Rikku tells Yuna, "Dad is putting all kinds of pressure on me to settle down and get married but-"
She checks again for the spectre of Cid, since he isn't there, there's a cheery, "-Nope! We have such a cool airship, I'd like to go everywhere, see everything. Go on some big adventures together!"
She says as she shifts back to looking excitedly to Yuna, "Nothing so grand like, beating Sin. Just, having fun! Living our best lives!"
She's got on the biggest grin, "That'll be something real new for people in Spira after Sin is gone, don't you think? Just getting the chance to live their lives the way they want without Sin looming over them!"
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
"Okay," Yuna says, of forgiveness. "Well... I forgive you too. For all the kidnapping." It did happen, like, three or four times. Even if Rikku wasn't involved after the first. "And Cid. And Brother."
Her smile turns a little lopsided at word of Cid and marriage. She, of course, has no fathers to speak of; surely Auron would never pressure her in that way. And Wakka's more like a big brother, also not too excited for her to settle down. Kimahri himself is more likely to be the one to get married... she senses, already, that he'll return to the ronso after this, to help rebuild.
But that slightly ironic twist to her lips clears back up, like clouds evaporating into a blindingly blue sky, as Rikku describes her alternative lifestyle.
"I do think. It sounds... wonderful. I can't wait to see what everyone will be like. And I know that you'll have the best time of all."
She finally lets go and sits back again.
"You really are the merriest, Rikku," she reflects. Not just the fake-merriest. "I can't wait to see you take the world of fun by storm."