Sky

Rikku. Auron. To them what is theirs... and probably isn't. She did always like stealing things. A series of one-shots focusing around their unique relationship.

Title: Apple
Theme: Red
Summary: Rikku, on picking up apples, red as overcoats from days long past. It sucks to have what you're trying to move on move with you... in most cases.

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Apple

Okay, okay, okay, so you wanna know something really funny?

(And when I mean really funny, I mean in a sort of smiley way, that sort of hurts a little, too, just a little bit and only a little, but but it's enough-)

I used to remind myself.

I didn't mean to, it just sort of happened. I would see a flower, I would eat a cherry, I would be painting a customized sword (I always did a really good job, too, I was always sort of fascinated with his bracers, myself), I would snatch up an apple and see myself in that shiny, barely-there reflection, and I would see myself in red and it would hurt, a little.

But after a little while, after I nearly killed myself with it, I just kept picking up those apples and it started to fade. My chest wouldn't pound so much, and it started to feel less like there was something small and warped and angry jumping out my throat and more like... well, there wasn't something small and warped and angry jumping out my throat. Points to Rikku for being the best poet ever.

But eventually, eventually I could see a red jacket or balloon and it wouldn't remind me. Sometimes it did, but I could get that image of lights out of my head, that image of a man bursting into a thousand million bajillion balls of light and he didn't even say goodbye, not really, but finally I could shove that out my ear and think of him reprimanding Tidus for hitting a hornet nest with his blitzball again or think of a deep, full and rich laugh, one that never came out often, or teasing him that if he forget to shave, one morning he would wake up and wouldn't be able to find his face behind a mass of grossness facial hair—

Alright, okay. Hold your chocobos, Rikku, I know that's what you're saying. Here. Let me try to backtrack.

See, I cried and cried and cried when Auron, legendary guardian and hero and all of that good stuff that he didn't really like in the first place, died.

Well, not died. The truth is, the guy had died ten years earlier. And you're probably saying, 'how in the world could you be sad about that? Wouldn't he be, like, a zombie?' Which would be kind of cool, actually. I mean, getting turned into a zombie was really lame in a cool way: your skin turned this really gross shade of green that was pretty cool to poke, and - no, anyway, if he had been a zombie, all we'd need was one good Holy Water and he'd be good to go and right as rain. But that wasn't it, because there are never any fiends anymore, much less fiends who can turn you into zombies.

He was dead - well, that's silly. If he still moved, and talked, and ate, and his skin wasn't blue and sagging and being eaten by grossness termites, then I guess you wouldn't call him dead. But he had died. He didn't let himself go, because he still had things to do and miles to walk and he couldn't sleep, not just yet, and it took ten years but he finally let himself rest. But I cried when he let himself go. Which is sort-of the same thing, right?

That was our story. My story. His story, and Yuna's story and Tidus and Wakka's story, and the story of a couple of other people you wouldn't know. Maybe people you'll never meet. And that's fine. But it's sort of not, too, in a little way because why did we survive the Heartless when they couldn't—?

(Story for another time. Nevermind, I won't bother.)

Anyway.

Me 'n Yunie 'n Paine sort of got shrunk in the whole aftermath of the magic combining the worlds. And somehow learned to fly, which is wicked cool.It makes up for the complete and utter lack of human bodies almost. But still not really. But that's okay – don't sweat the small stuff, you know? (Oh, oh! Don't tell me, I know, that's a pun. How hysterically funny. Not that I'm a little sensitive about that subject, never.)

Either way, it was sort of nice that one day, I could just pick up an apple and think, what a nice apple. Or even if I did think this is the exact shade of that stupid red coat, I could totally smile and feel that smile on the inside and out.

(Heeey, you wanna know something else that's sort of funny? I know this is off-topic, but I was just thinking about this - Yunie asked me once how my big red-orange-yellow scarf doesn't choke me to death, 'cause the scarf is like my wings, and I think that's actually a pretty good question—)

My scarf has a little red in it, too.

It's not my favorite color. My favorite color has and always will be yellow and orange, depending on my mood, if I'm hungry, and how sunny it is or the color of my underwear-

But red is my favorite color to look at. And not because of him, because I'm not way weak like that. I just like looking at it, have always liked looking at it, and that's just another incentive. That's all. Really.

Anyway, so the Gullwings have been hanging around Hollow Bas- Radiant Gardens, I mean; it's a nice place. Lots of flowers, way true to its namesake, a little overpowering at times but still real nice. Reminds me of my mama a little, only she never smelt like flowers, and she never had them around either, just maybe the way she smiled and the way her hands braided my hair when I was little (she's gone, by the way, but that was before the Heartless and let's not talk about this).

Anyway, us three Totally Amazing Fairies of Everything Cool have been helping Leon and Aerith and Cid and Yuffie and Merlin out a little, in return for room and board. Not that they would mind, really, just set us up in a closet and we'd be fine. Well, okay, no. I mean, we'd fit just fine, but I'd really rather not live in a closet. Full of cleaning supplies and mops and stuff, just grossness. We're set up in an extra bedroom because Aerith is extra nice and buys us sea-salt ice cream when she isn't helping old man Merlin thinker around with fire spells.

We were there when Sora, whirlwind extraordinare right behind Yuffie, ran into the house. He was wearing all red, everywhere, and that flash of red from the corner of my eye made that one second the very best second in my life, and I turned and it was Sora, and I picked up an apple and it hurt, it hurt bad. I realized my own mistake and all I really wanted to do after that - really wanted to do, like you want to so much you could cry and throw a hissy-fit over it and curl into a big ball of weeping five-year-old - all I wanted was to be me again, the size of Yuffie, and pick up a wrench and some metal and wires and oil and get down and dirty like I've always done, working away to make something amazing with my hands and focus so completely that it would just go away, go away and leave me alone because I'm not ready for this yet—

I don't know why it hit me like that. Like Wakka getting completely KO'd by a pissed-off Lulu (you don't know her? Don't ask me—) or getting completely mauled by a Berserked Tidus with his heaviest sword or getting a pound of bricks dumped on your face. (Scratch that last part. That was so totally meant to sound serious.) I don't know why it hit me hard like all that.

But it did, and I think my face just sort of went real pale or something, because Yuna got all worried all of a sudden and Paine just sort of watched her fuss over me with a little bit of concern but mostly just a raised eyebrow like she knew exactly what made me clutch my mini-fied claw so tight that my knuckles went ghost white and made my palms bleed a little.

Yuna sort of figured, though. I mean, I kept telling her I was fine, but she sort of figured anyway because Yunie is real smart and observational and just sort of has this uncanny ability to know, so when I couldn't get to sleep in my little bed (Aerith had convinced Cid to make us little wooden beds, like the ones you make for dolls – it's sort of insulting but Aerith only wants us to be comfortable, which is real sweet so we don't mind), at one o'clock in the morning Yuna quietly got out of her own little wooden bed and drifted over, elegant and pretty and lovely and a little spunky and everything that is Yuna, and my half-awake mind registered that she had put her hand on top of mine, smiling gently and a little sadly and I didn't - well, I mean, my eyes got some dust in them and - well - I broke down and bawled like a baby. There. I said it.

Yunie is real good about stuff like that, though. So she just held me like I was some retarded fairy-baby and then she started singing.

Some people don't have singing voices. Other people have voices that were made to sing, like that was their Divine Purpose in life or something - guess which one Yunie was? Well, duh, the second, because Yuna is just like that. And sometimes people sing really lame songs that you never remember and don't really care about, but again, not the case. Yuna sang the hymn.

And I loved her more than ever for it.

It's the prettiest song ever, too, I don't care what you say because you don't count because you don't know - a short little hymn, sung by (this is going to sound way weird, promise you won't laugh) the spirits of our ancestors. They sacrificed their souls and everything that comes with being dead (well, if you believe in that kind of stuff - we did, because it was a given and we could see it with our own eyes) to help us. Guide us. Too pretty for words, and I don't think I could describe it in a million years, but there it is. Right on the list of the top ten on any world ever. It's just – when the spirits sang it, it was like they were reaching into you to pull something out and you felt good about it. It was like they were singing for you and only you, and like they were telling you that you are you, that they loved you for you. They loved you.

They had to rest, though. We helped them go back to sleep. And I think we all sort of miss it sometimes, but we still all know the song like – like it's weaved into us like we're weird, half-finished crochet-people, even me. Like it's sort of knitted into what makes me me, you know?

So Yuna singing it for me – that just made me feel better. I'll never hear the Fayth sing again, but it's the memory and being reminded. It just feels good. I dreamt of red.

I dream of that a lot. I dream of yellow and white and orange and purple and red, of singing and machines and things from my life. A lot of the time, though? It's red. I don't know why. But it's still sort of there – like, like I can move on but it sort of moves with me, away from the pain but it's still there. And I don't mind that. (I doubt I'll find any guy this small anyway. Just thought I'd throw that out there.)

So imagine my surprise when Sora comes prancing in, happy as a clam like usual, prancing in to visit and telling us all about how some guy he met who finally got away from Hades, and oh yes, the guy is dressed all in red, name is Auron, have you ever heard of him?

Well, I think I just sort of sat there and it seemed like nothing was really there, you know? Everything was sort of dizzy but not really, just all way unreal and then Yuna came in front of me and timidly waved a hand in front of my eyes, smiling a little unsurely and saying Rikku… are you okay? You're a little pale…

And I just sort of blinked at her. And she said, she said Sora just said… just said he's back. Auron. Auron, Rikku.

And then I think I sort of just spun up and whooped like I was on a machina high, racing through the streets of Bevelle and throwing flash-bombs to make a cool teenage Al Bhed rebel statement to those dorkus Yevonites, Yuna smiling as I buzzed over like a tornado to the boy with chocobo hair to demand he tell me everything, and he just sort of went Oh, you know him?

Like hell I knew him, I practically made out with the guy—

Oh.

You weren't supposed to know that.

…Nevermind. It was sort of a secret. Age difference that would make some people freak a little (like my pops! and Shiva, even if he was the lamest of the lame I really miss him), you know?

But I just sort of laughed and landed on the table, laughed and laughed, laughed so hard that my eyes were streaming.

"Take me," I more or less threatened the poor kid, and he blinked and said, sure, Rikku-boss, only not really. Okay, he said I guess you can come if you want to, Rikku. I think he thought I was a little crazy, maybe. Probably. But I laughed and sort of choked but kept laughing with my swirly green eyes all watery from laughing so hard and hugged him around the neck – couldn't really hug him anywhere else, I hate being small – and I picked up an apple that was red as a coat, and it was all good.

(Oh, right – later? We went to the Underdrome, and he was right there, still red all over with a sword and one dark wood eye, so I walked up to him, cool as you please – who am I kidding? I swooped straight over, barreled all less than thirty-two ounces of me straight into him, grinning so much I thought my teeth would fall out, nabbed him in the nose and then kissed his cheek.)

This is a series of unrelated one-shots (unless specified), taken from the 100 Themes Livejournal community key_blade, all about Auron and Rikku. It's possible. Really. Just look at the FFX section of FF if you don't believe me (notwithstanding that Rikku is, well, not a fairy there). Also: wow, guys, they finally fixed the character listings! There is now... Rikku, Riku Replica, and Riku. Wow. Good job, Square, no comments needed. ;]

Anyway, we'll see where this goes, you crazy kids.

-La Editor