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Who: Rikku + friends and Aef family
When: First half of Deceuer
Where: House that Rikku shares with her big sisters Karin and Lightning
What: Fallout from a recent run-in with a naga.
Warnings: Probably none? It's mostly Rikku being in bed and/or sneaking out of it.

0. Coven Infirmary

[For the first day after her fight with a feral Leanne, Rikku spends her time in an infirmary bed doped up on antivenom and other medications. She's not especially great company at this point, but if you really want to have a conversation with a barely-awake, drugged-up teenager go off I guess.]

0.5 Coven

[Confirmed with Leanne's player that 'Rikku convinces Leanne to get Bonded and they go through with it' goes here. :) ]

I. In Rikku's Bedroom

[After a little over a day, the antivenom has completed its work and Rikku is released to homecare with instructions to take it easy. Her shoulder is pretty messed up, after all, and her body needs time to replenish the lost blood.

As the medicine in her system wanes and Rikku becomes more awake and aware, it becomes quickly apparent that she is not a great patient. If you're lucky during your visit, you'll find her in bed where she's supposed to be recuperating. More likely, she's up and around the room trying to find something to do that will keep her from going stir-crazy. The sling her left arm is in makes some movements cumbersome, of course, but that doesn't stop her. Possibilities include redecorating, tinkering with some discarded bit of carpentry or technology, playing with potions, trying to climb out the window for fresh air...

Sorry, she's just like this.]

II. In the House Kitchen

[Of course, the logical conclusion of a stir-crazy patient is breaking out of the bedroom altogether.

Currently, Rikku can be found in the kitchen making herself a snack. She's humming to herself, completely unaware of your approach until it's too late for rushing away and plausible deniability. When she finally does notice, she turns to face you wide-eyed and with a roll hanging out of her mouth.]

Uh... hi?

[Busted.]

III. Wildcard

[hit me up if you have any additional ideas/prompts you want to play!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Oh! It's nice to know she's not the only one with a stupid elemental phobia.]

Did someone hit you with a fire spell when you were a kid? That's what happened to me--my brother was trying to protect me from a fiend and missed. ZAP! Thunder spell to the face.

[She gestures wildly to indicate the impact, then immediately winces. STOP MOVING YOUR SHOULDER RIKKU.

Determined not to call attention to it, she forces herself to rebound and stick to the matter at hand.]

It was awful.

[Ferran's smile fades a bit, but he turns to pour her a cup of tea to distract himself.]

Ah, not... exactly.

[He's got an eye on her after that wince even so, but there's not exactly much he can do after the fact. She's already realized her mistake, anyway.]

But that would definitely do it. [He almost starts on an anecdote about his mother and electrical sockets, but the cold stab in his chest that Rikku might even feel a shadow of keeps his mouth shut. Try again, brain. Focus on her.]

How old was he?

[Rikku does feel a ghost of something, but she quickly brushes it off as probably being concern about her shoulder and therefore doesn't call attention to it. As far as his noncommittal response to her question... well, she'll get him to open up eventually. She knows enough that he's been through Some Stuff and wants to respect his privacy on that front.]

I was six, so he was nine. We were really little, so I don't blame him, but... well, I've been scared of thunder and lightning ever since. I know I should get over it, but it's hard to, you know?

[A lack of hard feelings is definitely a good thing—and while Ferran would be glad to encourage her if she wanted to work past the fear, forgiveness is really the most anyone could ask of her.]

Easier said than done, yeah. [Ferran pours himself a cup of tea as well before putting the pot down, but he holds out Rikku's cup towards her after that.]

There was... [hmm, that's headed into too many details territory.] Someone offered to help with mine, but... [He shrugs helplessly.] I never took the offer, so I'd have no idea where to start, myself.

[GOOD JOB BRUSHING OFF YOUR THERAPIST, FERRAN]

That's too bad. Although I probably wouldn't have taken the offer either.

[As if therapists even exist in Spira. For her part, though, facing the phobia is less about the emotional baggage and more about seriously lightning hurts and is scary. ~~She has emotional baggage from other sources!~~]

We'll figure it out together, I guess. I had promised someone else to help him with his fire phobia while I worked on my phobia, but he left Aefenglom before I had the chance to. But we could!

Oh—m-maybe.

[Even the thought of confronting fire properly has him hesitating. But... if it would help her, then... can he really refuse outright? She seems like she was looking forward to it with this other person, so he'd feel terrible just saying no. Plus, she'll probably have to deal with his fear anyway, now that they're bonded. Out of all his issues, it's the one thing he wouldn't be able to shut out at all.]

If you want... I can at least try to look up some advice, or something.

[Rikku gleefully ignores Ferran's clear hesitation, beaming at him from her bed as she starts in on some banana bread. It's well meaning--sometimes it's better to drag someone along for their own good.

Nevermind that she doesn't appreciate when people do that to her. That's different.]

Great! And I can see what's in the Coven library and stuff.

[That settled, she turns to an important topic: the food.]

This banana bread is really good. Did you make it?

[Nice! A change of subject is just what the doctor ordered. ~~The doctor is Ferran.~~]

Yeah, I'm glad you like it. I've been doing a lot of cooking at home to keep myself occupied...

[He says, as if he hasn't piled more than enough on his plate already between part-time tasks, studying the magical and nonmagical aspects of this world, and getting familiar the inner city, which is a task in itself with his sense of direction. The more time he spends doing and thinking about external things means less time he can think about himself.]

I never realized how tough it could be to find the ingredients I wanted until I came here.

[Thankfully, being spoiled by both wealth and technology back home doesn't keep him from being good at math and research, so he's been decent at budgeting. He didn't want to go too long before paying Rikku back for the money she lent him, either.]

Is there anything you can't do?

[~~Aside from open up, that is.~~

The question is asked with some good-natured teasing--she's known him long enough to know that he's the type to stay busy, so him baking is not really much of a surprise. More than anything, Rikku's impressed by it. Regardless of his reasons, keeping track of so much isn't exactly an easy feat.]

I get what you mean, though. The difference in food took a bit of getting used to. So many things here are so heavy in a way that food back home isn't. [Especially in Bikanel--stews and pies and the like aren't exactly suitable for the desert.]

[Ferran lets out a sheepish chuckle. Overworking himself and overloading his brain is his coping mechanism, which doesn't always work out the best, but it's got it's benefits.]

Plenty, believe me.

[He's interested in hearing about Rikku's culture, though—as concerned as he is about her safety and health for practical reasons, it's nice to be able to learn more about her as a person.]

I guess they make what works best for them... it would be interesting to look into the history. [Says the sometimes-history nerd.] What kinds of things did you eat before?

Uh-huh, okay.

[Rikku doesn't sound convinced, although again it's more playful than accusatory. It's teenage flirting, really.

In response to his question, her expression becomes a bit wistful.]

In the desert we were lucky enough to be able to grow crops almost year-round, so we ate a lot of fresh fruits and veggies. Citrus was a big one because it handles the heat so well. And we'd keep small animals for a source of protein and make soups and stuff.

Aaaaand because we scavenged some nice cooking machina, we could get creative with baking and stuff in ways other people in Spira couldn't. Al Bhed cakes are the best.

[Look, his parents taught him to be humble, okay! But Rikku's explanation is interesting enough to keep him from debating further.]

Cakes with fresh fruit are definitely my favorite, so I believe it. And that does sound lucky, though I don't know much about farming in the first place, much less in the desert. I've never been much of a nature person...

[He is a city boy, through and through. That said, he is a fairy now, so he's been drawn towards things like those plant creatures he has at home and tending to his garden more than he would have been before.]

I mean, I don't know anything about farming either. But there were some of us who were really good at it.

[She would probably kill any plant given to her for lack of remembering it, honestly.]

We Al Bhed have to work together to survive, and that often means we have to specialize. I spent most of my time scavenging and restoring machina before I went with Yunie on her pilgrimage.

Right. That makes sense for any society, honestly...

[It just so happens that Ferran's chosen specialties either disappeared when he got here or are (what he perceives as) useless. Cool! He's curious about this Yunie, though, so his self-depreciating thoughts are set aside for now.]

What kind of pilgrimage was that? [Ferran is not even remotely in the realm of being religious, so he has little idea of what one would entail aside from travel.]

Oh right, you're not from Spira.

[Intellectually, she knows that no one here is. But it's still easy to slip into the familiar and assume that people know what she's talking about. Now she knows how Tidus felt pretty much all the time.]

So where I'm from, there are lots of groups of people but they can be split into two groups: those that believe in Yevon and ones that don't. We Al Bhed are pretty much the only ones that fall into that second category, so the other races in Spira don't really like us much.

[Understatement.]

Also where I'm from, until very recently we had to deal with a giant monster called Sin that would destroy everything in its path and make you crazy if you stayed near it for too long. Yevon's whole deal was that Sin was punishment for past wrongdoings and that people had to atone and atone and atone and eventually it would go away for good. The Al Bhed believed there had to be another way. You can't expect anything to change if you don't change it yourself, you know?

[She pauses, then gives Ferran something of a self-satisfied grin.] We were right, by the way.

Anyway, how Yevonites dealt with Sin in the meantime is they would have summoners, who could summon fayth... uh, spirits of people who sacrificed their souls to become mini-monsters for the good guys, I guess?... go on a pilgrimage to a holy site and defeat Sin. But the summoner would die, and Sin kept coming back anyway. It was an awful way to handle things, but it's what they did.

My cousin, Yuna, who's half Al-Bhed but believed in the Yevon stuff, was one such summoner. I was one of her guardians, and we managed to find a way to defeat Sin once and for all without killing her.

[Rikku gives her bonded a once-over to see how much he's following. It's a lot of information she just dumped on him.]

Did that make sense?

[Luckily for Rikku, Ferran is not only familiar with fantasy tropes, he is one. The explanation serves well enough for him to get the gist of the situation, and he nods along as she continues, although he pauses before responding to her question.]

I guess I can see how desperately people would cling to that kind of thing with a monster like that around... it's easier to hold onto a tradition of false hope than actually face the truth.

[Tradition might not come into it in his personal experiences, but he definitely knows how that is.]

You managed to get through it, though—that's pretty incredible.

"False hope" is exactly what Yunie called it.

[Rikku's so glad she bonded with such a smart ~~and genre savvy~~ boy!]

And I can't take a lot of the credit--it's mostly Yunie and our friend Tidus who got us there. I helped, but without them I don't think we would have been able to do the impossible like we did.

Don't sell yourself short.

[He's sure Rikku is capable of a great deal on her own... even if Ferran himself has some issues with people as young as him being shoved into magical dangerous situations. He wasn't even the oldest of his group back home, but the instinct to worry comes easily to him. He felt responsible.

He's got other thoughts to follow up on, though.]

The Yevonites... they were the ones who said technology was bad, weren't they?

[The first part earns Ferran a small blush and a playful fist to the arm, although Rikku doesn't put in enough force to actually call it a punch. She's not going to argue, but she's also not quite mature enough to simply take the compliment, either.

Besides, his follow up question is the more important thing to answer. Rikku's realizing that it's nice to be able to talk about home like this, especially to someone who's as interested as Ferran seems to be. It helps with the homesickness a bit.]

Yeah, they are. They basically told everyone 'Technology is bad because we say so and it's why Sin happened blah blah blah.' [Her impression of a Yevonite preacher is deep-throated and unflattering.] Basically, they focused on all the bad things technology used to do and not the good things that it can do, you know?

Their loss.

[Ferran responds to that punch with a hand up in mock-surrender, a small grin on his face. She's not the first person to struggle with accepting praise, that's for sure.

Either way, he's certainly glad to talk about her home if she wants to humor his questions; it's a good distraction, and he thinks it might help broaden his horizons, anyway. He needs to be prepared for all sorts of things here.]

Sure... I'll never argue that technology doesn't come with risks, or that people won't use it for terrible things, but... that's the same with anything. It's just a tool. [He shrugs.] It makes a convenient scapegoat, I guess.

That's exactly it. We Al Bhed want to use machina to help Spira, especially since things are always so tough because of Sin and everything. But that's not what Yevon wants to hear.

It's not like we don't know machina can be dangerous. That's how my mom died. But the more we're able to learn about it, the better a tool it is, you know?

[She's almost casual with the mention of her mother's death, since that's just how things are in Spira.]

[The wince in Ferran's expression is only brief, but it's probably not as discreet as he wants.]

Right. That's why you look into making safer things, telling people how to use it the right way, and creating laws to protect them. Not just throwing everything out because you didn't want to put in the work.

[Maybe Rikku's world will start making its way towards that, though, now that Sin is gone. He doesn't know the place well enough to say, but it sounds like a decent possibility.]

I'm definitely glad they don't have that kind of mindset here. Honestly, I... don't think I'd know how to navigate a world without any technology, even with their magic. It's such a big part of where I'm from.

[He could probably survive, but it would be a miserable learning curve. For one, he has an absolutely terrible sense of direction...]

[Rikku catches the wince, but she doesn't press him on it. She's learning to pick her battles, as needling anything out of Ferran can be an Undertaking. Quite frankly, she's not feeling that right about now.

There are more important things to worry about. Like food and company and how much he gets her point of view on this. It's validating!.]

Exactly. I can't say I'm not jealous of how your world just has machina and it's normal, you know? But Spira will get there. I'm sure of it.

[Give it two years. :V ]

And it's been really nice living with all the technology here. I feel like I've learned a lot just by interacting with it and taking some things apart.

[It's almost like when technology was already a huge thing a thousand years ago or whatever, some of that might still be floating around!]

There's certainly a lot to learn. [Not all of it great, in Ferran's opinion, what with the transforming and surviving on a different planet and such—but there are some interesting aspects to focus on.]

Have you tried to build anything yet?

[He's pretty sure with her enthusiasm it's only a matter of time, if she's been taking things apart.]

[Shocking!]

Yeah! I've been doing a bit of tinkering here and there, especially since the moment I leave this room everyone gets on my case about it.

[She digs into her nightstand with her good arm and fishes out a half-finished handheld machina.]

Eventually he'll be able to stab things with this arm here. See?

[She manually moves the hinge to demonstrate.]

[Closed]

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