The Spirit and the Grump

[LEO LION]

“Strange that someone would have such valuable items and give them away so easily…” A concerned look was on her face as she watched the fireflies circling the two eggs. A gummi ship couldn’t possibly be as valuable as one of those – what was a gummi ship anyway? Perhaps something made from a gum tree? Was it stable on water? Of course this world didn’t look like it had much water, let alone any wonderfully peaceful forests. She missed Herne dearly. The lack of trees and nature was dwindling her power, lucky for her she was again in possession of her staff, she could never lose that. Her eyes moved back to Cid as he spoke.

He had the chance to ask a spirit anything he wanted, and it was a simple inquiry upon her state of being? She chuckled, a small smile lighting her soft face. “I suppose feeding this mortal body would be a good idea,” she decided. After all, she had discovered pain in these forms, she would discover many other things about portraying her human body – not that she could hide her antlers (or tail if she wanted to be a young child). “Are you a good cool, Uncle Cid?” she asked.

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remarks; -raspberry noise-

[High's .Valentine.]

Good cook? Cid snorted.

It’s amazing he hadn’t killed anyone yet. Maybe it’s a slow process. The kids would find later in their life some form of ailment awaiting them for every meal that they consume. Cid mused over the possibility and found himself staring at the cabinet with a disgusted frown. How horrid of him to think that way. Ah well…of course, later the man would discover the ingenuity of dumping everything available in the fridge into the stew pot.

“It’ll be better if I dun cook anything…” the man muttered, peeking into their pitiful and quite empty. Hopefully, he can find something simple that does not require a fire, pots and pans, and skills in general. The only kind of fire he could play with safely is regarding his work as a mechanic…which yer not anymore, stop thinking about it. So, what does spirits that changes forms and hail from another world eat? Scratching his head, Cid glanced at the young woman again. Despite the overall bizarreness of the situation, there was an apparent calmness that just seemed to gush forth from this individual he had taken in. Calmness and peace he had not felt seemingly for years. The gruff man mustered up a small smile as he pulled out of the cabinet a loaf of stale bread and a depleted bottle of jam. Maybe one of these days, those kids would really leave him for someone who had more training in this kind of ordeal. Not that Cid would mind, at the moment.

"An' who're ye calling uncle? I'm only 26!" The young man grunted. "Ye can't call me uncle until I'm 40." Who knew that, by the time he was 35, people were already calling him gramps. Poor unfortunate Cid. His face was just too mature.

Slicing up piece of bread, Cid proceeded to spread them each with a modest amount of strawberry jam when the sudden crisp crackle of egg bumping against egg startled the man, almost making him drop the butter knife. Heartless? No, his own hatchery seemed to be stirring up a fuss. Glancing at the fireplace out of the corner of his eyes, Highwind sloppily slapped the jam onto the rest of the bread slices before carrying them over the counter Sika was situated on.

“…Those things in the egg…you have any idea what they are?” Images of a giant chicken the size of his house troubled the man as he bit into his sandwich. More sounds of scratching came from inside the eggs. A giant chicken with ultra sharp claws. Maybe an appetite for human flesh too.

“They’re not…ye know…dangerous, are they?” Cid gulped down the dry bread. “Cause I got kids around the house, dun want them gettin’ hurt…” Not that he wants to get hurt himself.

“And that gummi ship I traded, ye know they’re pretty dang valuable around here,” Cid added, a bit miffed with the way Sika had made his handiwork sound so simple. That simple machine held such dreams for the man and his assistant. It was the only working gummi he had that could have had the potential to travel out of Radiant Garden’s atmosphere. It carried him and three precious lives all the way across the Sea of Stars. It was his hope. It was her hope too. It brought them together, then ruined them.

The bread was suddenly too dry for him. Dumping the half eaten sandwich on the counter, the man got up to grab the two a glass of water, an expression of indifference on his face. He gulped down the water before he chokes to death. On bread and unspoken regrets.

[/blockquote]

[LEO LION]

“Well, Cid then, I suppose that I would be the aunt, considering my age.” She chuckled lightly, a firefly resting upon her finger as she gently stroked its wings, and its posterior flickered as though it was speaking to the spirit in a language that only the two could understand. But Sika was watching Cid, not the firefly.

Sika tilted her head, inspecting the bread and jam combination, it smelled sweet and made her stomach growl in grouchy anticipation – a sound that could be the likeness of a grumble that Cid would make. It was then that she realized she wasn’t sure how humans ate, and glanced at Cid who seemed to devour things with the same object that he spoke with. She took a bite, her teeth sinking into the bread, which promptly devoured the moisture in her mouth and clotted her throat by not being chewed properly. She coughed a little, which cleared her throat and managed to swallow the first bite down.

“They’re something miraculous; you will be surprised when they are finally among the rest of us. You have been blessed with a gift that not even the highest amount of money should be able to purchase. Those eggs are a rare and invaluable treasure; their lives will far outlast that of a human. They shouldn’t be dangers, if given the proper care.” Sika marveled at the eggs, completely unperturbed by the scratching and wriggling of the creatures within. “If you raise them, they could be your greatest allies against those beasts.” She was, of course, referring to the Heartless, and who wouldn’t call those things beasts? Even one not knowing of their name or their nature would be able to easily see what they were. Monsters that devoured the very being of another that took what we all treasure and hold dear. It was clear to Sika that the things were not of a higher intellect, they were not of the realm of humans. They were aliens that should not exist among mortals and magic alike.

At least the jam had a pleasing taste, she would’ve rather licked it off the bread… and indeed after a few bites she began doing so. Her pink tongue gathered the sweet nectar of strawberries and drew them into her mouth before she swallowed the semi-liquid structure and it went to settle in her belly.
She was certainly not schooled in the art of being human, even with years of observation and diligence in protecting her forest; humans were more riddles than they were solved. Such peculiar creatures who harbored a strange thing called love, who cried when one’s life was lost in a way that a spirit would cry for a felled tree. And yet they held no apparent significance in the world, they simply existed, they used, they destroyed. To her humans were strange things, things that watched and learned and destroyed for the good of themselves. This didn’t mean she disliked them; no instead she was intrigued and occasionally had revealed herself to them in order to inquire as to why they did as they did. But seeing a spirit in its entire true splendor was too much for many of the humans, and they often left her in fear of losing their lives.
It had taken her a long while before she’d perfected the appearance she now held. The form of a woman, who had actually died in the forest, whose face Sika had stolen and called her own when the unfortunate maid had passed by the hands of a vicious spirit, a spirit who had become a negative source of being, who had become a demon – in all aspects of the word.

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remarks; I almost missed this thread… o___o had no idea you posted.

[High's .Valentine.]

“That gummi ship…” Cid muttered. He should have said I shouldn’t have sold it, but nothing came out of his chapped thin lips after the three simple words. He didn’t know what to say to this strange he had met only a few hours ago. While he had comforted—useless as his efforts were, they were still his best attempts—the three children he had saved, no one had comforted him in return. ‘Spill his heart out in large hot tears’ never crossed his mind. Unlike every Dick, Bob, and Jane one meets on the street, Cid did not deal with grief normally. Was he not normal, then? How fitting that this abnormal man would get to spend the evening with a not so average ‘human’.

Cid Highwind, the man who didn’t even heed the advice of ‘the sky’s the limit’, was restrained by this straightforward emotion. Simple as he was, Cid didn’t understand the simplicity of sadness and tears. It seemed so easy. Scrunch up your eyes, purse your lips, think horrible, lonely thoughts and voila, here comes the waterworks. How was it possible that, his heart heavy and swollen with misery, he could not shed a single tear to ease that burden. Complex indeed. He could only laugh in defeat, and bear with the vicious glares and sour accusation of being ‘heartless’. He’ll just keep telling himself that they were jealous of his iron will.

Handing her the glass of water, Cid hurried to finish his. “So much fer getting the kids a new playmate then.” The man chuckled dryly, commenting on her age, which he suspected was not betrayed by her appearance. Sitting down, his mind suddenly wondered over his charges. Should he be worried about the kids?

…Nah. What with Leon tugging around his oversized gunblade, and Yuffie in all her pseudo ninja-ness, not to mention Aerith’s brains, Cid was sure they’re someplace safe and sound and no doubt happy for now. The kids were smart, probably smarter than Cid was when he was their age, and this experience…well, they had toughened up in the few days here. Leon and Aerith at least. Cid couldn’t be too sure about Yuffie, who has the undying desire to be babied no matter how tough she acted.

This got him to look at Sika. Really look at her. A beautiful young woman who appeared to be in her early twenties, the two were not really far apart in age. The current Cid was only 25. Still a young, brash man. A young man with the heart of an old man who had gotten around to scowling and growling instead of smiling. Maybe that’s why people call him uncle.

“Hmph…” Cid grumbled, resting his elbow on the counter and propped his head up by the chin. Ignorance was bliss apparently. Cid was suddenly feeling uncomfortable with this epiphany of their age difference. Imagine that, he had allowed this young woman to ride on his shoulders…

The eggs crackled in the fireplace, not really helping with the mood.

“I guess I should welcome ye to Traverse Town,” he said, not realizing that Sika know nothing about this gloomy town. There could only be one reason why she’s here. “I dun think yer world fared any better than you would have imagined though, since yer here and all.”

Crackle. He glanced at the eggs. “What are ye going to do now?”

[/blockquote]

[LEO LION]

“I know my world is faring well because I am here, Cid… if it wasn’t I’d be long gone… if Herne dies… well a Spirit is connected to his or her home, once it is gone, so too do they vanish.” Sika sounded quite solemn. She gently traced the intricacies of her staff, the roses, the leaves, the vines, small and dull thorns that were carved with such perfection. Such a treasure could never be recreated, if this broke then she would need to seek a new weapon imbued with the power of her home world, without something to summon her fireflies, she would be utterly useless and without protection. But still, to think of anything like Herne’s destruction… it was a horrible thing indeed.

What are you going to do?

She could ask herself the same question, she smiled and laughed a little, the depression was obvious in her voice. “Isn’t that the question… I don’t know. I have to save my home, my world, if I don’t I’ll die – well spirits don’t really die, but I will cease to exist. And once a spirit is gone…” Sika’s eyes were glassy, as if she was already on her deathbed; as if any second she would simply fade from existence, like she would just disappear within the next few breaths. “I know one thing at least. I must find a way to rid my world of those things. But I’m a useless spirit, I don’t have much strength. I can change my shape, but I rely completely on my fireflies for protection, without them I’d have been gone long before I was able to reach here. It is lucky of me, that even after they are destroyed in battle, they revive themselves and somehow survive.”

The insects fondly fluttered around her, some comfortingly landed in her hair, lighting the gold with their lights, as if to bring hope to the two mourners. “But we all fade in a time, I’ve been alive for a few centuries, I’ve lived long enough I suppose.” the woman sounded chipper now, and suddenly her face seemed to glow with pride and joy – and she’d given him a hint to just how old she really was. She turned her face to Cid, a smudge of jam on the corner of her mouth; even in the shape of a woman she could act very childish. Blissfully unaware she spoke again, posing a question that would perhaps define what their relationship could turn into. “Cid…” She paused for a long while, giving him enough time to say a little before she could cut him off if indeed he did speak, but it was also long enough for her to shyly glance at the ground. “Do you think I could stay with you for a while, like Mr. Darian’s wishes? If it is easier for you I can revert to a child, I have three forms after all and I believe that one would suit you best.” She wasn’t going to add that Darian would think it odd if she was suddenly a full grown adult in a day and still living here with Cid.

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remarks; and it truly begins. (: