paixaorpg | Talking over coffee [CLOSED]

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Talking over coffee [CLOSED]

Characters: Alphonse Elric, Tidus, and Yuna
Content: Just talking and getting to know one another on Al and Tidus' part.
Setting: A small, non-descript cafe nearest to the central station.
Time: Friday afternoon
Warnings: None... that I can think of! :D

It had been a bit of a walk, but the trio had finally managed to make their way to what looked to be a nice, quaint, little cafe near the Central Station. A bounce in her step and a grin that stretch ear to ear on her face, Yuna had led the way, though she really knew nothing at all about where they could find a place to eat in Paixao, and had luckily stumbled upon the small shop. It looked to be affordable enough, and it wasn't terribly busy either. Hopefully the food would be fairly decent.

They were seated at a corner table, finally in a position to actually start with the getting to know one another. At least... on Tidus and Alphonse's part. Yuna was here to help that to happen. Figuring that the direct approach wouldn't offend either of them, she piped up, eager to get the ball rolling.

"So, who wants to go first? From the looks of things, we've probably all got a lot to say."

[OOC: I hope you guys don't mind me taking the initiative and placing them in a cafe already. Let me know if you want me to edit it or something! I also apologize for the shortness. My brain is failing me.]

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The café Yuna picked out reminded Tidus very much of the one where he'd spent some time with the friends he made from this world. He hadn't seen them in days. They were tough people; they were likely fine on their own, doing whatever they had to do. They were probably tired of all his Yuna talk anyway.

Well, remarkably, Yuna was here. So was her golden-eyed friend Alphonse. He seemed like a nice kid. Tidus wondered what his story was. Well, that's what they were there for. They were there to get a bite to eat and to share stories. He had so much to ask Yuna about, but he would utterly dominate the conversation if he started that. The wiser thing would be to wait until they were together privately sometime. Alphonse would never get a word in edgewise, and he probably knew as little of Spira as Uchiha or Goku had.

Still. Yuna. There. Right there. Something he never thought he'd ever get to see again. It felt like their trek across Spira had happened only yesterday. He had a lot to make up for. Who knew how long he'd been gone. So he'd smile and make the best of the time he'd been given. He hadn't seen any temples or Fayth in his time here, but maybe Yuna had. If the Fayth were here too, his time was very limited. He didn't like going about his business, knowing he was a ticking time bomb, being paranoid about how much time he had left and what to do with it. He'd been through that already. It wasn't the best emotion in the world. Enough was enough.

"Well," he said, looking to Yuna, "our stories are the same in a lot of places, so I think maybe it'd be best for Alphonse to start. I know once I start, I won't be able to stop for a long time. That'd be kinda rude to Alphonse." He smiled a little and looked to the boy. "Up to you."

Al looked about the café eagerly; it was so...so nice! He rarely got the chance to eat out. There wasn't any sort of restaurant out in the country, and Izumi-sensei usually insisted on cooking herself. However, he was at least confident that he would not make a fool of himself, since he did know how to order. And he was too old enough to order for himself, no matter what Brother said!

He looked back and forth between the two as they briefly spoke. Yuna seemed to have shed a bit of her shyness since they'd joined with Tidus, Al thought. He let out a pleased smile, when Tidus looked to him and volunteered him to share first.

"Huh? Me?" he said with suprise. He'd thought that they might want to catch up a bit first. But if they wanted him to, then... "Well, there's not much to say, really. I'm from a place called Resembool in the country Amestris. Resembool is very different from here, it's all farms. I live with just my brother, because...um, because my mother died. But our best friend's granny takes care of us." He let out a breath he'd somehow been holding as he quickly finished the sentence. Best not to think about it too much, to move in a completely different direction.

"We're alchemists, and so was our dad. Brother's really good at it!" Al added proudly. "He's gonna be famous one day! I'm okay at alchemy too, I guess, but Brother is amazing." He paused, reluctant to say more. Before, Dias, Yuna, and he were explaining what they had last been doing before arriving at Paixao, so revealing the secret wasn't so hard. On its own, however, was a different story.

Yuna had heard much of Alphonse's story earlier when they'd conversed during their initial delay. It was still good as an icebreaker for he and Tidus, considering they'd just met a few moments ago. She knew little of alchemy aside from that which she'd seen Rikku dabble with during their pilgrimage, but the young man's version of it seemed decidedly different.

It was hard to keep her eyes of Tidus as Alphonse spoke. Yuna was quite adept at being polite and paying attention to everyone that she needed to, and she didn't ignore a word of the story. Still, it was hard not to just look at him at odd intervals, blinking and blushing a bit when she realized she was probably staring.

He was right there...

"I think the alchemy he refers to is a bit different from the kind you might have seen the Al Bhed use," Yuna piped up, deciding to point that out to Tidus. "I'd like to hear more about it some time. If you don't mind telling, of course."

Tidus listened to Al's story with interest. Resembool, alchemy, and family. Didn't seem too out of the ordinary, all things considered. He'd heard tales from his original friends, too, and those were just as likely. It added to the reality that they were all uprooted from their homelands and were just as lost as he was in this weird world.

Lost, yes, but not alone. Not anymore. He saw the looks Yuna kept giving him, and it was hard to keep a straight face. Smiling like an idiot during Al's introduction probably wasn't the best way to show polite interest. But Yuna was right there, the girl he had had to turn his back on in Spira. They were back together now, against all the odds. He wondered how it was possible that they both ended up in this place together. If this was a place of the dead, like the Farplane, she shouldn't be here. Was he making her up?

And then she was talking to him. Lips were moving, sounds were coming out. Wake up already! "OH! Right," he said, snapping back to reality. "Yeah, it's probably very different." He smiled guiltily. He really should have paid better attention. "Maybe another time you can show us a thing or two about your alchemy, Al. I'd be interested in seeing it," he added enthusiastically.

He wasn't giving off the impression that he was a space case, was he?

"Yeah, okay! If I can get something to write with, I'll show you later," Al replied with a pleased nod. He looked between Yuna and Tidus curiously; they were acting kind of funny and making some strange faces. Was it something he said? He decided not to mention it and continued. "I also want to learn about your world's kind of alchemy, or at least what you know about it."

If he had been pulled here before he and Brother did the transmutation, it would have been perfect. If other worlds had alchemy too, if they all had different kinds of alchemy, then maybe...just maybe one of them had a completely surefire way to bring Mother back to life. Was it too late now? He couldn't remember. Even so, the chance to learn about this was something he could never pass up.

"Ah, so, basically Brother and I have been living like that. It's just a normal life, huh?" Al laughed lightly. "We've been studying hard and were working on a transmutation"--an uneasy smile and a glance at Yuna--"when I arrived in Paixao."

"That's all there is. Who wants to go next?"

Yuna shook her head and laughed.

"You probably don't want me to try to show you anything about our form of alchemy. I know it involves mixing a lot of different elements to create useful tools and potions," she explained. "My cousin, Rikku, could tell you more about that..." Yuna paused and corrected herself. "If she were here, of course."

The ex-summoner again turned to look up at Tidus, wondering where he could possibly want to start with their story. Of course, they possessed different tales up to a point, but from the start of her pilgrimage right up to the end, they'd shared so much. Talking with Dias and Alphonse, Yuna hadn't mentioned many details, finding it far too painful to do so. What involved Tidus... well, she'd let him say what he wanted to.

"I know I told you and Dias briefly about my role as a summoner in my world and of the guardians that helped me on my pilgrimage," she began eyes darting to Alphonse and then back to Tidus. "Tidus was... one of my guardians."

Ah, now this was a story he was very familiar with. Tidus smiled at the familiarity of it. This was a story they could tell together. It hurt in some places, but what good story didn’t? It was pretty much a happy story. He hadn’t been one to allow his story to get too dark. Though… thinking on it… it wasn’t exactly the sunniest of stories either. Yuna with her head held high, walking off confidently towards her death; that was not the stuff of pleasant tales.

But what was happier was how he met Yuna. He’d never forget that scene. It had been enough to stop him in his tracks. Maybe that part he could share with Al without seeming like a total nutcase. His story began well before that, but that was best left til later. Growing up in Zanarkand, the city that had been dead and broken for a thousand years when he met up with Yuna’s team, was an extra detail that could be left out.

“When I met Yuna,” Tidus began, “I was a foreigner. Spira was very new and weird to me, and I was really lost. But I found Yuna and her guardians and decided to join them.” A very simplified version, of course, but he’d be there for hours if he described every little feeling he went through. He smiled at Yuna again. Al could probably tell there was a lot between them. He probably felt like a third wheel. Al was Yuna’s friend, though, so Tidus’d try his best to be more welcoming. He knew what it was like to stand outside of a circle of people and guess at scraps of information. It wasn’t good times.

“Then, I didn’t really get what being a guardian was all about. I didn’t understand the whole pilgrimage thing. I trailed along because these people knew about the world, and even better, they were guarding a pretty girl on a perilous journey.” Tidus laughed a little. “It was cool and interesting and I was there. It was an adventure! Up til then, my only adventures had been playing in blitzball games. They’re awesome but they didn’t exactly involve life and death situations.”

Summoners, a pilgrimage, guardians... Blitzball? If Yuna hadn't told him a little bit about those already (or at least everything but the last one), Al was certain he would be thoroughly confused. As it was, he wasn't sure he completely understood what being a summoner entailed. If Paixao were like a fairytale land out of a picture book, their Spira was even more magical. He began to ask what a "blitzball" was and--

"'Life and death situations'?!"

Al closed his gaping mouth and, blushing slightly, uttered an apology for interrupting. It was, however, rather astonishing to hear. Most people he knew had never been in anything they could call a "life and death situation", and of all people, he'd never expected that kind, demure Yuna would be involved in them.

"What sort of things did you do?" Al asked, eyes wide with admiration. It was beginning to dawn on him why Yuna had guardians--and if Tidus was one of them, he must be very strong.

The look in Yuna's eye was both wistful and sad at the same time as she herself reflected upon the past with a heavy heart. Why she'd needed Guardians... She'd always assumed that it was simply to protect a Summoner from the fiends and aid in passing the trials of each temple. There had been a much darker truth behind all of that, however. The truth that Yevon had concealed for so long... How many people had died because of it? She looked down at her hands, now clenched tightly in her lap.

There were so few things that could make her so... angry and upset. She had refused the ritual, defeated Yunalesca, her own namesake... And then at the end, Tidus had fought to stop Sin for Spira, knowing that he might vanish for good.

Yuna shook her head and looked back up at Alphonse, smiling again weakly. It wouldn't be right to burden him with such truth, nor did she really feel ready to talk about it freely with someone who didn't know.

"I had to travel all across my world to visit several temples where I would acquire the Aeons necessary to finish the journey and defeat Sin, a plague that struck Spira once every ten years. The temples held many trials," the former summoner spoke slowly, eyes drifting down again. "My... Guardians were there to help me through them and to guard me from fiends, creatures that roam the wild places of Spira freely."

Oh, man. The whole ‘life and death’ thing had just created a very serious mood. Not what he had wanted to do. Sure, he’d wanted to relate the seriousness of what they’d had to go through, but there were good times as well.

“I know I made it sound like it was this great, dark journey”–which it had been–“but we had a lot of fun along the way.” Tidus smiled, reliving them in his mind. “I got to see a lot of creatures all over the place. There was this big critter we rode across this big river. And I helped one of Yuna’s other guardians win an important game. I got to see a lot of Spira, too. There were islands and rivers and great big mountains covered in snow. Oh! And the Thunder Plains!” He laughed. “Rikku was terrified of that place. But she made it through okay.”

He looked back at Al. “It was a big, tough journey, yeah, but it didn’t always seem like a lot of work at the time. I used to complain about it lots. Eventually I got used to it.” Tidus shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m glad I stuck it out to the end.”

Al sobered a bit at Yuna's solemn tone. They were both right here and seemed to be fine, so he hadn't thought that there was anything from the past to worry about. The past was over, wasn't it? Unless...had someone really died? He swallowed and decided not to push it, going along with Tidus' lighthearted chatter instead. Maybe that would take her mind off it!

"Even if it was tough, it sounds really amazing, to have travelled around like that," Al replied in earnest. "You must've gotten to see everywhere! Did you really have to fight creatures? Like animals?"

He didn't quite understand why someone would fight an animal; what had the animal done to deserve it? Sure, there was that "monster" that attacked him and Brother, but it wasn't actually a monster--nor an animal, really. He couldn't imagine fighting a cute little rabbit or a cow either. Maybe their Spira was full of really vicious bears!

(Augh, I'm so sorry this is horribly belated. Although exams ended Wednesday, I've been caught up in other stuff and haven't had the chance to sit at my computer for more than a few minutes at a time. In summation...I suck and feel free to lynch me. D:)

Yuna shook her head, forcing herself to perk up as Tidus spoke. As cheerful as he sounded, she still couldn't help but feel horrible about being the very reason he'd...

But that was all in the past now. It wouldn't do to wallow in sorrow and guilt. The past was the past, and there was little either of them could do to change what had happened. Besides, Yuna liked to think that their time together, no matter how brief, had been worth it.

She smiled at him apologetically and turned back to acknowledge Alphonse's reaction with a shake of her head.

"No, we didn't fight animals really. They were monsters called fiends that liked to prey on the living in our world." The ex-summoner folded her hands on her lap. "It was... a memorable journey, though. The best and worst times of my life, really."

There was still much to talk about, but for the time being perhaps finding a place to stay would be for the best. Besides, she didn't really want to continue on this subject for much longer. It wasn't as though she was ashamed of what had happened, but...

"Well, if you all don't mind, I'm a little exhausted. Could we see about finding a place to stay, perhaps?" Yuna asked, hoping she didn't sound as though she were brushing them off or anything.

In all the talk about the past and getting to know Al and the sheer fact that right there was Yuna – he still couldn’t get over that one – Tidus had forgotten about how tired he was. That was, until Yuna brought it up for him. Spending the past few nights in the machina, er, train station hadn’t been the kindest sleep he’d had. He was stiff in his shoulders and legs. He could recall nights camping out in Spira that had treated him better than that. He stifled a yawn, trying not to give into Yuna’s suggestion already.

“You know, that’s a good idea.” Tidus nodded in agreement. “There’s nothing that says we can’t keep talking elsewhere. Thing is, I think we’d have to pool our money in order to stay anywhere. And it might be a long walk, too, to find a cheap place. The Actua Are I stayed at is pretty expensive, so we’ll have to find another hotel.” There was no way he was going to let Yuna and Al sleep in an alleyway or something. Tidus would be fine with it, were he on his own, but not when he had others in his care. Yuna certainly deserved a bed, as did Al undoubtedly. “We could rent a small hotel room somewhere, hopefully. Two single beds. I could sleep on the floor, no problem.”

Ah, Yuna. They had so much to talk about. Tidus was still bursting to ask her a million and one things despite how tired he was. He’d have done it earlier too if it weren’t so rude to Al. Al, as it was, had no idea what most of their talk was about. His curiosity was amusing, though, and he did ask entertaining questions. He seemed trustworthy enough. Maybe he’d be the first one to take Tidus’ story seriously.

Monsters! Al's eyes widened in shock. It seemed quite frightening; no wonder Yuna would be so affected! He envisioned the poor girl being chased by a hoard of snarling, angry bears, complete with red eyes and drooling mouths. Nodding seriously, he replied "I see... How dangerous! All of you must have worked very hard to protect yourselves."

Catching Tidus' yawn, he made a small noise of approval as he quickly covered up his mouth. Al wasn't all that tired--or at least he'd be reluctant to admit it--but the day was getting on, and the sooner the three of them found a place to stay, the better. Especially if this wet and cold weather kept up.

"We should be fine!" Al said encouragingly, though whom he was encouraging he did not know. "It might be a little cramped if it's all of us to one room, but we'll find a good place." He half-stood from the table, his chair scraping against the floor loudly. "Did you want to go right now?"

[I totally drew a picture of Yuna getting chased by bears... But openCanvas crashed just as I finished. )= *will try again later*]

Yuna nodded and stood up along with Alphonse. Finding a place to stay shouldn't be too difficult. She had a little bit of money left over, so a small inn would be just fine by her. Anywhere to rest a bit and take some time to come to terms with everything that was happening.

"Now is fine with me," she agreed, reaching into her pouch and placing some money on the table. Yuna turned then to Tidus, smiling. "Are you ready?"

Tidus blinked up at his two companions. Once their minds were made up, they were really made up! “Okay,” Tidus said brightly, standing up as well. “Ready! Let’s find a decent hotel.” Thank goodness Yuna had enough to cover what they’d spent.

He glanced around the café one last time before turning to go. Dias had told him to be careful, so he’d better be on the lookout. Paixao seemed unthreatening, but they were headed to parts of it he’d never seen before. Best to be safe rather than sorry. With one more smile over his shoulder, he reached for Yuna’s hand. “Together,” he said under his breath. Always together now.

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Talking over coffee [CLOSED]

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