paradisalost | (no subject)

Entry tags:

abarai renji,
rikku

(no subject)

Who: Rikku

albhedpotion and Renji Abarai

i_love_taiyaki
What: Exploration and wandering leads to a chance meeting!
When: Today's date. :P
Where: Some random hall in the castle. Not even sure which floor |D
Rating: PG(-13? For Renji's mouth? :O perhaps)

She'd been here too long already to not know the place by heart. Rikku'd decided that upon waking up that morning. It seemed as obvious and certain and right as the sun shining through her window. So she'd set out that morning to see what she could discover.

For an old castle, it had proved to be quite clean. No cob webs, hardly any dust, polished furnishings and metal--and all without so much as a single maid walking around with a duster. Her wonderment at how the place could possibly stay so clean was answered when she found a ghost on a floor (the fourth, but she'd lost count already by then) carrying around a dish towel. Dogging the phantasm down the hall, Rikku was trying to boggle just how it could hold physical objects and working up the courage when it went through a wall and she couldn't.

So she went along with her explorations, looking for valuables in the drawers of little vanity tables placed for decoration, tilting giant picturesque oil paintings of landscapes in the hope of finding some sort of long-forgotten secret map jammed into the crevice between matting and frame, plucking out candles from their abras, switching them around to see if some secret passageway wouldn't open--but only succeeding in dripping wax on the floors. Puzzled and frustrated, she tried pressing random stones, hoping one might light up with a glyph or two. Hey, it had always worked in the temples; why not a spooky castle with ghosts and a brain?

Rikku had no such luck, obviously, and was feeling a bit discouraged until she encountered a pair of armed suits up on the ninth floor. Going up on tip toes, she lifted the left one's visor in an attempt to peer inside it. It looked like it was empty, but she couldn't see well--maybe it had something valuable in it...? Never mind that the castle had already provided her with plenty of valuables she didn't need to go searching for. She had it taken apart, parts strewn about the floor haphazardly, before fifteen minutes passed. Examining its twin, Rikku wondered just how anyone could wear something like that.

Thirty minutes and some serious struggling later, Rikku was clanking around the ninth floor, trying to get out of the stupid thing. "Euuuuupph, phooie," she moaned tinnily from inside her metal prison as she stiffly waddled about.

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Renji was a rather curious man by nature. He had always liked exploring new areas and getting his hands dirty--that had been half the fun of growing up in the Rukongai; lots of opportunities to blaze new trails. And so when he woke up early and couldn't fall back asleep, he decided to make the best of his time and explore this strange new place. He'd never been in a traditional castle like this before, what with all the stone and iron and so on. It was like something out of an old fairy-tale picture book, and there was something...almost romantically fascinating about it.

Besides, it was haunted--Ino had said so! There were ghosts who worked in this place, and though he had yet to see any of them (they hadn't stopped by the kitchen yesterday), he was dreadfully intrigued. While the lingering worry for his missing friends was still heavy in the back of his mind, Renji figured he'd fret himself into an ulcer if he dwelt on it. They were a strong group of people--he refused to think that Rukia was actually dead. Especially since Ino had known her at one point. Maybe her reiatsu had disappeared because she'd come here, and by the time he was able to follow, she had been sent home.

He'd go with that for now.

He'd spent the last hour or so traipsing about the upper floors of the castle--he'd discovered it was easier to make your way to the top quickly and then work your way back to the ground at your leisure. Thus far all of the floors had been mostly the same. Lots of doors with names on them--nobody he knew so far--lots of candelabras and gothic tapestries...but nothing terribly exciting.

Renji was about to start getting disappointed in the level of amusement this castle had to offer when he heard a peculiar clanking sound echoing through the air on the ninth floor. Odd...it almost sounded like someone was wearing metal boots. Was that normal in this world? Curious, he followed the sound, and something like excited alarm lanced through him when he heard an odd moaning noise accompany it as he drew near.

A-hah! This place was haunted! Not that he didn't believe Ino when she said there were ghosts, but Renji had yet to see any evidence with his own eyes and had been beginning to wonder if it was all some elaborate hoax. Rubbing his palms together, he poked his head around the corner to catch a glimpse of the strange metal ghost--

"Uwaugh!"

--and let out an unbecoming yelp when he was promptly nigh mowed down by a suit of armor.

"What the fucking--?!" he howled, backpedaling frantically and reaching for his sword at his hip.

That was...decidedly not what he'd been expecting.

"Who are you?" he gasped, not really afraid but most assuredly alarmed and a bit wary. A haunted suit of armor? That was different. It didn't appear to have any weapons, but if it was a ghost, who was to say it couldn't conjure some at will? He'd have to be careful and make sure this wasn't a hostile ghost.

Dear God, did Ino know the ninth floor was haunted?? Like really haunted?

Rikku was clanking along, trying to orient herself and unbuckle--unclasp--undo whatever she'd done. Her feet swang jerkily with every step, one arm sort of windmilling at the side. She couldn't really see around her well, what with the slatted visor and her short stature. The suit had been made for someone with probably a good two, maybe three inches on her--she kept having to go up on her tip-toes. However, if she'd had a mirror to look in and see her wooden-soldier-esque flailing, she would have agreed that she did, indeed, look possessed.

Rikku wasn't even aware that she'd nearly mowed someone over--she was fiddling with a catch on the left gauntlet, it was just so hard to see and there was absolutely no way for her to tell if she'd grabbed it with the metal fingers--it wasn't until they screamed that Rikku realized what was happening. She swung around haphazardly with all the grace of a wind-up doll, nearly tripping on her own two feet and a crevice between stones. She caught a glimpse of a guy with wild red hair grabbing for a giant sword. She shrieked and backed up, reaching for her own knives that she realized she couldn't get at. Dratted armor suit!

"Doon't--" she tried to say. Don't hurt me. Don't attack. Don't get in the way, maybe. Rikku wasn't sure, she never got to finish the thought; her armored feet got caught in another stone crevice in mid-back-pedal, and she went down with a clatter that must have sounded terrible on the outside and sounded like the most horrific thunder from the inside. Rikku winced and squirmed, unable to clap her hands to her ears. What a nightmare! Never, ever again! And it hurt. Rikku realized she was also going to be bruised all up and down her backside from that fall. She'd look beaten even if this guy didn't kill her. Which, at the moment, she wasn't too certain about.

"Hey, hey, don't hurt me," she said, waving frantically at him. "I'm not-- I'm just stuck," she tried to explain, starting to pull at the helmet. After struggling a bit, the metal head gave and popped off. Rikku let out a sigh of relief, happy to feel cooler air hit her skin; it was starting to get warm in that stupid suit. She struggled to sit up, not unlike a turtle upended onto its shell, and then peeked at him from over open neck hole--the rim of which was about even with the tip of her nose. "I can't get out," she admitted; even though he couldn't see the pout she'd forced her lips into, her tone made it plenty obvious.

Renji lowered Zabimaru slightly when the haunted suit of armor mewled rather pitifully at him in a distinctly small female voice. But before he really had a chance to ponder what on earth a giant haunted suit of armor was doing with such a tiny girly voice, the entire contraption had stumbled backward with a deafening clatter that could have woken the long-dead.

The armor flailed about on the stone floor a moment, clanking and scraping quite grandiosely, and then the helmet popped off--Augh! Headless ghost!!--and Renji backpedaled, lifting Zabimaru again in a defensive stance. No headless ghost in a suit of armor was going to take down Abarai Renji, Vice-Captain of the Sixth Division!

Then something registered to him. "Wait, stuck?" he echoed, making a face and peering curiously at the armor as it sat up, and a wild mop of honey-blonde hair made itself just ever so slightly visible out of the neck hole, followed by a forehead and a pair of shockingly green eyes.

Renji boggled at the girl in the armor.

"...You're...stuck," he echoed, completely baffled now. His shoulder sagged a bit, and he silently slid Zabimaru back into its saya at his hip. This girl looked quite diminutive for one thing, and the suit of armor appeared cumbersome and...rather imprisoning, as she claimed. This seemed a little too elaborate and contrived to be a trap.

Taking a hesitant step toward the armor, he narrowed his eyes dubiously. Innocuous as this might have been, he wasn't dropping his guard just yet.

"What're you doing in there, anyway?" he asked, giving her an odd look. "I don't think that thing is intended for practical use, you know...?"

Rikku repeated herself. "Yeah, stuck. Y'know, as in... can't get out?" She shifted, planted both hands and knees firmly on the floor and haphazardly got to her feet, clanking all the way. She grunted with the effort, feeling the good extra sixty or so pounds making the effort that much more serious.

Standing up, Rikku finally got a really good look at the guy with the sword. Dressed entirely in a simple black, white lined shirt and pants with his sword strapped to his side, his blazing red hair stood out like.... well, like parrot plumage, or some tropical flower from a forest. Not that he was too likely to appreciate such a nice comparison--he looked and sounded decidedly tough, if not gruff. Oh rhyming words. Great. He's going to make you into Rikku-sausage and you're rhyming. I wonder how his eyebrows grow naturally like that, Rikku wondered, trying not to stare.

"I was--I was exploring." An idea that had more or less made sense not an hour before suddenly seemed very... ill-thought. Lulu liked to call this kind of behavior "spontaneous" when she was feeling kind and patient. A couple times during the course of the pregnancy, though, when Lulu was feeling particularly irritable and Yunie was relating a story particularly fool-hardy, she'd heard mutterings about "shooting from the hip." Thinking on it now that she had the benefit of hind sight, Rikku could see this was probably a pretty good example of what Lulu meant.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," she sputtered. This was... rather embarrassing. For the first time since she'd gotten here, she was a little glad that Yunie and Paine weren't around. Maybe they could have saved her the embarrassment, or else they would have been the ones to find her bumbling and crashing around. "I've worn sorta similar things before," she mumbled, trying to think of a good reason for all of this. "The Dresspheres always did all the work, though. How was I s'posed to know it was going to be this hard?"

Rikku realized she sounded more than a little bit whiny, and winced a bit. Okay, well, it was her own fault. Being a big baby about it wasn't going to help. Not to mention, he still looked like he didn't exactly trust her. Rikku smiled sheepishly and attempted to scratch at the back of her hair with a smooth, metal hand. Not much traction, she noticed. "Uhm. Help me out, mister," she asked again, trying to sound friendly and apologetic without whining. "I wasn't trying to scare you," she added for good measure.

Great. She was staring. Why did everyone have to stare? Yes, his eyebrows were tattooed. Yes, his hair looked like the bastard lovechild of a pineapple and a pomegranate. Why did everyone have to stare?

He regarded her with a quirked eyebrow when she explained she'd merely been exploring, and he actually had to bite back a halfhearted laugh. "Exploring," he echoed. "You mean to tell me you've just blazed trails wearing full gothic armor like that, huh?" he posited, tilting his head with a bemused expression. "I dunno what a Dressphere is, kiddo, but...I think it'd be mostly common sense tellin' you a suit made out of steel won't be too comfy or maneuverable."

Renji blew out a long-suffering sigh and took his hand off Zabimaru's hilt, figuring that this girl was, in the end, just a silly girl who had for some reason thought exploring the ninth floor in a suit of armor would be good times and this wasn't some clever ploy to get him to drop his guard. Besides, it seemed that even if it was the latter, if she did manage to kill him, he would apparently come back in two weeks anyhow, so...all in all, this seemed a win/win situation from his end.

From hers, however... Well...she was stuck in a suit of armor. He put a hand on his chin to appraise the situation as she pleaded for assistance, and then ruffled visibly when she assured him she hadn't been trying to frighten him.

"I wasn't scared!" he insisted sharply, his eyes blazing with sudden indignation. "You just--caught me off-guard! I wasn't expectin' to see no headless suits of armor in this castle, is all!" He scowled rather comically, then lifted a hand to his brow and kneaded it briefly, as if nursing a sudden headache. "--The hell'd you get in that thing, anyhow?" he asked, shaking his head and glancing back up at her.

"A Dressphere is a--well, it's a sphere, and it lets you gain abilities you might not otherwise have, but it also changes your clothes, because, uhm, it's important, I think. And I've worn armor before. Sorta. But it wasn't this difficult." she said, floundering a bit. Actually, she really didn't understand why the clothes needed to change, just that they did. It sort of made sense when you thought about accessories factoring into one's abilities and stamina but--h--"Hey, wait a minute," Rikku warbled.

"My name's not kiddo. It's Rikku. RI-KKU," she pronounced for him carefully, scowling at him briefly from behind the metal lid. "And I'm not a kid. I'm seventeen. I'll be eighteen in two months," she said proudly. Rikku gave him her best "I'm a fierce grown-up too" look. "I just happen to be short, 's all." Rikku wasn't normally too sensitive of this, but he probably had about a good foot on her--it was making her a bit self-conscious. Being stuck in a suit that was evidently too big for her wasn't helping, either.

Rikku backed up when he got angry and started yelling at her, which lead to another stumble-jerk-windmill moment as she lost her balance and struggled to regain it. She just wasn't used to her feet being so big or heavy. How could anyone stand to wear these, anyway? The Dark Knight Dressphere wasn't this bad. Or this ugly, for that matter. What had she been thinking, anyway? "Okay, you weren't frightened, my mistake!"

Rikku couldn't help but mutter mutinously under her breath. "You sure sounded like it though."

Rikku had to think about that one. It was kind of hard. She'd spent so much time struggling to get out of it that the process was kind of boggled in her mind. Had the gauntlet slipped on first, or was there a buckle? The chest mail, she'd had to sort of worm-squirm on the floor to get into it, but it could probably be lifted off, but the arm armor and the shoulder things would probably get in the way, or get caught.... "I... well... It was a process?"

He tilted his head, making a rather comical face. "So it's...a magic ball...that changes your clothes and gives you...superpowers." He just gave her an odd look and shook his head, one hand on his crown. "...Okay, not the strangest thing I've ever heard."

Renji's eyebrows inched toward his hairline when she fiercely corrected him on her name, however, and then he just chuckled, holding up one hand placatingly, the other still on his head.

"Er...sorry then, Rikku," he said. "No offense. I tend to default to 'kiddo' when I dunno somebody's name."

He was about to offer his own when she saw fit to point out that he...well, he had let out a rather unseemly yelp when she'd...startled him. But that was all it was! He certainly hadn't been scared! Renji folded his arms over his chest and grunted.

"Yeah, well, you...startled me," he admitted, rolling his eyes. Then he sighed and pursed his lips, glancing about them in the hallway. Spotting a heavy wooden chest against a far wall, he glanced at Rikku and then made a beckoning motion with one hand.

"All right, come on, then," he grumbled, moving toward the chest and gingerly testing his weight on it. He pointed to the area in front of the box. "'Ere, come...ah...stand here in front'a me and I'll try and pull you outta there."

He wouldn't have been quite tall enough to do it without something to stand on...and having her lie down on the floor in the armor didn't seem conducive--she might cut up her back on the metal inside when he tried to pull her out. As cumbersome as it was probably going to be, this seemed the least painful way to do this.

He gave her a level look as she clanked up to him, and he wagged a finger at her nose, which was now about level with the bottom of his sternum. "I'll get you out of here," he said, "but...I have to recommend you don't try this again." He snorted a laugh, shaking his head. "There's prolly a good percentage of people around here who'd just laugh at your misfortune. You're lucky I'm a nice guy."

He gestured then. "Ah...tuck your arms in up out of the sleeves and stick 'em up over your head," he instructed. "I'll...see if I can't pull you outta there."

Rikku had to admit, put that way, it did sound weird. "Well, yeah, sorta. More like it.... enhances certain... uhm... hidden abilities you couldn't access before? Or just heightens them? Well and... well, no, I guess that's true, it does give you some new stuff." She shrugged but the gesture was probably lost underneath all that metal. "But it doesn't make you invincible, or anything." She was a little surprised that it was such a foreign concept, but then again, the discussion the other day about baseball versus blitzball was pointer enough. Rikku giggled and wrinkled her nose. "No, not when this place can think, huh?" She reached out and tapped a rhythm in the stone, half expecting it to tap a similar rhythm back. Apparently Paradisa had no sense of humor.

He was being a good sport. A bit of a tough guy, maybe, but then again not even Brother would admit to being scared, and even Rikku could make him stammer on a bad day. "I guess I'd be startled if a suit of armor nearly walked over me, too." Actually, come to think of it--she was lucky someone so well adjusted had found her. If some kid had been strolling along, she probably would have frightened the daylights out of them--or, someone with less scruples and a quicker hand, maybe a gun, could have done her some serious damage. She could have been a cheese Rikku. Or a sausage Rikku. Maybe both, if she'd been truly misfortunate.

Rikku responded to his beckoning and waddled up the crate awkwardly. Every bend of a joint--knee, ankle, elbow, shoulder--resulted in a squeaky clank. It was like she needed oil or grease. Too bad she wasn't back home, she could have gotten the thing to work. Heck, if she was back home, she could have installed motors into the thing, little gidgets and gadgets and gizmos and whatnot so the thing would run on its own and really scare the pants off someone.

Rikku stared at him--actually, his wagging finger, and then up at him--as he lectured her. A nice guy? Well, he was being helpful. He was also being kinda cheeky. Better than a stodgy grumpus, but then again, if he was going to tease, well.... Rikku put one foot behind her and sank into a wobbly, clanky, curtsey, spreading nonexistant skirts wide. "And so humble, too," she teased, before easing back into an upright position. It was true that he wasn't laughing at her. Of course, if he'd just laughed at her she might have accidentally stepped on a toe, but well. Better that it didn't come to that. Still, she suspected he might not let her live it down. She might have to find some new dirt on her wild-haired friend. "Come to think of it, Mister. Humble, I still don't know your real name."

Rikku shifted inside the suit, looking from one arm to the next as squirmed and squiggled and tried to her her arms out of their protecting design. It proved to be more difficult than she'd have thought, but metal didn't have any give, of course. Rikku's tongue flicked up and out the corner of her mouth and her eyebrows furrowed in concentration; It was just trying to get it past that one long part that was giving her a problem.... After a long noise of strain, and more false starts than the most beat up, piece of junk machina would give, she finally squirmed her right arm in. With nothing to support them, the arm pieces dangled limply on their hinge, and after a moment of hesitation the lower arm and guantlet dropped off and fell with a clatter. Rikku winced but pursued to free her left arm in a similar fashion, and after what probably amounted to a little less than five minutes of struggle, she had both arms pinioned to her side.

Looking up at him, feeling dubious and more than a little silly, Rikku gave him the nod that she was ready for the next step.

Renji snorted a very amused laugh when she curtsied in the armor. "Oh, don't give me lip, you little punk," he chortled, shaking his head, "or I'll decide the best way to get you outta there is with a can opener." The smarmy look on his face was more than indication enough he was kidding, but he decided that Rikku didn't really know him and she...was quite diminutive, and despite his somewhat intimidating appearance, he really didn't enjoy scaring people most of the time... He grinned and waved a hand dismissively, just in case she thought he was being serious.

"Ah...Renji," he said then, when she asked his name. "Abarai Renji--you can call me Renji." He absently scratched his forehead and grinned awkwardly. "Nice to meet you, I guess," he chortled. "Do you always mow down potential comrades, or should I feel special?"

He watched her squirm in the suit a moment, biting the inside of his lip to keep from cracking up as she struggled, and once she'd finally gotten her arms out of the sleeves of the armor and pinned down at her sides, she looked up at him with wide eyes that awaited further instruction.

"Think you can get your arms up over your head?" he asked, appraising the situation. "I should be able to just...lift you outta there, but I need somethin' to grab." He grinned helplessly. "Can't exactly nab you by the scruff or anything."

Rikku snorted. "Wait till I get out of this thing. I could take ya," she boasted. She had no idea what a can opener looked like, although she did get the gist of the joke. It was so weird, hearing people talk about technology that Spira simply didn't have. Weirder still that there seemed to be bizarre gaps in development--they had no "baseball" which seemed fairly basic according to Yuuri's explanations, but they had Blitzball, which required a magically suspended gigantic glob of water. They didn't have can openers or those cell phone things people were talking about, but they had really fast air ships.

In some ways, it was kind of humbling. Rikku took a certain amount--that is, a great deal--of pride in her life as an Al Bhed. Restoring the old machina to working order, figuring out what they were for and how to use them was her forte. With Sin gone, people were starting to rely and depend and open their minds to the use of machina in ways that no self-respecting Yevonite would have imagined for thousands of years. The growing demand for machina in the world meant that the Al Bhed--and she herself, by extension--had reached new prominence and recognition after spending all of those years being hated. In fact, if you'd asked Rikku a month ago how proud she was to be an Al Bhed on a scale of one to ten, she would have answered about fifteen. So to hear about such simple-sounding gadgets that they'd never even dreamed of being commonly used by all of these foreign worlds... it was slightly humbling, and a topic of immense curiosity for her. Imagine, if she could figure out how to make all of these things that they spoke of! It seemed from what she was hearing that people didn't remember Paradisa once they'd left, but Rikku was resolving to do her best anyway.

Rikku mouthed his name to herself a couple times, a habit she wasn't quite conscious of developing since her arrival. If she repeated their names a few times, it seemed to help her remember it. Not that she'd probably be forgetting Renji's name, not with a face, hair, and attitude like that. She grinned at him, sincere and maybe feeling a bit cheeky herself now. After all, she was apparently a punk--she might as well live up to his expectations. "I dunno, Renji. D'you always scream like a little girl," she teased. She stuck out her tongue at him for good measure, but ended up grinning happily anyway. Teasing or not, this was the most fun Rikku had had in... too long.

Rikku glanced down at the suit of armor and the hole her head was currently peeking out of. "Uhh... are you sure," she asked, unable to keep the doubt out of her voice. "I mean, I'm skinny, but I don't think I'm that skinny. Getting her arms in the hole with her head a the same time would be a tight fight, or so it seemed to her. "You're a big strong guy, right? Can you just... lift it off of me? I'm pretty sure if you can do that, I can get the last of it."

"Oh, you really think so?" he said, arching one decorated eyebrow fiercely. "All right, I accept your challenge." Then he laughed and shook his head. What was with all the girls in this place being feisty little pistols? First Ino, now Rikku--even Elena was a smartass. He couldn't decide if this was assuaging how much he missed Rukia...or making it worse.

His eyebrow remained arched when she sassed him again and stuck her tongue out, and Renji just peered at her a moment, resigned indignation in his gaze.

"You know," he said, "I could just leave you in there..." He pursed his lips. "And I didn't scream like a girl--it was a very manly scream, weren't you listening? It was hardly a scream at all, it was a war cry!" He folded his arms, still eyeballing her sharply, and then sighed.

Then he quirked his mouth to one side. "Oh...yeah I guess I didn't think of that," he admitted when she suggested she wasn't quite skinny enough to squeeze through the neck hole. "Uhm..." He hopped down off the chest and rubbed the corner of his mouth with his thumb in thought, appraising the armor and looking for a decent handhold. "Where's the joint?" he asked. "In the middle here?" He grasped the chestplate of the armor and jostled it a little, looking for the break in the suit.

Ah! There it was. Stepping back and tilting his head, he dusted his palms together and then pressed both hands to either side of the suit.

"On my count, I'm'a lift the torso piece, and you duck, okay?" he said. "One...two..."

On 'three', he hefted the iron torso piece from where it rested atop a ridge on the hips of the suit, and glanced down to make sure Rikku had ducked enough out of the way before swiveling and stepping aside to place the metal suit on the stone floor.

"That thing weighs a ton," he grumbled, poking it with his toe and glancing back at her. "How'd you even move around in it?" He hopped back up onto the chest and looked down at her a moment, still up to her abdomen in the bottom half of the suit. He snorted a laugh--she looked...ridiculous in there, like the top half of her body had been pastede on to the bottom of someone else's.

"'Ere, lemme...get you outta there," he laughed, shaking his head and stooping forward to nab the little blonde around the middle. Easily lifting her from the hulking metal suit, he rose and hoisted her completely free (leaving the legs of the armor to stand there disembodied), then hopped down off the chest and deposited her lightly on the floor.

She was just as diminutive as he'd suspected...a whole head shorter than he was, with a wild mop of honey-blonde hair that was longer than he'd suspected, and brightly decorated with beads and weaves. He planted one hand on the crown of his head and gazed at her a moment, then cracked a helpless grin.

"Well, I gotta say I think I like you better not in the armor," he admitted. "It really did nothing for you."

Rikku gawped at him openly when he threatened to leave her in the suit. "You wouldn't," she said, almost a hundred-percent certain, with only the teeniest note of doubt audible. She tried to plan her fists on her hips, forgetting momentarily they were still trapped in the armor with her. "Y-ow," she said, as her elbows clanked against the sides. Rikku gave him the most threatening look she could manage. "I would follow you. Everywhere. Clanking around in the big thing. Telling everyone what a meanie-face you are? Then you could show everyone your battle cry all the time!" She wondered what kind of sight they'd make, him being nearly a foot taller with wild hair and eyebrows, and her struggling to follow him around, clanking and waddling around in a suit too big and too heavy for her. It would be the strangest mother and duckling-esque picture known to mankind.

Rikku helped to point out the point. "The torso thing--the breast plate, I guess?--it's a different piece of metal than the skirt looking thingie, but they're attached. If you lift one off, they should both come off, and with my arms inside, you shouldn't have any problems. Basically, then all that'll be left are the legs stuff!"

Rikku ducked down like instructed. It wasn't hard, and Renji seemed to lift the armor off with relative ease--even though she could vouch that it was a heavy son of a gun. (There was more than one reason she'd decided to worm-wiggle her way into the thing.) Rikku was only too happy to step out of the way so he could drop it, and so excited to be free of it, that she tried to jump up and down a little bit, which didn't work at all.

"Hey, just because I'm small doesn't mean I'm not strong. Dynamite packs a pretty good punch, too, right?" She made a few fake jabs at his chest boxer-style, as though that would somehow prove her point, before winking and grinning merrily. Actually, it had been a pain in the butt. Probably Rikku was going to have all kinds of sore the next day, and even just thirty more minutes of floundering in that thing and she would have been too worn out to do much more than call pitifully for help like a small child stuck down a well.

Rikku let out a small eep when he hoisted her by her middle. He'd picked her up like she was a small child stuck down a well! Or a cat in a tree. She couldn't help but flush a little, suddenly feeling smaller and sillier than ever. And she hadn't really thought she could feel much sillier than when she was stuck in that suit.

Normally she would have taken the compliment and run with it. If it was Yunie and them, she could have responded with a cocky, silly, and plainly teasing self-indulgent compliment. Paine would roll her eyes and Yunie would laugh at her a little and Brother would call her a dork on the intercom and they'd all go along their merry way. This was, however, a strange boy, she'd just been rescued from an inanimate object, and she was feeling a bit out of sorts and smaller than usual. The best should manage was "Oh, yeah? Well. Thanks. And uhm. I like you better off that box. You're tall enough, y'know?"

He blinked at her when she made a jab at his height, and then folded his arms, peering down at her and not quite sure what to do next.

"Ah...s...so," he said, and lifted a hand to scratch the crown of his head. "Uhm...are you okay?" he asked. Yeah, okay, he could take it in that direction. While Renji was by nature a generally social fellow, he had a bit of a habit of saying the wrong thing or accidentally offending someone without trying. Well, it wasn't really his fault he had a sharp tongue and a short temper. He lifted his eyebrows then, quickly appraising Rikku from above and angling his head.

She was...interesting. With her wild blonde hair and big whorling green eyes and that crooked smirk of hers...Renji had to admit he rather liked her right off the bat. She looked like a wiseass, and she was probably fun to plan shenanigans with.

He stuck one big hand out to shake. "Well now that I can see you and we don't have to talk through sheet-metal," he chuckled, "pleased to meetcha."

Then he glanced at the armor sitting in the middle of the hallway, and jerked a thumb toward it. "Should we...put that back?"

Rikku blinked. "Oh, yeah! I'm absotively posilutely at a hundred ten percent," she said, flashing him a thumbs up and grinning. "Thanks for helping me out! I... probably would have been stuck like that for... uhm... well, a gajillion years if you hadn't come along when you did," she admitted.

Rikku recognized this gesture as the one Yuuri had used the other day. The greeting. Perhaps Renji was from Yuuri's home--Earth, he'd called it, she was pretty sure. Rikku responded with an enthusiastic handshake and grin. "Right! I'm glad to be out of there--it wasn't comfortable," she said, frowning down at the strewn pieces of armor momentarily. Her line of sight passed over his sword, and she pointed at it. "So, do you carry your weapons everywhere, or were you expecting something big and spooky," she asked. Not that she had any room to talk, really, carrying those knives of hers everywhere.

"Ah? You think so?" Rikku looked at the mess she'd made. It was pretty extensive. She shifted restlessly. She really, really didn't want to have to clean up. But someone could get hurt tripping on that if they weren't watching their step. Yunie probably would have said it was the responsible thing to do. Rikku couldn't help but sag a little bit, not really wanting to have to do this. "I guess so," she agreed reluctantly, standing up a leg that had fallen over.

Rikku adjusted her skirt and then fidgeted with her bandana, both of which had gotten jostled around a bit during her stint in the suit. Then she went and rearranged the suit's legs back in their appropriat spot. Really, it had been a dumb idea; she should have known better. She was just lucky that none of her friends were around to lecture her about acting like a little kid. Not that Rikku wanted to grow up--she still had a couple years before she needed to start being responsible and old!--but she couldn't always expect someone to be around to get her out of trouble if she bit off more than she could chew. And, it was weird--there was a feeling in her stomach, not quite shame but a sort of... nervous knot, knowing that Lulu and even Yunie probably would have disapproved. "Uhm... can you do me a favor, and, uh, not tell anyone about this," Rikku said, scuffing the toe of her boot across the floor.

"A gajillion years," he mused; "that long, huh?" He laughed and shook his head. He was impressed by how firm her handshake was; even though she had decidedly small hands, she had a strong grip, and he found himself grinning approvingly.

"Mm? Ah...well, yeah, I do bring my sword with me most of the time," he explained when she inquired. "Less because I'm expecting trouble and more out of force of habit. I'm used to being on-call most of the time, so not carrying Zabimaru with me just don't feel quite right."

Renji grabbed the torso-piece of the suit of armor from where it was placed in the middle of the hallway, and moved to where Rikku had placed its legs against the wall back where they belonged. Easily hefting the chestplate back up onto the legs, he stooped to retrieve the helm and placed it neatly on top. Then he stepped back to admire the work, frowning.

"Wonder if we can put this guy in a silly pose or somethin'," he pondered aloud, and reached out to fiddle with the armor's arms, propping the heavy gauntlets against the hips of the suit and then twisting the helm so it was in something of a triumphant pose. He snickered. "That's a little better."

Then he glanced down at Rikku and made a raspberry sound, waving one hand dismissively. "I ain't the town crier," he assured her. "I don't really know many people here anyhow, so...no worries. Your secret's safe with me." Then he cupped one hand beside his mouth, lifted his eyebrows, and added in a stage whisper, "So long as you don't go making up stories about how I scream like a girl or anything dumb like that, yah?"

Rikku considered what he was saying. "So... you're a soldier? Or a mercenary?" The way he said it made her think of Paine--which was a little silly; they were nothing alike. All the same, it made something twinge and ache a little bit. Was this feeling what they meant when they said "homesick?" She'd never really experienced it before. Even when Home was destroyed, as big a blow as that had been, Rikku had known in truth that home was where the people she loved was, and being with her family and her fellow Guardians had helped to remind her of that and ease the pain of watching the only physical home she'd known become so much rubble in the desert.

Rikku had to laugh at Renji's playful attitude with the armor. That was definitely a lot better, and she had to give him a round of applause. Maybe this whole shennanigan wasn't such a bad thing after all. Embarrassing or not, she'd made a friend, and she had learned what she'd meant to discover. "I guess I can keep your brave battlecry to myself," she said, not bothering to fight the silly grin cracking her attempt at a serious expression.

Rikku glanced at the pieces of the other suit she'd dismantled earlier, picked up the helmet, and tossed it into the air playfully so that it turned end over end before she caught it. She grinned at him impishly and drummed her fingers against the cool metal. "You think if we made his buddy do a handstand he'd stay standing?"

"Ah...sorta?" he said, scratching his head. "More like a...cop, I guess," he clarified. "We make sure the fallen souls get cleansed and lost souls get found and sent off to Soul Society...and the souls of the really wicked people are sent away to Hell... We're basically charged with keeping the peace." he shrugged. "It can be a dangerous job, but at the end of the day, the world'd be an awful scary place without us, I think."

He burst out laughing when she suggested making the other suit of armor do a handstand. "I dunno," he admitted, returning that impish grin. "We'll never know unless we try, though."

Twenty minutes and lots of precarious balancing and careful alignments later, the two suits of armor stood side by side, one with his hands triumphantly on his hips, and the other doing a rather impressive breakdance move.

With a laugh, Renji held one hand out for a low-five.

"Rikku, I think this is the beginning of a very fiendish friendship," he cackled. "I'm in room 618; if you ever need a partner in crime, you just drop on by, okay?"

Man...he'd really missed shenanigating with Rukia like back in the old days. Since she'd been adopted by the Kuchikis, Rukia had had less and less time to goof off, and Renji had missed that almost as much as he'd just missed...her. Maybe Rikku could help him make up for some of those lost pranks over the years...

Rikku understood the basic concept--he was some kind of militia peace force. The talk about souls, though, had her head spinning a bit. So--he guarded... the Farplane? She bit her lip, trying to make sense of it all. Or, whatever their equivalent to the Farplane was where he was from. Rikku couldn't help but feel sort of shocked. She'd never heard Yevonites talk about any place called Hell, but it was clear that it wouldn't be a pleasant place, not if bad people--bad souls--were being kept seperate from everyone else.

"Wow," she mumbled, trying to wrap her brain around it all. "Who'd think it'd be so complicated. I always thought once they were in the Farplane--err, your Soul Society--that'd be it..." Of course, Rikku didn't stop much to think about what happened to the dead once they were gone. In her mind, she'd always sort of thought they came back from wherever it was souls came from, but with what sentience, well... Definitely, the only thing you saw on the Farplane was Pyreflies reacting to your own memories--sympathizing with your heart. They sorta let go of attachments and memories once they crossed over like they were supposed to, unlike the Unsent. But if Renji's story was to be believed--and Rikku didn't think he was lying to her; what reason could he possibly have?--then people remained sort of more or less the way they had been in life, just without the bodies. It was all very confusing.

Rikku wondered if all the souls--that was, if all the souls in as many different worlds as there were--ended up in the same place. Well, save the people who went to Hell, anyway. So much of what she'd assumed to be basic truths and knowledge had changed since her arrival: new worlds, new technology, a different sort of after-life... It was a little scary, but exciting at the same time--kind of like the first time she piloted the Celsius when Brother was distracted. (Boy had he been mad when she got back!) She wondered if he'd seen Sir Auron, and thought about asking. She'd like to hear that Ol' Gristly Grumpus was getting along well. But of course, that raised the question...

"Uhmm... so wait. Are you alive? Or dead?" Rikku looked her new friend up and down several times. He looked alive. But then again, so had Sir Auron. Was he like the unsent then? You really couldn't tell the difference--unless they got upset and all their little Pyreflies got agitated. Or unless they admitted it.

Admiring their hard work, Rikku had to agree with him. Rikku slapped his hand to complete the low-five and regarded the armor with her hands on her hips. "Might need to come back to these guys some day," she murmured. In her mind, she was picturing a series of mechanics that would have the pair patrolling, dancing, cartwheeling maybe. "I think maybe you're on to something," she responded with a grin.

Something about Renji's expression made her think that maybe he was thinking of someone else, someone back home. Well, who wouldn't be? She was, definitely, and probably Yuuri and everyone else did too. She crossed her arms behind her head and wondered aloud, not really thinking that she was prying, "So, are any of your friends here?" It seemed like not everyone was in her situation--Yuuri had a friend from his world, and it seemed that other people, a number of them, had good friends from their worlds here too. Rikku wasn't sure if she should be envious, or not. On the one hand, if they were home and safe, probably didn't even know she was gone. On the other, she sure did miss them. What she wouldn't give to see a familiar face...!

Renji nodded sagely. "Yeah it...is pretty complicated I guess," he admitted. "We have to go through Shinigami Academy for years to become reapers. ...So the afterlife is called the Farplane where you're from? I guess that makes sense; it is kinda like another plane of existence."

He rubbed his chin in thought when she asked just how alive or dead he might have been, and he quirked up one side of his face.

"Ah...well it's kinda hard to explain," he confessed. "I did die, and the souls in Soul Society are dead...sort of. Shinigami are a little different though. Like...I ain't a ghost or nothin'; a shinigami's existence is basically tied to their will to...live, for lack of a better word." He scratched his head. "I guess I'm kinda...undead? Maybe? But without all the spooky zombie connotations." He wagged one finger at her. "I don't eat brains, for one thing."

That was, after all, the deciding factor in who was or was not a zombie, according to those dorky thriller novels Renji got such a kick out of reading.

Then he grinned fiendishly. "Maybe we can rearrange all the armor in the castle," he suggested. It wasn't like they had anything specific to do--they didn't have jobs here, and Renji hadn't felt any Hollow presences... He had a feeling he was going to have a lot of free time to kill. "See how long it takes folks to notice."

He shook his head when she asked if any of his friends were around, though.

"No, I haven't found anyone yet, anyway," he confessed, leaning against the wall. "I can usually sense people's spiritual power, and everyone feels a little different, and conjures a different color scheme in the mind...I haven't found anyone familiar yet." He lifted a brow. "You?"

Rikku hadn't had a formal education at a real school. The Maesters were responsible for that sort of thing, and Yevon hadn't looked too highly on Al Bhed, even their children. So Al Bhed like Rikku and Brother were educated at home. Actually, come to think of it--they probably knew more, especially about Machina, than most Yevonite children had. All of this was changing now, though, thanks to the Eternal Calm. Rikku nodded along anyway; school was school. "Yeah, the Farplane is where spirits go. I don't think they usually keep like... their selves, really. I mean, the substance they're made of--Pyreflies--they'll take the right shape if you think about someone, but..." Rikku scratched her head and laughed. "Actually, I don't know that much about it," she admitted. "You can actually sorta visit the Farplane, you know? It's kinda underground like, near this place called Guadosalem. I've never been myself, but my friends have."

Rikku listened to his explanation, nodding along. "Oh! Huh. Well then... you're just really more like the Unsent," she decided. "Sorta." At any rate, it seemed like a pretty close comparison, and it let her thing about it in simple, familiar terms. After all, the Unsent were beings who remained long after their bodies were gone, retaining their existence only through sheer will power. Some of them were good, others bad, and some just plain neutral--like ordinary folk. She wrinkled her nose at the part about eating brains. "That sounds more like an undead fiend, anyway. Since they don't look too much like more than rotting flesh and they're not so bright, I kinda didn't think you were like that." Rikku considered his role again in his society--as a reaper--and decided that, really, he was something like a cross between a Summoner and the Unsent. And, well, maybe a guardian too, she thought, glancing at his weapon again. His world was a practical place, combining all three possibilities into one useful package.

It was interesting, though, that his world should have zombies, too. "So... you have zombies, then? Are they fiends?" In case she sounded like she was babbling like a mad woman, Rikku pressed on. "See, where I come from--when you die, if you don't make it to the Farplane, and you died unnaturally, you turn into what we call fiends. Monsters, basically." In a way, Rikku kind of hoped that this wasn't the case, even if it would be something their worlds would share. It would be nice to know that, somewhere out there, people were able to live their lives without having to worry about bad things getting them.

Rikku's green eyes got nice and wide. "I--we could!" She pumped her arms in small circles next to her sides, shifting her hips side to side, almost like she was dancing in place in her excitement. "We could make them play patty cake! Or, if there's enough, sit em around a table with a deck of cards, playing a game!" Her mind was off tumbling through nearly a dozen silly ideas of what to do with the quasi-sentries around the castle.

Rikku's mood dropped a little when Renji said no. She'd sort of hoped he would have found someone; it would kind of give her a little hope, too. "No, no one I know," she said. "But, uhm, maybe that's a good thing," she added with a laugh, trying to stay positive. "This place is pretty bizarro, huh? Thinking castles--"losses"--those little black buggie critters that were here a while back!" She twitched and wiggled her fingers to try to simulate the little buggy-humanoids she'd heard someone call Heartless. "Were you here for them? That was a pretty weird thing. I guess stuff like that happens a lot around here--but it's kinda boring right now," she admitted.

As far as he could tell, this 'Farplane' Rikku was talking about was rather like Soul Society, though what in the world a 'pyrefly' was, he had no clue. He had initially supposed perhaps it was like a Hellmoth...but the people in Soul Society weren't made of those.

"Unsent, huh?" he mused, looking thoughtful. He supposed he'd take her word for it. He scratched his head. "Ah...fiends are kinda like what a Hollow is, I guess," he admitted. "When you die, if you don't get sent to Soul Society right away and stay in the human world too long, you run the risk of getting tainted with despair and rage and stuff, and you become a Hollow. It even happens to good people, so it's really kinda sad."

He had to admit he liked the idea of making the suits of armor play cards, and made a mental note to start keeping track of where they all were. Maybe he could even ask the castle for a card table... He just laughed at her enthusiasm, shaking his head. It was nice to see that despite the strange setting and loss of companions, maybe it wouldn't be so hard to keep one's chin up here after all.

"Maybe it is a good thing," he admitted when she noted none of her friends were here either. "Much as I miss Rukia and the gang, I'd hate for them to be trapped here just to keep me company you know?" He sighed and leaned against the wall. "I just hope everybody's all right. I was told that if I get sent back I'd go back to the exact moment I left, so...like time is basically frozen there, but that's a lot to take in. I'm not quite sure what to think..."

Renji shook his head when she mentioned black bug critters though.

"No, I didn't hear nothin' about those guys," he confessed. "If I was brought here to get rid of 'em, nobody told me." He shrugged. "Shinigami ain't exterminators anyhow, dammit," he added, folding his arms with a 'harrumph'. "F'the castle's got bug problems it ain't really my concern."

He frowned at her then, gesturing with one thumb.

"Wanna go find some more armor?" he asked somewhat abruptly then. He suddenly realized that perhaps offending the castle by saying the bug issue wasn't his problem might not have been a good idea. "Whaddya mean 'losses'?" he asked then, pushing away from the wall. "I thought everybody lost somethin' to come here already..."

Rikku blinked and nodded her head enthusiastically. "Yeah! That's exactly how fiends happen. People die when they shouldn't--in a bad way, when they're not ready, and so... if they don't get sent on, they get upset and jealous and they take the forms of monsters. Fiends. And they attack the living. It's... really sad," she admitted, thinking about how many mothers and fathers had probably forgotten their children's faces after death and, in despair and rage, attacked the people they once loved best. "But, that's why we have--had--Summoners, to help send people on. Sorta like you reapers! Only, not dead first," she amended.

Rikku tilted her head to the side. Poor Renji; he seemed pretty bummed out--well, as depressed as she'd ever known him to be in the thirty minutes she'd known him. "Well, everyone seems pretty sure about it, so it must be true," she said, pouring more conviction into her statement than she really felt. "And, plus... well, I mean, you never know. But, I'm sure they're all just fine," she babbled in an attempt to try to reassure him.

Rikku laughed. "I don't think the castle called you here for that," she managed between a fit of giggles. "Not if you missed them entirely. And you must've; no way you coulda been here and not seen them. Buut... they really weren't bugs, y'know. They just looked a little like em." Rikku punched his arm lightly. "I hope you don't kiss your mother with that mouth," she teased him. 'Do reapers have mothers,' she wondered. "Or your girlfriend," she added, trying to soften the blow if in fact she'd misspoken.

"Sure," she chirped, overjoyed to have something to do and someone to do it with and not particularly trying to hide it. As they walked down the hall, Rikku considered his question. "Well, I've heard that, too. Only, I don't know what I lost, honestly," she said. She grinned over her shoulder at him. "It must not have been that important if I don't already know, huh?" She pivoted now so that she could face him as she continued to walk; she'd just have to trust him to tell her if she was getting ready to walk into something. "But, I've heard of people acting... strangely. People losing their right shapes or ages or memories, weird stuff like that. I guess the castle isn't through playing with us."

Renji nodded thoughtfully. Yes, these 'fiends' really did sound a lot like hollows, though Hollows weren't always created by untimely or particularly gruesome deaths. But attacking loved ones? That was right on the ball. It seemed that whatever you called them, and however they came about, the concept of a vengeful spirit was comparable no matter where you were from.

He ventured half a smile when she made a rather obvious attempt to cheer him, and he waved one hand. "Yeah, I'm sure they're fine," he said quietly. "They're all too stubborn to die, and too damn proud to die before me, so..." He shook his head and chuckled. "I'm sure I'll see 'em again."

Shooting Rikku a strange look when she punched his arm, he burst out laughing when she remarked on his language. "I hope you ain't too offended by harsh language," he said through his amusement, "because there's a lot more where that came from..." He scratched his head absently, supposing if it was actually going to make her uncomfortable he could try and curb his foul mouth. It wasn't even a conscious thing most of the time--he just...swore casually all the time.

"I actually haven't seen my mom since I went to Soul Society," he told her then, though there wasn't really any lamentation in his voice. "I...honestly don't even really remember her face; it...seems like forever ago, you know?" And then he chuckled. "I dunno if I ever kissed Ino, though," he said; "apparently we dated last time I was here, but...I don't remember now. It's kinda awkward." A shrug. "So now I guess I'm just focusing on forging new relations."

He looked thoughtful as she turned around to walk backwards. "Yeah, I'm not sure what I lost either," he told her; "I still remember all my friends--Ino gave me a pop quiz. I still have my sword--I lost my wallet, but I don't think that was the castle's fault."

He quickly snapped one arm out and grabbed her shoulder, halting her in her steps as she came within two inches of tripping backward over an uneven stone in the floor. Nudging her a foot to her right, he let go and waved for her to keep walking--backwards if she so chose.

"I'm not so sure I like the idea of the castle playing games with us all the time," he said, something haunted in his eyes, "but...I guess there's no helping it." His expression brightened. "The least we can do to repay it is realign all the armor chi am I right?" he posited then, and there was the crisp sound of genuine jovial laughter as they continued down the hall.

Maybe this wouldn't be so hard after all. He didn't have Rukia, and he didn't have his captain...or his subordinates...or even anyone familiar, really...but if there were more people in this place like Ino and Rikku, Renji supposed he could manage.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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gaaah sorry for my slow, small responses, I'm better than this usually I swear!

no worries, babe. &hearts; this isn't homework. XD

Re: no worries, babe. &hearts; this isn't homework. XD

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