[ooc: augh I'm sorry it took me forever DX I suck!]
Kairi was waiting at the dock, where she said she would be. However, the girl wasn't paying much attention, preoccupied with both a letter in her hands and an event that happened earlier that day. The sun's rays glinted on a ring on her finger, which came with the letter.
"... Heh, I guess I can thank you in person, Sora," Kairi smiled to herself, hugging the letter like it was a precious artifact, and in a way it was. It had been months since she recieved word from her friends. She didn't even care if Sora or Riku had sent a short two word letter that consisted of "Hi, Kairi!", that would have been enough to lift her spirits for weeks. Anything to show she was not forgotten.
The other thing bothering her? Well...
Kairi, surprisingly, already had a ready made excuse when her father caught her trying to sneak out. Caught wasn't the word, more like choosing to inform her about the letter from Sora at a very inappropriate time.
"Kairi, wake up, you got a pack- ... Oh, where are you going?" The mayor asked in puzzlement as he saw his daughter getting dressed and ready to go out. What was unusual about it was because, even when she was training, Kairi was barely awake at 6 in the morning, much less dressed and tying her shoes.
"Oh, um... I left some clothes at the play island when me and Tidus went there a couple of weeks ago. I just remembered when I was looking through my dresser the other night," Kairi hastily explained, hopping to get the other shoe on as quickly as possible. "Um, I wanted to go really early because I didn't want to row out in the sun," Well, that was true. Kairi had to do multiple trips, she wanted to get her things before the sun fully rose in the sky. She could have gone earlier, when the sun wasn't even out, but navigating the boat at night was not one of her favorite things to do, especially when half asleep.
The explanation seemed to satisfy her father, but he continued to stare curiously. For a moment, she wondered if he really bought it. But he did, smiling and shaking his head. He stepped in the room, holding a small brown package in his hands with a letter tied to it.
"You got a package. From Sora," He told her cheerfully, noting the shocked and surprised expression on her face. "I just thought you'd like to go through it as soon as possible, but you're already awake... Well, I won't keep you."
He handed the package to Kairi, but as she reached forward to accept it, he leaned forward slightly.
"I left five thousand gil on the counter. Good luck and write to me if you ever need anything."
Without a word, he straightened up and left, leaving the now stupified Kairi in her room, holding the package wordlessly.
She sighed, shaking her head. It was almost noon now, and Kairi was glad she retrieved her bags earlier because it was getting steadily hotter now. But she could wait a little longer before seeking out some shade.
She was afraid if she decided to move, she might end up having second thoughts. No, she needed to keep her eyes to the horizon; there were better things out there, and her father obviously supported her decision to see them.
It wasn't very long before Tidus found his red-haired friend, though it did take just a tiny bit longer than he would have liked. It was the backpack's fault - what did the old man put in the thing anyway, bricks?!
He shifted the bag to his other shoulder before greeting her and dropping the thing into the sand completely to get the weight off of his back. He babbled a bit, about how great the trip was going to be, not quite registering that she seemed distracted. Though in his defence, he was rather distracted himself. He was jittery, anxious, excited, and so many other things all wrapped up and ready to explode and staying still was sort of hard and -
Energy levels were... rather high, to say the least. But even so, he was doing a decent enough job of containing then. For now.
".... so close! I wonder how Auron found out?"
His babbling ceased, and he calmed down significantly, almost seeming to notice Kairi for the first time.
"You ready?" It was a dumb question, and he knew it. But. Were they really going? Were they really leaving the island? It was... sobering. It was energy-inducing. It was.. Okay. He didn't really know what it was.
Hearing a thud on the sand next to her, Kairi turned her head and grinned. Ah, that's where Tidus was. He packed rather heavily, and he soon explained why, at great length and detail. Nevertheless, she was a bit distracted, only half-listening (partially because Tidus was so fidgity that it was getting hard to concentrate on his words), but she got the jist of it. Actually, she was surprised to know that Auron found out as well.
At Tidus's question, Kairi nodded her head and looked back to the horizon. She looked quite somber, but there was conviction in her voice when she answered.
"Yeah. I'm ready."
Getting up, Kairi brushed the sand off herself as she saw the incoming ferry in the distance. Well, this was it...
"Auron found you out too? So did my dad... I think," Kairi explained, grinning. They couldn't put anything past their 'parents', it seemed. "I guess we weren't subtle enough."
Tidus stared out at the now incoming ferry, the jitters now returning, though they were thankfully mostly internal. Was this really happening, or was it just some sort of dream? At the moment, he was having trouble fathoming the fact that they were actually leaving.
"...I wonder how they found out?" he mused aloud. It wasn't like they had announced it or anything, after all. Maybe it was all that training? But that wasn't such a big deal. Lots of kids did that on the islands. Then again, nobody seemed that serious about it. Well, except maybe Sora and Riku, but they were -
...Oh. Whoops.
After the slight pause, something hit him, though a little late. "Wait, your dad actually knew?" He was more than a little surprised. After all, the whole point of the whole secrecy thing was so that he wouldn't find out. They must have been pretty bad at keeping secrets, huh? Geez. But she was still there, so that must have meant... "So, that means it's okay then, right?"
Oh man. That was a little awkward.
There was the sound of a bell as the ferry docked, providing a proper distraction. "Looks like it's time to leave," Tidus provided, rubbing his head. It was just one of those moments where pointing out the obvious seemed like the thing to do.
He retrieved his bag from the sand, and shuffled out the tickets. Might as well get this over with, right? Any more waiting and he just might have to explode or something. He flashed Kairi a grin before running off to hand the boatsman the required admission.
This was it. They were finally getting out of there!
"Yeah, if they let us go... it must be OK," Kairi agreed, standing up and grabbing her bags as the boat drew closer. She managed to sling them all on her somehow so that she could trudge her way to the ferryman, smiling as he showed the tickets. They really were... on their way, weren't they?
They were finally leaving!
"I can't believe it. I still can't believe it," Kairi muttered as they walked along, boarding the boat. She took a good long look at the interior. Wow... she had seen boats before, but not boats like these. It looked sort of like a house inside here! She felt almost ashamed for gawking; she had grew up around boats all of her life, what was there to look at?!
"Wow, so this is what a ferry looks like..." She could only guess the netting above the seats was for luggage (considering the few other passangers had theirs up there) and gladly relieved herself of her burden. Ahhh, she could feel her shoulders again!
"Oh! I got a letter from Sora!" Kairi grinned, reaching into one of her pouches and fishing out the neatly folded paper. "Do you want to read it? Sora blew something up. And he even has a picture of him and Riku."
Sora and Riku both looked rather good in their uniforms. Kairi idly wondered if she would have one like that. Well, probably not since she doubted she could get into SOLDIER at all.
Tidus was mostly silent as they walked on, taking in everything around. He'd never actually been on a ferry either, so it was a little awe-inspiring. "Guess there's no turning back now," he said, mostly to himself. But there was no doubt in his mind - this was going to be great!
Rather then put his things up on the net, Tidus just slumped his bag on his seat. Really, there was no way he was sitting right now. Not until he had a look around, at the very least.
"Sora blew something up?" he repeated with a laugh. "That's just great. Now I have to read it!" He took the offered paper and skimmed it over, unable to resist snickering at a few key parts. Same old Sora, it sounded like. That was good to know.
"Hey, you wanna go up to the top deck?" he suggested out of the blue, after handing the letter back. "I bet the view is great!"
Kairi was tempted to read along by looking over Tidus's shoulder, but she was always annoyed by that. Maybe he was too. It didn't thank him very long to read it though, and she couldn't help but smile along when he snickered. Yes, same old Sora. And same old Riku too, it seemed.
"The top deck? Sure!" Kairi nodded, taking the letter back and carefully folding it back to her pouch. She really hoped these things were waterproof. Just in case. "Maybe once we get far away enough we can see the whole island..."
When they reached the top deck, Tidus, naturally, ran off to the end so he could look out over the water. The ocean looked even prettier from here then it did on the islands - all the shades of blue and green and turquoise were a lot easier to see. You could even spot schools of fish swimming along.
There was a binocular device there to make observing easier, bad sadly, it cost five gil. He didn't want to have to pay. Luckily though, there was a man who had brought his own pair. Score! Free on-looking. Without a second thought, he snatched them out of the guy's hands.
"Hey! Give those back!" He sounded more surprised than displeased, and that only manged to egg Tidus on.
"Relax! I'm just borrowing them!"
One foot propped up against the railing, with one hand he enjoyed the clearer view, and with the other, he kept the man trying to take back his binoculars away. That was much better. Come to think of it, if they worked so well on the ocean, why not on the ship? Looking around the area couldn't be so bad. And hey, those were one nice pair of -
Ohcrapshewaslookingthatway. Maybe it was time to give the guy his binoculars back. Yeah. That would be good. He tossed them back, and the man, not really expecting it, stumbled a bit on the catch. Oh well. He hopped back down from the railing, turning to face Kairi.
"Nice view, huh?" he provided, unconsciously rubbing the back of his head. Apparently, energy + Tidus equated to bad. Not that he was going to admit that...
Kairi took in a breath of awe as she saw the ocean looming before them. Tidus was right, it was a beautiful view. With the sun at the top of the sky, the ocean was sparkling and glittering all the way to the horizon, and she could see their island in the background, lush and green.
She felt somewhat sad, but was mostly energized. She couldn't wait to see the mainland on the other side of the horizon.
"Tidus!" Kairi exclaimed as she saw her friend get a little too excited, grabbing some poor guy's binoculars and using them for himself. She was tempted to help the guy out but she knew Tidus would never steal or break it. He was truthfully only borrowing it. Still, she gave an apology to the man when Tidus finally gave them back.
"I think you were enjoying the view a little too much," Kairi chuckled, giving a sideways glance to the "view" in question. That poor woman. She sighed and leaned her back against the railing. "But you're right, it's way better than what we find on the Islands. I could stay up here forev-"
BANG
"AHHH!" Kairi stumbled and gripped on the railing for deer life as she nearly fell backwards. One look down on the now turbulant waters revealed a massive fin returning under the blue waves.
Tidus could only give a sheepish laugh in response. Okay, that that hadn't been the brightest idea. It was so worth it, though.
He was about to replay, when there was suddenly a very loud, metallic sound and he suddenly found himself stumbling against the rail. "Woah!" Hoo boy. That.. was not good.
Then he had to go and look into the water again. That fin.. what the a whale?! And since when did they get to be so... BIG?
There was a buzzing sound, and then over the intercom, there was the announcement, "Ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain speaking. There was no damage to the boat from that... er... minor disturbance. I repeat. There was no damage to the boat from that minor disturbance. Please stay calm. Thank you."
Minor disturbance!? They just got rammed by a giant whale. But then, the captain didn't seem particularly disturbed, so maybe it wasn't that big of a deal? They appeared to be altering the course, at least, assumably to navigate around the massive sea creature (though he sort of had to wonder why they didn't notice something that big BEFORE they ran into it).
Kairi shared Tidus's opinion on the captain's announcement; that was no minor disturbance! She leaned over the railing again, gripping tightly in case it came back. She knew she probably shouldn't be doing that in the event that... whale DID come back, but she was curious!
"I didn't know whales could get that big... and since when did they attack ships?" Kairi wondered out loud as she watched the large ripples finally flatten out back into the relatively calm sea water.
"Arr, lass, that be the whale they call... Monstro."
"H-Huh?" Kairi turned around to face the stranger who had informed her of the whale's name. He was the perfect caricature of a crazy old sailor, with the oversized raincoat, gaunt look, long beard, gold teeth and the peg leg. Except he also had a hook. And an eyepatch.
"Arr, Monstro. He took me leg. And me hand!" The sailor grumbled, tapping his leg with the metal hook in distaste.
"... And your eye?"
"Meh eye? Oh, no, that was when I tried to scratch it with the hook," The sailor admitted sheepishly. "But I'm tellin' ya, Monstro is a beast of a whale, a menace to the seven seas."
"I thought there were only four oceans," Kairi frowned, looking at Tidus for confirmation on this.
Tidus took a gander over the water as well, though he didn't bother to grab the railing. He leaned over to an angle that might be considered dangerous, not seeming to worry about it. He was the first one you'd expect to fall into the ocean, really. It was a good thing he was so good at swimming.
"Maybe it was a wrong turn?" he suggested. He'd heard something about ships having to navigate around whales before, though just how you could manage to manage to ram into something that big without noticing it beforehand was beyond him. Then again, he wasn't exactly an expert on the subject matter, so there wasn't much he could say about it.
This new old man, on the other hand, did seem to have something to say about it. Tidus listened to the conversation a bit dumb-founded, not even bothering to hide a skeptical glance at Kairi. He could believe many things, but for some reason, this sounded way too familiar to something he heard when he was a boy. It didn't help that Jecht was the one who had told him - it was probably all all alcohol induced. Wouldn't have been the first time, anyway. He tried very hard not to let his look go sour when he thought of the man, though there was always the possibility that he failed.
The question was, just how to get out of this. The old sailor guy didn't seem so prepared to just let them leave, that was for sure. But like a true SOLDIER (too bad he wasn't one), Tidus was quick to formulate a plan.
"Hey, look! An ostrich!"
"Hmm?" The sailor turn towards the obscure direction Tidus had pointed out, properly distracted. Success!
Without a moment's hesitation, Tidus made a grab for Kairi's wrist and made a mad dash. Hopefully, the man would be too preoccupied with the "ostrich" to notice.
Unfortunately for Tidus, Kairi wasn't so quick to pick up on his plan (or his discomfort. She found the creepy old sailor... well, creepy, but he had an interesting story!), for she blinked and looked for the aforementioned ostrich as well.
"Huh? Tidus I don't see a- ahhh!" She found herself now getting yanked away as Tidus made a run for it, and he kept going until they were safely below deck once more. She nearly tripped on the way down too! Still confused, Kairi finally realized it was a trick and let out another wistful sigh.
"Oh, you were trying to... aw, but I wanted to hear the man's story," She pouted a bit, and then grinned and let out an airy laugh to reassure him she wasn't that disappointed. "But I guess it's a silly tale anyway. Really no such thing as giant killer whales... right?"
"Huh?" The truth was, Tidus hadn't been paying much attention to anything but getting out of there, barely managing to so much as knock his bag off of his seat before flopping on to it. The mission had clearly been a success. Yeah! With thinking skills like that, they'd have to be crazy not to let him into SOLDIER!
That was all and exciting, but what to do now? This ride was probably going to take a while, after all. He needed to find something to keep him entertained, for now at least. He could worry about later when it came.
...Hey, maybe that would be a good time to find out just what Auron had stuffed into his bag? With a shrug, he emptied the contents, taking note of everything he hadn't put in there.
There was a pair of boots, for one thing. That explained a lot. He had to admit, they'd probably be a lot more useful than his sandals on the mainland. There were also some toiletries - shampoo, soap, toothpaste, deodorant and the like. Leave it to Tidus to forget something like that. He could tell just by looking that there was significantly more munny, and he wasn't about to complain about that. A notecard was sitting in the pile of stuff too. Apparently he was supposed to present it to some shopkeeper? Weird. He wondered what it was for. Also among the items were a pair of hotel tickets, which he could only think to stare at.
The last thing though, he was not expecting. At all. They seemed harmless enough at first - just a couple of forms. There was note on them to give them to a recruiting officer on a specified date, and - wait... what? They were already filled out and signed, too, by their respective guardians, which must have meant...
"How did they...?" Tidus shook his head. Couldn't they have actually said something instead pulling something like this? (Then again, he and Kairi had pretty much done the same thing...)
"Uh, here." He offered Kairi hers, clearly a bit weirded out. Their plans hadn't been that obvious... Had they?
"Heh..." Looks like Tidus had been a bit too focused on getting out. Well, that's what happened, she supposed. With mild interest, Kairi sat down next to Tidus as he began to rummage through their things. Looks like Auron made sure Tidus was well-packed for the journey (Kairi's dad must have been thankful his daughter was more well-prepared in packing), but she couldn't help but blink in surprise, taking a form.
This was...
"..." Kairi couldn't believe it. Not only had they known, they had known for a good long while. Were they really that obvious? Or...
"... Wow." That was all she could really say. "I guess... we were more obvious than we thought, huh?"
"Yeah..." Tidus replied, rubbing the back of his head. Maybe they did something wrong? But even if they had, he still found this situation weird, weird, and a little more weird. Oh, and some awkward too, but that much was obvious.
Oh well. In the end it worked out for that better.
"They could have said something, though." He couldn't quite resist that last complaint despite himself. It was true, too. Geez.
He began to stuff everything back into his back, pausing after a moment to stiffle a yawn. ...Hadn't he just been awake in every sense of the word a few moments ago? Oh well. Not getting much sleep tended to do that - you started off full of energy and then it just died abruptly. And the truth was, he hadn't had a very restful night.
"I'm tired... I think I'm gonna go find somewhere I can take a nap, 'kay?" He gave a good stretch, before giving a wave and walking off. They had to have beds around here somewhere... right?
Kairi was waiting at the dock, where she said she would be. However, the girl wasn't paying much attention, preoccupied with both a letter in her hands and an event that happened earlier that day. The sun's rays glinted on a ring on her finger, which came with the letter.
"... Heh, I guess I can thank you in person, Sora," Kairi smiled to herself, hugging the letter like it was a precious artifact, and in a way it was. It had been months since she recieved word from her friends. She didn't even care if Sora or Riku had sent a short two word letter that consisted of "Hi, Kairi!", that would have been enough to lift her spirits for weeks. Anything to show she was not forgotten.
The other thing bothering her? Well...
Kairi, surprisingly, already had a ready made excuse when her father caught her trying to sneak out. Caught wasn't the word, more like choosing to inform her about the letter from Sora at a very inappropriate time.
"Kairi, wake up, you got a pack- ... Oh, where are you going?" The mayor asked in puzzlement as he saw his daughter getting dressed and ready to go out. What was unusual about it was because, even when she was training, Kairi was barely awake at 6 in the morning, much less dressed and tying her shoes.
"Oh, um... I left some clothes at the play island when me and Tidus went there a couple of weeks ago. I just remembered when I was looking through my dresser the other night," Kairi hastily explained, hopping to get the other shoe on as quickly as possible. "Um, I wanted to go really early because I didn't want to row out in the sun," Well, that was true. Kairi had to do multiple trips, she wanted to get her things before the sun fully rose in the sky. She could have gone earlier, when the sun wasn't even out, but navigating the boat at night was not one of her favorite things to do, especially when half asleep.
The explanation seemed to satisfy her father, but he continued to stare curiously. For a moment, she wondered if he really bought it. But he did, smiling and shaking his head. He stepped in the room, holding a small brown package in his hands with a letter tied to it.
"You got a package. From Sora," He told her cheerfully, noting the shocked and surprised expression on her face. "I just thought you'd like to go through it as soon as possible, but you're already awake... Well, I won't keep you."
He handed the package to Kairi, but as she reached forward to accept it, he leaned forward slightly.
"I left five thousand gil on the counter. Good luck and write to me if you ever need anything."
Without a word, he straightened up and left, leaving the now stupified Kairi in her room, holding the package wordlessly.
She sighed, shaking her head. It was almost noon now, and Kairi was glad she retrieved her bags earlier because it was getting steadily hotter now. But she could wait a little longer before seeking out some shade.
She was afraid if she decided to move, she might end up having second thoughts. No, she needed to keep her eyes to the horizon; there were better things out there, and her father obviously supported her decision to see them.
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He shifted the bag to his other shoulder before greeting her and dropping the thing into the sand completely to get the weight off of his back. He babbled a bit, about how great the trip was going to be, not quite registering that she seemed distracted. Though in his defence, he was rather distracted himself. He was jittery, anxious, excited, and so many other things all wrapped up and ready to explode and staying still was sort of hard and -
Energy levels were... rather high, to say the least. But even so, he was doing a decent enough job of containing then. For now.
".... so close! I wonder how Auron found out?"
His babbling ceased, and he calmed down significantly, almost seeming to notice Kairi for the first time.
"You ready?" It was a dumb question, and he knew it. But. Were they really going? Were they really leaving the island? It was... sobering. It was energy-inducing. It was.. Okay. He didn't really know what it was.
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At Tidus's question, Kairi nodded her head and looked back to the horizon. She looked quite somber, but there was conviction in her voice when she answered.
"Yeah. I'm ready."
Getting up, Kairi brushed the sand off herself as she saw the incoming ferry in the distance. Well, this was it...
"Auron found you out too? So did my dad... I think," Kairi explained, grinning. They couldn't put anything past their 'parents', it seemed. "I guess we weren't subtle enough."
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"...I wonder how they found out?" he mused aloud. It wasn't like they had announced it or anything, after all. Maybe it was all that training? But that wasn't such a big deal. Lots of kids did that on the islands. Then again, nobody seemed that serious about it. Well, except maybe Sora and Riku, but they were -
...Oh. Whoops.
After the slight pause, something hit him, though a little late. "Wait, your dad actually knew?" He was more than a little surprised. After all, the whole point of the whole secrecy thing was so that he wouldn't find out. They must have been pretty bad at keeping secrets, huh? Geez. But she was still there, so that must have meant... "So, that means it's okay then, right?"
Oh man. That was a little awkward.
There was the sound of a bell as the ferry docked, providing a proper distraction. "Looks like it's time to leave," Tidus provided, rubbing his head. It was just one of those moments where pointing out the obvious seemed like the thing to do.
He retrieved his bag from the sand, and shuffled out the tickets. Might as well get this over with, right? Any more waiting and he just might have to explode or something. He flashed Kairi a grin before running off to hand the boatsman the required admission.
This was it. They were finally getting out of there!
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They were finally leaving!
"I can't believe it. I still can't believe it," Kairi muttered as they walked along, boarding the boat. She took a good long look at the interior. Wow... she had seen boats before, but not boats like these. It looked sort of like a house inside here! She felt almost ashamed for gawking; she had grew up around boats all of her life, what was there to look at?!
"Wow, so this is what a ferry looks like..." She could only guess the netting above the seats was for luggage (considering the few other passangers had theirs up there) and gladly relieved herself of her burden. Ahhh, she could feel her shoulders again!
"Oh! I got a letter from Sora!" Kairi grinned, reaching into one of her pouches and fishing out the neatly folded paper. "Do you want to read it? Sora blew something up. And he even has a picture of him and Riku."
Sora and Riku both looked rather good in their uniforms. Kairi idly wondered if she would have one like that. Well, probably not since she doubted she could get into SOLDIER at all.
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Rather then put his things up on the net, Tidus just slumped his bag on his seat. Really, there was no way he was sitting right now. Not until he had a look around, at the very least.
"Sora blew something up?" he repeated with a laugh. "That's just great. Now I have to read it!" He took the offered paper and skimmed it over, unable to resist snickering at a few key parts. Same old Sora, it sounded like. That was good to know.
"Hey, you wanna go up to the top deck?" he suggested out of the blue, after handing the letter back. "I bet the view is great!"
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"The top deck? Sure!" Kairi nodded, taking the letter back and carefully folding it back to her pouch. She really hoped these things were waterproof. Just in case. "Maybe once we get far away enough we can see the whole island..."
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There was a binocular device there to make observing easier, bad sadly, it cost five gil. He didn't want to have to pay. Luckily though, there was a man who had brought his own pair. Score! Free on-looking. Without a second thought, he snatched them out of the guy's hands.
"Hey! Give those back!" He sounded more surprised than displeased, and that only manged to egg Tidus on.
"Relax! I'm just borrowing them!"
One foot propped up against the railing, with one hand he enjoyed the clearer view, and with the other, he kept the man trying to take back his binoculars away. That was much better. Come to think of it, if they worked so well on the ocean, why not on the ship? Looking around the area couldn't be so bad. And hey, those were one nice pair of -
Ohcrapshewaslookingthatway. Maybe it was time to give the guy his binoculars back. Yeah. That would be good. He tossed them back, and the man, not really expecting it, stumbled a bit on the catch. Oh well. He hopped back down from the railing, turning to face Kairi.
"Nice view, huh?" he provided, unconsciously rubbing the back of his head. Apparently, energy + Tidus equated to bad. Not that he was going to admit that...
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She felt somewhat sad, but was mostly energized. She couldn't wait to see the mainland on the other side of the horizon.
"Tidus!" Kairi exclaimed as she saw her friend get a little too excited, grabbing some poor guy's binoculars and using them for himself. She was tempted to help the guy out but she knew Tidus would never steal or break it. He was truthfully only borrowing it. Still, she gave an apology to the man when Tidus finally gave them back.
"I think you were enjoying the view a little too much," Kairi chuckled, giving a sideways glance to the "view" in question. That poor woman. She sighed and leaned her back against the railing. "But you're right, it's way better than what we find on the Islands. I could stay up here forev-"
BANG
"AHHH!" Kairi stumbled and gripped on the railing for deer life as she nearly fell backwards. One look down on the now turbulant waters revealed a massive fin returning under the blue waves.
"Wh-What was that?!"
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He was about to replay, when there was suddenly a very loud, metallic sound and he suddenly found himself stumbling against the rail. "Woah!" Hoo boy. That.. was not good.
Then he had to go and look into the water again. That fin.. what the a whale?! And since when did they get to be so... BIG?
There was a buzzing sound, and then over the intercom, there was the announcement, "Ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain speaking. There was no damage to the boat from that... er... minor disturbance. I repeat. There was no damage to the boat from that minor disturbance. Please stay calm. Thank you."
Minor disturbance!? They just got rammed by a giant whale. But then, the captain didn't seem particularly disturbed, so maybe it wasn't that big of a deal? They appeared to be altering the course, at least, assumably to navigate around the massive sea creature (though he sort of had to wonder why they didn't notice something that big BEFORE they ran into it).
...Hopefully they didn't get rammed again.
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"I didn't know whales could get that big... and since when did they attack ships?" Kairi wondered out loud as she watched the large ripples finally flatten out back into the relatively calm sea water.
"Arr, lass, that be the whale they call... Monstro."
"H-Huh?" Kairi turned around to face the stranger who had informed her of the whale's name. He was the perfect caricature of a crazy old sailor, with the oversized raincoat, gaunt look, long beard, gold teeth and the peg leg. Except he also had a hook. And an eyepatch.
"Arr, Monstro. He took me leg. And me hand!" The sailor grumbled, tapping his leg with the metal hook in distaste.
"... And your eye?"
"Meh eye? Oh, no, that was when I tried to scratch it with the hook," The sailor admitted sheepishly. "But I'm tellin' ya, Monstro is a beast of a whale, a menace to the seven seas."
"I thought there were only four oceans," Kairi frowned, looking at Tidus for confirmation on this.
"Arr, whatever."
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"Maybe it was a wrong turn?" he suggested. He'd heard something about ships having to navigate around whales before, though just how you could manage to manage to ram into something that big without noticing it beforehand was beyond him. Then again, he wasn't exactly an expert on the subject matter, so there wasn't much he could say about it.
This new old man, on the other hand, did seem to have something to say about it. Tidus listened to the conversation a bit dumb-founded, not even bothering to hide a skeptical glance at Kairi. He could believe many things, but for some reason, this sounded way too familiar to something he heard when he was a boy. It didn't help that Jecht was the one who had told him - it was probably all all alcohol induced. Wouldn't have been the first time, anyway. He tried very hard not to let his look go sour when he thought of the man, though there was always the possibility that he failed.
The question was, just how to get out of this. The old sailor guy didn't seem so prepared to just let them leave, that was for sure. But like a true SOLDIER (too bad he wasn't one), Tidus was quick to formulate a plan.
"Hey, look! An ostrich!"
"Hmm?" The sailor turn towards the obscure direction Tidus had pointed out, properly distracted. Success!
Without a moment's hesitation, Tidus made a grab for Kairi's wrist and made a mad dash. Hopefully, the man would be too preoccupied with the "ostrich" to notice.
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"Huh? Tidus I don't see a- ahhh!" She found herself now getting yanked away as Tidus made a run for it, and he kept going until they were safely below deck once more. She nearly tripped on the way down too! Still confused, Kairi finally realized it was a trick and let out another wistful sigh.
"Oh, you were trying to... aw, but I wanted to hear the man's story," She pouted a bit, and then grinned and let out an airy laugh to reassure him she wasn't that disappointed. "But I guess it's a silly tale anyway. Really no such thing as giant killer whales... right?"
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That was all and exciting, but what to do now? This ride was probably going to take a while, after all. He needed to find something to keep him entertained, for now at least. He could worry about later when it came.
...Hey, maybe that would be a good time to find out just what Auron had stuffed into his bag? With a shrug, he emptied the contents, taking note of everything he hadn't put in there.
There was a pair of boots, for one thing. That explained a lot. He had to admit, they'd probably be a lot more useful than his sandals on the mainland. There were also some toiletries - shampoo, soap, toothpaste, deodorant and the like. Leave it to Tidus to forget something like that. He could tell just by looking that there was significantly more munny, and he wasn't about to complain about that. A notecard was sitting in the pile of stuff too. Apparently he was supposed to present it to some shopkeeper? Weird. He wondered what it was for. Also among the items were a pair of hotel tickets, which he could only think to stare at.
The last thing though, he was not expecting. At all. They seemed harmless enough at first - just a couple of forms. There was note on them to give them to a recruiting officer on a specified date, and - wait... what? They were already filled out and signed, too, by their respective guardians, which must have meant...
"How did they...?" Tidus shook his head. Couldn't they have actually said something instead pulling something like this? (Then again, he and Kairi had pretty much done the same thing...)
"Uh, here." He offered Kairi hers, clearly a bit weirded out. Their plans hadn't been that obvious... Had they?
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This was...
"..." Kairi couldn't believe it. Not only had they known, they had known for a good long while. Were they really that obvious? Or...
"... Wow." That was all she could really say. "I guess... we were more obvious than we thought, huh?"
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Oh well. In the end it worked out for that better.
"They could have said something, though." He couldn't quite resist that last complaint despite himself. It was true, too. Geez.
He began to stuff everything back into his back, pausing after a moment to stiffle a yawn. ...Hadn't he just been awake in every sense of the word a few moments ago? Oh well. Not getting much sleep tended to do that - you started off full of energy and then it just died abruptly. And the truth was, he hadn't had a very restful night.
"I'm tired... I think I'm gonna go find somewhere I can take a nap, 'kay?" He gave a good stretch, before giving a wave and walking off. They had to have beds around here somewhere... right?
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