Who will be there for you?

[yattagarasu]

Who: yattagarasu and OPEN
Where: The fringes of Azalea Town, but not too far out
When: Friday, September 10th, evening-ish (forward-dated because I won't be here tomorrow and I only remembered this date not too long ago!)
Summary: Kay goes to pay respects to the deceased in the only way she can. AS USUAL, action or prose is fine with me, whatever sails your

Comments

[savethefarron]

Snow and Franziska had just pulled into town. Like, literally, the two of them had been passing by in the rain when he'd spotted Kay. He'd told Franziska he'd catch up, she'd called him a fool, and then he was alone. Well, alone with the distant addition of Kay.

But now that Franziska was disappearing into the distance and Snow was left on the path in the rain, he realized he had no idea what he was even going to do. He'd sent his travel-partner ahead so he could talk to Kay, make sure nothing was up, but... Now he'd watched her a second, and he really got the feeling it was something a little private for him to barge into.

But he couldn't just stand there, now that he'd probably pissed off Franziska for the night. So after a minute or so, he reached a hand into his pocket to pull out a PokeBall and silently push the center button. His Flaaffy appeared on the ground in front of him, ducking her head in surprise at the rain, then noticing Kay. She seemed to sense that it wasn't playtime though, choosing not to get disgustingly

[yattagarasu]

Kay had been so lost in thought that she'd entirely missed the little pink thing approaching-- when normally she would have seen Thundara coming a mile away and done a Baywatch-esque run to greet her. As it was, she jumped a little, looking down at the Flaaffy with widened eyes. "Thundara...?" Not like there was any other Flaaffy around who'd just show up like this.

There were a few other questions on her mind, like what she was doing there, and the thought that she ought to look for Snow... but as the little pink sheep cuddled closer, she bit her lip and pulled her closer.

"Hey," she murmured, lifting her fully into her arms. "Wet wool can't be fun, huh?"

[savethefarron]

The Flaaffy crawled eagerly up onto Kay's lap, nestling her damp nose under Kay's possibly damp chin and pressing, as if she couldn't cuddle her aunt quite enough. 'Flaaffy,' she sighed, but it wasn't an unhappy sigh so much as one resigned to the rain. She was trying to keep all electrical activity to an absolute minimum, but the rain seemed to bring out the static, so there was no doubt that Kay was tingling a bit in some of the places her skin had in contact with Thundara's wool.

Snow, meanwhile, watched this exchange from afar. He waited a couple of minutes until he was sure that his sheep had interrupted her in the most pleasant way possible. Then he sidled up behind her, quietly pulling something from his pack as he did.

The first thing Kay probably noticed, though, would be the sudden and distinct lack of rain hitting her in the head. Because after his casual but stealthy approach, he (somehow, through no fault of his own, cough cough) found himself standing directly behind her, holding an umbrella over her head with one hand

[yattagarasu]

It wasn't a painful shock, but maintaining close contact with something that kept giving you little zaps (like continuously shuffling your way across an expanse of carpet and then repeatedly grasping a doorknob) wasn't the most pleasant feeling; Kay finally settled for wrapping her muffler around the bare sections of her arms and holding Thundara that way.

It wasn't long after that. As accustomed as she had grown to the rain falling on her head and working at plastering her hair to her forehead, it took Kay a minute to register that there was a distinctly different sound as the rain fell, and that there was no longer water dripping down on her. Snow probably missed her surprised stare as she turned her head, but then she grinned in a "Whoops, I've been caught" manner and shifted her armful affectionately for better cuddling opportunities.

"I figured the drizzling would stop eventually," she offered meekly.

[savethefarron]

Thundara was glad for any sort of cuddling, and though she might've preferred the sort where they didn't have layers between them, she understood the necessity. And in her own way, she was glad for Snow's umbrella cover. How else would she dry off and be able to cuddle Aunt Kay properly?

Snow, meanwhile, had a 'whoops, I've been caught' look much like Kay's. He glanced down to meet her eyes, head tilted slightly. "Hey, pretend I'm not even here. I just figured... y'know, you'd catch a cold or something."

[yattagarasu]

"Not unless I'm pulling kids out of a flood after chasing Flapper in a thunderstorm!" Kay denied it cheerfully (and truthfully, for that matter). "Don't worry, Snowball, it takes a lot more than a little drizzle to give me the sniffles! But thanks for dropping my niece off."

Considering the warm, loving grip she had on the Flaaffy, she wasn't about to be relinquishing Thundara anytime soon.

[savethefarron]

"Well, I mean... That definitely sounds like something you'd try to do." He was teasing her, sure, but it'd be just like Kay to play hero to six kids and a Wooper in a tidal wave. She had a tendency to end up in bizarre situations like that, somehow or another. It was just... Kay.

And as reluctant as she was to release Thundara, the Flaaffy seemed just as reluctant to budge from Kay's lap, especially now that she was drying off. Which left Snow with a bit of a dilemma, when it came down to it. So after a second, he posed a question: "So, uh... Were you alone out here on purpose? I just mean-... I could go, if you want. You could bring her back later or something." Snow just didn't want to interrupt something terribly important. "Or I could just hold this and pretend I'm not here?" The last bit was more a joke than anything.

[yattagarasu]

The thing about jokes with Kay, was that either she gleefully joined in on them, or she completely missed them. This was one of the times where gullibility reared its ugly head, so that Snow received a startled look.

"Huh? No, it's okay! You're too big to be invisible!" And there went her mouth before her brain. "I was just--" Having a conversation with my dad sounded a little bizarre, even to her, since Kay didn't usually make a habit out of speaking to the air.

She drew Thundara closer, heedful of the static, and heaved a sigh. "I was just visiting my dad's grave, if it was here. I had to improvise a little."

[savethefarron]

Ahh... Now he got it. But she was so young... Most people who had parents to start with didn't lose them until they were a lot older than Kay.

But hey, at least she'd had a chance to know him.

After a pause, he asked, "What was he like?" Only afterward did it occur to him that she might not want to talk about it, but the question was asked, so time to hope for the best.

[yattagarasu]

Luckily for Snow, Kay wasn't the kind of person who got readily depressed, not even when the topic was her deceased father. So long as she could concentrate on the happier times, it was just like looking through an old photo album for her. Indeed, her expression took on a hint of nostalgic fondness, and she glanced at the offerings.

"He was my hero," she said simply. "It was his job to get bad people found guilty and locked away, and he was really good at it. But he was fair. If injustice happened to somebody, he'd do everything in his power and then some to make sure things were set right again. And he believed in keeping promises; we had a book of them that we made, just full of promises between us." She smiled a little at the thought, of how important and grown-up she'd felt at the time. "Breaking a promise to him was something I never would have done. And he was fun, too. He taught me a lot of things about fairness and justice and doing the right thing, and he never treated me like I was too young to know anything."

[savethefarron]

As Snow listened to her talking about her dad, he thought about how different but also how similar their two worlds were, from what he'd learned so far from Kay and Franziska. But one thing was loud and clear in his mind--'get bad people found guilty'. That's what Franziska and her dad did, too. It seemed like a hell of a lot of people were after the bad guys. Or... "bad guys". He had no idea what her world's standards were, but by his? He was one of the bad guys. A l'Cie. He could see them hating the Cie'th (those were the monsters l'Cie turned into once they failed), but l'Cie were.... well, they were just normal folks. Plus magic, of course, and a big shiny tattoo on their arm

[yattagarasu]

That got a brighter smile from the shorter of the two, followed by a firm nod. "He was." Not is, she had to remind herself, though she'd always believe that no matter where he was, even if he was dead, her father had been and always would be "a real great guy". Nothing could have convinced her otherwise.

"I bet he would've liked you," Kay went on thoughtfully. "No, I know he would have liked you." After all the looking out for her that Snow had done, not to mention him being a hero himself, she was sure of it.

[savethefarron]

At her bold assumption, he tilted his head (which caused the rainwater to drip across his face at an odd angle, but he didn't seem to care), gazing down at her as if not sure what to make of that.

Then, with a slight shake of his head, he offered, "Thanks, but I'm not so sure. Back home, I... Well, I was one of the folks he'd be trying to put away." He said it casually enough, so it wasn't as if he sounded upset, but it still wasn't the best confession in the world.

[yattagarasu]

Now that she hadn't seen coming, evidenced by the baffled look on her face when she looked at Snow... almost as if she wasn't entirely sure whether he was being serious or not. He didn't look as though he was about to crack a grin, though.

So instead of the instant stream of heated denials that were just waiting to be released, she instead asked, "What do you mean?"

[savethefarron]

"What do you mean, 'what do I mean'?" After a second he shrugged. "Back home, Light, Hope and I... We're not exactly the good guys."

[yattagarasu]

Kay tilted her head, either not understanding at all or not wanting to. She didn't know who this "Hope" person was, but she'd met Lightning, and she knew Snow.

"So does that mean you pillaged and plundered and burned things to the ground and killed people without remorse?" came the question, though the images that brought to mind made her think more of pirates than anything.