Drink Up, Me Hearties } Chapter 4 - The King of Swords
Word Count: 4429
Genre: Humour
Ships?: Uhh. One-sided (?) Luxord/Tifa, possibly Roxas/Naminé, possibly Eiko/Vivi (?)
→Friendships?: Xigbar&Tifa whaaaaat.
Characters: Luxord, Xigbar, Tifa, Roxas, Naminé
→Cameos: Eiko, Vivi, Moogles
→Mentions: Barret, Freya
Rating: PG for one swear, I believe.
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, Atlantis: The Lost Empire or any related characters. This was written out of enjoyment of the series, and no profit is being made.
Music: "The Wheel of Fortune ~ Below Decks" ♪ "Naminé's Theme" ♫ "Eiko and the Moogles"
Notes: Important Ret-Con Notice! Yes, I know. "*gasp* Tuna's ret-conning what a fail." But I've come to realize that I don't remember enough about Zell's personality in order to do him justice. :c I included him in the Prologue, but when I wrote the prologue, I had next to idea where this fic was going. Now that I do know what's going on, I just don't think it'd be fair to him to keep him as a spare/dead weight. Once I play Final Fantasy VIII myself, I'll just write him all the time. My apologies to anyone who was really looking forward to pirate!Zell. Maybe I'll make him a cameo in the bar chapter that I'm crawling towards.
In other news, whoooo another chapter! I bribed myself with Disney movies to get this one done. (I should just do that all the time. xD It seems to work.) It's mostly just long/cute/funny conversations this time, but Kaiya/spots_of_ink (no Kaiya I will never stop pimping you, you jerk) and I managed to work some mythology dork magic into it. Also, I am looking forward to writing older!Vivi and older!Eiko so much. ♥
In which Captain Luxord makes some intriguing decisions and legends are discussed.
Drink Up, Me Hearties
Chapter 4: The King of Swords
Xigbar, despite his title of first mate, sat reclining in the captain’s chair, his boots up on the desk. He scratched at the skin just beneath his eye-patch, and continued to watch as Luxord paced back and forth. Noon sunlight streamed into Luxord’s quarters through the wide windows, and bright gold refractions off the Captain’s numerous navigational devices made Xigbar squint.
“Boss, you’re going to wear a path in the carpet. Chill out,” he said.
Tifa fiddled with her earrings from where she leaned against the front of the desk. “Frankly, I’m surprised you flew off the handle like that. Whatever happened to your captain’s repose?”
Luxord sent her a glare that would’ve made any other pirate flinch as he walked by. “He was under her bed, Tifa.”
The woman nearly rolled her eyes. “Under her bed, not in it.”
“You’re missing the point!”
“Do you honestly think that he’s the type to do something like that?”
“How am I supposed to know?” Luxord threw down his hands as he turned at the end of his pacing path. “He certainly acted guilty when I found him.”
“That’s because you pulled a sword on him! And like Naminé said, there’s no way you’d be able to defy the code and kill a child.”
“Are you saying I don’t have it in me?”
“For one thing: yes, that is what I’m saying. For another, it’d ruin your family’s name, and we all know how you’d hate to do that.”
“Tifa’s right, cap’n.” Xigbar rubbed his good eye, tired of squinting. “Which also means we can’t keep the kid prisoner. It was your dad’s shmancy tradition, right?”
“Well, I’m not having that bilge rat loitering around my daughter.” Luxord stopped in his tracks, folding his arms resolutely over his chest.
“He’s down in the brig ‘loitering’ around your daughter right now,” Tifa pointed out.
Luxord didn’t flinch, but both of his ship’s officers knew he probably hadn’t thought of this. “Well, he won’t be for much longer.”
“Alright, so we drag him out of the brig.” Tifa finally pushed away from the desk and approached her captain from behind. “And we can’t kill him.” She put her hands on his shoulders and Luxord shrugged his blue surcoat off, following her signal. “What do you suggest we do?”
“I say go with Naminé’s suggestion,” Xigbar spoke up, taking his feet off the desk and standing up. Luxord sat down and Xigbar leaned on the back of the chair, cuffing the captain in the shoulder lightly. “Let blondie be swabbie. Vivi’s been doing the job since he was nine and he’s never complained once! Kid deserves a helping hand if you ask me.”
Luxord stared at the opposite wall, resting his chin in his hand. One of the heavy rings on his fingers rested coolly against his skin. Tifa hung the surcoat up in a cupboard in the corner and shut it quietly. She and Xigbar could see the cogs of the captain’s mind click through his options and priorities in his eyes. “I’ll think on it,” he finally decided.
The second and third-in-command exchanged a knowing glance. They both knew that that meant that the ‘Roxas’ down in the brig would be sticking around, but Luxord’s pride wouldn’t allow him to admit it so soon.
“When should we release them from the brig, captain?” Tifa asked.
“She’s been sent to her room without dinner, Tifa; what do you expect?” Xigbar supplied.
Luxord whacked his first mate in the gut with his arm. Xigbar punched him in the shoulder in immediate retaliation. “What was that for?”
“I would never send my daughter an entire day without food. I happen to know she has a hidden stash of food in those cells.”
A beat and then Xigbar narrowed his eye at the captain. “You, sir, are almost certainly pussy-whipped.”
“Tifa, you and Xigbar are dismissed.” Luxord grinned and laced his fingers together, reclining back in his chair and setting a boot upon his knee.
“Aye, cap’n!” Tifa saluted cheerfully and grabbed Xigbar’s arm, dragging him easily from the room.
“Pussy-whipped!” Xigbar accused over his shoulder. Luxord only laughed as Tifa shut the door behind them.
Outside of the captain’s quarters, Tifa let go of Xigbar’s arm and they ambled toward the bar counter fore of them. The galley door was closed down the hull, but they could hear Eiko and the moogles already at work on lunch and dinner.
Xigbar swiftly crossed both of his arms over his chest. “So, are you regretting it yet?”
“Regretting what?” Tifa asked, eyebrows raised.
“Breaking up that fight between Naminé and Luxord.”
“Why would I regret it?”
“Because, he… y’know, went dictionary mode.” Xigbar grinned like a shark when he caught sight of Tifa nibbling on her bottom lip. She went behind her bar and he sat at one of the stools.
“What about it?” she asked, and he noticed immediately how her tone had become slightly accusatory.
“You were getting all… tingly, weren’t ‘cha?”
Tifa leaned on the counter and held her face in her hand. “Xigbar…”
“You’re thinking about it right now, aren’t you?” His hand assumed the ‘gun’ position: index finger pointing at her, thumb resting on top. He would’ve winked if he had both eyes.
“What? No!” Her palms slammed the plastic countertop, but the redness in her cheeks was definitely there. “Why would you think that?”
Xigbar chuckled smugly, leaning his chin on the back of his hand. “Tifa, I’ve known about your doe-eyed adoration for him for how long, now? I can tell. You always bite your lower lip when you’re thinking about the captain.” He closed his eye and grinned. “It’s kinda cute, actually.”
Tifa observed the outline of her right hand on the counter; anything to ignore Xigbar’s playful smile.
“You might want to do something about that little habit. What if he’s noticed? Oooh…” He wiggled his fingers at her, as though telling a ghost story.
“Xigbar, don’t joke about that,” Tifa said, her voice suddenly quiet.
The lookout flinched inwardly. “Aw, c’mon, lovebird.” He leaned forward on his stool, folding his arms on the countertop and resting his chin on top of them. “So what if he knows? He probably feels the same way.
“…Maybe. Well, alright, I have no idea. I mean, maybe he has a secret woman that he sneaks off to. The gypsies in Paris have a few lookers, but… Most likely not, though.”
Tifa groaned loudly.
“D’you think he bites his lip whenever he thinks about you?” Xigbar was now looking aft to the captain’s door. “Want me to ask? Because I can do that, no problem.”
Tifa glared. “Xig. Bar.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m done.”
---
Roxas fell asleep and woke up every couple of hours over the course of the afternoon. Every time he woke up, he would whisper Naminé’s name, checking if she was awake. She never was.
He had lost count of how many of these tight little cycles of exhaustion and sudden awareness his body had dragged him through when he started awake yet again. Something had collided with the bars of his cell and now rested on the floor just outside them.
“Sorry! Didn’t mean to throw so hard,” a voice apologized across the room from him.
Roxas rubbed the sleep from his eyes. The dim light bulbs made whatever she had thrown look exactly like a black lumpy blob. He pulled it up into his lap through the bars and saw that it was a small drawstring satchel. He shifted his hand in through the opening and his hand closed around something that squished.
He squinted at what appeared to be a small piece of cookie dough. He couldn’t tell if the dark splotches were chocolate chips, burnt chunks, or some combination of both. He bit into it and found it to be crunchy on the outside but (mostly) smooth on the inside.
“That’s what got me and Eiko thrown in here last time. She let me keep what was left to add to my rations.”
“Your rations?” Roxas asked the shadows in the cell opposite. Before he realized what he was doing, he was eating another burnt chocolate chip cookie. Then, thinking, “What time is it?”
If he squinted in the dark, he could see that she was lying on her back, her right leg bent up at the knee, her left leg resting up on it. “Yeah. The Marrus family doesn’t take prisoners, so the brig’s been a time-out zone since at least grandma and grandpa’s time. I got all sorts of food underneath this mattress just in case.
“And… I’m not sure what time it is. Probably dinner time, seeing as I got hungry. Sorry they’re so burnt.”
Roxas shook his head, trying not to get distracted by the fact the future Dread Pirate Naminé had just used the words ‘grandma’ and ‘grandpa’. “Uh, so… who’s Eiko?”
“Oh! Eiko’s our cook. I guess there wouldn’t be any legends about her, would they? Which she hates because, well…” He heard Naminé’s clothes shift. Then she was sitting up on her cot, mirroring him by leaning back against the wall. “Do you mind telling me what legends there are about us? They’re always so funny.”
Roxas’s jaw halted and he felt a crumb tumble from his lips into his lap (he was hungrier than he realized). “Are you sure you want to hear them? I mean, I was never really sure what to believe myself when I heard some of ‘em.”
She chuckled quietly. “Of course. And you can go ahead and finish that bag if you like.”
“Well, where should I start?”
“Wherever you want!”
“Your dad obviously has the most stories.”
“Hee!” Naminé swung her feet off the cot like a little girl, grinning. “That’s right. What’s one you’ve heard about Papa?”
“Oh, where do I start?” Roxas leaned his head back on the wall. “Well, I’ve heard a couple about why he’s so lucky.”
“Okay. What’s the first one?” she prodded gently.
“I heard he won his luck from the devil by beating him in a poker game. And he put his soul on the line doing it.”
Naminé laughed out loud and it echoed off the tight metal walls. “No, I’m pretty sure that never happened.”
Roxas smiled widely. “The other one I heard was that the Fate Lakhesis made a mistake when measuring his Thread of Life, so his thread is much longer than a normal human’s.”
“Hmm.” Naminé put a finger to her lips. “I can’t really disprove that one. And even if I could, I’m not sure I’d want to. I like that one.”
Roxas actually grinned. He forgot for a second that bars separated them. “Uh, well. The best one is more about the Dread Pirate name, to tell you the truth.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I heard that uh, your dad’s father cursed the family with it.”
“…Grandpa cursed the family? Never heard that before.”
“No, sorry; let me explain. The legend goes that your grandfather made a deal with the stars. He gave up his identity in order to learn the secrets of the world from them. He stayed on a rock in the middle of the ocean for three hundred nights, never eating or sleeping in order to listen to the stars properly. In the end, the - well, your - family line knew the world’s deepest secrets, but was cursed to know themselves only as ‘the Dread Pirate’.”
“Wow.” Naminé mulled the story over. “You’re right. That is a good one. But ‘Dread Pirate’ is the name of a job. It’s not totally who my father thinks he is.”
“And you’re going to be the Dread Pirate Naminé one day, right?”
“Yup! And that’s another thing about that story. The curse would’ve stopped with me.”
Roxas blinked. “How do you mean?”
“Well…” Naminé hesitated, and pulled one of her knees back to hug it to her chest. “It’s not really something I like to admit very often, but I’m not Luxord’s daughter by blood. I’m adopted.”
The silence in the brig was thick. They heard the ship creak around them.
“You’re adopted? But - you look so similar! With… your hair, and your eyes-”
“Yeah. Funny how that works, huh?” Naminé giggled, more softly this time. “Tifa was the one who found me. It’s sort of how Papa came up with my middle name.”
“Alcyone?”
“She was a demi-goddess who threw herself into the sea after her husband was killed. Tifa threw herself off the deck to find me when they were passing by a shipwreck.”
“Wow. So, wait… your parents…?”
“Never knew them. The Wheel of Fortune’s my family, and they always will be.” She smiled at him, coming out of her reverie. “I still say its Xigbar’s fault for all the times I end up in here. He’s the one who taught me all those pranks when I saw little.”
“Xigbar. He’s the one with the eye-patch, right?” Roxas pointed to his right eye for emphasis.
“Yup! Our first mate. Any good stories about him?”
Roxas laughed, and pulled his feet up on the cot to sit cross-legged. “I heard his one eye can see into your soul.”
Naminé laughed too. “Oh, he only wishes. I don’t know how he got that eye-patch to tell you the truth. I think Papa does, though… What about Tifa?”
“The woman who punched the mast and then threatened to take your card games away?”
Naminé glared at her knees and blushed under the dim yellow light. “Yeah.”
“Uh… she has the strength of a thousand men?”
“Hmm.” Naminé tilted her head in thought. “I’d say more like a hundred, but pretty close. Barret?”
“Is he the man with the cannon on his arm?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I always heard that Luxord had technology from Atlantis. I guess somebody over exaggerated his arm and thought… ‘Barret’ was a robot.”
“That one’s actually pretty close. We do have technology from Atlantis. It’s where Barret is from after all.” Naminé stood up and dug her hand underneath her mattress. The hunger pains were returning.
She therefore missed Roxas’s jaw dropping open. “A-Atlantis is real?”
“Oh, yes. All the pirates know about it. It’s something like… Barret’s dad was an explorer who came across it and his mom was an Atlantean. That’s why he doesn’t have the white hair.
“But yeah,” she pulled another satchel out from under her bed, “the cannons we have are Atlantean and so’s Barret’s arm. It’s powered by that crystal around his neck.” She plopped back down on her cot and the springs squeaked lightly.
“…Atlantis is real?”
Naminé laughed until she covered her grin with a gloved hand. “Yes. I’m surprised you’re still surprised. There’s a lot more to us pirates than you seem to think.”
“You can say that again.”
“…Have you heard of Freya?”
“Is she the dragoon that can leap the tallest mountain?”
Naminé opened her mouth to reply and closed it again. “Actually, I think that’s pretty accurate.”
“Hm.” Roxas chewed thoughtfully on a cookie. “You know, I should ask you about something I heard once.”
“Sure.”
“I heard your dad controls a vengeful spirit that curses anyone who damns his name.”
Naminé stared at the floor in thought, leaning back against the wall and putting her hand into her bag. “We don’t have anyone like that.” She paused and popped a crisp into her mouth. “Unless… You don’t mean Vivi do you?”
“‘Vivi?’ I heard his name up on deck but didn’t see him. It was while you and your dad were arguing.”
“Vivi’s a Black Mage. Ever heard of them?”
“No.”
“Well, they’re this tribe of people who have really dark skin and glowing yellow eyes.” Naminé held her eyelids open with her fingers. “I guess I can see why someone thought Vivi was a spirit.”
“So no cursing people if they damn your father’s name?”
“Nah. He is a big softie, but nobody really controls him. …‘Cept maybe Eiko. But we’re not supposed to know about that, so shh…” She raised a finger to her lips and Roxas mirrored her, blinking.
She laughed, closing her eyes again. She looked down at her boots suddenly. “So, um. What about me? Are there any legends about the captain’s daughter?”
“Oh. Only… vague ones.”
She smiled shyly up at him, keeping her head ducked slightly. “Like what?”
Roxas shook his head. “No, it’s nothing.”
“Tell me?” she asked. “Please?”
“…Promise you won’t get mad if I do?”
Naminé giggled. “We’re locked in separate cells, you know.”
“You don’t fool me.” Roxas frowned at her. “I’ve fought against you. You’ve got a big reach.”
The pirate ducked her head again. “Alright, that’s true. But here, I’m not going to pick up my sword. It’s been on the floor this whole time.” She kicked something near her foot and Roxas heard a metallic ringing as the sword rolled away from her.
“Okay.” Roxas took a deep breath. “The only one I’ve heard about you was that the captain’s daughter was… beautiful, yet deadly.”
Naminé gave him the sweetest smile he had ever seen. “Completely accurate.”
Roxas felt heat prickle his face. Only time would tell if she was lying or not.
---
The next morning (or so Roxas assumed), the two ‘prisoners’ awoke to light in their eyes and the hiss of dying light bulbs.
“Naminé?” There was a female voice in the doorway. “Your father wants me to release you and the stowaway.”
Roxas heard Naminé sit up with a heavy sigh. “About time. He’s so stubborn.”
“I know he is,” the voice continued. “But my father would’ve reacted the same way if he had found a stranger under my bed at your age.”
Roxas finally found the strength in his arms to sit up as Naminé’s cell door opened. His own barred door swung open and he saw the Tifa Lockhart woman holding out a hand to help him. He saw that her eyes were a bright red in the dark room. “Your name is Roxas, right?”
He took her hand and stood. “Yeah.”
“Well, come on then.” She waved a gloved hand in indication for him to follow her out of the brig.
Now that his mind wasn’t panicked at the thought of dying any second, Roxas was able to take in that Miss Lockhart seemed to wear clothes caught between a barmaid and a fighter’s dress. The white cotton shirt and pinstriped corset reminded him immediately of the waitresses back home in Seventh Heaven, but the black fingerless gloves that reached above her elbows and the loose black pants suggested ease of movement. But the oddest part of it was the black cloth that hung from her waist, attached to her belt hooks by metal fasteners and strong cord. The bustle trailed behind her like his mother’s sundresses would and the contrasting mental images clashed in his brain.
Naminé nudged him in the side as they followed Tifa to the staircase near the armoury. “Don’t stare too much,” she whispered. “Tifa’s kinda shy about that.”
Roxas raised his eyebrows at her. “The woman who has the strength of a hundred men?”
“Mm-hmm.” Naminé nodded, blonde bangs falling into her eyes. “I think that’s one of the things I like about her most, to tell you the truth.”
At the top of the staircase, Roxas was able to look around the first deck much more easily than he had the previous day, when he had been running for his life. There was a bar counter nearby, complete with electric lights and stools and plastic countertop. Tifa retreated behind it and Naminé sat on a cushy arm chair nearby. Yesterday, he had apparently run through the center of some sort of common room spanning the hull.
“You… have… arm chairs in your ship. And is that a coffee table?” Roxas pointed at the piece of furniture situated a little to the left of the staircase leading to the outer deck.
“Yeah. We keep them bolted down. And there’s a trap door above that staircase that we close in case of storms,” Naminé explained, pointing to the sunny stairs. “You should probably sit down. Eiko’s going to want to serve breakfast.”
“Ei-?” Roxas jumped when a door slammed against a frame right behind him. He turned around and nearly tripped over Naminé’s chair as he backed up.
A young woman strode out of a doorway. She had purple hair piled up on top of her head in a loose bun and wore a lacy black dress over a pair of red and white striped pants. There was a blunt horn rising from her forehead above her hair. She raised her hand in a wave as she passed. “Hey, Roxas.”
Roxas’s jaw dropped.
“That’s Eiko,” Naminé said.
They all watched as the young woman strode towards the staircase and about halfway up it until her head poked out into the sunlight. “Vivi!” she shouted. She put her hands on her hips and tapped her buckled heels.
A white creature flew out of the doorway behind her on tiny draconic wings. It circled around Eiko once before flying above her head and out onto the deck. Apparently satisfied with this, the ship’s cook strode back into what Roxas realized was her galley, leaving the door open.
He looked at Naminé, who shrugged at him. “You’re allowed to look inside, you know.”
Roxas leaned forward and did just that. He caught a brief glance of a small square room, full of cooking equipment he could tell had been well-used over several years. Eiko, seemed right at home, chopping at some sort of vegetable. As did the five furry flying creatures that fluttered about, white cat-like ears twitching, orange furry pom-poms bouncing from thin stems from the center of their heads.
And that was when Roxas realized how truly ‘different’ the Dread Pirate and his crew were from other pirates.
He turned around again as someone stumbled down the steps opposite. A tall, lanky… someone, wearing baggy, patched up clothes and an over-sized tricorne was being pulled toward the kitchen by one of the little flying creatures. He…she?... It turned to look at him and waved a gloved hand. The person’s face was in the shadows of its tricorne, but Roxas saw two yellow-orange glowing eyes blink at him. “Hi,” a shy voice said before it was dragged into the kitchen.
“And that’s Vivi,” Naminé said.
“Tha…” Roxas couldn’t even finish the syllable and leaned forward to look into the kitchen again. Vivi seemed to laugh quietly at Eiko’s huff and snapped his fingers. The small fire pit beneath the cauldron in the center of the room burst into flame and Roxas nearly jumped out of his skin. “Holy crap, that’s a Black Mage?”
Vivi heard him and flinched slightly. His glove lifted and seemed to scratch his cheek sheepishly, but Roxas still couldn’t see his skin beneath the darkness of his hat. “I… I’m sorry?”
“You shouldn’t be, Vivi.” A familiar voice sent chills down Roxas’s spine and he turned around for the third time, wisely deciding to press his back into the wall beside the door frame. Captain Luxord descended the sunny stairwell, trailed by his first mate. “However, the cretin should give apology some thought.”
Roxas caught a glimpse of Naminé half-rising from her seat in protest, but was drawn back like a magnet to the angry blue eyes fixed on him. “What’s my punishment, Captain sir?”
“You are to serve under Vivi as cabin boy and swabbie until I see it fit to return you to your home.”
Roxas’s insides solidified. The faces of his father, mother, brother flitted through his head in the space of a second and he found himself staring at the floor. His eyes stung and he bit down on his tongue.
Suddenly, Tifa was beside him, touching his shoulder and bringing him away from the wall. She sat him down somewhere and realized it was a stool by her bar. “Welcome to the dysfunctional family, Roxas.” She smiled gently and he could tell she was obviously distracting him so he wouldn’t cry. “And as long as you’re going to be with us, you might as well tell us your whole name, right? Only someone like Xigbar goes around calling himself by one name.”
“Hey!” Xigbar said from across the room.
His tongue was sore from his teeth but Roxas nodded. “My name is Roxas Strife.”
There was a sudden tension in the room that had nothing to do with the threat of falling tears. Roxas heard the ship creak again and decided it would be wise to stare at his fingernails and listen to his own death rather than see it.
“Tifa?” Captain Luxord said. There was something remarkably different in his voice.
“It’s fine, Captain.” Tifa’s hand gripped the countertop beside him tensely. She was staring at the wall to her side, so no one could get a good look at her face.
“If I had known, my decision would’ve-”
“Captain,” Tifa said, turning her head so fast her earrings swung. She met Luxord’s blue gaze for a second before she dropped her eyes to the ground near his feet. “It’s fine. The young Mr. Strife snuck onto our ship. He deserves at least a little punishment, no matter who he’s related to.”
Roxas furrowed his eyebrows. Did that mean… Tifa, a pirate, knew his father or mother? He had absolutely no idea what had just happened.
“Are you completely sure? I trust your judgement.”
Everybody was statue-still. Only their eyes moved between the Dread Pirate Captain and his boatswain.
“I’ll take care of him,” Tifa said, quiet as a promise.
Everyone seemed to breathe again and Luxord moved. He turned and grabbed Xigbar by the shoulder. “And don’t think I’ve forgotten your punishment either. A week of laundry duty once we get back home.”
Another slightly blurred moment and a door slammed. Roxas inhaled shakily, trying to calm himself. He looked up and around the room. Xigbar mumbled under his breath and went up the staircase; Tifa followed numbly, eyes troubled; Naminé and Vivi were looked at him, deeply concerned; Eiko popped her head out of the kitchen, checking that her captain was gone. Then she looked at him and smiled sympathetically.
“What do you want for breakfast, Roxas?”
And for the first time in two days, Roxas thought that maybe, just maybe, he stood a chance at not dying after all.
Foot Notes/Glossery
• Aft: at, close to, or toward the stern or tail.
• 'Grandpa' and 'Grandma' Marrus will have a minor role to play later on in the story, but for know, they shall only be fondly remembered by Luxord. Naminé never got to meet them. Grandma Marrus is part of the reason the Wheel of Fortune is a 'floating orphanage', as Xigbar puts it, but you'll learn about that later.
• Haha, I didn't use Roxas as a mouthpiece back there about Luxord and Naminé looking so physically similar what are you talking about. xD It doesn't help me not friend-ship them.
• Oh, apologies to anyone who hasn't seen Atlantis: The Lost Empire. You definitely can't watch the whole thing on YouTube. That would be illegal! The people of Disney's Atlantis have super advanced technology powered by crystal shards they wear around their necks. They're sort of like portable lanterns too, because they're always glowing, and have minor healing properties. The people of Atlantis have white hair, symbolizing their incredibly long life-spans, but pirate!Barret apparently took after his dad. ^^
• I know Eiko's hair is more of a blue-purple in Final Fantasy IX, but I can imagine it got darker and less blue as she got older.
Chapter 3 ← Chapter 4 → Chapter 5
Chapter Listing
Genre: Humour
Ships?: Uhh. One-sided (?) Luxord/Tifa, possibly Roxas/Naminé, possibly Eiko/Vivi (?)
→Friendships?: Xigbar&Tifa whaaaaat.
Characters: Luxord, Xigbar, Tifa, Roxas, Naminé
→Cameos: Eiko, Vivi, Moogles
→Mentions: Barret, Freya
Rating: PG for one swear, I believe.
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, Atlantis: The Lost Empire or any related characters. This was written out of enjoyment of the series, and no profit is being made.
Music: "The Wheel of Fortune ~ Below Decks" ♪ "Naminé's Theme" ♫ "Eiko and the Moogles"
Notes: Important Ret-Con Notice! Yes, I know. "*gasp* Tuna's ret-conning what a fail." But I've come to realize that I don't remember enough about Zell's personality in order to do him justice. :c I included him in the Prologue, but when I wrote the prologue, I had next to idea where this fic was going. Now that I do know what's going on, I just don't think it'd be fair to him to keep him as a spare/dead weight. Once I play Final Fantasy VIII myself, I'll just write him all the time. My apologies to anyone who was really looking forward to pirate!Zell. Maybe I'll make him a cameo in the bar chapter that I'm crawling towards.
In other news, whoooo another chapter! I bribed myself with Disney movies to get this one done. (I should just do that all the time. xD It seems to work.) It's mostly just long/cute/funny conversations this time, but Kaiya/spots_of_ink (no Kaiya I will never stop pimping you, you jerk) and I managed to work some mythology dork magic into it. Also, I am looking forward to writing older!Vivi and older!Eiko so much. ♥
In which Captain Luxord makes some intriguing decisions and legends are discussed.
Drink Up, Me Hearties
Chapter 4: The King of Swords
Xigbar, despite his title of first mate, sat reclining in the captain’s chair, his boots up on the desk. He scratched at the skin just beneath his eye-patch, and continued to watch as Luxord paced back and forth. Noon sunlight streamed into Luxord’s quarters through the wide windows, and bright gold refractions off the Captain’s numerous navigational devices made Xigbar squint.
“Boss, you’re going to wear a path in the carpet. Chill out,” he said.
Tifa fiddled with her earrings from where she leaned against the front of the desk. “Frankly, I’m surprised you flew off the handle like that. Whatever happened to your captain’s repose?”
Luxord sent her a glare that would’ve made any other pirate flinch as he walked by. “He was under her bed, Tifa.”
The woman nearly rolled her eyes. “Under her bed, not in it.”
“You’re missing the point!”
“Do you honestly think that he’s the type to do something like that?”
“How am I supposed to know?” Luxord threw down his hands as he turned at the end of his pacing path. “He certainly acted guilty when I found him.”
“That’s because you pulled a sword on him! And like Naminé said, there’s no way you’d be able to defy the code and kill a child.”
“Are you saying I don’t have it in me?”
“For one thing: yes, that is what I’m saying. For another, it’d ruin your family’s name, and we all know how you’d hate to do that.”
“Tifa’s right, cap’n.” Xigbar rubbed his good eye, tired of squinting. “Which also means we can’t keep the kid prisoner. It was your dad’s shmancy tradition, right?”
“Well, I’m not having that bilge rat loitering around my daughter.” Luxord stopped in his tracks, folding his arms resolutely over his chest.
“He’s down in the brig ‘loitering’ around your daughter right now,” Tifa pointed out.
Luxord didn’t flinch, but both of his ship’s officers knew he probably hadn’t thought of this. “Well, he won’t be for much longer.”
“Alright, so we drag him out of the brig.” Tifa finally pushed away from the desk and approached her captain from behind. “And we can’t kill him.” She put her hands on his shoulders and Luxord shrugged his blue surcoat off, following her signal. “What do you suggest we do?”
“I say go with Naminé’s suggestion,” Xigbar spoke up, taking his feet off the desk and standing up. Luxord sat down and Xigbar leaned on the back of the chair, cuffing the captain in the shoulder lightly. “Let blondie be swabbie. Vivi’s been doing the job since he was nine and he’s never complained once! Kid deserves a helping hand if you ask me.”
Luxord stared at the opposite wall, resting his chin in his hand. One of the heavy rings on his fingers rested coolly against his skin. Tifa hung the surcoat up in a cupboard in the corner and shut it quietly. She and Xigbar could see the cogs of the captain’s mind click through his options and priorities in his eyes. “I’ll think on it,” he finally decided.
The second and third-in-command exchanged a knowing glance. They both knew that that meant that the ‘Roxas’ down in the brig would be sticking around, but Luxord’s pride wouldn’t allow him to admit it so soon.
“When should we release them from the brig, captain?” Tifa asked.
“She’s been sent to her room without dinner, Tifa; what do you expect?” Xigbar supplied.
Luxord whacked his first mate in the gut with his arm. Xigbar punched him in the shoulder in immediate retaliation. “What was that for?”
“I would never send my daughter an entire day without food. I happen to know she has a hidden stash of food in those cells.”
A beat and then Xigbar narrowed his eye at the captain. “You, sir, are almost certainly pussy-whipped.”
“Tifa, you and Xigbar are dismissed.” Luxord grinned and laced his fingers together, reclining back in his chair and setting a boot upon his knee.
“Aye, cap’n!” Tifa saluted cheerfully and grabbed Xigbar’s arm, dragging him easily from the room.
“Pussy-whipped!” Xigbar accused over his shoulder. Luxord only laughed as Tifa shut the door behind them.
Outside of the captain’s quarters, Tifa let go of Xigbar’s arm and they ambled toward the bar counter fore of them. The galley door was closed down the hull, but they could hear Eiko and the moogles already at work on lunch and dinner.
Xigbar swiftly crossed both of his arms over his chest. “So, are you regretting it yet?”
“Regretting what?” Tifa asked, eyebrows raised.
“Breaking up that fight between Naminé and Luxord.”
“Why would I regret it?”
“Because, he… y’know, went dictionary mode.” Xigbar grinned like a shark when he caught sight of Tifa nibbling on her bottom lip. She went behind her bar and he sat at one of the stools.
“What about it?” she asked, and he noticed immediately how her tone had become slightly accusatory.
“You were getting all… tingly, weren’t ‘cha?”
Tifa leaned on the counter and held her face in her hand. “Xigbar…”
“You’re thinking about it right now, aren’t you?” His hand assumed the ‘gun’ position: index finger pointing at her, thumb resting on top. He would’ve winked if he had both eyes.
“What? No!” Her palms slammed the plastic countertop, but the redness in her cheeks was definitely there. “Why would you think that?”
Xigbar chuckled smugly, leaning his chin on the back of his hand. “Tifa, I’ve known about your doe-eyed adoration for him for how long, now? I can tell. You always bite your lower lip when you’re thinking about the captain.” He closed his eye and grinned. “It’s kinda cute, actually.”
Tifa observed the outline of her right hand on the counter; anything to ignore Xigbar’s playful smile.
“You might want to do something about that little habit. What if he’s noticed? Oooh…” He wiggled his fingers at her, as though telling a ghost story.
“Xigbar, don’t joke about that,” Tifa said, her voice suddenly quiet.
The lookout flinched inwardly. “Aw, c’mon, lovebird.” He leaned forward on his stool, folding his arms on the countertop and resting his chin on top of them. “So what if he knows? He probably feels the same way.
“…Maybe. Well, alright, I have no idea. I mean, maybe he has a secret woman that he sneaks off to. The gypsies in Paris have a few lookers, but… Most likely not, though.”
Tifa groaned loudly.
“D’you think he bites his lip whenever he thinks about you?” Xigbar was now looking aft to the captain’s door. “Want me to ask? Because I can do that, no problem.”
Tifa glared. “Xig. Bar.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m done.”
---
Roxas fell asleep and woke up every couple of hours over the course of the afternoon. Every time he woke up, he would whisper Naminé’s name, checking if she was awake. She never was.
He had lost count of how many of these tight little cycles of exhaustion and sudden awareness his body had dragged him through when he started awake yet again. Something had collided with the bars of his cell and now rested on the floor just outside them.
“Sorry! Didn’t mean to throw so hard,” a voice apologized across the room from him.
Roxas rubbed the sleep from his eyes. The dim light bulbs made whatever she had thrown look exactly like a black lumpy blob. He pulled it up into his lap through the bars and saw that it was a small drawstring satchel. He shifted his hand in through the opening and his hand closed around something that squished.
He squinted at what appeared to be a small piece of cookie dough. He couldn’t tell if the dark splotches were chocolate chips, burnt chunks, or some combination of both. He bit into it and found it to be crunchy on the outside but (mostly) smooth on the inside.
“That’s what got me and Eiko thrown in here last time. She let me keep what was left to add to my rations.”
“Your rations?” Roxas asked the shadows in the cell opposite. Before he realized what he was doing, he was eating another burnt chocolate chip cookie. Then, thinking, “What time is it?”
If he squinted in the dark, he could see that she was lying on her back, her right leg bent up at the knee, her left leg resting up on it. “Yeah. The Marrus family doesn’t take prisoners, so the brig’s been a time-out zone since at least grandma and grandpa’s time. I got all sorts of food underneath this mattress just in case.
“And… I’m not sure what time it is. Probably dinner time, seeing as I got hungry. Sorry they’re so burnt.”
Roxas shook his head, trying not to get distracted by the fact the future Dread Pirate Naminé had just used the words ‘grandma’ and ‘grandpa’. “Uh, so… who’s Eiko?”
“Oh! Eiko’s our cook. I guess there wouldn’t be any legends about her, would they? Which she hates because, well…” He heard Naminé’s clothes shift. Then she was sitting up on her cot, mirroring him by leaning back against the wall. “Do you mind telling me what legends there are about us? They’re always so funny.”
Roxas’s jaw halted and he felt a crumb tumble from his lips into his lap (he was hungrier than he realized). “Are you sure you want to hear them? I mean, I was never really sure what to believe myself when I heard some of ‘em.”
She chuckled quietly. “Of course. And you can go ahead and finish that bag if you like.”
“Well, where should I start?”
“Wherever you want!”
“Your dad obviously has the most stories.”
“Hee!” Naminé swung her feet off the cot like a little girl, grinning. “That’s right. What’s one you’ve heard about Papa?”
“Oh, where do I start?” Roxas leaned his head back on the wall. “Well, I’ve heard a couple about why he’s so lucky.”
“Okay. What’s the first one?” she prodded gently.
“I heard he won his luck from the devil by beating him in a poker game. And he put his soul on the line doing it.”
Naminé laughed out loud and it echoed off the tight metal walls. “No, I’m pretty sure that never happened.”
Roxas smiled widely. “The other one I heard was that the Fate Lakhesis made a mistake when measuring his Thread of Life, so his thread is much longer than a normal human’s.”
“Hmm.” Naminé put a finger to her lips. “I can’t really disprove that one. And even if I could, I’m not sure I’d want to. I like that one.”
Roxas actually grinned. He forgot for a second that bars separated them. “Uh, well. The best one is more about the Dread Pirate name, to tell you the truth.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I heard that uh, your dad’s father cursed the family with it.”
“…Grandpa cursed the family? Never heard that before.”
“No, sorry; let me explain. The legend goes that your grandfather made a deal with the stars. He gave up his identity in order to learn the secrets of the world from them. He stayed on a rock in the middle of the ocean for three hundred nights, never eating or sleeping in order to listen to the stars properly. In the end, the - well, your - family line knew the world’s deepest secrets, but was cursed to know themselves only as ‘the Dread Pirate’.”
“Wow.” Naminé mulled the story over. “You’re right. That is a good one. But ‘Dread Pirate’ is the name of a job. It’s not totally who my father thinks he is.”
“And you’re going to be the Dread Pirate Naminé one day, right?”
“Yup! And that’s another thing about that story. The curse would’ve stopped with me.”
Roxas blinked. “How do you mean?”
“Well…” Naminé hesitated, and pulled one of her knees back to hug it to her chest. “It’s not really something I like to admit very often, but I’m not Luxord’s daughter by blood. I’m adopted.”
The silence in the brig was thick. They heard the ship creak around them.
“You’re adopted? But - you look so similar! With… your hair, and your eyes-”
“Yeah. Funny how that works, huh?” Naminé giggled, more softly this time. “Tifa was the one who found me. It’s sort of how Papa came up with my middle name.”
“Alcyone?”
“She was a demi-goddess who threw herself into the sea after her husband was killed. Tifa threw herself off the deck to find me when they were passing by a shipwreck.”
“Wow. So, wait… your parents…?”
“Never knew them. The Wheel of Fortune’s my family, and they always will be.” She smiled at him, coming out of her reverie. “I still say its Xigbar’s fault for all the times I end up in here. He’s the one who taught me all those pranks when I saw little.”
“Xigbar. He’s the one with the eye-patch, right?” Roxas pointed to his right eye for emphasis.
“Yup! Our first mate. Any good stories about him?”
Roxas laughed, and pulled his feet up on the cot to sit cross-legged. “I heard his one eye can see into your soul.”
Naminé laughed too. “Oh, he only wishes. I don’t know how he got that eye-patch to tell you the truth. I think Papa does, though… What about Tifa?”
“The woman who punched the mast and then threatened to take your card games away?”
Naminé glared at her knees and blushed under the dim yellow light. “Yeah.”
“Uh… she has the strength of a thousand men?”
“Hmm.” Naminé tilted her head in thought. “I’d say more like a hundred, but pretty close. Barret?”
“Is he the man with the cannon on his arm?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I always heard that Luxord had technology from Atlantis. I guess somebody over exaggerated his arm and thought… ‘Barret’ was a robot.”
“That one’s actually pretty close. We do have technology from Atlantis. It’s where Barret is from after all.” Naminé stood up and dug her hand underneath her mattress. The hunger pains were returning.
She therefore missed Roxas’s jaw dropping open. “A-Atlantis is real?”
“Oh, yes. All the pirates know about it. It’s something like… Barret’s dad was an explorer who came across it and his mom was an Atlantean. That’s why he doesn’t have the white hair.
“But yeah,” she pulled another satchel out from under her bed, “the cannons we have are Atlantean and so’s Barret’s arm. It’s powered by that crystal around his neck.” She plopped back down on her cot and the springs squeaked lightly.
“…Atlantis is real?”
Naminé laughed until she covered her grin with a gloved hand. “Yes. I’m surprised you’re still surprised. There’s a lot more to us pirates than you seem to think.”
“You can say that again.”
“…Have you heard of Freya?”
“Is she the dragoon that can leap the tallest mountain?”
Naminé opened her mouth to reply and closed it again. “Actually, I think that’s pretty accurate.”
“Hm.” Roxas chewed thoughtfully on a cookie. “You know, I should ask you about something I heard once.”
“Sure.”
“I heard your dad controls a vengeful spirit that curses anyone who damns his name.”
Naminé stared at the floor in thought, leaning back against the wall and putting her hand into her bag. “We don’t have anyone like that.” She paused and popped a crisp into her mouth. “Unless… You don’t mean Vivi do you?”
“‘Vivi?’ I heard his name up on deck but didn’t see him. It was while you and your dad were arguing.”
“Vivi’s a Black Mage. Ever heard of them?”
“No.”
“Well, they’re this tribe of people who have really dark skin and glowing yellow eyes.” Naminé held her eyelids open with her fingers. “I guess I can see why someone thought Vivi was a spirit.”
“So no cursing people if they damn your father’s name?”
“Nah. He is a big softie, but nobody really controls him. …‘Cept maybe Eiko. But we’re not supposed to know about that, so shh…” She raised a finger to her lips and Roxas mirrored her, blinking.
She laughed, closing her eyes again. She looked down at her boots suddenly. “So, um. What about me? Are there any legends about the captain’s daughter?”
“Oh. Only… vague ones.”
She smiled shyly up at him, keeping her head ducked slightly. “Like what?”
Roxas shook his head. “No, it’s nothing.”
“Tell me?” she asked. “Please?”
“…Promise you won’t get mad if I do?”
Naminé giggled. “We’re locked in separate cells, you know.”
“You don’t fool me.” Roxas frowned at her. “I’ve fought against you. You’ve got a big reach.”
The pirate ducked her head again. “Alright, that’s true. But here, I’m not going to pick up my sword. It’s been on the floor this whole time.” She kicked something near her foot and Roxas heard a metallic ringing as the sword rolled away from her.
“Okay.” Roxas took a deep breath. “The only one I’ve heard about you was that the captain’s daughter was… beautiful, yet deadly.”
Naminé gave him the sweetest smile he had ever seen. “Completely accurate.”
Roxas felt heat prickle his face. Only time would tell if she was lying or not.
---
The next morning (or so Roxas assumed), the two ‘prisoners’ awoke to light in their eyes and the hiss of dying light bulbs.
“Naminé?” There was a female voice in the doorway. “Your father wants me to release you and the stowaway.”
Roxas heard Naminé sit up with a heavy sigh. “About time. He’s so stubborn.”
“I know he is,” the voice continued. “But my father would’ve reacted the same way if he had found a stranger under my bed at your age.”
Roxas finally found the strength in his arms to sit up as Naminé’s cell door opened. His own barred door swung open and he saw the Tifa Lockhart woman holding out a hand to help him. He saw that her eyes were a bright red in the dark room. “Your name is Roxas, right?”
He took her hand and stood. “Yeah.”
“Well, come on then.” She waved a gloved hand in indication for him to follow her out of the brig.
Now that his mind wasn’t panicked at the thought of dying any second, Roxas was able to take in that Miss Lockhart seemed to wear clothes caught between a barmaid and a fighter’s dress. The white cotton shirt and pinstriped corset reminded him immediately of the waitresses back home in Seventh Heaven, but the black fingerless gloves that reached above her elbows and the loose black pants suggested ease of movement. But the oddest part of it was the black cloth that hung from her waist, attached to her belt hooks by metal fasteners and strong cord. The bustle trailed behind her like his mother’s sundresses would and the contrasting mental images clashed in his brain.
Naminé nudged him in the side as they followed Tifa to the staircase near the armoury. “Don’t stare too much,” she whispered. “Tifa’s kinda shy about that.”
Roxas raised his eyebrows at her. “The woman who has the strength of a hundred men?”
“Mm-hmm.” Naminé nodded, blonde bangs falling into her eyes. “I think that’s one of the things I like about her most, to tell you the truth.”
At the top of the staircase, Roxas was able to look around the first deck much more easily than he had the previous day, when he had been running for his life. There was a bar counter nearby, complete with electric lights and stools and plastic countertop. Tifa retreated behind it and Naminé sat on a cushy arm chair nearby. Yesterday, he had apparently run through the center of some sort of common room spanning the hull.
“You… have… arm chairs in your ship. And is that a coffee table?” Roxas pointed at the piece of furniture situated a little to the left of the staircase leading to the outer deck.
“Yeah. We keep them bolted down. And there’s a trap door above that staircase that we close in case of storms,” Naminé explained, pointing to the sunny stairs. “You should probably sit down. Eiko’s going to want to serve breakfast.”
“Ei-?” Roxas jumped when a door slammed against a frame right behind him. He turned around and nearly tripped over Naminé’s chair as he backed up.
A young woman strode out of a doorway. She had purple hair piled up on top of her head in a loose bun and wore a lacy black dress over a pair of red and white striped pants. There was a blunt horn rising from her forehead above her hair. She raised her hand in a wave as she passed. “Hey, Roxas.”
Roxas’s jaw dropped.
“That’s Eiko,” Naminé said.
They all watched as the young woman strode towards the staircase and about halfway up it until her head poked out into the sunlight. “Vivi!” she shouted. She put her hands on her hips and tapped her buckled heels.
A white creature flew out of the doorway behind her on tiny draconic wings. It circled around Eiko once before flying above her head and out onto the deck. Apparently satisfied with this, the ship’s cook strode back into what Roxas realized was her galley, leaving the door open.
He looked at Naminé, who shrugged at him. “You’re allowed to look inside, you know.”
Roxas leaned forward and did just that. He caught a brief glance of a small square room, full of cooking equipment he could tell had been well-used over several years. Eiko, seemed right at home, chopping at some sort of vegetable. As did the five furry flying creatures that fluttered about, white cat-like ears twitching, orange furry pom-poms bouncing from thin stems from the center of their heads.
And that was when Roxas realized how truly ‘different’ the Dread Pirate and his crew were from other pirates.
He turned around again as someone stumbled down the steps opposite. A tall, lanky… someone, wearing baggy, patched up clothes and an over-sized tricorne was being pulled toward the kitchen by one of the little flying creatures. He…she?... It turned to look at him and waved a gloved hand. The person’s face was in the shadows of its tricorne, but Roxas saw two yellow-orange glowing eyes blink at him. “Hi,” a shy voice said before it was dragged into the kitchen.
“And that’s Vivi,” Naminé said.
“Tha…” Roxas couldn’t even finish the syllable and leaned forward to look into the kitchen again. Vivi seemed to laugh quietly at Eiko’s huff and snapped his fingers. The small fire pit beneath the cauldron in the center of the room burst into flame and Roxas nearly jumped out of his skin. “Holy crap, that’s a Black Mage?”
Vivi heard him and flinched slightly. His glove lifted and seemed to scratch his cheek sheepishly, but Roxas still couldn’t see his skin beneath the darkness of his hat. “I… I’m sorry?”
“You shouldn’t be, Vivi.” A familiar voice sent chills down Roxas’s spine and he turned around for the third time, wisely deciding to press his back into the wall beside the door frame. Captain Luxord descended the sunny stairwell, trailed by his first mate. “However, the cretin should give apology some thought.”
Roxas caught a glimpse of Naminé half-rising from her seat in protest, but was drawn back like a magnet to the angry blue eyes fixed on him. “What’s my punishment, Captain sir?”
“You are to serve under Vivi as cabin boy and swabbie until I see it fit to return you to your home.”
Roxas’s insides solidified. The faces of his father, mother, brother flitted through his head in the space of a second and he found himself staring at the floor. His eyes stung and he bit down on his tongue.
Suddenly, Tifa was beside him, touching his shoulder and bringing him away from the wall. She sat him down somewhere and realized it was a stool by her bar. “Welcome to the dysfunctional family, Roxas.” She smiled gently and he could tell she was obviously distracting him so he wouldn’t cry. “And as long as you’re going to be with us, you might as well tell us your whole name, right? Only someone like Xigbar goes around calling himself by one name.”
“Hey!” Xigbar said from across the room.
His tongue was sore from his teeth but Roxas nodded. “My name is Roxas Strife.”
There was a sudden tension in the room that had nothing to do with the threat of falling tears. Roxas heard the ship creak again and decided it would be wise to stare at his fingernails and listen to his own death rather than see it.
“Tifa?” Captain Luxord said. There was something remarkably different in his voice.
“It’s fine, Captain.” Tifa’s hand gripped the countertop beside him tensely. She was staring at the wall to her side, so no one could get a good look at her face.
“If I had known, my decision would’ve-”
“Captain,” Tifa said, turning her head so fast her earrings swung. She met Luxord’s blue gaze for a second before she dropped her eyes to the ground near his feet. “It’s fine. The young Mr. Strife snuck onto our ship. He deserves at least a little punishment, no matter who he’s related to.”
Roxas furrowed his eyebrows. Did that mean… Tifa, a pirate, knew his father or mother? He had absolutely no idea what had just happened.
“Are you completely sure? I trust your judgement.”
Everybody was statue-still. Only their eyes moved between the Dread Pirate Captain and his boatswain.
“I’ll take care of him,” Tifa said, quiet as a promise.
Everyone seemed to breathe again and Luxord moved. He turned and grabbed Xigbar by the shoulder. “And don’t think I’ve forgotten your punishment either. A week of laundry duty once we get back home.”
Another slightly blurred moment and a door slammed. Roxas inhaled shakily, trying to calm himself. He looked up and around the room. Xigbar mumbled under his breath and went up the staircase; Tifa followed numbly, eyes troubled; Naminé and Vivi were looked at him, deeply concerned; Eiko popped her head out of the kitchen, checking that her captain was gone. Then she looked at him and smiled sympathetically.
“What do you want for breakfast, Roxas?”
And for the first time in two days, Roxas thought that maybe, just maybe, he stood a chance at not dying after all.
Foot Notes/Glossery
• Aft: at, close to, or toward the stern or tail.
• 'Grandpa' and 'Grandma' Marrus will have a minor role to play later on in the story, but for know, they shall only be fondly remembered by Luxord. Naminé never got to meet them. Grandma Marrus is part of the reason the Wheel of Fortune is a 'floating orphanage', as Xigbar puts it, but you'll learn about that later.
• Haha, I didn't use Roxas as a mouthpiece back there about Luxord and Naminé looking so physically similar what are you talking about. xD It doesn't help me not friend-ship them.
• Oh, apologies to anyone who hasn't seen Atlantis: The Lost Empire. You definitely can't watch the whole thing on YouTube. That would be illegal! The people of Disney's Atlantis have super advanced technology powered by crystal shards they wear around their necks. They're sort of like portable lanterns too, because they're always glowing, and have minor healing properties. The people of Atlantis have white hair, symbolizing their incredibly long life-spans, but pirate!Barret apparently took after his dad. ^^
• I know Eiko's hair is more of a blue-purple in Final Fantasy IX, but I can imagine it got darker and less blue as she got older.
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