Kalm, Planet Gaia, Tuesday Night

[raspberryturk]

And the travels of the two potion-wielding weirdos continued, with Reno and Rikku catching a portal after Reno's radio broadcast to a town called Kalm, complete with cheery little colonial houses that gave no indication of the horrible state of decay that Midgar was sitting in, somewhere not far to the Southwest.

"Nothin' like complete government collapse and mass death and disease to boost the economy for the little folk," Reno mused as he made his way along the street, looking up at the cozy rows of housing around them. "Wanna crash at the inn here tonight, or would you rather start the hike to the chocobo farm place, yoto? It'll be a bit of a hike, ain't nobody here gonna led us their chocobos, and we got no way to snag a car or somethin' from this neck of the woods, yo."


"Where are we?" Rikku asked, peering around at the comfortable houses lined up in rows.

It was crazy, but she had sort of thought maybe all of Gaia was as bleak as Edge. Weird.

"We can get started tonight. I don't know how far the walk is? We can always sleep out in the open, though, can't we?"

Wasn't like they hadn't been camping out for the past week, anyway.


"This place is Kalm. Pretty much any place that had a reactor at one point or another is strugglin' through hell right now, yo. Kalm got lucky. It got a shitload of the Midgar refugees, and none of the Meteorfall downtime. I can do without stayin' the night here, yo. Campin's fine by me, zoto."

Not all of Gaia looked like Midgar. Just most of Gaia. Like Junon, for example. Poor freaking Junon.

"It's a bitch of a hike. Probably best we start the walk now, yo. I only ever saw the place by air doin' chopper fly-bys, anyhow. Rude's a friggin' hero for settin' up the deal for us in the first place, zoto."


"Rude gets cookies," Rikku decided, taking his arm and following along. It'd be neat to see the open countryside. Maybe there was a lot more of Gaia that was still okay than the bits that weren't. "Is he gonna meet us there? I'll give him big squeezy hugs if he is. Does he think you're insane for getting them?"

Hey, Rude, I want to buy some chocobos. Blue! Help me out?


"Rude always thinks I'm freakin' insane," Reno pointed out with a grin as he led her toward the edge of town. "I can't see him stickin' around a chocobo ranch for too long, but you never know with that guy. He's got a soft spot for little cute things that's bigger'n the bald spot on his head."

That was to say, Reno didn't know.

[NFB for distance! For the_merriest, who helped write this and who rules like a ruling thing!]

Comments

[raspberryturk]

He stood there for a moment in the darkness, no sky worth looking at, finding her eyes instead and trying to lose himself in them, there in the night.

Such small, clean hands...

"That's all the difference that really matters, then, ain't it?"

He gave her hand a squeeze and attempted a small smile. It was something. And acknowleding that it was... That was everything he hadn't been able to do, before.

[the_merriest]

It was something. It was huge. It meant she had to wrap her arms around him and stand here, for a long time, listening to the night air and holding him close.

Then there was traveling further down the road, and setting up camp for the night, and she tried to insist there should be ghost stories of some variety, because what sort of campfire was there without ghost stories?

In the morning, they were on the road again.

"Okay, so ..." She glanced around. "Where is the farm, anyway? I mean, you know where we're going, right?"

Gaia had lots of GPS stuff. Problem was, most of it seemed to be offline.

[raspberryturk]

Reno's, for example, was not only offline, but making cranky sounds at him.

His PHS hadn't been charged in a week, now, after all.

"Should be just up ahead, like, a little way. Kinda around the bend, yo."

He squinted and looked ahead of them, frowning. Okay. They had to be- "Ah!"

It was an ugly-ass barn thing, with a huge yellow chocobo painted on the front of it. Really, it was a mystery how they could have missed it at all.

"Race you, zoto!" And he was running before the sentence was out of his mouth. It was entirely possible that he was just as excited to meet his baby bird as she was.

But he'd never admit it.

[the_merriest]

"Cheater!" she giggled, not wasting a second in giving chase. He was still faster than her, but the adrenaline rush of seeing her baby chocho was certainly helping her cause.

Eeeeeeeeeeee, she really really had a baby chocho. Hers. So cool. He was officially the best boyfriend ever. Seriously.

[raspberryturk]

Totally not the best ever. Possibly the biggest dork, though. And Reno could live with that. He'd spent a long while perfecting the art of being a dork.

Run! Run! Run! Leap over the Mandragora who cared about friggin' Mandragora anyhow and keep running!

It wasn't like the grasslands monsters were worth stopping for when there was an epic race to the baby chocobos happening, here, anyhow.

[the_merriest]

Run! Run! Run! Jump over the -- ooooh, what was that!? Maybe it would have interesting stuff to steal! She would have to drag him back out here afterwards! After because right now it was baby chocho time! Baby chochos! Tiny blue ones! WARK!

She was going to pick hers up and snuzzle and cuddle and love it and refuse to ever, ever, ever let it go. He knew that, right?

[raspberryturk]

Reno had his suspicions, yes!

Reno's brakes apparently also didn't work so well today, as his foot hit a slick patch of fresh chocobo turd and he went skidding into the front door of the barn. Thing.

Ow.

"I win," he muttered against the wall. Because, technically, he did.

[the_merriest]

"You did win," Rikku said, crouching down next to him. "And your grand prize might be a concussion. Or the consolation prize of a goose egg kinda bump and some chocobo-doo on your shoes."

[raspberryturk]

"I think I'll settle for the consolation prize," Reno decided as he dusted himself off and then rubbed at his forehead. "And maybe leave the runnin' around this place to the birds, zoto."

[the_merriest]

"They're probably better at it," she chirped. "You win, but I'm the one who didn't thwack my head, so I'd call that a draw, anyway. C'mon, let's go inside and see our chochos."