mystiri_1 (mystiri_1) wrote in areyougame, @ 2009-11-01 12:34:00 |
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Entry tags: | *final fantasy vii, author: mystiri_1 |
To The Rescue - Final Fantasy VII, Cid/Vincent, PG
Title: To The Rescue
Author: mystiri_1
Rating: PG
Warnings: strong language. Seriously AU.
Word Count: approx 5,500
Prompt: October 30, Final Fantasy VII, Cid/dragon!Vincent, persistence - Go away
Summary: Cid's not the knightly sort, so why is he riding off to rescue a princess?
Author's note: Um... Only a little late?
The problem with great ideas you came up with when you were drunk, Cid thought grimly, was that sooner or later, you sobered up.
To be honest, he couldn't take credit for this particular idea. Somebody else had suggested it. But he'd been drunk enough to agree. Hell, he'd been drunk enough to share the stories that led to the idea in the first place.
He'd just arrived in port that day, and was looking to kick back and relax. It seemed harmless enough, reminiscing about the good old days over a few drinks. Not that anybody else there remembered the good old days that Cid was talking about, of course. A lot of those present couldn't understand a word Cid said, anyway. He didn't speak Wutai, and many of the Wutaians Cid met seemed to take great pleasure in not speaking Standard. But there was this one guy, dressed kind of fancy, who had no trouble understanding. Cid caught him translating for some of his fellow drinkers a couple of times.
Cid figured it was his fault. If only he could remember the bastard's name.
But he'd been talking about the good old days: travelling the world, fighting monsters, taking on heroic quests – for a sufficiently heroic sum, anyway. Then one of the men in the bar made a loud comment, and he didn't need to comprehend the words to understand the jeering tones: the other man was suggesting he'd made it all up, or something equally derogatory.
Things would have devolved into a brawl except for the silver tongue of Cid's well-dressed drinking companion, who soothed Cid's temper with yet another bottle of alcohol. It wasn't bad, either. It could sneak up on him if he drank it in those dinky little saucer-things the locals preferred, but that was why Cid preferred to drink it by the bottle, instead. Nobody sneaked up on Cid Highwind.
No, Cid was quite capable of walking into things with eyes wide open when he was drunk.
There was some continued debate over whether or not the exploits Cid related had really happened, but for the most part, Cid ignored them. Because his well-dressed friend was telling a tale now, complete with fancy language, and it was a good one.
The Emperor betrothed his daughter to some rich and important lord, and the Imperial Princess – clearly a bit too devout, in Cid's opinion; the guy was probably better off without her – insisted on making a pilgrimage to an ancient shrine to meditate on her upcoming nuptials. So she made the journey to the oldest shrine in the whole island country, but she never came back. When the Imperial Guardsmen went looking for her, they found instead a great dragon inhabiting the shrine, and despite several brave attempts, no one had managed to retrieve the princess.
Cid snorted. “Probably dragon chow.”
“But you see what a great tragedy it is, that a beautiful young princess should be snatched away from her intended by such a terrible monster, only days before her wedding is to take place,” Fancy-robes insisted.
“Tragic,” Cid agreed.
“Then you'll do it!” Fancy-robes jumped to his feet and yelled something, and the bar went wild.
Somehow, Cid had agreed to rescue the princess.
“Do I look like a bloody knight to you?” he asked the chocobo someone had helpfully provided him with.
“Wark!”
“Exactly. Dragons are something knights are supposed to handle, not broken-down ex-mercs. I won't even put a scratch on him. He'll probably use my spear as a toothpick.” This got a sympathetic warble in response.
Of course, this didn't explain why he was still headed towards the shrine in question. The smart thing to do would have been to ditch the chocobo, head back to his ship and leave port in a hurry. Instead, here he was, halfway up a mountain in the middle of nowhere, on his way to fight a dragon.
Senility, Cid decided. As he could no longer blame it on drunkenness, it must be senility setting in. Early senility, because it wasn't like he was old or anything. Besides, he told himself, he didn't have to fight the dragon when he got there. Having a good look couldn't hurt, though.
The entrance to the shrine came into view, one of those big gates that people seemed to like so much here. The red paint was faded and peeling, and through the pillars, Cid could see steps. A lot of steps. It made him wonder why they put the gate all the way down here, when clearly everything that mattered was much further up. It also made him grateful for the chocobo, who trotted up them with ease.
A huge statue came into view at the top: a giant water serpent. It looked vaguely dragon-ish, but there was no chance the Imperial Guards had mistaken the statue for their ferocious princess-stealing monster. Cid had been to Wutai often enough to recognise it as Leviathan, the water god. That was another good question: why, on an island surrounded by water, would you put the temple of the water god on top of the tallest mountain there was?
It might have had something to do with the temple itself. Carved into the side of the mountain, the entrance alone was four times his height. Cid didn't know much about architecture, but it looked pretty impressive. He dismounted and looked at the chocobo.
"You gonna stay put?"
It warked cheerfully.
"Yeah, I figured." But he didn't tie it up, just in case he really did get eaten by a dragon. At least that way, maybe the bird would get away, rather than becoming the second course.
Cid stared at the entrance for a few moments longer, hefted his spear with a shrug, and strode on in.
There was a dragon inside.
"Whoa." At long last, survival instincts kicked in, and Cid wondered what the hell he was doing here, as he braced his spear before him. After a few long, tense minutes, he started to feel kind of silly, because the dragon hadn't moved. The dragon hadn't, in fact, even woken up. The sound of its breathing, deep and even, filled the cavernous room.
A small voice suggested that if it didn't wake up, it might be a hell of a lot easier to kill. He ignored it in favouring of taking a good look at the beast in front of him.
It was done in shades of black, ranging from deep charcoal on its head to more midnight shades along its body, and the sharp, glossy obsidian of its horns and claws. Its wings were a deep, blood red, matching the spines along its back and the webbed end of its tail, which made Cid think more of fish than things that flew. Maybe it helped it to steer. Looking at the size of it - at least twice his height, and about four times that in length - it didn't make much sense that the creature could fly, anyway.
He walked around it, trying to take in every detail, and to his surprise, one eye popped open. It made him jump, but the rhythm of its breathing never changed. A blood-red orb tracked him lazily as he circled around, then closed again. Cid realised it was still asleep.
"Damn," he breathed in astonishment. "That's... creepy. Really creepy." He caught himself - talking might wake it up - but it didn't stir.
"Guess I might as well have a look for this princess," he said with a shrug, and set out to explore the rest of the shrine.
In one of the smaller rooms in that back, he found a pile of expensive-looking silk. It was torn up, as though somebody had taken a knife to it. He didn't think the dragon was the culprit; it would have trouble even getting here, as the passageway wasn't exactly dragon-sized, and it would never fit through the door. It was the only sign of the princess he found.
Wandering back to the main room, Cid dug around in his pack. He was getting low on cigars; depending on what cargo Shera had bought for them, maybe they'd sail to Costa del Sol next so he could get some more. Costan cigars were by far the best.
He sat on a plinth that had once held a statue, and lit up.
"Do you mind?" The words were a low rumble, felt almost as much as heard. The dragon raised its head, glaring at him with red eyes.
"Not at all," Cid returned, swallowing his shock as he bit down on the end of his cigar, clutching it between his teeth. Shera was always telling him off for smoking inside, and he paid little attention to it. The woman was happier when she had something to scold him for, and Cid liked a good argument.
Of course, arguing with a dragon was probably just a bit more dangerous than ticking Shera off. Unless the woman had her fry-pan, anyway.
"Look," he pointed out helpfully as a tendril of smoke rose from the dragon's nostrils, "you're doing it, too."
The dragon scowled. "I was trying to sleep," it grumbled.
"And I'm just trying to have a cigar," Cid said pedantically. "Don't let me stop you."
The dragon snorted, which sent a greater puff of smoke rising towards the ceiling.
"Heh, can you do smoke rings?" He pursed his lips and demonstrated.
The dragon gave him a flat stare, and said nothing. Instead, it settled its head back on its foreclaws and rather pointedly closed its eyes.
"Don't suppose you've seen a princess anywhere around here?"
"The noisy girl?" the dragon asked. "She took some items from the storage rooms at the back, and left."
"Figures," Cid mumbled. She probably hadn't thought much about her father's marriage plans. He wondered what the Wutaians would say if he told them their precious princess had looted the temple and done a runner. He'd definitely have to be very careful what he said when he returned to the port.
The light that fell through the entrance was slanted; Cid judged it was getting on towards late afternoon. It had taken him most of the day to get here. "It's late, so I guess I'm going to stay the night."
The dragon's head shot up. "No!"
"That's not very hospitable, is it?" Cid scolded. "This place is a temple. It's supposed to shelter travellers, and all that pious shit."
"This is my temple, and I want you to go away."
"This is Leviathan's temple -"
"He's not using it."
"- and if you can stay here, so can I."
Another irritated huff, but this time, it came with a small burst of flame, which gave Cid a few doubts about the wisdom of arguing with the beast; but damned if he was going to travel all the way back in the dark. And there was no reason for him to be sleeping outside when there was a perfectly good shelter available.
Although maybe he should take one of the back rooms.
Nah, he decided, he'd stay right here, with the dragon who was once again ignoring him by pretending to sleep; the breathing wasn't quite as even as before, giving it away. Cid grinned. Drunken idea or not, this was the most fun he'd had in ages.
Now he just needed to not get barbecued in his sleep.