pyr min solemnly swears he is up to no good (twinclaws) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-04-18 03:15:00 |
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After the play, the area around the stage became swarmed with admirers and scavenger hunters, all equally disappointed to see that most of the lead stars of the play, who had been there moments ago, seemed to have vanished into thin air. Pyr and Sky pushed through the crowd, trying to find a familiar face to help them strike out this item on their lists. Pushed from the side by a man leaving in a huff, Pyr collided with someone behind him, and he turned to apologize. A shawl covered most of the woman’s head, and she wore sunglasses. He felt a thrill of excitement when he realised he barely had to look up to meet her eye. She raised her eyebrows at him, and he grinned. “Hi, Ari,” he said. “We just need an autograph. We won’t tell anyone you’re here.” Ari laughed. Trust Pyr Min to recognize her -- not that she was particularly well-disguised at present, considering she was more concerned with getting to the afterparty than properly concealing herself (the sooner she could celebrate getting out of that magic harness, the better). “Come here,” she said, her voice low, pulling him with her into a darkened corner, trusting Sky would follow. Taking the paper he held in his free hand, she quickly scrawled her signature, topped it off with her lip print. “You’re set.” Sky had to bite his lip to keep from teasing his brother, but he couldn’t stop from smirking or snickering. It was more control than he had exhibited during the show; whenever Ari came on stage, or said anything, or did anything, Sky’s elbow was in Pyr’s side. Which was to say, this was a constant thing for the entire show. “Thanks, Ari,” he said, his voice in a singsong taunt -- at Pyr, of course, and he indicated as much with his eyes -- despite his best efforts. “It’s a big help to him. Us.” Pyr willed himself not to turn red as a tomato. He suspected, by how hot his face felt, that he wasn’t doing a stellar job. “Yeah, thanks, Ari. Now if you excuse us, I have to go kill my brother! Bye!” And with that, he dragged Sky away (the thief laughing like a maniac all the way). It was only once they had left and Ari had disappeared back into the crowd that it occurred to Pyr he should have asked for an autograph for himself. Ten minutes after the conception of what the twins had agreed might be the best plan they had ever hatched, Pyr, chocolate cake in hand, was being forced to reevaluate their assumptions. Getting past the caretakers had already been a mighty test of skill, but it would be for naught if Kwee continued to cluck loud enough to wake people in Ordalia. “Shut up!” Pyr hissed, brandishing the cake like a weapon. “Shut up and take my cake! You’re supposed to like cake! You deserve cake!” What Kwee thought Pyr deserved was made quite clear in the way the animal shifted its weight and tried to kick the plate out of his hands; only the restraints around the bird’s ankles saved Pyr’s dignity. “Fine!” Pyr retorted, turning up his nose as though he had not just jumped three feet in the air. “Fine! We’ll just eat the cake if you don’t want it! You’re missing out!” “Yeah!” Sky replied in turn with Pyr. He had backed up considerably from Kwee’s attempted attack, even though he wasn’t the one holding the plate of cake, but he inched a little closer now to his brother’s side and whispered, “Maybe he doesn’t like chocolate?” He wrinkled his nose at his own suggestion. “Ugh, who wouldn’t like chocolate? What’s wrong with you?” He directed the last sentence at Kwee, who squawked angrily at him in return. Sky jumped and resisted sticking out his tongue. “Maybe we should eat it in front of him, just to make him jealous,” he suggested. “Yeah! Good idea!” Not one to bother with plates and cutlery when honor was at stake, Pyr clawed a piece of cake off and began to eat it. “How do you like this, Kwee?” he mumbled through the mouthful of cake. The chocobo shot him a look that expressed a deep lack of confidence in Pyr’s intellectual capacity. “Well, we’ll see who’s the idiot here,” Pyr said and, without further ado, pounced on the bird. (He had been dragged down the street by a cockatrice before―his heart knew no fear. His body, however, knew bruises and a sore tailbone when Kwee shook him off―but when he fell, and had to flee alongside Sky, it was with a yellow feather clutched in his hand). “I thought you were super cool back there, though,” Pyr told the defeated Samurai. The man had been sitting in a bench by the sidelines with his face in his hands since the end of his match, his shattered gauntlet next to him; as such, he had been selected as the ideal target. “In fact, I almost want to be a Samurai now. Because you were seriously cool.” Over the man’s shoulder, Pyr shot Sky a meaningful look. “You really think so?” the man asked, glancing up at the squire. While Pyr talked up the samurai, Sky sneaked around out of the warrior’s line of sight. He was getting a lot better at being quiet, tiptoeing as clandestinely as he could while maintaining an air of naturality. So, while the samurai soaked up Pyr’s praise, Sky quietly leaned down and yoinked the broken gauntlet away from the man and quickly faded away. It wasn’t like he was going to need it anymore anyway. She hadn’t thought to attend this event in previous years, and had gone into it rather skeptical (she preferred to watch warriors to observing a battle between machines, surely). Now, however, all dignity had been forgotten and she was cheering and clapping loudly along with all the rest as the two massive constructs that had made it past the preliminaries faced off against each other. She wasn’t quite at the level of the man behind her (who was screaming something about slaughtering the enemy and making it into a flat metal pancake, only with expletives), but she had a clear favorite, controlled by an unexpectedly familiar machinist. As far as Juliette was concerned, the inventor of the hoverboard deserved this victory, too. “Go, Riyeko!” Pyr had been surprised at first to realise that Juliette knew Riyeko, and even more surprised to hear her yelling like that--though it served as confirmation for his theories on her character, and her temper (which he would forever keep to himself, or risk becoming the target of that temper). He questioned nothing; instead, he too yelled encouragement, as he had been from the beginning of the match. "Show them who's boss, Riyeko!" he shouted. "Taser them! Taser them!" (Whether the construct had such a feature built in or not, Pyr had no idea, but he found that detail to be irrelevant.) To his part, Sky was too enthralled with the action to notice much of anything else around him. While he still thought Riyeko was scary, it was not the reason he cheered her on; he honestly liked her battle bot best, and he did hope she’d win. On the other hand, if she lost, he really hoped it was explosively. Unfortunately, it was not, and the robot toppled over in an unceremonious slump. “Aw,” Sky said, echoing some of those around him (though not, maybe, for the same reason). He shrugged and grinned over at Pyr and Juliette. “Still cool though. Should’ve exploded though.” Pyr could not help but agree; he let out a disappointed humph as he slumped back in his seat, all the tension drained out of him as the match was called. He was about to ask what the next battle was―hopefully something with rockets, or samurai swords, or something explosive―when he saw the pamphlet in Juliette’s pocket, and his scavenger hunter senses tingled. “Where did you get this?” he blurted out, astounded. “That’s on our list for the hunt! Can we have it?” Juliette sighed in disappointment too, but a moment later she was giving Pyr a bewildered look as she withdrew the pamphlet from her pocket and held it out to him. “You want this?” she asked, clearly a bit perplexed. Did he not realize they were literally everywhere, stacks of them available at every event venue? What a strange person he was, not to have noticed (and yet to have spotted this one in her pocket). “I suppose I can get myself another later,” she said as she handed it over. Then, to Sky, “It was still quite impressive. I could not imagine how one would build something like that.” But it seemed the event was not over quite yet, and so the pamphlet was quickly forgotten, their attention once again caught by the events transpiring in the arena. Obtaining a map of the city was easy―with the influx of travelers coming to Emillion to take part in the festival, such items were readily available to visitors. Sitting side by side, the twins examined the representation of the city’s streets and alleys like a sprawling mess on the parchment, colored crayons poised like rapiers. “I kind of want to draw a circle around the Bazaar district,” Pyr said. “That’s the best area for eating. But we probably have to mark individual stands, huh.” “Pfft,” Sky huffed. “Maybe.” He studied the map, recognizing all the familiar streets and back alleys. He followed his normal path to the takoyaki stand and, with a blue crayon in hand, circled the location he knew better than practically anywhere else in the city. “This one first, obviously. And -- oh! Baker’s Dozen, of course.” He circled the location of the bakery. One by one, they marked them all―and immediately celebrated their accomplishment by taking a break to fill their bellies. In Pyr’s head, he was calm and composed and persuasive, and the young machinist before them, impressed with his knowledge and class, bestowed upon him a piece of her recently defeated mecha-robot-thingy, to mark the occasion of their meeting and ever-lasting friendship, which they would periodically celebrate by building rockets and flying with mechanical wings and lighting fireworks that spelled naughty words upon explosion. That illusion was a glass wall before him, shattering around him as he collided with it head-first, with a flail of limbs and the excited shout of, “That was totally epic! I mean you lost, but, you win at life! You make robots!” The girl cast a sad look at the jumbled mess of dented metal and loose parts that had been a functional robot less than an hour earlier and shrugged. “I did make a robot, but it’s broken now. I sunk a full year into it, and now it’s broken.” Sky, to his part, had wished that there had been a bigger explosion -- or an explosion at all, in fact, when the girl’s robot was destroyed, but he still couldn’t hide his own admiration at her robot and the battle in general. He wanted to know how to do stuff like that -- and, in fact, he knew that his guild would give him the opportunity to, should he choose to pursue it -- but for now, he was preoccupied with the excitement at hand. “But you can build more, right? And the next one will be bigger! Stronger! Faster!” The machinist looked at him, doubtful, but she had some of her fight back. “I suppose,” she said. “I could fix what was wrong with this one. Maybe add a few new features.” “New features are good!” Pyr agreed enthusiastically. “Add a taser. Tasers are fearsome things.” She gave him an odd look. “I could add something better than a taser. Why does it have to be a taser?” “It doesn’t have to be a taser. Just add whatever you need to.” Pyr eyed the jumbled mass of parts and said, “And to commemorate the future kickassery of your new robot, can we have something from the old?” He coupled his request with his best pretty-please look, which was immediately copied by Sky to boost its efficiency. The machinist looked at them, then threw up her hands. “Take whatever,” she said. The twins grinned, and pocketed one of the gears. “You’re awesome. We’ll come see you win next year!” As they skipped away, congratulating themselves on their success, she waved goodbye, looking far more cheerful than she had just ten minutes before. It was very hard not to imagine himself captaining nearly every single one of the airships they came across, not that Sky was trying not to daydream anyway. With each ship, he and Pyr grabbed at each other’s sleeves, pointed, and gasped in awe. “So cool!” Then they came across one that looked, well, not as impressive as the rest, though the captain fussed over it with obviously more pride than the other airships. Sky scoffed and was ready to move on to the next ship -- seriously, the one he rode with Ari and Audrey and that one guy, Miles was it, was way cooler -- but the captain overheard, turned, and crossed his arms haughtily. “She’s more than she looks, you know. Best damn ship in Ivalice.” “Certainly,” Peony said, her voice soothing, placating, “Things are often not all they appear.” She had done a bit of research on ships when writing The Corsair’s Choice; this one, though it seemed plain, hardly worth noticing compared to some of the sleek vessels alongside it, had an interesting construction. “We will wish you good fortune in the race,” she said. Perhaps he might surprise them. “Right,” Pyr said easily, but behind Peony’s back he and Sky rolled their eyes. “Good luck. See you!” He tugged on Peony’s sleeve and wheedled, “Let’s go get a spot by the finish line! Sky and I need a picture of the winning airship crossing the line.” “Certainly,” Peony said, agreeably following them as they winnowed their way through the gathering crowd, set on their destination. Perhaps once they arrived, someone might have a paper handy -- if they were set on the scavenger hunt, there was no reason she could not help them along with her signature while they waited for the race to begin. The bottle, freshly purchased, sat on the bench between them, and they contemplated it for a moment. Pyr said, “To count for the scavenger hunt, it has to be empty.” Then, “I don’t think I have to train tomorrow.” Sky snatched up the bottle and smiled. “Then let’s drink up. The festival’s gotta be more fun once we have some of this in our bellies.” With that, he took the cap to the edge of the bench and popped the lid off. “To winning the scavenger hunt!” “And dragons!” Mag contemplated the earnest look the squire was giving her, and tried not to laugh. No easy task. The kid was going through the same routine as every other stranger that had approached her so far since the end of the race, but Pyr was putting so much effort into the performance she did not have the heart to tell him she knew why he was there. “I’m such a big fan,” Pyr fawned. “You were so good. Like when you swerved like this,” his hands gripped invisible handlebars, “and you went like, whoosh, and you were so cool.” “Whoosh is what we aim for,” she said, amused. “What’s that you have there?” He looked down at the memstone in his hand as though he had just noticed its existence, its perfectly innocent and inconsequential existence, and Mag had to fight to suppress a grin. “Oh, it’s just, well.” He shuffled his feet—he had the adorable act down to a t, she had to give him that much. “Well, since you’re here, and I had this, I thought you might take a picture with me, which I will treasure forever until I die.” The words were out of her mouth before she could resist; laughing, she amended, “Or until such a time as a handsome gentleman by the name of Edgar Chere takes it from you.” The squire stared at her for a moment, then grinned and shrugged. “Well, yes, but you were pretty cool back there.” “And you are a terror,” she said, grinning, but motioned for him to stand beside her, so that he may obtain his prize. “This festival sucks,” Pyr declared. “The fireworks were cool, and the robots were awesome, but where are the dragons? I demand dragons!” He shook his fist at the heavens, to illustrate the grievousness of this offense. Sky joined his brother in the demand, though no dragons appeared. He wrinkled his nose, crossed his arms, and pouted. “See, if we’d got the dragon egg and hatched a dragon, we’d make this festival a whole lot more interesting!” “Right?” Pyr huffed. “I still can’t believe they don’t sell those. It would be a great business! Who doesn’t want a baby dragon? We could play games with him and call him Norbert.” And there was the issue of the scavenger hunt: without a dragon, they had no hope of obtaining a dragon scale. Unless… “I just had the best idea,” Pyr said, and took out his communicator. The day’s competitors stepped away (were dragged away, in some cases) from the arena, to be healed by the attending white mages. With the fights at an end, the crowd began to thin out. Pyr elbowed Sky and pointed at a man some distance ahead of them. “There he is,” he whispered. “Commence: Operation Dragon Scale!” They made their way over, past the spectators that still lingered around the arena, and stopped once they were right beside Lord Lavitz fon Amell, harbinger of their scavenger hunt victory (or at least a fraction of it). “Good day, sir,” Pyr announced. “We are come to trade you for that scale, as agreed on the network.” Standing next to Lavitz must’ve been a sight, considering their short and scrawny selves. The dragoon stood practically a foot or more taller than them, arms crossed loosely over his chest, tall but not terribly imposing. He raised his brows, looking from twin to twin to confirm that yes, they really did look exactly alike, and uncrossed his arms. Rather than chiding the boy for speaking for formally to him when it wasn’t necessary, he reached into a pocket to pull out a paper bag. “I should let you two know,” he began, dipping his fingers inside, “that while he may be my dragon, finding a freshly shed scale is not my idea of a fun time.” The red dragon scale, however, was drawn out and shown to just the two of them before it was dropped back into the bag. “Your turn.” Sky was so mesmerized by their prize -- a real dragon scale! -- that he nearly forgot their end of the bargain. Couldn’t they keep the scale after? Or ask Lavitz for another one? But it was with that last thought that he remembered their purpose. “Okay, yeah!” he said, glancing over at Pyr for a moment. “Well, we saw the culprit just the other day, in action, red-handed and all! Came out of the shadows out of nowhere!” The dragoon, looming over them with all of his height, raised his eyebrows. “Like a ninja,” he supplied, as if humouring them. Really, though, this was their bargaining chip? They were kids, but it seemed like they really wanted the scale, and this was sounding too vague to be considered a fair deal. Not that he wouldn’t consider simply giving it to them without anything in return. He lifted a hand, brushed his knuckles against his nose. “And where was this?” “Well.” Pyr said, stroking his chin as if deep in thought. “Last Wednesday, in the park in Commoners’. You know that bonnett Zelda got?” He tried not to look too pleased with himself as he said, “Well, we saw that happen. I mean not that well because we were some distance away, but yeah.” The mention of the bonnet struck something like recognition in Lavitz’s face, followed shortly after by another raise of his brows and a sigh. “Do you have any other details? I doubt I’ll be able to find a ninja in a city this big, but anything helps.” Sky put a finger to his chin in thought, as though trying to remember. Then he snapped his fingers. "Oh yeah! He was really tall. Or she. Couldn't tell really but definitely tall! And fast!" Dark eyes scanned the two of them, as if trying to determine whether they were making it up or not. They seemed earnest enough, but that could often be mistaken for desperation. He sighed, knotting the string on the bag to make sure it was tight enough (because he wasn’t going fishing for another scale), and held it out to them. “A deal’s a deal.” The twins exchanged a glance. Neither had expected it to be so easy, but they could wonder at their luck later. For now, before Lavitz changed his mind, Pyr reached out and took the bag. “Thanks! You’re awesome! Say hi to Zelda from us!” With a wave at the Rider, the twins turned and ran away, already cackling in delight at their prize. |