Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ The Ninety-ninth Sacrifice ❯ XIII ( Chapter 13 )

XIII

990 S.A.

 

“Oh, c'mon Auron!” burbled Jecht. “Don' be such a par'y pooper!”

“I didn't even touch that stuff when I was a teenager, why do you think I would now?” he exclaimed, pushing the bottle away. “Where did you get that bottle any way?”

Jecht shrugged sheepishly and took another swig from the bottle in his hand. “Jus' back thar,” he said throwing his arm behind himself. “I found i' on the ground. Someone must `ave dropped i', so I picked i' up!”

“You're drunk,” said Auron disgustedly, pushing away from Jecht. “Braska, how close are we to the Moonflow?”

Braska only smiled at Auron in a parental way. “Look ahead, what do you see?”

Looking ahead all Auron saw was a large line of trees. Though, after watching the trees for a few moments, he noted that there was something odd about the sky above them. “There's pyre flies behind those trees.”

“Yes, there are. So, what would be behind the trees then?” Braska kept on walking calmly. During the entire journey he was the only one who never complained; he just kept soldiering on towards their almost unattainable end.

Jecht perked up in drunken fervor. “The Moonflow! We're here!” Shifting the pack on his back, he ran ahead of the others excitedly.

Auron swore and ran forward to catch up to Jecht. Braska only smiled and followed the two down the path at a quickened pace. Even though he may have wanted to run, he didn't want to trip on his robes. Braska was a summoner, and he had a reputation to uphold.

Jecht, on the other hand, being as drunk as he was, had no notion about reputation. Though, he still had a sense of duty when it came to his position of guardian. His vision blurred by his drunkenness, he took his blade from its position at his side. “Holy, look a' the size of tha' fiend! Don't worry Braska!” Jecht raised his sword and ran forward.

To Auron's horror, the fiend that Jecht was attacking was in reality a shoopuf, one of the transport animals that traveled over the Moonflow. A shoopuf was a large amphibious creature, like most creatures, including humans, were on the continent of Spira. It had a long nose that could grab plants and suck up water like a straw. Jecht attacked the shoopuf feebly, only cutting through the tope layer of very leathery skin. Nonetheless, he did scare the creature enough to make it rear on its hind legs and attempt to stomp on Jecht. It would have succeeded too, if Auron hadn't pushed Jecht out of the way. Auron effectively pushed Jecht so hard that he hit his head on the granite walk and went unconscious.

Upon seeing the commotion, a dozen of the shoopuf's trainers came out to calm it down. One came up to Auron and started yelling in its fishy voice. “Whatsh are you doing? Whysh do you attack zhe shoopuf?” Every one of the trainers were Hypellos, a race of creatures that looked like a mix between a frog and a man. It stood on two hind legs like a man, but it had two large, fishy eyes protruding from the side of its head. Its skin was a light blue color and each one of the frog-like men wore humble yellow garments. Though, truth be told, they would have worn nothing had not the humans insisted they did.

“I'm terribly sorry,” consolidated Auron, seeing Braska coming from the path. “My … companion here is drunk and he thought your shoopuf was a fiend.”

“Whatsh! Zhe shoopuf ish not a fiend! It ish a shoopuf! Now it ish a shoopuf thatsh bleeding!”

Braska coming up from behind Auron was more interested in the frightened animal than the fact that one of his guardians was unconscious on the ground. “What's going on here? What's wrong with the shoopuf?”

“He attacksh zhe shoopuf!” exclaimed the Hypello, pointing a webbed finger at an unconscious Jecht.

“Jecht,” sighed Braska, taking out his staff. “I'm a summoner, and I'm trained in white magic. Let me help.” Walking over to the startled creature, Braska said some calming words. Though, the creature was so loud and scared, it paid scant attention. Taking his staff, he said some words of magic, and placed his staff near the creature's leg. The wound was healed, but it kept a scar. “There, is there any other compensation I can offer you?”

“Oh, oh, oh, oh, um, um, um,” said the Hypello, going over to talk to another one of its kind. “Wesh Hypellosh wantsh a bigger fee for zhe croshing of zhe Moonflow!”

Braska sighed and looked at the unconscious Jecht. They needed to get across the Moonflow as fast as possible. “Name your price then.”

“Well, zhish shoopuf ish out of commishin, so we needsh zhe compenshashin for zhe ridesh zhish shoopuf would have done. We wantsh a zhoushand gil.”

“A thousand!” protested Auron. “But, do we have that much to pay them?”

“You underestimate the wealth of the Temple of Yevon. We can pay, easily.” Braska gave the unconscious Jecht and evil look. “But, he needs to make his own compensation. When we get to Guadosalam he has to carry everything, on top of not sleeping in the tent for a week.”

“Huh,” said Auron, heaving Jecht up onto his shoulders. He was slightly heavy, but Auron only needed to brunt the weight until they got up on the shoopuf. “Slightly juvenile punishment, don't you think?”

“He was being juvenile when he attacked the poor thing,” said Braska, boarding the creature.

“If he was this way with the shoopuf,” noted Auron, flinging Jecht's limp body onto the creature, “I don't want to see how he's going to act around the Guado.”

 

 

 

 

1