After The Rain [KH1]

[TwilightRiku_13]

Hooray!!! You're back and updating!!! Good to see you back. That was a really good chapter. So, Cid is going to let Ame use the Shera to collect gummi blocks from Heartless ships to build a top notch gummi ship for Scrooge McDuck. Why do I get the this is going to bite him in the ass? Well, I guess we'll just have to wait to find out. Anyway, great job, and I look forward to more.

[Barely Tolerated]

wow, good update, brittany. <3
i sense a journey coming on ^______________^
can't wait for the next oneee!

[!BRITTANY]

THIS LACK OF UPDATE WAS SO NOT MY FAULT. My computer died. ._.

--&&--

The shadows that fell across her bedsheets shifted whenever Ame fidgeted. She cast her eyes away from them, pulling the sheets over her head. She was scared of the dark now. She didn’t know why - well, she had some idea - as a little girl she was fine with the dark.

Cid didn’t like the dark. He said that once where we lived got taken away because of it. Ame never really knew what he meant; she couldn’t remember living anywhere but Traverse Town.
Still.. she liked thinking of herself as a fairly brave person, even if really she wasn’t. Darkness meant something new now. It wasn’t just a change of lighting..


Ame threw her sheets away from her. The sheets piled against eachother, crumpling slightly. Ame drew her knees up to her chin and buried her face in them.
I need to get away..
---

It had been a week since Cid agreed to take Ame on the ship..
And he hadn’t.

Sitting grumpily on the couch had been what Ame did all day for a looong time now. Cid gave her a notebook as a present from Aerith, and Ame had decorated it. It was smooth, with soft yet crisp pages. A pink ribbon was tied around it to keep it closed. Ame had glued a flower she had found on the ground to the cover - it looked like it had been rained on, but still retained a wilted beauty. The petals were browning slightly at the edges.


Ame stared at the book in her lap - she kind of felt bad, cruelly sticking such a pretty thing on to her book. She wasn’t even using it.
“You ever gonna use that thing?” Cid asked. He rubbed his bruised hand self-consciously, having caught it in the till earlier.
“I don’t have anything to put in it, Dad.” Ame sighed. Maybe she could draw landscapes in it.. she’d have to imagine them, of course, Traverse Town didn’t have such nice scenery. A grin crept over her face.
“Speaking of the Shera..”
---

Ame knew that Cid loved to talk about his Gummi ships and how they worked. It was his favourite thing to do - besides swearing at rude customers once they had left. He didn’t do that much anymore; he stuck to his ships. Talking about Gummi didn’t involve any munny being lost to the Swear Jar.

“Okay, what does this do?”
“That’s the seat.”
“I see..” Ame crossed her arms, tapping her chin with a wise look on her face. “And these.. ‘windows’.. you look through them?” She smushed her face against the windshield, pulling a face.
“You know, Uncle Barret used to get pretty motion sick near those windows. Took a lot of scrubbing.”
“...” Ame removed her face from the glass.

Cid began explaining the controls to her, but she was lost at turning on the engine. She let her eyes roam.
The ship wasn’t all that large, the insides as choppy as the exterior. There were three seats before a vast control panel, buttons glinting upon it. The seats looked rather comfortable, a deep maroon of smooth fabric, but when Ame sat she found them slightly lumpy. She grasped the first lever she saw - labelled ‘Handbrake’ - and pulled at it. Nothing.

“Even if you put in the key you’d get nothin’. Baby’s got no fuel.”
“.. These things need fuel?”
“Are you kiddin’? Everything needs fuel. Shera needs fuel, Storm’ll need fuel, you need fuel.”
“Ooh yeah, hook me up with some diesel dumplings.” Ame shifted in her seat. “Okay, when can we take off?”
Cid shrugged.

“Next week it is! Grr, bwaaaar~” Ame leaned back and forth, tapping the pedals lightly. Her eyes were focused on the back of the garage as she imagined the universe stretched out before her.

--

“Does he plan on getting up eventually, you think?”“Nay, he’s weakened I’d say.” “Poor thing. He might starve.”“He thought we were rain, you know.”“Never heard of waterfalls running upward I suppose?”

The waterfalls tittered to each other as they ran upwards, curving over the basin in which the castle was based.
“Oh, here She comes.”“Here She comes.”“Making matters worse, She is.”“Oh hush, She’ll hear you.”

A dark boot kicked at Riku’s side, before nudging at his cheek and pushing him onto his back. “Get up, boy.”

Cid closed the large door of the World Exit and rubbed his nose with a sniff. Ame hopped from one foot to the other in excitement. Her, on a Gummi ship. Would it be scary out there in the massive blackness? Where the only light is stars; stars that are slowly fading by the day?
Yes.

“C’mon.” Cid tugged at his daughter’s arm.
"I'm coming, I'm coming." Ame walked as slowly as she could across the square, dragging her feet. She didn’t want to sleep - that was the last thing she wanted to do. Usually the darkness of her room was comforting while she slept, but now it scared her. The light had blown in her room and Cid couldn’t be bothered fixing it.

It was probably her teenage imagination, but.. shadows could move.. without light flickering..
She eyed the stairs nervously. The store had a few shadows out the front. Cid walked past them without a glance, only turning back to beckon her forward.

Ame opened her mouth to ask if she could sleep on the couch with the light on, but all that came out was -
“Dad!”
Light glinted from the shadows before they spread, puddles wrapping themselves around Cid’s ankles.
“Dad!” Ame ran forward, tripping on the stairs and opening the old wound on the side of her face.
“Ame, run!” Yuffie?
A block of wood lay by the door to the Second District, and Yuffie had appeared in a whiff of smoke by Cid’s side.
That’s cool.

“But- ” Ame croaked. She tried to get to her feet, but a hand on the back of her top pulled her up and patted her on the shoulder. Leon placed himself in front of her; Gunblade glinting.
“Just run!”

Spinning, Ame ran towards the World Exit. The boy who usually leaned against the lamppost was gone, probably hiding.
Why wasn’t she running back to the shop?
Right, blobs of darkness were eating away at it. Forgot that.
Her moogle doll, her sketchbooks.. they all flashed through her mind. She wouldn’t lose them would she? The one Aerith gave her.. Ame shoved her hand in her pocket, opening the large door with one hand. The petals of the flower crumpled against her hand.

#&#37;&*!

A Heartless pounced on her back, claws scratching at her cheek.

“What is it with you lot and my goddamn face?!” She shrieked. The Heartless blinked in confusion as she wrapped her hand around its neck and threw it to the ground. Ame slipped through the Exit and yanked the door closed.

[TwilightRiku_13]

Oh no, the Heartless are attacking!!! Well, at least Ame made it tot he outside of the world. I hope that she'll be okay. So, that bolded part was about Riku, right? Will Ame ever catch up with him? I guess time will tell. Anyway, great job, and I look forward to more.