********* (I Love You) Aki XXVI: Hatsumon- A FFXI Love StoryFollow

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is Aki XXVI of my love story ************ (I Love You)[/I].

I hope you all enjoy it.

Previous chapters, aki, and Interludes

Part I - Connection (Enishi)

Kasho II - Kodoku (Solitude)

Part III - Reunion (Saikai)
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Interlude III:
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=10&mid=1120830198339317613

This story is for those of you who ask the girl of your dreams out on a date...and somehow, impossibly...she says “yes”.
*****
When you fall in love...

You often don’t realize it until too late.
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Aki XXVI: Hatsumon
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The windmills swung low over our heads, as I cradled her sleeping body in my arms. She felt as light as when I carried her out of the Necropolis, barely alive, months ago.

Her breathing was light and shallow, but it was peaceful.

I saw a stray strand of black hair fall into her eyes and onto her nose, making her wrinkle her nose up a tiny bit at its tickle. Her eyes squinched up a bit, and she turned her head a bit to allow it to fall back to the side.

I’ve never noticed it before...but she’s really quite beautiful...

I finally tore my eyes away from her for a bit, just in time to see a line of what appeared to be people in the distance heading toward us, just over the next rolling hill between all the sheep. Over the next half hour, they came closer and I could gradually make out what appeared to be...

Four complete Bastokian divisions, over half of that country’s standing army, heading this way in the early morning dawn.

My jaw dropped as the sea of mostly galkas came closer and closer into view, all dressed brightly in their armor, carrying their weapons of mass destruction underneath one arm while trying to force down a package of stale garlic crackers with their other hand. When they were just a few feet away, I tucked my head down in Hitomi’s slender shoulder to hide my face from recognition as they started to go past us in strict military precession, not bothering to pay us two or our chocobo any attention. Hitomi’s body gave slightly and she shifted her body a bit as I laid my head on her, but she didn’t wake up.

Rolanberries...

After about five hours of them stomping by, the last of the troops were finally past and I dared to make a quick glance to try to figure out where they were going. It was impossible to know for certain, but it seemed like they were going towards where the Bastokian mine shafts were, towards the entrance to the Valkurm Dunes.

That’s really odd...why would they want to go there?

Ehh...its none of my business anyway. I should probably wake Hitomi up though, and get us both to Selbina.

With that thought, I nudged Hitomi’s arm with my right hand, and almost immediately her eyes fluttered open. She looked up at me with those deep twin green eyes, and for just...a moment...I felt as if my breath had been stolen away from me.

Just for a moment.

"Come on Hitomi...rise and shine...time to go to Selbina." Rather than have her pull out her dictionary and try to figure out what I said, I simply pointed at her, then myself, and finally at the chocobo.

Hitomi gave me a sleepy smile, and ran a single finger across my cheek, then pulled herself up onto her two feet.

"Okay Dimitri-chan...we go now." She said simply.

I nodded my assent, helped her up onto the chocobo, and then mounted it myself. I untied the chocobo from where it was secured earlier, and then with a crack of the reins, we were off again.

Hitomi didn’t need me to tell her this time to cling to my waist tightly in order to not fall off.

We traveled up and down several hills, being careful to skirt around the Bastokian army as we headed to the sandy beaches of Valkurm. After about an three more hours’s worth of travel, the grass gradually gave way to sand, and the rolling green hills disappeared into dull waves of sand that seemed to be constantly forming and reforming under Her careful command as the sun started to fade away in another day gone by.

We passed by several packs of lizards, and passed through a tunnel before we finally came to an all-too-familiar stone walkway, broken underneath the feet of all the travelers who pass through here daily on the ferry, and bleached a dull white from existing forever underneath the unforgiving sun. I nudged the chocobo onto it with a simply twist of my reins and started to follow along this new pathway, gradually slowing down as I did so. Eventually, we came to a pair of large wooden gates, that I knew marked the entrance to the seaside town.

There, I hopped off the chicken with a slight grunt, and then carefully lowered Hitomi down to the warm sand. Looking around, I saw a chocobo wrangler moving in towards us from behind one of the ancient gates.

"‘Ello sir," he said with a slight Selbinian twang to his voice as he finally came upon us, "You lookin’ to return your rental chocobo?" He was a tough built character, with slightly wild white hair and a handlebar mustache. His skin was tanned a fair shade of brown, and his fingernails were cracked in several places.

"Yes...and I am also looking for someone. Do you know a person by the name of Isacio?" I asked airily, as the wrangler corraled the chocobo under his control with his bare hands, then fed the chocobo a small bit of gyshal grass which it devoured happily.

"Isacio? The hero of Selbina? Hell yeah I know him! Everyone does here m’ boy!" The old handler threw his head back and laughed heartily, slightly upsetting the chocobo as he did so. Then, once the old man had calmed the bird back down, he started to talk to us again.

"However, he is out in Mhaura tonight on business with the Goldsmithing guild, and you missed the last ferry out for the night about two hours ago." The wrangler jerked a thumb over his shoulder and I could just make out what looked like to be strings of lanterns hung up all over the city. "Why not spend the night and enjoy Summerfest tho? Its really good fun, and I am sure you girlfriend would have a blast too."

I blushed furiously at that.

"She’s not my..." I started to say, before he cut me off with a knowledgeable wink.

"Sir, what happens in Selbina, STAYS in Selbina. No worries...at any rate, if you wanna join in on the fun, just talk to the moogle over there" -he jerked his head in the moogle’s direction- "and get yourselves a couple o' yukatas to wear."

I glanced over at Hitomi, and I could see that her eyes were lighting up, even brighter than the lanterns.

"You want to go?..." I asked softly, my words mixing into the salty sea breeze that was floating in from the port.

Hitomi didn’t say anything, but just nodded with a shy smile.

fin Aki XXVI: Hatsumon[i]

[i]Edited, Mon Jul 11 09:18:50 2005 by Nightsintdreams