Intermission
Cast:
Rikku
Gerard
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Dreams are such awkward things, Rikku thinks to herself as she wakes up, that lone thought the first to emerge from her sleepy mind, which feels thick, waterlogged, with water that is cloudy and muddy and rippling, rippling away. She knew that her blanket was wrapped around her legs, tucked besides her arms, but if she had stayed delirious for a few moments longer she might have suspected that the orange comforter was instead covering her head, making everything foggy and dark.
But it isn’t foggy anymore and it isn’t dark. Sunlight is pouring through the window like a waterfall of gold, its brightness louder than the various alarm clocks already going off, four of them blaring different songs from RENT. Rikku is fully awake now, aware enough to be irritated, as usual, at the start of a school day.
She kicks off her blanket and throws off the remnants of her dream, losing that feeling of awkwardness as she yawns, and that mundane action brings her back to clear, un-muddy reality. Her dorm-mates are, too, beginning to get up and about, and from the sounds of it, Yuna and Asuka have stolen the coveted use of the bathroom, which is being met with threats and curses, before Kyuuri kicks the door down and throws them and their heavy bags of makeup out.
And so their morning moves along, a flurry of checking schedules and complaining about the cafeteria breakfast and running over the boarding-school’s carpeted floors to the first classes.
Rikku outstrips them all, and the few braids of her sun-shot hair whip about her head, the feathers of her earrings tickling her neck as she runs, thinking about dreams and trying not to think about them and wishing her colorful feathers could grow into wings so that she might get to her Machina class faster.
She was acting like a little kid, she knew, the kind of kid she was always teased about being back on Bikanel, full of childish intensity and stubborn denial.
No, she tells herself, There’s no special reason why I’m happy to have this class. It doesn’t have to do with black-haired boys with unforgettable smiles or the way my heart
is pounding from something other than running.
The spare bits of machina she carries with her jingle in their belt pouches, laughing at her like the older boys on Bikanel would have when she tried to tag along with them, and she blames all her eagerness instead on those mocking bits of metal. Why wouldn’t she be rushing to a class that was basically her hobby? Yes, it makes perfect sense. She wouldn’t think about the way her dreams, thick as wet shadows and shifted less easily, were filled with the only voice she wanted to hear and a happiness she couldn’t- wouldn’t -name.
And so she is the first one there, slipping in through the door like a bright shadow and doing a little victory dance in the empty workshop. Turn, turn, turn with light steps, she watches as her colorful scarf twirls around herself and believes that it really can become her own set of wings one day.
And this is how he sees her, the second to arrive, because he too flew here without wings for one reason and one reason only.
She stops and faces him, beaded braids clinking against each other, looking at him with a face that might have blushed if she wasn’t already smiling so widely.
Rikku.
Gerard.
All thoughts of dreams and wings leave her as the bell rings.