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Tales of the Heart :: Selphie (ch.2) |
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The ball wasn’t slowing down any and it was starting to look as if Selphie would be knocked out with a single move. Wakka’s eyes brightened with anticipation as the ball obstructed his view of her face. An instant before it made contact, Selphie’s jump rope hands had flown upward, blocking the projectile and sending it obliquely away. Selphie grinned wildly as Wakka landed, his face revealing utter dismay. His Blitz ball was out of reach, giving Selphie some time before he was back to full potential.
Wakka’s eyes glistened with comprehension of his straits, his body tensing as he hunched over, preparing a sprint. Watching his eyes dance between herself and the Blitz ball, his intentions quickly became all too obvious, however, it was almost too late. Wakka had already launched into a full out sprint. Selphie had no other options, there was the board network beneath the docks, or she could aim for a palm tree. Seeing as though she wouldn’t hook a board in time, Selphie lunge forward, spinning her jump rope out. The rope flew outward, far ahead of Wakka’s sprinting figure. With her tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth, her sandals nearly slipped in the sand with her spinning figure.
“Gotcha!” Selphie cheered as the rope hooked around the tree in a matter of milliseconds, Wakka’s only response that came before the jump rope being a gasp. The jump rope tangled tightly around the base of the tree, nearly knotting itself around the girth of the tree. Selphie pulled back within the moment Wakka was about to pass the rope. Her attack was a success, Wakka flew forward, his foot caught on Selphie’s jump rope. Giggling, Selphie tugged the rope hard, as Wakka rolled through the sand, grunting in pain with the sudden impact. The rope came free after a stronger tug and the end flew back at Selphie, catching it clumsily which resulted in a reddening area on her inner forearm.
“Well…”, Selphie started happily but she had underestimated Wakka’s recovery time. Wakka’s Blitz ball flew through the air and caught Selphie hard against the side, causing her to stumble backward and collapse against the ground, struggling for air. Her natural response to tear up upon losing her breath was humiliating. She gasped, not wanting to remain down for too long, in fear of being disqualified. Wakka’s Blitz ball bounced back to him, unlike last time. Selphie needed to make a decision, she needed to either give up or get up. Choking up a laugh, Selphie struggled to her feet, her knees betraying her and bending inward. She looked up through her tearing eyes and nodded, showing she had not given up. What followed was an obvious resultant of not having her guard up, Wakka’s third attack threw Selphie to the ground yet again, this time his ball colliding with the thigh of her right leg.
Selphie yelped as she slid back on the sand, rubbing the area that was already growing red. Unlike the boys, Selphie bruised and fights with Wakka usually resulted in nasty bruises. “I hate you”, Selphie laughed, the pain of her chest ceasing only to be met with the burn of her thigh. Struggling to her feet, she lunged to the side, dodging Wakka’s projectile. A clothesline attempt wouldn’t be enough, Selphie needed a new technique. Spinning one end of her jump rope overhead, Selphie ran toward Wakka. His brown eyes widened as she drew near, a salvage anger burning through her chocolate irises. “You want to play games?”, she hissed releasing the spiraling energy onto him by throwing it onto his head, a loud knocking noise resounding.
Wakka fell backward growling as he too rubbed his head. The war games were definitely painful, but they were fun nonetheless. Wakka’s brow furrowed as he ran toward Selphie without his Blitz ball. Selphie’s pupils widened as he tackled her to the ground, once again knocking the wind out of her. Her head slamming into the white sand, Selphie coughed to regain her breath as Wakka returned to his feet and ran after his Blitzball, which was now floating among the lapping waves. No time to lose, Selphie turned and propped herself up with her arms, watching as Wakka’s feet broke the tide, slowly he waded in to get his ball. Feeling a second wind, Selphie rose to her feet and ran off toward the shore, running beneath the overhanging rock formation, which lead to “Riku’s island”. Wakka had heard her footsteps and hid the ball against his defined abdomen, looking over his shoulder as he sandals continued to sloppily pad against the sand.
“You oughta fight barefoot with shoes like those”, Wakka warned suddenly turning rapidly, his right hand curved behind him, cupping the solid ball as he threw his arm forward, hurling it with dangerous velocity. There was such emotion, such anger, in his voice that Selphie had been caught off guard, causing her to lose balance. Her sandal slipped on the sand and she fell to the ground, her head roughly slamming against the sand yet again, which proved to be hard when landed on. Her clumsiness had lead her evading Wakka’s attack by mistake. Wanting to have a witty comeback as to how they benefited her, Selphie pulled herself to her knees, finding it hard to form words as she realized the ball must have bounced off something. It whizzed back past her head and into Wakka’s hands. He laughed to himself, Selphie’s expression being one of pure horror.
Selphie had no choice, she was taking a beating. Swinging hard, her jump rope responded obediently, making rough contact with Wakka’s knuckle. “Ahhhhoooow”, Wakka wailed, dropping the Blitz ball back into the water as he shook his hand wildly. Somewhere to the right, Riku was laughing. He was sitting on his Paopu fruit tree, watching from his own private area on the island. Selphie grinned up at the green-eyed teen. Riku was definitely the undeclared leader of “Game Island”. He was tough and obviously the best fighter, Wakka could barely stand a chance. Selphie found herself staring at Riku, admiring the wind as it ruffled his spiky grey hair. Riku was the embodiment of power, at least power in their limited world. He rarely spent time with Tidus, Selphie, and Wakka; he seemed to prefer Kairi and Sora’s company. I wasn’t sure why, Sora wasn’t that great of a fighter, though he had potential. ‘I want to be able to beat him…’, Selphie thought, however, she stopped her staring when she realized that Wakka was no longer wailing.
No, he was now thrashing, thrashing through the water and toward his Blitz ball. Rising to her feet, Selphie ran the opposite direction. ’Come on…’, she thought scanning her surrounding, Wakka taunting her for running away. She didn’t plan on sitting there and taking a beating, especially not when she could easily be strategizing to get Wakka off his feet. With the sound of Wakka exiting the water behind her, Selphie checked over her shoulder, soon enough to lunge out of the way of his Blitz ball. She couldn’t take too many more hits. ‘I can’t lose to Wakka…’, she told herself desperately, hearing Wakka sprinting behind her so he might get to his ball before her. “Tadaa!”, Selphie cried, suddenly realizing what she needed to do to keep herself from being to damaged by Wakka’s attacks, she needed to keep him away from his Blitz ball.
It was too late to catch up to him now, he was much too far ahead. Instead, Selphie twirled her jump rope overhead, hurling one end at his legs. Upon contact, Wakka’s body jerked violently and the sudden weight pulled Selphie forward through the sand, as if she were skiing. “Sucker!”, Selphie cheered as she pulled her jump rope free from his ankles and used him as a floor mat. This proved to be too showy as he turned and wrapped his arms around her legs. “Yikes”, Selphie moaned as she was suddenly flying through the air and rolling down the sands roughly. Selphie grunted as she pulled herself off the ground, Wakka was also recovering. The only problem was, her jump rope was laying in the sand to Wakka’s right. Selphie’s eyes widened as she realized her misfortune. The tables had nearly turned in her favor.
Breathing unsteadily as she pushed through the sand and forced her body to move rapidly, Selphie struggled hard to get to her jump rope, those besides her and Wakka now becoming white noise, part of the periphery. Just as she was extending her arm to reach for her jump rope, flying through the air in a sort of leap, Wakka turned and hurled the ball without looking. Out of some strange happenstance the ball made contact with Selphie’s left leg, throwing her body off. She slid backward, grunting as her leg exploded into amazing pain. Selphie clenched her teeth, no longer reaching for her jump rope; but instead, clinging to her knees to her chest, assuming the fetal position. Selphie felt tears burning into her eyes. ‘Play with the boys, feel pain like a boy’, Selphie told herself, her incisors digging into her bottom lip in order to distract her from the sure-bruises growing on now both thighs. She couldn’t undo the ball she had become. She was cradling herself, protecting herself from Wakka’s Blitz ball. ‘I don’t want to look weak…’she painfully realized. Coughing in order to clear any pain she felt, “Good throw…” she slowly sprawled out over the warm sands, her face toward the earth.
“Here comes the finisher!” Wakka yelled winding up to hurl his Blitz ball down toward Selphie one final time. Selphie’s eyes widened in horror, she looked over her shoulder and extended her hand as if pleading for her life.
“STOP IT WAKKA”, Kairi yelled from an elevated portion of land, the familiar, brown-haired boy standing with his hands behind his head as usual. Kairi had one hand on her hip and the other extended before her, a finger raised to scold Wakka. Sora, the brunette that was now accompanying Kairi, opened his eyes from his previous squint-smile so that he might become aware of his surroundings. From what she observed, Selphie deduced that the two were on a walk, and Kairi must have briefly talked with Riku, who had observed her during her fight by his island. Selphie’s eyes said all the “thanks” she needed as she rose to her feet and brushed the sand from her torso.
“Sorry, guess I got carried away... ya know?”, he said kicking the sand a bit as he let his arm relax and his Blitz ball roll from his grasp. Kairi’s demeanor instantly lightened, her firmness always seemed well-placed, a quality Selphie admired, but had failed to imitate on several occasions. Kairi leaned back a smile of satisfaction lightening her naturally beautiful features. Selphie rubbed her thighs, now facing Wakka, and looked up at her attractive opponent,
“Owwiie”. Her thighs were splintering pain and she had fought of tears twice in that one battle. “I’ll get ya next time!” Selphie flirted, pushing his right shoulder back. His eyes remained on hers as his shoulder was the only thing that moved and she suddenly became much closer. Kairi and Sora had already continued their walk, but Selphie was worried about anyone seeing the sudden elimination of distance between them. Blushing wildly, Selphie removed herself from her position against Wakka’s strong chest. “I… uhh…should practice more…”, Selphie said, her eyes slowly looking to her usual training spot, on the dock. Wakka nodded in silence, their eyes meeting once more before Wakka destroyed what awkwardness existed.
“Latur Selphie, keep up the good work”, with that Wakka turned and leapt up onto an elevated portion of the island, moving off toward his usual training spot; Wakka’s training involved rapid combos against his Blitz ball, which would bounce at dangerous speeds back at him from against a rock wall. Meanwhile, Selphie was still trying to decide what her preferred training method was. She had spent a lot of time blocking with Tidus the other day, and that had already helped her out a lot. She just needed to learn better attack techniques. Moving away from the spot at which she and Wakka had been moments before, Selphie climbed the small set of stairs and began to swing her jump rope through the air, trying out different attacks to hit different areas of the body. One thing was for sure, her accuracy was improving. The knuckle shot had been an act of faith and it worked. Selphie only needed more faith in herself.
The morning seemed to fly by. Selphie had met up with Tidus once again, who had succeded against Wakka this morning. Selphie jabbed that it was because she weakened him, a suggestion Tidus took to heart but laughed it off as it was meant to be light congratulations. Through their time together, Selphie listened carefully, listening to how Tidus was able to overcome Wakka’s fierce Blitz ball strikes. Sadly, Tidus had taken more hits than Selphie, yet he won. Selphie nudged her foot against the dock as Tidus spoke, the cool sea breeze comforting her. She couldn’t help but start to see the truth, she was much more vulnerable than the others. It was because she was a girl. She was, after all, the only girl on the island that fought… and she seemed to also be the weakest on the island. Kairi either quit before she even gave it a chance, or she saw no purpose in fighting, which was correct remained a question to Selphie.
“Tidus”, Selphie said, the discussion had lead to the two of them enjoying sandwiches on the dock, kicking their adolescent legs over the water’s surface, “Have you ever wondered what else is out there?” Selphie’s eyes were glazed over, just as distant as the offing. She was leaned forward and perched on her right hand, in her left was a barely-nibbled, cheese sandwich. Selphie’s short brown hair blew gently in the breeze and she closed her eyes, the sound of the leaves brushing against one another created a “swoosh” of comfort that only this island offered. Tidus, the blonde with whom Selphie was speaking, sat quietly, chewing loudly on his turkey and humus sandwich, a choice Selphie found putrid. He must have been thinking about her suggestion, though it was formed in a question. “I’d like to see what’s out there. Could be a lot of fun”, Tidus decided aloud, Selphie giggling and pushing him away as his voice was barely intelligible as his mouth was full of “mushed” sandwich. Tidus grinned, bread and humus squeezing out between his teeth, “Ewwie”, Selphie giggled raising her left leg in defense as Tidus leaned in at her, humus nearly dripping from his mouth.
“Stop!” she said forcefully, shoving Tidus back. “That’s gross”, she was indignant and she looked him up and down, his face looking absolutely caught off guard. Selphie chuckled softly, covering her mouth as her eyes squinted from the laughter. Tidus was always a lot of fun, but Wakka was the one on her mind, she just couldn’t shake the feeling his rugged appearance and rough manner of speaking gave her. Tidus smiled and took in a refreshing breath, revealing his pallet was cleaned. Holding his sandwich in his lap, Tidus looked over the ocean, Selphie’s gaze seconding the motion.
“Have you ever wondered why we’re here? What’s the point?” The aquatic blue-eyed boy asked, raising his sandwich shortly after and taking a big bite. He chewed with his mouth open, a habit Selphie despised, but adored Tidus’ innocence in the matter. Regardless of the distraction of his chewing, Selphie had heard his questions and as she leaned forward with her hands against her knees, she said, “The answer’s out there Tidus”.
 Reality in Tatters · Wed Jun 03, 2009 @ 04:49am · 0 Comments |
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