(no subject)

[gone_byebye]

The door opens, as has happened so many times before, onto a grey-walled alley. Ray pokes his head out and looks around. "Okay," he says. "We should be all right- come on out, guys."

Comments

[night-hibiscus.livejournal.com]

"Maybe we can just look around in this area, then?" she says. "I don't want to put you out, I know your work keeps you very busy," she adds, to Ray.

[gone_byebye]

"It's okay," Ray says. "You can look around here if you like- we're not far from the river- or I can take you up to Midtown for a little bit. I need to meet somebody up there for a while, and there's plenty of stuff to see there. Including some of the tallest buildings in the city."

[his-fathers-sin.livejournal.com]

"Midtown sounds great to me," he offers after a moment.

[night-hibiscus.livejournal.com]

In for a penny, in for a pound. "Okay!" she says, brightly. She flips her hood up to shield off the sleet.

[gone_byebye]

"Great. Um, we're going to have to ride in a machine, guys. I'm sorry. It's that or walk through all this mess. Will that be okay, Yuna?"

[his-fathers-sin.livejournal.com]

"--It's a machine, not a machina," he points out to her.

It's only a little eager.

[night-hibiscus.livejournal.com]

"It's fine," she says firmly.

[gone_byebye]

"Okay. Right this way."

They emerge fully onto the street and Ray heads over to the corner, putting up a hand as a yellow car with lights on top comes into view. It slides to a stop in front of them, and he opens the back door. "Slide in, guys. Uh, we need to go to Thirty-eighth and Fifth, please..."

The driver nods, and once everyone is in, makes the turn onto Varick Street and then again up Sixth Avenue.

[his-fathers-sin.livejournal.com]

Works for him!

(The concept of taxis does exist in Zanarkand. They're not shaped like this, and not common, but it's not unfamiliar either.)

Tidus is mostly staring out the window and grinning madly.

[night-hibiscus.livejournal.com]

If you'd asked Yuna how she'd expect it to feel, riding in a machina, she'd have used words like, "scary." And "nauseous."

She's more than a little surprised that find that her thoughts are more along the lines of "fast!" And "faster!"

[gone_byebye]

Ray grins, pointing out this landmark or that as they go, and the different shops that sell various things. Sixth Avenue changes demographics several times between Canal and Thirty-Eighth, after all.

Eventually Ray points to a building up ahead on the right. A big building, pointy, with its top all lit up with white. "That's the Empire State Building," he says. "Eighty-six floors tall. At one time it was the tallest building in the world. There are taller now, but it was one heck of an engineering achievement."

[his-fathers-sin.livejournal.com]

"Woah."

Even for Zanarkand?

That's big.

"Man, this is awesome."

[night-hibiscus.livejournal.com]

Looking up does make Yuna a little sick to her stomach, so she goes back to examining the inside of the machina. "Mm-hm."

[gone_byebye]

"There used to be two taller, at the south end of the island, but they were destroyed a few years ago," Ray says quietly. "There was a terrible accident, the worst New York's ever had. We've been very careful since."

Ray's world lost the Towers on 9/11, but it was a tragedy, not a travesty. There was no human agency involved in that destruction.

"Anyway," he adds as they pass the Empire State Building, "we're almost where we need to go. How do you want to arrange this? So we can meet up and go back to my place through the same door, I mean?"

[his-fathers-sin.livejournal.com]

"Tell me how long," he shrugs, "and we'll be here?"

It's not hard for him.

[night-hibiscus.livejournal.com]

"Blitzball players have to have a good sense of time," she supplies.

[gone_byebye]

"Okay, then," Ray says. "Two hours sound good to you?"

[his-fathers-sin.livejournal.com]

"Sure. Two hours I can manage. We'll be good," he says in the same tone he gives Auron, with a grin that translates as, "You can trust me! Really!".

[gone_byebye]

"Okay, cool," says Ray,w ho really ought to know better and who really doesn't. "I'll meet you here, then!"

He pays the taxi driver, then stops. "Were you guys planning on buying anything?"

[night-hibiscus.livejournal.com]

They scramble out of the cab and back into the filthy weather. "Oh! Um, there was some paper with the clothes? I think it's money, on our tabs. Or they were really expensive clothes, and it's... decorative packing material," she says dubiously.

She peers at the money the cab driver is taking. "No, it's money."

[his-fathers-sin.livejournal.com]

"--That's money? Huh." It looks like a bunch of junk to Tidus.

Weirdo world.

Second weirdo world.

"We'll manage."

[gone_byebye]

Ray nods. "OKay, then. There's some coin money, too, but the most valuable coin is still less valuable than the least valuable paper money." He won't go into Sacajawea dollars just now. "I think you should be all right from here. I'll see you in two hours, okay?"

[night-hibiscus.livejournal.com]

"See you!" Yuna smiles and waves goodbye, then turns to Tidus expectantly.

He's the expert!

[his-fathers-sin.livejournal.com]

--The Zanarkand expert.

Uh.

"So. Um."

Right.

"--You want to walk around?"

[night-hibiscus.livejournal.com]

"Okay!"

Yuna never gets to walk around back home!




Wait.

But everything is different here, not least of all that there's less chance of being randomly attacked by monsters. It's with unselfconscious ease and a little trepidation about their surroundings that Yuna takes his hand.