RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes

Garaf · **08-28-2010, 10:05 AM**

Chapter 6

The sun shone through the canopy of the trees and cast a shifting, green-hued pattern over the world below. It was in this world that a thin boy in a worn grey tunic sat, under a tree with a pile of fallen branches at his side. Garaf had finished collecting all the wood he'd needed, but he was more interested in watching the patterns of light and shadow play out over the forest floor than returning to the Temple (and most likely being charged with yet another menial task). Mesmerized by the mosaic of light, he never noticed the approaching steps, or had a clue that he was no longer alone, until a dark shadow was cast over his resting spot.

He cast his eyes upward to see a dim, yet familiar silhouette. "AH-HAH! I found you!" Crawa cried, triumphantly.

"Oro?"

"Granpa said I should wait till you came back, and Mister Esslar said I shouldn't wander around the woods on my own, but I was not going to let you run off again so I snuck off when Mister Esslar was getting his tea and I walked through all of the woods and I found you!"

Garaf frowned, not quite sure how to take Crawa's boastful pride. "S'not like I was hidin' or nuthin'... 'N I was gonna come back!"

"Of course. You can't hide from me! I know all the woods now! All of them!"

"So you know how ta get back ta tha' Temple?"

"Yes!" Crawa proudly proclaimed, setting her fists to her hips. A few moments passed in relative silence before Crawa began to look around her with a worried expression. "Ummm..."

For his part, Garaf just rolled his eyes. "S'over there." He pointed east from where they were sitting and then paused. When Crawa's eyes followed his own, she froze as well. Near to where he had pointed, a bright yellow creature had emerged from the brush. It was a bird, and one so tall that its legs alone were taller than either of them. It strutted with a powerful gait, occasionally pecking at the ground with a great golden beak as long as Crawa's forearm.

"Oooohh... chocobo," she said, under her breath.

"It looks fast." Garaf's voice was just as reverent as hers, genuinely amazed by what he saw, but his next words were simply inevitable: "I'm gonna ride it!"

"Don't be thick, stupid," Crawa put on the best lecturing tone she could manage in a whisper. "How would you ever get on it? Do you think it's just going to stop, and let you hop on?"

The boy gave her a wink in reply, and then quickly and reasonably silently turned and scuttled up the tree he'd been sitting against. Crawa looked helplessly back and forth between her friend and the grazing bird with a growing look of concern. For his part, Garaf managed to move through the branches quite well, and wove his body through the web of branches, passing from tree to tree, until he was perched directly over the chocobo. He gave Crawa a wink through the foliage and then leapt forward.

Grinning like a puppy, he plummeted through the air towards the great yellow back. However, the chocobo took a single step forward, and Garaf hit the ground behind it with a loud "OOF!" At the impact, the bird startled and bolted off screeching, "WAAARK!"

The Duskwight sat up to the sound of laughter, spitting out a mouthful of dead leaves. Crawa had already walked over to him, her face contorted in mirth. "You.. you," she gasped between bouts of laughter, "You jumped, and... and... haha! He moved, and you went... ha! SMACK! Hoohooohoo!" She started wandering off through the woods toward the north, giggling all the way. Garaf only grinned, his heart still pumping from the close encounter with the chocobo. It was not an experience he would soon forget.

The Grand Adventures of Little Garaf and Crawa [Closed]

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes