You Mean Girls Don't Have Cooties? {Snow}

[Maqui]

Okay Maqui finally realized that he needed some help.

Needed some major help. Which was the reason he found himself piloting a small aircraft down toward New Bodhum. He had thought long and hard about who he should ask for advice in this particular situation. What situation you might ask? Well, Maqui needed advice about women. Originally he had been going to ask Hope about it. Then he had realized that Hope really probably didn't have much more expertise in this area then he himself did, and how awkward to go to you boss about these matters, even if that boss was your friend as well. Besides that, though Hope was seeing that crazy Vanille girl, who was determined that her pet - some extremely fat and ugly sheep - was better than Cookie! What a ridiculous idea! Who would rather have some fat and annoying sheep then a sleek, graceful blue chocobo?! That was how she had come to the conclusion that she was indeed a bit addled in the brain, so Hope obviously wouldn't know how to deal with normal women.

After that he'd thought of Rygdea, but had stopped that thought almost as soon as it had come to his mind. Maqui would mever have that level of charisma, and besides that, Rugdea seemed to go after wild women that were considerably older then Maqui, along with, well quite frankly, being somewhat insane. He could still remember that time when he had seen Fang pick up a soldier and throw him through a wall just because he had forgotten to add the 'Gran' in front of the 'Pulse' and when asked kindly to correct it, had said that it didn't matter if he did so or not. Needless to say, Maqui never forgot to add the 'Gran' in front of Pulse anymore and found himself triple checking himself whenever the wild Pulsian was around. Yeah...he doubted that Rygdea would know much about normal girls either.

Then it had been Noel Kreiss, who once again had been dismissed quickly. He seemed to have the Yeul girl, but...well, even though Yeul was a looooot more normal then the other two, she had been a priestess for hundreds of years and had died hundreds of times. So Noel probably didn't have experience with normal women either.

Yuj...? Well...Maqui would talk to him when his blue haired best friend started to realize women were better then clothes. As that day hadn't come, Maqui had dismissed him quickly. Same with Gadot. When he realized women were better then oddly colored hair dye, then Maqui would ask for advice. Not only that, but the last time Maqui had asked about women, Gadot had given him some long winded speech about outlets and cords and...well, Maqui hadn't gotten it, but it had been weird, and he didn't really want that kind of speech ever again. Cid Raines? Right...Maqui was worried he would rather stab him than talk about women, and as for his choice in women...yet again, nowhere near normal.

And then he had thought about Lebreau or Serah. Both of them he knew extremely well and felt comfortable with. There were certain problems there too though. Lebreau was like a mom to him, despite her only being a few years older. How awkward would it be to ask your mom about things like this? Not only that, but he found it hard to look her in the eye whenever she got into what he referred to as 'big eye syndrome.', where she looked extremely surprised and her eyes seemed to grow fifty times their normal size. He wasn't sure he could handle that. Side note, pick up a years supply of cookies from her. And Serah...well, same thing kinda. She was like a sister, and how awkward would it be to ask your sister about girls? It was an awkward thought.

Which left one person. Snow! Snow's choice in women was not only normal, but actually kind....and probably wouldn't throw someone through a wall for forgetting to put a word in front of another. She was pretty, sweet, and...well yeah, basically normal was the key here. And not only that, but Snow was the best choice not only because he was interested in a normal girl, but because he had landed one! In the sense that they were engaged and she had actually agreed on a wedding. And it wouldn't be so awkward to ask Snow about things, since-....well at least if Gadot stayed away for a few hours instead of coming around with his outlet and plug in rants.

Landing the aircraft on the beach, Maqui shut it down and turned to the bird that was sitting in his specially made co-pilot seat. "Ready Cookie?!" The clucks and warks spoke that he was! Unbuckling himself while Cookie did the same with his beak, Maqui opened the hatch and jumped out, scooting out of the way so that Cookie could do the same. When they were both on the ground, Maqui scrambled up on his chocobos back and they were off the short trip to New Bodhum! Which was hardly ant distance at all, but Maqui hadn't wanted to disrupt absolutely everyone in his landing. Still, in a few minutes they were trotting into the fence that surrounded the town and people were shouting their greetings at the old member of NORA. Waving to people and returning their greetings, Maqui smiled. Time to go talk to Snow! ...And more importantly, Lebreau cookies.

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Words:; 1130
Muse:; Great!
Tagged:; Snow (Serah can walk into the awkward man talk later if she wants?)
Outfit:; Click!
Location:; New Bodhum - Riding in gloriously on his chocobo Napoleon style.
Notes:; XD This...the greatness
Listening To:; I'm not Jesus - Apocalyptica

[Snow Villiers]

It felt so good being home!

Snow didn't even care that almost every hour of every day since things had settled back to normalcy that this person or that person or the other person wanted him for something, whether it was just to talk, to do some heavy lifting or go old-fashioned and take out a monster for them. As long as they weren't asking him to take on a flan twenty times his size, or to fight a bunch of goofy jerks in an arena he could never leave, or taking him away from Serah for more than an hour or so at a time, Snow was more than happy to see anyone and everyone and do whatever it was they wanted done. The more he could do out here, with NORA House and the shoreline and all of these things he'd missed, the better....even if it was getting to be a lot of work, like it happened to be right now. He guessed it was a rare thing when people needed the walls for a new room for their house pushed into place, though, so he knew once he got this laaaaast one in place, he'd probably never have to do anything like this again for a long time.

"I do appreciate it Snow!", the woman he was helping chimed in. Snow could barely register what she was saying, though, considering he had a wall frame propped up against his back that he was slowly shoving into place...with enough effort to have him grunting every now and then. Funny, the other two hadn't seemed this heavy... Where was Gadot when he needed him? Probably off recoloring and re-spiking his hair or acting like he was town mayor or something else ridiculous he'd been doing in the several years Snow had been gone. Well, whatever he was doing, it still left Snow with a wall halfway raised, and no amount of thinking and wondering was going to get it into the right place. "Almost....there," he spoke up, before digging his boots into the sand and giving it one final heave to get it upright. "There we go!" Once he had it up, he turned around and shifted it a little to make sure it was fitting in right.

Once he was sure it was, he stopped and propped a hand against it proudly, using his other hand to wipe the sweat off his forehead. "Alright, that should do it! I can get some of the nails started for you like the last one if you want." The woman shook her head a little. "No...no, I should learn how to do them myself in the future, in case there aren't any Snows around to help with the details." Snow gave her a thumbs up at the sentiment. "Okay, good deal. I won't get too far away, though, in case you want to ask me anything." Not that he'd have to, since, despite how much it had grown over time, New Bodhum was still a town where most of the main houses were within shouting distance of each other. NORA House was framed by houses on each side of it in a row down the beach that now carried on past one of the gates they'd established to keep monsters out before. And that row of houses didn't even count the school buildings and houses for the richer people and other things that had been continually popping up. It was starting to turn into an impressive, if still comfortably small, town.

With the woman going to the work, Snow wandered off a short ways, staring out over the water as the sound of her beating in the nails - and occasionally grumbling to herself - filled his ears. He was going to have to help build the whole deal here sometime soon, wasn't he? After he and Serah finally...finally...got married, they'd need a place for themselves! NORA House was great, but he knew they probably couldn't go living there forever. Snow clasped his hands behind his head as the problems with that hit him right in the forehead. Lebreau and Gadot, as much as he loved them, butting in on their private time? Heck no... And if Maqui had been around, the poor kid would have been so confused by the whole "love" thing that his poor brain would have exploded. Snow grinned a little. He needed to give that guy a visit sometime...see what he was doing in the big, intimidating city aside from working for a Hope who was way too tall all of a sudden for Snow's liking. Vanille must have been feeding him - and that sheep of hers - good for him to have gotten that tall.

The woman's voice broke Snow out of his relaxed thoughts. "Isn't that Maqui?" Snow swung around to her, eyebrows narrowed in wondering what it was she was talking about. He followed the direction of her gaze and found himself looking off towards the fence.

Whoa, the timing on that one.

Sure enough, there was Maqui, looking like some fancy-pants military officer on campaign as he rode nobly in towards them. "Yeah it is...", Snow rang back, shaking his head a little. "City life's gotten in his head already!" Trudging across the sand into a slow jog towards his old friend, Snow decided he looked to be in pretty good shape...and that chocobo of his was in full form, too. He put his arms out towards his fellow blond as he approached. "I may not know all that much about riding a chocobo...", he began, "but I'm preeeetty sure that's not how you do it."

Words - 1030
Muse - Excellente!
Outfit - Casual-y stuff?
Notes - Not a thing. [/size]

[Maqui]

Sometimes he forgot how much he loved it here. Riding on Cookie’s back, Maqui waved at some people that spoke to him. Most he knew, though there were a few new faces. What he liked about this place was that it was like coming home after being gone for a long time. Academia was a nice enough place, and really great if you were an inventor trying to make it in the world, but it lacked a certain something… Perhaps it was because here everyone knew you, your name, who you were, and what you did, while back in Academia, people only knew your name if it was a famous one, and even then, they didn’t know you. It was really different than anything he had been used to, having come from Bodhum, a small town, right to New Bodhum, another small town. Yeah, so he didn’t really know what to do with himself in Acadmia still. Of course, there was Hope, and Alyssa, even Vanille hanging around that he knew, but even with them sometimes Maqui wandered around feeling a little bit lost.

Yeah, it felt good to be home, and hopefully he could catch Lebreau sometime and actually get some of her famous cookies. He really had missed Lebreau, maybe even her more than any of the rest. Mainly because he hadn’t had as good of food since he had left. The restaurants were nice of course, but there was nothing that equaled Lebreau’s home cooking, or Serah’s, whoever had decided to cook for the night, and every time Maqui attempted to make something in his apartment, it usually ended with disaster. The one time he had started a fire that had made the fire department come, which had seriously caused problems with the little old lady across the hall. How was it his fault that he had set the building on fire? It was the stoves fault! But she still gave him dirty looks whenever he met her by where the mail was delivered. Oh well, who cared about little old ladies anyway?

“Hey Maqui! Looking good!”, a voice spoke out. Glancing around, Maqui grinned back at the boy about his age that he remembered. “Thanks!”, he called back, before straightening up on Cookie’s back a bit. The bird, as if sensing that his master was making a show of being stately, picked his head up and proceeded to prance into the village. With a grin, Maqui slid his hand into jacket and held it there, looking as noble as possible. He was, after all, making his first appearance since he had left a few months back. He’d meant to come sooner of course, but life usually got in the way of all your plans, especially when it came to traveling. It was hard to do it when people relied on you for your hands. And good hands he had indeed. One had to keep their hands up to par so that they could stick them in their jackets and not them chafed. Okay, okay, that didn’t really matter. Maqui’s hands were toughened from years of using them every day. (I can’t even…keep a straight face while talking about Maqui using his hands. Poor innocent Maqui)

Wait, was that Snow? Turning a little on the back of Cookie, Maqui grinned wide, raising his second hand – which grasped the reins – to wave at his approaching friend and hero figure. “Heeeeeeeeeeeey now!”, he slightly whined out, “I know how to ride a chocobo, Snow, instead of looking like one,” he said with a laugh, before stopping Cookie with a soft pulling back on the reins. Finally sliding his hand out of his jacket, Maqui energetically jumped off his bird and looped the reins easily over his neck, allowing his bird to go wherever he wanted. Since Cookie had grown up here, he didn’t have to worry that he was going to wander off and create proble-…well, he might create problems, but at least these people would be more understanding. Ducking under Cookie’s neck, he made his way toward his giant blonde friend.

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Words:; 865
Muse:; Great!
Tagged:; Snow
Outfit:; That one I linked!
Location:; New Bodhum
Notes:; I MADE HIM EVEN MORE LIKE NAPOLEON JUST FOR YOU YOUNG MAN
Listening To:; Fill Me Again - Dark New Day

[Snow Villiers]

Man, Maqui hadn't changed, it would seem, as Snow squinted into the sun to take the guy he'd brought into NORA finish his overly dramatic ride. Snow had never believed Maqui would decide to pack up and leave for anyplace where almost as many buildings existed as people. Snow had always thought Maqui could have made a huge success of himself off where there were more machines to build and fix for people with a little money in their pockets, but as much of a help as Maqui had been for NORA over the years, Snow hadn't wished him away by any means. But the guy had successfully sneaked off during Snow's search for Lightning and made a name for himself with Hope's big wig scientific team. Snow was sure he would have looked all sorts of proud if he hadn't needed a comeback for the whole chocobo look comment. He rolled his head back, projecting a smirk. "For your information, everyone’s been telling me I should let the hair fly free,” Snow assured his old friend, ruffling a hand through his currently-free blond mass to reinforce his point. ”I dunno how you city kids try to look, but we frontiers people gotta look rugged, ya know?”

Snow inspected Maqui as the latter dismounted. Maqui definitely looked like the past few years had gone well for him out in the big city. Snow had always looked out for the youngest NORA member, and obviously, even with Maqui a man now and off on his own, the taller blond still wanted to make sure his guy was in good shape, with nothing eating at him. For all Snow could tell, Maqui was as good as he’d ever been, if not better. And Cookie looked pretty dang good too, for a crazy overgrown bird-thing that Snow thought was more troll than chocobo deep down. But Snow didn’t have anything to say to the bird, just a nod as Cookie seemed to look him in the face. Why did there seem to be a smirk behind those eyes? Trying and failing to match the expression, Snow’s eyes slowly diverted from the bird to the still-short man that was coming from around the other side of the bird. Once Maqui got around to him, Snow gave him his typical bone-snapping slap on the back and let a grin stretch across his stubble-rough face.

”I go off to find my fiancé’s sister and you off and leave me in the meantime? I must’ve done something really bad to deserve that,” Snow joked, only barely managing to make it sound like he was serious. ”And then I hear you’ve become some kind of an Academy genius engineer or something, too, working for some big-wig in the research department.” The hero shook his head in “disappointment.” He held a hand up to Cookie. ”And the only guy you take with you is this one!” That look shifted to him again. Snow narrowed his own gaze as if to dare Cookie to do something, before turning back on Maqui and crossing his arms over his chest, those arms basically at the height of Maqui’s head. ”You’ve got some explainin’ to do, kiddo!” It was Snow’s way of asking how Maqui had been for the last however long and learning how Maqui had come to the decision in the first place, and he thought himself to be clever for it. He was badly mistaken, but nothing said he couldn’t think he wasn’t.

Words - 600-some
Muse - Excellente!
Notes - Thank you ;_;[/size]

[Maqui]

Maqui couldn't help but feel entirely relaxed while he trotted over toward the larger blonde. He hadn't had any sort of parental figure growing up, aside from his mother, who had been too sick to really be a mom. Snow had later on filled that spot. Even though he was only four years younger, perhaps Snow's size made him seem older...or something. Regardless of why Maqui felt like Snow was somewhat of a father figure, (it explains a lot) he did. He'd worried himself sick over Snow when he had been missing, and had thrown himself into trying to figure the portals and problems out by his own research. He had gotten pretty far by himself of course, but he'd left for Academia to attempt to further that knowledge. It had been a stroke of luck that that Hope had asked him to be part of his team.

Wait, city folk? "Me?", he said questioningly, before sneaking a glance around them. Though there were some new faces, Maqui figured that Snow must be talking about him. "I'm not ciiiiity," he whined, before looking down at himself. The last thing Maqui wanted to be was a city boy. He really hated it in the city sometimes. There were too many people and not enough chances to breathe, which was why he constantly felt like he was on edge there. He realized though, that the only way he could make a name for himself was in a city, and Academia was as good a place as any. He usually retreated to his little shop to seclude himself from being forced to talk and be around all people. Lately though...there had been a certain person that had been coming to help him in his place of seclusion recently, and that was Maqui had come really, since she was confusing him to the inth degree, mainly because she was a girl, and girls that weren't Serah or Lebreau were as confusing as was possible.

The slap on the back was so hard that Maqui stumbled forward a step and coughed. Snow could bring you to your knees just because of affection. Rolling his shoulder back, Maqui grinned up, and it was a looong ways up, and chuckled nervously while he scratched at his blonde tousles. He hadn't just...well he supposed he had left, but he'd meant well. "I was trying to help," he pointed out in his defense. "And I...kinda figured I could find out more in Academia.", he pointed out. He was a little sheepish in that area though. "Hope found me on my first day there and offered me a job at the Academy.", he tried to explain further. "I worked for his company for a long time, and then after a while they sponsored a company of my own. I still do quite a few jobs and inventions with contracts for the Academy though, especially since it's just getting on its feet and pretty small.", he finished. Glancing at where Cookie stood, patiently waiting, Maqui grinned. "Cookie's the only one that wanted to come along." Rubbing his neck, he glanced back at Snow, that same little sheepish grin on his face. "Can't really blame them, I'd rather be here too."

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Words:; 731
Muse:; Great!
Tagged:; Snow
Outfit:; That one I linked!
Location:; New Bodhum
Notes:; XD Oh man...*puts earplugs in Maqui's ears for the Serah rants*
Listening To:; Heartbreaker - Pat Benatar