"I really don't!"

"Where... are you from?"

"I... expect you won't know it. If I've never heard of you, then maybe... Well, I'm from a country called Zanarkand."

She gasps and falls down onto her ass, then blinks a few times as something seems to click in her head. "Sin's toxin. That's why you don't remember anything and think you're from Zanarkand."

"...wha?"

"Do you... not know what Sin is?"

"I, uh, ran into it recently, yeah. And then hitched an involuntary ride on it and ended up where you guys found me."

"Sin releases a toxin that messes with your head. I've never heard of... forgetting stuff like this, or thinking you're from Zanarkand, but if you were close to it for a long time..."

"...so you're saying you know of Zanarkand, but there is absolutely no way I'm from it, and my memories of my life there were made up by a giant monster's toxins."

"Zanarkand was destroyed a thousand years ago."

That sends a jolt of adrenaline up his spine and makes him sit up straighter. "What the fuck." Did—did he travel a thousand years into the future? Did Sin just actually destroy his home and kill everyone except—except him?

"The toxin's effects wear off after a while, though," says Rikku, apparently oblivious to this alternative explanation to Azym's experience. "So you should be fine soon."

"Fine. Yeah. Okay." Well, maybe he did in fact entirely hallucinate his whole life. That's more likely than travelling a thousand years into the future, right?

...honestly it doesn't really matter. Either he travelled into the future or he made up his memories, but worrying about it right now isn't really going to help with anything.

"So. What next?"

"Well..." she starts—

—but the mechanical door into the ship opens again and a tall man with a blond mohawk shows up. He's wearing long trousers held up by suspenders and heavy duty waterproof boots, and his eyes are covered by goggles, but his muscular torso is bare and showing off purple and blue flame tattoos on his chest and along his forearms.

"Rikku!" he calls, then says something that sounds annoyed and impatient in his language.

She looks up at him then stands up to reply, also sounding annoyed.

The man points at Azym a couple of times, looking unhappy whenever he does.

Azym has the strong impression that there are more strings attached to being rescued by these people than he'd hoped. O...kay. He'll wait until they're done deciding what shall be done with him, he guesses. In the meantime he'll draw his knees closer to his body and hug them.

It's cold.

They argue for a couple of minutes—the other two Al Bhed that are still there guarding Azym don't join the conversation—but eventually the man leaves after throwing Azym a glare.

Rikku sighs and turns around. "Sorry about... that... Are you cold?"

He bites down on the snappy reply and just says, "Yep," instead.

At least he's not wet. But the air is still freezing.

"Do you not have... a heating spell?"

Oh okay it seems he's also jumped genres now, it's fantasy too. "I don't, whatever that is."

"Oh," she replies lamely. "I'll—I'll get you one. Do you want clothes, too? We don't really have anything like whatever it was you used on the klikk but we have lots of, uh." Vague gesture at herself and the other Al Bhed. "This."

He doesn't dig their style, actually. "If your heating spell covers not feeling cold and if we're not about to be attacked by any fiends I think I'll pass."

She seems to find something about what he said kinda odd. But she doesn't question him further, and instead gives one of the guards some instructions in the weird language and he sets off.

"So, uh, that was my brother," she explains, "and we're jointly in charge of this expedition. And he's... not happy about helping you without getting anything in return."