Fic meme: "I noticed.", with Paine and Nooj. I've been craving them lately.
Always happy to indulge a Paine/Nooj craving. :)
The Youth League encampment on Mushroom Rock Bluff, always alive with activity during the day, had turned in for the night as people slowly drifted away from the campfires and into their tents and barracks. Only a few hardy souls remained awake -- the half-dozen people who had drawn night watch duty, a handful of stargazers further up the bluff, and Paine, who sat at the edge of the fire, arms wrapped around her knees, listening to the distant crash of waves on the Djose Shore.
"You're up late." The low, quiet voice came from behind her, and she twisted her head around to see Nooj walk into the ring of firelight.
"Mmm." She shifted a palm to the ground, ready to stand, but he waved her back down as he took up a perch on a nearby boulder. "Just thinking. It's been a long time since I spent a night camped up here. A whole lifetime ago, really."
Nooj nodded. "Not since the Crusaders, then?"
"Right," she said. "Back when I first joined, with nothing more than the sword on my back and a dream in my heart. A dream to protect people from Sin, and to serve Yevon, in the best way I knew how."
"I remember." Nooj rested a hand in the back of her neck.
Paine looked up at him with a skeptical raised eyebrow. "You? A Crusader legend like Nooj the Undying noticed a scrawny kid like me?"
"A raw recruit, carrying a sword almost as big as she was, moving through her drills like a future veteran?" Nooj squeezed her shoulder. "I noticed. And remembered you, when we met again on the Crimson Squad. I regret that I did not say as much, then."
She scooted closer to rest her cheek against his thigh, and he ruffled her hair. "Well, strange as it all may be, I'm glad I'm here now."
"As am I," Nooj replied, and they fell into a warm silence, enjoying their companionship under the stars.
