bart1

Starring: Bart Fatima, Rinoa Heartilly.
Date of Log: April 1st, 2001
Location: Road to Balamb Town.

This all actually occured during one of your trips to Garden. The trips back and forth between there and Balamb Town are sort of hazardous. If one sticks to the road, well usually nothing untoward occurs, but on the happenstance that one is lured away from it, any number of things could happen. And so, for whatever reason, you were lured away from said road, Rinoa. Perhaps it was a small copse of trees, and a flashing of light that attracted your attention and got you curious enough to check it out. It's a great deal off the road, but not so far as to lose sight of the winding dirt path. But, for whatever reason, there you go, off the road to see what's flashing off in the distance. It disappears, however, as you start to get close enough to maybe make it out. Frustrating, but it just stops rather abruptly.
That's about the time you hear someone chuckle, "Hey guys, she fell for it." Some sort of invisibility screen drops and you'll find yourself surrounded by about six men, rough looking individuals with scars and clothing that could use a lot of mending. They're not filthy, but obviously not civilized that much either. One of them waggles his eyebrows at you, "Hello, pretty. What're you doing walking that road alone, hmm?" Trouble? Oh yeah.

See, this is why it's good to have a dog. Which, unfortunately for Rinoa, she didn't take with her today. Curiosity killed the cat. The princess looks about in mild confusion as the flashing light just vanishes all of a sudden, but it doesn't take long before she realizes it was some sort of trap. Coffee brown eyes widen as she looks about, captured in the middle of a circle of six not-so-pleasant-looking men. Uh oh. Frightened and angered at the same time, the girl frowns and brings up her pinwheel defensively, pointing it at one of them randomly, but keeps turning around and changing her aim to try to keep an eye on all of them at the same time, which is quite a difficult task. "W-what do you want?" she asks nervously, "Leave me alone!"

And they all laugh and snicker at you, Rinoa, some elbowing each other as they point to that contraption on your arm. Obviously, they don't have high opinions of females, or they wouldn't be quite so stupid as to underestimate you. But, they do. "Oh come on, honey, put that thing down before you hurt yourself. We just wanna have a little fun." Their accents are hard to place, but Balamb is a melting pot, so who knows from whence they came. One starts to close in on you, only to hold his palms up and laugh if you aim the pinwheel at him. "Hey, come on, calm down. We won't hurt you." Someone else in the background snickers, "Much."
But, they're rather absorbed in you, and so there's a moment of stunned silence after a voice says, "Hey! Don't you have -any- manners? That's not how one treats a lady." Followed by the crack of not one, but two whips. Bart, having been actually heading toward Garden to find his brother, had paused when he heard the laughter and wondered what was going on. Needless to say, he can't leave anyone to this sort of thing. So, bearing two leather whips, he approaches with a lazy, overconfident manner, sungold braid swept over one shoulder as his head cants to the side. He's grinning, hoping for a fight. Sigurd would so be facepalming if he saw this.

Taking a step back as the one man approaches her, Rinoa hisses out a warning, though her voice is quavering slightly, "Stay back!" More likely than not, she would have fired her weapon hadn't the voice of another interrupted the scene, but even so, the young resistance group leader hates to fight alone. It unnerves her the the point she is too scared to concentrate, and when not even Angelo is here, she feels vunlnerable, especially when it's six against one. Any thoughts of attacking are put on hold, however, and blinking, Rinoa looks to the young man walking towards them. She's almost as caught off guard as the men around her, and so lowers her pinwheel a little, watching.

"Sorry, friend, but we're a bit busy here, why don't you mind your own business," the apparent leader of this outfit says to the blonde haired boy who's intruded. It was ok to be merry and such when it was just them against you, but now several are fingering their weapons and looking among one another and then at Bart. Pausing, the prince narrows his eyes in consideration, scratching his chin as if he was pondering whether to leave or not. Finally, he just grins and shakes his head, intense, sapphire colored eyes anticipating some violence soon. "Nah, tell you what, you just let the lady go and I won't hurt you. Sound good?"
Evidently they're not keen on this idea, the leader gesturing something with a hand and two of the six surrounding you draw a dagger and a cudgel respectively and start advancing on the youth.
At the same time, one of the others starts toward you, reaching out to grab your arm, the one with the pinwheel on it.

This surely is the last time Rinoa strays from the road while walking from Garden alone. Tense, the female remains rather passive as the golden haired boy interferes, wondering whether he's trying to be the knight in shining armor or if he's just looking for trouble, and her eyebrows tilt with worry as the other men start moving towards him. Either way, she's grateful for the distraction, but her concern for the one who stepped up to help her prevents her from trying to escape right away.
When one of them reaches out of her, though, Rinoa instinctively pulls her arm away, and - unexpectedly - kicks out a leg fiercely, aiming for the man's shin. If she hits correctly it ought to hurt, "I said stay away from me!" Not exactly the most independent fighter in the world, she is, but she's more dangerous than her innocent, doll-like features imply.

"Ow!" the guy cries out, grabbing at his shin as he drops toward the ground. Not falling over, just crouching down and grabbing at his leg where he'd been struck. He didn't expect you to really know how to defend yourself, and so you caught him totally off guard with that move. "You bitch!" Now he's angry, staggering back to his feet, even if he's got a little bit of a limp now and snatching out at your arm again, trying to grab your hand or your wrist. Seeing this, another one of the guys starts at your back, attempting to intervene.
Technically, Bart's trying to be the knight in shining armor, but he's looking for trouble too, don't doubt that. It is his middle name, according to Maison. His stance getting a little tense, he bounces on the balls of his feet as the two approach him, then gestures at them with one hand, the whip pommel cradled in his palm. "Come on, let's see what your made of, hmm?" The cudgel is lobbed at him first and the prince ducks underneath the swing, laughing as if this were a game to him, the braid sailing behind him with the motion. "Oh you suck!"

Leaping backwards as soon as her attacker drops, Rinoa takes a second to view her surroundings and locate the other men, taking notice of Bart handling two of the others nearby. She's not alone; that reassures her. Wait, there were six of them, and now she can only see five... but doesn't get the chance to think any further about that. As the first guy advances on her again, the girl attempts to snap her arm away from his grabbing hand, not able to actually use her weapon to shoot from such a short distance, so she tries to hit him with it instead. She turns half-way around, barely catching sight of the man behind her in the corner of her eye, but already has trouble dealing with just one. So, unless one of them manages to snatch her, she'll try to jump out of their way.

These guys aren't finesse fighters, just common thugs and bandits who prey upon people who stray from the road too far. But, they're smart enough to survive this long. You do manage to thwack the guy grabbing for your arm. *THWOCK* And, the bladed edges of it leave a nice long lasceration along his jaw line. He staggers backwards, grabbing at the wound with disbelief in his eyes. It's begun to bleed heavily. Of course, the guy coming up behind you now seeks to loop his arms underneath yours, pinning you against him while trying to make sure you don't try striking him with that pinwheel. The rest have largely centered on Bart, since he's being such a damned taunter. The cudgel is swung again, the thug scowling menacingly and growling with the effort behind it. The prince ducks under it again, and just barely avoids getting himself stabbed in the side by the guy with the dagger. "Hey now, watch where you stick that thing!" Twisting around after that he cracks both whips at the dagger holder, a red glow filtering down the leather lengths. The guy screams as not only is he struck, he's suddenly feeling his flesh burning.

Proves that a blaster edge has more uses than one. Well, sort of. Rinoa would have been relieved hadn't the other guy bragged at her before she could get out of the way, and not managing to avoid him this time, she's caught and left fairly helpless as she can't get to him with the pinwheel. Apparently, the bandit is physically stronger than fragile, little Rinoa by far, so squirming and kicking doesn't help her much at the moment - she can't get loose. "Let go of me, you big, ugly...!" she squeals, actually more angry than scared now. Well, Mr. Knight seems to be taking care of things well, but he's occupied at the moment. So the princess will have to try to get free herself. As a last way out, she kicks out again - backwards, though she'll be darn lucky if she strikes him hard enough to make him drop her.

"Ow!" this one cries out too, but other than that, it doesn't get him to let Rinoa loose. "Quit it, stop squirming." He doesn't smell all that nice either, these guys probably don't get to bathe very often. Ewww. But, he does have a rather good grip on the princess. However, events are starting to turn. After seeing the burn scores left on one of their compatriots, the leader signals for everyone to flee. Bart's been labeled a Garden student, or SeeD, now, even if he's really not. But, there are few on the Island who can do that sort of thing who aren't SeeD or affiliated with Garden. These bandits instinctively know not to mess with people like that. So, Rinoa is abruptly let go of as all of them turn tail and run toward the copse of trees. Bart looks a bit disappointed, but he doesn't give chase yet, heading toward the princess to ask, "You ok?"

Ick. Smelly, nasty bastards. Things are so much calmer in Timber; though mostly because the Galbadian soldiers hold such a solid grip on the little town, and those are also labelled as the bad guys there. Rinoa struggles for a little while longer, refusing to give up, but she doesn't have to. When the bandit lets go of her, she staggers a bit backwards in surprise, then straightens herself and brushes off her clothes, looking after the fleeing men with a startled expression. She shivers at the thought of what they could have done. Turning to the prince, she slowly starts to calm down, taking in a deep breath, "Yes... I'm okay." A pause as she looks him over very briefly. "Thank you."

Whatever cloaking ability the thugs have, they use it as soon as they're far enough away and the prince looks up rather sharply, frowning as he realizes it. Gonna have to tell Sigurd about that. It also puts a damper on any ideas of giving chase. He actually looks disappointed by this revelation. "Well, glad they didn't hurt you, at least," he says with a distracted, disappointed tone. Not that he wished her any harm, he's just wishing the thugs weren't such damned cowards. At the thank you, he looks back at the princess, finally noticing that she's got a rather pretty face. "No thanks needed. Wouldn't leave anybody to that. Name's Bart Harcourt. You?" At the same time, he starts coiling the dual whips idly before hooking them at his side.

Still looking a bit shaken and quite displeased, the princess pulls back a few stray strands of hair that had fallen into her face and tries to make herself look a bit more presentable. Another look is given in the direction of the cowardly six men, and to her surprise, they're gone, then Rinoa looks back at Bart and offers a vague smile. "Rinoa Heartilly," she says softly, Galbadian mixed with Timberian accent soon becoming apparent, "Nice to meet you." Very nice, or who knows what could have happened to her. This still isn't how she prefers to meet new people, though. Most of all she'd like to get out of this little forested area and back to the town where she feels more safe.

"Nice to meet you, too, Rinoa. Too bad it couldn't be under better circumstances. What were you doing out here, anyway?" Bart says with a grin. His own accent is colored with the tongue of the Sairouese people. Gesturing for Rinoa to follow him back toward the road, he asks, "Where were you heading?" For he plans on escorting her wherever. No sense in letting her get caught up in something nasty like that again. He waits for her to catch up beside him rather than walking on ahead. She's rather lovely to look at, after all, though he doesn't let his gaze linger for too long, not wanting to embarass her, especially after that spooking.

Rather amusing how all these guys keep insisting on escorting her everywhere. Irvine, for example. Rinoa smiles inwardly at the thought of the cowboy, wondering how he would have reacted if he was here. Walking along with Bart back to the road, she is able to push the incident from a moment ago to the back of her mind long enough to return to her normal, friendly self, more or less. "I was just on my way from Garden to Balamb town," she explains on the way, "I'm going back to Timber... after a business visit in Garden." Might as well tell him; he seems friendly enough. She's not quite sure whether he could be in SeeD too or not, but doesn't recognize him from anywhere.

Hey, Rinoa lends to that desire to protect, just by that innocent face. Only someone totally cold hearted couldn't be swayed to want to see to the princess' welfare. If Irvine woulda been here, there'd be a lot of holes in people. 'Nuff said. A golden eyebrow arches at the mention of Garden. "Really? My brother is an instructor there. What business do you have with Garden?" Nosey, isn't he? Well, it's natural for him, especially since he's wondering what Rinoa wants with the mercenary school. No admittance of being in SeeD himself, since he's not. But since he only arrived in Balamb recently, it's not likely she'd have seen him anywhere anyway. "If you don't mind, I can see you back to the town." It's back the way he came, but he doesn't mind. Not as if he has much to do at the moment.

Turning her head slightly to watch the prince, Rinoa seems to consider his last offer for a second or two, then nods lightly, "... if it's not any trouble." It's good to have someone nice to talk to after that, so she certainly doesn't mind the company. Back in Balamb, there are plenty of people, but the road itself is often very empty and eerie, at least when it's closing up to late afternoon and the sun isn't shining as brightly anymore. "Oh, what's your brother's name?" Not that she actually thinks she's heard of him - she knows only a very few people in Garden - but she might as well ask. "I'm hiring SeeD for a mission," the girl then replies, matter-of-factly. "Or I'm hoping to do so, anyway. For my resistance group, in Timber." No trouble with leaking information there, but hey, it couldn't do any harm.

There's a shrug from the prince and a reply of, "No trouble." For it really isn't. Bart doesn't know that many people yet, other than his brother and Squall, so he wouldn't mind talking to Rinoa for a bit. Besides, she doesn't know he's the exiled prince of another nation, which means no 'Your Majesty's or any other ridiculous titles of respect. Yay! As the road is then traveled along, he goes back to other topics she brought up. "Sigurd Harcourt. Can't miss him if you've seen him, taller than I am, has an eyepatch and silver hair." Fatima eyes too, but Bart isn't sure she's met up with him anyway. At the next admission, he blinks. "Resistance group? What are you resisting?" Not that he disbelieves her, but the parallels are staggering.

No, Rinoa hasn't met Sigurd, nor does she know of his relationship to Squall, so... she just nods cluelessly, not having anything else to say about that. Garden has a lot of students and SeeDs and Instructors alike, anyway, so there's no way she could know of them all. Looking ahead to the town in the distance, she is quiet for a short while, always becoming more or less solemn when telling someone about the situation in Timber. Despite her childish enthusiasm, she does take it seriously. "Galbadia. They've been keeping Timber under control and abusing it and its citizens for nearly two decades now."

Bart seems genuinely interested in the topic, frowning slightly to hear this. "I don't know much about Galbadia, other than they were involved in the Sorceress War. But, if that's the case, I understand. My own home country's been under a repressive rule for almost eighteen years." His age, even, heh. He doesn't say much about it other than that, seeing as getting into details requires him telling the princess far more than he should. Sigurd would -kill- him after all the trouble gone to maintain the prince's official 'dead' status in Aveh. "SeeD would level the playing field pretty quickly, though, I would think." He smiles, a reassurance. He has no idea what her resistance group is like, but having seen how well she defends herself against six thugs, he has to wonder.

Too bad Zone and Watts didn't have any rich fathers to pay for combat training, but hey... one fighter is better than none. Rinoa smiles in return. Yes, that's exactly what she hopes. With SeeD there, they can do anything... or so she likes to imagine. Intrigued by the story similar to Timber's, she cants her head in inquiry, "Really? Where is your home country? ... if you don't mind me asking." You knew it was coming. The female was curious enough to follow that flashing light, so of course she's going to be asking questions. A difference here is that Rinoa is actually fighting -against- her home country. She is deeply ashamed of her own nation, and takes pride in opposing them, and her father.

Of course he did. One doesn't offer a scant bit of information and not expect to have it asked about. There's no harm in telling her, however. Then again, Bart often acts first and -then- thinks about it. "Aveh, in Sairou. Doubt you've heard of it, it's not overly large. There was a coup way back, the dynasty was disposed and a new one instituted. They've been repressing the people ever since then." By the time he finishes, Bart is clenching a fist so tight his knuckles are white underneath the fingerless glove. He relaxes as he realizes this, regaining his composure easily enough. "But, hopefully that'll be remedied soon." There's a short pause after this... and he looks at the princess thoughtfully. "My Sand Pirates... after we get Aveh back, might be willing to help you out with your resistance." That's Bart for you, ever the defender and if there's repression going on anywhere in the world, he'd gladly help stamp it out.

Rinoa listens with interest. There doesn't seem to be any harm in telling her, no. What could she do? Except tell others, but as she hardly speaks with anyone but those in her resistance group, Timber citizens and now, a very few SeeDs, there's nothing to worry about. "No, I haven't heard of it, actually," the princess admits, then continues with a soft frown, "I'm sorry to hear though. Are you fighting for its freedom as well?" A strange parallel indeed. A puzzled look crosses her face next at Bart's kind offer, "Sand Pirates?" She'd better know what he's talking about before accepting any help, you know.

Now this is a topic Bart doesn't mind at all, since they're his boys and he loves all of them like brothers. He grins and shrugs, folding his arms over his chest as he looks at Rinoa, "Yeah, you could say that. Like you and your people, we're fighting for the freedom of Aveh. We're the resistance group, you could say. We raid Aveh, but just against our enemies, the current rulers who're repressing the people." Ah, what a day, two resistance types talking about their ultimate goals. "When I get the throne back, I bet I can ask them to help you and your group out. I mean, if you want the help and haven't already gotten rid of Galbadian influence." Open mouth, insert foot. Well, he always has been one to act first and then think, nothing has changed, evidently. What's even funnier is he doesn't even realize what he said. 'When -I- get the throne back.'

At least they'll have something of interest to both parts to talk about, huh? Rinoa smiles more widely at that. Yes, it's kind of like Forest Owls. Sort of. Her resistance group is obviously not quite as active as his, but they, they're trying. "That's wonderful... what you're doing, I mean. The world needs more people like that." And there's that offer of help again, "Well... if we get our request for SeeD through, we will stand stronger already, but any help is appreciated. You're very kind for offering it." A pause, then, as she thinks through what Bart just said again. A blink. "The throne?"

Bart just beams, radiating that brightness within through Fatima blue eyes. He's very proud of his Pirates, so hearing that praise from Rinoa just makes him feel giddy. Of course, he also has to return the same, "Totally agree, I'm glad I met you, Rinoa. It's always good to know we're not alone in efforts to get rid of tyrranical regimes."
Of course, then she has to ask about the throne. Bart stops walking altogether and has to pause to think about what he'd said. Oops. Damage control! Bart clears his throat, "When we reclaim the throne for the rightful rulers, that is." He averts his gaze for a moment, really hoping she buys that, not that he isn't currently acting like the cat that ate the canary. >.< Oh man, Sigurd'll kill him if he finds out he was running off at the mouth again. But, after that, he nods, "Well, with SeeD you may not need us, but the offer stands, just in case. Can contact me through Sigurd via Garden, or Squall, if you know him at all."

The princess merely gives Bart an odd, quizzical look, sensing there's something he isn't telling her. But she decides to leave it be. If he doesn't want to tell, she won't pry any further at the moment. As he diverts the subject back to her resistance group, Rinoa just smiles again like she always does, "I know of Squall, yes." Telling him that she -knows- Squall wouldn't be entirely true. "When I know more, I can try to contact you if there is any need for it. That okay?"

Shew. Bart relaxes when Rinoa seems willing to just let it go. He doesn't seem too surprised that she knows of Squall, seeing as he appears to be the Golden Boy of Garden. So, he just goes back to walking toward Balamb again and smiles back at the princess, "You might even achieve your goal before we do ours, with SeeD. Good luck with it, Rinoa." From one resistance leader to another. Of course, the town of Balamb is fast approaching as the two keep walking along the road, so he lets the topic drop, intending to say good-bye as soon as the gates are reached. Gotta go find Sigurd, after all, and bombard him with all sorts of questions and talk about meeting this girl on the road and a number of things that'll likely give Sigurd a headache.