Disclaimer: I do not own the characters in this story, and I am making no profit off of them. Balmung and Orca are owned by Bandai.

It wasn't their usual meeting place. That place had been overrun with curious players thanks to the events of the past few days and several posts on the board detailing their usual haunts. Orca didn't mind the attention--after all, he'd worked damn hard on this character, and to have some wide-scale recognition made him feel like he could take on the One Sin again. He wasn't sure about the poetry, but the title was cool. Orca of the Azure Sea. He grinned to himself as he wandered around the forest maze.

He didn't need to be told a specific spot in the field, he just had to look for a spot that was suitably Balmung-ish; and the long hallway coming up looked to be a prime location. It was actually pretty easy to figure out where Balmung was going to be, once you got to know him. Orca's grin grew wider, imagining the reaction if Balmung ever figured out how predictable he could be.

Sure enough at the end of the path, there was the familiar white hair and the gleam of silver plate mail. "You've been pretty scarce lately, Balmung of the Azure Sky."

"Hn." He sounded annoyed.

Orca patiently watched him fidget with his sword hilt. He'd spit it out eventually. "You get a girlfriend or something?" He smiled into the microphone, knowing the answer that was coming.

"No," He replied rather snottily. "And don't call me that."

"I solemnly promise not to call you 'girlfriend'." Orca gleefully answered, before noticing Balmung's face. He put up his hands in apology. "Yes, I know you were talking about the title. What's your problem with that anyway?"

"It bothers me to hear you say it."

"I know." Orca replied with a bright smile. "That's why I do it. Someone has to rattle the Legendary Player Balmung's cage every so often."

He let Balmung process this for a few moments. "So what are you going to do with that character edit? Are you going to get the wings?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"You should." Orca nodded at him.

"Why?"

"What do you mean 'why'? You'd get to be the only one to fly in The World. Think how much fun that would be!"

"Oh." Balmung replied as though he'd never thought about it that way. Orca was mad that there was no /eyeroll command in The World's chat programming.

"Yes, and you'll look really, really intimidating and cool," Orca rambled, pushing Balmung towards the entrance. "And those stupid idiots who left you will feel--"

Balmung dug in his heels. "It's not about them!" he snapped. "It never has been!"

Sure, sure. Orca thought. He'd forgotten Balmung liked visiting the land of denial. "I didn't say it was." he backpedaled. "I'm just saying that in the odd chance you run into one of them, wouldn't it be nice to have an impressive looking, one-of-a-kind character design?"

"But I don't care what any of them think anymore." One of the things Orca appreciated about Balmung was that he'd always be truthful, simply because he was so spectacularly awful at lying.

"So does that mean you'll never do anything cool with your character? You want to prove how much you don't care?"

Balmung seemed to relent, or at least give in to Orca's convoluted logic. "No."

"Well, let's go tell the mods what you want." He proceeded to finish dragging his friend to the entrance of the room. By the time they were out in the main pathway, Balmung was walking on his own, with Orca next to him.