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Rufus doesn't get out of Midgar enough.
Naturally, the Shinra building has exercise facilities, and someone repurposed the holography that the SOLDIER program uses into kit for ordinary people - or as ordinary as any of Shinra's upper floor staff are. Being the heir apparent to the full might of the Shinra Electric Power Company, Rufus considers habituation to the cutting edge of technology a perquisite. He uses that state-of-the-art facility to make waves -- literally. The little displays in the lobby have nothing on the full, Internal Only technology. Now, if they could make it draw less power than a modest-sized restaurant, the engineerings might be onto something saleable.
Enough thinking about work. Rufus has spent the last couple of years learning to surf on simulated waves, and this first trip out with nothing but a pair of loitering Turks, to test his skill. In shorter terms, a vacation.
Even in the hotel, he'd been performing: Rufus Shinra, child of the famous-or-infamous President Shinra. Yes he'll endorse the hotel (if they do a good job). Yes he wants the carafe in the room. Yes, the Turks will be staying in their adjoining suites. No, the board members will not be in attendance this time; spare the formal dinner. No, the photographers are not welcome. The private beach is available-?
Finally, yes. Out here there is nobody to impress but those already loyal, and no role to play. His balance is exquisite; Tseng's merciless training has seen to that. If his swimsuit would make each member of the damned Shinra board blush for a different reason, none of them are here, so it's not his problem.
The sun is already high, already a golden pressure on his shoulders. The water moves like an embrace, warm itself, a weight that technology can't match. Rufus knows his hair has already gone translucent with seawater. Golden in golden light. Red surfboard; water clearer than Midgar has ever known. Beneath, a blur of color - plastics or living things? He's not sure, not with the motion of the waves to break every silhouette the moment he begins to trace it.
When the water is calm, he perches easily on the board. When the water rises up under him, he's ready to push his weight into the balls of his feet and go. It's exhilarating, ripping across the face of the wave at gravitational speed. Here where nobody can see it, half blind with sea spray and speed, he lets his lips curl into an edged grin. Balance shifts - the water is curling to one side, not the other, and he moves with it. Up, to the crest of the wave; he turns like a fish, body and board and thought all in one. Back down the wave he flies, turning with it like a leaf on the wind. Water shimmers blinding, and just ahead is the shadow of the sandbar.
At last the water is too shallow, and he must crouch again or fall. The board, suddenly perverse, skids sideways. Rufus splashes curled into the surf.
The water grabs him so much more easily than it grabs a floating surfboard, yanking him away from shore. He lengthens out and swims, near as confident here as he is in the boardroom. The board is tethered to his ankle, so it skids along after. Somewhere on shore, Reno is probably laughing at him.
When Rufus escapes the current, he drifts for a moment, arms propped on surfboard, feet idly kicking, breathing. Sure enough, he spots a pale red-headed shape, in black swim trunks, somehow managing to slouch with a straight back. Beside him is a taller form in a Wutaian-style robe, long black hair tied back against the ocean breeze. Chatting, apparently; but Rufus knows just how well they're paying attention. Even - especially - when it looks like they aren't. There's no danger the Turks won't brave for him, but when it's him against the waves, there is only so much they can do.
Only then does Rufus look down.
The holographic ocean, for all its beauty and the realistic wave generation algorithm, for all its lifelike mapping of the irregular stone of Costa del Sol, does not contain nearly the appropriate number of creatures. Here in the real (the desert of the real, as close and as far as that phrase is from truth) the golden-pale stone, just below his kicking feet, has been eaten into an irregular honeycomb. In every crevice, in every hole, are spines and curling fronds, and the strange, padded shapes of anemones, their tentacles stretched out like flowers. Little creatures like balls of spikes, moving about their own business, traipse among them. The brochures he read in the hotel suggests that each of the little urchins is a toxic delicacy, and that stepping on them is a very bad idea. How deep is the water? Had his feet brushed against the stones?
Surely he'd have felt them sting?
The spines project from every gap, and fill every hole. Just behind, a shadow; it must be deeper there. But swimming backward isn't easy at the best of times, and he dares not kick off the stone below. Can't Gravity materia make people fly, or at least float? He should see if a surfboard can accept materia, if materia could withstand a fast ride in seawater. Sure it's a natural substance, but so is stone, and look what prolonged immersion has done to it.
Enough. They're fascinating, and beautiful, and Rufus is abruptly very glad of all the practice he's had. The sense of danger averted is a wash of cold, oddly invigorating under the coastal sun. Here is a hazard the Turks cannot stop. Here is an unnecessary pain that nothing but himself can save him from. He scrambles back onto his surfboard, hoping the moment of paralyzed fascination can be mistaken for just a breather.
Isn't the desire to test his skills against something utterly uncaring, dangerous, and beautiful, among the reasons he learned to surf in the first place?
Foam comes in a wash, and ripples distort the reef into illegibility. The board sidles and sways with an oncoming wave. Rufus relaxes into its motion and flies.