Ghost Stories
Author's Note: Okay, so, this story sort of had a mind of its own. It'd probably be better for Halloween, but I always write things in the wrong season. I hope you like it anyway. :) (By the way, if anyone has any Fanille oneshot requests, let me know. I'm always looking for suggestions.)
*This story is set in Oerba as depicted by my story The Simple Life.
Disclaimer: Fang and Vanille aren't mine. Though I'd like a Fang... Anyway, Square Enix owns everything but the OCs and the original story line.
It was a cool, dark night, and the bright autumn moon had disappeared hours earlier behind a wall of thick, black clouds. Insects chirped and buzzed and large black birds screamed from the treetops that swished violently back and forth in the frigid wind. Twisted branches cast ominous shadows, and the fog that had rolled in hours ago was so thick that it concealed everything below the knees.
Vanille felt her breath quicken nervously as she looked frantically around, her young features twisted with terror as she bit her lip so hard that she almost drew blood. The forest was dark and daunting, and at twelve years old it was far past her bedtime. The fact that the matrons might notice that she had snuck out of the orphanage was the least of her worries as she told herself over and over again that she would be okay. Nothing could hurt her, not the wind or the howling birds or the thunder clouds or the buzzing night creatures. She was completely safe.
A gasp escaped her lips as her foot suddenly hooked on a root and she went sprawling to the ground, a cry escaping her lips as her hands snatched at empty air and fog. Landing on the group, her vision completely obstructed by the fog, was the most frightening thing she had ever experienced and a cry escaped her lips as tears welled up in her eyes. The world was spinning and she was drowning in milky nothingness, eternally haunted.
A hand gripped her shoulder and tugged her back into reality, restoring her vision as she was pulled out of the dizzying fog.
Fang smirked at the younger girl as she brushed off her shoulders and crouched down in front of her. "You okay? You scratched up your knee."
"I-I did?" Vanille inquired with a pout as she wiped her eyes and looked nervously around. "Fang, I don't think we should go."
"Well, you can stay in the orphanage if you want," the fourteen-year-old replied as she placed her hands on her hips, "but I'm not a scardy-cat like you, little Vanille."
"Fang, I'm not little!" Vanille cried, hurt. "It's just...tonight's the Night of Wandering Spirits. The fog's dangerous, and...and..."
"Scary?" Fang provided with a teasing grin as she placed her hand on her shoulder. "Don't you worry, Vanille. I understand if you don't wanna go. You're not brave like me."
The young girl narrowed her eyes, whining, "Fang!"
"Come on. It won't be so bad," Fang assured her gently. "Stick with me and I'll protect you like always. Okay? That's why I brought a staff."
"Where'd you get it?" Vanille asked curiously, attempting to stall the other girl so that she could decide how to convince her to return to the orphanage. "You didn't steal it, right Fang?"
"Steal is such a strong word," Fang replied with a grin as she patted the staff in her head. When Vanille shook her head in disapproval, Fang insisted, "I'm gonna give it back."
The younger girl laughed weakly. "The matrons'll be mad, Fang. Let's go back."
"I'm not going anywhere," Fang replied stubbornly, but a grin covered her face as she grabbed Vanille's hand and tugged her forwards. "We're already almost there, so come on. It won't be scary once we meet the others."
Vanille nodded, biting her lip as she followed behind Fang and relished in the warm feeling of their entwined hands. She was still terrified, but Fang made things a little bit better. Every time that she heard a frightening noise in the forest, Vanille moved closer to Fang until she was practically pressed against her back, hugging her arm close to herself. Her eyes filled with tears every time she stared into the shadows that seemed to spin in dizzying circles, so eventually she just closed her eyes.
Fang smiled faintly at the younger girl's predicament, because she didn't know why but she loved when Vanille was scared. It wasn't like she wanted the other girl to be uncomfortable or unhappy, but there was something about that way Vanille clung to her. Yeah, it probably had something to do with that.
The older girl looked away when she felt her face light up.
"Fang, are we almost there?" Vanille whispered nervously.
"I think so," Fang nodded in confirmation, glad for the distraction from her confused thoughts. "Konnor said it was around here somewhere. It's easy to find once you just start walking."
Vanille's eyes widened with horror. "You don't even know where we're going?"
"'Course I do. Did I say I didn't?" Fang eyed her mischievously. "You're so scared."
"Am not," Vanille argued immediately, even though she knew it was silly to deny it. "Tonight is just so...so..."
Fang opened her mouth to provide her own choice of words, but Vanille silenced her with a huff.
"You're mean." The younger girl pouted and tugged her hand away from Fang's, crossing her arms.
"Hey, Vanille, what's that?" Fang gasped as she pointed into the woods.
"What's what?" Vanille cried as she practically pounced on Fang from behind, wrapping her arms around her waist and pressing against her as she stared into the forest line.
"I dunno how to describe it," Fang replied, her brows furrowed in horror. "It was like a...like a person, but they didn't have a head. There was just this dark shadow, but I still felt like they were watching us."
Vanille gasped in horror, tears coming to her eyes. "Fang, we have to go back to the orphanage. Please!"
Fang was just playing a prank, but now that Vanille was so upset it seemed a little too cruel to admit, so with a grin she assured the other girl, "I bet it was my imagination."
"You really think so?" Vanille shivered against her.
"Yep. You know me. I've got a pretty wild imagination," Fang replied with a nod, beginning to walk forwards without concerning herself with the way that the younger girl still clung to her. When they finally reached a parting in the forest line and found themselves facing a group of teenagers seated around a pit of flames that climbed through the sky, Fang exclaimed cheerfully, "We're here."
"There're so many people," Vanille whispered nervously, noticing that many of the children did not belong to the orphanage. "Fang, are you sure this is safe? I haven't seen some of these kids before."
"What's dangerous about it?" Fang smirked down at her. "It's just a bunch of kids telling ghost stories."
Vanille shivered, looking around. "But what if the spirits hear us?"
"Well, then they'll eat us," Fang replied matter-of-factly.
"Fang!" Vanille cried.
Snickering, the older girl wrapped her arm around Vanille's shoulders and tugged her forwards. "Come on. What's the worst that can happen? There's no harm in a little fun. Even the spirits know that."
Somehow Fang was able to convince Vanille to join the others near the campfire, and the younger girl felt even less safe seated on a log with her back to the forest line. The flames warmed her a bit, making the fog seem a little less frightening, but there was no way to convince herself that she was safe when Fang, the only one who probably cared about protecting her, was not even paying any attention to her. The older girl sat beside her best friend Konnor, another orphanage prankster, and was chatting with him without even so much as glancing at Vanille to make sure that she was okay.
Eventually someone urged everyone to be quiet and they brought the fire down so that the shadows cast all around them were even more frightening. The stories began and Vanille scooted closer and closer to Fang onto her side was pressed against the older girl. She felt a little better after that, because Fang was warm and she smelled like the safety of the bed their shared.
As the night carried on, the fog grew thicker, rising up around them. It was not completely blinding as it had been earlier, but it did give Vanille the terrible feeling that they were disturbing the spirits.
"Doesn't anyone else have another story to tell?"
Vanille sighed with relief, realizing that it must finally be time for everyone to return home.
"I've got one," Fang suddenly pipped up, causing Vanille's shoulders to fall.
Anything Fang came up with would definitely be geared toward scaring her, because every year on the Night of Wandering Spirits, that seemed to be Fang's only goal.
"I heard a rumor once that never really scared me until tonight," Fang exclaimed with a smirk, her eyes narrowing teasingly as she noticed everyone's breath hitching. Anything that could scare Yun Fang was worth making note of. "I heard one of the matrons talking about it once. It was probably fifty years ago now, before any of us were born."
"What happened?" Konnor raised his brows. "I thought we were talking about ghost stories."
"Everyone knows what's gotta happen for a spirit to get trapped in this world," Fang informed Konnor with a grin. "Now, do you scardy-cats wanna hear the story or not?"
Vanille wished that she could tell Fang that she did not want to hear the story, but she knew that everyone would laugh at her.
"It happened on the Night of Wandering Spirits," Fang explained, her voice low and mysterious.
Everyone slid onto the edge of their seats, girls clutching at each other's arms or clinging to their boyfriends if they had them and boys glancing over their shoulders into the forest line.
"There was a man, but no one will say his name because they're afraid his spirit will return," Fang told them, struggling to keep the grin off of her face. "They say he was the butcher's son, so he always carried this big knife whenever he went into the woods. I dunno if he was a hunter or if he just liked the danger of catching his own meat, but every single night he went out into the woods. This went on for his whole life, so he never suspected that one day he'd go into the woods and never return."
Several gasps filled the air.
"Now, they just call him the Butcher," Fang informed them all, using her hands to tell the rest of the story. "So, he was walking innocently through the woods on the Night of Wandering Spirits fifty years or so ago, when suddenly he hears something through the trees. Is it a bear? A wolf? It couldn't be a Behemoth, 'cause he was too close to the village, but it was something. At first, it sounded like something squishing through the mud, big predator footprints coming toward him, but he wasn't scared 'cause he knew how to kill every kind of animal."
Vanille felt the wind picked up and glanced behind herself into the forest as she shifted closer to Fang. Her heart rate was speeding, but somehow she wanted to know the rest of the story.
"He looked around for a while, trying hard to figure out what it is without approaching it 'cause everyone knows you never make the first move," Fang explained eerily as she looked around to meet eyes with everyone that she could. "But finally he noticed that the bushes just kept quivering and shaking. Then he started hearing this strange little noise, kind of like a bear cub whining for its mommy. He figured it's nothing but a little animal, probably not even worth killing for his dinner. Thinking he was perfectly safe, the Butcher crept up to the bushes and started looking through them, but there was nothing there."
Fang looked around to make sure that no one was bored before she continued, "He decided it was his imagination, 'cause the woods can make you crazy if you're out there in the dark too long, but then he heard a noise behind him. He tried to turn around but it was too late."
"What was there?" A girl on the other side of the fire gasped.
"No one knows," Fang replied, her smile gleaming sinister in the firelight. "All they know is what happened next. The villagers heard the Butcher screaming bloody murder, but by the time the hunters came with the torches and weapons, all they found was a bloody corpse ravaged to bad that they couldn't even recognize him. The only reason they knew him was because everyone else was accounted for. There was a trail of blood leading all the way up the trees, half of which had the barks ripped right off of 'em, and they never found his head."
"If this really happened, how does anyone know the story?"
Fang smirked, her eyes glowing in the firelight. "Oh, that's easy. He told 'em."
Many of the children's eyes widened and Vanille began to shiver, her teeth shattering as she cried, "F-Fang, what d'you mean?"
"Well, there's a bit more to the story of the Butcher, but I won't tell it if you guys think it'll scare you too much," Fang replied with a playful grin.
Noises of protest arose from most of the boys, who in their adolescence felt the need to prove themselves.
"Well, like I said before, they never found his head. Maybe it was eaten or buried, or maybe it was lost somewhere, but since he doesn't have a head, he doesn't know right from wrong, man from beast." Fang shrugged, narrowing her eyes. "They say he still wanders around here, always looking for that meal he never got, hunting in the woods with his big ol' knife, a decaying headless monster in a bloody apron."
Deafening silence met her words.
"It gets worse than that." Fang glanced around the circle as though trying to decide whether or not she should tell them. "Wanna know what he does once he catches hold of you? Thinking you're an animal and his next meal, he grabs you by the throat and cuts your head off and eats you!"
Several girls screamed and Vanille let out a strangled cry, looking behind her at the shadows moving in the shifting moonlight and nearly beginning to cry.
"Of course, that story never really scared me 'cause I've never heard of anyone getting killed by a ghost butcher in the woods," Fang informed everyone with a dismissive shrug, but then a faint smirk sunk into her features. "Then again, tonight I did see a weird ghastly figure in the woods. I didn't get a good look, but I know it had no head."
Cries of horror escaped the lips of the youngest villagers and even some of the older girls and boys looked uncomfortable.
"I think that's enough ghost stories for tonight," Konnor mumbled uncomfortably, even though he was trying to make it look like he just didn't want the girls to be afraid.
"We should all walk back together so we can keep safe," Vanille suggested meekly.
"Why's that Vanille? Are you scared the Butcher'll get ya?" Fang grinned and suddenly grabbed Vanille around the waist. "I'm the Butcher and I'm gonna eat you!"
Vanille cried out, although her fearful noise turned to an embarrassed giggle as she tried to pull out of Fang's grasp. "Stop it, Fang! It's not funny."
"Sure, it is," Fang teased as she watched most of the others moving away. Lowering her voice, she whispered, "Wanna hear a secret, Vanille? You don't have to be scared, 'cause I made up that whole story."
"What?" Vanille gasped, looking up at her with wide, fearful eyes. "Is that really true?"
"Sure, it is." Fang grinned playfully. "I'll play pranks and try to scare you, but I'll never lie about it after."
Vanille smiled, a little bit relieved. "Fang, I'm really scared. Can we go back now?"
The older girl nodded, poking her in the side. "Watch out for the Butcher though. He sounds seriously dangerous."
"Fang, you said you made that up!" Vanille whined, pouting.
"I did," Fang snickered, grabbing Vanille's hand and tugging her into the woods. "Now, come on. If that matrons catch me they'll never let me leave the orphanage again. Then there'll be no one to save you from the Butcher."
"Fang..."
"Okay, fine. I'll stop." The dark-haired girl grinned over her shoulder. "For now."
xxx
Later that night, Vanille crawled into the bed that she shared with Fang and snuggled into the covers, pouting because she hated the darkness on nights like that. She wished that she had never agreed to go to the campfire, because even though she knew that Fang had made up the story, she would never be able to go in the woods again without thinking about the Butcher.
Fang slipped beneath the covers and moved closer to her, rolling onto her side to face her and grinning faintly. "You know, Vanille, there's one thing I never told the others about the Butcher."
The younger girl pouted. "Fang, I just wanna go to bed."
"I know, but it's really important for you to know," Fang replied teasingly, poking her in the stomach.
"What is it?" Vanille inquired reluctantly.
"He only eats twelve-year-olds with pink hair," Fang chirped playfully.
"Fang, you're so mean!" Vanille insisted as she turned her back to the other girl and buried her face in the pillow.
"I know, but there's one other thing you've gotta know about him," Fang replied with a grin as she reached out and wrapped her arms around Vanille from behind. As she tugged Vanille against her, Fang buried her face in her hair and mumbled, "He doesn't stand a chance against me, so you're completely safe."
"I'm still mad at you," Vanille informed her with a pout, even as she snuggled back against her.
Fang laughed close to her ear and nuzzled against her, causing the younger girl to blush as a faint smile lit her features.