Flying
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles : PG
A Lilty's dream.
Ever since she was small, nothing more than a wide eyed sprout in her mother's arms, Margï wanted to fly.
It was an incongrous thought for someone who stood, not counting her topknot, no more than two foot six. She had confided, just once, in the merchant's son Zél. It had been late in the night of a year's end festival, both of them too old to be put to bed, too young to indulge in the rainbow grape wine that kept the adults celebrating long into the dawn. Yawning but unwilling to give up a night of such freedom, they had climbed onto a fence that was at the edge of the town center, lost in shadows where their parents would, they hoped, overlook them. They could see the whirl of the dance from where they sat, spinning shadows around the great Crystal.
Margï, her small feet kicking out through air over the ground that was more than her own height away, had whispered her secret to Zél. It had been an impulse, confession born on the enthusiasm of renewal. The Clavat boy had laughed, as one did when one heard something ludicrous, but there hadn't been any malice to it. "Why?" he had asked.
She hadn't expected to ever be asked such a question. She didn't have an answer. As long as Margï could remember, she had dreamt of slipping free of the pull of the ground beneath her and drifting away on the spring breeze like a tuft of milkweed down. Forced to put words to it, she had been at a loss.
"Maybe," she had said at last, knowing even as she said it how silly it sounded but unable to stay silent in front of Zél's patient question, "maybe because no one can dance like moogles do."
It was true. Margï's father was undisputably the best dancer in Tipa - Lilties usually were, or so Margï's grandmother said. But her father, in particular, could claim the title and he never failed to impress at festivals with his high leaps and flips. Margï had watched him turn head over heels as easily as a leaf in the wind, laughing and energetic, his nimble feet never missing a beat. Margï's mother told all of her daughters that she had known who she would marry since the first time she had seen their father dance. Margï, who adored her father and thought quite rightly that the diminutive blacksmith was the strongest man in town (also the smartest and most handsome, though that might have been challenged) believed every word.
Even her father, however, could not dance as the moogles did. The town's resident moogle always joined the festival, and the cheerful plump creature danced its curious dance before the Crystal, small wings spread, bobbing and weaving gracefully in midair as light as any cloud. If clouds were colored in bold stripes, as current moogle paint fashion dictated, Margï amended to herself. But of them all, moogles alone paid no heed to the call of the ground. Moogles alone danced in mid-air - her father, no matter how high he leapt, always returned to the dirt below.
Zél said nothing. They had been in shadow, only barely touched by the flickering torch light, but Margï had felt her cheeks heat until she wondered that she didn't glow like an ember. "Or maybe I just want to see the world like you do, bean pole," she muttered, embarassed.
It was another truth and it made Zél grin, his teeth flashing white in the darkness. He stood only to his father's shoulder and Clavats were not the tallest of folk. All the same, it was twice as tall as Margï could aspire to, and she desperately wanted to be as tall as her own parents. After, Zél didn't respond for long minutes, both of them watching the festival, until Margï thought with relief that the topic was safely abandoned.
At length, when Margï was stifling her yawns, Zél spoke. "You might be right," he offered quietly. "No one can dance like a moogle." Margï looked at him, surprised, but Zél was watching the Crystal. "Except," he added a minute later, expression thoughtful, "the Caravaners."
Margï would have loved to disagree. Oh, certainly the members of the Tipa Caravan were the pride of the town and the heroes of the festival. The townsfolk owed them their lives. But they were, none of them, the best dancers. However, Margï spied a chance to turn the topic away from her own embarassment and leapt at it. "Are you going to try for the Caravan?"
It was Zél's turn to flush, the color making darker patches across his cheeks where the lamplight touched him. "As soon as I can," he said, and if his voice broke awkwardly, unsure if it belonged in the mouth of a boy or a man, there was still no doubting his sincerity.
Caravaning was fraught with dangers. It was ridiculous, Margï thought, to imagine Zél - quiet, gentle Zél, who minded his family's store and his younger siblings - out on the open road wielding a weapon against monsters and bandits alike. Still, she had to admit, was it any sillier than a Lilty who wanted to fly?
She had a small pouch of gil that was her own, gleaned from name day gifts and the odd coin her mother gave her to spend on treats at the market. She added it up quickly in her mind. "Thirty gil," she offered, "says I join the Caravan before you do."
Zél's mouth dropped open. "Wha..." he stopped and blinked, pushing the unruly shock of his hair out of his eyes. "Margï," he said at last, "do you mean to tell me you've been thinking of trying for the Caravan too?"
"Yes," Margï replied. Truthfully she had thought of it - what child hadn't? - but had never until that moment made up her mind. Her parents had both served time in Caravans, her mother in the famed Alfitaria and her father in Marrs' Pass. They would, she was certain, be thrilled if she tried for the Tipa Caravan. "Besides," she added, "it makes more sense than waiting for a moogle to give me a set of wings. Didn't you just say that Caravaners dance even better than the moogles?"
"You're a nut," Zél said, exasperated. "But if you mean it... well... seventeen gil. I don't have thirty."
Margï crowed, delighted. "Done!" she cried. "Seventeen says that I'll join the Caravan before you."
Festival night. The Tipa Caravan was home once more, the Crystal renewed, and under the torches and lamps the drumbeat drove a rhythm that no feet could ignore.
It had been three years and four hard won inches since Clavat youth and Lilty maid had shaken on an unlikely bargain, perched atop a fence late on festival night. The years had passed quickly; the inches Margï had counted in despair, measured off in marks on the door frame of her family's home. In vain she had stretched and hoped, eaten her meat, drank her milk - by the age of sixteen it was obvious that she would never be as tall as her mother, much less her father. Her mother's mace, a fierce thing mounted upon the wall that her mother had once carried in the company of the legendary Sol Racht, was and would remain a measure too long to suit Margï's hands.
Three years, counted from festival to festival, and in the end neither Margï nor Zél were seventeen gil richer than the other - both had taken their places in the Caravan when it had set out seven months earlier. This celebration was their first as fully fledged Caravaners.
For all the renewals and festivals she had seen before, it meant so much more to be one of the chosen standing before the Crystal with torches raised. It meant immeasurably more to know that one of that year's precious drops of Myrrh had been collected by her own hands, won at the expense of her own blood, the scars from which she wore proudly, to the envy of her sisters. All the winter lay ahead of them, cold months and short days, but drunk on renewal Margï could only think of spring and the day that the Caravan would set out once more.
It was late. The festival had carried on for hours but there were always hands willing to take a turn at pipes or drums. And there were always feet willing and ready to take up the rhythm. Margï had danced with her sisters, her mother, her father. She had danced in groups, she had danced alone, and once she had even danced with Mog, the little moogle bobbing along beside her in time to her own leaps. She thought she could easily dance until dawn.
Zél caught her between sets, as the instruments changed hands and the dancers caught their breath. He had two cups of wine in hand, chilled from the river's current, and Margï accepted one gratefully. "For the new year," she proposed.
"For seventeen gil," Zél countered, grinning. It was the pledge they had made every year since the start. Margï laughed and drank, and if her face felt flushed it was surely no worse than the color across Zél's cheeks.
The music started again, inviting feet to join it. They made an odd pair, Clavat and Lilty, Zél's feet skimming the ground in quick, neat steps while Margï left it all together, keeping the rhythm in high leaps that brought her equal to his eye level.
"How does it feel?" Zél asked over the music, laughing.
Margï flung herself upwards, turning over in midair. The lights of the torches and Crystal spun before her eyes as she flipped and landed, grinning broadly. "Like flying!"