Notes: Originally written for Vincent's birthday in 2013 (I believe) and posted to tumblr. Features past-tense character death.
Twenty-Seven
Rain came down in a slow, constant haze that day, loud on the leaves overhead, but gentle when it finally hit the ground, providing much needed water to a land recovering from a very harsh summer. It would be good for the crops, at least, and while the people in the cities would have complained, out here in the wild there wasn't a word of dissent to be had.
Part of that may have been because of the lack of people nearby, but Vincent knew that the more rural people of Wutai welcomed this sort of rain. Too gentle to risk a flood, but plenty enough for the crops and watering holes and other necessities that the city folk took for granted.
It was cold, of course, soaking his slim frame and chilling him through, but he didn't mind. His perception of temperature had been skewed since his death, but he'd always been fond of the cold, even before that.
"So how old are you now, anyway?"
"Pardon?" He looked across his desk, tilting his head back slightly to meet her eyes.
She wasn't looking at him, paging through a manila folder he'd had sitting in his outbox, ready to be picked up and delivered to the appropriate filing clerk. "Your penmanship sucks, you know that? Like teeny tiny chocobo-scratch." She looked up at him, dropping it back in the box. "How old are you?"
At first his response was silence; his pen went still on the paperwork he'd been filling out, stopping in the middle of a name he couldn't pronounce. He blinked once, slowly. "Twenty-seven."
"Uh. Vinnie?" She put her hands on her hips, smiling in that cute, sympathetic way reserved only for when she was calling someone out. "I'm pretty sure you're older than me."
He lowered his voice. "Not since your last birthday."
It was only autumn, no chance of snow yet. Unfortunate, given his preference for the crisp whiteness of winter, but at least it was a cold. Southern Wutai rarely had snow, much to his disappointment given the time he'd been spending there recently. A few years without snow shouldn't have amounted to much in the long run, but he found himself missing it more and more with each dry, barren winter that passed him by in Juudai and Sukuna.
His services had been needed there, until recently. His knowledge, his understanding—the kind that came only with experience, a commodity that the world lacked these days—had become integral to the men and women at the temple, and the people in the harbor were always eager to learn, to have a piece of the story to pass to their families. It was tiresome, but not without merit. Those who didn't learn from the past would be doomed to repeat it; that was the saying, wasn't it? He had knowledge that warranted passing on, and the people had come to rely on him for that. But Wutai was changing with time, as all things did.
Or at least most things.
"What's your favorite type a' cake?"
"I don't have one."
He sighed, folding his arms and shooting an aggravated look from the doorway to the kitchen. "Seriously, Vince, I know you, and I know your sweet tooth. You've gotta have a favorite. I'll ask Shera about pickin' one up for you."
"It's all right, Cid," he was calm, quiet. Collected as he usually was. He slid another book into place on the shelf, helping to organize now that everything was unpacked. It really would be safer for them both to be closer to Junon. They could use the improvement in medical care. "I really don't need it."
"It's important," came the insistent response. "I mean, you've gotta be—how old are you now?"
"Twenty-seven."
Today was important, he supposed as he continued his trek through the woods and the rain and the cold. This was a day of commemoration, a day that he'd looked forward to in his younger days, feared as he grew older, and accepted for what now seemed too short a space in between.
Those few years—although "few" was a relative term, he supposed, perhaps it was longer than he thought—were long gone, and although there had been fear left in their stead for quite a while, that had likewise long since been replaced with different sort of acceptance. He wondered, sometimes, if it would be possible to bring back the feeling he'd had before the fear set in, what it would take for today to become a day of celebration again. He missed those days more all the time. Especially on cold, wet days like this.
The box was on the kitchen table when he walked in; given the festive wrapping and careful placement in front of his chair, he stopped in the doorway and eyed it with suspicion.
"Veld," he said after a long second.
He didn't look up from his newspaper, sipping his coffee. "Hm?" He was, of course, already dressed and ready for work.
"What is that?"
"A present. Open it." He turned the page.
"I don't want a present."
"You need it."
He sighed and shook his head. "I wish you wouldn't—"
"Seventy-three, right?" Now he was looking at him, dark amber eyes awake and clear, juxtaposing the amount of grey streaked through his auburn hair. When he smiled the lines on his face pulled up, the scar on his left cheek tightening the muscle on that side the way it always had.
'Twenty-seven,' he wanted to say. But he didn't have the heart to argue.
He broke through the brush and the rain overhead seemed to stop instantly. In fact, Vincent had simply reached his destination, finding himself standing under an arched roof structure stretching out several yards in front of him.
It had been a tourist attraction for a while, but those days were long gone. The occasional historian came here—when they could find it, something that grew rarer each year no matter how Vincent kept up his stories and passed on his knowledge to any who asked.
Unlike other shrines, this one lacked a place for offerings, lacked the normal trappings of red lacquer and bells found in other places of worship and memory throughout Wutai. This one was special, different. Commissioned by the first singly-ruling Lady of Wutai and constructed with a combination of Wutaian and Junonese craftsmanship, it had always been out of place, and as such was treated differently. This was not a place to worship gods or spirits, not a place to appeal for good fortune or forgiveness.
Vincent's boots seemed eerily loud on the worn stone floor as he crossed to the monument in the center, worn figures of stone and metal, once designed with the most flawless detail, now all but lost to time.
His right hand drifted to the metal placard affixed to the great block of stone at the foot of the monument.
"In memory of heroes," his voice sounded strange, weary from disuse during his trip, "present and past, and a reminder that this world will always be worth saving." The words were repeated underneath not in one language, or two, but in ten; the hope during design was that later generations of all nations would still be able to read the message centuries down the road. They were worn, but still crisp enough.
The engraving continued.
Aerith Gainsborough - 1985 to 2007. This was the most worn, the first in the line, both dates filled the same day. The rest were crisper on the second date than the first; they were added so much later, after all.
Cloud Strife - 1986 to 2173.
Kisaragi Yuffie - 1991 to 2085.
Tifa Lockhart - 1987 to 2048.
Barret Wallace - 1972 to 2035.
Cid Highwind - 1975 to 2023.
Reeve Tuesti - 1972 to 2045.
Nanaki - 1959 to 2591. On that one the second date was much newer, but carved in by hand, unmatched to the rest of the typeface used. It wasn't even clean writing, either, more like a man's unwieldy chocobo-scratch than a professional engraving.
His fingers stopped their careful tracing on the last name, the last lines on the plaque.
"You changed Yuffie's plaque?"
"It isn't Yuffie's plaque, Vincent," there was a feline rumble in his voice, tail swishing back and forth, the flame burning at the end flickering slightly with each change in direction. "It's ours. It's here for all of us."
"Why change it?"
"For you."
"Vincent Valentine, nineteen-fifty—" he read aloud, but quiet. Again, the end was carved in a different face, but this one was more professional; this addition had been done with care, not through the haze of grief Vincent had fought through to carve in the second date on Nanaki's line. "—and into the vastness of time." His voice hitching slightly, Vincent had to pause to wet his dry mouth. "With hope for a future made bright, with only enough grief to make clear the good of these days. We will miss you, old friend."
Vincent took a deep breath, closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. When he opened his eyes it was to look up at the monument, the stone likenesses of his friends, work down with time but still recognizable to one who knew what to look for.
He was the only one who did.
The corner of his mouth pulled up slightly. "It's my birthday today."
He could practically hear the chorus of voices, layered over years and years of memories: How old are you, now?
This time his voice broke.
"Twenty-seven."