Short Stories of Strangers
My little tributes to the less significant people of Final Fantasy VII
Story One: When we first met
The little girl ran down the stone steps, and sank her bare feet into the gritty, washed-out sand of the shadowy and rocky beach. Her yellow sandals dangled from her fingers as she gazed out across the once crystal clear waters of the sea, but was now dirty and a greenish brown tinge lingered on it. Pollution was clogging up the blackened rock pools and grimy streams of saltwater which lay on the shore. Far on the horizon black specks crawled over the navy-blue ocean. Her father and the men of the village were fishing again. Or at least, trying to.
The girl sighed, and shook her brown locks out of her face, her hazel eyes straining to watch the dots move in the glare of the setting sun, through she could not see the sun from here. She muttered impatiently when the stream of dots drifted out of her line of vision, past the great metal towers that loomed up over the gentle waves which caressed the sand and it's contaminated wounds.
Since Shinra had come, and they had been here as long as the girl could remember, the village was overshadowed by a mass of metal and blinking lights and burning electricity. She wandered down to the water's edge, and sat down, her pink skirts bunched up above her knees. The girl felt rather lonely, because she was the only child in the village. Or at least, the only little child. The rest were older, and did not want to play with her, and most of the families had gone away from the village. She wriggled her toes in the sandy beach, and lifted her eyes to a small square of sky, just visible through the corrugated iron above her. The shaft of golden light illuminated her on the dark rocky beach, and she felt like an angel cast out of heaven.
The fluffy clouds skimmed the pink and gold sky, each the purest white, stained only by the bloody light of the sun, through the square gap above the girl. She lay down on the rocky sand, and began pointing out cloud shapes to herself.
"Bunny…" She murmured, her hazel eyes scanning the square of paradise visible to her. "Boat … Tree … Dolphin-"
A loud, exuberant whistle split the air, and echoed around the beach. The girl sat up, her sandals flying from her fingers, and her hair swinging into her face. A dolphin, a real live dolphin was swimming in the dirty bay in front of her. Its skin was sapphire blue, and it had a mischievous smile about its features. The girl sat gaping at the creature for a moment, then grinned.
Shewaved to the dolphin, and it turned onto its back, and waved a flipper in return. The girl laughed, and stood up, waving her arms in greeting.
"Hiya Mr Dolphin!" She cried, and the Dolphin laughed, jumping into the air, splashing water onto the sand. The girl giggled, and clapped her hands.
"My name's Priscilla. Can you remember that Mr Dolphin?"
The Dolphin whistled and slapped its fins together.
"Whatcha doing here, Mr Dolphin?"
The dolphin gave the dolphin approximation of a shrug, which was difficult, because dolphins don't have shoulders.
"We'll be best friends, right, Mr Dolphin?"
The dolphin nodded its head and blew water at Priscilla, who giggled, and cheered as the dolphin leapt into the air. She gasped as the aquamarine creature leapt clean over an iron bar high over the water, and straight through a ring of sizzling electricity. The girl whooped and applauded as the dolphin swam expertly up to the seashore, and made his laughing, whistling tune. She was so happy. At long last, here was a friend.
"PRI- SCIL - LA - !"
Her mother's shrill voice screeched from the top of stone steps. Priscilla winced at the high note. She turned and saw Mr Dolphin watching her. Pricilla sighed. She didn't want to leave her new friend behind. But she knew keeping her mother waiting was not a good plan.
"I've got to go." Priscilla mumbled, miserably. "See you…"
She stooped, and gathered up her sandals. The dolphin watched her curiously. When Priscilla straightened up, the dolphin was still watching her. Priscilla gave a last glum wave of her hand and began trudging up the stony beach towards the steps. Then the dolphin whistled to her. It was long and piercing, yet it flowed like the sea and was gentle and kind, as though the dolphin was whispering tender words to her ears. An idea shot into Priscilla's brain like a bullet. She snapped her fingers, a beaming smile on her face.
"That's it!"
Priscilla turned back to the Dolphin. It was definitely smiling now, and it whistled happily.
"If we ever need each other, we'll whistle!" Priscilla was delighted by the idea. "So I'll be here tomorrow, and I'll whistle for you!"
The dolphin laughed andflipped onto it's back, and swam backwards out of the bay, it's fin waving at her, as a goodbye. Priscilla watched as Mr Dolphin rolled onto his front and began leaping into the horizon, where the sun had sunk into a blood-streaked cradle, the pink and gold of the sky weaving seamless into the clouds. Priscilla smiled happily. She had a friend now. She had a friend. She -
"PRI - SCIL - LA - !"
Her mother was standing at the top of the steps, her hands on her hips, scowling at her daughter. Priscilla shuddered, and climbed up the steep steps as fast as possible, so to not make her mother angrier.
Priscilla's mother was a thin, short woman, whose face was constantly frowning. She had crow's feet and shadows carved around her eyes, and her head was bowed, as though it had a great weight on it. Priscilla's father often said that the hardships Shinra had brought had crippled his wife emotionally, and thus, wearied her physically too. She was wearing her grey dress and not-so-white apron, stained with everything you could imagine – seaweed, mud, jam, oil, soap, ink, dust and dirty water. Her face was narrow and stern, and her tongue was sharp as a knife. No sooner had Priscilla stepped onto the cobbled pathway then her mother pounced on her.
"Why didn't you come when I called?" she demanded, shaking a finger in her daughter's face. "I don't like it when you don't answer, I get worried!"
Priscilla opened her mouth to speak, but her mother had seized herdaughter's small hand, wrenched the sandals out of her fingers and was pulling her towards their house, scolding and complaining all the way.
"You have no sense."The older womangrowled, walking briskly through the square where small, squat houses sat, with blackened bricks and crumbling roof tiles. All the curtains were drawn, but here and there a child skipped with a rope, or a wife awaited her husband's return from the sea.
"Imagine if you caught a disease from the pollution down there."
The sharp stones in the path were cutting intoPriscilla's bare feet, but she knew better than to complain. Her mother pushed her up the wooden steps of their house, which was on poles off the ground. Priscilla jumped up the stairs, and pushed the oak door of the house open, after giving a filthy look to the Shinra guard on duty by the lift to the 'upper world'.
The house inside was warm and untidy. Books and saucepans lay jumbled on the floor. Nets and fishing lines were tangled in the sink. An old man, her grandfather snoozed in a rocking chair, his grey hair flopping into his face, his grizzled beard resting on his chest. Priscilla smiled at his sleeping form. She was incredibly fond of her grandfather. He gave her company.
Then the front door opened, and Priscilla fled into her tiny bedroom, diving under the covers of her pink bedspread. She heard her mother walking into the house, closing the door, and then the sound of her grandfather being roughly shaken awake reached her ears. Priscilla sighed and rolled over. Now they were going to argue, just like they always did. And sure enough;
"Why did you let her go down to the beach?" Her mother was screaming again.
"For Planet's sake, she's a child, not a pet! You want to tie her up and make sure she never has fun!" Her grandfather's normally mild voice was risen in anger.
Her mother spluttered in indignation, and then spat out a retort. Priscilla lay huddled under the duvet, listening to the crashing waves and her grandfather's and mother's yells.
Priscilla's room was pink. The walls, the ceiling, the floor - everything. She had some screen-panels that her father had brought back after the war in Wutai. She kept her room neat and tidy - it gave her stability in her life. Then was a circular window like a porthole set in the wall, from which the last red rays of light filtered through. Priscilla grabbed one of her pillows and clamped it over her ears to block out the row in the next room.
Her eyes were half-closed, when a faint, yet clear whistle echoed outside the window. She leapt up, senting her pillows flying, and ran to the round window and looked out. She had a clear view of the ocean from here, and she thought that she could see a dolphin leaping up out of the water in the distance, as the red sun vanished below the waves, and the stars began to twinkle. The house was silent now, and she fancied that she could hear laughter coming from the waves lapping the stone steps by the beach as the tide came in. Priscilla turned and crawled into bed, and slipped into a dream where clear waters washed against her ankles, and fish danced around her, and a clear whistle came down from heaven as she slept beneath the stars.
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Coming up next, Story Two: For the last time