AOF: Time to delve into another fandom!

AOF: Disclaimer. I own no part of the Final Fantasy franchise, I own nothing affiliated to them, and the only related Final Fantasy items I own are Tactics Advance, V, andVI.


Matt.

A young man stood in the poorly paved street, about to get his ass kicked and handed to him on a mythril platter.

It was a crowded day in the city of Camoa, so I decided to go loooking around for any...per se, exposed gil. Anything I could easily take. Gotta take advantage of festival season, right?

Well, not when you have a seventeen year old with a knife against your neck and a pouch with about 10,000 gil of his dad's money.

I don't know why I was always such a...I wasn't a thief. I was just a kid looking for money.

Anyway, the guy ready to kill me, a daddy's boy named Bartz, laughed. "I bet you regret that little stunt, you little rat.

I slowly stuck my hand in my pocket, backing into the alley I had my back to. I didn't have much, but it was enough.

"Look, Bartie," I replied. "I don't wanna cause any trouble. I just...hey, gotta feed my brother somehow, right?"

"I don't give a shit about your little halfblood brother!" Bartz growled, waving his switchblade. "That gil's gotta last me all festival long! My dad will kill me if I ask for more!"

I wrapped my hand around my last resort. "Why? What, he doesn't make enough as is? You could move to Fluorgis on his salary!"

"Why you little-!" Bartz charged at me, hoping to hurt me somehow. Huge guy, but about as intelligent as a sack of chocobo feathers.

I turned before he made contact, jumping out of the way. He ran into an empty wooden crate at the end of the alley, falling into and breaking it.

Ha, I thought, running as fast as I could down the street. Beat a guy twice my size, and robbed him blind.

I ran, and ran, and ran. Half of life consisted of running, so at least I was good at it.

Almost at my house, I nearly ran into a clansman I knew.

"Matt! Why're-"

"Sorry! No time!" I threw over my shoulder.

I didn't stop for a breath until I reached my shambled, four roomhouse. Jack was in the kitchen, quietly making himself a sandwich.

He looked up when I ran into the house. His blue eyes lit up.

"Matt!" My eight year old brother loved when I came home in one piece.

I smiled. "Hey, Jackie," I greeted him breathlessly. "Sorry I was gone so long. You already make lunch?"

"No. I was making it just now." He nodded at the sloppy bologna and lettuce sandwiches on the counter. "What'd you get me?"

I pulled out the monogramed gil pouch, when someone on the other side of the door shouted. Bartz. Someone else pulled out a sword, there was a fight, and I heard Bartz skitter off.

Jack blinked. "Was that Jan?" He asked. Unlike me, my friend Jan was a great fighter.

I held up my hand. "Hang on. I'll check." There's never any telling what you'll see outside your door during festival season. I took my Scramasax from my pocket.

When I opened the door, it was that same clansman. He sheathed his Flametongue, glancing at me. His emerald eyes twinkled in amusement.

"When a friend directly addresses you," Aaron chided me. "You reply. Asshole. What'd you do to piss that one off, steal his lunch money?"

I laughed. "We're friends now?"

I let Aaron in the house, and had Jack clean up a cut on his face from Bartz's knife. Aaron was always a welcome guest.

After Aaron was all fresh and cleaned up, he took one look at the pitiful lunches Jack had made us, and invited us to come back to the pub with him to eat lunch with him and his clan.

"On me," He'd added, with a smile. And he'd said it so convincingly, we had to accept.

My name is Mateiu Wood. On that day, the 4th of Bloodfire, I was thirteen years old, almost fourteen. This is the story of how I joined that goddamned Clan Mind.