Broken Baby Bird
Opening Note: I normally stick my notes at the end of these things, but you get one at the beginning. This one-shot was supposed to be an entry for kh_drabble, but it got away from me and very lengthy. I became a little attached to the extended version, which is what I present to you now. Also, if you have the opportunity, go to look up the song "Just Me" by Blue October and play it while you read this. 3
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The edge is, for once, not proverbial. It is a very real, very narrow, and very rocky affair that drops off into a chasm of unknown. There is nothing to see below it for miles, nothing to see beyond it forever. This may be the very edge of reality that spins Radiant Garden into existence.
It's where Leon finally locates Yuffie, who went missing some hours ago. He doesn't like being this far away from the city, or this high in the air where there's a constant breeze trying to push him gently backwards- back into the safety of the known. If he looks down and to the left he can see the Garden, the city they helped rebuild; too far away to hear the breath of every day life, and just barely close enough to make out the people so far below toiling away in their routine existence.
He sorely wants to be among them. "Yuffie?"
She's standing too close to the inevitable drop off, has no room to turn around and it takes everything he has not to reach out and enclose her in his arms. "Hey Squall, was starting to wonder if you'd ever get around to finding me." He sees the curve of a smile, flashed over her shoulder and stretched Cheshire Cat wide.
He gives his well worn disapproving scowl and takes a hesitant step closer. "What are you doing out here?" He's transfixed by her exposed shoulder blades, pressed tight against her skin as if they're ready to break free at a moment's notice.
"I'm going to fly." Her voice is calm, rational and he realizes it's because she is being calm and rational. She's thought about this too much, panic seizes his heart. She holds her arms out, the pre-flight position he supposes, and he's left talking to the silhouette of that broken baby bird.
"You can't fly." Leon closes a hand around her wrist, tries to tug her gently back, away from the fall.
"Why not?"
"Because Yuffie, people can't fly."
"Sora did."
"On Neverland. It's a world specific trait." He tightens his grip, pulls a little harder, and doesn't quite beg "let's go, please."
"Has anyone ever tried flying here?"
The Leon made shackle twitches, falters, and finally falls away completely. "I don't know."
"Then you don't know that I can't." She twists in an oddly graceful move for being Yuffie, and kicks her shoes off. One goes tumbling over the edge and her lack of concern is more alarming than the sudden disappearance of her shoe.
"It's just a fact, Yuffie. Like water is wet, and you need air to breath. People can't fly."
"Right, and people's hearts can't be unlocked. We thought that once upon a time too. Just like a kid can't save the universe and people can't tamper with your memory from a distance. We've been wrong before."
He hates it when she's right, refuses to admit that she is. He says the words again in the privacy of his own head people can't fly and feels the undeniable truth sink into his bones, weigh him down, keep him grounded. "Why are you so set on this?"
"Why not? Radiant Garden is rebuilt, there's no more shadows to fend off, what do I have to lose?" He hears the truths layered under the words, that she's tired and afraid of what will become of a ninja when there is no more darknes and her heart is heavy and she's afraid of sinking into the ground.
Leon feels the same chords being plucked within his heart. People can't fly, it feels like a prison now, like chains binding him to what he's been told is real.
But is it?
"Fly with me." her voice breaks through his reverie, startles him into realizing he's been contemplating the ground at his feet.
"What?"
She finally twists away, back to the void and the unknown and comes to him with an outstretched hand. "Fly with me."
He casts one last fleeting glance down the ridge leading into town, part of him hoping to see Aerith or Cid climbing into view and then they'll talk sense into the two of them. He knows if this reality doesn't fully claim him now, his resolve will crumble. "We can't."
"Not with that attitude. You have to believe. Otherwise it's just sky diving without a parachute."
"Wasn't there more to it than just that? Faith and Trust and Pixie Dust or something?"
"World specific Squally. Now take off your stupid boots and believe you're a sparrow."
He's halfway through unbuckling one boot and has to stop to send her an unappreciative glare. She shrugs, Cheshire Cat grin still firmly in place. "A falcon then? An eagle? Hell, believe you're a butterfly, I don't care. Just believe."
Leon straightens, sets his boots carefully aside, as if he's just going for a short stroll in his socks and will be back soon, don't worry. "and what are do you believe you are?"
"A hummingbird." She punches him ineffectively when he laughs at her.
"Ready?" she twines their fingers together as they both face the edge of nothing.
He casts one last surreptitious glance at her from the corner of his eye. "What happens after we fly?"
That smile has yet to desert her and he realizes they can do this, if nothing else because she believes. "We learn to land."
And as one, they leap into the void.