A/N: Hey! I've been missing Yuffie quite a bit, so here's a drabble type thing I wrote a couple weeks ago. I've also got a couple first chapters of stuff I'm not sure I'll continue in the works. Interpret this how you will. Takes place in-game, before Wutai.
Splintered
Fragments are always better than people, Yuffie thinks, wholeheartedly, because she does everything wholeheartedly.
Fragments let you take the best from people, the single sparkling features, and leave the dross by the wayside.
She fingers a fragment of red fabric, old, weatherbeaten, and, oh, so torn, and decides, wholeheartedly, because she does everything wholeheartedly, that ripping the fragmented best from people is what leaves them like dross on the wayside.
And she shudders to think of how many people she's destroyed by swooping in one day a year and plucking the best of them like an overripe fruit from a drooping tree. She never stuck around for their pain and tears, just their sparkling generosity. Yuffie realizes, in the beat of her heart, she's finally stolen something she can never return, no matter how many pretty words she wraps it in.
"Sorry," she says, to the cold midnight air. The stars twinkle and wink down at her. They don't care for her sudden contrition, for her useless apologies. "Sorry," she says to the people in camp beside her. They don't stir from their slumber, and she stands, ready to slink away into the night.
Her heart hammers her ribs, and she slows at the edge of camp, rolling a ball of materia in her hand. She frowns, then puts the small ball back under Fearless Leader's hand, and crawls back into her tent, smiling at the soft noises Tifa and Aeris make when the cold air comes in with her.
She'll abandon them soon, leaving them scattered and disoriented, but not tonight.