Arcadia

by Doubleplusgoodduckspeaker

It was about when the trees completely obscured his view of the village and the path started to even out that he came to the meadow, and at the edge of the meadow stood the most fantastic thing he'd ever seen. Chibishipping: Yugi Moto x Mokuba Kaiba.

"Arcadia"

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Solomon Moto had long given up trying to stop his grandson from exploring the wilderness that ringed their village. It wasn't outlawed, just unusual—and Yugi was already unusual enough, always interested in the strangest things, making up games that he could play by himself and running off to explore. He could take a snack and a book and be gone for the entire day. Solomon figured there wasn't much harm in it; sooner or later he'd run out of rocks to look under and come back ready to mind the shop. He'd been something of an explorer himself, when he was about Yugi's age.

That day Yugi was exploring the forest. He rarely went out this far because he had to climb up a steep hill to get there, but the view of the entire village more than made up for the work. From where he stood the village looked perfect; bunches of little houses clustered together, the fields near the river that ran from one end of town to the other. He had followed that river for miles in both directions, just to see where it went—alone, always alone. No one else seemed to care where the water came from. For them, the world began and ended on the town's clearly-cut borders.

Yugi pushed through another tangle of branches and vines—being rather short for his age came in handy in times like this—and began to find himself a path between two large, leafy trees. It was a perfect day for exploring.

It was about when the trees completely obscured his view of the village and the path started to even out that he came to the meadow, and at the edge of the meadow stood the most fantastic thing he'd ever seen. He almost missed it—the top of it just peeked out of a clump of grasses and vines, the rest hidden in the overgrown field. Slowly, he crept towards it, too curious to be afraid.

What is it? Tentatively, he placed one hand on its surface. The feeling of wood beneath his fingers was familiar, but this felt different, perfectly smooth. There was a wide frame of it that a canvas had once stretched between, held up by an interconnecting row of thin wooden poles. They looked like the wings of a bird, a strange, wooden bird that had fallen here and been forgotten by time.

Uneasy, he peered closer at the large, menacing-looking propeller held captive by twisting strands of ivy. "It's an airplane," he whispered, remembering the pictures in his school books. Airplanes were outlawed—along with vehicles, trains, and other technology and weapons that could be used to hurt and destroy others. They were all relics of a frightening and dangerous past. Yugi snatched his hand back as if the plane had burnt him.

It had happened once or twice in the village before. Something, usually an old pamphlet about the weapons or a piece of the technology itself, would resurface in a cluttered attic or be brought down the river into town. The authorities would promptly remove and destroy it, and everyone would turn around and forget anything had even happened.

He studied the airplane again, cautiously looking over the entire structure. In the pictures he had seen, they were painted in different colors and had built-in weapons for warfare. This was unpainted, the natural wood nearly blending in to the forest surrounding it. Yugi searched the entire plane and could not find anything destructive about it.

There had to be something wrong with this one. It looked far too old to be a normal airplane, and although it had to have once flown, Yugi had a hard time believing something that huge could actually fly. Maybe it was unfinished.

Yugi had walked back into town with the full intention of telling the authorities about the plane he had found. It was the proper thing to do. He had marched right up to one of the younger ones, a trainee that was about his age, one who would have gladly destroyed it—but his mouth went dry and his palms started to sweat and he went right home without saying a word.

Later that night when he was back in his own room, he idly reached for a block of wood that he had set aside earlier to carve into a wooden animal or flower to sell in the shop. Instead, his knife skimmed over the wood, paring it down until he had the body of the plane in his hands. The wings were next, a skeleton of arcing pieces that slotted right into place. The propeller didn't come out right; he scrapped it and started over, prodding and polishing until he had a smaller copy of the plane he had found in the forest.

Even he knew it was stupid. Everyone else would have turned it in. Gently, Yugi turned the model plane over in his hands. That, he realized, was probably the reason that he didn't.

The plane was his responsibility now. He covered the miniature model with a piece of canvas to hide it and went to bed dreaming of flying.

.

Yugi minded the store for most of the next week, only getting out the model plane when he was in his own room, completely alone. It didn't really fly; he had covered the wings with paper and added a small stabilizer at the back to match the one he had seen in the real plane, but every time it fell like any other object, tumbling down to a less-than-graceful landing on the floor. He hadn't really expected it to take off, just like that—but it would have been thrilling. He could see the danger in the larger planes, but this—this was just a hobby. A way to see if he was actually capable of making something fly.

He spun the propeller around with his finger. It was useless, it would barely turn on its own—he needed something he could use to wind it up, and there was nothing here, just some wood and some wire…

"Grandpa!" Yugi was off, running on socked feet through the house. His grandfather was at the adjacent store, rearranging a display in the front window. "Do we have any string I can borrow?"

"Yes, there's a spool of it on the shelf over there. What do you need with—?"

"Thanks!" Yugi snatched up the string and ran back as fast as he could, measuring the length of the fuselage and cutting off a long piece of string, tying the ends together in a knot to form a loop. He stuck a small piece of wire into one end of the plane itself to loop the string around, twisting the cord as much as he dared before fastening the other end of the string to the propeller. Keeping a hand on it so it wouldn't unwind, he aimed the model plane towards the other end of his room, made a wish, and let go.

The propeller rattled, spinning as the string quickly unwound, and—it flew. It wavered, but it flew. Steady to the ground, it didn't rise, but it didn't fall either.

"Yes!" He jumped in the air, watching his plane with pride. It quickly traveled across the room and smacked into the opposite wall, sliding inelegantly to the floor. Yugi scrambled after it.

.

That was the first of many crashes, but also the first of some incredible flights. Yugi worked on his model airplane every day, making adjustments to it so it could stay in the air longer and longer.

He loaded his plane-fixing supplies into the basket of his bicycle and set off in search of a bigger place to practice, without realizing it ending up in the same meadow that had started everything. At first the plane looked the same, shrouded in tendrils of ivy vines, but as he kept looking he noticed new things about it—how the frame of the wings curved up at the ends, the small trio of wheels that allowed it to roll over the ground, the small hollow at the front for a seated passenger.

For one moment, he dared to imagine it—how everything would look from so high up. From there, he could see everything—not just the village but the river, the forests and fields and parts that no one had explored. Would he be frightened? Would others be frightened of him?

It would take a lot to fix up that plane, and even then there were no guarantees that it would fly. He had already learnt that lesson several times over. Still, even as he told himself that it would never work, Yugi searched for the canvas he had brought with him. It would be perfect to stretch over the wings of the plane. The wood was in fairly good condition, but he could easily repair the parts that needed it. It still won't fly. Yugi crouched down to look at the bits of rusted metal, wondering what to do about that. You'll get caught. He gently peeled the vines away from the wings and used his knife to cut away the overgrown grass around the wheels. When the wind stirred through the meadow he closed his eyes, spreading out his arms like the wings of the plane. The air was cool between his fingers.

He wanted to fly. There, he said it. As Yugi opened his eyes, instead of the blue of the sky he was faced with the simple wooden plane, nearly part of the forest itself after so long on the ground. He frowned, feeling the grasses swaying in the breeze around his feet. He'd return his plane to its home again.

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It was when he worked at the shop that Yugi realized how different he was from the rest of them. Several children would come in to buy snacks before school; he saw none of the excitement in their eyes about learning, about discovery, that he had discovered in himself in the past weeks. He helped a middle-aged woman select several bags of flour and carried them home for her, chatting as they walked. There were a few other purchases, thread and tools and other necessities. But the toys, his favorite things of all, collected dust in the back of the shelves. It felt like waking up—until he had discovered the airplane he himself had been just like the others, without vigor, without life. He hadn't ever noticed it before.

His grandfather was meeting with several of his own friends in town; it was Yugi's job to close the store for the evening. He hung the sign up outside and got to work—he'd found a small bit of metal in the bottom of a tool bin, something nobody wanted but would be perfect for his model plane. He was able to make it fly in circles now; the ceiling was much higher here than in his own room so it made the ideal testing place.

His first two flights were perfect, the plane flying steadily in wide circles around the room and narrowly missing the tall shelves set against the back wall. When the string had fully unwound, the propeller would stop turning and the plane would glide back down to the ground. He had to be careful but when it glided Yugi could snatch it right out of the air and get it ready for another trip.

He had just finished winding up the model plane for another test flight when the shop-door opened, and Yugi, caught off guard, did the first thing that came to his mind.

He let go of the plane.

Yugi figured if he was to be ruined, he might as well get one last flight of it because his audience was none other than Mokuba Kaiba, the youngest recruit of the authorities' branch. The only sound in the room was the little propeller spinning, until the plane came gliding back down towards Yugi. He caught it in one hand, trying not to make it look too practiced.

"Um…"

"Do it again," Mokuba said, tucking the ends of his dark hair behind his ears.

"...Wait, what?" He didn't know much about Mokuba except that his family had money, and rarely needed to come to their shop to buy anything. He knew of him, and his brother, by reputation more than anything—they were perfect. He'd never seen either of them with a hair out of place, and even at the end of the day Mokuba's jacket—the navy uniform all of the authorities were required to wear—was crisp and unwrinkled. Yugi could already feel the sweat breaking out on the back of his neck.

"I want to see it go again."

It was a clear enough order. Yugi re-wound the string and released the plane, and together they watched it go around the room. He caught it and, against his better judgment, held it out a little for Mokuba to see.

"How does it work?" Mokuba asked, leaning over it. His fingers were itching to pick it up but he made no move to touch it, as if everything up to that moment could be explained away.

"I don't really know any of the specifics, but the string makes the propeller turn, which makes it go," Yugi said, wiggling his arm to simulate the airplane's movement. "You turn the stabilizer like this to make it arc left or right. The wings…help, and—" He pulled his arm back, holding the plane a little closer to his body. "Why do you want to know?"

"…I've never seen anything like it before. You made this from the pictures?" He was starting to see what Yugi saw: it was hard to equate something so harmless with the pictures of warfare and destruction they had been shown in their schoolbooks.

Yugi nodded, sure that if he spoke it would give away his lie.

"We have a few books in the vault about planes that were confiscated a long time ago. They're very old. I've seen them," Mokuba said.

"I thought you destroyed everything." Yugi frowned, accusing. There should be nothing left of that past anymore—no vault, no storage or records, just a swift destruction. Yugi could barely imagine that any of it still existed. He'd even heard that they were even altering some of the current textbooks, so that the generations after him wouldn't even learn of their violent past. If nobody knew, life would go on as if it never existed at all.

"No, we take it away and lock everything up, but most things are still there. Not the actual weapons, or trucks or things, but the depictions of them—plans, histories, parts and photographs, that sort of thing." They heard voices outside and Mokuba stopped, reaching up and taking a small carved bird off of a shelf. It was one of the toys, with little wooden feet and wings that could move. "I'd like to buy this."

Yugi took the offered coins, gaping as Mokuba turned to leave with the bird tucked underneath one arm. "You mean you're not going to report me? …Take the plane away?"

"Hm? I just came in here to buy a wooden toy. Out of the entire village, this store has the best craftsmanship," Mokuba said, leaving the shop and walking back out into the night. Yugi waited a second longer, barely believing it, before he picked up the plane and darted back into his room before his grandfather could walk in and set everything off again.

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"What's on your mind? You're usually more talkative."

Mokuba looked up from his plate and into his brother's eyes, quickly scooping a forkful of vegetables into his mouth to give him a few more seconds to think. He'd never lie to Seto—besides, it would be pointless, they knew each other better than that—but he'd never had a secret to keep like this before.

It was more than a little thrilling. He could feel his stomach jumping around, his entire body was on edge—maybe this was what flying felt like.

"I'm just tired," he said.

"Get some rest then. You have the second shift tomorrow." As one of the newest apprentices, Mokuba ran errands, processed records and guarded the vault—tasks delegated all the way down the ladder, tedious things that no one else wanted to do. His brother was much more highly-ranked and involved in some debate about building a second bridge over the river. He thought they had it all backwards—the meetings were the only real chores.

Only when he was alone in his own room did Mokuba bring out the toy he had bought from Yugi. The carving was intricately done; the toy bird had a lively expression and feathered wings. He could feel the grain of the wood beneath his fingers. Yugi had made this with his own hands.

He barely knew him, but he could say the same thing about anyone else in the village. Nobody wanted to be friends with one of the authorities. Even the others in his group whispered—he's just like his brother, he'll do anything to get ahead—but he didn't mind, not really.

He remembered seeing Yugi once before, when his hat had fallen off into the river and was swept downstream. He'd chased it until they'd nearly left the village, and when he finally plucked it out of the water he looked up to see Yugi with his back against one of the trees, fast asleep. His pants were rolled up at the ankles, shoes and socks off and placed neatly beside him. Beside that was some half-finished carving, a smooth sphere taking shape out of the block of wood, and Mokuba found himself thinking just how foolish they all were. Every day he was reminded that this life, their village, was perfect—simple, beautiful, without temptation or complications. Most days he didn't feel that way at all, but in that moment he understood. Wringing the water out of his hat, he crept away before Yugi could wake up, suddenly embarrassed.

The vault was underground—itself a relic, something everyone else had forgotten—and Mokuba was left completely alone with the boxes and shelves of books, pictures and everything else. Now, for the first time, he was curious.

He passed the closest rows, ignoring their aged, peeling labels—cassette tapes, power cords, jumper cables—until he arrived at the bookcases. Some held stories, but he was looking for textbooks, the heavier ones with the hard binding. He gently began turning pages, going through each book until he found one that he wanted.

Mokuba tucked the book underneath one arm, moving the remaining ones on the shelf to hide the gap he had left behind. This was his last chance; he could put it back and turn around, forget everything he ever saw. He didn't even have to give Yugi away, but he didn't have to help him like this either. Yugi never asked for his help, only his trust.

His fingers gripped the edges of the book, refusing to let it go until it was safely hidden underneath his jacket in the basket of his bicycle. So there, he thought, his body feeling strangely light. Now like it or not, they were in this together.

.

Yugi was too exhausted to do anything other than push his bicycle back into town. He had been outside the entire day, working on the plane. He had taken his lunch with him, and had climbed into the plane itself to eat his sandwiches. It was quite roomy, but he had always been rather small for his age.

He was on the fringes of the village when he saw Mokuba pedaling back up the path towards him. "Yugi! Hey, I've been looking for you."

It was usually very bad news that a member of the authorities was looking for you, but catching the happy look on Mokuba's face and the way he nearly went off the path when he waved at Yugi, he guessed that it must be something else.

His words kept cycling in his mind. They were unfamiliar: I've been looking for you. For a moment, Yugi didn't know what to do. He supposed he wouldn't mind having a friend in Mokuba—perhaps he had been waiting for something like this, a different type of exploring.

"Where have you been? Never mind, I have something for you," he said, pulling a fabric-wrapped rectangle out of his bicycle basket. "Go ahead and open it, there's nobody around."

Yugi unfolded the fabric to reveal a bound book, the old kind, with whisper-thin, yellowing pages. Reverently, he flipped through the first pages, looking at the pictures and diagrams. "It's a textbook…"

"Yeah, it's a schoolbook for people our age," Mokuba answered, flipping to a page he had marked with another scrap of paper; it was an entire chapter about airplanes, with diagrams, formulas, and several colorful photographs of them. Yugi looked at each one, and couldn't make out any attached weapons. "We had plenty of them in the vault, this one won't be missed."

"Thank you." Yugi grinned, eager to read the entire textbook. If Mokuba could trust him with something like this, then he could trust Mokuba with his own secret. "Come with me, I want to show you something."

He was no longer tired. In the work of minutes they were back at the meadow, Yugi proudly showing off his work, Mokuba awed into silence at their pictures brought to life. That didn't last long as they immediately got back to their task, four hands making the work easy. Every now and then one of them would stop and consult the book.

"I told you, I've already tried that—"

"But in the book, Mr. Bernoulli said that moving the wings upward will decrease the pressure, and—"

They were bickering, and then laughing, and then working again.

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"Do you remember much of when you were young?" Yugi asked one afternoon. The store was usually empty at this time of the day, and he was busy wiping down the shelves and windows while his grandfather stood behind the counter. "Were things much different from how they were now?"

Solomon Moto thought for a moment. He looked quite similar to his grandson; anyone could see the family resemblance. "My memory's not what it was," he said, laughing softly, "but yes, things were different. Oh yes."

"It was just as things were beginning to change," he continued, resting his elbow on the countertop and settling his chin in the hollow of his palm. "Everything was very spread out, because nearly everyone had a vehicle to take them wherever they wanted to go. Unlike today, where we walk or use our bicycles. That reminds me, Yugi —what happened to yours? It disappeared the other day."

"I—I broke it, accidentally." Yugi turned around and wiped down another cabinet. He and Mokuba had sacrificed their bicycles to the construction of the plane—it was a stroke of genius, really—attaching the propeller and the wheels to their bicycle chains. By pedaling, they could move the plane and get it off of the ground. Theoretically.

"That's a shame, you know those parts are expensive."

"Grandpa…" Yugi took a deep breath. "Do you think things are better now? That all of those changes were really for the better?"

"That's not for me to say," Solomon answered after giving it some thought. "My generation made those changes and lived with them, and when we're gone no-one will be left who remembers things as they once were. That means it's up to you all to make new changes. That is, if you want to." He smiled fondly at his grandson as the shop door opened again, a new customer coming in to look at their selection of toys. They had been selling rather well lately.

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"Can you teach me how to do that?" Mokuba asked. They were sitting in the shade of the airplane, Mokuba content to watch Yugi turn branches and logs into various shapes and figures. "I want to make my brother something… something that could fly."

"You haven't told him anything, right?" Giving Mokuba his knife and the block of wood he had been shaping, Yugi guided his hands through the first few cuts. "It's a subtractive process," he said, remembering the word from one of their textbooks. "So be careful how much material you take away, since you can't add any more back to that piece."

"I haven't told him anything, but he suspects something." On his own, Mokuba began to whittle away at the block, giving the animal something that looked like wings and a tail. "To be honest, I think he's angry at you for stealing me away or something," he said, smiling. "But it's only a matter of time before someone figures it out."

The village wasn't large enough to hide something this big. Thankfully, Yugi never had to answer any questions from his grandfather—in fact, Yugi had been asking more and more from him. To hear his stories, of traveling, of expeditions—it wasn't too different from their work now.

That was what he wanted for them. He thought of the books that were destroyed or hidden, and he thought of their authors. He didn't want their story covered up and forgotten like that.

.

"You can't be serious."

"I am," Yugi said, pushing the sleeves of his jacket up over his elbows.

"It looks great, but it won't ever get off of the ground." Mokuba looked on as Yugi sawed at more of the meadow-grass with his knife. It wasn't anything like the runways in the textbook, but it would have to do.

"Won't know until we try."

"Okay, say we do make it, and the plane works—and that would be amazing, but—then what? People will see. It won't be a secret any longer. What if the change is just too much? What if people aren't ready for it?"

Yugi cleared the last patch of grass from their makeshift runway, stood up, and dusted his hands. "Don't think about any of that. Think about the first time you saw the model plane fly. Imagine what it would feel like to be in that plane. Soaring. Mokuba, what we've always been taught is wrong. Airplanes, technology…can be weapons. They don't have to be."

Yugi walked down the runway back towards the plane. They had already maneuvered it into place, at the edge closest to the forest so they had enough time to stop if something were to go wrong. In the process of fixing it, so many things had gone wrong, but just as many things had been equally right. "Besides, don't you want to fly?"

Slowly, Mokuba nodded. "Yeah," he said, grinning. He might as well quit the authorities in style—they'd broken rules, broken curfew, and he wasn't even sorry about it. If Seto saw them now, he'd be so angry, but a crazy part of him hoped that if he saw them flying, he'd be just a little impressed.

They both got up into the plane. Mokuba climbed in first, reaching down to pull Yugi up, over the wings and into the body of the plane. Yugi had modified it to hold two passengers, and they barely fit. "It's time." That morning, they had attached a small flag to the plane made from the scrap of fabric that had wrapped their treasured textbook. Yugi had painted a white bird on the navy fabric, wings outstretched, ready to take off. "On the count of three, pedal like mad."

They had practiced a few times with a much shorter runway and had achieved some lift, but the airplane hadn't truly flown. Yugi's feet twitched over the pedals, hands gripping the controls that could tilt the stabilizer wing.

"One… two… three!"

The airplane started down the makeshift runway, quickly picking up speed as they pedaled faster and faster. The propeller was spinning furiously now, pushing air over the wings. Gradually, they started to lift.

"Keep going! We're gonna make it!"

The airplane zoomed across the meadow, quickly eating up most of their runway. Nearly certain that they were going to crash, but pedaling faster anyways, Yugi watched as the plane tilted upwards and started to leave the ground behind. The trees shrank beneath them. The forest turned into a sloping hillside, and then they could see the path that they had taken to get there.

They kept pedaling, powering only the propeller now that they were airborne. His legs must have been aching but Yugi barely noticed them. He could hear Mokuba breathing heavily behind him as he pedaled and he had to remember to breathe. The horizon, the sun and the endless blue spread out before them, beckoning them ever forwards. The plane flew through the cloudless sky, the propeller buzzing as it turned. Their flag fluttered out behind them in the breeze.

Yugi and Mokuba looked down where, they were certain, people in the village were coming out of their houses to look at the airplane soar. They could see the school from its distinctive colored roof, with children pouring out through the doors to watch. And somewhere down below was his grandfather, clutching the model plane that he had left on the shop counter that morning, peering up towards the clouds as he watched his grandson fly.

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The End.

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Author's Note:

Written for Round Eight of Ryou VeRua's YGO Fanfiction Contest, challenge pairing Chibishipping: Mokuba Kaiba x Yugi Moto. I flew rubber motor powered planes (made with balsa wood and rice paper) competitively for two years, so one of them is essentially the model plane that Yugi flies—and they do fly :) Of course I've taken liberties with the life-size plane, but this story does come from a fond place in my heart, and those planes are quite the little puzzles themselves—if anyone could get one off the ground, it would be those two :D Thank you for reading and please review, I value and treasure each one.