Since Yuffie has taken over the pen forcibly, there's going to be no more fighting. He's a bit too dignified to snatch it from her too many times. :D
YUFFIE AND THE BEAST
Chapter Two in which we meet Vincent and Yuffie goes on her quest for chocolate.
Somehow walking seems to have been loosened Hojo's tongue a little, as he begins to speak as we head into the gloomy old place.
"As you may have gathered Kisaragi-san," he starts, still striding forward, "The boy is a rather unusual one. Seeing that you are now his caregiver, you might run into trouble on account of his strangeness, but he is tractable enough. The illness that he suffers is debilitating, but should be of no concern to you. He currently speaks Wutainese exclusively; you will be required to teach him to read and write in Common. Other than that, keep him entertained, watch over him and report any unusual happenings to me. You are allowed free run of the mansion and the village. You are a Wutaian princess, and so I know that you understand the meaning of discretion."
I can barely take in the meaning of his words because of the language they are delivered in. All this is in fluent Wutaian and only a slight accent betrays him as a non-native speaker.
"The boy lives here," he announces, lapsing back into Common, waving a casual hand in the general direction of the mansion. "As will you. You may be happy to know that the both of you are the only inhabitants of the mansion. It is equipped with basic commodities, if you wish to cook, there are supplies and a kitchen. If that is beyond you, you may order meals from the inn in the village as I have been doing for the boy."
Once again I am distracted away from his words as more pressing matters clamour for my attention. My body is already automatically on alert, product of having spent many years in the wilderness in the time I was trying to escape the mantle of the Lady of Wutai. I reach for the Conformer that is always slung on my back, glad that I have slotted some of my more powerful materia into it this morning. Even as I do this, I level a glare of incredulity and anger at the man calmly walking before me. The scent in the air, the talon marks on the pillars, the torn up vegetation, the muffled roars…This place is filled with monsters. How can he leave his child somewhere in there? Alone?
"Undoubtedly you are wondering, what sort of inhuman father would leave any of his precious offspring in a place like this?" He pauses to look at me. "The very same sort of father who would sell his daughter away to cover for his own mistakes." I start.
Is he some sort of mind reader? Hojo chortles, and turns around to continue walking, but my blood has turned to ice in my veins. If he had meant for that obvious gibe to wound me, he has succeeded. But no way am I going to let him know it.
"Your son is probably a freak like you. Such a big monster that they recognise you as one of their own," I say as coolly as I can, watching him for a reaction.
Somehow my words don't seem to affect him the slightest. He stops and glances over his shoulder at me, the corner of his lips quirked up in a humourless smile. "Cute," he says, turning and continuing his progress forward.
This statement makes me see red, my blood boiling. No one ever calls Yuffie Kisaragi cute in such a sneering manner and gets away with it. I continue to observe him covertly, seeing if he can be taken down by me alone. Somehow he moves a little too smoothly, with the grace of a trained fighter. I probably could overpower him – with the element of surprise and some luck. If he tries to do anything to me in this creepy mansion, I will take him out and run away, honour be hanged. I'll find some other way to repay Wutai's debts.
Once or twice we get seriously close to monsters, but none attack. I am surprised and more than a little wary. At last, we come to a series of stairs and down we go, the walls getting a little damp, smelling of decay and mildew. A few more steps to the bottom and we are standing before a rusty metal door. Hojo fits a key into the lock and pulls the handle, opening it silently. He then hands the keyring and a thick packet, which I later find out is full of gil, to me, with another one of his feral smiles. We then enter, and he closes the door behind him. "A mere precaution against the big bad monsters roaming around outside. I'm not as bad a parent as you think, Yuffie-chan," he says suddenly in Wutainese. I know he is mocking me and I refuse to reply, choosing instead to unzip my bag and casually drop the keys and packet into it before rezipping it.
We are standing at the beginning of a long corridor, which is lit by a series of white lamps that throws much of it in a sickly fluorescent glow that is too bright after the relative darkness that we have been walking in. There are many doors, and I shudder a little, wondering what is behind each one. I realise that the corridor is not empty as I thought it was, and before us stands a young boy, not a day over six, I can swear. His skin is white and washed out as if lacking exposure to sunlight, contrasted even more greatly by his long ebony locks of hair that is falling in an untidy mess all over his head. His clothes are ordinary enough, except that they are all black. He looks up and I gasp a little, for his eyes… his eyes are a luminous red, the colour of fresh blood.
"Yuffie, this is the boy. I trust you two are dying to get acquainted, and so I will leave you to it." That much said, Hojo leaves, the door closing with a resonant clank behind him. I am left facing the boy, silence thick in the air between us.
I clear my throat, wondering at the pure apathy in the face of that child. For that matter, I do not know his name. His father had not seen fit to tell me.
"Yo. I'm Yuffie, dragged out here by some terrible grown-up issue that you might not understand…" I stop, for his face, though still registering a lack of emotion, has changed just the slightest smidgen to register incomprehension.
Oh right. He speaks only Wutainese. So I try again, in the beautiful mother tongue that rolls off my lips in trilling syllables often reckoned akin to the falls of water over the great Da Chao statue. "My name is Kisaragi Yuffie, the single White Rose of Wutai. What's your name?" Tacky I know, but well, I'm not really thinking straight at the moment, what with the trauma of being sold and being in some creepy old mansion, facing some strange little kid who has eyes that would give even the bravest warrior in Wutai shudders.
"'m Vincent," he says, mumbling a little. His face now registers, to my expert face reading skills, a little bit of doubt, some hostility and a lot of something else I cannot identify.
"Well, since we're in this together, why don't we be friends?" I smile at him, one of my signature trademark grins. The changes it brings in Vincent is remarkable. His lips draw back in a snarl and I look at a creature that regards me with pure hate. Then, as suddenly as it has appeared, it is gone, and the impassive mask has returned. This time however, due to the slight crinkling of his eyes and the slight trembling of his bottom lip, I see something else. If this had been an ordinary child, he would be curled up in a ball, crying his eyes out. But because he is Vincent, he chooses to stand his ground, glaring at a stranger.
A normal person might be put off by this, but I am no ordinary person. And, I take pride in the fact that I'm good with kids. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I'm still one myself. This one however, is somewhat different. I don't think an offer to go out and make mudpies together will do anything for our relationship, at least not yet. I don't know what makes me do what I'm doing, but I drop my bag on the floor, step forward, moving slowly so as not to surprise him unnecessarily. Kneeling down, I put my arms around his small frame a little awkwardly, and pull him close.
He tenses, and I am afraid that he will push me away. However, I feel his small body relax just the slightest, and two tentative hands go around my neck. He does not cry, but as I am holding him, I can feel him trembling. I rack my minds for ways to soothe him, and lacking inspiration, I fall back on the method my mother has always used on me. My fingers move long rhythmic strokes through his soft hair and I hum a Wutaian lullaby.
He has gone still, his body is limp and his breathing comes in slow, even bursts. Pushing him a little away from me so that I can see his face, I note that with his eyes closed, he looks like any other ordinary child. A very beautiful child. He must have gotten the good genes from his mother because I sure can't see any Hojo in him, I muse.
Grunting a little, I pick him up to look for a bedroom. He is surprisingly heavy for his size. Must be dense bones.
I try door after door, coming across the kitchen, the laundry, even a library, all of which I would love to inspect closely, but the sleeping burden in my arms has to be put to bed. Let it never be said that Yuffie Kisaragi does not take her duties seriously.
I finally find a bedroom, equipped with two beds, both almost identical. I haven't found any other beds, so evidently, I am meant to share this room with my charge. I put him down as gently as I can, tucking him in. Spotting a woolly Moogle on a pillow, I put it next to his head, within easy reach.
With that done, I sit on my own bed for a while, watching him. There are dark shadows under his eyes as if he has not been getting enough sleep. I purse my lips, vowing that that will change. I believe in good old fashioned Wutaian upbringing for children, as long as it isn't applied on me. Hypocritical, but since when do I bother explaining things to myself?
Seeing that he is comfortably settled in and will probably remain so for the rest of the evening and the night, I decide to explore my new quarters. Maybe, run around outside in the mansion and its grounds and kick some monster butt or two. Anything rather than think about the life that seems to stretch before me, companion to the child Vincent and his crazy father Hojo.
The kitchen is rather well stocked, with lots of canned food, but no fresh meat or vegetables. To my horror, there is neither ice cream nor chocolate in the fridge. Definitely these have to be remedied. I check the gil that Hojo has left with me. I'm not sure when he'll be back, but it will last for quite a bit. There is a clock on the wall, and if I run, I will probably make it to the village before all the shops close for the night.
It isn't a difficult decision to make; I need my sugar fixes. To the village it is. I feel a small twinge of guilt for leaving the sleeping child but it should be all right. After all, he probably won't wake up til morning. I leave, carefully locking the metal door behind me. Hojo had not mentioned anything, but I do not want Vincent up and wandering about, prime bait for some bloodthirsty monster lurking around the mansion. He was way too young to be able to adequately defend himself, forgetting that I myself was out beating monsters up at the tender age of three.
A hop hop, skip skip and several decimated monsters later, I am outside the mansion gates in the town called Nibelheim. It's not a really impressive place I must say. The tiny little convenience store, to my dismay, is sadly lacking in the ice cream department. When it comes to chocolate, it is no better, boasting of only one measly brand of sickeningly sweet cherry ripe flavour. I eat chocolates of all shapes and forms, but there is one flavour I can never eat, and that is cherry ripe. I cannot bring myself to buy it, and leave the store, absolutely dejected. The sour faced storekeeper watches me fiercely the whole time in the shop, as if I would want to steal any of his shoddy merchandise. When I ask him to consider stocking more of a variety when it comes to his confectioneries, he growls at me and says, "If you ain't buying, git out!", shooing me out and slamming the door behind me. The sign is flipped to say "CLOSED".
As I wend my way back to the somber mansion that is now my home, I stop in my tracks suddenly, nostrils flared. Honed to absolute perfection from sixteen years of usage, I know this scent instantly. Caramel crunch. I sniff like a dog, following the trail until I come across a grubby little kid, throwing the last remains of the chocolate into his mouth. I could have cried.
I think there is madness in my eyes then for he looks a bit scared. I blink, trying to get myself under control and I demand, "Kid, where did you get that chocolate from? I have gil and I'm willing to use it!"
The boy watches me slightly suspiciously as if sizing me up, but like I've mentioned, I'm good with kids. Maybe that or the gil I'm waving at him is tantalising enough. He comes closer to me and says in a stage whisper, "Our parents don't know, but Nelso's dad, when he comes back from his travels, he brings heaps of chocolate, and Nelso's got a nice little joint set up. He's good too, doesn't charge overly much. He lives in that house over there but you'd better hurry. It's gonna be his bedtime soon."
"Thanks," I whisper back, getting into the spirit of things. I press five gil into his hand.
He winks. "Neways, my name's Grant. See ya around."
I knock on the door as directed and am greeted by a tiny urchin with a shock of flaming red hair.
"Nelso right?" I whisper again, theatrically looking his shoulder for any 'grown-ups'. He grins a toothily at me, joining in the 'conspiracy'.
"First time customer right? I've only got caramel crunch and fruit & nut left at the moment. M'dad's due back soonish. Stocks are running low." He disappears for a few seconds, and comes back with several plastic packets in his hands. "Seven gil and that's the lowest I can go, threw in a free mini bar seeing as you're new and all."
I impulsively hug my little red headed angel and in no time, I'm back in the mansion, speeding through the moldy old corridors, standing in front of the metal door, barely stopping to unlock it and close it behind me, still in euphoria over my acquisitions and then I hear it.
The high piercing scream of a child, and I know the only child down here is Vincent.
Dropping my purchases on the floor, I rush to his room, where he is tossing and turning, flinging his covers off and thrashing wildly. I run towards him, knowing that I have to get him to wake up. Without warning, he sits straight up, with a single name screamed out, "LUCRECIA!"
And his eyes snap open and I am confronted with the ruby gaze again.
AN: So. Decided to reverse the situation. Instead of our darling vampire boy being the elder, more mature one, Yuffsters has to take that place…which is why she may be a bit OOC. But hey, when faced with a sad child, there's only so much you can do right? :D And I like to think that the shock of having been sold away has forced Yuffie to mature abruptly in a short period of time. Do keep reading and reviewing ^^ A few words of encouragement/critique will totally make my day! And thank you to all you darlings who have been reading and reviewing! –spreads author love around–
Oh and before anyone asks, of course the six year old Vincent will have nightmares and wake up screaming Lucrecia's name. Our dear Vinnie isn't Vinnie unless he's all riddled with his triple burdens of guilt, angst and sin :D Yes even as a kid. Can't even give the poor guy a happy childhood ;D
