A/N: I would like to apologize for the hiatus. I know we're all somewhat resigned to the author who updates once a year (or less), but that's really not me and being away from you guys for even a month (I think it's been a bit longer) has been really rough. It took a while to get my head around this chapter, but I guess I'm happy with it now, so I hope you all enjoy it. It's probably really choppy and weird, now that I think about it. I'm not a very linear thinker, so please excuse any loose ends that I forgot. (Tell me about them, though, I can always address them in a later chapter.)

Maybe writing smut was too much for me, and I got all burnt out? Last chapter took sooo much effort. Bleh.

Oh, also! There are more notes at the end of the chapter. There are a lot of them. So the chapter isn't as long as it looks (although it is the longest chapter to date). This is your heads up.

A Place for Everyone (and Everyone in His Place)

Word Count: 5025

Zack spared a moment to wipe the sweat away from his eyes with a corner of his shirt before he had to return to his masterpiece. Surrounded by chaos, and with an epic mess in his wake, he couldn't be happier. There had been a series of big catches lately, and although Zack was much too young to score the quality pieces, he was going to make do with what he had – and oh, what fun he was having with it! Feast nights were the best, because he could sneak his dishes in with the rest and load up on that fizzy feeling of people eating his food and enjoying it.

Zack was new to cooking, but a combination of interest, curiosity, enthusiasm, and adventurousness had him picking up new tricks and skills faster than many of the women around the cookpots thought strictly fair. Zack was usually so scattered, everyone thought he would be a disaster around a fire, but being given five things to keep track of at once had unlocked his ability to focus. The boy seemed to have an innate sense of time that triggered him to check on his dishes right when they were ready to come off the heat, to drain his noodles when they were perfectly soft but not soggy, to cut leaves only so far in advance of using them that he could prepare them at a convenient time, without leaving them long enough to brown or wilt.

The women were affectionate with him, and sympathetic to his mother, who had finally, it seemed, found a useful way of keeping him out of trouble. They shared their knowledge readily, instructing him on techniques for harvesting, grinding, and mixing spices, on methods for softening and tenderizing tough connective tissues, and showing him the importance of stocks and broths made of the "waste" parts of the food in the overall presentation. Zack went into cooking humbly, and treated each kernel of knowledge as an important treasure.

Simply seeing his neighbors eat the food he prepared was enough to encourage Zack to be the best cook he could be, but it was the fact that his neighbors started requesting things from him – things they could get elsewhere, or make themselves, fairly easily – as though his product was worthwhile, that really got his attention. Zack had never been good at anything before. He had the village record for times turned into a frog, of course – how could he resist the Touch Mes? Everything about them begged him to touch them! – to the point that his mother had started to refuse to turn him back, but that didn't count as a skill. In fact, on the contrary, being turned into a frog was almost certainly an imposition.

There were a lot of things Zack wanted to do, of course. Cooking was largely considered women's work, and Zack would never have tried it except that he was forbidden from doing most of the things the other boys occupied their time with, so Zack always ended up being left at home. He wasn't allowed to work on net repairs with the boys who fancied sea fishing, because he just held them in his hands and forgot what he was supposed to be doing until the nets ended up in a huge tangle. He couldn't work on repairing or making any of the other fishing equipment, because lines tangled as badly as nets and fishhooks ended up embedded in his fingers. He was too distracted and slow to clean the boats and had no skill with woodworking to repair them. River fishing had been suggested for him, and everyone thought as long as someone else baited his hook and set his line for him he wouldn't get into too much trouble, but as it turned out his high-energy lifestyle was frightening to the fish, and his large movements and loud voice scared them away.

Zack really wanted to try noodling, but his mother put her foot down, and even his father, always encouraging him to find an appropriate occupation for a man, agreed that hand-catching catfish was out of the question for him. Zack had tried it anyway, of course – the allure of a useful skill like hunting that was also dangerous, as proven by the number of villagers who had lost or almost lost fingers, was impossible to resist. At first, he hadn't been able to dive nearly far enough to be effective. Catfish lived at river bottom, and the river ran deep and slow near Gongaga. That made conditions ideal for the breeding catfish, of course, but difficult for divers, who sometimes had to go twenty feet down on one breath to get near the fish. Of course, there were fish who holed up just a few feet down, but Zack would never impress anyone at those depths.

It hadn't gone well, to say the least. On his first attempt, Zack freaked out and shot back up to the surface. The only thing he accomplished that time was to kick up a bunch of mud and grit at the bottom of the river, ruining the visibility for several long minutes full of the glares of his friends as they waited for the river to clear again. His second time, knowing a little more what to expect, Zack had been able to hold his breath for quite a while – not least because everything he saw under the surface was fascinating. It was so interesting, in fact, that he not only forgot he was looking for catfish holes, he also failed to notice he had limited breath, and ended up remembering suddenly, choking, and barely making it back to the surface. Convinced he would drown if he went down again, the older kids who were leading the excursion flatly refused to let Zack back in the water.

When his father found out how he spent his day, Zack was prepared for the scolding of a lifetime, so he was surprised when instead his father grabbed him up in a rare display of affection and held him close for several long, tense moments. Zack peeked over his father's shoulder to see his mother crying quietly, and, thinking his parents were too mad to yell, whispered, "I'm sorry."

"We're just glad you're ok, Zack," his mom said quietly, while his dad squeezed him tighter. "Those fish weigh almost as much as you do, honey, so don't scare us like that." Zack, shocked that his parents, usually so fed up with his misbehavior, were actually frightened for him, vowed there and then never to disobey them again.

After that, Zack diverted his attention to other activities, most of which were much the same in result if not in execution. Zack forgot what he was doing, got distracted, and ended up occupying himself with something else – often something fairly destructive to the efforts of the rest of his group.

"I don't understand," his father had said in frustration one night after his family had retired to their home. Zack had been sent out to look for Flower Prongs with a group that day. The prongs they displayed when they were low on health could be harvested and were a primary ingredient in Maiden's Kisses. Zack's job was just to follow along and hold the sack they were stuffing full of prongs. He was to stay in the rear of the group, not go off on his own, not get injured, and not cause trouble.

Zack had focused really hard on staying where he was supposed to be, following right behind an older kid who in turn was trying to execute his own job. Then Zack had happened to glance off to the side of the trail, and saw it: the most magnificent of animals, the non-monster that was still strong enough to protect itself in the jungle, gentle enough that its domestic cousins lounged in the village shade. A gaur. Zack's eyes were like saucers as he stared at the graceful bow and curve of the beast's heavy horns, and before he knew what he was doing he had taken off after it.

The group he was with hadn't noticed his absence until they needed him, and by then he had already managed to climb onto the giant cow, somehow without agitating the creature, and be carried off to rejoin the herd, farther and farther away from Gongaga village. Zack spent the afternoon playing with the new spring calves under the protective watch of the cows until a Gagighandi appeared suddenly and caused a massive stampede. It was all Zack could do to hold on to the cow he happened to have climbed on, but even after they had long outrun the monster the cows continued to run, until it was all Zack could do to call out a warning to the villagers working in the rice fields before the crop was trampled.

Zack looked at the floor and tried to appear small in the face of his father's displeasure. "You had one job, Zack. Stay with your group. And somehow you ended up leading a stampede through a rice field, completely destroying the east bank. We're less than two months from harvest. What are you going to do if we can't repair the field?"

Zack trembled. Everyone in the village would be hungry, and it would be his fault. They were already running low on rice from the last harvest, after a mold had gotten into their stores and ruined almost half of what little they had. Everyone was on edge waiting for the new harvest, but with the water drained from the field, the crop would die quickly.

That night Zack had refused dinner, determined that if the village was going to go hungry, he would be the first to starve. Curled up in misery on his small cot in the corner, trying to ignore the pangs of hunger stabbing through him, Zack listened to his parent's conversation in the dark.

"You're being too hard on him," his mother said softly. "He's just a child. All the world is new and exciting to him right now, he wants to explore and discover. He'll grow out of it."

"Will he grow out of it before he destroys the village?" Nottingham asked grumpily. "No, Mary, listen to me. Everywhere that boy goes, he brings disaster down on us. Ever since he learned to walk, it's been one thing after another – fire, floods, stampede, famine."

"Nott, it's not Zack's fault the last crop went bad. It's no one's fault. You can't put that on his shoulders."

"That boy is a danger to himself and others. We can't keep him underfoot here because he gets into too much mischief. We can't send him off with the other children because at best, he'll come home a frog, and at worst, he'll nearly get himself – or worse, someone else – killed. He can't help with the nets or the boats because he 'gets distracted.' Distracted! The boy lacks discipline. He's too rambunctious to fish, too independent to work harvest or go foraging, and too scatterbrained to do anything else. We'll be lucky if he lives long enough to get married, let alone finds a girl willing to put up with him for the rest of her life."

Zack's parents were quiet for a long time after that, and Zack put all his effort into being silent even as tears streamed down his face. He hated crying. He wasn't a little kid, who cried just because he had a rough day. Someday, he would be good at something, and he would show everyone!

"He's only a little boy," Mary said softly in the darkness. "I remember when you were that age. I thought you were the coolest thing on two feet, but my parents thought you were a little terror. You grew out of it, and Zack will, too."

The next day, after Zack apologized for all of the trouble he caused the day before, Mary began teaching Zack the art of food. Zack was shy at first: the other ladies at the fire pit watched him make mistakes with amusement, and it seemed once again Zack couldn't do anything right. Zack had never realized how much effort and precision went into his food, but the women spent most of the day around the fire. Nottingham hardly glanced at his son on his way out that morning, and while Zack hoped he would at least be proud to come home to a village largely the way he had left it, his father's mood only seemed to darken through dinner.

Although that was the beginning of the slew of emasculating comments and postures Zack would endure from his father on the unsuitability of his talents, Zack stuck with cooking. For one thing, it was challenging and interesting, enough to keep him focused. Zack's attention never wandered while he worked at the fire pit, and he found that, although like any beginner he was prone to making mistakes, he could learn and improve if he put his mind to it.

His father was by no means the only adult to remark on Zack's unusual pastime, and Zack endured the comments of nearly everyone in the village at some point or another. The men would come home from hunting or fishing and tell Zack he was getting prettier by the day, and ask him which of their sons he was going to grow up to marry, which earned snickers from the village girls and horrified looks from the boys. The women initially commented that it was silly for a boy to bother learning to cook when his mother and future wife would take care of it for him, but after a few weeks they gave up. Now they complained that they wished their own daughters would show such dedication to learning. If Zack hadn't been outcast enough for being first a potentially dangerous playmate and then likened to a girl, this appreciation from their mothers was enough to earn Zack the murderous looks of the girls.

Now, still a beginner but starting to carve out a place for his unique and delicious creations, Zack was becoming a town favorite. The older men loved coming home to see what Zack had come up with while they had been away, and the kids loved that Zack was always prepared to make a sweet dessert for them to share. As the village girls grew and began to spend more time studying cooking at their mothers' elbows, they turned to Zack for help with difficult skills and complicated recipes.

Although the women of the village tended not only the fire but also the fields, Zack never did manage to convince his elders he should be allowed back into the rice patties. Every time he visited, he trampled the crops, or pulled the rice and left the weeds, or did something else that caused trouble and invariably ended with him covered head to toe in mud. Instead, on days when the village turned out to harvest, Zack stayed with the children too young to help and the elders too old, and took care of them. He was a fountain of funny stories about his own adventures in the jungle – many of them wildly embellished for dramatic effect – and had endless energy and enthusiasm to spend with the younger children.

Far from the town menace he had been, within a year of beginning to cook, Zack had become a popular and beloved feature around the village. Everywhere he went, he left smiles in his wake, and what he lacked in size he more than made up for in character.

It was never enough. Nottingham remained stubbornly the one person who would always frown when he saw his son, making disparaging remarks and leaving his boy feeling like a bug on the bottom of his foot. Zack went to his mother in frustration, asking why his father thought so little of women and the work they did, and Mary tried to reassure him. "It's not that the work is lesser, Zack," she told him, "just different. Your father likes everything to be a certain way. He's a very traditional man. He believes a man's duty is to provide for his family by hunting, fighting monsters, and helping in the fields at harvest, and he wants to see you grow up well and become a man like he is."

Zack held back from mulishly declaring he never wanted to be a man if it meant becoming like his father. "But why can't a man take care of the home and the children and the cooking while the woman goes out to hunt?"

"It's not traditional, honey, that's all."

"But where do the traditions come from?"

Mary sighed. She wished Nottingham would get over his prejudice before he drove Zack away from them forever. She had seen the way her son's eyes filled with sorrow and undeserved guilt every time her husband made a cruel remark, and she wanted nothing more than sooth away the hurt and make it all better. Frankly, she agreed with her son: in a village that shared everything, people should be allowed to do what they loved and were good at, and not feel guilty for doing it.

Zack knew his mom was trying to help him with Nottingham. She shoved her son's food at her husband every chance she got, often neglecting to mention where it came from until Nott admitted it was good, but every time he found out who the chef was he put on what Zack called his "stormy face." He reminded them both that cooking was for women, and more importantly Zack would never find a nice girl to marry if he didn't start developing skills that complimented, rather than overshadow, those of the village girls. Zack thought everything would be ok if he could just find a girl who liked to hunt and fish, but none of the girls seemed interested.

The day a seven-year-old Zack passionately declared to his father that if he couldn't find a girl who hunted to marry, he would wed a boy, Nottingham very nearly turned purple. Mary had simultaneously burst out laughing, and it was with a face red from embarrassment and fury that a tiny Zack stormed out of his hot Gongaga hut one night into the sweltering steam of the village. Tears burning in the corners of his eyes, Zack ran into the jungle, up the hills to a place he had visited time and time again in the past fifteen months since he transitioned from village terror to mini chef. It was a tree, old and smooth with low, wide branches that welcomed Zack's climbing as if built just for him. Zack climbed as if he never meant to come back down.

There was a slight rustle beneath him as a Touch Me hopped through the leaves. Zack watched it move and felt a strange slew of emotions. It had been a really long time since he had been a frog. Zack wondered if his mom really wouldn't turn him back again if he touched the monster, and then wondered if he should do it anyway. He wouldn't have to get married if he was a frog.

"Zack, is that you?" a gentle tenor voice called, and a light flashed up at him. Zack made a face. He hadn't wanted to be found so quickly.

"Hey," he said glumly, resigned to company. Balto wasn't so bad. He was getting a little old to still be unmarried himself, but he was such a strong swordsman nobody really gave him any trouble. And he was nice to the younger kids, who idolized him in turn. Zack hadn't seen much of him since he started cooking, but Balto was one person who never gave Zack any flack for doing something he enjoyed.

"Can I come up?"

Zack shrugged, then realized it was getting dark and Balto might not have been able to see the gesture. "Yeah," he said. Balto came up the tree easily, and sat a bit below him, looking out over the view.

"Trouble at home?" the older boy asked after a moment. Zack was a little startled. People shared everything in Gongaga – food, affection, space, wealth and poverty. It was a little unusual to ask for something private, though.

"It's no big deal," Zack said after a moment, resigned. "I don't know what he expects me to do. I'm too young to get married, anyway."

Balto laughed a little. "You're never too young to share your life with someone," he said, and Zack flinched. It was an old proverb, one with too many layers of meaning.

"You're not married," Zack accused after a moment.

"I'm also not planning to stay in Gongaga for the rest of my life." That got Zack's attention. He stared at the older boy in shock. Leave Gongaga? How? And go where? The only thing out there was jungle. (Zack knew. You could walk forever and never leave the jungle.) "There are lots of things out there, Zack," Balto gestured vaguely in front of him. "People to meet, monsters to save them from. Cities to see, big ones, not like Gongaga. Places where there're just buildings and buildings as far as the eye can see. It's different, not like here. It's beautiful. I'm going to see it all."

"Good for you," Zack said slowly. He wasn't sure why Balto was telling him all of this. Balto had a sword, and a lot of skill. Zack only had skill as a cook, and he didn't even own a knife.

"Have you heard of ShinRa?" Balto asked.

Zack thought he vaguely recalled the name. People around town had mentioned it in connection with something called a mako reactor, not that Zack knew what that meant. All he knew was, when it came up in conversation, Nottingham got his "stormy face" and Zack kept his head down. "I guess?"

"They're a big company in a city called Midgar. Actually, the city was built around the company. They produce electrical power by pulling energy out of the earth in a big facility called a mako reactor. You know electricity? Like in my flashlight," Balto offered. Zack made a noise of understanding. He didn't have a flashlight, either, and used glowlights or candles if he needed light in the darkness. "They're going to build a facility out here, so we'll all have electricity. We can use it to keep our houses cool." Balto trailed off and Zack contemplated what it would be like to have a cool house. He knew what cool felt like, of course, because he had been swimming. He didn't know what cool would feel like dry, though.

"If you want to get away from here, you should go work for ShinRa, Zack," Balto said. "They can teach you all kinds of things. How to be a warrior, if that's what you want. Or how to do something else, if fighting's not your style. I hear they even have girls who fight." Zack's eyes widened at the idea. He could find a warrior woman to marry at ShinRa, and make his father proud of him.

But that meant… "Do you…" Zack paused to figure out what he was thinking. "Do you think it's ok for women to be warriors, then?"

Balto laughed. "Why not? Women can do everything men can do, Zack. Don't you think so?"

"I think so," Zack hurried to agree. "But then why don't any of the girls around here want to be hunters?"

In the growing gloom, Zack could sort of make out Balto's profile as the older boy considered the question. "Probably because their dads tell them they can't. My mom told me she used to love pole fishing in the river when she was a kid, but as she grew older her parents told her she had to give it up. She didn't love it enough to fight them on it, so nothing changed. My older sister used to love fishing, too, and my mom didn't think it was a problem, but my dad told her no. Now she's married and renown for making the best salt-baked catfish in the village."

They sat together in silence for a time, each mulling over the implications in their own way. "Hey Balto? Can I ask you a grown-up question?"

"Sure, Zack."

"How come people in Gongaga get married?"

"What do you mean, kiddo?"

"We already share everything. So what's the point of marrying? Isn't it like saying 'I'm gonna share with everybody but ESPECIALLY with this person!'?"

"I think the idea is more that the person is what's being shared. When you get married, it's because you've found someone who appeals to you in a special way, and that person becomes so special you never want to give them up."

Zack digested that idea slowly. He wasn't sure he liked it. "If the person is so special, wouldn't everyone want to marry them? In that case, wouldn't it be better if there wasn't marriage, so everyone could share that special person?"

"Well, different people have different things they like. So I might see someone and think, gosh, that person is really something else. But you might look at that same person and think, yeah, that person is cool, but no MORE special that these other people. So maybe in that situation, I would want to marry the person, but you wouldn't. And when two people feel the same way, and they both want to get married, then they do."

"I guess that makes sense," Zack agreed, although it seemed like a flawed system to him. What if you never found someone who liked you the way you liked them? "But why is it so important to my dad that I get married? I think everyone is really special in their own way. It shouldn't matter if one is especially different from another if I like them all, right? Dad wants me to grow up and be a man, but if that means I have to tell everyone I don't like them as much as one other person, I don't want to ever grow up!" Zack felt like a little kid throwing a tantrum, but this whole situation just seemed so ridiculous!

"Zack," Balto said gently, trying to calm the younger boy, and waited until he heard a quiet grunt of acknowledgement. "Do you remember the legend of Lady Gaia?"

Zack sniffed. "Yes," he muttered. "In the beginning, Lady Gaia lay nestled among Her friends and family, and She loved them all as they loved Her. She was happy with them and content, but She lived a dark, quiet, sheltered life that was unsatisfying," Zack recited dutifully.

"And then?" Balto prompted.

"And then Lady Gaia met Lord Sol, and He lit Her life with such brilliance and beauty as She had never before known, and She was overjoyed with happiness and love for Him. But as time passed She grew dry and hot and tired, and She was sad, because even though She loved Lord Sol with all her might and knew that He loved Her, His brilliance was such that She could not see Her friends and family, and She missed them terribly."

"But Lord Sol truly loved Lady Gaia, didn't He, Zack?"

"Yeah. He loved Her so much He turned away from Her, and in the darkness of His wake She could see Her friends and family again, and they were reunited and she felt joy. But Lord Sol would not give up Lady Gaia, so He came back, again and again, always retreating and returning so She could be shared among all those She loved and who loved Her."

"That's right, Zack. And just like Lady Gaia, someday you'll find that the life you thought was beautiful and fulfilling enough to sustain you was dim and bleak compared to the light and warmth of the person you love, and you'll be ready to get married, too."

"It just doesn't seem fair to the stars, to say they're not enough," Zack said quietly. He didn't want to think the love of his friends and parents couldn't sustain him forever.

"A different tool for a different job, Zack. Life with Lord Sol is wonderful, enthusiastic and energetic and full of discovery and joy. But it's exhausting, too, isn't it? Your family and friends are the ones you can fall back on when you need some relief. And there's no reason why you can't have fun with them. It's just a different kind of fun." He paused there, but Zack thought there was something else he wanted to say, so he stayed quiet for a moment longer. "I hate to say it, but… you may understand better when you're older."

Zack made a face in the dark at that, but Balto was probably right. The only way to explain to a tadpole what life was like breathing air instead of water was to let it grow into a frog and experience air for itself, and it would be the same for Zack, just like it was the same for Lady Gaia.

"There are a lot more people in Midgar than there are here, you know. Maybe if you join up with ShinRa, you can find someone who can be your Lord Sol. Or maybe you'll find out you're the one who gets to be Lord Sol for somebody else."

It was certainly a tempting idea. But… if Zack left for Midgar, he would have to go very far away. He wouldn't have to see his dad, but he wouldn't be able to see his mom, either. He had friends in Gongaga. People he cared about… people he was sharing his life with.

"Well, it's up to you," Balto said after a while. "You staying out here tonight, kid?"

"I'll come with you." Zack had a lot to think about, but he didn't need to leave his parents worrying while he did it.

A/N: Neil Gaiman told me to laugh at my own jokes, so even though I know I'm not funny, I named Zack's dad Nott Fair. Because it makes me laugh. Please excuse me, and, er, thank you for continuing to put up with me. Haha.

I couldn't come up with a good reason to have a socially contracted monogamous relationship so I made up that story about Lady Gaia. It's not from anything that I know of except that it's in the style of creation myths, so it's probably very similar to a bunch of things. A lot of fanon seems to prefer an openness in the Gongagan sex life (which I approve of heartily) but canon has Zack's parents concerned about him getting married. We'll do some more exploration of Gongagan culture before this story is over and I'll flesh out a little more of what I'm thinking, but for now just know I'm using the marriage issue (among other things) to create drama that pushes Zack to leave home as young as he does.

Some notes on Nottingham Fair:

Nottingham to me kind of represents a lot of things that trouble me about parenting today, but I also want to say that although he and Zack don't exactly get along, he's not a bad guy. He wants the best for his son and to him that means something very specific and not necessarily in line with what Zack wants. But it is still what Nott considers "the best."

Like any parent, he's concerned with his son's welfare, and scared of the dangers his kid gets into. The way he manages his fear is not what I would consider ideal, and obviously Mary isn't always thrilled, but consider also that from Zack's perspective, Nott may be overprotective and overbearing, but from Nott's perspective, Zack nearly dies several times this chapter. As an adult, Nott has a different understanding of the dangers his son is facing.

Finally, as I mentioned, we don't get to see into Nott's head, so we don't know what he thought fatherhood would be like or how long Zack has been causing trouble or what other stressors are on his plate right now. While on the one hand, it's hard for me to see how a parent can hold his six-year-old responsible for destroying town (and while I strongly believe in training children for adulthood by giving them agency and respecting their decisions from a young age, I have personal beef with the idea that children can behave as adults. Children are not built to sit still in class for hours on end, so it's hard for me to agree with Nott's apparent position that Zack should be capable of behaving as an adult at six years old), the dangers faced in Gongaga are very different than those faced in small-town America. Nott is concerned that Zack does need to take responsibility because the way their culture lets kids run wild, Zack could seriously injure himself or someone else (I am not a parent, but I am given to understand that literally the last thing any parent wants is for their child or someone else's to come to harm).

Some notes on noodling:

If it wasn't made clear in context, noodling is the process of fishing for catfish by hand. Catfish live in holes, so you swim down to the bottom of the river, find a hole, stick your hand in it (hope to God a catfish is living in it), and wait for the catfish to swim forward and latch on. Then you drag the catfish out of the hole and up to the surface, usually with the help of a spotter. The catfish bite your arm as a defensive maneuver, in attempt to escape the hole, and they don't have teeth, so that part isn't really that dangerous.

That said, there are a couple of dangers. Most rivers are pretty murky (catfish especially like to hang out in the mud), and water affects the way you perceive distance, so there's a high chance of getting scratched or poked on unseen rocks and such while underwater. There's also the chance of your clothes getting tangled or snagged on roots and rocks while you're underwater, which is always bad. Even if you're a strong swimmer, the sudden weight of a catfish can be enough to throw you off guard (which is why you should use a spotter!). According to Wikipedia, the typical noodled catfish is around 40 lbs, which for those of you who have never swum with that kind of weight (I have never noodled but I wear about 40 lbs when I scuba), it's a lot. In saltwater it's a lot, and you're more buoyant in saltwater than in fresh, so a 40 lb catfish in a river is a lot of weight.

Probably the most concerning thing about noodling in terms of injury is the fact that not all catfish holes are occupied by catfish. Again according to Wikipedia, beavers, muskrats, snakes, snapping turtles, and even alligators can occupy abandoned catfish holes. Can you imagine sticking your arm into a hole expecting a catfish and getting chomped by an alligator instead? Eeurgh.

Plus, you can of course always drown.

I would like to also note that noodling is illegal in at least some form in several United States where its use has led to severe overfishing (the adult catfish who is hanging out in the hole is often mama catfish who is protecting her eggs). In some instances, the laws are in place to protect the noodlers, who as I have mentioned face real dangers underwater.

Some notes on freediving:

Freediving is diving without bringing air with you (for example, a scuba tank or a hose). You take the air in your lungs, and that's all you get.

It is noted in-chapter that catfish holes can occur at depths up to twenty feet, and the noodler must make this distance on one breath of air. Without any apnea training, swimming down to twenty feet is a challenge for most people, and at that depth you would certainly feel the pressure – plus Zack is six years old when he tries it, so that's also working against him. He doesn't exactly have very big lungs. That said, freediving champions can make impressive depths with the use of anaerobic equipment (such as fins). I know a guy who can ocean dive deeper than 135 feet on one breath of air. For reference, open water scuba divers are permitted to dive up to 60 feet; 130 feet is the limit for recreational divers who have deep diver certification. (Pro divers CAN go deeper but it's such a risky job they often can't buy life insurance.) Most of the risks of scuba are associated with breathing underwater and have to do with nitrogen narcosis, oxygen poisoning, and if you're pro decompression sickness (if you're recreational, you should never get this because it's so easy to avoid) so obviously they don't happen if you don't breathe underwater, as with freediving.

If you are interested in learning more about this I highly recommend taking a scuba course! The only prerequisite is that you be able to swim, and it's really a very safe sport.

Some notes on gaur:

They're real! If there can be dogs in ffvii there can be cows, too. The domesticated version is called gayal, and they're much smaller. Gaurs are native to South and Southeast Asia. Gaur can grow over seven feet tall and nearly eleven feet long! Although everything turns out ok for Zack, I absolutely do not recommend approaching gaur. For starters, they're wild animals, so they can behave unpredictably. Furthermore, although they're herbivores, they will react defensively to any perceived threat, and have even been known to kill tigers to protect their young.

Zack calls them magnificent, and I quite agree. I think they're quite attractive animals, but the word that comes to mind when I see pictures of them is "tank." Seriously, they're a solid ton of muscle and horns, and they're built like hillsides on cow legs. (Actually though go look at pictures their musculature is really beautiful and terrifying.)

Some notes on the Gongaga Reactor:

It's not clear when the reactor is put in at Gongaga, but I decided it had to be some time when Zack was old enough to appreciate the difference but young enough that it could easily be assimilated as part of his natural growing up. Although there is no school in Gongaga, Zack is elementary school age, and a number of things that I experienced first in elementary school I assumed were just things that happened in third grade (such as learning to touch type) and not necessarily related to the advent of new technology.

As I said before, I'll be looking a bit more at Gongaga through Zack's early years, so we'll get to see how things change as a result of the ShinRa presence there.

Some notes on Balto:

Yay Balto! I don't know if any of you were expecting him to cameo or not but I think he's cool and Gongaga is far too small for Zack not to at least vaguely remember him. He's kind of famous, after all. For those of you trying to figure out a timeline (good luck lol) this conversation takes place just before Balto gets recruited by the Turks.

Also I'm fairly certain Balto isn't his real name (if Cissnei isn't Cissnei's real name why would Balto be Balto's real name? Damn mysterious Turks) but one of the reasons I love fanfiction is because I don't have to name any of the characters! Woohoo! (C'mon, you've seen how bad I suck at naming. Nott Fair?) So I'm sticking with Balto for my own convenience.