Title: Blindfold

Wordcount: 1282

Pairing: Riku/Yuffie

Rating: K

Notes: Long time no see, eh?

Blindfold

The clouds around the top of the mountain were always a mystery to her.

Wutai was surrounded by mountains - hell, the city (but city was too strong of a word - it was really Yuffie's precious wonderland, even if it wasn't so precious as of late) was nestled underneath the great Da Chao. She loved those mountains. They were where she escaped to when her father was shaming them by bowing to foreign pressure, and that was certainly something she needed an escape from. Every day, she packed her bag and loaded up her arsenal of ninja weapons, and set out to leave forever. Every day, she came back with an empty stomach.

She never understood adults, and figured she never would. But then again, no one understood things like clouds on top of mountains.

"It's from the wind," he explained, on the first day, when she wondered it aloud.

"He" was a traveller. Yuffie had yet to find out who he really was, but she had found him - if one could find something when they weren't looking - when she was on a hike. Yes, hikes usually took her five hours worth of walking away from her home. The sixteen year old barely wanted to be on the same continent as her old man and his tourism, let alone in the same house. Almost a hundred kilometres away was a thousand too few.

"Wind doesn't make clouds," Yuffie said stubbornly.

He was a pretty guy - not really her type, as she generally went for someone maybe just a bit less delicate-looking, but then again, she could only see half of his face. He wore a long black coat with a hood that fell over his eyes, with a black zip-up shirt and white vest, and blue slacks. An oddly colourful wardrobe for someone so sombre. She could see wisps of silvery white hair coming from under his hood. Under the shadows on his upper face, she could just see a tiny bit of skin - a strong nose, a strong jaw. A bit of midriff.

"Yeah, it can," he replied smoothly. He was leaning against the post of a rope bridge.Yuffie hated that thing with a violent passion, because it moved and swung and creaked when one walked, and it made her feel sick. She wondered how he could stand there and lean so close to a cliff without concern.

She'd tried to cross that bridge dozens of times, and never had she been able to get to the other side. Her stomach couldn't handle it, and nor could her fear of heights.

"Nuh-uh," she growled, "you can't see wind. How can it make clouds?"

He held out a hand to her, gloved in white - and reached to take hers. She reached for her Razor Ring defensively, making a loud metallic ring as she pulled it from the metal hook on her belt. After a second, he gave a chuckle, and said, "I don't want a fight. Just give me your hand."

So, suspicious, she cautiously offered him the hand, hovering it a few inches from his. When he didn't take hers, she tapped his fingers, curiously, and he took her hand carefully, groping it almost blindly.

He moved it so she was holding it up, palm-first, and he held his up the same, but they didn't touch.

"Aren't you afraid of the cliff right there?" she asked. He shook his head. "Why not?" she asked.

"I can't see it."

"Huh?"

He tilted his head back, and with his free hand, flipped off his hood, showing a mess of slightly ruffled, layered white hair. And a blindfold, a strip of tattered black cloth tied around his eyes. The fabric gathered a bit on the bridge of his nose.

He didn't say anything. Her mind was flooded with questions, her brain swamped with ideas and daring stories of how a blindfolded stranger could make it this far in life. Did he have eyes at all? Was he blind? Was he just ugly with his eyes showing? Did he just have empty sockets in his face?

"See," he said, "My hand's the hot air. And your hand is the mountain."

She paused, and said, "Do you have eyes?"

He moved around their hands, gesturing blindly, and continued, "See... the air runs at the mountain really, really fast... and runs up it."

He moved his hand towards hers and then against it, pushing the flat of her palm and running against it.

"And as it gets higher and higher, it gets colder - and it expands really fast and turns into clouds."

She reached for his blindfold with her free hand, hooking her fingers between the fabric and his temple, and tugged - his free hand shot to her wrist, trying to get a solid grip on it, but due to the arm-length soft shield she wore, by time he managed to get a decent grip on her wrist, she had already pushed the blindfold out of the way.

"You have eyes," she said curiously, "open them."

He pulled her hand away and flicked the blindfold back up, giving her a slight frown.

"Some people like their secrets, princess."

Yuffie was silent for a moment. A million more questions buzzing her head, she stood there, watching him and his dead silence, platinum hair blowing in the wind. She didn't have a clue. How he knew she was Yuffie Kisaragi, how he got there, what to do how... how anything.

"How did you get up the mountains?"

He didn't say anything for a moment - she canted her head, staring. And then, softly, he said, "Same way you did. I walked."

"How did you know where to go?" she demanded, and he laughed for a moment. "How do you know where the cliffs are?

"You ask a lot of questions, Yuffie," he said, with a smile. She just stared.

"Where are you from?" she pressed. "Why are you HERE? If you're with ShinRa, I'm gonna have to deck you, you know."

"East. Some dumb little island off the coast of Costa Del Sol."

Good.

There was a pause. You know, maybe there was a chance for escape. Yuffie looked up at him, curiously, and then to the rope bridge. She'd never gone further from Wutai than that... she'd never been able to make it twenty paces before running, sick, for solid land.

"You going back there?" she asked.

"No, I can't go back there. But I am heading east again."

"I'm going with you," she said. He frowned.

"Why?"

Not "no", not "what?" and not "can't."

Why?

"I need to leave," she said, quickly, "but... I can't get over that bridge. So, if you want to go with me, I'll help you kick ass along the way, and it'll be all fun and games and stuff. I just have to get out of the west continent, Mr. Blind Guy."

He laughed. "My name's Riku, by the way."

She let out a giggle and gave a goofy grin.

"Please 'ta meet you, Riku."

He reached over and pushed down her headband, so it covered her eyes. Yuffie put her hand on his arm to steady herself, and he steered her towards the bridge. It was funny - he moved with such knowledge of his surroundings that it seemed he could see after all. Why the hands, then? Why the blindfold? Why so blinded?

"Let's go, then."

Yuffie took a big breath and stepped forward, his hand on her shoulder as the bridge lurched under her.

She made it this time.