Snow
-Squirrel Tamer


Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts.


Chapter 3: Ice Water





Point of view: Yuffie






The snow stopped three days ago, when it changed into hail. I may love snow, but I can find no love for hail. It hurts. Snow's gentler.

I'm trapped at the hotel with Aerith. For the past two hours we've played 15 rounds of go fish. Aerith won't let me play poker, she says I'm
too young. Personally I think sixteen is plenty old enough.

"Got any eights?" She asks me.

I have two eights, but I've been cheating for awhile now, to spice the game up. Go fish gets boring pretty quick. But try telling Aerith that.

"Go fish!" I announce loudly.

"Are you cheating Yuffie? Let me see your cards!"

"If I let you see me cards then you'd be cheating."

She lunges for them anyway. I try to keep away, but she resorts to biting my fingers.

"OUCH! What happened to acting your age? Even I don't bite anymore."

She looks through my cards. While I sit there sucking the wound because she managed to draw blood.

"You little cheat! No wonder you won the last five games!"

"If you'd just teach me how to play poker than I'd be fine!"

"You're too young!"

I sigh in a defeated sort of way. I'm actually too bored to fight back. Aerith leaves the room and comes back with a board game. A boring one too. One of those board games that involves a lot of numbers and math and the whole point is to earn the most money.

I play along with her to keep her happy, but my mind is definitely not on the game.

"And that's a thousand dollars to me. Your turn Yuffie. Yuffie? What's wrong with you today?"

"It's Squall, uh...I mean Leon."

"What about him?"

"I think he's changed."

"Funny. He said the same thing about you.

"He did?"

"Yup."

"Do you think I've changed?"

"No."

"Then I wonder why he does?"

"I think he's just beginning to notice that you aren't six anymore."

"He didn't realize that before?"

"No, I don't think he did."

I'm surprised. How could Squall still think I'm six? He doesn't really think that does he? I've grown, a lot. I even look different.

And if he did still think of me as a six year old, I wonder what suddenly made him realize that I'm not?



~~~~~



"Where do you think you're going?"

"I was going into the Waterway."

"You can't. The water is frozen."

"I'll walk on top of it."

"You'll fall through and then you'll freeze to death."

"No I won't."

I'm angry with him. He hasn't actually done anything but I'm angry at him. Maybe its because he's beginning to treat me like a little girl again.

I spin around and carefully place one foot onto the ice. It doesn't break. So I put my other foot onto it. Slowly I inch my way towards the middle where I know there'll be solid land.

About half way there I turn around and smile a triumphant smile. I show him that he was wrong and I can take care of myself.

But then everything changes and I feel something cracking beneath my feet. I yell for Squall before I'm sucked into the freezing cold water that threatens to destroy me.



~~~~~



A/N: Another chapter that comes from my little one-shot. I'm trying my best to keep everybody in character. So try and tell me if I need to make any adjustments. I think Yuffie may get out of character in some chapters.