Disclaimer: I am still waiting on the rights to Final Fantasy VII. Surprise!

--

By nightfall, Yuffie had turned her Time materia on all of them—Cid for making designs on "her" raft, Aaron for polishing the hull incessantly, and Vincent—well, Vincent just to even things out. Too, at some point during the evening, she'd gotten bored and casted Stop on herself; consequently, it was a sorry company indeed that washed up on the shore of a seemingly deserted island as the moon rose.

Frozen, the group could do nothing but fume in silence as the stars twinkled in the night sky and the last remnants of the sunlight died on the western horizon. At one point, a seagull apparently suffering from insomnia took up a roost on one of Cloud's hair spikes; it stayed there for the better part of an hour, preening its feathers and cawing loudly at regular intervals. An indeterminate amount of time later, the tide rolled in, and Vincent, who was, unluckily enough, right up against the coastline to begin with, was toppled over by a particularly strong wave. Aaron was wet and grimed with dirt; Yuffie was dying of boredom; and Cid's cigarette had gone out.

It almost came as a relief when a young couple, apparently intent on finding a good makeout spot, came strolling hand-in-hand up the beach.

"Tom! How about that bush over there?" the woman of the two asked sweetly, lifting a manicured finger and indicating a patch of rather thorny-looking bushes.

"Now, Mandy, we've been through this…that's a briar patch…"

"Mandy" pouted. "Oh, you never listen to my ideas! How do you know it's a briar patch if you haven't gone and laid in it?"

"By the five-inch thorns that are protruding from it at all angles?"

"They could be decorative thorns!"

"Mandy…"

Mandy abruptly stopped walking and clapped a hand over her boyfriend's mouth, letting out a breathless scream of surprise as she sighted the odd entourage. After a moment, however, she laughed. "Look, Tom! Lifelike mannequins!"

The man followed her gaze and blinked. "Well, I'll be!" He wandered closer, crouching down to scrutinise Cid. "But who'd want to make a mannequin of an old fart like this…?"

It was just Tom's misfortune that the Stop spell wore off then. Suffice to say, he was not expecting the "mannequin's" features to contort into an abrupt snarl, nor its hands to fly up and grasp him roughly around the shoulders.

"Old fart?! You wanna say that to my %$^!in' face, huh?"

"Cid! Calm down!" Cloud ordered ineffectually, shaking his head to rid his hair of several fluffy white feathers and chalky seagull droppings. In the background, Aaron, freed of his paralysis, shrieked with rage and launched himself at Yuffie.

"IT'S YOUR FAULT I'M FILTHY! YOURS!"

"Hey!" the ninja yelped, scurrying behind Vincent, who had picked himself up and was wiggling the fingers of his mechanical arm to assure himself that it hadn't shorted out. "Is not!"

"IS TOO!" Aaron bellowed querulously, though he dug his feet into the ground to halt before he smacked into Vincent. "C'MERE, YOU LITTLE NINCOMPOOP!"

"Aaron! Yuffie!" Cloud added helplessly. "Geez! I thought flight attendants were supposed to be calm in situations like this!"

A moment of horrible silence from Aaron, who'd started to circle around the erstwhile Turk to get at Yuffie. "HEAD STEWARD!" the bespectacled youth screeched soon thereafter, affronted. "I TOLD YOU!"

"Whatever!"

A quiet cough from Vincent, surprisingly enough, drew their collective gaze. "May I suggest," he said evenly, "that you cease this before you incite those teenagers to call the local protectorate on us."

Cloud glanced in the direction he'd last seen the adolescents in question, but they'd vanished, having evidently made tracks back in the direction they'd came from.

"You could have said something before!" Yuffie snapped, glowering at her impromptu shield. "It's probably already too late for that!"

"FILTH!" Aaron roared, oblivious.

-

Fifteen minutes later, with Cid's Venus Gospel making short work of any plants that got in their way, they were tromping through the rather predictable jungle that bordered the coast. Yuffie had grudgingly permitted Cloud to use one of her weaker Fire materias as a torch to light their way, and, makeshift candle in one hand and borrowed spear in the other, the swordsman broke their path through the thickly-grown underbrush.

"What I don't understand," he began, for at least the third time that evening, "is why the airline confiscated my weapon, but not Cid's. Or Vincent's, for that matter."

Yuffie, second in their single-file line, cackled and patted her shuriken. "I've still got mine! Don't forget my Conformer!"

The blonde scowled, hacking away at a particularly tenacious bush. ".. Cid, I'm sorry, but your weapons suck as machetes," he declared, groaning in exasperation. Cid only shrugged, angrily shredding one of the bottom corners of his cigarette carton. His matches had gotten wet at some point, and he'd consequently been deprived of his precious nicotine since they'd arrived on the island. Suffice to say, this fact was not biding well for his temper, though as withdrawal had well and truly set in he'd quieted somewhat.

Yuffie, meanwhile, had shrugged her weapon into her right hand as Cloud continued to saw ineffectually at the stubborn foliage and sent it flying at the base of the plant with a deft flick of her wrist. Cloud muttered irritably as the shrub toppled feebly to the ground, clearing their way for the next couple of feet, and stomped on.

"I want my Ultima Weapon," he added piteously a moment later.

"Yeah, well, whining ain't gonna bring back swords," Cid snapped, and cast a distraught look at his cigarettes. "Or matches."

At the tail end of the entourage, where he was acting as back guard, Vincent coughed. "Ah, Cid…"

Cid ignored him, stuffing the carton into his pocket and heaving a loud sigh. "Christ! All this nicotine in front of me, and I can't have it!"

"Cid…"

"What?!"

".. may I point out that Cloud is at present carrying a perfectly serviceable match in his left hand?"

Said serviceable match sputtered out in the ensuing lunge and scuffle, plunging them—sans Vincent, perhaps—into darkness.

"Well, this is just great," Yuffie complained into the small silence that followed. "Now we can't see! Thanks a lot, Cid!"

"Shut up! Vincent was the one who gave me the $%^*ing idea in the first place!"

"I wasn't intending for you to demolish our only source of illumination when I made the suggestion…"

"Quit talking like that, damnit! You could just say 'I didn't mean for you to put the damn light out,' you know!"

"FILTH!"

"SHADDUP!"

They trudged on, blundering over and through every obstacle in their path, and thrice nearly became separated because they couldn't see more than a few inches ahead of their faces. Yuffie was complaining; Cid was complaining; Cloud was grumbling about his sword; Aaron was shrieking intermittently; and Vincent, still playing the role of the stoic, began to think he would go insane if he had to put up with them for much longer.

"Why's the canopy even so thick, anyway? You can barely see the sky! If it weren't for all those trees we'd be able to see!"

"Look, do you want to turn around and try and find your way back to the beach?"

"No! But I think we should stop for the night."

"Screw that! Some animal'd probably eat us."

"Sleep on the filthy ground? Are you insane?"

"… I want my Ultima Weapon."

"We know, Cloud. We know."

"Hahah. The filth misses his weapon of filth. Filth!"

"… you do a bad impression of Aaron, Cid."

"Oh, what do you know, Goth-Boy?"

"I know that I'm liable to shoot the next person that complains."

Instant silence fell amongst the group, and Vincent heaved an inward sigh of relief, continuing to plow through the underbrush.