Title: Bedtime Stories
Rating: G/K
Characters: Yuffie, Aerith (implied AerithxYuffie, if you squint)
Summary: A bedtime story to chase away the dark.
Notes: For the challenge of 'literature' at the KH Drabble community on LiveJournal. Pre-Kingdom Hearts, in Hollow Bastion the night before the Darkness comes.


Yuffie pulls open the door to Aerith's room, pokes her head through the opening to peer, wide-eyed and frightened, through the dimly lit bedroom in search of her companion. It's one of 'those' nights, those dreaded too-scared-to-even-sleep nights, and she has nowhere else to go but here.

The light bulb in her little blue nightlight is out. She knows that that's not right, 'cause Cid changed it last week, and it normally runs perfectly fine for a few months before she needs to go get a new one. She tried to turn it on, but it sparkled out a moment after, plunging her into darkness. Her first reaction was to run from the room and head here, too scared to try to fix it herself, like she normally would.

Aerith always has the best solutions.

"I can't sleep."

She has that gut feeling. That feeling that something is creeping up behind her, that the boogeyman is coming and she can't crawl under her blankets in her own room to hide this time, and she can't sneak into Cloud's room to ask him to make sure there was nothing bad hiding in the shadows.

"Come in, then." The door shuts behind her quietly, and she dashes across the room, plunging into the welcoming embrace that she knows is there to greet her, her little head pressing into the white nightgown that Aerith wears to bed. It's simple, undecorated, but the light color of it makes everything just a little bit better, and Yuffie finds herself watching it for its light.

"The light's out again." Aerith smiles, full of understanding and motherly warmth – although she's really not that much older than Yuffie is – and the light from her smile makes up for the nightlight that isn't there in the corner of the room like it should be. "Read to me?"

She knows the routine, knows which books to choose and which story to tell to make the boogeyman go away, and she leans back, Yuffie in her arms, the book in her hands.

"How about I read you a different story tonight?" Yuffie pouts, looks up at her with pursed lips and a tiny glare, but Aerith only laughs it off.

"Is it a happy story? 'Cause I don't wanna hear it if it isn't."

"Of course it is." She relaxes back into the arms around her, snug under the blankets and basking in Aerith's light, content with that answer. "It's about starting a journey in a beautiful new land, full of adventure, kings, and knights who rescue little black-haired princesses." Yuffie giggles, 'cause she knows that Aerith made that last part up since the girl on the cover has brown hair, not black, but she doesn't really care, and she turns her attention back to the book in Aerith's arms.

And she lets the words chase away the dark.