Impulse made me start writing again. Don't ask me why, since I've actually never played Final Fantasy 7 in its entirety, but my mind drifted back to Yuffie.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
1. Fairy
She doesn't fly—but she comes close.
She flits like a breeze just strong enough to ruffle your sleeve. She blurs in and out of your face, the corner of your eyes, at the edges of your senses. If it weren't for those blindingly bright sneakers and that infamous cackle (too wicked to be a harmless giggle) that allows your human eyes to hold her down, you think she could flit herself in and out of ordinary existence.
In retrospect, Cloud wonders why he didn't notice her oddities sooner. Sure, Yuffie's mouth and manners could be as dirty as the next brat, but if one looked closely enough, there was no way this fairy-child could have come from the proletariat masses.
It wasn't in her fair skin or her dark hair—those were characteristics that could be found in the average pretty flower-maid. It wasn't in her shruiken or her materia—those were things that could be acquired by anyone who gave half a damn.
It was in her aristocratically sculpted nose, a nose that screamed generations of careful breeding to anyone who knew where to look. It's a nose that twitches anytime she was served tea, judging it with all the connoisseurship of a royal who'd grown up on imperial-grade stuff. It was in the way she would gallivant around with the best with them, but would carefully avoid beer.* It was in the way she fingers lace and silk and fur whenever they pass by a market. She never buys, but she always seems to know whether the yard was worth the gil.
She's the stuff that adds romance to thieves and rogues, which is misleading since she's the farthest thing from a real highway(wo)man. Yuffie's got blood older than most empires thrumming in her veins and dragons dancing to her prayers.
Cloud thinks it's unfair when the little girls crowd around her excitedly. After all, Tifa Lockheart may be the poster girl of AVALANCHE for envious women and worshipful men everywhere, it is Yuffie that the children love best. What makes Yuffie special weren't things that could be found just anywhere.
(Something that sounds like Zack's voice whispers darkly of snobbery and lovesick tom-foolery.)
Yuffie was someone bred of legends, born a legend, and will die an even bigger one. Unlike him. At the end of the day, Cloud's only some orphan pumped with Mako and nightmares.
It makes Cloud force his face stoic and turn away from her shining smile.
*Although this is a very outdated social custom that can scarcely be found nowadays, in traditional Asian households women were strongly encouraged not to drink beer as it was seen as uncouth.