Inspired by the Blower's Daughter.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
2. Hero in Her Sky
It strikes Yuffie one day that for a princess as legit as she is, she has no knight, no prince, no hero.
Oh, she has her big brothers and her protectors. AVALANCHE will never let anyone lay a grubby hand on their adopted lil' sis's fair skin. As for Godo—if he could have his way, he wouldn't let any male underneath the age of eternity and senile so much as breathe in her semi-divine presence.
But Yuffie is more than AVALANCHE and the Wutai throne. People tended to forgot that fact. Yuffie forgives them—the combined glitter from her hero status and imperial crown can be blinding.
Yet, even if they forgot, it doesn't mean Yuffie isn't more than glory and gold. Yuffie knows she transcends these abstract concepts. She knows this when the coldness of her metal shruiken bites her warm skin. She knows this when she feels the imperial headdress dig into the back of her neck. Abstract concepts don't even come close to the achingly real, humanly flawed existence she lives. These tiny annoyances remind her daily that her life is no fairytale.
And if she happens to forget, even for a moment, she has only to sit upon her imperial dais for her to be reminded just how real her life is. In her elevated seat, staring down at a sea of kowtowing subjects with the outward serenity of an undisturbed winter lake, never has she felt so lonely.
The princesses of fairytales have knights in shining armor and princes astride white horses. Unlike the abstract princesses, Yuffie has no knight, no prince, no hero in her sky.
The memories of camp-fire camaraderie can sustain her only so much. While Yuffie may have once been the firecracker princess of whizzing shruiken and blazing materia, she is now the White Rose of Wutai of whispering silk and subtle imperial might. In a contradictory manner that could only happen in real life, she managed these paradoxes with more public grace than private tears.
But when Cloud Strife came to Wutai ostensibly on a business trip, something in Yuffie rouses. It shifts, uncurls, and stares at Cloud with glittering eyes.
Well, while Yuffie's life was too real to have a prince or a knight served to her on a silver platter like cardboard cutout princesses, it didn't mean she couldn't snag her own hero.
After all, didn't the beauty of real life lie in all its endless possibilities?
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