001; Wutai

[yuffiekisaragi]

On the mountain of Da Chao sits a lone girl, her legs swinging off the ledge as she contemplates the town below.

It's her home - Wutai, a once proud nation that has been reduced to nothing more than a cheesy tourist attraction. By none other than her father, a man she doesn't exactly get along with in the best of times.

Something's off though.

Yuffie squints as she studies the town, telling herself her eyes must be deceiving her.

Usually there are people strolling through the town, children playing tag in the streets. The ones who had recently been infected with Geostigma are recovering, and there is a jovial air about the town. Now, though, there is no sign of life. Not even a stray dog roaming through, begging for scraps.

This just isn't right, and Yuffie has to investigate.

Standing up, she brushes the dirt off her legs, then plants her fists at her hips.

"Only one person can get to this bottom of this mess!"

She pauses without looking back, shifting her weight as if she wants to fidget.

"You can come too. Having an extra pair of eyes wouldn't hurt," she says this with a little hesitation. The truth is, she's a little bit worried at the absence of people, and could use a little support as she tries to find them.

Comments

[yuffiekisaragi]

Yuffie doesn't notice the pause, more focused on running through the different options in her mind. At least she could be sure there wasn't a huge epidemic of dying in the village, but that wasn't always the worse case scenario.

At Aerith's question, Yuffie looks back up at the mountain. "Not usually..." she trails off as she remembers that her town isn't like she is. They weren't willing to put up the fight like they used to. One defeat, and they rolled over to show their bellies. Her eyebrows come down into a glare as she thinks about it, then she crosses her arms as she stares really hard at Da Chao.

"I mean, even when Geostigma was making lots of people sick, nobody ran away. Maybe they didn't have a scapegoat this time and figured they needed a new plan." Yuffie is a little bitter after her town assumed she'd brought a sickness to them, but she shakes herself out of the feeling.

"Nah, there would have been a pretty big ruckus if everyone stampeded out of here, but nothing looks disturbed." She looks down at the ground as she speaks, not able to see any fresh trails to indicate a large group of people coming through recently.

[auncyenhalig.livejournal.com]

Aerith was looking at Da Chao first, but when she heard the tone in her friend's voice, her eyes slanted to her with a curious concern. The ground had already told her it didn't have much to tell, so while she glanced down to it, it wasn't for long. One hand rested at her chin as she asked: "...What happened with the Geostigma, Yuffie?"

[yuffiekisaragi]

At Aerith's question, Yuffie gave a jerky shrug. "Stupid crap. People need to blame someone, and hey why not the teenager who just so happened to help save the world." That wasn't the only thing that bothered her about the whole deal. It was hard to deal with the sick, the dying, knowing that she couldn't do anything. But that all ended up working out in the end...

Didn't it? Yuffie paused as she began to question herself. She could remember all the fighting in Edge, the water in Aerith's church curing people, and then...she came back home, didn't she? Gave it to the people sick here? She couldn't exactly remember, and felt the first fluttering of panic in her chest.

"All over and done with now, Geostigma's been cured and life goes on and yadda yadda." Yuffie does a dismissive hand wave, not managing to sound the most convincing.