Title: Age: Ten
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Characters: (Whoo, boy) Cloud, Tifa, Barret, Aeris, Tseng, Red XIII, Yuffie, Reeve, Vincent, Grimore, Cid
Rating: R (Cid's mouth, you know)
Notes: It's the tenth anniversary of Final Fantasy VII today. So, I go back to doing fic. Ten one hundred (10², of course) word drabbles of the main characters plus Zack when they're ten years old. I guess I picked Zack since he brings things full circle/completes things with Cloud, artimusdin told me to, etc., etc.


Walking home was always a battle for Cloud. Someone would always do something, make him mad. He’d always fight. He’d always limp home. His mother would always patch up his clothes and tend to the wounds and tell him not to do it again. He always mumbled that he wouldn’t, then left to do his chores. They both knew he was lying.

He read the monthly paper at the general store and dreamed. Always dreams of the Great Sephiroth and fights and magic and victory instead of scrapes and holes and lying to his mom and the always of Nibelheim.

---

“Growing up without a mother, poor dear.”

“Joseph’s doing the best he can.”

“They’ll manage, of course.”

Tifa stopped listening. Her father said that recording the town meetings would be an important responsibility. Why, if she did a good job of it, even the Shinra would take notice. So Tifa sat and wrote of all the good done since last month in her best script. She ignored everyone’s gossip, of course.

Big news this month. A visitor. Couldn’t be trusted, of course. And how dare he want to speak…

“I am Zangan,” he announced. “And I am searching for students…”

---

Barret had been following his dad into the mines for almost a year. Like the other kids, he did all the little things: bringing messages from town, calling everyone in for lunch, clearing out the tunnels that were too small for anyone bigger to get through.

Slowly, they started teaching him everything else you needed to know to work. He could pick out good veins from poor ones, set dynamite, and sharpen his tools in near-darkness.

Today, everything stopped for the green vein. Looks like all those caves down in Nibel. Wasn’t there someone, over in Midgar, looking into this?

---

“Aeris, you’re a special child. You’re of special blood. Your real mother was an Ancient. The Ancients will lead us to a land of supreme happiness.”

They found her. Aeris knew that it was dumb to think that they’d stop looking, but Mom’s house was safe. Kids knew that they could go to the Gainsboroughs’ and they’d get fed and watched. No one’d come to get them.

But they found her. Mom was there, but they’d take her back and then the labs and the cold and the screaming—No. She wasn’t going back. She’d never be what they wanted.

---

Nanaki’s world was warm and red. The warmth of the sun, the Candle, and his mother and father. The red of the Canyon, of the Clans, and himself. Like the other cubs, he heard Grandfather Bugenhagen’s stories about the stars and Gaia and the Ancients. And like the other cubs, he’d wonder at it, but would still keep to the Canyon. Stray too far, and the Gi would get you.

They’d play Warriors and Gi; the Candle was Home. Everyone knew that the Gi hated the light of the Candle. They played, and waited for when they’d be true warriors.

---

If Yuffie had to hear the word “honor” one more time, she’d scream.

She was shoved into an itchy, stinky kimono and had to put on makeup and sit in seiza while the Shinra went on and on and on about how they’d make sure their honorable opponents were treated fairly. Dad just took it. He didn’t say anything, and it wasn’t fair.

Dad should’ve told them off, and then started to wipe the floor with them. Wutai nin were the best warriors in the world, and Kisaragi nin the best of the Wutai nin.

But Dad didn’t do anything.

---

Everyone knew what to get Reeve for his birthday. He’d really only asked for kits. Kits of any kind; he’d build them. He loved them. Reeve wouldn’t let it take away from school and chores, though. He’d never do that.

That’s what people expected from the good kids. They let the good kids off more easily, since, hey, they were good kids, they wouldn’t do anything wrong. It was only a little mistake, nobody’s perfect.

Reeve knew he had to do his schoolwork and chores first. That way, no one would check on him while he did what he wanted.

---

Vincent’s father talked to himself. In Ancient. The strange moaning-warbling stayed in his head, went into his dreams. His father never told him what it all meant. Still, the passages stayed with him, little whispers he had to fight to ignore.

Vincent had to find out, and the library had answers. It wouldn’t be right to disturb Father, though. He had to enter, find primers, and leave. The primers, however, were at the bottom of a very large pile of notes. But he had to find out.

Grimore found Vincent buried under his manuscripts. He really should look into assistantship…

---

Another “see me after class” note. Cid hated them.

“I thought I said that everyone needed to show their work.”

“I did it in my head! How can I show any of my work if I just did it in my head?”

“This is to make sure that no one is cheating.”

“Like any of those morons would know what to do. This is all boring shit, anyway.”

“Cid! Language!”

Cid snorted. Like not cursing was important. “Lemme take that challenge exam.” Proving he wasn’t a moron, that was important.

“It’s intended for older students.”

“Fuck that, lemme take it.”

---

“Come on, Zack, it’s almost dinner. It’s stew night!”

Zack stuck out his tongue. “Yeah, well, your mom’s stew can’t beat my mom’s, and her stew night was yesterday. We’re going.” He went into the brush. “If you’re too chicken, then I understand.”

“Better a living chicken than a dead duck.” And Henny ran away.

“He learned that from his grandma,” Zack muttered.

Exploring yielded some frogs. Frogspawn was good for some money, and there were lots of things he wanted.

Then the frogs started to dance.

It wasn’t being chicken if you ran after you saw the enemy, right?