Yuffie stopped at the doorway to the room. "Um."
Sephiroth prodded her in the back impatiently. "You're blocking the door. Move."
Yuffie moved a few feet into the room and stopped again. "Um. There's only two beds. Um."
Sephiroth brushed past her, shrugged out of his coat, and tossed it onto the bed by the room's only window. "This one's mine," he stated, and walked back out of the room, presumably heading downstairs to the common room of the inn.
Yuffie glanced at the other bed. She looked up at Vincent. And back to the bed. She wondered briefly if she should blush, but decided against it; not even Vinnie would be stupid enough to buy that. "Oh. Gee. Look at that. I guess we'll have to--"
She broke off. Vincent opened up the lid of the chest at the foot of Sephiroth's bed and peered inside. After a moment, he shrugged. "It's about the same length... I'll sleep here."
Yuffie stared at him. "Um. Vinnie? That's a chest."
"Yes. It is." He folded himself into it and reached up to pull the lid shut. "Good night."
Yuffie stared at him for another moment, then flopped down onto the bed. "Damn. Stupid vampire."
"I AM NOT A VAMPIRE!"
Yuffie shrugged out of her backpack. Somehow, she'd wound up carrying all the group's possessions. It had seemed a good idea at the time, but somehow, all the possessions had *stayed* in the backpack, and she hadn't quite managed to find a good time to disappear. She was rather confused about how this had happened. She was almost positive it was all Sephiroth's fault.
They'd been traveling for two days. She'd somehow managed to get completely lost. She was pretty sure she'd been to every major town on the planet during her trip with Cloud and the others, but she had no clue where the three of them were now. She also had no idea why Sephiroth had asked them to come with him, or what it was he was doing. Considering that his last big idea had been to send a meteor crashing into the planet, she wondered if maybe she should try to figure out what was going on
. Nah. Couldn't be that important.
She glanced down at Vincent's 'coffin'. "Vinnie? You awake?"
"No."
"I'm bored."
"How wonderful for you. Go away."
"But I'm BORED and there's nothing to DO!!!"
"I don't care. I'm asleep. Go away."
"You are not!!"
"Yes I am. I am completely, 100% unconscious. Now go away."
"You're talking!!"
"No I'm not. I'm sleeping. You're imagining things. Go away."
Yuffie sighed and glanced toward the doorway. Well, since there didn't seem to be anything else to do...
The common room had been pretty full when they'd arrived. Somehow, it had completely emptied out, except for a few scattered people who were trying to edge toward the door without appearing to move. Sephiroth, sitting at the bar, was ignoring them. Yuffie stopped and stared. At the moment, Sephiroth appeared to be... buying drinks for a couple of little old ladies and a girl, the two old ladies wearing all black. Correction, she thought to herself as the wide-eyed bartender placed their orders on the bar, a couple of drinks and a glass of milk. She shrugged and sat down next to Sephiroth. He ignored her.
"Hi!!" she said cheerfully, extending a hand toward the two old ladies. "I'm Yuffie Kisaragi!!"
One of the old ladies, a thin one with a face like a hatchet, looked at the hand, then back at her drink. She drank her drink. The other old lady, a fat one with a face like a wrinkled old apple, downed her drink--a few spilled drops were currently eating their way through the floor--reached over, and shook Yuffie's hand. "Hello, Yuffie!"
The girl, also on the chubby side, but with really good hair, shuddered a little as Yuffie introduced herself. "Um. Hi. I'm... Perdita."
Yuffie glanced at Sephiroth. She looked pointedly at the drinks he'd just paid for. She looked pointedly at the bartender. She cleared her throat. "Um. Sephi?"
Sephiroth gritted his teeth at the nickname. "Yes?"
"I'm kind of thirsty..."
"Yes?"
"Um..."
Sephiroth looked at her expectantly. Yuffie scowled. "Never mind." She plunked some money down on the bar and waved the bartender over.
"ID?"
Yuffie stared at the bartender. She then stared at Perdita, who had to be about her age. The fat old lady was mixing up a drink for her. She didn't know much about bartending, but making an educated guess, it appeared to be gin and gin with a dash of gin. Perdita was looking at the drink with a doubtful, but resigned expression. Yuffie looked back at the bartender. "ID?"
The bartender nodded. "Absolutely."
Yuffie scowled at him, then sighed. "Fine. Just give me a glass of milk."
"We don't serve milk here."
"You don't serve..." She stared at the three ladies. She frowned. She was sure there'd been a glass of milk there a minute ago...
She shook her head and scooped the money up again. "Never mind. I'm going to bed."
"Goodnight!" the fat woman called cheerfully as Yuffie headed back upstairs.
Yuffe didn't wake up quickly. Ever. Even if, say, she was having a horrible nightmare, and by all rights should have woken up quickly, she would just flail around blindly for a while and knock over everything on her bedside table before actually waking up, cursing, and picking up the things that used to be on her bedside table. One of which was invariably fragile and broke into a thousand pieces.
She got as far as the cursing. Somehow, she didn't feel like picking up right now, despite the fact that the backpack had fallen open and the materia was rolling across the floor. This had nothing to do with the strange sound coming from underneath her bed.
"Wrrroowlllll--"
Absolutely nothing whatsoever.
"--llllwwaaa--"
She just didn't happen to feel like getting up just now.
"--aaaaoooo--"
And if she happened to have grabbed a few throwing stars, well, that was just a complete accident. No idea how they got there. Because she definitely wasn't scared of anything under the bed. There wasn't anything under the bed.
"--oooooss...sshiit!"
She froze. Slowly, she leaned over the edge of the bed. There was a single, faintly glowing, greenish-yellow eye peering back at her. She stared at the eye. The eye stared back at her. She said the only thing that any sensible person would say.
"AAAAHHHH!!!!!"
"AAAAHHHH!" the greenish-yellow eye agreed, and darted across the floor to hide under the other bed, which was still unoccupied. Yuffie caught a brief glimpse of long black hair.
Very slowly, Yuffie sat back up. She fumbled around on the floor for a piece of paper and pencil, knocking over a half-empty (or was it half-full?) glass of milk in the process.
Vincent climbed out of his makeshift coffin and stretched, then looked around. The others, apparently, were already awake. Or at least, both the beds were empty. Sephiroth was crouching by his bed, peering under it. Yuffie was nowhere to be seen.
Vincent cleared his throat. "Sephiroth. What are you doing?"
Sephiroth shook his head, frowning at Vincent, and held up a piece of paper. Vincent took it and scanned the note.
Vinnie & Sephi-
AAAAHHHH!!!!! AAAAHHHH!!!!! AAAAHHHH!!!!!
-Yuffie
PS: I don't know what's under your bed but it absolutely isn't my fault this time it really isn't don't kill me I think I'll just go sleep outside tonight it's a really wonderful night don't you think see you in the morning.
PPS: AAAAHHHH!!!!!
"Five exclamation marks," Vincent commented. "That girl is definitely insane." He glanced up. "What's under your bed?"
"Just one... more... second... There!" Sephiroth held up a glowing materia with a triumphant expression.
Vincent frowned at it. "A mastered transform materia?"
A wailing sound started up from underneath the bed. "Oh, shiiiooooo--"
Vincent looked at Sephiroth, then at Sephiroth's bed. Slowly, he bent over to peer underneath the bed.
"--ooooaaawwwwl!"
Ears laid back, a nasty-looking black cat shot out from underneath Sephiroth's bed and made a beeline for the door. Vincent jumped out of the way as the cat shot past him and into the arms of a rather fat old lady wearing a pointy black hat.
"Thank you very much, Seth. Poor Greebo must have been scared to death. I don't know what he was thinking, sneaking out of our room like that... I hope he didn't scare that friend of yours, she looked a little pale when she left last night..."
The old woman beside her snorted. The cat glared at her over the fat one's shoulder, then hopped down and peered at Vincent.
"It's no trouble, Mrs. Ogg. I don't mind having Greebo in here."
Vincent stared at Sephiroth. He never spoke to *anyone* like that. And the expression on his face... he almost seemed to be... smiling. Nicely. Like he was talking to an old friend of his mother.
Of course, based on who Sephiroth's mother was...
"You're such a good boy, Seth."
The other old lady leaned over, placed a finger under Vincent's chin, and closed his mouth for him. "Careful, boy, I think your eyes are about to pop out of their sockets. By the way, did you know you've just become a scratching post?"
"What?" Vincent glanced down at his now-shredded pant leg, and kicked the cat off. Greebo stalked off out the door, somehow managing to convey a victorious expression. The two old ladies went with him.
Vincent stared after them, then looked at Sephiroth. After a moment, he got his voice to work. "Who were they, or should I be afraid to ask?"
"Just some old friends of the family."
Vincent winced. "I was afraid you were going to say that." He glanced at the materia Sephiroth had managed to retrieve from underneath the bed. "I didn't think we had a mastered transform materia."
"We didn't. We had a pretty low-level one. I don't think anyone ever used it." He paused, then smiled. "How interesting. I think Greebo did something to this materia."
Vincent glanced at the door, then back at the materia. "...oh."
"...Very interesting... I think I'll give it to Yuffie."
Vincent stared at him. "You're going to give MATERIA to YUFFIE?"
"Yes." He tossed the materia up and down, then shrugged into his coat and headed for the door. "Let's go."
Vincent sighed, shrugged, picked up Yuffie's backpack, and headed after him.
