Drabble Roundup

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Username: mako_lies 
Class: White Mage
Total 100 words drabbles: 8
Total 200 word drabbles: 5
Total Word Count: 1,800

Title: Found
Summary: Agrias has an unappreciated view of how loyalty works.
Characters: Agrias, OMC
Word count: 100
Rating: PG
Her face turns with the force of the slap. Agrias looks back at him, her mouth a thin line. “You let them escape.”

“I did,” she replies.

“You have abandoned your oath, then?” he demands, “Discarded your honor?”

Agrias shakes her head once. “You have demanded my loyalty, but loyalty is not something given; ‘tis something found. I have not found it with you, nor with your greed.”

“And you think I’ll let you just leave after such an insult?” he asks voice quiet.

She smiles. “That is not your choice. Judgement Blade.”

He stills, and she leaves him there.

Title: Rescue
Summary: Agrias saves the day; Malak will not be pleased.
Characters: Agrias, Malak, Mustadio
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG
Agrias kneels beside Malak and exhales at the realization that he has fallen, taken too far into the fight by foolish anger.

She remembers that sort of anger, remembers that scorched feel of loss.

Beside her, Mustadio asks, “Will he recover?”

It’s an innocent question, but one she cannot answer. He will heal from this wound, but that will not determine his well-being.

“I know not,” she says.

Boco comes forth with a desolate wark, and she pulls Malak on, positioning him in front of herself. He will not thank her for this rescue, but she does nothing for thanks.


Title: Home
Summary: In a world gone wrong, Snow and Lightning cling to the memory of home. Post-Game AU
Characters: Snow, Lightning
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG
Her expression doesn’t change when he finds her. “Lightning,” he murmurs, voice a rasp.

He can see the loss in the slope of her shoulders, in the tension in her neck, in the way her fingers dance across the hilt of her gunblade. “Snow,” she says, “There’s nothing left. She’s gone, Snow. We saved Cocoon, but we couldn’t save her.”

“I know,” he says, tightening his hands to fists.

Lightning sucks in a choked breath, shaking, and he moves to her, and pulls her up by her wrist and tugs her with him into the Oerban surf.

Just like home.

Title: Usual
Summary: Sometimes, Sazh feels like a dirty old man.
Pairing: Sazh/Vanille
Word Count: 100
Rating: M
It’s not the dreams that upset him. Those he’s used to.

He’s used to the feel of warm skin beneath his fingertips, he’s used to the moans, and the way her legs wrap around his waist. He’s used to the way it feels to be inside her, is used to the way her fingers trace over his nipples.

He’s used to being sweat-slicked, used to the words ‘I love you, I love you, I love you’ that come from both of their mouths (when said mouths aren’t otherwise occupied).

He’s not used to it being Vanille, rather than his wife.


Title: Forgotten
Summary: Seifer sometimes has the best of intentions.
Characters: Seifer, Quistis
Word Count: 100
Rating: G
“Seifer, pay attention,” she snaps, readjusting her glasses with an expression that suggests she’d rather be watching him bleed.

“Of course, Instructor Trepe,” he says, swallows the Quisty, “Anything you say.”

He can see her repressing the sigh—does she wonder how he knows exactly how to get under her skin? Does she wonder how he knows what her favorite sort of candy is? Does she wonder how he knew she was an orphan?

Frankly, he’s not sure why she doesn’t remember—years of friendship? Matron? Squall, Irvine, Selphie, Zell?

But he’ll make her remember. Just gotta push all the right buttons.


Title: Dandelion Seeds
Summary: Fang takes forever to understand what Vanille's trying to say.
Pairing: Vanille/Fang
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG
Fang’s seventeen before she wonders what falling in love is like.

Is it like gasping? Or being stabbed in the chest? Is it like that time Vanille brought her back a handful of dandelion puffs with the the seeds already half-gone?

Vanille’s fifteen before she realizes Fang doesn’t understand.

Doesn’t understand when fingers brush the inside of her wrist. Doesn’t understand a peck on the cheek. Doesn’t understand a slow smile from across the table.

Fang’s nineteen when it clicks.

Vanille is sprawled in the bed, bandaged and still whimpering.

Falling in love is when you realize you’d do anything.


Title: Focus
Summary: Hope continues despite everything. Post-game.
Characters: Hope, (Lightning)
Word Count: 200
Rating:PG
“Like this,” she said, gently rearranging his grip on the gunblade. “See?”

Hope takes down a Cie’th, then twirls to shoot another one. Behind him, the civilians run, faster, and he just hopes he can give them enough time.

“The thing about using a gunblade is being focused,” she told him, face drawn with worry.

His focus is absolute, it has to be. There aren’t any re-dos, no magic to heal himself or take down stray enemies. It’s just him and his gunblade and Cie’th and a bunch of fleeing civilians.

Lightning smiled. “Good work.”

The air at his back is cool with the absence of his partner, and he grits his teeth. He can’t focus of the mental images of Lightning--the way she smiled, the way she cried, the way she fought, the way she bled. Memories will drive him crazy and he has to be focused.

“I’m proud of you,” she told him one day, watching the horizon distractedly.

When the final Cie’th falls, he runs his fingers over the words engraved so lovingly in the blade. Lightning Farron. Loss rushes over him, time not yet healed this particular wound, and the tears comes as easily as ever.


Title: Proof
Summary: Serah knows what she wants; Snow's trying to give it to her.
Pairing: Snow/Serah
Word Count: 200
Rating: G
“Baby, you gotta stop flinching,” he says, “This is hard enough.”

She huffs and puts her arms down. “Snow—I’m not scared you’re going to hurt me. I just—it’s a natural reaction, okay?”

“Serah—couldn’t we, I don’t know, call it a day?” he asks, putting his hands down as well, uncurling his fists.

With a sigh, she closes the distance between them, and presses her mouth to his exposed collarbone. “Just a bit longer,” she looks up him, eyes hard, “I’m going to show you both that I don’t need to be protected any more.”

For a second, she thinks he’s going to protest, and then he grins at her, kisses her quickly on the mouth, and then drops back. “Alright, baby, get ready.”

Serah expels a breath then throws her arms up. “Steelguard!”

A sense of safety fills her, starting in her core, and—she idly thinks as she watches Snow come at her—it’s kind of like that moment before being crystallized, where you feel like nothing can get you and you’re surrounded by warm light.

His blow connects and she staggers. When she blinks herself to reality, Snow’s grinning. He lifts her up and spins her around and she laughs.


Title: Burning
Summary: That final night, Sephiroth catches them by surprise.
Pairing: Zack/Cloud/Sephiroth
Word Count: 200
Rating: PG-13
He comes in that night with a hollow look in his green eyes. Zack and Cloud both stand; Zack to move closer, Cloud to leave.

“Don’t,” Sephiroth says, his command falling flat.

Cloud turns and Zack nods at him, concern written across his face. He swallows his own trepidation—truth be told, he doesn’t know Sephiroth half as well as Zack does—and nearly chokes on his surprise when Sephiroth kisses him.

It’s soft and warm—but also tinged with that raw desperation that is painful to see in another person. The sort of desperation that is like falling.

Cloud reaches out with hands made harsh by fighting to cradle Sephiroth’s face, and all the while, Zack is behind Sephiroth, arms wrapped tight, like a starfish, and Sephiroth’s shaking but not with tears.

Somehow, Cloud has the impression that Sephiroth couldn’t cry even if he wanted to.

It’s a mess of limbs when Zack finally steers them to his bed, and Cloud’s still not sure how he managed to get pressed between the bed and Sephiroth, looking up at the other man whose eyes are like gaping pits.


When they wake the next morning, Sephiroth is gone, and the air smells of smoke.


Title: Gratitude
Summary: Reks wants; Penelo gives.
Characters: Reks, Penelo
Word Count: 100
Rating: G
“Hey, kid, if you’re not buying, get out,” the shopkeeper snarls.

Reks ducks his head, letting his hair shield his face as he beats a quick retreat, red blooming across his cheeks. It’s no secret he barely has gil to keep Vaan fed, let alone pay for silly baubles.

It’s out of his mind the next day as he’s helping move boxes of weaponry from the smithy to the castle.

“Hey! Reks!” He turns to see Penelo running at him full tilt. “Here,” she says, and presses the blue clasp into his hand.

“I saw you looking at it yesterday.”


Title: Goodbyes
Summary: Tseng's not-so-final moments.
Characters: Tseng, Aeris
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG
The darkness at the edges of his vision fades enough that he can see her green eyes, tears glimmering un-shed in them, and the way her smile curves.

Her lips brush his forehead, and she murmurs, “I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”

Tseng wants to tell her he doesn’t expect her to, but the words get caught in his throat with most of his blood.

There are footsteps and her smile fades from his vision and he lets his eyes flutter shut, because it will be the last time he sees her smile—

But not for the reason he thinks.


Title: Phoenix Tears
Summary: Reeve tries and fails.
Characters: Reeve
Word Count: 200
Rating: G
He drops the third feather into the water and watches it gently float toward its fellows. Another follows soon after and another and another. When his pouch is empty, he takes a step back and watches the lake slowly settle back into its untouched state despite the feathers.

There’s a part of him (the part that’s left from when he believed in Shinra, from before the plate fell) that prays this will make a difference. That enough Phoenix Downs will fix it.

But they can’t and they don’t. The feathers keep drifting, drifting and the only thing breathing here is him.

Thoughtfully, he fingers the materia in his pocket—to say Yuffie was the only materia thief would be a lie, but he intends to return it, soon—and calls Phoenix. The great fire bird appears, and flaps around the lake for a time, stirring the water and the feathers, and then it gives a great caw and disappears.

It’s not much of a surprise, not really. Death isn’t something that can be solved by items or materia or anything else.

Reeve passes a hand over his face, and blinks back tears for a woman he never had the opportunity to meet.


Title: Greatness and Its Many Paths
Summary: Cid finds exactly what he expects in Giruvegan
Characters: Cid, Venat
Word Count: 200
Rating:G
Gods and men forget prayers so easily. Hope lies crushed and broken beneath the ravage of war, but he can look to the future and see more—has always seen more than what merely is—he can see a future where men fly as birds, where the gods do not twist every decision. He can envision a future where man is free.

The gates of Giruvegan rise, tall and with all that false splendor of Immortals; he glances back at his team and smiles.

They will follow him, wherever he goes, whatever he chooses, for they know as he knows that he is destined for greatness.

The mist thins slightly here, and he can breathe without that heavy weight on his chest. A quiet chant fills his ears and he tilts his head back to listen, to feel, and the rest of his troop falls silent, waiting.

Giruvegan does not relinquish its secrets easily, however, the way is harsh, but from the chant, one voice rises higher than the rest:

Shall it be you who saves them from darkness? I am Venat, I can aid you in this.

Venat? Cid looks ahead and sees salvation. “I will,” he says—

and history alters.