Tree Hugging

[eatenpaopu]

Title: Tree Hugging
Characters: Sora and Yuffie Kisaragi
Location: Local park; in the early morning.
Rating: Uhh, PG/PG-13.
Summary: Sora is roped into the morning EcoFriendly Volunteer Group and Yuffie is taking her pets out for fresh air.

It all started a lazy Wednesday afternoon.

Actually...it was before school let out, so it all technically started

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[b1ackribb0n]

At any rate, while her sight was mostly returned to her, she still wasn't supposed to take off the bandages that'd conveniently fallen off on accident an hour earlier--loose knots, she concluded with a wicked grin, even if they'd, in actually, been stapled together carefully--because she was 'still recovering'. Also, she wasn't supposed to be outside, but, well, four days of inactivity had thrown her into the pits of Boredom.

And that had never boded well for anyone.

But even then, she'd been good enough to bring a black cloth with her to obscure her closed eyes as a sort of makeshift wrap--in fact, it was actually a blindfold she'd used back a couple of months ago, when there had been that one time when Ivy had taken to wearing a pair of flashy earrings that turned blue and red and green [not exactly in that order] and left spots of bright lights in the unfortunate victims' eyes as they reeled backwards.

Suspiciously enough, the pile of blindfolds, the ones she'd tried to introduce a week earlier to 'help encourage you lazy asses to not rely on your eyes so much', reappeared around that time. No one questioned the sudden re-emergence, half because they were grateful of the reprieve they provided and half because no-one wanted to confront Ivy on the inner workings of her mind.

But they all had their reservations.

Now Yuffie was pleased that she had forgotten to throw it out; it was made of a smooth black material that could be seen through at a certain angle when worn properly, and she didn't need to lift it up every now and then to make sure Kaden wasn't getting them lost--obviously, this was how she'd seen the irritated mother mouthing words she found quite unflattering coming from someone of her stature.

Looking up by lifting her head the tiniest bit and letting her eyes doing most of the work traveling up, she spotted a group of people near the park--the entrance to the place only a few yards away now, thank God--and let a soft sigh float into the air.

"Kaden, darlin'; we'd better get movin' if we want to have any space for ourselves. Now kindly move so I don't end up kicking you on accident and help me up, and I'll let you chew on my shoelaces later, love."

The white cat mewled in reply and accompanied her with a happy air of obedience as Yuffie stumbled up with a crooked grin and strolled into the park, eyeing the white laces with something akin to sadistic joy.

[eatenpaopu]

Life was, Sora looked around at all the clamoring volunteers, shouting and eager, stupid.

"I wish I was asleep," he whined, resting his arm on his shovel. The people were gathering once again, coming from all directions of the park. The Elvis look-alike was in the center of the crowd, probably standing atop a box or something, and making grand hand gestures. His voice was clear and booming as he went on about preserving wildlife and respecting nature. Sora yawned widely.

He got his shovel and walked towards them, rubbing his eyes the whole way.

"You look beat."

Sora turned and smiled at one of the volunteers who had spoken to him. "Yeah, I was up late. I'm not used to getting up so early either..." he explained with a sheepish grin.

"Really? Well, it's for a good cause," she assured and he simply nodded.

The crew started handing out watering cans so everyone (as the resident Elvis put) 'could water the earth for the very first time'. Geez. They're laying it on a little thick there, aren't they? He snickered as he took the watering can in exchange for the shovel and walked back to his abandoned tree.

He squatted down beside the small plant and offered it some water. The watering can was almost empty by the time he noticed the pair of feet a ways off. It was a girl with a cat. And they were getting uncomfortably close.

"Um, hey," he tried, until he noticed her eyes were covered with a black cloth. Was she...blind? Wait, wouldn't she need a dog? Like those seeing eye-dogs or something? Maybe that was her seeing eye-cat. He pondered this for a second.

...

Was that even possible?

The white cat snapped him out of his thoughts as he quickly stepped in front of the girl. "Excuse me, miss-- my plant!"

[b1ackribb0n]

Yuffie was growing increasingly irritated by the sheer amount of people crowding in around her; of course, this was a slight exaggeration as there were no more than five people within a ten feet vicinity of her person, but she was prone to do so and it was a bit discerning after the week she had spent secluded in the relative ‘safety’ of her own home.

Ha. Right, safety. .

Maybe she’d start believing in that bull when she wasn’t kidnapped from the very place at the middle of the night with no resistance meeting her abductors.

Kaden seemed slightly unhappy as well, though for different reasons, as Yuffie moodily kicked an innocent pebble out of her way with a grimace; the cat mewled for attention when the girl didn’t quite see a recently-dug hole that had been abandoned by its hardworking maker-who had undoubtedly forgotten that they’d put it there in the first place, whining and griping and groaning about the work damned-and almost got her foot stuck in it but for the last-minute swerve she made at the sound.

Satisfied with her work for the moment, the cat made a pleased sound that could roughly be translated into either Yeah, you so need me or Aren’t I such a good pet? and purred as she rubbed against her owner’s leg, tail flicking lazily over her ankles. The brunette-unable to overlook the gesture but unwilling to scold the feline after all the help she’d been-only sighed resignedly and paused to crouch, petting the aforementioned pet with a fond hand until she deemed it worthy enough and moved away with a prancing gait.

Biting back the affectionate insult that almost escaped from her lips-there were people around, and some did not take very kindly to having someone in their midst that spoke to their cat like a batshit crazy person-and dusting off her knees as she straightened, Yuffie slipped her blindfold more securely over her eyes; it wouldn’t do to have anything happen to it just yet, mostly because she wasn’t sure if she could find another one until she returned to work and-she groaned despairingly-grovel in front of Ivy for another one.

As it was, she didn’t really notice she was following her cat again until she’d taken a fair amount of steps forward to trail after the animal; nor did she notice the brunet that blocked her way until she was near enough to make out the apparent worry in his stance.

Taking in his words and raising an eyebrow-there were a lot of people around her, so he hadn’t exactly stood out, even with the spiky, gravity-defying hair working to distinguish him from the rest-with her lips pursed in a faint frown, she angled her head and glanced down; sure enough, there was the small plant, looking frail and all-too-small compared to the recently dug ground surrounding its thin trunk. A few more steps forward and she might have very well been nearly on top of it, if she hadn’t had her feet sink down an inch or two in the loose soil first.

Finally hooking the tip of a nail and a finger around the rim of the black cloth obscuring her eyes, she peered down at the brunet with a semi-apologetic light to her amber eye as she lifted the blindfold enough to be able to see out of one eye. “Sorry, kid,” she said wryly, discreetly fighting herself absentmindedly as the urge to step on the tree just to see what the general reaction would be appeared and grew once she noticed. “There’s a lot of people around; makes me jumpy, what with all the noise, and the closeness ain’t really helping me much, either.”

Kaden took this moment to make her reappearance; the cat seemed pleased with herself as she sauntered back jauntily with a happy curl to her lips, tail trailing along the ground with apparent lack of concern of getting dirty. Proclaiming her arrival with a short mrew and a playful swipe to Yuffie’s shoes-or, in more detail, her shoelaces; the brunette scowled lightly at that, but even that was only because the cat’d almost used her nails-the feline seated herself beside her owner’s feet with a blank glance at the ‘newcomer’. She blinked owlishly, once, twice, at his appearance, before apparently deeming him either uninteresting or undeserving and looking away curiously.