Common Annoyances

A Slow Start

Yuffie

As the sun shines into the cave, Yuffie is awakened by the bright light. She blinks a few times and slowly sits up. "Freaking sun always disturbing my good sleep." She mutters under her breath. She stretches her arms and jumps up looking around to see who else is awake.

She watches for a few seconds as Tifa packs her gear back into her leather bag, and then keeps looking around the cave. Reno is still sleeping, but Elena looks like she had been up for a while, already having all the gear that they brought with them packed up, except the things Reno has with him.

She then looks to Vincent, who is sitting at the edge of the cave, and decides to go over and talk with him. As She makes her way over to him, she tries to be very quiet so he won't be able to detect her until she is near, but about half-way there, she accidentally kicks a little pebble in his direction, and he quickly look over at her and notices her approaching.

'Damn it' She think to herself. Of course she would do that. Whatever it doesn't matter, she continues towards him and sits. He looks over at her once more, and then looks back out to the forest.

"Morning Vincent!" She says to him, flashing him a large smile. He doesn't look back at her to see it though, so she though, so she quickly goes back to a neutral expression.

"Morning, Yuffie." He says back to her, finally turning to look at her. She meets his gaze for a short time only breaking it because he quickly looks back out over the forest.

"So, what were you up to last night. And, why the hell didn't you answer me? I know you heard me!" She playfully punches him, and he tenses up, but after a second he goes back to normal. He should be used to that by now, she thinks, she only does that about a million times.

"I decided to go look around." He finally answers. Seeing that he isn't going to elaborate anymore, she sighs and rolls her eyes.

"Well, I should probably get all my stuff packed back up." She tells him. "See you in a bit." She quickly stands and walks away, back to where she slept, and takes a few brief glances back in his way. He doesn't move at all for a while, and then all of a sudden he stands and goes over to Zack.

"Well, look at that Tifa," Yuffie says to her friend. "Why do you think he is being friendly with the Soldier?" Tifa pauses what she is doing and looks up at Zack and Vincent and then gets right back to work.

"I don't know. They both seem to know what they're doing maybe he's telling him about something he saw in the forest?" Tifa shrugs, "I don't understand you two though." She says after a long pause.

"What do you mean by that exactly?" Yuffie says, putting her hands on her hips. Tifa laughs and seems to contemplate what to say next.

"Well... I don't know exactly. I just think you two are so awkward. I know you like him, why don't you ever just talk with him about it?" She explains.

"Tifa, quiet." She says back, casting a quick glance over at Vincent, who had moved away from Zack and was now heading back to the cave entrance. "You know it's not that easy. It took you forever to talk to Cloud about that kind of stuff, so don't you kind of understand where I'm coming from?" Once again Tifa shrugs.

"I really think I'm right on this one though." She replies, "But I understand if you're nervous. It isn't that big of a deal now, but I think you should tell him when we get back in Midgar, before he leaves for Nibelheim."

"Well, I just don't think he would think that way about me." Yuffie tells her. Tifa smiles at her, and continues packing.

"Well, just give it time, then. Time shouldn't hurt anything." The older woman says to her.

Yuffie would take time to do anything as drastic as that. If she talked to Vincent and he didn't feel the same way, how would she ever be able to face him again? She would wait, until she felt the time was right, or knew beyond a doubt that he did share the feeling and then she would speak to him.

Vincent

As he goes back to stand by the cave entrance, Vincent can't help to feel a little impatient. It's nearly noon and still the group are not ready to get out of the cave. All of them have been awake for nearly an hour, except Yuffie, who woke up nearly twenty minutes ago and Reno who was just awaken by his co-worker.

He doesn't know why he's so eager to leave the old cave, but the forest almost seems to be welcoming them back into it's depths, Vincent most of all. They all felt as if there wasn't something entirely right with the forest, but they hadn't run into any real trouble throughout the whole trip.

None of them had been into that part of the forest by Nibelheim before, and they didn't know why it felt so wrong, but Vincent was eager to find the answers and he would return here, once his promise to Cloud had been fulfilled and he safely returned the group to Midgar, and find out the reason behind the daunting sense of evil in the forest.

Suddenly, he got an idea. He stood and walked over to Zack. Maybe if he had been here for some time...

"Zack?" Vincent says as he approaches the SOLDIER, "Have you any idea why the forest seems so strange?" He asks, getting straight to the point.

Zack turns towards him, seemingly confused by the question. "You know I haven't been able to figure it out, though I feel like it's something I should know. Almost similar to Mako, but not the same. Sorry, Vince, I'm not a hundred percent what is up, here." He shrugs and looks apologetic.

"It is no fault of yours, thank you for your input." Vincent says to him and then heads back to his edge of the cave. Whatever is out there will have to wait, but he will be back, and ready to find the source of the mysterious force of evil in the forest.

"IS EVERYONE READY?!" Vincent suddenly hears Yuffie shout from across the cave. He looks over his shoulder, and watches as she stomps around by Reno.

"MY GOD RENO, CAN YOU BE ANY SLOWER?" She shouts in his face. He glares up at her, but continues packing.

"Shut the fuck up you little brat. Could you be any more annoying?" He says back, but doesn't shout surprisingly.

"YES, I COULD. ESPECIALLY IF YOU DON'T GET YOUR ASS MOVING RIGHT NOW!" She shouts again and moves on, muttering quietly to herself about how useless he is.

About five minutes later, everyone is ready and they start scaling the side of the cliff down to the forest floor. As Vincent jumps down he hears Reno mutter 'fuckin' showoff' and smiles a bit to himself. He lands heavily on the forest floor and does a quick scan of his surroundings. He doesn't detect any monsters nearby, but he remains vigilant.

After almost a minute of being on the ground, he hears a loud thud from behind him and turns to see who just fell. That was not the case though as he turns and is met by the large SOLDIER, who seems to be perfectly unharmed by the large drop.

"Hey. Figured I'd drop in." Zack says and smiles widely. Vincent nearly rolls his eyes right in Zack's face. Zack burst out laughing. "Aww come on man, it wasn't that bad." After silence from Vincent, Zack shrugs. "Well, I guess it was, but I had to say it."

Vincent smirks, concealing it in his cape's collar. This SOLDIER doesn't seems to be that bad, though Vincent didn't know any other SOLDIER before him, he knew their reputation and did not expect a SOLDIER First Class to be this good tempered.

"Well, I suppose we get the exciting task of waiting for the slow pokes to get down here now." Zack says. He takes the large sword off his back and sits at the base of one of the trees. Vincent does the same, taking up a spot across from Zack.

They wait in silence as the rest of the team descends from the cave.