A Place to Call Home (Part 1)

13 days without content, and close to three months without some form of writing. Let’s change that.

Title: A Place to Call Home (Part 1)
Series: Final Fantasy XI
Characters: You’ll figure it out~
Rated: G
Words: 1,916

Summary: As Vana’diel tries to recover from the aftermath of the war, a young boy tries to find a place to belong.
Notes: I actually lost the original for this story (yet I didn’t lose Dawn of Twilight, grumble), so I’m re-writing it.

A crisp breeze blew through the tall, proud palm trees that dotted the landscape in Windurst Waters. It normally would have been an idyllic night, the type where one would sip fine wine while watching the stars, but this was the furthest thing from the boy’s mind as he tried his best to make himself small and unnoticeable as he wove his way through the stout wooden structures that the locals called home.

Home… he didn’t have one anymore. After the war took his parents away from him, he had nowhere to live. One of many orphans displaced by the war, he was, like many others, lost in the chaos as Bastok desperately tried to sort itself out once the hostilities ceased. And when it became clear to him that it was every man for himself, he did the first thing he could think of… he ran away.

Had he been born in a different era, things might have turned out differently for him. He might be wearing a school uniform suitable for a boy of eight years, instead of wearing some rather dirty and threadbare garments – a simple brown tunic and breeches, and a pair of shoes that were really starting to pinch. His dirty blond-brown hair might be better kept, though he’d had that unruly lock of hair for as long as he could remember. His blue eyes still shone with a burning desire to survive, however, and they showed that he was determined to make it in this war-torn world, somehow…

Though he felt guilty doing so, he found that a small boy such as himself had no problems not being noticed in a crowd… and, as a result, he found he had a knack for lifting coin purses from the careless and unsuspecting. Sometimes he’d miss his mark, but he usually got away with making it look like he’d simply bumped into the person, and he’d be ignored again after a stern glare.

Gil seemed to make the world go round, and he’d managed to scrounge enough coins for passage on a transport to Selbina. He’d barely stayed a few hours before finding a merchant bound to Windurst via ferry, and his pleading and wheedling managed to secure him a ride to the Federation.

“Are you sure you have family here, son?” The burly merchant creased his brow as he saw the wide-eyed expression on the boy’s face. They had just arrived in Port Windurst, and he was waiting patiently as a mithra and a tarutaru were busily inspecting the goods he’d brought from Selbina and Mhaura. “Didn’t you say that your aunt would be here to pick you up?”

“Good,” the mithra said with a smile. “Now, about yourrrrr customs fees…”

And this is where the boy was now… in a completely foreign town, with no one to go to, and he was cold, lonely, and hungry.

It was the middle of the night with nary a soul about, but with the way his head was swimming, he knew that he had to find something – anything – lest he pass out in the middle of town. It’s not something he especially wanted, so he kept his eyes and ears open for any signs of sustenance… even a discarded crust of bread would have been a boon.

His search proved fruitless, however, and he was rapidly growing desperate. He didn’t expect this place to be so clean, especially after the war; Bastok was a complete wreck as far as he was concerned, and the calm street he lived on looked like a disaster zone. Here, while there were definite signs of destruction – broken retaining walls, boarded-up bridges, and fallen trees – it almost seemed to him that the people here were trying to hurry up and go back to the lives they knew before.

The boy stumbled a little as the world around him abruptly swirled like a top, and he took a shaky breath as he steadied himself against the side of a house. He was not going to embarrass himself further by passing out in the street… so when he looked up and saw that the window next to him was open wide, he decided to take a chance… it’s not like he had any better ideas at the moment.

His uncoordinated movements made him almost fall flat on his face as he clambered through the opening, but he seemed to have somehow made it through without alerting the occupants. Though there weren’t any lamps in the room, the moonlight through the window let him see well enough; he seemed to be in a cozy-looking library, with shelves crammed floor to ceiling with more books than he’d ever seen in his life. There were a pair of overstuffed chairs in the middle of the room, and the boy’s back ached when he realized how wonderful it would be to fall asleep in one.

After getting his bearings, he wandered over to the kitchen. The fireplace looked like it’d not been used for quite a while, and the boy started to wonder if anyone lived in the house… it seemed entirely too tidy. That despair quickly gave way to happiness as he spied a bowl of fruit on the counter, and he practically tripped over himself as he rushed to grab an apple. The first bite seemed so sweet and delicious to him that he couldn’t help but gorging himself on it… and in his rush to eat, he failed to hear footsteps behind him.

“Excusey-wuse me, young man… but can you tell me why you’re in my kitchen and eating all my fruitaru?”

The boy jumped in surprise when he hear the voice – it was almost fatherly, with a deep yet slightly reedy quality to it – and he turned to see a grey-haired, bespectacled tarutaru, clad in a fuzzy dark red housecoat, who was staring at him with a puzzled expression.

“Er… I’m sorry, I… ah…” With every single excuse he was thinking up sounding lame even to him, the boy looked around furtively, looking for a way out; when he spied the door, he threw the apple core off to the side and made a break for it.

“Oh, no you don’taru… Bind!”

The boy didn’t see what the tarutaru had done – he was more concerned with trying to save his own skin – but he second he heard the shout, he felt something rushing around him, and he suddenly stopped, as if his feet had become rooted to the ground. He gasped in surprise and flailed his arms in an attempt to keep his balance, and he ended up falling on his rear in a less-than-graceful fashion… but not on his face, for which he was thankful.

“Easy, my boy…” As the tarutaru toddled over to him, the boy’s mind raced as he tried to figure out what to say. He tried to lift his feet, but whatever the tarutaru had used was keeping him there quite solidly. “I won’taru hurt you.”

“I… um… I… I really need to go back home now… m-my aunt is probably waiting for me, and…”

“Oh?” The tarutaru raised an eyebrow at that. “And where does she live?”

“Um…” The boy pointed in the direction of the window he’d entered from. “Over there?”

The tarutaru chuckled softly and shook his head. “I’m sorry, my boy, but I’m afraid don’taru believe you. There aren’t any humes living-wiving here at the momentaru, and I certainly haven’t seen any hume women about.”

The boy blinked at the odd verbal tic the tarutaru was exhibiting; while he’d certainly seen some before, he’d never actually paid attention to how they spoke until now.

“You talk funny,” he said abruptly with a giggle, though he immediately covered his mouth when he realized what he said. The ordeal from the last few days were finally starting to wear him down, and it was plain on his face that he was tired.

“Well,” the tarutaru said with a chuckle. “I thinkaru you talk a little ‘funny’, too. Now why were you in my kitchen, eating my food?”

“I… um…” The boy saw that lying wasn’t going to help at this point, and he was too tired to come up with something. “I was hungry…”

“Thataru’s a start…” the tarutaru said with a nod of approval. “And where are your parents?”

“They’re gone.” The boy’s tone was filled with bitterness as he said that, and he looked down as if he were afraid of what the tarutaru would say.

The tarutaru opened his mouth to say something, but something seemed to click, and his gentle expression faded to one of sadness.

“The war is still determined to break the heart of every single child of Altana, I see…” he finally murmured with an equally bitter quality to his voice. After a moment, he shook his head and sighed softly. “What’s your name, my boy? Unless you wantaru me to keep calling you ‘boy’, which I surely doubtaru you do.”

“Um… I’m Darian… Darian Cerris…” Faced with someone who wasn’t actually immediately chasing him away or being mean to him, the mental shell he’d built around himself to steady his resolve was starting to crumble, and he was doing his best not to burst out crying.

“Darian…” the tarutaru repeated, and he tried not to wince as he saw tears streaming down the boy’s face. “Thataru’s a nice name. Well, my name is Ithan-Yuran. I’m a teacher at one of the schools here.”

“’Ithan-Yuran’… Hehe, it rhymes.” Darian said with a sniffle, despite himself.

“Yes, well…” Ithan-Yuran shook his head… now wasn’t the time to lecture him. “Darian, how about we getaru you some food, and then perhaps a bath?” The tarutaru wrinkled his nose as he sniffed the air. “You smell like a chocobo crossarued with a dhalmel-whalmel, and that’s putting it quite politely.”

“Um…” Darian paused… was this a trap? Would the tarutaru turn him in to the guard? He was beginning to care less and less about that, however, and more about the notion of having food and some rest… “O-okay…” He tried to get up, but he found himself still bound to the floor. “Er…”

“Oh. Rightaru. Erase!” Ithan-Yuran negligently waved his hand, and Darian heard the sharp sound of something shattering. He felt whatever was keeping him still fade away, and he shakily rose to his feet, a little surprised at how weak he felt.

“Easy does it, my boy…” Ithan-Yuran smiled as he helped steady Darian. “Come, let’s get some food in you…”

Current Mood: Sleepy