It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's Yuffie's shuriken headed for your face!
Oh dear.

Disasterpiece

To say that she was graceful would've probably gotten you kicked out of the kingdom. To say she was beautiful would get three very bloodthirsty hounds set on your tail. To say she was clumsy, which was the truth, would most probably earn a laugh. It was quickly learned that the best thing to do when dealing with one very moody little ninja was smile and laugh. Frequently.

Currently, said little ninja was standing in the middle of a circle, hands on her hips as she glared down her father's advisors.

"Please, Hime," one of the men said rather pleading, and she bristled at him calling her princess. "Your father begs that you return home to be fitted for your new kimono."

She was tapping her toe at the speed of Thumper the Bunny, and the look on her face could quite possibly warrant a few chills down their spines if she wasn't currently wearing a crown of berries around her head. (That was the only crown worth wearing, she'd informed them once. After all, if you were hungry, then just pull off a couple of berries. Problem solved.)

"Tell him I'm busy," she grumbled irritably, swatting away at their pleading figures and stomping off into the forest.

One of the advisors, Shake, shook his head. "Sometimes I really hate my job." He motioned towards to other men, and they stood forward, carrying a sack and looking rather apprehensive. "Go on now," he ordered tiredly at them, "Catch her."

"But, there's no way – "

"Catch her or else you'll mysteriously wake up one morning and find yourself incapable to reproduce, he means," another guardian spoke up, and the two men scurried off to their sure doom.

"Poor souls," muttered Staniv, and Shake nodded his head. "They don't get paid enough."

There were several yelps of pain up on the path ahead, and frequent yells of, "How d'you like me now, huh? Huh?" and more violent noises. The remaining men cringed when they saw the glint of her conformer and the shrill of boys that had once been men.

"I think we should leave," Staniv said faintly. The rest nodded.

"I think I need a drink," muttered a very green man.

in another neck of the woods, three fairies are bickering…

" – eriously, that's the best thing we can do for him right now!" exclaimed Sora, throwing his hands up in the air. "All these girls come up to him and expect him to know Kelly Clarkson lyrics, and he doesn't know a single verse! All I'm saying is, if you can beat 'em, join 'em!"

The two fairies stared at him unresponsively, and Aerith attempted to smile forcibly. "Sora, I really don't think he'd be too enamored with the idea of…"

"Transforming him into a drag queen?" Leon deadpanned, and for once, Aerith was grateful for his lack of subtlety. "I realize that you haven't exercised all of your wonderful future career fantasies, but I think this is more about you being jealous of him."

The response was immediate and indignant. "Jealous? Why would I be jealous? Just because all these girls want to be his best friend and tend to spill their feeling out to their so-called 'girlfriend' and he gets to comfort them? No, I don't think so!"

Staring eyes were all that answered him. "What?"

Aerith coughed quietly. "Back to the topic at hand. Since King Ansem didn't want the court to know that his son had been tainted by feminine traits, he decided to send his son to live with us. Now, sixteen years later, the boy is seventeen, and it becomes harder and harder with each passing day to comprehend the troubles that this youth must go through…" she continued on in her storyteller voice, and the group of children in front of her oohed and aahed appreciatively.

"Why is it that every time we're talking about something she just goes off into Creepy-Old Maid-Storyteller mode?" Sora whispered quietly to Leon, who shrugged.

Another voice spoke up. "So what were you guys talking about?"

Sora whipped around, smiling nervously at the silver-haired teenager who stood standing behind him with a look of askance on his face. "Oh, Riku, my dear, dear, super-cool, ultra-fast, super-strong, beyond awesome companion, how nice it is to see you!" he babbled incoherently until Leon whacked him around the head.

Riku merely stared at him rather blankly at the brunette and shrugged. "I know you've been experiencing some repressed feelings lately, but I don't swing that way," he spoke slowly, blinking his eyes at the (so-called) teen who whipped around, eyes huge and indignant.

"Who'd want to date an ugly mug like you anyways!" Sora exploded shrilly, and Riku smirked.

"Tell me, my darling fairy companion, when was the last time you've gone on a date?" he pondered for a moment, placing a finger at his chin and looking heavenward. "It must've been around a century ago, right old man?"

There was a shriek and laughter and a thud that could've been heard by the deaf. When the dust cleared (which had coincidentally appeared somewhere in between Riku's near-decapitation and Sora's eyes being gouged out), the fairy was glaring with the intensity of, oh, say, Leon, and Riku was merely sprawled on the ground laughing rather ungainly for a prince. But shh, he doesn't know that yet.

"You'd think being alive since forever would make you at least a little bit stronger than me, a mere mortal!" he laughed, and the trio of fairies before him stared a little oddly. "What? I read it in a book, okay?"

Leon shook his head with the appearance of one that was world-weary. But everybody else knew that he was just weary. There was a time when Riku had stepped on his removable wings once as a child, and he went completely berserk. To this day, Aerith still keeps a syringe filled with morphine in the kitchen cabinets. But that wasn't the point.

"You," the black-decked fairy pointed at Riku, "Go pick fruit. You," he pointed at Sora, "try not to hurt yourself while washing the dishes."

And they wondered why people thought Riku was a girl. Honestly.

Back in the forest, the animals were not happy…

There was a reason too. One princess of Wutai was currently tearing up their land while hurling around her giant conformer, trying to hack off all the apples on a tree in one go. Well, the apples were falling, but so were other things. Birds. Branches. Eggs. Squirrels.

She was blissfully unaware of this, and continued firing her weapon rapidly around the tree and whistled a few tunes that not even a music professor would recognize. Princess? Yes. Perfect? Absolutely not.

However, she was not one to dawdle over her flaws, and so she continued her tuneless humming until an ear piercing shriek shattered the (pseudo) silence that had been formed throughout the reign of her destruction. Then she heard it again.

"What a queer scream that is," she said in wonder, and grabbed the reigns of her chocobo, mounting it quickly. "Hurry, Gondwanaland," she urged her fluffy bird, who gave a loud wark. "I want to see the pansy that screams like that!" Gondwanaland, Gond for short, warked again and turned away. "Listen you worthless piece of barbeque, take me there or else I'll shear off all of your feathers and stick you in a car wash for the next week."

Gond quickly made an about face and leapt swiftly towards the terrible screaming. Silently, the chocobo swore his revenge upon the girl riding upon his back. Someday, he thought, and had he had the capability, he would've been shaking his fist at the sky, she was going to get what she deserved for being so brutal. No more of this barbeque nonsense. No more broken promises of barley.

But right now, he would just have to wait.

The screams continued, and the animals were frightened…

Riku was terrified. As in, oh-my-fucking-god-I'm-about-to-wet-my-pants-mommy-please-come-save-me scared. Now, this was unusual for the teen, and in normal cases, he would've smirked at the thought of it. Not, now, however, when there were a hive of angry bees swarming around his head and he was screaming for all he was worth, running so fast that his legs became a very well-blended blur.

"I SWEAR THAT I WILL NEVER STEAL YOUR HONEY AGAIN, I SWEAR ON MY BEAUTIFUL SILVER HAIR (John Frieda, that's right) SO PLEASE JUST DON'T KILL ME!"

The bees seemed to ignore this, and despite his advertising for his hair products, John Frieda wasn't about to appear into thin air and de-frizz the buggers from existence.

"HEY LADY!" came a shout from his left. As if automated, his head turned to meet the extremely amused ones of a petite girl with short, cropped hair. What could he say: he was used to be mistaken for a girl. "THERE'S A LAKE NEARBY!"

Running straight past her, he couldn't say he wasn't surprised when she started jogging along beside him. "HOW CLOSE IS IT?" he bellowed, apparently forgetting that she was two feet away now, and as a result, he received a very angry glare before a hard shove landed itself on his back.

He fell, rather ungainly, into a pond nearby, and his toes squelched disgustingly on the sand and mud between his toes. As if realizing that the bees were now in pursuit of her, the girl jumped in as well, resurfacing quickly and watching in satisfaction as the bees slowly disappeared from sight. There was a loud gasp beside her, and she turned to greet the visage of a sopping wet Riku.

"YOU CALL THAT A LAKE?" he roared angrily, and she merely stared back at him unflinchingly.

"Well, it seemed like a lake the last time I was here," she shrugged, and pulled herself out of the water, wringing out her hair.

He followed suit, hissing slightly, "And how long ago was that?"

"I dunno. Six, seven years ago?"

He scowled. She smirked.

It was the start of a rather disturbing relationship.

Up next: Yuffie and Riku singing duets? Kairi turning into a gigantic vicious Kirby? Leon cross dressing for fun? Yeah it's possible. That's what fanfiction's all about.

I am sorry that it took me such a freakishly long time to finish this chapter. Just wish for more internet crashes for me; that's the thing that gets me to write.

On a totally unrelated note: I bought John Frieda conditioner and shampoo. My friends thought I should use something other than Head and Shoulders and sent me on my merry way to Wal-Mart with threats of pink.