Authors Note/Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy Tactics, it belongs to Squaresoft. Yes, SquareSOFT! Stupid Enix…

This is just a silly little something I wrote at Writer's Club because we had to write about a yo-yo and I couldn't get my head outta Ivalice. Hee hee. Enjoy. Oh, and thanks to BW0 for the title!

"Life's Little Amusements"
By Skylark Starflower
Started August 9th, 2005
Finished August 10th, 2005

"Mustadio, what is that thing you've got there?"

"Huh?"

The young mechanic hadn't realized Ramza was in the room with him and was startled by the sudden sound of his voice. The object he'd been playing with bounced up and wrapped itself around his arm. Ramza walked forward and poked at it.

"So, what is it?" he asked.

Mustadio shrugged as he unwrapped the odd looking thing from his arm, rolling the string back into the wooden spool. "I don't know. Father found a couple of these a while back at Drift number 43. I think I finally figured out what it does. See, watch."

Ramza noticed for the first time that the string was tied to Mustadio's finger as the young engineer dropped the wooden spool. He couldn't see the point to dangling a piece of wood from a finger and was about to say so when Mustadio gave a light jerk on the string. The spool came spinning back up into his hand, and he repeated the motion several times before stopping, looking up to grin at Ramza.

"What do you think?"

"Uh…what's the point of that?" asked Ramza, scratching at the side of his head.

"I don't know, but it's actually pretty fun. Want to try?" And Mustadio removed the string from his finger and offered it to Ramza.

"I…suppose…" Ramza took the odd device from his friend and slid it on his finger like he'd seen Mustadio do. "Now what?"

"Now you just let go, and when it hits the bottom of the string, pull it back up."

"Okay…" Ramza released his grip on the wooden spool and it went spinning down the length of its string. He pulled up when he thought it had reached the end. It jumped, but didn't return to his hand, rolling down a bit further, where it swung gently back and forth. Ramza jerked it again with similar results. Getting a bit annoyed, he jerked it again and again, but the spool still did not return.

Mustadio chuckled at him, brought out another one of the strange toys and started to play with it as though he'd been doing it all his life. Ramza shot him a dirty look as he rolled his back up and tried again, once again failing miserably.

"Would you like some help?" laughed Mustadio, as Ramza succeeded only in tying the toy around his legs. Ramza just grumbled, unwrapped the string from his legs and stormed off. Mustadio blinked.

"What?"

The End