Final Fantasy XII drabble 8/26/2009

I wrote this a long time ago when I first started playing Final Fantasy XII. I honestly never got far because I lost interest. I want to revisit it someday, but I did love the characters. Mostly Balthier, Fran, Ashe, and Basche. Their personalities were fun and so I wrote this little thing.

~

The land around them was differant from any they had seen before. The ground had almost a purple hue to it and was covered with a thick moss. They were standing on a dock of sorts that seemed rather peculiarily placed in a land with no water. The change of scenary had been abrupt from the forest that they'd just wandered out of and this dock had connected to their path. There were a few trees and little blue flowers dotted the landscape, but other than that, the eerie moss was the only plant life. Looking out further, stones had been placed evenly apart and zig-zagged through the land. The stones started where the dock ended. "What is this place?" Vaan asked, looking to Balthier, who usually knew this sort of thing.

"How should I know? I told you that I never bothered to come to these cursed grounds before because there's no profit from it. You’d do best asking Fran." Balthier said, motioning with his head to the tall woman beside him while fiddling with his shirt cuffs.

"These are cursed grounds. They are very dangerous, but not impassible if you're smart." Vaan must have been imagaining that she was looking at him when she said this.

"Cursed grounds?" Vaan made to step out onto the moss when a strong arm stopped him. Vaan looked up to see that Basche was tugging him back.

"Cursed as in 'don't touch' I would assume?" Balthier looked to Fran; however, it was Ashe who answered.

"These lands are cursed because of the wars of long ago and, I suppose, of today. The legend goes that some deity cursed them so that no human foot can tread on them until peace is restored." Ashe looked at the moss and turned to the stones. "Our ancestors placed these stones here for safe passage to the city when traveling on foot."

"So we just stone hop to Alkaterz?" Balthier asked, stepping cautiously to the first stone.

"That would be the idea," Ashe answered, following him.

"This is kind of silly," Penelo commented as she stepped on the first stone. She made to step to the second, but lost her balance. She stepped down to steady herself, but had stepped on the moss. Everyone took an audible deep breath, but after a few seconds, nothing had happened. Penelo moved her other foot to the moss and walked in a small circle. "Nothing." She looked up to the group.

"How can you walk on the moss?" Vaan asked, watching as his friend pranced about.

"Maybe I'm not human," she giggled.

"It seems the fairy tale was a fools story." Fran looked over at Penelo as Vaan stepped onto the moss with her.

"Don't they all turn out that way?" Balthier commented.

"I wonder why they have such a tale about this place?" Ashe wondered, a finger to her chin.

"Obviously they want to keep us out. So in we go, then?" Balthier looked up at her.

"It would seem so," Ashe laughed. And so the party journeyed fourth through the cursed lands of Colunah.