The Promised Land
Chapter 1
Who Are You?
The sun ushered in a peaceful calm on the Promised Land. From the garden, several large trees arose, their leaves rustling as a warm breeze wafted through the garden. The whooshing sound the leaves made as they mingled was peaceful, and the fresh smell of the scarlet roses delighted everyone that passed by the garden. The sky was a light blue smudged with tiny ivory clouds, while high towers tore into the vast space above, their pasty colors fading into the horizon. From her balcony, she closed her eyes and breathed in the day, feeling the sunlight hitting softly on her face. Her rosy pink lips turned into a smile as she embraced the morning light.
When she turned sixteen, four years ago, she was granted with the possibility of choosing someone from Gaia that she could watch over and from all the people that passed by her eyes back then, there was one that she grew fonder of. Just watching him smile brought light into her life, his kind turquoise eyes were hypnotizing to her and his optimistic way of living made her admire him from high up her room. She knew she wasn't supposed to get that attached to the people under their guard but not a day went by since she found him, that she didn't look for him or see if he needed her help. The bond between them was far stronger than what she could imagine and yet he had no idea about it. The thought of meeting him in person had never even crossed her mind before.
Every Cetra had a person to look after on Gaia, she just couldn't guess that that day, she would meet hers. All it took her until then was close her eyes and concentrate on the person she had chosen.
Zack Fair was late for work once again. He had fallen asleep while watching movies on the television into the late hours of the night. He woke up startled, and looked at his alarm clock for the second time when he saw how late it was. He jumped out of bed making the girl sleeping next to him mumble some inaudible words of discontent. Her usually big brown eyes now looked up at him, squinting. She saw her boyfriend quickly and clumsily pulling his soldier pants up to tighten his belt. The bedroom was mainly dark as the closed shutters only let in a faint light from the street.
"Late again?" The girl shook her head and rested her chin on her hand from under the ruffled white sheets.
"Yeah." Zack was popping his head through the collar of his black turtle-neck shirt now. "Go back to sleep Cissnei, it's still early." He reached down on the bed again and kissed her forehead.
"What time are you coming back?" She asked, her voice still rough from sleeping.
"You know… The same time as always, at night." He replied with a wink. She sighed and dropped her head on the pillow.
"I can't stay here tonight though…" Her voice muffled as she spoke into the pillow, so she lifted her head again to make sure he had heard her.
"Oh, really?" He peeked from the bathroom while he was brushing his teeth to look at her with inquisitive piercing blue eyes.
"Yes… well, my parents are starting to ask questions you know…" She replied. "I can't be staying over at Rosie's all the time."
"So tell them the truth!" He exclaimed after drying his mouth with the towel.
"You know it's not that easy. You're a twenty-one-year-old SOLDIER." She said as if she was stating the obvious. "They wouldn't approve of you… not only are you a little older than me, but mostly because they don't like SOLDIERs."
"Well, I'd make them change their minds about that as soon as they met me." Zack said grinning. He leaned down to give her a quick kiss, but she was quicker than him as she placed her arms around his waist and pulled him towards her causing him to fall onto her and the bed once again. "So you won't be here tonight?" He asked looking down at her face.
"Sorry…" She said apologetically. He shook his head and, smiling, he leaned in to kiss her fully on her lips.
Then he jumped up from the bed and left his apartment in a hurry taking a bite of an apple he fetched from the kitchen. As the elevator went down, he quickly fixed his spiky black hair in its mirrored walls.
Zack was a 1st class SOLDIER working for the ShinRa company. He took his job very seriously when he wasn't sleeping in the mornings. He climbed onto his black motorbike, started the engine, and sped off towards ShinRa's headquarters in Midgar. Today they were going to Junon as there was important cargo to inspect from the importing boats as well as people to interrogate. When Zack arrived at the parking lot, and stopped his motorbike, he cursed himself for getting there late as his carpool ride to Junon was nowhere to be found. He went inside the building to ask about it and the receptionist told him they had already left for Junon.
"Damn you Angeal for not waiting!" He mumbled under his breath. Taking his cell phone from his pocket, he found about ten messages from Angeal, all asking about his current whereabouts. The final message indicated that they were leaving because they couldn't wait any longer. Zack's favorite line was : "You're so buying me lunch for making me save your ass, I told them you would meet us there that you were already on your way. You better be there soon, you're lucky these goons aren't that bright."
"Right!" Zack exclaimed, mounting his motorbike again, already grinning from the thought of being able to drive with abandon on the desert highway.
After they had completed their mission, it was already night when they were finally free to go back home, and there was still a long way to go as it would take him two and a half hours to get back to Midgar. Zack felt tired, but he didn't mind riding all the way back. He was actually glad that he didn't have to share the car with other two infantrymen as Angeal had to, which was more than enough motive for him to tease his friend. When he hit the road he immediately sped up to distance himself from the slower car behind him, which Angeal was driving. As he passed by their car he gave Angeal a mockingly thumbs up and sped up his engine leaving a cloud of dust behind for his friend to drive through. Angeal rolled his eyes and mumbled a "How immature…" under his breath.
Zack was usually careful when he rode his motorbike, even though it was well equipped to handle the roughest terrain, which was reason enough for him to ride it fast. About halfway through the trip, his eyelids started to feel heavy. He hadn't realized just how tired he really was. When the motorbike's light fell on the dark figure of a large animal on the road, Zack didn't have enough time to stop, so he swerved to the right and felt the tires skidding down the hill. He watched as a withered tree came rapidly closer and finally was able to jump out of the motorbike before it crashed into the tree. He rolled down the hill until some heavy object painfully pierced through his back and made him stop. He tiredly closed his eyes as his vision filled with blood. His whole body ached with pain and then suddenly, he was engulfed by darkness.
When Zack started waking up, he wasn't sure if everything had been a bad dream or for how long he had been out, but one thing he knew for certain was that he wasn't feeling any pain like the one he felt before and there was a bright white light burning his eyelids. He heard a soft voice call his name but he was afraid to open his eyes and see the dire situation he was in, it probably was worse than he thought. As he slowly opened his eyes, he found someone staring down at him from the bright light.
"That voice… Who are you?" He asked feeling his head a little dizzy. He forced his eyes to focus and tried to sit up. No pain and he could move. Well, that's odd, he thought. When he could finally make out the person sitting in front of him, he found himself facing a beautiful emerald-eyed young woman with straight long chestnut brown hair staring kindly back at him. Her red lips were pressed in an encouraging smile and her hand was softly resting on his knee. They stared at each other quietly for a moment. Zack blinked, confused about who she could be and at the same time bewildered at her beauty while the girl just smiled at him.
He finally broke the silence, letting out a nervous chuckle. "Am I dead? I ended up in Heaven after all!"
"No silly!" The girl laughed. "I came to your aid, you'll be fine."
"What do you mean you came to my aid?" Zack looked around the dusty place to find his motorbike and saw it in pristine condition, as if he hadn't seen it the night before crashing into pieces against a tree. The crash marks were still there down the hill, the tires' skid marks could be seen on the sand going towards the tree which was shattered into pieces and yet he was there safe and sound, as was his motorbike.
"Well, you had a pretty nasty accident last night," the girl replied. "But I came to save you. I am responsible for you."
"You mean… like a guardian angel? Where did you come from?" Zack was getting more and more confused. He scanned his arms and legs for bruises and touched his forehead expecting to feel blood, but there was nothing. Not even a tiny scratch.
"Kind of like a guardian angel, yes . Except I'm a Cetra. I come from the Promised Land where we protect people on Gaia," she informed him.
"Yeah I heard about that place in ShinRa before… Just didn't know it actually existed," Zack wondered out loud. "A-are you sure I just didn't hit my head pretty hard?"
"I can assure you I'm real." Aerith smiled at him and placed his hand over her own, covering her heart, so that he could feel it beating.
"He-hey!" Zack's face immediately flushed red at the proximity of his hand to her breasts, covered by a form fitting white dress. But there it was, her strong and even heartbeat just like she had said. She was real. He looked up from their hands to her face while he realized that this woman, Cetra or Human, had saved his life. "Thank you!" He promptly said, straightening up, but he knew he would never be able to repay her and in turn he would owe her for the rest of his life.
"Don't mention it." She shook her head and let go of his hand. "I'm Aerith Gainsborough."
"Ah yes, I'm Zack Fair… but you probably knew that already." The spiky-haired man replied smiling back at her. "Did you… do that to my bike too?"
"It was in such a bad state…" Aerith nodded, which made Zack wonder just how strong her Cetra powers really were.
"Thank you again… but I better get back home…" Zack scratched the back of his head and rose to his feet feeling as fit as ever. "Where are you going now? I can drop you off where you want."
"I… I guess I have nowhere to go to." Aerith looked down thoughtfully. "I left the Promised Land for you so I won't be able to go back that soon. You know, you have done a lot of recklessness in your life before but I have to say this one was by far the most serious one! In order to save you I had to leave the Promised Land because my powers wouldn't be as great from there. This situation… needed a more personal intervention. But once I leave the Promised Land I can't go back that easily… I'll have to watch over you from here for a while. I guess I need to find a place to live in then…"
"Don't worry about that!" Zack lifted her chin with his fingers and smiled widely at her. "You can stay at my place as long as you want!"
"Really?" Aerith smiled back and Zack nodded reassuringly. "If you don't mind that… thank you."
"Alright then, that's settled! But wait a minute… what did you mean I have done a lot of reckless things before?" Zack asked and Aerith sighed thinking about all those times he gave her quite the scare.
"I think you know what I'm talking about, going into fights with men stronger than you on your missions, picking on monsters on purpose just for the fun of fighting them, crashing down roofs! There was even this incident with a pirana in an aquarium once…"
"Well I wanted to see just how strong its bite really was!" Zack shrugged laughing. "My finger ached for a week though… You watched all that, huh?"
"Don't think I'm a stalker or anything…" Aerith looked down blushing. "I was just making sure nothing bad happened to you."
"I know… But as long as you didn't watch EVERYTHING!" Zack watched as the girl shook her head quickly while her cheeks turned bright red. "Just kidding!" He laughed and took her hand to pull her towards the motorbike. "You better hold on tight!"
Aerith felt a little apprehensive for mounting the bike with Zack at first. He wrapped her arms tightly around his waist and she wasn't used to that kind of proximity with another person. Unlike earlier, he was riding the motorbike with extra care so as not to scare her, which in turn made her trust him. It was all still a little fresh in his mind but as time went by it amazed him that out of the millions of people on Gaia, he was lucky enough to score a guardian angel. He wondered if everyone was granted someone like Aerith, but he would have time to ask her all those questions later. Zack thought about how good it felt to have her warm breath on the back of his neck and the warmth of her body on his back which suddenly made him remember the few times he rode with Cissnei.
That's right… Cissnei!
Author's note (they're back! :D): I wasn't planning on writing anything soon but this idea came to my mind and I couldn't help myself on writing another Zack/Aerith story! I guess I'll write a Zack/Aerith then a Cloud/Aerith then a Zack/Aerith again from now on since I like them both so much! Many answers as to who Aerith is and does will be answered in later chapters! Thank you so much for reading and please tell me what you think of the first chapter! Many thanks to my great beta reader, the one and only chibipinkbunny! :D She is amazing and she's helping me a lot! I'd have to get her thousands of red pens if she corrected things the old fashioned way! lol Thank you so much!