A woman entered the the 7th Heaven bar. She might once have been tall and strong but she stood stooped and bent. Everything about her attested to her fragility. Her clothes, which were meant for the cold months of the year despite the fact that it was summer. Her dark glasses, worn inside the dark building. The way she trembled with every small, shuffling step she took.
"Woah, woah, woah!" Yuffie Kisargi cried, grabbing onto the woman's elbow and dragging her almost bodily across the building to a chair. "What do you think you're doing, Grandma?"
The woman carefully readjusted the scarf so that it covered more of her face without saying any thing.
"I SAID, GRANDMA WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" Yuffie said louder, wondering if the woman had not heard her the first time she'd spoken. She thought vaguely that the woman would have been completely helpless if not for her.
"Yes, yes, I heard you, child," the woman said. Her voice did not have the harsh quality of an older person's but it did sound tired; tired and entirely out of hope. She rubbed her eyes behind the glasses. "There is no reason to shout."
"Oh," Yuffie said, rather put out. "So... What did you think you were doing?"
"Going to get a drink," the woman replied blatantly. "I may be dying but that's no reason to deny me that, now is there?"
Yuffie swallowed hard. "Well, uhm, no. I guess... But the bar isn't open yet."
"Oh? I suppose not. I'm sorry for bothering you." The woman rose to leave.
"Don't go, Grandma!" Yuffie said, standing as well.
"Why not?" The woman turned to look at Yuffie but there was no visible expression; the face was hidden behind scarf and glasses.
"Well... I mean, you don't look so well. Are you sure you'll be all right?" Yuffie asked.
"You want me to stay so you won't feel guilty about sending me out to die?" the woman asked.
"That sounds awful!" Yuffie exclaimed. The woman shrugged.
"There are many things in this world which are awful," the woman replied. "Yet we put up with them for a long time before anyone has the sense to do anything about them. I'm not offended." She sat down and took off her gloves.
The hands beneath were not wrinkled or withered, but they were scarred horribly.
"Wow, what happened to you?" Yuffie asked in quiet surprise.
"Equal years spent working for ShinRa Corps and running from them," the woman replied without expression.
"Really?" Yuffie was incredulous.
"It's not so uncommon, is it?" the woman asked in response.
"How did that happen?" Yuffie wanted to know.
"It's a long story," the woman told her.
"It's a long time 'til the 7th Heaven opens," Yuffie replied, not quite knowing where that retort had come from.
"Which reminds me," the woman said. "Why was the door open if the bar is not open."
"Don't answer her question," Shelke Rui said. She'd been standing behind the woman for a few moments but hadn't been noticed. "She's trying to misdirect you."
"Hello," the woman said, unsurprised, without looking at Shelke.
"I'd like to hear you're story as well," Shelke said, pulling up a chair.
Faced with two young women wishing to listen to the story, the woman felt she could not deny them and so she shrugged.
"Very well then, but let me tell it in my own manner," she told them.