Guess I should start with an introduction huh? Well the name I was given at birth was Cidney Allen Highwind, but most people just call me Cid, except for the citizens of my fair town, they just call me Captain. Heh, make me sound almost important... Wish that were the case.
Everyone seems to believe I'm this self-assured person who doesn't take no shit from anyone. God I wish that were true, but it ain't. It's true I can stand up to almost anyone but for the life of me I can't stand up to my old man.
I'm the son of Gerald Alfred Highwind and Margret Rose Highwind. Ma was a very slight woman, petite really, with soft blond hair and these wide grey blue eyes that looked like they could never hold a mean thought. Pop on the other hand was sturdy, built like a rock and I remember he just had these blue eyes like laser beams that felt like they were gonna punch a hole right through you. Ma was very traditional, taught me I was supposed to respect and honor my father. Sad thing is I never respected him, I feared him.
Ya see I grew up in North Corel, and Pop was a coal miner back when there were still mines. I don't know why he and Ma got married, they didn't have anything in common. Ma was very gentle by nature, always willing to help with anything. She didn't deserve to be the wife of a poor miner in a small town. We lived in the worse section of the town, right next to the mines so there was trash, tools, and piles of rocks everywhere. Ma deserved a lot better than what she got in my Pop. Pop was a drunk, pure an simple, and when he wasn't working he spent all his time, and money, in the taverns.
I always dreaded when he'd finally have to come home from the taverns. Pop wasn't a happy drunk by any stretch. When he came home he'd always yell at Ma, complaining that the place was a mess, asking where his dinner was and shit like that. Kind soul she was she always tried to please him. It never did and so he'd knock her around are small house until she started crying. That just made him angrier and he started screaming and hitting her. Its been years but I can still remember what it sounded like.
When I was little, Ma would tuck me into bed before he came home so I wouldn't know what was going on. But I did. One night when I was about 6 I guess, he came home and started beating on her, I jumped out of bed and ran out trying to get him to stop. it must of been bloody funny to anyone who could have seen it. Me this tiny little 6 year olf kid with messy blonde hair trying to take on a 30 year old man. I remember he back handed me, threw me halfway across the living room until I hit the wall. After that everything gets kinda fuzzy, but I remember Ma screaming at him that he shouldn't have hit me. I remember seeing him slap her across the face so hard she fell down. After that I vaguely remember her crawling over and craddling me to her. She was crying and hugging me and stroking my hair. She kept saying it was gonna be ok, that it was alright and he didn't mean it, that he just got like that sometimes.
After that night I wasn't safe anymore. Pop had no problem throwing me around like a rag doll. Of course he couldn't be content just to hit me till I was a permanent shade of black and blue. No he had to talk while he was hitting me.
"Ya ungrateful son uv a bitch! Yer worthless! Absolutely fucking worthless! Yer nuthin but a fucking failure and wi' an attitude like that ya always will be! Beh! Ya faggot, ye'll never be a real man!"
On and on the same things through my whole childhood. He always called me a failure, and after awhile it seemed like he was right. I've failed at everything I've ever done. I've failed at relationships, I failed when I went into ShinRa, I failed at goin inta space. I'm a total fuckin failure...
That's why I became a mechanic, so I wouldn't feel like such a failure all time. When I fixed something and it worked, that was proof I wasn't the failure Pop said I was. And it worked marginally. I was a good mechanic and people would give me money to fix things so I could do a little bit to help support Ma because lord knows Pop never tried.
Its amazing how a few words can have such a devastating effect. The old man never had any problem insulting us, but Ma refused to let me say anythin bad about Pop. Whenever I tried she'd tell me that he was my father and I shouldn't say such things about him. That because he was my father I was supposed to respect him always. Ma was an idealist.
Life was tough but it seemed to get better when one day I discovered flight. It was by accident really, I'd wandered down the tracks of the railroad until I was beyond the town and I just looked up and there it was. This lone falcon was soaring up in the clouds, and it looked so free, like nothin in the world could touch it. I wanted that kind of freedom, I wanted it so bad... To have the ability to fly away from the hell hole that was my house... I wanted to soart in the clouds without a care.
I told Ma what I wanted to do and she just smiled and kissed me on the forehead while smoothing down my grimey hair. She'd say that I could achieve whatever I wished if I tried. Pop when he heard about this outright laughed and told me I'd be a failure at that like I was at everything else. Ma told him that he shouldn't say such things, that they would stunt my growth. He laughed, and I was so disgusted I wanted to vomit. He called her a whore and told her to shut her mouth or he'd shut it for her.
Ma was always so frail it was a wonder she lasted as long as she did. When I was 10 Pop came home one night drunker than he'd ever been. He was yelling and calling her a whore and accused her of sleeping with everyone on the whole block. She said of course she wasn't and he backhanded her, called her a liar and that she should remember her place. The nhe just snapped and kept hitting her, and hitting her. To this day I can still remember the sickening sound her bones made as they crunched under his fists.
I don't know when he realized she was dead but he suddenly just stopped and looked down at her. I couldn't recognize her face anymore, it was a bloody mess of tissue and bone. I think maybe then he realized what he'd done because the old man reeled back until he was against the wall, then he slid down it. I was crying by then and I crawled over to her, crying my eyes out. I remember stroking her hair and trying to say it was gonna be alright even though I knew she was dead.
When the police stopped by the next day Pop was the picture of sobriety. He said that some thieves must have broken into the house and beaten Ma to death. He said it was a terrible tragedy but he could at least take comfort that they hadn't gotten to me. I didn't realize until then just how much of a manipulative bastard my old man could be. I'm sure they didn't believe him, hell the majority of the town knew what Pop did in his off hours, but they could never prove that he'd beaten her to death. And I couldn't say a word because he had his hand on my shoulder and every time I went to make a move, he dug those rough square fingers into my shoulder.
I think the worst part of it was that everytime I'd walk through town I could hear those gossiping old women going, 'Poor Maggie, to die such a tragic death. Poor little Cid to be stuck with that brute of a man.' It made me mad, I didn't want their pity. I wasn't like Ma, I could handle anything the old man dished out.
Now I was the only one Pop had to vent his frustration on. I started not even staying at the house anymore. When I could I'd be at the library studying up on flying or looking for things I could fix for money. I guess I should have fought back against him, when he'd come in reeking of booze and start slapping me around but I couldn't. Ma told me I had to respect this drunkard and so I never fought back.
When I was 17 I managed to get accepted into ShinRa's pilot training program. That got me out of Corel and away from Pop. My life should have been the up, I mean I could start over in the largest city in the world away from the man who'd been my tormentor as far back as I could remember. I had a job, a clean place to live, and I got to fulfill my dream, ShinRa let me fly. But that bastard was still with me, no matter where I went. The whole reason I started smoking and drinking was to prove to him just how much of a man I was.
When I heard Corel was destroyed by ShinRa all I could remember thinking, god help me, was that I hoped that bastard had died in the flames. I never went back to Corel until I went back with Cloud. I felt bad for the citizens, of course none of them recognized me for little dirty Cid Highwind and I was glad. But looking around the hovels everyone had to live in I just *knew* that Pop was alive somewhere, people like him never die easily, they're like roaches.
Some days I wake up with a hang over and I'm afraid that I'm gonna become like him. Then there are days I wake up and I'm afraid of what will happen when I eventually run into him again. It's pathetic really, a 32 year old man still afraid of his father, but I am. I'm afraid because I know I won't fight back, and he knows I won't.I guess its just a matter of time before he finds me, his son, Cid Highwind...