Yeah, boredom one-shot from Aerith's POV. It was an example application for my Forum-RPG "Final Fantasy Infinity". Geeky title, I know. Well, I thought that it was a good enough blurb to actually post. It takes place immediately after the Temple of the Ancients (Cat and the Keystone) scene where Cloud tackles Aerith and beats the living hell out of her.
Remember that?
It's immediately before Cloud dreams about Aerith in the Sleeping Forest, before the City of the Ancients, and before she dies. I feel that this part is far more interesting than just death. Villains are supposed to kill things. Heroes aren't supposed to attempt to kill his love interest. I feel that this is one reason that Aerith left when she did -- she just had a frikkin' SOLDIER (kinda) beat her face in! Dude, if I was her, I would've abandoned ship, too.
Oh, and the title really doesn't have much to do with anything. Just that when I was writing it, I felt that there was a single candle lighting the back room and the light was drifting through the door and onto Aerith who's holding vigil in the main room, afraid to enter the back room but also afraid to leave.
Anyway, enough of my endless 3 AM ranting.
-AR
A Single Candle
It was raining in Gongaga when Aerith decided to leave. She sat in the front room, listening to the gentle hiss on the rooftop and the quiet voice in the next room. Though Tifa had long since smoothed a cool potion over Aerith's cheek, she could still feel the swelling just below her eye and the hot blood on her lip. The younger woman had held her hand and reassured her. 'He didn't mean it,' she'd said. 'Cloud has some problems but he never meant to hurt you.' Aerith only listened with half an ear. Those dark eyes were haunted. Tifa didn't believe those reassurances herself.
But that had been hours ago, before the rain had begun its hypnotic thrum against the roof. Of all the nearby cities, Aerith had insisted on Gongaga. Somehow knowing that it was Zack's hometown made her feel safe. If she closed her eyes and listened to the rain, she was back in his apartment. She could smell him - smell Gongaga - beneath all the cologne and sword oil. She opened her eyes, yet the illusion remained. All around, she could feel him.
And she could feel her should-be-swollen cheek. Aerith finally steeled her courage and entered the inner bedroom. Her soft boots made little noise in the room, and that was masked by the steady downfall outside. Tifa had crumpled over and fallen asleep in the chair. Aerith noted with a pang that her fingers were entwined with Cloud's. She flinched inwardly when she looked at his sleeping face haunted by troubled dreams. She stood there for a moment, watching them sleep. With a sigh, she removed her materia-encrusted bangle and set it on the nightstand next to those familiar reinforced gloves.
A wave of nostalgia broke over her when she picked up the tattered glove. She remembered sitting cross-legged on the bed in the guest room, her needle swishing in and out through the worn fingertips. Zack rested his head against the bed and her knee. How Cloud had found them and the rest of Zack's uniform - she knew every tear - she couldn't figure out, especially since Cloud claimed to have never met him.
She couldn't stay for much longer than that. A quick check of her wallet - 200 gil - wouldn't take her the whole way. To where, though? Sephiroth had the Black Materia. Cloud had... She shied away from the memory. No, she knew exactly where she had to go - and what awaited her there.
Without a word of farewell, Aerith stole away into the dark rainy midnight, silently convincing herself that she was going to stop Sephiroth, not running from the man with the troubled dreams.