Music: Chopin's posthumous nocturnes.
• • •
The piano keys were grey and cracked, like a long white plain defiled by the passage of an ashen downpour. Her finger trailed as a solitary wanderer across the old pathways, the old orchards of sound and vibration, feeling every abandoned fruit as they hung on their branches, heavy with the weight of accumulated silence. It was heartbreaking, really; so many years gone by, so many things fallen into neglect or forced to take up another trade. She looked at how her fingers had gotten so knobbly and rough, callous patches eating up the soft white spaces that had once given elegance to the hidden voice within each digit.
Were the fingers now to grace any instrument, she was sure the uttered voice would be between an old man's rasp and a warrior's snarl, paying no heed to the old musical subtleties. She almost smiled as she beheld her worn fingers, balanced as they were on the equally time-abused piano keys, and she heaved a sigh of relief at their reunion.
"It seems age hasn't been very good to us," she whispered to the great hollow creature, sitting down on the stool just as before, the familiar creak welcoming her back after so long. As though responding to the kiss of dust that the stool had sent her, she sent a cool breath down the old black-and-white pathways, clearing the keys of their cumbersome grit.
•
She was leaning backwards out of her bedroom window, tasting the rain as it dripped into her mouth, trickling down the sides of her cheeks and looping around her ears in watery strings. She couldn't wait for her mission to start – the rain had waylaid it, and her ShinRa 'guests' were having a drink in the inn facing her house, waiting for the rain clouds to leave off. But she was glad for the rain; she was more excited than anxious, but still anxious nonetheless about having to escort the hero of a world-dominating city. She could already imagine how the pretty man would turn out to be – pompous and asinine, always asking the obvious and waving his medals to justify his authority. She'd been introduced to them already, and he'd looked at her from such a dizzying height that she thought the ground she'd been standing on had actually receded in his mighty presence.
Soldiers from the city of metal and artifice. What could they possibly know of the mountains, of the art of loving beings that bloomed without the help of a damned Mako suppository? She wondered what, in their mind, held the place of her conception of beauty. They certainly didn't value the same things as the mountain folk did – though perhaps music was something they had in common? She believed music transcended cultures; believed it to be above warfare and political negotiations when it came to the capacity of unifying people. So it had to be above what a simple conversation could do to test the affinities between such different people as she and the ShinRa heads.
Reeling back to an upright position, she wiped the rain from her fresh young cheeks and strode to her piano, making sure the window was wide open. Perhaps they'd hear… perhaps they'd come to an understanding, where harsh words and differing opinions only existed in furious triple-fortes and asymmetrical melodies.
•
Her fingers had been so white – so flexible and swift. She listened to the ripe silence of her old wooden friend, waiting, anticipating the moment where she'd shake the branches and watch the time-sodden fruit implode in a colourful, sticky mass of noise. She leaned forward, forehead coming to a rest against the edge of the upright instrument, a hazy ghost of a face coming to meet her on the other side of the wood… and then a wizened finger moved – creaked – knocked down a key, knocked out the silence – and a note rang out, soft and wheezy like a choked breath, ringing hoarsely in the darkness of the room.
Her breath was caught somewhere between her lungs and her mouth ; the note was like a spot of sunlight on an icy window pane, like the touch of a forgotten lover's lips. She pressed the note down again, recognizing it as the beginning of a melody she should've forgotten after all this time – she tried to remember, tried to bring it to her mind but her brain wouldn't have it. It was a secret locked away with the her from years ago, crouching in the shadows of her subconscious where she had stuffed away all the links to her old misery.
But the melody… it was on the tip of her tongue. No – the tip of her fingers. She couldn't sing it, but she could feel that her fingers remembered they unfurled, to each their own key, and she let them take control, closing her eyes and feeling her way through the old paths.
Sing then, you bruised old hands.
And sing they did.
The brambles caught them, stray roots rose to trip them, but stubbornly her fingers made their way – the keys were as stubborn as unyielding rocks first but as she delved deeper into the melody they fell away, becoming stepping stones to lead her further into their forgotten realms. Her fingers curled and crept and flew and fell and stroked and kneaded – soon they were quite at home and she could only sit back with her face turned upwards, eyes still closed as she explored with her ears the music that her hands offered her.
•
The notes snapped into the air, quick and mischievous, and then her foot came down on the peddle and stretched them out, giving them languor and elegance, before picking up again, her hands bouncing on the keys as weightlessly as if she were merely pulling at strings to form the melody.
The song ended and she let the music trickle and waver unpredictably before forming another one, and as was her custom she couldn't help falling back on the melancholy songs that she adored. The right-hand melody undulated in the damp air as the left-hand bass dragged its baggage of nostalgia behind it, and she rocked from side to side as the mood overtook her, milky fingers travelling over the keys as lovingly as if they were a man's spine.
•
And as she gained confidence her left hand scorched the wooden keys, hitting them as a blunt axe would an exposed nape, and her right hand descended in a violent and bloody cascade of notes, her wrists cracking every now and then as they shook off the rust of disuse. She had been right, her playing had the quality of a haggard soldier's voice rather than that of a sweet young girl, and she let her frustrated hands hurl their hatred to the silence, thick veins pulsing as they fed fury to their respective fingertips.
There was a presence behind her who was just as curiously enrapt as she was by the song. And whether or not she was aware of it couldn't be noticed in her concentrated expression.
•
When she came down the next day to greet her guests and begin the mission, she couldn't really see if her music had changed anything, or if they had even heard any of it. She glanced at the great white mane of hair that tumbled over the battle-worn pauldrons and leather sleeves of that damned General, not noticing any change of expression, though he had at one point observed her with a curious glimmer in his eye when her attention had been elsewhere.
•
"You cannot finish that song," a deep voice said as she curled into herself, hands slowing and releasing a spectral cloud of music. She didn't seem to hear – didn't seem to care. "If you do, it will steal you away with it."
Her left hand rose as the vibrations of the last chord rang – and she let it drop like a guillotine, the wretched bass notes rolling through the air. And her hand began to tremble, quietly echoing the chord, repeating it until the voice rose and rose and her entire torso shook as the chord refused to leave her, refused to change, galloping up the crescendo.
"I can finish it," she breathed hoarsely, eyes wide as she looked at that feral hand, knocking an ominous octave into the soft reminiscence of the melody's beginning. The octave echoed in her ribcage, encircled her heart and pressing against her lungs till it threatened to make her bones crack – if she let it go she was afraid of what might happen.
"It's out of your control."
"No it's not," she gasped as her hands came together, dragging each other out of the bloody mess of notes and climbing up to the middle keys in loud, dread-filled chords like gunshots. Bang, bang, bang. And the musical corpse fell in a disgraceful heap, and after a pregnant pause she slowly knelt to comb her fingers through its bloodied hair, softly, until the melody become frail and her back straightened a little, no longer weighed down by the intensity of it.
There was a leathery warmth on her nape but she went on, shackled to her own hands. Went on, and on, and on, as though her victim was taking an intolerably long time to die, obstinately clinging to his last breaths.
"You will never finish it." That voice again. It was deep… sounded like Vincent's.
"I don't care if it's the wood that cracks or my own bones," Tifa said in a low voice as if to herself, "One of us will have to leave this melody alive."
There was a smile just above her head.
"Are you so sure of that?"
"There's no cheating in music," was her justification of the ultimatum.
"Oh but you are already cheating," the voice told her amusedly, "You aren't playing. Your hands are."
"I can't help that," the woman said, her voice as languorous as the melody she played- she was in a state of concentration that seemed to shield her from the reality around her, as though she was having this conversation with herself. "It's a primitive art- no thought whatsoever. That way being a spectator of your own playing isn't cheating at all."
"I was under the impression you were rather submerged in the waves than standing on the higher ground, watching the storm."
"Maybe I was," she murmured, "But not any more."
She still went on, holding her dying melody in her lap. There was a susurration of silk against her naked waist, and then leather followed, brushing down the cool dip of skin. Lips grazed her earlobe, and an insufferable warmth grew over her neck as the voice came nearer.
"Finish it."
The notes rang hollow as the cocoon of concentration splintered.
"I…"
His breath trickled along her jaw, making her spine tingle.
"Isn't it easy to let ourselves sink mindlessly into our primitive arts," the voice whispered, lips moving just behind her ear, almost tickling her. And as he spoke, there was sliver of white in the corner of her eyes, a cold aura of something deadly. Reason seemed to struggle its way back into Tifa's mind again as she searched for a retort – her back froze, arms gained by the ice, until her fingers were overtaken by the blizzard of sudden consciousness. She'd thought the voice was at first her subconscious nagging as usual – then afterwards she'd guessed it was probably Vincent who'd followed her here… but those silvery strands of hair that sifted down past her neck and over her chest belonged to only one man.
The melody finally died. And he, the man with the voice, the man with the leather-clad hands, threw a spell onto the wooden instrument – the ice quite literally gained it too, freezing the vibration before it bled away into nothingness, freezing the song inside its cavernous dwelling. Icicles hung from the wooden edges; the keys hid beneath a misty mirror, and the surfaces of mahogany became slippery and glazed.
"Preserved in ice," he murmured, "if ever you should think of a proper end for it."
"What are you doing here?" Tifa gasped; she didn't dare move from her seat, painfully aware of her inappropriate clothing in such an encounter. Did she have her gloves? Crisis, where had she put them –
"Ah, I was wondering where your consciousness had gone," said the fallen General in his sarcastic baritone. "You know, I could ask you the same thing. This isn't a very safe place to be, alone in the middle of the night, wild beasts on the loose all around."
"I – was – just playing."
"Indeed you were."
She swallowed, unable to believe she was cornered like this. He was right – what a ridiculous situation, alone in her old bedroom with the bloodlusting legend himself! And Cloud and the others were sleeping peacefully in the inn, just on the other side of the road… Her slender fingers found the gloves, tucked in her skirt as they were, and she gulped again, searching wildly for something to say in order to have the time to put them on.
"D-did you recognize it?"
Planet, she was attempting small talk with a man who had slaughtered her father and set fire to her entire hometown. Smashing.
"The piece you just played?" He seemed as calm as ever, which made the whole situation even more horridly disturbing and ridiculous. "Oh, yes. Though you played it very differently, five years ago."
"Oh, you -" One hand was gloved; she fiddled with the other glove, heart beating wildly in her temple; " – you actually remember? Down to the details?" She gave a manic laugh, completely out of her mind as she shoved her fingers into the muddled leather folds.
"Yes, yes I do," he said quite conversationally.
"It's a posthumous Nocturne."
"Ah." He seemed delighted to learn this. "Posthumous pieces are always the sweetest."
The leather squeaked and rustled in the silence that followed and she just about died from an overdose of nerves and adrenaline as she finally fit the glove on her second hand.
Just as amused as ever, Sephiroth asked in a perfectly gentlemanly way, "Would you like any help with those?"
"No it's quite fine," Tifa let out in one breath before whirring around and sending a terrific punch straight at his face, her torso twisting on the piano stool. She wasn't thinking straight – all she could think of was that this man was the enemy, and her fists being functional, she couldn't really hang around talking pleasantly until Cloud and the others woke up and hauled their butts over.
He dodged her fist so swiftly, she wondered if her aim had been accurate – her fist soared through a snowy curtain of hair, and then out of nowhere his hand clamped painfully around her wrist before she could retract her arm – he twisted it cruelly and she gave a sharp cry, forced to stand up to endure the pain though her knees almost instantly buckled.
"Primitive to the last," Sephiroth taunted her, holding her down so easily that she felt the old humiliation of defeat begin to impede on her initial fear. With a feral yell of effort she broke away and twisted around, aiming a spinning kick at him, knocking the piano stool out of way as she went – he danced around her, catching her just beneath her knee and pulling her roughly towards him, her leg curling around his hip as though this was some kind of insane tango. But she wouldn't let herself be intimidated by the ease with which he handled her – her hands curled around his shoulders as she threw her forehead at his nose and he, taken by surprise no doubt, let go of her – she stumbled backwards, having completely lost her balance, and fell against the slippery block of ice that her piano had become. Panting wildly, she saw by the light of the moon that his nose wasn't even bleeding while her forehead ached – what the hell! This is unfair – but she'd forgotten he was an enhanced being and she was just… just a crude martial artist with breakable bones and a geyser-nose when hit.
While her hands slid over the slick surface of the frozen piano in the search of, well, she didn't know what, he was walking towards her in all his dark, leather-clad splendour. His white mane of hair tumbled down his chest, ghostly strands criss-crossing over his arms and the dented metal of his armour. His eyes flashed from beneath his silvery brow, the moonlight catching the poisonous green hue.
"Impressive manners," he deadpanned, coming near enough for the tips of their feet to touch.
"What do you want?" she growled, her lust for vengeance successfully overcoming any fear she might've had. "Why are you here?"
He smiled so that the dim light glanced off of his canines. "Your mindless art called out to me."
She glared at him. "I didn't know you were still capable of appreciating things like that."
"I have sunk very low in your esteem, then?" he said, irony dripping from his words.
"Oh, I'm sure you can appreciate what's mindless, at least," she spat at him, "But art? I don't think so."
"I've sunk very low, indeed," he drawled, eyebrows rising in mock-indignation. "My thoughts on that matter haven't changed: art encompasses everything, including the mindless. Life and death always hide in the strings of a song – if you are acquainted to music, then you're just as acquainted to those notions, killer or not."
"Oh, so, what sort of waltz would illustrate you hacking down my father? Huh? What sort of grand opera would suit the burning of my entire fucking hometown?" There were tears in the corners of her eyes, tears of rage that had been building up ever since her father had wept blood. "There is no art in murder, you madman. If that's what you heard when you listened to me play – if murder is all it brought to your mind –"
"But it was full of murder," Sephiroth chided, "Vengeance is an endless desire, continuing even after the deed is done- your song illustrated that perfectly, wouldn't you agree?"
"I would indeed," Tifa snarled, "You're the exception to every man's moral principles, anyway. Killing you would be deliverance rather than murder."
He was far too close to her. "Thank you for the flattery… but you're a woman. Morality doesn't strictly apply to you."
"And it applies to you?" she scoffed.
"Do you think it does?" he shot back.
"…No, I don't think so. I think once you cross the threshold of dealing people's cards for them – of stealing their last breaths – morality no longer applies. You stop being simply defined as man or woman: you become a predator." The idea was too vast for her to put it into words- she once again cursed her barmaid's vocabulary, pitted as it was against the coherence of this wretched man.
"How accurate," Sephiroth complimented her, lips cracking at the corners to form a horridly jagged smile. "You're right in saying that I am no man."
"I know that. To me, murderers like you return to the decrepit, basic human state of mind. No gender. No identity. Just raw anger and insanity." She'd finally gotten to the end of her idea – looking up at him, she dispelled the linguistic concentration that had overtaken her and injected her crimson eyes with old hatred, feeling its familiar sting.
"A perfect mind for primitive arts." His smile grew just as his shadow gradually blocked out the moonlight from her sweet face. Leather-clad fingers came up to touch her darkened cheek – she slapped them away in a reflex.
"If murder is your art then you seem to be losing your touch," she snarled at him, "I thought talking usually isn't the right paint to apply? Words tends to stick."
"The one who told you that has no taste," he said, lips dropping to form the words with a languid elegance – that mouth was a bloodstain in the midst of his ghastly face, and she couldn't keep her eyes off it. "A little colour from the victim's mind to complement mine. It gives a little extra dab of…"
"Realism?"
"…pyschedelia, rather. You never make much sense when death is staring you in the eye. And death never makes much sense, either."
"You're right there," Tifa said, curling her fingers into fists, "Since the beginning of this conversation you have made absolutely no fucking sense. Even the fact that we're having a conversation makes no sense."
"And yet you followed me down into it."
She didn't know what to say to that. Snowy strands of hair floated around her lean frame – she'd forgotten how close he'd got. She could've calculated which blow could've knocked him out of the way to give her enough time to alert the others but… something held her back. A thought like, This is my kill. And unconsciously, it was bending her will, gluing her hands to the iced piano behind her.
"Well, I hope I've been an adequate colour to your palette," she said in an almost haughty tone, "Don't you think it's time to blend it up to the corners and finish it off?"
"Blend," Sephiroth looked positively delighted, in his calmly crazy sort of manner. "I suppose it depends on your technique. Perhaps you'll spoil what I've started."
"Stop flattering yourself. Your senseless sketches aren't impressive at all."
"Then show me your expertise."
And she did. She tackled him full-on, shoulder crashing into his rock-hard abdomen, and it was only because he hadn't been expecting it that his spine curled inward and his feet lost their imperturbable balance – he'd been expecting a good old-fashioned knee between the legs, but clearly this lass wasn't as old-school as he'd thought – he caught her shoulders, leather fingers digging painfully into her equally hard, muscular frame, and he felt his back crash against the bed that stood by the far wall – he tensed beneath her, a booted foot stomping on the frail wooden floor, cracking the floorboards as he pitched his entire weight against her – but she'd already twisted around and sent a fire spell at her piano – he was even more baffled by her actions but there was no time for speculation. The ice broke away as the wood exploded in a spectacle of light and twanging cords, the frozen vibration escaping and filling the room with a musical dread. And just as the explosion started, just in the milliseconds where the wood and ice shards began to fly across the room Tifa grabbed him by the straps across his chest and gave a savage cry as she let his weight overcome hers – gravity pulled him further into his initial plunge and she swerved behind him, pulling him around by his straps so that they were face to face, positions reversed.
Ice shards flew. His hand moved – he cast Shell over his back but he was too late, wooden spikes zipping through his leather sleeves, and he gave a grunt of pain as blood burst from the gashes. He stared down at her, who clung to him still – they were so close that he could feel her breath on his lips, and she could feel the droplets of sweat dripping down from his chin to the hollow between her collarbones. The burst of heat had had its effect – but so had the shards. Thick lines of blood came running down from his hairline, embracing the curve of his brow and cheekbone before oozing down across his cheeks to catch between his lips.
"Colourful, indeed," he said, blood trickling from the corners of his mouth and staining his chin.
"Thank you," she stammered back, and then before she had time to think he'd taken her by the wrists and swung her up into the air – she felt the rush of air, felt her blood rush down to her feet, and then he'd let go and she was crashing into the remainders of her piano, her legs hacked by the strained metal cords and broken pieces. Her hand had come down automatically to steady her in a crouch and she yelled in pain as the burning metal singed her skin – she jumped up without having even seen where her enemy was, but the room was small, she had every chance of catching a part of him – her hands came into contact with something cold and hard, and before she knew it her wrists were encaged again, and she writhed till he'd pulled her around and back against his chest, arms around her shoulders, locking her to him.
"Let me blur those edges for you." His lips were just by her ear, moving against the tender spiral of cartilage and she shivered- then his hands found hers and he pressed cruelly into the cuts and burns that lacerated them. Her vision escaped her as a blinding pain engulfed her entire body – electricity ran from her hands and straight to her heart, and she screamed despite herself.
"It seems I'm lacking a bit of red over here," he murmured into her ear again, probably referring to her lack of resistance, "Don't you have any spare?"
The pain had rendered her bestial- she could only think of dealing him pain, and the claustrophobia of being trapped against his chest only made things worse. She pushed back against him quite suddenly, making him stagger backwards- his boot caught on the stray piano cords and he stumbled to the floor, letting her go – wasting no time, she whirled around and fell on top of him, straddling him to keep him in place and reeling back a fist to shatter that ghostly face.
"I'm afraid I have more purple than red," she told him as he attempted to pick himself up with his hands, and her fist soared to apply the colour to his eye. But his hand caught her wrist for the umpteenth time and he gazed up at her quite calmly, leaning on his other elbow, blood marring the corners of his lips.
"You're wrong," he spoke softly, hardly even panting; "Crimson is leaking from your every pore."
"And from yours," she retorted, thinking he was referring to blood.
"I speak conceptually," he said in the same soft voice, and his eyes flashed up to hers; she knew his next move but somehow didn't have the time to anticipate it, because next thing she knew he was pulling her down and rolling over her, so that she ended up sprawled out on the floor and he was straddling her, holding her wrists against the shard-covered floor at either side of her head. His mouth was closed – his hair fell around her in a soft, glowing veil, and she could look absolutely nowhere else than his face. She stared up at the fine, elegant lines that described his eyes; the shadows under his cheekbones; the purple curve of his lips.
"Red is the colour of indulgence," he told her, "Of lust."
"What!" Her eyes widened, too surprised to keep struggling. "Last time I checked I was beating the crap out of you, not trying to seduce you." Her eyes narrowed. "Now there's a proof of your lingering masculinity– misinterpreting a woman's body language."
"I was just commenting on your style of fighting," he said simply, "Alarmingly erotic. Not that it affects me - but I can see how efficient it must be with weaker minds."
"You're hardly stoic in your own style of fighting," she snarled, "Sleazy bastard."
"Well I admit it's been a while since I've been in proper hand-to-hand combat. Striking from the tip of a six-foot long sword eventually makes you yearn for real, physical contact."
"So you grope and loom and get all intimate in an attempt to destabilize me?"
"I don't grope," he rectified. "And you were attempting the same sort of destabilization, however unconsciously."
"This is bound to make a very erotic piece of art once it's finished, then, is that what you're getting at?" She refused to let her gaze slip from the burn of his insistent stare.
"A red-soaked canvas, indeed." Sly bastard.
"Then let's finish this."
He smiled suddenly. "What did I tell you about vengeance? You can never finish it."
"Well why don't we freeze it up, in case we find an appropriate end for it some day?" she paraphrased him with an ironic look about her.
"I think it would be better to keep it burning," he murmured, "Incandescence only lasts as long as you feed its fire, whereas ice lasts until you break it."
"Ice lasts without direct intervention, you mean?"
"Yes. Ice is too impersonal."
She stared up at him. "This is personal to you?"
"You have no idea."
She couldn't tell if he was being serious – but then suddenly his hand was on her throat, and with her freed hand she instantly grabbed at his arm, trying to pull his hand away, but he wasn't even pressing very hard so she could still breath. He leaned further over her, his mouth mere inches from hers, pale lashes lowered over his alien eyes as he contemplated her. He was derangingly handsome and her body agreed with her, though this was the furthest she could get from the 'right moment' to think such thoughts.
"What are you doing?" she growled, infuriated by her weak position, out of her mind with confusion and pain (and arousal tangled somewhere in there) and when was he going to start making some sense, for fuck's sake –
"Like I said," he murmured, "Keeping it burning."
"You're insane," she said.
"No. Just sadist," was his reply.
"Same thing in my book."
"You have it wrong. Sadists are far more sophisticated."
"Sophisticatedly insane?"
"Enough to think of another's pain as an irresistible delicacy in any encounter."
"Maybe I'll come to think that too, when you'll be bloody and begging for death at my feet."
His lips were at but a hair's-breadth from her own; she felt him smile.
"A woman may dream." His breath stole over her mouth, hot and metallic.
"Fuck you."
She felt blood on her tongue as his lips melted over hers – immediately her wrists writhed in his iron grip, and for all response he only deepened the kiss, bloody tongue teasing her own and she could've screamed for the disgust it provoked – but there was something else, too, as though the mere contact of his lips ripped a burning path down through her core, hitting her lower body, and she could've denied it all she liked but you can't always control your arousal, however your intellect screams at you to pull away. He broke away to take a breath, crimson mouth lingering over her own, and she would've spat at him had there been the room to do so.
"You were right in one thing," she growled, "Killing you will only be more delicious after that."
He only smiled, over-shadowed eyes glinting in the moonlight as he looked down at her before heaving a small sigh. "If there's one thing I miss, it's definitely women and their sensitivities."
"Well I definitely won't be missing murderers and their sadistic desires," Tifa snarled, "Get off me!"
"We'll see about that," Sephiroth retorted, "You never know just how much you need something before you lose it."
"I'd say rather, before I purposefully kill it."
He laughed. "As long as you have something to remember it by, I suppose the manner of parting hardly matters."
"That's a nice idea. Maybe I'll keep your head on my mantelpiece when we'll be through."
"Oh, I doubt you'd be so morbid," Sephiroth chided. "I think you'd be a little more artistic than that."
She scoffed. "Yeah, I think I might write a little Nocturne in memory of how I owned your ass."
"Or you could play one of my creations," Sephiroth smiled, "Seeing as the posthumous works are always sweetest."
"You don't write music," Tifa laughed bitterly.
"Then you'll have to write it for me," the fallen General shot back.
"And play it only when you're dead?"
"Why not? And of course, if you are the one that ultimately dies, I shall play it in your honour."
Her lips curled into a hateful smile. "Deal."
• • •
It seemed the General had a fondness for toying with what he'd eventually, inevitably destroy. She'd never spoken of that night to the others – it turned out the General had cast a Silence spell over her house, so anything that transpired there couldn't be heard from outside. It was, in a sense, 'their little secret'… because hatred can be as strong a bond as love, and Tifa had wanted to keep it to herself. But then once the deed was supposedly done, the General dead, and several months had gone by… she couldn't possibly explain why a package had come in for her, bearing a stack of blank music sheets.
Cloud remembered the awkwardness of that night at the Seventh Heaven – he remembered how Tifa's lips had parted as she drew the thin stack from its brown envelope, and she'd stood there with the stack in one hand, envelope in the other for a few seconds with different expressions racing across her face so fast it was impossible to keep up.
"What is that?" He'd come up behind her, looking over her shoulder; there was an elegant italic scrawl of dark green ink entitling the blank music as 'Nocturne Posthume'.
He looked over at Tifa, and to his surprise she was smiling a secret smile, eyes strangely fierce as they rested on the document.
"Just some unfinished business," said she. And after that night he'd often hear her scribbling away, piano notes ringing as a melody took shape.
(… but it wasn't like she ever finished it.)
• • •
Contest entry for Amaranthos' TifaSeph challenge. Thanks for reading! I hope it wasn't too incomprehensible.