Disclaimer – The only thing Square Enix shares with me is the first letter of our names.
A/N – This is the result of Shiny-Glor-Chan's Final Fantasy Crossover Challenge over on LiveJournal, except I was silly and filled in my own request when nobody else did. The title is a twist on a chapter title from a book by Robin Jarvis, one of my favourite authors while I was growing up. The original was Intrigues of a Reflected Dream.
Prompt – FF7!Zack/KH!Aerith and memory.
Memories of a Reflected Dream
© Scribbler, May 2008.
One day, when they're on the battlements, Aerith stops and Yuffie walks on a few paces without her before realising she's talking to empty air. She often talks to empty air, but generally because nobody else is around and silence is boring, so talking to empty air when someone else is present and talk-to-able is dumb.
When she looks back, she sees Aerith's gaze has become unfocussed and her lips are slightly parted as if on the cusp of a gasp.
"You okay, Ponytail? You look like you've just seen a ghost."
"I…" Aerith starts, then stops and swivels to face the wasteland outside Hollow Bastion.
Yuffie follows her gaze, focussed on one distant piece of flat ground that drops away into a sheer cliff below. Yuffie's been there before; you can see all of Hollow Bastion spread out like a mosaic from that vantage point. She spent half an hour squinting and holding out her hands, pretending she could pick up the whole place and balance it in her palms. As she squints now, however, she makes out a familiar blond head and black leathers.
"Looks like Cloud's back from his travels."
Aerith just stares. There's a sense of anticipation about her, swirling into her usual calm like mixing strawberry sauce with chocolate sauce in a big pink pot of half-melted ice-cream.
Mmm… ice-cream…
"Hey, you wanna go get something to eat? Which roughly translated means 'I'm a hungry baby bird – feed me now!' Hey. Hel-looo. Ponytail, wake up."
"What?" Aerith blinks at her. "Sorry, did you say something?"
"Geez-Louise, you're getting spacier than Cloud and Leon put together."
Yuffie balances on tiptoe, even though Aerith isn't that much taller than her, and lightly raps her knuckles against the older woman's head. Aerith's hair is springy and soft. When she lets it down it goes every-freaking-where, like this giant cascade of brown with hints of auburn. She doesn't let it loose very often, though, always insisting on tying it up with that threadbare pink ribbon. It's nicer against Yuffie's knuckles than Heartless or crunching bone, both of which she has felt far too often.
Aerith blinks again, but then she smiles. She has one of those smiles that can light up a room when she's still on the other side of the door. "I'm sorry, Yuffie. I was just a little … distracted." Her eyes slide to the cliff again. "I thought I remembered … but it couldn't have been. The only person I know with black hair is you."
Yuffie's nonplussed, but Aerith makes a lot of comments nobody can understand. Half the time she's fully with them, one hundred percent in the buggy-with-Heartless-and-Nobodies-and-evil-sorceresses present, but the other half it's like she inhabits this world all of her own, stored behind her eyes and a secret, thoughtful smile.
"Because I'm a unique and beautiful snowflake. Who is hungry. Food now?"
"I left an apple pie cooling on the side this morning."
Cool! Aerith always makes the best pies. And cakes. And stodgy sweet things. Tifa can cook like a demon too, but she's more of a fried chicken wings and grits kind of girl – she doesn't have to worry about calories because her gruelling training schedule expels every single ounce of grease in sweat. Yuffie tried to join her once and even her super-duper-ninja legs trembled to keep her upright afterwards. You eat Tifa's food to feel alive, but you eat Aerith's to feel comforted. You eat Yuffie's food if you have a death wish or a stomach made of asbestos.
Yuffie catches Aerith looking over her shoulder as they go inside.
"Yuffie, do you ever dream of things that couldn't have happened?" The question in unexpected, especially from her.
"Mostly I dream about cigars and railway tunnels, but sometimes I dream about what should've happened – like Radiant Garden being all not-Heartless-y and Leon smiling and Cid letting me bum cigarettes without threatening me with industrial tools and Cloud not being crazy and junk." Yuffie has a vague notion that this might be a tactless thing to say, but Aerith is long-used to her nomadic sensitiveness. Cloud is Cloud, and skirting around his Big Crazy Craziness isn't going to make it suddenly not be there. "Why?"
"He was so close," Aerith murmurs inaudibly. "He almost reached me."
"What?"
"Nothing. It doesn't matter. Just a … dream, I suppose." Aerith turns to go inside, leaving Yuffie to follow.
Yuffie starts to follow, then swings around and leaps onto one of the parapets, feet apart and legs straight. She cups a hand around her eyes and stares, but Cloud has already vanished from view. The only clouds around are the ones promising rain. Thunder rumbles overhead and Yuffie squints, but the cliff remains resolutely empty. Whatever caught Aerith's attention isn't there now.
She dashes back inside as the first raindrops hit the stonework.
Fin.