Nanaki had never understood humans' fascination with fire.
Fire was necessity, obviously -- light and heat when the world was unwelcoming and one didn't have thick fur. But that didn't explain why they stared. It became routine, sitting around a campfire with his Avalanche friends, in the warm circle of firelight, deep shadows and the scent of fresh woodsmoke. Sometimes they talked, and laughed. Sometimes they didn't. But the others stared into the flames, like life's great secrets lay there, and Nanaki wondered if there really was something in there, something with more allure than just fire's natural prettiness. And when there was no campfire, Nanaki's friends would sometimes stare at his tail instead. It always took him a moment to remember that his spark looked like fire and was apparently close enough for them. And just like with a campfire, they stared like there was something deeper to see.
When Cloud stared into fire, something dark burned in his eyes, like old pain, like storm's thunder. He had described, voice low and shivering with hate, that day in Nibelheim when Sephiroth had just stood there and smirked, surrounded by cruel, laughing flames, and Nanaki could imagine it so clearly that he sometimes felt he had been there, too. Cloud had good reason to be moved by fire. When Nanaki saw Cloud staring at his tail, he would flick the spark behind his back, as casually as he could manage, and that was enough for the dark, pained look to fade. Most of the time.
Tifa and Barret stared at fire like that, but they were never so intense. They had old pain, they remembered terrible times engulfed in fire, but it never built to simmering rage like it did in Cloud. They would stare for just a moment, enough for something to flicker across their faces like a shadow, and then they looked away. Barret seemed to gather something from it, some stiff determination. Tifa just grew quiet, the sad, thinking type of quiet.
Cait Sith would just look at fire for a moment, like taking a snapshot to tuck away in his circuitry. Why was he saving it? For Reeve? Nanaki hadn't bothered to wonder about it when the robot's betrayal still hurt, but then he imagined distance, thousands of miles between the cat and the man, and thought that maybe it was lonely within Shinra, lonely like glass walls and harsh chemicals' reek had been for him. It was as much as Cait Sith could do, sharing the sight of bright campfire and the presence of teammates, of friends. Nanaki's spark must have seemed like a clever blend of the two.
Cid was a lot like fire himself, and not just when he was haloed with smoke. Both were alive, vigorously so, whether idly warm or blazing. He sometimes took a stick and idly stirred campfire coals, to watch sparks swirl upward and glow a little with the simple pleasure of it. It was the same contentment as when Cid was looking at at blue sky over the Highwind's wheel. Didn't the airship have furnaces to power it? Nanaki didn't know the first thing about aeroengineering, but furnaces sounded right. He imagined Cid in the boiler room, tending great sweltering beds of coals, no detail of his airship too mundane to care about.
Vincent looked at fire the way he looked at everything -- silently contemplating, probably picking apart details, probably knowing more than all of them put together. And then, sometimes, he was even quieter than usual. Nanaki supposed that that was when Vincent remembered, turned over and pondered the past like a coin between his fingers. Did any of those memories involve fire, or was it simply a convenient place to gaze? There was no way to know; Vincent never told them. Although he sometimes caught Nanaki watching him, and gave the slightest of smiles like the two of them shared a secret.
Yuffie treated fire like something special, like it was a relief and a novelty to curl up near its thick heat, like Nanaki's spark-tipped tail was a delightful sleight-of-hand trick she couldn't figure out. She had told them about the flames within the Da-Chao statues of Wutai, eager chattering about the their history, their significance. Her home was dear to her and she felt and fought for what was dear -- it was obvious when she talked about traditions. As obvious as when she had given back their Materia and wiped away frustrated tears.
Aeris...? Nanaki thought back on his time spent with her, from the lab to the lake, and couldn't place how Aeris had been around fire. She had seemed the same no matter where she was, steady and confident. And she hadn't stared at his tail. She had looked at Nanaki like she knew his spark was nothing unusual, just a part of him -- maybe she did know that, maybe the Planet had whispered in her ear about Nanaki's kind and their soulsparks. He wished he could be that knowledgable, that sure of himself.
Fire and life were very much the same, now that he thought about it. That was why someone could have fire in their eyes, or a fiery spirit, it was why people could act warm or burn out. Life was about taking and appreciating opportunities like wood for the burning, and making the world welcoming as best one could. And maybe his kind's tails mimicked fire for a reason -- their lives were long, from their tight hold on what was important. Brave Seto still had a flame-shaped tailtip even though fire couldn't turn to stone. He still had his soulspark because he wasn't really dead -- he still watched and protected and cared even though there was no movement in him, he had spirit still and Nanaki had sensed it, felt it and howled with its power. Fire and life -- that was why humans were fascinated by flames. Their lives were short, they were little more than kittens by his race's measure and they were drawn to bright vitality like it would guide them, help them grow and take a stronger grip on what really mattered.
Was that why Nanaki's friends stared at his tail? Were they drawn by his fire-like looks, by the plethora of time and potential that lay ahead of him -- was Nanaki the very embodiment of life to those around him? He wasn't that much different from them. Nanaki saw life in all of his friends, just different moods to their flames.
He kept watching them -- Cloud and Tifa and Barret, Cid and Vincent and Yuffie. Aeris's face ghosted at the back of his thoughts, and he sometimes glanced at Cait Sith to wonder what Reeve looked like. Curled in toward the warm campfire aura, chin pillowed on his paws, Nanaki watched the emotions flickering through their expressions, heard the feeling in their voices. Fire and life, friendship and spirit and the way tree branches smelled as they burned. Necessity indeed.