A/N: This fic arose as a) an attempt to present Red XIII as more than just a bestiality fetish, b) a try at the theme or subject matter of "mono no aware," of which you can find a description below, and c) the result of constant musings on Red XIII. I also wanted to write stories about pairings that weren't absolutely obvious or conventional. I've always felt that Red XIII deserves more of a chance at romance than what he gets.

This is the revised version of the story, mostly for grammar. I'm awfully proud of this piece. It'd been rolling around in my head for a long time now, and now that it's finally out, it's such a relief. This, along with The Keeper of the Voices, was my favorite story to write. As always, criticism is more than welcome, as are flaming arrows, death rays, and the occasional death threat. It's all good pickings for me.

Final Fantasy VII is the sole property of Square Enix. I use these characters without permission and solely for free entertainment purposes only.

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There was a time, once, when I would have given everything for her. My life, my home, my pride... even my species. A part of me is glad I didn't.

Another part wishes that I had damned my species to hell.

Mono no Aware
By Kaj-Nrig

I don't know when it happened. Maybe it was when we first met, maybe it was when she comforted me, maybe it was never during our time together, but AFTER we parted that it happened. That's beside the point. The point is that it happened.

I believe it was... two years? One? It is so foggy to me now. Such and such years after Meteor fell down and the Planet deemed humans (and myself) worthy of existence, we were reunited in my hometown. We lay, all eight of us, by the Cosmo Candle, each one delighted and ecstatic to reunite under the banner of AVALANCHE.

Yuffie had traveled from Wutai, and she was betrothed. Quite against her will, if I remember correctly. The lucky, or perhaps unlucky, prince was a man named Taichi Yagami.

Vincent had surprised me by showing up, and I was surprised further to see his hair losing its rich dark color, his face creasing, and his entire body slowly massaging itself away. He later told me that he had undone the alterations that Hojo had performed on him. The time he'd lost was quickly catching up to him. He died five years later due to advanced age.

Barret had been working, as we all knew he would, to rebuild his hometown. When he came, he proudly displayed his young Marlene, who had grown into a very wonderful and beautiful young girl. Elmyra came with him, and although the gathering brought sad memories and tears to her eyes, she truly did have a good time at the reunion. She spoke to me, once, and asked if I could hear her daughter in the Lifestream. When I nodded that yes, sometimes I did, she asked me to tell her that she loved her. She also died a few years later; the rest of us learned only after her death that she had had cancer. It's my belief that she never fought it. She probably saw it as her time to be reunited with her husband and daughter.

Cid arrived with his wife, Shera. In grand fashion, might I add. With about as much squabbling between the pair as a cage full of canaries, they parked their airship at the front gates and blocked off travelers from around the world, and Cid's excuse to them was, "Ah, screw all of you! I could make the trip there and back in two hours!"

Reeve, busy as he was with the restoration of the world, never made the meeting. I assume that there was also no lack of bad blood between himself and the rest of the members of AVALANCHE, myself included. Regardless, he did send a letter of greeting.

And she... she came with Cloud, traveling the furthest of all of them, coming all the way from Kalm. They'd been living close to each other. Never WITH each other, they never did get past the stage of friendship, but always within contact distance. They were best friends for life, and I suppose I should thank him for the opportunity and lessons he provided me.

When I saw them walking up the Canyon steps, I felt a giddy excitement urge me to meet them, and as the three of us made our way to the light of the Candle, I looked up at the pair. "It's good to see you again," I said, and they both nodded and returned the sentiment. Tifa reached down and mussed my hair, and, teenage arrogance aside, I didn't mind feeling her hand run through my mane at all.

"So how's being 'Guardian of Cosmo Canyon' going for you?" Cloud asked as we made it to the Candle.

"It's amazing. There is so much to learn about the Planet. I don't think I'll ever be able to understand all of it."

"That's fine, Red. It wouldn't be much fun if you knew everything about life, would it?"

I laughed and nodded. "No. No, it would not."

"Hey, you two! Either of you pop the question yet!?" Yuffie interrupted, erupting upon the two like a volcano of molten youth. The rest of AVALANCHE joined in, and I eventually found myself lost in a sea of limbs, bodies, and errant feet.

I later had the time to wonder whether knowing everything about the world would've helped me deal with the next few days or not.

That night, she was nowhere to be found. Much of the world was asleep by then; I, though, found that I could observe the Planet much better at night. Perhaps it was the calm. Perhaps it was the relative silence. Whatever it was, it has stuck with me to this day.

After celebrating with Cloud and the others for what seemed like eternities chained together, I eventually found myself alone by the Candle's comforting glow. It sometimes spoke to me, but tonight it simply shone. However, even quiet, it seemed to communicate to me, as its fiery glow somehow illuminated a figure far off in the distance, a dim, singular form huddled on the sandy beach nearby.

The same giddy anticipation came over me then, but it also carried with it a strong sense of worry. Concern. And, I think now, maybe more than a bit of hope.

When I padded up the beach, I made my footfalls loud enough that I didn't surprise her. She turned to me, smiled that light, beautiful smile, tinged though it was with sadness, and returned to observing the ocean. I joined her and lay my head down on her warm and inviting lap, and she stroked my head idly while lost in a sea of thought. Peering up at her, I couldn't help but feel like I wanted to wash away the dismay and dejection that covered her face like dirt. She continued to toy with my hair, stroking it, swirling it, and it felt so much better than being surrounded by the Lifestream and all its wise voices.

After a long period of thought, a period in which the moon drifted from the horizon to the furthest reaches of the sky, she finally said, in a hushed voice, "I envy you, Nanaki."

"Why is that?" I asked, just as quietly.

"I sometimes wonder if it's better to not have someone to love than to love someone who you know will never love you back."

I thought, the moment she said those words, There's always someone for me to love: you. "I envy you, Tifa," I said, mimicking her.

"Why is that?" she returned playfully, and she probably thought it was a joke on my part.

"Because you've experienced something I probably won't ever get the chance to." She smiled and laughed a little at that, and it sounded good to hear that, even if it was still mostly sad. Mostly was better than completely.

There was a moment of silence, of supreme silence, one in which the two of us were completely at ease with each other, and I knew that we both felt something then, some hint of what we were to each other.

"You're a lot like me, you know that?" I finally said, and the question piqued her interest. She looked down at me and smiled again, smiled that half-haunted smile of hers.

"I suppose I am, huh?"

I nodded as best I could, stifled as I was by her legs and stomach. "We're both lonely and looking for our stars in the sky."

She laughed again, amused by the statement, and I couldn't help but smile myself.

Something streaked across the sky, then, and we followed its brilliant trail with our eyes. Looking into her eyes, I saw her remembering that night, six or seven or so years ago, when she'd sat at a well, and he'd made a promise, and I knew she was thinking about all the times he kept that promise.

"Let's make a wish," I offered.

"You believe in that stuff?"

"...no."

Chuckling at my response, she suggested, "How about a pact, then?" I agreed to that. We spent some time thinking up pacts. Well, I didn't. I spent my time gazing up into those wonderfully vibrant and reflective eyes of hers. All I thought about was how wonderful the night was. And I have a sneaking suspicion that she was doing the same.

"We'll both find our mates," I said at last. Her smile was radiant then, still somewhat sad and diminished, but it would return to its full vibrancy soon, and she agreed emphatically.

In the five years before Vincent's death, I received routine messages from her, each one detailing her life and making lighthearted jabs at my own. She had fallen for Cloud long ago, so she eventually picked herself back up and lived comfortably as his closest friend. The two enjoyed a unique and deep friendship that stemmed from their mutual rejection – he had been rejected by her when they were younger, and she had been dealt the same blow when they were older. Seeing that they would never be anything but good friends, each enjoyed much more fulfilled lives.

Vincent returned to Cosmo Canyon in his final days. He asked me whether there was such a thing as regrets being transferred from one life to another. If there was, he said, then he wanted to put his regrets to rest before he put himself to rest. I found myself unable to answer him then, but had I known then what I do now, I would have said that there was no such thing because regret only lived in those who chained themselves to the past.

The funeral was, true to his nature, very brief and to the point. Everyone once again returned to Cosmo Canyon, this time to mourn the passing of one of the few good men left in the world; even Reeve showed up, and it was through the ex-Turk's death that AVALANCHE and Shinra reconciled. I suppose that should've gone down as his greatest legacy, but I'd rather believe that he preferred to leave in silence and anonymity.

During the funeral ceremony, I met a calm-faced Tifa. We exchanged a few words and went to his body together to offer our best wishes, but we, like much of the others that visited, shed no tears.

Afterwards, after everyone had gone to sleep, I once again found her alone, this time by the Cosmo Candle. She cradled her long legs together, rocking gently back and forth. She smiled at me as I came into the firelight, and in that smile I saw another painful sadness, though it was subdued, almost like a ghost that was just barely visible through the fabric separating life and death.

"Hi, Nanaki," she whispered to me.

"Hi, Tifa," I said back, and I immediately found myself coming to sit next to her again. Just like last time. Though now I refrained from using her body as a headrest. "What's wrong?"

That ghostly, mysterious smile still played at her lips, and as she stared into the fire, she answered, "I never got a chance to ask him."

"Ask him...?"

"How he dealt with it all."

"You two were very much alike."

"Yeah..." That sad, apologetic smile begged for something to appease it. "Neither of us had a home or family.

"We both loved someone deeply.

"And we were both rejected." She laughed lightly. I felt a painful jab upon hearing that. There was so much that I wanted to say to her then, that I didn't have a family and that I loved her and that I didn't want to be rejected by her, now of all times, now when I most wanted her to stay and love me back. "And I can't even bring myself to cry for him. I understand how much pain he went through, but I can't shed a tear for him."

"I don't think you need to cry. If you cry, then that means that his life wasn't complete. I think he lived a complete life."

"You think so?"

"...yes. Yes, I do. I think you do, too." She didn't say anything to that, but I saw her smile broaden, becoming genuine and full of happiness for his completed life.

There was still a ghost of sorrow on her features, though, and I don't know why, but I suddenly got up and began to make my way back. "Come here," I told her, and suddenly I was giddy again, like a Yuffie with Materia. "There's something I want to show you."

Up in the observatory, I led her into the same room where Grandfather had long ago kept the Huge Materia safe. "This brings back memories," she whispered delightfully, and it made me infinitely happy that she was happy.

"You have no idea," I said, and I was intentionally cryptic, and as she looked confusedly at me, all I could do was grin back, goofy as I may have looked, and flicked the switch with my tail.

With a hum, the lights dimmed, and the constellations were once again illuminated. But this time, instead of a lift carrying us up into the ceiling, green tendrils began to seep up through the floor. Tifa gasped in shock as the wispy Lifestream flowed into the room, swirling in a rough circle around us.

"This is..." she began, but a strand of souls touched her cheek and she lost all her words. She could feel it, just as I could – the voices of the Lifestream filtered in and out of our consciousnesses, like they once did through the souls of the Cetra.

I went over to her and looked up at her. She gazed around before meeting my gaze, and there was an absolute wonder in her eyes that made my legs tremble. "Concentrate on him," I said, trapped within her shimmering irises. "Think about him and he'll speak to you."

She looked uncertainly at me, uncomprehending, but she nodded and closed her eyes.

I don't know what she learned while in her trance – I never asked, and I haven't asked to this day – but I saw her smile broaden and broaden until she was shining as brightly as the Lifestream, and she reached a hand out as if to grasp something. When her eyes opened again, she knelt down and hugged me, her scent soaking into the nerves of my nose. "...thank you, Nanaki. Thank you..."

"You're welcome."

They stayed in Cosmo Canyon for a day longer, she a day longer than that. When it came time for her to leave, she bid me fond farewell and thanked me once again, thanked me for everything I had given to her. I bid her fond farewell and accepted her thanks, but inside I wanted to tell her just how much I felt about her, just how much I truly wished for us to fulfill each other's pact. I stood by the Canyon entrance as she exited and rounded the corner. Irokuoy flanked me; he was watching her figure, as well, and I could smell the human lust in him, and I admit that I felt much the same. But there was also so much more – a yearning, a desperate, unfulfilled yearning to be with her, to make her mine and make me hers.

"Let's prepare the prayers-"

There was a shriek in the distance, followed by a distinctive roar, and I was bounding down ten steps a stride. Tifa... It had been her voice shrieking.

I found her huddled in a crack in the canyon, and even from my perch fifty feet above, I could see the fear and abject horror that threatened to swallow her eyes. In front of the makeshift cave, a large, flat-headed animal howled as it clawed at the rocky crack, its body balanced on two large, muscular legs.

She didn't see me, and she cried out in futile struggle, and I knew that she thought she was surely going to die. The creature, despite how large it was, had managed to somehow blindside her, and it was larger than any creature she had ever faced alone. It was larger than any I had faced as well.

Her screams reached up to me, and they pulled on me so strongly, so heavily, that I could bear it no longer. Tifa! I roared, low and deep and loud, raucously loud, deafeningly loud. I roared until I could no longer feel any more pain, any more heartache, anything else but the searing rage and hatred that this thing was putting MY LOVE in danger.

Within a moment, I was on the canyon floor, slashing and biting and stabbing and everything was simply a whirlpool of movement, nothing made sense except that I had to KEEP HER SAFE, keep HER safe, nothing else mattered but HER safety. Finally, my mouth found its jugular and I squeezed, I bit down until I could bite down no further, and then I wrenched, snapping from side to side. Tifa!

Blood began to squeeze out from between my teeth, and I wasn't sure if it was mine or the animal's, but its pulse began to fade and I was soon on the ground, dislodging my fangs with great difficulty. Tifa was somewhere, screaming my name, and it sounded so sweet, and I would've slapped myself for thinking such a thought if not for the fact that I had no hands.

I turned to her, and I must have looked just horrible then. My fangs dipped in blood and gore, my coat disheveled, and my eye flaring in a bestial glare, I would've been shocked if she HADN'T been disturbed.

"...Tifa..." I gasped, regarding her through the haze of red bloodlust. "...you're... okay..." I stepped toward her, and it was then that I realized that my front right leg was suffering from a horrible gash, no doubt courtesy of the creature's claws. I barely caught myself, and she must have noticed, because she instantly hurried out of the crevice.

"Nanaki!" she shouted, rushing over to my limping frame, clutching her ribs as she came over. "Nanaki!" Soon she was by my side, and green motes of light were flowing into my side, and the wound slowly closed in on itself. I inadvertently sniffed as she touched the healed flesh, and her scent once again filled my senses. It was heaven. It was hell. It was pure bliss mixed with body-rending pain in a way that was wholly unique, something that I would remember for the rest of my life.

She said something to me, but I was lost. Something was preoccupying my mind. Ignoring her words, I simply sniffed in deeply and smiled at her.

"I'm glad you're safe."

After a slow, ginger walk back to the Canyon, we found our way back to the observatory level. How we managed to scale those stairs and ladders is still beyond me.

Once inside, Tifa hastily set me down on the couch and procured large rolls of bandages with which to wrap my wounded leg.

She smelled good.

With smooth, quick motions that were a staple of her, whether it was at age twenty-one or forty-one, she wound the gauze around the gashed leg, and every time she circled in, I caught another extra strong dose of her smell, and it made me drunk, sedated me like no sedative could.

"I'm sorry, Nanaki," she said gently. "Does it hurt?"

Hurt? I scoffed at the question. Of course it hurt! She simply had no idea what hurt and how badly it hurt and why it hurt. I found the question to be so terribly horrible, so terribly evil of her to ask, only because it came from HER, from the woman that I had fallen in love with over five years ago, and I turned my head away, unable to answer. I couldn't answer her. There was no way I would've been able to answer that question. Even now, I'm not quite sure I would have said anything. COULD have said anything.

"...Nanaki?" And her voice was so sweet and caring that it broke my heart into a billion fragments, and when she cupped my face and turned me to see her in her beautiful eyes, I'm sure she saw what I felt, because I could see it in her eyes, I could see her realizing the truth. She blushed faintly and her hands lost their grip on me.

I was so ashamed, I remember. I was so ashamed of myself for having done such a thing to her. So, in my shame, I turned and walked away, out the door and into the heart of Cosmo Canyon, away from the woman I loved and into the home I no longer felt suited to protect.

I saw her, one last time, by the entrance the next day. I had spent the entire night huddled by the Cosmo Candle, staring into its depths and fathoming the reason for my pitiful existence. And, like all the other times before, it had spoken to me, given me wise counsel, and by the time she was about to leave, I was ready and waiting for her.

"...Tifa," I said as she came up, a blush growing on her face. Had I been able, I would have blushed as well.

"...Nanaki? A... are you better now?"

I nodded. "Tifa, I... I didn't know how to answer you last night. For that I'm sorry. My answer is... yes. And no." I could see her demeanor warming again, and I felt myself loosen as well, freeing myself from my own self-made bonds. "We made a pact to find our mates." I placed myself in front of her and gazed up into her eyes, and now I was confident. "Are you my mate?"

And she smiled, and even though it tore my heart out and chopped it into tiny little bits of love and loss and ache, it was the greatest smile I had ever seen on her. "No," she answered. Unbearable sadness threw me down into a heavy, overbearing bog of grief, but I knew that it was not unbearable, not really, because although I was only a teen, I was also the protector of Cosmo Canyon, and I had learned that others had suffered worse. I would survive this. "No, our stars are in different parts of the sky, Nanaki." She knelt and kissed the top of my snout, between my eyes, and I felt her smile into my fur. "But we'll always share the same sun, right?"

Despite my broken heart and bleeding love, I smiled and said, "Yes, Tifa. Always and always."

Tifa found her star, and she lived a good life with him until the end of her time. At her funeral, I nearly cried, I nearly cried, just like she nearly cried, but, like she had known, I knew that her life was complete.

Five hundred years later, I've got kids of my own to take care of, my own star to watch over.

-Fin-

Notes:

Mono no aware – Lit. "the pathos of things," it is a Japanese term used to describe the awareness of the transience or impermanence of all things in life. In other words, it describes the momentary or mortal nature of everything in the world, and the gentle sadness that accompanies the recollection of these moments. An example would be looking through your yearbook and wondering about the future you could've had with your high school sweetheart.

Taichi Yagami – Way back when, there was a show called Digimon – which, by the way, rocked the socks off of any Pokemon-related venue – and one of the main characters was named Tai Kamiya. His original Japanese name was Taichi Yagami.

Irokuoy – Phonetically, it matches Iroquois, as in the Iroquois tribe of Native Americans.