Tanabata Day
"Happy Tanabata Day Aerith" Zack said cheerfully before he placed a kiss on her cheek.
Aerith blushed, still not used to the affection Zack gave her., for they had only been dating for a few weeks.
"I don't think I'm familiar with that one" she told him.
He smiled as he sat down next to her on the church floor.
"It's based off this old legend" he began. "The god of Firmament who lived in the High Plain of Heaven had a very beautiful daughter named Tanabata, and it was her duty to spend her time weaving garments for her father. One day while at her loom she spied a handsome lad named Hikoboshi leading an ox, and she at once fell in love with the lad. Her father knowing his daughter's thoughts immediately consented to her marriage."
"They loved well but not wisely, Tanabata neglected her weaving duties to her father, and Hikoboshi let is oxen wander unattended across the High Plain of Heaven, greatly angering the God of Firmament. He commanded that the lover be separated from one another by the Celestial River."
"That's awful!" Aerith commented, thinking about how horrible it would be to be separated from her love. To be separated from Zack...
"Well The separated lovers' grief was so great that soon the God of Firmament consented to allow the lovers to meet one night a year to sooth their loneliness. So on the seventh night of the seventh month the lovers come to the banks of the Celestial River and wait for a company of Magpies to form a bridge so the lover can finally be together. It is said that if the weather is good and the Star Lovers meet that one can look up into the night sky and see the stars shine."
She smiled as he squeezed her hand, glad that it had a some what happy ending. Still, to be able to meet your true love only once a year? It still sounded awful to her.
"Do you wanna go see the stars tonight?" he asked.
She bit her lip. That would mean that she would have to go above the plate and see the sky. Zack had told her that the sky was a beautiful thing that shouldn't be feared, but even then she still wasn't so sure about that.
"I-I don't know Zack..."
He frowned, but understood that she wasn't ready to face her fears. He didn't want to push her into doing anything that she didn't want to, especially when it came to fear.
"Alright,"
There would always be another night.
"Maybe next year." he told her.
After that day Aerith forgot about the legend, but remembered it when Zack went away to Nibelhiem. She now knew how the star lovers felt. She hoped that Zack would return home safely soon, and when Tanabata Day came the next year she wished for it.
She remembered Zack telling her that people wrote their hopes and wishes on little stripes of paper then tied them to bamboo. There was no way for her to get any bamboo, so she decided to tie her wish to one of the flowers.
That night she bravely went up to the plate to look at the stars. When she saw the stars for the first time, she regretted not coming to see them with Zack the year before. They were beautiful just like he said, and shining brightly down on her. She cried that night, for she missed Zack greatly.
She hated when it rained, for then the lovers wouldn't be able to meet until the next year. It rained on Tanabata for the next four years, and again on the day Zack died. It was then when she started to believe that Tanabata and Hikoboshi were actually lucky. They got to see each other once a year in good weather, but she would never see Zack ever again.
But once again, she was wrong, and rejoiced when she found him in the lifestream.
Author's Notes
Ok I'm a day late on this, but I just got the idea for this last night when I was at a little Tanabata Day party. I mainly wrote this for my friend Maggie, and it is unbetaed so I apologize for any errors or if it seems rushed.