A/N: In response to another prompt challenge. The prompt was: Eclipse.
"Why isn't your flower girl here?"
"The sky frightens her" he answered simply his eyes cast upwards. Cloud blinked at Zack sitting beside him. He waited for a further explanation, but his friend remained quiet.
It frightens her? How telling those words were of life in Midgar. How many of the unfortunate below the plate shared that same fear? How many never got to see the sky? These sorts of thoughts were utterly foreign to a country boy like him. A country boy, accustomed to life on top of the mountains, the sky so close it was as if you were walking in it.
There were a lot of people gathered around this small barren field just outside the city tonight. He and Zack sat side by side amongst the crowd, their fingers absent mindedly tracing lines in the dirt as they waited. Cloud wondered who here in the crowd was from underneath the suffocating plate, if any at all.
The gathering reminded him of all the New Year's celebrations back in his hometown. The streets would be covered with little blankets and children pushing for the best spot to sit on top of them, impatiently waiting for the show to start. He preferred to go up the quiet mountain to watch the show in solitude, high enough to be so close he felt he could reach out and grab the fireworks.
Call it his backwater upbringing, but people here just didn't understand the sky like he did. The crowd around him was smaller than his hometown's crowd, and that was truly saying something.
He and Zack were free to sit amongst them, thanks to the sunglasses that hid Zack's bright mako eyes that betrayed his SOLIDER status. On any other night, one might stop and stare suspiciously at the man hiding his eyes at night, but not this night.
There was to be an eclipse tonight and no one in the crowd paid any attention to what was happening on the ground around them. No one noticed the SOLDIER 1st Class sitting close to an ordinary meager cadet.
Zack had dragged Cloud out here with such crazed enthusiasm, Cloud wondered if Zack had ever seen an eclipse before at all. Cloud's wrist still throbbed a little from Zack's excited tugging at him to get out here in time to see the phenomenon. Cloud was just thrilled to be sitting side by side in quiet companionship with his friend. He had seen plenty eclipses in his short life.
Zack looked away for a moment to smile at Cloud. He put one arm lazily around Cloud and gave him a small hug before turning his attention back to the sky.
The shadow of the eclipse moved across the surface of the moon slowly. Soon, the moon would be lost to shadow and disappear from the sky. The crowd would hold their breath until the shadow moved and the light of the moon would start to reappear once more. That's how it always went. That small moment of fear in the darkness, even though you knew it would pass.
Cloud turned his gaze from Zack to watch the moon's progress with a warm feeling inside of his chest despite the chilly air.
He understood now.
The darkness surrounding his heart from his broken SOLDIER dreams would pass eventually, even if it seemed hopeless. The person beside him would be there when the shadow passed, shining light on his life once more, until he was ready to leave the shadow behind.
Zack was the light behind the shadow. Strength and renewed hope.
An eclipse of his own.
