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Mortality

Cloud is eighty-five years old, Tifa is eighty-four. Cloud still looks like a boy and Tifa is dead.

She's nothing but bone and skin in his arms, her blood still in her veins. Cloud can still feel her last breath on his skin when he gets up and carries her outside, where fire is waiting.

They are not hermits, so their neighbours are going to see him like this, but it doesn't matter. Cloud is nude and soft like a new-born while Tifa burns into dust, the earth beneath them is warm like a womb. There's something about that feels like fate.