It was a grey day—one much like any other spring day in Midgar's Edge. It bordered just on the edge of rain; the clouds hanging densely over the broken skyline that had once been the great city of Midgar. Most of the inhabitants of Edge wrapped their coats just a little closer and kept their heads down as they trudged to work, aside from the occasional peak at the sky to see if it had decided to spit its chilling showers again.
Through the streets of Edge, there wandered a woman. She was bundled up in as many layers at the other denizens of the city and more yet she still shook terribly. Her legs, clothed in heavy black pants, looked spindly between her chunky black work boots and the puffy result of coat layered on jacket layered on sweater. Her hands, covered in black gloves, fumbled to rearrange her scarf even as she shook. On her head, a black knit cap was pulled down low to cover her ears. Between the scarf and the hat, a pair of black, black glasses covered her eyes. What little skin showed between the clothes was bone white.
The woman bumbled her way down the street, managing not to run into anybody. Her steps were slow and her head was turned down even more than the others. She never once glanced to the heavens to check for rain.
Eventually, trembling badly, she had to stop. She leaned for support on a wall near a door. Sensing the hot air coming from the edges of the door, she turned her face to it and breathed deeply through her scarf. A gust of cold wind came dancing down the street and the woman convulsed. She ran her gloved fingers along the door until she found its handle. Tentatively, she tugged at the handle. It gave a little, so she tugged harder. To her surprise, the door swung open. She hesitated for maybe a second, then slipped inside and pulled the door shut behind her.
Yuffie Kisaragi was surprised to see the woman, dressed all in black, slip into the 7th Heaven Bar. She'd thought she'd heard something, so she'd been watching the door. She'd expected it to be the wind, maybe an animal of some sort at best. She'd actually been hoping for an animal, so she could chase it away and claim to have rescued the bar from wild animals.
Even expecting something, the woman had been surprise enough to nearly knock Yuffie off her stool. It didn't take long, however, for Yuffie to take in the woman's forlorn appearance. She might once have been a tall, strong woman but now she was so stooped and bent that her original height couldn't be calculated. Her shivers were almost convulsions and she had to wait for them to subside a little to be able to move out of the entrance way. When she finally did take her first few shuffling steps toward the interior of the bar, it was too painful for Yuffie to watch.
Yuffie bolted from her seat crying, "Woah, woah, woah!" She grabbed the woman's arm, dragging her across the bar almost faster than the poor woman's stumbling steps could take her, even with Yuffie's assistance. Yuffie plopped the woman down in a seat. "What do you think you're doing, Grandma?"
The woman carefully readjusted her scarf, lest too much of her face be uncovered. She tilted her head to the left, then slid her glasses up the bridge of her nose. She said nothing.
"I SAID, GRANDMA WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" Yuffie repeated louder. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, wondering if the woman hadn't heard her the first time and feeling vaguely proud that she was helping a woman who, in her estimation, would have been completely helpless if not for her.
"Yes, yes, I heard you, child," the woman answered. The words sounded old to Yuffie, but the woman's voice did not. It did not sound harsh or rough like and over worked mother who finally wore down into a tired grandmother. It sounded tired and bitter and completely out of hope, like someone who had looked for too long to learn that they would never find what they sought. Strangely, too, she sounded softly like a young woman on the last edge of heartbreak, not wanting to let it go but so tired of the pain. She rubbed her eyes behind her glasses, then shook her head. "There's no reason to shout."
"Oh," Yuffie said, rather put out, her shoulders beginning to sag. "So... What did you think you were doing?"
"Going to get a drink." The woman cocked her head up at an angle that would have been jaunty, if Yuffie had been two inches taller than she was. "I may be dying, but that's no reason to deny me that, now is it?"
Yuffie swallowed hard. "Well, uhm, no. I guess... But the bar isn't open yet."
"Oh?" The woman turned her head away from Yuffie. "I suppose not. I'm sorry for bothering you." She rose to leave.
"Don't go, Grandma!" Yuffie jumped in the woman's path to stop her.
"Why not?" The woman tilted her head, eerily expressionless behind scarf and dark glasses.
"Well..." Yuffie stalled. "You don't look so well! Are you sure you'll be all right?"
"You want me to stay so you won't feel guilty about sending me out to die?" The woman shook her head slowly.
"That sounds awful!" Yuffie cried, but the woman merely shrugged.
"There are many things in the word which are awful. Still, we live with them for many years before anything is done to right those things. I'm not offended if I was right." She returned to her seat and shucked her hands of their gloves. She rubbed her long, bony fingers together, working heat into the pallid skin that was crossed with webs of white scars.
"Wow, what happened to you?" Yuffie asked in quiet surprise as she took a seat of her own.
"It's a long story, involving many bad things," the woman answered.
"It's a long time 'til the 7th Heaven opens," Yuffie countered, not really sure where the retort had come from, but thankful for it all the same.
"Which reminds me," the woman said, "why was the door unlocked if the bar isn't open?"
"Don't answer her question," an astute voice from behind said. "She's trying to misdirect you."
"Hello," the woman said, unsurprised as Shelke Rui stepped around the corner.
"I'd like to hear your story as well," Shelke said, pulling up a chair of her own.
The woman was silent for a long moment and Yuffie almost thought she wasn't going to tell the story after all, but then she sighed. "Very well, but you'll have to be patient with a tired old woman like me."