Remnant of Dreams
©®™ Lt. Commander Richie
Disclaimer: I can't really think of anything to say about this bloody story so far. It's kind of getting on my nerves, is what it is. I just don't think it's as good as Penance. I'll just have to try harder, then. I've been getting some great feedback on this so far, though. Maybe it's not too bad.
Chapter 2
It wasn't long before Tifa decided it was time to end the festivities. Wrapping paper, strewn everywhere, was dutifully pulled together into a single mass and then taken outside to the dumpster. Mira still wore her new tiara, taking extra care to keep it balanced in her messy hair. Around her on the floor were pieces of her model rocket, a tube of glue next to her foot and her Four Slots jingling merrily.
"S' now yeh gotta take th' clear piece..." Cid paused reading the directions for a moment, then motioned to Nanaki. "'Ey, Red, c'mere. Th' directions switched lang'ages again." With a sigh, the lion got to his feet and walked over to the Pilot. He narrowed his one good eye at the fine text, and then sat down and curled his tail away from the curtains.
"You have to glue the cockpit onto the main body after snapping all of the chairs into place." He sighed, laying down and twitching his nose a few times. Mira looked puzzled, looking at the two pieces of plastic she was trying to keep together as the glue dried.
"But my hands are full!" She protested, making a face. Cid sat the directions down on the ground in front of Nanaki, taking the drying bits of rocket from the eight-year-old and holding the cockpit end towards her.
"Now try." She smiled and picked up the bag with the pieces for the cockpit, ripping it open with her teeth and then pulling out the chairs. She pushed the first one in, but when she drew her hand away the chair came away with it. Glaring, she pushed the chair back in and then drew her hand away quickly. The chair still stuck, and Cid let out a barking laugh.
"Yeh got glue on yer fingers. Wipe it off'n then try." he said, and Mira pulled the chair off her fingers with her other hand and wiped the glue-covered hand on the floor. Little rolls of gummy residue rubbed off onto the wood, and she tried pulling the chair from her other hand. It gave a bit, but wouldn't come off. She made a noise of annoyance and shook her hand vigorously, but the chair wouldn't come off. The girl got to her feet, brushing off her pants legs with one hand and holding the glue-covered hand with the chair stuck to it to the side.
"I'm gonna get Tifa to get this off." She said, nodding to Cid before turning and running for the kitchen. A few steps away she stumbled over one of Denzel's sneakers, her arms raising to protect her face in what she thought to be an imminent fall. Instead two hands steadied her, and she opened her eyes to a field of pink.
"Be careful where you're running!" A familiar voice laughed, pushing Mira back to her feet and examining the little plastic chair stuck to her fingers. "We'll need to get that off of there, won't we?"
"Aerith!" Mira jumped forward, hugging the Cetra about the neck. The two laughed for a minute, before the woman finally pulled the eight-year-old away from her neck and picking at the glue on her fingers. The chair popped off into Aerith's hand, and she pushed into the girl's hand. With a smile the woman stood, tousling the younger's hair and nearly knocking her tiara into the flowers they stood in.
"Happy birthday." Mira looked up at Aerith with a smile, holding up her Four Slots on her arm.
"Cloud gave this to me for my birthday. I can put all my Materia in it." She adopted an expression of mock-dejection, a smile barely showing through. "But I don't have enough to put in all four of the slots. Yuffie said she would get me another Materia to put in it!"
"I'm too late, she's already corrupted your mind with her Materia-loving ways." Aerith laughed, and held out one closed hand. She opened it with a jingle of her bracelets against each other, and a single clear orb of Materia sat in it. "Here you go, a piece of Blank Materia. Give it time, and it'll become whatever it wants to." In awe the eight-year-old took the clear piece of Materia, sliding it into the final slot next to her Summon the Dead Materia. "Happy birthday, Mira."
"Thank you!" The girl said, looking up and expecting to see the Cetra.
"Ey, Mira, I thought y'were gonna get Teef t'get that chair off'a yer hand." Cid's voice made Mira jump and whirl around, her hand moving straight to her head to keep her tiara from falling.
"I got it!" The girl said, running back to where the pilot and Nanaki sat surrounded by bits of model rocket. She carefully inserted the chair into the cockpit, sitting down and pulling the other chairs out and inserting them as well before carefully putting a line of glue along the clear windshield of the rocket and pushing it into place. "What next?" The eight-year-old asked, and Cid looked up from his watch. He carefully let go of the rocket, setting it down on the bits of wrapping paper requisitioned for exactly that purpose. He stood, his back popping in several places as he ran a hand through his hair.
"What's next is bed fer'yeh." He said, pulling a pack of cigarettes and tapping it on the side of his hand.
"But..." Mira trailed off, getting up as well. She stuck out her lower lip, her wide blue eyes glowing mournfully as she tried to get a later bedtime.
"But nothin', yer goin't bed if'n I hafta throw yeh over m'shoulder an' bring yeh up there m'self." The ultimatum delivered, the girl abandoned her puppy-dog eyes and stuck her tongue out at the pilot, pulling one lower eyelid down with one finger before running for her and Marlene's room. Nanaki yawned and stretched, his tail waving dangerously close to the curtains before he snapped it away and padded across the room towards the bar. Despite the large cat's attempts to create something better, everything in the bar was too high for him to eat off of. There was also no room to put anything else in, so he was stuck. With the best of his dignity, the cat lapped at his water bowl a few times before wiping water off his whiskers with the back of one paw.
"'M never gonna git used't see'in yeh eatin' outta'a giant cat bowl." Nanaki glared at the pilot, who was unscrewing the smoke detector. With that done, he proceeded to light up a cigarette and take a long drag.
"If Shera ever gets you to stop smoking, I'll never get used to that either." The large lion shot back, before walking back towards the bar's stairs.
Thunder rumbled ominously in the air, black clouds roiling above the broken skylines of Edge and Midgar. Safely burrowed under nearly a dozen thin blankets and one large comforter, Mira looked out the window to where raindrops were just barely beginning to spatter. She held up her left arm, the one with the Four Slots loose around her wrist, and peered through the clear Blank Materia that she had received from Aerith. Lightning flashed, a dozen forks criss-crossing to impact the large girders sticking up at random intervals around the city. The light that filtered though the Materia was lightly tinted pink, the hue rosy and loving.
"What're you gonna-" The girl trailed off, yawning and tucking her hand back under her blankets. "What're you gonna be?" She asked quietly, yawning a second time before closing her eyes. On the outside of the window rain began to fall harder, lightning flashing and the wind whistling in a natural lullaby. In the blink of an eye a blue flash crossed the view of anyone looking out, too fast to be particularly human and too high from the ground to be anything other than a monster.
Quietly, the door to Marlene and Mira's shared room opened. A sliver of light from the night light in the hallway fell across their faces, illuminating them both as they slept. Yuffie smiled as she spied the tiara she had given the eight-year-old in a place of honor next to the thoroughly-beaten pieces of baseball on the shelf next to her bed. She re-closed the door, smirking to herself at her ability to evade the ears of the Second Class child inside. The Ninja turned, intent on going back to her own room, and ran into a solid body swathed in metal, cloth and leather.
"You never should'a been a Turk." She whispered, immobile against Vincent's chest. The tall gunslinger wrapped both his arms around her smaller torso, effectively holding her to him in a protective embrace.
"And why is this?" He asked into her hair, her head tucked into the crook of his neck and padded by his cloak. The ex-Turk figured he already knew the answer, but it didn't hurt to ask.
"You're freakishly quiet, even in those stupid metal shoes." Her muffled voice came, and Vincent could almost feel her smile through his cloak. "You should'a defected to Wutai and you should'a became a Ninja."
"I'm content with the skills I have now." The gunslinger whispered, his voice muffled by his cloak. "After all, I doubt a Ninja knows how to use a Gatling Gun mounted onto the back of a moving vehicle." This time he could nearly feel her frown, and he knew that he had won.
"If you grope me, buster, I'll have to grope you back." His hands moved a bit higher up her back from where they hand been slowly becoming lax.
"I'm not doing anything." He insisted, a small smile coming to his features as the two were completely content to simply stand there in each other's arms. A door opened at the end of the hallway after a while, a sleepy Denzel making his way out across the hall to the bathroom. After a few moments he came back out with a glass of water, and finally turned to them and made a face.
"Eugh." The kid muttered, blearily pulling hair from his face and taking a drink. "Old people love." Yuffie whirled around, trying to draw a small shuriken from the pouch on her pants and utterly failing because of the two arms still wrapped around her.
"You'll take that back, you little snot! If he lets me go, Cloud'n'Teef'll never find your body!" The Ninja yelled, shaking her fist as well as she could with Vincent's arms around her chest. She struggled against him to get at the kid down the hall, who absentmindedly scratched at his forehead and took another drink.
"Whatever." The half-asleep kid muttered, retreating back into his room.
Oh gods, everything seems rushed and rather nasty. Gods I hate this story so far... Man, this is going to be absolutely terrible, I just know it. Sequels always suck...