At The Night Of Full Moon

A/N: I don´t own Final Fantasy VII or any its charracters.

Sorry! It took me longer than I tought it would to write this. But honestly I have been busy with my school work and with other stuff. I had bithday last month 9th of january :)

I also started to read Harry Potter fanfics after Christmas and I couldn´t stop reading them... So sorry again :) This day was so anoying: I finally had some time to write thish story but want to know what happened? OUR BLOODY POWER SHUT DOWN! And it went on and off the whole day. I had to start my laptop about ten bloody times.

I also want to thank those reviewed my story. So... THANK YOU SO MUTCH!

Warnings: Well, boring chapter? There is lot of expaning.

And about this story and chapter. Cloud will be seven at this chapter. And I´m sorry if he is acting too mature for his age. But no can do. His childhood should take about 6-10 chapters att he most. And I will probably soon get link to my devianart account so that you will get to see what I have drawn :)

"Speach"

`Thinking`

Chapter 1 : Sickness

I woke up in silence. I stared at the ceiling of my room it´s full of small cracks. And I think I saw new small hole in the back corner of my room. `Great, now I have to fix it before it´s going to leak`, I tought as I continued to stare that cursed roof. I laid in my bed as I got my mind ready for another mind wrecking day.

But by now this all wasn´t nothing new, it´s been like this at least two, maybe even three weeks. But everyday I wake up, I just hope that everything what has happened is nothing but bad dream. But ofcourse I´m not that lucky. I didn´t want to get up from my bed. I stared into the space as I thought about what had led to this.

Month ago I would have woken up in quiet humning of my mommys and then she would have called me for breakfast. Now my ears hear only silence. Normaly this house was full of life, but when my mommys health started to fall down, everything started to fade.

She kept this house alive, but now she is sick. And now it looks like that this house is going down with her. This is first time that she´s been sick, it has never happened before. I don´t know what to do anymore.

It started almost month ago as mild flu, only small coughing and sneezing. But that wasn´t enough to bring my mommy down. She was still as happy and lively as ever and I though that she would always stay that way. But for whatever reason she didn´t get better.

When my mommy was still feeling well enough, she tired all kinds of herbs and herb mixtures what she normaly used for colds. But none of them didn´t make her feel any better, and litle by litle she started to get even sicker. First she lost her appetite, that itself with everlasting coughing and sneezing was bad enough, but about week later exposture her fever started to rise slowley. Now almost three weeks later, she can´t even get out of bed. She dosen´t eat and she can only barely open her eyes.

In the first two weeks, she would always tell me that she would be fine. But now, I just don´t know anymore.

After she could no longer get out of bed, I started to mix all kinds of herbs together in hope that she would get better.

My mom learned all she knows about herbs from her mother, from my grandmother and we often went to collect every kinds of herbs that grew in the forest near village. Because of that we were able to save lot of money.

Yes,yes, I know that it´s dangerous to go in the forest, but really, it isn´t that bad. Those wolves don´t wander that close to the village, too many people move around there, they aren´t stupid enough for that. So it´s perfectly safe to collect couple of herbs, if you are fast. We actually collect lots of stuff from the forest, so we save all money that would normaly go things like medicine and firewood. And for us to get all we can from forest is absolutely necessery for our survival. Why is that?

That is because this village is very old and it has it´s own old customs, and all villagers supervise these rules like hawks. But the main proplem is that most of the rules and customs were made up in over 100 year ago. So basically when society advanced they sticked to the old ways and traditions. For example, all female sitizens were almost always in home making meals and watching over children, or that there almost everyone got married before their sixteenth birthday, so basically everyone in the village was married, no expections.

So basically when my mom moved here alone, they were thrilled to have more new blood in the village. But when it come to light that she was expecting me, their behaivor changed, it was like my mom was the Devil himself. But even they couldn´t make my mommy to marry someone else, even if someone would have wanted to marry her, so they did everything to dirve her out. They startes over charging everything, she couldn´t buy enything from the stores without paying douple price.

And the worst part was that because they didn´t let my mommy have proper job. My mommy is woman and she had studied at the best school of Kalm. She was going to become teacher in Nibelheim, but because she was woman and becauce she apparently carried someones bastard child, they woldn´t let her become one.

But my mommy wouldn´t budge, she stayed even when everybody were against her. When they started overcharge her she paid everything without complaint, and after she had me my mommy started collecting everything she could from the wild. That inclued medicine herbs, all kinds of edible plants and roots, she even hunted our meat herself. Hunting also brought warm animal furs to us, so we didn´t have to buy them from the shops.

Then when I started to get older the villagers started to treat me same as my mom, but while adults didn´t use violence with me or my mommy, it didn´t stop other children from bullying me they would call me names and beat me up without any good reason.

The onlyone who was nice to me was Mayor Lockhearts only daughter Tifa, but even she couldn´t play with me because mayor didn´t let her. But that also meant that she was the only one who didn´t bully me. So I spend most of my time with my mom who taught me all kinds of stuff you needed to know.

That´s how my life was before my moms sickness, either I was bullied by other children or I spent my time with my mom either collecting food or learning stuff from books she bought with her when she arrived to I try to do everything I can to help my mommy.

I sighed and sat up from bed. I looked around my small room there really wasn´t enyting at all only brocken mirror in the wall and small dresser where I kept my clothes. As I stood up from bed I caught the sight of my reflection in mirror: My naturally messy hair still stood in proud spikes on my head, but my originally bright blond hair was now dirty and its color was closer to brown than blond.

I was unnaturally small for my age and now when I haven´t dared to go collect any extra food from forest, I think that I look even skinier than before. And that is because I had to cut down portion of my food that we wouldn´t run out of food. Because even if I have gone to the forest collet food with my mom I have never gone there by myself, because my mom told me not to and I didn´t want to disrespect her wishes.

The only thing that was still same after these couple of weeks were my bright blue eyes that stared back at my tired face.

I turned my eyes away from mirror and stepped closer to my little dresser in corner of my room to get new pair of clothes. Plain and white long sleeved tunic, grey trousers that went only little bellow my knees and pair of dark blue socks. When I was dressed in clean clothes I let my eyes roam in otherwise empty room before stepping out from open door.

I stepped in our small kitchen and looked at small fireplace in the corner of the room, it seemed that that the fire had gone out in the middle of night. `So that´s the reason to this coldness, I tought as I took some firewood and smaller pieces of wood from pile next to our front door and went to start fire again.

After I managed to light fireplace again, I took couple of steps towards to mommy bedroom. I stopped at the closed door and bared myself for whats to come, I took deep breath and stepped into room.

I held my breath as I listened all the voices in the room. The only thing that I heard was the sound of my mommys hoarse breathing. I could breathe again. She was still breathing. I stepped next to her bed.

"Mommy are you awake? ", I asked gently. She didn´t answer to me, but moment later I saw her eyelashes fluttering and she opened her hazy eyes. She opened her mouth, but before she could speak, she started coughing badly.

My eyes widened and I run into the kitchen to get some water. I took glass of water to mom who was still coughin and it sounded like she was going to choke. I rushed next to her and lifted her head of the pillow and gave her little bit of water. She stopped coughing and her breath went back to what it was before. I lowered her back down to bed.

"Do you need anything? More water? Hot water bottle? How about I make you some soup?" I asked her. She shook her head as no, and cosed her eyes again. "Mommy you have to eat something. If you don´t eat, you won´t get better. You told me so yourself" I said as I tired to reason with her.

She opened her eyes again and gave me weary smile. Then she noded. "You will eat?" I asked as I smiled to her. She gave me another nod as ansver. "Great! I will meke you some soup!" I said, now much more happily as I rushed back into kitchen.

When I went trought cupboards searching ingredients I noticed that all of our cupboards containing our food was almost empty. I stared at the almost empty space that was last of our food. `Not good, now I have to go gather some food, there is only enough to last about two weeks and then we are out of food. Maybe I should go today, but if I want to get out before sunset I have to leave soon.` I tought desperately.

It would be my first time out collecting food without my mommy. And that was the main reason why I didn´t go any sooner. I didn´t have enough courage. But hey, you can´t blame me! I´m only seven years old! Even if I´m twice as mature as any other kid aroun here.

I quickly put pot on stove and added water and what was lef of our food stock, and left it to simmer.

I went back to mommys bedroom only to notice that she had fallen asleep again. I tiptoed out of the room and checked that fire was still burning. I added some more firewood and stopped to stir the soup that was still on the stove. I left it on stove. It would take some time before it would be ready to eat.

Then I went to our small living room. The room I stepped into was completely dark, there were no windows or any other light sources. The next thing I noticed was scent of old books that were in neat rows on the bookshelfs witch were surrounding whole room from floor to ceiling.

There was small and worn out armchair in right corner of the room, next to it was small tabel and on it was alredy half burned candle with hardened wax piled around it. There was small neat pile of books on the table, all of them were about all kinds of medical herbs and plants, but I didn´t find anyting usefull from them.

I went next to bookshelf that was in the left from armchair and started to read all titles of the books I could see. I had looked throught everything else earlier so this was my last chance. `Nothing here`, I tought desperately as I reached corner where pile of books sat next to armchair. Then tought come to my mind `I wonder if there is anything behind that armchair`, I tought as I started to haul armchair out of narrow corner, where it had stood since this house was bought.

I managed to drag it about 50 centimeters when it got stuck and refused to move. I managed to squeeze throught little space that was between cursed armchair and dusty bookshelf. Space was narrow and it seemed that nobody had read any of these books in many years. But even then there weren´t any books that had anything to do with medicine herbs or plants.

I collapsed on the floor, my back against armchair and stared into space between two shelfs. `I bet that nobody has ever cleaned between those shelfs`, I tought as I looked small dusty space, that two shelfs left between them.

Then I saw it. Small book between shelfs. I reached my hand towards it and stared like it would disappear if I moved too quickly or even blinked my eyes for second. It was jammed between two shelfs and my fingers only barely reached to it that I got grip from it´s corner.

After I spended nearly 15 munutes tugging and nibbling, I finaly managed to coax book out of its prison. No, it was more like notebook than book. It was hand made and it didn´t even have proper iltle. I struggled my way out behind armchair and collapsed into floor next to table, so that I would be able to light candle that stood middle of the table. The room was istantly mutch brighter than before, and now I that I could see better, I saw there were words written on cover of the book.'

Medical Herbs of Mt. Nibel

I could barely belive my own eyes. I hastily opened the book and in front page was hand drawn picture of plant and all information about said plant in same hand writing as on cover of the book. I started to flip throught pages to find something that I didn´t alredy know. I skipped all sections what wasn´t about colds or fevers. I was alredy losing hope when in last portion of the book I saw picture of little flower. I had never seen that kind of flower in my life, so if anything is going to help me it´s this flower. I started to read trought the page.

Nocturna Tempora

Location

I haven´t never seen plant like this outside Nibelheim. It grows on mountainside of Mt. Nibel, but because of the wildlife in mountains, only few have seen it and even smaller part of them have gotten their hands around it.

Appearance

It´s petals are light blue on the inside and dark blue on outside and the middle of the flower is golden yellow. The leaves are long and narrow. The whole plant is only about 15 cm high. And it blooms only middle of the night. Because of that fact the people who have seen it call it Star of Nibelheim.

Use

So far it works for high fever, stomachache, headache, rash, forstbites, burns, infections...

Notes

I have done couple of experiments but so far I has cured all illnesses from stomach ache to high fever. It is said that it will cure all illnesses, but I have no further proof from that matter, but I´m going to continue test it on more when I have gained more of the material.

It´s absolytely marvellous, it can even weaken symptoms of Mako Poisoning! And I think that if used regularly It can even heal it entirely.

So far so good, the patient suffering from Mako Poisoning is starting to become aware of himself again, but unfortunatly I have run out of Nocturna Tempora so I have to go looking for more I just hope that I don´t come across The dragons that have taken residence in Mt. Nibel...

I turned a page. It was blank. There wasn´t anything after that, just empty pages. I could barelly belibe my eyes. ´Finaly something that might work. But I wonder if I can still find one, it´s been so while since thish was written´

Then my eyes caught words dragon and looking for more. And my eyes fell to empty pages. `Huh, it seem that whoever wrote this, either lost it before he completed this or he was eaten by Nibel Dragon.´ Vision of Nibel Dragon devouring some old man flashed into my mind. `Well... At least I have something new to worru about` I tought as I sttod up and rushed into kitchen to take soup off from stove.

I took two small plates and served two helpings. One for me and one for mommy. I ate my own portion as fast as I could withiut even sitting down, and took another plate into my hands and walked slowly towards mommys bedroom.

I slowley opened door with my left foot, so that I didn´t spill the soup. I walked next to moomys bed and put plate on the nightstand next to her bed. " Mommy? Are you awake? I made some soup for you" I said as I shook her shoulder caerefully.

She opened her eyes and gave me weary smile. "Would you like some?" I asked. She gave me small nod and I sat beside her on the bed. I took plate from the nightstand and startes slowly and carefully feed her. She madaged to eat only couple of spoonfuls, before she shook her and refused to enything else.

I stood up from the bed and went back into kitchen to put away rest of the soup. When I went back to check her, she was already fast asleep. I tiptoed out of the door and closed it behind me.

I looked at the old clock that was on the wall near fireplace. It was only half past eight. `I still have time. Sun starts to set at two, I have almost six hours to find that flower.` I walked to my room and stight to my closet. I fished my thikest sweater that happened to be light blue from deepest nook of closet and took extra pair of wool socks and black pants from small drawer at the bottom of closet.

When I was dressed to my extra clothes, I tied black and sturdy leather belt to my waist. Extra clothes would keep me warm ouside, since it would be especially cold in the montains. The belt in other hand would be perfect place to tie little bags and poutches on it.

When I was ready I went to cupboard that contained all our medicine and herbs, I took couple of small poutches and put them in little bag that hanged on my left sholuder. Then I took two small knifes which were used to cut herbs and plants. I also put small package of crackers in my bag if I became hungry.

Next I took my black winter boots and jacket which hanged next to door. My scarf fell to floor from left sleeve of my jacket when I put it on. Then I has to search my pockets for my gloves and cap, which I used to hide my blond hair. When I was ready, I put so much wood in the fireplace that it would last until I came back from my trip.

I looked at the door that led to my mommys bedroom. I slowley opened the door and looked at the sleeping form of my mommy. She was still fast asleep. `I wonder if I should tell her that I´m going outside`, I tought as I stood at the door looking at her. ´No, it´s better if I don´t tell her anything. It would only make her worry about me. And it would probably make her condition even worse. Yes, I will be back before she even notices I´m gone´. I closed the door gentely and walked towards the front door.

At the front door I put my hand on the door handle. I opened the doot quickly before I chikened out. I looked back one last time before I stepped outside and started to walk towads the forest.

A/N: I hope that you likes it :)