Author's Note: Disclaimer found below.
Chapter title is lyrics from the song "Beauty Never Fades" by Junkie XL, available on the Animatrix soundtrack.
(12: Every Step I Take, the Shadows Grow Longer)
For a few uncomfortable minutes of silence, Tifa glanced over her surroundings, before finally looking at Loz. She'd let him have control of where they were going, which meant that she was now his prisoner again. She could've just run and not tried to escape the Gold Saucer this way, or she could've pushed him out and muddled through flying the aircraft on her own, or she could've done any number of things - but no, she'd effectively handed herself over to him.
She wondered if she could safely throw herself out the side of the helicopter. Or at least safely enough that she'd be able to cast Cure on herself before Loz rounded on her.
The light from the control panel was low enough that she could see his slit-pupiled eyes glowing with the memory of Mako. The Princes had never had their own Mako treatments, unless Jenova was more cruel to her sons than anyone suspected, but the Princes' eyes glowed as though they had. It was most likely because they were shards of Sephiroth's living memory - he'd survived more Mako than just about anyone. So their eyes glowed. Just like Sephiroth's. Just like Cloud's had, once he'd become a SOLDIER...
The realization struck Tifa that Loz might well have been able to see where they were going the entire time, while she'd been blinded in the dark. No wonder he hadn't turned on the helicopter's exterior lights.
She bit her lip. Long ago, she'd dreamed of a knight to rescue her when she was in trouble, had extracted a promise from Cloud... but this was most definitely nothing like she'd imagined. She looked away again, unable to keep from laughing at herself - a bitter, mad little sound.
"What?" Loz asked again, gaze flicking toward her for a moment.
She wasn't about to let him know what she was really thinking. "You. Flying a helicopter."
He shrugged. "We all can. Sephiroth knew." He smirked a little. "I'm best, though."
Well, that explained that. "Why'd your brothers have the Turk piloting for them, then?"
"Dunno." Loz shrugged again. "Yazoo likes to order him around and stuff."
Figured. Tifa looked away as she mentally sorted through her Materia. She didn't have anything she could use on Loz before they landed, and after that...
"So," Loz said conversationally, still smirking, "What are you going to do to repay me for saving you?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Kill you quickly instead of slowly?"
"Aw, don't you want me any more?" he asked, grinning wider. "As your hostage, I mean."
Of course that's what he meant. Folding her arms, she wondered if she could kill him without lifting a finger, purely by hating him.
It suddenly struck her that he still thought that she was the one in control. She didn't dare voice her surprise, lest she let him know how easily the situation could change in his favor, but he'd expect her to respond...
"I'll kill you eventually whether you're my hostage or not," she pointed out as though the statement were an obvious fact.
He laughed, and Tifa couldn't help but get the feeling that he wasn't quite taking her seriously.
As it turned out, there really had been little that Loz could do to escape, once he'd begun to fly them away from the Gold Saucer. The helicopter had been abandoned during refueling and had only had a half tank of fuel, which wouldn't get them too far. By the time the sun began to rise, behind them and off to the right, they had to set down on a flat expanse of baked earth between dunes.
Unless Loz had changed direction in flight - which he claimed he hadn't, and would have been stupid to lie about - they had no choice but to continue to head northwest. Without supplies, their only option was to get out of the desert as soon as possible. Heading northwest should bring them to the grasslands at the foot of the mountains, and hopefully to water.
...And would keep them well clear of North Corel, where a lot of survivors from the Gold Saucer would undoubtedly be congregating. The only thing that left Tifa nervous was that Loz's family was perfectly capable of figuring out which way they'd likely go. His brothers would probably search even if they thought that she and Loz had died, and it had been Loz that had chosen their heading in the first place. She could be walking right into their hands.
Tifa gritted her teeth. She'd nearly despaired in the helicopter, but rallied as soon as she'd realized that Loz still thought she had the upper hand. ...Unless he was faking purely to make her easier to deal with, and she was walking into a trap. But she couldn't afford to believe that. She couldn't give up, ever. Vincent had drilled that into her and she had to keep believing...
The battery of the PHS she'd acquired in the Gold Saucer had given out, and she'd nowhere to charge it. Calling Vincent for rescue wasn't an option.
There was nothing of use in the helicopter, and nothing to do but leave it where it sat and walk away. They set out, following their heading in as straight a line as they could.
By the middle of the first day, Tifa had to use Cure spells on them both to keep them going. Living on spells was a bad idea; it didn't last. You had to cast the spells closer together the more you did it, and you'd run out of the energy to cast before long. But there was no choice.
Another spell a few hours later, and another at sunset...
They didn't stop when night fell. There was no point; with no supplies whatsoever, there was no way for them to even collect dew to try to drink. It would just be wasted time that they'd have to heal again after anyway, lest they be too weak to move on.
Tifa was casting a few hours apart by midday the next day, and the thirst was no longer easing after each spell. She didn't even realize that she'd run out of energy until she tried to cast and failed.
She fell to her knees, panting. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth, her eyes burning dry, and there was nothing she could do.
Loz dropped to the rocky sand next to her, turning so as to sit facing her, and held out his hand. He was still wearing nothing but boots, pants, and a mess of decaying, sandy hair gel, and his skin was going red faster than the Cure spells could heal it, but at least he wasn't overheating from his clothes this time.
The corner of Tifa's mouth twitched, causing her to wince - her own face wasn't faring much better for sunburn, in spite of the desert cloak that Lia had given her.
She glanced at his hand, then slowly drew the Heal Materia out of her arm. She only hesitated a moment before handing it to him. She fully expected to never get the Materia back, but there wasn't anything else she could do if they were to survive.
The Cure spell that washed over her was stronger than what she'd been casting, and she didn't even realize for a moment, her body desperate for the transient relief. Still, she spoke as soon as she found that she could swallow again. "Not so much," she told him. "You'll wear yourself out before we're out of here."
It was the most that either of them had said since leaving the helicopter, and she wasn't sure if she liked Loz being quiet after all.
She'd half expected him to cast Cure on himself and walk away, but only half. And she hated herself for trusting him at all.
The sun had lifted free of the horizon on the third day before the first hints of green appeared in the landscape. They finally found water a few hours later.
The pond was murky, more a marsh than anything else, full of reeds and algae where it was clear enough to not simply be mud. It wasn't easy to extract handfuls of water clear enough to drink; Loz was too hasty at first and accidentally drank a handful of algae. But at least the fact that plants grew there gave hope that the water was not poisonous.
The plants seemed a little sickly, yellowish instead of the vibrant green that they would have once been. The pale scent of ash still tinged the air. The world was still recovering from the Long Winter...
The sun was setting, burning the sky crimson, when the cracked earth underfoot became patched with grass. The mountains had been looming closer and the spots of reedy marsh had been growing more frequent, until finally, the ground broke out in flowing water. It seemed that a stream tumbled down from the mountains and sank into the earth at the edge of the desert.
"We'll follow it," Tifa said, having finally drunk her fill of clear, algae-free water. She looked off toward the mountains as the last of the light faded. "It's not big, but the way it cuts through the mountains should cross a road to Costa del Sol."
"That where we're going," Loz mumbled, lying on his stomach and greedily drinking without hands. "First the Gold Saucer and now Costa del Sol? You tryin' to show me a good time or what?"
Tifa casually picked a reed from the water's edge and brought it down sharply across Loz's back, and was rewarded with a pained yelp. "It'll be storm season by the time we get there. You can spend all the time on the beach you want."
Loz muttered something under his breath and sat up on his knees, face twisted in anger. Nonetheless, he unobtrusively angled himself and tried to keep his burned back out of range of the makeshift whip.
Still brandishing the reed, Tifa looked away from him, studying the landscape. There. "We need to rest," she announced, gesturing toward an short rise a little ways away. "Base of that's a little sheltered. Go lie down."
He glared and scowled, but she tapped the reed against her hand, and he obeyed. One Sleepel later - she still had enough energy for that, at least - Tifa lay down a little further along the rise, exhaustion washing over her. Her stomach ached with hunger, but at least here there was water, and there might be game to catch or fish...
Her mind wandered off into sleep, accompanied by the nagging suspicion that she'd forgotten something important.
Tifa found herself sitting in darkness. Sensation slowly appeared - she sat on packed earth, and there was something at her back, and the air was clean - the ubiquitous scent of ash was missing. Gradually the darkness lifted. She was sitting against a white picket fence; overhead, a metal archway spanned the dirt road. She was in Nibelheim - home - waiting at the gate. There had been a lot of monsters and Shinra had sent a couple of SOLDIERs First Class to come investigate, and she was waiting and hoping that one would be Cloud...
There was someone coming up the road. She heard a truck stop, heard footsteps, saw a flash of silver hair -
She leapt up and ran, the darkness closing in around her again until she ran without light or sound or the feel of her feet striking earth. And she kept running, her hands over her eyes -
And then there were hands on hers, prying away, large enough to catch both wrists in one hand and hold her arms above her head. There was weight on her, pinning her down; her eyes snapped open and found only black surrounding her again. Disoriented, she opened her mouth to cry out, only to find another hand quickly clamped over it.
She glimpsed the glow of Loz's eyes close to hers, and confusion gave way to panic. Her feet scrabbled for purchase, but his body over hers held her down. She made a frustrated sound and bit at his hand as hard as she could.
He made a sound something like a growl in the back of his throat and shoved down, pressing her head into the ground. Tifa fell still with the pain of it. The sound of her breath hissing over his hand - nearly covering her nose as well - was all she could hear.
"Cut it out," he whispered low, close to her ear. The pressure of his hand eased.
It took a few moments for her breathing to slow, but when it did, he cautiously lifted his hand away. She was trembling, cursing herself for her weakness - she should be fighting until he'd crushed the breath out of her, hopeless as it was. She realized that he'd simply blocked her sleep spell again; over the past few days of not sleeping at all, she'd forgotten about the Materia he'd won.
But before she could speak, he was whispering again. "We're not alone."
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