Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy VII.
Here's another! I like writing in Tifa's voice, so I did. Well anyway, Enjoy!
050. Mistrust
I never know how to feel about this, when I think about it. Aerith was my closest friend, next to Yuffie. Cloud was my childhood sweetheart - my everything now, whether he knew it or not. And Zack was the kind man who I thought that Cloud would be like, but never appeared to me to be, and he was the man I'd wondered over for years - of his disappearance into the ether. Of Cloud's disappearance. As I still wonder about Aerith's death.
I still see it in my dreams. I see how the long, thing blade, glittering in the half light of the podium, slides through the air on it's descent. I see how it cries blood when it penetrates through her body, with the slick sound of bone against metal, and the oozing sound of blood too futile to clot spewing from the wound that was too deep for any magic to mend. I can see how his coal black coat and silver hair floated behind him, and how his glowing, turquoise eyes narrowed with glee as the sword slid through her body like a knife through hot butter. I can still see how her eyes opened abruptly from their serene prayer, wide, the leaf green hue of her irises almost blocked out by the black pupils that expanded with her fear. I can see how her mouth dropped open and her nostrils flared, for blood to trickle out of them, and how her face drained of any colour as the blood dribbled down her dress and the crimson colour spread like a blot of dye in water over her rose pink dress.
She was so... Perfect. She was everything I'm not, until even the last moment. She died with relative grace, an echo of how she lived her life. I know why he was attracted to her; we all were. As friends, as comrades, as sisters and as more. If I'm honest, I was jealous of her. I still am. Yuffie may call me 'Boobs', but that matters little in this.
Cloud promised me, he said to me that he'd rescue me, should I ever need the help. But I always got the feeling that he'd rather be with her, having fun, talking about more interesting things that I could ever hope to know about, sharing plans that I couldn't ever have come up with. I couldn't accept it at first, I was so adamant that he'd never considered her as more than a friend - he came to rescue me. But I was so wrong. I never go the full picture - so much took place behind my back. Behind all our backs. They were so close, despite what we all thought. They knew things between themselves that would've never been revealed to us, were it not for her death.
She was my friend, and I feel this awful way about her. They can tell you that someone will die in your life, and it will be someone close, and it will be painful, and it will happen make than once, but they couldn't prepare you for this. No one could have ever prepared me for watching as my friend, sister, rival died. No one can tell you how it feels to then watch the one you love die with her.
I can't trust him again, not after all that I've experienced, even though it happened in such an awful way. I've watched as his affections changed with the wind, and I've looked the other way. I saw his eyes soften and relax and the old part of Cloud look at her as if she was perfect, with no part of her that could ever go wrong, be wrong, at all. I've watched as he turned his eyes the same way on me, and felt that shock that was sent straight to my stomach; how it fizzled away in his eyes all hear and emotion. I've never heard him say anything with such force to me though. Of course - Cloud isn't a particularly expressive nor eloquent person. His shyness from his youth mixed with his genetic engineering and lack of emotion left him with a void in a certain chapter of his heart. The certain chapter I yearned for. Even now, as he abandons us for the church and a memory, I still want him back. Denzel and Marlene want him back and what with Denzel's growing black marks... We need him back. As a family. But he's gone, past the resolution of the family he promised me we'd be.
I thought he meant that we'd have a real relationship then - but he didn't. He provides (he provided) for us, and I cared for the children. We aren't a family. He's left us, for Aerith, the perfect memory I could never be. I sound so bitter, but I'm not. Aerith was my friend - I cared about her so much and I still do to this day. If I didn't, I'd never wear this pink ribbon for her. I'd never tell the children stories about her. But I mistrust the memory she's become to Cloud. I mistrust him, and how he thinks of her, of the promises he makes. He needs to chose, between the memory and us.
Tifa's just so tragic, the way I see her... She's in love with an 'emotionally constipated' man who she remembers as a different person from her childhood. It's really sad, I think! :'( Anyway, please review if you've the time, and follow for more. Thanks!