Chapter One: Poetic Justice
A stranger. From the time Tifa had touched down on this new world, Amyntas, that's all she'd been, and knew that forevermore, in one sense or another, that's all she could ever be. She was the only human being who'd survived the Planet's murder. Tifa did her best not to let her thoughts linger on that day, now a full year past. She was fantastically lucky, she continually reminded herself. Her first encounter with the Amyntasi, humanoids whose apparent differences from humans were incredibly slight, although mutually cautious, had turned into a relationship of care and compassion. The small farming family had taken her in and nursed her back to health, never once questioning whether or not she'd been completely honest with them about who and what she was, or what had happened to Gaia. They'd taken a tremendous risk for her sake.
But as she recovered, her original idea of finding some substantial way to contribute to that poor family in exchange for letting her stay on a permanent basis seemed more and more selfish; ill-thought out at best. There was too much Tifa didn't know about Amyntas as a whole. Would someone in authority punish or harm them if they found out they were harboring her? She had no clue about this world's sociopolitical climate, but she wasn't about to stick around only to find out they were risking execution or worse. Enough-too much-death already lay behind her, and Tifa wasn't willing to chance inviting more bloodshed into anyone's life. So she left them. She thanked them for all they'd done, and set out on a road northward, uncertain of her destination.
Mirnu, Saillyo his wife, and their little daughter, Laiyon: Tifa would never forget them, even if she someday found a reason to wish she could. They'd taught her to speak all over again, helped her through the often-poisonous adventure of learning what she could and couldn't eat here, and comforted and trusted her long before they truly knew each other. Because of them, it was at least remotely possible for her, an alien, to survive and maybe even make some kind of a meaningful living in their world.
Fondly, she remembered that they were planet worshippers, much like the Cetra of Gaia, though they never claimed any special relationship to Amyntas. Saillyo told her that they revered their world because it was the closest life-bearing world to the origin of all, and thereby, the strongest. Learning this, she recalled how both Aerith and Genesis had been fascinated by Minerva's choice to lead her here for refuge, rather than guiding her to complete Omega's purpose as originally planned, which was to return her to the heart of the cosmos to be reborn.
To that end, Tifa also recalled wandering late into the first evening before making camp, and thinking that in some ways, Gaia's soul, the Goddess, was no different from any other living thing. Or, perhaps it was more accurate that all life that had descended from her being shared in her most sincere desire. That desire was not to prosper or find solace, but to survive. Comfort and safety would have led Minerva straight into the "origin of all"; to the Promised Land. But Minerva had chosen Amyntas instead, not quite ready or willing to accept that her true, living form had been destroyed.
For now, Tifa was content to let Minerva use her to extend her life. Once Minerva acknowledged that she'd been defeated and sought to return to the Promised Land, it would mean Tifa's time was up as well. In essence, she felt the same way the Goddess did. She wasn't really ready to be finished with her life, even for all the grim turns and losses they'd both endured. The very idea that one strong-willed man could and did crush the Planet was just still so surreal; too perverse to believe it was absolutely true. There had to be some kind of catch; a saving grace that maybe they were looking too hard to see.
Although Amyntas could never feel like home, the people of this world seemed quite intent on reminding her of Gaia. Her journey had ended early one evening at a surprisingly large, almost out of place metropolis. It towered out of the flatlands like a misplaced mountain. Ground-level columns of stone that looked like marble and quartz composed the buildings, which were then clustered together to form several ascending tiers. Each tier was linked to the others by bridges and stairwells, leading up to the tallest column in the very center. Tifa had been tempted to believe that the city was just one massive structure, until she quietly strode in through the ground-level streets and saw that they were slightly separated by narrow passages and alleyways. Children playing outside of their front doors stared at her in silent curiosity; some of them instantly retreated inside, probably to tell their parents or hide.
What happened afterward was just a small, cosmically-displaced slice of old Midgar life. Tifa didn't get to learn very much about the city that day, because its police force caught up with her-not that she was running-and asked only part of the slew of questions she expected: "Who are you? Where are you from? Are you lost? Do you understand us? Oh, we see...no need to worry. We can take you back to where you belong."
As it turned out, according to them, she was a physically disfigured, mentally-challenged homeless person who'd wandered away from her rightful place in the slums. Her suppler human skin, her unusually accented speech, and lesser number of finger joints didn't exactly seem to drive home the point that she wasn't one of them. Instead, they dismissed her as a terrestrial genetic accident, and escorted her to the western-most edge of town, where a small village comprised mostly of shacks and dug-out homes had sprung up to house the most destitute, along with whatever else this world considered untouchable. Unlike Midgar, the sky was open overhead, but Tifa didn't have to try very hard to conjure up an estimation of how the upper tiers related to the land-crawling poor. They were hardly even welcomed into the city proper, if this experience meant anything. The whole situation, at just a first glance, was sickeningly familiar.
But that was also the day Tifa reaped a tiny speck of hope. She knew how to live in the slums, and how to maneuver within the violent, territorial games without becoming too intimately involved in them. Most importantly, she knew how to acquire a safe niche of neutrality and respect from all sides. In Midgar, that had meant just giving as good as she got, and surrounding herself with people who held a common grudge against ShinRa. Back then, she'd eventually become well known for good, cheap booze and grub, cleavage you didn't have to pay for to admire—but don't you dare touch-and a sound ass-kicking for anyone who needlessly crossed her. And if it turned out a fight was just the result of some stupid misunderstanding? Well, she'd happily be there to help patch up all those bruises and welts she'd earlier dished out. If she was in a good enough mood at the time, she might have even offered her victims a drink on the house...
Living in Midgar's sectored-off slums was often bitter and inglorious, but given something reminiscent of that time and place in her life, and considering everything that had transpired since then, Tifa would gladly accept it.
Casting off the thin layers of cloth she used for blankets, Tifa rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She'd gone to bed last night the same way she had for the past month since finishing the construction of her tiny, makeshift shack of a house, rehashing how she'd come to live here, and reminding herself why this was better than staying with Mirnu and Saillyo. Then, she'd curled up tight with what she figured had probably once been a really expensive, pristine set of drapes for a balcony window on the upper tiers, and passed out.
Now, it was time to get up and pay her junkie neighbors their petty fee for letting her use their shower. Afterward, she'd wander the streets, looking for more materials to add some kind of plumbing system to her house. That is, if she didn't spend the entire time scouring the dumps for a solid chunk of scrap metal or sturdy stone for her neighbors' sloppy and ever-ongoing second floor construction project, so that she could use their shower again tomorrow. The materials she gave them never seemed to take shape, disappearing quite mysteriously. At first, she hadn't cared. It felt like a good deal to start, but their standards and demands for good materials had been growing increasingly stringent. Tifa tried not to dwell on the fact that she never saw them collecting anything for themselves anymore. She could do without a great deal, but access to running water was not something she was willing to sacrifice.
But first, she needed some kind of breakfast, whether she liked it or not. Tifa grimaced; just thinking about her food choices made her stomach turn. She could hit up the neighbors early, in hopes that they might send her off with a small sack of highly insubstantial grain flakes. On more than one occasion, she thought she'd seen them feeding their pet, whatever that animal was, the same stuff. The other option was to steal away to the garbage dump just outside the uptown border. As much as they'd been on Gaia, the extravagantly wealthy here were fond of pitching food because they'd prepared way, way too much for show. The dumps offered a lot more variety and not always a terrible flavor, if she managed to get there when the refuse was fairly fresh. Otherwise, she risked the filth and life-threatening contamination that were inherent in dumpster diving, not to mention the humiliation.
How funny, that she still found the time and energy to worry about humiliation, after unwittingly helping to cause Gaia's demise, Tifa mused.
"But you didn't really," Aerith's voice emerged into the fore of her thoughts.
Sighing, Tifa pushed her friend into the back of her mind. She wasn't in the mood for Aerith's platitudes and pep talks right now, and yes, it was her fault. No measure of consolation, even from Minerva Herself, could change Tifa's mind. She was the one who'd cared for Eden. She'd kept his violent intrusions into her psyche a secret for too long. And ultimately, she was the one who'd sought to save him, even when it had become blatantly obvious that the child's goal was to experience his Reunion and become Sephiroth. All of it she allowed, fully aware that Eden was quite literally a part of Sephiroth; even while her friends and family dropped like flies from Geostigma!
Tifa would be lying to herself if she didn't acknowledge that part of the reason she'd left Mirnu and Saillyo was because of how relentlessly her guilt weighed down on her. Even now that she knew it would probably be safe to return to them, she couldn't. Because some of the Amyntasi authorities had mistaken her for one of their own, albeit mutated or deformed, they'd inadvertently given her the lie she needed to protect the only ones who knew the truth if she chose to go back to them. But she couldn't bring herself to leave the city. The squalor, hunger, and hardship were the least of what Tifa felt she deserved.
Still, it was time to press on as always, and get her day started. There was work to do, scraps to collect, and a myriad of foul city odors to ignore. "The slums reek" seemed to be some kind of sacred universal law. Finally gathering the will to rise from her dingy sleeping mat, Tifa wafted the cheesy, salty, oniony stench radiating from her armpits and feet. A light breeze forced itself into her shack through the cracks in the scrap-metal walls, bringing with it the stale, bile-ridden musk of raw sewage. Home sweet and sour, pungent home.
For what little it was worth, Tifa brushed herself off, killed whatever insects crept between her and the front door, and headed over to the neighbor's house. Vaniir and the woman Tifa had thus far presumed to be his girlfriend, Neyli, were outside waiting for her as usual.
"Ah, Tifa! I see you've been working quite hard," Vaniir greeted her, motioning to the rust-free pile of metal sheets she'd left at their doorstep. "Come inside; bathe. Today, I have a special project for you!"
"What might that be?" Tifa replied evenly, clenching one fist at her side in frustration, while coming to the same realization she made on an almost daily basis about this man: She hated him!
Despite his professionally-built home and running water, Vaniir's hygiene was probably worse than her own. His ear-length black hair was always matted down with what looked like weeks' worth of grease, and he clearly made no effort whatsoever to clean his teeth. There was somehow always a field of stubble taking over his face, and sleep crusts in the corners of his dim, pea-green eyes. And that was just his appearance! Vaniir's frail, willowy girlfriend, Neyli, almost never said a word to him, and always kept her gaze low to the ground when Tifa came over. Vaniir seemed to relish in how badly he intimidated her, particularly if anyone else was around, like he had something to prove.
Poor Neyli had the demeanor of a cruelly-trained animal. She had gorgeous, light blonde hair that might have been able to tame itself, but the constant stress she was under made her tousle and pull at it, rendering it uneven and frizzy. Her light gray eyes were sunken in and eternally recovering from her most recent bout of crying. And she was tiny; malnourished. Whereas Vaniir was tubby and over-fed, Neyli was little more than a scarred and bruised skeleton. Tifa predicted that one day, she'd probably snap and turn on Vaniir, but until then, she was faithfully and fearfully obedient to the asshole's every whim. That was certainly one list of evils Tifa wanted to know nothing about.
Yet, it was Neyli who'd first offered her a hot shower and a few jugs of drinking water. That was the same day Tifa had started handing over portions of the scrap she'd gleaned as payment. Although Neyli was only trying to be charitable, Tifa feared how the then-intoxicated and enraged Vaniir might punish her for it. The last thing she wanted was for Neyli to garner even more of Vaniir's negative attention if and when the man became violent. Compensating him for the meager gift of water worked well to keep his temper in check.
"Well, you see...today, you're not going to waste any more time scavenging for pipes and scrap metal. It's going to be getting cold soon, so today, I need you go about a mile or two north of the city. You'll find some stampeding flocks of plains-birds. They're a handful, but I need you to take down a few of them, and bring me their feathers. Who knows? Bring back enough, and I might not need them all..."
Neyli cowered closer to him, and feigned approval, "Yes. That is a good idea. Perhaps...if she brings enough, Tifa can keep a share for her home?"
Vaniir rolled his eyes, lightly slapped the back of her head, and grabbed her arm. "Stupid, stupid Neyli. You never think, do you? You have to try to think! We're going to sell the extras for food and our other expenses. If your pet freak needs anything more from us, she needs to give me-me, not you-a good reason why I should."
"But...!" Neyli started, but Vaniir tightened his hold on her arm, causing a joint to pop. Wincing, she crouched slightly, her eyes rapidly batting back tears while she covered her mouth. "Of course. I-I should have thought just a little harder about it...sorry, sorry, sorry..."
Tifa cast a death-glare his way. Oh, how she'd love to rip his head from his shoulders, and present it to Neyli on a sharpened pike. "That's not necessary. You'll have what you need before sundown, Vaniir," she muttered.
She stomped into their house, strode down a long hallway to the bathroom, and closed the door behind her. Tearing off her grime- covered top, she frowned. Since when had she accepted formal employment, if that's even what she could call it, from Vaniir?
"Hey! How about, 'Since when do I let dirt-bags walk all over helpless people?!'" Yuffie interjected. "I remember how you used to 'reform' tons of his kind back in Seventh Heaven with just one or two good ass-beatings! What gives, Tifa?"
"This isn't our world, Yuffie," Tifa mumbled. She'd long since learned to act like she was only talking to herself when responding to her friends. "Besides, the last time I stepped in for someone who was 'helpless'..."
"In hindsight, was Eden really that helpless, Tifa? And what about all the times you were there for me?" Cloud broke in.
"But I knew you for a long time, Cloud. Please, I don't want to think about this," Tifa replied, and her friends graciously fell silent.
She would do what she needed to do to get by; what she always did since coming to this city. Before returning to Vaniir with his demands, she'd find a place to hide a small stash of feathers for herself. When night fell, she'd retrieve it, and smuggle it into her dinky shack.
Finally relaxing under a scalding spray, Tifa scraped her nails along her scalp and vigorously scrubbed her skin. The Amyntasi's skin was thicker and tougher, so she had to use her bare hands. What passed for a decent body sponge to these people would probably leave her raw with scrapes and scratches all over the place. Breathing in the hot, steamy air, Tifa decided that Yuffie was wrong. Roughing up her most despicable patrons had never taught them anything but not to frequent a bar tended and managed by a strong fighting woman. No, the only time she'd ever encountered one of those bastards who'd truly seen the light was when his body was riddled with Geostigma. Sadly, some people just never appreciated their lives until death became their drinking buddy.
Too bad she couldn't give Vaniir a taste of that medicine.
"Tifa! Time's up! Get the fuck out of my house, and get to work!" Vaniir shouted through the locked door.
Something had to have pissed him off for him to drop his faux professional gentleman act so completely. Down the hall, she could make out Neyli's muffled whimpering. Tifa sighed through her teeth, knowing that she'd probably tried one more time to convince Vaniir to show an ounce of compassion. Unsurprisingly, the prick didn't have so much as a single kind word for either of them.
Too bad, indeed. Vaniir deserved to watch his own body melt away.
For the first time in a month, Tifa ventured outside of the city limits. Looking up at its towering columns and artificial, mesa-like tiers, she marveled at how, despite having all the flaws of Midgar's slums, the place as a whole looked like a colossal temple. Cluster 100, the Amyntasi called it, or so she'd heard. Supposedly, they didn't name their cities. In a way, the government managed the whole world just like ShinRa, designating numbered sectors rather than meaningful or historical names.
Other than that and slum life, Tifa hadn't had the time to learn much more. For now, just getting by was a full-time job.
She welcomed the cleanliness of the flatlands, and the beauty of two of Amyntas' three moons, hanging low in the mid-morning sky. It was the same scenery she'd grown comfortable with while living under Mirnu and Saillyo's roof. And for once, the wind didn't make her want to hold her breath, carrying only benign, grassy scents. If Tifa really wanted to, she could walk away from Cluster 100, and never look back. Maybe she could find a smaller town somewhere? Tifa moaned, remembering all too quickly the advantage of the slums. In such an ugly and perverse place, it wasn't difficult at all to sell people on the story that she was deformed, but still one of their own. Considering how put-off the average Cluster citizens had been at her mere appearance, Tifa feared that not only would she stand out more where it was less populated, but that her cover would be blown, and that by association, her original hosts would be in danger.
Besides, even if throttling Vaniir was more or less out of the question, Neyli needed a friend. Maybe, in time, the knowledge that she wasn't alone anymore would push the woman to stand up for herself. Tifa snorted, incredulous of those thoughts, ready to argue with herself. She might be embittered, ashamed, traumatized, and who knew what else, but she was still the same person she'd always been. Long before Neyli could ever hope to gather the courage, Tifa would probably act for her. Vaniir was walking on dangerously thin ice; Tifa wasn't going to remain conflicted forever. Whatever happened to her in consequence was negligible when compared to the needs of an innocent-a true innocent, if such a person existed. At any rate, Neyli wasn't malicious, and she needed help.
Nevertheless, Tifa still banked her hopes on Vaniir's grotesque lifestyle. If she and Neyli were lucky, the man would finish himself off before their respective situations with him degraded any further.
Forcing her dysfunctional neighbors out of her mind, Tifa set out toward the north, to find these so-called "stampeding plains-birds". The only kind of bird she'd ever seen flocking together and stampeding were wild chocobos. If these plains-birds were anything like chocobos, they were worth a lot more to her than their feathers. They might also be edible, and good as swift transports. Walking everywhere was getting very, very old. Now that she came to think of it, the Amyntasi were oddly immobile, from what she'd seen so far. It didn't make any sense. Everywhere she'd roamed, her encounters with monsters and other predators had been incredibly rare.
"It appears that the Amyntasi do not cannibalize their world. The grasses are lush, even at the city's edge. Perhaps there are restrictions on moving to prevent damaging the land?" Nanaki suggested.
"That's a nice thought, but I'm not so sure," Tifa responded, settling into a normal conversation. Alone, she didn't have to worry about who might see her and question why she was talking to apparently no one. "I don't like how some people are treated here. I don't really know enough, but it reminds me a little of how the ShinRa was."
"It is...odd," Nanaki agreed. For a moment, Tifa could feel him hesitating. "Tifa, what do you intend to do with that ghastly Vaniir?"
Groaning, Tifa stopped, and scuffed her shoes against the unpaved road, sending up a small spray of gravel. "As little as I need to, I guess. I want to help Neyli, but Vaniir's going to have to give me no other choice. This world scares me enough, Nanaki. I'm not in a rush to find out what their prison system is like."
"Unfortunate, but fair enough," Nanaki acquiesced, and receded into her subconscious.
Ahead, Tifa heard a low rumble. The pebbles at her feet hopped and trembled. Shielding her eyes from the sun's glare with one hand, she tried to peer further into the distance. Behind a smoky wall of dust, she caught a glimpse of beaked faces with long, sandy brown, feathered necks craning forward, charging at full speed.
"Uh...I don't think this is going to work!" Tifa sang to herself, while quickly veering to one side, moving out of their way.
There was no way she was going to be able to get within ten feet of one of those animals, let alone trying to topple one or more of them for their feathers! Maybe they looked and acted enough like chocobos, but these birds were monstrous! An average Gaian chocobo was about a foot or two taller than her; these creatures were two and three times her height! If they socialized more like chocobos, and didn't run with tens and hundreds of companions, Tifa might have stood a chance of hunting and killing one, but the very-rightly named stampeding plains-birds' defense was nigh unbreakable. Why bother stalking one, when they were all tall enough to see her coming from most directions, and would probably crush her underfoot the moment she tried to leap? She estimated that only an elephant gun could hope to bring these guys down, and that the shot would have to come from a distance to avoid being trampled when the blast spooked all the others. But it was a moot point, because her know-how with any guns was next to nothing, let alone trying to shoot down big game properly. Where in this world could she even get a hold of such a weapon?
Tifa scowled. She was going to have to return to Vaniir empty-handed. The filthy man probably knew damn well what these birds were like. For all she knew, sending her into their path was a lazy effort on his part to get rid of her. If she'd been caught in the stampede, would anyone have really questioned it? "Have you heard? Some mentally-deficient wench from the slums wandered out, and died in a run-in with the plains-birds. Too bad, so sad. No one really knew her..." Yes, whoever was in charge of investigating her death, if anyone aside from Vaniir and Neyli took note, would probably say something like that.
"Shit, Tifa! If that ain't one fucked up way to look at it, " Cid protested.
Bowing her head, Tifa conceded, "Yeah, it is. But...it's probably the truth. I don't know if I can afford to believe anything else-not until I'm doing more than just scraping by."
After a full day of circling the city aimlessly, Tifa crept back into the Cluster under the cover of darkness. Only one of Amyntas' three moons was up, granting her a few more reliable shadows to mask her return. Because she had nothing to give him, she had decided to wait until it was late enough for Vaniir to have gone comatose from whatever illicit plant, animal, or drink he'd chosen to imbibe this time. A red, slimy, globular moss that grew in sewers was his favorite. Supposedly, it brought on strong hallucinations, followed by a sound, deep sleep. Tifa hoped he was in the mood for it this evening. Regretfully, Neyli sometimes joined him, but it was probably best that they both be asleep when she arrived.
Heeding extra caution, Tifa decided to wait a little longer before returning to her shack. Until then, she skulked around one of the slums' landfills, quietly picking through constructive wastes for anything she might use. Granted, night was the worst time to do this. She couldn't always make out where the sharp, rusty edges and broken glass were. Still, it was preferable to coming here when Vaniir was expecting her to hand over anything good. The sooner she gathered enough supplies to connect her pathetic little tin shed of a home to the city's sewers and aqueducts, the sooner she could stop pretending she was that bastard's slave. She'd already managed to find a suitable tub and sink. They were more like a huge metal barrel and a dented bucket, but they were water-tight and sturdy.
When a dull ache began to throb behind her eyes and in her temples, Tifa surmised that searching with almost no light and breathing in the dumps' vile stench were starting to get to her. Only somewhat irrationally, she found herself blaming it on Vaniir. When was the last time she'd come to hate another person so quickly? Tifa's breath caught in her throat for the obvious answer, and she nearly choked on it. That was the wrong question to ask; the wrong comparison to draw, but it was too late. Her heart was already racing, and her eyes were already straining against the flood of tears she held in reserve for that one memory. Thoughts like this always came out of nowhere, and there was never a way to prepare for how they'd get to her.
"I don't want to think about it, I don't want to know it," Tifa chanted through her teeth, trying desperately to soothe herself.
Anything, anything, she would give to push thoughts of that one away. It was one thing when she recalled his name of her own free will, but when something coincidentally reminded her like this, she could barely handle it. Mercifully, the tension in her head worsened, distracting her. The pain was damn near nauseating, but it was a price she was more than willing to pay. Feeling so ill meant she had more of a reason to go home than she did to keep working. Cocooning with her ripped up curtains and salty-smelling bedroll was suddenly quite appealing.
She'd only found a few solid pipes, but they were better than nothing; they still meant she'd made progress. Cradling them against her chest, Tifa jogged the few blocks between the landfill and her shack. As she drew near, she slowed to a tip-toe, not allowing Vaniir and Neyli's house to leave her line of sight. Their lights were all off, but that didn't necessarily mean she was in the clear. Depending on what drug they'd taken, they could be lounging in the pitch dark, wide awake and enjoying-or suffering from-a massive trip that the absence of light greatly intensified.
"My friend, the fates are cruel," Genesis whispered abruptly; harshly.
Closing in on her front door, Tifa narrowed her eyes, searching for what had prompted Genesis' sudden recital. Then, only inched away from the entrance, her foot met with a limp, heavy, unyielding resistance. The unexpected barricade made Tifa fumble the treasures she'd gathered from the dump, and they slipped from her slick, sweaty hands, clattering to the sidewalk. Shaking, she knelt down, fixated on the two bodies, which were heaped one on top of the other. Dark, black and ash-colored inflammations coated their arms, chests, and legs. Oily slime still seeped from Vaniir's mouth, and out of Neyli's ears. Their eyes were stuck wide open, preserving the shock in which they'd perished.
From their expressions, she could tell they hadn't seen or felt it coming—it had just emerged from within their bodies suddenly, and killed.
Tifa began to hyperventilate, panicked. Blocking her door-two Geostigma victims, her neighbors, were blocking her door. Why did they have to do this? They didn't, really. She would get Vaniir whatever he needed. Didn't he understand that by now? He didn't need to pull something like this. And Neyli-Of course Tifa was planning on helping her! She was! Wasn't this kind of cry for help a little extreme? But, they were dead, and they were blocking her door, bleeding out black ooze, while all Tifa wanted was to go in and rest, and stop, stop, stop thinking about it!
Between her pounding, burning head and corpses at her feet, she couldn't hold back anymore. Tifa turned away and vomited.