Author's Quickie: Well, didn't expect to see me in another few hundred years, eh? Okay, it's your lucky day. Another chapter! Whew! I think I'm going to update every two months or so... :D No, just kidding. After I finish Project: Trinity, I'll be able to devote much more time to this fanfic (not to mention the coming of summer vaca. Thanks to all the readers who've read both, I know I'm a pain in the a** when it comes to updating.

Disclaimer: Add it on yerselves, you people who actually read this. :D

Astray

Chapter Three: Aflame

Holding her hand up to her nose to keep away the musty smell of sewage, Aerith walked unsteadily to the end of the cobblestone area, growing more and more depressed by the minute. This is insane, she thought helplessly, trying not to retch when she saw a water beetle skitter across the grimy surface of the water, I shouldn't have come here.

She said it like she had a choice. Aerith sighed, dropping into a seating position onto the cold, flat stones. Her eyes roamed around, and she saw a beautiful mural painted in the east wall, a bright sun shining in the middle. Vaguely she wondered if Leon had painted it himself.

He didn't look like he was that kind of guy, but maybe appearances could be deceiving.

She sniffed experimentally, surprised when the air didn't smell. In fact, it smelled nice. Something told her it was cinnamon sticks, but that was crazy. She hadn't smelt cinnamon for over a year now. Glancing around for the source of the new smell, her eyes caught sight of a sachet of potpourri hanging near the doorway, wrapped carefully in a red pouch and tied with a blue satin ribbon. She walked over to it, touching it lightly with her hands. The dried leaves crinkled noisily at the touch.

Aerith took it off the nail in the door and held it to her nose, inhaling the deep, calming scent of cinnamon. Sometimes it would irritate her nose if there was too much of it, but it was just the right amount: not too fiery, but not too sweet, either.

"What are you doing?" The abrupt voice of Leon made her nearly drop the sachet to the ground. She glanced up into his cold blue eyes, a faint smile frozen in place. The sachet clung to her fingers like incriminating evidence.

"It...it smells nice," she said awkwardly. She turned and hung the pouch back on the hook, dangling by the strand of blue ribbon. Aerith walked over to meet him, a little sheepish.

Impassively Leon watched her, his gaze stony. "Don't you know better than to touch people's things?" he said sharply, annoyed she had went after the one thing he had managed to take with him from Hallow Bastion, besides his life. He went over to the door and tugged the potpourri pouch off the nail, stuffing it into his jacket pocket.

A little wounded, Aerith nevertheless strived for some light conversation. "What's in there? It smells like cinnamon, but it also smells like this flower I once knew..." She thought back, trying to bring up the name, but only got a picture in her head of a vibrant blue flower with five petals. Oh, god, it had been so long since she had seen any greenery. Too long.

"It's called the aegis flower," Leon said finally, closing his eyes with the memory. Her white hands, weaving the petals together so that it would form a clumsy heart.

"Here. Since you gave me your necklace, I'll give you this. To remember me by." God, how could he forget?

"Yes, that's it." Aerith nodded in agreement, inhaling deeply once more. The scent tickled her nose, and she smiled. "I used to tend to the castle gardens, and they always had a few of these in a green patch, all by themselves." That garden patch. Cloud used to pick the flowers for her, because she had once said how they mirrored his eyes. Aerith glanced furtively at Leon, noticing how well the flowers mirrored his eyes, too.

The silence that came was deafening. "I miss them," Aerith said quietly, her fingers twisting upon her lap. "I want to go home, and pretend none of this ever happened."

"Don't we all," Leon said sardonically, shaking his head at her emotions.

Aerith flared. "You don't have to be like that, you know! What gives you the right to act so haughty? I've went through so much more, but you don't see me snapping at everyone within three steps, do you?"

"I doubt you've been through more," Leon scoffed, a hand on his hip.

"Try me," Aerith said icily.

Leon laughed, a bark of sharp laughter that mocked her. "You couldn't even take care of those idiots back in the street! Don't be a fool."

"Just because I didn't want to hurt them doesn't mean I couldn't win!" she shot back, her fury mounting. She had had it. The nerve of this guy, to treat her like something less than a human being! Forget it, she thought, flushing angrily, he's not like Cloud at all!

He tapped the point of his sword on the cobblestones, the blade making a faint tink every time it hit the ground. He regarded her, dismissing her ability to fight. She wasn't carrying a weapon, she was a girl, and she looked especially fragile. Leon cocked his head, a grimace on his face. "Alright. Prove it."

She looked ready to kill at his words, but stiffly replied, "No. I don't have to stoop to your level. Prove it to yourself, if you want to."

A wry smile flitted across his face and he slid the gunblade back into its sheath. "Afraid to hurt me, eh?" he said mockingly, even as his conscience told him not to be so cruel.

Her head jerked up in response and she shot a hand out, and the next thing he knew was that he had rolled onto the ground by sheer reflex. A crack of lightning hit the spot where he had been standing a moment before, a black mark on the stone and the smell of smoke lingering in the air.

"A magic user," he hissed under his breath. It explained why she had no weapon, and perhaps why she had implied she had been through more. Magic was dangerous and illusive, to be courted only by the most powerful souls. He himself had mastered only one spell, and it was very unwieldy most of the time.

Aerith's facial features tightened, but she smoothed them away and regarded him with a hint of pity. "All you've known in life is to fight, isn't it?" she asked softly. "And because you've lost that one battle in your life, you're bitter."

Leon's face twisted into a deep snarl. "Don't pity me," he said, straightening up.

"There was once a man who was like you, too," she said slowly, looking down at the palm of her outstretched hand. "A man who thought that revenge was his only reason to live. He had lost, once, to a rival, and thought he couldn't go on. He turned cold, and bitter, and locked his heart in a cage." She glanced up, seeing Leon's haunted eyes riveted to her, a fire aglow behind them. She smiled painfully at him, knowing how the resentment ate at his heart. "And then..."

"Don't tell me. He found a girl, a girl who showed him the way back, didn't he?" He shook his head, a contemptuous scowl on his lips. "Sorry," he said, the ice back in his eyes, "but fairy tales don't come true."

"But it does. How can they come true if you never believe in them?" she asked, anguished.

"A man who believed something once, and then found out what lies they are, never goes back," he told her, dropping a shopping bag into her arms. "I'm going out again. You can sleep upstairs, there's a little cottage there. I'll come see you in the morning."

After he was gone, Aerith looked down into the bag. There was an assortment of women's clothes and shoes and necessary toiletries, including a long, delicate copper-handled brush that looked familiar as well. "Oh!" she said in surprise, picking up something that had been left behind precariously on top, the familiar scent of cinnamon warming her senses. A red sachet stared back at her, the blue ribbon fluttering in the weak breeze.

"He doesn't believe in fairy tales," she murmured, placing the bag down gently. "How sad."

* * *

[Ending notes: Aww, how sad. I know, I know, mundane, right? But I like the mundane, the little interactions that mean a lot in the long run. Perfect for them two to begin to bond, eh?]