:: VIII :: Reflections of the Future

The Highwind touched down just outside the City of the Ancients, and luckily the archaeologists had long since left the site, for the winter season had caused the crumbling capital of the Cetra to be too damp for digging and troweling. Piling out of the Highwind, they wandered into the centre of the city. Cloud saw that the visiting archaeologists had left the oaks that surrounded the underground city there, in order to keep the crystalline buildings intact.

Aeris had disappeared into this part of the city, presumably to commune with the spirits of her ancestors. The others set up their tents in the warmest place possible, gathering their supplies in from the Highwind. Barret set about phoning Elmyra and Marlene to get them to come along, and Cid got hold of Shera. Cloud no longer felt the old excitement of the prospect of their final meeting in his heart. Tifa seemed upset at his unwillingness to speak to her, but he did not care anymore. When Aeris returned, there was a calmer look on her face and her black eyes held a peaceful quality about them.

"Did you speak to them?" Vincent asked, and again Cloud, standing nearby, felt the jealousy seep into his heart.

"Yes," she answered lightly. "I spoke to them."

As she said the words, Cloud felt suddenly deadened. It was as though, even after hearing her voice after only two or three days, she had blown all the foundations away from him, and there was as little existence for him as there had been three years before. He was still furious with the fact that they were no longer the same, but now the fury had dwindled into a powerless force that had no grounding. He still loved her, and he was angry with that too. True, she wasn't that same girl, but how could he forget, how could he lose what they had shared? It was all so ridiculous, so old and antiquated, he'd felt it all before, and yet now he knew that if he did not turn away from her he would weep with it. The unfairness of losing it all had re-entered his soul, and the life he had believed he would live only for her was now just a dream, a pretence.

"Cloud." It was her voice, and though it should have felt like a comforting hand on his shoulder, instead it only seemed to perpetuate his inner turmoil. He turned to face her slowly, unable to accept the gulf between them. She stared up at him, a bottomless understanding in her eyes.

"We shall have to talk sometime," she finally stated, her voice quiet.

"About what?" he asked her. It was a question he'd genuinely worried about over time.

"Whatever matters. Fate. Destiny. Perhaps journeys and searches." Her voice was getting dangerously soft. "The meeting here. The meeting after."

Cloud stared at her. There it was again. All those old, even ancient words. He gritted his teeth. He wanted to shout at her, it seemed almost imperative to him that he should finally get through to her, and stop their evasive nonsense.

"If you want," he replied coolly, and that was that.

Tifa, having noticed this small by-play, decided to take matters into her own hands for a change. Standing up, she walked up towards Aeris, and took the arm of her one-time friend. Aeris showed little surprise. Her hand, it seemed to Tifa, was cold, almost icy; or more accurately, unreceptive. Still, she allowed Tifa to lead her to one of the small, derelict houses nearby and then, at last, they stood facing each other, assessing one another slowly.

"Aeris, we need to talk," Tifa finally said, her voice determined. The other said nothing. She stared back at Tifa, her eyes cold, and Tifa was briefly reminded of the motionless body she'd embraced not that long before.

"I need you to tell me about Cloud," Tifa continued after swallowing hard. "Tell me how you feel about him."

Aeris blinked, once, twice. There was little emotion on her face.

"Are you worried that I would feel for him, that I would steal him away from you, Tifa?"

"That's not what I asked you," Tifa continued impatiently. "Please, tell me Aeris. Do you love Cloud?"

Aeris lowered her eyelids, and seemed to be thinking carefully about what she should say.

"I understand that I did, once," she finally replied. "And that I can't anymore."

"Why not?"

"Because there are parts of me that say I must not love him."

Tifa shook her head.

"How can that be? How can one part of you deny what another feels?"

"It's not like that," Aeris replied placidly. "You'll never understand, Tifa. The feeling is indescribable and wicked."

"He still loves you," Tifa managed to breathe, her voice tight.

"Really?" her tone was one of utter sadness. "How can he love a monster like me? The one who tried to destroy him, Sephiroth - he's inside me."

Tifa looked at the friend she had lost, and felt sorry for her.

"Why did the Lifestream bring you back if you have to be so unhappy?" she spoke kindly. "It seems unfair to me that you were given such a burden on your shoulders."

Aeris smiled wryly.

"The ways of the gods are mysterious. It's true - I have often asked the same questions, Tifa."

"Still, being a monster doesn't mean that his love for you can just die away," Tifa reasoned slowly "Cloud can still love you."

"Why does it bother you so, Tifa?"

Tifa shook her head. She did not know the answer to that question.

"I don't know. Somehow, something drives me to think about you and him. Some sort of force makes me wonder. Maybe it's fate."

"Tifa," Aeris spoke gravely to the other. "Cloud will never leave you."

"Why not?"

"You answered your own question just a moment ago."

"I don't understand."

"Oh, Tifa..." Aeris was silent for a moment, and then the cold face suddenly broke and Tifa was amazed to see tears welling in the eyes of the girl opposite her. "Oh Tifa, I wish...I wish..."

The words were muffled, for Aeris began to weep uncontrollably, and her head buried itself between her two trembling hands. Tifa, distressed at her heart-rending sobs, drew her arms around the quivering body, astonished at the fragile smallness of the seemingly rigid figure.

"Oh, my poor Aeris...my poor Aeris...Tell me what's wrong..."

The tears did not stop, and when next her voice spoke, it was small and vulnerable.

"Tifa...I'm sorry...but now I know that I could never have been his."

"What do you mean?"

Aeris proceeded to tell her with weakened voice, and muffled though the words were Tifa managed to recognise what the other was telling her. She held back at first, her mind reeling in shock. Then she held the other girl tight close to her, and tried to absorb all the pain and suffering with her joy.

For now, she understood.

Cloud had, much to his regret later on, discovered Cid's copious hordes of alcohol in his tent, which had evidently been set-aside for the 'party'. He did not steal any of it, but that night, when everyone was gathered round the fire, and Cid and some of the others were drinking happily, Cloud swallowed a little more than his fair share.

It had been a while since he had got really, properly drunk. Cloud was not the type to hold his drink well, and his previous encounters with the paralytic state had not been pleasant ones. Now, nevertheless, he was in the mood to savour his drunkenness. He got into a brawl with Cid; was nearly sick, which was fine because he felt sick at heart anyway; sang in a loud and embarrassing voice; and was finally dragged away by a mortified Tifa at the end of it all.

"Cloud," she scolded him back in their tent. "can't you behave yourself? I can't understand what's got into you lately!"

"Oh, leave it out, Tifa." he answered rudely, flopping on to his bed and pulling the pillow over his head. "Let me die in peace."

"Cloud, you can't let things get to you." she continued to nag "I mean, look at you! Has drink solved your problems in any way?"

"No," he replied, his voice thick, " 'cos it's got you naggin' after me."

They proceeded to argue at great length, until Cloud, due to the haziness of his mind, realised that he was fighting a losing battle. After a few more minutes of futile wrangling, he was reduced to shouting simple obscenities at her, after which they said nothing more to each other, but sulked in sullen silence.

An hour or so passed, and Cloud, unable to contain himself an longer, left the tent and began to retch violently. He was sure, as he lay back down in his bed five minutes later, that Tifa was silently gloating at his just reward inside.

Not surprisingly, the next morning Cloud was inflicted with an alarming hangover, and remained in bed until about midday, brooding over his own folly. When at last he emerged, everyone chose to ignore him. He was at first hurt considerably by this, and then his feeling of injury gave way to resentment, which didn't do a bit of good considering that fact that he knew he deserved such maltreatment anyway. Thinking the whole world was against him, Cloud decided to walk away from his cold-shouldering friends and keep himself company instead.

It was not pleasant. Cid, Barret and Reeve gave him cold, dirty looks, while Tifa simply looked sorry for him. Cloud was suddenly inflamed with indescribable anger. Why should they be sorry for him? He didn't want their sympathy, he didn't want their pity. He didn't care if they thought him a fool or not, or whether they hated him either. And yet, on another level, he understood their contempt of him, because he was weak, he was still a puppet of Sephiroth's, and he was still as indecisive as he had been in those early days - those 'heady' early days, when he was young, rash and had no concept of a stable, beautiful future such as they had now. He stalked past them, kicking up stones and grit as he went. On and on, he did not stop, not even when he reached the oaks that led to the crystalline city. Knowing instinctively where the entrance was, he pulled the branches aside and stumbled through, making his way past the tree-line tunnel and down the glittering staircase.

It was as he was wandering through the solitary, shining city that his thoughts of bitter self-derision began to fade away somewhat. It may have been something in the atmosphere, but at any rate, his heated state of mind gave way to some measure of placidness. He was standing on the edge of that lake once again, and was gazing down into his own bright eyes on the surface of the luminous water. As he looked down at his reflection, he felt different somehow. It struck him of how little he looked in the mirror, of how afraid he was of seeing his own face. What he saw now did not immediately displease him. He was, he admitted, weak, depressive, moody, confused and battered inside; and yet his body exuded the sort of aura that would have created a different impression. He had the lean, well-toned physique of someone trained in SOLDIER, and, feeling modest, he decided he wasn't bad looking at all. But, in spite of the body he knew contained his mind, he did not feel it to be his at all. He had always imagined his body as a willing servant of Sephiroth's. And Sephiroth was still alive - if not in Aeris, then certainly in his poor, tormented mind. Cloud sighed. He had still not completely exorcised his demons.

He walked away from his reflection and up to the altar. It felt strange to stand there, after all that time. He knelt down, wandering what it would feel like to sit there and pray. After a while, the swimming peacefulness began to fill him up. He closed his eyes and gave into it. For once in a way, he felt happy. Some time passed - Cloud did not know how long, it could have been hours - when suddenly he was amazed to feel the unexpected and tender touch of a hand on his shoulder. He swung round in shock to stare at the person who had awakened him from his dream.

A woman was looking down on him, and the first he thing he noticed was that her pale blue eyes were kind, very kind, though there were fine, thin lines on the skin underneath them. Cloud stood up hastily. In a shock, he had realised that this woman was none other than his dead mother. He stood as still as a statue, dazed into a sort of surreal trance. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he knew that his mother was dead, gone - but here she was, she seemed substantial enough; and strangely, it felt as though he'd never spent a day away from her.

"Mother..." he stammered, hardly knowing what to say; but she was smiling up at him with love and warmth, just like she always had.

"Cloud, my dear son. My dear Cloud."

Her voice, soft though it was, held no ghostly qualities about it. It was instead rich with the old emotions Cloud had remembered in the gentle tones as a child, so vibrant, so comforting that he felt as though he would weep with joy at hearing it again.

"Yes, mother, it's me." he replied, his eyes filling, his mind awash with now newly clarified memories "Your son, Cloud."

"My son." There was the intonation of wonderment in her voice "Yes, how much you've grown. So strong and handsome, and wiser too. You've changed."

"Yes, I have," he acknowledged, and there was a sting to his voice. He did not want to be reminded of the fact that he had changed. He looked up into the gentle face of his mother and now he was eager. " Mother, why are you here? You're not meant to be here."

" I came to see you, Cloud."

"Why?"

"Because, my son," she spoke very quietly, "soon you will be coming to the end of it all."

He was genuinely surprised.

"Will I?"

She nodded softly. "Yes, dear Cloud."

He tried not to doubt her, though it was hard. Would there ever be an end to it? He wanted to embrace her, but he was oddly reminded of that dream long ago once again, and of crossing that unseen barrier. She seemed to understand, for she nodded almost gravely at him, and when he next looked at her, her face seemed remote, and distant.

"There are others to see you," she informed him gently; then, although he had felt that he should not touch her, she, however, reached out without hesitation, and touched his shoulder. "I'm proud of you, my son."

She began to fade somewhat, and he spread his arms out earnestly, suddenly awakened to the gravity of losing his mother again. Nonetheless, his struggles were futile, and then forgotten, for Cloud was suddenly inundated with an abrupt and inexplicable rush of touch, of smells and sights and colours.

He gasped and stumbled backwards, his hand going instinctively up to shield his eyes from the utter confusion that the world had turned to. He was aware of standing in some sort of swirling grey field, of being shrouded in mists that obscured his sight all round, of feeling lighter than air, lighter than the living. When his senses at last became accustomed to the unnatural surroundings, he saw that from some point in the hazy distance was emerging a small black shadow that was getting progressively larger as it walked towards Cloud at a moderate pace. Clouds stood rooted, entranced, for from the shadow was flowing a familiar and warm presence, one that Cloud could not place. At last the figure descended upon him, and he saw, in the ghostly shade, a face that he knew to be from his past. Cloud felt his eyes swim again, for from the grey eyes that were looking so earnestly at him, he realised that for the first time in twenty years he was staring into the insubstantial face of his father.

Cloud spread out his arms, wishing to greet that man who he had long-forgotten, who had long been gone from his life. He called out the unfamiliar word, hoping that at last he would be able to hear a reply.

"Father!"

The mouth opened, formed the answer, but no sound came out. The face was already fading, and passing back to the place it had come from. Cloud's heart lurched, for he knew that he would never see that face again.

The moment had passed, and Cloud was now alone. Almost immediately, another person was travelling rapidly towards him, and there was an aura of actions, of deeds done; of vigour and courage; of qualities that Cloud himself had once longed to possess. He knew at once who this spectre was, for the presence was so forthright, so uncomplicated that Cloud could not mistake it. A dark-haired man stood before him, his youthful features proud and defiant, features that nevertheless softened as they recognised Cloud.

"Zack." Cloud spoke half to himself, for he knew from the look on the other's face that no words would be exchanged between them. Zack smiled, a comradely grin that brought back to Cloud the old feelings of boyish friendship that they had once shared. Now, Cloud wondered whether Zack felt any sense of Cloud's betrayal of him - for Zack's had been the life that Cloud had so shamelessly made his own.

"Forgive me," he whispered, and the shade of the other reached out to touch him reassuringly on the shoulder. It was as the action was about to connect that Zack suddenly disappeared, and was replaced with a shadow of deepest black, one that was filling in the grey sky from the distance. Cloud shuddered, and his heart was flooded with fear. This shadow, though no more than black in substance and colour, Cloud knew to be none other than Sephiroth. He stood like a rock, petrified, hardly able to breathe, until, at last, the silhouette disappeared overhead without any sign of having acknowledged Cloud at all.

He gasped for air and looked again into the darkness. A girl, he saw, was walking towards him and he felt a sudden wave of indescribable happiness. She drew closer, and Cloud saw that from her bright green eyes was emanating that wonderful joy. He was shocked, for it dawned upon him that this beautiful, smiling girl, was none other than Aeris - but the old Aeris, the one that he had once loved. His heart began to sing with joy and when he understood that she was smiling because he was there, he wished and wished that he would not leave this place.

And then, a strange thing happened. Aeris was gone, and in her place was standing a young girl, one that could not have been more that could not have been more than three years old. Cloud bent down on to his knees, filled with awe and wonderment, though he did not know why. She stared back up at him, her innocent face shining with complete trust and love in her jade-coloured eyes. Cloud did not know why but this young girl looked so familiar to him that he could actually feel the weight of his love for her deep within not only his heart but in his soul as well. With a trembling hand, Cloud reached out to stroke her soft auburn hair, and surprisingly, she allowed him to do so. There was no barrier here - Cloud felt that, in some way, this girl was not dead, but already somehow in the world of the living. Her tiny fingers clasped on to his hand, and Cloud felt the tears slip out of his eyes and down his cheeks.

"Who are you, little girl?" he asked softly.

She passed him one last smile.

Then, she was gone.

Next: Cloud must finally make a decision between Tifa and Aeris…