(Refer to chapter 1 for the disclaimer.)
Chapter Four: the Traveler
"How long have we been riding?" Aeris called out to Cloud.
"Hours." Cloud said as he looked at the positioning of the sun. He had met several people who could tell the time that way but he never figured out how. He just liked people to think he could.
Aeris fidgeted and twisted on the back of her chocobo. She tried her hardest to make herself comfortable but nothing seemed to work. People weren't mean to ride sidesaddle this long, she thought to herself, but what were my options? Hiking my dress too far up? That's not going to happen anytime soon. Not with Cloud around like he is, she told herself. She kicked her chocobo slightly to tell it to speed up and run along side Cloud's bird. Cloud always seemed to pull in front no matter how fast they rode. "Can we stop and rest for a just a minute?" she yelled for him to hear.
"Why?" he yelled back "You alright?"
"Not really. It's not anything serious I just need to stop and rest for a little bit." she yelled again. Cloud pulled the reigns on his chocobo and causing it to immediately halt. She had to slow hers down more gently. As it was, she still nearly expect the chocobo to thrown her considering how poorly she was balanced.
Cloud was tying his chocobo's reigns to a nearby tree when Aeris finally circled around to meet him.
"What's the problem?" he asked.
"No problem really. I just needed to get off for a while. Rest. Stretch my legs. That sort of thing," she realized her explanation probably would sound a bit silly to him so she added a charming smile as she said it.
"I guess there's no harm done. We've still got plenty of time," he held out his arms to help Aeris climb down off her mount. "Make sure you tie it up good. We don't need these things running away on us." He told her as he walked a short distance away. Cloud picked another tree with plenty of shade and leaned up against it to rest himself.
Aeris took off her boots and socks to enjoy the feel of the grass between her toes. With so few places in the slums she would even dare walk barefoot, she enjoyed every chance she had to do so.
She walked down the path little ways and ventured off into the trees that lined the road taking her time to stretch her legs. She even took a few moments to look around for some wildflowers hoping to surprise Cloud with but there was nothing but a few bug eaten blossoms that she didn't care to mess with. When she was finally ready to get back on the road again, she looked back over to Cloud. He'd dozed off under the tree. She smiled and walked over to him, gently nudging him awake.
"Hmmm? Oh sorry." He rubbed his eyes and stood up. "I feel like I haven't had a decent rest in forever. Frankly, the only time I can remember getting one is then you let me sleep in your bed." Cloud felt sort of odd as he said that to her and quickly tried to move the subject along. "I've been a bit grouchy lately." He shrugged as if it was an apology.
"We all have bad nights. To tell you the truth, I didn't really sleep well last night either. Bad dreams."
"I won't ask." Cloud said dusting the grass of his worn SOLDIER uniform. Aeris had wondered several times why he choose to wear the old style uniform. The modern SOLDIER uniforms had armored chest plates and helmets. She remembered Zack complaining about how they were going to have to start wearing them soon before he disappeared. That was years ago. She couldn't help but wonder how long Cloud had been out of SOLDIER. He talked like he left a few weeks ago, but the facts didn't seem to match.
Maybe they just wear those into battle, Aeris thought, that has to be it.
They each mounted their respective chocobo and took back to the dusty trail.
"You doing alright now?" Cloud asked as he pulled his chocobo up next to hers. He had decided to let her take the lead when they started riding again. At the very least, he could let her set the pace, even if it was a bit slow.
"I'm doing fine," Aeris called back to him. "Although I'll be glad when we can get off these things for a while." Aeris reached up to pet her chocobo "Sorry, didn't mean to call you a thing." Cloud smiled despite himself and pulled back to let Aeris lead along the muddy trail. The trip had been quite uneventful and for an instant Cloud was glad that he had brought Aeris with him. She was definitely the most agreeable person in the group. Red often acted like he had something to prove, Tifa seemed unsure of herself most of the time, and Yuffie well, he didn't even care to think about what traveling alone with her would be like.
As he was thinking this he saw Aeris's chocobo suddenly jerked to the side throwing her in the mud. A land worm shot out from underneath the ground, before Cloud could respond. It thrashed wildly, spraying them both with the gravel from it's tunneling. Cloud glanced over to Aeris to make sure she was okay for a quick second before he charged the creature. She was still moving and didn't seem hurt to bad.
The SOLDIER stood up slightly on the back of his bird as they charged the beast. He readied a slow materia and cast it on his ride before leaping at the worm-beast. The creature slammed against him knocking him to the tough ground. He was back up in seconds charging the worm again. He leaped over and around the cracks that formed in the ground from the creatures small quakes. It had already caught him off guard once and had no intention of letting that happen again.
Cloud ran past the beast slashing lightly against it to test the thickness of its hide. The blade cut its squirming flesh easily. The beast twisted to face its assailant. Cloud was ready. He leapt into the air and brought the full weight of his massive buster sword down on the wild beast neatly chopping it in two.
It thrashed briefly, spraying some blood onto Cloud's clothes and then went limp. Cloud paused to make sure things were over. He wasn't sure if he was waiting for the worm to spring back to life, or another creature to attack. After nothing happened, Cloud quickly cornered his slow moving bird and tied it to a tree. From there he went to check on Aeris.
"Are you alright?" Cloud asked as he helped to lift the Cetra out of the mud.
"I'm not hurt if that's what you mean," she said climbing out of the mud hole "but I'm soaked right down to my unmentionables." She didn't know why she had said that and for a moment she was actually thankful that the mud covered her face so he couldn't se her blushing.
"I've got some bad news. Your Chocobo split when it threw you. The good news is that it dropped your bag." Cloud handed her the bag he had grabbed for her earlier. "You might want to go change and get yourself cleaned up if you can." Aeris took the bag and went behind a large rock and into the thick wood line to clean herself the best she could and change clothes.
While she was gone from sight, Cloud went over to the fallen worm. There wasn't anything outstanding about it at all. That's what made it odd. Most of the time you didn't see landworms in the area. The soil was too thick for them to tunnel easily. Cloud dismissed the oddity and called out to his companion. "Are you about finished, Aeris?" he called out eager to get back on their way.
"We have a problem here." Aeris called back to him. Cloud was surprised by how close her voice was. Ever more surprised when he turned around and saw her wearing a white tank top that was obviously way too lose for her and a black leather miniskirt that was too tight. "You grabbed the wrong travel bag." She told him. It was obvious from her expression that she wasn't upset. Just about everything that could have gone wrong did and she could either laugh it off or throw a fit.
Cloud tried his hardest not to laugh at her but the expression was obvious on his face. "It's not funny. I can barely walk in this…this…oooooohhhh." she said trying to pull the skirt down further so that it covered her legs better. Cloud couldn't help but wonder what she was doing about her "unmentionables" but there was no way he was going to ask.
Aeris inched toward him. She was having trouble walking in Tifa's skirt but wasn't sure if it was because it was too tight (which it was) or for modesties sake. Either way, Aeris was going to be a liability to him like this. He was almost starting to regret making Yuffie stay behind. Yuffie would have never given him problems like this. Other problems, yes and lots of them but modesty and a change of clothes weren't among them.
"Here catch." Cloud picked up her staff and threw it at her. She fumbled in her attempt to catch it. Her legs didn't stretch as far as she expected them to under the confines of the tight skirt and the staff fell inches away from her grasp. She bent down to pick it up.
"What was that for?" she asked Cloud not understanding why he had thrown it to her..
"You just proved my point for me. I can't take you into battle like that if you can't get around." He turned and walked towards were the chocobo was tied to a tree. "I hate to say it, but you need to put the other dress back on. Maybe it's dirty but at least you can move in it."
For a moment Aeris was stunned silent. "but…it's all filthy." She muttered a complaint.
Cloud shrugged. "Sorry." but there was no trace of apology in his voice.
"It's covered in mud…soaked in it," Aeris continued her objections.
"Aeris, I'm sorry but I need back up here. Who knows what's going to pop up next." he said. Cloud couldn't believe he was even having this argument. "Right now you can barley even handle your staff." Aeris stood there looking at him with sad eyes. She didn't say anything to him. "Okay, okay. Here." He handed her his buster sword. Aeris's expression went from sad to perplexed. It was almost too heavy for her to even lift. She couldn't understand how Cloud could swing it around like he did.
"I can't do anything with this," she protested only to look back over at Cloud and notice him laughing. "It's not funny, Cloud. Stop picking on me."
"I'm sorry. Sorry. I meant take the materia from it," he sighed as he said it. "switch it out with what you have.
Aeris exchanged her curative materia for Cloud's offensive, carefully clicking them all into place and making sure they wouldn't come out. It had happened before during battle and Tifa still hadn't let her hear the end of that one. It was just so embarrassing. Aeris actually had more room in her staff for materia than Cloud's sword had so she got to keep some of her favorites as well. It wasn't like Cloud really used materia much anyway. He usually just ran into battle swinging his sword.
"You good?" he asked.
"I'll be better when I can get back into my own clothes." She smiled up at him.
"Good enough then." Cloud shrugged and climbed back on his chocobo. He waited for Aeris to do the same and when she just stood there not doing anything, he looked around puzzled. "What's wrong?"
"My chocobo ran away from me. Don't you remember?"
Cloud looked up and down the road for a minute and saw nothing that even resembled the bird nor could they catch a new one for Aeris. There weren't any other fresh chocobo tracks in the vicinity. He didn't have any choice. "Hop up behind me." he told Aeris.
Cloud watched as Aeris tried her hardest to climb on behind him without lifting the skirt she was wearing too high. The SOLDIER couldn't help but chuckle at some of her attempts. Finally he climbed of and walked over to her.
"Ummm, Cloud, what are you doing?" she asked him. He didn't answer her. Before she had time to ask again, he grabbed her with both hands around the waist and lifted her up. "Stop that! What are you…? HEY!" she cried out and kicked wildly before he plopped her unceremoniously on the back of the chocobo. Aeris sat there for a moment with a blank expression on her face. After she had realized what Cloud had been doing, she didn't know whether to thank him or apologize or what.
Cloud climbed back on the chocobo and took the space in front of her. "Hold on. We don't want you to get thrown again." Cloud said in a slightly more light hearted tone than he had been moments earlier.
Aeris wrapped her arms tightly around him and pressed up against Cloud. He couldn't help but smile.
Perhaps, he thought, we shouldn't be in such a big hurry after all.
Coming Next chapter: The Hard Way
