The phone box in Sector 5 was obviously well-used. Although there was graffiti over and around it from various gangs, taggers and environmental activists there was very little damage. Some wear on the buttons and a hopelessly tangled cord seemed to be the majority of the issues Cloud could see.
It was novel, considering how frequently frustrated drunks tended to destroy whatever got in their line of sight, but not entirely unexpected. The payphones promised a level of anonymity that the gangs appreciated, and the Turks enjoyed being able to listen in on those who fell for it.
The number on the receipt that the odd man had pressed into his hands were clear and easy to read, despite having been hidden in the lining of his jacket for the past three weeks. He had no excuse for the hesitancy with which he punched them in and dropped his gil through the slot.
"Hi!" came the cheery, totally non-committal greeting after only a couple of rings.
"Hello?" he answered, "um, we met about three weeks ago, in Sector 6? You told me to come to Sector 5 and call you. For answers."
He could hear rustling, as though the person on the other end was walking briskly, followed by a thump he assumed was a door being closed.
"I didn't think you'd call," was the eventual response, tone measured.
"Unexpected events stopped me before - would you be willing to talk to me now?" Cloud asked.
"Yes, but it won't be for long. Is that alright?"
"...Yes." Even if I only get an answer to who they are, it's worth the time spent under the Plate.
"I'll be a few minutes," the stranger confirmed, and there was a quiet click as he ended the call.
Rude. Even I say "bye" when I hang up.
Cloud loitered near the payphone trying not to look completely out of place or like easy pickings for the criminal element (a real talent, in his tiny and unenhanced teenage body) for about fifteen minutes. Just before he thought he'd have to take a turn around the block and perhaps consider giving up, his contact arrived.
"Hello," he said. It was the same person he'd met before; same faint scent of lilies and grass, same odd familiarity. He looked a little embarrassed, giving Cloud a little comfort that maybe this wasn't a deliberate ambush. Only a little, though, as ShinRa wasn't the only group capable of subterfuge and espionage acting in Midgar.
"Hey," he responded, running a hand on the back of his neck, and decided to get straight to the point. "I'm guessing no names?"
"If you don't mind," was the answer, complete with a crooked smile. "I don't think it would be wise for either of us. Would you mind walking with me?"
A nod from Cloud and the pair started walking in an seemingly aimless manner to external view, but the stranger's deft guidance sent them out of the public crowds and towards as more sparsely populated area as efficiently as possible without attracting attention.
"How do you know me? Or - do I know you?" Cloud asked quietly, mindful of the apparently uncaring passers-by.
"We've never met, but, I was told about you," he said in a similarly hushed voice as he led Cloud into an alleyway. "All of us felt your presence move through the Lifestream a few months ago - as soon as I saw you, I knew it had to be you."
Felt my presence...?
"All of us?" Cloud questioned, before shaking his head as a better question came to mind. "Are you Cetra?"
"For a given value of Cetra, yes," the man shrugged after a very slight hesitation and visibly steeling himself. "There are very few of us who can be considered full Cetra, with the ability to speak with the Planet. There are far more of us who are like me, who carry the blood of the Cetra within us, and still remember what it means to care for the Planet, but don't have those gifts."
More? How are there more? How can there be more, when Ifalna and Aerith were the last of their kind?
Up to this point, Cloud had had the luxury of seeing his experiences with the Cetra as void of impact on the reality he had lived and was living. He'd woken up a teenager, and nothing had changed without his direct involvement and deliberate choice – except it had. And he had no idea what the effects were of what he'd done. Whatever he'd done.
"How many?" he asked.
"Ah," he said with a sideways smile and a wry grin. "Not to offend, but you are part of ShinRa. Forgive me if I don't trust you enough to tell you everything about us."
"No, I understand," Cloud nodded, almost relieved the man was showing some caution, "but why trust me enough to speak to me at all?"
The man looked faintly embarrassed as he confessed.
"You are part of my family history. You are the Guardian, the silent watcher over the Lady." The fuck? "I am a direct descendant of the Lady's half-brother, who watched over his sister until she came into her power."
Orothe.
"You're Orothe's descendant," he said aloud, a little bit of wonderment in his voice. "No wonder you look a little familiar."
It was faint - nothing Cloud could point to and say definitively yes, they have the same nose, the same cheekbones, the same colouring, but the general shape and expression of the man he'd known was echoed in the man in front of him. A feeling, not a form.
"We have stories," he began, then shrugged and corrected himself. "Assumptions. The Lady bound herself to the Calamity, and held the world-killer outside the Lifestream until it died. The plague that was destroying the Cetra ended. Although the infected died, no new infections were recorded."
"Is there more to the story?" Cloud prompted when he paused.
"Right. Well, the short version is that when the Calamity descended from the heavens, the Planet chose the Lady and the Guardian as the strongest and the bravest to defeat her, gifting them with knowledge and power as they began their journey. The Lady in her wisdom bound the Calamity, holding her outside the Lifestream so she could not infect the Planet, and the ever-dutiful Guardian stood guard to give her the strength she needed to do so."
"Well, as stories go it's only wrong, not stupid, so that's a bonus," was the response.
"How is it wrong?" the man asked, frowning as if he knew he was about to hear something he didn't want to.
Cloud didn't mind his distrust, he had been hoping the man would be a little more than a placid font of information. For his own preservation, if nothing else; if his typical response to strange goings-on was to advertise he was a Cetra, start spilling millennia old history, and take on all challenges or corrections unquestioningly, it was a wonder he was still alive. And besides, this was hardly good news he was about to deliver.
"Well, while there's even odds that I'm the Guardian in this scenario-" he began.
"Even odds?" came the expected interruption.
"Well, I suppose I could make a convincing Lady if I needed to," Cloud continued, rolling his eyes. More convincing than you'd expect. "But more seriously, the Calamity is definitely not dead."
"Are you certain?" he asked, for the first time reaching out to Cloud as if to verify through physical contact that he was telling the truth. He only gave the briefest, lightest of touches before recalling himself.
"Completely. I think she was weakened, and I know she was contained, but I know she's not dead."
"How?" he pressed.
"Where else do the disasters come from? ShinRa found her."
A sharp beeping noise came from the man's PHS, interrupting the man's next question. Pulling it out and rapidly silencing it, he spat out a curse.
"I have to go, I can't stay here any longer than this," he told Cloud, frustration and anger clear on his face. Flicking his eyes back down to his PHS, and back up to Cloud, he continued. "I can meet you again, but it can't be too soon. A month, maybe two, and I'll find you again. Or at least, one of us will, if it isn't me."
With that, he started to move away.
"Wait, no, one more thing," Cloud said suddenly, a thought springing into his head. "You call her the Lady. Why?"
"Well, we don't really have anything else to call her. Her name was lost to time, it was never recorded," shrugged the man, pausing.
A thin needle of sorrow pierced Cloud, just under his heart.
"Vahana," he said. "Her name was Vahana. She was young, she was scared, and she did what she had to do anyway."
"The Lady Vahana," the man repeated, turning properly to look Cloud directly in the eye. "Thank you. I will share this – we will remember this."
"See that you do," Cloud said to the man's back as he turned and walked – practically jogged – away.
This is not what I was expecting when I came down here, and asks one important question I'm not sure I want the answer to.
Where is Aerith?
Closing his eyes for a moment, Cloud mentally took that question and buried it unanswered. He could do nothing for her right now except bring unwanted attention, especially if she wasn't in her church or with Elmyra and he had to carry out a full search. As always, he was more of a danger to her than a protector, and his greatest gift to her had to be his absence from her life - at least for now.
