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4. Aerith: Dreamer

Aerith sometimes wished she could just tell Zack everything. He was a SOLDIER after all. If anyone could have an open enough mind to accept her whole story, it was him.

Yet that SOLDIER issue was precisely the reason she felt she couldn't tell him, even in those moments she most wanted to – when explaining about the Cetra, her biological mother, and her connection with the Planet would be easier than leaving him in the dark to think she was just some whimsical girl who put too much faith in gut instinct. Much as she wanted him to understand her better, she didn't want to put him in a position where he had to choose between Shinra and herself, and if he knew the truth, and found out how long Shinra had been trying to bring her in … there were bound to be longstanding orders employees were supposed to follow if they came across her. Zack would have to follow them, and if he didn't …

It was just tempting fate. As long as Zack remained ignorant, he wouldn't have to choose.

And it was nice to be treated like a normal girl, with normal feelings, hopes and dreams of the future. Even her adoptive mother wasn't so great at that. With Zack, Aerith felt like she was allowed to be flippant and more superficial than the weight of the Planet in her mind suggested she should be. She could joke with him, have fun with him, be silly and give herself up to the fact she wasn't even out of her teens yet. For the brief time they spent together they were each allowed to be more … well, human than other people in their lives expected them to be.

Still, when he looked at her like the way he did in the park, she wished she could just blurt it all out. Zack didn't give much weight to her bad feelings. That's all they were to him. In Zack's world, bad feelings could be the result of a spicy meal before you went to bed, or being overstressed, or any number of other mundane reasons. In Aerith's they were evidence of her heritage and taking them seriously was mandatory.

It would be easier if I could actually understand them, though.

She lay in bed, too hot and restless to sleep. And, she privately admitted, she didn't want another nightmare. She'd slept badly for a whole week, and last night had been even worse.

The recurring swirls of images and emotions always made her wake up feeling sick. She didn't remember a lot of what she saw when she woke, and what she did remember she didn't understand, except that it frightened her and wasn't just because of a spicy meal. All she really knew was that something evil was there when she closed her eyes. It spewed darkness like a geyser. It wasn't attacking, but the danger it radiated was ever-present and nauseating. It didn't matter if you tried to run, it would still reach you. Everything loathsome, everything dangerous, everything you'd ever been afraid of as a child was there in that formless, unknown thing. She was never quite able to see it, but that just made it even more terrifying.

Those dreams had been bad enough, but last night Zack had also become a part of things somehow. Aerith had felt his presence, knew he was going to run forward and fight the thing, and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he must not. The risk was too big. He'd get hurt. The thing was too dangerous even for a SOLDIER – even for Zack, whose incredible reputation had permeated even as far as Sector Five. It may even be too big for General Sephiroth – and as soon as that realisation arrived Aerith had woken and rushed to the bathroom. She'd spent the rest of the night worrying, until she finally decided to try broaching the subject with Zack without giving away her secrets.

Easier said than done.

She couldn't stop Zack from being sent away on a mission. Maybe it wouldn't matter even if she could. For all she knew, the danger was right here in Midgar, but at least here she could be close to him. If he got hurt, she could heal him. Shinra had their ways, but she trusted her own abilities more. Hadn't she fixed him up when he came crashing through the roof of the church?

She smiled at the memory even through her anxiety. No simple entrance for Zack. That would be too ordinary. And then offering to pay for the damage with a date, like she should be honoured he'd spend time with her! Yet his smile and the genuine delight when she agreed wiped away any irritation at his arrogance. You couldn't help but like Zack. It was almost genetically impossible not to.

He had become so precious to her so quickly, despite a lifetime of keeping her personal connections small in case one of them accidentally – or deliberately – gave her away to Shinra. The betrayal of that would have been too much, but staying safe was a lonely business.

Zack had taught her that she didn't have to be so afraid all the time. If even a big tough SOLDIER, one of the bloodthirsty warriors she'd feared almost as much as the Turks, could be as nice as Zack, then maybe the world wasn't all that bad after all. Maybe one day she really would get out of Midgar and be able to live without constantly looking over her shoulder. Maybe even the last Cetra could have a life that was truly free, not just a reasonable facsimile. More than anything, Zack had taught her about hope. She'd defend that to the last.

Her, defend Zack? As if.

Still, what was that story about a mouse chewing through the ropes that bound a snared lion? The weak didn't always have to be so passive. They could be just as useful as people who were powerful.

But what could she do? She'd relied on ducking and dodging for so long. Hiding was her way of life. She'd never considered fighting the Turks who periodically came to 'escort' her to Shinra as 'one of their guests'. She wasn't that stupid. Subterfuge and avoidance were much better weapons in that kind of conflict. In this, though … For the first time in her life, Aerith wanted to fight. She wanted to be able to protect what was precious to her. The dreams made her feel helpless, and she hated the feeling. Maybe that was what they were for – the Planet warning her it was time to start taking action unless she wanted to lose what she loved.

At breakfast she managed only a piece of dry toast, and that at her mother's insistence. She still felt queasy after falling asleep and seeing the nightmare again. It had strengthened her resolve, if not her stomach. Under her mother's watchful eye, however, she ate every bite, feeling somehow that she owed that bit of compliance, since her destination this morning was somewhere her mother would have a fit about if she knew.

"You're very pale this morning. Are you feeling all right?"

A spasm of guilt jack-knifed through Aerith. "I'm fine. Didn't sleep well." She waved a vague hand. "Bad dreams." Easier to tell part of the truth than all of a lie.

"Perhaps you shouldn't go out today -"

"No, no! I mean … I'll be fine. I need to get out. You know I hate being cooped up." A leftover of years shut away in what amounted to a glass box so she could be prodded and poked until she cried. Aerith shivered inwardly. She remembered that part of her life all too clearly, despite only being a child at the time.

"Well … all right. But I'd like you to come home for lunch, at least. I could use the company."

"And you want to check up on me."

"Is that so wrong?"

"You fuss too much."

"I'm allowed to fuss. It's in the Mother's Handbook."

Elmyra loved her like they really were mother and daughter. Even when had Aerith felt most like a misfit, like she didn't belong and would only bring harm because of what she was, the woman's love and protection had never wavered. Elmyra knew that just living with Aerith was a risk – if not now, then one stored up for later, if Shinra ever grew tired of keeping her on the back-burner and tried to recapture her in earnest. Yet she'd never wavered in standing by her promise. Not even when she and Aerith made their way home by ducking behind carts, down alleys and skittering along flat rooftops to avoid being seen by idle Turks who sometimes came below the Plate to get their kicks and blow off steam.

Aerith hated keeping secrets from her mother even more than she hated keeping them from Zack, but this morning it was unavoidable.

Lady Keshoohin's wasn't far from her church. You couldn't hear the music at that distance, but the men who headed out that way from the built up areas of Sector Five went by a different route. They disliked going by a battered church if they were heading for a brothel. There was a kind of protection in the old guilt and saintly disapproval surrounding the place, which meant most of the Lady's girls passed by if they went out. The idea was that they'd be harassed less that way while they were off-duty. It didn't always work, though, which was how Aerith had found Kuchibeni so easily that time.

She'd only been fourteen, Kuchibeni three years older, but already with the look of someone much older. It wasn't the make-up or the way she dressed it, but the glint in her eyes that did it. All Lady Keshoohin's girls developed it over time – a hardness, like precious stones that glitter but absorb more light than they reflect. Regular street-walkers got a vacant stare, probably from imagining themselves anywhere but where they were, or else from whatever drugs they used to anaesthetise themselves against the truth of their lives. Lucid was the latest culprit, but anything to take the edge off was rife in the slums. Those who caught the Lady's eye enough for her to bring them into the fold didn't have to worry about safety in the same way as regular street-walkers. They were the lucky ones – of a sort.

The Lady's place had a limited clientele, regular health checks, a strict no-drugs policy, and bouncers reputed to be as tough as the Turks themselves. Added to this, it was that rare thing among brothels in Midgar: an entirely female establishment. Lady Keshoohin, an ex-whore with a mind like a buzz-saw hiding behind a face like an elderly apple, had fought tooth and nail to create her business and make it a success. She refused to employ men; on the grounds they'd done nothing for her while she was working the streets except keep her on them. Her pimp had got all his girls hooked on drugs to make them more biddable, and she'd spent years getting herself clean before striking out on her own. The entire sex trade was set up as if designed solely to make it easy for predators, so she set out to change that. Even the muscular bouncers on the door were women. Strangely, this seemed to turn men on more than it turned them off, because there was always a waiting list to get on Lady Keshoohin's books.

At seventeen, Kuchibeni had been a new recruit to the Lady's ranks, inexperienced in everything except the lesson that life is tough. She'd believed that more than ever when she was followed and attacked by a pair of johns only a few feet from the church's door. Fully expecting to die in the gutter, it had been a complete shock when she woke up to find some kid in a dress tending her like she actually mattered.

Aerith had brought her to the safest place she knew: the church. She'd healed her wounds while she was unconscious so as not to arouse suspicion, fetched better clothes than what Kuchibeni's attackers had left her, and didn't want any kind of payment. To Aerith, helping had been as natural as breathing. To Kuchibeni, it had been a sudden shaft of light in endless shadow. She'd been a nothing then, just another nameless face on the lowest rung of the ladder. Over time she'd risen through the ranks and was now practically a madam herself, but she never forgot the kid in the dress.

The Lady worked from the shadows, manipulating the politics of Under-Plate life like a ghost. Nothing could ever be traced back to her. Kuchibeni, too, had a lot of influence after all her years of service. Aerith knew, even if her mother didn't like to acknowledge it, that she would never have been able to escape the Turks' attentions for so long without Kuchibeni's help.

"Those are women of ill-repute," her mother said when she found out what Aerith had done. "Kind as that was, sweetheart, you mustn't go near that place or those people. Guilt by association, Aerith. Life's hard enough without giving people the impression you're offering more than you actually are." She disliked harsh women like Lady Keshoohin – cruel women who had cut off their feminine instincts to survive, and then replaced them with garish reproductions. Those kinds of women would think nothing of selling you out if it meant their survival over your own.

Still, Aerith nursed the belief that Kuchibeni wasn't like that. She could be cruel, of course; you had to be, to survive when you literally had nothing. But Kuchibeni wasn't cruel in the truest sense. There was a difference between acting cruel and being it; a sense of satisfaction, Aerith supposed. Lady Keshoohin took pleasure in watching her bodyguards thrash johns who couldn't settle their tabs. Kuchibeni saw violence as necessary but not enjoyable – something you should excel at to ensure you never had to use it.

The way her face lit up whenever she saw Aerith, and the way the sapphire-hardness of her eyes briefly faded into actual warmth, had convinced Aerith right from the beginning that Kuchibeni was her ally and could be trusted. More so, at least, than Lady Keshoohin, which was why she went direct instead of through proper channels for this. Lady Keshoohin might tell the wrong people, and one thing that was constant in her world and everyone else's was that information was power.

"You want to what?" Kuchibeni said when she heard Aerith wanted to see her.

"I want you to teach me how to fight."

"You know what you askin', girl?"

"I know."

"Some people in this world, they ain't supposed to fight. They supposed to be all innocent an' shit." Kuchibeni canted her hips and folded her arms. "You ain't no fighter, honey. You a little mouse, runnin' around, keepin' clear of them cats. Ain't no mouse gonna try to take on a cat, 'cept crazy ones who don't live long."

"I don't want to fight the Turks."

"I say that? I don't remember sayin' that. You puttin' words in my mouth, girl." Kuchibeni arched one flawlessly plucked eyebrow. She knew Shinra was after Aerith, but had never asked why, just like she'd never asked how she could pass out hearing a john's foot crack her rib and wake up all in one piece.

Maybe she already knew. It was amazing, the things a man would tell a woman if she asked at the right moment, and there were executives who chased cheap thrills below the Plate before heading back to their wives and plush offices.

Aerith met her gaze without wavering.

"Who you gonna fight then, girl? Ain't no fool in Sector Five'd attack you. Not 'less they wanna face the consequences. You hear what I'm sayin'?"

"And I'm grateful," Aerith said calmly. "But I still want to be able to fight."

Kuchibeni examined her nails as if they were just having a casual conversation and she was name-dropping for effect – which she was, just not the one you'd assume to look at her. Six feet tall, built like an Amazon Warrior, Kuchibeni was an imposing figure who softened her appearance with feathers and ruffles. When she was working she hid a studded dog-collar under the boa, to give the impression of submissiveness even though she'd strangle a guy with a leash if he brought one. After years of perfecting her techniques, she knew all the tricks for how to manipulate men without giving up control. She'd offered to teach Aerith once, listed off a few things and then screamed with laughter at the younger girl's expression. Nobody messed with Kuchibeni, and even those who didn't know her reputation thought twice about taking her on. Gone was the skinny, lanky teen Aerith had rescued. Now she had the look of someone who could crush steel just by looking at it scathingly.

"You know," Kuchibeni drawled, "that Don Corneo's not limited to Sector Six. Keeps most of his business there, but he visitin' Lady Keshoohin's from time to time, too. An' not just to check out the competition, neither. Man like that, he got a lotta guys workin' for him. He sends 'em all over, into every sector on jobs, know what I mean?" The implication was clear. A whisper in the right ear and Kuchibeni could have any one of a number of disreputable characters eating out of her hand. "If you need protection -"

"This is different. I'm not looking for trouble, and it's not looking for me. Not any more than usual, at least. But trouble might be looking for someone I care about, and I want to be able to help if it finds him."

This time Kuchibeni's eyebrow tried to climb into her hairline. "This that SOLDIER boy of yours?

Aerith blushed.

Kuchibeni gave a hoot of laughter. Everything about her was brash, from her fashion sense, to her make-up, to her voice. When she spoke softly you knew you were in real trouble. If she wore dowdy colours and went bare-faced, you'd be hard-pressed to recognise her as the same woman.

It took a while longer, but eventually Kuchibeni agreed.

"Ai'ight, ai'ight, I'll do it. S'clear to me you gonna find a way to fight somehow, prolly with some nutball with skills like a sack of cement. Leastways if I teach you I can make sure you got enough in your head not to get killed if your SOLDIER boy brings a fight your way. But you gotta give me sumthin' in return, honey."

"I have some money -"

Kuchibeni gave her a cutting look. Aerith fell silent. "Since when it ever been about money 'tween us, sugar?" She gestured at the church, but it was clear she was referring to her room back at Lady Keshoohin's. They always talked here, where it was safer. Kuchibeni was loyal to Lady Keshoohin, but trusted her only as far as she could sneeze her out of her ear. "I'm re-outfittin' my boudoir in pink. Think you can get me some kinda pink flowers I can dry an' press for wall-decorations?"

Aerith smiled. In a city as drab and dark as Midgar, people became insensitive all too quickly. But even the harshest could be swayed by things they thought they'd never see in their lifetimes. They didn't want to be made of stone, which even they didn't realise until they saw a rose for the first time. Sometimes she was shocked at how even the most unexpected people valued plants. Maybe there was hope for the world after all – something she would never have known if Zack hadn't put the idea into her head to sell them.

Zack …

"I think I can manage that."

Kuchibeni's grin was sharp as a snake-fang. "Then you got yourself a teacher, girl. We'll work here. Plenty of room to move around and it won't matter none if we break a few more boards. Wear sumthin' comfortable – none of them floaty summer dresses or any of that shit. Startin' tomorrow mornin', you gonna be learnin' how to fight, Kuchibeni-style."

Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs

Lady Keshoohin's wasn't far from her church.

- Keshoohin is a rough translation of 'cosmetics'.

Kuchibeni gave a hoot of laughter.

- Kuchibeni is Japanese for 'lipstick'.