Disclaimer: we all know I don't own anything from FF7. No characters. No locations. No vehicles. No Chocobo.All I own is myself, and I'm not even sure about that one.

Oh well, at least this story's mine. See, I can see the silver lining to every Cloud ...:-p

Sorry, couldn't help that one :-p

Don't upset the Lifestream... I want to share the fun too. Wait for meeeeeeeeeee!

Part 1: Through the eyes of a child.

The trees scared her.

She had seen trees before, although there were quite few of them left nowadays. But those trees were different; they belonged to the Forest surrounding ruins of the city of an extinct people called Cetra.

The ruins themselves were quite a sight to behold; curving and sloping in strange ways, the architecture was totally unlike anything that was being built nowadays. Instead of ugly, grey and ungraceful towers that clawed their way up into the sky in a bid to do more with less, the Cetra had preferred to build sprawling, pale, shell-like structures; beautiful works of art lovingly crafted to house love, life, peace and happiness.

Seemingly delicate in their whimsical fairness, yet resistant enough to survive their builders, they were ruins in name only, for the buildings seemed to be quietly awaiting the return of their original owners from their thousand-odd years of slumber; waiting the return of the child who had dropped his toy on the stairs, or that of the newly-married groom and his blushing bride, patiently expecting to hear the sound of the elders' conversations under the shade of the trees again. Patiently awaiting in the heart of a sleeping forest…

The Cetra had died out, but their legend had not. They were rumoured to have been powerful wielders of magic, capable of hearing warnings from beyond the grave, able to listen to the Lifestream and more importantly, they were whispered to have been the possessors of the most valuable secret in the entire world; the exact location of the place called the Promised Land. The place of abundance, where one would want for nothing…

There were countless stories and speculation circulating about its probable location, but the Cetra had taken their secret with them. In vain attempts to find that lost land, numerous expeditions had been made in the most far-off places in the world; it had driven some men to their ruin and had been instrumental in the near-annihilation of the world. It was still one of the favourite subjects of many a winter's nights at the fireplace, when tired men dreamed of riches and power, and children of adventure and magic.

Those tales- as many tales- were now half myths, half fictions, with variations from village to village, each community having its own version of what it was like and where it was. Those tales might have once upon a time been truthful, but with the passing of years, as the original tellers passed away and new ones took their place, details and events had been changed, added, or simply forgotten, like the blurred lines of a sketch drawn by too many artists.

Paradoxically, the Cetra would have disappeared entirely from the surface of the planet and the memory of Man if not for those tales; everyone agrees that the extinct civilisation was the key to the land of abundance, and as such had to be included in the legend. What a fickle race, Man; blithely forgetting about the ones who had given up everything to save them from the greatest calamity, forgetting everything except for the tales that shimmered with the fantasy of a life of material contentment.

Marlene Wallace had heard some of the tales from customers in Tifa's bar, or from other children from the streets. She knew that there were quite strange places in the world from what she had gathered from Cloud's description of the far-off places he went to on jobs, but he had never told her about this place. So she had assumed that it was just a legend…a made-up fairy tale that everyone liked to talk about...

However, now that she was here, in the middle of the Forest she had often written off as pure fantasy, all that she had ever heard about the Forest and its inhabitants came rushing back to her…the whispers of it being magic...

Seemingly reaching up into space itself, no trees she had ever seen had achieved that height. She wondered if she would be daring enough to climb one, and what it would feel like to be up there, so high above everything else. So high among the upper branches of a Forest that glowed a translucent, milky white…

Even the lights at the bar did not give off as much illumination as the trees seemed to emit. Was it possible for trees to give light? The little girl did not think that they should be. Did that mean they were magic then? Was everything true then? Was this real? Or was she simply dreaming?

Tentatively, she placed her hand on one of the white barks, just to see what it felt like...

"WOW!"

She snatched her hand away in surprise and fright almost instantly: it was like ice, hard and-

"Cold, are they not?"

Marlene practically jumped out of her skin; she had not heard that man coming. Gravely, she nodded and looked at him closely.

Like the others who had brought her here, he wore a close-fitting black leather outfit. He did look a bit like them, with his shoulder-length silver hair and strange green eyes. She couldn't really say, but he looked younger than them, too. Younger, and with something different lurking in the depths of his green eyes… a strange light that she had not seen in the eyes of the two men who had brought her here.

However he had no gun, just a sword unlike any other she had ever seen. Being given that it was strapped on his back, she could just make out the tip of its handle by his shoulder and its end, but she could see that it was thin… and had two blades! Cloud did possess a collection of swords, but she did not recall any in it that resembled that one.

"They are not ordinary trees, you know." He looked down at Marlene and his mouth twisted in a parody of a grin; a strangely predatory one that bordered on madness, clashing with his youthful features.

"They're old. They're magic." He giggled, and continued in a rather breathless, excited voice, advancing towards a retreating Marlene, until her back was up against one of those trees.

" They listen to us and understand us. And sometimes, they talk back to us. Can you hear them?"

Marlene cringed as the man laughed out shrilly and spun around, twirling a bit like a puppet on a string before turning back to face the scared little girl, still grinning. His brothers looked over at the sound of his voice; the one called Yazoo just smirked with an amused, unconcerned air, letting his long straight silver hair fall back from his face.

"Of course you can't hear them…ha ha! You're not one of us, you're not of our family!"

The youngest man extended his arm theatrically, embracing in his gesture the other two men… and the children that the men had left on the opposite side of the river.

Some of them seemed to have come from quite far away but Marlene recognized many of them; orphans from the streets of Edge who often came to Tifa's bar to get something to eat for free; kids that she had played with once in a while until about three months ago, when Cloud had come back to Seventh Heaven with that sick boy in his arms. Then, she had abandonned her friends to watch over him...

"Marlene? What is she doing here?"

The young boy named Denzel looked at the auburn-haired girl on the other side of the river. She was wearing the same white knitted turtleneck and pink skirt that she had worn when he had last seen her. Oh, and the big pink ribbon in her hair, as usual.

Her gaze swept over him without seeing him at all, before finally resting on the man before her. No wonder, really, that she hadn't picked him out. There was quite a crowd here, and most of the children were as drably dressed as he was. They had all come here for a cure for the Geostigma that was killing them, as that man Yazoo had promised when he had come to pick them up.

But Marlene was not sick, what was she here for? And where was Tifa?

Denzel's brow creased with a puzzled frown; Tifa would never have allowed her to come here all by herself. Well, Tifa would not have allowed either of them to come here with these strange men- but he had to find a cure. He fought everyday, hard, with Marlene and Tifa and sometimes Cloud by his side; but deep inside, he knew that he was losing his battle, and that pained him. Marlene and Tifa could smile and say he would get better, he just knew he was dying, like all the others he had seen die of it. He had to find a way to get better so he could repay them for their kindness. Now that he had Cloud, Tifa and Marlene, he did not want to die; he had a new family to live for.

The young boy had no idea what Marlene was doing here, but he'd stay and wait and hope those men really had a solution for them. He'd ask Marlene later on how come she was with them…

Right now, his headache had gotten worse and he felt a bit dizzy. Whenever he felt as weak as he was right now, Tifa would send him to bed with strict instructions to stay there; Marlene would then stay by his side to look after him; however, Denzel also had an inkling that the two had come to that arrangement to make sure that he would not go out.

That was one aspect of his new life that bothered him; Denzel had survived in the streets of the ruined Midgar for a whole year before Cloud had found him and brought him to Tifa. He had been something of a leader of a group of other orphans and their job had been to find all the pieces of metal or other what-nots amidst the ruins to be used in the construction of Edge. He had lived a life of relative independence, and he could say that he had been doing ok. Until he had fallen ill and everyone deserted him. Until Cloud found him and brought him to Edge, and Tifa's bar.

That day he was told there was a cure for the Geostigma had not been one of his better days. His attacks had come a bit more frequently lately, and the bruises on his forehead had been becoming clearer and bigger. And they hurt like hell too. So he has been bed bound for about a week before Tifa decided to go and look for Cloud. Exceptionnally, Marlene too had wanted to tag along and Tifa had not objected; the young woman had looked preoccupied to Denzel, but then, Tifa had been kind of quiet since Cloud's departure. However, that had not stopped her from telling him to stay at home...

So they had left him alone upstairs and gone to the church where Cloud had found him and where he was rumoured to be staying now.

However Denzel had other plans; he too wanted to see Cloud, and he would be damned if he was going to be left behind. The boy had waited a full dozen of minutes before rising from the bed. Just to be on the safe side...

He had made his bed a bit clumsily and gone down the stairs. That had been the hard part; his head has seemed about to explode, and he had been pretty sure at around half-way down that he was not gonna make it. But the prospect of seeing Cloud had kept him going, and he had arrived at the end safe and sound. But damn, that had taken him longer than he had expected and it must have been a full half- hour since the girls had gone... Maybe they were even now on their way back.

Denzel had winced at that thought... if Tifa found him here, he would be in for it. She was a great person, and he cared a lot about her, but sometimes, she could be a bit much. She kinda reminded him of his mum in that way...

'No!'

He was not going to dwell on those sad thoughts; he had a mission to accomplish and that was going to see Cloud. Suddenly, he chuckled... maybe the two girls had managed to bring Cloud back with them...

Scrap that- Cloud was coming back; he was going to be cornered, pushed and bullied by the most headstrong girls in the entire city!

With that thought in mind, Denzel went out and sat on the steps near the bar, awaiting their return. He could just imagine their faces when they would see him outside, doing alright. He daydreamed of the happy days that would come back, but as time passed and as he saw all the other children out in the streets, homeless, he started to remember darker times.

He had waited for a return that had never happened. And then, that girl had come...

A sudden commotion pulled Denzel from his reverie. He did not really know what had happened, but the man named Loz was now holding Marlene's shoulder. From where he was, he could not make out her expression.

'What has happened?'

Note: sorry for the rather long wait... my exams ended last Friday and I have been busy packing up. Yes, I'm on holidays and going to Mauritius! Sea, sand... and SUN:-)