Author's Notes: Was talking to Liltigre, AGAIN. Really, I should learn. Talking to lil gets me off on tangents. And this one is a fic involving lilies and creative use of a blizzard materia. Of course, she has to mix an orange bouncy ball and cheesecake. I wonder who's got it harder.

Theme: Water

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A Single Perfect Blossom

Truth is that he'd found it purely by accident. Or maybe it had always been there, calling out for his attention. But once he'd seen it, he had known. In the remains of all of the chaos the world had suffered, in the remains of Midgar, there was still one thing that didn't change. There was still one garden that bloomed, flowers plentiful even though nothing should be able to grow on the dead land. The land he had killed.

He found it amid her flowers. Amid the whites and yellows that had always been there, always bloomed, was one thing that had no explanation. Flowers got their coloration from their parents, just like children, just like puppies, just like ever other living thing in the world. Yet here it was, the exception to those rules. And somehow, in being an exception, it was so much better. Where everything else was the same whites and yellows, this was a perfect, flawless, gorgeous pink lily. There was a perfect symmetry there, something that he knew by instinct existed no where else in the world. No other flower, no other work of nature was as truly perfect as this one beautiful plant.

It reminded him of her. A young woman who was truly perfect and like no one else left on the planet. She too had chosen pink to dress in, a color that seemed so pathetic on others and glowed on her. A color that offset the green of her eyes just like the pink of the petals complimented the green of the stem. They were two of a kind, that girl and this flower.

The choice was obvious, or maybe it only would be to him. A delicate task for a masterful mage, but something he was no doubt capable of. Slowly a materia was selected from his bangle and the softly glowing green orb was cradled in his hands. Reeve had always found it easier to control the things when he was actually touching them. Who knew, maybe it went back to the old fashion ways of using magic, before bangles and equipping. But that was something to ponder for another time.

They said a true test of the skills of a materia user did not come with the ability to use the high end spells, but with the ability to hamper the first level to something even lower down than that, to use it with precision rivaling that of a doctor with a scalpel. There weren't many people in the world that could use materia the way he did, and even less could do it outside of Wutains or in the dead city of Midgar. Still, he managed to slowly draw out the power of the magic, siphoning off just enough into himself to make the outwardly cast spell little more than the faintest breath of the true power. And with that faint breath the perfect pink flower was slowly covered in frost. And thus the beauty was preserved.

Once he was sure of his layer of perfectly clear ice, Reeve pocketed his materia and gently broke the frozen stem off. The thing was so cold that mere contact made his fingers numb, but Reeve didn't much notice. Even like this, dead, it was as perfect as ever. Still it was like her. It would always be like her, frozen in a moment of time that would never end.

In the end though, he couldn't bring himself to commit the precious thing to the watery grave he had intended from the start. That was left to Cloud. One last package to deliver, one last dream to be passed on... One last life she had saved by giving her own.

They were alike, Aeris and that flower. Both were single, perfect blossoms, the likes of which would never be seen again.