Author's Beginning Note Thingy: This song is more general, and completely unedited... the others, in most cases, took me a few listenings to realize how alike FF7 characters they were, this one, on the other hand, I realized right off the bat. Hear it through.

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Tarnished Silver

Sleep, my tarnished silver,

Cloud sat on the couch in the upper level of the Seventh Heaven, polishing the dark metal of his buster sword...

let me dull you once again,

He set it aside... he wouldn't be needing it anymore.

and let our battle end.

Sleep, my snowless winter,

In the crisp outside, Tifa was walking home... rain had never fallen in Midgar before the day Aeris had healed the victims of geostigma. And now, now that it was around Christmas time, it had begun to snow... probably another miracle bestowed upon them by their dearest friend... and it was so cold...

let me warm you once before I go,
and I'll pretend to know and understand.

Across the sea, a similar preparation for Christmastime was beginning... a tall, once decrepit building had been being restored by it's two new inhabitants. The broken windows were repaired, the cracked wood siding patched, and repainted. Lights were hung from the windows, and a tree had been decorated and brought inside...

Sleep, my fallen cedar,

Vincent Valentine lay under that tree, stretched out on the festive blanket that surrounded it's base. It was massive, the top nearly touching the ceiling on the second floor. Yuffie had been mostly in charge of decorating it... she had been mostly in charge of decorating everything... the ex-Turk felt like he didn't do anything anymore...

let me have your weakened pride to hold,
and join my barren soil.

Yuffie, on the other hand, preferred it if Vincent didn't help. She was always restless, and always wanted things done right, and that meant that she wanted to do things herself. Nevertheless, Vincent sometimes just wished she would calm down... he'd had that effect on her already, she was much less the hyperactive adolescent she had been when they first met after having spent a few years with him...

Sleep, my aimless river,
let your torrent rest against my shores,

There were still secrets that the two had not told eachother about one-another yet... but to some degree, they both liked it that way. No need knowing what you would rather not, and no need telling what it was uncomfortable for you to speak of.

and leave me what was washed away before.

Cloud spent Christmas eve in the church. Tifa had informed them of the plans for the rest of the group to gather in ShinRa mansion to celebrate the next day... and he knew that he was most certainly up for a good party, having finally been capable of putting all his grief aside. Still, at this most magical time of year, he needed a moment to be somber... he knelt at the water's edge, the little pond that had been left behind in place of a patch of flowers. He could almost see her in it, as if it were the very same pool in which her body had so long ago sank away...

Time's been kind to you, my love
as the world had never been;
kinder than to me.

Strange, the things that we regret,

He remembered his dream. The one in which Aeris had come to him, standing amidst the Ancient Forest... telling him that she could go alone, that she would be all right, that he need not follow her... he'd never spoken to her again.

you wanted me to leave,
I found enough to give you that.

Night was setting in... the sun had gone down, and no light was left within the drafty building. Yet Cloud still faithfully stayed there, praying to his first love, as if expecting some answer back... he looked up towards the alter, far across the little puddle, and looming at him out of the shadow. The entire building shuddered in the wind, made him feel unwelcome, as if he, who had let this building's caretaker die, was not wanted, and did nothing here but defile the sacred walls with his presence.

Sleep, my darkened chapel,
let me kneel before you now, as then,
unworthy as I am.

He lit a candle on the alter with a weak spell from his fire materia, and it's feeble, sputtering light barely lit his hand as he drew it away, and walked back from the head of the church, down the aisle towards the door. He gave it one last glance as he opened the creaky gate into the frosty gales outside...

Sleep, my flameless shadow,

He had to forget about her... had to forget, for Tifa's sake... his own sake. For both their sake's, and the sake of their love... for the friendship of the rest of his companions, he could no longer let his memory waver on her as it did.

let me cool the lingering fires of old,
and carry only ashes in my soul.

The door slammed shut behind him as he left, boots crunching on the icy path outside. He pulled his dark coat around him, drawing the buster sword from the snowbank he'd left it in, carrying it with him in case he ran into any trouble walking home this night.

Sleep, my tarnished silver...