DIFFERING ORIGINS

DISCLAIMER: FF7 and its related franchises do not belong to me. This fic is made purely for personal purposes, and is not meant for commercial distribution.

WARNINGS: Gen, OOC, AU, lack of canon accuracy, un-beta-ed

NOTES:

Remember it's AU and OOC.

This interlude occurs shortly after the pearl diving incident and prior to them moving to Wutai City.

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MOTHER'S INTERLUDE

Astoria Strife sat next to her son's bed, a soft smile on her lips. She gently caressed his thick bright-yellow locks, admiring how cherubic he appeared as he slept.

She sat there, continuing to run her fingers through his hair, remembering.

She had been a seamstress' daughter in Costa del Sol. Sheltered and over-protected by her blacksmith father, Astoria had been kept away from the sailors, soldiers, and gamblers that frequented that area. Astoria, who had bloomed young, had chafed at the restrictions and often made her way to the more dangerous parts of town. Along with other young girls, they made a game of flirting with older men and youths.

Her smile twisted in bitter memory.

He had been like a prince from her childhood fantasies. He came in a long white car, blond, tall, and handsome, in rich clothes and surrounded by guards. His grey-blue eyes were magnetic as they rested on each of the local girls, and there was a perpetual smirk on his face.

Astoria had fallen head over heels.

Their eyes met, and it didn't take long for the young man to approach her.

If she only knew then what she knew now, she would have heeded her father and kept as far away from Verteine Shinra as possible.

Then again, she wasn't sure she could blame the foolish young girl that she had been. Verteine had showered her with money, jewels, and status. He took her away from Costa del Sol and set her up in an exclusive and beautiful apartment in one of Midgar's most expensive neighborhoods. Every time he visited her, he gave her magnificent floral bouquets and took her to high-class restaurants.

It wasn't until they had been a year into their relationship that Verteine slipped and revealed that he was already married. By then, it was too late…she was already pregnant.

Pregnant at eighteen. Taken out of her home. Surrounded by every sign that she was good enough only as mistress, and never as wife.

Verteine hadn't been happy to find out she was pregnant. It was his insistence in abortion that led her to run as far away from Midgar as possible.

Desperate and lonely, she had returned to Costa del Sol first, but found no welcome there in either her father or mother.

It was while she was sitting in one of the cheap canteens by the area's tourist boulevards scouring the local newspaper for work that she found the escape she needed. A peddler of goods was looking for a wife. Astoria hadn't hesitated and the man, in his early twenties, had been surprised and enchanted by her pretty voluptuousness. He agreed to marry her on the spot.

Surprisingly, the next two years with her husband had been a time of peace and happiness. Harald Strife was born and bred in the village of Nibelheim. He was a restless man, always wanting to see what was over the next horizon. He had not been surprised to realize his new wife was pregnant, and while he was distant to Cloud after his birth, he had also been kindly and generous.

Cloud was three years old when Harald had the urge to return back to his roots, little suspecting that he would die there in the mountains, a victim of the ferocious Nibel wolves.

Astoria, more mature and stronger after years of hardship, travel, and bearing and raising a child, had decided to rough it out in Nibelheim. She had disliked it, with its paranoid inbred villagers, treacherous and hostile climate, and its utter dreariness; it was solely for Cloud's sake, she kept her chin up and worked there as one of the local seamstresses. Her earnings were meagre, but since she and Cloud maintained a kitchen garden and some sturdy local hens, they had sufficient funds to live on. She had also been courted by one of the more outgoing woodcutters, and likely, she would have married him and stayed there for the rest of her and Cloud's lives.

But Astoria could never forgive the villagers for almost leaving her child to die, nor could she forgive the children who abandoned her son to the snow, showing neither remorse nor sorrow at his loss. She couldn't forgive or forget that the Nibel mountains had almost robbed her twice, and she prepared to leave as soon as Cloud could safely travel. Even though he remained unconscious, Astoria knew that she would find no cure nor help if she remained in Nibelheim.

When she and Cloud finally left Nibelheim, the only thing in her mind was to get away from anything occupied by Shinra. It was almost as if Verteine had cast a curse upon her. Astoria wouldn't have been surprised. The man was vain and narcissistic—he would never forgive her for the sin of rejecting and running away from him.

So now they were in Wutai, as far away from Shinra as she could get. She loved it here, from the exotic and tasty dishes to the warm, friendly villagers. She loved that she could have a new beginning, that Cloud could have a new beginning.

But Cloud…

Astoria knew that running away wouldn't solve problems. Cloud was different. Even from his infancy, she had already sensed something different about her son. Cloud was meant for something great, something terrible, something dangerous.

But her Cloud was only eight, and if Astoria can put off his destiny by running to Wutai City, she would.

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