AN: Was flipping through some old stuff I'd written and came across a paragraph or two that gave me the feels…so I went ahead and put enough around it to make it a semblance of something that could become something more. Might finish it one day. For now, this is all I can put out. At least I'm writing again, right?
It was the music that first drew Amaterasu's attention, something rhythmic and deep, with words spoken and sung and crooned over bass and percussion. Floating closer to the sounds, she slipped inside the garage of a place named Seventh Heaven and cocked her head curiously when she found a golden haired man tinkering with a motorcycle beneath the music. A quick probe into the man's head gave her two quick names, Cloud and Fenrir, and she wondered which name belonged where.
Dismissing the man, she let herself enjoy the human music instead. Dancing around the cluttered garage with feet that did not touch earthen plains, waving arms hidden beneath draping robes, she spun and twirled and dipped though it seemed not at all appropriate for the deep beat of the song. The music called for raised knees and pushing hands but, bah, she was a goddess and goddesses did not do anything as vulgar as that. Letting the thought slip away, she felt a smile quirk her lips as she passed right over the torso of the human and saw his head lift in query.
She knew he couldn't see her, not in her current form, banishment or not. Humans could never really see her, or any gods for that matter, unless they allowed them to, but having spent so much time wandering Gaia, she'd come to notice that certain humans did sense something when she drifted too near.
Shrugging off the man a second time, she continued her dance around and around the room, swaying, tapping, pivoting on her heels, until the sight of the door leading into the house proper eased open and a dark-haired woman appeared.
Amaterasu waited for the man to greet the woman for she'd felt something in the air charge around the man — Fenrir or Cloud or whatever his name was — as soon as the woman appeared, but he instead pretended to be unaware of the woman's presence, not acknowledging her arrival with any obvious motions.
The goddess frowned, half-offended for the woman — a great beauty if there ever was one, for she was surely the epitome of a what the gods had deemed woman and yet she was being ignored? — and half-curious as to why the man was pretending so hard. Stepping closer to the man, Amaterasu used her godly gifts to probe his mind and heart.
As she'd suspected, the man knew exactly where the woman was. What did surprise her was how the man had known the instant the woman — Tifa, his brain breathed, as if the name gave him life — had awakened that morning, and every breath she'd drawn since, even the way her hair slid over her shoulder now as she cocked her head to stare at him mutely. In his head, Amaterasu saw the gossamer image of what could only be his imagination shimmering alive, and the vision played inside the man's brain like a human film. Letting herself slide further into his emotions, Amaterasu felt an aching, desperate hope glimmer around the playing image.
It was a vision of the woman, instead of only observing silently behind him, stepping forward with a light bounce and laugh, arms sliding around his waist from behind to press her cheek to his shoulder. She'd follow with a kiss to his neck and tell him that lunch was ready, that he should come enjoy his day off with her instead of tinkering with his toy. He'd relax into those arms and the constriction around his heart would loosen and he'd turn to hold her, press his nose and lips to her hair and say the words that had been trapped in his throat for what had felt like all his life.
"I love you, Tifa…"
The man blinked and Amaterasu watched the picture dissolve, replaced by a grief that was so deeply raw she found herself flinching, was forced to narrow her connection with the man. Even still, while she hovered just along the peripheral of his consciousness, the yearning she felt, the accompanying need to love the woman-Tifa-remained pulsing inside him, strumming the air around his heart and head with heavy, powerful thrums.
Amaterasu turned to face Tifa and cocked her head curiously, wondering if the woman was completely obtuse to be so oblivious to something that emanated so plainly from the man. Was she simply pretending, as the man had? Cautiously-she didn't wish to feel the same slamming of emotions she had from the man-the goddess reached into Tifa's spirit to explore.
