Pursuit

By: Illusion of the Mirror

It didn't take Tifa long to make any headway in her translation. First, she had to sort through with sites were referring to fortune-telling and which were historical sites. When that was done, it was only a short time until she found a site that showcased the most common runic alphabets known in academia. After that, it was a matter of pinning down which alphabet included her particular brand of rune. Half an hour of searching and Tifa had found her code-key: they were Bohuslän runes.

Capturing the entire alphabet on screen, she mashed the print key with a heavy sense of satisfaction. This hadn't been all that difficult. Now, if she was lucky, the words on the parchment would be in her own language.

She had just pulled the still-warm paper from the printer pan when a knock on the doorframe interrupted her wishful thinking. Tifa turned the paper face-down on her desk and closed the browser window before replying, "Come in."

The door opened slowly and Keaton, the shyest of her college-age employees, stepped onto the threshold, clearly reluctant to invade her space, an inevitable occurrence should he actually enter the office. He played with the edge of his grease-stained apron and cast his eyes everywhere but her own. Tifa waited patiently for him to find his words.

"Hi, T-Tifa," he fumbled her name as if he hadn't ever spoken it before, then seemed to snap out of his timidity as his gaze landed on her desktop. Tifa looked down and realized she had forgotten to close the manila folder.
'Well, crap.'

"Runes again, I see? Those look old." He gestured to the leaves of parchment, his wide, muddy eyes asking permission to get a closer look.

Tifa nodded and rolled her chair back until it bumped the opposite wall so as to give the lanky young man some breathing room. "Yeah, I think they are. I found them in my attic."

'Might as well be honest,' she thought as he perused the writing without touching the specimens. 'It wasn't like it was an important secret anyway.'

"I had thought I might try translating them, you know, find out about who wrote them. Maybe learn something about the house's history."

Keaton looked up over the top of his rimless glasses and pondered that briefly before coming to some decision and righting himself. "You know, if you're genuine in your interest in local lore and history, you might try talking to one of my professors, Dr. Malcolm. He might even be able to help you with your translation."

Tifa reached over and nonchalantly flipped the file closed. "You think so? I'm not a student and he's probably very busy."

The tall young blonde chuckled and leaned awkwardly against the doorframe. "He's always busy. I should know; I'm his unpaid assistant. But he's also always happy to teach those who are eager to learn, even if they're not taking one of his classes." He pulled a fresh post it note off the stack next to the door and scratched a number out on it with the pen he usually kept tucked in his apron pocket. "You'd probably have to set up an appointment though."

Tifa marveled at the uncharacteristic directness her employee was exhibiting. Clearly, she had hit upon his passion. "Thanks, Keaton." She held out her hand, but he left the post it on the desk top where he had written it; so she opted to pat his arm instead. "I'm glad I came to you with this."

Keaton blushed under her praise and backed politely out of her reach. "You're welcome. You might try for tomorrow. He usually has a free slate on Sundays. Well…freer."

"He works on Sundays?"

"He's never not working."

There was only an instant of silence before Keaton spoke up, his shoulders hunching just a bit more than usual. "Well, I should get back to it. My break's almost over."

Tifa cocked her head. "Didn't you have something to talk to me about?"

"Uh…you know, I'm quite sure I've forgotten. Enjoy your evening, Tifa." And with a slight, clumsy bow, Keaton left, nudging the door closed with his heel.

Tifa smiled to herself as she plucked the pink sticky note from her desk and eyed the number messily scrawled thereon. 'How fortuitous.' She reached over and raised her office phone receiver to her ear. 'Might as well.'

- O -

"You didn't have to get all this, Shera! It'll take weeks for me finish it!" Tifa was incredulously gaping at the amount of food and dry goods spread out in plastic bags on her kitchen counters and table.

"Nonsense," the pregnant brunette replied as she methodically stocked the fridge. "I'm sure we'll all be here for at least one more day and I know how much these guys can eat! Besides, your cupboards were all but bare."

Tifa sighed and then acquiesced, opting to at least help empty the remaining bags. "Well, in that case, thank you. I'll just have to keep you all around for a bit longer then."

Cid chuckled from his seat at the table, a dainty teacup in one hand and an unfolded newspaper in the other. "Shera's already got the motherin' down pretty good if you ask me."

Shera returned his smile with a cheeky comment about having to make up for his blatant apathy, just as Yuffie leaned her head in through the open back door. "Hey, it's getting late and I'm starving, when's dinner?"

"Well, if you'd come in and help us get it started," Shera quipped, "it'd be a lot sooner."

Not at all eager to be drafted into meal making, Yuffie dropped a hasty excuse and let the screen door bang shut behind her.

"Stop slammin' the damn door!" Cid hollered before juggling his cup so he could turn the page. "Gonna break it clean off its hinges one of these days and I ain't gonna be the one to fix it," he murmured to no one in particular.

Even without Yuffie's help, it didn't take long for Tifa and Shera to finish their task and commence the preparation of supper. Shera had picked up all the fixings for stir-fry, so that's what they made, being sure to leave out a tiny unseasoned portion of chicken for Buttercup, as Marlene had directed.

It was only just starting to darken outside when everything was completed and Tifa had enlisted both Barret and Cid to carry the dishes into the dining room and set the table for seven. She leaned out the back door and called to Yuffie and Marlene, who were making chalk drawings on the pavement while Buttercup playfully chased their hands; all under Vincent's ever-watchful gaze, of course. He met her eyes and she tried not to blush, an unprecedented response that was becoming a concerning habit of late. "Dinner's ready. Would you round up the artists?"

He nodded in reply and Tifa made her way to the bottom of the stairs to the second floor. "Denzel!" she called from the landing. "Come on down." She waited, but when he didn't reply or emerge from his room, Tifa sighed and climbed the stairs. She turned the corner and stalked into the kids' bedroom, mildly miffed at being ignored, but hiding it from her voice. "I said dinner's re-"

Tifa stopped mid-sentence. The room was empty.

After making a quick cursory check of all the upstairs rooms, Tifa arrived back in the kitchen just as Yuffie and Marlene were passing through. "Hey, was Denzel outside with you guys?"

Marlene shook her head and placed her kitten on the floor, where it proceeded to bat at her overlong shoelaces.

"He said he had stuff to do," Yuffie agreed. "Too cool for us girls, I guess. Why? Wasn't he upstairs?"

Tifa gestured to the negative and looked to Vincent, who had watched the whole exchange. "Want to help me look for him?"

In no time at all the party had searched the entire house, top to bottom, and had found no sign of the boy.

Cid summed up everyone's feelings quite aptly as his fingers lovingly grazed the unopened pack of cigarettes tucked behind his goggles. "Well, shit."

- O -

At that moment, Denzel was sitting on a fallen tree somewhere in the woods behind Tifa's house. He hadn't ventured in too deep, knowing that he would catch hell for wandering off very far, but just enough to be out of earshot. He craved the pervading silence of the trees, as opposed to the constant din the others provided. He was never an overly extroverted type, and had been needing space since their arrival.

Of course, if he was honest with himself, he'd been needing space for a lot longer than that.

If he was honest with himself, he needed a lot more than space.

Idly, he picked at the bark beside him and swung his feet over the small ravine the toppled snag spanned. Denzel realized that he was behaving poorly, knew he should be grateful to Barret for taking him in when Tifa could no longer support him and treating him like a son. He was aware of the fact that his contrary attitude and perpetual coolness was hurting people who had only ever cared about him. But he couldn't say it out loud. There was just too much anger.

It was an ever-present rage that coiled beneath his breastbone and threatened to strike at any given moment if he opened his mouth. So he didn't, kept his speech to the mandatory minimum, leaving it all safely inside where it slowly consumed him.

He was angry at the universe for its treatment of him, angry that he was an orphan who had to rely on the generosity of others. He was angry at Cloud, who had meant so much and then abandoned him. He was angry at Tifa for letting Cloud go. He was angry at Marlene for not being angry. And he was angry at everyone else for their pity. He was angry at all of them for loving him so unconditionally that they never gave up on him.

But most of all, he was angry at himself. He was the one who couldn't get past this. He was the problem, not the others. It was him. And admitting that only made the anger intensify.

Sometimes it was all Denzel could do not to scream. He was a burden and he knew it, but nobody ever treated him like one. They tip-toed around him, giving him time to come to terms with Cloud's disappearing act, continued to favor him like an injured foot after everyone else had long moved on. It sickened him. It made him want to fight someone. It made him want to cry.

If there was one thing Denzel was good at though, it was keeping those feelings hidden. He had no intention of further burdening the others with his ridiculous and childish emotions. They had done more than enough and deserved better.

Just then, a twig snapped farther down the ravine and Denzel's pity-party screeched to a halt as he became acutely aware of the rapidly approaching dusk. Usually, he wouldn't be so jumpy in the woods, where any number of small mammals might be foraging in the brush. But even though he didn't know what it was, something had all the adults on edge and he suddenly wished he had paid better attention to what had been said when they thought he wasn't listening.

Gathering his courage around him like a cloak, Denzel stood on the make-shift bridge and maintained absolute quiet, scanning the surrounding trees for any sign of a threat. His every nerve was on hyper-alert and his eyes darted in the direction of every new sound. There! Another twig snapped, this time followed by a low growl.

Denzel muttered a curse before resolutely deciding he had had enough alone time for the day. Clearly, he had overstayed his welcome. Carefully, so as to not lose his balance and go tumbling to the forest floor below, he crossed to the side of the ravine he'd come from and began backing his way up the hill, eyes trained in the direction the growl had come from as his traitorous feet crunched through the underbrush.

A breeze rustled the canopy of the leaves and the fading sunlight briefly filtered down, revealing the glint off of two very large eyes at least four feet off the ground. Another growl washed through the clearing and skittered up Denzel's spine. The boy immediately turned on his heel and began to run.

- O -

While Shera and Marlene remained at the house behind locked doors in case Denzel returned, the others spread out to search for the boy, Tifa and Vincent hurrying to check the diner and Barret, Yuffie and Cid fanning out to search the woods. Each one was calling Denzel's name, but with no luck. Night was rapidly approaching and if he was injured and couldn't reply, Yuffie knew their chances of finding him after dark were greatly lessened. She shrieked out the boy's name with renewed fervor and tried vainly to track him through the undergrowth.

- O -

Denzel could hardly hear anything over his pulse pounding in his ears as he sprinted onward. He cast a glance over his shoulder and saw nothing pursuing him, but was not heartened by that. He could feel the thing's presence out there. The fact that he couldn't see it brought a terrifying conclusion: it was hunting him.

- O -

Vincent had remained at the diner's back door, listening and watching for anything amiss while Tifa searched inside. There was no sign that the boy had been taken; he could have just wandered off. But still…it pays to be vigilant. Inwardly, he kicked himself yet again for causing this entire mess.

Tifa burst through the back door, her face flushed a most fetching shade of pink as her chest heaved from her haste. "He's not here."

- O -

Had he come from this way? As night descended, Denzel realized in a panic that he was completely turned around and had no idea how to get back home, or even back to the path. Stopping next to a large fir to catch his breath, he threw his gaze about frantically. He couldn't see it, but he could feel whatever was out there watching him. It growled again and that was all the prodding Denzel needed to take off once more.

- O -

"I'm going to try across the road," Cid shouted to Barret from somewhere to his right. "Make sure he didn't go that way!"

"Alright!" Barret replied, then, "Yuffie, you hear that?"

"Roger!" came the ninja's reply from a further distance to the left. "Good idea!"

You could tell the situation was dire when Yuffie was willing to compliment the pilot. Barret would have laughed if he wasn't so damned worried. He should have been watching the boy more carefully, should have at least told him how much danger he was in.

But that didn't matter right now. Right now, they just had to find him. He could punish himself later.

- O -

"Oh, god, no," Denzel whimpered as he ran his hands over the sheer rock wall in front of him. Somehow, in his flight, he had managed to get trapped between whatever was hunting him and some sort of cliff face. It wasn't all that tall, couldn't be more than twenty feet. But to Denzel it could have been a hundred. There was no way he could scramble up in time. He was trapped.

He spun around with the gnawing suspicion that this had probably been the thing's plan all along and placed his back against the rough stone. A cold sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped down between his shoulder blades as he tried in vain to see in the gathering dark, his ineffectual eyes darting about the woods in a frenzy. Then he stopped dead, his stomach dropping to his feet. Two green reflected retinas emerged from the darkness not thirty yards from where he was hemmed in.

Denzel swallowed hard as the thing stepped slowly into his vision, a black form taking shape and solidifying into a terrifyingly huge and horrifically menacing wolf-like predator. Its open jaws glistened as it drew nearer and Denzel couldn't form a single thought. All he could do was fear.

Then a voice drifted through the trees, almost inaudible over Denzel's heartbeat and the monster's panting breaths, but it was there. Someone was calling his name.

Denzel looked the creature directly in the eye and knew that if he wasn't rescued, he would most certainly be torn to shreds and eaten alive. So, mustering every fiber of his bravery, he wailed, "I'm here!"

The thing didn't like that. It balked slightly, and then let loose a rumbling growl that seemed to shake the very earth. But the shouting voice was drawing close enough he could recognize it and Denzel couldn't afford to be paralyzed with dread. His second reply was half a sob. "Barret, I'm here!"

But the monster had heard Barret too, and had no intention of losing its quarry. It immediately leapt forward and Denzel hit the deck just in time to avoid having its razor-sharp teeth snap shut around his throat. It let loose an angry snarl and lunged again, this time, burying its jaws in the bulk of Denzel's jacket. It wrenched loose with a sickening ripping sound as the boy desperately tried to get away, his own screams all he could hear.

A flash of light. An explosion. The monster shuddered above him and then collapse across his abdomen, limp with death. Denzel forced himself to stop screaming and looked up.

Barret was approaching at a trot, his gun arm still trained on the creature. Once his eyes captured Denzel's, they didn't let go. "You alright, son? You hurt?"

Denzel shook his head and wiped the stream of dirt-caked snot from his nose as the big man hefted the monster's corpse from him as if it were nothing more than a sleeping Pomeranian. He then stooped as Denzel slowly sat up, his hand a steady force at the boy's back.

"It just got my coat," Denzel replied, a quaver infiltrating his response. "It was gonna…I was…" His words melted into sobs, and Barret gently scooped the boy into his arms just as Yuffie thundered into the clearing.

"Is he okay?" she gasped, hands braced on her knees as she tried to catch her breath.

Barret marched past her, his mind fixed only on getting them all safely back to the house. "He will be."

- O -

Water pounded down from the spigot onto Yuffie's back as she merrily availed herself of Tifa's personal bathing facilities. She had turned the showerhead to its highest setting, hoping to blast away the grimy sweat and anxiety the evening forage into the woods had settled on her skin. She sighed contentedly at the decadence of the steam filled room and the scalding water cascading down her tired body. This was what heaven would be like all the time, she was sure of it.

She pondered the night's events as she deftly lathered a washcloth with Tifa's soap, noting that it smelled like home, but that was way to cheesy for her to ever say out loud.

After she and Barret returned to the house with Denzel still in the man's arms, they were greeted by a deeply relieved Shera and Marlene, the later of the two still hiccupping from worried sobs. Barret set the shell-shocked youth down on the couch and motioned for Shera to fetch the first-aid kit from the Kitchen. Both Yuffie and Marlene watched in relative silence as the large black man gently tended to Denzel's numerous scraps and bruises, the boy staring blankly at the tattered remains of his jacket. Underneath, the shirt had also been torn, exposing the soft pink flesh of his belly, which was marred by a single long claw-mark.

As soon as Tifa and Vincent arrived, Yuffie was drafted into service reheating dinner and serving it to the silent crowd. Only she, Tifa and Marlene ate at the table, Shera having excused herself to her room saying she'd already eaten and Cid taking his portion upstairs with them. Vincent claimed to not be hungry and took a glass of vodka to the front porch where he remained until late that night. Barret sat on the couch next to Denzel, who merely picked at his food until it grew cold again before being led upstairs for what Yuffie was sure was a sound talking-to.

And she knew first-hand how good Barret was at delivering those.

But she put that out of her mind for now. He was undoubtedly go easy on the boy since he was still in shock.

Instead, she focused on getting clean and then stayed under the warm stream for a good ten minutes longer thinking of nothing in particular, before turning off the knobs with a punctuating squeak. After stepping out onto the plush rug, she drew a hand towel across the fogged mirror and quickly dried her hair and dressed in her pajamas. She flicked off the light and opened the door quietly to find Marlene already fast asleep on this side of the bed, her kitten curled up on the pillow next to her and her stuffed tiger, Stripes, trapped beneath her arm. She smiled up at Tifa, but the older brunette wasn't looking her way, instead she was gnawing on the end of a pencil as she concentrated on the manila folder she'd been toting around all day.

"Working hard?" she half-whispered as she rounded the foot board and took a seat on the far corner of the bed.

Tifa snapped to attention, looking almost as if she had been caught breaking some law, but then relaxed and scooted closer, dipping down the file so Yuffie could see inside. "I found these in my attic," she intoned as she gestured to some old-looking papers covered in what Yuffie recognized as runes. "I was trying to decipher them. Thought it'd be interesting."

"Oh," Yuffie replied vapidly. "Runes, huh? I've come across some of these in my…uh, adventures." She plucked the top page from the stack and turned it over gingerly in her hands. "You know how to read 'em?"

"Well, maybe. I have a key here that'll help me translate, but I still don't know if the original language is ours or not." Tifa produced a new white sheet that had clearly been printed recently and Yuffie smiled her best conspiratorial smile.

"So that's what you were doing in your office." Tifa nodded, mildly abashed, and Yuffie's grin broadened. "Would you like some help?"

Tifa looked up guiltily, but seemed to catch Yuffie's grin, mirroring it on her own face. "If you're offering, I sure wouldn't turn it down."

- O -

Thump. Draaaaaag.

Tifa's eyes drifted open. She was sitting cross-legged at the head of her bed, a pad of paper and pencil sitting in her lap and Yuffie gently snoring from where she leaned against her arm. The bedside light was still on, as she had drifted off while decoding the papers and forgotten to turn it off. She gazed around the room, eyeing the pools of shadow behind her furniture, the open door to her tiny bathroom, and the sleeping visages of her two young bedmates.

Something had woken her. She had heard a sound…but what…

Thump.

This time she knew she'd heard something: a thudding coming from somewhere beyond the corner of her room. 'Thunder?' No, she would have heard the tell-tale patter of rain or seen a flash of lightening by now.

Draaaaaag.

Carefully, so as not to rouse the others, Tifa slid from the bed and approached her corner wall, placing her ear against the panel and listening. She could hear a quiet shuffling…maybe a rodent; she could already picture it skittering and scratching behind the drywall. She scrunched up her nose in distaste. 'That's all I need.'

Thud.

Now Tifa could pinpoint exactly where that sound had come from, she hurried to her window and slid it open as silently a she could, craning her neck so she could get a view of the ground level near the corner of her house she had been listening at. She couldn't see anything, didn't hear anything besides the hissing of a night wind through the trees, but waited that way, stock-still, for a good long minute before pulling her head back inside.

Maybe it was a raccoon or a stray dog getting into her trash bins again. Maybe it was just the wind. Or maybe, it was nothing at all and the stress of the day was causing Tifa to imagine things. 'Either way,' she thought, locking the window and pulling the gossamer curtains shut as she headed back to bed. 'We'll be able to find out in the morning.'

'And if it is something dangerous,' she mused as she clicked off the lamp and settled in next to Yuffie's warm, sleeping form. 'It's going to have to get through Vincent first, so he can deal with it.' And with a smile at that particularly ungracious thought, Tifa drifted off into a peaceful slumber.

- O -

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