~A Wild Heart~

Chapter Twelve

~~~ooooo~~~

"Where were you?" The curt demand met Aeris as she opened the door, and the flower in her hand dropped to the floor as Lucy and Daisy raced past her inside the house.

She hung her hat on the wall and took her boots off, carefully shaking the dust from them and setting them by the door before she picked up the flower and answered Tifa. "I was out with the sheep as you well know."

"Don't give me that," the other girl huffed, ignoring the dogs chasing each other around her. "I went looking for you and found the sheep out on the range alone with Lucy and Daisy."

Aeris bristled. "Are you checking up on me?"

"You've been coming home late almost every day. I was worried about you."

"You needn't worry about me. I can take care of myself."

"But who's taking care of the sheep while you're gone? If you don't want to look after them, you know we can switch. If you want to do the chores at home, you just have to see to the animals in the barn and let out the chickens and gather the eggs and put up the washing before you…go wherever it is that you go. And make sure you come back in time to clean the house for a bit and prepare dinner."

"And what about the garden?"

"The safety of the sheep is much more important."

"They are safe," Aeris said defensively. "I'm only gone for a little bit each time and I wouldn't leave them by themselves if I didn't know they'd be all right. Their only danger is wandering off and getting lost but that's what the dogs are there for."

"Aeris."

She looked sullenly at her friend. "Yes?"

"What's gotten into you? You would never have done something like this before." She saw Tifa hesitate for a brief moment before she spoke again in a tentative voice. "Have you been meeting…someone?"

"What do you mean?"

"Are you meeting a boy?" she asked bluntly.

Aeris gasped. "You've been spying on me!"

"You are!" Tifa's eyes were round as saucers. "Aeris! Who?"

"Why are you asking me so many questions? It has nothing to do with you!"

"And Zack?"

"What about Zack?"

Tifa gave her a quelling glance. "He's noticed you disappearing too."

"So?"

"Does he have nothing to do with it as well? You know how he feels about you."

"What are you talking about? Zack and I—we're...friends. Family. That's all there is to it."

"He thinks of you as more than just 'friends' or 'family'. He—"

"Don't!" Aeris cut her off, suddenly afraid of what she was going to say. "Please don't say whatever it is you're thinking! We're friends! And he's just a boy."

Tifa wouldn't let her off the hook. "Zack is not just a boy, Aeris. He hasn't been a boy for a long time now."

"He is to me," Aeris said, proving a stubborn streak of her own that rivaled Tifa's. "He's the boy I grew up with. I can't see him as anything more than that—a very dear, sweet friend. Family, but not…not like…"

"He is a man and he looks at you with the eyes of one."

"No!"

"Yes! You see it too."

"I—" She looked helplessly at her housemate. "What about all the other girls? We always tease him about them. I thought…"

"He just likes the attention they give him. He's charming and flatters them outrageously—it's in his nature—but he's always made it clear that you're the one he has his heart set on. You must know that."

"It can't be." Aeris shook her head. "I never took anything he said to me seriously, and I can't now."

"How can you say that? You returned his affections…"

"Yes, I did," she admitted. "I would have been happy—I was happy, with him and with you, with the way things were. But Tifa, that was before I knew what it could really be like. I thought that was all there was to it."

"All there was to what?" Tifa's voice rose with anger. "To life?"

"Yes…" Aeris said cautiously. "To life… I didn't know. I couldn't have begun to guess that there can be so much more. And what was good enough before isn't good enough anymore." How could she explain to her friend that she felt like she'd been roused from a long sleep of dreaming about slow, idyllic days on the farm, and thrust into a world run amuck and exploding with life, a world bursting with colors and spilling with truth and magic and vivacity, and nothing in her dreams could compare? She'd been thinking all along that the time spent with Cloud was like a dream but it was, in fact, the exact opposite. He'd awakened her from that other dream-world and now that the dreamer was awake and had seen and experienced and felt all that could be, how could she ever go back?

"Aeris, think about what you're doing."

"I am."

"Aeris, Zack loves you."

"Please," she pleaded. "Don't say anything more. I love Zack, you know I do. He is as dear to me as a brother would be. But I can't love him like that. I already—" She stopped and looked at Tifa. The other girl wasn't ready to hear what she had to say.

But she saw the truth in Aeris' eyes anyway.

Tifa gasped. Brown eyes went wide with horror.

"You're already in love with him."

~~~ooooo~~~

"My gods," Aeris breathed. She was trying not to make any noise or sudden movement that would scare the young bear but it was hard not to be awestruck by the sight of the mother bear and her cub. And the cub didn't appear frightened at all. It seemed to have no fear of her despite its huge mother nudging it with her nose, and making low growling noises, trying to move it away from the human that had intruded upon them.

The cub ducked a powerful paw swiping at it and scampered right up to the fairy standing beside Aeris.

"Greetings, young friend," Cloud said, leaning forward with his hands on his knees and the bear put its front paws on his chest and stood upright. Sharp claws dug into the muscles on the fairy's chest, but he didn't seem to notice it as he ran his fingers through the bear's thick brown fur and stroked its face gently. "It's been a while, hasn't it? I'm glad to see you're doing well."

The bear moved to Aeris and looked up at her, waiting for her to give it the same adulation as it knew was its due. Without any trepidation whatsoever, she complied, reaching a hand down to the soft muzzle as Cloud had done. The cub turned its nose into her palm, sniffing and snorting, and she giggled as she felt its rough tongue scrape the palm of her hand.

"I see you haven't learned your lesson from your last encounter with a human."

"You mean this…?" Aeris turned stunned eyes to the fairy. "He's the one the hunter tried to shoot?" She glanced back at the bear, who was gazing up at her with such soft, curious eyes. "He must have been practically a newborn! A deer his size would have still been too young!"

"I thought humans like their game young, when their meat is tender and juicy?" he asked.

"Yes, but he was clearly born late in the season. There couldn't have been much meat on him yet."

"He's a she."

"Oh." She gave the bear a rueful smile. "She's beautiful."

"Thank you, friend."

Aeris looked up quizzically and saw that he was speaking to the bear hovering nearby, keeping a watchful eye on them.

"You brought a smile to her face today. We'll call us even, shall we?"

Aeris' eyes widened. She'd been so careful not to let anything spoil their time together, but he'd somehow sensed her disquiet about her confrontation with Tifa the previous day. She lowered her head, aware of a sudden strange lightness in the vicinity of her chest.

"Thank you," she murmured, to both the bears and the fairy.

~~~ooooo~~~

The sound of feminine giggles and a deep, baritone voice speaking reached Tifa's ears as she stepped out of the house for the umpteenth time.

How long had it been already? she thought with a sigh of frustration.

She closed the gate and went over to where a pair of mules were harnessed to a cart, as they had been for half the morning. "You fellows ready to hit the road?" she asked conversationally. The chestnut-colored male lifted his head and emitted a sound that was part whinny, part bray. At seeing Zack and the two girls coming from around the back of the house, he threw back his head with an angry snort and showed his chompers.

"So it's your turn, is it," Tifa said in exasperation to the old mule. "Must everyone get bewitched by Zack?" She ran a hand over his sleek coat. "Settle down, old boy. You have nothing to be jealous of. He's coming with us today."

The black mule grazed contentedly, not bothering to even look up to see what his companion was getting on about.

"If we ever get going, that is," she grumbled, mostly to herself. At this rate, the sun would be going back down in the west by the time those girls went home with the eggs they'd been sent out to fetch. There was no help for it; Tifa could not wait any longer.

"Zack," she called, trying to keep the irritation from her voice. "Are you coming?" If she'd been riding out on her own as she had planned, she would have been halfway to town by now. But as it was, he'd asked to accompany her this morning as she was getting the mules ready for their trip when their neighbors had shown up at the farm. "We have to get going."

Tifa watched now as he made his excuses to Martha and Beatrix, and they giggled and curtsied before thanking them both politely. Tifa smiled back and made the proper replies, but her smile disappeared as she stared after the backs of the two girls.

"Sorry about that," Zack said, striding quickly up to the cart. "That was my fault. I was just asking after Hans. I wanted to make sure he would be out with the men today."

His friend had caught a bug of some sort recently and had had to stay home for a few days. Knowing Zack, he was both worried about his friend, who had made it plain he was not happy about being forced to lie abed while everyone else had to work, and he wouldn't want to leave the men short-handed. But Tifa also knew that wasn't all the conversation had been about, but she bit her tongue and said in a mild tone, "That's all right." She didn't understand it herself why she'd been so short with everybody lately, but the last thing she needed was to lose her temper again and blurt out more things that were better left unspoken. "I just don't want to be too late to get any work done when we come home," she explained.

Zack was watching her out of the corner of his eyes. "What's this? You're not going to give me a hard time for keeping you waiting?"

A reluctant chuckle escaped her. "Since you wasted away most of the morning, you'll be brushing down the mules when we get home."

He sighed. "I just had to open my mouth, didn't I?"