The food lulls Cloud into a pleasant haze that has him romanticizing the sleepy town and its pink and purple sunset.
Fuhito doesn't seem given to talking, and Cloud has nothing more to say, so it's a quiet walk back, interrupted only by crowing roosters and crooning cats. The other man's breath is just getting heavy when they reach the top of the hill and the security checkpoint waiting within the ancient fortified gate.
A similarly quiet ride down the elevator shaft helps distract him from the looming press of Zack's attention at his back. If he thinks too much about it he'll become fully annoyed with it, and there's no use in that. Zack's just being an idiot, letting his heart get ahead of his brain, as usual.
Three people in uniform unpack cushions and pillows from storage bins in the corners. They stop and salute when Fuhito walks in. The walls are lined with strange wood frames and hanging tapestries, an arc of wood chairs sitting nearby.
"What are those?"
Fuhito navigates the pillow minefield with careful turns.
"Looms. The Ancients believed weaving to be a form of mundane magic, a parallel to the way the gods wove the fabric of the universe, or the way men wove the fabric of history with their actions. The heddle rods are blood-wet spears and arrows are the shuttles. The Valkyries will cross it with a crimson weft. With swords we weave this web of battle. "
"A poem," Cloud wonders.
"Writings of the Ancients. The monks in Cosmo Canyon made us students memorize every line," Fuhito chuckles, turning the chair around and parking Cloud on the end of a half circle of chairs near the looms. "I sometimes wanted to weave my own 'web of battle' after a full day of writing droll passages over and over, but now that I'm grown I'm glad I know them. Perilously few do."
" We few born of the Planet endure. In her womb we find graves. From the flesh of her children is our essence reborn ," Cloud says.
"Now where did you hear that?" Fuhito asks, eyes sharpening.
Round glasses glare through a neon green tank. Cloud looks at his shoes.
"Just something someone told me."
"Is that so?"
"I don't really know what it means." Cloud shrugs, studying his fingernails, the wrinkles in his slacks. Careful not to brush him, the commander engages the brake.
"Where did you grow up, Cloud?"
"Huh?"
"Some cultures have legends born of the Ancient tradition. I thought perhaps you might know one."
"I'm from nowhere. I don't remember much."
"But you must know where mako comes from," Fuhito prods, hands weaving behind his back.
'Reactors,' Cloud almost says, but that would be stupid. The reactors get it from…
From pipes and long ladders, metal bridges affixed to piers—an ocean of green gushing up from below.
"The ground. Same as oil and coal."
"Not quite." Fuhito kneels on one knee, resting his wrists one on top of the other. "It is wholly different from any other fuel in history because it comes from the Lifestream. A great well of energy flowing right beneath our feet, energy from which each and every one of us was born, and to which we will all return when we die. An unbroken chain of life, death, and rebirth spanning all the way back to the time of the Ancients and before."
"According to who?"
"To that very passage you quoted," Fuhito feigns surprise, and it would be patronizing if it weren't so gentle, so oddly harmonious with the aura of calm confidence that surrounds him. " In her womb we find graves. Our souls return to the Lifestream when we die, only to be incubated into new lives soon to be born. Through that process, we few born of the Planet endure."
A long itch drips down Cloud's neck and he nods, feeling like he messed up, like he's shown something he shouldn't have.
"Whoever told you that has done their research. That passage comes from carvings in the Forgotten City. I can only think of a few expeditions that have ever been approved for that area. All Shinra."
"Well, I did work for them," Cloud rasps.
"Of course," Fuhito smiles, standing.
He motions behind him to a round table ringed with tall, red candles. A slow trickle of people have formed a queue between it and the double-doored entry.
"It's customary for members to light a candle upon entering. Individually they represent the piece of the Planet which resides inside each of us. Collectively, they remind us of the power we have when we gather together around a common cause. Would you like to light one?"
Cloud watches a match strike at the table, the way it scrapes, crackles, and then suddenly, hungrily, flares up into flames. The stick is small, the gesture precise. Too precise for his useless hands.
"I dunno…" His eyes wander self-consciously away from Fuhito, only to land on a familiar figure just coming in from the hall. Gloria's face brightens when she notices him, and she gives a frenetic little wave. Making a beeline for him, she steps around the queue and snags one of the glass-enclosed candles and a matchbox.
"My goodness, Storm Cloud, a few hours on land and look at you! Good as new." Ruffling his hair in a fond gesture, she tips her head to Fuhito as an afterthought. "Commander."
"Lieutenant," he nods back. "I was just explaining our rituals to the recruit."
"And I'm sure you made them sound boring as tar," Gloria smirks, dropping into the chair to Cloud's right. "Now listen here, it's really nothing serious. Everyone loves a good match strike." She lays the matchbox in his palm and digs out a stick. "Now you hold that good and tight. Doesn't matter if you shake, just don't let it go."
He feels the drag, the grinding like tires on gravel and presses his fingers tight against the cardboard. Brilliant orange light bursts across his knuckles and over the cracked-earth of Gloria's skin, puffing and gasping like a little, burgeoning life.
His next breath comes out awed and audible, making the tiny flame dance. A mirror image of it wiggles joyfully in the deep brown of her eyes.
"Teamwork, soldier," she winks, lowering the match to the wick and waiting for it to catch. A glowing ring of red halos out from the colored glass, across his lap and arms and Gloria's bomber jacket. "Want to take it up there, or should I?"
The room is filling quickly, each new person giving him another curious glance. He doesn't really want to make a scene.
"You can."
"Alright." She pats his hand, taking back the matches and then the candle, walking away. "But you save that seat for me, you hear?"
Fuhito unbuttons his sleeves, tracking her departure.
"My, you've made an impression," he says serenely, laced with good humor. "I'll need to neglect you a bit while I see to my duties, please excuse me."
With a slight bow he steps away, folding up his sleeves and unfastening the clasp across his mandarin collar.
A raised platform stands on that end of the room with two large and well-worn pillows sitting in pride of place, separated by a low table where a leather bound book and brass bowl sits.
Sitting on the edge, Fuhito removes his calf-length boots and then stuffs his socks into them, setting them neatly to the far side. He's in the middle of rolling up his pant legs when Gloria eases back into her place at Cloud's side.
"So you know the Commander now," she says, kicking off her sandy colored loafers and spreading her knees wide. "He's not everyone's cup of tea, but when you get down to it he's the only one that's talking about the real problems."
"There are fake problems?" Cloud asks.
"Well, no. But let's say Elfe gets her way and we roll into Midgar guns blazing. Let's say we somehow beat 'em and blow Shinra HQ to dust. You know what's going to happen next—and I mean real quick, mind you, it won't take any time at all—somebody else is going to go digging in that wreckage and figure out how Shinra did it.
They'll make their own reactors, and another company will make theirs, and before you know it's like a virus that breached containment. Everybody's going to know how to do it and stamping it out will be like stomping on molehills. Every one you put down, another will pop up. The poison won't go back in the bottle."
"Huh. Never thought of it like that." Cloud watches as the man in question sits cross-legged near the futon and lifts his head at a cluster of people kneeling near the dais.
"Neither has Elfe. That's the whole problem. The girl can fight like a demon, and she can whip up a crowd, but there ain't nothing going on between those ears. Not like Fuhito."
"Harsh," Cloud says.
"Give it time, you'll see what I mean," Gloria sighs. "Oh look, they're starting."
A man stands at Fuhito's instruction, a giant hulk of a man with brown skin and a flaming skull tattoo. Only when he turns to sit on the futon does Cloud see that he's missing part of his right arm, the elbow wrapped thick with gauze.
"Shoot, he's starting with B. One sec, I've got to take care of something."
Gloria picks through the rapidly filling room at a fast clip, kneeling beside a little girl that Cloud hadn't noticed until then. Patting the girl's small back, she leans over to whisper something in her ear and nods her head at the girl's response.
The man lays flat and begins unwrapping the gauze. Fuhito stops him with a word.
Straining to see around the dark pillars of people standing, Cloud's eyes widen as Fuhito holds his hands flat over the man's torso and the air around him bends and warps like an hourglass. A sound like a lightning crack stabs his ears.
"Uncle B," the girl calls, her little hand reaching out, and Gloria shushes her softly. Green mist rises from the ground.
"Mother Gaia, hear my prayer." Fuhito clasps his hands and spectral fingers rise from the ground, becoming hands, forearms, whole limbs.
A low chanting comes from behind, above, and underneath, a sound Cloud remembers from the earliest day in the lab when death hung over his shoulder like a wraith. Realization snaps like a wire sparking, the visions and voices morphing into a recognizable shape—spirits, energy, the Lifestream . All this time he's been hearing the Lifestream.
Gravity seems to pull him closer but he knows the handbrake is engaged. It's entirely in his perception, this sense that the walls are getting further and the stage is sliding near. Closing off his mind, he lurches back into place, his soul rebounding back into his body from where it had started drifting out without his permission.
The man on the pallet gasps. So does Cloud, quiet and thankfully unnoticed on the perimeter.
What the hell, what the hell.
Fuhito releases the energy he'd harnessed, dropping his hands. The big man touches his head, his chest, his gauze-wrapped arm, and walks unsteadily from the stage.
No one else looks breathless or woozy. They watch with mild interest, like this is routine. Gloria hands the little girl to her uncle and slides back into the chair at Cloud's right.
"Sorry for dashing, little Marlene gets scared by the blessings. I almost forgot I promised to sit with her this time."
The blessings. Blessings?
"That was… real," Cloud whispers, dazed. Gloria leans forward, taking in his state with a worried frown.
"Course it was. The Commander's bonafide. You thought I brought you here for a hack?"
Cloud flounders, shivers running down his back and up his neck.
"Want to go up there?" she asks.
"No." He hunches, as intrigued as he is terrified. Gloria looks disappointed, although she tries to hide it.
"Not yet," he amends. "I want to see how it works first."
"Understandable," she says unconvincingly.
The energy in the room compresses again, and this time Cloud's prepared to resist it. He watches raptly as three more people cycle through, at which point Fuhito stands and paces, swinging his arms back and forth in a stretch.
"Looks like that's all for today." Gloria sits back and crosses her arms, getting comfortable. "The meeting proper will start soon. Where the heck is Maria?"
As if summoned, the Captain's distinctive silhouette darkens the door. She stops at the table to light a candle, and then sits cross-legged in front of Gloria because all the other seats are full.
The room grows hot with body heat and close with the low murmuring of voices. The last person to enter is Elfe, her feet scraping and dragging across the concrete. With a creak and a thunk she closes the double doors behind her.
"Running late, Comandante?" Maria calls. Elfe lifts her middle finger without looking. Gloria scolds her under her breath. "What? She needs to lighten up."
"Don't start shit you can't finish," Gloria replies.
The Commander lights her candle from another rather than striking a match. When she approaches the platform, the silk robe hanging from her thin, square shoulders seems to swallow her. It hangs wide and encompassing around her small hands, swaying around her bare calves like a windchime.
She wears no boots or socks, just loafers. Her pants are rolled to her knees and darkened and wet at the edges. The tassels of her sash cling together, leaving drops on the floor like a trail.
When she kneels on the stage, she tips the handle of her sword down to raise the back of the blade, exactly as far as necessary and not an inch further.
Flat, focused eyes peer out from her salt-stripped hair, zeroing unerringly on Cloud and then away, scanning the congregation.
"Today is the 28th day of Harvest, in the 2006th year since the Calamity fell from the sky. In two days we greet the Sunless Season, yet Gaia blesses us with clear skies," she says.
"And curses us with unseasonable humidity," Fuhito says with a coy smirk, retrieving a paper fan from under his cushion and unfurling it with a flap . Quiet laughter bubbles up from the crowd.
Elfe's severe lip twitches up, but she keeps her eyes trained forward and holds her commanding presence.
"There is much to be thankful for," she continues. "Supplies we have long anticipated from our benefactors have reached our dock before the frost. Merciful Leviathan has returned the crew of La Libertadad to us safe and sound."
"And two new faces join our cause," Fuhito interjects.
"I was getting to that," Elfe sighs.
"Well, you were taking too long," Fuhito chuckles, fluttering his fan. "I'm sure everyone's been wondering since they came in, yes?"
A quiet affirmation rolls through the crowd.
"Naturally," Fuhito grins mildly. "Their names are Zack and Cloud. They are recent defectors sponsored for membership by Gloria and Maria Espina."
Maria gives a little wave from the floor, and the weight of eyes settles on Cloud. His stomach gives an unpleasant twist and his toes curl in his boots.
With a controlled glance to her colleague, Elfe says, "Both are ex-SOLDIERs, delivered to us by the mercy of Gaia. As with the other former Shinra operatives, we offer them amnesty and an opportunity to atone. Please expend all possible effort to teach them our ways and make them feel at home."
She waits a moment to give a sense of closure, and only when she speaks again can Cloud make himself relax. One by one, the members return their attention to the front.
"For this and her continued protection, we pray," Elfe says, folding her hands. The mass of tan and green uniforms follow suit. Cloud freezes, at a loss for what to do. Of all people, his eyes fall on the giant man with the tattoo. His eyes are shut, but his little girl's aren't. She stares at him, unblinking, her mouth slightly agape.
"In my chest beats the heart of the Planet, the same heart that beats in you," Elfe says.
A hundred mouths answer, united through repetition. Three times they say it, the room growing close with their litany. Between blinks his vision blurs. He sees little flames breathing faint green in their chests. The next second his head aches and his body curls. No one sees it with their eyes closed. No one but the little girl.
Half a breath later the pressure slacks, the air clearing. Everybody lifts their heads like a thunderstorm has passed, their eyes soft and easy, looking around in renewed wonder at the continuity of life.
He doesn't understand it, has never seen anything like it. He's at once intrigued and fearful, wary of his own ignorance and isolated by it. Warmth cloaks his hand and Gloria smiles at him, leaning in and cupping her other hand around his ear.
"It can be a lot at first, but you'll get the hang of it. Just do what you're comfortable with."
He purses his lips, nodding just to keep from disappointing her.
"Does anyone have other news to share?" Fuhito asks. No one speaks. He nods.
"Very well then."
Lifting a wood dowel from the brass bowl on the table, he knocks the edge, drawing the dowel around the rim to create a reverberant, drawn-out ringing.
"On this day, we remember," he says.
The crowd echoes the word soft and sibilant. "We remember."
Elfe opens the leather tome before her and reads.
"On this day in years past, these names among us returned to the Planet. —– — , five years passed. — — , four years passed. — — , four years passed."
People shift in their seats. A few hold hands. The list goes on.
"— — ,two years passed. Han… " Elfe's voice slips. A middle-aged woman near the candle altar covers her face. Her muffled cries are unavoidable in the cramped space.
The Commander clears her throat with a whispered apology.
Fuhito, not looking at the book, speaks low and quietly.
"Hanyin Mae, one year passed."
Elfe stands, stoic but red-faced. On steady legs she walks through the congregation, her bare feet padding. Wordlessly she embraces the woman, her fingers wide and encompassing across her back.
Maria looks mournfully up at Gloria, a hand snaking to clasp her wife's.
"I didn't realize… a year already."
Gloria nods, dragging a knuckle under one eye. She draws in a shaky breath, and bends over to lay a kiss on Maria's crown.
"Her poor mother," she murmurs.
"Her poor husband. He's not even here."
"I wouldn't be," Gloria says.
"Don't say that…"
Cloud swallows around a dry throat, out of place, an intruder. On the dais, Fuhito folds his fan and grips it in his fist.
"Today, these names we remember. We thank them for making the ultimate sacrifice, and dedicate this day to their bravery."
Compared to the tears, it falls flat on Cloud's ears. Elfe rubs the grieving mother's back once more and pulls away with a regretful air. Hand on the hilt of her sword, dabs her eyes with the edge of her sleeve and returns to her seat with stilted strides.
A protracted instant grips the room, like the specter of death has stolen time itself. Elfe shakes her shaggy hair out of her face, and juts out her pointed chin as if in defiance of the phantom's presence.
"It occurs to me," she begins, "that there is no word in the modern tongue for a parent who has lost a child. We have a word for the loss of a parent—orphan—a word for the loss of a spouse—widow—a word for the loss of a country—refugee. We do not have one for a parent. It is an unspeakable loss, an unimaginable loss. We cannot name it, because no single word can encompass it."
The Commander gazes down at her sleeves, at the dark splotches discoloring the ends which she makes no effort to hide.
"It occurs to me," she continues, "that there are a lot of hangdog faces these days. A lot of shaggy beards, a lot of sluggish steps. We've been beat down, it's true. I've had these thoughts, I admit it. Is there any meaning to these senseless deaths? How long must we endure this? Will the atrocities ever end?"
A rustling starts in the cushions. A pulled-taut anxiety, like Elfe's spoken something taboo and unthinkable, the most taboo thing any leader can say—the doubts everyone's privately been thinking.
She gives a brutish smile, resting her forearm across her sword's pommel, hand hanging casually in the air.
"And I say nay, brothers and sisters. There is none."
The unease in the atmosphere sharpens to a pin-point. A few rowdy men in the back issue rebukes, held back and scolded by others. She raises a careless hand, rising to her feet. One step, another, around the table and forward.
"No meaning, no rest, no end—not if let them win," she yells suddenly, beating her chest with her fist. "Not if we let them defeat us with our despair. Who stands in the path of the Shock Trooper? We do! Who clogs the pipes of the reactor? We do! Who fights for the Lifestream that beats in our veins?"
"We do!"
"And if you fall like Sister Mae, where will you go?" she spits, her clamped-down grief coming loose in her voice. Stepping down from the platform, stomps and throws out her hands. "Will you be reborn or will you be sucked up into a mako reactor? Will you be burned into electricity to brew President Shinra's coffee?"
"Hell no," a guy at the back shouts.
"Yes you will, Haru. You'll be the first, you ugly old windbag!" she crows.
It breaks a seal, an invisible cap on the rising fire in the room. After every statement people start yelling, cheering, standing up and raising fists.
Touching her fingertips together, she wrinkles her nose and brings an imaginary mug to her mouth.
"What about you, Ford? You wanna be pumped into a limousine so Rufus Shinra can snort some dust off a stripper's tits?"
Cloud sputters, meeting Gloria's laughing eyes as Maria louds out a belly laugh, head thrown back on Gloria's knees.
"I thought not." Elfe grins fiercely, throwing her robe off her shoulders to bare her toned, wiry arms wrapped around and around with ugly scars like she's made a habit of blocking blades with her bones.
"And as long as you feel that way, I promise you this—there will be no surrender to our fight. We will give them no mercy, no rest, no end. We will fight for the soul of our Planet or we will return to it. Do you hear me?"
"Yes!"
"Again!"
"Yes!"
"I feel your exhaustion, family. I feel your despair. We have fought relentlessly for year upon year, and I know the doubt which rises in your heart because it is mine. And so I promise you, today, we will strike back soon. We will start the next war with Midgar, and we will fight with every last breath." Raising her right fist, she bares her teeth and shouts. "Down with the Shinra!"
Cloud's breath comes ragged, a feeling like an inferno rising up through his belly. Not a single person remains sitting, no one but him. Without a tremor or shake, he raises his fist along with the others, looking around in wonder at the roomful of people ready to die for what they believe.
It reaches back into something elemental, something primal and pure at the core of his being. His voice is drowned out by the unison call of the crowd, but he feels it radiating, vibrating from his soul right up to his throat.
"Down with the Shinra!"
"Down with the Shinra!"
Elfe twists her torso, arm back on her pommel and the other braced on her hip. She looks over her shoulder at Fuhito, standing tall and straight on the stage.
Raising his fan to his forehead, he salutes the crowd with a delicate upturn of his lips.
"That should do it for tonight, everyone. Dismissed."
An explosion of movement. The releasing of a collective breath.
Chairs scrape loudly all at once and pillows get swept swiftly back into the bins. One by one the members blow out their candles, ambling towards the elevator in boisterous, chattering groups.
Cloud watches, his chest full like a balloon and limbs buzzing with unventable energy. He has no idea how he'll get any sleep tonight.
Noticing it, Maria grabs him by the neck and rubs her fist against his scalp, laughing as he hoarsely protests.
"Sooooo how was it? Did you enjoy your first Elegy?"
"Stop it! I did, I did. Mercy!"
"Comandante just said no mercy, didn't you hear?"
"Mari, easy," Gloria chuckles, which thankfully convinces her. Either that or Fuhito approaching.
"Sir," she salutes, resting her weight on one side.
"Sorry to dampen the mood," he says, threading his fingers in front of him. "I thought Zack might appreciate it if we returned you to your dorm swiftly."
"That's one way to put it," Maria mutters. Gloria kicks her not-too-subtly.
"Excellent idea, Commander. In fact, we were just going."
"But the elevator will take days to have room…" Maria whines even as she allows her wife to drag her away by an arm hooked around her elbow. Two more candles go out, leaving only two more remaining.
Fuhito bends to disengage the brake.
"Actually—" Cloud stutters, knowing Zack will be pissed but not wanting to wait, afraid that if he stops he might lose his nerve forever. "That thing you did earlier, where the hands came out of the floor. Were you drawing from the Lifestream?"
"Hands?" Fuhito straightens, tipping his head to the side. "I mean, yes. That was a spirit healing. An Ancient technique I've practiced since I was a boy."
"And when Maria said you could treat me, that's what she meant."
"A treatment which did not cure Gloria's father," Fuhito cautions.
"But it could."
"I take it this is not an idle curiosity," Fuhito rubs his eyes under his glasses and then withdraws, letting them fall back to his nose. "I recall rather vividly Zack's opinion on me performing any kind of medical treatment on you."
It's easy for Zack to be cautious; his body doesn't randomly decide whether it wants to function normally or not. If he waits until Zack is comfortable, he could be waiting right into his grave.
"It's my body," he says simply. "I want to know what's going on with it."
"And you ask, knowing there's a chance that nothing will come of it. A significant chance."
"Of course."
The Commander clasps his hands behind his back, his shoulders at an angle that no longer looks relaxed and carefree.
"Very well, then. Let's do it right now."