While hunting for a good line for a title, I found this quote rather appropriate: "Skiing combines outdoor fun with knocking down trees with your face." -Dave Barry

Please also note the poll in my profile has been updated! :D

Chapter 32-Maps are for losers, we follow a Cloud

"How are we getting to the crater, Cloud?" Aerith asked the next morning. With her eyes red and swollen from her tears, she stiffened her spine and resolutely ignored Zack and Tifa's worried looks, her green eyes firmly locked with Cloud's luminous blue. She seemed determined to push on despite what she'd learned the previous night.

"I'm going to get equipment to get us down the slope to the glacier and climbing gear for the cliffs," he replied. If she didn't feel up to discussing her feelings, Cloud had no intention of forcing her to.

"Alright, let's do that," Aerith answered with a wobbly smile and a nod that seemed more to be for her own support than to punctuate her point.

Yuffie jumped from her perch on her bed and announced, "I'm going too!"

"Now hold on a sec," Cid huffed at the young woman. "You're fresh offa' your sick bed. Ya' oughta' stay outta' the cold long as ya' can!"

"I slept so much yesterday and even ate all that yucky medicine Aerith made," Yuffie pouted flexing her right arm and patting her bicep. "I'm all good and rarin' to go!"

"Ya' might be feelin' better," Barret huffed with his arms crossed. "But that ain't gonna' last if ya' run around so soon after bein' sick!"

She held up one pointer finger and waved it scolding at both of the older men. "NO, this is actually the best thing to do. If I run around town and I have issues, then you can park me back in the inn. If I wait to go out until we leave and have issues while on the glacier…" She trailed off, allowing their imaginations to fill in the blanks.

They exchanged dark looks but Cid finally growled, "Fine, come with us! But if ya' relapse while we're out, we're parkin' your butt back in bed and ya'll have to wait for us to swing back around!"

"That's what I thought!" the princess crowed, dashing for the door. "Last one to the lobby is a rotten chocobo egg!"

Cloud pinched the bridge of his nose and followed at a sedate pace. In the end, he took the whole group to Valerie Holzhoff's shop to get equipment for descending the steep slope and then crossing the glacier. While Yuffie's energy wasn't as high as normal, she still moved with more speed and agility across the icy streets than Barret and Cid, much to their disgust.

Valerie was more than a little impressed to watch ropes and hooks, carabiners and ice picks fit into Cloud's bottomless pouch. He also took care to buy each party member a pair of real snow goggles, though he bought Cait Sith's with a head shake and laugh.

Taking inspiration from Yuffie's spider-impression in the Temple of the Ancients, Red XIII and Cait Sith improvised an assortment of leather straps and ice picks to make climbing claws for their respective paws. Climbing gear settled, Valerie directed them to the skis, snowboards and sleds. Zack turned his nose up at the offerings. "I'm taking the snowboard Cloud got yesterday, it's awesome! No offense ma'am," he added with a ducked his head, abashed at how his remark could be taken. "I just like the colors of the board."

"None taken!" Valerie laughed once. "I sold that board too." Her smile dimmed and she shook her head regretfully. "I just wish that poor dear's distracted mother had heard my warnings that it was the wrong size for her boy."

One of her wares was what looked like an enormous mixing bowl. "I want this one!" Cait Sith declared, hefting it over his head. The reaction of the female party members drew an interesting response though.

Yuffie turned faintly green at the sight and muttered fervently, "Never again…"

Tifa shook her head with a laugh and said, "I prefer skis."

Aerith shook her head and murmured, "I want to try something new."

Cait Sith shrugged and mused philosophically, "Familiar is best."

Cloud merely hummed thoughtfully at the conversation, but Zack shot them suspicious looks. "When have you had a chance to go down the snow in one of those?" he asked, knowing Aerith had never been outside of Midgar before joining their journey.

Aerith shrugged ambivalently and while trying to cheer herself and yet hide what they had done in Cosmo Canyon weakly joked, "Well apparently I was born here…"

Valerie's eyes widened at this and she covered her mouth. "Oh… Oh my heavens… I thought you looked familiar. Can you truly be little baby Aerith? Ifalna's girl?"

The thin thread Aerith held on her emotions frayed and she nodded, her lip quivering. "Oh you poor darling…You went into that house, didn't you?" Valerie tutted, gathering the young woman into her arms. With the maternal comfort around her, Aerith broke down again, sobbing into the woman's neck while the silver-haired woman hummed soothingly.

She shot the others a sharp look then tilted her head back to the ski and snowboard equipment. Accepting the dismissal, Tifa, Cloud, and Vincent gravitated to the skis while Red XIII picked a toboggan and the rest chose from the plainer snowboards. Zack picked a vibrant pink snowboard decorated with flowers for Aerith. Cloud tallied up the cost of their purchases and set the stacks of gil on the counter before slipping out, leaving Zack to watch over Aerith.

"I'm going to take a look at the slope. We'll take however long Aerith needs, even setting out tomorrow if we have to," Cloud told the others once they were outside. "While I'm gone you guys get the room in order."

The mako enhancements increased Cloud's already impressive resistance to cold substantially. The modified materia bracelets Tifa bought only heightened the effect. Too many nights shivering under thin blankets, cold to the point of pain as a child made the blond form a healthy dislike for winter weather. Reveling in the ability to endure the extreme temperature with only the feeling of a brisk day, Cloud ran lightly across the surface of the snow. He had faint memories of doing that as a youth in Nibelheim, it required precise speed and balance, but in the end was much faster than slogging through the frozen drifts. And when your boots had as many holes as your clothes, the less time out in the snow, the better.

A few kids sliding down a snow pile watched him pass in gape-mouthed awe. As he reached the outskirts of town, he approached burly man in a thick coat pacing along the path to the slopes. "Woah now!" he cried out, waving Cloud down. "Don't go back there, the slope is really steep and dangerous!"

"That's what I heard," Cloud agreed, obediently stopping and instantly sinking past his ankles into the snow. "My friends and I will be going down it either today or tomorrow so I wanted to see what we were in for."

"Hm… probably a good idea," the man mused, stroking the green scarf over the lower half of his face and then coughing in embarrassment when he realized he wasn't stroking his beard. "How much experience does your group have?"

Cloud tilted his head in thought, before answering, "We've fought many battles, which lends itself well to balance and reaction times. Two, possibly three of us are experienced on skis. We'll keep an eye out for our companions."

The man nodded slowly. "Alright, go on ahead. There's a sign near the ski lift labeling the difficulty slopes. Please take note of it when you go."

Cloud nodded and thanked the man, leaving him to his patrol. Before he could pass, however, he heard a commotion back at the southern entrance to the town. Peering through the snow glare he saw a trio in the familiar blue of Shinra troopers and a Turk. Realizing his plans to check out the slope were no longer feasible, he sprinted back to intercept the trio.

At the closer distance, he realized the Turk was Elena and he marginally relaxed. She dashed ahead of her back-up and had time to hiss, "Play along!" before they caught up and in a louder voice she cried, "I won't let you go any further!"

Cloud shrugged and asked, "Why not? What's down there?"

Elena wagged a finger at Cloud and tisked, "It's a SE-CRET! Anyway you and your friends have a lot to answer to for, especially for what you did to my boss!"

"Your boss?" For one dizzying moment, Cloud was confused, wondering what one of them had done to harm Kunsel, but then sighed in understanding, "Oh, you mean Tseng. We didn't hurt him back at the temple, that was Sephiroth's work. We only found him in the aftermath, although Aerith made sure to heal some of his wounds before we entered the maze."

Her eyes softened with momentary gratitude and then flicked back to her audience. Stiffening her spine she declared, "I won't stand for your lies!" She folded her arms, looking him up and down before growling. "It looks like just talking won't be enough. You need to feel some pain."

"Let's get him," the grunt on her right growled, punching his cupped hand.

"No!" Elena snapped, flinging her arm back to block him. "I can handle him on my own. It will be an utter delight to deal with him and there's no way he can avoid my punch." She pulled her arm back and Cloud heard the faintest crinkle of paper from her fist. Her arm launched forward, striking Cloud in the stomach. He obligingly curled around the fist, cupping his stomach and retrieving the note from her hand before rolling his eyes up in his head and going limp. He struggled against his grimace of distaste when snow invaded his ear and collar, but stayed relaxed to reinforce his 'unconsciousness'.

The troops gasped and one of them cheered, "Woah, good work ma'am!"

"Wh-why didn't he try and dodge?" she murmured, crouching down to "check" on Cloud. "Playing it up a little too much there," she hissed with a playful glare before rising to her feet. In a louder voice she ordered the men, "Take take him to one of the houses nearby and leave him there."

"Yes, ma'am!" they replied, their voices heavy with respect.

Each one taking an arm, the guards dragged him to the abandoned Gast home and left him on the dusty floorboards. The instant the door closed behind the troopers and he judged they were far enough away, Cloud curled on his side cackling. He probably shouldn't have hammed up the blow so much, but he couldn't resist. He imagined there would be some amusing rumors about the young Turk who "knocked out" a mako enhanced man with just one punch.

Kicking his feet in the air til he balanced on his upper back, Cloud pressed off the ground and flipped to his feet. Still chuckling slightly and shaking snow from his ear and clothes, he smoothed out the crinkled note Elena passed him. After skimming its contents, he frowned, shaking his head at the information. Carefully refolding the paper, he crossed the room to leave. The old boards set off a cacophony of squeaks and squeals but one made him freeze in his tracks. Crouching down, he studied the unusual board before depressing a knot in the grain. The board popped up a few inches and then stopped, time and rust preventing the lid from opening completely. Humming once, Cloud curled his fingers around the edges and lifted. The old hinges shrieked and a fine layer of rust puffed from metal when he wrenched the secret compartment open.

Gingerly reaching inside, Cloud carefully pulled out a thick leather book and opened the front cover. It was a memory book and one of the first things inside was a wedding photo of Dr. Gast and Ifalna. Releasing a low whistle at the valuable find, he gently closed the book and searched the hidden compartment for anything else. A binder of research papers and another leather book, though this one was old and worn from years of handling. Tucking them carefully away, he forced the compartment closed and then left the abandoned home.

The two soldiers stood guard at the town entrance but Elena was nowhere to be found. Shrugging he crossed the small town and entered the inn, hoping to find out if Aerith was in a good state of mind to travel. He rushed up the steps and entered their suite of rooms quietly. "She was able to tell me some stories about my parents and their courtship," Aerith told Zack as she leaned into his side. The room was fully packed up, only a few objects sat in a pile waiting for storage in Cloud's pouch. A tureen of soup and a thick slice of crusty bread were set out for him on the coffee table.

The others looked up when he closed the door behind him. "We're all ready to go," Aerith told him. "As soon as you're done eating we can head off."

Already resolved to follow the young woman's lead to avoid pushing her too hard, Cloud merely nodded and on his way to the table handed Zack the note from Elena. "Elena gave this to my under pretense of 'punishing' me for what happened to Tseng." While Zack unfolded the note, Cloud tilted his head to the side and then shot Yuffie a look.

Catching his meaning she hopped to his side leaning in close. While the others were focused on the note he quietly asked, "The clubs haven't done anything with the word 'Delight' have they? Both Tseng and Elena used it with obvious emphasis and I can't help but feel suspicious…"

Yuffie hummed and pulled out her PHS to check while he turned his attention to his meal. He devoured his soup in moments, sopping up the last bits with the crust of bread before he got a response from Yuffie. The girl's suppressed laughter drew Cloud's attention more than Zack's noise of concern over the note's contents. "Oh this is great!" she whispered eagerly, "Vincent's got his own fanclub! Get this, it's called 'Turkish Delight' someone had fun with that pun."

Cloud snorted and shook his head, "I doubt he'd care for the attention. Thanks for satisfying my curiosity, sadly it is time to turn our attention to more dire things."

Yuffie nodded and tucked her phone away.

"Mind explainin' that gibberish for the rest of us?" Cid asked, jerking his thumb at the note in Zack's hands.

The former SOLDIER raised an eyebrow at the older man and huffed, "What, they didn't teach you Shinra shorthand in the space program?"

"I was too busy learnin' how to fly my rocket to worry 'bout Shinra's spy codes," he huffed in reply.

Zack snorted once and then explained, "So the gist of it is, Rufus is already headed for the Northern Crater. The only thing holding him back is finding level ground and clearing up a landing site for the Highwind."

Cid made a noise of pain at the name of his ship, but didn't say anything. Cloud pushed aside his bowl and picked up the conversation. "We need to head off right away if we're going to make it to the crater before they've cleared a spot." He stood, brushing crumbs from his front and lap then pulled the items he'd discovered from his pouch and extended them to Aerith. "When I pretended to be knocked out they tossed me in Dr. Gast's house and I found these in a hidden compartment."

"Pretended to be knocked out?" Tifa repeated in alarm.

He laughed and shrugged. "She told me to play along," he offered with a toothy grin, "Though she did seem shocked at my acting. If anything it might boost her reputation."

Aerith flipped quietly through the offerings, bit her lip, and then handed them back to Cloud. "Thank you Cloud I definitely want to look at these later, unfortunately…We need to get going." He returned the items to his pouch with a short nod.

"It is a long way to the cliffs, you should have time to look through them at night," Tifa reassured her friend, squeezing her shoulder gently.

"Let's get going then," Yuffie huffed impatiently. "I'm tired of this room."

"Imagine ya' got sick of countin' the boards on the ceiling eh?" Cid joked.

The young ninja shot him a flat look and then grumbling she admitted, "Every time I got to seventy-seven I fell asleep."

While packing up the remaining items, Cloud learned that during his run-in with Elena and while Aerith spoke to Valerie, Tifa took the time to provide the rest of the group with hints and instructions about how to best steer their chosen equipment. She continued her stream of advice while Cloud settled their bill and then guided the party towards the slopes. For one moment he wondered whether the Shinra troopers would confront them. As more and more of the party exited the inn, their faces paled and they deliberately turned away from the group. The smallest of smirks twitched the corner of Cloud's mouth, bold as they were, the pair knew they were sorely outnumbered.

The snow squeaked and crunched under the party's feet as they followed Cloud through the small village and toward the slopes that descended to the glacier valley. They'd started their day early and had an equally early lunch but they were setting off later in the morning than Cloud preferred. Hopefully the distance traveled down the slope would make up for some of the lost time.

The man standing watch over the hill shook his head at the odd party, but by now word had spread of the mog-riding cat and talking lion-beast so he did nothing more than shrug his shoulders and encourage them to be careful.

The path curved around a small patch of conifer trees and opened into a railed off overlook. A snow encrusted sign read "Beginner" a long gap, and then an arrow pointing to a ski lift to the east. Brandishing his flashy board, Zack sprinted for the lift cackling, "Last one to the bottom is a rotten chocobo egg!"

Stunned, they watched him activate the lift and head up before Cloud sighed and rapped a fist against the metal sign knocking loose the crusted snow. The full sign read "Beginner slope" with an arrow right under pointing the opposite direction. Several other slopes were listed and the arrow Zack followed directed to the Black diamond course.

Aerith squeaked in worry when she realized what just happened. Shaking his head, Cloud pulled out his PHS and called Zack, "Zack, you're going the wrong way."

After Zack's response, the blond rolled his eyes and sighed, "No, I'm not trying to make you lose by making you ride the lift back down. The lift you're on goes to the Black Diamond trail… Black diamond doesn't mean more money Zack! It means it is the expert course!..." He growled and hung up resolutely stomping to the beginner slope.

"What…?" Aerith half asked, trailing off in worry. Cloud wordlessly pointed to the benches dedicated to putting on skis or snowboards and started pulling their chosen equipment out of his pouch.

"Zack is convinced I'm trying to make him lose," he finally huffed, latching the board to Aerith's feet and then testing to make certain it was secure. "As long as he doesn't end up buried in an avalanche he should be fine…. Even then, he should be okay as long as we dig him out."

Aerith's expression still looked uncertain, but when she tried to call Zack he didn't answer. After some of the things they'd experienced on their trip, the easy slope was almost a disappointment to Cloud and Tifa.

The others experienced mixed results.

Cait Sith's crazy spinning in his dish made Yuffie sick by proxy and the only reason Aerith didn't drown Cid and Barret in soapy water over their cursing was how much restraint she had to use not to swear a rainbow streak as well. Staying upright on a snowboard was harder than the TV dramas made it look. Red XIII's toboggan suffered some deep scars from his claws after he was startled by a nasty bump in the snow. To Yuffie's disgust, Cloud, Tifa, and Vincent gracefully descended the slope on their skis without a single spill or yelp.

Despite several false starts and stumbles, they all safely reached the bottom.

"Cloud look! He's about to start down!" Tifa called, pointing up the steep slope to Zack's distant figure. Zack's descent could only be considered a travesty. Half a dozen saplings collapsed after he collided with them and he took out at least two larger trees.

"Who tha' hell put all those snowmen in the way?" Barret grumbled after the third one Zack smashed into caused a miniature avalanche.

"Forget the snowmen," Cid huffed, wincing as Zack flipped end over end before righting himself. "I wanna know why he's pickin' up those balloons! Where the heck did they come from?"

"Probably from the same weirdo who put the snowmen on the slope," Yuffie replied reasonably.

"Uh oh…" Cloud muttered, his eyes tracing the track and spotting the ramp at the end of the course. It looked like Zack spied the ramp seconds later since his steering grew more erratic in his attempts to gather more balloons.

"That's not going to help!" Aerith moaned, covering her face with her hands. "I can't watch!"

Zack flew off the ramp, a cluster of red, green, and a solitary blue balloon clenched tightly in one fist. For one breathless moment he hung seemingly weightless against the pale blue sky. Then he fell toward the ground his arms pinwheeling before he crashed face first into a deep snowdrift. The bright cluster of balloons drifted away on the icy breeze. A small part of Cloud figured there was a deep analogy in the scene, but he couldn't figure out what it could be.

Shaking off his contemplation, he pushed off and skied down to where the brilliantly colored board, still latched to Zack's feet marked his point of burial. Like a crimson edged shadow, Vincent gracefully followed. Tifa hung back to guide their less experienced comrades down the slope. By the time she safely ushered them down to the bottom, Cloud and Vincent finally managed to pull Zack free from the snow bank.

"Ha!" Zack cheered blearily, shaking flakes of snow from his hair and goggles. "I won!"

"Not even!" Yuffie cried and shook her fist at Zack. "We finished our course so soon before you, we watched almost your entire trip down!"

The man staggered to his feet with some help from his rescuers. The tips of his ears were slightly red and he insisted, "But I went farther!"

"Let's call it a tie," Tifa huffed with an amused smile at the silly argument and Zack's exaggerated pout.

"The lass is right," Cait Sith piped up. "We've got a long way to go before we reach the cliffs and then the crater."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Zack grumbled, rolling his eyes and pulling his snow goggles back on. "So where do we go from here?"

Cloud silently pointed to a wooden arched gate just behind Zack. "Ice Gate Class of 1996?" Aerith read in a confused voice. "What does that mean?"

Cloud shrugged, "Beats me. But we need to enter the forest behind it." With one last check to make sure they'd gathered all the ski and snowboard equipment, they shuffled through the snow to the small forest past the sign. With the snow crunching and squeaking under their feet and the thin air affecting their lungs, they traveled in relative silence.

A good distance inside the forest, their thin trail forked to the west and to the east. Cloud peered down the west trail and shook his head, muttering, "Maybe when all this is over." He stooped to grab a Mind Source from the snow and guided them east. It was a relatively peaceful trip through the snow. Certainly monsters attacked, but they didn't pose much of a challenge to such a large party.

The trees thinned and opened to the shore of a mostly frozen lake. Through the cold mist, they could faintly make out a cave on the island in the center. Cloud narrowed his eyes at a series of ice floes in the water that formed a possible path to the island and shook his head again. "Not worth it right now," he muttered.

"I'm going to listen this time," Yuffie hissed to Zack who concurred with an emphatic nod. Even with the bracelets, falling into the mostly frozen lake in this weather could be fatal. The blond did stop to retrieve a potion from the icy shoreline though.

"How do ya' suppose he's figgerin' out where ta' go?" Cid hissed to Barret. "I haven't seen him look at that map o' his once!"

Barret snorted and replied, "One thing ya' oughta know, the guys with glowy eyes, they got real good hearin' so they can hear what you just said." From the head of the group, Zack turned around to wiggle his fingers at the pair in a cheeky wave and a toothy grin.

Barret rolled his eyes and continued, "Another thing ya' should know is most of 'em are good at rememberin' stuff, and Cloud here… Well, he always seems to know where he's goin'. The only time he ever takes us down a dead end is 'cause there's somethin' good at the end."

Cid hummed, not entirely convinced. Yuffie chimed in, "Remember that cave after the Coral Valley? Do you think you would have found as much loot in there as Cloud did?"

The pilot pondered a moment and then nodded slowly, conceding the point. By now, they'd circled away from the icy lake and passed a snowy field with a solitary pine tree. Cloud guided them up one loop of a path climbing a steep incline around the glacier and then back down another.

Yuffie shuddered, the charmed bracelet not shedding all the chill of the weather. Before she could open her mouth to complain or comment, her eyes landed on a distinct shroud of mist in the wrinkle of the mountain ahead and the faintest whiff of sulfur reached her nose. "Hot spring!" she cried joyously, shoving a Shreds off a small cliff and stomping on a Frozen Nail in her rush to get to the heated warmth of the spring.

She skipped down the slope and vanished into the fog below. "Vincent, Red," Cloud snapped, "keep an eye on her. It may be hotsprings, it may not, but even so we don't have time to soak right now."

The pair nodded and gracefully sped after the young ninja. They heard the girl's whining before they broke through the thick mist to join her. Yuffie's cheeks puffed out and her arms folded across her chest in a deep pout.

The mist hung heavily over the springs and the air was thick with the moist sulfur smell of the volcanic pools. A narrow bridge of stone passed between the two pools and steam danced on the surface of the water. Despite the bracelets keeping them from freezing, the hot humid air was a welcome relief from the still bitter chill of the glacier valley.

Zack shook his head at Yuffie's anger and patted her back soothing, "C'mon Yuffie, don't be like that." He knelt sticking his left hand in the water and then yanked it back, yelping in pain. The young woman paled in shock.

"Zack!" Aerith cried, reaching for his hand expecting massive burns but his skin was only a touch red.

He shook his hand gingerly, drops of water splattering back into the pool. "I'm not badly burned because the mako in me protects me from a lot of extreme weather and temperatures. You don't have that kind of an advantage. Even if we had time for a soak, you know it isn't safe to stick yourself in an unfamiliar hot spring." He hissed and glared at his hand, he pulled out his water and poured some over his skin. "Even I shouldn't have done that."

"It didn't seem that hot," Yuffie muttered petulantly, though a hint of worry shaded her tone.

"It wasn't," Zack hissed flexing his trembling fingers and frowning at the small blisters forming on his reddening skin. "It was, however, very acidic."

Cloud frowned and whirled to the young Cetra, "Aerith, your soapy water spell, use it on his hand."

Her green eyes widened and she sent the spell at Zack's hand. He gingerly scrubbed it over the irritated skin, sighing as the basic pH of the soapy water combated the acid. Shaking his head and hand he muttered, "Next time I should bring some litmus paper." In a louder voice he said, "We need to keep moving." It was obvious he wanted to pull attention away from his hand and distract himself from it by moving on.

Shooting Zack's injury one last concerned glance, Cloud nodded and guided them across the path between the hot pools. Yuffie warily looked down at the water when she passed as though afraid it would suddenly gush up and burn her. On the other side of the springs, the narrow path between snow encrusted ridges of stone rose out of the depression in loose switchbacks.

The top of the trail opened into a vast snowy field. The wind blew a constant swirl of ice crystals in the air. The sparkling eddies, while beautiful, confused the eyes and hindered any chance of seeing across the distance. "This must be what Valerie gave us those marker sticks for," Tifa guessed.

Cloud shrugged and pulled the bright orange and white sticks out of his pouch and handed them to Zack and Tifa. "Feel free to use them," he offered and then turned toward the field, his gaze locked on something none of them could see.

When Zack and Tifa had figured out what to do with the rods, they nodded to Cloud and he jogged across the snow, the others not far behind. The wind was disorienting and whenever a monster attacked them the rods left behind helped them regain their bearings.

All except Cloud. He never turned around to orient himself with the sticks in the snow, even when the more furious winds whipped them around like leaves in a dust devil. He merely shook his head, picked himself off the ground, and locked on whatever thing he was tracking and pressed forward.

Seemingly from nowhere, a massive hummock of stone appeared from the crystalline mist. A tall, narrow crack split the side of the otherwise pristine surface. Cloud slipped inside while Barret and Cait Sith barely managed to squeeze through the narrow passage. The stone dome was hollow and inside they found the rotting remains of a pyramid-shaped tent and a long dead fire. Cloud stooped at the entrance of the pathetic structure and retrieved an All materia.

He rolled it around in his palm and seemed to be silently debating something before nodding and giving the materia to Zack. "You're the only one of us without an All," he said.

"Sweet!" Zack crowed, shifting his materia to pair it with his mastered fire. "It's about time you noticed!"

The blond huffed a small laugh and then squeezed back outside. "Aw man…" Barret moaned. "If I'da known it was just that, I wouldn'a forced my way in here!"

"I agree with you my friend," Cait Sith sighed.

Much like the single-use Tents, the rods vanished not long after being used and the time in the small cave was long enough for even the newest one to dissipate. Utterly turned around by now and unable to clearly judge the position of the sun, none of them could say what direction Cloud led them next. Along the way Zack made the mistake of thinking the Ice Golems were some child's toy. Though only a inch or so over shin tall, the enemies were resilient and persistent in their attacks.

They slipped and slid across an eternally frozen river and when they reached the shore, ground beneath their feet gradually sloped upward until they finally broke free of the snow cauldron. Cid looked up at the mountain rising above them with relief that soon turned to disappointment, "Man Spike, ya' got turned around! The cliffs are over there!" He swung his arms to point to what he now could tell was the northwest.

Vincent narrowed his eyes, tilted his head towards Cloud, and asked, "I take it there's something to get here?"

Without saying anything, Cloud pointed up the trail to a small hole in the side of the mountain. Barret rolled his eyes and huffed, "At least it's a spot outta the wind so I can knock some of the ice outta my Microlaser."

The entrance to the small cave was wider than the one in the snowfield so it didn't take long for all of them to enter. A woman in a puffy purple snowsuit emerged from behind some rocks in the back of the rather small chamber. Her wide, violet eyes fluttered at them as she sashayed closer. "Oh my, look at all of you!" she breathed in a husky voice. "Such… delicious looking men. I love your taste in colors," she continued, trailing her bare fingers down Zack's chest.

Aerith bristled, her fists tightening on her Lorekeeper staff, looking like she'd like to stab the crimson spike on the butt through the woman's eye. The furious gleam in her eyes toned down slightly when Zack plucked the stranger's hand off with his left one.

The woman stiffened, wrenching her hand out his grip she hissed, "Eww, you dare touch me with a hand that has touched that filthy hot spring?" Her violet eyes flashed and she snarled, "I'll make you regret that!" She discarded whatever glamour made her appear like a normal human, revealing the violet leotard and gray skin of Snow, one of the monsters in the area. She flipped a lock of her steel-gray hair over her shoulder and launched an ice attack at Zack.

She was seconds behind Aerith's Big Guard spell so the majority of the ice skittered harmlessly off the protective shield. Cloud inclined his head to Tifa and then Yuffie, getting nods of agreement back. The pair dashed in, Mugging the crimson eyed woman one after the other. Yuffie whooped in triumph, shaking a circlet over her head. "You dare mock me!" Snow shrieked, her fingers curling like claws. "You think I'm a mere toy to play with?"

Barret scratched his chin and shrugged, "Ya' want us ta' take ya' seriously eh? How's this then?" He concentrated and sent a burst of mana into his summon materia. The party vanished and the ground trembled, fiery cracks forming before a huge, olive skinned figure with a pair of long, backward-curving horns sprouting from his temples burst from the ground in a wave of heat. The coal-bright red of Ifrit's irises locked on Snow and she trembled at the blistering heat from the demon's fire-laced exhale. Her eyes widened before her world turned into fire.

"Bit of overkill wasn't that?" Cid asked, prodding the spreading pool of water where the ice on the back wall melted in the intense heat.

"It seemed perfectly justified to me," Aerith sniffed haughtily. "Thank you for taking care of that for me Barret."

Cloud crouched by the steaming puddles and retrieved a crimson summon, shaking the droplets off, he extended it to Cid and declared, "This one is for you."

The older man gaped, staring down at the orb in his hand and then swallowed, "Well I'll be. Guess I'd better stop complainin' about this detour eh?"

Zack laughed and clapped him on the back. "We heading for the cliffs now Cloud?"

Cloud nodded, "There are some other things we could get, but they aren't quite as important. Maybe when we get the Black Materia back we'll come back for them."

None of them chose to argue with this assessment, and with a touch of dismay they followed him back into the snowy fields. By now, the sun was lowering towards the west and the drifting ice crystals took on a reddish gleam from the waning sunlight. "I'm not looking forward to traveling back through this," Tifa half shouted to Aerith to be heard over the screaming wind. The young Cetra nodded emphatically, scraping a rime of ice off her snow goggles.

By the time they reached the base of the cliffs, twilight had darkened into night and even Zack and Cloud felt the dragging weariness of the distance and battles. Cloud suspected the constant drain from the bracelets warming them only added to the exhaustion. He wanted to stop and find someplace to shelter for the night, but something tugged him onward and up the foothills.

Then out of the chill darkness, he spotted a faint gleam. After trudging further up the snow encrusted slope, the gleam grew into a lantern on the porch of a cozy wooden cabin. A large, tattered flag flapped on a strange mix of a flagpole and chimney outside the building. In the dark, he couldn't make out any design on the flag if there was one at all. "Thank heavens," Aerith breathed when she caught sight of the building. "I hope they're up for visitors."

"They damn well better be," Cid growled, scratching ice crystals from his eyebrows and shivering. He stomped to the door and rapped firmly on the solid wood.

The man who opened the door had a thick cloud of gray hair and a droopy mustache. He blinked his green eyes in disbelief at the crowd outside his door before crying, "Oh my goodness, please come inside, you must be freezing!"

Cloud, Zack, Vincent, and Cait Sith hung back while the more cold-sensitive members of the party filed inside the man's mud room and shook the snow from their hair, goggles, and clothing. When they all finally made their way inside, the elderly man was setting a pot of water on the stove and stirring a large, fragrant pot of beans. "The name's Marcus Holzoff, I've been up here for 20 years now. I never know when I'm going to have visitors," he explained, "so I always have a good pot of beans ready. Of course, usually my visitors are the rare fool who wandered out into the glacier field that I manage to find in time to save their lives."

He shook his head sadly, "All too often I'm too late though. That's part of why I was so shocked to see you folks. It takes a rare talent to cross these fields before succumbing to the cold."

"These bracelets helped!" Yuffie chirped from her position snuggled against Red XIII's side on the huge white bear rug.

He stepped away from the stove and bent down to look at the accessory, "Well I'll be. That is mighty useful. Of course, it won't do you more than a sliver of good on the cliffs. The wind up there's so cold it would freeze the ti-" he choked off the expression realizing saying "Freeze the tits off a Snow" in front of the women in the group might not be in his best interest. Especially with how Aerith's eyes narrowed dangerously and Cid waved his arms frantically from behind her for him to stop.

Marcus cleared his throat and rephrased, "It's damn cold up there. Much as I like visitors, it's a relief to have some that I don't have to bury or drag behind me in a sled. Now normally I'd wonder what in Shiva's name you're doing out here, but I think I already know, you're headed for the cliffs."

Cloud waved his hand side to side and demurred, "Only as the means to reach our true destination. We're headed for the crater."

"Huh, kinda like those folks from Shinra the other day who wanted to know the best place to land some tripped out airship?" Marcus huffed shaking his head and stirring the beans again. "Well if you're set on climbing the cliffs, I can give you some advice."

He poured some leaves in the kettle and set it aside before explaining, "The only way to keep from freezing to death is to check your route frequently. There's a lot of places that look like the right path, but ain't and the last thing you want to do is have to backtrack and stay even longer in the cold. When you reach a spot you don't have to cling to the wall like a fly, you've gotta dance around to get your body's temperature up."

Chuckling and nodding in commiseration at Tifa's grimace he continued, "Yeah, you'll feel like a plumb idiot, but it'll keep you alive. I can't in good conscience let you head up there until morning though. I'll give you folks a hot meal and send you off to bed so you can get an early start." He huffed and opened his cupboard. There were three cups and three bowls on the shelves. He looked back at sizable group, his mouth twisted in consternation. "Well shucks, this might be a problem…"

Author notes: Interesting note, Australis' "Barren Lands" came up as I was typing the journey through/across the great glacier. Yay for atmosphere! XD

Lorekeeper is a staff I made up for Aerith, it is only fair that she get new weapons too.

Was anyone else traumatized by the hot spring bit in Dante's Peak or was it just me? I'd be lying if I didn't say my take on this wasn't influenced by that. Seriously though, don't stick your hands in random hot springs. That is soooo not a good idea. (shakes head) Couldn't resist making my story a PSA there, does this in some part make up for the cooking on driftwood? (because apparently that's not a good idea either, but was too fun to pass up)

I've been torn for a while about somehow posting a list of what kind of materia/items each party member is carrying. Unfortunately FFN's rules don't allow for "list" stories. One of my readers, Rorac the Dragon Knight, suggested I post the list at the end of each chapter. I know some people get annoyed at the skewed chapter count with such a thing so I'm asking you all to weigh in. Would you like me to post the equipment info at the end of the chapters? Or just leave it a vague notion in the background?

Thanks as ever for your reviews and comments, seriously, they keep me going even when life drags me down.