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insanehobbit · 3 years

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a twenty-five thousand word post about a twenty-three year old “debate”

As time goes on, I’m baffled that it remains a commonly held opinion that:

The LTD remains unresolved

SE is deliberately playing coy, and are (or have been) afraid to resolve it.

To me, the answer is as clear as day, and yet seeing so many people acting as if it’s a question that remains unanswered makes me wonder if I’m the crazy one.

So I am going to try to articulate my thought process here, not because I expect to change any hearts and minds, but more to get these thoughts out of my head and onto a page so I can finally read a book and/or watch reruns of Shark Tank in peace.

To start off, there are two categories of argument (that are among, if not the most widely used lines of argument) that I will try NOT to engage with:

1) Quotes from Ultimania or developer interviews - while they’re great for easter eggs and behind-the-scenes info, if a guidebook is required to understand key plot points, you have fundamentally failed as a storyteller. Now the question of which character wants to bone whom is often something that can be relegated to a guidebook, but in the case of FF7, you would be watching two very different stories play out depending on who Cloud ends up with.

Of course, the Ultimanias do spell this out clearly, but luckily for us, SE are competent enough storytellers that we can find the answer by looking at the text alone.

2) Arguments about character actions/motivations — specifically, I’m talking about stuff like “Cloud made this face in this scene, which means be must be [insert whatever here].”

Especially when it comes to the LTD, these tend to focus on individual actions, decontextualizing them from their role in the narrative as a whole. LTDers often try to put themselves in the character’s shoes to suss out what they may be thinking and feeling in those moments. These arguments will be colored by personal experiences, which will inevitably vary.

Let’s take for example Cloud’s behavior in Advent Children. One may argue that it makes total sense given that he’s dying and fears failing the ones he loves. Another may argue that there’s no way that he would run unless he was deeply unhappy and pining after a lost love. Well, you’ll probably just be talking over each other until the cows come home. Such is the problem with trying to play armchair therapist with a fictional character. It’s not like we can ask Cloud himself why he did what he did (and even if we could, he’s not the exactly the most reliable narrator in the world). Instead, in trying to understand his motivations, we are left with no choice but to draw comparisons with our own personal experiences, those of our friends, or other works of media we’ve consumed. Any interpretation would be inherently subjective and honestly, a futile subject for debate.

There’s nothing wrong with drawing personal connections with fictional characters of course. That is the purpose of art after all. They are vessels of empathy. But when we’re talking about what is canon, it doesn’t matter what we take away. What matters is the creators’ intent.

Cloud, Tifa and Aerith are not your friends Bob, Alice and Maude. They are characters created by Square Enix. Real people can behave in a variety of different ways if they found themselves in the situations faced by our dear trio; however, FF7 characters are not sentient creatures. Everything they do or say is dictated by the developers to serve the story they are trying to tell.

So what do we have left then? Am I asking you, dear reader, to just trust me, anonymous stranger on the Internet, when I tell you #clotiiscanon. Well, in a sense, yes, but more seriously, I’m going to try to suss out what the creator’s intent is based on what is, and more importantly, what isn’t, on screen.

Instead of putting ourselves in the shoes of the characters, let’s try putting ourselves in the shoes of the creators. So the question would then be, if the intent is X, then what purpose does character Y or scene Z serve?

The story of FF7 isn’t the immutable word of God etched in a stone tablet. For every scene that made it into the final game, there are dozens of alternatives that were tossed aside. Let us also not forget the crude economics of popular storytelling. Spending resources on one particular aspect of the game may mean something entirely unrelated will have to be cut for time. Thus, the absence of a particular character/scenario is an alternative in itself. So with all these options at their disposal, why is the scene we see before us the one that made it into the final cut? — Before we dive in, I also want to define two broad categories of narrative: messy and clean.

Messy narratives are ones I would define as stories that try to illuminate something about the human condition, but may not leave the audience feeling very good by the end of it. The protagonists, while not always anti-heroes, don’t always exhibit the kind of growth we’d like, don’t always learn their lessons, probably aren’t the best role models. The endings are often ambivalent, ambiguous, and leaves room for the audience to take away from it what they will. This is the category I would put art films and prestige cable dramas.

Clean narratives are where I would categorize most popular forms of entertainment. Not that these characters necessarily lack nuance, but whatever flaws are portrayed are something to be overcome by the end of story. The protagonists are characters you’re supposed to want to root for

Final Fantasy as a series would fall under the ‘clean’ category. Sure, many of the protagonists start out as jerks, but they grow through these flaws and become true heroes by the end of their journey. Hell, a lot of the time even the villains are redeemed. They want you to like the characters you’re spending a 40+ hr journey with. Their depictions can still be realistic, but they will become the most idealized versions of themselves by the end of their journeys.

This is important to establish, because we can then assume that it is not SE’s intent to make any of their main characters come off pathetic losers or unrepentant assholes. Now whether or not they succeed in that endeavor is another question entirely.

FF7 OG or The dumbest thought experiment in the world

With that one thousand word preamble out of the way, let’s finally take a look at the text. In lieu of going through the OG’s story beat by beat, let’s try this thought experiment:

Imagine it’s 1996, and you’re a development executive at what was then Squaresoft. The plucky, young development team has the first draft of what will become the game we know as Final Fantasy VII. Like the preceding entries in the series, it’s a world-spanning action adventure RPG, with a key subplot being the epic tragic romance between its hero and heroine, Cloud and Aerith.

They ask you for your notes.

(For the sake of your sanity and mine, let’s limit our hypothetical notes to the romantic subplot)

Disc 1 - everything seems to be on the right track. Nice meet-cute, lots of moments developing the relationship between our pair. Creating a love triangle with this Tifa character is an interesting choice, but she’s a comparatively minor character so she probably won’t be a real threat and will find her happiness elsewhere by the end of the game. You may note that they’re leaning a bit too much into Tifa and Cloud’s past. Especially the childhood promise flashback early in the game — cute scene, but a distraction from main story and main pairing — fodder for the chopping block. You may also bump on the fact that Aerith is initially attracted to Cloud because he reminds her of an ex, but this is supposed to be a more mature FF. That can be an obstacle they overcome as Aerith gets to know the real Cloud.

Aerith dies, but it is supposed to be a tragic romance after all. Death doesn’t have to be the end for this relationship, especially since Aerith is an Ancient after all.

It’s when Disc 2 starts that things go off the rails. First off, it feels like an awfully short time for Cloud to be grieving the love of his life, though it’s somewhat understandable. This story is not just a romance. There are other concerns after all, Cloud’s identity crisis for one. Though said identity crisis involves spending a lot of time developing his relationship with another woman. It’s one thing for Cloud and Tifa to be from the same hometown, but does she really need to play such an outsized role in his internal conflict? This might give the player the wrong impression.

You get to the Northern Crater, and it just feels all wrong. Cloud is more or less fine after the love of his life is murdered in front of his eyes but has a complete mental breakdown to the point that he’s temporarily removed as a playable character because Tifa loses faith in him??? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Oh, but it only gets worse from here. With Cloud gone, the POV switches to Tifa and her feelings for him and her desire to find him. The opening of the game is also recontextualized when you learn the only reason that Cloud was part of the first Reactor mission that starts the game is because Tifa found him and wanted to keep an eye on him.

Then you get to Mideel and the alarm bells are going off. Tifa drops everything, removing her from the party as well, to take care of Cloud while he’s a catatonic vegetable? Not good. Very not good. This level of selfless devotion is going to make Cloud look like a total asshole when he rejects her in favor of Aerith. Speaking of Aerith, she uh…hasn’t been mentioned for some time. In fact, her relationship with Cloud has remained completely static after Disc 1, practically nonexistent, while his with Tifa has been building and building. Developing a rival relationship that then needs to be dismantled rather than developing the endgame relationship doesn’t feel like a particularly valuable use of time and resources.

By the time you get to the Lifestream scene, you’re about ready to toss the script out of the window. Here’s the emotional climax of the entire game, where Cloud’s internal conflict is finally resolved, and it almost entirely revolves around Tifa? Rather than revisiting the many moments of mental anguish we experienced during the game itself — featuring other characters, including let’s say, Aerith — it’s about a hereto unknown past that only Tifa has access to? Not only that, but we learn that the reason Cloud wanted to join SOLDIER was to impress Tifa, and the reason he adopted his false persona was because he was so ashamed that he couldn’t live up to the person he thought Tifa wanted him to be? Here, we finally get a look into the inner life of one half of our epic couple and…it entirely revolves around another woman??

Cloud is finally his real self, and hey, it looks like he finally remembers Aerith, that’s at least a step in the right direction. Though still not great. With his emotional arc already resolved, any further romantic developments is going to feel extraneous and anticlimactic. It just doesn’t feel like there’s enough time to establish that:

Cloud’s romantic feelings for Tifa (which were strong enough to launch his hero’s journey) have transformed into something entirely platonic in the past few days/weeks

Cloud’s feelings for Aerith that he developed while he was pretending to be someone else (and not just any someone, but Aerith’s ex of all people) are real.

This isn’t a romantic melodrama after all. There’s still a villain to kill and a world to save.

Cloud does speak of Aerith wistfully, and even quite personally at times, yet every time he talks about her, he’s surrounded by the other party members. A scene or two where he can grapple with his feelings for her on his own would help. Her ghost appearing in the Sector 5 Church feels like a great opportunity for this to happen, but he doesn’t interact with it at all. What gives? Missed opportunity after missed opportunity.

The night before the final battle, Cloud asks the entire party to find what they’re fighting for. This feels like a great (and perhaps the last) opportunity to establish that for Cloud, it’s in Aerith’s memory and out of his love for her. He could spend those hours alone in any number of locations associated with her — the Church, the Temple of the Ancients, the Forgotten City.

Instead — none of those happens. Instead, once again, it’s Cloud and Tifa in another scene where they’re the only two characters in the scene. You’re really going to have Cloud spend what could very well be the last night of his life with another woman? With a fade to black that strongly implies they slept together? In one fell swoop, you’re portraying Cloud as a guy who not only betrays the memory of his lost love, but is also incredibly callous towards the feelings of another woman by taking advantage of her vulnerability. Why are we rooting for him to succeed again?

Cloud and the gang finally defeat Sephiroth, and Aerith guides him back into the real world. Is he finally explicitly stating that he’s searching for her (though they’ve really waited until the last minute to do so), but again, why is Tifa in this scene? Shouldn’t it just be Cloud and Aerith alone? Why have Tifa be there at all? Why have her and her alone of all the party members be the one waiting for Cloud? Do you need to have Tifa there to be rejected while Cloud professes his unending love for Aerith? It just feels needlessly cruel and distracts from what should be the sole focus of the scene, the love between Cloud and Aerith.

What a mess.

You finish reading, and since it is probably too late in the development process to just fire everyone, you offer a few suggestions that will clarify the intended romance while the retaining the other plot points/general themes of the game.

Here they are, ordered by scale of change, from minor to drastic:

Option 1 would be to keep most of the story in tact, but rearrange the sequence of events so that the Lifestream sequence happens before Aerith’s death. That way, Cloud is his true self and fully aware of his feelings for both women before Aerith’s death. That way, his past with Tifa isn’t some ticking bomb waiting to go off in the second half of the game. That development will cease at the Lifestream scene. Cloud will realize the affection he held for her as a child is no longer the case. He is grateful for the past they shared, but his future is with Aerith. He makes a clear choice before that future is taken away from him with her death. The rest of the game will go on more or less the same (with the Highwind scene being eliminated, of course) making it clear, that avenging the death of his beloved is one of, if not the, primary motivation for him wanting to defeat Sephiroth.

The problem with this “fix” is that a big part of the reason that Aerith gets killed is because of Cloud’s identity crisis. If said crisis is resolved, the impact of her death will be diminished, because it would feel arbitrary rather than something that stems from the consequences of Cloud’s actions. More of the story will need to be reconceived so that this moment holds the same emotional weight.

Another problem is why the Lifestream scene needs to exist at all. Why spend all that time developing the backstory for a relationship that will be moot by the end of the game? It makes Tifa feel like less of a character and more of a plot device, who becomes irrelevant after she services the protagonist’s character development and then has none of her own. That’s no way to treat one of the main characters of your game.

Option 2 would be to re-imagine Tifa’s character entirely. You can keep some of her history with Cloud in tact, but expand her backstory so she is able to have a satisfactory character arc outside of her relationship with Cloud. You could explore the five years in her life since the Nibelheim incident. Maybe she wasn’t in Midgar the whole time. Maybe, like Barret, she has her own Corel, and maybe reconciling with her past there is the climax of her emotional arc as opposed to her past with Cloud. For Cloud too, her importance needs to be diminished. She can be one of the people who help him find his true self in the Lifestream, but not the only person. There’s no reason the other people he’s met on his journey can’t be there. Thus their relationship remains somewhat important, but their journeys are not so entwined that it distracts from Cloud and Aerith’s romance.

Option 3 would be to really lean into the doomed romance element of Cloud and Aerith’s relationship. Have her death be the cause of his mental breakdown, and have Aerith be the one in the Lifestream who is able to put his mind back together and bring him back to the realm of consciousness. After he emerges, he has the dual goal of defeating Sephiroth and trying to reunite with Aerith. In the end, in order to do the former, he has to relinquish the latter. He makes selfless choice. He makes the choice that resonates the overall theme of the game. It’s a bittersweet but satisfying ending. Cloud chooses to honor her memory and her purpose over the chance to physically bring her back. In this version of the game, the love triangle serves no purpose. There’s no role for Tifa at all.

Okay, we can be done with this strained counterfactual. What I’ve hopefully illustrated is that while developers had countless opportunities to solidify Cloud/Aerith as the canon couple in Discs 2 and 3 of the game, they instead chose a different route each and every time. What should also be clear is that the biggest obstacle standing in their way is not Aerith’s death, but the fact that Tifa exists.

At least in the form she takes in the final game, as a playable character and at the very least, the 3rd most important character in game’s story. She is not just another recurring NPC or an antagonist. Her love for Cloud is not going to be treated like a mere trifle or obstacle. If Cloud/Aerith was supposed to be the endgame ship, there would be no need for a love triangle and no need to include Tifa in the game at all. Death is a big enough obstacle, developing Cloud’s relationship with Tifa would only distract from and diminish his romance with Aerith.

I think this is something the dead enders understand intuitively, even more so than many Cloti shippers. Which is why some of them try to dismiss Tifa’s importance in the story so that she becomes a minor supporting character at best, or denigrate her character to the point that she becomes an actual villain. The Seifer to a Squall, the Seymour to a Tidus, hell even a Quistis to a Rinoa, they know how to deal with, but a Tifa Lockhart? As she is actually depicted in Final Fantasy VII? They have no playbook for that, and thus they desperately try to squeeze her into one of these other roles.

Let’s try another thought experiment, and see what would to other FF romances if we inserted a Tifa Lockhart-esque character in the middle of them.

FFXV is a perfect example because it features the sort of tragic love beyond death romance that certain shippers want Cloud and Aerith to be. Now, did I think FFXV was a good game? No. Did I think Noctis/Luna was a particularly well-developed romance? Also no. Did I have any question in my mind whatsoever that they were the canon relationship? Absolutely not.

Is this because they kiss at the end? Well sure, that helps, but also it’s because the game doesn’t spend the chapters after Luna’s death developing Noctis’ relationship with another woman. If Noctis/Luna had the same sort of development as Cloud/Aerith, then after Luna dies, Iris would suddenly pop in and play a much more prominent role. The game would flashback to her past and her relationship with Noctis. And it would be through his relationship with Iris that Noctis understands his duty to become king or a crystal or whatever the fuck that game was about. Iris is by Noctis’ side through the final battle, and when he ascends the throne in that dreamworld or whatever. There, Luna finally shows up again. Iris is still in the frame when Noctis tells her something like ‘Oh sorry, girl, I’ve been in love with Luna all along,” before he kisses Luna and the game ends.

(a very real scene from a very good game)

Come on. It would be utterly ludicrous and an utter disservice to every character involved, yet that is essentially the argument Cloud/Aerith shippers are making. SE may have made some pretty questionable storytelling decisions in the past, but they aren’t that bad at this.

Or in FFVIII, it would be like reordering the sequence of events so that Squall remembers that he grew up in an orphanage with all the other kids after Rinoa falls into a coma. And while Rinoa is out of commission, instead of Quistis gracefully bowing out after realizing she had mistaken her feelings of sisterly affection for love, it becomes Quistis’ childhood relationship with Squall that allows him to remember his past and re-contextualizes the game we’ve played thus far, so that the player realizes that it was actually Quistis who was his motivation all along. Then after this brief emotional detour, his romance with Rinoa would continue as usual. Absolutely absurd.

The Final Fantasy games certainly have their fair share of plot holes, but they’ve never whiffed on a romance this badly.

A somewhat more serious character analysis of the OG

What then is Tifa’s actual role in the story of FFVII? Her character is intricately connected to Cloud’s. In fact, they practically have the same arc, though Tifa’s is rather understated compared to his. She doesn’t adopt a false persona after all. For both of them, the flaw that they must learn to overcome over the course of the game is their fear of confronting the truth of their past. Or to put it more crudely, if they’re not lying, they’re at the very least omitting the truth. Cloud does so to protect himself from his fear of being exposed as a failure. Tifa does so at the expense of herself, because she fears the truth will do more harm than good. They’re two sides of the same coin. Nonetheless, their lying has serious ramifications.

The past they’re both afraid to confront is of course the Nibelheim Incident from five years ago. Thus, the key points in their emotional journeys coincide with the three conflicting Nibelheim flashbacks depicted in the game: Cloud’s false memory in Kalm, Sephiroth’s false vision in the Northern Crater, and the truth in the Lifestream.

Before they enter the Lifestream, both Cloud and Tifa are at the lowest of their lows. Cloud has had a complete mental breakdown and is functionally a vegetable. Tifa has given up everything to take care of Cloud as she feels responsible for his condition. If he doesn’t recover, she may never find peace.

With nothing left to lose, they both try to face the past head on. For Cloud, it’s a bit harder. At the heart of all this confusion, is of course, the Nibelheim Incident. How does Cloud know all these things he shouldn’t if Tifa doesn’t remember seeing him there? The emotional climax for both Cloud and Tifa, and arguably the game as a whole, is the moment the Shinra grunt removes his helmet to reveal that Cloud was there all along.

Tifa is the only character who can play this role for Cloud. It’s not like she a found a videotape in the Lifestream labeled ‘Nibelheim Incident - REAL’ and voila, Cloud is fixed. No, she is the only one who can help him because she is the only person who lived through that moment. No one else could make Cloud believe it. You could have Aerith or anyone else trying to tell him what actually happened, but why would he believe it anymore than the story Sephiroth told him at the Northern Crater?

With Tifa, it’s different. Not only was she physically there, but she’s putting as much at risk in what the truth may reveal. She’s not just a plot device to facilitate Cloud’s character development. The Lifestream sequence is as much the culmination of her own character arc. If it goes the wrong way, “Cloud” may find out that he’s just a fake after all, and Tifa may learn that boy she thought she’d been on this journey with had died years ago. That there’s no one left from her past, that it was all in her head, that she’s all alone. Avoiding this truth is a comfort, but in this moment, they’re both putting themselves on the line. Being completely vulnerable in front of the person they’re most terrified of being vulnerable with.

The developers have structured Cloud and Tifa’s character arcs so that the crux is a moment where the other is literally the only person who could provide the answer they need. Without each other, as far as the story is concerned, Cloud and Tifa would remain incomplete.

Aerith’s character arc is a different beast entirely. She is the closest we have to the traditional Campbellian Hero. She is the Chosen One, the literal last of her kind, who has been resisting the call to adventure until she can no longer. The touchstones of her character arc are the moments she learns more about her Cetra past and comes to terms with her role in protecting the planet - namely Cosmo Canyon, the Temple of the Ancients and the Forgotten City.

How do hers and Cloud’s arcs intersect? When it comes to the Nibelheim incident, she is a merely a spectator (at least during the Kalm flashback, as for the other two, she is uh…deceased). Cloud attacking her at the Temple of the Ancients, which results in her running to the Forgotten City alone and getting killed by Sephiroth, certainly exacerbates his mental deterioration, but it is by no means a turning point in his arc the way the Northern Crater is.

As for Cloud’s role in Aerith’s arc, their meeting is quite important in that it sets forth the series of events that leads her to getting captured by Shinra and thus meeting “Sephiroth” and wanting to learn more about the Cetra. It’s the inciting incident if we’re going to be really pedantic about it, yet Aerith’s actual character development is not dependent on her relationship with Cloud. It is about her communion with her Cetra Ancestry and the planet.

To put it in other terms, all else being the same, Aerith could still have a satisfying character arc had Cloud not crashed down into her Church. Sure, the game would look pretty different, but there are other ways for her to transform from a flirty, at times frivolous girl to an almost Christ-like figure who accepts the burden of protecting the planet.

Such is not the case for Cloud and Tifa. Their character arcs are built around their shared past and their relationship with one another. Without Tifa, you would have to rewrite Cloud’s character entirely. What was his motivation for joining SOLDIER? How did he get on that AVALANCHE mission in the first place? Who can possibly know him well enough to put his mind back together after it falls apart? If the answer to all these questions is the same person, then congratulations, you’ve just reverse engineered Tifa Lockhart.

Tifa fares a little better. Without Cloud, she would be a sad, sweet character who never gets the opportunity to reconcile with the trauma of her past. Superficially, a lot would be the same, but she would ultimately be quite static and all the less interesting for it.

Let’s also take a brief gander at Tifa’s role after the Lifestream sequence. At this point in the game, both Tifa and Cloud’s emotional arcs are essentially complete. They are now the most idealized versions of themselves, characters the players are meant to admire and aspire to. However they are depicted going forward, it would not be the creator’s intent for their actions to be perceived in a negative light.

A few key moments standout, ones that would not be included if the game was intended to end with any other romantic pairing or with Cloud’s romantic interest left ambiguous:

The Highwind scene, which I’ve gone over above. It doesn’t matter if you get the Low Affection or High Affection version. It would not reflect well on either Cloud or Tifa if he chose to spend what could be his last night alive with a woman whose feelings he did not reciprocate.

Before the final battle with Sephiroth, the party members scream out the reasons they’re fighting. Barret specifically calls out AVALANCHE, Marlene and Dyne, Red XIII specifically calls out his Grandpa, and Tifa specifically calls out Cloud. You are not going to make one of Tifa’s last moments in the game be her pining after a guy who has no interest in her. Not when you could easily have her mention something like her past, her hometown or hell even AVALANCHE and Marlene like Barret. If Tifa’s feelings for Cloud are meant to be unrequited, then it would be a character flaw that would be dealt with long before the final battle (see: Quistis in FF8 or Eowyn in the Lord of the Rings). They would not still be on display at moment like this.

Tifa being the only one there when Cloud jumps into the Lifestream to fight Sephiroth for the last time, and Tifa being the only one there when he emerges. She is very much playing the traditional partner/spouse role here, when you could easily have the entire party present or no one there at all. There is clearly something special about her relationship with Cloud that sets her apart from the other party members.

Once again, let’s look at the “I think I can meet her there moment.” And let’s put side the translation (the Japanese is certainly more ambiguous, and it’s not like the game had any trouble having Cloud call Aerith by her name before this). If Cloud was really expressing his desire to reunite with Aerith, and thus his rejection of Tifa, then the penultimate scene of this game is one that involves the complete utter and humiliation of one of its main characters since Tifa’s reply would indicate she’s inviting herself to a romantic reunion she has no part in. Not only that, but to anyone who is not Cl*rith shipper, the protagonist of the game is going to come off as a callous asshole. That cannot possibly be the creator’s intention. They are competent enough to depict an act of love without drawing attention to the party hurt by that love.

What then could possibly be the meaning? Could it possibly be Cloud trying to comfort Tifa by trying to find a silver lining in what appears to be their impending death? That this means they may get to see their departed loved ones again, including their mutual friend, Aerith? (I will note that Tifa talks about Aerith as much, if not even more than Cloud, after her death). Seems pretty reasonable to me, this being an interpretation of the scene that aligns with the overall themes of the game, and casts every character in positive light during this bittersweet moment.

Luckily enough, we have an entire fucking Compilation to find out which is right.

But before we get there, I’m sure some of you (lol @ me thinking anyone is still reading this) are asking, if Cloti is canon, then why is there a love triangle at all? Why even hint at the possibility of a romance between Cloud and Aerith? Wouldn’t that also be a waste of time and resources if they weren’t meant to be canon?

Well, there are two very important reasons that have nothing to do with romance and everything to do with two of the game’s biggest twists:

Aerith initially being attracted to Cloud’s similarities to Zack/commenting on the uncanniness of said similarities is an organic way to introduce the man Cloud’s pretending to be. Without it, the reveal in the Lifestream would fall a bit flat. The man he’s been emulating all along would just be some sort of generic hero rather than a person whose history and deeds already encountered during the course of the game. Notably for this to work, the game only has to establish Aerith’s attraction to Cloud.

To build the player’s attachment to Aerith before her death/obscure the fact that she’s going to die. With the technological limitations of the day, the only way to get the player to interact with Aerith is through the player character (AKA Cloud), and adding an element of choice (AKA the Gold Saucer Date mechanic) makes the player even more invested. This then elevates Aerith’s relationship with Cloud over hers with any other character. At the same time, because her time in the game is limited, Cloud ends up interacting with Aerith more than any of the other characters, at least in Disc 1. The choice to make many of these interactions flirty/romantic also toys with player expectations. One does not expect the hero’s love interest to die halfway through the game. The game itself also spends a bit of time teasing the romance, albeit, largely in superficial ways like other characters commenting on their relationship or Cait Sith reading their love fortune at the Temple of the Ancients. Yet, despite the quantity of their personal interactions, Cloud and Aerith never display any moments of deep love or devotion that one associates with a Final Fantasy romance. They never have the time. What the game establishes then is the potential of a romance rather than the romance itself. Aerith’s death hurts because of all that lost potential. There so many things she wanted to do, so many places she wanted to see that will never happen because her life is cut short. Part of what is lost, of course, is the potential of her romance with Cloud.

This creative choice is a lot more controversial since it elevates subverting audience expectations over character, and understandably leads to some player confusion. What’s the point of all this set up if there’s not going to be a pay off? Well, that is kind of the point. Death is frustrating because of all the unknowns and what-ifs. But, I suppose some people just can’t accept that fact in a game like this.

One last note on the OG before we move on: Even though this from an Ultimania, since we’re talking about story development and creator intent, I thought it was relevant to include: the fact that Aerith was the sole heroine in early drafts of the game is not the LTD trump card so people think it is. Stories undergo radical changes through the development process. More often than not, there are too many characters, and characters are often combined or removed if their presence feels redundant or confusing.

In this case, the opposite happened. Tifa was added later in the development process as a second heroine. Let’s say that Aerith was the Last Ancient and the protagonist’s sole love interest in this early draft of Final Fantasy VII. In the game that was actually released, that role was split between two characters (and last I checked, Tifa is not the last of a dying race), and Aerith dies halfway through the game, so what does that suggest about how Aerith’s role may have changed in the final product? Again, if Aerith was intended to be Cloud’s love interest, Tifa simply would not exist.

A begrudging analysis of our favorite straight-to-DVD sequel

Let’s move onto the Compilation. And in doing so, completely forget about the word vomit that’s been written above. While it’s quite clear to me now that there’s no way in hell the developers would have intended the last scene in the game to be both a confirmation of Cloud’s love for Aerith and his rejection of Tifa, in my younger and more vulnerable years, I wasn’t so sure. In fact, this was the prevailing interpretation back in the pre-Compilation Dark Ages. Probably because of a dubious English translation of the game and a couple of ambiguous cameos in Final Fantasy Tactics and Kingdom Hearts were all we had to go on.

How then did the official sequel to Final Fantasy VII change those priors?

Two years after the events of the game, Cloud is living as a family with Tifa and two kids rather than scouring the planet for a way to be reunited with Aerith. Shouldn’t the debate be well and over with that? Obviously not, and it’s not just because people were being obstinate. Part of the confusion stems from Advent Children itself, but I would argue that did not come from an intent to play coy/keep Cloud’s romantic desires ambiguous, but rather a failure of execution of his character arc.

Now I wasn’t the biggest fan of the film when I first watched a bootlegged copy I downloaded off LimeWire in 2005, and I like it even less now, but I better understand its failures, given its unique position as a sequel to a beloved game and the cornerstone of launching the Compilation.

The original game didn’t have such constraints on its storytelling. Outside of including a few elements that make it recognizable as a Final Fantasy (Moogles, Chocobos, Summons, etc.) and being a good enough game to be a financial success, the developers pretty much had free rein in terms of what story they wanted to tell, what characters they would use to tell it, and how long it took for them to tell said story.

With Advent Children, telling a good story was not the sole or even primary goal. Instead, it had to:

Do some fanservice: The core audience is going to be the OG fanbase, who would be expecting to see modern, high-def depictions of all the memorable and beloved characters from the game, no matter if the natural end point of their stories is long over.

Set up the rest of the Compilation - Advent Children is the draw with the big stars, but also a way to showcase the lesser known characters from from the Compilation who are going to be leading their own spinoffs. It’s part feature film/part advertisement for the rest of the Compilation. Thus, the Turks, Vincent and Zack get larger roles in the film than one might expect to attract interest to the spinoffs they lead.

Show off its technical prowess: SE probably has enough self awareness to realize that what’s going to set it apart from other animated feature films is not its novel storytelling, but its graphical capabilities. Thus, to really show off those graphics, the film is going to be packed to the brim with big, complicated action scenes with lots of moving parts, as opposed to quieter character driven moments.

These considerations are not unique to Advent Children, but important to note nonetheless:

As a sequel, the stakes have to be just as high if not higher than those in the original work. Since the threat in the OG was the literal end of the world, in Advent Children, the world’s gotta end again

The OG was around 30-40 hours long. An average feature-length film is roughly two hours. Video games and films are two very different mediums. As many TV writers who have tried to make the transition to film (and vice-versa) can tell you, success in one medium does not translate to success in another.

With so much to do in so little time, is it any wonder then that it is again Sephiroth who is the villain trying to destroy the world and Aerith in the Lifestream the deus ex machina who saves the day?

All of this is just a long-winded way to say, certain choices in the Advent Children that may seem to exist only to perpetuate the LTD were made with many other storytelling considerations in mind.

When trying to understand the intended character arcs and relationship dynamics, you cannot treat the film as a collection of scenes devoid of context. You can’t just say - “well here’s a scene where Cloud seems to miss Aerith, and here’s another scene where Cloud and Tifa fight. Obviously, Cloud loves Aerith.” You have to look at what purpose these scenes serve in the grander narrative.

And what is this grander narrative? To put it in simplistic terms, Aerith is the obstacle, and Tifa is goal. Cloud must get over his guilt over Aerith’s death so that he can return to living with Tifa and the children in peace.

The scenes following the prologue are setting up the emotional stakes of film - the problem that will be resolved by the film’s end. The problem being depicted here is not Aerith’s absence from Cloud’s life, but Cloud’s absence from his family. We see Tifa walking through Seventh Heaven saying “he’s not here anymore,” we see Denzel in his sickbed asking for Cloud, we see a framed photo of the four of them on Cloud’s desk. We see Cloud letting Tifa’s call go to voicemail.

What we do not see is Aerith, who does not appear until almost halfway through the film.

Cloud spends the first of the film avoiding confrontation with the Remnants/dealing with the return of Sephiroth. It’s only when Tifa is injured, and Denzel and Marlene get kidnapped that he goes to face his problems head on.

Before the final battle, when Cloud has exorcised his emotional demons and is about to face his physical demons, what do we see? We see Cloud telling Marlene that it’s his turn to take care of her, Denzel and Tifa the way they’ve taken care of him. We see Cloud telling Tifa that he ‘feels lighter’ and tacitly confirming that she was correct when she called him out earlier in the film. We see Cloud confirming to Denzel that he’s going home after this is all over.

What we do not see is Cloud telepathically communicating with Aerith to say, “Hey boo, can’t wait to beat Sephiroth so I can finally reunite with you in the Promised Land. Xoxoxo.” Aerith doesn’t factor in at all. Returning to his family is his goal, and his fight with Bahamut/the Remnants/Sephiroth/whatever the fuck is the final obstacle he has to face before reaching this goal.

This is reiterated again when Cloud is shot by Yazoo and seemingly perishes in an explosion. What is at stake with his “death”? We see Tifa calling his name while looking out the airship. We see Denzel and Marlene waiting for him at Seventh Heaven. We do not see Aerith watching over him in the Lifestream.

Now, Aerith does play an important role in Cloud’s arc when she shows up at about the midpoint of the film. You could fairly argue that it’s the turning point in Cloud’s emotional journey, the moment when he finally decides to confront his problems. But even if it’s only Cloud and Aerith in the scene, it’s not really about their relationship at all.

Let’s consider the context before this scene happens. Denzel and Marlene have been kidnapped by the Remnants; Tifa was nearly killed in a fight with another. This is Cloud at his lowest point. It’s his worst fears come to pass. His guilt over Aerith’s death is directly addressed at this moment in the film because it is not so much about his feelings for Aerith as it is about how Cloud fears the failures of his past (one of the biggest being her death) would continue into the present. If it was just about Aerith, we could have seen Cloud asking for her forgiveness at any other time in the film. It occurs when it does because this when his guilt over Aerith’s death intersects with his actual conflict, his fear that he’ll fail the the ones he loves. She appears when he’s at the Forgotten City where he goes to save the children. The same location where he had failed two year before.

This connection is made explicit when Cloud has flashes of Zack and Aerith’s deaths before he saves Denzel and Tifa from Bahamut. Again, Cloud’s dwelling on the past is directly related to his fears of being unable to protect his present.

Aerith is a feminine figure who is associated with flowers. That combined with the players’ memory of her and her relationship with Cloud in the OG, I can see how their scenes can be construed as romantic, but I really do not think that it is the creators’ intent to portray any romantic longing on Cloud’s part.

If they wanted to suggest that Cloud was still in love with Aerith or even leave his romantic interest ambiguous, there is no way in hell they would have had Cloud living with Tifa and two kids prior to the film’s events. To say nothing of opening the film by showing the pain his absence brings.

A romantic reading of Cloud’s guilt over Aerith’s death would suggest that he entered into a relationship with Tifa and started raising two children with her while still holding a torch for Aerith and hoping for a way to be reunited with her. The implication would be that Tifa is his second choice, and he is settling. Now, is this a dynamic that occurs in real life? Absolutely. Is this something that is often depicted in some films and television? Sure - in fact this very premise is at the core of one my favorite films of the last decade - 45 Years — and spoiler alert — the guy does not come off well in this situation. But once again, Cloud is not a real person, and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is not a John Cassavettes film or an Ingmar Bergman chamber drama. It is a 2-hour long straight to DVD sequel for a video game made for teens. This kind of messy, if realistic, relationship dynamic is not what this particular work is trying to explore.

(one of these is a good film!)

By the end of Advent Children, Cloud is once again the idealized version of himself. A hero that the audience is supposed to like and admire. We are supposed to think that his actions in the first half of the movie (wallowing in his guilt and abandoning his family) were bad. These are the flaws that he must overcome through the course of the film, and by the end he does. If he really had been settling and treating his Seventh Heaven family as a second choice prior to the events of the film, that too would obviously be a character flaw that needs to be addressed before the end of the film. It isn’t because this is a dynamic that only exists in certain people’s imaginations.

If the creators wanted to leave the Cloud & Aerith relationship open to a romantic interpretation, they didn’t have to write themselves into such a corner. They wouldn’t have to change the final film much at all, merely adjust the chronology a bit. Instead of Cloud already living as a family with Tifa, Marlene and Denzel prior to the beginning of the film, you would show them on the precipice of becoming a family, but with Cloud being unable to take the final step without getting over his feelings for Aerith first. This would leave space for him to love both women without coming off as an opportunistic jerk.

This is essentially the dynamic with Locke/Rachel/Celes in FFVI. Locke is unable to move on with Celes or anyone else until he finally finds closure with Rachel. It’s a lovely scene that does not diminish his relationships with either woman. He loved Rachel. He will love Celes. What the game does not have him do is enter into a relationship into Celes first and then when the party arrives at the Phoenix Cave, have him suddenly remember ‘Oh shit, I’ve gotta deal with my baggage with Rachel before I can really move on.’ That would not paint him in a particularly positive light.

Speaking of other Final Fantasies, let’s take a look another sequel in the series set two years after the events of the original work, one that is clearly the story of its protagonist searching for their lost love. And guess what? Final Fantasy X-2 does not begin with Yuna shacked up and raising two kids with another dude. And it certainly doesn’t begin with his perspective of the whole situation when Yuna decides to search for Tidus.

Square Enix knows how to write these kind of stories when they want to, and it’s clearly not their intent for Cloud and Aerith. Again, the biggest obstacle in the way of a Cloud/Aerith endgame isn’t space and time or death, it’s the existence of Tifa Lockhart.

A reasonable question to ask would be, if SE is not trying to ignite debate over the love triangle, why make Cloud’s relationship with Aerith a part of Advent Children at all? Why invite that sort of confusion? Well, the answer here, like the answer in the OG, is that Aerith’s role in the sequel is much more than her relationship with Cloud.

In the OG, it wasn’t Cloud and the gang who managed to stop Sephiroth and Meteor in the end, it was Aerith from the Lifestream. In a two-hour long film, you do not have the time to set up a completely new villain who can believably end the world, and since you pretty much have to include Sephiroth, the main antagonist can really only be him. No one else in the party has been established to have any magical Cetra powers, and again, since that’s not something that can be effectively established in a two-hour long film, and since Aerith needs to appear somehow, it again needs to be her who will save the day.

Given the time constraints, this external conflict has to be connected with Cloud’s internal conflict. In the OG, Cloud’s emotional arc is in resolved in the Lifestream, and then we spend a few more hours hunting down the Huge Materia/remembering what Holy is before resolving the external conflict of stopping Meteor. In Advent Children, we do not have that luxury of time. These turning points have to be one and same. It is only after Aerith is “introduced” in the film when Cloud asks her for forgiveness that she is able to help in the fight against the Remnants. Thus the turning point for Cloud’s character arc and the external conflict are the same. It’s understandably economical storytelling, though I wouldn’t call it particularly good storytelling.

As much as Cloud feels guilt over both Zack and Aerith’s deaths, it’s only Aerith who can play this dual role in the film. Zack can appear to help resolve Cloud’s emotional arc, but since he has no special Cetra powers or anything, there’s little he can do to help in Cloud’s fight against the Remnants. More time would need to be spent contriving a reason why Cloud is able to defeat the Remnants now when he wasn’t before or explaining why Aerith can suddenly help from the Lifestream when she had been absent before. (I still don’t think the film does a particularly good job of explaining this part, but that is a conversation for another time).

Another reason why Zack could not play this role is because at the time of AC’s original release, all we knew of Cloud and Zack’s relationship was contained in an optional flashback at the Shinra mansion after Cloud returns from the Lifestream. If it was Zack who suddenly showed up at Cloud’s lowest point, most viewers, even many who played the original game, would probably have been confused, and the moment would have fallen flat. On the other hand, even the most casual fan would have been aware of Aerith and her connection to Cloud, with her death scene being among the most well-known gaming moments of all time. Moreover, Aerith’s death is directly connected to Sephiroth, who is once again the threat in AC, whereas Zack was killed by Shinra goons. Aerith serves multiple purposes in a way that Zack just cannot.

Despite all this, though Aerith is more important to the film as a whole, many efforts are made to suggest that Zack and Aerith are equally important to Cloud. One of the first scenes in the film is Cloud moping around Zack’s grave (And unlike the scene with Aerith in the Forgotten City, it isn’t directly connected with Cloud’s present storyline in any way). We have the aforementioned scene where Cloud has flashes of both Aerith’s and Zack’s deaths when he saves Tifa and Denzel. Cloud has a scene where he’s standing back to back with Zack, mirroring his scene with in the Forgotten City with Aerith, before the climax of his fight with Sephiroth. In the Lifestream, after Cloud “dies,” it’s both Aerith and Zack who are there to send him back. Before the film ends, Cloud sees both Aerith and Zack leaving the church.

Now, were all these Zack appearances a way to promote the upcoming spin-off game that he’s going to lead? Of course. But the creators surely would have known that having Zack play such a similar role in Cloud’s arc would make Cloud’s relationship with Aerith feel less special and thus complicating a romantic interpretation of said relationship. If they wanted to encourage a romantic reading of Cloud’s lingering feelings for Aerith, they would have given Zack his own distinct role in the film. Or rather, they wouldn’t have put Zack in the film at all, and they certainly wouldn’t have him lead his own game, but we’ll get to the Zack of it all later.

The funny thing is, in a way, Zack is portrayed as being more special to Cloud. Zack only exists in the film to interact with Cloud and encourage him. Meanwhile. Aerith also has brief interactions with Kadaj, the Geostigma children and even Tifa before the film’s end. Aerith is there to save the whole world. Zack is there just for Cloud. If it’s Cloud’s relationship with Aerith that’s meant to be romantic, shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Let’s take a look at Tifa Lockhart. What role did she have to play in the FF7 sequel film? If, like some, you believed FF7 to be the Cloud/Aerith/Sephiroth show, then Tifa could have easily had a Barret-sized cameo in Advent Children. And honestly, she’s just a great martial artist. She has no special powers that would make her indispensable in a fight against Sephiroth. You certainly would not expect her to be the 2nd billed character in the film. Though of course, if you actually played through the Original Game with your eyes open, you would realize that Tifa Lockhart is instrumental to any story about Cloud Strife.

Unlike Aerith’s appearances, almost none of the suggestive scenes and dynamics between Cloud and Tifa had to be included in the film. As in, they serve no other plot related purpose and could have easily been cut from the final film if the creators weren’t trying to encourage a romantic interpretation of their relationship.

It feels inevitable now, but no one was expecting Cloud and Tifa to be living together and raising two kids. In the general consciousness, FF7 is Cloud and Sephiroth and their big swords and Aerith’s death. At the time, in the eyes of most fans and casual observers, Cloud and Tifa being together wasn’t a necessary part of the FF7 equation the way say, an epic fight between Cloud and Sephiroth would be. In fact, I don’t think even the biggest Cloti fans at the time would have imagined Cloud and Tifa living together would be their canon outcome in the sequel film.

Now can two platonic friends live together and raise two children together? Absolutely, but again Cloud and Tifa are not real people. They are fictional characters. A reasonable person (let’s use the legal definition of the term) who does not have brainworms from arguing over one of the dumbest debates on the Internet for 23 years would probably assume that two characters who were shown to be attracted to each other in the OG and who are now living together and raising two kids are in a romantic relationship. This is a reasonable assumption to make, and if SE wanted to leave Cloud’s romantic inclinations ambiguous, they simply would not be depicting Cloud and Tifa’s relationship in this manner. Cloud’s disrupted peace could have been a number of different things. He could have been a wandering mercenary, he could have been searching for a way to be reunited with Aerith. It didn’t have to be the family he formed with Tifa, but, then again, if you were actually paying attention to the story the OG was trying to tell, of course he would be living with Tifa.

Let’s also look at the scene where Cloud finds Tifa in the church after her fight with Loz. All the plot related information (who attacked her, Marlene being taken) is conveyed in the brief conversation they have before Cloud falls unconscious from Geostigma. What purpose do all the lingering shots of Cloud and Tifa in the flower bed in a Yin-Yang/non-sexual 69ing position serve if not to be suggestive of the type of relationship they have? It’s beautifully rendered but ultimately irrelevant to both the external and internal conflicts of the film.

Likewise, there is no reason why Cloud and Tifa needed to wake up in their children’s bedroom. No reason to show Cloud waking up with Tifa next to him in a way that almost makes you think they were in the same bed. And there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for a close-up of Tifa’s hand with the Wolf Ring on her ring finger while she is admonishing Cloud during what sounds like a domestic argument (This ring again comes into focus when Tifa leads Denzel to Cloud at the church at the end - there are dozens of ways this scene could have been rendered, but this is the one that was chosen.) If it wasn’t SE’s intent to emphasize the family dynamic and the intimate nature of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship, these scenes would not exist.

Let’s also take a look at Denzel, the only new character in the AC (give or take the Remnants). Again, given the film’s brief runtime, the fact that they’re not only adding a new character but giving him more screen time than almost every other AVALANCHE member must mean that he’s pretty important. While Denzel does have an arc of his own, especially in ACC, he is intricately connected to Cloud and Tifa and solidifies the family unit that they’ve been forming in Edge. Marlene still has Barret, but with the addition of Denzel, the family becomes something more real albeit even more tenuous given his Geostigma diagnosis. Without Denzel in the picture, it’s a bit easier to interpret Cloud’s distance from Tifa as romantic pining for another woman, but now it just seems absurd. The stakes are so much higher. Cloud and Tifa are at a completely different stage in their lives from the versions of these characters we met early on in the OG who were entangled in a frivolous love triangle. And yet some people are still stuck trying to fit these characters into a childish dynamic that died at the end of disc one along with a certain someone.

All this is there in the film, at least the director’s cut, if you really squint. But since SE preferred to spend its time on countless action sequences that have aged as well as whole milk in lieu of spending a few minutes showing Cloud’s family life before he got Geostigma to establish the emotional stakes, or a beat or two more on his reconciliation with Tifa and the kids, people may be understandably confused about Cloud’s arc. Has Cloud just been a moping around in misery for the two years post-OG? The answer is no, though that can only really be found in the accompanying novellas, specifically Case of Tifa.

Concerning the novellas, which we apparently must read to understand said DVD sequel

I really don’t know how you can read through CoT and still think there is anything ambiguous about the nature of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship. The “Because I have you this time,” Cloud telling Tifa he’ll remind her how to be strong when they’re alone, Cloud confidently agreeing when Marlene adds him to their family. Not to mention Barret and Cid’s brief conversation about Cloud and Tifa’s relationship in Case of Barret, after which Cid comments that “women wear the pants,” which Barret then follows by asking Cid about Shera. Again, a reasonable person would assume the couple in question are in a romantic relationship, and if this wasn’t the intent, these lines would not be present. Especially not in a novella about someone else.

Some try to argue that CoT just shows how incompatible Cloud and Tifa are because it features a few low points in their relationship. I don’t think that’s Nojima’s intent. Even if it was, it certainly wouldn’t be to prove that Cloud loves Aerith. This isn’t how you tell that story. Why waste all that time disproving a negative rather than proving a positive? We didn’t spend hours in FF8 watching Rinoa’s relationship with Seifer fall apart to understand how much better off she is with Squall. If Cloud and Aerith is meant to be a love story, then tell their love story. Why tell the story of how Cloud is incompatible with someone else?

Part of the confusion may be because CoT doesn’t tell a complete story in and of itself. The first half of the story (before Cloud has to deliver flowers to the Forgotten City) acts as a sort of epilogue to the OG, while the second half of the story is something of a prologue to Advent Children (or honestly its missing Act One). And to state the obvious, conflict is inherent to any story worth telling. It can’t just be all fluff, that’s what the fanfiction is for.

Tifa’s conflict is her fear that the fragile little family they’ve built in Edge is going to fall apart. Thus we see her fret about Cloud’s distance, the way this affects Marlene, and Denzel’s sickness. There are certainly some low moments here --- Tifa telling Cloud to drink in his room, asking if he loves her -- all ways for the threat to seem more real, the outcome more uncertain, yet there’s only one way this conflict can be resolved. One direction to which their relationship can move.

Again, by the end of this story, both characters are supposed to be the best versions of themselves, to find their “happy” endings so to speak. Tifa could certainly find happiness outside of a relationship with Cloud. She could decide that they’ve given it a shot, but they’re better off as friends. She’s grateful for this experience and she’s learned from this, but now she’s ready to make a life for herself on her own. It would be a fine character arc, though not something the Final Fantasy series has been wont to do. However, that’s obviously not the case here as there’s no indication whatsoever that Tifa considers this as an option for herself. Nojima hasn’t written this off ramp into her journey. For Tifa, they’ll either become a real family or they won’t. Since this is a story that is going to have a happy ending, so of course they will, even if there are a lot of bumps along the way.

Unfortunately, with the Compilation being the unwieldy beast that this is, this whole arc has to be pieced together across a number of different works:

Tifa asking herself if they’re a real family in CoT

Her greatest fear seemingly come to life when Cloud leaves at the end of CoT/beginning of AC

Tifa explicitly asking Cloud if the reason they can’t help each other is because they’re not a real family during their argument in AC. Notably, even though Cloud is at his lowest point, he doesn’t confirm her fear. Instead he says he that he can’t help anyone, not even his family. Instead, he indirectly confirms that yes he does think they’re a family, even if is a frustrating moment still in that he’s too scared to try to save it.

The ending of AC where we see a new photo of Cloud smiling surrounded by Tifa and the kids and the rest of the AVALANCHE, next to the earlier photo we had seen of the four of them where he was wearing a more dour expression.

The ending of The Kids Are All Right, where Cloud, Tifa, Denzel and Marlene meet with Evan, Kyrie and Vits - and Cloud offers, unsolicited, that even if they’re not related by blood, they’re a family.

The ending of DVD extra ‘Reminiscence of FFVII’ where Cloud takes the day off and asks Tifa to close the bar so they can spend time together as a family as Tifa had wanted to do early in CoT

Cloud fears he’ll fail his family. Tifa fears it’ll fall apart. Cloud retreats into himself, pushing others away. Tifa neglects herself, not being able to say what she needs to say. In Advent Children, Tifa finally voices her frustrations. It’s then that Cloud finally confronts his fears. Like in the OG, Cloud and Tifa’s conflicts and character arcs are two sides of the same coin, and it’s only by communicating with each other are they able to resolve it. Though with the Compilation being an inferior work, it’s much less satisfying this time around. Such is the problem when you’re writing towards a preordained outcome (Cloud and Sephiroth duking it once again) rather than letting the story develop organically.

Some may ask, why mention Aerith so much (Cloud growing distant after delivering flowers to the Forgotten City, Cloud finding Denzel at Aerith’s church) if they weren’t trying to perpetuate the LTD? Well, as explained above, Aerith had to be in Advent Children, and since CoT is the only place where we get any insight into Cloud’s psyche, it’s here where Nojima expands on that guilt.

Again, this is a story that requires conflict, and what better conflict than the specter of a love rival? Notably, despite us having access to Tifa’s thoughts and fears, she never explicitly associates Cloud’s behavior with him pining after Aerith. Though it’s fair to say this fear is implied, if unwarranted.

If Cloud had actually been pining after Aerith this whole time, we would not be seeing it all unfold through Tifa’s perspective. You can depict a romance without drawing attention to the injured third party. We’re seeing all of this from Tifa’s POV, because it’s about Tifa’s insecurities, not the great tragic romance between Cloud and Aerith. Honestly, another reason we see this from Tifa’s perspective is because it’s dramatically more interesting. Because she’s insecure, she (and we the reader) wonder if there’s something else going on. Meanwhile, from Cloud’s perspective it would be straightforward and redundant, given what we see in AC. He’s guilty over Aerith’s death and thinks he doesn’t deserve to be happy.

Not to mention, the first time we encounter Aerith in CoT, Tifa is the one breaking down at her grave while Cloud is the one comforting her. Are we supposed to believe that he just forgot he was in love with Aerith until he had to deliver flowers to the Forgotten City?

And Aerith doesn’t just serve as a romantic obstacle. She’s also a symbol of guilt and redemption for both Cloud and Tifa. Neither think they have the right to be happy after all that’s happened (Aerith’s death being a big part of this), and through Denzel, who Cloud finds at Aerith’s church, they both see a chance to atone.

I do want to address Case of Lifestream: White because it’s only time in the entire Compilation where I’ve asked myself — what are they trying to achieve here? Now, I’d rather drink bleach than start debating the translation of ‘koibito’ again, but I did think it was a strange choice to specify the romantic nature of Aerith’s love for Cloud. I suppose it could be a reference her obvious attraction to Cloud in the OG, though calling it love feels like a stretch.

But nothing else in CoLW really gives me pause. It might be a bit jarring to see how much of it is Aerith’s thoughts of Cloud, but it makes sense when you consider the context in which it’s meant to be consumed. Unlike Case of Tifa or Case of Denzel, CoLW isn’t meant to be read on its own. It’s a few scant paragraphs in direct conversation with Case of Lifestream: Black. In CoLB, Sephiroth talks about his plan to return and end the world or whatever, and how Cloud is instrumental to his plan. Each segment of CoLW mirrors the corresponding segment of CoLB. Thus, CoLW has to be about Aerith’s plan to stop Sephiroth and the role Cloud must play in that. In both of these stories, Cloud is the only named character. It doesn’t mean that thoughts of Cloud consume all of Aerith’s afterlife. Case of Lifestream is only a tiny sliver of the story, a halfassed way to explain why in Advent Children the world is ending again and why Cloud has to be at the center of it all.

Notably, there is absolutely nothing in CoLW about Cloud’s feelings for Aerith. Even if it’s just speculation on her part as we see Sephiroth speculate about Cloud’s reactions in CoLB. Aerith can see what’s going on in the real world, but she says nothing about Cloud’s actions. If Cloud is really pining after her, trying to find a way to be reunited with her, wouldn’t this be the ideal story to show such devotion?

But it’s not there, because not only does it not happen, but because this story is not about Aerith’s relationship with Cloud. It is about how Aerith needs to see and warn Cloud in order to stop Sephiroth. By the end of Advent Children, that goal is fulfilled. Cloud gets his forgiveness. Aerith gets to see him again and helps him stop Sephiroth. There’s no suggestion that either party wants more. We finally have the closure that the OG lacked, and at no point does it confirm that Cloud reciprocated Aerith’s romantic feelings, even though there were plenty of opportunities to do so.

I don’t really know what else people were expecting. Advent Children isn’t a romantic drama. There’s not going to be a moment where Cloud explicitly tells Tifa, ‘I’ve never loved Aerith. It’s only been you all along.” This is just simply not the kind of story it is.

Though one late scene practically serves this function. When Cloud “dies” and Aerith finds him in the Lifestream, if there were any lingering romantic feelings between the two of them, this would be a beautiful bittersweet reunion. Maybe something about how as much as they want to be together, it’s not his time yet. Instead, it’s almost played off as a joke. Cloud calls her ‘Mother’, and Zack is at Aerith’s side, joking about how Cloud has no place there. This would be the perfect opportunity to address the romantic connection between Cloud and Aerith, but instead, the film elides this completely. Instead, it��s a cute afterlife moment between Aerith and Zack, and functionally allows Cloud to go back to where he belongs, to Tifa and the kids. Whatever Cloud’s feelings for Aerith were before, it’s transformed into something else.

Crisis Core -- or how Aerith finally gets her love story

The other relevant part of the Compilation is Crisis Core, which I will now touch on briefly (or at least brief for me). In the OG, Zack Fair was more plot device than character. We knew he was important to Cloud — enough that Cloud would mistake Zack’s memories for his own -- we knew he was important to Aerith — enough that she is initially drawn to Cloud due to his similarities to Zack — yet the nature of these relationships is more ambiguous. Especially his relationship with Aerith. From the little we learn of their relationship, it could have been completely one-sided on her part, and Zack a total cad. At least that’s the implication she leaves us with in Gongaga. We get the sense that she might not be the most reliable narrator on this point (why bring up an ex so often, unsolicited, if it wasn’t anything serious?) but the OG never confirms this either way.

Crisis Core clears this up completely. Not only is Zack portrayed as the Capital H Hero of his own game, but his relationships with Cloud and Aerith are two of the most important in the game. In fact, they are the basis for his heroic sacrifice at the game’s end: he dies trying to save Cloud’s life; he dies trying to return to Aerith.

Zack’s relationship with Aerith is a major subplot of the game. Not only that, but the details of said relationship completely recontextualizes what we know about the Aerith we see in the OG. Many of Aerith’s most iconic traits (wearing pink, selling flowers) are a direct product of this relationship, and more importantly, so many of the hallmarks of her early relationship with Cloud (him falling through her church, one date as a reward, a conversation in the playground) are a direct echo of her relationship with Zack.

A casual fling this was not. Aerith’s relationship with Zack made a deep impact on the character we see in the OG and clearly colored her interactions with Cloud throughout.

Crisis Core is telling Zack’s story, and Tifa is a fairly minor supporting character, yet it still finds the time to expand upon Cloud and Tifa’s relationship. Through their interactions with Zack, we learn just how much they were on each others’ minds during this time, and how they were both too shy to own up to these feelings. We also get a brief expansion on the moment Cloud finds Tifa injured in the reactor.

Meanwhile, given the point we are in the story’s chronology, Cloud and Aerith are completely oblivious of each other’s existence.

One may try to argue that none of this matters since all of this is in the past. While this argument might hold water if we arguing about real lives in the real world, FF7 is a work of fiction. Its creators decided that these would be events we would see, and that Zack would be the lens through which we’d see them. Crisis Core is not the totality of these characters’ lives prior to the event of the OG. Rather, it consists of moments that enhance and expand upon our understanding of the original work. We learn the full extent of Hojo’s experimentation and the Jenova project; we learn that Sephiroth was actually a fairly normal guy before he was driven insane when he uncovers the circumstances of his birth. We learn that Aerith was a completely different person before she met Zack, and their relationship had a profound impact on her character.

A prequel is not made to contradict the original work, but what it can do is recontexualize the story we already know and add a layer of nuance that may have not been obvious before. Thus, Sephiroth is transformed from a scary villain into a tragic figure who could have been a hero were it not for Hojo’s experiments. Aerith’s behavior too invites reinterpretation. What once seemed flirty and perhaps overtly forward now looks like the tragic attempts of a woman trying to recapture a lost love.

If Cloud and Aerith were meant to be the official couple of the Compilation of FF7, you absolutely would not be spending so much time depicting two relationships that will be moot by the time we get to the original work. You especially would not depict Zack and Aerith’s relationship in a way that makes Aerith’s relationship with Cloud look like a copy of the moments she had with her ex.

Additionally, with Zack’s relationship with Angeal, we can see, that within the universe of FF7, a protagonist being devastated over the death of a beloved comrade isn’t something that’s inherently romantic. Neither is it romantic for said dead comrade to lend a helping hand from the beyond.

SE would also expect some people to play Crisis Core before the OG. If Cloud and Aerith are the intended endgame couple, then SE would be asking the player to root for a guy to pursue the girlfriend of the man who gave his life for him. The same man who died trying to reunite with her. This is to say nothing of Cloud’s treatment of Tifa in this scenario. How could this possibly be the intent for their most popular protagonist in the most popular entry of their most popular franchise?

What Crisis Core instead offers is something for fans of Aerith who may be disappointed that she was robbed of a great romance by her death. Well, she now gets that epic, tragic romance. Only it’s with Zack, not Cloud.

If SE intended for Cloud and Aerith to be the official couple of FF7, neither Zack nor Tifa would exist. They would not spend so much time developing Zack and Tifa into the multi-dimensional characters they are, only to be treated as nothing more than collateral damage in the wake of Cloud and Aerith’s great love. No, this is a Final Fantasy. SE want their main characters to have something of a happy ending after all of the tribulations they face. Cloud and Tifa find theirs in life. Zack and Aerith, as the ending of AC suggests, find theirs in death.

Cloud and Aerith’s relationship isn’t a threat to the Zack/Aerith and Cloud/Tifa endgame, nor is it a mere obstacle. Rather, it’s a relationship that actually deepens and strengthens the other two. Aerith is explicitly searching for her first love in Cloud, revealing just how deep her feelings for Zack ran. Cloud gets to live out his heroic SOLDIER fantasy with Aerith, a fantasy he created just to impress Tifa.

There are moments between Cloud and Aerith that may seem romantic when taken on its own, but viewed within the context of the whole narrative, ultimately reveal that they aren’t quite right for each other, and in each other, they’re actually searching for someone else.

This quadrangular dynamic reminds me a bit of one of my favorite classic films, The Philadelphia Story. (Spoilers for a film that came out in 1940 ahead) — The single most romantic scene in the film is between Jimmy Stewart’s and Katherine Hepburn’s characters, yet they’re not the ones who end up together. Even as their passions run, as the music swells, and we want them to end up together, we realize that they’re not quite right for each other. We know that it won’t work out.

More relevantly, we know this is true due to the existence of Cary Grant’s and Ruth Hussey’s characters, who are shown to carry a torch for Hepburn and Stewart, respectively. Grant and Hussey are well-developed and sympathetic characters. With the film being the top grossing film of the year, and made during the Code era, it’s about as “clean” of a narrative as you can get. There’s no way Grant and Hussey would be given such prominent roles just to be left heartbroken and in the cold by the film’s end.

Hepburn’s character (Tracy) pretty much sums it herself after some hijinks lead to a last minute proposal from Stewart’s character (Mike):

Mike: Will you marry me, Tracy?

Tracy: No, Mike. Thanks, but hmm-mm. Nope.

Mike: l've never asked a girl to marry me. l've avoided it. But you've got me all confused now. Why not?

Tracy: Because l don't think Liz [Hussey’s character] would like it...and l'm not sure you would...and l'm even a little doubtful about myself. But l am beholden to you, Mike. l'm most beholden.

Despite the fact that the film spends more time developing Hepburn and Stewart’s relationship than theirs with their endgame partners, it’s still such a satisfying ending. That’s because, even at the peak of their romance, we can see how Stewart needs someone like Hussey to ground his passionate impulses, and how Hepburn needs Grant, someone who won’t put her on a pedestal like everyone else. Hepburn and Stewart’s is a relationship that might feel right in the moment, but doesn’t quite work in the light of day.

I don’t think Cloud and Aerith share a moment that is nearly as romantic in FF7, but the same principle applies. What may seem romantic in the moment actually reveals how they’re right for someone else.

Even if Aerith lives and Cloud decides to pursue a relationship with her, it’s not going to be all puppies and roses ahead for them. Aerith would need to disentangle her feelings for Zack from her attraction to Cloud, and Cloud would still need to confront his feelings for Tifa, which were his main motivator for nearly half his life, before they can even start to build something real. This is messy work, good fodder for a prestige cable drama or an Oscar-baity indie film, but it has no place in a Final Fantasy. There simply isn’t the time. Not when the question on most players’ minds isn’t ‘Cloud does love?’ but ‘How the hell are they going to stop that madman and his Meteor that’s about to destroy the world?’

With Zerith’s depiction in Crisis Core, there’s a sort of bittersweet poetry in how the two relationships rhyme but can’t actually coexist. It is only because Zack is trying to return to Midgar to see Aerith that Cloud is able to reunite with Tifa, and the OG begins in earnest. In another world, Zack and Aerith would be the hero and heroine who saved the world and lived to tell the tale. They are much more the traditional archetypes - Zack the super-powered warrior who wants to be a Capital-H Hero, and Aerith, the last of her kind who reluctantly accepts her fate. Compared to these two, Cloud and Tifa aren’t nearly so special, nor their goals so lofty and noble. Cloud, after all, was too weak to even get into SOLDIER, and only wanted to be one, not for some greater good, but to impress the girl he liked. Tifa has no special abilities, merely learning martial arts when she grew wise enough to not wait around for a hero. On the surface, Cloud and Tifa are made of frailer stuff, and yet by luck or by fate, they’re the ones who cheat death time and time again, and manage to save the world, whereas the ones who should have the role, are prematurely struck down before they can finish the job. Cloud and Tifa fulfill the roles that they never asked for, that they may not be particularly suited for, in Zack and Aerith’s stead. There’s a burden and a beauty to it. Cloud and Tifa can live because Zack and Aerith did not.

All of this nuance is lost if you think Cloud and Aerith are meant to be the endgame couple. Instead, you have a pair succumbing to their basest desires, regardless of the selfless sacrifices their other potential paramours made for their sake. Zack and Tifa, and their respective relationships with Aerith and Cloud, are flattened into mere romantic obstacles. The heart wants what it wants, some may argue. While that may be true in real life, that is not necessarily the case in a work of fiction, especially not a Final Fantasy. The other canon Final Fantasy couples could certainly have had previous romantic relationships, but unless they have direct relevance to the their character arcs (e.g., Rachel to Locke), the games do not draw attention to them because they would be a distraction from the romance they are trying to tell. They’ve certainly never spent the amount of real estate FF7 spends in depicting Cloud/Tifa and Zack/Aerith’s relationships.

At last…the Remake, and somehow this essay isn’t even close to being over

Finally, we come to the Remake. With the technological advancements made in the last 23 years and the sheer amount of hours they’re devoting to just the Midgar section this time around, you can almost look at the OG as an outline and the Remake as the final draft. With the OG being overly reliant on text to do its storytelling, and the Remake having subtle facial expressions and a slew of cinematic techniques at its disposal, you might almost consider it an adaptation from a literary medium to a visual one. Our discussions are no longer limited to just what the characters are saying, but what they are doing, and even more importantly, how the game presents those actions. When does the game want us to pay attention? And what does it want us to pay attention to?

Unlike most outlines, which are read by a small handful of execs, SE has 23 years worth of reactions from the general public to gauge what works and what doesn’t work, what caused confusion, and what could be clarified. While FF7 is not a romance, the LTD remains a hot topic among a small but vocal part of the fanbase. It certainly is an area that could do with some clarifying in the Remake.

Since the Remake is not telling a new story, but rather retelling an existing story that has been in the public consciousness for over two decades, certain aspects that were treated as “twists” in the OG no longer have that same element of surprise, and would need to approached differently. For example, in the Midgar section of the OG, Shinra is treated as the main antagonist throughout. It’s only when we get to the top of the Shinra tower that Sephiroth is revealed as the real villain. Anyone with even a passing of knowledge of FF7 would be aware of Sephiroth so trying to play it off like a surprise in the Remake would be terribly anticlimactic. Thus, Sephiroth appears as early as Ch. 2 to haunt Cloud and the player throughout.

Likewise, many players who’ve never even touched the OG are probably aware that Aerith dies, thus her death can no longer be played for shock. While SE would still want the player to grow attached to Aerith so that her death has an emotional impact, there are diminishing returns to misdirecting the player about her fate, at least not in the same way it was done in the OG.

How do these considerations affect the how the LTD is depicted in the Remake? For the two of the biggest twists in the OG to land in the Remake — Aerith’s death and Cloud’s true identity in the Lifestream — the game needs to establish:

Aerith’s attraction to Cloud, specifically due to his similarities to Zack. This never needs to go past an initial attraction for the player to understand that the man whose memory Cloud was “borrowing” is Zack. Aerith’s feelings for Cloud can evolve into something platonic or even maternal by her end without the reveal in the Lifestream losing any impact.

Cloud’s love for Tifa. For the Lifestream sequence to land with an “Ooooh!” rather than a “Huh!?!?”, the Remake will need to establish that Cloud’s feelings for Tifa were strong enough to 1) motivate him to try to join SOLDIER in the first place 2) incentivize him to adopt a false persona because he fears that he isn’t the man she wants him to be 3) call him back to consciousness from Make poisoning twice 4) help him put his mind back together and find his true self. That’s a lot of story riding on one guy’s feelings!

The player’s love for Aerith so that her death will hurt. This can be done by making them invested in Aerith as a character by her own right, but also extends to the relationships she has with the other characters (not only Cloud).

What is not necessary is establishing Cloud’s romantic feelings for Aerith. Now, would their doomed romance make her death hurt even more? Sure, but it could work just as well if Cloud if is losing a dear friend and ally, not a lover. Not to mention, her death also cuts short her relationships with Tifa, Barret, Red XII, etc. Bulking those relationships up prior to her death, would also make her loss more palpable. If anything, establishing Cloud’s romantic feelings for Aerith would actually undermine the game’s other big twist. The game needs you to believe that Cloud’s feelings for Tifa were strong enough to drive his entire hero’s journey. If Cloud is shown falling in love with another woman in the span of weeks if not mere days, then the Lifestream scene would be much harder to swallow.

Cloud wavering between the two women made sense in the OG because the main way for the player to get to know Aerith was through her interactions with Cloud. That is no longer the case in the Remake. Cloud is still the protagonist, and the player character for the vast majority of the game, but there are natural ways for the player to get to know Aerith outside of her dialogue exchanges with Cloud. Unless SE considers the LTD an integral part of FF7’s DNA, then for the sake of story clarity, the LTD doesn’t need to exist.

How then does the Remake clarify things?

I’m not going go through every single change in the Remake — there are far too many of them, and they’ve been documented elsewhere. Most of the changes are expansions or adaptations (what might make sense for super-deformed chibis would look silly for realistic characters, e.g., Cloud rolling barrels in the Church has now become him climbing across the roof support). What is expanded and how it’s adapted can be telling, but what is more interesting are the additions and removals. Not just for what takes place in the scenes themselves, but how their addition or removal changes our understanding of the narrative as a whole vis-a-vis the story we know from the OG.

Notably, one of the features that is not expanded upon, but rather diminished, is player choice. In the OG, the player had a slew of dialogue options to choose from, especially during the Midgar portion of the game. Not only did it determine which character would go on a date with Cloud at the Gold Saucer, but it also made the player identify with Cloud since they’re largely determining his personality during this stage. Despite the technological advances that have made this level of optionality the norm in AAA games, the Remake gives the player far fewer non-gameplay related choices, and only really the illusion of choice as a nod to the OG, but they don’t affect the story of the game in any meaningful way. You get a slightly different conversation depending on the choice, but you have to buy the Flower, Tifa has to make you a drink.

So much of what fueled the LTD in the OG came from this mechanic, which is now largely absent in the Remake. Almost every instance where there was a dialogue branch in the OG has become a single, canon scenario in the Remake that favors Tifa (e.g., having the choice of giving the flower to Tifa or Marlene in the OG, to Cloud giving the flower to Tifa in the Remake). Similarly, for the only meaningful choice you make in the Remake — picking Tifa or Aerith in the sewers — Cloud is now equidistant to both girls, whereas in the OG, his starting point was much closer to Aerith. In the OG, player choice allowed you to largely determine Cloud’s personality, and the girl he favored — and seemingly encouraged you to choose Aerith in many instances. In the Remake, Cloud is now his own character, not who the player wants him to be. And this Cloud, well, he sure seems to have a thing for Tifa.

In fact, one of the first changes in the Remake is the addition of Jessie asking Cloud about his relationship with Tifa, and Cloud’s brief flashback to their childhood together. In the OG, Tifa isn’t mentioned at all during the first reactor mission, and we don’t see her until we get to Sector 7.

Not only does this scene reveal Tifa’s importance to Cloud much earlier on than in the OG, but it sets up a sort of frame of reference that colors Cloud’s subsequent interactions. Even as Jessie kind of flirts with him throughout the reactor mission, even with his chance meeting Aerith in Sector 8, in the back of your mind, you might be thinking — wait what about his relationship with this Tifa character? What if he’s already spoken for?

Think about how this plays out in the OG. Jessie is pretty much a non-entity, and Cloud has his meet-cute with the flower girl before we’re even aware that Tifa exists. It’s hard to get too invested in his interactions with Tifa, when you know he has to meet the flower girl again, and you’re waiting for that moment, because that’s when the game will start in earnest.

After chapter 1 of the Remake, a new player may be asking — who is this Tifa person, and, echoing Jessie’s question, what kind of relationship does she have with Cloud? It’s a question that’s repeated when Barret mentions her before they set the bomb, and again when Barret specifies Seventh Heaven is where Tifa works — and the game zooms in on Cloud’s face — when they arrive in Sector 7.

It’s when we finally meet her at Seventh Heaven in Ch. 3 that we feel, ah now, this game has finally begun.

It’s also interesting how inorganically this question is introduced in the Remake. Up until that moment, the dialogue and Cloud are all business. Then, as they’re waiting for the gate to open, Jessie asks about Tifa completely out of the blue, and Cloud, all of a sudden, is at a lost for words, and has the first of many flashbacks. That this moment is a bit incongruous shows the effort SE made to establish Tifa’s importance to the game and to Cloud early on.

One of the biggest changes in the Remake is the addition of the events in Ch. 3 and 4. Unlike what happens in Ch. 18, Ch. 3 and 4 feel like such a natural extension of the OG’s story that many players may not even realize that SE has added an whole day’s and night’s worth of events to the OG’s story. While not a drastic change, it does reshape our understanding of subsequent events in the story, namely Cloud’s time spent alone with Aerith.

In the OG, we rush from one reactor mission to the next, with no real time to explore Cloud’s character or his relationships with any of the other characters in between. When he crashes through the church, he gets a bit of a breather. We see a different side of him with Aerith. Since we have nothing else to compare it to, many might assume that his relationship with Aerith is special. That she brings something out of him that no one else can.

That is no longer the case in the Remake. While Cloud’s time in Sector 5 with Aerith remains largely unchanged though greatly expanded, it no longer feels “special.” So many of the beats that seemed exclusive to his relationship with Aerith in the OG, we’ve now already seen play out with both Tifa and the other members of AVALANCHE long before he meets Aerith.

Cloud tells the flowers to listen to Aerith; he’s told Tifa he’s listening if she wants to talk; told Bigg’s he wants to hear the story of Jessie’s dad. Cloud offers to walk Aerith back home; he offered the same to Wedge. Cloud smiles at Aerith; he’s already smiled at Tifa and AVALANCHE a number of times.

Now, I’m under no illusion that SE added these chapters solely to diminish Aerith’s importance to Cloud (other than the obvious goal of making the game longer, I imagine they wanted the player to spend more time in Sector 7 and more time with the other AVALANCHE members so that the collapse of the Pillar and their deaths have more weight), but they certainly must have realized that this would be one effect. If pushing Cloud/Aerith’s romance had been a goal with the Remake, this would be a scenario they would try to avoid. Notably, the other place where time has been added - the night in the Underground Shinra Lab, and the day helping other people out around the slums — are also periods of time when Aerith is absent.

Home Sweet Slums vs. Budding Bodyguard

Since most of the events in Ch. 3 were invented for the Remake, and thus we have nothing in the OG to compare it to (except to say that something is probably better than nothing), I thought it would be more interesting to compare it to Ch. 8. Structurally, they are nearly identical — Cloud doing sidequests around the Sectors with one of the girls as his guide. Extra bits of dialogue the more sidequests you complete, with an optional story event if you do them all. Do Cloud’s relationships with each girl progress the same way in both chapters? Is the Remake just Final Waifu Simulator 2020 or are they distinct, reflecting their respective roles in the story as a whole?

A lot of what the player takes away from these chapters is going to be pretty subjective (Is he annoyed with her or is he playing hard to get), yet the vibes of the two chapters are quite different. This is because in Ch. 3, the player is getting to know Tifa through her relationship with Cloud; in Ch. 8; the player is getting to know Aerith as a character on her own.

What do I mean by this? Let’s take Cloud’s initial introduction into each Sector. In Ch. 3, it’s a straight shot from Seventh Heaven to Stargazer Heights punctuated by a brief conversation where Tifa asks Cloud about the mission he was just on. We don’t learn anything new about Tifa’s character here. Instead we hear Cloud recount the mission we already saw play out in detail in Ch. 1 But it’s through this conversation that we get a glimpse of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship — unlike the reticent jerk he was with Avalanche, this Cloud is much more responsive and even tries to reassure her in his own stilted way. We also know that they have enough of a past together that Tifa can categorize him as “not a people person” — an assessment to which Cloud agrees. Slowly, we’re getting an answer to the question Jessie posed in Ch. 1 — just what kind of relationship does Cloud have with Tifa?

In Ch. 8, Aerith leads Cloud on a roundabout way through Sector 5, and stops, unprompted, to talk about her experiences helping at the restaurant, helping out the doctor, and helping with the orphans at the Leaf House. It’s not so much a conversation as a monologue. Cloud isn’t the one who inquires about these relationships, and more jarringly, he doesn’t respond until Aerith directly asks him a question (interestingly enough, it’s about the flower she gave him…which he then gave to Tifa). Here, the game is allowing the player to learn more about the kind of person Aerith is. Cloud is also learning about Aerith at the same time, but with his non-reaction, either the game itself is indifferent to Cloud’s feelings towards Aerith or it is deliberately trying to portray Cloud’s indifference to Aerith.

The optional story event you can see in each chapter after completing all the side quests is also telling. In Ch. 3, “Alone at Last” is almost explicitly about Cloud and Tifa’s relationship. It’s bookended by two brief scenes between Marle and Cloud — the first in which she lectures him about how he should treat Tifa almost like an overprotective in-law, the second after they return downstairs and Marle awards Cloud with an accessory “imbued with the fervent desire to be by one’s side for eternity” after he makes Tifa smile. In between, Cloud and Tifa chat alone in her room. Tifa finally gets a chance to ask Cloud about his past and they plan a little date to celebrate their reunion. There is also at least the suggestion that Cloud was expecting something else when Tifa asked him to her room.

In Ch. 8’s “The Language of Flowers,” Cloud and Aerith’s relationship is certainly part of the story — unlike earlier in the chapter, Cloud actually asks Aerith about what she’s doing and even supports her by talking to the flowers too, but the other main objective of this much briefer scene is to show Aerith’s relationship with the flowers and of her mysterious Cetra powers (though we don’t know about her ancestry just yet). Like a lot of Aerith’s dialogue, there’s a lot of foreshadowing and foreboding in her words. If anything, it’s almost as if Cloud is playing the Marle role to the flowers, as an audience surrogate to ask Aerith about her relationship with the flowers so that she can explain. Also, there’s no in-game reward that suggests what the scene was really about.

If there’s any confusion about what’s going on here, just compare their titles “Alone At Last” vs. “The Language of Flowers.”

I’ll try not to bring my personal feelings into this, but there’s just something so much more satisfying about the construction of Ch. 3. This is some real storytelling 101 shit, but I think a lot of it due to just how much set up and payoff there is, and how almost all of said payoff deepens our understanding of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship:

Marle: Cloud meets Tifa’s overprotective landlady towards the beginning of the chapter. She is dubious of his character and his relationship with TIfa. This impression does not change the second time they meet even though Tifa herself is there to mediate. It’s only towards the end of the chapter, after all the sidequests are complete, that this tension is resolved. Marle gives Cloud a lecture about how he should be treating Tifa, which he seems to take to heart. And Cloud finally earns Marle’s begrudging approval after he emerges from their rooms with a chipper-looking Tifa in tow.

Their past: For their first in-game interaction, Cloud casually brings up that fact that it’s been “Five years” since they’ve last, which seem to throw Tifa off a bit. As they’re replacing filters, Cloud asks Tifa what she’s been up to in the time since they’ve been apart, and Tifa quickly changes the subject. Tifa tries to ask Cloud about his life “after he left the village,” at the Neighborhood Watch HQ, and this time he’s the one who seems to be avoiding the subject. It’s only after all the Ch. 3 sidequests are complete, and they're alone in her room that Tifa finally gets the chance to ask her question. A question which Cloud still doesn’t entirely answer. This question remains unresolved, and anyone’s played the OG will know that it will remain unresolved for some time yet, as it is THE question of Cloud’s story as a whole.

The lessons: Tifa starts spouting off some lessons for life in the slums as she brings Cloud around the town, though it’s unclear if Cloud is paying attention or taking them to heart. After completing the first sidequest, Cloud repeats one of these sayings back to her, confirming that he’s been listening all along. By the end of the chapter, Cloud is repeating these lessons to himself, even when Tifa isn’t around. These lessons extend beyond this chapter, with Cloud being a real teacher’s pet, asking Tifa “Is this a lesson” in Ch. 10 once they reunite.

The drink: When Cloud first arrives at Seventh Heaven, Tifa plays hostess and asks him if he wants anything, but it seems he’s only interested in his money. After exploring the sector a bit, Tifa again tries to play the role of cheery bartender, offering to make him a cocktail at the bar, but Cloud sees through this facade, and they carry on. Finally, after the day’s work is done, to tide Cloud over while she’s meeting with AVALANCHE, Tifa finally gets the chance to make him a drink. No matter, which dialogue option the player chooses, Tifa and Cloud fall into the roles of flirty bartender and patron quite easily. Who would have thought this was possible from the guy we met in Ch. 1?

This dynamic is largely absent in Ch. 8, except perhaps exploring Aerith’s relationship with the flowers, which “pays off” in the “Language of Flowers” event, but again, that scene is primarily about Aerith’s character rather than her relationship with Cloud. The orphans and the Leaf House are a throughline of the chapter, but they are merely present. There’s no clear progression here as was the case with in Ch. 3. Sure, the kids admire Cloud quite a bit after he saves them, but it’s not like they were dubious of his presence before. They barely paid attention to him. In terms of the impact the kids have on Cloud’s relationship with Aerith, there isn’t much at all. Certainly nothing like the role Marle plays in developing his relationship with Tifa.

The thing is, there are plenty of moments that could have been set ups, only there’s no real follow through. Aerith introduces Cloud around town as her bodyguard, and some people like the Doctor express dubiousness of his ability to do the job, but even after we spend a whole day fighting off monsters, and defeating Rude, there’s no payoff. Not even a throwaway “Wow, great job bodyguarding” comment. Same with the whole “one date” reward. Other than a quick reference on the way to Sector 5, and Aerith threatening to reveal the deal to cajole Cloud into helping her gather flowers, it’s never brought up again, in this chapter, or the rest of the game.

Aerith also makes a big stink about Cloud taking the time to enjoy Elmyra’s cooking. This is after Cloud is excluded from AVALANCHE’s celebration in Seventh Heaven and after he misses out on Jessie’s mom’s “Midgar Special” with Biggs and Wedge. So this could have been have been the set up to Cloud finally getting to experience a nice, domestic moment where he feels like he’s part of a family. And this dinner does happen! Only…the Remake skips over it entirely. Which is quite a strange choice considering that almost every other waking moment of Cloud’s time in Midgar has been depicted in excruciating detail. SE has decided that either whatever happened in this dinner between these three characters is irrelevant to the story they’re trying to tell, or they’ve deliberately excluded this scene from the game so that the player wouldn’t get any wrong ideas from it (e.g., that Cloud is starting to feel at home with Aerith).

Speaking of home, the Odd Jobs in Ch. 3 feel a bit more meaningful outside of just the gameplay-related rewards because they’re a way for Cloud to improve his reputation as he considers building a life for himself in Sector 7. This intent is implicit as Tifa imparts upon him the life lessons for surviving the slums, and then explicit, when Tifa asks him if he’s going to “stick around a little longer” outside of Seventh Heaven and he answers maybe. (It is later confirmed when Cloud and Tifa converse in his room in Ch. 4 after he remembers their promise).

Despite Aerith’s endeavors to extend their time together, there’s no indication that Cloud is planning to put down roots in Sector 5, or even return. Not even after doing all the Odd Jobs. If anything, it’s just the opposite — after 3 Odd Jobs, Aerith, kind of jokingly tells Cloud “don’t think you can rely on me forever.” This is a line that has a deeper meaning for anyone who knows Aerith’s fate in the OG, but Cloud seems totally fine with the outcome. Similarly, at the end of the Chapter 8, Elmyra asks Cloud to leave and never speak to Aerith again — a request to which he readily agrees.

Adding to the different vibes of the Chapters are the musical themes that play in the background. In Ch. 3, it’s the “Main Theme of VII”, followed by “On Our Way” — two tracks that instantly recall the OG. While the Main Theme is a bit melancholy, it's also familiar. It feels like home. In Ch. 8, we have an instrumental version of ‘Hollow’ - the new theme written for the Remake. While, it’s a lovely piece, it’s unfamiliar and honestly as a bit anxiety inducing (as is the intent).

(A quick aside to address the argument that this proves ‘Hollow’ is about Cloud’s feelings for Aerith:

Which of course doesn’t make any damn sense because he hasn’t even lost Aerith at this point the story. Even if you want to argue that there is so timey-wimey stuff going on and the whole purpose of the Remake is to rewrite the timeline so that Cloud doesn’t lose Aerith around — shouldn’t there be evidence of this desire outside of just the background music? Perhaps, in Cloud’s actions during the Chapter which the song plays — shouldn’t he dread being parted from her, shouldn’t he be the one trying to extend their time together? Instead, he’s willing to let her go quite easily.

The more likely explanation as to why “Hollow” plays in Ch. 8 is that since the “Main Theme of FFVII” already plays in Ch. 3, the other “main theme” written for the Remake is going to play in the other chapter with a pseudo-open world vibe. If you’re going to say “Hollow” is about Cloud’s feelings for Aerith then you’d have to accept that the Main Theme of the entire series is about Cloud’s feelings for Tifa, which would actually make a bit more sense given that is practically Cloud’s entire character arc.)

Both chapters contain a scripted battle that must be completed before the chapter can end. They both contain a shot where Cloud fights side by side with each of the girls.

Here, Cloud and Tifa are both in focus during the entirety of this shot.

Here, the focus pulls away from Cloud the moment Aerith enters the frame.

I doubt the developers expected most players to notice this particular technique, but it reflects the subtle differences in the way these two relationships are portrayed. By the end of Ch. 3, Cloud and Tifa are acting as one unit. By the end of Ch. 8, even when they’re together, Cloud and Aerith are still apart.

A brief (lol) overview of some meaningful changes from the OG

One of the most significant changes in the Sector 7 chapters is how The Promise flashback is depicted. In the OG, Tifa is the one who has to remind Cloud of the Promise, in a rather pushy way, and whether Cloud chooses to join the next mission to fulfill his promise to her or because Barret is giving him a raise feels a bit more ambiguous.

In the Remake, the Promise has it’s own little mini-arc. It’s first brought up at the end of Ch. 3 when Cloud talks to Tifa about her anxieties about the upcoming mission. Tifa subtly references the Promise by mentioning that she’s “in a pitch” — a reference that goes over Cloud’s head. It’s only in Ch. 4, in the middle of a mission with Biggs and Wedge, where Tifa is no where in sight, that a random building fan reminds him of the Nibelheim water tower and the Promise he made to Tifa there. There’s also another brief flashback to that earlier moment in the bar when Tifa mentions she’s in a “pinch.” Again, the placement of this particular flashback at this particular moment feels almost jarring. And the flashback to the scene in the bar — a flashback to a scene we’ve already seen play out in-game — is the only one of its kind in the Remake. SE went out of the way to show that this particular moment is very important to Cloud and the game as whole. It’s when Cloud returns to his room, and Tifa asks him if he’s planning to stay in Midgar, that this mini-arc is finally complete. He brings up the Promise on his own, and makes it explicit that the reason he’s staying is for her. It’s to fulfill his Promise to her, not for money or for AVALANCHE — at this point, he’s not even supposed to be going on the next mission.

The Reactor 5 chapters are greatly expanded, but there aren’t really any substantive changes other than the addition of the rather intimate train roll scene between and Cloud and Tifa, which adds nothing to the story except to establish how horny they are for each other. We know this is the case, of course, because if you go out of your way to make Cloud look like an incompetent idiot and let the timer run out, you can avoid this scene altogether. But even in that alternate scene, Cloud’s concern for Tifa is crystal clear.

Ch. 8 also plays out quite similarly to the OG for the most part, though Cloud’s banter with Aerith on the rooftops doesn’t feel all that special since we’ve already seen him do the same with Tifa, Barret and the rest of AVALANCHE. The rooftops is the first place Cloud laughs in the OG. In the Remake, while Cloud might not have straight out laughed before, he’s certainly smiled quite a bit in the preceding chapters. Also, with the addition of voice acting and realistic facial expressions, that “laughter” in the Remake comes off much more sarcastic than genuine.

It’s also notable that in the Remake, Cloud vocally protests almost every time Aerith tries to extend their time together. In the OG, Cloud says nothing in these moments, which the player could reasonably interpret as assent.

One major change in the Remake is how Aerith learns of Tifa’s existence. In the OG, Cloud mentions that he wants to go back to Tifa’s bar, prompting Aerith to ask him about his relationship with her. In the Remake, Cloud calls Tifa’s name after having a random flashback of Child Tifa as he’s walking along with some kids. Again the insertion of said flashback is a bit jarring, prompting Aerith to understandably ask Cloud about just who this Tifa is. In the OG, this exchange served to show Aerith’s jealousy and her interest in Cloud. In the Remake, it’s all about Cloud’s feelings for Tifa and his inability to articulate them. As for Aerith, I suppose you can still read her reaction as jealous, though simple curiosity is a perfectly reasonable way to read it too. It plays out quite similarly to Aerith asking Cloud about who he gave the flower to. Her follow ups seem indicate that she’s merely curious about who this recipient might be rather than showing that she’s upset/jealous of the fact that said person exists.

For the collapsed tunnel segment, the Remake adds the recurring bit of Aerith and Cloud trying to successfully complete a high-five. While this is certainly a way to show them getting closer, it’s about least intimate way that SE could have done so. Just think about the alternatives — you could have Cloud and Aerith sharing brief tidbits of their lives after each mechanical arm, you could have them trying to reach for each other’s hand. Instead, SE chose an action that is we’ve seen performed between a number of different platonic buddies, and an action that Aerith immediately performs with Tifa upon meeting her. Not to mention, even while they are technically getting closer, Cloud still rejects (or at least tries to) Aerith’s invitations to extend their time together twice — at the fire and at the playground.

One aspect from these two Chapters that does has plenty of set up and a satisfying payoff is Aerith’s interest in Cloud’s SOLDIER background. You have the weirdness of Aerith already knowing that Cloud was in SOLDIER without him mentioning it first, followed by Elmyra’s antipathy towards SOLDIERs in general, not to mention Aerith actively fishing for information about Cloud’s time in SOLDIER. (For players who’ve played Crisis Core, the reason for her behavior is even more obvious, with her “one date” gesture mirroring Zack’s, and her line to Cloud in front of the tunnel a near duplicate of what she says to Zack — at least in the original Japanese).

Finally, at the playground, it’s revealed that the reason for all this weirdness is because Aerith’s first love was also a SOLDIER who was the same rank as Cloud. Unlike in the OG, Cloud does not exhibit any potential jealousy by asking about the nature of her relationship, and Aerith doesn’t try to play it off by dismissing the seriousness. In fact, with the emotional nuance we can now see on her face, we can understand the depth of her feelings even if she cannot articulate them.

This is the first scene in the Remake where Cloud and Aerith have a genuine conversation. Thus, finally, Cloud expresses some hesitation before he leaves her — and as far as he knows, this could be the last time they see each other. You can interpret this hesitation as romantic longing or it could just as easily be Cloud being a bit sad to part from a new friend. Regardless, it’s notable that scene is preceded by one where Aerith is talking about her first love who she clearly isn’t over, and followed by a scene where Cloud sprints across the screen, without a backwards glance at Aerith, after seeing a glimpse of Tifa through a tiny window in a Chocobo cart that’s about a hundred yards away.

The Wall Market segment in the Remake is quite explicitly about Cloud’s desire to save Tifa. In the OG, Aerith has no trouble getting into Corneo’s mansion on her own, so I can see how someone could misinterpret Cloud going through all the effort to dress as a woman to protect Aerith from the Don’s wiles (though of course, you would need to ask, why they trying to infiltrate the mansion in the first place?). In the Remake, Cloud has to go through herculean efforts to even get Aerith in front of the Don. Everyone who is aware of Cloud’s cause, from Sam to Leslie to Johnny to Andrea to Aerith herself, comments on how hard he’s working to save Tifa and how important she must be to him for him to do so. In case there’s any confusion, the Remake also includes a scene where Cloud is prepared to bust into the mansion on his own, leaving Aerith to fend for herself, after Johnny comes with news that Tifa is in trouble.

Both Cloud and Aerith get big dress reveals in the Remake. If you get Aerith’s best dress, Cloud’s reaction can certainly be read as one of attraction, but since the game continues on the same regardless of which dress you get, it’s not meant to mark a shift in Cloud and Aerith’s relationship. Rather, it’s a reward for the player for completing however many side quests in Ch. 8, especially since the Remake incentives the player to get every dress and thus see all of Cloud’s reactions by making it a Trophy and including it in the play log.

A significant and very welcome change from the OG to the Remake is Tifa and Aerith’s relationship dynamic. In the OG, the girls’ first meeting in Corneo’s mansion starts with them fighting over Cloud (by pretending not to fight over Cloud). In the Remake, the sequence of events is reversed so that it starts off with Cloud’s reunion with Tifa (again emphasizing that the whole purpose of the infiltration is because Cloud wants to save Tifa). Then when Aerith wakes, she’s absolutely thrilled to make Tifa’s acquaintance, hardly acknowledging Cloud at all. Tifa is understandably more wary at first, but once they start working together, they become fast friends.

Also interesting is that from the moment Aerith and Tifa meet, almost every instance where Cloud could be shown worrying about Aerith or trying to comfort Aerith is given to Tifa instead. In the OG, it’s Cloud who frets about Aerith getting involved in the plot to question the Don, and regrets getting her mixed up in everything once they land in the sewers. In the Remake, those very same reservations are expressed by Tifa instead. Tifa is the one who saves Aerith when the platform collapses in the sewer. Tifa is the one who emotionally comforts Aerith after they’re separated in the train graveyard. (Cloud might be the one who physically saves her, but he doesn’t even so much give her a second glance to check on her well-being before he runs off to face Eligor. He leaves that job for Tifa). It almost feels like the Remake is going out of its way to avoid any moments between Cloud and Aerith that could be interpreted as romantic. In fact, after Corneo’s mansion, unless you get Aerith’s resolution, there are almost no one-on-one interactions at all between Cloud and Aerith. Such is not the case with Cloud and Tifa. In fact, right after defeating Abzu in the sewers, Cloud runs after Tifa, and asks her if what she’s saying is one of those slum lessons — continuing right where they left off.

Ch. 11 feels like a wink-wink nudge-nudge way to acknowledge the LTD. You have the infamous shot of the two girls on each of Cloud’s arms, and two scenes where Cloud appears as if he’s unable to choose between them when he asks them if they’re okay. Of course, in this same Chapter, you have a scene during the boss fight with the Phantom where Cloud actually pulls Tifa away from Aerith, leaving Aerith to defend herself, for an extended sequence where he tries to keep Tifa safe. This is not something SE would include if their intention is to keep Cloud’s romantic interest ambiguous or if Aerith is meant to be the one he loves. Of course, Ch. 11 is not the first we see of this trio’s dynamic. We start with Ch. 10, which is all about Aerith and Tifa’s friendship. Ch. 11 is a nod to the LTD dynamic in the OG, but it’s just that, a nod, not an indication the Remake is following the same path. Halfway through Ch. 11, the dynamic completely disappears.

Ch. 12 changes things up a bit from the OG. Instead of Cloud and Tifa ascending the pillar together, Cloud goes up first. Seemingly just so that we can have the dramatic slow-mo handgrab scene between the two of them when Tifa decides to run after Cloud — right after Aerith tells her to follow her heart.

The Remake also shows us what happens when Aerith goes to find Marlene at Seventh Heaven — including the moment when Aerith sees the flower she gave Cloud by the bar register, and Aerith is finally able to connect the dots. After seeing Cloud be so cagey about who he gave the flower to, and weird about his relationship with Tifa, and after seeing how Cloud and Tifa act around each other. It finally makes sense. She’s figured it out before they have. It’s a beautiful payoff to all that set up. Any other interpretation of Aerith’s reaction doesn’t make a lick of sense, because if it’s to indict she’s jealous of Tifa, where is all the set up for that? Why did the Remake eliminate all the moments from the OG where she had been noticeably jealous before? Without this, that interpretation makes about as much sense as someone arguing Aerith is smiling because she’s thinking about a great sandwich she had the night before. In case anyone is confused, the scene is preceded by a moment where Aerith tells Tifa to follow her heart before she goes after Cloud, and followed by the moment where Cloud catches Tifa via slow-motion handgrab.

On the pillar itself, there are so many added moments of Cloud showing his concern for Tifa’s physical and emotional well-being. Even when they find Jessie, as sad as Cloud is over Jessie’s death, the game actually spends more time showing us Cloud’s reaction to Tifa crying over Jessie’s death, and Cloud’s inability to comfort her. Since so much of this is physical rather than verbal, this couldn’t have effectively been shown in the OG with its technological limitations.

After the pillar collapses, we start off with a couple of other moments showing Cloud’s concern over Tifa — watching over her as she wakes, his dramatic fist clench while he watches Barret comfort Tifa in a way he cannot. There is also a subtle but important change in the dialogue. In the OG, Tifa is the one who tells Barret that Marlene is safe because she was with Aerith. Cloud is also on his way to Sector 5, but it’s for the explicit purpose of trying to save Aerith, which we know because Tifa asks. In the Remake, Tifa is too emotionally devastated to comfort Barret about Marlene. Cloud, trying to help in the only way he can, is now the one to tell Barret about Marlene. Leading them to Sector 5 is no longer about him trying to help Aerith, but about him reuniting Barret with his daughter. Again, another moment where Cloud shows concern about Aerith in the OG is eliminated from the Remake.

Rather than going straight from Aerith’s house to trying to figure out a way into the Shinra building to find Aerith, the group takes a detour to check out the ruins of Sector 7 and rescue Wedge from Shinra’s underground lab. It’s only upon seeing the evidence of Shinra’s inhumane experimentation firsthand that Cloud articulates to Elmyra the need to rescue Aerith. In the OG, they never sought out Elmyra’s permission, and Tifa explicitly asks to join Cloud on his quest. Rescuing Aerith is framed as primarily Cloud’s goal, Tifa and Barret are just along for the ride.

In the Remake, all three wait until Elymra gives them her blessing, and it’s framed (quite literally) as the group’s collective goal as opposed to just Cloud’s.

In the aptly named Ch. 14 resolutions, each marks the culmination of the character’s arc for the Part 1 of Remake. While their arcs are by no means complete, they do offer a nice preview of what their ultimate resolutions will be.

With the exception of Tifa’s, these resolutions are primarily about the character themselves. Their relationships with Cloud are secondary. Each resolution marks a change in the character themselves, but not necessarily a change in Cloud’s relationship with said character. Barret recommits to AVALANCHE’s mission and his role as a leader despite the deep personal costs. Aerith’s is full of foreshadowing as she accept her fate and impending death and decides to make the most of the time she has left. After trying to put aside her own feelings for the sake of others the whole time, Tifa finally allows herself to feel the full devastation of losing her home for the second time. Like her ultimate resolution in the Lifestream that we’ll see in about 25 years, Cloud is the only person she can share this sentiment with because he was the only person who was there.

Barret does not grow closer to Cloud through his resolution. Cloud has already proved himself to him by helping out on the pillar and reuniting him with Marlene. Barret resolution merely reveals that Barret is now comfortable enough with Cloud to share his past.

Similarly, Cloud starts off Aerith’s resolution with an intent to go rescue her, and ends with that intent still intact. Aerith is more open about her feelings here than before, it being a dream and all, but these feelings aren’t something that developed during this scene.

The only difference is during Tifa’s resolution. Cloud has been unable to emotionally comfort Tifa up until this point. It’s only when Tifa starts crying and rests her head upon his shoulder that he is able to make a change, to make a choice and hug her. Halfway through Tifa’s resolution, the scene shifts its focus to Cloud, his inaction and eventual action. Notably, the only time we have a close-up of any character during all three resolutions (I’ll define close-up here as a shot where a character’s face takes up half or more of the shot), are three shots of Cloud when he’s hugging/trying to hug Tifa. Tifa’s resolution is the only one where Cloud arcs.

What of the whole “You can’t fall in love with me” line in Aerith’s resolution? Why would SE include that if not to foreshadow Cloud falling in love with Aerith? Or indicate that he has already? Well, you can’t just take the dialogue on its own, you how to look at how these lines are framed. Notably, when she says “you can’t fall in love with me,” Aerith is framed at the center of the shot, and almost looks like she’s directly addressing the player. It’s as much a warning for the player as it is for Cloud, which makes sense if you know her fate in the OG.

This is followed directly by her saying “Even if you think you have…it’s not real.” In this shot, it’s back to a standard shot/reverse shot where she is the left third of the frame. She is addressing Cloud here, which, again if you’ve played the OG, is another bit of heavy foreshadowing. The reason Clould would think he might be in love with Aerith is because he’s falsely assuming of the memories of a man who did love Aerith — Zack.

For Cloud’s response (”Do I get a say in all this?”/ “That’s very one-sided” depending on the translation), rather than showing a shot of his face, the Remake shows him with his back turned.

Whatever Cloud’s feelings may be for Aerith, the game seems rather indifferent to them.

What is more telling is the choice to include a bit with Cloud getting jealous over a guy trying to give Tifa flowers in Barret’s resolution. Barret also mentions both Jessie and Aerith in their conversation, but nothing else gets such a reaction from Cloud.

It also should go without saying that if Aerith’s resolution is meant to establish Cloud and Aerith’s romance, there should have been plenty of set-up beforehand and plenty of follow-through afterward. That obviously is not the case, because again, the Remake has gone out of its way to avoid moments where Cloud’s actions towards Aerith could be interpreted romantically.

Case in point, at around this time in the OG, Marlene tells Cloud that she thinks Aerith likes him and the player has the option to have Cloud express his hope that she does. This scene is completely eliminated from the Remake and replaced with a much more appropriate scene of father-daughter affection between Marlene and Barret while Tifa and Cloud are standing together outside.

The method by which they get up the plate is completely different in the Remake. Leslie is the one who helps them this time around, and though his quest to reunite with his fiance directly parallels with the trio’s desire to save Aerith, Leslie himself draws a comparison to earlier when Cloud was trying to rescue Tifa. Finally, when Abzu is defeated again, it is Barret who draws the parallel of their search for Aerith to Leslie’s search for his fiance, making it crystal clear that saving Aerith is a group effort rather than only Cloud’s.

Speaking of Barret, in the OG, he seems to reassess his opinion of Cloud in the Shinra HQ stairs when he sees Cloud working so hard to save Aerith and realizes he might actually care about other people. In the Remake, that reevaluation occurs after you complete all the Ch. 14 sidequests and help a bunch of NPCs. Arguably, this moment occurs even earlier in the Remake for Barret, after the Airbuster, when he realizes that Cloud is more concerned for his and Tifa’s safety than his own.

Overall, the entire Aerith rescue feels so anticlimactic in the Remake. In the OG, Cloud gets his big hero moment in the Shinra Building. He’s the one who runs up to Aerith when the glass shatters and they finally reunite. In the Remake, it’s unclear what the emotional stakes are for Cloud here. At their big reunion, all we get from him is a “Yep.” In fact, when you look at how this scene plays out, Aerith is positioned equally between Cloud and Tifa at the moment of her rescue. Cloud’s answer is again with his back turned to the camera. It’s Tifa who gets her own shot with her response.

Another instance of the Remake being completely indifferent to Cloud’s feelings for Aerith, and actually priotizing Tifa’s relationship with Aerith instead.

It is also Tifa who runs to reunite with Aerith after the group of enemies is defeated. Another moment that could have easily been Cloud’s that the Remake gives to Tifa.

Also completely eliminated in the Remake, is the “I’m your bodyguard. / The deal was for one date” exchange in the jail cells. In the Remake, after Ch. 8, the date isn’t brought up again at all; “the bodyguard” reference only comes up briefly in Ch. 11 and then never again.

In the Remake, the jail scene is replaced by the scene in Aerith’s childhood room. Despite the fact that this is Aerith’s room, it is Tifa’s face that Cloud first sees when he wakes. What purpose does this moment serve other than to showcase Cloud and Tifa’s intimacy and the other characters’ tacit acknowledgment of said intimacy?

(This is the second time where Cloud wakes up and Tifa is the first thing he sees. The other was at Corneo’s mansion. He comes to three times in the Remake, but in Ch. 8, even though Aerith is right in front of him, we start off with a few seconds of Cloud gazing around the church before settling on the person in front of him. Again, while not something that most players would notice, this feels like a deliberate choice.)

Especially since this scene itself is all about Aerith. She begins a sad story about her past, and Cloud, rather than trying to comfort her in any way, asks her to give us some exposition about the Ancients. When the Whispers surround her, even though Cloud is literally right there, it's Tifa who pulls her out of it and comforts her. Another moment that could have been Cloud that was given to Tifa, and honestly, this one feels almost bizarre.

Throughout the entire Shinra HQ episode, Cloud and Aerith haven’t had a single moment alone to themselves. The Drums scenario is completely invented for the Remake. The devs could have contrived a way for Cloud and Aerith to have some one-on-one time here and work through the feelings they expressed during Aerith’s resolution if they wanted. Instead, with the mandatory party configurations during this stage - Cloud & Barret on one side; Tifa & Aerith on the others, with Cloud & Tifa being the respective team leaders communicating over PHS, the Remake minimizes the amount of interaction Cloud and Aerith have with each other in this chapter.

On the rooftop, before Cloud’s solo fight with Rufus, even though Cloud is ostensibly doing all this so that they can bring Aerith to safety, the Remake doesn’t include a single shot that focuses on Aerith’s face and her reaction to his actions. The game has decided, whatever Aerith’s feelings are in this moment, they’re irrelevant to the story they’re trying to tell. Instead we get shots focusing solely on Barret and Tifa. While the Remake couldn’t find any time to develop Cloud and Aerith’s relationship at the Shinra Tower (even though the OG certainly did), it did find time to add a new scene where Tifa saves Cloud from certain death, while referencing their Promise.

A lot of weird shit happens after this, but it’s pretty much all plot and no character. We do get one more moment where Cloud saves Tifa (and Tifa alone) from the Red Whisper even though Aerith is literally right next to her. The Remake isn’t playing coy at all about where Cloud’s preferences lie.

The party order for the Sephiroth battle varies depending on how you fought the Whispers. All the other character entrances (whoever the 3rd party member is, then the 4th and Red) are essentially the exact same shots, with the characters replaced. It’s the first character entrance (which can only be Aerith or Tifa) that you have two distinct options.

If Aerith is first, the camera pans from Cloud over to Aerith. It then cuts back to Cloud’s reaction, in a separate shot, as Aerith walks to join him (offscreen). It’s only when the player regains control of the characters that Cloud and Aerith ever share the frame.

On the other hand, if Tifa is first, we see Tifa land from Cloud’s POV. Cloud then walks over to join Tifa and they immediately share a frame, facing Sephiroth together.

Again, this is not something SE would expect the player to notice the first or even second time around. Honestly, I doubt anyone would notice at all unless they watched all these variations back to back. That is telling in itself, that SE would go through all this effort (making these scenes unique rather than copy and pasting certainly takes more time and effort) to ensure that the depictions of Cloud’s relationships with these two women are distinct despite the fact that hardly anyone would notice. Even in the very last chapter of the game, they want us to see Cloud and Tifa as a pair and Cloud and Aerith as individuals.

Which isn’t to say that Aerith is being neglected in the Remake. Quite the opposite, in fact, when she has essentially become the main protagonist and the group’s spirtual leader in Ch. 18. Rather, her relationship with Cloud is no longer an essential part of her character. Not to mention, one of the very last shots of the Remake is about Aerith sensing Zack’s presence. Again, not the kind of thing you want to bring up if the game is supposed to show her being in love with Cloud.

What does it all mean????

Phew — now let’s step back and look and how the totality of these changes have reshaped our understanding of the story as a whole. Looking solely at the Midgar section of the OG, and ignoring everything that comes after it, it seems to tell a pretty straightforward story: Cloud is a cold-hearted jerk who doesn’t care about anyone else until he meets Aerith. It is through his relationship with Aerith that he begins to soften up and starts giving a damn about something other than himself. This culminates when he risks it all to rescue Aerith from the clutches of the game’s Big Bad itself, The Shinra Electric Company.

This was honestly the reason why I was dreading the Remake when I learned that it would only cover the Midgar segment. A game that’s merely an expansion of the Midgar section of the OG is probably going to leave a lot of people believing that Cloud & Aerith were the intended couple, and I didn’t want to wait years and perhaps decades for vindication after the Remake’s Lifestream Scene.

I imagine this very scenario is what motivated SE to make so many of these changes. In the OG, they could get away with misdirecting the audience for the first few hours of the game since the rest of the story and the reveals were already completed. The player merely had to pop in the next disc to get the real story. Such is not the case with the Remake. Had the the Remake followed the OG’s beats more closely, many players, including some who’ve never played the OG, would finish the Remake thinking that Cloud and Aerith were the intended couple. It would be years until they got the rest of the story, and at that point, the truth would feel much more like a betrayal. Like they’ve been cruelly strung along.

While they’ve gone out of their way to adapt most elements from the OG into the Remake, they’ve straight up eliminated many scenes that could be interpreted as Cloud’s romantic interest in Aerith. Instead, he seems much more interested in her knowledge as an Ancient than in her romantic affections. This is the path the Remake could be taking. Instead of Cloud being under the illusion of falling in love with Aerith, he’s under the illusion that the answer to his identity dilemma lies in Aerith’s Cetra heritage, when, of course, the answer was with Tifa all along.

Hiding Sephiroth’s existence during the Midgar arc isn’t necessary to telling the story of FF7, thus it’s been eliminated in the Remake. Similarly, pretending that Cloud and Aerith are going to end up together also isn’t necessary and would only confuse the player. Thus the LTD is no longer a part of the Remake.

If Aerith’s impact on Cloud has been diminished, what then is his arc in the Remake? Is it essentially just the same without the catalyst of Aerith? A cold guy at the start who eventually learns to care about others through the course of the game? Kind of, though arguably, this is who Remake!Cloud is all along, not just Cloud at the end of the Remake. Cloud is a guy who pretends to be a selfish jerk, but he deep down he really does care. He just doesn’t show this side of himself around people he’s unfamiliar with. So part of his arc in the Remake is opening up to the others, Barret, AVALANCHE and Aerith included, but these all span a chapter or two at most. They don’t straddle the entire game.

What is the throughline then? What is an area in which he exhibits continuous growth?

It’s Tifa. It’s his desire to fulfill his Promise to Tifa. Not just to protect her physically, but to be there for her emotionally, something that’s much harder to do. There’s the big moments like when he remembers the Promise in Ch. 4., his dramatic fist clench when he can’t stop Tifa from crying in Ch. 12, and in Ch. 13 when he watches Barret comfort Tifa. It’s all the flashbacks he has of her and the times he’s felt like he failed her. It’s the smaller moments where he can sense her nervousness and unease but the only thing he knows how to do is call her name. It’s all those times during battle, where Tifa can probably take care of herself, but Cloud has to save her because he can’t fail her again. All of this culminates in Tifa’s Resolution, where Tifa is in desperate need of comfort, and is specifically seeking Cloud’s comfort, and Cloud has no idea what to do. He hesitates because he’s clueless, because he doesn’t want to fuck it up, but finally, he makes the choice, he takes the risk, and he hugs her….and he kind of fucks it up. He hugs her too hard. Which is a great thing, because this arc isn’t anywhere close to being over. There’s still so much more to come. So many places this relationship will go.

We get a little preview of this when Tifa saves Cloud on the roof. Everything we thought we knew about their relationship has been flipped on its head. Tifa is the one saving Cloud here, near the end of this part of the Remake. Just as she will save Cloud in the Lifestream just before the end of the FF7 story as a whole. What does Tifa mean to Cloud? It’s one of the first questions posed in the Remake, and by the end, it remains unanswered.

Cloud’s character arc throughout the entire FF7 story is about his reconciling with his identity issues. This continues to develop through the Shinra Tower Chapters, but it certainly isn’t going to be resolved in Part 1 of the Remake. His character arc in the Remake — caring more about others/finding a way to finally comfort Tifa — is resolved in Ch. 14, well before rescuing Aerith, which is what makes her rescue feel so anticlimactic. The resolution of this external conflict isn’t tied to the protagonist’s emotional arc. This was not the case in the OG. I’m certainly not complaining about the change, but the Remake probably would have felt more satisfying as a whole if they hewed to the structure of the OG. Instead, it seems that SE has prioritized the clarity of the Remake series as a whole (leaving no doubt about where Cloud’s affections lie) over the effectiveness of the “climax” in the first entry of the Remake.

This is all clear if you only focus on the “story” of the Remake -- i.e., what the characters are saying and doing. If you extend your lens to the presentation of said story, and here I’m talking about who the game chooses to focus on during the scenes, how long they hold on these shots, which characters share the frame, which do not, etc --- it really could not be more obvious.

Does the camera need to linger for over 5 seconds on Cloud staring at the door after wishing Tifa goodnight? Does it need to find Cloud almost every time Tifa says or does anything so that we’re always aware of his watchfulness and the nature of his care? The answer is no until you realize this dynamic is integral to telling the story of Final Fantasy VII.

I don’t see how anyone who compares the Remake to the OG could come away from it thinking that the Remake series is going to reverse all of the work done in the OG and Compilation by having Cloud end up with Aerith.

Just because the ending seems to indicate that the events of the OG might not be set in stone, it doesn’t mean that the Remake will end with Aerith surviving and living happily ever after with Cloud. Even if Aerith does live (which again seems unlikely given the heavy foreshadowing of her death in the Remake), how do you come away from the Remake thinking that Cloud is going to choose Aerith over Tifa when SE has gone out of its way to remove scenes between Cloud and Aerith that could be interpreted as romantic? And gone out of its way to shove Cloud’s feelings for Tifa in the player’s face? The sequels would have to spend an obscene amount of time not only building Cloud and Aerith’s relationship from scratch, but also dismantling Cloud’s relationship with Tifa. It would be an absolute waste of time and resources, and there’s really no way to do so without making the characters look like assholes in the process.

Now could this happen? Sure, in the sense that literally anything could happen in the future. But in terms of outcomes that would make sense based on what’s come before, this particular scenario is about as plausible as Cloud deciding to relinquish his quest to find Sephiroth so that he can pursue his real dream of becoming at sandwich artist at Panera Bread.

It’s over! I promise!

Like you, I too cannot believe the number of words I’ve wasted on this subject. What is there left to say? The LTD doesn’t exist outside of the first disc of the OG. You'll only find evidence of SE perpetuating the LTD if you go into these stories with the assumption that 1) The LTD exists 2) it remains unanswered. But it’s not. We know that Cloud ends up with Tifa.

What the LTD has become is dissecting individual scenes and lines of dialogue, without considering the context of said things, and pretending as if the outcome is unknown and unknowable. If you took this tact to other aspects of FF7’s story, then it would be someone arguing that because there a number of scenes in the OG that seem to suggest that Meteor will successfully destroy the planet, this means that the question of whether or not our heroes save the world in the end is left ambiguous. No one does that because that would be utterly absurd. Individual moments in a story may suggest alternate outcomes to build tension, to keep us on our toes, but that doesn’t change the ending from being the ending. Our heroes stop Meteor. Cloud loves Tifa. Arguments against either should be treated with the same level of credulity (i.e., none).

It’s frustrating that the LTD, and insecurities about whether or not Cloud really loves Tifa, takes up so much oxygen in any discussion about these characters. And it’s a damn shame, because Cloud and Tifa’s relationship is so rich and expansive, and the so-called “LTD” is such a tiny sliver of that relationship, and one of the least interesting aspects. They’re wonderful because they’re just so damn normal. Unlike other Final Fantasy couples, what keeps them apart is not space and time and death, but the most human and painfully relatable emotion of all, fear. Fear that they can’t live up to the other’s expectations; fear that they might say the wrong thing. The fear that keeps them from admitting their feelings at the Water Tower, they’re finally able to overcome 7 years later in the Lifestream. They’re childhood friends but in a way they’re also strangers. Like other FF couples, we’re able to watch their entire relationship grow and unfold before our eyes. But they have such a history too, a history that we unravel with them at the same time. Every moment of their lives that SE has found worth depicting, they’ve been there for each other, even if they didn’t know it at the time. Theirs is a story that begins and ends with each other. Their is the story that makes Final Fantasy VII what it is.

If you’ve made it this far, many thanks for reading. I truly have no idea how to use this platform, so please direct any and all hatemail to my DMs at TLS, which I will then direct to the trash. (In all seriousness, I’d be happy to answer any specific questions you may have, but I feel like I’ve more than said my piece here.)

If there’s one thing you take away from this, I hope it’s to learn to ignore all the ridiculous arguments out there, and just enjoy the story that’s actually being told. It’s a good one.

#cloti

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halinski · 3 years

Text

I have a lot of feelings about Buck, like don't even ask, I will never be able to put it into words or anything other than abstract feelings in this world

I just know this, Eddie loves Buck and Buck is ace and Taylor is a relapse ✌️

"You've been shutting me out."

It's ironic, Eddie thinks, that these exact words come now 20 minutes after the black out, which felt like maybe the world had shut down. They were stuck mid rescue in an elevator and well, the world had been such a whirlwind since he'd been shot, and this emergency and that- but now it had stopped. And they'd succumbed to their fate, sat down on the dingy elevator floor, bathed in a red back up light, the building silent around them. Out there, somewhere, a siren rang, and Buck sighed.

It was deep and heavy, like he was Atlas lifting the world off his shoulders for a break, something like relief, like that first deep shuddering breath when your lungs finally recovered from a run. It was way too heavy for a young man, barely thirty, who was finding himself. Eddie knew that Buck had been fighting lately. Mostly himself, but also his parents and past, and pushing past the boundaries of life that had been set around him. Then there was the shooting and Buck had truly been nerve-wrecked, Eddie was far from blind, and hell, he'd been a little preoccupied with figuring himself out, and recovering, letting go and paving the way for a future with no regrets- but he'd seen Buck. It was harder to look away at this point.

But he had, because the world had been spinning and Buck had been putting enough pressure on himself, becoming an uncle, and taking care of Chris with full abandon, and therapy and... Taylor. Eddie hadn't wanted to push too hard.

Now that they were here though, just the two of them...

Buck's looking at him, that irritated lost puppy stare, vulnerable and defiant all at once, like Eddie was the first to venture into certain spaces that made up Evan Buckley. It was a deliberant choice, at this point. Back in the beginning, he'd just reached out a hand and had been surprised to find an anchor to the world he'd never knew existed, and now he ventured further deliberately.

It hadn't been a question, and even so Buck looked ready to fight him, a last defensive wall, before he caved and those murky blue eyes dropped away. Full submission.

Eddie waited, opening up the room and hoping for his partner in crime and rescue to fill it and yet... Buck only shrugged weakly.

"Things have been..." He started half-heartedly, losing motivation half-way through and concluding with a disheartened, "busy." Eddie watched him busy himself with the callouses on his palm, picking and rubbing, as if he could erase the last few weeks of running himself ragged.

There had definitely been a lot less mentions of calls to Dr. Copeland lately, a lot of unfocused Buck, who was making himself smaller, less noticeable and quieter. Not that he was actually quiet, Eddie knew Buck could fill the building with vibrance for the benefit of everyone around within the blink of an eye. But his true emotions dwindled, where they'd slipped out before in shadows of an action, or an obvious plea hidden in drowning eyes - now he was more... Calculated.

And even now, Buck lifted his head again under Eddie's scrutiny in square-jawed surrender as if that was that to this conversation, there was nothing more to be done.

Eddie was not convinced. They'd gotten way too far, the two of them, to slip back down to the trenches in this mud slide. Eddie had found solid footing in his own world, and he was unafraid right here, under private eyes with the one person in the world he trusted most. Solid enough that he could stare right back at the nervous energy Buck was holding back and dare it.

What are you so afraid?

A question he had asked himself many sleepless nights, especially after Carla's little "follow your heart" speech, after he'd laid in bed, heart racing, hearing shots and all he wanted had been to-

All he'd wanted was safety, and he could've kept lying to himself, could've deliriously shouted at the universe that he didn't know where he could ever feel safe again, and yet his own body and heart had long gone betrayed him that day in the hospital just before he'd walked out, explicitly stating that he had signed his heart off to Buck a year ago. He couldn't even call it betrayal, because there wasn't a single cell in his body that doubted his decision, that doubted Buck. He just doubted... Himself.

And maybe that he'd be enough for Buck right now, still. He was so far from his best self, and yet better and more stable than he'd ever been. So he sat and he stared back, arms resting easily in his lap, and challenged.

"Why do you keep going back to her?"

Goddammit, Eddie, way to sound like the most jealous jerk in the world.

Buck winced, eyebrows seeming to ask 'really?' and 'what do you mean?' all at the same time and then shrugging again.

"Taylor?" He asked simply, biding time probably.

"Yeah," Eddie assured, the hum of the emergency light their only company as he waited for Buck to reply.

"She's the only one who really wants me," he said, but the tone of his voice wasn't right. Unconvinced. The admission to easily offered to ring true.

Eddie can't stop the snort of disbelief from escaping him. From all that he's heard about the rust-haired reporter... He couldn't imagine what Buck saw in her. He'd seen the effect of her words on him, saw Buck fall in line behind her with a bowed head, saw how the hurt now flared in Buck's face at his open faced challenge to that statement.

A part of Eddie wanted to grab Buck by the face and scream at him, can't you see?!

You're wanted whole-heartedly by me.

But Buck wasn't his to love yet, not really.

"Look, I don't know what you see on the outside but... She wants me. She chose me and I- what more could I ask for, you know? I'm... I'm working on it. On myself. And for now- this is it," Buck said, rattling it down like he was trying to work it into a checklist.

Eddie just wanted to know what 'it' was supposed to mean. But he nodded, because in a way it did make sense. The same way Ana had made sense, even though she absolutely didn't and he was glad that was over and he could laugh over that foolish affair now.

People had questioned his change of heart when he broke up with her during recovery, but when they'd realized he truly wasn't heartbroken and backsliding, they had taken it in full stride. A little misstep, no great scars taken (well except for the new bullet hole in his shoulder but that didn't really have anything to do with Ana, it just happened to be a part of the same journey heading toward a joined destination) and here they were at a pit stop.

The silence simmered between them, just somewhere right before the cliff, staggering before the precipice toward their comfort zone. It had always taken a little leap from both sides to get them to where they were today. Buck usually happens to fall into his without thinking much, just because he was ready to throw himself in dangers way or alternatively, rushing in out of sense of duty, and making it seem so, so very easy. The way he had walked into Eddie's house and kitchen, stepped right into his space and said: 'i'm here and I'm owning my mistakes because you're worth it' or something of the sort. All Eddie remembered was the care and the genuine emotion he'd felt and... The realization that he'd finally found home.

"It just feels like... You smile less when it comes to her." Eddie still did't really want to say her name. He wasn't about to go out blaming Taylor for all the times Buck was sad- it was just an observation. It took a lot to get Buck to giving up his smile. He hated that Taylor accepted a watered down version of him; bright, bold, and boasting Buck.

"Do I?" Buck asked, a furrowed crease appearing between his eyebrows, truly confused.

Eddie nodded.

"Relationships are always a compromise," Buck offered with a half-hearted twitch of his shoulder. "You know me. We're both pretty stubborn. We butt heads."

Buck flicked his wrist for a useless gaze at his watch. It made them none the wiser about the state of their rescue.

"Yeah, I know you," Eddie retorted gently. "Though, you do tend to have a point."

He could come up with a million examples. Eager, always ready to show up and make it work, Buck. How many times had he burrowed himself into Eddie's skin already with truths that stuck like thorns until Eddie accepted them into his bones.

All he wanted was to return the favor

The man granted him a small, crooked smile. It was crazy how much so little could mean to one person. Desperate, wounded, isolated Buck.

How Eddie wanted to tell him explicitly 'dont do what I did, kid, don't fall back into and habits at first chance just because you don't think you're worth anything else'- there were reasons why it didn't work in the first place. He'd learned the exact same lesson with Shannon. And God, the way Eddie had dragged Buck with him back then, for safety, as he had ranted to him and searched for the answers, only to make the same damn mistake.

That wasn't his life.

And Taylor wasn't Buck's. And Eddie knew this.

Knew from what Buck had told about her the first time she had been around, and from all that Eddie had heard about Buck's relationship to sex. It had turned into a joke at the station, oh, Buck and his self-diagnosed sex addiction, but Eddie recognized that worried little steeple on Bobby's forehead when he reminded everyone that that one therapist wasn't licensed to work for them anymore. But it went way deeper, didn't it?

Eddie knew about self-destructive behaviors. Not intimately. But he'd learned a lot about PTSD lately and adjacent behaviors. Buck and sex was a self-destructive bomb if he'd ever seen one.

And it was no coincidence that Taylor and Buck's relationship centered around physical intimacy.

Buck showed up where he was wanted or needed. They all knew that.

"Just... Make sure you get what you want too," Eddie said. "Put yourself first."

Cue the bewildered, insecure facial expression. Now and then Eddie wished he could hide Buck from the world. Shield him. For now all he could do was stand by.

"Because you'll always be wanted. Make sure the reasons are right for you. It has to be good for you."

And Eddie wouldn't be leaning so far out the window if Buck were to look him in the eyes and say 'nah it's not like that' but all he did was get quiet. Eddie couldn't leave him sitting like that, rearranging himself to stretch his legs out before they fell asleep and casually leaning his shoulder against Buck's.

"You're a good guy, Buck. You deserve only the best.

If you wanted Buck to hear you sometimes you had to get straight to the point.

Maybe one day Eddie could conquer his fear and say what he really wanted to say.

When they were both ready.

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obaewankenobis · 3 years

Text

for forever — obi-wan kenobi

pairing(s) : obi-wan kenobi x reader ( mostly focused on obi-wan’s character, not the relationship because i am a hoe for this man )

summary : after the fall of the jedi order, you can finally be together. alternatively, obi-wan needs therapy/deserves happiness.

word count : 2.1k

warning(s) : character death, a bit of angst i guess but it’s mostly fluff.

notes : roughly edited so i apologize if things don’t make sense, i honestly came up with this on a whim and have No Idea what was going through my head when i wrote this. the povs also switch a lot but enjoy </3.

The sand bit at his fair skin, the grainy winds of Tatooine ruffled through his auburn locks, peppered with strands of grey, as Obi-Wan Kenobi stood, rigid and grief stricken. Kind wrinkles framed his eyes, eyes weighed down by exhaustion and desolation, the memory of a thousand wars flickering in the brilliant blue reflection. Without speaking, the woman looking at him from afar knew he had suffered a lifetime of hardship and grief, his aching heart not given a moment to mourn the loss of those closest to him. The mahogany cloak billowed around his body, covering the burnt, tattered tan robes he wore, as the wind picked up, signaling there would be little time before the twin suns set and it was much too dangerous to be outside. Snuggled between the lone man’s arms, swathed in soft cream blankets to shelter him from the cruel and unforgiving weather, was a baby. With sea blue eyes and the sparse tufts of pale blonde hair, the newborn was the mirror image of his father — that in itself was bittersweet.

Fire. That was all Obi-Wan could remember, the smoldering lava confining him and his enemy — once his friend, his brother — inside a tight circle of flashing blue and blazing rage. Now, things were blissfully quiet, as if the universe was trying to give him peace of mind after what it had taken from him. With heavy shoulders and hollow eyes, Obi-Wan was a shell of who he used to be: a great warrior and an excellent negotiator, all gone. His last mission was here, on Tatooine, to deliver the baby to his aunt and uncle: Owen and Beru Lars. Then, he would spend the rest of his years wasting away in a sandy prison, languishing in his defeat.

“Is it true?” The woman from afar, who had taken to staring at him from a distance, finally approached him, awaiting his answer with bated breath — Beru. Is it true? The words reverberated in his head, as the reality came crashing down upon him. The woman in front of him needed certainty, she needed answers, answers Obi-Wan could not give her.

“Yes,” came the final reply. Who knew a single word could hold such heavy meaning? Yes. An entire government who’s history spanned hundreds of years prior collapsed within a single day? Yes, that had happened. His religion, who he had devoted his entire life to and poured his soul into, gone? Yes, decimated without a sliver of mercy. The baby’s father, the hero of the galaxy, the crown jewel of the Jedi Order, killed? Yes, murdered in cold blood.

Beru finally brought her attention to the boy nestled within the robes of the man. “Is he . . . ” She seemed to only speak in half questions, as if finishing the sentence would make it a harsh reality, and leaving the query to hang heavy in the air would somehow leave her life in a fairytale.

“Yes,” he replied again, nearly choking on his words as the boy let out a tiny coo, as if he sensed they were discussing him.

“Oh.” There was a pause, a flicker of hesitation, before the woman decided to continue her pattern of half inquiries to form her own story. “May I?” With shaking arms, Beruu reached forward to take the boy from Obi-Wan’s grasp and welcome the baby into her own warm embrace. Part of him didn’t want to let the child go, for once he did he would have no real connection to his past life. Letting go of the boy meant letting go of everything, from his first steps in the Temple, to his meeting with his apprentice on Naboo, to the countless, sleepless nights in a war torn galaxy, it would all be gone. The woman’s tender smile and patient gaze was nearly patronizing, she was trying to sympathize with something she couldn’t possibly understand. No one could. A wave of fury washed over him, trapping him in a cage of his own emotions. Obi-Wan had never felt such an intensity roll over his body, preferring to keep his temperament a tranquil, emotionless pit. But this raw, uncontrollable fury was soon washed out with an even more overpowering bout of sorrow, shaking him with such force it made his knees wobble and threaten to give way. For over thirty years he was taught emotions were the enemy, by being detached and aloof he would survive, and look where that had gotten him.

Another soft cry from the baby jerked Obi-Wan back into the present moment, as his tiny arms reached for the woman, drawn to her sunny kindness and comforting aura; he realized a place to call home or a comforting shoulder to cry on was never something he could offer as the baby grew older. The woman made a small clicking sound with her tongue, looking up at Obi-Wan with an expectant gaze, and yet his grip on the baby remained the same. Although his mind seemed desperate to listen to logic, to reason, his body remained motionless, following the dull ache and painful longing in his heart. The battle between his mind and emotions lasted a fraction of a second, and at last, as it had time and time again, his mind won.

Like he had done all his life, selflessly sacrificing himself for thee good of the galaxy, he let go.

The woman took the baby in her arms, and began her journey back to her homestead, pausing just slightly to exchange one last parting smile and a word of comfort. “I think someone wants to see you, Master Kenobi.” With that, Beru began walking, a happy baby in her arms, to her husband, just as the sky merged from clear blue to salmon pink and hazy orange, the twin suns beginning to disappear over the horizon rapidly. As the light dimmed and dusk settled in, the man could make out the shadowy figures of Beru and Owen Lars, holding Luke Skywalker in unmoving content.

Here to see me? Obi-Wan frowned, reflecting on the woman’s words. This was not his home, his very identity was supposed to remain a secret, who could possibly want to see him? Unless . . .

No, that was impossible. He had mourned your death just as he had mourned every other Jedi’s death the moment their own clones turned against them, and he would not allow even a tiny sliver of hope to crawl its way back into his heart. Because in the end, he could only cling to the belief that things would get better, and false hope in such a desperate time would be his undoing.

—

You wondered how long you could stand in the shadows before he noticed you, standing awkwardly by his dewback as he delivered Padmé and Anakin's son to his new family. Like Obi-Wan, you had suffered the loss of everything and everyone you knew, your entire life destroyed in the span of a second, and all you could do was stand there, watching everything burn. The Jedi robes you once wore with pride, robes that were once a symbol of humility and hope across the galaxy, now put a priceless bounty on the head of anyone who wore them.

“Obi-Wan?” The name was dry in your throat, mouth parched and lips cracked due to the harsh Tatooine heat.

Though he was always subtle, you could see his entire demeanor change, the way his shoulders became straighter, the way his hands, once balled up into fists of worry, were now relaxed and laying loosely at his side. In a moment, he had turned around and closed the distance between the two of you, caramel boots growing dull and scuffed as he stepped through the unforgiving desert surface beneath him. “You’re alive,” his voice came out in a hushed, cautious tone, disbelief still tainting the edges. “I thought — Yoda and I — the only ones left — ” his words grew more jumbled with each passing phrase that left his lips.

“But I’m here. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere,” you cut him off, the calm gentleness of your tone making him stop in his tracks. Slowly, each movement pained and deliberate, you stepped closer, inching your way forward until he was right in front of you. Neither of you could look away; with the Jedi Order dead, there was no reason to hide in secrecy now.

—

To realize he was not alone was comforting, but to know it was you he could seek company in was freeing. In that moment, with the distance so close between your bodies, Obi-Wan dared not breathe, his eyes fluttering shut as he let out the smallest of breaths — this was all he had ever wanted, and still, despite everything, it was something he believed he could never have.

He wouldn’t allow himself to believe it. Not after he spent all those years repressing the desire that burned so deeply within him it began to rot within his heart, trapped with no release in sight. At one point, he had every reason to deny the yearning stirring within him, but now? Now there was no war, no Council, no code, no nothing to stop himself from unleashing decades of pent up turmoil within him.

And stars, it was suffocating.

He couldn’t do this.

“You know you don’t have to push me away any more.” A suggestion more than a factual statement; voice thick and barely audible.

Was this a dream, a fantasy meant to be chased after in his sleep? Or some sick, twisted premonition the Force was trying to convey to him? So many nights he had spent languishing in his loneliness, dazed in a delusion that remained but a figment of his imagination.

“I know.”

“What?”

“The Jedi are no more. We . . . We don’t have to pretend we don’t have — ” The words were bittersweet on his tongue; even with no one there to watch and scold him, he could not betray his way of life so easily. That everyone I have ever loved, I have watched die in my arms? And throughout all of that, I have never been tempted by the dark side, but if I lost you, I would be afraid of my own morality? Those were not easy thoughts to formulate into a coherent sentence — there were no words Obi-Wan could say that would even begin to describe how he felt.

Instead, in a tender gesture of vulnerability, he reached out through the Force, and all at once it came crashing down on him.

This feeling . . . it was all consuming, and he was drowning, struggling to keep his head above water and not surrender to its frosty depths. He was submerged in an endless stretch of icy ocean water so frigid and numbing, that he felt nothing and everything all at once. It was terrifying to think — and let you know — you held so much power over him, but in the same instance, he felt at peace, like a weight he had dragged around for decades was finally lifted off his shoulders. I love you, rang as bright as the city lights on Coruscant and as clear as a Nabooian waterfall. I love you.

“I love you, too.” He heard your voice in a soft whisper, swelled up with emotion as you took in everything. Chills erupted down his spine; he couldn't quite tell if it was from the inky blanket being tugged across the sky as dusk descended into nightfall, or if it was the four word phrase that left your lips.

—

“I cannot live without you,” Obi-Wan let out a shaky exhale, breath fanning across your face just slightly, your foreheads making contact in the lightest movements. You felt dizzy, in a dreamlike trance, for you had never been this close to him. You could see every horror he had survived in his glassy blue eyes, notice every perfect imperfection that blemished his skin and made him all the more real. In a moment, his face had become blurred as he closed the distance and finally, finally, his lips were on yours, and you connected in a long awaited, eternally sought after kiss. You could feel his hands, calloused but gentle, cupping your face, as your own fingers found their way to the nape of his neck, the kiss grew more fervent and needy, every rule you had ever lived by crumbling as you melted deeper into his touch.

After a long moment, you broke away, breathless, your face still tantalizingly close to his.

“I will never leave you, Obi-Wan,” your lips parted in a determined vow, a promise you would keep to your dying breath. The Jedi were dead, and yet you never felt more alive.

#obi-wan x reader #obi wan x reader #obi-wan kenobi x reader #obi-wan kenobi x you #obi wan kenobi x reader #obi wan kenobi #star wars #angst #probably should edit this #obi-wan needs a hug #and some therapy too #post order 66 #revenge of the sith #prequel trilogy #star wars prequels #one shot

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tenspontaneite · 3 years

Text

Peace Is A Journey (Chapter 20/?)

In which Callum and Ezran finally confront an awful truth.

(Chapter length: 15k. Ao3 link)

Preword: this chapter begins immediately after the end of the Callum, Ezran, and Rayla scene of chapter 19, and builds on mood and context cues from it. If you’ve not reread that scene recently I’d recommend at least scanning its tail end before reading this chapter.

Warnings: Grief, heaviness of mood and theme, general sadness.

---

‘Something’s wrong’, Ezran had said, and: ’Something’s been wrong a while’. And for all that it was true, Callum couldn’t bring himself to think about what that surely meant. He couldn’t bring himself to talk. So he didn’t. Ezran didn’t, either.

They lingered wordless for all the time that Rayla was gone. It would have been silent if not for the shriek and violence of the winds. Callum stared out into the blizzard and felt strangely dizzy as he watched the snow, tracking the twists and spirals of its motion until the brightness of its white burned behind his eyes.

It was less bright now than it had been. Evening was coming, and the sun was starting to go down. His gut twisted as he thought of that, thought of Rayla, out in the storm and the ever-encroaching cold. For once, he didn’t try to tamp down on the worry. He didn’t even try to soothe the anxiety quivering in his fingers. It was better than the alternative.

Ezran was too quiet. Not in a dragon-dazed way – not anymore. He was too alert for that, even clutching the egg to his chest. His eyes were hooded, brows drawn together into a tight furrow. He looked thoughtful, but not in any sort of happy way. His fingers were tight on the shining eggshell of the Dragon Prince, and they trembled.

Callum was aware of the tension building bit-by-bit in his brother’s frame. He knew the signs of Ezran getting worked up about something, getting upset by something. He should have asked. He should have asked, but – he couldn’t. It was like a vice clamped around his throat whenever he so much as considered it. So he sat there in ever-more painful silence, not asking, and not thinking.

He didn’t think about the flags lowered on their posts atop Verdorn, surrounded by the flickering of countless ceremonial flames. He didn’t think about what Rayla had said, before she left. He just considered the state of the fire, and tersely added a few sticks to it, and deliberately did nothing more than worry about how long she’d take to return.

He didn’t ask, and he didn’t speak, and he tried not to think. But even that wasn’t enough, in the end.

Eventually, Ezran’s head jerked up towards the storm, uncanny-bright eyes fixed unerringly in the direction of the ledge. Callum’s stomach churned, torn between relief and unease at the sign, and he stared as well. He stared for a good few minutes before Rayla appeared, a shadow darkening upon the face of the blizzard, cloak and scarves whipping behind her in formless silhouettes of grey. And then she was close enough, stepping away from the ledge, that he saw her in full: shoulders dusted with snow, face wreathed in cloth, and shivering.

He was on his feet and scrambling out of the covers in a second, heart beating shallowly in his throat. His pulse felt thin and thready as he approached her, fearful in some way he didn’t want to put thought to. Instead he rushed to her, tugging on her cloak, leading her stumbling into the conjoined lights of the fire and the egg. “You’re back,” he murmured to her, instead of thinking about what had put the tremor into his fingers, or the look of dread into her eyes. He opened his mouth to say something else, but the words wouldn’t come. It was all too senseless.

“…I’m back.” She repeated, and her voice was very quiet. She wouldn’t quite meet his eyes. Her shoulders, when he went to lift the snow-strewn cloak from them, were hunched and tense. Whatever she’d hoped to escape with her reckless trip out had evidently followed her back. Callum swallowed, and set the cloak aside by the fire, and reached out to pull the scarf down from her face, to tug the wood-harness from her shoulder, to busy himself with anything and everything he could…

Ezran hadn’t spoken. Hadn’t greeted her, or stood, or done anything but stare at her silently, hands still bracketed around a stolen Prince’s egg. That silence was a chill, like an encroaching frost at Callum’s back. The hairs at the back of his neck rose, but he ignored that too. His fingers shook as he put the new firewood aside, and the snow-sodden outer scarf, and then, then-

“Callum,” Rayla murmured to him, still quiet. It was almost chiding, in a gentle way. An admonishment. As though she knew as well as he did that he was prevaricating. As though she knew exactly what he wasn’t thinking of, and was too tired to do the same.

She looked tired. She looked defeated. Slowly, with a cold and breathless dread, Callum let his hands fall away from her scarf, hanging uselessly by his sides. He looked at her, and saw the way she looked back at him. He opened his mouth, but couldn’t say anything. Without quite meaning to, he stepped away, fingers trembling on empty air.

It was only then, in that fraught silence and space, that Ezran finally moved. He straightened – not all at once, but slowly, like it was something he had to work himself up to. When he finally looked up at her, there was something frighteningly decisive about it. Something irrevocable. Looking at him then was like watching the thud of a coffin set down upon its pyre, with nothing left but to wait for the flame. His eyes settled upon her with such a weight that she flinched as though struck.

She met Ezran’s gaze, just for a second. Then she looked away. Her eyes closed, and her hands curled into fists at her sides. When she glanced across at his brother again, there was a resignation to her expression. Dread, too, and a guilt grievous enough it made his breath freeze just to look at her. “Ez?” She voiced, finally, so quietly he almost didn’t hear it.

“Rayla.” His voice trembled around her name. Callum watched, frozen in place, as his brother stared up at her, taking in a long shaky breath as though to brace himself. Finally, unsteadily, he said “I – I’m pretty sure – I think you’ve got something you need to say. Something you’ve needed to say for – maybe a long time.” His eyes, too blue, fixed on hers. He almost seemed to be daring her to deny it. Pleading, even. “Don’t you?”

Her breath shuddered, and he was close enough to hear it. She looked stricken, and couldn’t quite seem to manage to speak. Instead, she nodded, expression tight.

A thread of panic wove its way into Callum’s heart, just enough to thaw his tongue. “I – shouldn’t you be resting?” He asked, a little desperately. It sounded like a plea, even to his own ears. “You just – you just got in from the blizzard. You should sit down, warm up-“

Her hand settled on his shoulder, and his words froze on his breath. She didn’t say anything, just looked at him, but that was enough. He went still again, and the pain in her eyes became just that little bit more terrible. “I’m sorry,” she said, lowly, face drawn like the words hurt her. “I…I kept trying, but…”

Ezran stared up at them, jaw set, skin tinted blue and pale in the dragonlight, the colour making him look starkly ill. It put an unsettling cast on his expression now, wan and full of dread. His eyes were too wide. “I’m right, aren’t I.” He said, and it wasn’t a question. Rayla watched him, painfully resigned, and Callum was still frozen. “You’ve been hiding something. Something important. I just – I keep feeling it, all the time, like you’re guilty, and it’s-“ he stopped, and swallowed, and took a fortifying breath. “You keep feeling like you’re doing something wrong. And what you were saying, earlier-“

“Ez,” Rayla started, but Ezran was talking now, his amassed tension and fear bubbling out of him, like he was afraid to stop now that he’d started. Callum’s eyes flickered unwillingly between them, heart beating sick and fearful, knowing he had to stop them somehow; but he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, like some dark shade had stolen his voice again.

“You keep feeling guilty,” His breath hitched, half way through the words. “A-and – and I’ve been trying not to think about it, but – it’s always, always whenever – it’s about dad,” She flinched, stricken, and he gestured at her as if she’d made some very telling point- “See? It’s – whenever we talk about him, or – or you see him in Callum's book, or anything – you flinch, or you go quiet, and – and you feel so horrible and guilty and I’ve been trying not to think about it but-“

“Ez,” Callum croaked out, finally, almost desperate to – to stop him talking, to make him stop, to take that awful expression off of Rayla’s face and the shaking from his brother’s shoulders and the tight, terrible pit of certainty from his belly.

Ezran trembled, but he didn’t stop. There were tears pooling at the corners of his eyes, but he didn’t stop. Instead, he looked straight ahead at Rayla and- “I’ve been trying not to think about it,” he repeated, slower, and halting, the words thick with half-shed tears. “But it keeps – and you're not saying anything, and I know you’re hiding something from us, and earlier you said ‘my parents might be dead’, just like that, like ours are - are –“ He trembled, white-lipped. “…And while you were gone I just kept thinking, and – I. I just…" he wiped his eyes on his sleeve, and looked at her. Finally, waveringly, he asked “Rayla? What happened to your other wrist binding?”

She went still. Her eyes closed, almost in time with the harsh rasp of Callum’s breath as he inhaled, because – he remembered that she’d had two at first, of course he did, he didn’t forget details like that. But he hadn’t thought of it, not since he learned what the bindings meant, and that – that was a little too much. Too much to avoid, too much for him to push down with all the other things he’d been trying so hard to ignore, just – too much.

He found himself staring at her, heart in his throat, utterly desperate for any sign, anything, anything at all that would put this horrible thought away, anything that would mean he wouldn’t have to think about it, it wouldn’t be happening, it wouldn’t be real…

Instead, she opened her eyes, and as she looked at them, he saw that they were bright with tears. “I’m sorry.” She whispered, voice choked, and – he was shaking his head, slowly, as if it would change anything- “I’m so sorry.”

“No,” he said, unbidden, the word slipping numbly from his lips as Ezran's expression crumpled. “No, no, Rayla, you can’t – you’re not saying-"

His brother’s arms closed so tightly around the egg that his hands overlapped each other, fingers curling into his sleeves tight and shaking. “Rayla,” his voice was barely a whisper, until it wasn’t. His face contorted with despair. “Just say it. Tell me!”

Her breath shuddered out. When her mouth opened, Callum felt some abortive impulse to stop her, to halt her, but- “I’m sorry.” She said again, utterly miserable and utterly defeated. “He – King Harrow-"

“You can't, “ he repeated, numbly, and her shoulders shook.

“He’s dead.” She forced out, all at once, and then there was no taking the words back. Callum froze, motionless, as Ezran went still with him. For that first, terrible second, it was like the world had halted around them. And then-

Ezran hunched over the egg and wailed. The sound of it was terrible, thin and choked with anguish, and it spun around and around and around in Callum’s head until he was dizzy with it, until his heart was pounding and his vision swimming – he stumbled backwards, and fell, and wasn’t nearly coherent enough to be thankful he’d missed the fire. He just fell, and it was the tears stuttering loose on impact that made him realise he was crying.

“Callum-“ Rayla was saying, voice choked, but he could barely hear her, and his eyes were too full of tears to see much of anything.

He didn’t mean to do it; there suddenly wasn’t enough room in his mind for anything so coherent as intention. But he did it anyway: he pulled himself unsteadily to the side, over the cold stone, reaching out blindly until his fingers hooked in the fabric of his brother’s jacket and pulled him close. Ezran was crying, and Callum had never heard him sob like that, not once, not ever.

A second later, he processed what he’d done, and tugged all the tighter. It returned some sense to his head, if only a little, to blink until his eyes were clear enough to see, to pull his brother closer until the two of them were braced and shaking around the shape of the dragon egg between them. Its light was flickering and stuttering now in time with Ezran’s sobs, as if it was crying with him. Maybe it was, with that connection it had to him. The unborn dragon whose mother had – had ordered it, and he might be crying too.

It hit him then, really hit him, staring through wet eyelashes at the egg of the Dragon Prince. A thin, wounded sound rose and shuddered from his throat, and he hardly noticed Ezran shifting to bury his face in his chest. He was too busy lifting a hand to his face, trembling horribly, and trying to wipe away enough tears that the world might make sense again. He’s dead, Callum thought to himself, numbly. There was no chasing that thought away now. No denying it. If there’d been any hope of denying it, it had passed as soon as he remembered the binding that wasn’t there.

Remembering the binding made him remember Rayla, just enough for him to lift his head, to start noticing things outside himself and his brother and the sobs that passed between them. She’d fallen to her knees, crumpled in on herself, and she was saying something. It was hard to focus past the numb shock, but a few seconds later, he managed: she was saying “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” over and over again.

Callum wiped his eyes, but a moment later they were full of tears again. He couldn’t seem to stop it. His shoulders hitched and his breath shuddered, and there weren’t any words in the world fit to respond to that senseless apology. What was she saying sorry for? He couldn’t find any sense in it. Through the haze of his thoughts, it seemed more like noise than speech, as meaningless as the ceaseless shriek of the gale.

He stared dully at the blurry ground, feeling his shoulders hitch with his uneven breaths. Ezran curled into his side, and Callum clutched back almost reflexively, mind spinning around half-coherent thoughts. I didn’t want it to be true, he thought, a little senselessly, a little despairingly. He’d thought about the chilling skill of Moonshadow elves at Full Moon, hadn’t he? When she told him about Viatori, and how an entire team had slipped seamlessly through one of the greatest strongholds in the kingdom, he’d thought about it.

The memories just kept chasing themselves around in his head. When he’d tried to reach – reach his dad, when Viren had stolen his voice, the assassins were already there. Too powerful, too ruthless. The Crownguard were supposed to be the most elite warriors the Kingdom had to offer. The Crownguard had foiled countless assassination attempts in the past. The Crownguard were supposed to protect them.

The Crownguard’s bodies had littered the tower floor.

Even then. Even before Callum fled, they’d been strewn everywhere, crumpled and lifeless, right outside the final sanctum of King Harrow. Even without seeing the memorial flames, or the flags lowered for a kingdom’s grief…that had been enough. That had been enough, deep down, for Callum to know how that night had ended. He’d just…

He hadn’t wanted to believe it.

His fingers tightened around Ezran’s shoulder, crumpling the fabric. He could feel the wet of tears where his brother’s face was pressed into his chest, beginning to soak through all the layers of cloth. “…How did it happen?” He found himself asking, hollowly, the words not even feeling like his own. Rayla’s head lifted, though, so he supposed he must have spoken them. She was curled in on herself, miserable, looking so guilty he didn’t know how to respond to it. Emotion churned and twisted in his chest, thick and choking. “…Do you know?” He wondered, then, the taste of the words unbearably bitter. “Do you know how it happened?”

Her mouth opened and closed once, helplessly. Ezran’s head lifted just enough to regard her out of one bleary eye, watching. Listening. “…I,” she tried, and then shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t – I wasn’t there. I just…” She clutched around her right wrist, fingers visibly trembling. “We were just out of the city, when this…”

“It came off.” He guessed, dully, and her chin jerked down in an aborted nod. “And you knew. Right from the start, you knew.”

She looked away. “I kept trying to find a way to tell you.” Her voice was quiet. “I just…couldn’t.”

There was another twist in his gut, then. It felt almost angry. What gave her the right to be so miserable, when it wasn’t her dad? What business did she have being so guilty, when it wasn’t even her fault? The bitterness of it rose in his throat, sharp and acidic, and for a second – for a second, he wanted to be furious with her for being – for not – he wasn’t sure. But…it didn’t happen. Not really. Something burned acrid in his chest, but it wasn’t quite anger. He wasn’t sure what it was.

“…Why not?” Ezran asked, in the first words he’d spoken since – since she’d said it. There was an edge to them. Like he, maybe, had managed a little more anger than Callum had.

“I-“ She hesitated, so miserable, and shook her head again. “I don’t know.”

“You ‘don’t know.’” Ezran repeated, quiet and bitter. “It’s been over a week, Rayla. There were so many times you could have said something.“

“I know.” Her expression crumpled.

“You could have told us. You should have told us!” Ezran’s shoulders heaved with the weight of the breath that shuddered through him, close enough that Callum felt every second of it.

Again, with a choking edge of shame: “I know.”

Ezran’s breath hitched then. “He’s our dad, Rayla,” He said, and his eyes were welling up again with tears. “And he’s dead. Don’t – didn’t we deserve to know that?”

She shook as if every word were an actual physical blow, and – Callum could see, just looking at her, how much she was castigating herself. How much self-loathing she was tearing at herself with. He understood her too deeply to bear, and had to look away. He clutched tightly at his brother and said nothing. “You did,” She managed, and he could hear the sickening guilt in her voice. He shuddered. “I’m sorry. You deserved to know the truth. But…”

“But what, Rayla?” Ezran demanded, with a little more of that anger, and Callum couldn’t help but see the tears falling thickly down his face.

She didn’t try to defend herself. Just hunched in miserably, and…and that, he thought, was enough of that.

“Ez.” Callum murmured, close above his brother’s head, and felt the shudder under his hands. It hadn’t quite been a chide, just…a reminder, maybe. Of what, he wasn’t entirely sure. But it quieted him anyway, and he turned his face away from Rayla again.

“He’s dead, Callum.” Ezran mumbled brokenly, straight into the wool of Callum’s sweater. “Dad’s dead.”

It hurt to hear. It hurt so much. It probably always would. Thinking about mom had never really stopped hurting, after all. And – that was what had happened, wasn’t it? It had happened again. He’d lost another parent. He’d lost another beloved part of his increasingly broken family. Callum closed his eyes, and leaned forwards to press his face into his brother’s hair. The pain in his chest was sharp-edged and cutting, like breathing around broken glass.

He exhaled a shaky, shuddering breath there, feeling Ez tremble against him, and when he looked up again he saw that Rayla had a hand half-lifted towards them, as if she wanted to reach out, but didn’t know if she could. Part of him, very quietly, wanted to be angry with her. The rest of him recognised that there was no point, and just felt tired instead. It wasn’t her fault in any way that mattered, and she was already mad enough at herself for all three of them.

He regarded her wearily for a second, then jerked his chin in a vague sort of ‘come here’ gesture, uncertain he had the energy for anything more. She met his eyes, uncertain until he nodded at her again, and then she crept hesitantly forward. She was reaching out to Ezran’s shoulder when he lifted his head to look at her, as if he’d seen her coming even with his eyes covered.

Ezran looked at her, bleary-eyed through tears, and for a second looked wary and closed-off. Like he didn’t want her to touch him, and might push her away. But then he sighed, and shifted very slightly towards her, and she put her hand down on his shoulder.

That very instant, his expression crumpled. He sobbed, breath hitching into it alarmingly fast. Rayla flinched and seemed about to pull back when Ez turned and hooked the fingers of one hand into her sleeve, tugging at it until she stumbled closer. “Ezran-“ She tried, but he was shaking his head, tears welling so thickly in his eyes that their faint glow refracted through the water, bright and glittering and pale.

“I know,” The words tumbled from his lips, like he couldn’t help it, like he was answering some desperate plea she’d never spoken. “I know, I know why you couldn’t tell us, I – I knew even before you – I just…” He pulled at her sleeve, again, until she shifted closely enough to press a little against his side. A little against Callum’s, too. “It’s not your fault. I’m just…” He shuddered, and then turned fully away from Callum to embrace her this time. “I’m just…it really hurts.”

Her expression as she looked down at Ez had gone so open and vulnerable it hurt to look at. “Ez…” Her voice was thick, and the next time she blinked, it shook tears loose. One of them ran so closely along the outward edge of her pigment it seemed almost to frame it.

“You didn’t want to hurt us.” Ezran mumbled into her shoulder, and a strange spasm of emotion shook over her as Callum watched. Her expression wavered. “You knew it would. You knew it’d have to happen sometime. But…you just – you couldn’t.”

Her shoulders trembled. “You deserved to know.” She said, quiet, still with that edge of shame. “I should have told you.”

“You didn’t want to hurt us.” Callum repeated his brother’s words, quiet, and her head jerked up to look at him. That open, terrible vulnerability was hard to see on her. She always tried so hard to stay composed, and now… “I…understand that.”

He did understand, was the thing. He understood too well. He understood that she cared about them, and knew this would hurt them, and hadn’t been able to bear being the one to hurt them like that. Not until it had been too long, and too late, to avoid any longer. He’d been avoiding it too, after all. Of course he understood.

“I should have told you,” she said again, like she couldn’t get away from it, and he shook his head slowly.

“We already knew.” He admitted aloud, for the first time. “We just…didn’t want to face it, any more than you did.” How many times had he avoided asking? How many times had he deliberately not thought about it? How many times had Ezran deliberately not thought about it, after catching that spark of guilt through Rayla’s skin?

She closed her eyes for a moment, displacing more tears. “I’m sorry.” She said then, instead of I should have told you. “I’m so, so sorry…” Ez burrowed a little more tightly into her sweater, and said nothing.

Callum looked at her, expression so full of shame, the tear-trails on her cheeks glittering in the dragonlight, and his chest hurt somehow even more than it already did. It felt like it would choke him, it hurt so much. He leaned against her, breath trembling, and felt the silent hitch and shake of her shoulders against him. “For what?” He asked quietly, helplessly, when he could finally muster the words. “Rayla, none of this was your fault.”

“I should have told you.” She said, yet again, and when he shook his head at her, “I should have done something.”

That lifted his head further, to look at her better. To see the guilt in her eyes as she averted them from him. “Done what?” For a moment, he had no idea what she could be talking about. But then-

“I should have stopped it.” Her voice was quiet, and it trembled.

…Oh.

Callum looked away, down at the egg bracketed now between all three of them. “You tried.” He said in the end, very softly. “You tried, Rayla.”

She shook her head, violently. “I didn’t-“

“We were there. You tried.” The last word caught in his throat, and then he was crying again, the tears hot on his cheeks in the moment before the storm chilled them. “On that roof, you tried – you told him to stop, to call off the mission. We told him about Zym, but he just…” He shook his head as if in an echo of hers, more slowly. That had been ‘Runaan’, right? Someone who was basically family to her? And she’d fought him. “He didn’t listen.”

Rayla was silent, then. When he looked at her, she seemed struck, eyes wide. She was so pale as to look a little ill.

“He didn’t listen.” Callum repeated, heart hurting. “You had to fight him, Rayla, so he wouldn’t come after us. You tried. You really, really tried, and-“ She was shaking her head again, as if she wanted to interrupt him, as if she wanted to deny it, so he spoke a little louder and a little faster- “And you said! You offered, when I came back from the tower, to – go up there with me, and try again, but-“ He shook, distress making him dizzy, making his throat tighten with nausea. “I said no.”

Maybe he’d already known then that it was too late. After seeing the fallen Crownguard strewn across the stone, after seeing the assault at the tower’s innermost sanctum…maybe he’d known there was no sense in going back. No matter how much he wanted to. But most of all…

“I said no.” He repeated, quiet, and looked down at the egg. Rayla seemed shocked silent, watching him as he spoke, and Ezran had lifted his head to stare across as well. “I said – I don’t remember what I said. But Zym was what mattered the most, and I knew it, and you knew it, and-“ His voice broke. “-And I said no.”

She flinched at that, as if he’d found some way to take the pain of that knowledge and cut her with it, as if she were like Ezran, and could feel it keen as a knife through her skin. As though he’d heard the thought, his brother shifted, blinking miserably up at him. He reached out, and the fingers of one hand hooked into Callum’s sleeve.

“You were right.” He said, quiet and unhappy. Another tear slipped from the corner of his eye. “If we get Zym home, we – we could stop this, for everyone. But…”

Callum reached back, clasping his brother’s hand. “Ez…”

“I wish it hadn’t happened. I wish it – didn’t have to be like this.” His voice twisted into something thick and tearstained, and Callum had a moment to feel ever-more terrible at the sight of the misery on Ezran’s face before he turned his face back into Rayla’s sweater. She hardly seemed to know what to do about it, which would have maybe been funny under literally any other circumstance. Eventually, after some hovering, she curled one arm around his brother’s shoulders, squeezing gently. Her right hand; bereft of any and all assassins’ binds.

“Me too.” She said to him, very quietly, eyes shadowed with pain. He wondered if she was maybe thinking about her parents, too. How they might be dead after all, and in such a terrible way, with no way of her knowing for certain what had become of them. The only way to find out now would be to tear the words from Lord Viren himself, and that-

Callum’s throat tightened, and he shuddered. Discomfort and unease joined the churn of emotion in his stomach, and he felt ill.

He couldn’t help but remember some of the things that Harrow – dad – had said to him, in that last meeting. I’ve done terrible things, and I am responsible for some of those wrongs, and what’s done cannot be undone.

Dad had died full of regret, but determined to face the consequences for the choices he’d made. He’d been so convinced that his death was the only way forwards. He hadn’t even tried to leave, despite knowing full well that the assassins were coming for him. He hadn’t even tried.

Callum had tried. He’d tried to convince him. Tried to reach him, to tell him the truth about the egg so maybe that would change his mind. But it hadn’t been enough, with Viren in the way. And he’d said no when Rayla offered to go with him back into the tower. And now…Harrow was dead.

What else was it he’d said? Take care of your brother? Callum sniffed, and shuffled closer until he could hug Ezran too, squashed against Rayla’s side and the shell of the dragon egg.

“I wonder if he knew.” Ezran said, then, very quietly. The words were still muffled by fabric.

Startled out of his thoughts, Callum looked down at him. “…What?” He asked, bewildered.

“I wonder if dad knew,” Ezran clarified, head lifting a little. The rims of his eyes were ruddy from crying. “About Zym’s egg.”

‘What makes you think he doesn’t already know?’ He remembered, and felt the taste of bile rising in his throat. He shook his head, violently. “He couldn’t.” Callum denied, helplessly. He wanted to say that Harrow wouldn’t have let that happen, but – at the very least, he’d thought Viren had killed the Dragon Prince, right? And he’d let that happen. Throat tight, he went on “If he’d known, he would have – he’d have done something. He could have stopped the attack.”

Ezran didn’t say anything, just blinked at him, slow and unhappy. Eventually: “I hope you’re right.”

He wished he could just ask him, find out the truth – but that was one of the terrible things about this, wasn’t it? He couldn’t, because Harrow was dead. There’d never be any talking to him again. There’d never be any words, or answers, or anything from him again.

Callum’s breath hitched, and then – a second later, he felt a memory hit so hard it was almost like a body-blow. On reflex, he scrambled to check his belt, even knowing there was no sense in it at all, not ten days and however-many changes of clothing too late. A small, wounded noise emerged from his throat, high and upset.

They were looking at him immediately, both reflexively concerned. “Callum?” Rayla spoke, worried, and he squeezed his eyes shut, breaths coming fast with distress.

“I – I had a letter,” He managed, throat so tight he was surprised he could breathe at all. He could feel tears rising in his eyes again, hot and stinging, a pit of anguish taking root in the middle of his chest. “I had a letter, from him, he gave it to me before – the last time I saw him. I was – he said to read it, when he was-“ He stopped, and couldn’t finish, a sound like a gasp choking its way out of him. ‘You’ll know when', he remembered, and – it hurt like a hand had clasped around his heart and twisted-

Ezran’s voice was tentative. “…A letter?”

“It was important.” He recalled, heartbroken, breaths coming too-fast. “It was important, it was – it was supposed to be his last letter to me, but I – I must have dropped it, I don’t-“ He stopped, and tried to think. He’d not had it when they left the castle, or surely they’d have noticed it when they were taking stock of what they had. So, sometime before that… “I must have lost it in the castle.” He recognised, numbly. ��When we were running from Claudia, or-“ His eyes flickered across at Rayla.

“Or when you were running from me.” She recognised, with a flash of regret over her face.

He buried his face in his hands, the fabric of the gloves too scratchy on his salt-scoured skin. “I can’t believe it.” He muttered brokenly. “I lost it. His last letter, and – and I lost it.”

Ezran couldn’t seem to find the words to respond to that; there was nothing from his direction but silence. Rayla, though – “I’m sorry, Callum.” She said quietly, and he felt a hand settle on his shoulder. “That’s awful.”

He lowered his hands, just enough to look at her. “I lost it.” He repeated, quieter, and…abruptly, felt so overdrawn with misery that something in him crumpled into silence. His tears stopped, as though some deep well within him had suddenly, finally run dry.

“Maybe someone picked it up.” Ezran said, then, but his voice was very distant. Callum looked at him, and found him blank-faced and numb. Hollow-eyed, like this had been the last straw for him too. One final tragedy, to make things just that little bit too terrible to bear. “Maybe one day we’ll be able to read it.” Despite the words, there was no hint of optimism or hope in his voice. It rang too hollow for that.

Callum shook his head, just a little, and didn’t speak. It was possible, he supposed, but…not terribly likely. And after everything…

He didn’t say anything, the hollowness in his chest expanding until it seemed to steal the voice from him. Ezran didn’t speak either, and didn’t move, still pressed half-into Rayla’s side. She abided by their empty silence, and sat with them, shoulder-to-shoulder, while the fire crackled and the egg’s light flickered and the storm tore around the mountainside. The quiet that held between them was heavy with a bleak, oppressive sort of lethargy.

Eventually, Ezran drew back away from Rayla, and back from Callum as well, until he was sitting up with their hands still trailing back from his shoulders. He hefted the egg fully into his lap again, fingers tightening around the bright shell. His eyelids fluttered, in that familiar way, and his expression twisted as though listening to something painful.

Callum looked at him, and managed to find the energy to speak. “…Is he alright?”

Ez exhaled quietly. “He’s upset.” He admitted. “Because we’re all upset, and I can’t…I can’t stop it from going through me to him. I’m feeling me being unhappy, and you two being unhappy, so he’s feeling it too. He’s so young. He doesn’t know what to do with it all.”

His chest hurt, thinking of Ez having to deal with the grief and turmoil of two other people on top of his own. It wasn’t fair. But he wasn’t sure there was anything to do about it.

“I don’t even know what to do now.” Ezran voiced, soft. “What are we supposed to do, Callum?”

He looked at the egg. “Well,” He started, then trailed off. He shook his head. “I…guess nothing has really changed.” His voice sounded empty even to his own ears. “We’ve got to stop the war. We’ve got to get the Dragon Prince home.” Home, to the Dragon Queen who’d ordered Harrow and Ezran be killed.

Ezran’s eyes returned to the eggshell, reflecting its searing light. “…Yeah.” He said, in the end. “I guess so.”

If he thought anything else, he didn’t say it. Just pulled the egg closer, and leaned in against Callum’s side. He looked exhausted. Drawn-out and weary, like the day and its toil and its grief had taken too heavy a toll on him. It wasn’t a surprise, really. There’d been the storm, and the sheer turmoil of the overburdened dragon egg, and then the talk about Rayla’s parents, and then this. Of course he was tired. Of course he was at the end of his rope. Callum didn’t feel much better off; he could feel the stress and exhaustion burning behind his eyes, until he felt a hair’s breadth from new tears at any given second. He thought he’d still be crying, if he wasn’t so tired.

As if to corroborate Callum’s thoughts, Ez settled in, and his eyes slipped half-closed. “I’m really tired, Callum.” He murmured, shuttered eyes as blank and distant as Callum’s own. “I just want this to stop.”

He didn’t elaborate on what exactly he meant by ‘this’, but he didn’t really need to. Callum exhaled, heavy and slow, and wound an arm around Ezran’s middle to tuck him closer in to his side. “I think we all just need a rest, now.” He said, quiet. “Maybe things will seem better later. Or…at least maybe a bit less terrible.”

Ezran blinked up at him, so slow as to seem lethargic. “Did it get better, before?” He asked, and for a moment, Callum didn’t know what he was talking about. But then- “After mom died?”

Pain stole his breath away. The next moment, he inhaled again, seeing by the minute flinch of his brother’s face that his grief had been marked. “…In a way.” He answered, in the end, and felt all-too-exhausted at the thought of doing it again. Of passing days, and weeks, and months, and enduring the ache of loss until it no longer clawed so incessantly at the insides of his chest. “It does get better. It just...it takes time.”

Ez sighed, as if he’d expected that answer. His eyes, already half-shut, closed all the way. “…I’m glad you’re here, Callum.” He said eventually, head leaning into his shoulder. After that, he didn’t say anything else. He just sat there, a silent huddled form, illuminated by the shine of the egg he still held.

Rayla’s shoulder shuddered briefly against his own. When he looked at her, she seemed to be fighting a losing battle with some nameless agitation. Her expression when she looked at Ezran was pained, and – when he looked across at her, she flinched when he met her eyes. Still guilty, maybe. She opened her mouth as if to speak, hesitated, and after another glance at Ezran shook her head and closed it. In the end she stared over into the fire, shoulders tense and hunched.

He wondered what was wrong with her. What was bothering her now. The intention rose in his chest to ask, but it couldn’t seem to make it all the way. He was abruptly too tired.

The quiet that settled among them then wasn’t a comfortable one. Callum stared into the fire and felt numb, as if the cold of the blizzard were seeping into his ribcage and clutching at his heart. He remembered being out there in the snow, until the chill stole into his limbs and made it harder and harder to move. He felt like that now, even despite the heat of the fire so close by. Like the chill was in his flesh, in his bones, and he’d never move again. If there was any mercy to that cold, it was that it numbed his thoughts too, until his mind ran slow and heavy with apathy.

After a while, though… “Is he asleep?” Rayla’s voice sounded beside him, quiet and just a little surprised. Callum lifted his head to look at her, and then at his brother, whose eyes were closed. His expression remained tight, brows drawn, but there was something about the looseness of his posture and the rhythm of his breathing that Callum recognised.

After a moment, he managed to speak. “Think so.” All things considered, if Ezran had managed to fall asleep now, it would probably be a challenge to wake him up again. Callum nudged him, just a little, and produced no wakeful response whatsoever. “…I guess he crashed.” He reflected on how tired Ez had been even before the day’s troubles got started in earnest. He’d barely slept, hadn’t he? “After everything, I’m really not surprised.”

When he looked over at her, Rayla’s eyes were on Ez, shaded with regret. “I am, a little.” She admitted, still keeping her voice low. “I couldn’t imagine sleeping after all this.”

Slowly, Callum lifted a hand and smoothed it over the back of Ezran’s neck. “He’s just a kid.” His voice came out softer than he expected. “He’s ten. He hardly slept at all last night, and then…” He shook his head, rather than attempt to sum up the day aloud. “He was bound to fall asleep like this at some point. Kids are like that, you know. They keep going and going and then, suddenly…” He nodded demonstratively at his brother.

The face Rayla made conveyed, quite expressively, ‘I’ll take your word for it’. What she actually said was “Makes sense, I suppose.” She watched Ezran’s sleeping face for a few more moments, before her eyes flicked up to his. “Think he’ll wake up if we move him?”

Callum assessed him. “Nah. He’s out.” He eyed Rayla, the barest flicker of interest pushing through the shroud of exhaustion that had settled on him. “What were you thinking?”

“Get him tucked into the covers, with the egg?” She suggested. “Make sure he’s comfy.”

He hummed, and nodded. “Yeah. Sounds good.” He had to work his way up to it. His limbs felt like they were made of lead. But, after some effort, he made himself move, shifting around to support Ezran under his arms. Rayla shuffled over to help, keeping the egg from falling out of his lap as they moved him. In the end they got him tucked into the tent-covers close to the fire with only minor shifts and murmurs on Ezran’s part, the egg’s shine half-blocked by the thick fabric.

Even in sleep, though, Ezran didn’t look relaxed. There was still that fraught tension furrowing his brow, as though heartbreak had followed him into unconsciousness. It hurt to see, but there was nothing Callum could do about it. So he lifted the covers to let Bait go in as well, and then sat back down by the campfire. It felt more like collapsing, really; his body felt so heavy.

Rayla took the opportunity to throw some branches into the fire before she followed suit, shooting him a few hesitant looks before she spoke, as if she wasn’t sure she should be saying anything. “…How’re you feeling?” She asked, looking as though she regretted the words as soon as she spoke them. Sure enough, she shook her head quickly, and muttered “Stupid question, I guess. You don’t have to answer that.”

He lifted his head to look at her, and…despite everything, for whatever reason, he appreciated that she’d asked. It settled something bereft in him; some part of him that was hurting, and lonely, and desperate for comfort. “…Well, I’ve been better.” He said, finally, voice sounding worn even to his own ears.

She glanced side-long at him, looking uncomfortable, and fed another stick into the crackling flames.

Callum watched the fire part and spit around the new fuel, his thoughts flickering in and out of sight like the embers in the ash. “I feel kind of stupid, for how long I was ignoring this.” He said, softly. “There were so many signs. I just…” He sighed, and wiped a hand over his face as if it would help anything. It didn’t, of course. He felt as unhappy and lethargic as before. “I really wish this didn’t have to be real.” He murmured it to himself more than to her, but saw her flinch anyway.

She fidgeted in place, shoulders tense, and then tenser yet when she stole a glance at him. There was an agitated jitter to her fingers when she broke a branch in half, crack, and cast both parts into the flame. He was starting to work his way up to asking her what was wrong, or what was bothering her, when- “I should go.” She muttered tersely, eyes flicking out to the ledge, and he froze.

“What?” He managed, a second later, voice croaking. His heart thudded dully in his chest, too exhausted for any true panic, but awake enough for reflexive fear to move it.

“I should just…go. Give you some space.” She was saying, not even looking at him, leaning back from the fire with the intention of movement written in her every limb, like she was about to spring up at any moment, like she was about to get up and leave. “I shouldn’t – you deserve to have some time alone, right now. And more firewood is always a good thing.”

Terror stuttered into his bloodstream, choking his heart with thorns. “Rayla-“

“I’ll just pop out for a bit. I won’t be long.” Still avoiding his eyes, she pushed herself up, rising to her feet, and…

Callum wasn’t surprised. Not really. Now that he was looking at her, he recognised the tension she was wearing; she wanted to get away. There seemed to be some reflex in her that drove her to hide away whenever she felt vulnerable, or upset, or – any number of things. It was her that wanted to get some space, and maybe she thought he wanted that too, but-

But he didn’t. He didn’t want her to go. He didn’t want her to leave him alone. He never wanted to be alone at times like this. But, sometimes, it happened anyway.

He still remembered the day he’d learnt his mom was dead. Remembered waiting for Harrow in the throne room he’d been led to, uneasy, certain that something was wrong. He remembered every word of what Harrow had told him, like it was burned into his mind by the weight of its pain. He remembered, too, how Harrow had behaved afterwards. Hesitant, and halting, like he wanted to stay but didn’t feel it was his right. He’d comforted Callum for a while, and then left. To allow him some ‘space’.

He hadn’t wanted space. He’d wanted Harrow to stay with him. But he’d not been able to find the words for it then, and so he’d been left alone.

The breath shuddered thickly in his throat, and his hand was trembling horribly when he reached out and clasped it around Rayla’s wrist. “Please,” He managed, the word half-choked with emotion. “Don’t leave.” Then, when she didn’t move: “Please”, again, more desperately.

She stared back at him, looking almost bewildered. A second later, her expression trembled, and for a second, it looked like she might cry. And then-

She sat back down.

She didn’t leave.

The relief was so powerful he could hardly breathe through it. Instead of speaking he closed his eyes, and trembled, and felt his fingers move around Rayla’s wrist as she settled beside him. He could almost feel her hesitance in how she wavered there, shoulder barely brushing his. Uncertain of her welcome, maybe, or uncertain of why he’d been so desperate for her to stay. He wasn’t sure until he opened his eyes and looked at her, and…then, seeing her expression, he thought it was probably both.

“…Thank you.” He mumbled to her, the words sounding almost embarrassingly heartfelt. Her eyes looked just a little wide, as if she was startled.

She studied him uncertainly for a few long seconds, like she had no idea why he’d be thanking her. Like she had no idea why he’d wanted her to stay. He…thought he should feel guilty, for not letting her leave and get some space to clear her own head, even if going into the storm would have been a fairly bad idea. The relief turned a little sour as he thought of that, gut twisting unpleasantly.

“…Sorry.” He offered, eventually, when she hadn’t seemed to manage to find anything to say. Anxiety prickled at the back of his neck as he remembered that – really, they hadn’t known each other that long, it was maybe a bit weird to have begged her not to leave like that, especially when she’d wanted to get away- “I just…really don’t want to be alone, right now.” He excused lamely, feeling abruptly very stupid and very tired. He let go of her wrist and wrung his fingers together, shoulders hunching just a little.

He’d looked away from her, not wanting to see her expression; so the touch at his hand surprised him. He glanced down, startled. She’d reached out, however hesitantly, to put her hand over his own. When he looked up…there wasn’t any of the closed-in tension he’d feared. Instead, she just seemed sad, and there was nothing closed about it. He looked at her and, within moments, felt the anxious twist in his gut ease. “’S alright.” She said, and he was almost too disorientated by emotion to hear her. “Don’t you worry.” Her voice quieted, then. Went gentler, and a little more solemn. “I’ll stay.”

A shudder ran over his shoulders, utterly involuntary. He couldn’t help the depth of the gratitude that shook through him at the words. She was here. She cared. She wasn’t leaving.

Tentatively, and stealing glances at her all the while, he shifted his hand to clasp the one she’d laid upon it. When she made no objection, he settled his fingers solidly between hers and nearly shook with the relief of the contact. Even with the layers of gloves in the way, the solidity of her hand in his own was unimaginably reassuring. “…Thanks.” He mumbled again, and thought he’d have been more self-conscious if he wasn’t so tired. As it was…

The exhausted, numb shroud hadn’t left him. Misery hung over the edges of everything like a stain, and everything left around the borders of the apathy ached with grief. He wasn’t sure that was going to go away any time soon. But even so – it helped, to have her here. It really, really helped.

Her ears were back a bit, as if she were abashed. He wondered, very distantly, when he’d started to understand what elf ear movements meant. Whatever she was feeling, though, the gentle caring in the way she looked at him hadn’t changed. She squeezed his fingers, even, as if to reassure him. “Least I can do.” Her voice was quiet, and maybe just a little guilty.

He didn’t think he had it in him to address that guilt right now, so he just…exhaled, very slowly, and shifted his hand more comfortably around hers. She hadn’t minded the hands, so he thought she wouldn’t mind him leaning on her either. So he did, settling a little against her side, and felt some nameless tension in the back of his head ease a little. He stared into the fire and breathed a little easier.

She didn’t make any move to shift or get up for a long time. She just sat with him. It helped.

It did help. But in the end, it helped in a way that thawed the edges off of some of the numbness, some of the shock. A few times, he found himself trembling as the grief moved through him like melt-water under a glacier. Once, his breath shuddered and his eyes welled with tears again, as if finding new reservoirs to weep from.

Rayla made concerned murmurs at him until he shook his head. “I’m okay. It’s just…” He looked down at their hands. It was her right hand he was holding; the hand that had never been bound long enough to hurt.

Her expression softened into now-familiar sorrow, and she sighed. “I’m sorry, Callum.” She said it in the tones of I’m sorry for your loss, of I’m sorry this happened, and that honest sympathy was what set him off into a true bout of crying again.

His shoulders shook, and his breath hitched, and tears did fall, but it all felt so much more subdued than before. Quiet, even. It was a resigned sort of grief, he thought. Defeated, maybe. As though he’d burned through the powerful, convulsive sobs of before and left only this behind. Whatever it was, it blurred his eyes with tears, and every time he trembled he felt Rayla close by his side.

She didn’t try to stop him, though seeing him cry plainly made her feel awful. She didn’t try to talk to him, either. Maybe she recognised that this was just…crying. Just grief, and it had to spill out somehow. After a few moments of watching him, she shuffled a little closer until she was more solidly braced against his side, and then slipped an arm around his back, pulling him into a silent embrace. He shuddered and let his face fall onto her shoulder, appreciating it more than he could say. She didn’t try to move him, even when he must have been getting her sweater damp, and just…stayed there.

After a while, he pulled back, and just leaned against her side, tiredly displacing a new tear from his eyes every minute or so when he blinked. Those tears stopped eventually, too. In their aftermath he felt even more tired and drained than before. After a long interval of silence, Rayla started glancing between him and the fire. Eventually, she asked “You alright if I go over and tend the fire a bit?”

It shook him out of his exhausted stupor, a little. He glanced at her, and their hands, and though he regretted it even as he spoke, he nodded and said “Yeah, sure.”

She squeezed his hand once more, then let it go. In a second she’d moved away and to the fireside, leaving the space beside him empty. He watched her work to settle that feeling of absence, blinking slowly as she fed twigs and bits of branch into the flames. She got up to get the pot and fill it with the snow piling thickly at the less-sheltered part of their alcove, and he watched the winds pull at her hair and scarf upon the storm’s edge. He watched as she set the pot on the fire, and waited for such a time that she might come and sit beside him again.

“Think Ez is waking up any time soon?” She asked, when the snow had gotten around to melting, and he glanced back at the tent layers. They were still glowing, cyan light filtering out around the seams, and Ezran’s face only partially-visible where he’d burrowed into the covers.

“He’ll either be sleeping another couple hours or another eight.” He answered, after a moment. “There’s not really any in-between with him, once he crashes like that.”

Rayla hummed at that, just a little rueful. “Well, suppose it means he’ll be fresh and ready for if he needs to take a watch shift tonight.”

Abruptly, Callum remembered the concept of fire-watch. Of camp-things, like food and drink and taking care of the fire that kept them alive. Of the fact that it was evening now, and…technically, it was approaching bedtime. After all this, after everything…some things were still the same.

It was a little jarring. It was a little reassuring in a way, too. The thought of routine, as new as that routine might be, was just enough comfort to be worth the effort of following it. Plus, well – some of it just plain needed doing, no matter how exhausted and threadbare and grieving he was. “Need to change your bandages.” He recognised, tiredly, and his eyes slid to her left arm. “Do your hand, too.”

She glanced back at him. “We can leave it tonight, if you’re not up for it.” She offered, quietly. “I can probably manage myself.”

Despite everything, he managed a flicker of indignation. “No need for that.” He muttered at her, annoyed at the thought of her trying to sort her bandages alone, one-handed, because she thought he might be too haggard and downtrodden to help her. “I’ll do it. Just – whenever’s good.”

The barest, faintest hint of a smile twitched at the edges of her lips. “Well. I don’t know. I’ll have to check my schedule.” She said, plainly too tired to make the words sound dry, but the sentiment was there. He sighed quietly, his lips offering the same tiny reciprocal twitch, too tired and too unhappy for humour, but appreciating the gesture nonetheless.

“Once you’re done with that water, then.” He decided, and she glanced at him for a moment before inclining her head. The water was bubbling gently by now; she took the pot from the fire with her hands comprehensively gloved, then refilled all of their jars with it. She left him with a smaller jar while she went and rummaged in the bags – after a minute or so of watching her, he realised she was fetching the scissors and bandages and disinfectant. He wanted to protest that he could get those, but…by then, there wasn’t any point. He was too tired anyway.

The water was warm, and felt good to drink. The heat of it spread through his body from the inside-out, unexpectedly lulling after the day’s trials. When he was done he set the jar aside, pulled his gloves off, shuffled over to where Rayla was waiting, and wordlessly reached to help her out of her layers.

There were quite a few. He’d lost track of how many extra layers they’d all been throwing on in the midst of the storm, and it took a while to get them off without hurting her. Drawing each sleeve over her injured arm required a delicacy and focus that he’d thought was beyond him, in this depth of exhaustion…but somehow, he managed it, and piled each article one-by-one beside the fire. She shuddered as the sweaters came off, and started hunching her shoulders when her arms were finally bared, goosebumps raising over her skin. Even directly beside the fire, it was so cold that she was shivering in earnest by the time he peeled the bandages off.

It was growing dark enough now that he mostly had to depend on the firelight to check on the savage wounds over her upper arm. If there was any mercy, it was that he was still too emotionally exhausted to feel as terrible as he usually did when he looked at them.

Silent, he pressed carefully around the edges, trying to feel at the state of the developing scabs. “Better.” He said at last, quiet, and reached for the disinfectant to wash the area. “Feels more solid now. These probably won’t open up again if you’re careful.”

“Mm.” She watched him, still shivering, as he re-bandaged her arm and then carefully pulled back her collar to check on the shoulder wound. It had never been as bad as the rest, and was doing fine. He replaced the bandage pad that they’d tied onto it, and then sighed.

“Alright, we can get your layers back on now.” He attempted a smile, tired, as she exhaled with relief.

“Oh good.” She grumbled, already snatching at the first item of clothing he’d left by the fire. “I don’t have the energy to be shivering like this. It’s too bloody cold.”

He wondered, for a brief dizzy second, how terrible the cold would be without the fire. With night nearly upon them, and their mountain almost in the middle of the storm…well, there was a reason they’d needed a fire-watch, wasn’t there? Without the fire…they’d probably be dead by now. He reflected on this almost emotionlessly, then moved to help Rayla with her clothes.

A few careful minutes later she was bundled up again, clad in so many layers that her torso seemed a solid mass of cable-knit sweater. Her neck disappeared behind the scarves, and then when her hat returned, her ears mostly vanished too.

He stopped her before she went to re-glove her hands, though, reaching out to touch gingerly at the back of her wrist. “This still needs doing.” He reminded her, exhausted enough that his voice sounded strange and flat to his ears. She glanced at him, frowning.

“…Normally I’d say to leave it, today.” She said, eventually. “But…”

“Ez and Zym loosened your binding a lot earlier.” He guessed, and she nodded. “Yeah, I think that’s…probably the most important time for it.” Briefly, exhaustedly, he closed his eyes. It was more effort to speak than it should have been. “Make sure it…recirculates right, or whatever.” He glanced at her bare hand, now almost entirely a normal colour, and blinked at it tiredly. “At least it should hurt less now.”

She flexed the fingers carefully, and then shifted a little to offer the hand to him. “Feels okay, yeah. Cold, kind of numb. Stiff, but…not really sore.” She offered quietly as his hands settled around hers. Despite everything, her hand actually felt a little warmer than his at the moment – he’d taken his gloves off to help her with her clothes and bandages, and that much time in the open air had chilled them considerably. He hesitated, then shuffled them closer to the heat of the fire.

He checked the bandage around her binding, first. The binding itself was surprisingly loose; while some magical force seemed to prevent it from being moved from its exact spot on her wrist, there was enough room in it now that he thought he could actually slip a finger under it if he tried. It wasn’t visibly squeezing at her wrist at all, and the bruise-dark hue it had left on her hand and arm was gone like it had never existed. The scabs of the sores were healing well. They were still hard and thick-feeling, but he could see the hints of new pink skin starting to grow in from their edges. “I…think you can go without bandages on here, now.” He decided, slowly, and set the bandage aside. “Just be careful not to catch the scabs on anything, I guess.”

She made a face at her wrist, like she found it offensive to look at, and – after a moment, Callum found himself staring too. His eyes fixed unerringly on the strange clasp, and then the silver of the ribbon itself, all-too-aware of what it represented. His breath stuttered for a second, and he closed his eyes, suddenly struggling to breathe around the sharp-edged pain in his chest.

He panted a few times in distress, eyes tightly closed, and didn’t quite manage to move until Rayla’s hand twitched between his own, fingers squeezing gently at his. He exhaled slowly, blinked his eyes open, then turned to wipe his face on his scarf. “Sorry.” He muttered, disoriented by grief, and couldn’t make himself meet her eyes. He was sure of the way she’d be looking at him – guilty, and pained, and sad – and didn’t know if he could handle that right now.

She seemed to hesitate. “Callum…”

“It’s fine.” He said, softly, and repositioned her hand in his, turning it palm-up for him to work. “I’ll just…get this done, and then…” He closed his eyes again, very briefly. “Then, I guess we…wait out the night. Rest, maybe. Somehow.”

It was strange; he was tired enough that the task ahead seemed more exhausting a prospect than it ever had. He wished he could leave it, and just rest. But…at the same time, he was dreading what would come once there was nothing left to do. At least now he had some distraction. Afterwards...there’d be nothing but his grief, and his thoughts, and the bleak prospect of the monumental journey ahead of them. He wasn’t looking forward to it.

“…Somehow.” She echoed lowly, like she felt the impossibility of that as much as he did. She fell quiet, watching with shuttered eyes as he finally started pressing his fingers into her palm. Together, they sat in a silence swallowed by the howl of the wind, and did not speak again.

---

Rayla sat wordless and unmoving for all the time it took Callum to massage some circulation back into her bound hand. It took longer than usual, and she could practically feel the exhaustion dragging at his every motion. She kept wanting to suggest that he stop, and let her handle it, but…somehow, she thought he wouldn’t appreciate that now. So she stayed silent, and watched him, and felt guilt drag its claws viciously through the insides of her chest.

The flesh of her hand ached a bit where he pressed at it. There was a low-level sear to it, a gentle burning soreness, like someone had planted the suggestion of acid within her blood. Compared to the pulsing agony of her upper arm, it was almost pleasant. Finally, he finished, and remanded her hand back to her, and then…shuddered, a little, as he drew his own hands back to his lap and huddled down beside the fire, staring bleakly into its flickering light. He didn’t say anything.

She watched him through the corners of her eyes, heart hurting, throat choked with shame.

Again, as earlier, she felt the urge to – get away, somehow. To go out into the storm again, and give him some room to breathe. But that wasn’t an option, not with the fatal chill of a night-time blizzard waiting for her beyond their shelter. And, besides…

Rayla glanced at him, uneasily, and completed the thought: if earlier had been any indication, he didn’t want that room to breathe. He didn’t want to be left alone. He didn’t want her to leave.

She couldn’t quite wrap her head around it. Any Moonshadow elf would have wanted the solitude. Pain was a private thing; something to be held close and hidden away. Wanting someone with you during a time this terrible…that was shockingly personal. And for all that she knew he was a human, and had different cultural attitudes surrounding this sort of thing…she couldn’t help but feel bewildered, and strangely touched, by the memory of him pleading for her to stay.

She shifted in place, uncomfortable, but held that memory in place to force herself still. He’d asked her to stay, so she would. She owed it to him. It wasn’t as if there was anywhere to go anyway. But…

She had no idea what to do.

Rayla looked at him again, huddling by the fire with his knees up to his chest, eyes downcast, face oddly blank. It hurt, to see him like this. Hurt more to remember her role in doing this to him. She gritted her teeth and closed her eyes, and suppressed the agitated reflex in her body that wanted to send her to her feet, to turn her face away, to escape this space full of guilt and shame and other people’s grief.

Silently, she reflected on that impulse, exhaling almost silently. The sound of the wind drowned it out, and she had no doubt that Callum heard nothing. She opened her eyes and stared at the fire, and acknowledged to herself what was really motivating this ongoing desire to flee: it hurt to be here. It hurt to see him hurt, and to deal with her own shame. Leaving would be easier – if not for the storm – but it would also be cowardice. She’d done enough to hurt him already. Leaving when he’d begged her to stay would be too cruel.

But she didn’t know what to do.

There’d been times in the past where Runaan or Ethari had been having a hard time with something, but they always helped each other through that in private. It had been the same with her parents, though she’d been much younger then. She’d never been the person anyone turned to for comfort before. She’d certainly never had to help anyone through something like this, and – what was she supposed to do? How could she possibly make something like this better?

He wasn’t crying now, maybe, but this almost seemed worse. He was just…silent, and small-looking, and empty-eyed. It was terrible to look at. She wanted to help, but…what could she do? Talking wouldn’t solve this. He’d lost his dad.

Rayla hesitated, gut churning, and reached for one of the jars of water to take a sip while she thought. Callum’s silent form lingered in her peripheral vision, looking painfully lonely in the firelight. She wished she could reach out to him. A second later, startled, she wondered why she thought she couldn’t.

He felt…off-limits, in a way, in the grips of grief like this. It felt private, like something she shouldn’t be seeing, shouldn’t be witness to. It seemed an imposition to so much as be here, let alone reach for him when he’d not asked.

But he had asked for her to stay, hadn’t he? He’d reached for her then. He wasn’t reaching now, but maybe that didn’t necessarily mean he didn’t want contact, or that it wouldn’t help, or…oh, stars, she didn’t know. She exhaled into the warm water of her jar, then set it down. Finally, tentative, she shuffled a short way around the fireside towards him.

Callum’s head jerked up, just a little, at the sight of her approach. It was a faltering motion, as though he were struggling against some terrible weight to so much as move. Hesitantly, she reached out for his shoulder. Slowly, but – he watched her hand with that same blank, exhausted expression, up until it actually touched him, and then something in his face seemed to crumple. He shook all-over, and made a tiny miserable noise, and reached up to clutch at her hand so tightly it almost hurt.

Carefully, she tugged on it, a wordless offer to come closer if he wanted. Expression still trembling like he was somewhere on the verge of tears, he did shuffle over, huddling into her side closely enough he inadvertently elbowed her in the bands of bruising around her waist. She suppressed a wince, shifting to accommodate him more easily, and he took the opportunity to turn his face into her shoulder. His shoulders trembled.

He didn’t make any sound, but she could hear the way his breath was stuttering. He seemed a half-step from crying; too exhausted for actual tears, but upset enough that the motions of sobbing kept moving him anyway. A little awkwardly, she patted him on the shoulder with the hand that wasn’t still gripped in his, feeling very stupid for not realising earlier that this was what she should have been doing all along.

“…Sorry.” He mumbled thickly, and she wondered what he felt he had to keep apologising for. She was the one who should be apologising, but…

“Shush.” She told him, quiet and firm despite the aching of her heart. “Nothing to be sorry for.”

He shuddered again, and huddled a little closer. Tentatively, she put her arm around his back.

Callum spent the better part of the next ten minutes like that, breath hitching unevenly and his shoulders shaking. He never got quite as far as actual crying, but seemed gripped by its surrogate motions anyway. Steadily the shudders grew slower, and weaker, as if he was losing the energy for even that. After a while, he seemed to remember himself, and lifted his head for a moment. In his eyes she saw a faint, tired inkling of self-consciousness as he glanced between her face and her shoulder. “…’S okay?” He questioned.

Slowly, she reached out and smoothed her hand down the hair at the back of his neck. “It’s fine.” She murmured, and he took her at her word. His head lowered.

He still shook against her in stops and starts. It was slow, and faltering, and almost entirely soundless. He looked so terribly exhausted then, shadows dark beneath his eyes, that she thought it was more the tiredness than anything else that finally let him stop. He gradually went still, blinking blearily at the fire, and sighed quietly. Slowly, his eyelids began to flutter closed.

Ten minutes later, Rayla was almost completely certain he’d fallen asleep on her, somehow. It had to be the exhaustion to blame. She couldn’t imagine him managing it otherwise. Heart hurting for him, she made no attempt to move or dislodge him, and sat watching the fire for a long while.

She managed to avoid waking him for the next hour or so, even when taking a drink or tossing sticks into the flames. It felt like it was maybe eight at night by the time she heard movement from the direction of Ezran in the tent-layers, and turned her head to look over her shoulder.

The covers shifted. A low, unhappy sound emanated from within, followed shortly by quiet, broken whimpering. Crying in his sleep, Rayla guessed, and felt choked again with the weight of the guilt.

And then-

Callum, who’d not shifted or woken through a half-dozen incidents of her moving about, blinked his eyes open and lifted his head from her shoulder. “Ez?” He murmured, plainly disorientated, and in his uncoordinated attempt to look around ended up smacking his face straight into the scarves piled around her neck. “Mmph,” He expressed, surprised, and then he straightened up properly and squinted at her. “Rayla?” He questioned, plainly not really awake enough to have his wits about him.

“…You kind of fell asleep on me, for a bit.” She told him, voice quiet a low, her ear twitching in the direction of Ezran and his restless sleep. “Think you only woke up because-“ She hesitated, and glanced over.

“Ezran.” Callum processed, aloud, and struggled and stumbled his way through trying to get to his feet. “Yeah, I – I always wake up if he has bad dreams, I-“ He shook his head, and cut off the words. “I need to go to him.” He said instead, and finally managed to stand up. He’d taken a few wavering steps towards the covers when Ezran surprised them both by shooting upright, breath uneven, a few stray tears bright at the corners of his wide eyes. He stared uncomprehendingly ahead, too recently awoken at first to see them, and then finally his eyes seemed to focus on the shapes by the fire.

“…Callum?” He mumbled, voice strangely shaky. “Rayla? What…” He blinked at them, and then again more slowly as Callum lowered himself down at his side. He looked between her and his brother with a look of slow, terrible understanding. His eyes shuttered, and he lifted his hands up to his face.

“You sounded like you were having a bad dream.” Callum said, tentative, shifting over until he and his brother were side-by-side, pressed close against each other. “…Are you okay?”

Ezran didn’t answer for a long moment. His shoulders hunched and then shook, and he exhaled a thick-sounding breath. “I was dreaming.” He said in the end, almost listlessly, and lowered his hands from his face. “And then…I just…remembered, in the dream, that dad was dead. And it felt like a nightmare, so – I tried to wake up, but-“ He sniffed, and wiped his face on his sleeve. His breath shuddered again, his shoulders heaved…but then, instead of crying, he took a deep breath and seemed to force himself to steadiness. Finally, quiet, he finished the sentence: “But I woke up, and…it’s still real.”

Callum inhaled, a sort of pained breathy gasp, a flinch stuttering over his face. He breathed out shakily, then reached out to his brother on what seemed like reflex, pulling him close.

Ezran didn’t protest, but he did shudder at the contact, turning his face into Callum’s chest and sighing. “This is awful.” He said, very quietly. “I…don’t know what to do. I don’t know how I’m supposed to…I don’t know. I don’t know. I just..” His eyes slipped closed, and most of his face disappeared into his brother’s sweater. His next words were muffled in the fabric. “I’m so tired.”

“…You could go back to sleep?” Callum suggested, soft and unhappy, like he knew how inadequate a comfort that was for something like this. Ezran lifted his head, just enough to look up. Rayla saw the glitter of his eyes brightly in the gloom, too bright by far for how tired they were.

“So could you.” Ez said, plainly. His voice was strangely emotionless. “Would it make anything better?”

Callum flinched again. “…It might.” He said at last, after a long silence. “Sometimes, when things are awful…if you go to sleep, it can feel a bit less terrible in the morning.” Rayla looked at him, and remembered all over again that he’d already gone through something like this before. Years ago he’d lost his mother, and somehow had to live through the pain of that to a time where it started to get better. He’d had to suffer through that, just like he had to suffer through this now.

Rayla shivered, and thought of her own parents, and wondered if she’d have to do the same. She wondered if she, like them, was an orphan of this terrible war. She wondered if she should be mourning.

Ezran glanced out at the sky, dark and snow-torn, and then at the fire. “Morning’s a long way off.” He pointed out, in that same empty voice. “And there’s the fire-watch too.”

“You don’t need to be on the first watch, though.” Callum told him, leaning forwards just enough to rest his chin into his brother’s hair. “You could sleep a good while longer.”

Rayla expected him to shake his head, or disagree, or something. Instead he just blinked, tired and empty-eyed, and said “Okay.”

There was something horribly painful about that acquiescence. Callum seemed to feel it too. He closed his eyes, and pressed a kiss into Ezran’s hair.

Ezran didn’t move or speak as he was lowered back down and tucked into the makeshift bedding. He did reach for the egg, and Bait, pulling both of them against his chest. He laid open-eyed on his side for a minute or so, blinking slowly, then finally let his eyelids shut.

It was a while before he actually fell asleep. Fifteen minutes or more. Rayla sat silent, throat tight, and tended to the fire between glances back at them. Callum stayed beside his brother the whole time, near but not touching, a quiet weary presence in the dark beyond the fire. He was shivering a little by the time he returned, having waited long enough past Ezran’s sleeping that the air had chilled him through. He huddled by the fire and stared empty-eyed at the flames.

Rayla eyed him, and couldn’t think of anything to say. She didn’t think there was anything to say. So instead, she drew on her experience from earlier, and just…shuffled over to him, pressing in until their shoulders butted together. He glanced at her, exhaling slowly, and leaned back. He didn’t speak.

Time passed like that, with little interruption or change. She murmured to him at one point to suggest he go join his brother and sleep, but he just shook his head. So they remained there in silence and watched the fire together through the opening hours of the night. She warmed water periodically and got him to drink, and presented him with pieces of meat, and after a while even went to get some more to cook. It was something to do, after all.

A few times, Callum dozed off on her shoulder again. Never for long, but when she eventually did the same it was another matter entirely. She neither stirred nor dreamed, and woke a long while later to find herself covered in her cloak and curled beside the fire, a bag propped under her head as a pillow. Her body ached terribly as she finally moved, numb with cold and heavy with the pain of her bruises. Disoriented, she pulled on her sense of the Moon to figure out how long it had been. A little more than five hours, apparently.

She sat up, the cloak falling from her shoulders, and found Callum and Ezran sat together by the fire, very close by, the layers of the tent laid over their laps like unusually stiff blankets. They glanced over at her as she blinked at them, frowning. “I…fell asleep?” She concluded, bewildered that she’d not woken. They – or at least Callum – must have laid her down close to the heat of the flames, and put the cloak over her, and fed the fire through those hours…but she’d not stirred. It was unlike her.

“A good while back, yeah.” Callum agreed, voice a low hush, like he was still trying to avoid waking her. He nodded to the now-bare part of their shelter that had previously held the tent-layers. “It’s too cold back there now, so…I thought it’d be better to just let you rest here.”

“It’s too cold anywhere except right next to the fire.” Ezran said, and she saw that the egg was in his lap. That disconcerted her, but she supposed if Callum hadn’t complained it probably wasn’t affecting him too badly. “It woke me up. It was just…too cold to sleep. And then once I was here, Zym was too awake for me to sleep through.”

“You could try again now, though.” Callum pointed out, and received a very level stare for his troubles.

“No.” He said, very simply, like it was so irrefutable a decision it didn’t need to be reinforced with further words. There was that same blank apathy from before in his eyes, but with a little more animus now. He seemed vaguely unimpressed with his brother. “But you should.” He glanced sidelong at Rayla suddenly, and addressed her, saying “He’s not going to sleep, because he doesn’t want me to be awake alone. But you’re awake now. You can tell him to rest, finally.” There was a hint of asperity there, like he’d been trying for hours to change Callum’s mind without success.

She blinked several times to clear her eyes, then pushed herself all the way up, staring across at Callum, who was sat close enough that the bag she’d been sleeping on was against his side. He stared tiredly back, looking appallingly exhausted, with a resigned sort of expression that suggested he knew exactly how this was going to go. “Go to sleep, you dummy.” She told him, exasperated. “The idea of a watch is everyone gets some sleep, you know.”

He sighed. “I’m not sorry.” He said, a little indistinct, like he was exhausted enough to slur the words a little. “Wasn’t gonna leave Ez alone like that. Wouldn’t be right.”

Privately, she agreed with him. Leaving Ez awake alone would have been terrible, so she understood perfectly. But now… “I’ll take care of him.” She promised, phrasing it a little more directly than she might have if she’d been more awake. “So you can sleep. It’s fine.”

He blinked at her, looking painfully relieved. “…Good.” He mumbled, and slid his eyes sideways to the tent-layers, and then the fire. “Should I…?”

She nudged him aside and then pulled the cloak over. Ezran helpfully shoved the tent layers towards her, so she arranged those by the fire and then prodded Callum into place. “Down,” she ordered, and looking a little bewildered, he went. Soon he was curled by the fire in the spot she’d vacated, and she put her own cloak over him. He stared up at her with bleary eyes as she nudged the bag under his head. “Comfy?”

Somehow, he managed something close to a smile, face drawn and wan with exhaustion. “Mm. Very.” He sighed, eyelids fluttering closed. Then, by all appearances, he passed out within a few seconds.

“…He was so stubborn.” Ezran said, into the quiet left by Callum’s abrupt exit from consciousness. “I kept trying to get him to sleep, but he just…wouldn’t.”

Rayla glanced his way, then picked her way over to sit herself by his side. “Apparently you’re not the only one who can be stubborn when you want to be.” She said, a little dryly. She wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to tease him now, after – after he’d learned the truth she’d been hiding, and been hit by the grief of it, but…

He eyed her a little grumpily, but didn’t seem particularly bothered. “I guess.” He looked over at his sleeping brother, and his gaze gentled into something softer. Sadder, too. “…He didn’t have to do that, though. I was fine.”

Her brow furrowed. Slowly, she shook her head. “No, Ez.” She said at last. “It was the right thing to do. You…shouldn’t be alone right now.”

Ezran looked startled at that, eyes flying quickly back to her. He didn’t seem to know what to say for a few seconds, but then…quietly, he reached out to her, waiting until she consented to take his hand. He sighed, looking at their joined hands for a moment. She wondered what he was picking up from her now. Then, finally, his eyes slid up to hers again. “…You’re gonna take care of me, huh.” He said, subdued.

For a second, she didn’t know what he meant – then she remembered what she’d just said to Callum. Her shoulders stiffened a little, uncertainty gripping at her gut. She didn’t know what he thought of her now. Didn’t know what he’d accept from her. But… “Reckon I will, yeah.” She agreed, quietly. “If that’s okay.”

He watched her, silent and almost expressionless, then exhaled minutely. He shuffled into her side and looked away. “You said you’d be my sister, before.” He said finally, and let half-lidded eyes settle on the fire. “So I guess that’s fine.”

The words hurt in a way she somehow hadn’t anticipated. It felt like a stab through her chest; she inhaled sharply around it, touched and guilty and thankful at once. If Ezran felt any echo of it, he didn’t react. He just sighed, huddling against her, and watched the flames.

Full of enough nameless emotion that she couldn’t speak around it, that it choked her, Rayla stayed silent as well. The trust felt like more than she deserved. First Callum, and now Ezran – both of them had, despite everything, reached out to her for comfort. Like they wanted her. Like they needed her, somehow. Even knowing what she’d kept from them, and the role she’d played in their pain, they trusted her like this. It was…humbling. It made her heart clench with shame.

Deliberately – because she didn’t know how much of that Ez would pick up on, and he didn’t need that right now – she turned her thoughts aside and looked out at the storm.

As if reacting to her attention, the clouds flashed in the dark. The thunder that followed was faraway, five seconds removed from the light; the rumble was quiet. Already the storm was passing by. For all its noise and vicious cold, she didn’t think it’d hold them too much longer. Sometime soon, they’d have to leave this place, and deal with whatever waited beyond the blizzard. It was a relief, in a way. This was a place of grief and pain, and she wanted to be free of it. But, at the same time…they had so far to go. The mere thought was wearying.

Rayla closed her eyes for a moment, drawing on what resolve she could muster. It would be fine. Somehow. Within a day they’d have left here…and however long the journey to come really was, they’d take it one step at a time. It wouldn’t always feel like this. It would be okay.

Clinging to that thought, she wound an arm around Ezran’s back, drawing him closer in to her side. He went gladly, turning his face into the knit of her jumper and sighing softly.

Beyond their shelter, the thunder echoed further and further away, but the wind was as harsh a shriek as it had ever been. Its howl followed their vigil through the rest of the night.

---

End chapter.

Chapter Notes: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1fjPSeB8RRkc_DOw9sxaN5xgY5LwddRV4?usp=sharing

Link to PIAJ chapter notes folder (Google Drive folder including worldbuilding, commentary, medical notes, research notes, and misc notes for all applicable chapters within this section)

This chapter's notes cover: No new worldbuilding notes this chapter. However, there are author’s notes on this chapter’s characterisation, development, and some of the work that went into it.

Timeline: https://docs.google.com/document/d/107eD8zmLAAFBWSOgsLyl8g4pAdQF4EgMh4rpN_m91U4/edit?usp=sharing Link to PIAJ Timeline Google doc ( to be updated as story progresses)

PIAJ Masterpage: https://tenspontaneite.tumblr.com/piaj Link to PIAJ Masterpage on tumblr (containing links to chapters, meta, art, Q&As, and resources) (Link may not work properly on mobile/app)

Author Notes:

Happy 2021 everyone. We’ve not had the best start to the year, but with luck it’ll be less atrocious than 2020 overall.

Long chapter break again, as you may have noticed. If you don’t check my tumblr and therefore haven’t seen my various personal updates on there – since the last update, I started playing a new instrument, broke several personal writing records, and took around a 15ish day break from writing before Christmas. I had an extremely powerful writing hyperfocus across a good portion of October and November, and churned out a Large Quantity of writing in a different rayllum fanfiction that will not be published.

Personal records broken

Most written in one day: Previously 8200 words, now 9150 Fastest 50k: Previously 11 days, now 9 days

Fastest 100k: Previously unknown*, now 23 days Most written in one month: Previously 88k, now 120k

*The previous record for fastest 100k would have been when I first started writing this story, but I wasn’t keeping detailed records at the time so I’m not sure of the exact date I started writing. I’m relatively certain 23 days breaks it though.

This chapter was kind of a lot of emotional effort to write, not to mention representing the execution of some seriously painful story arrangement logistics, so comments are very much appreciated.

#tdp fic #rayllum #tdp rayla #tdp callum #tdp ezran #piaj #piaj chapters

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a-yellow-book · 3 years

Text

If you were words on a page, you’d be fine print.

In which Wen Kexing shamelessly courts Zhou Zishu with cheesy pick-up lines instead of beautiful ancient Chinese poetry, and Zishu falls for him anyway. (Alternatively, if Word of Honor was a modern romantic comedy.)

[read on ao3 instead]

Zhou Zishu was not looking forward to his closing shift at the cafe tonight. Thinking about the pile of case studies he still had to read through sent him down a spiral of sadness. It was a Saturday night, for goodness’ sake. He wasn’t gunning for a rowdy night-out at bars. All he wanted was to finish his readings and then to curl up on his cozy couch and snuggle in with his cat to watch a wuxia drama. But alas, Zishu couldn’t say no when his boss called, asking if he could cover A-Ying at the last minute because he’d gone skating and knocked his head on the metal railings, no doubt concussed.

It’s ok! It might be a slow night and I can get some readings done there, Zishu reassured himself. That, and also he needed extra money anyway. Jiuxiou’s surgery was coming up soon and they needed whatever extra funds they could get.

Pushing the cafe’s door open, Zishu greeted Heilan, who barely looked over at him. “Urg, you’re finally here. Took you long enough,” he grumbled.

“Sorry, I missed the bus,” Zishu said, shrugging off Heilan’s rudeness. The kid treated everyone whose parents weren’t millionaires with disdain. He was forced to get a job so his dad would let him keep his (unlimited) credit card. Something about teaching him a lesson. Zishu didn’t think it was working.

Before Zishu even managed to set his bag down in the back room and clock in, Heilan had already gathered his stuff and left. “Tsk, tsk, youths these days,” Zishu shook his head mockingly.

It was already close to five o’clock. There might be a bit of a rush as the office workers and students stop by for a quick pick-me-up after a long day. Zishu put on a new apron around his waist, washed his hands, and headed out to the front counter to take stock of the status of the store. Heilan was notorious for not caring to refill any supplies at the end of his shifts.

The cup racks were almost empty. There were random mixing utensils, cups, and blenders left unwashed, littering around the equipment. Sighing, Zishu rolled up his sleeves to get to work cleaning the mess Heilan left behind.

Just as Zishu put the last bit of clean dishes away, the door’s bell rang, signaling the entrance of the first customers since he clocked in. Turning around, drying his hands on his apron, Zishu greeted, “Welcome to Four Seasons Cafe!” And promptly stopped dead in his tracks when he finally processed what he was looking at.

The person standing in front of Zishu had to be the most stunning man he’d ever seen. His eyes sparkled with mirth, his lips quirked up in a perpetual smirk, and his jawline was as sharp as knives. And his hair! It was a beautiful silver starlight waves cascading down his shoulders. And his beautiful pastel green suit! Ahh! Realizing he was staring, Zishu awkwardly cleared his throat and asked, “What can I get for ya?”

The beautiful man kept looking at Zishu. He definitely noticed the blush that was blooming on Zishu’s cheeks. “I assume you know what’s on the menu?” Zishu was taken a bit off guard by the strange question, but before he could answer, the man continued, “Me ‘n’ u.”

For all the years he’d worked at various restaurants and coffee shops, Zishu had yet to encounter someone so... alluring (?) and shameless (!). “I’m afraid that’s not on our blackboard,” he replied after a short moment spent recovering his wits, and pointed at the said blackboard nailed on the wall behind him.

Undeterred, the stranger smiled and continued, “Oh? Well, that’s a shame - because if I were the alphabet, I would put ‘U’ and ‘I’ together when I write your menu.”

Zishu had to give him points for those cheesy lines only made funnier and cheesier with his dead-ass serious delivery. “If we ever decide to rewrite our boards, I’ll try to keep that in mind,” Zishu said, biting his lips to keep himself from smiling at the ridiculousness of the conversation.

“Hmm, hmm, good, that is reassuring to hear,” the stranger nodded thoughtfully.

“So! Is there anything on our board that I could get for ya?” Zishu asked, clapping his hands together and putting on a chirpy tone. If this guy was flirting with him, he might leave a hefty tip!

“Uhmm,” he paused, pursuing the menu with great care. “I would love to try the ‘you mocha me crazy’ with an extra espresso shot, please.”

Grabbing a cup and marker, Zishu fought against the urge to dig a hole to hide in before asking, “Alrighty! What’s your name?” Internally, he was cursing A-Ying for coming up with the outrageous and horrific punny names for their specials.

“Kexing, Wen Kexing.”

“Great! It’ll be right out!” Zishu said, scribbling the name down on the side of the cup and promptly turned around, about to get started making the drink.

“Uhm, excuse me?” Kexing, the beautiful stranger said, sounding full of suppressed laughter. “Should I pay now?”

“OH!” Zishu immediately turned back around, “Yes, right. Sorry about that!” He quickly ran up the total, accepted the money from the smiling stranger, and repeated, “Great! It’ll be right out!”

There had to be a hole large enough for him to hide in. He could not endure this embarrassment any longer.

“There’s no need to rush!” Kexing, the infuriating stranger said.

“I don’t want to...uhm... delay you...” Zishu said lamely.

“There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

Zishu could feel his cheeks flaming up. He turned all his attention and focused on making the mocha, which he could do in his sleep, to avoid looking at the (shameless!) man. With a flick of his wrist, he drizzled the raspberry syrup around the cup, letting it drip down to make a fancy pattern before pouring in the chocolate syrup, milk, and topping it off with the espresso shots.

Giving the cup a slight shake, Zishu grabbed a bamboo straw and handed both to the (shameless!) man, who hadn’t moved an inch from his spot by the front counter. “Here you go!”

“Thank you,” he said, reaching out with both hands to grab the cup and incidentally caught Zishu’s hand as well. (Zishu was sure it was a deliberate move, considering how shameless the man was.) “I’ve told you my name, but I still don’t know yours,” he said, continuing to hold onto the cup (and Zishu’s hand).

“Oh, uhm,” Zishu wiggled his hand, successfully dislodging it. Before he could think of a fake name to give out, the cafe’s door swung open and A-Ying stepped in.

“A-Xu!” A-Ying greeted, seemingly not noticing the tension between his best friend and the customer. “I’m here!!!!!!!”

Seeing A-Ying all bandaged up standing in the cafe was enough to jerk Zishu out of the staring contest he had unwittingly been engaged in with the stranger. “What are you doing here?!”

“Hi!” A-Ying greeted the stranger, thinking he was just a normal customer. “Sorry - I wanted to come in to help you close! It’s too much work for one person.”

“But you have a concussion! You need to go rest!” Zishu grabbed A-Ying by the shoulders, turned him around and about to march him right the fuck back home.

“No, I’m fine! Just a tiny headache and a scratched forehead,” A-Ying protested.

“But---!”

“Besides, I’ve been taking so many days off recently. I need to make up for that.”

“A-Ying, you’re going to clock in and you’re going to sit in the back, resting,” Zishu declared. “Or else I’d knock you out for real.”

A-Ying raised his hands placatingly, “Ok, ok, ok!”

With A-Ying retreating to the back, Zishu let out a sigh. This kid, always trying to be helpful to others but didn’t know how to take care of himself.

“A-Xu?” It was the stranger who called out to Zishu, “Xu is a beautiful name.”

“I--uhm, thanks. It’s a nickname,” Zishu corrected.

“Oh? Then would it be ok if I call you by A-Xu?” Wen Kexing asked.

“Sure,” Zishu shrugged. He figured the man might not come back anyway.

“It was really nice to meet you, A-Xu!” He said cheerfully before leaving (finally!).

“Who was that?” A-Ying emerged from the back, tying an apron on and looking at the retreating Wen Kexing curiously.

“No one, just a customer,” Zishu might have said that a tad too quickly. Also, he was sure his cheeks were still dusting pink from all the flirting.

“Ooooohhhhh, I’m sensing something else is going on!!!” A-Ying teased. He could read his best friend as easily as an open book. “That guy is so cute! Good for you, A-Xu!”

“If you aren’t already hurt, I will kick you so hard right now,” Zishu threatened without much bite.

“Yea, yea, sureeee.”

The glare Zishu directed at A-Ying was sharp enough to cut steel. “Why did you come out here? Huh? What did I tell you?”

“A-Xu, A-Xu!! I’m just going to sit here and do nothing! Ok!” A-Ying said, waving his hands wildly at the chair propped against the back counter.

Just as Zishu was about to scold A-Ying, the door swung open, and a group of students piled in, talking loudly among themselves. Turning around to A-Ying, Zishu pointed a stern finger and said, “You will not move an inch from that chair. Got it?”

“Got it, boss!” A-Ying said, smiling widely, already thinking of how he was going to stealthily make the drinks anyway.

#word of honor #word of honor fanfic #zhou zishu #wen kexing #cheesy pick up lines #my writings #i just got to the mountain and i am here to stay #wenzhou #wenzhou fanfic

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secretshinigami · 3 years

Text

The Final Warning

Author: @complicatedmerary For: @misora-massacre Pairings/Characters: No pairings; Naomi Misora, Beyond Birthday, L, Wammy (cameo), Raye Penber (cameo) Rating/Warnings: Teen & Up, just to be safe; depression, PTSD, implicit talk about what happens in prison, especially if your successor hates your guts (and you are a terrible person), a glossed over mention of Beyond’s unfortunate appearance after the end, discussions of A’s demise, discussions of B’s crimes, L being a jerk, and B just being crass overall Prompt: A conversation between B and someone visiting him in prison (could be L, Mello or Naomi). In this case, it is Naomi and L simultaneously, but L is not facing Beyond. It makes sense in context. Author’s notes: I was reading Another Note the other day and got inspired to partially continue whatever happened to Beyond after he was arrested. This is, in a way, a prequel to my other fics about Beyond in prison, but I wrote it specifically in a certain matter to make it fit independently from them. I can now proudly say that I have finally written Naomi Misora, so hurray for that! I challenged myself not to go overboard with harsh descriptions because this could have easily gone way darker, and yet give the emotional punches I love so much. Enjoy!

***

Slow motion. Going through the motions, day by day, month by month, in slow motion. High fives blazing through like a blur, a weak arm accepting it as if it were a reflex. “You go, Misora Massacre!” They cheered, the high-pitched hoorahs ringing in her ears from all directions. Some nights, her boyfriend would turn off the movie and ask her if she was okay. Was she okay? She never knew how to respond to that question in general anyway. All she could do is nod her head with a fake smile and kiss him on the cheek as she tells him not to worry. It amazed her that it took little effort to set his mood up and running in no time. She still was not sure if this was endearing or a sign that she was a better actress than she imagined.

What would she prefer, really? For Raye to keep pressing on her mental state and get some legitimate help or to move on with her life and remove her feelings out of the equation? The tightrope was getting thinner and a single wrong move was making her dizzier. She was a professional, she needed to act like it.

There were more concerning issues in the world, she was only one person, it could had been worse.

If there was one thing Beyond had learned in prison was that criminals hated other criminals as much as the regular citizen. Especially if said criminal had a history of killing a little girl.

It was laughable, really; it was not like he did what he did to fulfill a deranged desire for bloodlust, he was more sophisticated than that. How many of them were here because of personal vendettas or emotional instability? If it were a contest between whose motivation did not have a personal connection to the victims, he would had been the only one standing.

They can threaten to kill him in his sleep or pound him to the floor all they wanted, Beyond was more intelligent than any other man in this prison combined. He may not know where he was or what time it was or if the security of this prison was as tight as these guards bragged to him, but one thing was for sure: He was not the type to give up so easily.

Naomi Misora exited the convenience store with a small bag of potato chips and strawberry gum in hand. Another side effect of this obnoxious state of mind was how she alternated between snacking almost every hour or just once a day, depending on her mood. It was not like somebody was going to stop her, it was harmless, it will go away soon, she was fine–

And then, a black limousine appeared near the sidewalk, slowly following her movements. Was she so distracted that she did not notice the large vehicle until now or was it always there? Perhaps it was a generic television actor exerting his notoriety for some autographs. And yet, it was not stopping unless she did.

“Can I help you?” Naomi raised her arms in exasperation, just wanting whatever this was to end as soon as possible.

The window rolled down and revealed an older gentleman with white hair and a white mustache, barely moved by her outburst.

“Naomi Misora, it is an honor to finally meet you.” The man said in a distinct accent.

Yes, he was definitely not from around here, Naomi thought.

“My name is Watari,” He continued. “I am with L and I’m here to delivery you to him.”

L? Again? How many times was he going to need her help?

“Tell him that I’m busy, I promised Raye that this was just a quick trip.”

“Misora-san,” An electronic voice blared from a computer. “That has been taken care of. Please get in, this is of upmost importance.”

This was not a trick, she recognized that deliberate tone. Fantastic, just what she needed.

“Misora-san,” The computer faced her as if it were a breathing person, as if this could not get any stranger. “I’m so glad we meet once again. I hope life has been treating you well.”

Hardly. “L, I respect you, but if this is another case, I’m afraid I cannot help you this time.”

“Oh, and why is that?” L seemed genuinely surprised. “We made a great team back then, surely you don’t resent me, do you?”

It is not you, it is me. “Just tell me what is going on.”

“Believe it or not, Misora-san, this is not a case to catch a killer, but to get a current prisoner to confess.”

Naomi raised an eyebrow. And what exactly can she do if she did not know what the confession was in the first place?

“This criminal is someone you’d already met,” L continued, as if he read her mind. “The infamous killer you were in close contact with a few months ago. I’m afraid there is some unfinished business.”

“Beyond Birthday?” Naomi said, incredulously. “He was arrested and confessed to his crimes. What could possibly be considered ‘unfinished’?”

“Ah, I see you have no context on what is going on,” There was no tact in his voice at all. “As you may remember, Beyond was someone I knew. Not personally, but I was aware of him. There are some details I left out for your sake, but if I need you to understand the gravity of the situation, all I can say that this concerns a man named A.”

“Who is A?”

“Someone Beyond knew.”

Not at all helpful after all.

“You have to give me more than that, L, what does A mean to Beyond?”

“We suspect B killed A and played the victim to distance himself from what he did.”

Naomi let out a sharp gasp. She would not put it past Beyond to commit more murders before this case, but something was off. The Beyond she knew would had left some clues that implied his involvement to assert dominance and this seemed like a plain murder. Or was she overthinking this for no reason?

“That is terrible, L, but … what makes you think he would say anything to me? I brought him down and arrested him. It’s not like we are friends or anything like that.”

“You don’t know him like I do, Misora-san,” L retorted. “It’s not about friendship, it’s about manipulation. Believe it or not, you carry more power over him than you realize. If there is anyone who would be glad to see you, it is Beyond Birthday.”

“And why is that?”

“He likes you, Naomi Misora.”

Naomi frowned. Great, just great, misplaced affection was exactly what she needed. Suddenly, the vehicle stopped.

“I already have this covered,” L said as Watari turned around on his seat and gave Naomi a small black box. “I��ll be with you every step of the way and monitoring every spoken word between the two of you. All I need is a confession. You can speak about whatever you want, but the goal is to make him talk about A. Can you do that?”

Naomi opened the box. It revealed two sleek earpieces that perfectly blended against her black hair. She instinctively put them on, aware of what he had planned.

“I will feed you information and you will repeat every word I say. You will not be alone; there will be two security guards monitoring both of you out of precaution. There is no telling what he may do if you say the wrong thing, but if my calculations are right, he will not dare put a hand of you if he knows he will be stopped immediately. You are a true professional, Misora-san, I believe in you. Can you do this?”

That was all she needed to hear. She nodded. “I can.”

Beyond Birthday looked around the private visitor room, an amused smirk visible on his face. Two security guards observed him from different corners, trying to intimidate him from moving. The tallest one (the name “Keith Cope” flashed above his head) gritted his teeth and growled, proving to him that this was nothing more than theatrics. He was not moved by this at all; he had gone through way worse than some punk trying to be tough, he was nothing.

What could be something, however, is the person who was visiting him today in this room: Naomi Misora. Months have passed and she still came back for more, perhaps to dissect him further for her personal notes. He did not have high hopes that she was here on her own—maybe the FBI was intrigued by him—but it was the intent that counted.

After a few minutes passed, the aforementioned woman opened the door and stared at him either in fascination or disgust. No, he knew what the issue was. She was clearly staring at the aftermath of his burned body and the untreated skin that had been left alone because L was apparently that much of a petty man to let him have some decent healthcare in prison. Fine, it did not matter, at the rate he was going, someone is bound to be fed up with him and finish him off.

Too bad it will never be me.

“Misora,” Beyond flashed an emotionless smile, the corner of his lips barely moving, as she sat down in front of him. “I knew you would come back to me.”

“Let’s save the sarcasm for one day, this isn’t personal.” Naomi scoffed. Also, the overt lack of boundaries was uncomforting.

“You haven’t changed one bit,” Beyond chuckled. “How is the FBI? I must admit, I did not mean to leave that much of an impact on you, I was supposed to go out with dignity. You learn from your mistakes and mind your business. How do you deal with that?”

You are the reason why I wake up without any rest. “Not very well. My job does not allow me to let things go.”

“Leaves you a mark for life, understandable.” Beyond said nonchalantly. “We all deal with trauma in our own ways. Have you tried screaming and crying while being watched by three unsuspected prisoners? Let’s just say, it’s good for a good bedtime story.”

The earpieces let out a crackle, allowing L to give Naomi further words to say. There was an instruction so deliberate that she wondered if this was nothing more than a game to him.

“You never learned to keep your thoughts to yourself,” Naomi said slowly and with a lower tone. “Backup, you never fail to disappoint me.”

And then, the alarms set off in his head, his eyes glazing over as his anger rose inside of him.

“You have been in close contact with L.” Beyond said between gritted teeth. And he bet that L was way closer than he imagined through Naomi Misora; he would not put it past him to use her as his mouthpiece. This was not the first time, and it would not be his last. In his earlier years of successor training, L was never present, but some of the institution’s teachers would occasionally adjust their earpieces before speaking, indicating that none of their words were their own. Incidentally, they all sounded the same: From the diction, to the deliberate robotic strictness, he figured that this was L’s modus operandi in the shadows. It almost made him laugh; either L was afraid of children or he was the least caring person on the planet. He was willing to bet on both, but he learned the hard way that L could not be put in a box. It was a fact so infuriating, and yet, it kept his fascination for him alive.

“Yes,” Naomi said curtly. “I was given more information about you that I cared to know about.”

“Do you think he is better than me?”

“What?” She was taken aback.

“Oh, you know,” Beyond shrugged. “Since the Great Detective is listening to this conversation right now, it wouldn’t hurt to hear from your own mouth how much of a failure I am. Come on, stroke his ego today, he desperately needs it.”

There was stunned silence between the three of them.

Naomi stood up from her seat and turned her back to Beyond. Faint whispers of “let me handle this” and “that’s enough for me” were barely heard, but her frantic movements were indicative that she was winning the argument. She removed her hand from her ear and sat back down, her hands flat against the table.

“He thinks nothing of you, Beyond Birthday. You were caught in the act and your terror is over. I hope prison gives you no rest.”

Beyond tsked. “Ah, so the lady can speak for herself. And here I thought I wouldn’t be able to speak to the real Naomi Misora after all. Tell me, Misora, and only you, can you truly forgive L for all the emotional damage he has bestowed upon you? He may command respect, but he has no regard for common human decency.”

Naomi fiddled with her ring absentmindedly, a nervous habit she developed after the LABB case. It was the one thing that could sooth her at this time.

Beyond let out a low whistle. “You have to give your man some credit, he knows when to lock it down.”

“What?” That perked up her attention.

“However, if that is the best ring he could get, he doesn’t deserve you. What’s his name?”

“None of your business!” Naomi fired back.

“Touchy subject, I see,” Beyond rolled his eyes. “And here I thought you could tell me anything.”

“Enough,” Naomi said firmly. “This isn’t about me; this is about you. I know what you did, Beyond, don’t let this go.”

“What, that I killed people? Shocking, no wonder why we are both here.”

“You can either confess now and have your sentence reduced or lie to the both of us and make your situation worse for you.”

“What? What are you talking about?” Beyond’s voice cracked from the sudden raise of his tone.

“You killed A.”

All pleasantries were done for, Beyond could not believe what he was hearing. L was trying to frame him for A’s death? This was a new low, even for L. And what was that about “confessing” now to reduce his sentence? L must think he was that desperate to get out of prison to even suggest that he would ever say that he killed A. Just because you lie every single day of your life it does not mean I should follow your example to save my skin. Absolutely pathetic, what are you trying to prove, hmm? That you can torture me for the rest of my life to show how little I mean to you? Admit to something I did not do? How about you admit that I’m a reminder that your games are useless and that you fail as a functional, empathetic human being? You will get what is coming for you, it may not be tomorrow, or within the next year, but mark my words, L, no one will miss you when you are gone.

“I don’t know what he told you, but he is lying,” Beyond was seething. “I didn’t kill A, he did.”

“L told me you would say something like that. This is over, Beyond.”

“Don’t believe him!” He suddenly stood up from his seat. “He made A and I train like old dogs to be like him. A did not deserve what happened to him, it was all L’s fault. There is no evidence of what he is accusing me of, and if he has something, it is a set up. I’m sick of him, you have to be sick of him, too, for making you go through this farce.”

“Backup, sit down!” Keith approached him. Beyond complied, not because he feared him, but he wanted to be here long enough to convince Naomi that he was telling the truth.

Naomi said nothing. On one hand, he was trying to prove his innocence so badly, it must be genuine. However, she had been an agent long enough to realize that guilt can manifest with overt emotions and he had been caught in a sticky situation. Either way, he was a still a murderer and did not deserve her sympathy.

“He does have proof, Beyond,” Naomi insisted. “It’s over, confess and you’ll be happier to have this burden off your shoulders.”

Beyond shook his head roughly. “No, that’s not true. He is setting me up to test me. It does not matter if I lie or tell the truth, I am stuck in prison for the rest of my life. What do I benefit from A’s death? Nothing. I know it, L knows it, even you know it. You have seen how I plan my murders, Misora. Don’t you think there is something off going on? You must realize deep down that you are nothing but a pawn in his game.”

Here was the thing: Naomi was aware at this point that she was a chess piece to this game, she would have been too naïve not to see it. However, she just wanted this to end, no matter what.

“Stop it. At the end of the day, you are a murderer and deserve what is coming to you. If you want to pretend that you did not kill A, that is your problem. This is over, I’m done with this.”

“No, this is not over,” Beyond crawled over the table, his face twisted and colorful in anger. “I’m sick and tired of this nonsense. L,” He seemed to point out at her ear. “Listen to me carefully. I will get out of here, one way or another. This is your final warning to drop the act and face me properly once and for all. When that time comes, don’t hide behind your guards and power. This is between you and me only. You are an absolutely coward—”

“Time’s up, Backup,” Keith grabbed Beyond’s arms, not caring how rough he was being. As much as Beyond wanted to resist, he just could not. He said what needed to be said and was not in the mood for an altercation. He would save all the fighting energy for the day he finally escapes.

Once Beyond was out of sight, Naomi dropped her face between her arms and let out an exasperated sigh. At least that was over.

“Misora-san?” L said in the earpiece.

“Hm?” Naomi murmured.

“You can go home now; you did an outstanding job.”

Oh, thank God.

#fanfiction #death note #ratings: teen #pairings: none #Mello's Birthday Mayhem 2020 #naomi misora #L #oc #b #raye penber #complicatedmerary #bluelyath #submission

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aliceslantern · 4 years

Text

Heartlines, a Kingdom Hearts fanfic, chapter 21--Radiant Garden

Twelve years ago, Xemnas betrayed the royal court of Radiant Garden to his father, Xehanort. Prince Ienzo flees to another city and begins university in the aftermath, hoping the anonymity will protect him from eager eyes with ill intent. The darkness spilling across the country, as well as an individual from his past, cut short Ienzo's new beginning and bring new conflicts to light. Strained between the desires of his magic and his heart, Ienzo's choice will change him forever.

Modern Fantasy AU, Soulmates, Zemyx. Updates Fridays until it's done.

Chapter summary: Demyx, Aeleus, and Ansem arrive in Radiant Garden.

Read it on FF.net/on AO3

---

Demyx expected Radiant Garden to be… nicer.

Then again, it apparently once was, if anything Ansem was saying was true. The whole city kind of stunk , a smell that made Amalia cry. Demyx knew by then it was darkness.

The three of them didn’t talk much on the ferry ride over, as though saying too much might give them away. But the workers just ushered them on boredly and treated them as normal passengers, not that there were many this early morning.

“So where are we going?” Demyx asked.

“Not to worry, I’ve got it all straightened out,” Ansem said.

So bizarre still, to think that the king was his father-in-law. He kept looking at Amalia, as though she might disappear. Demyx noticed for the millionth time just how much she looked like Ienzo--the shape of her eyebrows and eyes, her pale skin, her hair. Sometimes he thought she smelled like him.

Ienzo was alive.

Along the waves and waves of longing for him was something bitter and sharp. How could you have left me? Have left us? Demyx tried to squelch those thoughts down--it wasn’t as though Ienzo wanted this to happen--but it was tough doing.

They disembarked from the ferry and walked through the streets. They were eerily empty--the few people they did see narrowed their eyes and walked too quickly. Ansem sighed heavily. “This was once such a beautiful place.”

Demyx could see that too. The flower gardens were everywhere, but a lot of the flowers were limp, brown, dying. The few vibrant flowers they saw turned out to be plastic as they approached. Amalia lay against his chest limply, as though exhausted. While they saw old signs for streetcars, Demyx didn’t see any on the streets.

So they walked. Amalia only weighed a little over seven kilos, but even with the sling Demyx found himself getting achy. After a while, Ansem offered to take the baby from him. “It’s the darkness, making you weak,” the king said out of the corners of his mouth.

Many of the houses were boarded up and shuttered, and in some places there was evidence of destruction--soot from fires, broken glass, rubble. What seemed like hours later, they arrived at an apartment building at the farthest edge of the city. Demyx’s feet were positively screaming. Ansem handed the baby back and took a small skeleton key from his pocket. “This used to be the resistance’s headquarters,” he said, equally as quietly. “Some years ago they got smoked out.”

“How is it safe, then?” Demyx asked.

“Because Xehanort thinks we’re not stupid enough to return to the places we’ve left.”

They walked up to the fourth floor landing. The building was abandoned; Demyx could feel it. It was old, dusty. Amalia sneezed. At least the power still seemed to be on, flickering unsteadily in bare bulbs. They reached a door at the end of the hall and Ansem unlocked that, too.

This must’ve once been a nice apartment, but dust and water damage bloated the silk wallpaper, and dirt permeated every crevice. Demyx could see spots where the resistance must have… resisted the “smoking out”; gouges in floors, cracks in the wall, a chair with one of its legs broken. Most of the furniture left was covered in sheets. Aeleus tried to open one of the windows, but it was stuck and didn’t get more than a few inches. He sighed. “I don’t suppose you know any wind magic,” he said to Demyx.

He shook his head. “Water, mostly. Sorry.”

Aeleus thought. “Actually, that might just work.”

Demyx handed Aeleus the baby. It still felt weird, to use his own power after so long, but he was surprised at how easily it came. He felt like he was doing something wrong, sweeping water off of the floors, the surfaces he could see; the grime was coming up more easily than he thought. He guided the water across the furniture, too, washing it clean, then drying everything back out and dumping the waste out the window. “Would’ve made apartment life in college a lot easier,” he muttered. The place was a different color.

“Can you ward?” Ansem asked.

Demyx felt his face heat. “...No.”

He passed the baby back to him. “No matter.” He started casting the then-familiar barriers at the door.

“I didn’t think you were a magic user.”

“My power is considerably less than Ienzo’s--much like your daughter got his, my sister got our father’s.”

“...Magic is so weird,” Demyx said.

He laughed. “Indeed it is, my dear boy.”

“I’m going to see if I can find some food,” Aeleus said. “Don’t go anywhere if you can avoid it.”

Demyx and Ansem continued to get the apartment ready for living. Demyx missed with a sudden ache his old apartment with Riku, the basement in the townhouse. Reliable clean hot showers. Restaurants, bars. Clubs. Friends.

Ansem rested a hand on his shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“I… know I should be glad we’re together, and alive. But…”

“You miss your old life. Of course you do.” He smiled kindly. “I think we all do every now and again.”

“Especially you--I mean, you must’ve had it pretty freaking sweet.”

“Things are just things,” Ansem said wistfully. “I miss mostly… my family.”

“Ienzo,” Demyx said, feeling the now-familiar accompanying stab of pain.

“My son… Even, that dear man… my apprentices. And those members of staff who became family, too.”

Demyx considered the way Ansem said Even’s name. “Do you… love him?”

Ansem looked confused. “My son? Of course.”

“No, Even.”

Ansem looked out the window.

“You don’t have to tell me. It’s okay.”

After a moment Ansem said, “We never… said as such. I’d hoped… things would evolve eventually, and then…”

“...Shit hit the fan.” Amalia cooed as though in response. “Right.”

“...I’m hoping that somehow all this nonsense will be behind us soon. That your daughter can grow up knowing Xehanort as only part of history.”

She made small smacking sounds. Very deliberately, she smiled. “She likes you,” Demyx said. “Well. She likes mostly everyone, but…”

Ansem chuckled. He leaned forward to take Amalia’s tiny fist into his hand. “You’re a seeker, right?”

“...Yeah.”

“From where?”

“Destiny Islands.”

“So you’re--”

“...Yeah.” He swallowed. “She’s got the, uh, scales. You’ll probably see them if you ever change her.”

Ansem sat on one of the covered chairs. “You’ll have to forgive me,” he said in a low voice, knotting his hands.

Demyx knew how he would answer, but he said, “for what?”

“For choosing this life for you. I assure you I did not know your people intended a living person to be behind Ienzo’s protection. I was… woefully ignorant of the cultural implications.”

Demyx considered this. “My parents sold me so they could stay together,” he said instead. “What would the alternative have been? I’d have still always been seeking Ienzo, whether or not I knew it. And I’d never have found him if I stayed where I was.”

“Is that what you sought? A partner, a family?”

“Must be,” he murmured. “I… I don’t know. I feel divorced in a lot of ways from my past self. I didn’t even remember a lot of it until recently. Swiss cheese memory.”

“Darkness can cause amnesia that only time and coincidence can heal.”

“Apparently.”

There was a gentle knock at the door; they all tensed, even Amalia, and Demyx’s heart broke a little more ( she shouldn’t feel afraid like this ). Ansem drew a dagger from his boot and approached it slowly. Then he looked through the peephole and sighed heavily, and Demyx knew that kind of sigh. Longing.

Even was sopping wet as he came through the door. “Don’t ask,” he said, before he caught sight of Ansem. “Oh--”

“Hello, Even,” he said.

Even’s face had gone oddly blank. “Hello... I…” A faint flush spread through his face, and he turned instead to Demyx. “How’s the baby?”

“She’s fine. Want me to dry you out?”

“If you don’t mind.”

Demyx did so. “Nice day for a swim, huh?”

“Boy, I said don’t ask. ” He took off the unflattering parka he wore. He seemed to struggle to gather himself. Then, to Ansem, “I thought we’d agreed to keep you out of this.”

Demyx wondered if now might be the right moment to try and get the baby down for a nap. He stood carefully and eased his way towards one of the bedrooms. “The time for cowardice is over, I think. Lest Ienzo be in more trouble than he’s already let on. At some point my safety becomes complicity. Don’t you agree?”

Demyx eased the door shut. They continued this discussion in low voices. Amalia squalled a little, reaching towards Even. “I know, Li-li. You missed him. But he has to talk to grandpa Ansem.” He washed out the blanket on the bed quickly and tucked it into a larger drawer of the dresser. Before all this, he’d thought the babies-in-a-drawer thing was only pop culture. They used to have a pack-and-play she’d used as a bed, but they’d had to abandon it one night. That was before Isa taught him about pocket dimensions. Either way, she didn’t seem to mind, and he sang her a lullaby until she fell asleep.

He must’ve slept too, draped in the musty armchair; he was only woken by the gentle tapping of nails on the wooden floors. Demyx jerked awake, reaching automatically for the baby, before he saw it was just Isa; moonlight bled into the room. “Your time of the month already, huh?” he asked.

Isa just glared at him with the wolf’s eyes and trotted over to the baby, sniffing her once; she cooed.

“Must’ve been easier to swim this way though, I bet.”

He just bobbed his head once.

“Everyone else still out there?”

Another nod.

“Keep an eye on her for me? I bet she’s starving.”

On shaky legs, Demyx walked back over to the door, which Isa had left open. Ansem, Aeleus, and Even were gathered at the small round kitchen table in the dark, their eyes on Even’s phone, something like horror in their expressions.

He didn’t like the sinking feeling he got. For the first time in a while his own magic pinged unpleasantly. “What?” Demyx asked.

“Oh, Demyx. Let me get you some coffee,” Ansem said. He crossed back over to the pot. “I’m afraid there’s only milk--”

“What. Happened.”

Even just sighed, and it was a sigh of someone about to have a hard conversation. “Why don’t you sit down?” He took off his glasses, but this only made him look more exhausted.

Another unpleasant ping. “Ienzo,” he said, with something like desperation.

“...is still alive. Physically, anyway.” Even guided Demyx over to a chair and pressed the coffee into his hand. He touched his shoulder, once; Even only initiated physical contact if something bad happened. “Take a breath. It may not be as it seems.”

Aeleus just shook his head.

But Demyx had always been smarter, or maybe more intuitive, than the once-scientist thought. “He’s been brainwashed.”

“The picture I have is not completely clear--” He began, then took a moment to compose himself. “The city news has been unreliable, as it’s now owned by the state.”

“Let the other shoe drop before you give the boy a heart attack,” Ansem said. He was still facing the counter.

Even’s lips pursed even more. Without ceremony, he presented Demyx the phone, which was open to a news article.

Missing princess actually prince, voices support for new regime.

He thought he might faint. “Oh, shit .”

#heartlines #demyx #ienzo #zemyx #ansem the wise #even (kingdom hearts)#aeleus #child oc - amalia

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darks-ink · 5 years

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Stalker - Ectoberweek 2019

Second AU idea that I’ve had forever that I could conveniently use for these prompts. Here’s day 2, Stalker!

Rating: Teen (swearing) Warnings: Stalking (I mean, duh), feelings of helplessness (caused by people not listening), and general life-ruining shenanigans. Also angsty in general. Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort Words: 6,035 Additional Tags: Alternate universe, One shot, Angst with a Happy Ending

[AO3] [FFN]

---

A hand landed on Danny’s shoulder, and he whirled around, muscles tensing. When he saw it was just Tucker, he relaxed again.

Until Tucker said, frowning, “Dude, how could you do that to me? You know how much I paid for that PDA!”

He spent a moment processing that, then swept Tucker’s hand off of his shoulder and turned around again. “I didn’t do it, man. How often do I have to tell you guys that I’m not responsible for his actions?”

“Oh, come on! Stop giving us that crappy excuse!” Tucker hurried after him, his footsteps loud in the emptying hallway. “Just tell me why you wrecked my PDA, man!”

Danny stopped. Turned around to face Tucker, leaning in close. Then he growled, “I didn’t destroy your PDA, Tuck. Tell me, was it me? Or was it that damn ghost that keeps pretending to be me?”

Tucker scoffed, pushing Danny away. “Whatever, dude. I’m done with your mood swings and all of this bullshit. You can come talk to me again when you’re sorted out your shit, alright?”

And before Danny got a chance to reply, Tucker left.

Well.

Shit.

There went another lifelong friendship, huh?

---

Danny felt cold crawl over his spine, and immediately stopped walking. A glowing being faded into visibility in front of him. A ghost.

It met his eyes, glowing green ones blinking back at him.

“Hi,” he said, hesitantly. After the activation of the ghost portal in the basement, his parents had doubled down on ghostly education. Their recommended course of action when encountering a ghost was to fight it, but, well. Danny wasn’t carrying any equipment, and he really wasn’t looking to anger this ghost, anyway.

The ghost blinked again, and didn’t reply.

“Uh.” Danny licked his lips, resisting the temptation to glance around. He didn’t want to look away. “Cool. Can I, uh, go?”

It blinked again. Then it tilted its head slightly, like a confused dog.

Danny shifted to the side slightly, like he was about to turn around, when the ghost opened its mouth.

“No,” it said, voice ethereal and echoing. It didn’t move to stop Danny.

“Oh.” He shifted back to where he had been when the ghost had appeared. “Alright, sure, okay.”

They stared at each other for a while longer, Danny growing increasingly restless. Why was it just looking at him? It insisted that he stay, but why? What was going on?

He had just reached the point where he was seriously deliberating the option to just sprint past the ghost when it spoke up again.

“You are Danny Fenton,” it said, simply. Its tone was hard to read with the echo.

“Uh… yes?” He shrugged at it, uncertain why it mattered. Wait. Had his parents pissed off this ghost, and was it now back to take revenge by attacking him? “I, uh. Am afraid that I don’t know who you are.” Belatedly he realized that he should probably try to be polite to avoid pissing it off, and tacked on, “Sorry.”

The ghost hummed, tilting its head the other way. Its hair, snow white and messy and somehow stirring in a non-existent wind, flopped along.

Then, suddenly, it smirked at him. Darted towards him, wrapping its tail around his waist and settling its hands on his shoulder. In his ear, it whispered,

“I’m Danny Phantom.”

Danny shivered, and he wasn’t afraid to admit that it wasn’t just the cold of its breath that had caused it.

The ghost leaned over his shoulder, grinning manically, and met his eyes again. The vivid green had made its face hard to recognize from a distance, the light throwing off his features, but from this close it was undeniable.

It looked exactly like him.

“What?” Danny blurted at it, frozen in place. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

It barked out a single laugh, colder than his own would ever be. “What do you think it means?” It grinned viciously, its cold fingers digging into Danny’s shoulders.

“I, uh.” He swallowed, throat dry. He didn’t know what it meant, and honestly? He didn’t want to think about it. “Think that you searched me out because… we have the same first name?”

“Oh?” It hummed, sounding like it was considering this, and unwrapped its spectral tail from around Danny. “Well, I suppose you’re not entirely mistaken.”

“Um. Good.” He was caught between wanting to look away, and not wanting to lose sight of the ghost. It was acting strange, and he couldn’t get a read on its intentions. “I mean, that’s good, right?”

The ghost finally let go of him, moving away to float in front of him. It hummed again. “Well, you’re not quite what I was expecting, but that’s alright. I think I can make this work.”

“Uh.” Danny blinked at it, trying to gauge its expression. “Make what work?”

It grinned again, wide and undeniably evil. Its fingers, clad in white gloves, twitched.

“You’ll see,” it said.

And then Danny’s world went black.

---

“Danny,” Jazz chided, clearly moments away from a worried rant about his safety and how couldn’t keep doing this, Danny!

Oh, like he had any god damn choice in the matter.

“Jazz,” he whined back at her, expression flat. “Look, whatever you think you know, you don’t, okay? It’s not real.”

She huffed, clearly annoyed. “I get it, alright, you want to keep it a secret. And I don’t blame you, with your parents being, well, our parents. But you can trust me, Danny. I know we bicker sometimes, but I’m your sister, and I care about you.”

“I know,” he said, ignoring the ache in his chest. She cared, but she wouldn’t listen. “Jazz, I know. But it’s not what you think. I’ve told you, and if you want I’ll tell you again. I’m not Danny Phantom.”

“Yeah, right.” She rolled her eyes, crossed her arms. “Danny, little brother, it’s not exactly subtle. You look almost the same, bar the white hair and the green eyes, and you even wear a color-inverted version of the jumpsuit Mom and Dad made for you. Your name is a pun on your actual name!”

“It’s. Not. Me!” he yelled at her, hands coming up to dig into his scalp. “Jazz, it’s not me! It has never been me! That god damn ghost just keeps pretending to be me! Why don’t you believe me?!”

“Because you’re a terrible liar, Danny!” She scowled at him, eyes narrowed. “And because Sam and Tucker told me, when I confronted them. And guess who told them? You did. So stop being such an ass, little brother, and let me help!”

He groaned as his fingers dug in deeper, fingernails carving into his skin. “I do want you to help, Jazz! I want you to help me get rid of this ghost that is ruining my damn life!”

She jerked back, eyes softening a little. “Danny. I didn’t-- Are you unhappy, being half ghost? Do you want to… get rid of it?”

“I-- Yes, fuck!” It wasn’t the right conclusion, but dammit, he would take anything to get rid of Phantom. “Yes, I want it to be gone! I want to just live my life again!”

“Oh. Well.” She cleared her throat, suddenly looking uncertain. “I, um. I’ll see what I can get out of our parents, and then we can… The four of us can sit down, discuss it?”

“I… I don’t know.” He shrugged, letting his arms slump down with his shoulders. “Jazz, I… Sam and Tucker don’t want to talk to me anymore.”

Jazz wilted a little at that, her eyes narrowing. “I… see. How come?”

“Because… Because Phantom was causing trouble for them,” he finally admitted, trying to sort through his words. To explain in a way that she would accept without having to lie. “And I can’t… control it. Him. And I don’t want him to hurt anyone anymore.”

“Oh, Danny.” She softened entirely, pulling him against her. “We’ll figure this out, okay? We’ll take care of it.”

---

When Danny woke up, it was to the nagging feeling that his life had just irreversibly gone off the tracks.

Then he remembered what had happened before he had passed out. Groaning, he pushed himself into a sitting position, warily glancing around him.

Huh. He was in his room, lying on top of his bed. Not under the covers, and fully clothed, but still. That wasn’t where he had been at all when he’d met the ghost.

“Um,” he said, uncertainly. Moved his legs off of the side of his bed, and experimentally flexed his hand. Something felt… off. Not much, but just enough to be noticeable.

And, above all, he worried. Phantom hadn’t seemed friendly, by any meaning of the word, and the fact that he’d passed out while the ghost was there… Well, it didn’t spell good things, did it?

He noticed his phone on his nightstand and flipped it open. No unread messages, no missed phone calls. So no one was missing him, at least.

According to the time he’d been unconscious for hours, though. That was… even more worrying. What had that ghost done to him?

He scampered over to the bathroom, swayed briefly, and came to a halt in front of the mirror. Swept his hands through his hair, leaned in close, pulled open his eyes to peer into them deeply. Nothing. No signs of any difference. No damage caused by the ghost.

Nothing to explain what had happened, or how he had gotten home.

Danny slumped in on himself. God, his parents were right. Ghosts existed, and they were malevolent, and he could’ve prevented all this if he had just carried one of those stupid weapons. Ugh!

Honestly, not knowing what the ghost had done to him might be worse than what it had actually done. Because if he wasn’t dead, and he wasn’t injured, well… It couldn’t have done anything too bad, right?

Yeah. Yeah, that sounded about right.

Phantom couldn’t have done anything to him that he wouldn’t have noticed already.

Hell, maybe Phantom had just knocked him out, and his parents or Jazz brought him home! Or maybe Sam and Tucker found him!

Yeah, that definitely made more sense. His parents—and Jazz, because she was basically another parent—would’ve hovered over him the whole time. But Sam and Tucker would’ve been sent home by now.

A yawn crept up on him, and suddenly he realized how tired he was. Man, did unconsciousness not count as sleeping? That’s dumb.

Well, it wasn’t like he was finding out anything more about what had happened with Phantom by staying up. Might as well catch up on some sleep.

It wasn’t like the ghost had done something dramatic to him. Something that he would have to deal with at school tomorrow morning.

Right?

---

“Alright. You said that Phantom likes to search you out when you’re alone?”

“Uh, yeah.” He shrugged under Jazz’ watchful eye. “He likes to taunt me, y’know? Really rub it in, how he-- it-- whatever has ruined my life.”

She nodded, her expression remaining thoughtful. It hadn’t quite lost that skeptical edge either, but for now she seemed willing to play along, so it was good enough for him.

Honestly, just having a single person willing to listen to him—to the actual him—was enough. It was more than he usually got, these days.

And wasn’t that a depressing thought?

“We can work with that,” Jazz said, suddenly, startling him out of his thoughts. “We can use that to prove that he really is a distinct ghost. At least for now.”

“To prove it to you, you mean?” He snorted, humorlessly. “Jazz, please, you’re a terrible liar.”

Jazz huffed, but it was lighthearted. “And so are you, little brother. But, fine, yes, this will prove that Phantom is not only a distinct ghost, rather than part of you, but will also prove that he is malevolent.”

“Alright, so… How do you plan on doing that?”

“I am not going to do anything.” She ran a hand through her hair, fingers pulling on a strand but not quite tugging on it—a lead-up to her standard nervous tick. “If I go anywhere nearby, Phantom might spot me, and, well. No telling what will happen then.”

He made a face. “Yeah, fair enough. I’m pretty sure he isn’t above overshadowing you guys, and if that doesn’t work, well… He’s hurt people before, I think.”

“Which is why we’re not going to give him the opportunity.” She fixed her expression into something determined. “So, you’re going out on a walk today. Tonight. Alone.”

“Uh. Okay?” He frowned at her. “So Phantom will come to me, but you won’t be anywhere close by. What’s the point of that?”

Jazz rolled her eyes, clearly exasperated. “You’re going to call me, Danny, so I can hear Phantom.” When he opened his mouth to reply, she shushed him and continued. “Instead of talking into it or hanging up, you’re going to put it in your pocket, preferably somewhere higher up. Maybe a jacket pocket? That way I should be able to hear the conversation between you and Phantom, especially if you switch to speakerphone beforehand.”

“Ah. Um.” He blinked at her, surprised by how thought-through it was, especially considering that he didn’t think she actually believed him. “That, uh, sounds good. I’ll… do that.”

Rather than take offense, like he had feared, Jazz laughed at his stammering. “Come on, Danny, I’m smart, remember? Just because I usually apply it to school doesn’t mean I can’t scheme.”

“Don’t call it scheming,” he corrected, immediately, somewhat abruptly. Definitely not because he wanted to dodge the topic of ‘Jazz being smarter than him, better than him in every aspect-- No! No, stupid brain, that was god damn Phantom speaking!

He jerked his head, forcibly shaking off the thoughts, and continued the initial thought. “Scheming is, uh. Y’know. Evil. We’re just… planning. Making plans! To fight back malevolent ghosts. Or-- a single, specific, malevolent ghost.”

Jazz cracked up even harder, swatting her hand at him with unknown intentions. Or, well. Unknown until she managed to catch his shoulder, because she patted it a few times, comfortingly. “Alright, alright, I get it. We’re making entirely couth plans to take down a malevolent ghost. No scheming.”

“Yes, exactly.” He nodded, forcibly, puffing himself up a little in mock offense. “We’re beacons of the light, Jazz! Represent the good of humanity.” Then he faltered a little, letting himself fall back into his usual slumped position. “And all that.”

“Right, right.” She was laughing, still, but seemed to be sobering up a little, at least. “When do you want to go out for this?”

“Eh.” He shrugged, patting down his pocket for his phone. “There is no specific time when it’s more likely for him to come out, so we might as well go for it now. Unless you had plans?”

Jazz rolled her eyes, but her lips quirked up into a fond smile. “You come first, Danny, you know that. You have your phone on you?”

“Got it right here,” he said, pulling it out of his pocket and flipping it open. “So, just to be sure. I’m calling you, and then when you answer, I just put it in my pocket and ignore it?”

She nodded, pulling out her own phone. “See if you can put it in your jacket pocket, if that’s not too obvious, and put it on speakerphone.”

“Yeah, got it.” He scrolled through his contacts, then called Jazz. “I’ll go and get a jacket, then. Uh. Am I supposed to hang up after he leaves, or something?”

“We’ll… see.” She made an uncertain face. “I guess it kind of depends on what he’ll say. If you’re sure that he left, you can answer the phone. But if he might still be around, you should just say something… not so obvious, like “there he goes”, and not acknowledge the phone. Or he might catch on.”

“Ah. That makes sense.” The call connected, and he clicked over to switch to speakerphone. “Well… Let’s hope that this isn’t the night that he just straight-up murders me.”

“Danny!” she gasped, startled.

“Joking, joking!”

“You’re the worst.” She scoffed, but couldn’t quite get the fond look out of her eyes. “Get going, or you might miss the ghost entirely.”

“Oh, please.” Danny rolled his eyes exasperatedly. “Like he would miss the opportunity.”

---

Danny hurried into the school, his sneakers squealing as he slid to a halt in front of his locker. Still panting a little, he quickly twirled the lock open. As he started shoveling his books into his backpack, he became dimly aware of a human presence behind him, and he prayed to god that it wasn’t Dash for once.

He turned out to be lucky, because Sam and Tucker leaned in around him, one on either side.

The feeling didn’t last when he took in their expressions, complicated and muddled. And not in a good way.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, feeling dread claw its way up his stomach. Had… Was this related to Phantom? Was it something it had done to him, when he had passed out? Were they really the ones who found him?

“You know what’s wrong,” Sam snarled at him, and he sincerely wondered if he did. “I can’t believe you would keep that a secret for so long, Danny! Why wouldn’t you have let us help sooner?”

Uh, that was a hard no. He definitely didn’t know what this was about.

He looked away from his locker to meet her eyes, trying to convey how much he didn’t know what she was talking about. “Sam, I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, come on, are you really going to act like nothing happened last night?” Tucker scoffed from his other side. “After everything you told us? You showed us, dude, there’s no taking that back.”

“Showed you what?” he asked, emphasizing the last word. “I really don’t know what you two are talking about!”

“We’re talking about you being half-ghost,” Sam finally snapped at him, fury burning in her eyes. “That’s what we’re fucking talking about! Now will you stop pretending last night didn’t happen and talk to us?”

“I, uh. What?” He blinked, caught off-guard by the revelation. What-- Oh, god, Phantom. What had it done? “I’m not-- I’m not half-ghost, or-- or anything besides an ordinary human! Who told you that? Was it that damn ghost? Because I swear, there’s something wrong with--”

“You told us!” Tucker bit at him, now also angry. “Don’t-- Don’t pretend that you aren’t! You came over, last night, and you fucking showed us, man! Regular you, and your ghost form, and how your powers carry over and shit!”

“I did what?” How had--

Oh, god. He hadn’t just passed out. Phantom had-- had possessed him, had played around with him in his body.

“Oh,” he said, quietly, pressing his head against the lockers. “Oh man. That fucking ghost, I swear.”

“We won’t tell Jazz, alright? Or your parents.” Tucker nudged him, a worried crease to his brow. “We can figure this out, just the three of us. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he repeated, blankly. “Yeah. We’ll… deal with it.”

“And any ghost that threatens this down will deal with us,” Sam added, anger settling into fierce determination. “Team Phantom will protect this town!”

---

“Daniel,” the ghost purred, tone playful, as it faded into visibility.

“Phantom,” he greeted back, fists clenched. He was powerless against it, still. He might’ve learned to defend against its overshadowing, but he couldn’t fight it. All of his parents’ inventions, no matter how successful, somehow never affected Phantom.

He was pretty sure the ghost had something to do with that, too.

“Nice evening for a stroll, hmm?” Phantom swirled around him, long spectral tail crawling over Danny’s spine and flicking his hair. “Pretty lonely, though. Friends weren’t interested in coming along?”

He snorted dismissively. “Yeah, wonder why that is?” He was about to add more, but realized that it might be too taunting for Jazz, and bit it back instead.

“Oh, hmm, yes, I do wonder.” The ghost flipped onto its side, one finger tapped its chin as it faked thinking. “You three were always so close… a friendship made to last a lifetime, no?”

This time Danny couldn’t stop himself from blurting at the ghost, “You gonna tell me what you did and why, or are you just gonna taunt me with it the whole time?”

The ghost clicked its tongue, chastising. “Danny, Danny. So impatient. See, that’s what you living don’t get. There’s no need to rush through life! After all, it’ll end soon enough!”

“Is that a threat, or just a general statement?” Danny narrowed his eyes at the ghost, for once glad that it was staying somewhat close. Hopefully Jazz could hear the whole conversation. “Because I really thought you were above threatening bodily injuries, Phantom.”

“Oh, please, like I would need to resort to such things.” The ghost rolled its eyes, flicking the tip of its tail in Danny’s face. “I would much rather ruin your life and force you to suffer living through it.”

“Great,” he said, flatly. “That’s really nice to know. Now, are you going to tell me what you did, or are you just here to waste my time? Like you said, I only have a limited amount of it, y’know.”

Phantom scoffed, then flapped a dismissive hand. “Well, I know when I am not wanted. Better leave you to your sad, lonely life, Fenton.”

“Yeah, that would be nice, thanks,” he answered it, dryly. “In fact, if you could fuck off entirely, that would be wonderful. I can take it from here.”

The ghost hummed, its vivid eyes narrowed at him. “I don’t think I will, Danny-Boy. Bye bye.”

Rather than go invisible, it flew off, and Danny watched it go. Then, convinced that it was really gone, he pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket.

“Please tell me you heard all of that.”

“I did,” Jazz’ voice answered over the phone, the sound slightly tinny. “And god, Danny, I can’t believe that this has been going on all this time, unnoticed.”

“Yeah, well.” He scoffed, bitterly, still looking in the direction Phantom had gone. “Apparently people are more inclined to believe him, rather than me.”

---

Danny swore as Dash knocked into him, sending a heated glare at the bully. Dash scowled back, then paled, suddenly.

“Oh, Danny!” he stammered out, raising his hands defensively. “Sorry, man, I didn’t see it was you.”

“Uh. Okay?” Danny rubbed his arm, frowning at Dash. “That hasn’t exactly stopped you before, has it?”

“Well, no, but…” Dash flapped his hands about, like he was somehow trying to convey his intentions without words.

It wasn’t very successful.

“You’re you, you know?” the finally settled on, like that was any better.

“Uh huh,” Danny said, nodding slowly. “Not sure if you’ve noticed, Dash, but I’ve been me my while life.”

Dash scoffed. “You know what I’m talking about, Fe-- Danny. But if this is your revenge for the bullying, I get it.”

“It’s not, but okay, whatever.” He was growing increasingly sure what this was about, but… “Didn’t know you were the hero-worship type, Dash.”

Inexplicably, the boy flushed, looking away. “Whatever, Fenton. Don’t push your luck.”

He stormed off, leaving Danny alone with his confusion. Man, what had Phantom done now?

Before he could spend too much time wondering about it, cold crawled up his spine, and he shivered with both cold and anticipation.

A ghost was here. Phantom, probably, because for all that the ghost liked to play with him, it refused to share with other ghosts. Must consider him its toy, which was a pretty fucked up thought, really.

Suddenly he was pressed against the lockers in the empty hallway, a hulking ghost pinning him with a single massive gloved hand. Its skin gleamed like metal, empty green eyes narrowed, and skull-like face grinning wide. Green flames licked out of the top of its head, a ghostly mockery of a mohawk.

Then Danny’s eyes caught on the hand that wasn’t pinning him. A huge knife, slightly curved and ecto-green, slid from the ghosts arm, and it didn’t hesitate with pressing it against Danny’s neck.

“I have you now, whelp,” it grunted at him, a tone of elation to the echoing voice. “I will-- Wait.”

“Gladly,” he muttered back, head tilted back as far as it could go. He was afraid to swallow away the lump caught in his throat, afraid that the motion would press the knife in too deep.

The ghost took its eyes off of him, and then, blessedly, slid the knife back into its arm. Turning the limb slightly, it peered at what appeared to be a screen, although Danny wasn’t sure what it was supposed to show.

He waited for a long moment as the ghost peered at the screen, then glanced at him, then back at the screen. Finally it declared, disdainfully, “You are not the prey I was promised.”

“Uh. Okay?” Danny said, feeling a deja-vu of the worst kind. Had he really swapped his regular human bully for ghosts like this one. “Um. I’m sorry to hear that?”

It peered at him, entirely green eyes narrowed. Then it made a humming noise, stepping back and releasing Danny entirely. “Yes, a shame for sure. There is no sport in hunting ordinary human beings. Run along, child.”

“Sure.” Danny pulled his shirt straight, then started walking away, glancing backwards a few times to make sure the ghost didn’t chase him. But it didn’t seem to change its mind, tapping on the screen on its arm and muttering to itself.

And all Danny could think, as he fled away, was how close he had just been to death.

Just because one damn ghost had turned Danny into its personal play-thing! Because it was so set on pretending it and Danny were one and the same, that everyone believed it.

A few hallways away from the ghost, Danny stopped. Stopped, and let it all sink in. Drowned in the rush of adrenaline and terror.

And, by god. He might not be able to fight Phantom, to stop it, but he was going to find a way to stop it from overshadowing him. Even if it was the last thing he would do.

Because… Because sooner or later, that damned ghost was going to kill him anyway.

And Danny wasn’t going to go down without a fight. That, he was sure of.

---

“You need to tell them,” Jazz said, voice simultaneously stern and patient. “They’re the ghost experts for a reason, Danny.”

“I know.” He wiped a hand through his eyes, tired. Exhausted, really, from months and months of this… this. “I know, Jazz. It’s just… hard. No one ever believes me.”

“I do,” she assured him, even though he wasn’t quite sure that she did. “And they will too, Danny. Haven’t you heard them talk about ghosts before? Insist that Phantom must be bad, because all ghosts are malevolent? They’ll believe you.”

Yeah. Yeah, they would have to, wouldn’t they? After all, they were the ones who constantly insisted that all ghosts were evil. That Phantom was just tricking the town.

The only reason he hadn’t gone to them before was because he was afraid that the ghost would interfere, somehow. That the moment he distracted his parents, it would attack them, hurt them.

Overshadow them, and make them believe that same lie. Make them hurt him, because they think that he is Phantom, too.

He swallowed, heavily, and nodded at Jazz. “Alright. Let’s… Let’s get it over with.”

They shuffled into the room, his parents sitting at the dinner table, quietly talking. Both quietened as he and Jazz came in, looking up.

“Mom, Dad?” he asked, voice loud in the sudden silence. “Can I, uh… talk to you?”

“Of course!” His dad grinned wide, encouraging, and gestured over to the empty seats. “What about, kiddo?”

Danny licked his lips, then glanced over at Jazz. “About… About Phantom?”

He could swear that he felt the mood drop at that. His parents both looked at each other, expressions complicated but not… not happy, not like they should have been. Didn’t they want their kids to talk about ghosts?

“Ah… Of course,” his dad finally managed, gesturing at the chairs again. “Come, sit down.”

Nodding, he did as asked, taking the seat furthest away from his parents. Jazz followed right behind him, taking the last seat.

He opened his mouth to explain, but didn’t get a chance to.

“We’re so sorry, Danny-boy!” his dad blurted, eyes big and pained. “We-- We suspected for a while, but we were just… We didn’t want to believe, and we hurt you for it, and we’re so so sorry, Danny!”

Danny snapped his jaw shut again. Blinked, caught off-guard.

“Uh. Suspected… what, exactly?”

“That you are Danny Phantom.” His mom folded her hands together so tightly he was sure her knuckled were turning white. Her hood was pulled away for once, her eyes visible, full of hurt. “It was… It should’ve been obvious. It was obvious. But we let you get hurt just because we didn’t want to accept that. And we’re sorry, Danny. We messed up.”

“I-- That’s not…” He swallowed, feeling like his throat was closing up. His parents were so emotional, so focused on apologizing, and he was sure that he would be dying of acceptance if he was, you know, actually half-ghost. “I’m not Danny Phantom. That’s what I wanted to talk about. I want you to help me stop him. Stop it.”

His parents shared another glance, and he saw that they were gearing up for another soothing speech about love and acceptance and he couldn’t-- he couldn’t bear to hear it, so he continued before they could speak up.

“I’m not alright? Phantom has been haunting me for months, pretending to be me. At the start he would overshadow me for hours on end, cementing in the lie. And by the time I could throw him off, it was too late. Because… Because people believe him, and not me. And… And if you don’t believe me, just ask Jazz! Because she heard him, now, taunting me when he’s sure no one else is around to overhear!”

He turned to shoot a begging look at Jazz, and she smiled back, soothingly. To their parents, she said, “He’s right. I heard him talk to Danny earlier today, and… and it was awful. Phantom is out to make Danny’s life a living hell, and he isn’t afraid of playing dirty to achieve that.”

“He’s getting worse and worse,” Danny agreed, drawing the attention back to him. “At first he was a pain, yes, making people believe I was half-ghost and all that, but it wasn’t… It was mostly just limited to me. Now he’s causing more and more trouble, and blaming it all on me, because everyone thinks he is me. Tucker and Sam are both so mad at me that they won’t even talk to me anymore, and I don’t even know what he did to them! And-- And before we know it, he’s going to seriously hurt someone, and we can’t wait for that to happen.”

“Well… dang,” his dad said, finally, voice far more quiet than Jack Fenton’s voice had any right to be. “That’s… quite the story, Danny. Of course we’ll help you, kiddo.”

“And I think I know just the way to do it.” His mom grinned, wide. “We’ll stop Phantom, and we’ll clear your reputation, in one fell swoop.”

Danny leaned forward, a smile creeping onto his face as excitement sparked in his chest, and said,

“Deal.”

---

The lab was empty, the noise of his boots scraping over the floor loud and echoing ominously. In front of him loomed the giant arch of metal that his parents had worked on for so, so long. The tunnel behind it was dark, the cables that through it barely visible even at the very start of it.

Danny swallowed, thickly, and pulled at the edge of one of his gloves. The material of the jumpsuit was uncomfortable, unfamiliar. But it was designed to protect. He couldn’t afford not wearing it.

He stretched a little, attempting to get the thick white material to settle better. Tugged on his black collar to stop it from cutting into his throat quite as badly.

Confident that he had stalled as much as he could afford to, Danny wandered over to the Portal’s computer console. He checked all its data, all its settings, assuring himself that everything was as it should be.

Cold ran over his spine, and Danny braced himself for what he knew was coming.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” the ghost snapped at him, visible the moment it passed through the walls of the lab. Agitated, it continued to fly laps, rather than pause in front of Danny like usual.

“What do you think I’m doing?” he taunted back, crossing his arms and leaning back against the Portal console. One of the panels was partly unscrewed, and he was counting on the ghost being too upset to notice—or just straight-up not care. Hidden behind it was a gun, in case Phantom lashed out.

The ghost snarled, suddenly coming to a halt in front of Danny. The green of its irises burned like flames, the glow around its body flickering wildly. “Who do you think you are, huh? Little smartass, turning my own tactics against me! I won’t let you! This is my game! I am the one in control, not you!”

“I don’t know,” Danny said, cocking his head at Phantom. The ghost still had its spectral tail, the limb twitching in agitation. “Doesn’t really look like it, does it?”

It growled, suddenly shooting forwards and grabbing him. White fake-hazmat digging into white real hazmat. “Think you’re smart, do you? Ha!”

Phantom released him again, flying a circle, then landing on the floor. Its tail split back into legs, and it stood in front of Danny. Looked exactly like him but color-inverted, now, both dressed in hazmat.

“This is my game! I am the one who gets to make these choices! You are my plaything, my little human whose life I can ruin all I want! And now you’ve gone and cut off the ghosts! All of those delicious, trouble-making ghosts, whose presence I could blame on you! After all, if you had just been a little better at being a hero, you would’ve stopped them! Right, Danny Phantom?”

Danny rolled his eyes, playing unimpressed. Not that it was all that hard—he’d grown used to doing it whenever he had to deal with Phantom. “Yes, I’m sure your upset has nothing to do with the fact that I cut off your supply of ectoplasmic energy. Not like you need that to exist in the human realm, right?”

And then he leaned forward, pressing into Phantom’s personal space, like the ghost had so often done to him, and grinned. “Now who’s making do, huh?”

“Wha--” was all the ghost managed before a blue vortex burst into life behind it, quickly drawing him backwards and away from Danny.

Jazz capped the Fenton Thermos, a vicious grin on her face. She was flanked by their parents on either side, weapons drawn and aimed right where Phantom had been. Hidden in a secret nook of the lab, unknown to everyone. Everyone, including Phantom.

“Got it,” she said, flipping a switch on the Thermos to lock it. “And it’s not getting out again.”

Danny laughed, relief washing over him with a force he hadn’t known it could possess. He laughed, carefree for the first time in months. His eyes searched out the camera, the light on it blinking, proof that it had recorded the whole thing.

He smiled up at it, feeling lighter than ever before in his life, and said,

“And finally, finally, I am free! Phantom will never bother us ever again!”

#danny phantom #ectoberweek19 #dp fanfic #phanfic #danny fenton #jazz fenton #angst #dark writes #i cant think of anything else i wanted to tag rip

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