the wings that you burn turn to ashes, my dear

The dragon is no match for the Galian Beast. His mind gives into the rage, the power. Vincent and Galian act as one. He hears gunshots from Barret, the clang of Cloud’s sword against tough hide.

It isn’t until the dragon collapses that reality sets in. It is not Vincent who won this battle. Yet it’s the man in control of their shared body when he nudges Tifa with a snout. She’s breathing.

Vincent couldn’t save Lucrecia, but Tifa lives.

necrophilia

Yet, if Ginnem died, there wouldn’t be a summoner to send her. She’d become just like the fiends wandering this Yevon-forsaken place, her humanity reduced to a mere memory of the woman she’d once been. Perhaps, if Lulu could carry her into the Calm Lands, another summoner might be passing through, who could guide Ginnem to the Farplane.

The wound was too deep. Even if Lulu got Ginnem to the outpost, it would be too late. Both of them knew that. Lulu pressed her sleeve against Ginnem’s stomach, hoping against hope that she could stop the bleeding.

“Lulu.” Ginnem’s voice broke though Lulu’s scattered thoughts, weak and tired. “It’s alright.”

runicmagitek

“When Darill died,” he said, “it fell to me to see to her final arrangements. The idea of burying her in the ground, to cover her soul with rocks and dirt, never sat right with me. She deserves to be among the stars.”

She knew what this was, now. When Setzer called the Falcon a tomb, he wasn’t kidding. He’d lovingly restored his friend’s crashed airship and laid her to rest among the ruins. He never expected to return. To bring the Returners to this place — to bring her, a former General — spoke of a courage Celes hadn’t known Setzer possessed.

Celes glanced away. In another life, this might have been Darill’s room. She imagined a proud, tall woman lounging at that desk, feet kicked up, a map of the world spread before her. Setzer spoke of her with such admiration, no wonder walking the halls of the Falcon felt akin to sharing space with a ghost.

The words were heavy on her tongue. “What do you need from me?” she asked.

Another soft giggle, this time accompanied by rosy cheeks and a lip bite. “I was hoping we could talk business.”

“Business?” Tifa raised an eyebrow. Did Aerith mean Avalanche? Shinra? The Ancients? To Tifa’s understanding, they were pretty safe on the Shinra-8 as long as they flew under the radar. There was even a Queen’s Blood tournament later in the evening. “What do you mean by ‘business’?”

“Well...” Aerith leaned forward. She smelled of lilacs and lavender underneath the leather of her stolen uniform. “I’ve a confession to make.”

“You do?”

“Mmmhmm.” Was it Tifa’s imagination, or did Aerith’s gaze drop to her lips? “In regards to the business of my feelings for you.”

“Cloud, you be the moogle.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard the young lady. What’s the moogle say?”

“I don’t know, I don’t do bedtime stories.”

Reeve genuinely wanted to make Midgar a better, safer place. Lena couldn’t say the same for Shinra’s other executives, only concerned with power and money. He certainly worried for Midgar’s populace more than the current — or former — president did.

Which was why she was awake at the crack of dawn, sipping black coffee instead of a martini, in simple pants and a shirt instead of a bikini. Reeve paged her once already, desperate for a report from accounting. It wasn’t even five in the morning. Didn’t the man ever sleep?

That didn’t mean he was prepared for the mansion before him now. At all. The foyer alone encompassed their Cairo flat. A large staircase curved upwards to the second floor and beyond. A sitting room branched off to the left.

“Uh, Evy?” Rick set their suitcases on the floor with a loud clatter. “Are you sure you’ve got the right place?”

“Don’t be silly, darling.” Evy waltzed in beside him, a smile tugging at her lips as she glanced around. “It’s good to be home.”

Home. For a long time, home to Rick meant little more than a roof over his head and food in his belly, and there were times when he lacked even that. Now, his home was beside Evy. As long as they were together, nothing else mattered. One would think that Rick would learn to expect the unexpected when it came to Evy, but she still managed to stop him in his tracks.

Groaning, the farmer shut the refrigerator and leaned against the cool metal. Over the last two seasons, she’d learned how to till soil, plant seeds, fuss after the chickens, and tend to Maybelle’s every need. She’d sat at the ocean’s edge and fished for her dinner instead of relying on frozen pizza and chicken nuggets. She’d even fought slimes and bugs in the mines without breaking a sweat. She would not be bowed by a grange display at her first local fair.

And she refused to return to a life behind a desk, breathing stale air and watching her life fade away like the setting sun.

deemoyza

Her gaze shifted back to the skyline again. There, in the distance, lay a little island. From above, there wasn’t anything to see but greenery and a bit of shoreline, but Celes knew.

There was a little hut.

The fish she caught but couldn’t eat.

A dying man’s last words.

And a woman who decided it was better to live than to die alone.

Elliott watched her take down one book, put it back, and move onto the next shelf to repeat the process again. Each time she frowned. More than once, she glanced at the book she held, shook her head, and kept going.

She gave the softest sigh, a lock of hair falling into her face. Elliott never could resist a damsel in distress.