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ACC Cloud and Tifa!
@pscentral Event 08: Dynamics.
Deuteragonists - Fighting always side by side as equals.
Cloti + Words
Broken Mirror - Chapter 3
iii. a lot of catching up to do
Stargazer Heights is a tiny block of apartments on the east side of Sector 7 that Tifa calls home. For a while after she first arrived in Midgar, Tifa lived exclusively on the streets, huddled near train stations at night to keep safe, taking every possible odd job she could find to scrounge up enough money to afford a real place. Zangan had helped her as much as he could--her medical bills had put her in debt, not that she could remember much from her hospital visit--but eventually she had to fend for herself. And at fifteen, fending for herself was a daunting task.
But Tifa held on to something. She had to hold on. She was the only one left who remembered them--the village, her friends, her neighbors, her father. If she didn’t survive, who would tell the story? Who would ever know what happened?
Certainly not the public--Shinra was quick to deal with that. Tifa starved in those early days, but she always managed to buy the paper. She’d sit and read it at the station, cover to cover, just to find one single word about Nibelheim. About her home. About Sephiroth. Sephiroth appeared on the front page for weeks: “War Hero dies in freak accident”. No location, no date, no details. But Nibelheim only got a footnote; something about a reactor malfunction that Shinra had under control, nothing that the public should worry about.
Tifa’s entire life was erased from history.
And so, Tifa didn’t allow herself to get low. She doesn’t allow herself to get low. She survived before, and she survives now. Not long after she’d arrived in Midgar and she met Barret, a new resident himself, and his little baby Marlene. He’d bought the abandoned warehouse on the west side of Sector 7 and needed help moving construction supplies. Tifa was no stranger to heavy lifting, and the two began to develop a friendship. Eventually, Tifa suggested opening a bar--and the rest of the story wrote itself.
Shortly after, Tifa rented a room at Stargazer heights, owned by Marle. Marle and Tifa have grown close over the years; whenever she gets exhausted at work, or tired of Avalanche’s antics, she goes to Marle for advice. Marle’s older and she’s lived in Sector 7 for a long time, and she knows everything about living in the slums. She never turns Tifa away from her door, even in the dead of night.
Tifa feels a little guilty that she hasn’t told Marle about her overnight guest--but now’s not the time. There’s a lot that Tifa needs to figure out first.
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Tifa doesn’t tell Cloud her story--at least, not yet. She wants to hear his. She wants to know what he’s been through, what he was doing all these long years. Where he’d gone.
Why he doesn’t seem like himself.
Tifa and Cloud sit across from each other in the dimly-lit Stargazer Heights laundry room. Marle keeps three washing machines and three dryers in two neat lines in the basement of the apartment building. Cloud sits on a chair that’s up against the wall--now clad in a white t-shirt that’s much too big for him and even baggier pants--while Tifa sits atop a washing machine. They talk over the hum of the machines whirring around them.
“So did you end up fighting in the war?” asks Tifa. When Cloud looks down at his hands, she quickly adds, “Uh, don’t worry if it’s a sore subject--forget I asked--”
“No, it’s fine,” says Cloud, looking back up at her. “I… did go to Wutai. Just once.”
“That all?”
Cloud nods. “By the time I made it into SOLDIER, the war was almost over.”
“So what’d ya’ do after that?” asks Tifa, swinging her legs back and forth as they dangle from the ledge.
Cloud sighs. “Boring shit, really. They didn’t have enough for us to do as SOLDIERs, so we went around silencing Shinra defectors, mostly.”
Tifa purses her lips. “That’s really all you did?”
“If I had more to tell you, I would,” says Cloud.
“Why’d you quit?” Tifa leans on her elbows, eyes looking intently into Cloud’s. Initially, he looks away from her, unable or unwilling to hold her gaze. “Sounds like an easy gig--right?”
“Yeah, that was the problem,” says Cloud. “No risk, no reward. Couldn’t be a hero that way.”
Tifa thinks back on that night under the stars. Cloud’s words echo in her head. I’m gonna be a SOLDIER. The best of the best--like Sephiroth. It seemed like such an impossible dream back then, but Tifa always thought that, if anyone could do it, it would be Cloud. The boy that held the world in his sea-blue eyes.
Tifa thinks to herself, Maybe it’s better he didn’t end up like Sephiroth. Even before the fire, I never even liked the guy.
But saying this to Cloud would only add insult to injury. Instead, she says, “I’m sure you were someone’s hero.”
When she says this, Cloud finally looks up from his clasped hands and looks directly into Tifa’s eyes. He has the power to hold her gaze, to freeze her in her place, though he seems to not even realize it. Tifa finally has a chance to study his eyes--intensely blue, with a faint green glow from beneath. Even in this dimly lit space, his eyes seem to light up like blue flame. There’s something endlessly captivating about them--haunting, even--and they trap Tifa into their grip, shackling her to him.
Tifa hates to say it, but she misses his old blue eyes.
But this held gaze doesn’t last nearly as long as it feels. Cloud’s eyes eventually drop back down to his hands--now, clenched into two separate fists on his lap. “Yeah. Maybe.” After a long pause, he looks back up at Tifa, though not with that same wistful look as before, and says, “I’ve said enough about me. What about you?”
“Me?” Tifa asks.
“Yeah. You. Who else?”
Tifa taps her fingers against the metal washing machine beneath her. “After I left Nibelheim, I came to Sector 7. I eventually got a job bartending from my friend Barret.”
“Barret, huh?” asks Cloud. “Do I get to meet this Barret?”
“Someday soon,” Tifa says. “He’s a really nice guy.” She takes a deep breath, purses her lips, and says, “You ever heard about Avalanche?”
“Avalanche?” Cloud rests one hand on his pensive face. “Can’t say I have.”
Tifa furrows her brows, but just for a second. A thought pops into her head. Funny that he went to Wutai but doesn’t know about Avalanche. Barret talked enough about it for Tifa to know; Shinra had tried to snuff Avalanche out in Wutai, at the tail end of the war. That’s where Avalanche had set up their base of operations. In fact, Avalanche didn’t start gaining traction in Midgar until after the war was over.
But she doesn’t want to question Cloud. Maybe that just isn’t his area of expertise.
“Uh, it’s a group,” Tifa says, shaking her head. “How should I put this?... Avalanche doesn’t like Shinra very much.”
“Who does?” Cloud responds, leaning back in his chair.
“They want to protect the Planet,” Tifa explains, “and to do that, they have to take down Shinra. Shinra’s been labeling them as eco-terrorists in the news...”
Cloud squints his eyes at Tifa, perhaps unable to discern her expression. She hides her face a little from him. “What about Avalanche? You involved?”
“Sort of,” Tifa responds. “More like… I help them out from time to time.”
“Help how?” asks Cloud. Now he’s sitting upright in his seat, listening attentively. A look of displeasure washes across his face.
“Barret--he owns the bar,” explains Tifa, flustered. “Or, his name’s on the paperwork. He’s a part of them. Of Avalanche. And so every now and then, I overhear things. And I guess sometimes I cover for them.”
Cloud looks Tifa up and down, that intense gaze returning, trapping Tifa yet again. He scowls. “You shouldn’t be involved in a group like that. You’re putting yourself in danger.”
“Yeah. I guess I am.”
Cloud leans on his elbows, moving his eyes to the floor. “Guess I can’t blame you, though. Shinra… well, fuck Shinra. They don’t give a damn about anything. I’d probably have joined Avalanche, too, if I lived in the slums.”
Tifa nods. Her hands tightly grip the edge of the machine, turning her knuckles white beneath her gloves. “Yeah. I… Shinra just makes me so mad...” Tifa catches herself getting overwhelmed with this. This anger. It washes over Tifa in waves, pulling her under, drowning her. But she always catches herself before that fire in her heart brings tears to her eyes. She composes herself and continues. “Avalanche does good for the Planet, too. I’m… I’m glad I met them.”
Cloud’s eyes are trained on her hands, which have relaxed their grip. When he looks up at Tifa, she swears that he appears gentler, for just a moment in time. That harsh, constricting gaze he holds her in, replaced with softness that is uncharacteristic of him. That permanent scowl gone, tight jaw loosened, eyebrows turned downward. He says, “Tifa...” and Tifa looks at him, catching this expression only briefly. But once she does, he turns away and reverts to his normal self. The scowl returns, and the eyes glow severely, more now than before. “I trust you to handle yourself out there. You’re pretty strong.”
Tifa smiles. “Thanks.”
The rest of the time spent in that basement room is punctuated by small conversations, cheeky comments (all from Cloud), and the occasional lull back into silence. But even in these silent moments, Tifa looks at Cloud and feels a fullness in her chest. She worries for him--God, does she worry for him--but there’s something else in her heart. Something warm. Something familiar. She never admitted it before, but now she can’t deny it: she missed Cloud Strife. That starving girl who read the paper wouldn’t just look for Nibelheim--she’d look for Cloud Strife, hoping to catch even a glimpse of his name somewhere. She remembers even a few times where, with a heaviness in her chest that weighed her down like bricks tied to her ankle, she looked to the obituaries, and prayed softly not to find him there.
But now, he’s back. And she missed him while he was gone.
She’s happy to have him back.
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“I promise you, we’ll find you something better in the morning.”
Tifa pulls out a sleeping bag from her small closet and rolls it out on the floor, a few feet away from her bed. She insisted to Cloud when they returned to the apartment that she be the one sleeping on the floor--but Cloud wouldn’t have it. “You’re the one doing me the favor, here,” he reminded her sternly. “What kind of guest would I be making you sleep on the floor?” Tifa pleaded with him once more, but that seemed to be the end of the discussion.
Now, setting up Cloud’s accommodations, she feels a tinge of guilt. He’s gone through a lot--though Tifa can’t know exactly--and she wants him to sleep in a real bed. But the sleeping bag will have to do for the night. In the morning, she can find him something better.
“God, I’m exhausted,” Cloud says, slipping into the sleeping bag.
“Me, too.” Tifa found her way to her bed and covered herself with her thick sheets. Tifa turns so her back faces Cloud and keeps her eyes trained on the wall. She doesn’t want Cloud to notice her sheepishness--Tifa’s always been a private person, and normally she would never share her room like this. But this is different--this is Cloud. So she fights her shyness and her nerves. Even though thinking about how close he’s sleeping paints her face in a rosy hue.
“Hey, Tifa?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks again,” Cloud says, quietly. “For everything.”
Tifa laughs lightly. “You don’t have to thank me.”
Tifa doesn’t hear if Cloud responds to her. She’s already drifted off into a deep sleep.
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Summers in Nibelheim were particularly hot and brutal--especially after Shinra built the reactor at the top of Mt. Nibel. The Mako hung over the town in a thin blanket, trapping in heat, making the air sweltering and unbearable. But Tifa didn’t care. Not when she was a kid, and she had the whole summer to play, to run barefoot through the fields just beyond the town gate, to climb the water tower and watch those red and orange summer sunsets.
Next door lived Cloud Strife. This was before he’d grown his hair out long--actually, it looked a lot like it does now. Cut to just above the shoulders, styled in spikes. Tifa and Cloud were friends. She considered him to be her friend, at least. His bedroom window looked into hers, and they’d often talk across the gap. It would always be short, superficial conversations, “How are you?” or “What did you do today?” But Tifa looked forward to them. She liked talking to Cloud, even if just for a few minutes before she’d fall asleep.
But even though Cloud would talk with Tifa each night, Cloud never played with Tifa and her friends--even when they’d chase each other around in the town plaza, making enough noise for the old shopkeeper to yell at them, Cloud never asked to join. Tifa always figured he had better things to do.
She always wished he would ask, though.
One day--particularly brutally hot, even for summer--the boys suggested playing a game they called “Save the Princess”. One team, dubbed “Wutai”, would “capture” Tifa; the other team, the SOLDIERs, would have to defeat Wutai in order to rescue her. Tifa always thought this was a silly game--and boring. She always got stuck waiting for the boys to finish fighting; and, even when they finished, all she’d get to do was crown the winners as her “heroes”. Whenever the boys suggested this game, Tifa protested. But her alternatives were always vetoed.
This time, the boys had a problem: they didn’t have a third SOLDIER, giving Wutai an unfair advantage.
As they argued about what to do, Tifa peered across the square. Her eyes landed on Cloud, who sat by himself on a bench, eyes to the ground, his own wooden sword resting against the wrought iron armrest. He didn’t notice her looking at him, but watching him there, always a loner, Tifa came up with an idea.
“Let’s ask Cloud to play,” Tifa told the group of boys.
“No way!” one boy exclaimed. “Not Strife. He’s a jerk.”
“You wanna play Save the Princess--don’t you?” Tifa responded. And without hearing the other boys’ answers, she skipped off to the other side of the square.
When Cloud heard footsteps approaching him, he looked up and met eyes with Tifa. In the summer sun, his eyes appeared even deeper. When she looked at them, Tifa couldn’t help but smile.
“Tifa,” Cloud said, as if he were in awe that she’d approach him out of the blue. “What’s up?”
“Do you wanna play a game with us?” asked Tifa. “We need one more person.”
“How do you play?” Cloud asked her in reply, tapping his foot on the pavement rapidly.
Tifa grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet. He barely had enough time to grab his wooden sword and sling it on his back. “It’s easy!” she shouted to him. “I’m the princess. You’re a SOLDIER. All you gotta do is beat Wutai and rescue me--got it? Then you’ll be my hero.”
“How do I rescue you?” he replied, eyes wide and starry.
This time, one of the boys chimed in--with an annoyed tone. “You gotta bring Tifa to the old mansion.”
Cloud nodded. Tifa took her place by the base of the water tower. She caught Cloud’s eyes with her own and waved to him, shouting, “You got this, Cloud!” and eliciting a rare, shy smile from the little blond-haired boy next door.
One of the Wutai boys yelled, and they all started fighting. Wooden swords clashing against wooden swords. Shouting over each other, yelling at each other, saying words that Tifa’s dad told her were “unladylike”. Tifa fell to a seated position and watched from the sidelines, arms crossed on her knees. Eventually her eyes travelled upward, bored of the fight, to watch the blue sky, and to follow the fluffy white clouds as they drifted aimlessly above her.
But she didn’t have time to daydream. She felt a tap on her arm, bringing her back to reality. Standing above her was Cloud, hand outstretched to meet hers, all while the other boys were fighting just a few feet from them.
“Cloud?” Tifa asked. “What are you doing?”
Cloud cocked his head, before simply answering, “Rescuing you, of course.”
Tifa gave him her hand and he pulled her to her feet. Hand in hand, Cloud pulled Tifa along behind him, making his way quickly to the mansion at the edge of town. It was only then that the other boys noticed them running, one calling out, “Hey, what the hell, Strife?” and another complaining, “That’s against the rules!”
Tifa barely had a chance to catch her breath. She shouted to Cloud, “What about the fight?”
“Heroes always rescue the princess first,” Cloud said to her. “Then they can deal with the bad guys.”
A red flush washed over Tifa’s face. She looked back to see the other boys right behind them in an angry mob. But she and Cloud were faster, and they reached the mansion first. It’s only after they arrived there that Cloud finally lets go of Tifa’s hand.
The biggest of the group of boys pushed his way to the front. He yelled in Cloud’s face, “Why’d you have to go ruin our game, Strife?” while Cloud stood his ground, scowling back at the boy with an unwavering glare.
Tifa stepped between them. “What are you talking about? Cloud didn’t break any rules!”
“Yeah, he did!” another boy shouted from behind. “He cheated!”
“You guys are being mean!” Tifa said. “Cloud won fair and square!”
“Come on, Tifa, don’t defend him!”
“That’s why we don’t invite him to play with us!”
The boys’ shouts grew louder and more aggressive with each taunt. Tifa was unable to yell over them, drowned out by their petty arguing. She turned to Cloud and watched his face. At first, he appeared angry. But Tifa saw his expression morph, for the tiniest fraction of a moment, into one that hurt her heart. In that second, he looked sad. He looked as if he could break down. He looked shattered.
But he didn’t ever express it, if he was sad. Because the moment Cloud began to feel sad, he replaced it with anger. He pushed the taller boy out of his face, deepening his scowl, and shouted through gritted teeth, “Fine by me. This game is stupid anyway.”
Cloud stormed past the group of boys, stomping off to the other side of the square. Tifa ran toward him, shouting after him, “Cloud, wait!”, but didn’t follow him. She stopped at the fence that lined the perimeter of the old mansion and just watched him walk away, shoulders tense with anger, hands balled into fists. Behind her, the other boys were coming up with a new plan, a new way to play the game. But Tifa barely listened to them. She just kept her eyes on Cloud until the boy disappeared in the distance, most likely finding refuge somewhere in the fields just outside of town.
That was the first time any boy thought to save Tifa first. It was the only time any boy thought to save Tifa first. And eventually, Tifa refused to play that game ever again.
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Tifa lifts her heavy eyelids and finds herself transported back to her tiny apartment, staring at the piano concerto poster hung on her concrete walls by tape. In a state of stupor, of half-sleep, Tifa groggily rolled to the other side and looked across the room with bleary eyes.
The clock on her bedside table reads 3:35 a.m. She sighs deeply. I really must have needed some sleep.
Tifa thinks it’s a little odd, her dreaming of such a memory. Most of her Nibelheim dreams are tinged in bright red; some are dusted in blue and green. But this one was colored golden--the color of the many summers she spent under that beautiful mountain sky.
And Cloud? Tifa must have had Cloud on her mind when she fell asleep. That’s not such a surprise, though. Usually, Cloud is absent from her Nibelheim dreams, only appearing when she sees that gorgeous star-studded sky above her head. He’s sitting next to her on the edge of the water tower, as he should be. But this was a different memory; it must be because they’ve reunited after so many years.
She turns her gaze to the floor, where Cloud should be, to find an empty sleeping bag.
Wait… empty?
Where’s Cloud?
Tifa jumps from her bed and knocks frantically on the bathroom door, only to get no response. When she throws the door open, the room is empty. The sound of wind whirring against the walls draws her attention to the front door, which is slightly ajar, and every so often moves with the breeze and knocks against the doorframe with a metal bang.
Cloud’s sword, too, is missing from its place on the wall.
Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit.
Tifa doesn’t have time to think. She doesn’t even bother changing out of her pajamas. She throws on a coat and runs outside--not even bothering to lock the door behind her.
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Blog Introduction/Chapter Selection | Next Chapter
The Highwind scene, but make it cuter, maybe? Huhu I love these two.
Still working on my coloring skills. But, here’s Cloti holding hands on a snowy day. XD
Lookit what came today! They're so kawaiii.
Cloti + Warm tones
