Time For Puck Blathering About Fanfic!
SURPRISE! It’s Lullaby for the New World Order again. I KNOW YOU ARE SHOCKED.
I don’t even know why I chose this passage to share, but I’m tipsy and cramping and fighting off a food coma and something about this part of a conversation between Tifa and Rufus just rang something in me:
"I started studying the Wutaian arts when I was six," she says. The corner of Rufus's right eye twitches at that revelation. She wonders why. "So -- sixteen years, give or take. My teacher taught me a lot of things beyond just the fighting moves. I've learned enough from Tseng to know that what he taught me wasn't exactly what a Wutaian child learns, but Tseng says it's close enough. He -- my teacher -- he was half-Wutaian, came to Wutai as a teenager and lived there for twenty years. I'm still not sure how he persuaded them to teach him -- they're not fond of anyone whose heritage isn't pure -- and he won't say anything one way or the other, but from him, I learned a lot of the same lessons. Work hard. Train every day. There's always room for improvement. The thing he taught me that my father didn't, though, was that -- When you're stronger than someone else, when you're faster or better or more dangerous than someone else, it's your responsibility to protect them. To take care of them. And you have to watch yourself, every day, every minute, because the more you learn the fighting arts, the more dangerous you are. You're making yourself a weapon, and nobody's going to tell you what's right and what's wrong. You have to figure that out for yourself. And I learned that the hard way."
Bitter shame floods back into her throat at the memory. She'd forgotten about it until that very minute. She's forgotten so much, washed away by the flame and the agony and the fear, that sometimes she feels like her whole life before she came to Midgar is nothing but a half-remembered dream. This, though, is something she'd tried so hard to make herself forget, long before that horrible day, even as the lessons she'd learned from it had written themselves deep.
Sensing that she isn't going to say anything further without being prompted, Rufus says, "I won't push, but if it's something I should know --"
Tifa shakes herself out of her reverie. "No, it's just -- I -- My mother died when I was young, and I went a little wild for a -- long time, afterwards. There were four of us who always used to run all over the town and the mountains together, me and three boys my age, and when I was sixteen, one of them --" She stops and shakes her head, slowly. "He thought I was his girlfriend. I thought we were all just friends. He used to come and throw stones at my window on the nights my father was staying over at the inn to take care of things, until I would sneak out through the side door so Mrs. Strife next door wouldn't see us and tell my father what I was up to. We'd go out exploring the foothills by moonlight together -- oh, it was so stupid of us, really, but we were teenagers and we knew the mountains like we knew our own backyards, and we were invulnerable and nobody could tell us otherwise."
She folds her hands around her coffee mug, looking off into the distance, her gaze soft and unfocused out the windows of the mansion. From here, all she can see is the yard behind the mansion -- overgrown and weedy, wildflowers peeking through the tall grass -- and the smallest sliver of the concrete helipad. The treeline of the evergreen forest that marks the edge of the Shinra land occludes any hope she might have of seeing the mountains from here. She's glad, really. Inside the mansion, far enough inside that she and Johnny and Nick and Ranulf never saw it as children, she can pretend she's anywhere but in the town she watched burn. She said to Tseng, yesterday morning, that this isn't her Nibelheim. She still believes it. The town outside these doors is a mockery, a sham constructed by the same people who destroyed it, and she's capable of drawing lines and boundaries in her mind. Has drawn them. But that doesn't make it easy.
"It's a squalid little story," she says, tearing her eyes away from the forest and looking back at Rufus. He's wincing, ever-so-slightly -- as though he isn't even aware he's doing it -- and she knows he's figured out where the story's going. "I thought it was just another late-night hike. He thought we were meeting up for an assignation. When I realized what he had in mind, I made it clear to him I wasn't interested in what he thought we were there for, and he made it clear to me he didn't really care if I was interested or not."
She turns away from Rufus, unable to face that edged sympathy, and paces over to open the pantry and inspect the shelves to see which of the nonperishables can be turned into something resembling breakfast so they don't have to face the MREs they'd eaten for dinner again. "I found out later I wasn't the only girl he'd pulled it on. I didn't realize at the time, or I'd probably have done even more damage. As it was, I broke both his arms, shattered his kneecap, and broke his nose and one of his cheekbones. The doctor said later I came this close to driving bone splinters up into his brain, and he never quite walked properly again. I hadn't -- It wasn't on purpose. I didn't make the deliberate choice to hurt him that badly. I wasn't even scared enough for it to legitimately be self-defense. I was just so angry, and I couldn't stop hitting him --"
Behind her, there's a soft click as Rufus sets his coffee mug down on the counter. She braces herself for whatever he's going to say, her shoulders tensing, preparing herself to hear the same platitudes she'd heard over and over again from her father at the time or any of the judgemental things half the town had said about her from that point until the night the town burned. All he says, though -- soft and meditative, without a hint of the sympathy that would set her teeth on edge -- is, "I was fourteen."
Startled, Tifa turns around: he's still sitting on the counter, his legs folded up carelessly beneath him, his posture still perfect, watching her with careful concentration. He sees the confusion on her face and smiles, another of his fractional expressions, the barest hint of lips drawing upwards. "The first time I killed someone. Like you, I was somewhere I wasn't supposed to be, and a group of people who took exception to Shinra's policies and methodology happened to notice that I'd failed to notify my guards that I was stepping out. They thought if they could kidnap me, they'd have leverage over my father, although they'd have probably settled for killing me if they couldn't manage the kidnapping. The story at the time was I was a helpless, incompetent child. I'd played the role long before Tseng took over my training -- I figured out early on that my life would be easier if everyone underestimated me while I was still that young; it gave me leeway -- but Tseng agreed it was a good idea and helped me perfect the appearance. They weren't expecting me to be armed. They certainly didn't expect I knew how to use the knives I carried. Tseng caught up with me just as I had finished slitting the second man's throat, and for a minute I was actually disappointed, because it meant that he would take over and I wouldn't be able to finish taking care of myself. But all he did was watch while I killed the third and final man, and when I asked him why, afterwards, he said that I needed to prove -- not to him, but to myself -- that I could do it, so I'd know for the next time."
He pauses, and the smile returns, this time more fond, even though it fades quickly. "Of course, he ruined the effect by saying that if I ever slipped my security detail again, it wouldn't matter, because he'd kill me himself. But I know what you mean. For me, it wasn't anger. I wasn't angry at all. There was just this little voice in the back of my head telling me what to do next, how to move and where to strike, precisely like just another drill. It wasn't until much later I realized I probably should have been angry. Or frightened. Or upset, or sick, or something, anything other than being proud of myself that I remembered my training in the heat of the moment and thinking blood was a lot messier than I thought it would be."
"So you know, too," Tifa says. "How easy it is." How seductive it is, the idea of vengeance, the idea of acting as judge and jury and executioner. She has had to enforce her will upon the streets around the Seventh Heaven by fists and feet multiple times, after giving fair warning and full chances, and each time she does, she's always disgusted by herself afterward at how easy it is. Nobody should have that right. Treat people equally, and equally well. Dr. Ellis had told her about the oath doctors take, at the conclusion of their training. First, do no harm. She's been trying to live her life by that code for a long time, and over and over, she's been failing.
Rufus nods, unsmiling, his eyes calm and intense on hers. "Yes. I always have. And not just physical violence. I know you think I'm not aware of all the power I hold, but believe me, I am. And I'm not afraid to use it, because power you don't use winds up using you. But I try to use it well. As well as I can, at least."
