Memories

[cetrary]

[ Aerith is in her garden tending to leaves when a few of them fall down. Memories. Well, she kinda expected it'd happen to her eventually too. So, she's not...entirely surprised. Still...the memories distract her enough to get caught up in the garden and her thoughts. ]

Bodyguard hiring is in session.

Hojo is a psycho. He's gross, disgusting, and a terrible person. Talks about dissecting her mother and just being generally creepy.

Aerith in a dress and Cloud is a loser.

Childhood captivity with Shinra. Content warning: attempted murder of a child.

Comments

(captivity) (action; because he's going looking for her)

[mostlycloudy]

[It takes him a while to find her, but he doesn't know what state she'll be in when he does, or if she even knows those things were broadcast over the network in the first place. All he does know is that he wants to be there for her, and that's all he needs to get his feet moving.

As luck would have it, she's in the first place he checks, as he ducks his head through the gateway leading to her small garden.]

Aerith?

[cetrary]

[ At the moment he arrives Aerith is tending to a little patch of white flowers. She hears the gateway opening up and then the voice calling to her and smiles over with a tiny smile. ]

Here to check on the flowers?

[mostlycloudy]

No.

[He's left to wonder whether she's seen the network or if she's just acting brave like she usually does.]

I mean...I was checking on you.

[cetrary]

The flowers are going to take offense to that! [ She gives him a gentle smile, though there's something forced to it. ]

I'm alright. I take it you saw the network?

[mostlycloudy]

[He crosses his arms at her question, but gives her a nod.]

Yeah.

...I think I saw it when you were with Shinra...when you were a kid.

[cetrary]

[ Ah. She froze for a moment then immediately turned back around to tend to flowers she'd already done plenty of tending to. ]

Ah. It wasn't so bad, was it? [ She can't help but wonder what exactly he saw there. After all, none of the memories of her time being held by Shinra were particularly great. ]

[mostlycloudy]

It wasn't great. A woman said your drawings were the reason a lot of people were dead.

[He crossed his arms again.]

And there was a Whisper there.

[That wasn't all, but it was some of it.]

[cetrary]

Oh. That. [ She sighs. ] I'm sorry you had to see that. [ It was a pretty bad memory. ] That...that wasn't a whisper. That was something else.

[mostlycloudy]

It was worse living it.

[But she was going to play the strong one, because...she always did. Maybe she was.]

Something else?

[cetrary]

It wasn't as bad as it seemed. I was kind of petulant sometimes as a child. [ And definitely not now. Nope, not ever. ]

Yeah....they...they were people with really bad Mako poisoning.

[mostlycloudy]

Right. [And not now. Not at all, ever.]

...I've seen them, I think. [And sometimes...he speaks through them.]

[cetrary]

Yeah, we saw one with the kids. [ And he'd been really weird around that one. She leaned her body slightly and tilted her head. ] Where'd you see one?

[mostlycloudy]

My neighbor, at the apartment Tifa got me in Sector 7. The guy next door was like that. Once I thought I saw-

[Had it just been his imagination? After everything that happened, that he was real, that he was alive, it was hard to say.]

...Sometimes, when I see those guys, the ones in the robes with the numbers, I see...him. Sephiroth.

[cetrary]

[ Her eyes don't widen when he says that, in fact if anything her expression drops just a tiny bit at the admission. ] Ah, that's why you've asked about him before. [ It explained a lot. ]

They don't mean any harm, it's not their fault they ended up that way. I guess, in a way, it's kind of mine. But...he can control them. [ And that makes everything more complicated. She puts her hands together and looks back at her flowers. ] I think he really hates you. But...he also just hates everything. There's so much anger and hate in him...[ She shakes her head. ] It makes ShinRa seem like nothing.

[mostlycloudy]

But...why me?

[A part of him knew, deep down. Sephiroth could control them, could speak through them, and sometimes, he'd tried to do the same thing to Cloud, and he'd failed. Maybe it was that simple.]

And why do you think it's your fault?

[cetrary]

That's...well, that's very complicated. [ And not something she was entirely certain she knew how to explain. She swallowed hard and looked away from him for a moment. ]

I don't know. I guess because it kind of was. My drawings gave them the locations and the locations ended up giving them mako poisoning.

[mostlycloudy]

Complicated? [That suggested she knew, but either didn't want to explain or felt he shouldn't know. He didn't know which he hoped it was.]

Locations of what?

[cetrary]

[ And in typical Aerith fashion, she just ignores that he asked anything. ]

Large mako reserves.

[mostlycloudy]

[She knew. She knew why Sephiroth was so fixated on him, and she wasn't saying.]

I don't need you to protect me.

[Even if he was wrong, she shouldn't be the one to do it.]

Is that what they were using you for?

[cetrary]

I know. [ Maybe. She might disagree with that a tiny bit.

She frowned and then nodded, slowly. ]

Yeah, that's why they kept us there. They thought we could lead them to the Promised Land. That's what they were hoping I'd draw, but they settled for the locations of Mako. I guess, we just know them innately.

[mostlycloudy]

[Instead of arguing further, he just let it pass. Aerith kept her secrets close and her sadness closer, and no one was going to learn about it until she was ready.]

So, all those guys with the weird tattoos...they're people you sent to Mako locations?

[cetrary]

[ She pauses and then shrugs her shoulders. ]

Some of them might be. Now though? I think....they're all connected to him.

[mostlycloudy]

[His brow lowered at that.]

To Sephiroth.

[So many unanswered questions.]

But how? What does mako poisoning have to do with him?

[cetrary]

Sephiroth is like a poison. He poisons the planet and everything he touches. [ Everything. Everything everywhere. ]

[mostlycloudy]

Wait. [He's really trying to understand this, Aerith. Really.]

...So Mako poisoning is Sephiroth's fault?