(Untitled)

[night_hibiscus]

Yuna looks better than she has the last few times she was in the bar; tired, but clean and unbattered, barefoot in a simple blue shift. The Al Bhed shop doesn't have all the amenities--the constant lightning strikes are bad medicine for Al Bhed machina--but it's inside, and there's beds, and a tub to wash her dress in

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[antishinra]

A short distance down the bar, Tifa nurses a drink that seems pretty similar. It's just one of the things she's resorted to doing nightly so she can get to sleep as quickly as possible once it's late and she's ready to turn in.

Her eye caught by the movement nearby, she looks up curiously and offers a small smile.

[night_hibiscus]

She responds to the smile almost automatically, echoing and amplifying. She raises a hand in greeting. "Good evening."

[antishinra]

There's a tiredness in the eyes that meet hers, she thinks, but the smile seems to have no lack of warmth because of it, and her own smile widens. "Hi there. Did you just arrive?"

From here she can see both who comes in from the lake and who comes down the stairs, but if this girl just came in the front door, she's not new to the place. She's not confused enough.

The idea that other people are free to come and go didn't seem as much of a reality until she talked to Cloud.

[night_hibiscus]

She nods. "Not on purpose," she laughs. "But I don't really mind." She sips from the steaming mug, and kicks one bare foot back and forth idly. "I'm Yuna."

[antishinra]

"It's nice to meet you," she answers over her drink. "I'm Tifa."

Despite the grin on her face, the question she has to ask after Yuna's comment is completely serious.

"Is it possible to come here on purpose, or does it always sneak up on you?"

[night_hibiscus]

"I'm glad to meet you."

"I don't know how to do it," she says, thoughtful, "but I know someone who can open a door here from her own world with magic. And some people have doors in their world that always bring them here, just like an ordinary place."

"Have you not been here long?" she guesses.

[antishinra]

"Not very. I showed up out by the lake about a month ago and haven't been able to leave since, and it feels like I find out something I didn't know every day."

Putting her drink down, she counts off on her fingers.

"Like the fact that time seems to stand still for most people when they come here, almost like the universe is giving them a break from life; there's a fund to help people who can't leave; you're as likely to meet someone you know here as you are to meet a total stranger, even if they're not from the same time; and not everyone you run into is alive."

She ventures half a smile and tilts her head slightly. "I don't have any actual proof of that last one, though. It's just something I've heard."

She's willing to assume everyone she meets is alive until proven otherwise. Or maybe until she meets someone she knows should be dead, but that's hard to imagine.

[night_hibiscus]

"Oh, that's true," Yuna says seriously. "I've, known several unsent people. They aren't like the unsent dead in the living world, though--this is a place where they can--belong, for a little while."

[antishinra]

Tifa's eyes widen, and then her eyebrows knit in slow uncertainty.

"What do you mean by unsent?"

It's not a term she's ever heard before. Her first thought was that Yuna just meant someone who was dead, but that last statement proves her wrong.

[night_hibiscus]

"Spirits that linger in the living world. Maybe the word you know is ghosts?" Yuna offers.

"It's much more common in my world than most I've heard about. In our world, a spirit can only go to its rest if it's sent on by a summoner."

[antishinra]

"Oh."

After another sip of her drink, she sets it down in front of her and turns fully toward Yuna, one arm resting on the bar.

"It sounds like summoners must keep pretty busy then." If there's not a summoner in every city and town, a lot of spirits would have to be hanging around. "When people die on Gaia, their spirits just... rejoin the planet's Lifestream. I heard that most people here come from a planet called Earth. Are you from somewhere else?"

[night_hibiscus]

"Sometimes they are," she admits wryly; for a moment she looks not just tired but exhausted, and she takes another drink. By the time she's swallowed, her composure's back.

"My world is called Spira. I've been to Earth once or twice, though. What's the Lifestream?"

[antishinra]

Strange eyes are nothing out of the ordinary for Tifa -- she only has memories of what Cloud's were like before he left Nibelheim, and Vincent's have been red as long as she's known him -- but what's struck her the most about Yuna so far is that only one of hers seems odd. The other is just normal. Just blue, and almost the same shade as Cloud's used to be.

There's a story to that, she's sure, and she hopes it's not a story like Cloud's or Vincent's. No one should have gone through the things they have.

She tilts her chin up for a moment, looking for the right words. "The Lifestream is... like a huge river of energy. It flows through the planet like the blood flows through our veins, and it's just as vital to the planet's well-being. Every person that's born on Gaia has some of the Lifestream in them, and our spirits return to it when we die. They say our memories stay intact when we rejoin it, and I believe that."

There's not a doubt in her mind. Not after watching it save them from Meteor. She could feel Aerith.

[night_hibiscus]

Yuna's mismatched eyes widen. "Really? That's just the same in Spira. All the life of the planet flows into and out of the Farplane, at the Core. The Moonflow is the river that flows out of it, carrying new life-energy into the whole world."

"Earth isn't like that, you know," she says. "I mean--there's life, and a flow of it, but it's all invisible." She thinks. "Can you, see the dead, after they're gone? In the Lifestream?"

[antishinra]

It makes perfect sense to her that Yuna's Spira has something similar to the Lifestream. It's harder to imagine what Earth must be like.

"I don't know if we're supposed to. Not exactly. See, most of the time the Lifestream courses under the surface. Seeing little independent crystallized orbs of it that we call materia is more common for most people, but I have seen the actual stream." She takes a second to choose how to put it. "The first time I fell into it with a friend and I only remember seeing his memories, but the last time I saw it..." She nods her head firmly, more aware than usual of the ribbon tied around her arm. "I'm sure I saw someone who's died."

Curious, she tips her head to one side, her hand lowering from her arm. "You see them in your Moonflow?"

[night_hibiscus]

Yuna gasps, just a little, at the idea of falling in, but it's clear already that the Lifestream isn't quite the same as-- "The Farplane. The Moonflow is, just a river, charged with pyreflies. But it flows out of the Farplane, in the heart of the world, and if you go there, your loved ones appear to you. I was, just there, a little while ago."

"The materia--are they--" She pats the sides of the blue shift, and makes a face. "Oh, I don't have any pockets in this. I was wondering if they're like our spheres."