Ficathon assignment
For spiderflower, who made for her second request:
Fandom: FF7
Two characters: Aeris/Tifa
Two things you want to see: Aeris in character. Tifa
in character.
Two things you don't want to see: Cloud being
forgotten. Touching that includes anything other than
what they have on their own bodies.
I usually hit the fandom from the shounen ai end of things, so this was a kinda fun experiment for me. I hope I didn't hit any of your pet peeves with my characterizations, but if I did I'd rather you told me straight out so I can fix it.
Two attempts. The first ended up both too short and too gen, but I decided to go ahead and post it anyway. It's basically just a conversation between the two girls. Set in Disc 1 after the revelations in Kalm but before arriving at Junon. It was sparked by the fact that I was reading Richard Dawkins's The Ancestor's Tale at the same time I was replaying FF7. Sephiroth makes this comment in one of the flashback scenes about how humans chose the easier path by settling down, which made me roll my eyes. It's actually a mistake that a lot of people make, thinking that agriculture is an easier way of life than that of your average hunter-gatherer. It's not, especially at low technology levels. Which is not to say that hunter-gatherers had an easy time of it.
The second attempt ended up as one of those stories where the relationship is there if you want it to be. It is a romantic friendship, in the old sense of the word romance. I'm more than willing to try again, if you were hoping for something more explicit, just ask. Takes place post-game, spoilers for Aeris's ultimate fate.
A Brief Conversation
Except for Cloud, they stood watch in pairs. Aeris and Tifa got the late watch. The fire had burned down to coals by the time Cloud shook them awake before taking to his own bedroll. Tifa rubbed closed eyelids with the heel of her hands, and started walking the perimeter. Aeris rolled up her bedroll into a rough ball and sat down on it, facing away from the fire.
“I hate him,” burst out Tifa. She paced up and down in front of Aeris.
“Sephiroth? I’m not surprised,” said Aeris.
Her voice was far too calm for Tifa’s taste. She wanted Aeris to rage, to hate like Tifa did. Not even Cloud hated him like Tifa did, and Tifa didn’t, couldn’t, understand that. Sephiroth had betrayed them, betrayed everything he and Shinra were supposed to stand for. She hated them all so much that it sat like burning coals in her stomach, from the moment she woke up to the moment she fell asleep, and sometimes even in her dreams. She craved his death so much she could taste it in the back of her throat.
Tifa stopped in front of Aeris. “You don’t hate him. How can you not hate him after what he did?”
Aeris shrugged. “To me, Sephiroth is like a rabid dog. He must be put down for his own good, and for the safety of people around him, but I find him to be more an object of pity than anything else.”
“Pity?” Tifa said incredulously.
“Oh, yes. He fights a battle in the name of a dead people, and what he does will not bring them back. Moreover, I think - I feel - that the Cetra would not have wished him to do so, not at the cost of human lives. He has a skewed view of history, and who the Cetra really were, if he thinks otherwise. Remember how Cloud said that Sephiroth believed that humans chose a life of ease, settling down and thus fell out of the rhythm of the Planet? I can point out a flaw right there. Farming is not by any stretch of the imagination, an easy life. The main benefit of farming is that it can support a bigger population in a smaller area - it became an economic necessity when the Planet’s human population rose above what a simple hunter-gatherer lifestyle would support. Humans make enough problems for themselves, without the Cetra needing to make it worse for them.”
“How do you figure that?” Tifa watched Aeris the way you might watch someone who had suddenly begun to speak in tongues, with disbelief and an urge to back away slowly, in case their madness was catching. I never new she was crazy. Tifa thought with grim amusement. At least she doesn’t seem to be violent-, she cut off that last thought, stomach souring.
“Did you know that there were studies done almost a hundred years ago, when there were still people who lived nomadic or semi-nomadically as hunter-gatherers? Roughly similar to the way the Cetra most likely lived. They figured that each adult individual worked something like fifteen hours a week to bring in enough to live on. Farmers, after the invention of agriculture, would sometime work that much in a day.”
“You’re a Cetra” she said, curious in spite of herself as to where this most surreal of conversations was headed. “Shouldn’t you know how Cetra lived? Shouldn’t he know?"
Aeris smiled. “So they tell me. You’ll notice that I’m not trying to rule the Planet, or anyone besides myself. The Cetra aren’t - weren’t - interested in ruling, and if any detail about how they lived survived, well...” She lost her smile. Her voice was softer and more serious when she finally continued. “It died with my mother. Ruling is a human idea, anyway. Another example. You lived in the slums. What kind of life is that? The more people crammed together in one space, the worse the crime rate gets.”
“Shinra -“
Aeris held up a hand to forestall Tifa’s objections. “Granted, granted, Shinra did not help matters, but even with an effective police force, and a higher standard of living, crime still would be higher. Another example is disease. Bugs have less need to keep a host alive if they have a new host in close proximity they can infect. Not a nice thought. To claim that settled life is easier -“ Aeris shook her head. “I would name Sephiroth a fool, if he were any less dangerous.”
“A fool,” Tifa repeated, suddenly losing much of her bad humor. Her lips twisted into a small smile. “I would give much for you tell him so to his face.”
“Not you?” asked Aeris.
“You do it better.”
What is Loved, Lives
The land was green.
No, Tifa decided. Green did not even begin to do it justice. To say that the land was green would be like saying that the sea was wet. It did not capture the salt smell, the endless rolling waves, the tides that circle in and out at the beckoning of the moon, the sheer, vast, power that was the sea and all the myriad life within. In the same way was this land green - it was filled with life, every blade of grass, every wildflower, every tree, more real, more here than any plant she had ever seen before. The breeze brought sweet, cool air to her lungs, almost dizzying in its purity. She heard the drone of bees and other insects, and the song of the birds. In the distance mountains clawed the sky, grayish green bodies with icy caps. They almost begged to be climbed. Not to be conquered, but for the sheer joy of rising above the gentle hills, like an adult that lifts up a child so that she can be closer to the stars. The land she now stood on was full of growth and life, like her own homeland had not been for years.
“This is a dream,” said Tifa. It was not a question.
“You may be dreaming,” said the voice behind her.
Her breath caught at the familiarity of the voice. Tifa turned slowly. She was distantly aware that she should have been alarmed that anyone could sneak up on her without her hearing, but the peace of this place was such that even she could not believe that anything would harm her.
“But this,” and the woman opened her arms wide, raising up onto her tiptoes as if to reach up and hold the sky, “is not a dream”
“Aeris”
She looked just as she did the day she died. Brown hair tied back with a pink ribbon, wisps of it escaping to fall down the side of her face. Dark, young-old eyes that could see inside you, know you, better than you could yourself.
Tifa smiled. Even the clothes were the same. “If I’m dreaming, then this must be a dream,” she protested.
“This is the Promised Land, Tifa, and it is as real as anything you can see or touch awake. Dreaming is one of the ways you can reach the Promised Land, if your need is great enough. So, you see, you are both dreaming and here, in a place that is not a dream.”
“That makes no sense.”
Aeris held out her hand, and Tifa took it. “Let us walk a while, my friend. It has been long since I last saw you.”
Breath caught in Tifa’s throat, and she had to look away from her friend’s face. She focused at a point over Aeris’s shoulder, holding her eyes wide so she wouldn’t cry. She didn’t want to start weeping, not here, in a place that felt as though sorrow had never touched it. Aeris hadn’t said anything cruel. She hadn’t accused Tifa of letting her die, of killing her by not being fast enough, strong enough, good enough to stop Sephiroth. Of not caring enough. Aeris was just happy to see her, and wasn’t that a stupid reason for tears?
A hand came up to cup Tifa’s face. She closed her eyes, and Aeris’s thumb brushed feather-light across her closed eyelid. Tifa caught her in a hug so tight it must have hurt, but Aeris made no protest, laying her face against the side of Tifa’s head so that her breath was warm on Tifa’s ear.
“I missed you,” said Tifa, then let go, face flushed but eyes dry. Aeris’s hand was held tight in Tifa’s.
“I’m sorry,” said Aeris.
Tifa shook her head. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I did not want to hurt you.”
Tifa’s gaze flicked to Aeris’s face and then dropped to her boots, unable to hold up against those strange, young-old eyes. “I can drub you into the ground any day,” she said, deliberately misunderstanding. She did not want to talk about Aeris’s death.
They walked down the hill holding hands.
“It’s so…peaceful,” said Tifa.
“Does that bother you?”
“I don’t know.” A pause, then “No, I do know; I just don’t like the answer. It shouldn’t bother me, but I guess it does a little. This is what I worked for, ever since Sephiroth - ever since I left Nibelheim. This is what we fought for, a world of peace and plenty, and I think that’s the problem. I’m a fighter, Aeris. I like to fight. Not the killing - I never liked that part - but the winning, I liked that a lot. Now that I see the end, the reward, I start to wonder. What room does a place like this have for someone like me? There are no more battles here. No more wars to fight. What would I do, if I lived in paradise?”
“There will always be a place for you here, Tifa,” said Aeris. “The Promised Land is bigger than you think it is. Besides, you did other things before. Life isn’t always about battle.”
“I didn’t know Heaven was hiring bartenders,” Tifa said, and Aeris laughed. They walked in silence for a while, before Tifa changed the subject.
“Does Cloud - I’m not sure how to put this - does he come here? Dream here? Do you see him?”
Aeris shook her head. “I haven’t. Do you think I should have?”
“It's just that you said need could bring you here. I thought maybe - but no. I suppose he’d be happier, if he’d been here. More at peace. I hope he would be, anyway. I worry about him. It’s like he’s sliding away. Not just from me. I could handle that, I think, but it’s like he just turns inside. All I can get out of him is surface, nothing real. Nothing that is him. Am I making any sense?”
“Sort of like when you ask someone how they’re doing, most everyone will just say ‘fine’ without really thinking about it, even if they’ve just had a rotten day. It’s just another way of saying hi.”
“Yes.”
“Just keep trying, Tifa. He knows you’re there. He needs his friends, even when he thinks he doesn’t.”
They were quiet for a long time afterward.
“God, I missed you,” Tifa said again. “I need you and you’re not there. There were days where I would think ‘I must remember to tell this to Aeris’ or look into a store window and think ‘Aeris would love this’. Then I’d remember, and this feeling would come over me, she’s dead, how can you be so stupid."
“I’m sorry I can’t be there for you both anymore. I’d be alive again, if I could. It’s not what I wanted, either.”
The Promised Land was Aeris’s homeland as surely as Gaia was Tifa’s home. That Aeris would be willing to leave it for her friends was a greater gift that Tifa could have hoped for. She held Aeris in a one armed hug, bodies touching in a warm line from hip to shoulder. “You help. Being here helps, too.” She leaned over and brushed lips against Aeris’s temple. “You make me happy, even when I’m sad.”
Fandom: FF7
Two characters: Aeris/Tifa
Two things you want to see: Aeris in character. Tifa
in character.
Two things you don't want to see: Cloud being
forgotten. Touching that includes anything other than
what they have on their own bodies.
I usually hit the fandom from the shounen ai end of things, so this was a kinda fun experiment for me. I hope I didn't hit any of your pet peeves with my characterizations, but if I did I'd rather you told me straight out so I can fix it.
Two attempts. The first ended up both too short and too gen, but I decided to go ahead and post it anyway. It's basically just a conversation between the two girls. Set in Disc 1 after the revelations in Kalm but before arriving at Junon. It was sparked by the fact that I was reading Richard Dawkins's The Ancestor's Tale at the same time I was replaying FF7. Sephiroth makes this comment in one of the flashback scenes about how humans chose the easier path by settling down, which made me roll my eyes. It's actually a mistake that a lot of people make, thinking that agriculture is an easier way of life than that of your average hunter-gatherer. It's not, especially at low technology levels. Which is not to say that hunter-gatherers had an easy time of it.
The second attempt ended up as one of those stories where the relationship is there if you want it to be. It is a romantic friendship, in the old sense of the word romance. I'm more than willing to try again, if you were hoping for something more explicit, just ask. Takes place post-game, spoilers for Aeris's ultimate fate.
A Brief Conversation
Except for Cloud, they stood watch in pairs. Aeris and Tifa got the late watch. The fire had burned down to coals by the time Cloud shook them awake before taking to his own bedroll. Tifa rubbed closed eyelids with the heel of her hands, and started walking the perimeter. Aeris rolled up her bedroll into a rough ball and sat down on it, facing away from the fire.
“I hate him,” burst out Tifa. She paced up and down in front of Aeris.
“Sephiroth? I’m not surprised,” said Aeris.
Her voice was far too calm for Tifa’s taste. She wanted Aeris to rage, to hate like Tifa did. Not even Cloud hated him like Tifa did, and Tifa didn’t, couldn’t, understand that. Sephiroth had betrayed them, betrayed everything he and Shinra were supposed to stand for. She hated them all so much that it sat like burning coals in her stomach, from the moment she woke up to the moment she fell asleep, and sometimes even in her dreams. She craved his death so much she could taste it in the back of her throat.
Tifa stopped in front of Aeris. “You don’t hate him. How can you not hate him after what he did?”
Aeris shrugged. “To me, Sephiroth is like a rabid dog. He must be put down for his own good, and for the safety of people around him, but I find him to be more an object of pity than anything else.”
“Pity?” Tifa said incredulously.
“Oh, yes. He fights a battle in the name of a dead people, and what he does will not bring them back. Moreover, I think - I feel - that the Cetra would not have wished him to do so, not at the cost of human lives. He has a skewed view of history, and who the Cetra really were, if he thinks otherwise. Remember how Cloud said that Sephiroth believed that humans chose a life of ease, settling down and thus fell out of the rhythm of the Planet? I can point out a flaw right there. Farming is not by any stretch of the imagination, an easy life. The main benefit of farming is that it can support a bigger population in a smaller area - it became an economic necessity when the Planet’s human population rose above what a simple hunter-gatherer lifestyle would support. Humans make enough problems for themselves, without the Cetra needing to make it worse for them.”
“How do you figure that?” Tifa watched Aeris the way you might watch someone who had suddenly begun to speak in tongues, with disbelief and an urge to back away slowly, in case their madness was catching. I never new she was crazy. Tifa thought with grim amusement. At least she doesn’t seem to be violent-, she cut off that last thought, stomach souring.
“Did you know that there were studies done almost a hundred years ago, when there were still people who lived nomadic or semi-nomadically as hunter-gatherers? Roughly similar to the way the Cetra most likely lived. They figured that each adult individual worked something like fifteen hours a week to bring in enough to live on. Farmers, after the invention of agriculture, would sometime work that much in a day.”
“You’re a Cetra” she said, curious in spite of herself as to where this most surreal of conversations was headed. “Shouldn’t you know how Cetra lived? Shouldn’t he know?"
Aeris smiled. “So they tell me. You’ll notice that I’m not trying to rule the Planet, or anyone besides myself. The Cetra aren’t - weren’t - interested in ruling, and if any detail about how they lived survived, well...” She lost her smile. Her voice was softer and more serious when she finally continued. “It died with my mother. Ruling is a human idea, anyway. Another example. You lived in the slums. What kind of life is that? The more people crammed together in one space, the worse the crime rate gets.”
“Shinra -“
Aeris held up a hand to forestall Tifa’s objections. “Granted, granted, Shinra did not help matters, but even with an effective police force, and a higher standard of living, crime still would be higher. Another example is disease. Bugs have less need to keep a host alive if they have a new host in close proximity they can infect. Not a nice thought. To claim that settled life is easier -“ Aeris shook her head. “I would name Sephiroth a fool, if he were any less dangerous.”
“A fool,” Tifa repeated, suddenly losing much of her bad humor. Her lips twisted into a small smile. “I would give much for you tell him so to his face.”
“Not you?” asked Aeris.
“You do it better.”
What is Loved, Lives
The land was green.
No, Tifa decided. Green did not even begin to do it justice. To say that the land was green would be like saying that the sea was wet. It did not capture the salt smell, the endless rolling waves, the tides that circle in and out at the beckoning of the moon, the sheer, vast, power that was the sea and all the myriad life within. In the same way was this land green - it was filled with life, every blade of grass, every wildflower, every tree, more real, more here than any plant she had ever seen before. The breeze brought sweet, cool air to her lungs, almost dizzying in its purity. She heard the drone of bees and other insects, and the song of the birds. In the distance mountains clawed the sky, grayish green bodies with icy caps. They almost begged to be climbed. Not to be conquered, but for the sheer joy of rising above the gentle hills, like an adult that lifts up a child so that she can be closer to the stars. The land she now stood on was full of growth and life, like her own homeland had not been for years.
“This is a dream,” said Tifa. It was not a question.
“You may be dreaming,” said the voice behind her.
Her breath caught at the familiarity of the voice. Tifa turned slowly. She was distantly aware that she should have been alarmed that anyone could sneak up on her without her hearing, but the peace of this place was such that even she could not believe that anything would harm her.
“But this,” and the woman opened her arms wide, raising up onto her tiptoes as if to reach up and hold the sky, “is not a dream”
“Aeris”
She looked just as she did the day she died. Brown hair tied back with a pink ribbon, wisps of it escaping to fall down the side of her face. Dark, young-old eyes that could see inside you, know you, better than you could yourself.
Tifa smiled. Even the clothes were the same. “If I’m dreaming, then this must be a dream,” she protested.
“This is the Promised Land, Tifa, and it is as real as anything you can see or touch awake. Dreaming is one of the ways you can reach the Promised Land, if your need is great enough. So, you see, you are both dreaming and here, in a place that is not a dream.”
“That makes no sense.”
Aeris held out her hand, and Tifa took it. “Let us walk a while, my friend. It has been long since I last saw you.”
Breath caught in Tifa’s throat, and she had to look away from her friend’s face. She focused at a point over Aeris’s shoulder, holding her eyes wide so she wouldn’t cry. She didn’t want to start weeping, not here, in a place that felt as though sorrow had never touched it. Aeris hadn’t said anything cruel. She hadn’t accused Tifa of letting her die, of killing her by not being fast enough, strong enough, good enough to stop Sephiroth. Of not caring enough. Aeris was just happy to see her, and wasn’t that a stupid reason for tears?
A hand came up to cup Tifa’s face. She closed her eyes, and Aeris’s thumb brushed feather-light across her closed eyelid. Tifa caught her in a hug so tight it must have hurt, but Aeris made no protest, laying her face against the side of Tifa’s head so that her breath was warm on Tifa’s ear.
“I missed you,” said Tifa, then let go, face flushed but eyes dry. Aeris’s hand was held tight in Tifa’s.
“I’m sorry,” said Aeris.
Tifa shook her head. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I did not want to hurt you.”
Tifa’s gaze flicked to Aeris’s face and then dropped to her boots, unable to hold up against those strange, young-old eyes. “I can drub you into the ground any day,” she said, deliberately misunderstanding. She did not want to talk about Aeris’s death.
They walked down the hill holding hands.
“It’s so…peaceful,” said Tifa.
“Does that bother you?”
“I don’t know.” A pause, then “No, I do know; I just don’t like the answer. It shouldn’t bother me, but I guess it does a little. This is what I worked for, ever since Sephiroth - ever since I left Nibelheim. This is what we fought for, a world of peace and plenty, and I think that’s the problem. I’m a fighter, Aeris. I like to fight. Not the killing - I never liked that part - but the winning, I liked that a lot. Now that I see the end, the reward, I start to wonder. What room does a place like this have for someone like me? There are no more battles here. No more wars to fight. What would I do, if I lived in paradise?”
“There will always be a place for you here, Tifa,” said Aeris. “The Promised Land is bigger than you think it is. Besides, you did other things before. Life isn’t always about battle.”
“I didn’t know Heaven was hiring bartenders,” Tifa said, and Aeris laughed. They walked in silence for a while, before Tifa changed the subject.
“Does Cloud - I’m not sure how to put this - does he come here? Dream here? Do you see him?”
Aeris shook her head. “I haven’t. Do you think I should have?”
“It's just that you said need could bring you here. I thought maybe - but no. I suppose he’d be happier, if he’d been here. More at peace. I hope he would be, anyway. I worry about him. It’s like he’s sliding away. Not just from me. I could handle that, I think, but it’s like he just turns inside. All I can get out of him is surface, nothing real. Nothing that is him. Am I making any sense?”
“Sort of like when you ask someone how they’re doing, most everyone will just say ‘fine’ without really thinking about it, even if they’ve just had a rotten day. It’s just another way of saying hi.”
“Yes.”
“Just keep trying, Tifa. He knows you’re there. He needs his friends, even when he thinks he doesn’t.”
They were quiet for a long time afterward.
“God, I missed you,” Tifa said again. “I need you and you’re not there. There were days where I would think ‘I must remember to tell this to Aeris’ or look into a store window and think ‘Aeris would love this’. Then I’d remember, and this feeling would come over me, she’s dead, how can you be so stupid."
“I’m sorry I can’t be there for you both anymore. I’d be alive again, if I could. It’s not what I wanted, either.”
The Promised Land was Aeris’s homeland as surely as Gaia was Tifa’s home. That Aeris would be willing to leave it for her friends was a greater gift that Tifa could have hoped for. She held Aeris in a one armed hug, bodies touching in a warm line from hip to shoulder. “You help. Being here helps, too.” She leaned over and brushed lips against Aeris’s temple. “You make me happy, even when I’m sad.”