Wutaiverse Update
So, latest piece of wutaiverse, if anyone is eating anything sugery, I suggest you put it aside for this one, 'cause the two combined may just rot your teeth.
Title: 1986 - 04 - Listening in the Wind
Author: Scrolls
Rating: PG-13?
Fandom/Pairing: FF7/None (eventual Aeris/Cloud/Sephiroth/Zack)
Disclaimer: SqaureEnix Owns, I'm just having some fun.
Notes: Warnings for Aerie and Cloud cuteness!
Summary: What if Momma Strife had taken Cloud and Aeris and gone to Wutai?
Constructive criticism will be hugged while flames will be used to line the bunny hutch.
Enjoy Ladies and Gentlemen.
1986 - 04 - Listening in the Wind
The gong rang, announcing the hour; it was late, not so late that the sun had set, but late enough that the classrooms were empty and the training fields abandoned. The birds were beginning to tune up, getting ready for their evening chorus. Not all the birds though, several were busy nest building. Creating new homes in the wisteria that curled and clung to the patch-work of roof, lattice, and support beams.
In reality the only thing holding the building together was the vine itself. It had taken over this place long forgotten by the palace. Perhaps once a temple, a dojo, a tea house, or maybe a simple storage room. It didn’t really matter what it once had been, it belonged to someone else now.
Now, it was Aeris’s Garden.
Cloud carefully closed his hand around the weed’s stem and gently pulled-only to have it snap right off. Sighing he tossed the greenery behind him and plunged his fingers into the dirt to get the root. He had been released from the hospital two days ago. And this time it had taken him a lot longer to pass the release test, the test that anyone who’d gone through a Process had to pass in order to get out. It made Cloud uneasy, not being able to control his own strength, his mother had told him that it was okay that it took longer this time; it just meant he had gotten a lot stronger this time around. But he wasn’t so sure.
Especially since while he may have passed the hospitals standard, he had yet to pass Aeris’s, and her standard was a whole ‘nother plate of rice balls.
“Pull 100 weeds straight without breaking a single stem.”
In principle it sounded easy enough, just grip the weed between 1/4 to 1/3 up from the root and pull with just the right amount of force to get the whole thing out. In practice it was much harder, Cloud had been working on this since his first morning out of the medic’s hands.
His longest run so far was 39.
He was hopping to get past 40 before dinner.
They were out in the western area of the garden; Cloud was ‘weeding’ while Aeris was moving the stone footpath that ran through this side. Aeris kept the hardier plants outside, as they had a greater chance of surviving the rotation of which side she allowed to go wild for a year. The more delicate ones were inside, where he was currently banished from until he could pass Aeris’s test.
Aeris claimed letting parts of the garden go wild was good for it, made the surviving plants stronger. Cloud figured it was something else, not only with the timing of her taming the areas left to go wild, but also while he was here he seemed beyond the bullies reach. As far as he knew, none of them had ever come here, and Cloud knew it wasn’t because they weren’t invited.
Aeris had her own way of keeping unwanted thing from getting into her garden.
Feeling the wind stir the hairs of his nape, Cloud rubbed the back of his neck, soothing the blond strands back into place. As he did so he automatically looked over at Aeris and noticed how she was sitting.
Kneeling on the scruffy lawn, one hand outstretched towards the ground, fingers just brushing the blades of grass. Her other hand was folded picture perfect into her lap, her head was tilted back a little and cocked to the side, as if listening to someone whisper beside her.
Its not the first time he’s seen her do this, no matter if she was sitting, standing, or walking, and always, only when the wind blew. If anyone remembered this habit, it was because of what would happen after, when she would say things. Things about Shinra and its activities. Things about happenings both far away and within the very court itself. Also strange things that made no sense at all.
“The dragon and the wolf-pup had a nice walk through the jungle. But while the pup stayed, the dragon returned to his Thunder.”
“Hey Aeris?”
“Mmm?” She responded, not changing her pose a hair.
“What are you listening to?”
That was what broke her composure. As she turned to him, he could she a myriad of emotions running across her face. They came and went so fast all he caught was surprise and worry.
And for the first time ever, she didn’t look at him, and her hands, no longer perfectly folded, clung to each other, as if to let go was to lose everything.
“Do…do you really want to know Cloud?”
Did he? Her listening wasn’t the only thing he kept noticing. There was the way the priests and nobles-especially those from the south-treated her, how it seemed the plants sang for her when she touched them. These and more, he noticed, he wondered.
He did want to know.
“Yeah-I mean. Yes. I do.”
She inhaled slowly, her hands clenched even harder. “When I do that, I’m listening in the wind.” Her eyes looked at his for only a second, and then went back down, flitting from flower to flower, as if trying to look everywhere but at him. And for some reason, Cloud had the distinct feeling that Aeris was trying to perform the Mini spell, but without any magic involved.
Okay. She could listen in the wind. He’d never heard of that, that was…Huh, listening in the wind, that was, wait, wha-
“What?” He should have been embarrassed, but at the moment he really couldn’t care less about the expression on his face perfectly matching that one chocobo who’d gotten picked up, tack and all, by processed samurai, and then trotted around the practice yard on the man’s back.
“Wait-How do yo-That dosen-“ Knowing that he was trying to say too much at once, and that him waving his arms around wasn’t helping, he shut his mouth and brought both palms flat to his thighs. Then he raised his left arm, and waving his hand over his head once, made a whooshing noise. He figured Aeris would get the idea.
Still not looking at him, Aeris continued. “Sometimes when the wind blows, it brings me things; snippets of conversations, little flashes of things happening, both close and far away. And if I grab onto those pieces, the wind will open for me, showing me, or letting me hear someplace else.”
Aeris cold use the wind to see and hear things else ware, huh. Something kept tickling at the back of his mind as Cloud thought about it. So when Aeris took that pose, when she looked like she was listening to something that wasn’t there, she was really listening to what the wind had brought her. But if that happened when the wind blew…
“But the wind blows all the time; doesn’t it give you a headache?”
She stared at him now, plain astonishment on her face. “Aeris?” Cloud couldn’t help the tone of worry in his voice as he wondered what he had said-
Then she was hugging him, her face buried in his shoulder, shacking as she clung to him. With knowing only what his mother did to comfort him when he was upset, he copied his memories of what she would do as best he could. He rubbed Aeris’s back and held her close and made soothing noises as best he could.
Eventually she stopped crying, but stayed curled up next to him. “Um, Aeris? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. I just wasn’t sure how you would react when I told you about the wind, that’s all.”
“But it does-blow a lot-the wind I mean, and why wouldn’t I be okay with it? If this wasn’t a part of you, you wouldn’t be able to do it right?”
“That’s why I’m happy. And no it doesn’t give me a headache.” She told him, finally looking at him and smiling that smile that told him he had done something really, really right.
“Oh good.” He said as she sat up. Reaching behind him Cloud grabbed one of the napkins from the remains of their lunch and handed it to her so she could wipe her face. It was watching this that finally turned the tickle of an idea that had been bugging him into a full blown thought.
“Hey Aeris, can you have the wind look at something you want?”
“Well, if the wind doesn’t bring me anything and I concentrate hard enough. But the wind doesn’t like being told what to do, so it’s tiring.” She looked at him curiously, dropping the napkin back into the basket. “Why?”
“I think the bullies are Up To Something again.”
For those of you wondering, Thunder is the term for a group of dragons (I think). Anyway, have a nice week folks, I'll see you next Monday!
Title: 1986 - 04 - Listening in the Wind
Author: Scrolls
Rating: PG-13?
Fandom/Pairing: FF7/None (eventual Aeris/Cloud/Sephiroth/Zack)
Disclaimer: SqaureEnix Owns, I'm just having some fun.
Notes: Warnings for Aerie and Cloud cuteness!
Summary: What if Momma Strife had taken Cloud and Aeris and gone to Wutai?
Constructive criticism will be hugged while flames will be used to line the bunny hutch.
Enjoy Ladies and Gentlemen.
1986 - 04 - Listening in the Wind
The gong rang, announcing the hour; it was late, not so late that the sun had set, but late enough that the classrooms were empty and the training fields abandoned. The birds were beginning to tune up, getting ready for their evening chorus. Not all the birds though, several were busy nest building. Creating new homes in the wisteria that curled and clung to the patch-work of roof, lattice, and support beams.
In reality the only thing holding the building together was the vine itself. It had taken over this place long forgotten by the palace. Perhaps once a temple, a dojo, a tea house, or maybe a simple storage room. It didn’t really matter what it once had been, it belonged to someone else now.
Now, it was Aeris’s Garden.
Cloud carefully closed his hand around the weed’s stem and gently pulled-only to have it snap right off. Sighing he tossed the greenery behind him and plunged his fingers into the dirt to get the root. He had been released from the hospital two days ago. And this time it had taken him a lot longer to pass the release test, the test that anyone who’d gone through a Process had to pass in order to get out. It made Cloud uneasy, not being able to control his own strength, his mother had told him that it was okay that it took longer this time; it just meant he had gotten a lot stronger this time around. But he wasn’t so sure.
Especially since while he may have passed the hospitals standard, he had yet to pass Aeris’s, and her standard was a whole ‘nother plate of rice balls.
“Pull 100 weeds straight without breaking a single stem.”
In principle it sounded easy enough, just grip the weed between 1/4 to 1/3 up from the root and pull with just the right amount of force to get the whole thing out. In practice it was much harder, Cloud had been working on this since his first morning out of the medic’s hands.
His longest run so far was 39.
He was hopping to get past 40 before dinner.
They were out in the western area of the garden; Cloud was ‘weeding’ while Aeris was moving the stone footpath that ran through this side. Aeris kept the hardier plants outside, as they had a greater chance of surviving the rotation of which side she allowed to go wild for a year. The more delicate ones were inside, where he was currently banished from until he could pass Aeris’s test.
Aeris claimed letting parts of the garden go wild was good for it, made the surviving plants stronger. Cloud figured it was something else, not only with the timing of her taming the areas left to go wild, but also while he was here he seemed beyond the bullies reach. As far as he knew, none of them had ever come here, and Cloud knew it wasn’t because they weren’t invited.
Aeris had her own way of keeping unwanted thing from getting into her garden.
Feeling the wind stir the hairs of his nape, Cloud rubbed the back of his neck, soothing the blond strands back into place. As he did so he automatically looked over at Aeris and noticed how she was sitting.
Kneeling on the scruffy lawn, one hand outstretched towards the ground, fingers just brushing the blades of grass. Her other hand was folded picture perfect into her lap, her head was tilted back a little and cocked to the side, as if listening to someone whisper beside her.
Its not the first time he’s seen her do this, no matter if she was sitting, standing, or walking, and always, only when the wind blew. If anyone remembered this habit, it was because of what would happen after, when she would say things. Things about Shinra and its activities. Things about happenings both far away and within the very court itself. Also strange things that made no sense at all.
“The dragon and the wolf-pup had a nice walk through the jungle. But while the pup stayed, the dragon returned to his Thunder.”
“Hey Aeris?”
“Mmm?” She responded, not changing her pose a hair.
“What are you listening to?”
That was what broke her composure. As she turned to him, he could she a myriad of emotions running across her face. They came and went so fast all he caught was surprise and worry.
And for the first time ever, she didn’t look at him, and her hands, no longer perfectly folded, clung to each other, as if to let go was to lose everything.
“Do…do you really want to know Cloud?”
Did he? Her listening wasn’t the only thing he kept noticing. There was the way the priests and nobles-especially those from the south-treated her, how it seemed the plants sang for her when she touched them. These and more, he noticed, he wondered.
He did want to know.
“Yeah-I mean. Yes. I do.”
She inhaled slowly, her hands clenched even harder. “When I do that, I’m listening in the wind.” Her eyes looked at his for only a second, and then went back down, flitting from flower to flower, as if trying to look everywhere but at him. And for some reason, Cloud had the distinct feeling that Aeris was trying to perform the Mini spell, but without any magic involved.
Okay. She could listen in the wind. He’d never heard of that, that was…Huh, listening in the wind, that was, wait, wha-
“What?” He should have been embarrassed, but at the moment he really couldn’t care less about the expression on his face perfectly matching that one chocobo who’d gotten picked up, tack and all, by processed samurai, and then trotted around the practice yard on the man’s back.
“Wait-How do yo-That dosen-“ Knowing that he was trying to say too much at once, and that him waving his arms around wasn’t helping, he shut his mouth and brought both palms flat to his thighs. Then he raised his left arm, and waving his hand over his head once, made a whooshing noise. He figured Aeris would get the idea.
Still not looking at him, Aeris continued. “Sometimes when the wind blows, it brings me things; snippets of conversations, little flashes of things happening, both close and far away. And if I grab onto those pieces, the wind will open for me, showing me, or letting me hear someplace else.”
Aeris cold use the wind to see and hear things else ware, huh. Something kept tickling at the back of his mind as Cloud thought about it. So when Aeris took that pose, when she looked like she was listening to something that wasn’t there, she was really listening to what the wind had brought her. But if that happened when the wind blew…
“But the wind blows all the time; doesn’t it give you a headache?”
She stared at him now, plain astonishment on her face. “Aeris?” Cloud couldn’t help the tone of worry in his voice as he wondered what he had said-
Then she was hugging him, her face buried in his shoulder, shacking as she clung to him. With knowing only what his mother did to comfort him when he was upset, he copied his memories of what she would do as best he could. He rubbed Aeris’s back and held her close and made soothing noises as best he could.
Eventually she stopped crying, but stayed curled up next to him. “Um, Aeris? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. I just wasn’t sure how you would react when I told you about the wind, that’s all.”
“But it does-blow a lot-the wind I mean, and why wouldn’t I be okay with it? If this wasn’t a part of you, you wouldn’t be able to do it right?”
“That’s why I’m happy. And no it doesn’t give me a headache.” She told him, finally looking at him and smiling that smile that told him he had done something really, really right.
“Oh good.” He said as she sat up. Reaching behind him Cloud grabbed one of the napkins from the remains of their lunch and handed it to her so she could wipe her face. It was watching this that finally turned the tickle of an idea that had been bugging him into a full blown thought.
“Hey Aeris, can you have the wind look at something you want?”
“Well, if the wind doesn’t bring me anything and I concentrate hard enough. But the wind doesn’t like being told what to do, so it’s tiring.” She looked at him curiously, dropping the napkin back into the basket. “Why?”
“I think the bullies are Up To Something again.”
For those of you wondering, Thunder is the term for a group of dragons (I think). Anyway, have a nice week folks, I'll see you next Monday!