Chapter 21
Funny how much one little make out session could improve a person's mood, Aeris thought. Tifa was too private a person to be so openly affectionate in front of the others, but Aeris took what little touches she could get. Even the shared glances she felt bolstering her spirit, affording her the strength she would need to face the doubts that she had pushed to the back of her mind.
The night's sleep seemed to have improved about everyone's mood, with the exception of Cloud, who didn't appear to have slept at all, and Vincent, who looked exactly the same. Aeris could hope that he had found some enjoyment in sleeping someplace other than a coffin for the first time in thirty years, but she really had no idea. The man was a real mystery.
What wasn't a mystery was Jessie, and the reason she again elected to sit wedged up front between him and Yuffie. Aeris had noticed the glances she'd thrown Vincent's way, and she had a pretty good idea what was going on there.
Tifa stood discussing the route briefly with Vincent, before she climbed on into the back with the rest of them. As she settled herself, she draped an arm loosely across Aeris's shoulders, and Aeris smiled to herself, glad they had at least come that far.
They drove south through more farmland, fields and fields of growing things passing by, things humans had cultivated themselves. The Planet's voice grew stronger the farther they got from Mt Nibel, and Aeris leaned back against Tifa, closing her eyes.
What did the Promised Land feel like? she wondered. She understood it wasn't meant to be known, like a fact, but searched for and discovered. And in the moment, she wondered why it should feel more like a place, rather than a person.
Should I be able to sense it at all yet, Planet? I've still only just begun my journey.
In response, she felt an affection from it, and for a moment the sun felt warmer on her skin.
"You daydreamin' over there?" came Barret's voice, and she opened her eyes to see him watching her in amusement.
"Just trying to have a conversation," she said.
"Huh?"
"With the Planet, I assume?" Nanaki ventured, and he glanced at Barret. "Perhaps we ought to give her some quiet."
Barret scratched his head. "Sorry."
Aeris smiled at him and closed her eyes again.
The city my mother told me about in the north, that isn't the Promised Land, is it? It's something else.
A confirmation, but not an outright dismissal. The idea of journeying there, and journeying on. Like it was a stepping stone on the path to the Promised Land. Maybe, if she went there, whatever sense she was meant to have of it would grow stronger.
Can Sephiroth find the Promised Land? Can Jenova?
The warmth faded swiftly into unease, and that unease churned inside of her before taking shape. A negative, certainly, but also a sense of futility.
Are you sure?
Certainty. A complete rejection of Sephiroth and of Jenova.
Do they know?
No answer to that. She thought maybe the Planet didn't have one.
"What does the Planet have to say?" Tifa asked cautiously as she opened her eyes again.
"Sephiroth can never find the Promised Land," Aeris said. "Even if I knew where it was, even if I were to lead him straight to it. He isn't of this Planet, so he'd never see it."
"Does he know that?" Tifa wondered.
"I don't know. I hope not, because if he does, then that means it isn't the Promised Land he's searching for."
"Didn't he say it was?" Cloud asked.
"...do you remember him saying that, Cloud?" Tifa asked. They could speculate, but none of them had heard it from Sephiroth himself.
Cloud hesitated. "I don't know. I was just really sure for a second, that he had."
"Maybe he did, back in Nibelheim," Tifa considered with a frown. "Who knows? Maybe he's been searching for it all this time."
It was an uncomfortable thought, though Aeris couldn't quite pin it down. Searching in vain all this time, until, maybe, he thought to use her... Why now? Was it only a coincidence that he'd appeared in the Shinra building so soon after her capture?
A couple hours' drive brought them to a riverside village, where they refueled the truck and found passage across a ferry. This river was wider even than the one near Junon, but the current seemed calm here, too.
"Is this where you learned to swim?" she asked Tifa.
Tifa nodded. "A little farther upriver from here, but yeah. I guess you probably learned here, too, didn't you, Cloud?"
"...yeah. Mom got Mr. Kiefer to take me sometimes."
It must have been as bittersweet a memory for him as for Tifa. He'd lost the same home in that fire. Only, he hadn't had five years of living to distance himself from it, or to build a new family. Just a hazy gap in his memories. Aeris felt for him, and in some ways, she related. Feeling out of his depth out in the world after being kept by Hojo... She remembered that.
As they got going again, Aeris noticed he was having trouble keeping his eyes open. He nearly dozed off a few times, but jerked himself upright again after only a few minutes.
"You'll have to sleep sometime," Tifa said to him. "But we'll all be here. Right?"
Cloud hesitated, but he nodded. "Wake me when we get there?"
"Of course."
South of the river, the landscape began to change. It was subtle at first, the dirt road taking on a reddish hue that Aeris could see occasionally in the earth beneath the grasses, too. Then the greenery grew sparser, but not because of anything unnatural like a Mako reactor. It was simply a land that saw less rain.
It was hard to see the way ahead from the back of the truck, and so it seemed to Aeris that the canyon came upon them suddenly. Great walls rose up on either side of them and threw the road into shadow. Aeris sat up straighter, watching the winding corridor of earth unfold behind them, a deep reddish brown, slashed in varied shades and hues.
Eventually, Vincent brought the truck to a stop, and craning her neck, Aeris caught a glimpse of some structure above them. Nanaki leapt eagerly out of the truck, and he circled it impatiently while the rest of them gathered their gear.
Tifa gave Cloud's shoulder a gentle shake, rousing him.
"We're here," she said.
"Here?" He looked up at her, glanced around, and nodded. "Cosmo Canyon."
Tifa smiled, her shoulders relaxing. "Yeah. How are you feeling?"
"I'm okay," he said, returning the smile ever-so-slightly.
They were the last ones out of the truck, and as soon as Cloud's boots were on the ground, Nanaki trotted on to a long staircase cut into the rock. Unable to hold himself back any longer, he bounded ahead out of sight.
"Nanaki?" came a startled voice from above. "You're back! Hey, Nanaki's back!"
Aeris was winded by the time she reached the top of the steps, and she was happy to take a moment to catch her breath, but Tifa and Barret tried to go on through the gate.
"Woah there," said the man who had greeted Nanaki. "I'm afraid we don't let just anyone in here."
Aeris lifted her head. Nanaki had already run halfway up another flight of stairs within the settlement, but he paused as he caught sight of them gathered outside the gate.
"They're with me, Ira!" he called down to the gatekeeper. "Please let them in."
"Is that right?" said Ira, looking over them again. "You're friends of our Nanaki?"
"That's right," answered Tifa. "We've travelled a long way together. I promise we don't mean to make any trouble here."
"Yeah, no way," said Barret. "I always wanted to come here, I ain't gonna mess it up."
Ira glanced at his gun arm, but he nodded and stepped aside. "Well then, welcome to Cosmo Canyon."
"Thanks," said Tifa, and Aeris offered the man a grateful smile of her own as she followed Tifa and Barret through the gate.
"Guess he must've run off to find his folks," Barret said, glancing up. Nanaki had vanished out of sight.
"You can usually find Bugenhagen up at the observatory," offered Ira, overhearing him. He pointed up to the very top of the settlement. "I'm sure that's where Nanaki's gone to. He's been away a long time."
"Maybe we shouldn't go after him just yet," Aeris considered. "Let him enjoy being home for a bit."
Tifa nodded. "Yeah. That makes sense."
"C'mon," said Jessie, pushing ahead eagerly. "Let's get settled at the inn so we can explore the place."
"What's to explore?" said Yuffie. "I don't get what you're all so excited about."
"It's the birthplace of AVALANCHE, Yuffie," Jessie replied.
"Yeah, yeah. And it's full of scholars or something. I got enough of studying back in Nibelheim, thank you very much."
Jessie shrugged, not trying to convince her but not letting Yuffie dampen her enthusiasm either.
They located the inn easily and secured a couple rooms for their party. Aeris would have liked to have a private room for her and Tifa, but she understood they couldn't waste money like that. It had been a few days since she'd gotten to sleep in a bed, so at least there was that.
"Man, we gotta call Marlene and Wedge," said Barret, plopping down on one of the beds.
"Poor Wedge," said Jessie. "He's going to be so jealous."
"We'll have to come back with him later," said Tifa.
Yuffie and Vincent left the room before Barret had even started dialing, and Aeris wasn't surprised; neither of them had ever met the people they were calling. Cloud lingered through the first hellos and telling Wedge where they were, but it seemed to make him uncomfortable, and he slipped out, too.
Tifa watched him go, her brow furrowing in concern. Aeris touched her hand to let her know she'd noticed and got up to go after him. He hadn't gone far, just out to the inn's reception area overlooking the pub. Vincent must have stepped outside, but Yuffie sat below about to pick an argument with the bartender over how old she was.
"You all right, Cloud?" Aeris asked.
He glanced back at her and nodded. "Yeah. Just felt like I was intruding."
"I'm sure Tifa doesn't feel that way."
"I know," he said. "Just... reminds me of when we were kids. She had a lot of friends then, too."
"I get it," Aeris said, smiling sympathetically. "I was a little jealous at first, too. She has a certain magnetism... People are drawn to her without her even realizing."
Cloud raised an eyebrow at her. "You were jealous?"
"Oh, I'm a lot more confident now, but I never used to have many friends either."
Cloud smiled wryly. "Guess... that's the type Zack's drawn to, huh?"
"Hmm. It does seem that way, doesn't it? I mean, he'd make friends with anyone, but maybe he decided we were the ones who needed it most."
"Do you think... Um..."
Catching his eye, Aeris thought she knew what he was trying to ask. "I'm sure he'd be thrilled if we were friends, too," she said.
Cloud smiled shyly and nodded.
Nanaki found them shortly after the others had finished up their call. "Come," he said. "Grandfather wants to meet you all."
They followed him through the settlement, and all the way up to the observatory. Aeris caught only brief glimpses of the view out over the canyon, as it was hard keeping up with Nanaki in his excitement.
Inside the observatory, the oldest man Aeris had ever seen was waiting for them. Even behind his dark glasses and the thick droopy eyebrows, she could make out deep crinkles in the corners of his eyes from decades of smiling. Strangely, he didn't stand, but hovered a little above the floor on some sort of contraption.
Even stranger, the Planet's voice was loud in this room, almost like she was hearing it from outside of her.
Nanaki introduced them all to the old man, and then went on, "This is my grandfather, Bugen. He's the wisest person you'll ever meet."
Bugenhagen chuckled fondly and said, "Nanaki tells me you all helped him to return home. I thank you for looking after him. He is still a child, you see."
"Grandfather, I'm 48."
Aeris exchanged glances with Tifa. They were all familiar enough with unconventional families that she hadn't batted an eye at Nanaki calling a human his grandfather, but at 48, he was older than all of them, except for Vincent.
"You call that a child?" Jessie wondered.
"Nanaki's tribe is incredibly long-lived," Bugenhagen explained. "So you see his 48 years might only be the equivalent of a human of 16 or 17."
Aeris glanced at Yuffie, supposing that put them at about the same age, but she didn't seem to be paying attention.
"What's that sound?" Yuffie asked.
"What sound?" said Aeris.
"You don't hear that?" Tifa asked, gesturing vaguely upwards. "Sort of like a... wailing."
Aeris stared at her, and she looked around at her friends, who all seemed to be hearing something, trying to determine where it was coming from. Cloud was even wincing. "You mean... you all can hear that?"
"It's one of grandfather's machines," Nanaki explained. "It picks up and amplifies the voice of the Planet."
"You got a machine that can do that?" Barret wondered.
"Indeed," said Bugenhagen, and Aeris thought he was looking at her from behind his glasses. "Though I suspect it is a poor substitute for an actual conversation."
"Do you really hear this all the time, Aeris?" Jessie asked.
"...yes," she said. "The Planet is always in pain. Though he's right. This isn't the only thing it has to say, just... the loudest."
"Man, I'd go nuts if I had to listen to this 24/7," said Yuffie. "We'd better kick the crap out of Sephiroth and the Shinra real soon."
Bugenhagen chuckled again, but this time there was something sad about it. "Nanaki told me that you hope to save the Planet. What a challenge you've set for yourselves... but I envy you your optimism."
"You don't think it can be done?" Tifa asked with a frown.
"Every day, Shinra's reactors drain more and more of this Planet's life force. Perhaps I ought to have more hope than to think that we have passed the point of no return, but I've spent decades listening to this Planet's misery, and it seems to me that anything we do now only delays the inevitable..." He laughed again. "Ah, but what do I know? I am only an old man, and my feelings shouldn't keep you from trying."
But his words made Aeris uneasy, and she shook her head slowly. "There's still life in this Planet," she said. "It's fighting so hard..."
"That's why we gotta fight for it, too," Barret said decisively.
Aeris looked up at him with a smile. "Yeah. You're right."
"Grandfather," said Nanaki, "why don't you show them your planetarium? They might find that more inspiring."
Bugenhagen nodded. "Yes, I suppose they might. And it's a good way to begin a study of planet life. But I'm afraid there's only room for three of you at once."
"I'll pass," said Yuffie. "I did not come up here for any kinda lesson."
Tifa looked to Aeris, but she shook her head. "I think... the original AVALANCHE should see it," she said. "I already know something of planet life, and I think I'd like to clear my head."
"You're sure?" Tifa asked.
Aeris nodded. "I can always come see it later."
"Well then, this way," said Bugenhagen, guiding Tifa, Barret, and Jessie into an adjacent room. The door closed behind them.
"Cloud, why don't I take you to meet some of our doctors?" Nanaki said, turning to him. "Is that all right?"
Cloud hesitated, then let out a breath. "Yeah. There's no sense putting it off."
They left the observatory, leaving Aeris momentarily alone with Yuffie. She blinked. "Yuffie, did you see where Vincent disappeared to?"
"Vincent? Yeah, he just kinda slipped past and went up there while everybody was talking," Yuffie said, pointing to a ladder at the back of the room. "You think he's up to something?"
Aeris shook her head. "I don't know. He doesn't strike me as one for crowds."
"I'm kinda feelin' that way myself right now," Yuffie admitted. "So... If it's cool with you, I'm gonna take off, see if I can find anything fun to do in this place."
"Sure. Good luck."
Yuffie left, and Aeris turned to the ladder. Past what must have been Bugenhagen's private bedroom, the ladder led on up to a balcony encircling the outside of the observatory. She found Vincent sitting up there, his back resting against the domed roof. He glanced at her as she approached, but said nothing.
Aeris didn't say anything either at first, going instead to the railing. It was an incredible view from up here. She could see the whole of the settlement below, the windmills that powered it glinting as they turned, and the path of the canyon stretching for miles to the horizon. The sun was setting now, streaking red and gold across the sky and intensifying the colors of the canyon.
"Have you been here before?" she asked Vincent.
"...yes," he answered. "I made several trips with Professor Gast. These machines were his gift to the friends he had here."
Her father had had friends here. She wondered how close he'd been with Bugenhagen, what Bugenhagen had thought of him. Aeris found it difficult to reconcile the things she'd heard of him. Her mother called him a good man, but he'd proposed and led the Jenova Project, an experiment Aeris would have considered morally reprehensible even if it hadn't had such disastrous results.
And what of Sephiroth, the child? Aeris knew more than enough about Shinra to know how difficult it would have been for Gast to take Sephiroth and leave the company, but had her father even tried? Or had he abandoned Sephiroth to be raised by Hojo, turning his back on the whole affair?
She knew Vincent wouldn't have the answer to that--it had happened while he slept--but Aeris left the railing and cautiously took a seat beside him. It was the first chance she'd had to speak with him alone, but her thoughts had been in too much disarray yesterday anyway.
"Could you... tell me about him?" she asked. "Professor Gast?"
"I only knew him in a professional capacity," said Vincent.
"I know. But I never knew him at all, and my mother barely talks about him. I'd really appreciate anything you could tell me."
Vincent considered the request before speaking. "He was a courteous man," he said. "Not used to giving orders. He always phrased them as requests. And I believe he tried to be kind... but his research held so much of his focus, he often failed to notice what was happening to those around him."
"You mean, to Lucrecia?" Aeris ventured.
"...yes. I don't think that Gast ever pressured her. But he didn't know her well enough to realize that she felt pressured."
"By Hojo?"
Vincent nodded. "Though it wasn't only him. She was... very hard on herself."
"It seems like you had that in common," Aeris observed.
Vincent glanced at her without saying anything, but the look spoke volumes. He had cared so deeply for this Lucrecia, but ultimately, he had lost her. Whether it had been the Project that divided them, or something else... Or maybe even, an unrequited love. Aeris didn't know.
And she wouldn't have sought an answer if her own father hadn't been so integral to what had happened, if it wasn't that woman's son who they meant to kill one day soon.
"Vincent," she said, "I'm sorry to ask you this, but... is Sephiroth your son?"
There was a long pause before Vincent's answer. "...no," he said at last.
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
Aeris studied his face, and decided he was telling the truth. There was something painful about that question, but he wasn't Sephiroth's father.
But if not Vincent, then who? Aeris clasped her hands tightly in her lap. Her father had led the Project. Lucrecia had respected him.
"But he couldn't be... I mean, he and I aren't..."
"No," Vincent cut in the moment he grasped where her thoughts had taken her. "You have no relation. Hojo... was Lucrecia's husband."
Aeris closed her eyes and let out a breath. What a relief, to know that she and Sephiroth didn't share that connection. But in a way, it was almost worse. That that man had had a wife, that he'd fathered a child...
"How... sad for them," she said.
Vincent nodded, and they both sat in silence for a while. Surprisingly, it was Vincent who broke it. "May I ask... how it was that Professor Gast died?"
"Mom told me he died trying to protect us," Aeris answered. "I always assumed it was Hojo, or someone working for him, but I never guessed that they would have known each other. That they used to be colleagues."
"Hojo always was jealous of Gast," Vincent said.
"...I guess he must have been jealous of you, too, in a different way." There must have been something between him and Lucrecia. She couldn't imagine Hojo showing a person any love, let alone enough love.
"It is fair to say we hated one another," said Vincent.
"Was he the one who locked you in that basement?"
"I have no memory of it, but I expect he was."
"You know... If you used to be with the Turks, it seems to me like you could've gotten out. I mean, Jessie picked the lock. Or you could have shot it open."
Vincent didn't reply.
"I don't mean to sound like I'm judging. I just think it's sad, that you wanted to stay. I mean... Look at this view." She gestured to the canyon sprawling before them. "I spent my whole life in Midgar, until a couple weeks ago. I always wanted to see things like this."
"Midgar..." Vincent murmured. "So they built it then."
"Oh... that's right. Jessie said they only started construction about thirty years ago. It's... so central to everything now, it's hard to imagine the world without it."
"Nibelheim still looked the same," said Vincent, "and this place is hardly any different. Strange, how some things endure, while others only seem to."
Aeris couldn't guess precisely what he was thinking of in that moment, but she nodded. "In a way that's comforting. Shinra's been around a while, but not that long, in the scheme of things. Maybe in another thirty years, people will be asking, 'Shinra who?'"
"Perhaps," Vincent agreed.
Aeris smiled at him. "Anyway, thanks for talking to me. I'm sure it must be hard for you after all this time. And we're all here, if you need anything."
He looked at her as though she'd said something unexpected, and then he inclined his head. "Thank you," he said.
Aeris picked herself up off the floor. "I'll leave you to enjoy the view, though, if that's all right. There are a lot of people here I want to talk to."
Vincent nodded. "I hope you find the answers you're looking for."
Maybe not such a mystery, Aeris thought. A reserved man, but a kind one.
She made her way back down the ladder. Putting her ear to the door, Aeris could make out muffled voices from the planetarium, but she decided not to wait for them. Instead she continued down into the main settlement, and took her time, poking her head into rooms that Nanaki had hurried them past on the way up.
Some of them were homes, others shops, but in one, she found an old man sifting through documents, and while he said he'd been acquainted with Gast, he directed her to one of his colleagues who'd known him more closely. She thanked him, and went on down to the pub. In their absence, an older man, probably in his sixties, had settled in for dinner.
"Are you Elder Bugah?" she asked.
"Hm?" he said, looking up from something he'd been reading. "Yes, that's me. Let's see, you're one of the people who came with Nanaki, aren't you?"
"That's right. My name is Aeris."
"Pleasure to meet you. He's been gone too long, we were all quite worried about him."
"How long has it been exactly?" she wondered. "He's never said."
"Hmm... More than a year now, must be. Some of those Shinra people took him. We were all at a loss... We're a peaceful people, and it's been a long time now since we had any connections within the company."
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about, actually. I was told that you used to know my father, Professor Gast?"
Bugah leaned back in surprise, looking her over anew. "You're Gast's daughter? He had a daughter? Well! I'm doubly pleased to meet you. Please, sit down. Have you eaten yet? It's on me."
What a reaction, Aeris thought. "Oh... Thank you," she said, taking a seat opposite him. He called to the barkeep and arranged for him to get a meal out to her.
"So, how is he?" Bugah asked, leaning across the table eagerly. "What's he gotten himself up to these days? It's been ages."
Aeris faltered. "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but he died. When I was a baby."
"Oh... Oh, I see."
"That's why I wanted to talk to you. I was hoping you could tell me about him."
"Of course, of course... Gods, what a shame, though. Was it the Shinra? Did they get after him?"
"Yes. I think that's what happened."
Bugah shook his head. "Poor bastard. I never thought he should've had anything to do with them. Didn't seem the type, he was far too genuine a person."
"Genuine?" Aeris wondered.
"Mm." Bugah took a drink and continued, "He dedicated his life to studying the Ancients, and whenever he came here, we'd get to drinking and talking each others' ears off about it. Wish you could've seen how excited he got over it. Of course we were both still young men then, even me. But knowledge was everything to him, he thought that was what would make the world a better place. Really he had more in common with all of us here than he did with the Shinra. But I suppose it was their funding that got him that dig up north. I still remember how elated he was when he found that Ancient..."
"He told you about that?"
"Sure. Not in too much detail... Company secrets and all that. But he checked in a few times after that, told me his research was going well. At least, until the last time I saw him... He showed up here one day, out of his mind distressed. I'd never seen him like that. All he'd tell me was that Jenova wasn't an Ancient and that he'd done a terrible thing. I just couldn't get him to calm down, and he wound up leaving again. I heard he never went back to Shinra."
"I see," said Aeris. Of course he had left the company, or her mother would never have had much to do with him. How early had they been in their acquaintance then?
"He never mentioned a wife to me," Bugah went on, "so I guess it must have been after that, he managed to settle down and find a little peace. At least, I hope so."
"My mother told me they were happy together, even if it was only for a few years."
"That's good. He deserved a little happiness."
"You think so?"
Bugah frowned at her in confusion. "Why? You don't?"
"No, I... I wouldn't say that," she said. "It's just, the terrible thing he did... it really was terrible. I know my mother forgave him for it, but I've only just learned about it. It's... hard to think about."
"Well, I knew the man, and about the most terrible thing you would've expected of him is writing in the margins of a book you lent him. Not that I'm doubting you, that's just the kind of person he was. He never would've wanted anything bad to come out of his research, but I can see how that's exactly what the Shinra would've wanted from him."
Aeris nodded. "I guess everyone makes mistakes. I'm sure... he would've tried to fix it, if he could, right?"
"I imagine so," said Bugah. "Hard to go up against the Shinra, though. Even back then."
Maybe he had tried to help Sephiroth, she thought, but it was something even her mother might not know, and she likely wouldn't want to talk about it even if she did. Aeris would just have to be satisfied with the hope.
"I wonder if you also knew Vincent?" she asked instead.
"Who?"
"Vincent. He would've been a Turk then, accompanying Professor Gast."
"Hmm..." Bugah tapped his chin thoughtfully. "I do remember he came a few times with this tall fellow, quiet sort. I can't say we ever spoke. Why do you ask?"
Aeris shrugged. "No real reason. Just someone else I was curious about. But, thank you for telling me about my father."
Bugah waved a hand. "Don't mention it. But if you don't mind, maybe you could tell me a bit about yourself, and your mother. I'd love to hear about an old friend's family."
"Sure. I don't mind at all." But she hesitated, just for a moment. It occurred to her that she'd never been in a place so removed from Shinra's influence. She could be as open as she wanted. "My mother's name was Ifalna. And... she was a Cetra."
Bugah gaped at her. "You keep blowing me away, young lady. First Nanaki's friend, then Gast's daughter, and now one of the Cetra. Ah... but I'm sorry; you said 'was.' Has she passed?"
"Yes. But it's all right. It happened a long time ago, and we still talk sometimes."
"Is that so...?" Bugah shook his head. "You know, I have so many questions for you, but I'm sure you didn't sit down expecting to help an old man with a lifetime's worth of study."
Aeris smiled. "No, but I can try to answer a few of them."
"Well then," he said, drumming his fingers on the table as he sorted through what he most wanted to know. "Maybe you could tell me something about the Promised Land. It wasn't something that interested Gast, but it's become a topic of discussion lately. Unfortunately, all we can do is theorize."
The Promised Land again. "Well... It's something that I'm still learning about myself," she confessed. "All I know for sure is that its location isn't something that can be shared. And I'm starting to think... that maybe each person has a Promised Land of their own. Even humans, maybe, if you listen carefully enough."
Bugah smiled at her. "You know... That's a lovely thought. And I dare say you must have gotten your looks from your mother, but I think I do see a bit of your father in you."
"You do?"
He nodded. "He was always thinking about things, always curious. And, despite the state of the world, he was an optimist."
Aeris smiled softly. That was all right then, wasn't it? Despite his failings, despite what he'd brought into the world, maybe he'd left her something, too. A part of her that was like him, the better parts of him.
Helping him to atone... Maybe it was something she could do.