Chapter 38
Aeris wished that her friends could perceive the city the way that she did, not as something ancient and lonely, but as a link to something vast. To her, it was alive with voices. They filled the empty spaces, connected her to a past, a lineage, when all her life she'd barely grasped its edges.
And what she'd felt since Holy's answer, the Planet's relief washing over her. Its worries weren't gone, but they'd never been so quiet. Her step felt light up the stairs, as though enough of a push might send her floating up them.
I'm so proud, said her mother, and others echoed the sentiment, though they'd forgotten the words. And so glad. It was such a lonely burden, knowing one day the Planet might ask this of me. And when it fell to you... But you've done it.
I had help, said Aeris, looking to Tifa and then back at Nanaki and Yuffie. They'd been with her the whole time, lending her their strength.
They reached the top of the staircase and soon emerged from the shell house into the night. The stars were brighter overhead than Aeris had ever seen them, shining down into the clearing and catching the white of the coral. The light cast everything in shades of grey, but it was more than bright enough to see her friends on the shore of the lake.
They weren't fighting any human enemy, but instead engaged in battle with a robot at least fifteen feet tall. It stood on three legs, and two huge arms protruded from its top, giving it a hunched look. But, Aeris could see that its body was dented and scored, and one of those massive arms dangled limply as it moved.
The other arm was working fine, and before they could join the fight, it lunged into the midst of her friends, its fingers open and grasping.
"Zack!" Cloud shouted, but the arm knocked him down as it swung back and then flung forward. Zack's body hurtled across the clearing and splashed down in the center of the lake.
Aeris's hands flew to her mouth, but Tifa was tugging off her boots before she could process it. Zack hadn't surfaced, and Tifa dove into the water.
He'd be fine, wouldn't he? The Planet's calm in the wake of Holy's answer lay undisturbed within her, not feeding her own worry. He'd be fine. Tifa had it.
The robot whirred in preparation for something, but Yuffie channelled a bolt spell, stopping it short for a second, and they hurried to the others.
"Is everyone else all right?" asked Nanaki.
Barret was helping Cloud back to his feet, and Jessie and Vincent both stood out of the arm's range.
"Think so," said Barret, and he threw a look at Aeris. "You get it done?"
She nodded. "Everything's going to be all right."
The robot shuddered into motion again, its heavy legs thudding into the ground as it adjusted its position. Its arm swung for Cloud and Barret, but they leapt out of the way.
Aeris turned towards it, focusing, and the spell came together almost instantaneously. Here, in this place, there was less a conduit between her and the Planet and more a constant conversation, a mutual understanding amplified by generations of experience at her fingertips. A powerful bolt lanced through the machine, overloading circuitry in a shower of sparks.
"Damn, did that do it?" asked Yuffie.
"Not quite," said Jessie, as the robot took a few shuddering steps one way, then another. "But I think it's getting there."
Taking advantage of its disorientation, Cloud leapt up and brought his sword down on the joint of its good arm, and the heavy blade tore through the wiring, rendering it as useless as the other arm.
Aeris heard a splash and spun eagerly. Tifa's head broke the surface of the water, Zack in tow, though she couldn't help another flash of anxiety; he wasn't swimming for himself.
"Watch out!" shouted Nanaki.
The whirring noise started up again, but before Aeris could put together what to watch out for, Vincent had caught her about the waist and pulled her aside with him. A laser shot out from the robot, but its aim seemed off, and her friends scattered out of its path. It cut into the ground, and through the edge of the water, sending up a line of steam before it shut off.
"Sorry," said Vincent as he released her, but Aeris shook her head.
"No, thanks."
"Let's shut this thing up for good," said Barret, leveling his gun arm at the source of the laser. He fired off a round of bullets, and Yuffie channelled another bolt spell into it.
But Aeris could hear Tifa coming ashore. Vincent caught her eye and nodded, stepping between her and the robot, and she knew he'd continue to look out for them. She turned her back on the fight as Tifa hauled Zack out of the lake.
Cloud ran up, sword lowered. "Is he--?"
But Zack was already coughing up water as Aeris dropped to his side, and she let out a small breath of relief.
"Pretty sure he broke something," said Tifa, pushing her sopping bangs out of her face. She was shivering, but her eyes darted towards the fight.
Aeris laid her hands gently on Zack's chest and winced. "A few ribs, I think," she said, and she smiled at him in reassurance. "Don't worry, I'll take care of you."
Healing was the first magic Aeris had ever learned, a skill her mother had taught her in the cold confines of the Shinra building. She'd been doing it long enough to feel that it had always come naturally to her, even though she had memories of her mother's patience with her, and she knew it was something that had grown over time. But again, it was so easy here. Zack's bones knit back together at her will, and she hardly felt it had taken anything out of her. Her ancestors shared with her the burden of the spell.
Zack pushed himself up on his elbows, staring at her. He'd seen her magic before, at the Temple, but this was another level. Temporary, but powerful all the same. But then his gaze shifted. "Your materia..." he began, and trailed off into a grimace. He sat up, putting a hand to his forehead.
"Zack?"
"No, I'm okay," he said. "I think you really pissed 'im off, whatever you just did. That thing's not really 'useless,' is it?"
"No, it really isn't," Aeris said. "Are you sure you're all right?"
He nodded and flashed her a grin. "Yeah. Was sort of a... quick rage headache. It's gone now."
She and Tifa helped him to his feet. Zack felt icy cold beneath her grip, and he shivered, too. Cloud lingered nearby, torn between helping somehow and returning to the fight.
But the others had it well in hand. A panel on the front of the machine had come loose somehow, and the robot's arms swung limply and ineffectually as Jessie managed to pry it free and leap clear. Barret and Vincent opened fire on its exposed circuitry, and it shuddered, limbs jerking in random fits, until at last it ceased all motion.
They stopped firing, and in the quiet, they could hear that its motor had stopped running.
Barret walked up and gave it a kick in its ruined guts for good measure. "Damn Shinra," he said, "sendin' this thing to a place like this..."
"Sorry," said Zack, glancing at Aeris. "It did a lot of damage on the way in here, but we couldn't catch up to it sooner."
Aeris shook her head. "It's not your fault," she said.
"Where did it come from?" asked Nanaki. "The Shinra simply set it loose in the city?"
"Not sure," Zack admitted, and he stopped short of saying more, clamping his jaw shut to stop his teeth from chattering as a stronger shiver went through him.
Cloud had gone to retrieve Zack's sword from where he had dropped it, and he looked up at his friend in concern. "We were coming back from scouting," he added, "when we saw it headed in here. Figured the Shinra saw you come this way."
"Well, if they thought this thing was enough to take care of us, they were wrong," said Jessie with no little pride.
Tifa hadn't chimed in. She sat doing up the laces of her boots, fingers trembling.
"We need to get someplace warm," said Aeris. "We can talk more then."
Barret scratched his head, glancing around at the coral forest. "Hell, can you even burn any o' this stuff?"
"There's some normal trees north of the city," said Cloud, "where it runs into the mountains. And... one of those weird shell houses's got beds."
"What? After thousands o' years?"
Cloud shook his head. "Researchers, maybe. And not too long ago. They fixed the roof up pretty good, too."
"Sounds like a good place to spend the night," said Tifa, getting to her feet.
Barret nodded in agreement. "Why don't you all head there, an' I'll go with Cloud to get us some firewood. Can't have anybody freezin' to death."
They gathered their gear from the shell house and hurried back out of the heart of the city. Aeris felt a pang of distress on seeing the shards of coral that littered the path, too narrow for that great big machine. And they'd just left it on the shore of the lake, but how could they possibly move it? There was nothing to be done about it.
Don't fret, said her mother. The city was already a ruin, and it's served its purpose.
What about our history? Our legacy? Isn't that important?
Not as important as life. That's the only legacy that really matters. As caretakers of the Planet... people like your friends will replace us. You can guide them, but they have to find their own ways, too.
Everyone was with me today, said Aeris. Do you think... their voices reached the Planet?
Maybe, said Ifalna. Why don't you ask?
But it wasn't the time. Cloud was pointing out the house ahead of them, another conch shape, a hole in its roof patched with wooden beams and heavy canvas. He and Barret went on past it up the path, while the others went on inside.
A single glowing light illuminated the entryway, but they turned on their flashlights as they proceeded into the dark interior. Someone had fitted lanterns to the walls, and they lit them as they found them.
Most of the lower level had been converted to a storage room, with access to what looked like a hearth that rose through the center of the structure. A ladder led up to the second level, where a fresh wooden floor had been built atop the coral one, and three beds hugged the outer wall. Like Cloud had suggested, whoever used them must have been here no more than a few weeks ago, because there was only a thin layer of dust atop the tables they had brought in. People from the excavation site, maybe. They'd known about the city.
"All right, off with all of that," Aeris said, turning to Tifa and Zack, "and let's get you under some blankets."
"Uh, we'll check up on the others," said Jessie with a glance at Zack. She and Yuffie had come up to explore with them, but now they retreated back down the ladder to join Vincent and Nanaki in the storage room.
Tifa and Zack eyed each other uncertainly.
"Oh, forget modesty," said Aeris, "you're both turning blue! Just turn around."
With a shrug, Tifa turned her back on Zack and started pulling her sweater over her head. Zack turned, too, but then he glanced at Aeris.
"...you're staying?"
"Well, I've already seen you both naked."
"What?" he said.
"Oh, um... I peeked."
That drew her a glance from Tifa. "You peeked when?"
"Ages ago, I swear."
"Man, this is an awkward time to find that out..." said Zack, though it hadn't stopped him from stripping to the waist.
"Aeris, I think you should turn around, too," said Tifa.
"Gosh!" she said, but if Tifa didn't want her seeing her ex-boyfriend naked again after five years, she could live with that. She waited until they'd both changed into dry underthings, and then bundled Tifa into bed.
"We're all decent up here!" she called down to the others, and then she took off her coat and climbed under the covers with Tifa. Her skin felt icy to the touch, and she shivered beneath the blankets, but Aeris didn't think she had any serious symptoms. She hadn't been clumsy at all undressing, and very alert about the peeking incident.
"I think you're enjoying this," said Tifa.
"A little," Aeris admitted as she snuggled closer, "but I really don't want you to get hypothermia."
"I think we're safe now that we can warm up," Tifa reasoned.
"Yeah," said Aeris, but she'd feel better once they had a fire going. In the meantime, she found Tifa's hands and took them in her own, bringing them up to her face to breathe some warmth into them.
"I missed saying it earlier," Zack spoke up from his bed, "but thanks. Both of you."
"Don't mention it," said Tifa. "I wasn't about to let you drown."
"I swear I was a lot more impressive before you guys showed up."
Aeris laughed. "I believe you. But who are you hoping to impress here?"
"...good point." He was quiet for a moment, and then he said, "I guess you're the one who did something really impressive anyway. Right?"
"I promise, I'll tell you all about it once Cloud gets back."
"Whatever it was... I'm glad we didn't tip him off."
Whatever it was, Aeris repeated to herself. What had it been? Did you hear them, too, Planet? The voices of my friends, praying for you?
The Planet seemed bemused by the question, but understanding wasn't important to it. It was safe, the task was done, why wonder how it had been done?
I know. I know how relieved you are. But this is important to me, too. I've been the last of your people... but I don't want to be. You must remember how it used to be, when there were many of us. Could we be that again? Could my friends be the start of it?
The Planet seemed to settle, focusing its attention, though it remained confused. Of course there had been many voices reaching for Holy. There had to be.
But was mine the only living one?
Hesitation. Reflection.
Maybe there had been an echo, it thought, that came behind her prayer.
Well, that's a start, isn't it?
"How are you feeling?" Tifa asked her softly. "Now that it's done?"
"Good," said Aeris. "I feel really good."
Cloud and Barret returned shortly, and lit a fire in the hearth below, and some heat began to creep into the shell house. They came upstairs with Jessie to check on them, and Tifa began to sit up. Aeris moved with her, tugging the blankets into a cocoon around them. In the other bed, she could see Zack doing the same.
"How you guys doing?" Jessie asked. "Warming up?"
"Yeah," said Tifa. "We'll be all right."
"How 'bout you, Zack? You need someone to cuddle you over there?"
"I am feeling a little left out," he said. "I always like a good cuddle."
Jessie clapped a hand on Cloud's shoulder. "All right, Cloud. I'm nominating you, as his best friend."
Aeris hid her smile beneath the blanket, but Jessie met her eye across the room and winked at her. So she wasn't the only one who'd noticed.
"Uh," said Cloud. "I mean, if you need it..."
"C'mon, buddy, I'm dying over here," said Zack, and though he obviously wasn't serious, Aeris was pleasantly surprised to see Cloud walk past to join him; she would've thought he'd need more encouragement. Zack settled the blankets over their heads, messing up Cloud's carefully spiked hair, and Aeris bit back a laugh.
Barret looked amused, too, but he didn't comment. "Guess the rest of us get to fight over that last bed," he said instead.
"We're obviously not going anywhere for a while," Tifa said to Barret, "so could you get the others up here? I know they already know what's going on, but... I want us all to come clean together."
Barret nodded. "Yeah. Sounds about right."
As he headed down to fetch Yuffie, Nanaki, and Vincent, Jessie came to sit down on the other side of Tifa, as though to lend her a little more warmth.
Cloud was watching them uncertainly. "Is this about... what you guys were doing in that place?"
"Yeah," said Tifa. "We would've told you about it sooner, but..."
"...you didn't want Sephiroth to know," Cloud finished, and she nodded.
"I've known since Gongaga that we'd need to come here," said Aeris, "and we all talked about it afterwards..."
Barret was coming back up with the others, and she waited until they'd all settled themselves about the room before going on.
"You know that Sephiroth has the Black Materia, and means to summon Meteor," Aeris said, "but all this time... I've had the White Materia, from my mother. We came here to summon Holy, to protect the Planet from Meteor. And we did."
"You keep saying 'we,'" Jessie noted. "Did we actually help?"
Aeris smiled. "The Planet says... my voice wasn't alone. And it wasn't just the voices of my ancestors with me. I'm sure of it."
"So the Planet's safe from Meteor," said Zack, "but we still have to go after Sephiroth, don't we?"
"We're still going," Tifa confirmed. "If we can prevent him from summoning Meteor at all, there are other things Holy can protect the Planet from. Shinra... Jenova..."
"Jenova..." Zack repeated, and his expression grew pensive. "If it wipes out Jenova, then... are me and Cloud going, too?"
Aeris hated to see that comprehension on his face, of what she'd just done, and she shook her head. "No. Holy obeys the will of the Planet, and I'm going to make sure it understands, Jenova is hurting you the same way it's hurting the Planet. You need to be healed, not destroyed."
"Is a magic that powerful really gonna be that discerning?" Zack wondered.
Aeris faltered. Was it?
Zack nudged Cloud. "Guess it might be time to live like we're dying, huh, buddy?"
Cloud said nothing, but sat frowning at the floor.
"Cloud?" said Tifa.
"If Holy winds up killing us," he said slowly, "so it can heal the Planet, then that's all right. But if you're still going after Sephiroth... then we've got some time, right?"
"Some," Aeris confirmed. "Holy is slow. It's just beginning to wake."
Cloud nodded. "Then I'm going with you." He looked to Zack. "You're going, too, right?"
"Well..." said Zack. "I could head back down to Costa del Sol, spend the last of my days kicking back on the beach, learning to surf...... but I think I'd be too worried about you guys to relax. Besides, I'd rather go out doing something important."
"I really don't think you're going to die, Zack," Aeris said.
"I know you don't. But I can't tell if that's wishful thinking on your part, or if the Planet's really going to look after us. It's all right, though."
Aeris dropped her gaze. Tifa's hand found hers beneath the blankets and squeezed. Her grip was strong, confident, like she didn't believe they were going to die either.
"Well, I ain't gonna complain about you two stickin' around," said Barret. "You did good work today. Woulda been real bad, that thing catchin' us unawares."
Zack smiled, not as brightly as usual but not forced either. "Yeah, it kinda worked out, didn't it? Keeping us outta the loop. Got to be kinda heroic."
"Until you almost drowned, you mean," said Cloud.
"That's not working out so bad either," Zack said, wriggling under the blankets.
Cloud blushed. "W-what?"
"We got a bed! Think we mighta lost out otherwise and had to sleep on the floor."
"Oh," said Cloud.
Aeris was really going to have to talk to Zack later about being dense.
"So... who is getting the other bed?" Yuffie asked, speaking up for the first time since they'd entered the house. She'd been oddly quiet since they'd entered the city, really, and Aeris eyed her curiously as the others worked out the remainder of the sleeping arrangements.
It was a peaceful night, the first since Gongaga that Aeris had spent without the Planet worrying somewhere in the back of her mind. She could sense the presence of her ancestors, but they recognized more easily that she was resting, and what had begun as a tumble of thoughts and feelings had by now lapsed into quiet. They blew out the lantern on the wall, and there was only the sound of her friends breathing in the room with her.
There was more ahead of them, but everything was going to be all right, wasn't it? The lingering uncertainties--when Holy would come, what it might do, what fighting Sephiroth might cost them--couldn't shake that powerful calm for long. The satisfaction of a task completed. She'd had only the vaguest awareness of it for most of her life, but it was such a weight lifted. Maybe because the Planet had waited even longer, so much longer, for this day.
Aeris closed her eyes and shifted closer to Tifa. Tifa, who had been there to support her, just like she'd promised. And maybe, their voices had reached the Planet together...
The morning was cold, and Aeris didn't want to get out of bed, but Tifa got up ahead of her to get breakfast going, and staying under the covers lost some of its appeal.
Aeris climbed down to the lower level, intending to retrieve the clothes they'd left to dry by the hearth, but she found Yuffie standing in the corridor near the door out. She was turned away, backlit by that glowing light at the entryway that seemed to be a part of the original city.
"Everything all right?" Aeris asked her.
With a start, Yuffie snatched her hand back from the light and turned around. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay."
"You sure? You seem like you've had something on your mind since yesterday."
Yuffie fidgeted, rubbing at her arm. "It's just... This place creeps me out. It's like there's always somebody whispering behind my back. And down in that place, I could've sworn I heard..."
Aeris held her breath for a moment. "...what did you hear?" she asked cautiously.
"I don't know. It's like there weren't any words, or it was in a language I didn't know? It's probably all in my head anyhow."
"Yuffie... Who do you think you're talking to?"
"Yeah, but..." Yuffie shook her head, and let her body slump back against the wall behind her. "You're a Cetra. I'm just... me."
"Hmm." Aeris walked over to stand beside her. "I don't know much about Wutai, or the gods you worship," she admitted, "but they must be a part of this Planet, the same as anything else. If your magic comes from them, I wonder if it might not have same source as mine, when you get down to it?"
Yuffie glanced at her, brow furrowing.
"If you say you heard something," Aeris went on, "I believe you. This place is full of voices for me, and I know, when we were praying for Holy, that I heard an answer."
"Doesn't it weird you out," Yuffie wondered, "hearing dead people?"
"I didn't know it was meant to be weird, at first. I was seven when my mother died, and I've been hearing her voice ever since... It's always been a comfort."
Yuffie nodded thoughtfully. "That's still weird, but... it must be pretty cool, to talk to your mom like that."
"You've never mentioned yours," Aeris noted. "Is she...?"
"Yeah. She died in the war. Dad won't talk about it, but I bet she took a whole bunch of Shinra soldiers down with her. I bet she was kickass, you know? I had to get that from somewhere."
Aeris smiled. "I bet she was."
Yuffie looked down at her boots. "But she's probably... part of the Planet now, right? Normal people can't hang around as long as the Cetra, right?"
"Well, I used to think that. But if you heard the Planet yesterday, Yuffie, then I'm less and less sure what the difference is, between me and 'normal' people. Which... could be really wonderful, but it also means I don't have an answer for you."
"That's okay. It's worse when people act like they've got all the answers when they don't."
Aeris hesitated. "If you ever want to try listening for her... or anything like that... I'll help if I can, okay?"
Yuffie met her gaze, chewing on her lip. Then she said, "This is the first time I've heard anything like that, but I don't think Mom would hang around here. This place is for your ancestors. I think she'd be... back home. In Wutai."
"Well... I'd like to see it sometime. Your home."
Yuffie nodded. "Yeah. I want you guys to see it, too."
They heard feet on the ladder, and looked over as Jessie came down.
"Everything okay down here?" she asked.
Yuffie hesitated, so Aeris answered for her. "Uh-huh! Just not a big fan of haunted cities."
"Well, then come on up and have some breakfast," said Jessie. "The sooner we eat, the sooner we can get going, right?"
Yuffie nodded and headed on up.
"I'll be up in a minute," said Aeris. "Gotta grab those clothes."
As she went on into the storage room with her flashlight, she thought it was a shame that they had to leave again so quickly. The researchers had left a notebook behind, sketches of locations around the city and speculation on what the Cetra had used them for. Even if they returned, they could only ever guess, but Aeris might discover more answers in the voices of the dead. How much longer would they linger here before returning fully to the Planet? Now that they had helped to call on Holy, would their memories be lost to the ages?
But how much did it matter? No one had gathered in this city for centuries. Whatever traditions they'd practiced here were long gone, well before they could be passed down to Aeris or her mother. This place was dead, and one day it would simply be ancient, and lonely.
Aeris bundled the now-dry clothes in her arms and returned carefully to the second level.
"Well, not never," Jessie was saying, "but it only ever snows on the plate now, and that stuff's nasty. I haven't seen real snow since I was a kid."
"Man," said Yuffie, and she looked to Aeris as she came up. "Wait, that must mean you've really never seen it."
"Just what falls in Midgar," Aeris confirmed. "I've heard it's supposed to be white."
Tifa made a face at her as she collected her clothes from the pile. "Well, you'll get to see the real thing soon."
"Yeah..." said Aeris. It was just a casual conversation, but something they fit her into without thinking. She remembered when she'd envied Tifa, and the closeness she shared with her friends, but they'd all grown closer by now, hadn't they? A living thing she was a part of.
"Something wrong?" Tifa asked her, tilting her head.
"No," said Aeris. "Absolutely nothing."