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The sea crashed distantly, chirps from nocturnal insects all around Tifa. She lay high on a sand dune outside of Costa del Sol, Aeris beside her. They had ventured out after Avalanche met up for a meal, Aeris inviting Tifa to accompany her out into the clear night. The sand still warm beneath her back, the air on the verge of cooling to an uncomfortable level. Above them the stars brightened in the sky, the darkening sky revealing more and more. More than either had seen in Midgar or Junon. The most Tifa had seen since leaving Nibelheim.
“Ah!” Aeris leant up onto her elbows beside her. She pointed. “Shooting star.”
“I-“ Nothing but the same brightening points of light in the darkening sky. “I think I missed it.”
“Another!” Aeris pointed off to Tifa’s right.
“And there!” Tifa pointed to Aeris’s left, a streak of light arcing out of the sky to vanish before the horizon. She relaxed, grateful to have seen at least one.
“We can do the thing.” Aeris grinned. “People do do that right? Wish on shooting stars?”
A pop-song sprang to mind. No. Something Tifa used to do in Nibelheim when nights were more often clear. So many wishes on shooting stars. So few of them had come to pass. And a number now never could. “They do.”
Aeris closed her eyes, sinking back onto the sand. One of those elements of childhood never afforded to her thanks to Midgar – her and a number of other children trapped within the city. How many moments of Tifa’s own childhood were less universal than supposed. And what should she wish for?
As a child, the choices and wishes were easy. Wish for a piano. Wish for Mom to get better. Wish for the reversal of tragedy. One of those had worked. Hundreds of small wishes; doing well on tests, good presents, favoured foods for the next meal.
Wish Cloud would take the initiative and write back. Wish she could find his address to open a line of communication versus the continued silence. Wish he would come home as her feelings towards him had altered in an unpredictable way. Wish he would be one of the two SOLDIERs to arrive in Nibelheim five years prior. Near all of those had not resulted in her desired outcome.
Strictly speaking the one still unfolding was not what she wished for either; Tifa made no wish to find him barely coherent at the station seven years too late and with a head full of impossible memories. Or perhaps with the true memories; hers might be the confused. Cloud had not come home- But given there was no home for him to return to, was this wish now achieved in the only way it could be? Or as she might have felt, secretly and deep down. Cloud not returned home but instead returned to her.
If only life could be simple enough for his return to alleviate her worries. Instead; he was a walking mass of question marks whose version of events called parts of her memory into question. Perhaps something to wish for? Wish she might know the truth. Or perhaps not. Perhaps better to know why Cloud remembered one way and she remembered the other. Resolve the contradictions and overlaps.
I wish to understand why Cloud said he was there five years ago. Wait-
Beside her, Aeris opened her eyes. “What did you wish for?”
Too late to change her mind now. The moment gone, Aeris’s wish made. “Has to be secret Aeris. If you tell someone it won’t come true.”
“Oh. Oh, of course.” Aeris clapped her hand over her mouth. “But now I’m curious what you wished for.”
“And I’m wondering what you did, but-“ Tifa shrugged. “Nothing we can do about it.”
“Except wait for more shooting stars?”
Tifa smiled. “Feels a bit like cheating. Not sure how it works, but not convinced that’s going to work too well.”
Aeris huffed. “Fine. Well, we’ll see what happens.”
“We will.” Tifa settled back. Chances of her wish coming true were remote. Not impossible to find out the how and why of Cloud, but unlikely as a result of a shooting star. A chill breeze left Tifa shivering. “Think it might be time to head back in. Find out what everyone else is doing.”
Aeris agreed and they retraced their steps, the sky above them filling with more and more stars. And not once did Tifa spot another shooting star before morning.