[FFVII] Phantoms
Mar. 4th, 2007 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bard_linnHahaha…songfic(ish). I know, shoot me dead. I blame this on icedark_elf because she wrote this which made Cloud talk to me BEFORE my interview yesterday about how I wanted to write Cloud drabble about his lost memories. I was not happy, being as I was trying to think of interview questions and the like (Interview went very well, in case anyone wonders). Also blame this on going to see Les Mis the other weekend and seeing a lot of shirts with it on it lately too.
Title: Phantoms
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Character: Cloud
Note: He mentions special people in Midgar. You can decide who – and in what context – they were for yourself.
There's a grief that can't be spoken
There's a pain goes on and on
Empty chairs at empty tables
Now my friends are dead and gone…
Phantom faces at the window
Phantom shadows on the floor
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will meet no more.…
~Empty Chairs and Empty Tables, Les Miserables
If they hadn’t really needed the gil, Cloud wouldn’t have taken the job. However, even with Tifa’s bar, his own cash from his business and the parts he salvaged from monsters he killed on the job, profits from raising and selling chocobos and the money they had saved from the time they had tailed Sephiroth all over the planet, things had been tight after the incident with Kadaj, Yazoo, and Loz. His bike had been totaled, meaning his primary means of bringing in money had been eliminated. Riding a chocobo was still an option but made fighting monsters a bit more difficult. The blond raised racers more than war-birds. He didn’t know how to train the later properly yet.
And, much to Cloud’s disgruntlement, the last two silver haired “brothers” had managed to completely destroy his custom made sword. Replacing them would cost more than their savings. On the other hand, until he got his sword back at least, it would be dangerous for him to travel all over the world. He had managed to pick up a decent stand in until the new one could be made, but he mixed the flexibility of styles his old one had given him.
His chocobo slowly walked to a halt as Cloud gave her a wordless signal; the warrior was still far enough away that those who lived in the town couldn’t see him, thankfully, but enhanced eyes could see the buildings down to almost the smallest detail despite the necessary distance. It would have been awkward if he had encountered one of those who now lived in the area, seeing as most of them had at one time been ShinRa employees paid to occupy this phantom town.
The delivery in question hadn’t even really been that close to Nibelheim, closer by far to Cosmo Canyon. Yet the resurrected buildings called to him like a lodestone and Cloud found himself forced to once again look at the mockery of his hometown.
It hurt, looking at the familiar buildings that had provided refuge in his youth. It was too easy to turn and think he would see someone he knew emerging from those houses rather than a former ShinRa employee who had really settled down here and begun their own families. Nibelheim was alive again, yet the ghosts still walked on.
Cloud would have even settled for one of those obnoxious kids who had ignored him most of the time – except to make off hand comments to one another when he was near about his mother or his long missing father, designed to irritate the blond past reason. He had always reacted to the taunts with a quick attack, usually getting more than a few bruises for his trouble and a lecture from his mother about picking fights. He was hardly going to tell her he had been provoked. It just wasn’t something little boys did.
Nibelheim should never had risen again; every moment he had stayed near the town, more of his lost memories had returned, flooding his mind and reminding him exactly why he had left in the first place.
It was odd that living in Edge – though admittedly he hadn’t actually been staying there often of late – didn’t bother him the same way. Maybe it was because Midgar had changed so much from the one he hazily recalled from his time there as a teen. Even before Meteor’s drastic changes to the city, the land around it had withered because of the reactors. Those he had cared about who had lived in the city…they were mostly forgotten, bar a few names, some faces and a precious handful of memories. The Cloud of Midgar seemed to be forever destroyed, most days, while the Cloud of Nibelheim still lurked in the blond’s mind. He tried not to let it bother him too much, but every once and a while he wondered if he had truly tried he might have recovered some good memories.
It hurt to still not know who he had been.
His chocobo turned her gold head, looking curiously at her rider, breaking his thoughts. Cloud patted her neck gently, trying to reassure her he was all right. She didn’t seem to be buying it – which wasn’t surprising, this one had always been incredibly bright – but allowed him to gently turn her towards home. Perhaps sensing her rider’s mood, she sped up her pace, scenery turning into a green blur as she moved as fast as only a chocobo could, all but flying over the ground. Cloud smiled slightly, turned his head into the wind and let it blow away his troubles. For the moment, at least, he could forget that which haunted him and simply exist. It would be enough.
It had to be.
icedark_elf because she wrote this which made Cloud talk to me BEFORE my interview yesterday about how I wanted to write Cloud drabble about his lost memories. I was not happy, being as I was trying to think of interview questions and the like (Interview went very well, in case anyone wonders). Also blame this on going to see Les Mis the other weekend and seeing a lot of shirts with it on it lately too.Title: Phantoms
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Character: Cloud
Note: He mentions special people in Midgar. You can decide who – and in what context – they were for yourself.
There's a grief that can't be spoken
There's a pain goes on and on
Empty chairs at empty tables
Now my friends are dead and gone…
Phantom faces at the window
Phantom shadows on the floor
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will meet no more.…
~Empty Chairs and Empty Tables, Les Miserables
If they hadn’t really needed the gil, Cloud wouldn’t have taken the job. However, even with Tifa’s bar, his own cash from his business and the parts he salvaged from monsters he killed on the job, profits from raising and selling chocobos and the money they had saved from the time they had tailed Sephiroth all over the planet, things had been tight after the incident with Kadaj, Yazoo, and Loz. His bike had been totaled, meaning his primary means of bringing in money had been eliminated. Riding a chocobo was still an option but made fighting monsters a bit more difficult. The blond raised racers more than war-birds. He didn’t know how to train the later properly yet.
And, much to Cloud’s disgruntlement, the last two silver haired “brothers” had managed to completely destroy his custom made sword. Replacing them would cost more than their savings. On the other hand, until he got his sword back at least, it would be dangerous for him to travel all over the world. He had managed to pick up a decent stand in until the new one could be made, but he mixed the flexibility of styles his old one had given him.
His chocobo slowly walked to a halt as Cloud gave her a wordless signal; the warrior was still far enough away that those who lived in the town couldn’t see him, thankfully, but enhanced eyes could see the buildings down to almost the smallest detail despite the necessary distance. It would have been awkward if he had encountered one of those who now lived in the area, seeing as most of them had at one time been ShinRa employees paid to occupy this phantom town.
The delivery in question hadn’t even really been that close to Nibelheim, closer by far to Cosmo Canyon. Yet the resurrected buildings called to him like a lodestone and Cloud found himself forced to once again look at the mockery of his hometown.
It hurt, looking at the familiar buildings that had provided refuge in his youth. It was too easy to turn and think he would see someone he knew emerging from those houses rather than a former ShinRa employee who had really settled down here and begun their own families. Nibelheim was alive again, yet the ghosts still walked on.
Cloud would have even settled for one of those obnoxious kids who had ignored him most of the time – except to make off hand comments to one another when he was near about his mother or his long missing father, designed to irritate the blond past reason. He had always reacted to the taunts with a quick attack, usually getting more than a few bruises for his trouble and a lecture from his mother about picking fights. He was hardly going to tell her he had been provoked. It just wasn’t something little boys did.
Nibelheim should never had risen again; every moment he had stayed near the town, more of his lost memories had returned, flooding his mind and reminding him exactly why he had left in the first place.
It was odd that living in Edge – though admittedly he hadn’t actually been staying there often of late – didn’t bother him the same way. Maybe it was because Midgar had changed so much from the one he hazily recalled from his time there as a teen. Even before Meteor’s drastic changes to the city, the land around it had withered because of the reactors. Those he had cared about who had lived in the city…they were mostly forgotten, bar a few names, some faces and a precious handful of memories. The Cloud of Midgar seemed to be forever destroyed, most days, while the Cloud of Nibelheim still lurked in the blond’s mind. He tried not to let it bother him too much, but every once and a while he wondered if he had truly tried he might have recovered some good memories.
It hurt to still not know who he had been.
His chocobo turned her gold head, looking curiously at her rider, breaking his thoughts. Cloud patted her neck gently, trying to reassure her he was all right. She didn’t seem to be buying it – which wasn’t surprising, this one had always been incredibly bright – but allowed him to gently turn her towards home. Perhaps sensing her rider’s mood, she sped up her pace, scenery turning into a green blur as she moved as fast as only a chocobo could, all but flying over the ground. Cloud smiled slightly, turned his head into the wind and let it blow away his troubles. For the moment, at least, he could forget that which haunted him and simply exist. It would be enough.
It had to be.
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no subject
Date: 2007-03-05 12:30 am (UTC)And um, I think I found a typo:
Yet the resurrected buildings called to him like a load stone
load stone -> loadstone or lodestone
I think its one whole word instead of two separate ones.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-05 01:49 am (UTC)Actually, that's not a typo. That's just me not knowing.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-05 03:31 am (UTC)Why do I keep getting blamed for things. >.>
*pets Cloud* I feel like giving him hot chocolate and a cozy blanket and tucking him next to a warm fireplace.