☁ (onewolf) wrote in drawpoints, @ 2015-08-31 23:52:00 |
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Entry tags: | !narrative, cloud strife |
WHO: Cloud Strife
WHAT: The last hurrah.
WHERE: Balamb
WHEN: Starts dawn after the full moon. Goes on 'til morning.
WARNINGS: N/A
He was back in the Forbidden City in the ruins of Centra. On his bike, streaking past the dead woods and the hard soil, the whipping wind striking his face and his arms with a clawlike chill. He didn’t remember it being so cold in the forest but he couldn’t blame the trees for being as white as Trabian morning either. They glowed with an inner luminescence, like natural traffic lights as he zipped past, bending the corner.
There was a lake somewhere within the forest. They say you couldn’t really smell a lake unless it was filthy and moldy but this one felt dry and crisp. He could feel the coarseness of his tongue as he followed its direction, scraping at the roof of his mouth the nearer he came.
He swerved down the lip of the lake. Fenrir’s steady growl slept as he killed her engines and kicked at the stand. He left her to lean on her side while he approached the other Fenrir that lied flat on his belly, great jaw on his forepaws. Knowing eyes traced his path. At a certain point, he raised his tremendous head that glowed like starlight and he stopped in his approach. He threw it back.
The howl pierced through the veil of night and day.
At the end of it, Cloud was surprised to see himself back in his room, gripping his sheets as his heart rebelled against his chest. All around him there was darkness, reinforced by stillness.
“Mom?” He didn’t mean to shout but enveloped in silence, his voice had become mutated. Even the rustle of his sheets as he pushed them back to find the floor with his naked feet sounded like the threat of a monster lurking in the shadows. Looking across his coffee table, he found that his bed was empty, the map of his blanket and pillows indicating a previous occupant.
The dull tap of ceramic against wood alerted him to her current position. Cloud turned to watch his mother step around the table so she could put herself beside him. He straightened up a little.
“Thought you were gone,” he admitted freely.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d heat some milk,” she said. “Did I wake you up?”
Cloud shook his head. She knew about Fenrir in his mind forest but didn’t think she needed to know that part of the detail.
“Why don’t you take the bed? I don’t think I’ll be sleeping anymore.” For reasons that existed between two different contexts.
Cloud chose the other one. “It’s that day, Mom,” he said. “They say…today is when it all happens.”
It was. The nods of her head confirmed it. Reaching, she took her son’s hand under hers and squeezed it. “Are you sure you want to be awake when that happens?”
Cloud nodded.
“Well, what do you want us to do, then?”
Half an hour later, he would be tearing past the gates of the parking lot, his mother clinging behind him as he left the concrete shadows and entered the twilit skies of Balamb morning. The atmosphere was painted in cornflower blue, devoid of clouds brought in by the late summer. The breeze was cool, but it was as tender as the soft blades of grass at the hilltop of the plains. Around him, the arms of his mother tightened around his waist as he accelerated, beating the clock. In time, the memory of that pressure would be all that he would keep.
In time, it, too, would be gone.
He and his mother never really had a history that made beaches special to them but if one talked about sunrises and sunsets, then one brought to mind photographs taken along the coast. They didn’t bother to take some blankets to spread over the sand. Except for the heated milk, they came as they were.
His mother found them a good spot to stay dry and offered Cloud the first sip from the vacuum flask.
“You always scald your milk,” his mother advised him after she received word that hers was a job well done. She filled the cup again and this time kept it for herself. “It’s only used for baking. If you want to heat it, you have to pay attention. You can’t leave it in the pan and come back for it whenever. Why don’t you try the microwave?”
“Too much work.”
“Using the saucepan gives you more work,” she said. “The microwave has a timer, at least. Set it at 15 seconds, stir it, then pop it in again.”
Cloud looked at his mother, knees raised to serve as pedestals for his arms. “D’you do it, sometimes?”
“When I’m busy,” she confessed. “I didn’t think you’d be fussy about how I heated your milk. You didn’t think I’d do it in the microwave?”
He shook his head. “I always saw you doin’ it over the stove.”
“When you left to become a SeeD, I had more time to myself. So whenever you dropped by to visit, I wanted to do everything meticulously. It makes your visits more special, somehow, if I spend more time preparing for you. I don’t get to be a mother for five days of the week.”
“Don’t you get tired?” Cloud shrugged. “You’re always fussin’ around all week.”
“Fussin’ around is what I do best.” Cloud knew she would have wanted to pinch his nose if he’d let her but contented herself with the flesh of his arm. “And I like it best when I’m doing it for you. I know you don’t like it, but I wanted to keep doing it while you were young.”
He didn’t like it when she did it, but he missed it.
Her arm looped around the back of his waist. By now, he was bigger, taller and heavier than she was but he still scooted closer to her, stopping only when she’d felt comfortable enough to inch towards him and put her head on his shoulder. Cloud watched her watch the light in the skies.
“I know that what happened was bad,” she began quietly. “But I won’t ask for things to be changed. I said I was contented but I still like that we got to talk again after a long time. But most of all, I’m glad that I got to look after you again. You’ve grown so much in six years, Cloud,” she closed her eyes, “But I’ll always be your mother.”
Cloud said nothing. He only waited for her to open her eyes again.
When she did, she said, “It used to be that I only dreamed of watching you leave for a mission. I was always excited to be there to see you in your first job but I’m really happy that more than that, I was there to prepare you, send you off and welcome you back. I got a little worried when you didn’t call and when I saw your wounds, but I knew you could do it. I’m so proud of you, Cloud.”
“But Mom,” Cloud’s voice was quiet, “what I did…”
“It stopped our time,” she said, nodding. “But I’m glad it was you who stopped it. You’ll be fine, Cloud.” Young fingers took hold of his. She massaged a bone of his knuckle while he tightened his grip around hers. “I know it. I’m sure of it. One day, I still wish you’d find someone who can take care of you, someone who’s older…” She looked at his eyes. “But you have good friends, Cloud. They’ll look after you.”
But not in the way that she would…
The sea breeze whipped and dragged at their clothes as the rising tide pulled back and threw itself forward in a wet rush. As the light at the end of the horizon painted the blue white in steady strokes, Cloud felt a shiver run down his spine as the weight on his shoulder lifted.
His mother was disappearing, first in faint colors and then in tricks of the light. He shifted around, surprised to feel the roughness of sand under his palm in place of the roughness of hers. “Mom!” he called her.
Smiling, she tossed her head to her shoulder. When she lifted a hand to wave, he raised one of his to meet it finger to finger. In frantic splashes, the sea stirred as the wind blew hard.
The vacuum flask that contained the heated milk toppled down its side, rolling heedless as the gust moved it. Nothing to stop it, nothing to keep it still…
Cloud looked at the empty sand and his empty hands. Watching the grains swirl, he remembered the ashes the belonged to his mother. Taking the flask, he remembered the weight of the urn she was buried in. It seemed as if nothing’s changed.
In the end, all he could do was to pick up the pieces and go home.