ashlapoo. (![]() ![]() @ 2012-10-14 22:52:00 |
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Entry tags: | game: cadets, ship: zack/aerith |
and i will take your side.
WHO: zack fair, aerith gainsborough.
WHAT: five things that never happen to them.
WHEN: irrelevant.
WHERE: not here.
I. I will fall in love with her, he thinks: it only takes a look, an exchange of hands, and it’s far too late. He sold her his heart for a one-gil poppy. When he asks for her name, she smiles coyly. “Ask around,” she instructs him. He does and his heart sings her name for the next few days. Aerith the flower girl, Aerith from Midgar. He never sees her again. II. When she meets his parents, it’s only been three weeks since they first started dating (two weeks and six days since they started sleeping together); she’s so nervous she twists her ankle in the new pair of heels that she’s wearing so that when the Fairs open the door, they see Zack holding her in his arms, her own looped around his neck and her face as pink as the ribbon in her hair. He steps over the threshold easily, carefully making sure Aerith’s head doesn’t knock against the wooden door frame, before he gently sets her down. “So this isn’t quite how we wanted to walk in,” he starts, and Aerith cringes. It takes all of five minutes for them to realize that this is the girl that Zack wants to marry; carrying her bridal-style into their house was only practice. III. They are married in the spring; Aerith carries a bouquet of baby’s breath and roses, and when she reaches Zack, he’s the one crying. She laughs and brushes his tears away with her thumbs, blinking her own away. “Gee,” she says, grinning. “Am I that horrifying in this dress?” “You’re beautiful,” he reassures her. He thinks there’s something perfect about the light in the church that is making her glow, but Aerith knows that it’s the light thrown off from him. IV. “We’ll name him Angeal,” Zack says, his hand splayed on her flat belly; she throws her head back and laughs. Joy comes easy, if unexpectedly – a slower pilgrimage doesn’t mean anything to her in the end. It doesn’t matter at what speed they travel; they’ll get there in time. They have a lifetime to do this. And there are more important things growing between (inside) of them. “You’re so sure it’s a boy,” she says, bemused, her hand drifting to lace fingers with his. He gives her his trademark grin, shaking his head. “I know it is,” he says confidently. When the baby is a girl, Aerith names her Ifalna – she promises Zack the next one will be a boy, and he says he’ll try his best. V. And they live happily ever after. VI. Grief is dry; it is brittle; she carries it like a bone in her mouth, a storm in her chest. Days later, when she visits Zack’s grave, her hands drift over the gravestone and cries. Died a hero, she thinks, but she wishes he had never died at all. |