Cry of the Planet

      “Cloud, wasn’t it?” Elmyra said as she let them into her home. The anxiety that she usually radiated had been distilled into a tangible dread, and her eyes were dull, relaying an almost resigned weariness. She locked the door after the visitors had entered.
      “Elmyra,” Cloud began nervously. “I’m sorry. The Shinra have Aeris.”
      “I know,” she said, going to the round dining room table. “They took her from here.”
      “They were here?” Cloud echoed lamely.
      “Yes,” said the woman as she gathered used teacups and saucers, “she came here with a little girl—”
      “Marlene!” exclaimed Barret.
      “Yes, Marlene. Are you the father?”
      “Yeah, I’m responsible—“
      “How could you leave a child alone like that?” Elmyra chastised him, incredulous.
      The accusation was obviously a rough blow to Barret and he slumped, hanging his head. “Please don’t start with that. I think about it all the time—if something ever happened to Marlene…” He brought his hand to his face which was constricting into an expression of near agony. The brawny man was on the verge of tears. “You’ve got to understand something. I don’t got an answer. I want to be with Marelene, but I’ve got to fight, ‘cause if I don’t, the Planet’s gonna die. So I’m gonna keep fighting, but I’m worried about Marlene. I really just want to be with her—always.” He made broad, passionate gestures as he tried to explain his feelings. “See? I’m going in circles now.”
      Tifa raised a hand to Barret’s shoulder to show her support, and Elmyra made her best effort at a smile. “I think I understand what you’re saying.”
      “Is she alright?” Barret asked.
      “She was soundly asleep upstairs when I checked a moment ago.”
      Barret was obviously relieved, and would probably have liked to go up to her at that moment; however, Cloud had a question that couldn’t wait.
      “Elmyra, why is Shinra after Aeris?” At this Elmyra paused on her way to the kitchen with a handful of dirty dishes. She sighed and said, “I imagine you could all use a bite to eat. Have a seat at the table—that is, if you don’t have somewhere to be.”
      Everyone pulled up a chair, and Elmyra set the table for squash soup, biscuits and sausage. The three Avalanche members were very glad to have food offered to them, all having missed meals due to their terrorist operations. They helped themselves, each thanking their hostess in turn and complementing her on the delicious food. Elmyra nodded and took a few spoonfuls of her sweet, steaming soup and a nibble of a biscuit.
      “You seem to genuinely care about Aeris,” Elmyra said, looking first at Cloud, then to Tifa and Barret, “and I thank you for that. Aeris has been able to take care of herself for a lot of her younger years, but Shinra seems to be more and more determined lately. I fear she will need help from people like you if she is to play her part in the destiny of the Planet. You see, Aeris is an Ancient—probably the sole survivor.”
      The other three started, mid-mouthful. Cloud recalled fragments from his limited schooling about an early civilization: a nomadic people with a special connection to nature. Then he remembered that flash in his mind about the blood of the Ancients and being an heir to the Planet.
      “But,” Barret began hesitantly, “I mean… well, I thought you were her mother.”
      Elmyra looked down. “Not her real mother.” She took a deep breath. “Oh, it must have been fifteen years ago. My husband was away, serving as a soldier in the military during the Wutai war. Shinra paid well, which was good since we didn’t have a lot of money, but I was always so worried about him, and correspondence seemed next to impossible.
      “One day I received a letter from Shinra saying that my husband’s division had leave to return home for a few weeks, and that they would be arriving in Midgar within the week. I was overjoyed, and when I heard on the news that the troops’ airship had arrived, I went to the train station to meet my Sigmund.
      “Passenger after passenger disembarked that day, many of whom were obviously soldiers, running into the arms of loved ones waiting by the rails. But Sigmund was not among them, and my heart broke with loneliness and fear as the train clattered away. Was he dead? Had he missed the flight? No. Surely he was only running late. He would arrive on a later flight, or by land or boat.
      “So I returned to the station the next day and the day after, watching the passengers spill out of the cars, asking attendants if they had seen more soldiers on leave—anyone resembling my Sigmund. No one had seen him.
      “I made trips to the train station every day that week. My husband didn’t show up, but on the last day I found a woman lying on the pavement beside the boarding platform; her daughter lay beside her, clutching her mother’s blood-soaked dress and moaning. It’s hard to imagine that I would be the first to go to their assistance, but those were harsh days and most people had enough trouble taking care of their own families.
      “The woman was almost gone even when I ran to her; she had obviously been bleeding profusely. I was trying to think if I should try to get her to a hospital, when she begged me in a shuddering whisper, ‘Please. Take Aeris somewhere safe.’ Those words took all the strength she had left.
      “So I took Aeris. She was devastated by the loss of her mother, but she showed amazing resiliency and also an uncanny insight into death and spiritual things. She told me that she and her mother had escaped from some sort of research laboratory where they had been held for as long as she could remember. She was seven years old at the time.
      “Within days she was talking freely to me, sharing her thoughts and feelings, though for a long time she battled nightmares, and she missed her mother terribly. She talked about spirits, about sin, and about God.”
      “God?” Cloud interrupted. “What god?”
      “At the time I wasn’t sure what she meant either. I asked if she meant Ifrit, god of fire, or Shiva, god of winter and frost. But she spoke of a ‘One God’, of whom I had never heard, and who had no temple in his name in the Midgar area. She said that she wasn’t sad because she knew that her mother had returned to God.”
      Elmyra paused after saying all this to take a couple spoonfuls of her cooling soup, but as she pensively stared at the lavender tablecloth, Cloud could see her silently reliving scenes from her past time with Aeris.
      A subdued chuckle escaped her and rang bittersweet as she continued. “She was a mysterious child in many ways. One night, not long after I had brought her home from the train station, I was tucking her into bed. She looked at me with a solemn expression and blurted out, ‘Mom, please don’t cry.’ When I asked her if something had happened, she had explained that someone dear to me had died. She said, ‘His spirit came to see you, but now he’s returned to God.’ Of course at the time I was still worried about my husband and so my thoughts went immediately to him. I had received no word from him, nor an explanation from Shinra’s military for his absence. Still, I refused to believe this seven-year-old, despite her unusual intuition, and I was able to shove aside my worst fears.
      “That is, I was able for the next few days, until an official letter arrived from the military department of Shinra informing me of my husband’s death in action.”
      “Oh, Elmyra. I’m sorry,” Tifa said. In spite of the frail presence that the woman usually exuded, she was strong as she spoke of her husband, even though the pain darkened her eyes.
      “So that’s how it was: just she and I. We were happy. She grew up quickly in the next couple years—and I soon grew to love her as a daughter—before our first visit from the Shinra.
      “‘We want you to return Aeris to us,’ they said, and explained how they had been searching for her ever since her and her mother’s escape. ‘Aeris,’ they coaxed her, ‘You are of special blood. Your real mother was an Ancient.’
      “That’s when I heard it for the first time. Aeris was an Ancient. Ancients could lead us to a land of supreme happiness. Aeris would be able to bring happiness to everyone, even all the people in the slums. And Shinra wanted Aeris’s cooperation. Aeris would have none of it, though. She denied being an Ancient.
      “‘But Aeris,’ the Shinra Turk had argued, ‘surely you hear voices sometimes, when you’re alone?’
      “‘No. I don’t.’ she had said.
      “But I knew. I knew about her mysterious powers. Sometimes she tried so hard to hide them, so I acted as though I didn’t notice.”
      “So she’s been able to avoid Shinra for all these years?” Cloud asked.
      Elmyra smiled. “She’s become quite a fighter, that girl. And I believe the Shinra need her undamaged, so they’ve been mostly tame in their efforts to capture her.”
      “What about this time?” asked Cloud.
      “It would seem that Aeris’s acquaintance with certain rather high-profile friends has raised the stakes for her. You are members of that terrorist organization—Avalanche—are you not?”
      Barret, feeling the edge of blame in her rhetoric, began, “Now don’t go blaming your daughter’s problems—“
      “Your daughter, sir, was with Aeris when the Turks caught up with her,” Elmyra said sternly. “The Turks agreed to Marlene’s safe delivery here in return for Aeris’s surrender.”
      There was a heavy silence and Barret was unable to reply until finally he stuttered ashamedly, “I’m really sorry.” With nothing further to say, Barret got up from his chair. “Can I go see her?” Elmyra nodded with an understanding expression and gestured towards the staircase.

      “I’m so glad you’re all right,” Cloud heard Barret say.
      “Daddy, don’t cry,” said Marlene. “Your whiskers hurt!”
      Barret looked through the bedroom doorway at Cloud as he came up the stairs. “You’re gonna help Aeris, right?” He hugged Marlene in his giant arms, then kissed her forehead. “She’s done so much for me, already. I haven’t even met her.”
      Cloud nodded. Somehow, though he had only known the girl for a couple of days, he was impressed by the charity she showed to everyone around her. It was rare that he felt indebted to anyone, but somehow he wanted to do whatever he could for this girl.
      “If it’s the Shinra you’re dealing with, I can’t just sit here! I’m coming too,” announced Barret.
      “Daddy,” said Marlene. “Stay with me.”
      “Oh, baby,” Barret hugged her again. “I never want to leave you.”
      “Do you think there’s any chance that we could make it to Shinra headquarters on the train?” Cloud asked.
      Barret sat on the bed and sat Marlene on his lap. “I doubt the train is running with Sector Seven flattened.”
      Tifa appeared at the top of the stairs. “I feel like, whatever we’re going to do, we should do it soon. Who knows where Shinra will take Aeris, or what they’ll do to her.”
      “Maybe we should just climb the centre pillar like we did the one in Sector Seven,” Cloud suggested. “There must be some service access there too.”
      Barret stroked Marlene’s hair distractedly. “That’ll take us straight to Shinra H.Q.”
      “I think Elmyra will take care of Marlene, if you’re going, Barret,” said Tifa.

      “Thank you,” Barret said to Elmyra back in the kitchen. “But you should really think about finding another place to live. It’s crazy in Midgar.”
      “I’ve lived through some crazy times here,” she replied.
      “Here…” Barret pulled a stack of cash from his vest and handed it to Elmyra.
      “Promise me that you’ll come back to her. Don’t get yourself killed.”

      “I’m coming,” Tifa had said when Cloud asked. “I don’t know what all of this means. But I feel like maybe now, if I push myself to the limit, I’ll find something true. One thing I know is that Aeris risked her life for us, so we should help her.”
      The three arrived at the base of the centre pillar. Other than a chain link fence that gave way with a blow from Cloud’s sword they faced little resistance. There was no separate service tower as there had been at Sector Seven, but ladders ran up the steel and concrete structure for as far as they could see.
      Tifa had opted to keep her blue dress, using a kitchen knife at Elmyra’s to add a slit in the side up to her hip so that she could move freely. She had borrowed some sturdier shoes from Aeris. “I don’t need to dress to impress,” she said.
      “You just need to kick some Shinra butt,” said Barret. “And speaking of butt, usually I’d say ladies first, but maybe it’d be better if you pull up the rear in that pretty little outfit of yours. Cloud! Let’s see you climb.”