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Not You; A story about Tifa I wrote on a whim. :D
Topic Started: May 27 2006, 12:48 AM (481 Views)
Luna-Nayru
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Boys just wanna get in your tutu.
This was actually a really quick story I wrote just because I felt like it. I've always wanted to write a really in-depth story from Tifa's point of view, so I decided one day to get up and do it. It's kind of like my personal tribute to her, even though it's short and the writing isn't the best, and centrally focuses on her relationship with a certain someone (if you guys know me, you'll definitely know who that person is ;)) and her feelings on the people around her, specifically Cloud and Aerith. Hope you enjoy it, and do pardon my emo-ish portrayal of Tifa. :lol:

NOT YOU
By Luna-Nayru


I have always been one to take notice of the fact that it is the people I never truly understood, the abandoned, the loved, and the lost, that strike my heart with the most genuine sense of responsibility I have ever felt. And as I look back on why I feel such deep empathy with them, and why I bother to devote the greatest length of my mind’s course to their memory, I cannot even seem to understand myself.

I suppose I have never been one to understand my own feelings and the feelings of those around me until it is far too late. Never have I been able to reach out and interlock my fingers with the tender grasp of reason, at least not when it comes to finding ways to mend my own impractical sense of following my heart. Reflecting on the memories of all the people whom I could never reach makes me think about it more and more. I suppose wondering where I went wrong can cause me to consider my present situation in full. Why did I lead my loved ones to their demise? How on earth could I let her die, when she brought so much light to ours, and his life? Why did I let him out of my sight for the sake of my own petty sense of right and wrong? Why had I never been able to see what allowed him to see the light and lead him astray? And even now, why didn’t I know… why?

I could not escape such thoughts, for they haunted every moment of my life from the instant my every regret struck a flaming blow against my heart. And yet the impact of each memory upon its birth could not shatter the lock that contained the reasons for the way I felt. I would ponder it every day. I never understood why it hurt me so deeply to see a boy, with whom my acquaintance had never blossomed into friendship, profess that he was leaving to become something entirely unlike the shallow mental image I had created of him. I never understood why it touched me so deeply that I decided to change myself for his sake. I sometimes think of it as the unconditional logic of motherhood, the most succinctly adequate answer I can muster. But that was the first time I ever had to make up an excuse for feelings I could not forget. It is difficult for me to recall what my life was like as a child, before I knew him or gave him a second thought, and I suppose it is because he redefined that image of myself by changing my vision of him in those days. Cloud truly moved me. But I am never likely to know why.

And when I think about Cloud, I think about her. She was like... something indescribable. The two of them had something I have never seen between two people in an entire twenty-five years of living, and I could never quite understand what it was about them that sparked so vibrantly. She had a way of making him understand himself, his world, his feelings, and put them all together into something beautiful that even someone as cold as our Cloud could become infatuated with. I had never seen him smile like he smiled with her. They would laugh, tease one another, push each other’s limits, and negate the other’s faults simply by reveling in the company of someone who cared, and a world that was theirs. And I loved to see that world, because it seemed to make him so happy. Aerith made him so happy. So I still cannot allow myself to release her memory from the confines of my own self-piteous heart, simply because I never understood what it was about her that killed him and brought him to life in a single stroke.

It hurts me to think about them. Cloud and Aerith. Hearing their names uttered in a single breath, together, as each syllable rolls with such perfect articulation off the tongue, never ceases to give me goosebumps. I hated how subject I was to piling the perfection of others into a heap that could make my every fault buckle beneath its weight. They were perfect for one another in every way. And it made me think of why I had never been able to comprehend such perfection, why I had not been able to see why they were happy, and find someone who had that effect on me, someone who was content with my faults in return for my love.

But more importantly, thinking of them makes me think of…

I can’t.

No, I haven’t. Not for ten years. I have never thought of you since then. I won’t let myself think of you. I will never think of you. It hurts so much to consider the very notion that you ever entered my life, that you ever revolutionized my way of thinking, changed me completely, took me so gently by the hand only to shove it straight back into my heart. I won’t think of how knowing you forced me to cause myself inner harm. I never met you. You never met me. I never loved you, and I never hated you, you never smiled at me, you never laughed, cried, screamed, and fought for my sake. That was Cloud. Only Cloud has ever moved me in that way.

And when I think of him in such a light, no one can ever comprehend how much that hurts me. I am associating him with you. I hate myself for that. I am trying to convince myself that you never existed, that everything I ever loved in a person belonged to Cloud and only Cloud. I am taking such liberties away from you, forcing them all onto him, suffocating him with the pressure of a fabricated familiarity I can only dream of having with him. Only you could take that sort of strain from such an emotionally contained individual. I have always envisioned Cloud as the man who could handle my faults and his own. But he is not you. He will never be you. To suggest it… I cannot even think of it without hating myself more.

And yet it is still terribly unnerving for me to comprehend the idea that it is you I have loved. It is strange and frightening to think that I have been wrong, and the love to which I have devoted my life has been channeled toward the wrong person. It is even more bemusing to think that I have, indeed, allowed my mind to rest with you on several occasions, or maybe… maybe I have thought of you every day of my life without even realizing that it is you I am thinking of. And maybe I still remember that day, all those years ago, when I first saw you. Maybe I remember that day when everything seemed to fall around me, when you looked at me and smiled in that way I had never seen anyone smile. Maybe I do remember seeing that smile among a crowd of downtrodden others, their faces slipping away from my senses with every passing moment, feeling myself come alive among the dying world in which I stood. And maybe I remember smiling back.

I suppose thinking about it makes me want to see you more than anything in the world. Maybe, somehow, it makes me want to believe that the something I saw in you was unlike anything I had seen in anyone, even Cloud. Would you have believed that? Would you have been able to take such a confession from one who once professed her abhorrence for you? I know Cloud would not understand such fickle approaches. He is too much like me to understand me, because I barely know myself to begin with. But you… you are different. I know you are. And I have always known it. But I have never been able to see it, standing in front of me, because I have always created the illusion that I am too weak to embrace it. Cloud was never truly able to force me into seeing it in the way I wished to. It is you who taught me to love myself and my world.

Cloud is not you, Zack.

He will never be you.
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Nightmare
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Mrs. George Harrison D:
^_^ nice one! i like the Cleris fluffiness! aw...poor Tifa, chase Reno other than Cloudy, good thing she knows that she can never be with him!!!
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goddess_in_pink07
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Ambrosia
Awww, it was very cute... i kinda feel bad for Tifa now.... :cry: But, oh well. :whistle: Teehee.... :fangirl:
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Lynx
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~handle with care~
Luna, and tell me after this you're not an amazing person! Even though I don't really like Fack (Tick, Tack and so on) I started to write a drabble about this couple (guess who inspirited me :P ). And now, after reading your awesome one I managed to finish it. :rolleyes:

My verdict: :huggle:
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Lute
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OFFICIAL FORUM GODDESS
...Amazing. Simply amazing. Just made me love ya even more, Luna. :huggle: Clerith/Fack!? Awesome. And it was very deep, just the way I like my 'fics. ^_^ Continue writing, cause you RULE. ^_^
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Luna-Nayru
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Boys just wanna get in your tutu.
You guys kick insane amounts of ass. *huggles* :grouphug: Love you all for reading my sorry excuse for a fic, even though it's long and lacking in an action-packed plot. Cynel and g_in_p, you guys are so sweet, and I'm glad you got to see the sweet, selfless girl I think Tifa is. Lynx, you absolutely MUST MUST MUST show me this Fack fanfic of yours, because I'm sure it's brilliant simply because it's Fack and Fack owns everything. I'm so excited now. :fangirl: I inspired you? Me and my babbling about fanon pairings? Aww, I feel special... ^_^ And goodness, Lute, I just love you. It's comments like yours that make me want to keep writing even more. Long live Clerith/Fack. :cleris: Posted Image
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Lynx
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~handle with care~
Don't know. I'm too shy because my English is not good enough for the complex sentences I had to write. * smiles innocently*
Actually, I don't know how you do it but I feel I started to like Tack. I even found one moment in LO that wasn't immortalized in a siggy yet (I suppose)...
...
No one has seen that. :whistle:
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Luna-Nayru
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Boys just wanna get in your tutu.
*sends a basket of roses* You have no idea how happy it makes me to see that I'm spreading the awesomely fanon Fack love. :fangirl:

And I wouldn't have noticed that English wasn't your first language if you hadn't told me! You seem to be doing great, and don't be shy about sharing your work. Regardless of language, I'm sure your ideas are wonderful. ^_^ But seriously, you've got better grammar than a lot of members who are totally fluent. :lol:
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Lynx
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~handle with care~
Why fanon? I see much more Fack in LO than Cloti. :lol:

Thanks, I suppose my teacher should see this! (j/k) Okay, after some editing I'll post it here. :unsure:
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