"Who be you two?" Barret asked, seeing two women chatting together on the deck. Though one was dressed in far more finery than the other was, they both resembled each other, though more in outward personality than true physical appearance; not quite like sisters, but half sisters perhaps. They both had their sleeves rolled up to their elbows, and their skirts tucked up and folded to walk in while working on a ship.

"I be Shera Hareton," the dirtier greeted him. Her clothes were stained with oil and juice. Whatever color her apron used to be I was hard to tell, it had been stained, burnt, and faded over time, not to mention the damage from Sea Water. "I keep the crew fed, sir. Who be you?"

"Yer new captain. You be Aeris, the navigator?" Barret asked the woman dressed in the finer clothes. Her hair too was much better than Shera's, done in a complicated braid, with two cohorts over each of her ears in contrast to Shera’s sloppy ponytail, unbrushed and harboring grease in places.

"Aye," Aeris answered. "I be Aeris Gainsborough, the first mate’s cousin. You be our new captain already?"

"I be jus’ that," Barret answered. "We sail as soon as the rope leaves the bollards. You know yer way ‘roun keys?"

"I sailed righ’ through them in a storm with a sail torn away," she answered.

"Cloud! Tifa! Yuffie!" Barret yelled about to call out Jessi instead of Yuffie and sighing as he noticed.

One of his crew managed to draw him out of his reverie.

"Cloud!" Barret yelled, slapping the boy on the head, ending Cloud’s concentration on Shera’s bare legs. "Ye can chase that later. Get those ropes. Tifa! Sails! Yuffie, where that lass be?"

He heard a giggle from Aeris. "Not even Cid knew that," she said.

"She was jus’ Sharkbait ‘til jus’ now."

"Ah, that be how ye got Tifa aboard," Aeris commented, taking the wheel.

And they were off to sea, all eyes on the clouds or water except for one pair, watching the back of Aeris’s head.

 

…………………………………………………………………………………….

Tifa was in no way an idiot. She knew what the angry glare from Cid meant. It wasn’t her that made him mad. It was the fact that if he let her aboard, he had to let some other female aboard. And the only female aboard that he was actually mad at was Shera.

The ship had drifted into a lull. Cloud was on deck admiring all the pretty things he could see: the sky, the clouds, the water, the occasional gulls, and unbeknownst to Tifa, Aeris.

Tifa had contented herself with talking to Shera, too curious about his anger to leave it be. Cloud had contented himself with humming and watching Aeris.

Cloud however, was an idiot, at least he was close to it, and at least he was now, when he opened his mouth and stared at someone’s legs or chest.

………………………………………………………………………………………..

"Your first mate does not seem to like you," Tifa said, as blunt as the knife she was using as she helped Shera with the cooking. The previous part of the conversation had taught Tifa that Shera was not one to mind.

"Aye. He even prefers Sharkbait over me," Shera commented calmly.

"Ain’t nothing I have any right to pry into, but what be his reason. Secrets down ships I always heard."

"That be truer than the word of our Lord, Tifa," Shera said. "The secret be not mine, and it nearly drowned us all. Cid be a great man. Wild in bed and just as untamable on the seas, but he’ll always wish I never saved his life."

"You pried him form the jaws of damnation, to willfully go to the hellfires like that. Blasphemy for him!"

"Ah, he be no blasphemer to die by his own will," Shera corrected her. "I pried him from heaven and the death within the ship that held him. Aye, ‘twas a fairytale of a ship. All who saw it held their breath and blessed the Lord. Would not go down in any storm even if the devil himself created it. But the devil brought it down. Shinra started it, but it was Lucifer’s own home that sunk it.

"Set afire to the ship and all the sails came crashing down. He don’t thank me for his life and he don’t thank me for his cousin’s. I took him away from the ship that holds the heavens in its hulk and the winds in its sails." Shera shook her head. "Never knew a ship as that could exist and damned if we see another." Shera crossed herself, not seeing how self-conscious it made Tifa about her loose ties to God.

 

…………………………………………………………………………………..

"What be your name?" Aeris asked, her never looking at him. She kept the actions of a dutiful navigator, consulting and opening the pendant around her neck, then closing it and giving the sea her full gaze, though not her full attention.

"Cloud," Cloud answered, speaking to her bare legs. If he were anymore bewitched by them, he’d be kneeling down for a better look.

"Your Tifa not interest you?" Aeris asked. "One would think she’d be easier to glimpse leg from, and for a price a little more."

Cloud turned away and Aeris could see his face was bright red.

"No use to uncover what one refuses to let others see," Aeris chided, looking at the inside of her pendant again. "I been seen by many a sailor, go ahead and look. I bet they be far more interesting than the sea to you."

Cloud turned back to her, but his gaze was on her face and not her legs as it had previously been.

"Yes?" she asked, after he had been watching her face for a long time.

"I been missing much following just tails and bosoms," Cloud commented, brushing a tiny lock of her bangs out of her face.

"Cloud, you mistake me," Aeris said, instinctively opening her pendant, but her gaze reciprocated Cloud’s. "I be not as pure as Mary. Not the one who bore our savior, nor even the follower of he. Cloud, you ask for what is pure and I cannot give that to you."

"I ask not for purity, you mistake me," Cloud said. "I see what I always see in the west as the sun touches the lines of sea. I ask not that for purity and I ask not you. I find wonder in you face that I did not before in any other’s face… or… perhaps…"

Cloud backed away, his hand finally leaving Aeris’s face and he clutched his bowed head.

"Cloud?"

"Nothing. It be nothing. My head hurts, but… my wound is acting up."

"A poor omen," Aeris said. "Go rest. Lie down. Invite your Tifa with you if need be."

"You insist on us together, as is there were something to consummate between us," Cloud said. "There be nothing between us but our ragged attire. Not now."

"Why? DO you forsake her for some reason?"

"I took a blow to my brainpan," Cloud said shamefully. "I cannot remember her. She speaks of nights of happiness for us that I cannot remember and cannot give her again for I know nothing for her."

"Cloud…" Aeris said.

"Please, forgive me. I do not forsake her willingly."

"No. I do understand, Cloud. You… Your shirt. Did you take a wound before boarding?"

Cloud looked down at his shirt. There was a line of blood ebbing out onto his shirt. "I…" Cloud said. First Tifa nearly found out, then Aeris. Barret had known a long time ago. The wound would not seal, would not stop. But where was it from? Who had given it to him…? "My head," Cloud complained, and wandered off to his cabin, holding it as if it were in more pain than the bleeding from his stomach.

Aeris realized her pendant was still opened it and hurriedly closed it.

Back