Deep Deep Down

Baby Turks, they came and they went. There was always one hovering around. Aerith grew used to the flashes of blue in the corner of her eyes, the hints of dark suits fading into far shadow. It wasn't a problem, not really. Not as long as they stayed there. It was when they came out and got closer she had to watch out. Maybe they would try to take her up above again, or talk, talk, talk about going up there of her 'own free will'.

Some days she got so tired she was tempted to agree just to make them shut up. But when that happened she thought of her mothers, the both of them, and found a hundred reasons to hold out a little while more. Tseng, at least, didn't ask overmuch or too long, although he always sounded like he had the best reasons. "You want to help people, don't you?" he would say, and yes, yes, she did, but what Shinra wanted from her wasn't helping. She didn't always have the words to say so, and they didn't believe her when she did.

They hovered, those baby Turks. She gathered she was something of a training mission. Follow, observe, protect. As soon as she got used to one face another took its place. The old church became a sanctuary almost by accident. There was no back door. Only one way in, one way out. It made her easy to watch, easy to guard, and they could do it from the outside too. So she went in and stayed, knowing they were outside as much as they knew she was in. It was privacy, in a way. And then she got older and tired of their ways.

The first time one of them made a certain kind of remark, got too close, she told her mother, who told Tseng on his next visit, and she never had to see that pistol-waving idiot again. There was no second time. But it irritated her. Rankled her. Infuriated her right down to the deepest part of her soul that they had so much say over her life. That they decided where she was allowed to go, how she was allowed to live, what her future would be like. That they stepped in and meddled anytime they thought she was going too far.

The first time she inquired after a 'Help Wanted' sign she thought nothing of being refused. After the fifth time she was sensing a pattern. Elmyra helped her figure it out, making discreet inquiries after the fact. She was not to have a job. She was not to earn a living. She was not to be independent. If she wanted anything more out of life than the dirt and the scraps, she would have to come to them eventually. And the older she got, the harder it was to resist.

It was a call, on the wind, from the earth, in her veins. She needed space and light and the whole wide Planet above all, and she wouldn't have any of it unless she signed herself over to them. Betray the Planet to have the Planet. And she would think of her mother, the first one, who they had bled and tormented and kept imprisoned for years, and she knew any promise they made was a lie. Some evenings she would check at the church door that the Turk for the day was some distance away, then lie down in her flowers and cry.

Tears dry up eventually, and the earth beneath her thirsted. It, too, ached for the wind and the rain. She watched the baby Turks and tried to make peace with her small life, and with them. She no longer ran when they got close. She smiled and was friendly. On occasion, she invited them inside, saying she wanted to know them better. She was getting stronger in so many ways.

Tseng came back, as he tended to do. He had the usual round of platitudes and constant mild demands. He looked worried once or twice, citing crime in the slums. She twirled her new staff, though it wasn't much more than a stick, and assured him she would be fine. She could take care of herself, and her mother, and the flowers too, those best of all. Slum girls were tough in more ways than one.

It never did reassure him, as his baby Turks went missing. If Turks could disappear beneath the plate, she could too. So she would smile the sweet smile that she used to cover everything, arrange her flowers in their vase and gather her immaculate gardening tools. She would get close to him, touch his arm to distract him and reassure him that she would be fine, that nothing would happen to her in the church, wouldn't he like to come along and see. The flowers were growing so well right now, bigger and brighter than they had ever been before.

He always refused. Shame really, she thought, stabbing her trowel into the deep red earth, newly enriched, so fertile and moist. A little rank perhaps, as good soils could be, and not too deep down maybe too wet, and too red. But strong and nutrient-heavy, as things below the plate never truly were.

And her flowers grew so well.