She listens to him, silent. Aerith feels like she might actually be sick and only through biting her lip and focusing on that pain helps her fight the urge back.
Her death has always been a very real possibility. She can't claim otherwise - but that hadn't been her purpose. No, she fully intended on returning after finishing her task. Coming back to lectures and hugs and maybe some anger for going off on her own. Returning with good news that she finally found a way to stop Sephiroth for good.
At least she doesn't have her own memory of it.
How can she even begin to process this? Not just the shock of her own death, but her friends watched it. She knows how that memory gets burned in the brain forever, her own mother's death haunting her on occasion even now. Her eyes burn, as if she can feel the tears begging to fall, but she swipes a hand over them quickly. She can let herself feel it later, when it's not so public and they aren't surrounded by people she doesn't know.
And poor Cloud. To have that burden, then have the burden of telling her. That's easier to focus on than what's going on inside her, so she does what she considers she does best - pushes it aside, locking it away. It's too big to ignore, too big to not come to terms with it. She will, in her own time.
"I don't know what to say," she looks down at her hands, still fighting back the tears. That's a first for her.
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Her death has always been a very real possibility. She can't claim otherwise - but that hadn't been her purpose. No, she fully intended on returning after finishing her task. Coming back to lectures and hugs and maybe some anger for going off on her own. Returning with good news that she finally found a way to stop Sephiroth for good.
At least she doesn't have her own memory of it.
How can she even begin to process this? Not just the shock of her own death, but her friends watched it. She knows how that memory gets burned in the brain forever, her own mother's death haunting her on occasion even now. Her eyes burn, as if she can feel the tears begging to fall, but she swipes a hand over them quickly. She can let herself feel it later, when it's not so public and they aren't surrounded by people she doesn't know.
And poor Cloud. To have that burden, then have the burden of telling her. That's easier to focus on than what's going on inside her, so she does what she considers she does best - pushes it aside, locking it away. It's too big to ignore, too big to not come to terms with it. She will, in her own time.
"I don't know what to say," she looks down at her hands, still fighting back the tears. That's a first for her.