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Fandom: FF7:AC
Characters/Pairings: Tifa/Elena, Reeve, and appearance fromCanadian Idol girls ah, original characters
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The woman with the Costan darkened skin and the fatale dress commanded the room--all five of them this time of day--to look, to notice.
Notes: Shorter than last chapter, but mainly because I liked where this one ended. I thought about going on, but it lets me develop, ah, plot more. Plus, this took forever to write because life happened. But it is done! Note the film noir influence.
It was convenient;
The dame
The grand
And the red herring.
---
She'd expected clean, glistening, new, sparkling. There was dust in the corners and the lighting gave everything a not-mako cast. If this was the new frontier, she wanted off the track she was on.
"So this is the WRO headquarters?"
Shut up, Elena. She was supposed to have been told she was saying something obvious by now, but Tifa only nodded. There was an unnatural urge to grab her hand, but Elena wasn't a child anymore. She didn't cling to things (not anymore, at least, not ever again) and she certainly didn't cling to people.
"It's... a start." She didn't even have the stomach to lie properly.
---
Elena rewound.
She'd heard the old ones talking about it when they thought no one was listening. Elena had been so nervous when she first came to Midgar that she listened to anything that she was supposed to hear (and several things she wasn't supposed to, which sometimes turned her stomach and sometimes turned...) in order to not miss a beat. It took a while to train her heart not to jump at the sound of a shadow in an alley and to keep from sucking in a breath at the feel of footsteps.
Shooting in an enclosed space with glass surrounding her and sound reduction headphones on had made her a sharpshooter, but the dark streets of Midgar had almost put her back at square one. Almost.
Elena had gritted her teeth and pretended that the city didn't try to swallow her up. She closed her eyes and pretended she could smell salt (and fish and fishermen, but that kind of unpleasant wasn't threatening, just unhygienic) and be home. The Academy was one thing, but this, this was--
"You know what they say about girls like you in a city like this?"
Even then, she sometimes faded somewhere else, as if she could will a better world to focus in. "No."
"That if you aren't gobbled up in the first day, you're a fatale."
She'd snorted then, as she was only a trainee and he was technically older than her, though not a full Turk himself. Word was he'd whispered something that sounded like a derogatory term around the Chief, so he'd been a trainee for long enough that their age difference was enough to make her look like a real sweet young thing to his ignorant kind of eyes.
"You'll get all bitchy like Carol over there." Long legs and a hawk nose. Elena had noticed that immediately--predator bird.
But he (whatever his name was, she'd been promoted so fast because of Reno that she hadn't bothered to learn his name) had missed the point entirely. It was just like the old ones said and sometimes whispered like a seduction to their own conscience.
You're safer on the greasy asphalt of the Slums than the cleanest metal of the upper Plate.
People didn't hear much about weapons made of asphalt anyway.
---
Buildings aren't skeletons
If their ghosts remain.
---
They had both stopped listening to Reeve, despite his animated speech about what the WRO really was (he was a traitor twicefold anyway, what did he expect) and where it was going. Funny how they were looking out the same dirty and cracked window when their attentions wandered. Elena only noticed because she'd found that Tifa drew attention to herself without effort, like a reed that drew water simply because of physics. Maybe it was a leftover of an academy education that she counted the minutes between glances.
It was easy to forget with all the gravedigging that all had once been a city. It was easy to forget with all the rubble and makeshift houses that there once were alleys and shadows along side living and breathing people. Music. Culture. Elena had never been one for the countryside, it was too empty, too much of a random wild. Contained chaos within city boundaries made more sense. Knowing that had died (bakery on fifth and that park with the stork swing that children played on) was almost worse than knowing the people had.
She had sad eyes and guitar.
Elena had to focus then, wondering if her own nostalgia was affecting her vision and hearing. But Tifa was watching her too, almost more intently. It was absurd, that a street musician would be standing on the corner for a place that didn't technically exist. Reeve had said the WRO was in the heads of the people and the notes of their speech. But this street musician didn't sound at all like Reeve's kind of delusion.
"I wonder what her name is," Tifa muttered despite the pretense of listening to Reeve. But they were learning that game of talking and not talking, and Elena liked to think of herself on the fast track to confidante at this rate. And really, who cared about the WRO? What was it other than some placeholder before power sprung up again.
The street musician sang about something that was as bitter as her own momentary reflection and she stopped wanting to think about it anymore.
---
"Where'd you get the hat from?"
They were alone now, in the bar that Tifa kept up for appearances sake. Maybe the children were real, but the slow lazy way she wiped down the counters revealed that she was growing bored with staying home (they had been girls that had run with the boys, keeping the dirt off their dresses by running that much faster).
The hat wasn't on Tifa's head, but the string held it around her neck. It held up against her back like a low slum dust halo but Elena for once wasn't focused entirely too much on that.
The woman with the Costan darkened skin and the fatale dress commanded the room--all five of them this time of day--to look, to notice. As if she just walked into places with that smile and walk asking for hat makers all the time. Elena expected there to be a piano playing in the background and for the air to be smokier.
Would this dame contract her out to do some dirty work, find some lost lover?
"Oh, just something I've had around." But Tifa was the one that answered, a hip sway as she shifted her weight from counter cleaner to that ever reprising role as bartender (got some info, Smitty?).
"I know someone that would love a hat like that. Too bad they're hard to find." Oh, she envied that kind of vivaciousness. People weren't supposed to be lively and tanned like that in this dust world that Tifa had brought her to. There was no new frontier, only an old one with far too many misguided thoughts. And still.
And still, she waited for the woman to ask something more.
"Care for a drink, stranger?" Tifa asked, leaning on the bar so the tips of her hair brushed the counter like a misused feather duster.
The stranger (like one of the girls on the beach that they all used to tease, except Tseng) turned her head just so and her lovely brown eyes reminded Elena of interrogation lamps after they were turned off. That usually meant whoever was being questioned was... no longer needed.
"Actually, I was told I might find someone to hire here." The mock gesture of Tifa looking down demurely was pure coyness. One false move from the Costan femme and Tifa's and Elena's safeties would be off, no holds barred.
"Hire for..."
Oh the smile. She hoped this woman wasn't fixing to kill anyone, because Elena might just say yes to a smile like that. Of course, Elena was hardly a down on her luck detective on the wrong side of town.
"I told you, they were hard to find. A friend, basically." Friend wavered a little; these were the times when even a few were still unaccounted for, even with the meticulous records of certain anal bastards. Reno made a real living playing some kind of hero this way, rent your very own chain smoking red angel for the cost of a six pack and some food.
"So what's your name?" Tifa, the business face.
"Elena."
Of course, her accent was better on the name. Elena (all the other Academy girls had cute family pet names like Missy and Babe) the Turk without a Shinra had been named with a theme in mind. Anna and Elena, an imperfectly matching set of blonde girls for an Academy family. And now this femme.
"Who are you looking for, and what are you willing to give for it?" This was the fatale speaking, and she could tell that Tifa had never heard that part of her. Then again, she'd been tied up with the Wutain that wouldn't shut up, not Tifa.
"Her name is Theresa. And what wouldn't I?"
Elena, the now investigator, felt as if she should have cigarette to put out at this part.
"Good answer."
Characters/Pairings: Tifa/Elena, Reeve, and appearance from
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The woman with the Costan darkened skin and the fatale dress commanded the room--all five of them this time of day--to look, to notice.
Notes: Shorter than last chapter, but mainly because I liked where this one ended. I thought about going on, but it lets me develop, ah, plot more. Plus, this took forever to write because life happened. But it is done! Note the film noir influence.
It was convenient;
The dame
The grand
And the red herring.
---
She'd expected clean, glistening, new, sparkling. There was dust in the corners and the lighting gave everything a not-mako cast. If this was the new frontier, she wanted off the track she was on.
"So this is the WRO headquarters?"
Shut up, Elena. She was supposed to have been told she was saying something obvious by now, but Tifa only nodded. There was an unnatural urge to grab her hand, but Elena wasn't a child anymore. She didn't cling to things (not anymore, at least, not ever again) and she certainly didn't cling to people.
"It's... a start." She didn't even have the stomach to lie properly.
---
Elena rewound.
She'd heard the old ones talking about it when they thought no one was listening. Elena had been so nervous when she first came to Midgar that she listened to anything that she was supposed to hear (and several things she wasn't supposed to, which sometimes turned her stomach and sometimes turned...) in order to not miss a beat. It took a while to train her heart not to jump at the sound of a shadow in an alley and to keep from sucking in a breath at the feel of footsteps.
Shooting in an enclosed space with glass surrounding her and sound reduction headphones on had made her a sharpshooter, but the dark streets of Midgar had almost put her back at square one. Almost.
Elena had gritted her teeth and pretended that the city didn't try to swallow her up. She closed her eyes and pretended she could smell salt (and fish and fishermen, but that kind of unpleasant wasn't threatening, just unhygienic) and be home. The Academy was one thing, but this, this was--
"You know what they say about girls like you in a city like this?"
Even then, she sometimes faded somewhere else, as if she could will a better world to focus in. "No."
"That if you aren't gobbled up in the first day, you're a fatale."
She'd snorted then, as she was only a trainee and he was technically older than her, though not a full Turk himself. Word was he'd whispered something that sounded like a derogatory term around the Chief, so he'd been a trainee for long enough that their age difference was enough to make her look like a real sweet young thing to his ignorant kind of eyes.
"You'll get all bitchy like Carol over there." Long legs and a hawk nose. Elena had noticed that immediately--predator bird.
But he (whatever his name was, she'd been promoted so fast because of Reno that she hadn't bothered to learn his name) had missed the point entirely. It was just like the old ones said and sometimes whispered like a seduction to their own conscience.
You're safer on the greasy asphalt of the Slums than the cleanest metal of the upper Plate.
People didn't hear much about weapons made of asphalt anyway.
---
Buildings aren't skeletons
If their ghosts remain.
---
They had both stopped listening to Reeve, despite his animated speech about what the WRO really was (he was a traitor twicefold anyway, what did he expect) and where it was going. Funny how they were looking out the same dirty and cracked window when their attentions wandered. Elena only noticed because she'd found that Tifa drew attention to herself without effort, like a reed that drew water simply because of physics. Maybe it was a leftover of an academy education that she counted the minutes between glances.
It was easy to forget with all the gravedigging that all had once been a city. It was easy to forget with all the rubble and makeshift houses that there once were alleys and shadows along side living and breathing people. Music. Culture. Elena had never been one for the countryside, it was too empty, too much of a random wild. Contained chaos within city boundaries made more sense. Knowing that had died (bakery on fifth and that park with the stork swing that children played on) was almost worse than knowing the people had.
She had sad eyes and guitar.
Elena had to focus then, wondering if her own nostalgia was affecting her vision and hearing. But Tifa was watching her too, almost more intently. It was absurd, that a street musician would be standing on the corner for a place that didn't technically exist. Reeve had said the WRO was in the heads of the people and the notes of their speech. But this street musician didn't sound at all like Reeve's kind of delusion.
"I wonder what her name is," Tifa muttered despite the pretense of listening to Reeve. But they were learning that game of talking and not talking, and Elena liked to think of herself on the fast track to confidante at this rate. And really, who cared about the WRO? What was it other than some placeholder before power sprung up again.
The street musician sang about something that was as bitter as her own momentary reflection and she stopped wanting to think about it anymore.
---
"Where'd you get the hat from?"
They were alone now, in the bar that Tifa kept up for appearances sake. Maybe the children were real, but the slow lazy way she wiped down the counters revealed that she was growing bored with staying home (they had been girls that had run with the boys, keeping the dirt off their dresses by running that much faster).
The hat wasn't on Tifa's head, but the string held it around her neck. It held up against her back like a low slum dust halo but Elena for once wasn't focused entirely too much on that.
The woman with the Costan darkened skin and the fatale dress commanded the room--all five of them this time of day--to look, to notice. As if she just walked into places with that smile and walk asking for hat makers all the time. Elena expected there to be a piano playing in the background and for the air to be smokier.
Would this dame contract her out to do some dirty work, find some lost lover?
"Oh, just something I've had around." But Tifa was the one that answered, a hip sway as she shifted her weight from counter cleaner to that ever reprising role as bartender (got some info, Smitty?).
"I know someone that would love a hat like that. Too bad they're hard to find." Oh, she envied that kind of vivaciousness. People weren't supposed to be lively and tanned like that in this dust world that Tifa had brought her to. There was no new frontier, only an old one with far too many misguided thoughts. And still.
And still, she waited for the woman to ask something more.
"Care for a drink, stranger?" Tifa asked, leaning on the bar so the tips of her hair brushed the counter like a misused feather duster.
The stranger (like one of the girls on the beach that they all used to tease, except Tseng) turned her head just so and her lovely brown eyes reminded Elena of interrogation lamps after they were turned off. That usually meant whoever was being questioned was... no longer needed.
"Actually, I was told I might find someone to hire here." The mock gesture of Tifa looking down demurely was pure coyness. One false move from the Costan femme and Tifa's and Elena's safeties would be off, no holds barred.
"Hire for..."
Oh the smile. She hoped this woman wasn't fixing to kill anyone, because Elena might just say yes to a smile like that. Of course, Elena was hardly a down on her luck detective on the wrong side of town.
"I told you, they were hard to find. A friend, basically." Friend wavered a little; these were the times when even a few were still unaccounted for, even with the meticulous records of certain anal bastards. Reno made a real living playing some kind of hero this way, rent your very own chain smoking red angel for the cost of a six pack and some food.
"So what's your name?" Tifa, the business face.
"Elena."
Of course, her accent was better on the name. Elena (all the other Academy girls had cute family pet names like Missy and Babe) the Turk without a Shinra had been named with a theme in mind. Anna and Elena, an imperfectly matching set of blonde girls for an Academy family. And now this femme.
"Who are you looking for, and what are you willing to give for it?" This was the fatale speaking, and she could tell that Tifa had never heard that part of her. Then again, she'd been tied up with the Wutain that wouldn't shut up, not Tifa.
"Her name is Theresa. And what wouldn't I?"
Elena, the now investigator, felt as if she should have cigarette to put out at this part.
"Good answer."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
I love the noir influence. I really do. I love how those Idol girls might become part of the plot. I loved the last line (and the lingering violence that you sneak in between sentences. That interrogation lamp line was delicious).
I love the dust and how nothing is new, but that Elena is still there, waiting.
YOU MENTIONED ANNA. That alone made my morning.
I could fangirl more but suffice it to say that I'm a very happy pirate this morning. VERY happy.
-T. pirate
From:
no subject
I love how your doing this, it just so awesome. The noir touches were pretty perfect also the little snips that tie this into AC and BC. Anyaway, very awesome.
From:
no subject
Oh, and I totally got your package today, the mailroom around here has weird hours and I kept forgetting to go pick it up, so if you were wondering, I got the games, intact, no issues.
~Cendri
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
~Cendri
From:
no subject
Also, you are a wonderful Tifa.
From: (Anonymous)
(gonetoarcadia who has no real IJ ^^;)
I love your writing style. I really, really do. It's lovely and elegant and it says a lot by saying very little. My favourite part is the word choice because... oh, because. How to explain that? You evoke images without even really getting into them just by picking these lovely, dangerous words.
People didn't hear much about weapons made of asphalt anyway.
That was my favourite sentence because it made me shiver a little. It just did.
I really love the sketchy, almost black and white quality about the characters and I ADORE the cameo. XD Mwahahah. I maybe squee'd rather embarrassingly.
Elena, the now investigator, felt as if she should have cigarette to put out at this part.
I know and love this feeling and I love that you know it too.
UM. In summary? You win all my love forever.
From:
Re: (gonetoarcadia who has no real IJ ^^;)
And you can stay on here anonymous as much as you want, cause IJ appears to have good spam filters, as opposed to GJ. We'll see though. At least my wordpress account lets anyone with an email comment.
~Cendri