(no subject)
And so, I finish. At long last as well.
Title: Strength
Fandom: Final Fantasy 7
Characters: Reeve
Prompt: 100, Writer’s Choice
Word Count: 621
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: A quiet ending that is really just a beginning. It was my honor to give you Blue Prints for life. And now, if you don’t mind, I’m taking my leave of Reeve for a while. I’ve written over 100 stories, short and long, with him starring, and I’ve come to lose most inspiration. Hopefully in the future I will find it again.
Luctor et emergo. - I'll struggle but I'll survive.
Edge was not Midgar. It was nothing like it really. Sure, there was the same style of building, the same people, but it was not Midgar and never would be. Midgar had been a city of lights, a city that always smelled like mako, a city in the sky. And as much as Reeve had hated what the city had become, it was his home more than Edge ever could be.
It was where he went, when the days were long and the work too hard. He didn’t go to Aeris’s church, or to the remains or seven. Nor did he go to the ruins of the reactors he had created for this city. Instead he went to the only place he really knew, to the tower of ShinRa. To the shadow of the once powerful company where he’d held less power than now, where things had been just as tedious, but somehow more like life.
Climbing through the ruins of Midgar was no simple task, not even for Reeve. When once he had known every road of the city, knew how to get from any one place to any other place, the way the city was now made it hard. Sure, he had learned a few routes into the tower over the years, but he’d kept to several routes to throw off any potential watches. And then there had been Cloud and Kadaj’s duel in the city that had damaged the paths further, and the war with Deep Ground. It had been weeks since Reeve had managed to reach his perch, looking out over the city. And even now the perch was again different.
By the time the former executive reached his place in the broken down tower, looking out over both the ruins and Edge in the distance, the sun was setting. Already the lights of the town in the east were coming on, looking like a poor mimicry of the great city that had been there before it. In the distance beyond that Reeve could even see just about where the WRO HQ should be.
This was the world he knew, the world of his future just beyond the world of his past. His greatest success and his greatest failure so close together that you could not see one without the other… Really, it was a special kind of cruelty to have a fate like this.
Yet, if Reeve was not here to bear this burden, then who would do it in his place? Who would make the decisions that would either save or ruin the world? Could anyone else even survive with that weight on their shoulders? Cloud had refused the burden, Barret was not trusted with it. Tifa was too soft for such a thing, and Yuffie would have her own weight to deal with soon enough. Cid was too much a free spirit, and Vincent too much a loner. And Nanaki already had worries all his own.
If not him, then who?
No one. There was no one else to take this burden.
And so he sat, long into the night, looking out over his past, his present, his future. Already Reeve had come this far, and no matter the pain, no matter the cost, he would not relent now.
When there was no longer any moon in the sky, only the stars and the lightening that promised the sun to come, he finally rose and started out of the ruins of his past. Even from here, from so high, from so far, he could hear the beck and call of his present, and what would await beyond.
Somehow, he’d find the strength to keep going.
Title: Strength
Fandom: Final Fantasy 7
Characters: Reeve
Prompt: 100, Writer’s Choice
Word Count: 621
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: A quiet ending that is really just a beginning. It was my honor to give you Blue Prints for life. And now, if you don’t mind, I’m taking my leave of Reeve for a while. I’ve written over 100 stories, short and long, with him starring, and I’ve come to lose most inspiration. Hopefully in the future I will find it again.
Luctor et emergo. - I'll struggle but I'll survive.
Edge was not Midgar. It was nothing like it really. Sure, there was the same style of building, the same people, but it was not Midgar and never would be. Midgar had been a city of lights, a city that always smelled like mako, a city in the sky. And as much as Reeve had hated what the city had become, it was his home more than Edge ever could be.
It was where he went, when the days were long and the work too hard. He didn’t go to Aeris’s church, or to the remains or seven. Nor did he go to the ruins of the reactors he had created for this city. Instead he went to the only place he really knew, to the tower of ShinRa. To the shadow of the once powerful company where he’d held less power than now, where things had been just as tedious, but somehow more like life.
Climbing through the ruins of Midgar was no simple task, not even for Reeve. When once he had known every road of the city, knew how to get from any one place to any other place, the way the city was now made it hard. Sure, he had learned a few routes into the tower over the years, but he’d kept to several routes to throw off any potential watches. And then there had been Cloud and Kadaj’s duel in the city that had damaged the paths further, and the war with Deep Ground. It had been weeks since Reeve had managed to reach his perch, looking out over the city. And even now the perch was again different.
By the time the former executive reached his place in the broken down tower, looking out over both the ruins and Edge in the distance, the sun was setting. Already the lights of the town in the east were coming on, looking like a poor mimicry of the great city that had been there before it. In the distance beyond that Reeve could even see just about where the WRO HQ should be.
This was the world he knew, the world of his future just beyond the world of his past. His greatest success and his greatest failure so close together that you could not see one without the other… Really, it was a special kind of cruelty to have a fate like this.
Yet, if Reeve was not here to bear this burden, then who would do it in his place? Who would make the decisions that would either save or ruin the world? Could anyone else even survive with that weight on their shoulders? Cloud had refused the burden, Barret was not trusted with it. Tifa was too soft for such a thing, and Yuffie would have her own weight to deal with soon enough. Cid was too much a free spirit, and Vincent too much a loner. And Nanaki already had worries all his own.
If not him, then who?
No one. There was no one else to take this burden.
And so he sat, long into the night, looking out over his past, his present, his future. Already Reeve had come this far, and no matter the pain, no matter the cost, he would not relent now.
When there was no longer any moon in the sky, only the stars and the lightening that promised the sun to come, he finally rose and started out of the ruins of his past. Even from here, from so high, from so far, he could hear the beck and call of his present, and what would await beyond.
Somehow, he’d find the strength to keep going.