Because it's a difficult conversation. [She sounds weary.] You may not act like it, but this has to be affecting you. I don't care how stoic you are.
[For now she allows him to remain standing, though this line of questioning makes her gaze cant away, and she wishes she had something to do with her hands in the wake of it. They settle in her lap instead.]
Yes. It happened during our journey together, and afterward too. He could hear you, I think — guiding him, telling him where to go to complete tasks for you.
[And now came the beginning of one of the worst parts of this story, she thinks.] When we started to travel outside of Midgar, people claimed to see you places, so at first I thought it was only that. But then we went to an old temple of the Cetra, where something you wanted was inside. It was called the Black Materia. It's a very old magic, a terrible one. It could summon something called Meteor, which would cause a wound in the Planet, one too great for humanity to survive it.
The Cetra there spoke to me, through the Planet, and told me how to retrieve the Black Materia. But when we did...
[Her hands tense.]
Cloud attacked me. [In a rush now, as if trying to explain herself, lest she be doubted:] I know it wasn't him. It wasn't his fault; he didn't know what he was doing.
[Her voice has dropped some. She had not ever discussed this with anyone. Not the others, not Zack while he was here, certainly not Cloud. Only said that she'd never blamed him, and that was true. But she had been afraid then, afraid of him for the first time, and that was true too. If the others had not intervened...]
The others had to pull him off of me. And then I understood.
no subject
[For now she allows him to remain standing, though this line of questioning makes her gaze cant away, and she wishes she had something to do with her hands in the wake of it. They settle in her lap instead.]
Yes. It happened during our journey together, and afterward too. He could hear you, I think — guiding him, telling him where to go to complete tasks for you.
[And now came the beginning of one of the worst parts of this story, she thinks.] When we started to travel outside of Midgar, people claimed to see you places, so at first I thought it was only that. But then we went to an old temple of the Cetra, where something you wanted was inside. It was called the Black Materia. It's a very old magic, a terrible one. It could summon something called Meteor, which would cause a wound in the Planet, one too great for humanity to survive it.
The Cetra there spoke to me, through the Planet, and told me how to retrieve the Black Materia. But when we did...
[Her hands tense.]
Cloud attacked me. [In a rush now, as if trying to explain herself, lest she be doubted:] I know it wasn't him. It wasn't his fault; he didn't know what he was doing.
[Her voice has dropped some. She had not ever discussed this with anyone. Not the others, not Zack while he was here, certainly not Cloud. Only said that she'd never blamed him, and that was true. But she had been afraid then, afraid of him for the first time, and that was true too. If the others had not intervened...]
The others had to pull him off of me. And then I understood.