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[starshower]

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Cloud Tries to Act Cool like an Adult but Fails

[memorate]

[ Every journey to save the planet needs to have some downtime, and in this case, they've found themselves at the renowned Gold Saucer. There's not much they can do other than wait until morning before they can proceed, so they might as well go to their rooms or enjoy the sights.

Aerith in particular wants to explore as much as she can, yet at the same time she seems to insist on taking Barret with her. It's like she's plotting to leave the rest of the group alone. Come to think of it, Red is nowhere to be seen either...

Alone with Tifa now, he looks at her, half-expecting her to excuse herself somewhere else, too. Should they go their seperate ways, too? ]

I guess everyone's gonna be busy for a while.

it's chocobo time

[coraza]

[nothing like taking a break from this journey they are not too quite sure on the details of. if they should take a detour, it should definitely be to a chocobo farm—and the stink of the place really brings cloud back to nibelheim and its middle-of-nowhere fun factor. while the others are off questing for food to make a picnic out of things (why? cloud wonders), he instead finds himself gravitating towards the fences of the pen.]

[it puts him at ease just to stare out at the chocobos grazing and jumping about excitedly. there's a lot to consider—a lot that they've done and even more that they have to do—and he doesn't even know where to start parsing through those thoughts.]

[it does feel like everyone is looking at him as their leader on finding sephiroth, but cloud himself... doesn't exactly feel up to the task.]

[sighing, he shakes his head and slumps over a bit more against the fence.]

[oritsuru]

[The thing about Yuffie is that she does a lot of talking out of her ass. She's actually a very naive girl in a lot of ways. But she would be damned if she let anyone know that about her. She likes to pretend she knows more about the world than she really does and that includes...

.... Alcohol. She doesn't know anything about alcohol.]

Hey, Tifa! Give me something hard!

[She bounces and slides into one of Tifa's barstools and leans her elbows on the counter with a glint in her eyes.]

Barret says anything you make for me will knock me on my ass and I need to prove him wrong. Right now.

[LETS GO.]

team moms gotta stick together!

[leafhouse]

[Every single one of them had their own reasons for joining AVALANCHE, most of them personal. Biggs may not have known every detail of why Tifa had chosen to join him, but it's not in him to question— all he knows is that she works herself tirelessly to help out the entire cell, right down to keeping them well fed. Jessie might have questioned whether or not Tifa was up for the kinds of missions they were planning for the not-so-distant future, but even if she isn't, she brings something to the team that Biggs is afraid might get taken for granted every now and then. With the afternoon off from neighborhood watch duty, and Barret, Jessie and Wedge out in the field, it seems as good a time as any to check in.

Of course, he's not showing up to Seventh Heaven empty-handed. He has a small crate of produce tucked under one arm when he pushes the door to the bar open with one hand, offering the proprietress a smile before quickly scanning their surroundings for any sign of Marlene.]

Hey! How's business been today? I come bearing gifts.

🌠 mercedis

[starshower]

[It had been a long time coming. Even longer than before they agreed on it, but over the past few weeks, it was always one thing or another that would force Tifa to put their date on hold. The kids' school projects, a leaky faucet in the bar, babysitting plans falling through... She was starting to wonder if the universe was doing this on purpose. That by some strange, divine judgement, Tifa and Cloud were about to overstep the lines laid down by fate.

It's been frustrating, to say the least. Tifa was never one to take things lying down, but these were all situations that couldn't be helped. They would have to surrender to the whims of the universe for a little while longer, to fix that leaky pipe, or reschedule their plans, and in that time, she and Cloud fell back into the same old tired routine. They would wake up, she would kiss him goodbye as he left for his daily round of deliveries, and then worked Seventh Heaven from open to close, until her feet were sore and her hands dried and rough from the water and dish soap. There was little time for her to catch her breath in-between. Tifa never had complaints about routine—it allowed them more time to spend with Marlene and Denzel, but she would be insincere to say she wasn't also longing for the day when it would just be the two of them again.

So, the moment the opportunity presents itself in a complete stroke of luck when Barret returns to Edge for a surprise visit, Tifa snatches it. He, of course, had no objections to watching them while Tifa shut the bar down for a few days so that she and Cloud could have a break of their own. After saying their goodbyes, it's on the back of Fenrir that they travel, their bags slung over and tied to the back behind Tifa, her arms wrapped tight around his waist to hold on for dear life, and her face burying into his back to shield it from the biting wintery air of the countryside.

Fortunately for them, the stars have all started to align. Their room in the haunted inn had been set up without a single hitch, the hearth burning bright for them already by the time they arrive, and Tifa had offered the bathroom up to Cloud first before she occupied it for some time, to clean themselves up for their "night out", so to speak.

For their matching scheme tonight, Tifa had picked blue, and left it up to Cloud to find something for himself that he thought might go with what she would wear, and she'd left her trust implicitly in his hands. Her own attire for the night is perhaps a touch overdone for the Gold Saucer—a short, deep blue dress with heels to match, and a gold pendant earring for that small dash of colour—something reminiscent of an old favourite of hers. Coming out of the bathroom fresh from a shower and now dressed, her hand palming through her hair, Tifa pauses in the doorway to peer around its frame, feeling the flush of anticipation already rising in her cheeks.]

Cloud? You almost ready? Figure we could grab a bite first before we checked out the rest of the attractions.

["The rest of the attractions" being the new ones the Gold Saucer had added since Meteor. With the loss of many cities across Gaia, they took it upon themselves to improve on the place, adding new attractions made specifically to appeal to adults. It still had its games, shows, the battle arena and gondola, but there was a new myriad of rides, restaurants, booths, and even a small shopping centre of fancy boutique shops all lined up. She'll be hard-pressed to pick which places to go, but she had booked them in for two nights for a reason.

Tifa Lockhart always comes prepared.]