#aerith week

Most people in the slums just didn’t make enough money to buy flowers, and she wanted to help Mom pay for expenses. So it was up she went. The train creaked and groaned to a halt before her, and she had to bite her tongue. Sure, the metal beast was a technological marvel, but knowing what it cost the planet to run…

Aerith pushed down her unease and stepped aboard the train. She was so used to hearing it go by that she’d forgotten what it was like to be onboard. The last time she’d ridden a train was when she and Mother had escaped from the facility.

The train was pretty crowded today, so there was only standing room left. Aerith glowered at a man who shoved his bag into her and nearly smashed her flower basket.

“Hey, I have to sell these!” she scolded, carefully checking the flowers for any damage.

The man raised a scraggly eyebrow, his eyes moving over her body. “You’d be better off selling something else.”

Aerith rolled her eyes. Great. This was one of those tough guys who thought he was hot stuff. She knew his type well, and she also knew exactly how to deal with him.

“You really think so?” she asked, looking up at him and smiling. She even added in a few eyelash bats for good measure. They had the intended effect, as the man was rather flustered now.

Good.

“That’ll be a hundred million gil,” she sweetly added.

“Er, it was a joke—”

“Can’t afford me? Then don’t waste my time.”

The snickers from a fellow passenger combined with glares from several others got the man to leave her alone. Good. Nothing like social shaming to bring someone in line. She was grateful there were other people around; that meant she didn’t have to resort to using her stave.

Still, she didn’t really feel like hanging around this car anymore. So she wandered around, offering flowers to anyone who might like to buy some. Flowers were so rare in Midgard that people were shocked to see them. One potential customer in particular kept staring, a small girl traveling with her mother.

“Ever seen a lily before?” Aerith asked, kneeling next to the girl as she pulled a flower out of her basket. The girl shook her head, her eyes as wide as saucers.

“They mean reunion,” Aerith said as she handed the girl the flower. “Flowers have this special language, see. May you meet whoever it is you’re waiting for.”

The girl thanked Aerith and breathed deeply of the lily’s scent, and the girl’s mother gave Aerith a grateful look. She reached into her pocket, but Aerith just shook her head.

“A gift from me to you.”

Aerith wasn’t about to charge this woman for one of her flowers. She would only ask for what people could afford.

“Thank you, truly,” the girl’s mother said.

“Don’t mention it.” The announcements came on, and she glanced out the window. “Oh look! That’s my stop.”

After waving goodbye to the people on the train, she moved to the exit. This was it. The steel sky was no longer above her, no longer there to protect her or shelter her. The real sky was ominous and dark with a sickly green tint to it, and she was stepping into the heart of a corruption so deep it made her skin crawl with nothing to protect her but her wits.

And yet… there was good here, too. She could sense it, buried deep beneath the groaning of the planet. Good people with good hearts. They might not have the steel sky above them, but they were trapped all the same in this emerald cage. And yet they continued on, kept on stubbornly living like her flowers kept on stubbornly growing in the church despite all odds.

She wanted to meet those people.