cloakandclaw | (no subject)

It isn't often that he spends a lot of time in this room. In the grand scheme of things, it's just another room at just another inn. There's little in it that makes it his, particularly, except the key that opens the door: there's a bed and a chair and a bureau and a lamp and a mirror and a window with a curtain. The bedside table is the only thing that shows any sign of the place being occupied: a small collection of flowers graces it, and there's an odd sort of order to them. The larger flowers are grouped toward the back; the smaller ones lead up to them, as it were. Every time he's outside he brings in a new one and sets it there, and when the old ones start to wilt and brown, he recycles them by bringing them back outside and offering them to the lake, the trees, the forest floor.

This... is his small shrine to Lucrecia. She's never far from his thoughts, but this serves as a reminder to her beauty, her softness, her constant presence in his life. He happens to be tending the shrine when a knock at his door disturbs him; with an early buttercup held gently between his armored thumb and forefinger, he gets to his feet and moves swiftly to the door.

It could be any number of people, but he suspects it's Tifa. She's the only one he's invited to knock at his door; no one else is friend enough to have earned that right. There's no surprise when it does prove to be her; opening the door, he ushers her in.

"Are we tending bar again?"

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A small laugh pushes past her lips, and she can't resist teasing him. "Have you been worried something like that would happen?"

She'd seen the flowers by his bed the other day, but this time he's actually holding one. Flower-arranging... never really struck her as something Vincent might be interested in, but she's sure he has a reason for gathering flowers. Boredom has to be fought somehow, and she's willing to suspect he has an eye for beauty. In his own quiet, stoic way.

Her excitement can hardly be reined in.

"I did come up here to get you to go back down with me, though." A grin stretches across her face. "I got the door open, Vincent. You have to come along."

She wouldn't have it any other way. But she doubts he'll mind.

The excitement on her face -- and her words -- don't take very long to sink in. This is one time when he doesn't have to expend a lot of energy weighing options: what they've been hoping for has happened.

"All right." The only question is what to do with the buttercup; he moves across to the night stand and sets it there with the other flowers, not knowing if or when he'll return.

And that's all right too. Because if the door is actually open -- for him as well as for Tifa -- he won't need the flower shrine. He'll be able to see Lucrecia in person, and if he were the kind of person who let himself become infused with hope, this might do it for him.

"Do you have everything?" He certainly does; he travels with his few belongings at all times.

He doesn't say much, but there's still an urgency underneath it all. She can feel it.

She nods in reply. "I'm ready."

Nothing in her room belongs to her, and everything she came here with is pretty much always on her.

She's tempted to grab Vincent's arm and go running down the stairs with him until they reach the door, but she holds herself back.

There's no need to say goodbye to the room: it means little to him.

He feels the same way about most places. He hasn't had a home in years and years, and only really holds allegiance to one place, and that is the cave where Lucrecia... resides, for lack of a more accurate term. Really, she... stands there encased in Mako crystals, her consciousness fragmented, neither alive nor fully dead, and when he thinks about it, he knows he's glad no particular descriptive word comes to mind. Having been there himself, it's not something he wishes on anybody.

But now is not the time for introspection: there's something akin to glee on Tifa's face, and far be it for him to be his usual depressing self when faced with that. She's his friend and her smile is almost (but not quite) contagious.

"Then... no point in standing around, is there. Let's go."

Once they get back home, they can decide what to do. He knows where he'd like to travel to first, but he'll see Tifa home safely first... even though she probably doesn't need his help with that.

"I was thinking the same thing."

She's going to see Cloud again. Her Cloud.

And Marlene and Barret, and her eyes could almost fill -- it feels like it's been so long -- but she's far too excited for it to really happen.

Her smile is quiet, but it refuses to go away. Even once they've left the room and started down the stairs. The promise of home almost seems too good to be true, but it's not. After months, she saw home with her own eyes through a door she hasn't been able to open since she arrived.

If she had to drag Vincent down the stairs, she'd do it.

It feels even better not to have to, though.