Post by Cid Highwind on Jun 27, 2010 19:43:10 GMT -5
N A M E;
Cid Highwind
A G E;
35
S E X;
Male
E Y E S;
The blue that’s in the sky just after dawn, light and clear.
H A I R;
Short blonde hair that always is held back from his face by a pair of pilot’s goggles. It was shorter before the planet was saved from Jenova, but it appears he has let it grow slightly—still not very long, mind—since then.
H E I G H T;
5’8”
W E I G H T;
165
S P E C I A L F E A T U R E S;
There’s nothing particular about Cid that stands out, concerning his appearance. He’s tanned from the sun, but with no visible tattoos, no scars, nothing to really set him off visually compared to certain others. The only thing, perhaps, is a rectangular piece of medical tape that seems permanently affixed to his left temple.
Your cover melting inside
With wide eyes you tremble
Kissing over & over again
Your god knows his faithful
There’s no way of getting around it, Cid’s rough, plain and simple. He’s a working man and that’s reflected in his personality. He curses, he insults, he’s crude (sometimes even boorish), and he’s opinionated and in no way, shape, or form bashful about voicing his opinion—loudly. He’s also one of the most loyal men one could come across. He genuinely cares for those close to him and wouldn’t hesitate to put himself between them and harm’s way. He enjoys being right, however, which more than likely comes from being a rocket scientist and unbelievably intelligent when it comes to machines. Cid is known, however rare the occasion, to apologise, but will swear up and down (literally) against that fact. However casual and outgoing his demeanour in general, Cid finds it extremely difficult to express certain emotions to people nicely. He’s quick to anger and holds grudges if hurt enough, though again, he might have forgiven the person in question long ago, but has great difficulty saying he was wrong, or that he’s sorry. Cid, above all things, is a man of actions rather than words—though will go on if you get him started on the right subjects.
I try - to digest my pride
But passions grip i fear
When I climb - into shallow vats of wine
I think I almost hear - but it's not clear
R E L A T I O N S H I P S T A T U S;
Up and hitched to that doe of a woman what stuck by him all this time despite him being an ass to her.
L I G H T O R D A R K;
Good
L I K E S;
Flying, tinkering, drinking,
D I S L I K E S;
Being on the ground too long, Shinra for destroying his dream and hanging him out to dry, those that hurt his friends and loved ones, paperwork
D R E A M S;
Going into space again (‘cause once just ain’t enough, and fer longer next time, too), starting a family (though never admitting that to Shera)
N I G H T M A R E S;
Losing the ability to fly, losing Shera (and any other friends)
S T R E N G T H S;
Unconditional loyalty to friends, doggedness, stubbornness, power and strength, ability to work on anything mechanical, givin’ friends the kick in the ass they need when they need it
W E A K N E S S E S;
Vices (drinking,
H A B I T S;
Drinking,
You are the one
You'll never be alone again
You're more than in my head - you're more
M O T H E R;
Molly Highwind
F A T H E R;
Duncan Highwind
S I B L I N G S;
None to speak of
H E R O;
Always did look up to the old man
P E T S;
Does a ship count?
B E S T M E M O R Y;
Finally being up in space
W O R S T M E M O R Y;
Shera nearly dying and the mission to space being cancelled
F A V O R I T E P L A C E;
The sky. Always the sky. (Except for that one other place that can’t be mentioned here in polite company)
F A V O R I T E F O O D;
Toss up between spaghetti, or tempura. Definitely tea, though.
H O B B I E S;
Is cussing considered a hobby?
F R I E N D S;
Shera (god knows why), Barret, Nanaki, Tifa, Cloud, Yuffie, Vincent
E N E M I E S;
Shinra, himself
You so believe your own lies
on my skin your fingers
runaway until the last time
were gonna lose forever
Cid’s childhood was nothing terribly special. He was born in Rocket Town (before it became Rocket Town) to a tinker and a botanist. His father taught him skills and his mother taught him merits, while all the time, he dreamed of the sky. Cid never allowed himself just to settle, and he would strive for nothing less than the stars.
His father also taught him (inadvertently) how to swear, which caused his mother a shipful of troubles and headaches. He had been hired and fired from at least a dozen jobs by the time he was 16, being an endless source of frustration for his parents. They didn’t really think his love of flying and of space would go anywhere, and vaguely indulged him growing up to trinkets and the like to fuel that dream. His father let him in the workshop at a very early age (much too early, his mother would always argue) and Cid was constantly going above any beyond his father’s instructions, designing his own machinery. In the early days, he would make up things on the spot, then kept rudimentary basics in his head, until he finally became experienced enough to draw them down on draft paper. Though his room littered with these papers, still his parents believed it no more than a hobby. He didn’t have many friends as a child, spending most of his time working on machinery, and his parents did what they could to encourage his socialising—most of the time, Cid wasn’t interested, complaing that none of the other kids his age understood the machines he held such passion for.
After years of being fired from jobs, however (mostly due to either insulting customers or swearing in front of—or to—customers), his parents finally realised that perhaps normal jobs were not right for their son. They enrolled him in flight academy through the Shinra company, where he excelled at any science and mathematical studies he entered into, and soon earned the reputation as an ace pilot. He also did more than a little dabbling into engineering, where he also quickly rose to the top. Monopolising both the flight and the engineering programs, Cid didn’t earn many friends his age. Their grudging respect, yes, but certainly not their friendship. His gruff manner and direct way of speaking turned most people off to him, though a select few did see past this demeanour and did befriend him for a short period. Once Cid was allowed to hit the big blue expanse, however, there was no stopping him.
By the time he was 20, Shinra itself had taken notice of the star pupil of its flight program, and had special interest in him. He graduates with honours on top of honours, earning the rank of Captain almost immediately upon graduation, and the company recruits him for themselves. He is working on the design and implementation of an advanced propeller plane when news comes that his parents have died in a freak accident. He rushes home, devastated, and inherits all his parents’ possessions. Shinra swears to Cid they will find the culprits and bring them to a heavy-handed justice. Cid returns to work, throwing himself entirely into a design of a bravura ship unlike any other ever created—one that he would dedicate to his family name.
Soon after the Highwind was finished, Shinra approaches Cid with the notion of starting up a Space Program. They want him to head the program in design and direction. Cid was 22. This time, Shinra provides him with an entire crew to boss around (which he does, and enjoys) The first ten of his designs flop and fail magnificently, until one day, a Class-2 engineer timidly comes up to him with his designs and proceeds to point out his glaring mistake as if it were plain as day. He can’t believe this woman would have the audacity—and the gumption—to come up to him and blatantly tell him to his face exactly where he messed up, and tells her so (with added expletives) and instantly promotes her to his direct assistant. Cid soon finds Shera an invaluable asset to his professional and personal life. He takes something of an interest in her, though he never gets up the balls to do or say anything about it, but she’s kind to him and doesn’t seem effected terribly by his roaring temper and mannerisms. She also keeps him grounded and can double-check his calculations and design work like nobody’s business (all of which isn’t hurt by the fact that she had this sort of sexy scientist look about her). Despite all this, however, it takes the two of them (and their team) nearly three and a half years of trial and error to get things exactly right.
Finally, Shinra #26 was ready. The company was breathing down his next, Shera was being even more meticulous and OCD than usual—if that were humanly possible—and everything was grating on Cid’s nerves. He was finally going to achieve his dream. 26 and he was going to be the first man in space. It was only fitting that he was 26 and his rocket bore the same numbered designation. It felt like destiny to him, and he believed it then.
And then all hell broke loose. Some group calling themselves AVALANCHE tries to steal his beautiful little propeller plane, the Tiny Bronco, and then starts attacking his own goddamned rocket—with Cid inside of it. He doesn’t know what they do or what happens next, but all of a sudden they’re gone and Shinra’s wanting to stop the launch. Something about an oxygen tank. Cid knows he’s got enough oxygen tanks and losing just one can’t make that much of a difference with him being so close to achieving his dream. And then it happened. Shera started yammering something about the oxygen tanks and went to do safety checks. Cid told her over and over and over (Christ how he hated repeating himself) that they were fine and to leave well enough the hell alone, but she didn’t listen. She never did when she got her mind set on something. She wanted to make sure he’d be all right with one less tank. Cid screamed and raved at her to get the hell outta there, ‘cause he was going up into space come hell or high water… and she told him to go ahead with it. That if she could save his dream and make sure he’d be safe, she could die happy knowing that. Something inside Cid wrenched at that moment, and, swearing up a blue streak enough to melt metal if he had wanted, he aborted the flight in its last seconds. He couldn’t have her die, not for him. Not on his conscience, not on his hands. He wasn’t going to the stars.
After that, Shinra abandoned the Space Program despite Cid’s efforts to keep it afloat. It was too costly, they told him, and there was no guarantee that more members of AVALANCHE wouldn’t come by and sabotage the next flight, too. Cid fell into a downward spiral of vices and self-loathing. Shera stuck by him to try and make up for what she felt was her fault. He had stopped the mission because of her, true, but he wasn’t about to let her sacrifice her life for him. He couldn’t help yelling at her. She was willing to take the blame and the alcohol and nicotine clouded his judgement until he started to believe it really was her fault. She shouldn’t have been there, doing safety checks right before liftoff. She shouldn’t have knowingly put herself in danger like that… the cycle continued for years, until Presiden Rufus Shinra pays him a visit, under claims that he wanted to restart the Space Program. Cid allows himself to be deluded until it becomes clear that Rufus isn’t interested in the Space Program at all and only wants the Tiny Bronco to track down some pet project gone insane and loose of his called Sephiroth. Cid doesn’t care what or who that is, and refuses to give up his plane. Shinra had taken his dream from him, and he wasn’t gonna give them any damn thing they wanted. At that same time, Shera tells some kids also looking to borrow the plane to talk to their boss, and after getting in a scuffle with Palmer, they take off in it. Cid isn’t about to let some hoodlums get off with his baby, and so runs after it and leaps aboard just as Rufus and his men riddle it with some holes. They make it as far as the sea, and Cid decides to join up with the group, seeing no reason to return to Rocket Town.
A while later in Junon, Cid manages to get his pride and joy, the Highwind, back and reunites the whole group with their sort of leader, Cloud. Tifa leaves the group to care for the kid, and the rest elect Cid to be their leader. It’s been a long while since Cid was in a position of leadership, but he sinks right back into it. They end up stopping Shinra from being able to collect enough material for Huge Materia to be loaded into Cid’s old rocket, except Shinra decided to go ahead with the launch to try and stop Meteor from colliding with the planet. Cid, Cloud, and Shera get stuck aboard the rocket as Palmer launches it into space, and Cid, through the strangest and most convoluted paths, finally fulfils his dream. His happy moment, however, is sullied when one of the oxygen tanks explodes and the three of them are forced into an escape pod. Cid realises the importance of Shera’s safety check, and that he would be dead now if it weren’t for her nitpicky nature, and so apologises to her, if somewhat begrudgingly. After they return to the ground, Cid continues to help out Cloud and his group to defeat Sephiroth and save the world, even though it means sacrificing the Highwind in the end.
With new motivation, Cid and Shera begin work on a new airship (per Cid’s new designs, of course, and per Shera’s editing and practicality), and continue living together. She gets him to quit smoking (oh, what a tirade she had to hear for a month about that one), and also gets him to severely cut back in his drinking. She becomes to be in charge of operating a refurbished oil drilling rig to provide fuel while Barret tries to convince Cid to use his new airship to help peope with Geostigma reach medical attention. Cid will only agree to that if they can find suitable fuel for his airship. Shera eventually discovers a good fuel source for Cid’s new ship, and so when Bahamut SIN is attacking Edge, Cid brings the airship (affectionately named Sierra after his partner and his growing affection toward her) to help in the battle Cloud and the others are waging against the giant summon.
Shortly after Bahamut SIN is destroyed and the Geostigma cured, Shera finally agrees to marry Cid—he had asked her before, after he revealed that the Sierra was named after her, specifically, but she had refused due to her affliction of Geostigma and the amount of devotion she put into trying to find a way to cure it. She never really does let him live down the fact that he once said the idea of marrying her made his skin crawl (supplanted, of course, with crude innuendo jokes), but Cid seems to take it in stride. She sometimes questions his motives, both remembering the aborted launch several years before, but Cid always reassures her that he didn’t ask her to marry him because he felt bad for the way he treated her. In some sort of odd way, it was his honesty and being an ass that made Shera believe what he told her was true.
A year after that, Shera has moved upward and onward in WRO, and lands Cid the perfect job for him: leading the airship division with WRO assistance. He ends up battling Deepground and Omega alongside Vincent in the Battle of Midgar. Now that that is over, Cid hasn’t heard from any of the others—aside from Barret, occasionally—and so tinkers and makes machines more or less by himself (and Shera) in Rocket Town.
Spin faster shouting out loud
You can't steal whats paid for
Such something hurting again
Murder son she's painful
When you try - don't try to say you won't
Try to crawl into my head
When you cry - cause it's all built up inside
Your tears already said - already said
His father also taught him (inadvertently) how to swear, which caused his mother a shipful of troubles and headaches. He had been hired and fired from at least a dozen jobs by the time he was 16, being an endless source of frustration for his parents. They didn’t really think his love of flying and of space would go anywhere, and vaguely indulged him growing up to trinkets and the like to fuel that dream. His father let him in the workshop at a very early age (much too early, his mother would always argue) and Cid was constantly going above any beyond his father’s instructions, designing his own machinery. In the early days, he would make up things on the spot, then kept rudimentary basics in his head, until he finally became experienced enough to draw them down on draft paper. Though his room littered with these papers, still his parents believed it no more than a hobby. He didn’t have many friends as a child, spending most of his time working on machinery, and his parents did what they could to encourage his socialising—most of the time, Cid wasn’t interested, complaing that none of the other kids his age understood the machines he held such passion for.
After years of being fired from jobs, however (mostly due to either insulting customers or swearing in front of—or to—customers), his parents finally realised that perhaps normal jobs were not right for their son. They enrolled him in flight academy through the Shinra company, where he excelled at any science and mathematical studies he entered into, and soon earned the reputation as an ace pilot. He also did more than a little dabbling into engineering, where he also quickly rose to the top. Monopolising both the flight and the engineering programs, Cid didn’t earn many friends his age. Their grudging respect, yes, but certainly not their friendship. His gruff manner and direct way of speaking turned most people off to him, though a select few did see past this demeanour and did befriend him for a short period. Once Cid was allowed to hit the big blue expanse, however, there was no stopping him.
By the time he was 20, Shinra itself had taken notice of the star pupil of its flight program, and had special interest in him. He graduates with honours on top of honours, earning the rank of Captain almost immediately upon graduation, and the company recruits him for themselves. He is working on the design and implementation of an advanced propeller plane when news comes that his parents have died in a freak accident. He rushes home, devastated, and inherits all his parents’ possessions. Shinra swears to Cid they will find the culprits and bring them to a heavy-handed justice. Cid returns to work, throwing himself entirely into a design of a bravura ship unlike any other ever created—one that he would dedicate to his family name.
Soon after the Highwind was finished, Shinra approaches Cid with the notion of starting up a Space Program. They want him to head the program in design and direction. Cid was 22. This time, Shinra provides him with an entire crew to boss around (which he does, and enjoys) The first ten of his designs flop and fail magnificently, until one day, a Class-2 engineer timidly comes up to him with his designs and proceeds to point out his glaring mistake as if it were plain as day. He can’t believe this woman would have the audacity—and the gumption—to come up to him and blatantly tell him to his face exactly where he messed up, and tells her so (with added expletives) and instantly promotes her to his direct assistant. Cid soon finds Shera an invaluable asset to his professional and personal life. He takes something of an interest in her, though he never gets up the balls to do or say anything about it, but she’s kind to him and doesn’t seem effected terribly by his roaring temper and mannerisms. She also keeps him grounded and can double-check his calculations and design work like nobody’s business (all of which isn’t hurt by the fact that she had this sort of sexy scientist look about her). Despite all this, however, it takes the two of them (and their team) nearly three and a half years of trial and error to get things exactly right.
Finally, Shinra #26 was ready. The company was breathing down his next, Shera was being even more meticulous and OCD than usual—if that were humanly possible—and everything was grating on Cid’s nerves. He was finally going to achieve his dream. 26 and he was going to be the first man in space. It was only fitting that he was 26 and his rocket bore the same numbered designation. It felt like destiny to him, and he believed it then.
And then all hell broke loose. Some group calling themselves AVALANCHE tries to steal his beautiful little propeller plane, the Tiny Bronco, and then starts attacking his own goddamned rocket—with Cid inside of it. He doesn’t know what they do or what happens next, but all of a sudden they’re gone and Shinra’s wanting to stop the launch. Something about an oxygen tank. Cid knows he’s got enough oxygen tanks and losing just one can’t make that much of a difference with him being so close to achieving his dream. And then it happened. Shera started yammering something about the oxygen tanks and went to do safety checks. Cid told her over and over and over (Christ how he hated repeating himself) that they were fine and to leave well enough the hell alone, but she didn’t listen. She never did when she got her mind set on something. She wanted to make sure he’d be all right with one less tank. Cid screamed and raved at her to get the hell outta there, ‘cause he was going up into space come hell or high water… and she told him to go ahead with it. That if she could save his dream and make sure he’d be safe, she could die happy knowing that. Something inside Cid wrenched at that moment, and, swearing up a blue streak enough to melt metal if he had wanted, he aborted the flight in its last seconds. He couldn’t have her die, not for him. Not on his conscience, not on his hands. He wasn’t going to the stars.
After that, Shinra abandoned the Space Program despite Cid’s efforts to keep it afloat. It was too costly, they told him, and there was no guarantee that more members of AVALANCHE wouldn’t come by and sabotage the next flight, too. Cid fell into a downward spiral of vices and self-loathing. Shera stuck by him to try and make up for what she felt was her fault. He had stopped the mission because of her, true, but he wasn’t about to let her sacrifice her life for him. He couldn’t help yelling at her. She was willing to take the blame and the alcohol and nicotine clouded his judgement until he started to believe it really was her fault. She shouldn’t have been there, doing safety checks right before liftoff. She shouldn’t have knowingly put herself in danger like that… the cycle continued for years, until Presiden Rufus Shinra pays him a visit, under claims that he wanted to restart the Space Program. Cid allows himself to be deluded until it becomes clear that Rufus isn’t interested in the Space Program at all and only wants the Tiny Bronco to track down some pet project gone insane and loose of his called Sephiroth. Cid doesn’t care what or who that is, and refuses to give up his plane. Shinra had taken his dream from him, and he wasn’t gonna give them any damn thing they wanted. At that same time, Shera tells some kids also looking to borrow the plane to talk to their boss, and after getting in a scuffle with Palmer, they take off in it. Cid isn’t about to let some hoodlums get off with his baby, and so runs after it and leaps aboard just as Rufus and his men riddle it with some holes. They make it as far as the sea, and Cid decides to join up with the group, seeing no reason to return to Rocket Town.
A while later in Junon, Cid manages to get his pride and joy, the Highwind, back and reunites the whole group with their sort of leader, Cloud. Tifa leaves the group to care for the kid, and the rest elect Cid to be their leader. It’s been a long while since Cid was in a position of leadership, but he sinks right back into it. They end up stopping Shinra from being able to collect enough material for Huge Materia to be loaded into Cid’s old rocket, except Shinra decided to go ahead with the launch to try and stop Meteor from colliding with the planet. Cid, Cloud, and Shera get stuck aboard the rocket as Palmer launches it into space, and Cid, through the strangest and most convoluted paths, finally fulfils his dream. His happy moment, however, is sullied when one of the oxygen tanks explodes and the three of them are forced into an escape pod. Cid realises the importance of Shera’s safety check, and that he would be dead now if it weren’t for her nitpicky nature, and so apologises to her, if somewhat begrudgingly. After they return to the ground, Cid continues to help out Cloud and his group to defeat Sephiroth and save the world, even though it means sacrificing the Highwind in the end.
With new motivation, Cid and Shera begin work on a new airship (per Cid’s new designs, of course, and per Shera’s editing and practicality), and continue living together. She gets him to quit smoking (oh, what a tirade she had to hear for a month about that one), and also gets him to severely cut back in his drinking. She becomes to be in charge of operating a refurbished oil drilling rig to provide fuel while Barret tries to convince Cid to use his new airship to help peope with Geostigma reach medical attention. Cid will only agree to that if they can find suitable fuel for his airship. Shera eventually discovers a good fuel source for Cid’s new ship, and so when Bahamut SIN is attacking Edge, Cid brings the airship (affectionately named Sierra after his partner and his growing affection toward her) to help in the battle Cloud and the others are waging against the giant summon.
Shortly after Bahamut SIN is destroyed and the Geostigma cured, Shera finally agrees to marry Cid—he had asked her before, after he revealed that the Sierra was named after her, specifically, but she had refused due to her affliction of Geostigma and the amount of devotion she put into trying to find a way to cure it. She never really does let him live down the fact that he once said the idea of marrying her made his skin crawl (supplanted, of course, with crude innuendo jokes), but Cid seems to take it in stride. She sometimes questions his motives, both remembering the aborted launch several years before, but Cid always reassures her that he didn’t ask her to marry him because he felt bad for the way he treated her. In some sort of odd way, it was his honesty and being an ass that made Shera believe what he told her was true.
A year after that, Shera has moved upward and onward in WRO, and lands Cid the perfect job for him: leading the airship division with WRO assistance. He ends up battling Deepground and Omega alongside Vincent in the Battle of Midgar. Now that that is over, Cid hasn’t heard from any of the others—aside from Barret, occasionally—and so tinkers and makes machines more or less by himself (and Shera) in Rocket Town.
Spin faster shouting out loud
You can't steal whats paid for
Such something hurting again
Murder son she's painful
The last time Cid had gone to Edge, it was to help his old buddies out against a powerful summon. It felt good to get the old lance out and practise his phenomenal jumping skills. It felt good to fight again. That bratty ninja might call him an old man, but he was anything but—just ask Shera, he thought lecherously, a grin cutting through his face.
But this time, he visited Edge for personal business.
Last time he was here, there wasn’t much time after everything was all said and done to chat and play catch-up. He’d only been able to talk with them briefly, and of them, mostly Barret. Once the Geostigma had been cured in the children and people of Edge, and once he had made sure everything was under control in the city, Cid high-tailed it out of there. Shera had contracted a small but (he feared) growing case of Geostigma when the first cases of it were being reported. She devoted much of her time to finding ways to cure it, with her work in the WRO, and had declined Cid’s advances to make an honest woman out of her. The Geostigma, she had told him, was too pervading. No one knew the effects of it, or how it was spread, or what caused it. Shera, with her self-sacrificing nature, wasn’t about to risk anything happening to Cid because of her. So, once he was sure Geostigma was cured because of them defeating Bahamut SIN and the bastard children of Jenova, Cid got his sorry ass back to Rocket Town and to Shera.
Barret, Vincent, Nanaki, and even that little brat Yuffie showed up for the wedding. There was no sign of Cloud, though. Or of Tifa. As Barret and he had gotten close over the past few months, Cid asked him about their absences, and Barret told him of how Cloud had grown increasingly distant, and Tifa increasingly worried and worn because of it. Cid had always liked the young fighter—woman had some brute strength in her, which he liked to see—and it troubled him to know she was so, well, troubled. Before he had been able to make the trip to see her, however, there was the honeymoon Shera insisted they went on, and Cid was in no mind to deny her after all she had done for him. Then he had been obligated to help Vincent out. Not that he minded, on the last part, of course.
Finally, however, Cid had some free damn time to visit Edge the way he wanted to and talk to Tifa. Cloud had always been quiet and a bit moody, if you asked Cid (or didn’t, he was always vocal in his opinions), and it was obviously how fond of him Tifa was. He didn’t like even hearing his friends were worn thin, and if anything Barret said was true, that’s exactly how Tifa was. It was Cid’s aim to do something about that.
Always one to travel in style, Cid landed the new, smaller propeller plane, Deep Blue, he had designed and built to replace the Tiny Bronco (which was getting on in years) outside of Edge and pulled his goggles off his face to sit in the usual spot atop his head. Not bothering to wipe the grime from his face, he jumped down from the pilot’s seat and, pocketing the keys, marched his way into the city.
Just because he’d more or less gotten used to the stares and whispers didn’t mean he liked it. At all. In fact, this whole hero business got on his nerves more often than not (except when it got him free drinks at any given bar). He was just your average, run-of-the-mill engineer and rocket scientist, who also happened to have saved the world. A few times. He shooed away some children that had been gathering around him and following him, garnering dirty looks from the nearby parents from his swearing. He never meant much by the cussing all the time—it was just the way he spoke, was all. Hell, his father’d cussed all the time around him, and he sure turned out all right. More or less, anyway.
Weaving his way through the streets, he finally reached the steps to the new 7th Heaven. Of course, it’d be like Tifa to resurrect the old bar name. It looked better, he thought. Not as run down, not as thrown together. Looping a thumb through one of his belt loops, he pushed the door open and looked around.
“Tifa?” he called out, not seeing the brown-haired woman. “Tifa, you here? Dammit, woman, where are you?” Cid strode over to the bar on long legs and leaned over the counter, glancing around behind it.
But this time, he visited Edge for personal business.
Last time he was here, there wasn’t much time after everything was all said and done to chat and play catch-up. He’d only been able to talk with them briefly, and of them, mostly Barret. Once the Geostigma had been cured in the children and people of Edge, and once he had made sure everything was under control in the city, Cid high-tailed it out of there. Shera had contracted a small but (he feared) growing case of Geostigma when the first cases of it were being reported. She devoted much of her time to finding ways to cure it, with her work in the WRO, and had declined Cid’s advances to make an honest woman out of her. The Geostigma, she had told him, was too pervading. No one knew the effects of it, or how it was spread, or what caused it. Shera, with her self-sacrificing nature, wasn’t about to risk anything happening to Cid because of her. So, once he was sure Geostigma was cured because of them defeating Bahamut SIN and the bastard children of Jenova, Cid got his sorry ass back to Rocket Town and to Shera.
Barret, Vincent, Nanaki, and even that little brat Yuffie showed up for the wedding. There was no sign of Cloud, though. Or of Tifa. As Barret and he had gotten close over the past few months, Cid asked him about their absences, and Barret told him of how Cloud had grown increasingly distant, and Tifa increasingly worried and worn because of it. Cid had always liked the young fighter—woman had some brute strength in her, which he liked to see—and it troubled him to know she was so, well, troubled. Before he had been able to make the trip to see her, however, there was the honeymoon Shera insisted they went on, and Cid was in no mind to deny her after all she had done for him. Then he had been obligated to help Vincent out. Not that he minded, on the last part, of course.
Finally, however, Cid had some free damn time to visit Edge the way he wanted to and talk to Tifa. Cloud had always been quiet and a bit moody, if you asked Cid (or didn’t, he was always vocal in his opinions), and it was obviously how fond of him Tifa was. He didn’t like even hearing his friends were worn thin, and if anything Barret said was true, that’s exactly how Tifa was. It was Cid’s aim to do something about that.
Always one to travel in style, Cid landed the new, smaller propeller plane, Deep Blue, he had designed and built to replace the Tiny Bronco (which was getting on in years) outside of Edge and pulled his goggles off his face to sit in the usual spot atop his head. Not bothering to wipe the grime from his face, he jumped down from the pilot’s seat and, pocketing the keys, marched his way into the city.
Just because he’d more or less gotten used to the stares and whispers didn’t mean he liked it. At all. In fact, this whole hero business got on his nerves more often than not (except when it got him free drinks at any given bar). He was just your average, run-of-the-mill engineer and rocket scientist, who also happened to have saved the world. A few times. He shooed away some children that had been gathering around him and following him, garnering dirty looks from the nearby parents from his swearing. He never meant much by the cussing all the time—it was just the way he spoke, was all. Hell, his father’d cussed all the time around him, and he sure turned out all right. More or less, anyway.
Weaving his way through the streets, he finally reached the steps to the new 7th Heaven. Of course, it’d be like Tifa to resurrect the old bar name. It looked better, he thought. Not as run down, not as thrown together. Looping a thumb through one of his belt loops, he pushed the door open and looked around.
“Tifa?” he called out, not seeing the brown-haired woman. “Tifa, you here? Dammit, woman, where are you?” Cid strode over to the bar on long legs and leaned over the counter, glancing around behind it.
When you try - don't try to say you won't
Try to crawl into my head
When you cry - cause it's all built up inside
Your tears already said - already said