[ It’s an odd thing to say, she knows. It’s not like most people just come out with it, but Aerith’s not like other people. She has no reason to be. The world has built her up in certain ways, the people of Gaia holding her to strange ultimatums and ideas, and it’s all Aerith has to be herself in the face of everything else. When Trahearne asks what she means, then, she thinks of her mother and Elmyra, and she thinks of Cloud and Tifa, and she thinks of all the people she’s met in the world who lost everything and had to rebuild it. The trust you find in others, pockets of forgiveness and togetherness, a wholly new experience that keeps you sane— that’s what she’s considering when she looks at him, doe-eyed, amused, and a tiny bit confused. ]

When you worry about somebody, it’s an act of care. You choose to do it. Don’t you think… people should be choosing to care about you, too?

[ Not that she’d ever say it, but there’s something about him that at once makes her feel at ease and a little bit uncomfortable. Trahearne is, you see, the closest thing to another Cetra she thinks she might ever meet. Ori may have powers like her own, but there’s something about Trahearne’s origins that sticks to Aerith like honey sticks to toast, or the same way cream melts into coffee.

It makes her think of the tired woman who carried her away from her mother’s body, who took her home and made her feel cared about. ]

Sometimes, we just have to accept it. That we’re cared about, even if it’s not always the ways we want to be cared about. You can’t do every tiny bit on your own.