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Final Fantasy 7. Tifa Lockhart: Journey to Midgar.	By : Nickamano Category: Final Fantasy VII > General Views: 7306 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy 7 is created and owned by Squaresoft, now Square-Enix. Nothing here is owned by me. It was created for entertainment purposes, and I am not profiting financially from the creation and online presentation of this story.

Chapter List
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19. Ascending.
At some point in the morning the pup abandoned Tifa, wandering away down the bank of the river until it was completely out of sight. She stood for a moment, thinking about the adolescent wolf, if it was going to survive it would have to learn to be alone, to learn to hunt and protect itself. And maybe, if it was really lucky, it might find another wolf pack out there somewhere, that would take it in.

Finally, she shrugged and finished packing up her things. Anticipating having to begin climbing mountains at some point in the next few days, and the increasing coldness around her as she hiked up and up toward the impending ascent, so she pulled on her leather hold-ups and her long gloves.

She finally made sure the fire was safe, and then after one last, long searching look downstream for the wolf pup, Tifa started her trek toward the mountains once again, mindlessly brushing her sun-drying hair as she followed the river Northward.

Up ahead the forest encroached on her pathway, enveloping the river until it bisected the heavy mass of pine trees. It proved to be helpful as the river took an abrupt Easterly turn, cutting off her ability to continue Northward and it was too fast-flowing for her to cross easily.

Fortunately, after a couple of hours of marching she stumbled across a narrowing point where the river had cut a gorge in the rock just before it turned East. The gorge, splitting the forest to Western and Eastern sides, lifted sharply upwards, possibly forced up by the roots of the mountains.

Across the gorge, which was something like fifty feet above where the frothing, rushing water sped by, there was a fallen tree. It was a vast broad pine, moss covered, with bracket fungi creating soft steps in ascending diagonals along the horizontal trunk, while brambles and vines knotted it seemingly at both ends to the robust grass banks, creating a natural bridge. Tifa could see animal prints in the moss - hooves, claws, paws, including small adolescent ones, and even the wide three-toed talons of a Chocobo. She manoeuvred carefully onto the bridge, wary of being tripped by brambles and the possibility of the slippery nature of the moss, but the tree didn’t even creak under her weight. She crossed over to the Western side of the gorge and then continued on in her Northerly direction.

As the days passed, the trees began to dissipate as the forest floor gave way to impenetrable mossy granite, the ground becoming too shallow to support roots of anything more substantial than saplings and shrubs, and then just grass, and then moss, and then nothing.

Again, Tifa looked around and spotted a narrow animal track leading steeply up the mountain but not so steep as to be impassable. And taking deep preparatory breaths, she started her ascent of the Midgar mountains.

The ascent was remarkably straight forward, as there were already helpful little additions to the rock face, hollowed out hand and foot holds, metal anchoring rings hammered directly into the rock, and even in two places, pre-secured lengths of sturdy rope as thick as her wrist that eased the most treacherous and steepest of climbs.

It was like being back on the Corel mountains, although the rock was different, the air colder, the flora and fauna different. And strangely, the light quality seemed different too, all a part of being on another continent, she supposed. At one point up ahead of her on a flat spur of rock above and to her right, Tifa thought she spotted an adolescent wolf looking down at her. Though its angular, pointy eared head vanished as soon as she had seen it. She found herself momentarily wondering if it could be the one from the cave, but surely not, could it really have ascended the mountain and got ahead of her?

As night fell, Tifa found a flat area where the steep mountainside had shallowed to a hiking-safe angle and made camp. Again, their height was not so much that it was snow-capped, even up near the peaks but it was cold and she was glad of her duster coat to wrap herself up in. She lit a fire with a few wind-dried arms-length branches she had managed to painfully gather from a thorny bush that didn’t seem to have lasted through the winter.

Once she was satisfied with the crackling fire, Tifa started to look around for some food on the mountainside. She knew she had a supply of pre-packaged items in her backpack to fall back on. However, she always tried to look out for something fresh where possible and to keep the long-lasting dried food for emergencies. She found a few edible plant roots and leaves growing from musty earth-laden cracks in the rock of the mountain and gathered them up. And then underneath a large rock, she discovered a little nest of small Jayjujayme, colourful wormlike larvae that, once beheaded and correctly prepared, could be very nutritious, though not particularly tasty. She picked two of the four-inch long larvae and took them back to her camp.

On reaching her camp, she was shocked to find the wolf pup. It was standing six feet or so from the fire in the shade of a boulder, watching her approach and glancing at the fire intermittently. So, it really was the same one and it had somehow found its way up the mountain, ahead of her. She smiled broadly at the wolf. It brought into mind the stray white cat she had almost adopted back home.

“Hello there!” She said gently, keeping her voice low and soft. “You’re welcome to join me, if you want to.”

The wolf pup didn’t approach. However, it did sit down and then watched her, starting to pant as its golden eyes followed her slow, careful movements. Its long tongue lolling, its hot breath misting in the cold air. It was no more than an hour from sunset.

Tifa moved slowly and carefully so as not to spook the young animal but she continued to speak to it with the same soft, gentle voice.
“Something different today, boy… Bugs and roots instead of fish and roots. I’m guessing you’ll want a share too?”

The pup’s head rotated inquisitively, angling one way and then the other. It might have been the cutest thing Tifa had ever seen, and she smiled widely as she took the heads off the bugs and tossed them to the adolescent wolf.

“There’s your appetiser boy, or is it girl?”

She took a glance. It was boy.

“Boy it is.”

Then she drew out their intestinal tracts with a deft tug, threw the offcuts to the flames and then started to cook the bugs.

She glanced again at the adolescent wolf, it shuffled forward a little, closer to the fire. The dark had descended, turning twilight into dusk. The fire reflected its orange yellow light on the wolf’s mottled grey-brown fur, throwing little blond highlights onto its brow and its pointed triangular ears.

For a moment Tifa saw an amusing resemblance and she laughed. The adolescent wolf (a good reflecting nickname in itself, she thought), cocked its head inquisitively again. Tifa smiled across at the animal.

“I’m going to call you Cloud.” She giggled.

In response, the wolf pup whipped its tail from side to side and panted.
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Final Fantasy 7. Tifa Lockhart: Journey to Midgar.