Author's Note: The title was pretty much derived from the anime, Wolf's Rain; this is a vignette collection though, and I'm just merely using the title because it suits Cloud and Aerith as a couple very much.

Lunar Flowers
i. moonscape

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They have reached the middle of nowhere, restless and burned out after another series of monsters and revelations... and some bouts of more trouble and disagreement.

Her eyes traveled around her resting comrades, all too tired to utter a word. Barret had just unloaded the machine on his arm, drenching a cloth with grease before cleaning out the gun. Next to him was Tifa, cozied on the belly of a quite scruffier Red XIII. She also noticed Tifa's bandaged hands, and she couldn't help but wonder how such beautiful and delicate hands learned to brawl. To Tifa's side was another raven-haired female. Yuffie had her arms over her head to support its weight. Not for long, she whistled a tune.

She could not help but smile at this, her head bobbing to the sound. Brushing a hand from the loose locks of her hair, she looked at the other side of their makeshift camp in the prairie.

A few yards away from everyone else, Cait Sith was intently watching the man next to him make some repairs of the airship. Cid had been busying himself with the Highwind since twilight, and had not even eaten his portion of dinner. Although, from what Aerith could tell, the relentless coughing of the engine told her it wasn't a good sign. And while observing the old man, Vincent had just exited the aircraft; his eyes catching hers. She did not avert her eyes away from him, instead smiled at him, as the red-cladded man nodded back on her.

Aerith peeped through the flames of the campfire, hazily marveling Cloud's back as red burned her forest-green eyes. Although it was pitch-dark, she could tell that he sat quite stiff, unnecessary movements, none. He remained silently seated, with his sword beside him as he faced the faintly-twinkling tars. He had been like that quite a while now, and her hands yearned for his.

The stars seemed to fade one after another. He could not remember the last time he had looked at the sky for so long, and getting lost with it. But now more than ever had he needed to be lost. This journey in saving the world had not been his intentions – and the rest that this supposed side-trip could offer was not what he had expected.

But it was not pain, but anxiety that was building up in his heart as more days pass by; for some moments he would witness flashes of random images, and fragments of memories often in white gossamer. The memories felt estranged to him; but there was something familiar about them, too. He reckoned, maybe they could be his past lives – but his estranged childhood 'friend' begs to differ.

An episode like this will be followed through, by what his comrades will report, 'an outrageous act of treachery and violence'. According to the red-cloaked gunner, the short story was, he had almost fallen into a trap, after attacking everyone else. He also told him that he suspected that the trap was planned by no one else but the silver-haired lunatic.

What the foul-mouthed pilot followed through after this little detail had made Cloud even more bothered. He was unable to believe, that just hours ago, he was so close in becoming the murderer of the last Cetra, had it not been for his robot-prosthetic-armed comrade to beat the daylights out of him.

Of this, Cloud had been told so, after regaining his consciousness.

And here it was, the awkward nighttime. Hugging his legs, he could not admit that even he feared himself, and that maybe it was best if he were to resign this mission. The worst thing was, the little thief from Wutai even tried to make him feel better, by saying he was not himself.

Maybe he really isn't what he thought he was.

And before he could continue to beat himself up, he felt her gloveless hand, picked up her scent. Aerith seemed to perpetually smell like honey and lilies.

He looked at the fragile fingers that rested on top of his shoulder, before his cyanic eyes looked back to the night sky. And when there was no moon to cry on, he could not help but hold her bruised hand, silently asking for her to forgive him, even just a little.