Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy VII.

Character-study on Tifa with blips of Cloud/Tifa (I can't not include Cloud; their promise is the foundation of their relationship, and a really integral part of her life, duh). Hope you enjoy it!

crescendo

Tifa is six and decides that more than anything in the world, she doesn't want to be a princess.

She burrows herself in her covers and listens to the deep baritone of her father's voice as he reads her a story about a princess locked in a tower waiting for a hero to swoop in and save her and the kingdom from an evil Dragon. She wrinkles her nose and tells her father that she thinks the princess is silly and should be strong enough to take care of herself. Mama does that just fine, and takes care of the family, so why can't this princess do the same thing? Why is the princess so helpless?

Her father laughs and ruffles her head fondly and says, "Maybe one day you can be that princess, Tifa." She makes a face and tells her father but she doesn't want to be a princess, born into a world of spoiled luxuries and icky gowns, but her father just smiles. "You'll understand one day."

-o-

She really doesn't want to be a princess.

The other boys in the neighborhood don't want her to be around them and they make fun of her for being a girl, you can't do anything, why are you playing with us, and she puffs her cheeks angrily and goes home stomping to her mother. Her mother pats her cheek fondly and tells her, "Boys are boys, and girls are girls, and it's okay for children to think that way. But Tifa, you should never be afraid to do what you want."

The next day she walks up to a boy in her bright turquoise skirt (she doesn't wear them because they're pretty; she just likes the color and the freedom it allows her legs), awkward little blue shoes, and pokes him in the head angrily (she told her mother and father that she just wanted to smack the boys but they gave her a stern look and told her that she should never resort to violence because it never held the answers for anything). "Just because I'm a girl, doesn't mean that I can't play with you!" she declares proudly.

The boy looks at his friends, unsure what to do. One of his friends sneers (she decides in her head that he will be Piggy because of the guttural and squeaking noises that his voice makes), "If you can kick a ball farther than all of us, then maybe you can play with us from now on."

"Fine!" She grabs the ball from the boy, sets it onto the ground and takes a step back. She sprints to the ball and lets loose a ferocious kick, sending the ball flying wildly into the air, out of the town's gate and into the wilderness beyond.

She smiles in triumph at the memory of dropped jaws and next day smiles and warm welcomes from the boys, and wants to tilt her head up to the sky and say see? I earn my luxuries.

-o-

"Mama, who's that boy that lives two houses down from us?"

"His name is Cloud, Tifa. He's about your age."

"Really? He's really quiet. How come he doesn't talk, Mama?"

"Some children are a little more shy than others. I'm sure he's a nice boy. Why don't you talk to him?"

Tifa scrunches her nose. "He has funny hair."

"Oh Tifa, that's no reason to not talk to someone! His mother is a wonderful woman. I'm sure you would get along with Cloud just fine."

Tifa peers out the window and sees a familiar crop of spiky yellow hair . She sees him sitting near the town well and dangling his legs in his small brown sneakers. He looks up into the distance and she notices, that his eyes are as blue as the daytime sky.

She decides as she walks back into her room and sits down to let her fingers glide over the ivory keys of the piano ("Practice makes perfect," her mother says) that blue is the prettiest color.

-o-

She does not expect her mother's death.

Tifa sits at her piano bench and lets her feet dangle over the pedals. She reaches up and lets her fingers trace the keys, imagining that the ghost of her mother's hand is on her wrist and guiding her small hands over the right keys to play the right notes to the right song, but it all feels so wrong. Wrong in a kind of way that makes her flinch and withdraw her hand at the touch of the piano because the keys are cold, cold like the night her father tells her that Mama isn't with them anymore.

She can't decide if she wants to cry. She inhales sharply and furiously wipes away the tears that begin to bubble at the corner of her eyes. Only princesses shed tears for their most exquisite of sorrows, and she's not a princess. She's not helpless. She's not.

She plunks her hands down on the piano and plays a tune that her mother taught her so many years ago, and the major isn't right and the flats are all wrong, but she keeps on playing anyways.

She's not helpless.

-o-

Which is why she decides, two days later, that her mother isn't really dead.

She's just taking a nap in the coffin, that's all (she ignores the memory of the sad, sad look on her father's face when they slipped Mama into the coffin, and she ignores the memory of his whispering words of comfort to her).

She walks around the town in the middle of night when everyone is fast asleep and her gaze takes her to the slopes of Mt. Nibel looming in the background. It flickers in the night and she decides then, that her mother must be there. Her mother must be on the other side of the mountain, waiting for Tifa to greet her, and her mother will tell her that she is ready to teach Tifa how to play another song on the piano. She inhales and can almost feel the warmth of her mother's arms encircling her and pulling her into a hug, and it is what she wants more than anything right now.

She lets her limbs and her bright blue shoes carry her forward and into the winding slopes of Mt. Nibel.

(Her hand is on a rickety bridge and she shivers at the howling winds beneath her feet but she presses forward. Some haunting refrain is playing in the back of her mind and telling her that she really should just turn around and head back, but she ignores it. She will find her mother-)

-o-

A warm hand touches her forehead and she stirs awake, blinking in images of a dimly lit room—her room, the turquoise of her blankets, the gleam of the piano in the corner—and she looks up to see her father sighing in relief. She sits up but lets out a little cry as her head rings and pounds in her ears and she forces back the tears because the pain whips her like never before.

But it isn't the ache in her bones that make the tears well up even more behind her eyes. She looks around the room and sees only her father staring back at her in concern. The air weighs down on her and the sounds in the room are a heavy quiet. She doesn't hear the clear soprano of her mother's voice travel through the air; she doesn't hear the soft hum of her mother's quiet murmurs in her hair.

And for the first time in years, she lets loose the tears and burrows her head into her father's shirt.

(It takes her another year before she can finally touch the piano again) (and even then, in so many ways, it still didn't feel right.)

-o-

Things change in their household afterwards.

Her father never lets her out past eight in the evenings. He is stern with his curfew; "It's not safe at night," he would say. She is only allowed to go out seldom, leaving her at home most of the time alone because her father would be working into the darker hours of the night.

But her bones ached so badly to go outside and run around in the cool evening air, to laugh with her friends and play catch and do all of the silly things that she loved doing. Eight just wasn't the same as nine o'clock when the sun would be in complete darkness with the stars lighting up the skies like a glittering canopy.

She would never disobey her father though. It's just not right.

Tifa sits at her window and plops her elbows on the window sill, resting her chins in her hands and a frown settling on her face. She watches her friends run around in the dark of the night. For a moment, she thinks, maybe this is what those silly princesses felt like, trapped in their towers and staring into the outside world with longing. She isn't the same of course—her friends still visit her at home and they would spend hours laughing over things or playing drawing games, but those visiting hours just didn't have the same charm as letting her limbs loose and running around, inhaling the nighttime mountain air of Nibelheim.

And she hates it. Moments like these makes her feel like a helpless little girl trapped in the tower of her own house. She doesn't want to be a princess, born into a world surrounded by laced canopies and regal jewelry—she worked for her friendships with her own strength and she wouldn't have it any other way.

But right now, she wants someone to walk into her house and take her by the hand into the evening air underneath the Nibelheim stars, and she wonders maybe if princesses felt the same way she feels right now. She doesn't want a silly knight in shining armor (she always thought those full suits of armors in the books looked ridiculous), she just wants someone to take her outside.

(She thought that the only reason her father didn't let her out was because she snuck out once and it had landed her in comatose for seven days (at least, that's what Papa said), until word reaches her ears that small fights have been starting randomly throughout their small town) (and she doesn't hide the surprise and confusion on her face when she learns from her friend that the black eye he got was from Cloud, and it was Cloud who was picking the small fights)

(Was that why her father didn't let her go outside as much anymore?)

-o-

She is walking home from school when she feels someone tap her shoulder. She turns and she almost lets out a little gasp in surprise when she sees Cloud withdrawing his hand, shyly. She doesn't fail to notice the bandage on his cheek, the scruff marks on his elbows, and the bruises on his knees. But the bandages and bruises don't stop her—they don't ever stop her—from letting her gaze wander to his blue, blue eyes.

"Hi…Tifa." It is the first time she hears his voice. It is soft, quiet, and along with his blue eyes he almost seems wise and so much older than she is, even though she was only his minor by a season of fall and winter.

Her voice comes out in an awkward squeak she didn't even know her voice was capable of."Hi Cloud."

"Could you…would you meet me at the well tonight? I want to tell you something."

Her heart almost skips a beat and it makes a sound that rings in her ears and she almost asks but why because she knows what that well is and what it means for two people to meet there. "To…night?"

"Yeah. If that's okay, of course," he adds hastily. He looks to the side and shoves his hands in his pockets. "I wouldn't want to bother you."

She shakes her head. "I'll be there tonight. Um, Papa doesn't want me out past eight, so…"

"Then seven-thirty. It won't be long, I promise."

She nods. "Okay."

She waves him farewell and doesn't ignore the light pitter-patter of her heart. It rings in her ears like a familiar melody that she doesn't have the right notes for.

Tifa goes back home and rummages desperately through her closets, her drawers, under her bed, and even in the kitchen cupboards. Where is it? She glances at the clock and her eyes widen at the time. Seven-twenty? She scratches the back of her head and crosses her arms in contemplation. Where could it be?

She stops and glances up. Her parent's room. Tifa opens the door and stares at her mother's closet. Years ago she would have refused to go near it because it smelled and felt too much like Mama, and her eight-year-old self couldn't handle it. But now, it was sitting there, like some sort of enchanting melody. She grapss the handle on the closet and opens the door.

Her eyes light up. Found it.

She walks downstairs and tells her father that she's going to go outside for just a minute, and he shoots her a small smile and tells her, "Just be back by eight, okay?"

Tifa lets out a little gasp as soon as she steps outside. The evening air greets her like an old friend, a rare swirl of stars in the skies singing a song to her and for once, she really does feel like a princess—not surrounded by pink and jewelry and dashing heroes, but underneath the luxury of the Nibelheim stars and breathing in the crisp mountain air that makes her lungs sing.

She walks up to the well and sees him sitting on the edge, dangling his legs, and for a moment she watches him: his spiky yellow hair fluttering in the wind, his blue eyes staring downwards and watching his brown shoes play in the open air.

"Hi, sorry I'm late."

He looks up and his eyes widen in surprise. He blinks, and then he smiles-he smiles.

His smile, she decides triumphantly in her mind, is just as pretty as his blue-eyes.

He tells her that he's going to join SOLDIER, and she lets her feet dangle in her bright blue shoes and she pats the hem of her bright turquoise dress—a dress her mother gave her for her seventh birthday with a warm smile telling her that she should wear this dress for the greater occasions because the color suited her—because she figured that tonight would be a good night to wear the dress.

She looks at the stars and the image burns so brightly in her mind, the song they sing ringing so clearly in her ears, the air so clear filling her lungs deep, and she can't help but think that, maybe she's not a helpless princess waiting in the towers, but a girl with all of the luxuries in her small life with the right turquoise dress for the moment, and all that's left is…

He tilts his head in confusion at her request for a promise. She lets her legs dangle and slips her hands underneath her legs and tells him.

"Whenever I'm in trouble my hero will come rescue me. I want to at least experience that once."

It doesn't sound right on her lips to tell him that she just wants someone to be her hero to her Nibelheim-princess, that the moment just needs the image of a hero to complete the melody, but when she tugs on his sleeve to make the promise for him to come rescue her and be her hero, somehow it sings a song that feels even more right in her thirteen-year-old bones.

She goes to bed that night thinking of the nighttime stars and eyes as blue as the daytime sky.

-o-

One by one, her friends start to leave town. She hugs them each and waves them farewell, calling out to them and telling them to write back.

And finally, Cloud leaves. She watches from her window as he hugs his mother—he is taller than her now, standing half a head taller than her and a head taller than his small mother—and she runs downstairs—"Where are you going, Tifa?" her father calls out, but she's running too fast to give him a real answer—and she stops at the bottom of her front doorsteps, listening to the sound of her panting breath.

She watches him walk off and she almost yells out to tell him good-bye, almost lets her legs carry her forward and run up to him and hug him fiercely to wish him good luck…

…but instead, she drops her hand to her side and watches him walk off.

Cloud is going to join SOLDIER. He's going to become someone, grow stronger, and one day he'll come back stronger than ever.

She decides, as she walks back into the house, she wasn't going to be those silly princesses locked in towers waiting for their hero. She's not going to let him swoop in and save her like some frilly prince-charming, like some dumb love story.

He's going to get stronger, and so will she. Never mind princesses and heroes, she thinks. She's going to be tough enough to handle things on her own. She's going to be as good as a hero that he'll be, and just as strong as him. She's not going to be the incompetent one.

And when he actually does save her, it'll be an even greater moment of strength for him, won't it?

She walks back upstairs and smiles at her father's quizzical look as she passes by and sits on the piano bench.

And for the first time in years, she lets her fingertips press down on the ivory keys and the sounds come out right in her ears.

-o-

(One month later a travelling martial arts teacher visits their town.)

(Her name is the first on his sign-up list.)

A/N: Whew! Originally I was going to do a study on her entire life, but when I got to the last paragraph I was like huh. This is a good ending point, actually.

One way of looking at Tifa is that underneath the fighting shell is someone who just wants another person to take care of her, hence her secret desire for a hero, hence that promise. But I think that's something that develops later in her life, not when she's a kid. As a kid, I think the real part about her was discovering her own strength and learning that it's okay to have some help (and I'm sure in ways she's still learning how to do that)- isn't that part of what being a kid's about?

Anyways. That's my shpeal on that. I don't know if that made much sense. I did enjoy writing this though.