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rune-writes · 1 year ago

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Spruce Tea

Fandom: Final Fantasy VII

Word Count: 2008

Rating: G

Pairing: Cloud Strife/Tifa Lockhart

Summary: Autumn of 0002. An infantryman suffered an attack outside of the Nibel Reactor after protecting Tifa. Hoping to help alleviate the pain, Tifa climbs the mountain once more in search of spruce leaves, which her mother once said is good for one's health.

Note: written for @clotiweek 2023 Day 1: Spruce - Healing.

Read on AO3.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Mother said spruce tea was good to for one’s health—

Tifa thought as she slowly made her way through the dead leaves littering the forest floor. Pick the ones on the lower branches, wash them, brew them. They used to keep a jar of it all year when her mother was still around. Tifa used to believe that was all her mother needed to get better, so she’d learned everything she could about the tree—where best to forage it, how to best extract its properties—but of course that had all been wishful thinking. No herb could save her mother, if modern medicines couldn’t. Still, the knowledge hadn’t all been for naught.

Tifa adjusted the shoulder strap of her satchel. Nibel mountain in the fall always looked especially beautiful. An orange glow permeated the red-and-brown foliage, seeming to turn everything it touched into gold. The breeze was cool, rattling the boughs and their leaves and pushing the wide rim of her cowboy hat back. She pushed it back down, securing the cord more firmly beneath her chin.

It had been a while since her last trek through these trees. Her lessons with Zangan would sometimes bring her deep into the forest, but she’d never gone this far alone. Probably that time when she’d climbed the mountain after her mother’s death only to fall down a cliffside. Cloud had taken the blame for it—the adults all saying he was a bad influence, none of them listening to a word she’d said. That had probably been the start of the rift between them. Not that she was particularly close with him before, but they were neighbors and their mothers were friends. She’d thought they could be friends too. But no matter what she did afterwards, the distance always remained. He was so far away. A glance here, a smile there; her father watching them like a hawk.

The line of birches and oaks slowly gave way to browning conifers: firs, pines, cedars. The leaves were still mostly green, though Tifa could spot several browns and yellows. She took a path she vaguely remembered from memory, ducking under an especially low bough of fir. The spruce trees should be just around the corner, she thought.

Somewhere ahead, birds chirped. A gust of wind brought the fresh scent of pine to her nose. Tifa closed her eyes and breathed it in.

“Tifa?”

Tifa stopped in her tracks, lips parting in a half-smile. “Cloud,” she greeted, turning around and expecting to see a fresh-faced blond-haired boy—

No one was there. She blinked, then blinked again. Light shimmered in the empty space, a circle of luminance on the forest floor. Her smile turned to a frown. Of course he was not here. She wasn’t seven. There was no Cloud to come and fetch her.

***

The call had stopped Tifa in her tracks. She turned, then found Cloud in the space next to a birch tree, hand on the trunk as he bent down, catching his breath. Sweat glistened on his forehead.

“Where are you going?” he asked through his still-apparent exertion. He held a stitch on his side. Tifa looked past his shoulder. She’d gotten well away from the village—she could hear no more of the afternoon din from the village square. Had he followed her all the way here?

She turned back around and pointed in the general direction ahead. “Somewhere,” she said. She hadn’t actually been there before. Her mother had only told her of the spruce trees in the mountain. Tifa had seen the leaves kept in a jar at her house, watched whenever her mother took it out and ground them before brewing them in hot water. Her mother only drank it when the coughing fits were worse. She noticed because whenever her father came home and saw her mother in the kitchen with a cup in hand, his lips would always pull taut. I’ll make you tea, he’d say, ushering her mother to their bedroom. Now rest. Her mother always went without much protest.

But then the fits began again that morning. The spruce jar in the cabinet was empty. Her father had been away so she couldn’t ask for his help. She’d meant to tell her mother, but when she’d peeked through the gap in her mother’s bedroom door, she’d glimpsed her propped against the bed frame with her favorite cream shawl wrapped around her thin shoulders. Asleep, or trying to; weary lines made creases across her pale skin. Was it just her or did her mother’s cheeks look even more gaunt than they usually were?

An unwanted thought buried itself in Tifa's mind: that her mother’s health had worsened. So, Tifa had taken it upon herself to look for those spruce leaves up in the mountain. Not that she knew where they grew… She could probably tell from the shape of it, though. She knew them by heart. It shouldn’t be too hard.

When Tifa explained her reasons to Cloud, she was met with a frown.

“Do you know where those trees are?” he asked.

Tifa’s lips pursed in self-defense. “I know they’re up in the mountain.”

“The mountain is huge. By the time you found it, night would have fallen.”

Tifa set her jaws. Her mother was sick. She wasn’t going to let her die.

Tears pricked her eyes. She whirled on her feet, a new sense of purpose in her stride. But Cloud caught up with her, easily keeping pace.

“I’ll take you there,” he mumbled.

She cut him a glance. The frown was still there in the stubborn set of his jaws, but his rich blue eyes stared fixedly ahead. She found herself giggling and her steps slowing down. Pain she hadn’t noticed before shot up her legs, and she realized her shins beneath the hem of her white knee-length dress harbored cuts and grazes, the wounds welling red but not deep enough to bleed.

“Here.” Cloud extended his hand, face angled to the side. With a smile, Tifa grasped his hand and let him lead her to where the spruce trees stood.

***

The trees were where Tifa remembered them. Pride swelled in her chest as her memory indeed proved right. She circled the copse, seeking the right kind of leaves. Not too brittle, not too fresh. A little hard, seeing as most of the evergreen were already transforming to brown or red. But she found it nonetheless, amidst the yellows. Carefully stepping over treacherous ground, Tifa ducked beneath a branch and reached up to touch the hard, needle-like leaves. A small smile formed across her lips. She fished the flip knife from her bag and cut a hefty amount that should last ‘til winter.

The sun had already moved halfway toward the distant horizon by the time Tifa returned to her house. The lamps hadn’t been lit; her father was still out. She crossed to the kitchen, slid her satchel over her head and placed it on the counter. Grabbing a colander from the cabinet, she dumped all the spruce she had gathered, then placed them in the sink and turned the tap water on. She picked away the dirt as she washed the leaves clean, trimming the dead parts out. Then she let them dry on a tray under the patch of sunlight by the window.

When evening fell, Tifa had already packed the leaves away in their glass jar right before her father got home. She already had their dinner ready, laid out on their small table. He noticed the tea.

“What’s this?” he said.

Tifa shrugged, feeling rather self-conscious. “I went out a bit.”

Her father sat down, grabbed the cup, and breathed in the scent. The rough lines of his face twisted in a wash of nostalgia. His lips wavered as he smiled, bringing the ceramic rim to his mouth and taking a sip. He paused, savoring the taste, or perhaps lost in memory.

“It’s good,” he croaked, blinking rapidly. He reached up to wipe the corner of his eye. Tifa hadn’t noticed the tension coiling in her shoulders until she released it in a long, shudder of breath. Her father cleared his throat. “What’s the occasion?”

Tifa’s gaze fell to her dinner: mutton, grilled and coated in gravy, with a side dish of mashed potatoes and peas. “You…heard of the attack at the reactor…right?” Tifa began. “One of the Shinra men got hurt while protecting me. I wanted to make sure he’s alright.” She felt her father’s scrutiny, her own backlash rising at the back of her throat. Her father had been mostly lenient with her autonomy. He’d let her train with Zangan, explore the forest and mountain alone, and become their village’s official guide, but apparently, it was too much to leave her alone in men’s company, even though Tifa could probably break most men’s arms now with a flick of her wrists. She had suspected—still suspected—it was because of her fall, but that had been seven years ago, and the source of his ire—misplaced, though it was—was nowhere in town.

The thought sent a pang to her heart. Two years and not even a letter to say how he was faring. Claudia never showed it on her face, but Tifa knew the absence of news from her son gnawed at her heart.

“I was their guide,” Tifa said again. “I should’ve made sure the path was clear.” It was as much her fault, as the fall had been.

Her father eventually conceded and Tifa beamed. When it was time for her to visit the inn, she grabbed the glass jar she’d set aside for the infantryman and kissed her father’s cheeks. Zack greeted her at the inn’s foyer.

“Ah, you just missed him,” the SOLDIER said after Tifa told him the reason for her visit. “But I’ll pass your message along. Your well wishes too.” He meant to take the jar from Tifa, who had a mind to keep it and give it tomorrow instead. But it would probably be better for the infantryman to have the tea tonight, before duty took him elsewhere. She let Zack take the jar from her.

“Is he alright, though?” she asked. “I thought he’d be in bed for the rest of the day.”

“He’s made some good recovery, yes,” Zack said, then paused, noticing her pout. His face softened. “Don’t worry. He’s tough. He wouldn’t have jumped in front of you like he did otherwise. But I’ll make sure he gets the rest he needs. There was a prior engagement he couldn’t afford to cancel.”

Tifa nodded, his reassurance failing to quiet her concern.

“Speaking of, Tifa,” Zack said again, “about that boy you mentioned.”

“What?”

“The blonde-haired boy.”

Tifa blinked. In her quest to gather spruce leaves, she’d completely forgotten her email to Zack, inquiring after Cloud. Heat quickly rose to her cheeks. “Forget about it!” she said, a tad too forceful. She fumbled, hands waving in front of her. “I’ll, uh, just leave the recipe with you, then.” She crossed to the receptionist table, asked for pen and paper, and wrote down her mother’s recipe for the spruce tea. Zack had a smirk on his face when she handed it to him. It made her bristle, rather self-consciously. She ducked her head, murmured a “bye, then” before withdrawing from the inn, Zack’s quiet chuckle following her retreat.

Outside, fresh, pine-scented wind rolled down from the mountain. Tifa breathed it in, letting it cool her nerves. Across the square, beyond the water tower where Cloud once made his promise, Claudia’s window-lit cottage sat hunched like a small giant next to her own two-story house, with smoke puffing out of the chimney and a pretty arrangement of potted flowers decorating the front. Maybe she’d give the woman a visit tomorrow. Who knows? Claudia might impart some more homemade recipes to her, not least of all her infamous stew. With a silent prayer to the stars for Cloud’s good health and well-being, Tifa slowly made her way back to her house.

~ END ~

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