falsamilitis:

       ❝That simple, huh.❞

Maybe a tad too simple, in his opinion— because who in their right mind would willingly wander around the Sleeping Forest alone, without the Lunar Harp, and without any obvious means to defend themselves?

Especially a child.

But perhaps he was fueled on little else but both suspicion and paranoia. Cloud’s life had never been a straight-forward thing. There would always be complications, bumps in the road, plain old disappointments and—

              tragedy

                                        —but perhaps he could be hopeful in the potential that he was alone in such a thing. That a child could wander off on little else but a whim and still manage alright. That something hadn’t pushed them to leave their home or their family, or that they wouldn’t snapped up by the wrong kind of people or a wandering monster on the way.

Or maybe she was just an orphan with nowhere else to go.

And an instant frown would form across the pallid span of his face. Soft. Worried. Subtle.  

       ❝—Do you have anyone to go back to?❞

         _{That was one question that she was, ultimately, not prepared to answer. After all, it wasn’t like people oftentimes inquired if she had anyone to return to. Somewhere to go perhaps, a place to return to she certainly had, but a person? In the end there wasn’t really anyone that she definitely returned to, absolutely went back to, because she existed alone.}

                  _{For a moment her thoughts went to Ace, because he was her friend and she saw him willingly and often enough that she supposed that, technically, she would return to him. But at the same time that was inaccurate, because while she cared for him and he cared for her in such a context it was an incorrect statement.}

                           _{And, just for a moment, the slightest moment, her thoughts went to Aerith. To the couch that was unfailingly offered to her and a warm and inviting smile, a woman who was extensively kind to her—}

                                             _{But then that thought was gone.}

         _{To say that she had Aerith to return to was the equivalent to admitting that yes, she certainly would always go to the woman, burden her with her presence. That was something that she had been trying her best to avoid, and even if in that moment saying her name would simply get her out of telling the whole truth it felt wrong to.}

                                    _{Yet there was a frown on this man’s face and
                                                      she did not want to say no.}

                                             _{”—In a way.”}