Traces of Two Pasts
Episode 1 - Tifa’s Path
It starts with Tifa looking out over the grasslands [outside of Midgar], when Aerith asks her if she is used to walking through plains and wastelands like this. Aerith said that she always wanted to go on a picnic but if this is what they’re like then she’s not bothered, and Tifa corrects her that what they’re doing is more ‘hiking’ than ‘picnic.’ Aerith asks if Tifa has had a picnic before, to which she replies that she did in Nibelheim but they used to call them ‘tea parties’ instead. Aerith asks to hear about them, which leads into a flashback.
***
Describes the history of Nibelheim, which started as somewhere people going to Mt. Nibel looking for rare plants and animals could get food and rest. Eventually it attracts the attention of Shinra, who needed somewhere to conduct cutting edge research away from the interference of the Republic of Junon （ジュノン共和国）. They started to build what would later become known as the Shinra Manor in 1960, a year after discovering mako energy, followed by the Nibel reactor with labourers brought from around the world. Construction was completed in 1968, and that 8 year period was the peak of activity for the village. After that Shinra only left the people charged with managing their facilities and eventually the aging reactor was left out of commision due to degradation. The only thing supporting the village economically was the fees for land use and trust money from Shinra. The people knew they couldn’t maintain the village on that, when Shinra could cut them off at any moment, but no one would voice those worries.
***
Back to the present, with Tifa telling Aerith about how the only children near her age were four boys and they would play together as a group of four. One of the four boys was Cloud, who Tifa said wouldn’t take part and often started fights which led to his reputation as a dangerous weirdo.
***
Flashback, Tifa is born in May 1987 to father Brian Lockhard and mother Thea （テア）, who would die of illness 7 years later leaving Brian to raise Tifa on his own. The women of the village would help out, teaching Tifa things like sewing and cooking. Nibelheim still retained an old way of life from the Republic. Men went out and worked while women protected the home, and a woman’s happiness depended on the man she would spend her life with.
Tifa had grown up with the three boys who formed her regular friend group: Emilio, Lester, and Taylor（エミリオ、レスター、テイラー）. They were all the first children in their families, and their mothers were also close. But after Thea’s death, people started to treat Tifa as the ‘poor little girl.’ When she turned 10 the boys also changed and started recognising her as a potential romantic partner. She didn’t dislike the attention but would get stumped when one of them invited her to spend time alone. She didn’t want to hurt them so she would pretend she didn’t pick up on them hinting about their feelings and get out of invites with vague answers.
Eventually the boys start talking about leaving the village. They have different dreams like rising the ranks at Shinra or becoming rich in Midgar, but they all say the same things about supporting or looking after Tifa. To them, she’s a trophy for winning, proof they’ve made it.
On her 12th birthday her father gets her a pair of sandals that are currently trendy in Midgar, although they aren’t particularly suited to walking around the village. While she’s carefully watching her steps outside she runs into the village chief Zonder （ゾンダー）. For her birthday he lets her pick a kitten from the litter that was recently born at his house. She picks one, named Maru （マル） by Zonder, but on the way home Maru tried to wriggle free and as Tifa attempts to hold on to the cat she loses her balance and falls. The village doctor Sanc （サンク） tells her she has sprained her ankle.
***
In the present, Tifa tells Aerith that in the end her sandals were ruined, she ended up bed-ridden for a week with a fever from an infection from the graze she got in the fall, and Maru escaped because her father would constantly leave the door open.
***
People visit Tifa to wish her well but she gets tired of it after the first day. She wants some time to herself and to go out and look for Maru and practice walking again but her father says it will have to wait until after tomorrow as he has to go up into the mountain to do repairs on the path to the reactor. Tifa says she can do it on her own, and her father reluctantly agrees as long as she promises to stay in the village and take it easy on her ankle. The next morning just as her father leaves for the mountain their neighbour, Claudia Strife, comes around. She has Maru, who she said Cloud found at the entrance to the mountain. Tifa is surprised that Cloud knew about Maru.
Now with Tifa lacking an excuse to go outside, Emilio turns up with a basket of food and drink and suggests going to the basin of the waterfall to practice walking. He says that her father had asked him to help Tifa, which she believes he inferred some special meaning behind. As they leave Lester shows up with a basket, and as they are looking for somewhere dry to sit at the basin Taylor appears. Her father seems to have asked all three to help her.
While they have their food, the boys talk about Midgar. On the way back as the boys have a minor disagreement as to what counts as a ‘picnic’ Tifa suggests calling it a ‘tea party’ based on a photo she saw of her mother’s grandparents from the days of the Republic. The boys agree to go with the name Tifa likes best. Their tea parties continued, with steadily decreasing frequency, until the boys left the village.
***
In the present, Tifa talks about how she thought of Midgar as something of a rival because that’s all the boys would talk about, and how she would want to wear what was popular there and started baking sweets to get the boys’ attention.
***
As the summer when the boys were leaving the village approaches Tifa starts getting sentimental. She decides to make a cake especially for a tea party and goes to the general store (where Emilio lives) for any missing ingredients. As she stands in front of the shop she senses someone looking at her, and turns to see Cloud. He meets her gazes instead of his usual behaviour of averting his eyes and going off somewhere. He says something but she can’t hear, then suddenly runs up to her. She almost runs away but he stops before bumping into her and quickly blurts out, “Midnight. At the water tower.” As soon as she answers Cloud darts off, leading Tifa to do the same for some reason. She forgets all about her shopping.
Back home she goes to her room and sits on the floor holding Maru, and thinks back to the last time Cloud had spoken to her. It was when Maru had gone missing, which happened numerous times since that first escape. Tifa was at the entrance to the mountain calling Maru’s name when Cloud walked down from the mountain. Without making eye contact, he says Maru is just past the entrance and continues walking back to the village. Then he stops and turns around, asking if Tifa hasn’t been feeding Maru, who was eating a bird. Tifa snaps back that she does, and goes into the mountain to find Maru with a mouth covered in blood.
Tifa wonders when that was. When they were little she and Cloud would often play together, which happened naturally being neighbours. She recalls a memory from when she was about 6 or 7, of her mother saying that Cloud has a lovely face and her father looking displeased. She wonders what caused them to drift apart. Her father knocks on her door and says he’s going to bed early, then when everyone is asleep she puts on her green dress and heads out.
~ Page 22
It’s a long book!
