FicWad

When they were younger, Tifa's teacher - the man who taught her to fight, the man who would eventually carry her all the way to Midgar after Nibelheim - used to tell her that a fight was a dance and a duel was beauty.

The first time Cloud dragged himself out of the mud, fingers clenched around his gun so tightly they had to be prised away one at a time, he remembered that - a fight is a dance, Tifa, and a duel is beauty. Do you understand? He'd laughed, harsh and breathless, even as he'd been carried to the infirmary.

Now, he watches Tifa fight. Tifa never exactly smiles when she fights, but there's - a joy to her movements, like the only time she can let them see her relaxing is when she's dragging a fiend out of the sky, or backhanding something twice her size into a tree. She moves fast and - graceful is the word he thinks of, but graceful isn't the word that describes a fiend dropping from the sky with its claws spread, and that's what he thinks of when he sees her.

A fight is a dance he thinks, one of the few things he remembers that Tifa won't look uncertain about. It isn't, he knows that - there's too much blood, too much pain, too much - but watching Tifa battle, he thinks he understands.