Chapter Text
There was a popular song, just after the Wutai War, every bar, dance hall and elevator in Midgar was playing it.
Oh won’t you dance for me, Lady fair,
Weaving the moonlight through your hair?
I always sought your music there,
Where lesser men would seldom dare.
One evening, a group of TURK and SOLDIER were sitting in a bar in Wall Market. One of the young men laughed, and changed the words.
Come dance to the drum-beats, Gypsy Fair,
Woven magic in your hair,
As though the darkness wouldn’t dare,
To steal the power from you there.
One of the TURKs, a slm youth with dark braids scowled.
"Not funny, Zack." The rest of the group thought it hilarious, but nearby, a wannabe singer took those impromptu words, and made a hit from them. It became popular even as far away as Nibelheim.
A lecture on the Cetra by Gypsy Fair.
“It’s really very simple, the Cetra are... let’s just call them Galactic Nomads for now, the various Cetra tribes travel from world to world, fixing problems that have arisen. Some do decide to settle on the planet that they have landed on, and some move on and travel to the next world. The ones that remain are not simply being lazy, they are... caretakers, I guess, since they remain to keep an eye on the situation that the main tribe left behind. Now, Aerith and I are descended from one Cetra tribe, but that tribe is not the one that landed here just prior to Jenova’s arrival. There are very few survivors of that particular tribe, because of Jenova’s virus. I do know that there is one in the TURKs, but this information is classified, Only the top four ranking TURKs know exactly who the Cetra TURK is, and no, I’m not going to say who it is.”
“The Top four? Who are they?”
“Tseng, Reno, Rude, and myself. Anyway. Aerith is regarded higher than I am by the Planet, since she was actually born here, even though the Cetra tribe she comes from is not the ‘native’ one for this world. Now, that’s the Cetra. There is almost always some kind of ‘native’ race on the worlds that the Cetra visit. Here there were two sentient races, that we know of. There was the various human tribes, and there is Red’s race. The Shin-Ra, however, are not native. The family is descended from another galactic nomadic group. I don’t have all the details, but the Mako reactors, indeed, much of the mechanical development that marks where the Shin-Ra company has been is actually far advanced of what the native humans of this world should have been capable of producing for a very, very long time. Most of the world should have been more in line with Wutai, in terms of how developed they were technologically. You still see signs of it in a lot of places, where there is ‘magic’ instead of technology making something work, it’s only when Shin-Ra come in, with the Mako reactors and the related technology, that the various towns become more advanced. Even the coal mines of Corel were more advanced than Gaia was ready to support culturally at that point. Further to that. The only known remnants of that race were President Shin-Ra, and Rufus. The blood of that race have thinned greatly, but there are a few genetic ‘tells’ that still show in the Shin-Ra line. Now, what does that have to do with us? I’ll tell you. The President had all the ‘tells’ that crop up in the Shin-Ra line, Rufus is his legitimate son, and he also has a few of those ‘tells’. Interestingly, Director Lazard also had some of those ‘tells’, and his hidden file in the company actually says so. There is, however, one more person with some of those genetic giveaways, and that is Cloud. Again, his hidden company file states what these ‘tells’ are, and notes that his mother was once one of the President’s mistresses. The chances are astronomical that Cloud is the President’s illegitimate son.
Also in Cloud’s hidden file is the fact that he should have been in SOLDIER long before the Nibelheim mission. There was a seal on his file, likely placed by Hojo. Undoubtedly, he was planning on using Cloud to investigate some of the more unusual Shin-Ra traits. The seal concealed his likely parentage, the existence of the Shin-Ra traits that he has, and the fact that he was definitely SOLDIER material.
A conversation overheard:
Gypsy? 's prob'ly a bad time, but ya need ta hear this. Hojo gave the order.
Then Aerith?
Yeah. There's gonna be one pissed ex-SOLDIER tearin' through HQ real soon. 're we makin' the call?
How long can you give me?
One hour. Any longer'n they'll ask questions we can't answer.
Right. I'll need every second of that hour. I likely won't do anything until he's in the building.
Alright, I c'n count't from then. Make it count, Gypsy.
I will, Reno. Be safe.
You too, kid.