[ everyone and their very specific triggers... anyway i'm sorry this is late i had to learn how to write emotional gravitas again after rectangles

there's a lot to absorb about this scene without context, a world-shattering threat and the howls of an entire planet's worth of pain. that, and the framing of everything that aerith mentions gives him plenty to chew on when the scene ends, the tiniest furrow in his usually stoic brow. ]

...I'm usually a believer in fate. But I do think people have been taken very far from their paths, here.

[ ... ]

What was all that?