Chapter Text
Aerith had been in trouble before, but never quite like this.
She had only intended to do Moggie a favor, venturing this far into Scrap Boulevard in search of another of those medals he collected. It was his birthday soon, and he'd been kind enough to say he'd grant her a wish in return. And maybe it had been a stupid idea to wish for a taste of adventure, but it wasn't like Aerith knew it would kick in this quickly. Or even at all.
This kind of monstrous hound wasn't anything Aerith couldn't handle on its own, but she couldn't take the whole pack with only her staff to defend herself. One was fine, but the rest of the pack arrived before the fight was over. That meant that she had to shift from the offensive to the defensive, and from there, she went from the defensive to the panicked.
Shit.
After taking a deep breath, Aerith let out a battle cry that might as well have been a scream, charging at the leader in the hopes of dealing more damage than her ranged materia, but the beast just swatted her aside like she was nothing. Her back hit a boulder hard, and her vision went blurry as she fell to the ground hard enough to drive the remaining breath from her lungs. Only after this did she realize that she had lost hold of her staff.
Aerith waited for brutal fangs to tear into her, but the vicious growls that had been approaching suddenly stopped. And then, judging by the sound of alarmed barks and yelps, it sounded like someone else had attacked the monsters. Had someone come to rescue her?
Turning her head with difficulty, Aerith found the pack of wild dogs facing off against another beast. This one resembled an enormous dark cat, from what she could tell. Perhaps a black leopard, but those weren't supposed to live inside the city limits, right? And they weren't that big. But Aerith didn't really have the luxury of complaining about the nature of her savior. She just hoped it wouldn't notice her after it was done with the pack.
The battle ended quickly, the silence pressing down on Aerith after the last whimper was cut off. Even the city she knew was so close at hand did not reach her ears over her pounding heartbeat. But pawsteps advancing toward her did. The giant cat paced toward Aerith and sat down beside her, and she tensed. Could she run? She wasn't sure how responsive her body was after all that, but if she hadn't succumbed to a pack of dogs, then she wasn't about to let one cat kill her.
But then, to her utter astonishment, the leopard transformed into a young man.
"Female, are you okay?"
Aerith knew it wasn't polite to stare, but manners were the last thing on her mind right now. The stranger's hair was as black as his fur had been, complete with rounded feline ears. His eyes were a light shade of blue, his pupils narrowing to slits even as Aerith observed him. His features looked young, maybe early twenties like Aerith herself, and there was concern written all over his face. There were three stripes on his face that looked to be tattooed on—two on one cheek and one on the other, though it felt balanced since the cheek with one stripe was also scarred.
Also, as Aerith's eyes wandered down, she discovered that the stranger was apparently naked.
That part caught her off guard, and she jolted back to reality, heartbeat kicking into high gear. But as she looked up again, she found that his expression had not changed. Okay, so somehow his nakedness had no bearing on his behavior, since he didn't look like he had any interest in forcing himself on her. His nudity was just… a fact, the same way it was a fact that Aerith was wearing a dress.
Making an effort to calm down, Aerith remembered that the stranger had asked her a question, and scrambled to answer it. "Uh… yes. Thank you for saving me." She wasn't totally sure whether that had actually been what had happened, but the fact of the matter was that he had shown up and killed or driven off the wild dogs, and he was asking if she was all right.
"Of course!" exclaimed the young man. Paying more attention to his voice now, she found that it was lighter than she would have expected, given that she had first seen him as a ferocious leopard. "It's a male's job to save a female in distress."
Aerith frowned. That was unexpectedly chivalrous for anyone in the heart of Midgar, but then again, this guy was obviously insane. Or maybe Aerith was the crazy one—she must have hallucinated his transformation. Anyone who would hang out in Scrap Boulevard completely naked must be crazy too, but at least he seemed to have his heart in the right place. Even if he was staring at her just as intently as she had originally stared at him, only with no sign of snapping out of it. "Is there something on my face?"
The young man shook his head. "You're pretty." The compliment was offered with complete honesty and, Aerith felt, no ulterior motives. That was unusual. Most of the people who hit on her were after something, but she couldn't tell what this one wanted from her. The way he was gazing at her, he just seemed to be in awe of her beauty. Aerith had to admit that it was more than a little flattering to be looked at like that.
Still, there were more important things to consider at the moment. Aerith's view down here was limited, and she'd like to be able to scan the area for more danger, especially if this stranger was so absorbed in looking at her. "Can you help me sit up?"
Almost immediately, the young man moved to help, and she glanced around. The rock formations looked similar, but she wasn't from this sector, so she couldn't tell if they were exactly the same. But… maybe 'this sector' didn't exist anymore. Aerith could see no sign of civilization anywhere. Not among the stones and dust, nor stretching to the sky behind her. There was only the sound of wind.
Realizing that she had somehow gotten more lost than should have been physically possible, Aerith felt like the ground had fallen out from under her. Where on Gaia was she?
"Are you lost?" asked the young man, and Aerith looked back over at him, feeling almost as dazed as when she had hit that rock. "You must be. No females go out in the wild like that, especially not without their mates."
The wild? Mates…? Aerith blinked a few times, trying to get her bearings. Maybe she hadn't been hallucinating him as a big cat after all, if he was speaking like an animal. And, wait, did his people have more than one mate? This was all so much to take in. The most Aerith could think was that this stranger was assuming she was also like him in some way, referring to her as a 'female' like that.
"Hello?" asked the stranger, waving his hand in front of Aerith's face.
She swatted at him weakly, relieved that her body worked well enough for her to react like that, and Zack snatched his hand back instantly. "Yes, I'm lost," said Aerith, still trying to figure out the best way to spin this. If she was expected to know anything about her situation, it might be a good idea to pretend she had amnesia, or something. "I… I don't remember how I got here."
"You don't remember?" asked the young man, looking suddenly alarmed. "Oh no! I didn't see any blood, so I thought you were fine, but… you must have hit your head." He hung his head, his ears flattening along the tops. "How could I have let this happen?"
"It's fine," said Aerith, alarmed by how discouraged Zack looked. If he had been so fixated on saving her, he must have taken it as a personal failing that anything had happened to her. "I'm okay. I just… can't remember much of anything." Technically, that was a lie, but she didn't feel bad about it in the slightest. If she had found herself in a totally different culture or even world, the result was the same. She didn't know anything about this place or the people within it.
The young man looked over at her again, wide-eyed. "Not even your people?" he asked incredulously, and Aerith shook her head. At least it seemed this stranger bought her story, because there was no suspicion in the way he looked her up and down. "Looking at the way you're dressed… I've only ever seen fabric like that at the coast, and I've never seen foot coverings like that at all. Maybe you're one of the merfolk."
Merfolk? That all but confirmed Aerith's earlier thought that everyone here was an animal of some sort, though she hadn't guessed that there was so much variety. "Maybe."
"But they keep their females so close to home, and they can't stay out of the water for long." The young man shifted his stance, and something furry brushed against Aerith's hand. She looked down in some alarm to find that he had a tail, too. "You must have run away from home or something, to have ended up here."
"I… really don't know." Talk of home made Aerith uncomfortable, reminded of the fact that she hadn't stopped to tell her mother where she'd gone. She'd have to find a way back home as soon as possible if she didn't want Mom to worry herself sick, but… that would have to take a back seat to handling her current situation. She could deal with trying to make her way to familiar territory once she found somewhere safe to stay.
"Well, don't worry. Whatever happens, I'll protect you." Grinning, the young man tapped Aerith's chin with a couple fingers as if telling her to cheer up—probably misinterpreting her distraction—and she jumped. "I saved you, so I'll be your male!"
Aerith blinked a couple times. Anything she might have said about the concept of being protected by a stranger was completely offset by his statement. Her male? "Excuse me?"
"Your male," repeated the young man as though it was obvious, apparently having forgotten that Aerith had claimed to be an amnesiac. "Maybe it's different for the merfolk, but out here, if a male saves a female, he gets to be her mate. So you're mine now!"
"Just like that?" asked Aerith, raising her eyebrows. This stranger was admittedly cute (and well-endowed), but she did like to at least get to know potential partners before anything else. Especially since, even if he had mentioned multiple mates earlier, she had no idea how that was supposed to work in practice. "At least tell me your name first."
The young man's eyes went wide. "Oh, right!" he exclaimed, pointing to himself proudly. "I'm Zack, a male leopard."
"Yes, I can see that," said Aerith, glancing down and then back up again. Considering his state of undress, it really wasn't necessary for Zack to point out that he was male, and she had seen him transform. "I'm Aerith."
"Aerith," repeated Zack, looking almost comically starry-eyed. "Even your name is pretty."
It felt a little weird to receive so many compliments from a total stanger, but it was a nice departure from being objectified in a more lewd way. Aerith couldn't really take offense to being called pretty so earnestly the way she could to wolf-whistling. "Thanks," she said, and meant it a little bit more than usual. "You're not so bad, yourself. But why aren't you wearing anything?"
Zack had been glowing at Aerith's returned compliment, his cheeks as rosy as if he had never heard such praise before, but he sobered at the question that followed. Tilting his head, he gave Aerith a confused frown. "I just transformed."
Right… so transforming didn't include clothes. Good to know. Aerith nodded in understanding, then looked around, feeling a little uncomfortable for reasons that had nothing to do with the conversation. Maybe it was the fact that she had been moving around a lot, or the fact that she was beginning to feel the sun beating down on her, but it was a little bit warm. "I'd love to keep talking, but can we do it someplace that isn't the middle of nowhere?"
"Oh, right," said Zack, looking a little bit sheepish, and glanced up as if he hadn't even noticed the sun. "Yeah, I'll bring you back to my house. But…" He hesitated. "You're the most beautiful female I've ever seen, and we're not mates yet. What if someone else tries to steal you?"
Aerith couldn't help but give a small smile at the extravagance of Zack's praise. It helped that he didn't seem interested in forcing himself on her, despite his lack of clothing. "Well, you saved me, right? That's already a point in your favor."
"Right, right," said Zack, looking immensely relieved. He must have been more insecure than he looked. "That's good to hear. I mean, I know I'll need to get used to sharing a female eventually, but I really wish I could have a mate all for myself."
Huh. So mating wasn't just a one-time offer after all. "I'm sure you'll be able to find one." Zack was certainly handsome enough to warrant an exclusive partner, at least in Aerith's estimation.
To her surprise, Zack's face fell, his ears drooping. "Where would I? In my village, there's only one female for every ten males, and they don't take that many mates. I'm sure it's not much different anywhere else."
That explained a lot. Zack's insistence on putting females first suddenly made sense. Judging by the numbers, females could probably have multiple mates, but males naturally couldn't. That was sure a raw deal. "Well, you've already made a good impression," said Aerith truthfully. There was something about Zack that she found endearing. He almost seemed more like a puppy than a leopard. "Keep it up, and I'd be happy to be your mate." If she could have more than one anyway, then what was stopping her? (At least until she could find a way to leave this place.)
"Really?!" Zack's countenance brightened immediately, and he helped Aerith to her feet so enthusiastically his grip was almost painful. But it didn't enter Aerith's head to complain about it. As they rose, she discovered that he was a full head taller than her, and marveled at his immaculate proportions. "Then let's go to my house. You can ride on my back."
"Wait," said Aerith, as Zack transformed into a black leopard again. As beautiful as he was, black fur glossy and shining almost blue in the sunlight, Aerith was too preoccupied to admire him much in the moment. "I think I dropped something."
Zack couldn't speak in this form, but tilted his head as if asking what it was. Rather than answer his wordless question, Aerith looked around, but saw no sign of her staff anywhere. Gingerly, she moved to search various nooks and crannies in case it had been flung elsewhere. Zack searched too, though he must have had no idea what they were looking for. After a short time, he bumped his head against her—she almost fell over at the force of his nudge—to present her with an interestingly textured rock, a hopeful look in his eyes after he spat it out.
Once Aerith was reasonably sure she'd looked around the whole area, she heaved a despondent sigh. She must have lost her grip on it before she ended up here. "Never mind," she mumbled, climbing onto Zack's back, and held tightly to his fur. A Cure materia really could have helped her in an unfamiliar place, to say nothing of the staff that went with it. At least she could make herself another of the latter, even without actually useful materia to augment its capabilities. (The materia in her hair bow, useless as it was, didn't count.)
After walking forward and bowing his head to take one of the smaller dogs' carcasses carefully in his mouth, Zack lurched into faster motion with no warning. Yelping, Aerith flattened herself against his back to make sure she didn't fall off. At least trying to stay on was enough to keep her distracted for now, because she got the vague feeling she might lose the rest of her composure once they arrived at their destination.
This was certainly more of an adventure than she had bargained for.