Name: Aeris Gainsborough
Job: Flower Merchant
Age: 22
Weapon: Rod
Height: 5'4"
Birthdate: February 7th
Birthplace: Unknown (Icicle Inn)
Blood Type: O
Aeris Gainsborough, also popularly known as Aeris, was born in the Icicle Inn to Professor Gast Faremis and the last true Cetra, Ifalna. Professor Gast was performing research on the Cetra's past, and while studying Ifalna, he fell in love with her. In two years together, Aeris was born. Shortly following her birth, Shin-Ra soldiers attacked the family, killed Professor Gast and captured Aeris and Ifalna. In Midgar, seven years later, Ifalna and Aeris escaped their captors and traveled to the Sector 7 slums; Ifalna had become ill and entrusted Aeris to Elmyra Gainsborough, who became her adoptive mother before Ifalna passed away. Aeris was troubled by her special abilities and often disregarded her ancestry and powers as a Cetra. She had become a constant target of Shin-Ra due to her abilities.
As Aeris grew older, she found comfort in working at a church in the slums, caring for the flowers that had blossomed in such rarity. Under bizarre circumstances, Cloud came crashing through the roof of her church. When the Turks invaded the church looking for Aeris, she hired Cloud as a bodyguard for the cost of one date and they returned home safely to Elmyra for the time being. Later, however, Aeris was finally captured by Shin-Ra. Shin-Ra confirmed Aeris to be a Cetra, and in her discovery of this, Aeris decided to set out on a journey to assist Cloud and to learn more about the Ancients.
Aeris is undoubtedly the light of Final Fantasy VII, as many of her surroundings symbolize what little is left of a typical ethereal romanticism in a world overrun by the many technological and tyrannical advancements bred by humankind. Her tragic death scene is one of the most heart-rendering and controversially negative topics in Final Fantasy, if not, RPG history – that of which many still linger on to this very day. She is aware of her feelings and presents them in a way that may catch others off guard due to her forthright desire to be open with her emotions. For this reason, Square’s implied goal to show the night and day contrast between the two female leads, both Aeris and Tifa, have lead many to take sides and declare a love that was never formally admitted by Cloud himself, on account of either women; Square accomplished this pleasantry quite gracefully. Aeris is the holder of many of our hearts simply because she is truly alive among a planet that barely has any breath left. Her strong sense of who she is allows her a very courageous guide until her final prayer and until fate devastatingly marks her end.
"When Aeris was a child, her mother, Ifalna, had given her materia she
had kept safe within the ribbon of her hair. Aeris had always thought this
materia was useless, However, at the City of the Ancients, her materia was
actually the most powerful materia called “White Materia.” The magic within it
could have unleashed the power of Holy, the energy needed to stop Sephiroth.
Aeris had prayed for a way to rid of Sephiroth and as she knelt to pray,
Sephiroth descended and pierced her body with the blade of his Masamune. Cloud
lowered her body into a lake in the Ancient City."
