Tifa Lockhart

Tifa was born on May 3, 1987, in Nibelheim to Brian Lockhart and his wife, Thea Lockhart. As a child, she was outgoing and played with friends named the "Four Fiends": Emilio, Tyler, and Lester, each around the same age as her. Though Cloud was separated by only a year in age, the two used to hang out together. However, after Thea’s death, the two had drifted apart and were not close. Thea died when Tifa was eight years old in 1995, leaving Tifa upset and confused and causing her to grow apart from her friends. Coping with her trauma, Tifa came to believe that her mother had gone to Mt. Nibel and that she could meet her again if she crossed the mountain. Tifa headed off to Mt. Nibel with the Four Fiends and Cloud followed to protect her. Instead, her friends turned back, and Tifa took a misstep on a rickety bridge; Cloud tried to catch her, but they both fell. Her father found her severely injured, in a coma for seven days, and blamed Cloud for what happened. Tifa's memory of the event is hazy. In the years after Thea passed, other women in the village helped teach Tifa skills that Brian could not, such as how to cook and sew. In Tifa's adolescence, her male friends began to see her as a future romantic partner, although she would respond with vague silence to their invitations, pretending not to catch them to avoid hurting their feelings. Tifa instead grew a connection to a white cat she owned named Fluffy, gifted to her by Zander on her twelfth birthday. After spraining her ankle, when Fluffy leapt from her arms, the village chased after her cat to no avail.