[15/50 of the 50Shuffle Challenge; Fly With the Black Swan by Sonata Arctica. This was knocked up in a couple of hours… not my best effort, but hey-ho it'll do, I think. :D]
Fly With the Black Swan
~If I'm going down then I'm going down good
If I'm going down then I'm going down clean
If I'm going down then I'm going the prettiest wretched whore that you've ever seen…
Had it been under any other circumstances, Genesis thought he would have quite liked flying.
The sight of Gaia speeding along underneath him was certainly a gloriously freeing sensation; he could delude himself into thinking that it would bend to his wishes, rather than dominating him mercilessly. He could imagine that if anyone had happened to glance up into the sky, they'd see the tiny blot against the heavens and smile, maybe in wistful joy. Instead, he knew they would see some mysterious flying object and narrow their eyes in confusion, or fear if they suspected another ShinRa airstrike as Genesis had just witnessed in Banora – not that anyone would ever hear of that. ShinRa had ways of keeping their secrets hidden.
The detonations had rippled across the sky, blasting masses of smoke and furnace-like air into the atmosphere for miles around. The change in pressure had buffeted Genesis so hard that he was almost torn from the sky in the turbulence, but he struggled and flapped and had wrenched himself back on course, against all odds.
Just as he always had done.
Shaken by the experience, though he wouldn't admit it, he had come down to rest like some bizarre bird on a rocky shelf near the town, and watched his childhood burn. There was definitely a sense of justice in the sight; when he thought of all the miserable years he'd spent here, terrorised by the people who called themselves his parents yet had no real claim on him, a sick feeling rose in his stomach, and a savage smile twisted his face at the recollection of his own justice for them.
But maybe that was the degradation; ever since… that, he'd been deteriorating so quickly he did not quite feel that it was happening to him. Nausea, vertigo, fatigue – all were complaints he frequently suffered from now. He had barely a fraction of his previous strength and stamina; no longer could he run for hours or fight for however long was required without flagging. Now, he could barely spar with Angeal for an hour at the very most; even in the short flight from his altercation with Fair, his muscles had begun screaming in pain as they tired.
It was so godsdamned unfair. All he'd done, all his life, was struggle – oh, yes, he grew up the son of the richest couple in the town; yes, he'd wanted for very little in terms of physical trifles; yes, there was nothing anyone would deny him – except simple friendship. He'd made up for it by pretending he didn't care; all his conquests were fleeting, those who had been slighted by him many, and he trusted his thoughts to no one besides Angeal, who had been his only ever real friend.
He'd hidden behind the music and the books and the material gains, simply because the reality was too much to face. "Loveless"; first the title had struck him, so relevant to his state, so poignant that it was the only reason at first that he'd picked it up off his father's bookshelf and stolen it away. After that, the enigma of the missing scene had preyed on his mind constantly, and now the mystery of the so-called "Gift of the Goddess" whirled in his head all the time. It served as a distraction from his physical pain; he'd latched onto the idea as a solution to his agony, a way out of this hell.
It had to be a solution. There had to be something to cure him. There was no way that he was going to die like this; a wasted shell of what he used to be, a mockery of what used to be SOLDIER First Class Genesis Rhapsodos. As he unfurled his wing and took once more to the sky, knowing he couldn't escape from his reality but determined to at least try, he made one resolution.
If I go down, I take this world with me.