I'm going to write a story! That's what I told Rae. "I'm crazy!" is what she said, but I'm still not sure if she was talking about her or me. That happens a lot. Anyway, I finally have a chance to tell my story and only my story and it will mostly or all be written by ME. It's a fun story, so you probably won't be bored. If you are then it's your fault...HA!

I guess I should start from the start, since that's where most stories start...right? So. The beginning...? I was born on Round (I like calling it Knights of Round, or KOR) Island to the Fluffs Bof and Boeff. They're good parents. Oh, I guess I better explain Fluffs. It's amazing how few people know what a Fluff is! I mean, doesn't the name speak for itself? They're fluffy canine-ish things that live in families and such. They don't really classify as monsters since most monsters you run into in the average random battle can't talk and don't really have a life outside of attacking unsuspecting (or suspecting) travelers! Fluffs are different because they are usually smart and usually harmless and usually stay together in squishy cuddly warm fuzzy family group-type-things. So yeah! I was born into a happy happy little Fluff-family. I was the last in the litter, and sort of different. Nobody ever told me I'm adopted or anything, they always said my different-ness was because of some scariness involved with certain scientists earlier along in the family line, but I don't really know! All I know is that while my siblings got all the normal fur colors and eye shapes and stuff, I got stuck with my mom's silver hair and some catty blue eyes from who-knows-where...and NO FUR! That really stung. Have you noticed it's harder to play rough with other fluffy things if you don't have fur to protect you? Yeah, I got a lot of scratches! And for some reason I couldn't really move the same way the other Fluffs could either. I mean, they often walked on two legs but when they let it all loose and went back to four I just couldn't do it nearly as well! It was kind of frustrating! But I was happy most of the time. Living with Fluffs makes it kind of hard to be the sad kind of thing. Eating pasta for most meals every day helps too!

My two older brothers and older sister were named Reno, Cait Sith, and Yuffie. My parents are totally obsessed with the Meteor incident from before I was born, so that's why they gave us all names from the main heroes...except for me. Reno is Reno because he got red fur from my dad's side- we have a bit of Nanaki's blood in there, it's so cool! Cait Sith was born black and white, and Yuffie was all black. Mom wanted to name her Vincent anyway, because he's her favorite out of the heroes, but my dad decided it'd probably be better if we gave her a girls' name. Yuffie fits her better anyway! I was named Sephiroth because of my uncanny resemblance to him- later I'd find that some people think I could be his reincarnation or something. Kind of weird, isn't it?

So I guess now that you have the little bit of background you need to understand things, I should stop explaining everything and make things more interesting by telling the story like a story! I promised it wouldn't be boring, so I better stick to that. After all, mom always said, promises are promises and they're never anything else!

Birthdays in my family are a funny thing. We all have our birthday on the same day because we were born in the same litter, and since Round Island is up in the very north-east corner of the map, and since all of us little Fluffs had our birthdays on December 31st, it was usually pretty darn chilly. At this time of the year I always begin to feel a little lonely. Another thing about growing up without fur is that while all the rest of your family is out romping in the snow without hardly a care for the coldness, you're huddling inside the home cave/hut/burrow shivering under layers of blankets thinking of all the fun things you could be doing if only you had fur and weren't so freezing cold! So naturally those memories still come back to me even now, when I live without having to share my birthday with the members of my house, when I live in a place where it's almost always warm and sunny. Nobody knows I feel like that, probably, since I'm usually - as Rae puts it - "abominably cheerful", at all times. It's a habit I picked up from the other Fluffs. "Cheerfulness is always polite, except for when someone's dead, injured, or very angry, and even then there are exceptions!" - That's another thing my mom would always say.

I woke up on my 10th birthday feeling tired and very cold, and not very happy. I tried to ignore that I was awake and pretend I wasn't by staring at the inside of the blankets. I'd thrown them over my head to keep my face from freezing. And I thought about how I was now a two-digit number Fluff. Sort of. How would things be different in the next five years? I said next five, because I didn't dare even think about my 15th (or was it 16th?) birthday, the day when I'd become eligible and pressured and all that fun stuff, all toward one thing- getting a mate. Yeah, Fluffs find their partners pretty young. I shivered and squished into the blankets more. I could hear my brothers and sister outside. Waa! I wanted to go play with them. But I was cold and in a mood that was all too common to me back then. And it didn't help when a red-furred someone grabbed my ear and tried to drag me out of my nest.

"Owww ow ow ow!" I whimpered and tried to curl back up in my blankets, but Reno's never been put off by little things like pity for the furless. He laughed.

"Come on Seph, it's not THAT cold. Are you gonna spend all winter in there?" He let go of my ear and lowered his head to peer into the darkness of my blanket-cave.

"...Yes," I pouted.

"But...that's stupid!" He tried to grab my ear again.

"Nooo!" I wiggled farther back into the blankets so that he couldn't see me, and could barely hear me. "I don't wanna come out."

"But they all sent me to get you! Anyway, you can't spend our birthday stuck in here. That's just bad manners!"

Oh no. Bad manners. I sniffled. They always got me with that one...I supposedly had bad manners whenever I got in moods like this. I guess it probably was pretty unusual for a Fluff to not want to celebrate his own birthday, even if he did have to share it with three other hyper Fluffs, but then, I was unusual.

I poked my head out slowly and shivered. "But it's cooold!"

Reno wagged his tail. Swishy! "Well dress warm then!"

I shook my head slowly. "Even if I put on everything I had, I'd STILL-"

Reno growled playfully. "Well, do it anyway. I think half the reason you're cold is because you're not moving around! Anyway, they won't let me come back and play unless I bring you with me. So you better hurry."

...there it was again! Okay, now I had to get up. If nothing else, I must've inherited some of my mom's politeness, because I couldn't stand it when they did that- made it so that I had to do something in order for them to continue having fun. I whined and sat up and started digging for my clothes. Reno sat and watched me with his tail flicking around like a fly on an overdose of sugar and in the last twitches of death. I put on every piece of clothing that I could, and even though I was still pretty cold and needed some serious fashion help (have you ever seen somebody wearing everything they have? It's ridiculously hilarious!) I started toward the door, trying to drag a brush through my hair at the same time.

Reno blinked. "Why the heck do you keep your hair so long, Seph?" He thought it was the funniest thing.

I scowled. I didn't want to admit that the entire reason I kept my hair so long was I felt that perhaps what it lacked in quantity I could make up for in length. I especially paid special attention to keep my bangs the way they are. I guess they sort of remind me of...dog ears? You know...the kind that isn't hanging down all the way...they stand up and then halfway they fold down over themselves. I guess my mind works funny that way. But I could barely stand to let my mom trim it once a month, much less cut it all off.

"Because I like it that way!" I said. "So what are you guys playing?"

"Tag, duh. Anyway, you need something fast to keep you moving so you don't turn blue like your hair."

"It's not blue!" I whined. "It's SILVER."

They never teased mom about her hair, and it's the same as mine! It seriously didn't make any sense. They seemed to come up with a new outrageous color every month. Last month it was "cactuar-barf-green". How in the world do you get that out of silver?

"Whatever. Anyway-" He jumped at me. "You're it!"

"AAH! HEY!" I jumped to my feet and ran after Reno, who had stolen my brush and (I felt) probably a few strands of my hair too. "Come back! NOO!"

Cait Sith and Yuffie shrieked and ran around randomly. I could've caught them a bajillion times if I wanted to but my catty eyes were stuck on my brush. I blazed a trail through the snow and caught up to Reno on the edge of the shore, where he whirled around and grinned at me around my brush. I stared at it as my furious run sadly trickled away into a wheezy stumble. I panted.

"Renooo...give it baack! What if you lose it? I won't be able to brush my hair!"

"I'm not gonna lose it...you just gotta get it from me, or else you're still it."

"WHA? But I could just go tag Yuf-"

"Nope! You gotta get the brush!"

"That's not fair!"

"Yeah it is, you need practice running anyway."

I sure felt picked on. There was Reno with my brush and with all four paws perfectly capable of running, whereas I only had two. What's fair about that? But I still figured I should try, since that brush was pretty important- it had taken mom a while to have it shipped in from the mainland- the post chocobo kept getting lost. Who knew how much longer it'd take to get a new one?

So I pounced forward with a "RAWR" that was supposed to sound threatening but just sort of poofed away once I hit the snow. I stood up and shook it off my face and ran after Reno, who was on his way back toward Cait Sith and Yuffie. They'd been standing still while watching our argument, but now they shrieked and returned to their aimless running around. It would have been funny to watch if I wasn't so obsessed with getting my brush back. I chased Reno all the way to the OTHER side of the island, and there we replayed the confrontation.

"Give it baack!"

I came toward him slowly this time, moving in startled jerks to one side or the other whenever Reno put a paw forward to try and run around me. I backed him up to the very edge, where the ice from the ocean had formed. Mom always told us to stay off the ice, and dad seconded it strongly. But here again Reno wasn't put off, and stepped backward onto the ice, grinning around my brush all the while.

"Hey! You can't go on there, Mom and Dad said to stay off the ice!" I wailed desperately.

Reno just kept backing up. "Come get me," he teased.

"Reno! You can't go on there!" I repeated stupidly. "Get off!"

"Oh come on Seph! The ice is thick! What cou-"

CRACK

I stared dumbly. What the...Reno just disappeared!

Splash.

"Ack! Help!"

Reno, soaked to the skin, was trying to claw his way out of the water. I just stared stupidly, then yelled.

"AAH! Reno fell in, guys! He fell in! AAH!"

Obviously, I'd never been in a crisis before. There aren't many on KOR Island.

Sadly, Cait Sith and Yuffie were even more ill prepared than I. They promptly started running around more frantically than ever, screaming their heads off.

I got jerked out of my stupidity really quickly when Reno disappeared, then reappeared and yelled at me to stop standing there and help him. So I ran forward and lay down on the ice and reached for him, grabbing his front paws, and trying to pull him backward. Slowly. Reno was really panicking and I think I got more scratches in those few minutes than I had all week. He pretty much dug his claws into my arms.

I managed to pull him up enough that I fell backward, still holding onto him, and found myself crashing through another crack in the ice, and what was worse, with a 10-year-old Fluff on top of me. Imagine my panic!

Luckily, my back actually touched bottom, since I'd managed to drag us close enough to shore that the water was shallow. Reno jumped off after about 10 seconds that seemed like forever and I clawed my way out like a drowned rat, miserably cold and seriously angry.

"Reno! YOU LOST IT! And you almost got both of us dead! ARGH!" I yelled, then broke down crying.

Cait Sith had luckily had enough sense to run to our parents, and Reno and I were quickly dragged inside by the scruffs of our necks and set dangerously close to a hastily built and very smoky fire in the middle of the cave.

I was just thinking about how this was the worst birthday ever and how it couldn't get any worse, when dad announced that we were both grounded for a month, and Reno got to help pay for a new brush and some new clothes. It was the best thing that ever happened to me in December! Hooray! A whole month of nothing but sleeping curled up in my blanky-nest! This was turning out better than I'd hoped.

I tried to look suitably miserable, but as mom always said, cheerfulness is polite in almost all situations. So I guess my parents didn't mind when I cracked a huge grin every five seconds. Reno kind of did, but he still managed to apologize to everyone properly.

"Sorry mom, dad. I know I wasn't supposed to go on the ice. Sorry for stealing your brush, Seph."

"'sokay," I said, and got attacked by another random grin. "Sorry for not coming out to play earlier."

Mom beamed in the way that meant she believed everything was all better. "Now, once you're both dried off and warm, we'll have dinner and open presents!"

Cait Sith and Yuffie instantly set off in an off-key chorus of "Yay, Presents, Yay!", a birthday song they'd made up two years before and which was quickly becoming a tradition among our family and even others, too. Yeah...did I mention there were other Fluff families living on Round Island? There were. We were all pretty close too, being next-door neighbors and all. Luckily, none of the other Fluff families had litters in December, so the singing of the song on the 31st was limited to our family, which spared a lot of innocent ears from going deaf.

For the sake of the story, I guess I better write down the song here.

Yay, presents, yay! It's a birthday today!

We're all in this together and we all think it's okay!

Yay, we all are older now and fluffier by far!

So let's open up the presents, and see what they are!

Yay, presents, yay! It's a birthday today!

Let's open up those birthday cards and see just what they say!

Yay, we've got the wrapping paper crinkled all around

So open up the box now, and see what we've found!

Yeah, that's two verses...they periodically come up with more and add them, but I figure I'll spare you so you won't have to get up and run off, screaming, giggling, or crying, whichever it may be.

Actually, it grows on you after a while.

No, really.

It took me and Reno a while to dry off, so mom got the main brunt of the singing, since Cait Sith and Yuffie decided to help her make the birthday spaghetti. Meanwhile, I sat in awestruck jealousy, watching Reno lick himself to try and dry off faster. Ohhh I wished it were that easy for me.

Finally, we were both dry (though I was still cold) and were allowed to sit down and eat. I wished the spaghetti sauce was hotter, just for the sake of the possibility of it warming me up a little, maybe, from the inside?

Somehow it didn't work, even though I burnt my tongue on a meatball.

Don't get the wrong idea. My family isn't really all that unbearable. Just on birthdays, and that's only because of me. I really love mom's spaghetti...and her fettucini is the best on the island, even back then! Reno does what he does I think because he realized how anti-social I was back then and wanted to kick it out of me. Cait Sith and Yuffie are just average Fluffs, really...maybe one or two more tablespoons of sugar in their bloodstream, that's all. Dad's great too. I love him still for grounding me that day!

So yeah, it's really a great family. I kind of miss them sometimes.

"YAY PRESENTS YAY!" Yuffie began, but Dad cut her off.

"Today is very special!" He began. We all nodded our furry little heads. "And because you are all now becoming two-digit Fluffs, you're going to start learning how to be adults!"

"YAY!" Yuffie said again. Reno blinked and swooshed his tail. Cait Sith bounced a little in his seat. I yawned.

"But before your mother and I give you your presents, we'll let you go get the ones you have for each other, if there are any."

Hint hint! By tradition, it wasn't required for the members of the litter to give presents to each other on the birthday, but it often happened anyway. I felt a teensy weensy poke of guilt that I hadn't thought to get anything, but decided not to let it bother me, since nobody but Yuffie was getting up anyway. She came back and gave us each a package. Mine was squishy. I had no idea what the heck it could be. I sniffed it and poked it and shook it while everyone else ripped the wrapping off theirs. Reno got a headdress thing sort of like uncle Nanaki's. He ran around like a madfluff with it on his head, totally stoked that he got to look even more like our great relative. Cait sith got a stuffed moogle toy. I stared at the stripey wrapping paper that held mine. I poked it again, then ripped it open.

GASP!

I stared. I seriously stared. I didn't even dare to touch it. Then I hugged it and started crying and trying to glomp Yuffie at the same time.

"Oh my gosh! You're the best sister EVER!" I sniffled, rubbing my head against her shoulder. She giggled hyperly.

I pulled back and held it out at arms length to look at it. It was possibly the most beautiful thing I'd EVER seen. A silver fur coat. I suddenly got smacked with a thought.

"It's not...REAL fur...is it?" I asked timidly.

"..." Yuffie fell out of her chair doubled over with giggles. "S-silly!" she gasped. "Of course not!"

I hid under the table, still sniffling my tears of joy but also feeling pretty silly.

Cait sith pulled me out by my hair. "Put it on, gosh!" he said.

I clung to it and stared at it and finally put it on. There was a few seconds of clapping from the others while I sat there blinking, and then I gasped in awe.

"Hey! It makes me warm!"

Yuffie fell out of her chair again.

A few minutes later, I was hugging myself and beaming while mom and dad brought in their presents. Each gift was very tube-shaped. I just grinned to myself and every few minutes burst out in "Oh my gosh you're the coolest sister ever, I'm so getting you something next year!" at Yuffie, which made her laugh. This last time Reno put a paw on my head.

"Alright alright, we can tell you're excited!"

I ducked a little until Reno put his paw back where it was supposed to be.

I felt very very silly and giddy! It was great! And I wasn't all that cold either. Actually, I decided this must be the best birthday I'd ever had. Yep. I'd mark it on my calendar later.

Dad had finished passing out the tubes and stood up on his chair to give a little speech. We all restrained our claws from their paper-ripping desires and listened with wide eyes.

"Alright. We decided that our presents for you this year should be something that would inspire you for years to come. That's why we've picked these. I know in some cases it may be a little strange, but there are things you can learn from each of these, so take good care of them!"

He sat down, and a billion little shreds of paper got tossed into the air and we all carefully unrolled the posters in the tubes.

"OHHH!" was the main thing everybody said when they looked at theirs. Our parents had gotten us a poster of each of our namesakes. I blinked at the strange outfit and fiendishly calm look on the subject of mine. Other than his disturbing look and black/leather outfit, he did in fact look remarkably like I could look once I'd grown to my full height. I blinked and blinked, very uncertainly. But wasn't Sephiroth a villain? What was I supposed to learn from him? But whatever, I thought the present remarkably cool and grinned a thanks at my parents, then went around looking at the ones my brothers and sister had.

Reno was laughing at his. "He looks like a goofball! Wasn't he a Turk, mom?"

Mom nodded. "And still is, I believe, though that picture was taken about a decade ago."

Reno snickered. "Maybe I should've just gone with a Nanaki poster, huh?"

"We decided on namesakes so that's what it is!" Dad said.

"Okay, okay!"

Yuffie ooed and aaed, stretching out her poster on the floor and lying on her belly to look at it. "She's so cool! A ninja! Wee!"

I looked over her shoulder. "...how does she hold up that shuriken?" I wondered. "She's so little and it's so big!"

Yuffie beamed. "That's why she's so cool!"

Cait Sith was hugging his stuffed moogle and peering curiously at the poster. "...so which one's Cait Sith? The cat thing or the moogle thing?"

Dad pointed at the cat thing. "That part rides on the stuffed moogle, but it's not really alive. It's controlled by a man named Reeve, who was also a Turk.

Cait Sith blinked. "...waiiit. So that means I was named after a TOY?"

Dad chucked. "Not exactly."

He still looked put out. "I always thought Cait Sith was a real person!"

"He is!" My mom hurried to reassure him. "His body's just a little robotic, that's all."

Okay, I couldn't help it. I laughed. Cait Sith got mad at me. Luckily, we didn't get far enough to ruin the posters on the floor before Dad broke it up. It was all in fun anyway.

So once we were all done hugging our parents and thanking them for the presents (and Yuffie too) I went to my corner of the cave to put up my poster. It took alot of tape, since I learned a long long time ago that you can't tack pictures up on cave walls. Even then, I was afraid the corners'd end up curling off...but whatever! It was up and it was mine and I sat on my blanky-nest and stared up at it while the others obsessed over theirs and then ran out for one last romp before bedtime.