Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy. This is a story written by a large fan, that's all... :)

The Earth Will Shake

.OCxSephiroth. AU (all in OUR universe)
He escapes from Shinra, ends up in a forest and is about to bleed to death.
A cold, strange girl stumbles upon him, musing by herself that he's an elf.

Forest

If she had thought about it twice, it might have occurred to her that it was strange to just decide to take a walk like that. Especially since it had only been a spur-of-the-moment urge.

It had only taken her a minute to get ready – she only needed to put on her black sandals and leave. It was in the middle of summer, after all. It had seemed like a perfect idea to simply have a stroll. From behind her little house (or her family's mountain cabin, actually) she headed up towards the mountains, crossing the neighbours' green, yet almost flowerless meadows, then she headed into the forest that covered the mountainside. Insects were swarming about, but they didn't mind her as she rushed past them along the upwards-sloping path ahead. And thank goodness for that.

"This way it is..." she mumbled to herself, so quietly she hardly heard her own voice.

Her goal was one of the largest rivers in the area. Hurrying, she made her way across hayfields, in between tall, cone-bearing pines, through several small groves and over a small bridge made of a large, thick slab of stone. The flat stone was steady enough to keep her from worrying about the muddy, small stream running underneath. She pretty much ignored what she passed, afraid to be spotted by one of the diligent workers living at the nearby farms. Her neighbours tended to cooperate with each other – sharing fields, meadows and grazing lands for their cows and sheep and whatnot. And she just didn't feel like running into any of them. If she did, she would soon find herself being forcefully drawn into an awkward conversation that would last too long for her taste. Also, she didn't want to be distracted.

So she walked as far as she could, without paying much attention to anything else than the path ahead.

Only when the track started to fade – gradually becoming more hidden by bushes, shrubs and old twigs – she slowed down. Above her loomed old trees at least twice her age or older. Each of them were heavy with leaves and stretched up, as if fighting a long, unbearably slow battle for sunlight. It was sadly ironic to think of how easy it would be to lop them off their trunks, parting them from their stems as if new trees would grow up in a month or two.

"Goodness," she muttered under her calming breath, making a mental note not to turn depressed right now. If she did, there was a chance she would never get another spur-of-the-moment urge to have a walk. And then her parents would get on her case, with their pep-talks of 'health and unbearable sportiness', as her brother said.

She didn't mind walks, or going outside, but the sun... The darn thing was simply too warm. Probably a hundred degrees fahrenheit. Maybe more. All right, definitely more.

The river it is, then...

Continuing on for a few more minutes until the path disappeared altogether, she moved in the towards the river she knew was nearby. From there she headed up a particularly steep slope and onto an old tractor road partially hidden by tall grass and shrubs. She followed it a few more minutes and came to a slow stop. On her right, tall, leafy trees covered the mountainside and cast long shadows that provided shelter from the scorching sun. On her left there were much fewer trees – most of them were small and sapless, the thin branches hanging down limply because of the summer heat.

She headed off in that direction, steering in between the rickety-looking small plants, jumping over a few fallen trees on her way. She stopped again when she got to a long, deep gorge. On the other side of the broad gorge were what looked like heaps of boulders stacked on top of each other. To her, they looked like they were just waiting to fall down.

And the river – her destination – was below. In the gorge.

There was a reason behind the walk she'd decided to have this morning. See, since it was unbearably warm and dry and rainless and sunny, perhaps the river would be small enough for her to climb down to the actual riverside. She'd never been down there before – usually the river was too dangerous. So she wanted to go down there and have a closer look.

Although the stream was still flowing by quickly, it really didn't have as much vigour as usual. The sun did its very best to turn everything into fizzling, melting stains on the ground. Personally she had felt better. She had left home fast, and hadn't offered water a thought at all, which left her dizzy after her rushed walk up where she was now. Knowing she should drink some water, and that the river was as clean as it could get as far as she knew, she searched for a way down. She followed the edge of the wide, deep gorge that had undoubtedly been formed by the river after countless years of eroding. For a while she watched the gorge warily and kept walking until the ground sloped down slightly. Then she made her way down, climbing a little when the need arose.

The sun barely reached down where she was. The river had formed into what looked like a pool: On her side of the shallow pool, there was gravelly sand and small round rocks spread about. The muddy, currently dry slope (her way down) was the only thing behind her. On the other side of the currently small pond, there were young trees, boulders and huge, scattered rocks, which had most likely fallen from the vertical cliff that loomed above. The cliff cast dark shadows that made it hard to discern one stone from the other. It looked like some sort of gloomy background.

She thought the river water would be lukewarm at first, but found herself pleasantly surprised when it was actually cool. Satisfied for the moment she sat down on a nearby stone and watched the pool and the stony background with a languid expression.

What a letdown.

To think she had come all the way up here just to see if the mighty river had weakened enough for her to climb down. It had, sure, but now that she was actually there it looked disappointing. But what had she expected? It had all looked so interesting from a distance – as if something was hidden down there. Some kind of treasure. Anything. Pretty stones, forgotten items, things washed ashore, hidden jewelry... Childish things. Having settled like this, perched on an uncomfortably malformed stone, she gradually felt her earlier fascination (the forest was a pretty nice place to go hiking) weaken and wilt away.

...But then she spotted something.

She spotted something very interesting.

Something very interesting indeed.

As in interesting enough to make her wrinkle her nose, believing something was wrong with her eyes.

What first seemed like an abnormally dark, yet fine, smooth stone, with darker rocks beneath as support, appeared to her as a person's body. The sight itself was so unusual that she stared blankly for some long seconds, muttering loud exclamations in her mind a few times without moving. Her mind tried finding a logical solution to the predicament that gradually unfolded in front of her.

But no matter how long she looked, the sight remained the same. There really was a man on the other side of the currently not-so-vigorously-flowing river, and he had long, silver hair, wore black pants and a black leather coat – and black boots that came past his knees. When she looked closer, she also spotted something that was not a thin, long, shiny sliver of stone, but rather an impossibly long sword.

The man seemed to be asleep. His chest rose and fell slowly, and his head was at an angle that didn't look too comfy – his neck bent forward so that his hair hid both his face and parts of his body.

When she finally determined that the previously-presumed-to-be-a-stone was indeed a man, she proceeded to wonder what in the world he was doing in this place. He was most likely a costume player or something along those lines. But for a cosplayer to manage to wander off this far into the wilderness was unheard of. Who would clothe themselves in such a magnificently well-made, high-quality costume - wig included - just to take a hike in the mountains? And how long had he been there? Was he crazy; a lunatic, a maniac? Other than that, the only logical solution she could think of was that he had lost some sort of bet while being drunk. Something along those lines. Then he had probably been unable to find the way down from the mountains.

But... what if he had gone ahead and fallen of the cliff?

The corners of her mouth turned down and her chest constricted a little. Then she glanced up to the vertical cliff above him. Though the sun managed to peek down and light her face with a few splotches of light, the other side of the river was bathed in shadows, which made it look far more dangerous than it had looked minutes ago.

Even though she wanted to say something about how ironically typical it was for herself to have her rare stroll interrupted (by a possibly injured man with an insanely long plastic sword and silver hair), she held back. If the man happened to be dead... What would she do?

No, he was breathing. She could see it. His breath was even. So he was alive.

Getting to her feet while warily eyeing the still man, she walked straight into the pool of water. Her sandals would dry later, anyway. If they didn't, she would soak them in oil and burn them in disappointment. After all, she was compassionately getting herself soaked past her knees in order to see whether the man was injured, lost, or just had an extremely well-deserved hangover (considering he had somehow managed to end up here, in the middle of nowhere, where no one had ever even arranged a cosplay – costume party). The closer she waded, the more imposing he looked – even sitting in that slouched posture. What if he was one of those old and perverted men who only wore that kind of costume to have girls drool over him?

And if this were a dream, or something like a fairy tale from an old book, perhaps he was something even more special. Maybe a prince, or perhaps something else – something out of this world. Like... Like an elf, perhaps. Even like this, with his head hanging forward, he looked tall and fit. That leather coat hugged his arms in a fashion that flattered him rather mercilessly.

"Awaken from thy slumber," she mumbled archaically to herself, hoping he wouldn't awaken if that meant trouble for her. Looking closer, she found that his hair looked incredibly silky – it didn't look fake, like some cheap wig.

"...Wake up," she attempted again, in a louder voice, and the man stirred. But then he was still.

So she waded towards him rather fast, water splashing about as she did, then she stopped right in front of him. He was sleeping among the stones and boulders, his arms splayed wherever there was room for them. If she stretched her arm straight out, she would be able to touch his head. Instead, she squatted down a little (carefully avoiding to touch the water with certain parts of her body, because of embarrassing past experiences including water, pants and childish pee jokes). She reached out and poked his shoe. While doing so, she smirked for some reason. This really was like something out of a fairy tale: The princess wandered into the woods and found an elf prince sleeping, then kissed him and he woke up and they fell in love at first sight and they married and they lived happily ever after until they got ten kids at once who in the end ruined all the glorious love and peace. Something idyllic like that. If only things were that simple.

But she hadn't seen his face, so she didn't know if he was beautiful enough for her to call him an elf.

"Damn you if you ruin my expectations," she half joked quietly, trying to lean a bit closer and have a look at his face.

And behind his silver locks, even though she only saw parts of his face, was a face gorgeous enough to make her cringe. Pulling back with pursed lips and wide eyes, she spent some full seconds cursing him for his unreasonable beauty – how was it possible to look like that when he had stayed here for who-knew-how-long? How could a man have that kind of face? It was a personal insult! Clutching her heart, she stared for some full seconds.

"...As I said, damn you." Then again, now she could call him an elf. Or elf prince. Or elf king.

Her spoken words were only half-hearted, because now her little stroll had turned into something even more interesting and intriguing. The man still didn't stir. Thinking it was about time to stop her exploring and actually wake up the man, she made sure her guard was up and that her face looked like usual – as if she hadn't just found an elf-lookalike in the mountains. Perhaps he has a girly voice, she mused, but mentally hoped for the opposite.

Then she reached out and nudged his shoulder gently – and was rewarded with a flash of pale colors which were actually his head snapping up and his arm shooting towards her.

She tried evading his hand, but he was much too fast – her wrist was seized and held still, whereas her attention was pretty much captured and imprisoned, so to speak, by his stare. If stares could kill, she would be a skeleton with a tombstone coming out of her mouth and one cross emerging from each of her eye sockets. That was how she felt. With green eyes engraving themselves into her mind, as if to make her beg him to kill her, he stared her down for a long second – his pupils thin slits. In spite of herself, she found herself thinking that those eye contacts looked extremely real, even up close. And his hair still didn't look like a wig. What had she thought earlier, about him being an elf? If he were, a more in-depth term would be dark elf or blood elf, or some other evil elf.

Was this how she would end her life? Indirectly waltzing to her own death because of a sudden and untimely urge to have a walk in the forest?

"Pardon me, but..." she managed in a shaky breath, stopping to check if he would let her continue. When he said and did nothing, and just remained in a sitting position with one hand around her wrist and the other dangerously close to his sword, she continued.

"I hardly believe I'm the one you're out to kill," she said in all honesty, slightly more collected now (only on the outside, though), which earned her a twitch. She regained her composure and calmed her expression.

And he must have believed her, because his grip around her wrist loosened and he let himself fall back against the rocks. He fell limp for a moment, not even breathing, so she didn't retreat and run for her life just yet. Even though she wanted to. Aside from the elf-like man's obvious beauty (and lack of chest hair, but that was another matter that she would not defile her mind with), something else and far more important and serious caught her full attention.

Blood. Lots of dark blood.

Both fresh and dry, running in small streams and even lumps from a small hole in his shoulder, and even more running from a disturbingly broad gash in his ribs. She had failed to notice until now, which was really incompetent of her, since he practically reeked of what smelled like rust. She had mistaken it for the smell of his clothes or something, since costumes tended to smell different from ordinary garments. That was what she assumed anyway.

Avoiding stating the obvious (since a phrase such as 'oh-mah-gaawsh, you need a doctor, man!!!') would really do them no good, she tapped the pockets of her black workout pants, but her phone wasn't there. True to her nature, she scowled darkly and coldly at her untimely mistake – she usually kept her cellphone with her.

"I... I'm taking you out of here," she stated and was rewarded with a scowl much stronger and darker than her own. Saying it looked evil would be no understatement. She was close to peeing in her pants here.

And so began their seemingly endless struggle to cross the shallow pool of water, climb up the steep hill to the scarcely vegetated area surrounding the river gorge, rest for a minute, follow the old tractor road, enter the forest, rest, exit the forest and head downhill, rest again, cross the block of stone that was a bridge, then rest and continue again. All the time she supported the frighteningly pale (and annoyingly heavy) man, keeping his left arm over her shoulders. And all the way she tried keeping her guard up. The man had attached that monstrous sword to his back and trod alongside her slowly all the way, clutching his gashes with his right hand. He walked on his own most of the time (at least partially), and the few times he was about to give in to unconsciousness and fall over her, he quickly regained himself and walked a few steps almost on his own. Occasionally she glanced up and saw him snarl soundlessly. She could tell without speculating that he was thoroughly frustrated that he was accepting help from someone like her. That just made her want to prove herself to him even more.

He left a small trail of blood behind them, though said drops were not very noticeable enough to cause a fuss if somebody saw them. When they crossed the bridge – the single white slab of rock – a single, small splotch of crimson blood stood out rather vividly, though. She hoped whoever saw it would think it was just from some animal that had been in a fight or something. An injured hare failing its attempt to outrun a predator, for instance.

Holding back whatever insults she had subconsciously conjured in her mind, she struggled on, her knees growing weak as she went, and their breaks becoming more frequent. Her face, however, remained languid and otherwise more or less expressionless. And her guard was up.

But she had an evil elf to save.

Whether she liked it or not, she had to sacrifice her own behind to get him to her house and call an ambulance. Until then, she'd try not to look at his angry, scowling face.

When they finally got away from the green meadows and out of the sun, into the shadows of the few not-so-well-tended trees in her small garden, she cleared her voice and nodded towards the two small buildings there – both wooden brown. One was her house – or actually her family's cabin, but only she lived there. The other building was really just an old building full of firewood and things that were at least five decades old. There was even an empty hen-coop and a still-functioning outdoor WC in there (which she didn't have to use, of course). As for her small house, it was large enough. The garden was impressive – or could have been impressive, if only she had spent more time tending to it. All she bothered doing was to cut the grass. And she only did that when she knew her family was coming to visit.

"Take in the horrors of an unkempt garden and a not-so-tidy house, then perhaps you'll be extra relieved when you leave," she said in a low, mocking voice as they staggered across the lawn and down some pretty much ancient stone stairs, then made their way up the porch and into the house. She speculated at the sound of her words for a minute – she didn't really feel as cold as she sounded. Maybe it was because the guy looked so hostile and good at the same time.

"I live here alone," she added. It was true. Her family wouldn't come visit for a while, either, sinche she was busy with her summer job.

In a way she was lucky that they were all gone. She could only imagine what her father would say if he saw this tall, leggy, impressively well-muscled, long-haired person with a weapon. To say the very least, her dad would start foaming at his mouth and get a heart attack while dialling the emergency number.

She walked through the small entrance hall and into the combined kitchen and living room. There, she let the elf-man-cosplayer sit down on the black sofa. Annoyingly enough, the man had round ears like any other human, and not pointy ones. The sword on his back mysteriously appeared on the dark wood table, as if it had been there from the beginning. At least her precious sofa (given to her by her father) wouldn't be sliced into pieces. Only covered in blood. Blood. Her dad would get her for this. Hurriedly, she went to pick up a few pillows to prop under his knees (he had pulled his legs onto the sofa), but she quickly stepped back when he glowered darkly at her once more. The man refused to lie down and sat with a remarkably straight back, like some in-character-geisha-who-wasn't-really-a-geisha-but-an-elf. It annoyed her. At this rate, he would be out like a light and never wake up again. Then again, he was too tall to be able to lie down in that sofa without breaking his neck.

As soon as she turned away she frowned as deeply as she could, fuming with anger because of his ungrateful behavior and rude expression (though hers wasn't much better at the moment). Then she hurried off to find some first-aid equipment, towels for the blood, and her cellphone. Once she walked back in, something else than the two of them stirred and spoke up from the far end of the room:

"'The fawk 'u doin' heear?" sounded the shrill voice.

Her elf-like patient quickly located and eyed the source of the voice: A red-, yellow- and blue-feathered macaw sitting on a T-shaped stand (made of dark wood) in the far end of the room. The parrot cocked its head and eyed the elf-man without saying anything else, as if expecting a reply from the silent man.

"...Injured person, meet John Smoth. John Smoth, meet injured person," she muttered languidly, then paused.

"And injured person, I would be Paige."

Gee. How observant of her to notice now that she hadn't introduced herself. It had to have something to do with the fact that she had felt content calling him 'elf' in her mind until now. What was his name, then?

No matter how Sephiroth chose to perceive the situation, one fact remained unchangeable: He was more or less conscious and only stayed that way because he willed himself to.

Even with his feet elevated on the off-white pillows that the young woman had (half-heartedly and forcibly) propped under his booted legs, he had to make an effort to keep himself from wavering. New impressions threatened to overcome him a few times as he attempted getting an overview of the room, but he looked around of old habit nonetheless. One never knew when knowledge about one's surroundings could be beneficial.

The combined kitchen and living room, as he presumed it was, had off-white walls and the ceiling was white, whereas the oak floor was light and very pale – nearly white. The furniture was dark, with the lamps as the only exceptions. Although it looked presentable, he could tell none of the articles were too expensive. There were a few large windows in the room, each framed by dark curtains long enough to almost touch the floor. The room looked warm, but that might have been an illusion caused by the summer light and one open window (next to which the parrot sat perched). If he were to judge by the number of chairs and the size of the house, only a select few persons (or only the girl) lived here. From there, he could proceed by presuming that this Paige character was the one responsible for the interior design. The only door in the living room lead to the entrance hall. From his current position he had a hard time looking out of the window, though, so the view outside remained undisclosed to him.

"Where would this be?" he inquired.

To tell the truth, he had made his way to that dry river with materia – a materia that was not yet finished. That is, he had used a spell that was only half-developed. For all he knew, Shinra employees, Turks and Soldiers could be only a few kilometres away, searching for him.

"...Columbia River, Canada," she replied monotonously, observing him through blank, pale eyes.

Canada it was, then...

...To think that the spell had gotten him this far.

R.R.

(first of all: I don't live in Canada, and this girl – Paige – is not me. She's completely different. Just in case you were wondering ;)

And even though Columbia River really exists, all the persons, houses, farms (and cattle and parrots, for that matter), schools, place names and everything else that I'll be putting into the story from now on are purely fictional.