You want her.
Standing there, her arms up to her elbows in citrus soapsuds, she reaches for another glass but not before tilting her head to catch you in her peripheral vision. She hopes you haven't seen the cursory looks, but you have. Your eyes never waver from her shadowed form. She sways between counter and sink, picking up dishware here and there to drop into the suds. Her legs flash with beaded sweat in the fuzzy air, so heavy even the soap bubbles fail to rise, and they pop dejectedly near her feet. Her hand cradles another glass stained wine red. Wash, rinse, repeat. It's a rhythm, like a tick-tock, ticking-tocking time bomb in your head. You wait only for something to ignite to bridge the distance and plunder her mouth for a kiss.
Divide and conquer.
No, not conquer, you say. Not divide. She's yours, but not to pillage. You love her. You want to be together.
Oh, the naivety of youth. Or perhaps humanity. Love is a fleeting, fragile thing. Weak. All toil and tribulation forgotten for a minute on a park bench next to your pretty girl. That is what they, the wise ones, call relativity.
Ah-ah-ah, you're arguing now. Petulant child. Oh yes, I know you're all grown-up. Those fantasies you have certainly aren't childish.
You're blushing.
Oh hush, of course I can see these things. For whom do you take me? A fool? I think not. I would be blind not to note the stockpile of lustful musings you've accrued.
You're locking more of them away now. I suppose it's only natural not to want me to see her spreading her legs for you. But to be perfectly honest, I have no interest in your delusions with your little hometown whore.
SILENCE!
Your head aches, doesn't it?
No, 'aches' is too mild a word. It's more of a stranglehold on your consciousness that I have. Every cell in your body is knotting itself right now, practically on the verge of explosion. You would rip off your own head to get to me. But alas, you cannot move, and outwardly you appear the same so that none of your friends would even know to help.
Your impudence will be the death of you.
Perhaps you should choose your battles more wisely. What's childhood love and valiant courage compared to eternal glory and omnipotence?
There, there. You do best not to question Mother. I will let your disobedience slide this once. Next time the pain will be more severe.
Understand?
Good.
I do not tolerate insubordination in my subjects. Much less my darling children.
She has retreated to the back room for supplies. She smiles at you upon her return, unaware of your previous discomfort, while stacking a fresh crate of second-hand tumblers near the sink. You watch as your pitiful cries for help remain unseen and unheard.
As was predicted.
She turns to the bar, wiping down varicolored bottles, twisting their corks tight, and stacking them under the cabinet. A gray tatter of cotton whips back and forth, then swirls into a peaked turban atop one of the more stubborn drool spots left by her adoring public. She looks at you between the fray of her lashes.
Even I can see the questions in her eyes.
The flower.
Yes. 'Oh.'
You wonder if you have ruined it, twisting it like that. All your incessant lovesick nonsense.
You don't care. You never did. That is what she should believe. It is what you wish me to believe. You are a stoic SOLDIER, a model First Class.
Right?
Right?
Better. You're learning.
Oh, very well. Give her the flower. It won't matter soon enough.
The world as you know it is changing.
You press it into her hand at her prompting, and when your fingers touch, something in you skips like a schoolboy. We obviously have much work to do, you and I. That ridiculousness will be wrung from you later, far away from the scent of all that unused lifestream that seeps from the stem and onto her skin. It's intolerable, such waste. Something itches at my discomfort and you scratch your head.
I do not allow you to stay and watch her reaction. You wonder if she likes it, but I refuse to acknowledge your question. I have had my fill of your puerile whims tonight.
The steps creak as you walk them. Your boot connects solidly in the dead center where the planks split. One of those other slobs dropped part of his sandwich. Most assuredly the fat one. There's mustard on your shoe, and you knock the piece into a crack where she won't see it when she climbs after you, barely able to place one foot in front of the other to settle for a scant three hours' slumber. You will lie awake in bed until her door yawns open and shut and her breathing settles. SOLDIERs never need much rest, you would protest, should anyone discover you unsleeping, unblinking.
That SOLDIER stamina proves troublesome at times, doesn't it? Even if we both know there are better uses for it.
Use your imagination.
You close the door, and the pillow coughs dust when your head falls upon it. The provisions here are meager at best. Certainly not worthy of someone of my caliber.
A few doors down that blundering oaf of a man thunders in his sleep. You tune him out, and instead focus on the faint fickle rush of water trickling towards your ears. The spigot creaks closed and the entire building shudders and gurgles at the water dammed in its pipes. A stopper pops free, a sink drains, and in your mind's eye you see her kneading her hands on a towel before tucking a sticky strand of hair behind her ear. It's a rather unconscious habit she entertains only when she cleans.
The bar lights hum into silence, but she won't head up the stairs quite yet. You wish to thump your pillow but you don't dare make a move on your tottery bed. Not even your fingers twitch to count the minutes she sits thinking in silent darkness. You tell yourself it's none of your business what she does down there, even if you will watch her all the more closely tomorrow. Searching for a clue, a lost piece to a puzzle without a picture.
You will have one soon enough. One I will bestow upon all my children as I call them to me.
Perhaps you would enjoy a bedtime story as you wait for our reunion? One of power and might, blood and glory?
Once upon a future time, the end of the beasts will come. And my Precious Son will rule the world. We will call upon help from the skies to burn the planet clean of all this foul clutter, then sear our own trail into the heavens, marking them as taken with our scars and leaving ashes in our wake. When a new world emerges, it will be ordered and at our command.
And he and I will assume our immortal thrones.
You will help us, naturally.
Finally you hear her ascend towards her room without pause. You relax as you realize she never noticed the food scraps. Once at the hallway, her feet slow further, halting before each door to listen for signs of breathing. First the child's and the giant's, then that of the rest before she stops at yours. Here she lingers the longest.
Fools, the lot of you.
Her door closes, and with it your eyes, while the city slumbers. Waits. For something, perhaps.
If only they knew what I had in store. Shall I tell you about the time I...hm?
No more tonight?
True, you grow weary under the burden of my strength. I forget how tiresome this feeble mortal body can be. All the more reason for us to work quickly. But I suppose for one night, it is far better that you rest.
Sleep now.
Sleep.
Shh.
A/N: I can't say how I feel about this piece. Out of the four versions of this I have saved to my hard drive, the rest were more sarcastic and truer to canon events, but they didn't really give me a good sense of Sephiroth's mother, so I went with something more formal and archaic and educated for a millenia-old alien. If nothing else, I hope I've at least accomplished a plausible voice for Jenova, even if the scene itself isn't exactly in-game. Inspired by it, perhaps, but not much else.
Thanks for reading. & I don't own FFVII.
P.S. I also realize Jenova was controlled by Sephiroth. Use your imagination. :)