Oneshots
The Sapphire General Series
Umiki: Hi everyone. Just to let you know this is a strand of oneshots for a world that popped up during the middle of my creating the Shield of Gaia fic I am now spending all my time working on. It is not an epic I intend to make, some more oneshots if I so choose to but nothing else.
Staffs over Swords
"Why are you the only one who uses a staff?"
Usagi Bergvinter, the first female SOLDIOR and the Sapphire General, paused in mid-swing at her prized pupil's, Cloud Strife, question. Lowering her precious Shwarzwasser Usagi turned to look in the eyes that still yet had to be tainted by the poison that flowed in her veins.
"Why do I use a staff instead of a sword?" she repeated in amusement, a small smile decorating her pale lips. Memories of harsh training, of using a sword for the first time, of how dirty she felt with blood covering her body like it was painted on her, flashed through her mind. Cloud blinked in confusion when she replied, "Because a staff is more deceptive than any sword could be."
Fish and Birds
Usagi tugged on the black wing in-front of her in annoyance, trying to move it out of the way. Genesis nearly chuckled at the sight of the two from his chair across the room.
Usagi did her unusual combination of a sigh and a growl before taking the wing and shoving it aside, and Genesis had to really hold himself back from laughing as the stacks of paperwork began to tilt dangerously off the desk. Usagi jumped over her desk and grabbed the paperwork before it tilted off the hardwood desk. Safely rearranging it so that it wouldn't try making a mess in her office, Usagi sent a nasty glare at the coy look in her lover's eyes.
"This is why I prefer being a fish. The most I get is membranes in-between my digits and some gills. You boys are the ones who have to figure out how to control extra limbs to not cause havoc on another person." She growled viciously.
Genesis didn't stop himself from laughing this time.
Dangerous Pets
Sephiroth's glare was going to leave a scorch mark on her furniture if he didn't stop. And by the Planet he would pay in full for the repairs if they caught on fire, especially if they were materia cast fires. Usagi sent her own glare in return as her lover watched her and her new pet sitting on the couch.
He finally decided to speak. "You cannot have it."
"Oh yes I can." She shot back as she petted the cute little cub, who purred like it had ate the canary and got away with it.
Insert a scolding glare. "You are not going to keep a Cuahl cub as a pet."
"Under whose authority? If you say Shinra rules then screw them, I get my own share of spoils too don't I?"
"I refuse to have a monster living in the same premises as you."
"Then you can sleep by yourself for a while. Rochet is staying with me and that's that."
A week later, Sephiroth was still glaring at her and her pet; a faint claw scratch on his healing cheek. Usagi ignored it in favor of showering adoration on her dear little Rochet, who had look too smug for days to not understand what sort of frustration he had given the silver-one.
Materia
"My personal materia?"
Usagi nodded and showed Cloud her armlet, proudly inserted with a mastered Ice and Water. "Every person has a materia they are most comfortable with. For me, Ice and Water are the materia I always carried with me since I started my training. For Sephiroth, he always likes causing explosions so Comet is his favorite. Genesis loves Fire, enough said. Angeal kept an Earth on him for as long as I could remember before adding a Barrier somewhere into that mix. And Zack…" Usagi shuddered at the reminder of how the Second had reacted when he learned his materia. "….he will never admit it, but the Transform materia always love him. He never gets it wrong." Cloud blinked as understanding filled him. That sure explained why they were in the Pit, aka the materia storage facility.
"So I have to find one for myself? How do I do that?"
Usagi grinned at him before pulling out a blindfold and tying it around his eyes. "Same way we all did it, not that they will ever admit it under pain of death. Just hear and feel the materia's song."
Spinning him around a few times, she pointed him in the direction of the materias and let him walk slowly through the racks.
As Usagi waited for her pupil to find his materia, she glanced at all of the materias, mastered and non, that lined the walls of the small but dangerous room. The mere thought of just one of these precious orbs being given to an inexperienced user made her shudder. Hell, even the boys and herself had been horrible with materia on their first try.
The memory of those incidents was probably why the science department still jumped whenever one of them entered the area with a materia in hand.
"Usagi, I have the materia but…." Opening her eyes to see his choice, Usagi blinked rapidly when she saw what he held in his hands.
A Magic, a Support, and a SUMMON!
'Wow.' "Are you sure all three of them called to you Cloud?" Because if they did then the implications to his magic ability were now raised to her level. NO ONE but herself had ever shown a connection to more than one materia at the start of the 'special' materia training she and the Generals had gone through; the very same process Usagi intended to put Cloud through from the start.
Her heart nearly stopped when he nodded with a blush on his cheeks. 'Oh Gaia, if he passes this training he'll be a magic monster!' A wicked smile burst onto her face as she raised her hand and felt what types he had found. "A Contain, an Elemental, and Odin?! Hot shoals Cloud! One of the GODS?!"
Cloud had become uneasy at his mentor's startled/overjoyed tone. That was a bad sign for him indeed. "I actually didn't hear a song from Odin, but I did hear a deep male voice from it so…..you said to bring any of them if they 'spoke' to me and-"Usagi slapped a hand over his mouth.
"Cloud Strife, if what you told me is true, then pray you survive because by the time I'm through with you, you'll wish I had killed you."
Cloud shivered when he saw the pure delight on her face.
Truths
There were times Angeal hated Sephiroth. He truly wished the man had more tack when dealing with others, especially his friends and lover.
More so when Usagi was having one of her occasional pouts of depression.
"You're so lucky Angeal, you know that." Angeal paused in his efforts to take the whisky and hide it from the female SOLDIOR, again.
"How so?" Usagi gave him a loopside smile and a dreamy look that always meant she had reached her drinking limit. It was also the look she got before starting conversations she never would have spoken to others when lucid.
"I never knew my father, only that he was an Eastern man. Never knew my mother either, just that she was Wutian and they had accepted being the 'carrier' and 'begetter' for money. Trista always told me that the only thing they ever gave me was my name, a mix of East and West. It's……..a curse really."
By now Angeal had completely hidden the spirits, for now, and sat next to her. If just a bit on the edgy side. 'Goddamn you Sephiroth, agreeing to go with the President on that damn bloody campaign when your lover needs you more than the public does!' He fiddled with his PHS and sent a text to Genesis's phone. He was going to need help when she started getting angry and her lover was not going to be back for days.
"Especially with the war ya know? Every time I go to fight the ninjas they usually call me 'uragiri mono no sanran', 'traitor's spawn' when they say it in Common. But it's even worse here 'cause at the very least, in Wutai, they feel some pride that someone of their people's line could reach such levels of power; even if she's just a gajin's bastard. But here in Shinra, in Midgar, no matter how much power I obtain, no matter how much respect I get, I'll always be seen as a bastard child of the enemy; kept in check and in submission only thanks to 'THE GREAT SEPHIROTH'!!"
Usagi moved before Angeal could stop her and threw the coffee table at the wall, leaving deep impressions that would have to be fixed later. She started swinging wildly, tears and frustration clear as day on her face. Angeal grabbed her before she started trying to hurt herself. 'Come on Genesis! She's going to get worse within minutes!'
Some god must have heard his pleas because in seconds he heard the door open and close before a blur of red snagged the other side of the hysterical General. She shrieked and clawed, tried to escape from the clasps of iron strength that held her in place. Tears streamed down from her face in rivers and chocked sobs burst from her throat.
In minutes her drunken rage and grief subsided enough that her body fell limp in their hands. Genesis picked her up, ignoring the smell of spirits on her, and carried her to the bathroom. Angeal set to make her bed as comfortable as possible. A little later Genesis finished washing the breaking woman and dressed her in a long, loose night gown and carried her to her room; doing his best to ignore the quiet sobs that hiccupped from her every few seconds. Angeal was waiting with a cup of tea, made from the mixture her own apprentice had created specifically for her after his first encounter with her bouts of drunken madness. It would always calm her down and sooth her to sleep in minutes.
Genesis placed her down slowly and held her up as Angeal tilted the tea into her mouth. She proved to be in a good 'after-rage' mode and drank the tea without a fuss. Genesis than laid her down and was about to tuck her in when her hands shot out and grabbed their clothes. Her pleading eyes spoke volumes.
Without speaking Genesis removed his coat and boots before crawling next to her, Angeal doing the same with his sword and took the other side. Angeal pulled the cover up so that it would cover all of them and embraced her along with Genesis. They both felt her body relax from their presence and soon she was sleeping thanks to the tea's effects. One shared look between them was all that was needed before they too let themselves relax against the shivering body of their broken friend.
Yes indeed, there were times Angeal truly hated Sephiroth.
Hobbies
A city of naïve fools and greedy kings,
All sitting on the spider's web of steel and green.
But lo, under this web lies chaos and despair,
With souls locked in the forgotten memory.
The lands that hold the web are dead,
No green grass to tickle the feet, no pure blue water to quench a thirst.
Even now the skies cannot weep nor let in the sun to warm the heart,
For they now are cloaked in a veil of poison.
Oh city of fools and kings,
What life do you give to me?
I who now cannot break from your web that snares the world within it?
"A lovely, if amateurish poem." Genesis remarked over her shoulder. Usagi smiled at him for his hidden praise. It was hard to impress him in any literary not connected to LOVELESS after all.
"I write what I see and feel, just a hobby of mine really."
Medical Sessions
Professor Trista Anderson did not even look from her screen as her primary patient/subject arrived for her bi-monthly medical. "So how is training going with your apprentice? And how is Hexe by the way?"
"Cloud will soon be ready to go through the same procedure I went through, though I would prefer he think long and hard on which creature he is going to choose. I made it clear that it was permanent. And the Hexe are all doing fine, you know that even better than me."
Trista humped and began the standard procedures for the medical. "Soon they will be allowed to officially be Hexe, just as you always wanted. Are they prepared for the procedure as well or are some of them choosing not to do it?"
Usagi paused for a moment before replying. "Cloud will do it, no doubt about it. Pyro will accept anything that is fire based. Mina not so much, she likes herself as she is, but if we find something that can help her torture methods she willing to listen; so long as she still looks that same for the most part, she loves her looks as much as she loves Lita. And Lita herself told me she will stick with the normal SOLDIOR procedure, she doesn't need anything else. Hector has indicated he wouldn't mind some dragon, but only if he gets to choose which type. Ami told me that she was curious about the one I went through but she is more inclined for a Snow than a Serpent. Amara told me that she would prefer a normal one instead of a monster one; she is currently looking for one that she likes. Rini isn't sure yet, she is quite small for a teenager, so she decided to wait. Hotaru is going to wait with Rini, no surprise there. Ann and Alan told me they wouldn't mind something plant based, monster or otherwise. Seiren and Crow want avian based procedures. And Steven is indecisive on what he wants, normal or monster or nothing at all, so he is going to wait on it too."
During her listing Trista had been completing the medical with practiced ease. By the time Usagi had finished her reply Trista was on the last part of the medical. A little pocking and prodding and it was done. A few seconds later and Usagi was clothed and off the table.
"It is so strange Trista. Those in SOLDIOR join without ever really knowing the truth of what is going to be done to them, and yet those of Hexe are 'privileged' to not only have that choice but to also want it."
Trista paused her typing for a moment before replying. "Sometimes it is better if some only see their medical sessions as such, simply medical check-ups."
Gil for a Flower
Usagi walked calmly down the street, wearing civilian clothing and with her hair tied in a messy bun, and undisturbed for it. This was one of the few things being the most obscure but still known General gave her, the peace to be able to walk alongside others without being jumped by the media.
It was her day off and she decided to go into Midgar since she had nothing better to do. Normally she would have spent it with Sephiroth, either helping out with his paperwork which seemed to breed like rabbits or with him on one of his own rare days off. But Sephiroth was going to be going through five-hours worth of a board meeting which she did not want to go through so that was out. Zack and Angeal were off on a mission in Mideel and would not be back till tonight; while Genesis was hiding somewhere, reading LOVELESS no doubt. She would have trained Cloud some more, but Amara and Pyro were putting the junior members of the Hexe through the ringer today with group tactics. The other members of the senior Hexe were doing their own missions or on something that Usagi did not have the heart to interrupt. Even Trista was busy, what with making the proper genetic concoctions for the Hexe.
Leaving her to her own devices for once.
Usagi sighed as she sat down on a fountain and just watched the people walk by. A man in a tailored suit talking into a PHS, a woman carrying groceries in one arm and holding her husband's hand, a group of children running through the crowds. So many people, so many lives; how can the world contain so many combinations of light and darkness, good and evil? She just didn't know, probably never will.
"Flower for a gil miss?" a beautiful light voice inquired. Blinking in surprise Usagi turned to lay eyes on a young woman carrying a basket of…flowers? An instinctive deep breath told her that they were freshly cut.
"You grow those don't you? How unusual." She remarked to the girl, who showed her own surprise, but seemed to realize how she knew as soon as she saw her eyes. The girl gave her a small smile.
Usagi sighed and fiddled her pocket. "Give me five please, one for each of my fools." She told the girl, resignation obvious in her voice. The girl grinned and handed her five flowers in exchange for the gil.
"They all love you you know. They each show it their own way, but it is there." The flower girl told her before moving on to find more customers.
Usagi blinked and looked down to the flowers in her arms.
At the end of the day, when five fools returned to their rooms they were greeted with the sight of a single flower resting peacefully within vases of ranging colors.