Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII, or Crisis Core. I only own my OC, even then I question that.
A/N This is going to be a story I post when I have the free time and am not busy on my main project. It was born from my current attempt of a Crisis Core perfect file. This is not a romance, it is a family story about the bonds people share through meetings and partings. So without further adieu, the first chapter.
Sephiroth stared down into the low den; the lion that had made off with his dinner, a nice Tree Deer had run under there. He bent down trying to get a better look at it, he hissed, the other two who had accompanied him would be laughing their heads off about it. Reaching in he grabbed it by the scruff of the neck yanking it out violently. It was a small cub, probably no more then nine months old, it was yowling in shock as Sephiroth glared at him. He wouldn't stay long, he knew that lions never left cubs unattended for too long.
However this thought was interrupted as the sound of a branch snapping in the underbrush. Out of nowhere something charged him pinning him to the ground snarling as it bit him on the back of the neck. He spun around elbowing it hearing the crack of ribs as whatever it was slammed into a rock, the cub had slipped away under the opening to the den.
Sephiroth stood up looking over at what had attacked him; it sure wasn't a Wutainese Lion that was for sure. It was a child, couldn't have been more then twelve years old, black hair hanging around their face, a green bordering golden and blue bordering gray glared up at him from under the bangs, he noticed a long strip of reddish hair running down the middle of their head. Teeth bared at him he noticed the canines were more pointed then normal, the bones must have adapted after the baby teeth had fallen out. They had a reddish fur cloak on as well as long wristbands and leg covers in the same dark fur, what looked like Cockatrice feathers were braided into their hair.
"What are you doing kid?" Sephiroth growled at the kid where they were clutching their ribs.
"Leave our family alone!" The kid, female judging by voice roared.
He blinked, "you speak Midgaran?"
"We know the speech of your clan," she replied coughing up blood.
The cub poked its head out of the den mewing at her, "be careful!"
She looked over at the cub, "we are perfectly fine, get back inside and stay down."
The cub nodded and scampered back inside leaving the girl alone.
Sephiroth watched her sit up snarling at him, he was in a dilemma now. He hated to shed blood excessively however she did try and attack him. Then again she was only doing it to defend the cub and he did intrude on his territory but the cub had stolen his dinner. Which brought him back to his initial problem of whether or not he should kill her. He watched her coughing up more blood by the minute, until her eyes rolled back and passed out.
The cub clambered out of the den scampering up to her nuzzling her, licking her cheek, trying to get her to move. His pale red fur glinting in the fading sunlight in the grassland, he looked up at Sephiroth before nipping her ear. He desperately tugged at the feathers in her hair, she wasn't moving and her breathing was uneven. In a last ditch effort the cub charged over to Sephiroth tugging at the hem of his coat looking up at him wide eyed.
He sighed, "you want me to help her is that what you want?"
The cub's ears pricked up and he leaned over as a group of lionesses came out, wine red fur reflecting the light of the sun, all of them sporting blue and white feathers braided into their fur, "yes."
Sephiroth spun around seeing them readying to fight them off, "you speak?"
"You are one of the few able to understand our language, but we've known for some time that she could never stay here," the one in front replied, the matriarch, flecks of grey fur dotting her muzzle reflecting the failing light as she spoke.
"So why did you take her in?" Sephiroth asked as he bent down checking her breathing.
"There is a legend in this clan of two legs, that anyone born with unusual eyes, such as two tone or cat slit is bound to cause catastrophe. They brought her out here in hopes she would die when she was just a small child saying she was a demon in two-leg form. We found her and took her into our pride," the elder replied sitting down next to Sephiroth.
"So basically you're going to leave her to me?" Sephiroth asked.
The elder lioness nodded, "the stars and Planet have told us that you would come for her. If you should refuse we will make you take by force."
"Dammit... I don't know anything about kids, soon as we get her ribs fixed I'll send her to some orphanage," he declared pulling off his jacket and wrapping her in it and putting her on his back.
"Very well, we were merely told you would take her. Not what you would do with her," the elder turned and picked up the cub before disappearing into the grass.
He sighed, he'd heard of kids being raised by animals if they were abandoned, but he never expected he'd be caring for one. He was on a diplomatic mission in Wutai, it was five days after the war with Wutai and Emperor Godo only wanted to meet with Sephiroth on these sorts of things. It had been a long meeting and a two-day ride from the chopper drop off zone since the terrain around Wutai was absolutely treacherous. However he'd brought along a couple of his SOLDIERs with him, they were out in the field where they had set up camp. They wouldn't be back at their chopper until tomorrow.
He saw the fire of camp as the group around it looked up, two SOLDIERs stood up as he came back, Zack Fair, Second Class, was the first to speak, "Welcome back General!" Zack's eyes lit up at his commander's return. It wasn't often Second Class were allowed to accompany First Class on missions like these. But he was thrilled to have had the chance to come along, well more like he had taken the wrong transport onto a mission by mistake.
"Here," Sephiroth muttered setting the girl by the firelight, she was still coughing violently with the occasional blood coming up.
The other SOLDIER, Angeal Hewley, First Class, pulled back her fur shirt and saw the bones in her ribs poking the skin, "Seph, what did you do to her?"
Sephiroth shook his head, "I didn't know who was attacking me."
"This isn't good, she may have a punctured lung, and unless we do something she'll lose too much blood and go into cardiac arrest," Angeal replied. "We're going to have to pull the bone out and reset everything until we can get her to Midgar and get some better treatment. Zack boil me some water, Sephiroth get me as many bandages as you can." Angeal requested quickly, Sephiroth wasn't complaining about being ordered around, Angeal had more medical training then he did and this was a medical emergency. He started digging through their supplies for any scrap of dressings he could find.
Zack nodded as he boiled up some water, Angeal dipped his hands into it before dipping his pocket knife into it. Carefully placing the blade to her skin he made his initial incision seeing the bone spring out.
He carefully worked the bone out of her lung before reaching into the pouch on his belt and pulling out some materia. "Cure3," he muttered as the external wound healed over, taking the bandages from Sephiroth wrapping them around her torso tightly. Materia could only do so much, however it would ease the pain for a while.
"Okay we need to get her back to Midgar as soon as we can," Angeal announced washing his hands and knife off again.
Zack breathed a sigh of relief, "that's good."
Sephiroth sighed, "why are we doing this for some no name kid?"
Angeal lay back watching the stars, "tell me Sephiroth, did you ever have kids abandoned in your hometown simply because of superstition?"
Sephiroth shook his head, "never, it sounds despicable though." He commented thinking about his own childhood and wondering if it was similar in any way. "What about you Fair?"
Zack shook his head, "nope nothing like that, you Angeal?"
The First Class nodded, "yeah, I remember. A while back I took a vacation off to see my mother, it was just after I became Third Class, about that time there was a baby born. The parents were scared of it because it had two-tone eyes, one green and one blue. They were so mortified by it they never even named the kid, I watched them carry it out of town. I never knew what happened to the kid." Angeal sighed, "I was fifteen when it happened, my mother let me out of the house and I followed them. They drove out of town, I didn't know where they went off to but when they came back they were missing the child. I wonder if this is the same child... would it be alright with you General if we took her back?"
Sephiroth nodded, "very well," he grumbled.
The three took turns on shifts for the rest of the night changing out bandages and making sure nothing attacked the camp. Not all of the fauna were as amicable as Wutainese Lions and some deliberately attacked humans for no reason. When morning came they walked to the chopper, Angeal having taken over the transportation of the child.
Climbing inside Sephiroth sat down at the controls, he'd requested to fly out there without a pilot, to quote his reasoning, "otherwise I will become rusty if I do not get to practice." They made the seven-hour flight back to Midgar landing as the sun was coming up over the horizon.
Angeal took the girl down to the Medical Center, "she has several severe broken ribs."
The doctor nodded and rushed her into intensive care on a stretcher, the SOLDIER sighed sitting down on one of the benches outside. He stretched out and fell asleep exhausted from the trip but he didn't want to leave her alone. He had a severe mistrust of any medical person; he'd be in there right now if he could.
"Mr. Hewley," the doctor called.
Angeal woke with a start, "what? Is she okay?"
The doctor nodded, "yes, she's unconscious but fine. Her ribs were severely damaged but thanks to whatever medical care she had previous to you bringing her here she's managed to pull through. We'll need to keep her here until she regains consciousness though."
Angeal nodded, "thank you, may I see her?"
The doctor opened the door to the recovery room, Angeal walked in looking at the girl. She was sound asleep; he smiled brushing her hair out of her face. Despite not being able to help her before, this time he was going to make every effort to help her.
He watched her sleep for a little while longer before standing up and heading for his quarters. He could use some sleep too, and a shower.