Disclaimer:

We all know I don't own anything from FF7 or square-enix/soft. No characters. No locations. No vehicles. No Chocobo. All I own is myself, and I'm not even sure about that one.

Oh well, at least this story's mine. See, I can see the silver lining to every Cloud... :-p

Sorry, couldn't help that one :-p

Don't upset the Lifestream... I want to share the fun too! Wait for meeeeeeeeeee!

Heart of Despair

My hand brushes back his midnight hair. It has grown so long since… now it falls back on his eyes, his wonderful eyes. I wish them to open, with all my heart, one last time. But what God will listen to a sinner such as I?

His skin is cold and clammy, echoing the coldness lodged deep within my bones. No! I will not think of this, or I will not get anything done tonight. The scissors tremble in my unsteady grasp as I snip off some of the dark locks. Weak, I am so weak… the scissors fall from my hands and clatter on the cold stone floor, slashing the deep silence with its metallic song of pain.

No… no matter. I rise from yet another vision, another dream, another waking nightmare. Prophetic or demonic? I don't know; but every one of them is hell for me as I plunge uncontrollably headlong in time and space, seeing people and events I don't know, hearing the voices, the screams of a thousand disembodied ghouls. Times of war, times of hatred, times of death, times of pain… and always him… that green-eyed man, so like myself. My son? No…

Tears fall on his face as I do up the fastenings of his shirt. Almost done… next, the gloves. I hesitate over the left one. There is something missing here. I struggle to remember what I had purged from my memories of the visions, in a desperate, futile bid to retain some of my sanity. I had seen…

I go back to the trunk, which had been full of my mentor's belongings. Half of its contents are already spilled on the floor, a mess I had made in my haste to find what I needed. Now I pick up the discarded items of clothing and other objects, putting them reverently in an orderly pile. Yes, reverently, for those were the property of a man I had admired and adored, a man who had died to save me. His only earthly remains, for he had faded into the Lifestream as he had passed away in my arms in this very room. The only ghost of him that remained lay in my painful memories… and in his only son.

In what was left inside the trunk, I find what I had so much trouble remembering: pieces of a golden armour. Yet, unlike other suits of armour, this one was special. Not just in appearance, for the gauntlets ended in wickedly sharp talons, but in value too. This was supposed to have belonged to the Cetra, part of a larger collection that had been lost over the centuries; all that was left lay here. Relics of the past, of a people so closely connected to the Planet they could converse with it. A hysterical giggle bursts out from my throat… the Cetra… the desperate attempts to revive one of them was what had led me to this sorry state, to this abysmal tragedy. How fitting that I should be the one to give back part of what the dream of the Cetra had taken from him.

I take the few armour pieces back with me and continue to clothe him in silence, desperate tears falling heavily from my eyes all the time. Why, oh why am I doing this? Why do I torture myself so? I never wanted to lose any of you… yet, dressing you like your father had dressed that day he had gone back to the Lifestream, is of some comfort to me.

Because both of you have died. Because I have loved both of you. In you, my love, I can see your father. By making you don his clothes, it was as if he had never quite left. In you, he will live on, an illusion and yet, still here.

Did I just whisper "my love"? Yes… I love you. Deeply, so deeply even now that my heart, my mind and my body are no longer wholly mine. I am sorry I was such a fool, so blind to every sign, so stupid. Loss… is what awoke me. I saw myself in a new light, and all the things I had ignored, pushed back, crushed me with their powerful reality... an inverted pyramid coming down on me... You wanted to save me despite all of it. But it was too late, it is too late, my love.

Why did I do what I did? Why? The pain of shame and remorse tear my heart apart, and I drop to my knees, crying silently as I hug the two last items of clothing to my chest, staining them a deeper red with my tears. And when the storm had passed, when I had no more tears to give as penance, I carry on.

Your hair… so fine beneath my fingers. I caress them one last time before lifting your head to me. I twine the long, scarlet piece of fabric he had often used as a scarf around your forehead. Gently, I place your head back on the hard surface of the operating table and I admire my handiwork; this should keep them out of your eyes.

And last… I lift up the long cape, your father's mantle, already a bit tattered at the edges. This one is red, unlike the one he had worn. I could not find another one like that, so this one will have to do. Maybe more than do. As I close the straps closing it, I watch the effect on your pale, beautiful features. Such a stark contrast… I have always loved bright colours. Now that I think about it, I wonder why I married such an unimaginative, tasteless, self-serving egocentric, mad-

My body falls back as a powerful wave of hatred overwhelms me, a thousand writhing tentacles ripping at my mind, control slipping out of my grasp, I must stop, I must fight, I must. Slash. I need-

A wail of agony echoes, inhuman in quality, for a long time, in the cursed heart of Despair…

Author's notes:

What more can I say, except that I feel almost sorry for her? I hate her, really. But looking at her, I feel sorry, as any other human being could feel sorry for such an afflicted woman.

As Vincent said, she only sees what she wants to. That was her tragic fault.

Her punishment seems... almost out of proportion with her sins. But maybe not. Should she suffer?

She seems to think that it is her only fate, the only thing she deserves.