Hello, all, it's been a while.

So, anyways, here's something for you. It's about an FFVII OC, but told by Angeal. Cassiel is one of my favortie OCs EVER-EVER-EVER, so he's going to be around a while. He's probably been around the longest, in one form or another. He was my...first character, actually, back five or so years ago when he was a girl named Seraph Angelus and probably more than a little Mary-Sueish, i'll admit. Anyways, this is him now.

This and one more are one-shot prologues before something i'm writing that may turn multi-chapter. Who knows?

Angel of Solitude and Tears

His name is Cassiel. He was born on Yule Eve, in the year 1997.

His mother died soon after, surprisingly quietly for one of the Professor's murders – just a little too much tranquilizer in her IV drip, and she never woke up.

His father didn't even know he existed. His lover's mysterious disappearance plagued him, was one of the many things eating at the back of his mind for the five years before the Incident that twisted his mind and claimed his physical body.

Yes, his father was Sephiroth, the great SOLDIER and the man who very nearly destroyed the Planet were it not for the efforts of a brave young man named Cloud, his companions, and the last Ancient.

The boy grew up alone, but not completely. I was there. Not physically, of course – I'd been dead for seven years by the time the Incident occurred. But like Sephiroth, the Lifestream couldn't take me, so I wandered the Planet. I found Cassiel almost by accident one day, while checking up on SOLDIER after the Incident. I'd found myself in the science labs – a place I've always rather disliked – and I somehow knew there was someone there who needed me. Perhaps it was the Jenova cells in both of us calling to each other. I like to think it was merely the fact that he was the son of one of my closest friends.

He was about five when I found him. He was hidden away in a back room behind a secret door. I watched as Professor Hojo took blood, injected what looked like Mako, scribbled some notes onto a clipboard, and left. Cassiel curled up on the bed behind him, virtually radiating loneliness.

I knew I had to stay. He may never notice me, never realize I'm here. But I wanted to watch over him. I'd failed his father as a friend. The least I could do for the boy was be his guardian angel.

A few months later, I'd figured out something I could do. I reached out through the Lifestream, and found a little girl his age in Junon. Her father was in SOLDIER, and she'd been born after his Mako- and Jenova cell-treatments. Because of that, it was easy to get the two to meet in the Lifestream while they slept, protected by me, of course.

I was able to let them meet for four years, until his tenth birthday. Unfortunately, Sephiroth began his slow attack on the Planet then, and I couldn't keep them connected. Of course, you know what happened next; everyone does. Meteorfall. Sephiroth's vicious attack on the Planet, and my sword's new successor's victory.

I still feel guilty over what I let happen. I wasn't paying attention; I'd been trying to concentrate both on taking care of the flow of SOLDIERs into the Lifestream – the little girl's gather was one killed by the Weapon, I noticed with some sympathy – and struggling against Jenova's call myself.

I didn't notice when Hojo tried to force Jenova to take Cassiel like she'd taken his father. By the time I had realized what he was doing, it had already been done. All I could do was watch over him and hope he was strong enough to fight her off, like I did. He was, but as with me, she was still there in the back of his head, waiting for a moment of weakness.

He was transferred down into Deepground after that, to keep him from the people that were sure to find him if he was left in the labs. They treated him even more harshly there. They subjected him to more and more tests, both trying to replicate Sephiroth through the incomplete genes that lay in his biological son, and trying to stir up Jenova again. He was trained with a sword, a katana like his father's, the lessons pounded into him until he bruised and bled every day they didn't bring him into the labs.

I don't know how he made it. Not even Sephiroth had been treated that badly. Maybe it was my presence. Maybe it was his memories of the little girl. Maybe it was just the strength of will and character that he'd gotten both from his father and from his mother, who'd been a feisty, stubborn woman.

Yet, he made it through the next three years. I wasn't there all the time – I found Genesis there in that dark city, comatose and being used to create the Tsviets. I had him to watch over to, the brat. But even so, I watched over Cassiel, too.

When Hojo mobilized Deepground, he'd hidden Genesis in a chamber I couldn't enter, and Cassiel was locked in a cellar I could. I spent the weeks of the Deepground War watching the boy- thirteen now, and much too old for his age. He got out of the cellar days after it had ended, and soon realized he was alone.

He's spent the last five years wandering the city, protecting people that aren't there from the increasingly dangerous monsters that populate the ghost town. I worry that he does it just for the excitement of the fight and the pleasure of the kill. He's good with that katana, though, so I don't have to worry about his health. I certainly have done quite a bit of worrying after him since I've been watching him – maybe Genesis was right when he compared me to a mother hen.

Speaking of Genesis, Cassiel found him last year. He's still comatose, but it looks like he'd woken up sometime in the past. I hope he wakes up soon; I don't want to have to worry about him, too. I did more than enough of that when I was alive.

He's a good kid, that Cassiel. There's been some odd activity in and around Deepground of late. Both he and I have seen DG soldiers wandering around. So I wonder if Cloud will come investigate. He seems to like getting involved in trouble, just like Zack. My 'hyperactive little puppy' sure picked a hell of a successor.

I hope he and the others do come by. Cassiel needs to spread his wings, as they say (I hope that doesn't turn out to be literal). I'm sure he'll prove himself trustworthy.

Well, we'll see, won't we? And of course, I'll be here. This 'angel' can serve his purpose just watching, for now.