Author's Note:
When I was playing Final Fantasy VII, like others, I wondered quite a lot about the backstory of this great epic. I got to wondering: How did Shin-Ra find Jenova? How did Ifalnya and Aeris escape Shin-Ra Tower? Who decided to build the Sister Ray? I really felt that this needed explanation, and all the fanfics I read did nothing to elucidate. Several points were briefly touched upon but I wanted to know more, more about Jenova, more about the love triangle between Hojo, Vincent, and Lucretia, what led to Hojo's discrediting of Gast and why he stormed into that little house in Icicle. Since I had found nothing, I decided that writing my own fic was the only way to help me understand. This was originally intended as a short fic about Jenova, but it blossomed into something complex and beautiful. I hope you enjoy it.
BTW, I'll say that everything belongs, unfortunately, to SquareSoft, who, sadly, have seemed to have lost their ability to make an RPG that's any good. VII is the zenith of the RPG genre. Final Fantasy is the cream of RPGs everywhere, and I'd just like to say to anyone who works for Square that VIII was a very bad idea and that they should have thought things through.
"Veni, veni, venias,
Ne me mori facias."
She awoke, cold. She had been trapped in the great ice for millennia, and had woken rarely, only when the glacier above her had melted enough to bring some warmth to her, but always the ice had built up, too quickly to bring her influence against it. But this time...this time, a living being brought on the warmth. She conducted a quick probe of the being's mind, and discovered that it was an intelligent creature, with organized thoughts. Such a mind she had not felt for ages unspeakable, when the Cetra had banished her from their land and their kind, to be entombed in the glacier to the north, near the crater that had appeared when she had ridden the meteor down from the stars, and brought down destruction from the skies upon them.
But thinking of past matters was no use now. She scanned the creature's thoughts again, and learned that it was searching for artifacts left behind by the Cetra.
Pitiful thing, really. It hardly seemed to be worth the effort it would require to attract its attention. But still, she needed to be free, to glorify in her body once more, free of the ice, free to taste the wind, to feast upon the minds of those she brought under her power. Bringing the tatters of her magical abilities to her, she sent out a spell of calling, and waited.
*****
Professor Gast gave a cry of triumph when he saw a shape on his Shin-Ra brand archaeological finder. His search for artifacts left behind by the Cetra had been fruitless, and he desperately needed to find something, as Shin-Ra was about to cut his funding. And here, before his bespectacled eyes, was what seemed to be a vast treasure trove of items, only a kilometre or so to the west of his camp. He quickly stuffed a lighter, wood, a brush, pick, and shovel into a knapsack, pulled on his coat, and strapped on his snowshoes. He told his assistant that he would be back in a while, and left the camp, rushing toward his find. Soon he was at the site, and he lit a fire above the main deposit, to melt the ice. He had not long to wait.
*****
She felt the heat of the fire her being had lit, and exulted in the fact that soon she would be free of her arctic prison. She sent out a thought to the creature, subconsciously suggesting that a little more wood couldn't hurt. The thing obeyed her command, and the fire drew nearer.
*****
Gast piled more wood upon the fire, fervently hoping that the blaze would not harm his find. He was able to see a reddish-blue, and brown mass in the thickness of the ice, and his excitement rose as he thought of what might be in his discovery. Gold? Jewels? Perhaps it was a frozen Cetra! Heaven only knew.
After a short time, Gast saw that a bit of something organic-looking was poking out through the ice. At first he thought it was leather or wood, but then...but then it...twitched. He gave a little cry of terror, then common sense took over. Surely, the motion had been caused by gravity, pulling down that which had been frozen for aeons. He moved the burning wood into a circle around his find, so the flames wouldn't damage his precious specimen. Then he waited.
*****
She felt the being's terror, then calmness. It seemed that this thing was more intelligent than she had thought at first, if it had worried about its new 'specimen'...although the flames would not hurt her. After centuries of freezing cold, she had built up a resistance to extreme temperatures. She settled in for a long wait.
*****
Hours passed. The flames gradually melted the ice, until a pillar of it rose fifteen feet into the frigid air, in a deep pool. Gast could see that this thing was, or once had been, a living thing. Obviously, it was one of the Cetra.
At last! A specimen worth the years he had spent on his search! And what a wonderful being it was...vaguely treelike, obviously female, with bluish skin and wing-like extensions from the shoulders. No arms or legs were evident. It towered above him, and he could see all of it! The DNA samples Shin-Ra wanted would be theirs, and his colleagues, Lucretia and Hojo, would be pleased with the tissue samples they had to work with. Perhaps...perhaps they could clone this creature, and have countless specimens to use at their leisure...
There was no time to waste. He set a beacon, and skied back to his camp to radio for assistance in moving his priceless find.
*****
She felt the saw cut beneath her, narrowly missing her. She was picked up, and lifted into the air, and taken to a strange white room, full of gleaming steel instruments. She used her influence to make the instruments of these puny creatures lie, to tell them that she was dead. It would not be a good idea to reveal herself yet, that much her instincts told her. A needle was inserted, and she felt a small part of her be taken away for analysis. She was placed in a large, warm room, to thaw. Such warmth she had not felt for ages, and she motionlessly stood, basking in the dull red light of the heater units. Then she was carted back into the white room, packed into a large metal container, and shipped far away, to what she knew was the west. There she was placed in a glass tank, set into a room filled with the luminescent substance that was the Planet's blood...sealed into a great chamber, over a chasm of unknowable depth, to sleep. As long as it took for the right person to come along. They always did. She could wait for an eternity. Her last conscious thought for two years was of knowing what the small creatures called humans had engraved above the door to her prison, and what they had engraved on the small headpiece they had fitted her with, presumably to monitor brain activity or some strange little human purpose. Humorous that they had given her the same name as the Cetra had so long ago. Jenova. She fell asleep, looking at the stylized statue of her that had been mounted on the access tube.
Notes:
Well, that's not that bad for a first start, is it? Don't worry, the next part is really good and has Vincent in! And I know how people like Vincent! And all this with Jenova, this is interesting, no? I think that for this first bit I was heavily influenced by Anne McCaffery's Dragonflight. Very good book. But I just want you all to read the next bit!