Title: Seasons Change
Author: joudama
Fandom: Final Fantasy 7
Rating: worksafe
Summary: Drabbles based on each of the seasons. There is no summer yet because it's winter and I'm COLD. Plus, the summer drabbles kind of combined and grew into a HC-verse thing. ^^;;
Autumn
Prompt: Zack, Angeal, harvest moon
Title: Red Moon
"Angeal! Angeal!!"
Angeal turned at the slightly panicked sound of his young trainee. Zax (no, Zack, he reminded himself) Fair was new to ShinRa and new to SOLDIER--and, Angeal privately thought, at fourteen entirely too young to be someone they were going to send out to war--and tended to be wide-eyed and excited about everything, but something seemed to have the boy spooked.
"What is it?" Angeal asked, frowning up at how agitated the boy seemed. "What's wrong?"
He didn't answer, just grabbed Angeal by the arm and dragged the man to the nearest window. "LOOK!" he yelled, pointing out wildly.
"...OK...?" Angeal began, not seeing what under the Heavens could have the boy so freaked out. It was a rare day when the sky was visible, and there was a full moon, a red harvest moon, shimmering in the sky, and Angeal felt an odd pang of homesickness at the sight.
"The MOON!!" the boy yelled, and Angeal could all but see the extra exclamation points. "It's red! Why is the moon red?!"
Angeal turned and sudden realized again how very young Zax--or rather, Zack, as he had started using since it was easier for the people in Midgar and "it's close enough, and it's kind cool. Zax is lame anyway"--was.
"Red? It's just the harvest moon," he said, wondering what he had missed.
"You mean that's normal?!"
Angeal laughed at Zax'--Zack's--expression. "It's just the harvest moon. It only happens in Autumn."
Za...Zack shook his head. "Man, Midgar is weird," he said, and Angeal just laughed.
--
Title: Busadou [武茶道]
Prompt: Sephiroth, meditation over tea. This kind of wandered all over the place. x_x
Nankyo was an old city, known for two things: its tea and its wars.
It had been the capital of Wutai, once long ago, and still remained a capital, albeit now simply of the Yamato Province. It was the city from which the great Wutai Expansion of the Warring Era long ago had begun; the city from which the first Kisaragi emperor had sprung--the emperor who left Nankyo and established the capital to the north and rejected the warring expansion of the previous dynasties.
Ironic then, Sephiroth thought, that a place that was so warlike could be so peaceful when subdued. Or rather, when burning.
They had taken the city--it had not been easy, and the Yamatan Wutai had preferred death before dishonor, and had done their able best to kill as many ShinRa troops on their way out. The Battle of Nankyo had been long and protracted, but necessary--not so much for location, but for breaking the spirit of the Wutai. Nankyo was the second most important city in the entire island continent, and symbolized all the glory that Wutai was--Nankyo may not have been the capital for hundreds of years, but she was a city that never forgot what she was, and that from her the longest-reigning dynasties had come.
It had once been a beautiful city. Aspects of it still were.
Sephiroth sat quietly in one of these places, in the palace that the last Kanagawa emperor had built as a testament to his own greatness, maps and notes laid out before him. He knew that he should be planning what was next, but for now he simply drank his tea and stared out at the ruined and smoldering city below him.
There was something to be said, for destruction. It was easy to understand that, in this place. Nankyo had burned before. This was not the first, and he doubted it was the last, because the city was so proud it seemed to dare any to have the audacity to attack it. Sacking Nankyo was not the same as another city; it was a sign that this was a war without quarter or mercy. This was one more mark in history; he would be remembered for this as well. And perhaps cursed for it--the classics of Wutai literature of her warring times all spoke of the times when Nankyo had burned...and the price that befell those who destroyed her.
Nankyo was known for her tea and her wars...and for her revenge.
And so Nankyo smoldered and he sipped his tea, and wondered for a moment if he, like all who had burned the city, would fall as well, and then returned to his maps to plan.
--
Winter
--
Title: ~Always Look On the Bright Side of Life!~
Prompt: degenerating!Genesis, camouflage
"Camouflage? Camouflage?!" Genesis yelped. "What the fuck, Angeal?!"
"You'll blend in perfectly if we have to go back to Modeoheim or go to any of those other -heims out in Hel's frozen north," he said, knowing he was only digging myself in deeper, but not able to help in. "No one will spot you from above now."
Genesis' hands twitched for his sword and he scowled. "Maybe I can just dye it back red."
Angeal rolled his eyes. "Yes. You'll just walk into a store and buy hair dye. No one will ever notice you," he said, pointedly looking at Genesis' wing, which was still twitching and bristling in outrage.
Genesis cursed, and Angeal just laughed. "And on the bright side, at least you're only going grey. No wrinkles."
Angeal had to have a death wish. It was the only way to explain the next word that came out of his mouth.
"...Yet."
Genesis let out a pained howl and his face just crumpled. "Wrinkles?!"
This was going, Angeal thought with a sinking stomach and a grin that just wouldn't go away, to be a very long day.
--
Title: The Road North
Prompt: Sephiroth, storm
It was cold, this far north. And it surprised Sephiroth, on some level, for all he had known it intellectually. But it was his first winter outside of the labs, and there was a great deal of difference between this and the VR training he had undergone.
There was something oddly familiar about, even if he couldn't put his finger on why this forsaken-by-the-gods part of Wutai could in any way seem familiar.
They had been in the Jiuquan region of Beizhou for about a week. There was nothing of any interest in the area, nothing that should have kept them there instead of trying to press on towards the castle--nothing but the weather. It was as if the gates to Hel's icy realm had opened up the second they had stepped foot in Jiuquan from the ancient Quanlu Road.
There had been no choice, but the find a place to stay, not with the storm as it had been. The people of Chongquan were naturally wary, but had had no choice, not when the troops and support had made it clear there would be no saying "No." And while the people of the town may have given no respect to someone they considered little more than a boy, they did respect numbers, and the village fell to them easily.
He stared out at the snow still swirling in another day of almost blizzard-like conditions, and the snow piling and swirling was so familiar...
He brushed it aside. There was no snow like this in Midgar, and he had never been here before. And it was folly, he decided, to press north to the capital in a season like this, of snow and ice.
He would order the troops south, when the storm passed. It would be suicide to press north, especially against a foe so familiar with the weather and its temperament, far more familiar than him and some odd, unnameable nostalgia.
But that was for another day. For now, he watched the snow fall, and decided that they would not raze this village as they left.
--
Spring
Title: Bug Lure
Prompt: Zack, blackflies
"...and then when you--Motherfucker!" Zack yelped, and slapped his neck.
"...I haven't done that, no," Angeal said, chuckling slightly.
Zack ignored him in favor of raising both hands up and getting an almost crazed look on his face. "OK, that's IT, this is frickin' war!" he yelled. "That's the third little flying vampire in the last hour to bite me, and no more!"
Angeal laughed. "I swear, between you and Genesis, I'm completely safe from all the bugs on this insane island. It's like you two have Lure equipped and every bug in a three kilometer radius has to come over. The blackflies eat you and the mosquitoes eat him."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Zack said, rolling his eyes but still tense and obviously on the hunt. "Must be nice, not to get bitten every other min--AHHA!!" he finished, and slapped his hands together suddenly. "How'd you like THAT you little--oh, come on! How did I miss?" he whined, looking stunned.
And while he stared at his hands in utter disbelief, the blackfly landed on his arm where he couldn't see, and Angeal bit his lip to keep from laughing.
--
Title: The Thawwind
Prompt: Cloud, thaw
There was always something a little sad, in the seasons changing.
The Thawwind was blowing, and winter was going end.
Most people, Cloud knew, liked when spring came. People just seemed happier, knowing that life was about to start blooming again and warmth coming back into the world.
But he liked the cold. There was something about the stillness and sharpness of everything that almost resonated with him and inside him. The snow blanketing everything in Nibelheim made everything still and quiet. But when the Spring came, there was bustle and energy, and it seemed like Cloud was the only one to feel sad when the Thawwind blew in and the icicles began to drip.
He was the only one who didn't smile at the first stirrings of the Thaw, and it was another reason he knew he had to one day leave.