[A/N: For my 50Shuffle
challenge! If anyone wants to do it, here are the instructions /
rules:
Go onto iTunes or whatever music player you have, click on shuffle or random and play.
Write down the first 50 song titles which come up. If you get two versions of the same song, you can skip one; songs with titles that contain a specific name, eg. "Alice", "Ciaran's Well" etc. can also be skipped [unless you think you can do it ^^] Foreign language song titles must be translated, eg. "Koguero Yoru ni Saita Hana" should become "The Flower That Bloomed on a Frozen Night"; "Chizuru" becomes "A Thousand Cranes".
You then have to write a drabble / oneshot using the titles; it must be relevant (: NOT songfics.
You can use any pairing; het or slash, established or implied; and you can use more than one pairing in the challenge
Can be from any fandom
Content can be any rating and any genre :3
Have fun!
So this is 1/50: Mirror [by D'espairsRay]
MIЯROR
Together, they were like the opposite sides of a coin; so similar, yet so different, as wild and untameable as fire and ice.
Strength, poise, grace; these were all qualities they shared in abundance. Power, love, hate – they warred with themselves, so close to splitting but really as close as they could possibly be.
The bonds they shared were undeniable, even viewed through awestruck eyes; each heartbeat, each breath brought them closer together and away, whirling in a fiendish dance. Bonds formed through time, battle and love that could never be shattered ensnared them both, bringing such closeness that they could never be lonely, forcing them together like caged lions – snapping, snarling, threatening with no intention of harming.
Together, they were like the two halves of one soul; apart, they were desolate, empty, broken.
And so that day had come, the day of fire and blood and hatred; the night their indestructible bonds had been impossibly torn apart, ruined by jealousy, insanity, barely-buried hate. There had been the blade, the words that cut as smoothly as a heated knife, then the sweet embrace of the Lifestream after the scorching heat of Nibelheim as it burned.
Yes, the embrace was sweet, but it was a lonely one.
Years of drifting, dreaming, healing, and finally a release. Finally, he had been able to breathe true air once more, feel the weight of a sword in his hand, survey the world in its real colours rather than tainted through the misty green of the Lifestream. Finally, after such loneliness, such powerful longing that he thought it would rip him apart, he could begin the search for the missing whole that he needed so much.
But that had not been his fate.
Instead, another screaming descent from the light to the unending flow beneath his feet; no matter how hard he tried, how many times he flexed the wing on his right shoulder – a reflection of his – he could not cling onto the hope of the real world.
In that last moment, before he faded completely, he could have sworn he heard him, felt him scream in abject agony once more.
No!
Clawing, struggling, writhing in frustration, he desperately tried to break through the hated green glow floating before him, intangible but solid as any material. His throat burned out from yelling, he sank down in defeat, silent cries echoing without sound through the featureless existence of the afterworld.
And now, again years later, they were released, yet now the positions were reversed. Now it was he staring out at the world, at his fiery love, bereft of the blazing energy of his life before all this. Now it was Sephiroth who had to shed tears of helpless suffering for his lost soul, so close but so far away, staring through dull azure eyes at the new world, so changed from the one they had known; so empty.
Again and again Sephiroth screamed his name, sobbed it, whispered it when his voice was too hoarse to be heard. He threw himself against the Lifestream, resisted its warm encouragements to leave the living to their own affairs and merge seamlessly with the others already passed before him.
He refused, spending day after endless day – though time did not pass here like it did in the real world – watching Genesis, standing guard over him as he slept disquietly, being there to watch him wake as he always had been, yet never seeing a reaction to his presence. Time and time again he reached out, so close to touching Genesis' warm, pale face yet repelled by the spiteful fancy of the Lifestream.
He stared into Genesis' eyes and saw the mirror of his own gaze; empty, anguished, dead.
