hmm...i'm noticing that these chapters are shorter than i thought origonally. sorry 'bout that. i refuse to feel too bad about it, but i also know that a short chapter is like getting half a cookie. eventually, they may get longer. or not--dunno, the story writes me after all. not much devolopment here, sorry. i needed the set-up for the next chapter.
eerian
DISCLAIMER: please refer to chapter one for the full disclaimer.
Chapter 2
As always, Valentine was struck with a sense of the otherworldly as he entered his mother's room. After his father had died, she had decorated it in the style of the rooms she'd seen during her time in AVALANCHE, and it always seem out of place in the royal manor. The walls were covered in framed photos of her old comrades. The windows were covered in heavy blue cotton drapes with puffy valances. The floor was covered in an elaborate blue and gold rug that covered it like carpet. And the bed was a real four-poster canopy bed.
She'd stopped sleeping on a futon almost the day after his father died. Sometimes, it seemed like his mother was trying to erase all traces of his father from their home.
"Val is that you?" His mother asked from her hiding place inside the canopy of her bed. She sounded frail; her voice barley more than a whisper. She was only audible because her room was so silent.
"Yes, mother, its me." He tried to keep the worry and anger he was feeling out of his own voice. Truthfully, he wanted to lash out at the disease that was trying to take his mother from him.
"Come over here, sweetie." She always called him that. It was an expression she'd picked up from one of her AVALANCHE friends when he was little. It felt out of place on the streets of Wutai, and he hated it, but here in his mother's room, the endearment felt right.
He walked to the bed. "Kia said you wanted to see me."
"I do." Val wished that he could see her face through the heavy curtains she kept on the bed, but her disease ravaged body embarrassed her, and she insisted on keeping them closed. "There's something I need to tell you. Before its too late."
So, Yuffie was afraid she was dying, too. That made Val even angrier; when she was younger—and healthier—Yuffie Kisaragi would never have feared death.
Valentine didn't say anything for a long moment. Finally, he asked, "What do you want to talk about?"
"Your father."
