Author's Note: This chapter is shorter than desired, but the next will make up for that. Again, thanks for the lovely reviews and ever-growing interest.
Sephiroth found himself watching the blond resting on the bed, Genesis successfully casting Sleep on the boy while he was curled up and already half-conscious next to a smoking stack of cardboard, the spell lasting more than long enough for the crimson SOLDIER to also cast a Cure spell to help heal the wounds on his legs until they could be properly taken care of once he got him to the refuge.
It was almost irritating, the way his eyes took on minds of their own, slowly sliding back to the blond every time he looked away. To be only a few feet from him rather than thousands of miles away viewing him from a screen had an unnerving, yet, beguiling effect on the silver-haired man. Obviously, the young man was handsome, his eyes the most vivid blue Sephrioth had ever seen. But, Mako exposure from the ruined reactors the boy lived around and had been exposed to could be playing a factor in that. Yet, the boy's hair was unmistakable - auric, untamed sendal that seemed to ethereally shimmer like gold dust in the fire's glow. The mark of the Golden Child. Never the less, a pretty face had never phased Sephiroth to the point of distraction before.
Cloud stirred and started awake, opened his eyes and sat up, instantly alert. The crackling warmth and aroma of wood burning permeated his senses, sending him into an immediate panic.
"You are safe."
The blond whipped his head around, surveying the grotto-like room, his gaze focusing on the man crouched at the stone hearth, placing another log onto the fire. He blanched, swallowing hard as he regarded the man in black warily. "Where am I," his voice a soft-spoken rasp, his throat felt as if it had been scoured with sandpaper.
Slowly rising to his feet, the tall figure stood, the only thing in the room brighter than the flames dancing in the dark were the man's intense, jade-green eyes. Graceful strands of long hair the color of moonlight framed the sides of his face. The uniform he wore was just as Cloud had remembered when he first thought this man was merely a figment of his imagination: midnight leather from the high collar of his long coat, to the tips of his nimble fingers, down the stretch of his legs, to the boots on his feet. The silver metal that accented his shoulders and belts gleamed brilliantly in the firelight. Like the crimson warrior who saved him from the horde of mutants, this man also emanated a mesmerizing presence that stimulated both fear and awe. Yet, there was something more elegant in his manner, something bewitching and mesmeric.
"You are under the mountain range that encompasses the Icicle Area of the Northern Continent, approximately 2096.6 miles northwest of what was once known as Midgar."
Cloud's heart thudded as his stomach churned.
Sephiroth frowned at the boy with one brow slightly raised, noticing the anxiety building as the blond's hands clenched, fisting the quilt that covered him. "Do you have a name? Mine is Sephiroth."
Gazing sideways, Cloud kept quiet. He tried to properly read this man. He did not feel threatened in any way, but he did not feel as safe as the man claimed he was. "Sephiroth…" Cloud murmured to himself, his voice hushed and slow-paced, the man's name rolling off his tongue in a manner that made his heart stammer and his breath hitch. "Sephiroth? The Sephiroth? As in, the General of ShinRa's army?"
"Former General," Sephiroth quickly corrected. "I am no longer affiliated with ShinRa. They are to me, as well as to most, my enemy."
Cloud blinked at him, his blue eyes widening.
"I take it you've heard of me."
Cloud slowly nodded, the frigid fretfulness of his expression warming into boyish awe. "Yeah, me and the rest of the world. I once dreamt of becoming a SOLDIER."
"Why didn't you?"
"My parents," Cloud sighed. "They thought if I joined, ShinRa would brainwash me and turn me against them."
Sephiroth nodded. "They we right to think so."
A cold shudder jolted Cloud back to the here and now. "You're the one who's been watching me."
Surprised at how fast he connected the pieces, Sephiroth confirmed, "Yes."
"Why?" Cloud's tone now less awed and more daring.
Sephiroth couldn't deny the slight tension he felt in the pit of his stomach right now. Locking onto the piercing blue eyes defiantly narrowing at him, the silver-haired man could feel an alluring, hostile energy emanating from the blond - a raging ball of spitfire ready to combust, despite his small, soft and lithe shape. The young man was still just as wild and untamed as he was fighting for his life within the rot of the world. Sephiroth found himself oddly enjoying the Gordian knot that is the Golden Child.
A loud pop and the shifting of logs in the fire broke Sephiroth's reverie. He then turned and walked toward a small wooden table with a single ladder-back chair in the corner of the room, where a huge book bound in gold-ornamented black leather lay. He then sat down and opened the tome at a marked page. "This is the holy book of the Cetra. In it, all the prophecies of the Ancients have been set down, so that we may follow their teachings and fulfill the destinies. There is a prophecy that must now come to pass, and I believe you are the one spoken of."
Cloud felt his body grow cold, as if the heat of the hearth now burned with flames of ice. His eyelids suddenly heavy, he briefly closed them as a gentle, silvery voice called out to him, her words of warning a rapturous melody...
Do not become prey to his guile, beautiful one... The blade of deceit is this man's true weapon... You are my Golden Child...
Immediately, Cloud shook his head. His brows furrowed as he wrapped the quilt tighter around him, his body shivering from the anomalous cold that took hold of him. "Golden Child..." the words breathed enigmatically from his mouth in a tendril of icy mist, frozen crystals formed in mid-air, then quickly liquefied and vanished.