~ Watch Me ~
Brother
Rose followed Angeal into the lobby, her gaze moving upwards, as she took in the full magnificent structure of the Shinra building. It was impressive to say the least, and as far as first impressions went, this one was going to stay with her.
"You get to live here?" She breathed, barely looking at Angeal, as her eyes followed the marble lined walls as far up as they could go. "It's so..."
"Intense?" Angeal finished for her, before stopping at the reception desk.
He exchanged a few words, and the pretty woman behind the desk passed him something from the draw beside her. He threw it to Rose.
"A key card? What does this do?" She questioned, turning it lightly in her hand. "Does this mean I get to explore?"
"That will let you use the elevator, and take you to the living quarters – you will also be able to use the cafe in the main lobby, but that is it." He pressed, saddling her with one of his famous 'don't-push your-luck' looks. "I don't want to hear that you've been trying to break into classified areas, understand?"
Rose waved him off dismissively, though it was with some difficulty, her luggage was really beginning to wear her down.
"Yes, yes, I know. I'll be on my best behaviour – honest." She said, offering what she hoped was a sincere looking smile. "But can we please get a move on? These bags are killing me, and I would prefer for my back not to break."
Angeal rolled his eyes, his fingers instinctively unhooking the largest of Rose's haul from her shoulder.
"Come on." He said, throwing it effortlessly over his own
They headed towards the elevator, and Rose followed him quickly inside.
"Can I see if my card works?"
"Go ahead." He nodded, hitting a button that read 'Level 56'.
Rose flashed her card against the sensor, and the elevator pinged to life, flying upward at a speed she had never expected something so heavy to move. Behind them, the wall turned to glass, and she gasped, grinning as she peered down at the sparkling city below.
"It looks so pretty from up here." She murmured.
Angeal nodded. "Things often do when you don't look to closely.
The elevator stopped, and he stepped out onto the landing.
Rose frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Angeal didn't answer her, and she followed him down a carpeted corridor lined with indoor plants and abstract paintings. One appeared to be a painting of a Wutai dojo, and Rose raised a surprised eyebrow.
"They allow that in here?" She said, nodding to it lightly as they passed.
Angeal shrugged his shoulders. "Shinra does not view the war as a path to destruction. It wants to acquire that which it thinks it owns."
"You say that like you don't approve." Rose replied, coming to a stop beside her brother.
She tilted her head at him quizzically and he smiled.
"It is not a Soldier's place to think." He answered cryptically, brandishing his own key card, and swiping it beside the door. "Home sweet home."
Ignoring the fact that Angeal had simply dodged the question, Rose eagerly followed him inside. It was a quaint little apartment, and she realised that it immediately reminded her of home. The fact likely had something to do with the small accents here and there, the rich woods, books, and pictures of her and their mother. Like home, all of it was scattered around, giving the impression that the place had been well lived in, yet it was only as you looked closer, and saw the lack of imperfection, that you realised it could not have possibly been. There were no creases in the fabrics, no mess on the sides, no dirt or clutter – no life.
"When was the last time you were here?" Rose asked, curious, as she finally dropped her rucksack to the floor.
Angeal chuckled. "Observant as always. It has been a while." He confessed, mirroring her actions and dropping her luggage with a loud clang. "But it's still home."
"Then why don't you come back here more often?" She said, flopping exhausted onto the couch. She hadn't realised how tired she was.
"It's too quiet." He murmured, carefully unsheathing his sword from his back. "When you're surround by war and fighting, silence can be quite unsettling."
"So where do you go?"
"Genesis' usually. Sometimes the training rooms, or the city. It's hard to know how to rest. You forget that most of the time we are deployed on missions."
Rose watched as he dropped purposefully into the chair in front of her, suddenly very aware that he was looking very tired himself. She sighed, knowing that her face would be treacherously showing her concern, and so; settling in to address the fact, she threw off her boots and folded her legs comfortably beneath her.
"You've never mentioned any of this in your letters."
"Our mother would only worry."
"She does that anyway." Rose scoffed, remembering nights when she would find their mother waking in a cold sweat, screaming out her son's name, always forgetting he was too far away to hear. "At least the truth can never be as bad as what she could imagine."
"Now whose lecturing who?" Angeal said lightly, fixing Rose with a knowing look as he rested his head back against the chair. "And speaking of worrying Mother, are you sure she was fine with you coming here? Last time I checked, she didn't even like the idea of you travelling around town on your own."
"Things change." Rose said softly, overtly aware of his smooth conversation switch up. She wondered briefly if that had been a habit he had always had, or whether being evasive was a newly learned skill courtesy of SOLDIER. She sighed, figuring now was as good a time as any to get on with why she was there. "Can I show you something?"
Angeal nodded, a small frown creasing his forehead, and Rose hopped up, dragging her larger bag clearly into the centre of the room. She smiled, her hand hesitating on the zip.
"So," She began, her grin widening with the sudden excitement of sharing with her brother what was inside. "The mines beneath Banora, through some wave of insanity, I went back and explored... and I found something."
Before Angeal could speak, Rose tore open the bag, pulling out from inside a single long, thin sword. To observe, the handle was onyx, a void of black that almost swallowed the carved runes upon it's surface, as Rose carefully tilted the blade, the cool steel shifted slightly under the apartment lights, a ghostly green teasing the metal's surface.
Rose, momentarily captured, moved her gaze to Angeal's.
"It's infused with Mako." She said softly, moving her free hand slowly down the length of the blade. "Look, it reacts to me."
Angeal rose slowly from his seat, watching intrigued as Rose slowly passed her hand over the mysterious metal. The alien-like glow seemed to intensify the longer her touch lingered there, and captivated, she shook her head at it wonderingly.
"It's so beautiful." She breathed, holding it out for her brother to inspect. "There's power in it. I think I can get it to do more."
"Why would you want to do that?" He murmured, moving the sword lightly through the air in front of them.
Rose stared, noting almost smugly that when Angeal touch the metal, it did not react. It was now or never.
"I want to join SOLDIER." Rose said quickly, afraid that her nerve would fail. "I want you to recommend me for 3rd Class."
Angeal immediately lowered the sword from his gaze, his interest no longer held by the strange metal, but by the small young woman in front of him. He stared at her in silence, but Rose was grateful that he did not laugh.
"You find a sword and you think that suddenly makes you SOLDIER material?" He questioned lightly, his cool profile suddenly even more serious. "A paintbrush is always a paintbrush, but only in the hands of an artist can it create a masterpiece."
Laughing darkly, Rose shook her head. This is what she had expected.
"Don't do that. Don't patronise me." She snapped, her gaze unwavering as she stared up pleadingly at her brother. "I know what it takes, Angeal. Please, I can do it."
"Rose, you're not trained in battle."
"Neither were you and Genesis." She rallied, now holding her hand out pointedly for the sword. "Besides, no offence, brother, but you've hardly been around. You have no idea what I can do."
She gasped, then, the sword's tip suddenly mere millimetres from her throat, her brother at the hilt.
She growled.
"So what do you do?" He said calmly.
"Angeal – "
"No, Rose." He pressed, moving the blade ever so slightly closer. "Show me. What do you do? I'm attacking you. You have only seconds before I cut you down. What do you do?"
Rose glared. The dramatic display was nothing more than a school-yard trick to prove her incompetence, and she really didn't appreciate it.
Taking a breath, she felt a familiar heat travel down her right arm, a tingling sensation that she could now easily guide into her hands. Thinking of nothing but the sword, there was a second in which Rose knew Angeal felt the shift, but then the blade was already in her hand, and suddenly their stances had reversed. She touched the tip lightly to his collar bone.
"This is what I do."
He stared at her, his layers of training keeping the shock from showing on his smooth features. But Rose knew her brother well – he was surprised, and that really took a lot.
"Well, that's new." He said eventually, not without humour, and in his usual Angeal fashion. He looked pointedly down at her weapon. "You mind lowering that now?"
Rose rolled her eyes, dropping the sword lazily to her side before fixing Angeal with her light green orbs.
"I did say things had changed." She said, trying to measure up whether her little display had worked in her favour. "You just don't have any faith in me."
"It isn't that." He answered smoothly, glancing curious between her and the sword. "I've just never had you pegged for the hero type."
"I'm not." She rallied defensively. "I'm not like you and Genesis, that's not why I want to join."
"Then why?"
Rose looked at him, but she was unable to find the best way of explaining how she felt, there was no way to put it into words. There was just this need inside her to just do something – anything. When she didn't answer, Angeal shook his head, not unkindly, and instead gestured lightly to her blade.
"Okay, an easier question. How about telling me what they hell you just did with that thing? So you move things with your mind now?
Rose fought another eye roll. "I can't move things with my mind, Angeal, it's only the sword I can pull back to me. It's like there's an energy there, like a magnet, but I have to focus – it's not easy."
He nodded, clearly still thinking. "And this came about because...?"
"I'm not exactly sure." She confessed, walking away and dropping back onto the couch. "It's all a little bit of a blur."
"I see." Angeal followed her, sitting himself beside her on the sofa. "Why don't you tell me what you do know?"
Rose nodded, not really knowing the best way to start. It wasn't an overly long story, just an unusual one, and there was no way of telling how much of it Angeal would understand or believe. So she decided just to speak, and see where her words took her.
"I'd had an argument with Mom." She began, lightly resting her chin on the hilt of the sword. "So I stormed out to get some air, and I just started walking, not really thinking, y'know. It was late, and suddenly I realised I was at the entrance to the mines, with literally no clue what I was doing there – If I'm honest the place gives me the creeps, always has done."
"I remember." Angeal smiled, clearly thinking of the time he and Genesis had hid from her in there. "So why did you go in?"
Rose scoffed darkly. "I have absolutely no idea. I probably just thought 'fuck it', you know? It was a crappy night anyway, couldn't get much worse." She ran a hand over her face, as if trying to smooth out the memory it all, but it was still no clearer. She continued. "So I went in, and it was dark, and horrible like it had always been, and then suddenly there was this glow, and I followed it, deeper in than I think even you and Genesis ever went."
"What was it?"
"It, brother, was a Mako fountain."
"Seriously?"
"Yep. Right in our little town of Banora, and stuck in the source of that fountain was this sword." Rose thumped it once against the ground for effect, and laughed. "It all sounds very whimsical, I know, but I don't think the sword itself was ever special. Had it not been left in that exact place for so long, I doubt anything would have ever come of it."
Angeal inclined his head. "It must have been absorbing the Mako pooling around it the entire time it was there. How did you get it out?"
Rose raised her eyebrows, shifting awkwardly in her seat. She looked at him, and then very quickly looked back at the floor.
"That's where things get a little weird."
"Oh?"
"Because I don't actually remember."
"What? Rose – "
"I remember reaching for the sword, and then I..." She stopped, hesitating, trying to find a clearer picture in her mind, but the memory was gone, out of reach. She frowned. "I think I fell in."
"Impossible. If you'd fallen in, you'd be – "
"Dead. I know Angeal, I'm not a complete ignorant. But I remember slipping, and I..." Rose shook her head trying to clear the fog, but reflecting back was beginning to give her a headache. "Look it doesn't matter. Point is, I woke up and the sword was next to me, and now apparently I can do weird shit that I couldn't before."
"Like materialising swords."
"Amongst some other things that we don't need to get into right now." She said hastily, not keen on the idea of more interrogating. He looked at her questioningly, and she waved him off. "Please Angeal, not tonight, I'm tired. I've told you what I came here to tell you, and now the rest is up to you. However, right now I could do without being ordered around, or pressured."
His heavy frown, if possible, deepened, and he sighed loudly, standing with a grunt as he carefully got up from the couch.
"You'll have to get used to that if you want to join SOLDIER."
Rose froze. "What?" She looked up at him expectantly. "Does that mean..."
"5am tomorrow, training rooms. You pass my test, I'll recommend you for SOLDIER 3rd Class."
She grinned, forgetting her exhaustion and her headache, and immediately jumped to her feet.
"Seriously?"
Angeal raised a grudging eyebrow. "Don't get too excited, you've not passedyet, and then even if you do you'll have to pass Lazard's."
"Lazard?"
"The director of SOLDIER? You might need to brush up on a few things." He added, his teasing tone not missed on Rose's ears, but she didn't care, she was elated.
Angeal nodded toward the door at the end of the room. "You can have the bed, I'll sleep on the couch tonight. Go, get some rest. You're going to need it."
R&R!
Thank you for my reviews, I will reply but its so late. I know this was a long one, I hope you like the story so far. Please if you have time let me know. I seriously appreciate it, and it helps me to know if I'm on the right track.
Goodnight Chocobos! x