Title Translation: Stay in the Cradle
(But don't trust my Latin. All Latin will be taken from the songs of Nobuo Uematsu, in this case The Promised Land, or from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana.)

You pathetic fool. Shadows and moonlight and a few soft words and you pant like a schoolboy fondling himself.

Shut up . . . None of that matters now. She's here with me. My one sweet dream. In the midst of all these nightmares--nightmares that don't end with the dawn, I held her. I felt her warmth in my bed and I drank in her scent. We shared a moment more intimate than sex. I know she felt it too. Let her do as she wishes now. She is mine. She is mine and one day, she will come to me of her own accord. That's all that matters.

"Sephiroth?"

"Hmm?"

"In the slums, where I grew up, we used to sing each other to sleep sometimes . . . Can I sing for you?"

He ran a hand through his hair and lay back, one hand beneath his head, staring up at the ceiling pattern he had memorized. He'd redone this ceiling five times since the completion of the palace--but always, in the darkness, the delicate scrollwork mutated--twisting into lurid demon-heads and grasping, clawed hands. Blades and fire and staring corpse-faces.

"Of course you may," he said.

Her voice lifted, clear and slow, the words like balm on his wounded spirit. She sang a ballad, one he'd never heard before, but the words were less important than the bittersweet, lilting melody.

She sang:

With quiet step and gentle face,
With tattered cloak, and empty hands,
She came into the market place,
A traveler from many lands.

And where the fairest blossoms lay,
And where the rarest fruits were sent
From earth's abundant store, that day,
She turned and smiled in her content.

Her voice, and the moonlit darkness, cast a soothing spell over him, lulling him. The setting lent an unnatural intimacy to her words, as if she were whispering to him the secrets of her own heart.

When for her tender healing ways,
The women begged her help again,
She answered, "In these bounteous days
I may not let my love remain."

But when the children touched her hair,
And put their hands about her face,
She sighed, "There is so much to share,
I well might bide a little space."

But ere the shadows longer grew,
Or up the sky the evening stole,
She took the lonely way she knew,
And journeyed onward to her goal.

She turned away with steadfast air,
From all their choice of fair and sweet,
And, as she turned, they saw how bare
And bruiséd were her pilgrim feet.

Through many a rent and tattered fold,
As she went forward on her quest,
They saw the wounds so deep and old,
The cruel scars upon her breast.

They called to her to wait, to learn
How they would ease her pain, to dwell
With them awhile; she did but turn
And wave her smiling last farewell.

It was there again, Sephiroth noted with drowsy unconcern. That feeling. The sense of something--powerful, magical-- present in her.
. . . I know what it is now. It's the Planet's voice, singing to her, singing through her.

And in their midst a woman rose,
And said, "I do not know her name,
Nor whose the land to which she goes,
But well the roads by which she came.

"And down the stony slopes they lead,
Through many a deep and dark ravine,
Where long ago it was decreed
Nor sun nor moonlight should be seen.

"Across the waste where no help is,
And through the winds and blinding showers,
Among the mist-bound silences,
And through the cold despairing hours.

"Among the lonely, lonely hills,
Ah me, I do not know her name,
Nor whose the bidding she fulfils
But well the roads by which she came."

The gentle song of the Lifestream. He could almost--almost hear it, almost feel it. Like vibrations of rain against a pane of glass--cooling, but not washing his burning skin. The Planet pattering against his defenses.

He was still cut off from it, but he knew it was there, and that calmed him.

Inch by inch, Sephiroth relaxed his iron grip on the world. On consciousness.

Then spake a youth, who, long apart,
Had watched the people come and go,
With clearer eyes and wiser heart,
And said, "Her face and name I know.

"And well the passage of her flight,
The starless plains she must ascend,
And well the darkness of the night,
In which her pilgrimage shall end.

"But stronger than the years that roll,
Than travail past, or yet to be,
She presses to her hidden goal,
A crownless, unknown Victory."

"That is how caring for him will be, child. Difficult. Painful. For he does not yet know how to love, nor how to receive love. Your love alone will not save him. He must learn to receive mine, too. And others'. For his scars run deep."

Will he ever learn, my friend?

"That is his choice, not ours."

Word had gotten round the palace staff.

Yesterday morning, when she went to work in the kitchens, Aeris had been an equal--a little lower than an equal, actually, since she was new. Today, she was a celebrity.

Better than a celebrity. A puzzle.

A servant's life is one of dull routine, enlivened primarily by gossip about the masters and wealthy guests. As she made her way down to the kitchens, she sensed the walls humming with talk--of her.

Here, a conversation died as she stepped into view. There, a bobbed curtsey from a maid in a uniform identical to hers. And everywhere, eyes staring at her, making her want to smooth her hair or hide her hands behind her back. A few looked at her with pity, a few more with envy, but most were curious stares, not unkind.

"Why are they looking at me like that?" she hissed to Marla.

Marla grinned, showing a gap between her teeth. "They want to know what beautiful is."

At first, Aeris didn't understand, but by ten o'clock, more than one girl had redone her hair into Aeris' characteristic twisting braid tied with ribbon.

She was the woman who had gotten closer to Lord Sephiroth than any soul had ever gotten. She had done in a day what a dozen mistresses spent months attempting.

When the excited whispers were not about her, they centered on Sephiroth--who was in better spirits than anyone could remember.

Almost playful.

For him.

A condemned criminal was abruptly, and for no apparent reason, released. A raid on a village was called off. A colonel was reprimanded for excessive discipline of a subordinate.

This morning, too, he had waved away a selection of finely-tailored suits and called for his armor-- although he indicated no wish to join his troops. He looked as if the last five years had simply rolled away, and he was again the lauded and sought-after general of Shinra.

Rumors flew.

She was pregnant with his child. She was blackmailing him. She had secretly married him. She was his spy, sent to flush out dissidents from his servants.

She was utterly unexpected.

Only Sandria glared at her with undisguised hatred. The blonde woman's suites were cleared out and she found herself suddenly demoted to secretary of a minor noble.

Everyone else followed the twists of Aeris' fortune with eager fascination, waiting for something--magic. Lady Aeris shared Sephiroth's bed (or so it was assumed) and was mistress of the house, and yet-- was one of them. Sort of.

Aeris found herself standing in a corner of the kitchen, wringing her hands in her apron--with nothing to do but suffer the ingratiating remarks of a few upwardly mobile servants. This quickly became unbearable, and when a yes-man insisted on praising Sephiroth to her, she answered, with some asperity, "No, I don't agree! Sephiroth is a long way from beingthe best ruler in history! No matter what his powers and intelligence, he's not a god, and he shouldn't be treated like one! And as far as what you said about his looks--" she faltered, "well, he shouldn't be able to treat people the way he does no matter what he looks like."

The sounds of the kitchen died and behind her, a low, cool chuckle made Aeris go cold. She whirled, and found herself staring into a pale, familiar face-- a half-smile curving his mouth. He leaned easily on the doorframe, appraising her, then his head tilted down until his face was only inches from hers and he whispered, "And oh, you're so-- cute-- yourself, Miss Aeris." Mocking amusement touched his eyes and voice.

Ack! He looks like he expects me saunter into a brothel and put myself on display!

He straightened. She took in the leather straps that formed a black "X" across his bare chest, the long leather coat that shone like onyx, falling nearly to the ground and making his tall frame taller, darker. When he stepped towards her, his myriad buckles jingled lightly and leather creaked, sounds that amplified-- not broke-- the silence that always accompanied him. He drew her against him, pressing a quick kiss to the side of her mouth.

Someone dropped a tray, and the clattering bang made her jump, but Sephiroth still held her.

Her cheeks flamed and she hid her face against his heart. She heard his deep voice rendered even deeper as she listened through his chest, saying, "Lady Aeris will be in the gardens from now on. It suits her better."

A few hurried, "Yes, m'lords," and she was being guided out, carried up, up into the air.

Author's Note:

THANK YOU to everyone who reviewed! I am truly, profoundly grateful.

The "lyrics" to Aeris' song (really a poem) are from Dollie Radford's "A Ballad of Victory." They belong to Dollie.

A word about Sephiroth's backstory.
Funkless has brought it to my attention that I haven't quite made Sephiroth's history clear for this dimension. (I know you were asking about the upcoming Nibelheim issue, Funk, but I wanted to sort out what didn't happen in Nibelheim five years ago.)
The premise here is that in this universe, Sephiroth doesn't go completely insane when he finds out about the experiments that made him. In my world, he also does a little more research and finds out who his real parents are. He isn't exactly thrilled.
Consequently, he no longer thinks he is a Cetra. I know that deviates from a couple of lines in the original "Dream of Me."
At any rate, if you're wondering why he hasn't said or thought anything about being a Cetra-- that's why. He knows he's not a Cetra; he knows Aeris is a Cetra; and he knows he isn't quite human, either. I'll go into more detail on all this later on. Sephiroth has a villain's monologue coming up, but not for a while yet.