"It's just this way," Chase said, his booming voice suddenly small in the cold night air. "You sure you're ok, without a coat?"
"I'm fine," Sephiroth said. He couldn't go back to their rooms. Not yet.
Chase fished a ring of keys from the front pocket of his coat and crossed the road ahead of him, weaving back and forth as he hopped over the ruts in the street, dodging the deeper puddles of dirty slush. He turned into a narrow alleyway. At the end of it loomed a pair of wooden gates nearly two stories high, braced and studded with iron. As they came closer Sephiroth could see there was a small door, sized for humans, set into the face of them. Shivering in the flickering light of the gaslamps overhead, Chase unlocked the door and held it open for him, stamping his feet to keep warm. Sephiroth ducked so as not to hit his head and stepped through.
He found himself in a large square courtyard. The gray cobblestones had been heavily salted and glistened wetly, littered with straw and the odd feather. As he waited for Chase to finish locking the gates behind them the breeze shifted, bringing with it the scent of cedar and the grassy sweetness of chocobo dung. It got stronger as they walked together toward the main building.
"These are our new digs," Chase said, pacing briskly across the courtyard towards the stable entrance. He gestured expansively, up at the peaks of the hayloft gables around them, the blue tile roof. "They're only three years old. Contract work's been very kind to us. Having the generous backers helps, too." He smiled, flashing his large gappy teeth. "Heh, better late than never, anyway."
Chase led them inside, to an antechamber paneled in herringboned redwood. He inhaled noisily, with obvious savor, and raked his boots on the braided rubber matting. In front of them extended the stables proper, dimly lit with amber bulbs. They were much larger inside than they looked from the courtyard, with several winding passages leading off from a wide main corridor. Off to the right were a line of doors, fitted with gleaming brass hardware. One had a glass panel with Chases' name emblazoned across it, lettered neatly in black and gold.
"Do you mind if we stop off at my office and warm up a bit?," Chase asked, jerking his thumb in its direction. He looked at the snow powdering the shoulders of Sephiroths' suit coat. "I know I need it."
Sephiroth shrugged. "Not at all.," he said There was nowhere he needed to be, and for all his initial irritation, the present company was turning out to be a pleasant enough distraction.
"Here we go," Chase said, flipping on the lights. "Sorry, I've never been one for tidiness."
A large desk took up most of the space, almost invisible under sliding piles of paperwork. Pictures, ribbons, trophies, and tack decorated the walls, spilled off of the shelves and littered every available surface. The only pristine space surrounded the coal heater, which towered in one corner. Chase sauntered over to it, popped the top with an iron poker and peered inside. While he worked to get it started Sephiroth walked a lazy circuit around the room, absorbing what he could from the jumbled chaos.
Perched crookedly on a shelf stacked with invoices was a photograph in a dented copper frame. Sephiroth picked it up and examined it. A young boy squinted out of the picture, the image grainy and overexposed, holding the lead of a bird twice as big as he was, smiling a familiar gap-toothed smile.
Behind him, he heard Chase drop a few chunks of coal into the heater and shut the top with a clang. Sephiroth put the picture down, rubbing the dust from his fingers.
"Whew, that's better. A bit nicer already." Chase said, taking off his overcoat. He shook the melting snow from it carelessly, brushing it all onto the floor. He draped his coat over the back of his desk chair and wiped his wet hands on the legs of his pants. The heater roared, churning out a plume of superheated air. Almost immediately Sephiroth felt the frost on his hair and shoulders begin to soften, melt, then slowly soak into his shirt collar. His feet and fingertips stung as the feeling came back into them. He had been much colder than he realized.
"Oh, you found that old thing" Chase said, shooting a glance toward the picture Sephiroth had just replaced. He plopped down in his desk chair, swiveled, its ancient springs groaning in protest. He jerked open the bottom drawer of his desk, rummaged inside.
Sephiroth ran his eyes over the long line of colorful ribbons that festooned the shelf in front of him. There was an award from nearly every year, Best of Show and Race ribbons of every placement, going back almost fifty years. Behind him he heard a cork being pulled out of a decanter, liquid being poured, the clink of glassware. Chase came over and stood beside him, handing him a glass of brown spirits, which Sephiroth took as a courtesy, but did not drink. Chase pointed at the photograph with his knuckle.
"That there was my first bird. She was original generation, one of the best. Her name was Lokia." He lifted his glass, toasting Sephiroth and the memory. He took a hearty swig, nodding with satisfaction.
"You ride, Darien?," Chase asked, turning towards him.
"Since I was six," Sephiroth said. It was a required skill. Hojo had converted one of the training rooms into an arena, and brought the birds in from a farm outside Midgar. He could almost still smell the sand and sawdust they had laid, one foot deep, over the floor. The birds' cries had echoed weirdly in the metal panelled room as they had put them through their paces, too loud. Much later, when he had been allowed to train in the open field, it had been a revelation of freedom. He had reveled in the movement, the feeling of synergy with a creature so willing to do his bidding.
"I enjoy it very much," he added. He placed his untouched drink down on a discreet corner of the desktop. "but I haven't had as much opportunity as I'd prefer."
"Hmm, well maybe you'll have the chance while you're here. Could take one of ours out for a turn up to the edge of the bluff and back." Chase finished the rest of his whiskey in one gulp. "Well, I don't know about you but I've warmed up enough. What'd you say we go see some birds?"
It took only a few seconds for Sephiroth's eyes to readjust back to the dim amber lighting of the stables.
"We keep it dark in here at night; it keeps the birds calm. But you'll still be able to have a good look ," Chase said, taking a lantern down from its bracket on the wall.
He stopped at a utility locker and selected some gear, one of several sets: a heavy leather vest, reinforced gloves, a necknoose. The metal plates sewn onto the clothing flashed as he draped them casually over one arm.
"Don't be alarmed by the kit," Chase said, "It's just a precaution. In twenty five years I've only had to use it once," he said, smiling reassuringly.
Sephiroth nodded to be polite, as he was completely unconcerned. He followed Chase back into the warren of the stables. The fusty smell of the birds, their bedding, and the cedar beams of the roof enveloped him, comforting and strangely familiar.
Each bird was housed in its own suite, the stalls enclosed behind a slatted cedar door so that they were shielded from drafts and view. A gilded sign outside each suite proclaimed their name, parentage, and the number of races won, denoted in gold stars. As they proceeded along the long main corridor Sephiroth heard the rustling of straw and feathers behind them as the Chocobos in each stable woke and got to their feet. The birds kwehed back and forth to each other in a chorus of light breathy whistles, not alarmed, only questioning.
Chase slowed his pace, then stopped, glancing back down the passage behind them. His eyebrows quirked up, puzzled at the growing commotion.
"Hmm. They're really active tonight," he said, shaking his head. "They usually sleep much harder than this." He shrugged. "Could be the aurora," he said, and continued on.
The call had started to precede them now, rippling up the line of stables bird by bird. Sephiroth smiled inwardly to himself. This still had not changed at least, since his rebirth. He was used to the fact that most animals would avoid him, become fearful, or aggressive, as if they could sense the fundamental wrongness of the alien cells he carried within him, that he was not quite human.
Chocobos were one of the few exceptions. Whether it was something latent in their genes, a consequence of their domestication, or something more mysterious he would never know but they surrendered to him easily, the strength of his will meshing effortlessly into theirs like a gear. One by one he could feel their dim animal consciousness brush against him as he passed them, some stronger than others, some more easily malleable.
"Having a place like this had always been my fathers' dream," Chase said, as they rambled further into the recesses of the stables. "Everyone thought he was crazy, and at first it seemed they were right. It took him most of his life just to get to the phenotype he wanted." He chuckled. "Oh, you should have seen some of those early birds…ugly isn't a strong enough word. But they're all beautiful now." Chase's rough face lit with pride, crinkling the crowsfeet around his eyes.
"So here's my grand champions' circle" he said, excitedly picking up his pace as they rounded the corner into a cloverleaf of stalls. "How are you this evening, my babies, my lovelies?" He held the lantern high, and a sea of gold stars dazzled.
Sephiroth heard a Chocobo snarl, then a womans' strained laugh tittered, close at hand. The door on one of the stalls slammed open, clacking loudly in its frame. The owner of the laugh stumbled out, nearly tripping over the uneven boards of the stable floor. Sephiroth caught the glitter of a black sequined dress, dark bobbed hair swinging . The woman righted herself, leaned one manicured hand against the rough wood of the doorway. Now Sephiroth was certain. It was, unmistakably, her.
The woman looked up, startled; she hadn't heard them coming and had clearly expected to be alone. Shame passed like a shadow across her face, but only for a fraction of a second before disappearing behind a mask of sulky indifference. Staring balefully at the floor, she took a tissue out of her purse, folded it neatly into quarters, and began to wipe the crimson smears of lipstick from her cheeks and chin.
"Come on, let's go," said a gravelly voice behind her. A man stepped from the shadows of the stable, grasped her tightly by the elbow and pushed her forward, through the doorway and out into the passage. As soon as he saw him, his eyes snapped to Chase and stuck there. A slow challenging grin spread across his face, his grey eyes glittering with dangerous intelligence. The man was smartly dressed in a dark suit but from his towering physique, neatly trimmed hair, and the massive tactical watch on his wrist, Sephiroth suspected he was military, or recent exmilitary.
"Good evening, Alex," Chase said, glaring. His good natured demeanor had vanished. His voice bristled, full of ice.
"Good evening," the man said. "I was just showing my friend here my new bird. Magnificent creatures, both of them, wouldn't you say?" He pushed the woman forward another two steps in front of him, as if to force Chase and Sephiroth to look at her, then released his grip. His fingerprints shone pink on her pale skin.
Sephiroth scowled, immediately hating the way the mans' gaze drifted from his eyes, to his hair, and then back again, smirking smugly as if he somehow knew something he didn't.
Beside him, Chase seethed. There was clearly some bad history.
"It's getting late, isn't it," Alex purred to the woman, "You'd better run along now, sweetheart. We'll see you again tomorrow." He slapped her sharply on the backside and she lurched forward, nearly losing her balance. The lipstick she had just taken out of her purse fell out of her grasp and skittered away, spinning end over end across the floor, but she made no effort to retrieve it. She took a single tentative step forward then put her head down and strode off into the darkness, her heels pounding on the plank floor.
Alex took a cigarette out of a black metal case and placed it in his mouth, showing the thin blue lines of the tattoos that snaked up the back of his hands. He felt in his pocket for his lighter.
"There's no smoking in here," Chase snapped, "I keep telling you, this is a stable."
Alex shrugged, lit up anyway.
"Who's this?" he said to Chase, gesturing in Sephiroth's direction with his cigarette. He exhaled a cloud of acrid smoke. "One of your shiny new recruits?"
Sephiroth stepped forward but did not offer his hand. "Darien Crescent," he said. The lie got easier to tell every time he told it.
"Oh, yeah? Alex Stalrahsk," he said, "Who you with?"
Chase stepped in. "It doesn't matter."
"I didn't ask you," Alex said, sneering. He inhaled deeply from his cigarette and looked Sephiroth over, again, flicking the ash on the floor. Sephiroth pointedly looked away, ignoring him. He had dealt with many men like this before, and this one seemed no different; just some flashy midlevel mercenary who thought he was top tier. If it ever even came to it, the fight would be over nearly before it began.
"You'd better watch yourself," Alex said to Sephiroth, half threatening, half joking, exhaling smoke through his teeth. He took a few steps away, fixing Chase with a look of undisguised contempt, "you sign on with this guy, he'll be nothing but a major pain in the ass." He turned and walked away, then flicked the burning butt of his cigarette off into the shadows, chuckling as Chase rushed away, panicked to find it. "Don't say I didn't warn you. See ya around Darien," he called back over his shoulder.
"I'm very sorry about that," Chase said after he returned, a little out of breath. He crushed the dead remains of Alex's cigarette flat between in his fingers and looked at it angrily, disgusted. "Some of the corporate goons they send me for training can be pretty rough characters. He' the worst I've had in a while."
Sephiroth watched Alexs' figure recede into the shadows, his eyes narrowing. He seemed like someone he needed to keep an eye on. "Who is he with?"
Chase sighed, and looked back over his shoulder, waited a moment. He dropped his voice to just above a whisper. "The S.E.D, unfortunately." He sighed, shaking his head. "If those bastards hadn't provided half the capital I needed for the expansion, I'd be done with them in a heartbeat," He looked flustered, realizing who he was talking to and swiftly recovered himself. "Ah, I'm sorry, you're not with them too, are you?"
"No," Sephiroth said. He made a mental note to look them up as soon as he got back to his room.
"Good." He said, visibly relaxing. "There's already enough trouble around this little town." Chase smiled weakly, trying to make light of it, but something was clearly bothering him. His brow furrowed, he poked his head into the open stable door. The bird inside was stamping and turning around in its stall, raking the straw over and over with its claws. Sephiroth could feel the bright surge of its anxiety crackling outward, teetering on the edge of panic.
"Hang on a moment," Chase said, quickly disappearing inside.
Sephiroth heard him speaking low and soothingly, saying something in a Northern tongue he couldn't hear well enough to identify. By degrees, the bird calmed.
"She's better now. It's my fault she's stressed, really," Chase said when he reappeared. "I thought it would be an amusing little joke to give Alex one of the touchiest, most highly strung bird in the stable but now I think it's getting to be too much for her. I should have given him the stupidest. Or a male; they're practically useless, except for studwork, which certainly describes our dear Alex." He looked up, winked mischievously. "Might be time for a reassignment, what do you think?"
Sephiroth nodded slightly, suppressing a smirk. Such pettiness was a bit ridiculous but he couldn't deny that it wasn't an amusing prospect. "Hmm, perhaps," he said.
Chase chuckled, and crossed in front of him, holding the lantern high so they could get the best view. "Now what you came here for," he said. There was excitement in his step and it mounted as he led them towards a stall decorated with so many stars that they studded the door frame on all three sides, with another board added alongside one edge to contain them all.
"I'll warn you, we just fledged her latest brood so she's testy. Don't get too close," Chase said as he slid back the stable door. Sephiroth caught the name carved into the side of the door as they passed inside: Kitrinka.
He could feel her mighty will roiling against him, keenly aware of his presence and unafraid. Wordlessly, in the blind redness of her animal mind she raged for her lost chicks, frustrated that her clan had been broken and she would have to begin yet again.
"There you are my darling," Chase sang, but the great bird was already awake. She got to her feet with a growl and looked down at them, blinking her dark red eyes. She looked from Sephiroth to Chase and back again and raked the straw beneath her with her talons. She kicked up a cloud of dust, snarling, flaring her delicately feathered nares. Her feathers bristled as she puffed herself up: thick white sheaves tipped and peppered with black, fading to pale blue towards her feet. With her colors and patterning she would be almost invisible, a flash of pale nothingness, out on the tundra.
"You were right, she is beautiful," Sephiroth said.
"Why thank you. Those feathered feet took us a while to get right. Hides their numbers if the run in file, keeps them from bogging down in the snow."
Sephiroth took a step closer. Studying her eyes, he slowly reached up to stroke the side of her head. Kitrinka opened her beak, panting with threat.
"You'd better get back, she'll take your hand!" Chase warned, watching her tense, as if readying for a sudden, devastating strike.
"No she won't," Sephiroth said, taking another step towards her. Vaguely he heard Chase behind him, cursing under his breath, metal clashing together as he fumbled on the protective gear. Sephiroth kept his eyes locked on the birds', keeping his concentration. He could see the external signs of her resistance happening before him; her black pupils constricting and dilating erratically as her will struggled against him, yearning to bite, yet feeling compelled to submit.
I do no harm, Sephiroth thought to her, over and over, until at last her eyes went far away, her pupils shrinking down to pinpoints and holding there. She snarled quietly in her throat as his fingers made contact with the fine feathers on her cheek but her breathing had slowed and her feathers began to smooth. She was entirely under his command. He stroked the side of her head with the back of his hand, rubbed the glossy black curve of her unforgiving beak. Kitrinka shied away, then bent her head to nibble harmlessly at the straw around her feet.
Chase clutched the necknoose he was holding, leaning on it as if he was about to fall over. The protective vest he had thrown on was slipping off his shoulders and half dragging on the ground; he hadn't had time to buckle it. He swallowed hard. By degrees the color came back to his face.
"Heh," he said dryly, "I guess she likes you." He took a few more moments to catch his breath, watching Sephiroth running his hands over the thick mane of feathers on Kitrinkas' neck, smoothing them flat.
"How long will you be in the Icicle Region, Darien?" he asked, his eyes flicking between him and the bird. His voice was uncharacteristically serious.
"Two, two and a half months, give or take." Sephiroth looked up. "Why?"
"Well, would you be interested in retraining her? At least get her started? It's always difficult to get them back in shape after they fledge, and especially this one," Chase paused, his brow furrowed in consternation. There was no explanation he could think of for the birds' sudden docility; it went against everything he had known of her, from when she was a chick. "We would pay you, of course," he added.
Sephiroth thought. He had planned to just lie low; cloister safely and unnoticed in their tower, recover, then move on. He thought of the days before him unfolding one by one, swaddled in Aeriths' voice, Aeriths' body, Aeriths' presence. It was risky, to show himself out in the greater world any more than he had to, but to stay with her, living chastely like brother and sister in a place that cried out for love, with this dangerous new awareness alive and burning in him, was a torture he knew he could not endure. Time away and a job to do would help, give him something else to focus on.
"Yes, that is agreeable," he said, "I can begin at five tomorrow."
Chase chucked, his bushy eyebrows leaping up in surprise. He looked at his watch. "Really, three hours from now? Don't you need to sleep?"
Sephiroth patted Kitrinka on the wing. She warked irritably, nipped the air, sidestepping. He let her go, his will slipping away from her like an unclasping hand. She meandered towards the back corner of her stall and began to rearrange the loose nest of straw she had been sleeping in.
"What time do you suggest?" Sephiroth said.
Chase grinned, shook off the protective vest and carefully folded it back over his arm. "Come at noon tomorrow. You can set your own hours after I see what you can do."