Sephiroth marched on, his boots crunching fresh snow and ice. He and his small platoon of men had set out from Icicle Inn at the break of dawn and walked for hours, yet the scenery seemed to stay the same. Monotonous white ice hills and snowy valleys.

He liked to play a little mental game of I Spy with himself during these long marches to keep his mind sharp and alert, but even that was quickly becoming dull. I Spy… a dark jaggedy rock. Better watch my footing around there. I Spy… fresh footprints of an animal in the snow. Good to know there is still wild life to be hunted in the area to give his men a break from ration bars frozen so solid they could chip a tooth. I Spy… another rock.

They had reached another peak of a hill they had been climbing for a good part of an hour. The platoon of men looked down at another wide stretch of white lands and groaned at the prospect of trekking for more hours on end.

"General, sir," came the hesitant voice of the lieutenant of this platoon. "Might be a good time to start looking for somewhere to start settling in for the night. At this time of year, nightfall comes early and it will be dark soon."

Sephiroth bit back his retort that there was still hours before nightfall, feeling the weight of fifteen hopeful pairs of eyes on his back. He often forgot that normal men tired much more quickly. That it was his abnormal nature that allowed him to walk on for much longer. "Agreed," he said. "Keep your eyes peeled for a suitable place to settle in for the night."

"Yes, sir!"

Sephiroth continued crunching through the icy snow again, blinking away the stray snowflake that landed atop his eyelash. I Spy… a ravine. A small trickle of fresh Icicle Spring water. He started down the hill toward the water to refill his water pouch. I Spy… another black rock, right in the middle of the small ravine and cutting off the path the water was trying to cut down the side of the hill. The rock was more of a small boulder that the water was pooling around, forming a small puddle. As Sephiroth neared he realized it was not a rock and in fact-

"Holy shit! A body!" one of the men exclaimed.

"We should fill up all our water packs upstream, sir," the lieutenant said. "This dead guy's probably contaminating all the water downstream from here, and we don't know when we'll come across fresh water again." At Sephiroth's nod, the lieutenant left to command the troops to unload the water packs tied to the unit's two chocobos.

Sephiroth approached the facedown body. It was unusual for anybody besides Shinra platoon sent on missions to be walking through the icy plains at this time of year. He recalled a successful mission completed in this area by a small squad two weeks, but didn't recall reading of any deaths. But if he had lost any men in his army, he would want to know about it. And it was also apparently army regulation to return the bodies of fallen soldiers to their families.

He rolled the body over. The first thing that occurred to him was how not-dead this body looked. He's seen a lot of corpses in his lifetime, often either glassy eyed or faces contorted in horror as they watched their ending unfold. This guy looked like he passed peacefully in a calm sleep. Maybe hypothermia is not a bad way to go. And then Sephiroth noticed the small white puffs warming the air around the guy's face. Oh. Guess this is a not-dead body.

Sephiroth knelt down to inspect the person, intrigued. His hair and eyebrows were matted in a thick layer of white snow, clothes completely soaked in ice cold water. And somehow not dead. Yet. "Lieutenant," he called, waving the man over. "Have this person loaded onto a chocobo."

"Yes sir?" the lieutenant hesitated and leaned closer to inspect the body. "Holy shit, he's not dead!"

With the water packs and limp body tied securely onto the chocobos, the group set off again. The excitement of rescuing a person seemed to have slightly cheered up the troops, providing a distraction to the monotonous and cold march. Sephiroth, however, remained focused as they walked on, and ultimately was the one that I Spied a jagged outcropping of a rock that ended up being an entrance to a deep cave.

The men quickly prepared the cave for the night. Sephiroth circled the perimeter, checking for safety but more importantly, tracking the animal footprints he had spotted earlier. It was perfect timing when he made it back to their cave with a family of dead rabbits in a sack. The men had already unload the timber and had just started warming around the fire. He noticed the the men had laid out the person they had found to be warmed up next to the fire. And also a dozen or so of frozen ration bars for defrosting. They cheered as he emptied the sack of game onto the floor and set about preparing the rabbits for a much heartier dinner.

Sephiroth found a place to sit against the cave wall and smiled, watching the men excitedly cook and exchange stories, somehow turning the boring day of marching through snow fields into stories of daring adventures. When it was time to turn in for the night, Sephiroth settled for a spot slightly closer to the dimming fire. The frozen body they found had slept the entire evening. The orange light of the fire danced across his features and had melted all of the snow. The young man's breaths still came in short puffs, and there were no signs of shivering to show the body was warming back up. Somehow, miraculously, he was found alive and Sephiroth wondered if he would live through the night. Hoping he wouldn't die on his watch, Sephiroth shrugged off his heavy leather jacket and draped it over the man's body, the length of it covering him from chin to toe.

When Sephiroth woke the was still dark out and the fire had died down. Dawn was probably going to break within the hour. His troops were still asleep, as was the man they found. Without the fire casting an orange hue on everything around, Sephiroth could now see with mako-enhanced vision that the melted snow revealed spikes of blond hair. None of the troops had recognized the man but Sephiroth knew the squad that was here two weeks ago were part of a different battalion they perhaps never crossed paths. A quick search had revealed no identification. The man carried nothing but a short boot knife. The edge was sharp but clean and unused. It was too nice to be a Shinra-issued knife so Sephiroth confiscated it. He wasn't going to let his men sleep in the same cave with an armed stranger.

He could see the blond stranger looked more warmed up now, his breaths coming in long even breaths. Sephiroth slightly adjusted the coat where it had slid down and left one shoulder uncovered. The man was insanely not even dressed for the weather with arms bare and exposed. Sephiroth carefully walked over outstretched limbs of fifteen men to exit the cave. As he stood outside with bare arms and chest mostly exposed, he also realized how ridiculously underdressed for the weather he must look. It was a cold and windy day, and it felt like a snow storm was coming.

By the time Sephiroth returned with another sack of game his hair was covered with snow and the wind was picking up.

A new fire was started and they sat around a large pot of miscellaneous meat soup cooking. "Sir, should we plan to depart at oh eight hundred hours?" the platoon lieutenant asked. Sephiroth knew the sound of howling winds and few gusts of snow that blew into the cave had the men worried. He sighed. Half of them would probably end up lost and dead if they tried to navigate through this snow storm.

"No let's… wait out the storm. Reassess tomorrow morning." The men looked uneasy and he tried for a smile. "We managed to complete our mission early so we are making good time. You good men deserve a well earned break." His smile must be out of practice and the words must have seemed forced as they still looked uneasy, but that was the extent of his social graces. Sephiroth picked up his sword and went to sit near the mouth of the cave where he spent most of the day cleaning and polishing the metal to an almost-new shine.

In the evening he joined the men by the fire to finish off the rest of the stew. He looked at the blond man still slumbering near the fire, and just as he was wondering if he would ever wake up, he saw the quick fluttering of eyelashes. It was very quick but the glow of mako he saw was unmistakable. Blond eyebrows drew together as if pained before the eyes tried to open again. It took a few tries for the eyes to focus, before blue glowing eyes found Sephiroth's stare. And then those eyes looked around at the ruckus around him by the fire. The men were talking and laughing loudly–about boobs?–making Sephiroth grimace at the first unprofessional impression his men must be making on the stranger. Sephiroth cleared his throat loudly, immediately quieting all the men and drawing all eyes to him. Including the stranger's.

"You're awake." He commented. Lamely. Gaia, was he always this socially lame? Nonetheless, he pushed on. "You've been asleep for over a full day, at least. Why were you wandering around Icicle in this weather?"

"I don't know. I… don't remember." His voice was slightly gravelly from sleep, but the timbre was clear. He moved slowly to sit up. Sephiroth's heavy coat fell to pool up in his lap.

"What's your name?"

"Cloud."

"You were exposed to mako. But you don't seem to exhibit the symptoms of mako poisoning." When Cloud didn't offer an explanation on his non-question, he pressed, "How were you exposed to mako? Was it accidental? Drugs?"

"No." The stranger paused, searching for words. "It was… an experiment. For science. And I don't want to talk about it."

It was Sephiroth's turn to search for words. Empathy was a rare emotion he experienced, mostly unable to relate to other men, but what Cloud was saying and what his eyes were telling him–not just the glowing of mako but the fearful, haunted look–assured him that was the truth. "Did you escape? Is that how you ended up lost in Icicle?"

Cloud shook his head. "No, that was a long time ago. I don't remember how I got here…"

"I see. I understand now that you likely survived in this climate due to the mako that runs in your veins. I'm Sephiroth."

Cloud didn't respond. Of course he knew Sephiroth.

"I'm Fergus!" chimed in one of the officers sitting next to Cloud. "You sure had us in a shock. Thought you were dead!" He laughed loudly and patted Cloud heavily on the shoulder.

Sephiroth saw Cloud wince, not in pain but with another feeling that Sephiroth was quite empathetic to. Sephiroth withdrew from the conversation that was quickly becoming quite lively again and hoped his men did not descend into the topic of boobs again.

Cloud somehow found himself to be the centre of conversation. Where another person might be flattered with the attention and honest curiosity from others, he felt bewildered and violated by the interrogation about his person. Where is he from, is he married, and if he liked them big or perky? His face grew warm from Fergus and Lance's graphic descriptions of their preferences. His eyes darted around from face-to-face, feeling suffocated. He looked to Sephiroth who seemed to watch on with a twinkle of mirth in his eye. What was so amusing?

And Cloud remembered. Of course he knew Sephiroth. Of course he remembered how he got here. He remembered the sound of leather flapping in the wind as Sephiroth descended from the sky, the gleam of the blade that struck Aeris, and the feeling of damp sticky blood on that pink dress of hers. He remembered carrying her into the magic waters of the temple of the ancients where the life energy of the planet swirled around him and drew him under the surface. And as he was drowning, holding the corpse of a person he loved, his close friend, that her spirit energy sent him back to this moment. They said to change the course of history, and he asked how.

Just be yourself, the voices said. As Cloud struggled for breath and his vision grew dark, he remembered thinking that the planet sounded like a shitty gay best friend.