Sephiroth stepped out onto the street, his breath crystalline in the biting cold. With unhurried grace he turned up his collar. Carefully, he shut the stable door behind him. He started down the alley, heading back toward the Inn.
A sudden wind swept the stable roof. The air whorled with a sparkling burst of snow. It drifted over him in a stinging cloud, shimmering in the sunlight, prickling over his skin as he passed through it.
The familiar turn to the South, the indigo outline of the towers rising in the distance.
The main thoroughfare.
Sephiroth ran his gaze over the contents of the store windows, touching lightly on the goods inside, the faces of the people he passed. His expression was mild, disinterested, a mask of perfect benign neutrality.
But in his mind, two words pounded a brutal tattoo over and over and over:
They knew.
They knew.
Who they were. Where they were.
The clockwork was set in motion. ShinRa would not stop until they were captured, or dead.
Beating wildly, Sephiroth's heart squeezed bile into his mouth, scattered stars across his vision. It was all he could do to try to breathe, to force air into his lungs into something approximating a normal pattern.
This was his fault.
All of it.
He ground his teeth, silently. Clearly his arrogance knew no bounds. He had been indulgent.
Reckless. He knew better, even while he was taking the risk, just how easily things could turn, how one small mistake could cascade out of control. Only now he would not be the only one that would suffer for it.
His thoughts converged and swelled into one long internal scream.
Aerith…
They could do what they wished with him, but they couldn't have her.
They would never let her go. She would die in their prison, in their labs, in some sunless hole, alone. The things they would subject her to were too terrible to consider.
His expression was slipping, he could feel it, pain hardening around his eyes, his mouth twisting with unexpressed anguish. Sephiroth took a few rapid shallow breaths, choked it down until he was sure it no longer showed.
He had to get control of himself.
Stay in the now.
Think hard, think practically. The future was not written yet.
There were so many variables. It was unknown just how long Alex had been reporting to them, or even if he had, or, if he had, how far down the chain it had gotten.
Best case scenario they had two, maybe three days at the most, to make their escape.
Worst case, ShinRa operatives were already here, actively watching them, only waiting for the right moment to make their move.
They must disappear. Get as far away as possible, as fast as possible. But if there was ever a time to be careful, it was now. If they were watching, he couldn't spook them. They couldn't suspect that anything was out of the ordinary.
Sephiroth paused, appearing to peruse a display of outerwear in a shop window, using the reflection in the glass to scan the streets behind him. He sweated profusely under his coat. It collected in the pit of his throat, chilling him to his core.
In the space of a few tortured breaths he had examined everyone, studying their faces, checking them for any incongruity in expression or body language.
Any of them could only be waiting for the signal to swoop in and seize them.
Anxiety ate at him like cancer.
Please, he thought, to no one, to anyone: let me get back to the Inn.
Don't let them find her first.
Judging that a sufficient amount of time had passed, he forced a sense of ease into his body he did not possess and turned away from the window, continuing down the street.
Someone must have been surveilling them all this time, he thought as he walked. Someone close. Reporting on his movements, at least, between the Inn and the stables.
He had gotten sloppy, lulled into a false sense of security.
His skin crawled.
How else had Alex always managed to find him, even at the odd hours he'd come and gone?
Sephiroth cursed himself, ten thousand times. He should have known. He should have seen it somehow. In retrospect it was a little too convenient.
A legion of unanswerable questions dogged him as he walked. Was Celeste the ultimate informant, or was it one of the hundreds of the other staff at the Inn? Or someone else entirely? There was no way to know. There could be any number of eyes and ears.
But it didn't matter anymore.
Now they just had to escape.
What remained of Alex was lying on the floor of his chocobo's stall, his newly assigned bird worrying at his lifeless body.
Sephiroth drew a quick sharp breath through his teeth, his gorge rising at the memory. The clock was ticking on that, too, until it was discovered.
Their fight had been brief. Like most of ShinRa's ilk, Alex was overconfident, possessing so much more swagger than skill. With a burst of sudden nausea, Sephiroth remembered the wet crack of Alex's neck as it finally broke, the sudden shifting of the bones, the cumbersome weight of his body collapsing as he released it.
Sprawled ungraciously on the floor of the stable, grinning the grin of a dead man with nothing left to lose, Alex wheezed through a curdling wreath of bubbles around his mouth. Sandy stable dirt frosted the blood in his hair, fed by the scarlet trails burbling from his broken nose.
You think this changes anything? he'd said, laughing his last breaths into the quickly reddening straw. They will find you. You'll never escape them now.
And you will always know.
Always.
That it was me that brought you down.
Sephiroth shuddered.
Grossly inelegant and brutish by design, a layman would surmise Alex's murder had been an unlucky accident. It might buy him some time. The ShinRa recovery team, however, would not be fooled. They would piece it together. In either case it would be the unlucky stable staff who would have to clean up the carnage.
Sephiroth took a breath, tried to think. He soberly considered their limited options. In the space of ten minutes, their plans for a smooth passage off the Northern Continent were completely blown apart. None of his carefully laid arrangements would work; all were too visible. He would have to find something else. But with no airship traffic, the gateway to the Southlands, Iskaarsport, was the only way out.
They would have to go by sea.
The Inn. Thank whatever deity was listening, he had made it.
It was pain on top of pain, to enter the library and watch Aerith rise from the window seat to greet him now. Almost in slow motion he saw the glittering weight of her skirts drift around her, the book on her lap slide away, forgotten, to forever be unfinished. The joy in her face as she stepped forward into his arms cut deeper than he thought possible.
As he spoke, telling her the news, he watched her happiness shatter, collapse in on itself. Then he saw the fear, the old, old, fear, creep in, felt the tremor reverberate through their embrace.
Sephiroth squeezed his eyes shut. She deserved so much better than this. She deserved never to be afraid again, but this was something even he could not give her.
In a flurry of frenzied abandonment, they shed their fine clothes, swapping them for a set similar to those they had arrived in. Now as drab as any laborer in their deeply hooded parkas, Masamune concealed in a wrapping of grubby cloth, they slipped out the loading docks into the maze of alleys behind the Inn.
Standing in the muddy slush, Aerith shivered, shifting her weight from side to side. Her secondhand coat was either thinner than the one she had had before, or it was colder than she remembered. She waited for Sephiroth as he stowed a few last-minute supplies.
The wind smothered them in the sickly sweet scent of the garbage in the hoppers nearby. Then it shifted and Aerith caught a whiff of baking bread, chrysanthemums, fresh clean laundry. She inhaled deeply, relishing the last breath of their former creature comforts.
"Do you think we'll make it?" Aerith said, turning away and looking down the length of the alley. It seemed to go on forever, shrouded in the deep blue shadow of the Towers.
"We'll do everything we can. I know the region well now, the local tradeways. We'll have to keep a low profile, take circuitous routes." He scanned their surroundings, not looking at her, anxious tension furrowing his brow. "But there's always a way."
Aerith adjusted her pack. There was a naturalness to its weight, just as it felt to be standing here beside him, once again on the brink of an unknown destiny. Even the bite of the air sifting in and out of her lungs felt good and right.
Sephiroth caught her gaze then bent to kiss her, softly.
He took her hand, squeezed it. "Come on, let's go," he whispered.
Aerith nodded, and followed.
The air in the back of the box truck was an uneasy melange of dirty snow, fermented sweat, and kerosene. Aerith and Sephiroth sat on the floor, crushed together with their backs against the outer wall, crammed in with fifteen other shabby unfortunate souls. Aerith shifted back and forth on the pebbled steel, trying to get comfortable, a hopeless endeavor after six interminable hours.
A single yellow bulb in the ceiling illuminated the weary faces of the passengers around them. The walls and ceiling were coated with ice, built layer by layer as their collective breaths condensed and froze.
The truck reared. They jolted, coming down hard. Aerith's teeth rattled with the impact. They seemed to hit every pothole and rut on the icy road. The unceasing roar of the truck engine grew even louder. Someone in the back of the truck coughed wetly. The lidded bucket in the corner sloshed its vile contents back and forth.
There were no windows, no way to see where they were going, no way to judge when the trip was going to end. Every moment the air seemed thicker. An irrational but overwhelming claustrophobia began to claw around the edges of Aerith's awareness. Vainly, she hoped beyond hope that they would stop, just for a minute, just for a breath of fresh air, but the driver was adamant that he'd drive straight through.
Still, even this was better, Aerith thought, than the first part of their escape. After quitting the boundaries of the town proper, they'd stowed away among a load of logs destined for the distillery. The palms of her hands still burned, patches of her clothes dark and sticky with caustic sap.
Aerith closed her eyes, just for a moment. It was an unspoken understanding that it wasn't going to be long before they would leave the Inn, but she had never guessed it would happen like this, or so quickly.
A drowsy gentle afternoon, still drifting in the pleasure of the morning, then Sephiroth, pale and clearly shaken by something, stalked into the library with the news that chilled her to the bone.
They scrambled, grabbing gear, changing clothes before Celeste could tell they were gone. In the end they left with little more than they had arrived with.
But still she was happy. Lighter. Like she could finally breathe. She looked over at Sephiroth. He seemed dazed, staring fixedly at a spot on the floor as if in a meditative trance. She nuzzled close to him, so their parka hoods could provide a measure of privacy.
"Have you seen anyone?" she asked, her voice barely audible above the background roar.
Sephiroth roused himself from his torpor, blinked. He shook his head, his gold-flecked eyes refocusing on her.
"No. Not yet."
"Maybe they haven't noticed."
"Perhaps. We can hope."
He looked down at her, still disbelieving.
Despite it all, she hadn't hesitated when he confessed what he had done to Alex, how much danger they were in, what they would need to do to escape.
She understood. Trusted. Accepted what he was.
It would always be unearned.
"Try to get some rest, if you can," he said. He gathered her in his arms, felt her relax as she draped her body against him.
He bowed his head to rest on hers and allowed himself, just for a moment, to feel content.
Eighteen hours later, half frozen and grim, they reached Iskaarsport with no indication they had been seen or followed. Sephiroth took no comfort in this. There was still so much that could go wrong.
Needles of cold rain, dancing on the edge of freezing, hissed steadily on the corrugated tin awning. Under its shelter Aerith waited, perched on a stack of crates. Curled up with her legs pulled up to her chest, she leaned her head on the rough wood of the crate beside her. She flexed her hands to keep the blood moving. Sephiroth had chosen a good spot. It was protected from the elements and had a clear line of sight of the harbour, hidden in a rarely-used storage area on a warehouse rooftop.
Aerith surveyed the dreary scene below her. The port was quiet. Not much was moving except a few small fishing vessels heading out with the tide. She blinked, exhausted. The sky was a dull flat grey above an equally leaden sea. The soupy water, iridescent with oil, was nearly too thick and frozen to break. Lazy waves undulated across the surface, collapsing on the shore without a sound. Further out, soot-flecked chunks of ice, some as large as the boats they passed, floated idly by, collected in heaps against the moorings.
Far off to the west were the airship docks, but nothing was flying now. Spidery tower cranes hung motionless over their loading slips, crusted with ice.
There were a fair number of people moving around down on the streets below, but Aerith was only watching one. As the day slipped from a grey morning to an even greyer afternoon, Sephiroth had threaded his way down the quay, seeking passage with the commercial ships. The paper cup of coffee he had brought her had long ago grown cold and soggy. She drank the last middling swallow and the chill of it sliding down her throat made her shiver.
She closed her eyes. From far away she heard the low mournful tone of a foghorn, sounding from an unseen breakwater out in the bay. The sleet droned on and on.
Aerith snapped awake. Around the corner she heard the stairway door creak open. Barely perceptible above the rain, she heard the quiet padding of someone cross the wet concrete rooftiles. She smiled softly to herself. No one else could have that walk.
Groaning with stiffness, Aerith unfolded herself and stood up, brushing the dust from her pants. Sephiroth appeared from behind the wall. He took a quick glance around and behind him, then went to her.
Despite her exhaustion, Aerith smiled. It was so good, just to see him.
He was not expressive by nature so it was an even sweeter joy to watch his expression subtly open and lighten, the excited glitter dawning in his eyes as he saw her. She embraced him wholeheartedly, pressing her face into the warm crevice of his neck.
"Welcome back," she said, finally releasing him.
"Thank you," he said. "I brought you something. You must be very hungry." He took two small bundles wrapped in wax paper out of his coat pocket, handed one to her. Thin tendrils of steam wafted from them. "I wish it was more. Or better. It was the best I could do," he said, frowning.
Aerith caught the smell of toasted dough, onions, lamb, spices. Her mouth watered. She unwrapped the meat bun and tore into it with gusto.
"I won't complain. It's delicious," she said, chewing happily.
Sephiroth sat on an oil drum next to her. He unwrapped his food and picked at it with delicacy, looking troubled.
"The fuel embargo continues to be a significant problem," he said, between bites, "Not many ships coming in and little heavy fuel to get them out again until the next shipment. Few running at all, fewer going our way. The only passage I can find that makes sense is a distillate tanker. It's scheduled to dock in Bone Village in five days, give or take a day, depending on the weather and currents. The captain will allow us to use his quarters for the trip if we pay in cash." Sephiroth looked down, scowling, crumpled the paper wrapping of his meat bun in his fist. "It's much slower than I want, but under the circumstances it's the best we can get. We can't wait."
"When do we leave?"
"Tonight. We should lie low until then. Unfortunately that means not being seen. There's a boardinghouse on the other side of town, but I don't want to risk it. Think you can last another eight hours out here?"
Aerith's verdant eyes flashed, showing that fierce determined look of hers he had always loved, that incredible inner strength within her, rising.
"Of course," she said.
He put his arm around her, and together they waited.
Night fell. The sleet ground on. At last, dizzy with fatigue, they boarded the Sylvan Queen at one in the morning. Unsteady on her feet, Aerith fiercely gripped the cold metal rails of the gangplank, grateful Sephiroth was behind her, just in case she fell asleep on her feet.
The murky orange light of the sodium arc lamps made everything look harsh and unreal. Despite the time, the deck swarmed with activity. Aerith heard nothing, deafened by the roar of the engines and the sounds of sluicing water. The tanker geared up, preparing to move its sixty thousand tons of deadweight out into the bay. The air was tainted with clouds of forklift exhaust overlaid with the alternating smells of sewage and rotting fish from the cannery. Aerith covered her mouth with her sleeve, snatching shallow breaths under her scarf whenever she could. None of it seemed to bother the crew, who worked on, oblivious.
From their position on the bridge's upper deck, Sephiroth scanned the docks. On edge, he trained every sense outward, searching the sky, the horizon, scrutinizing the dockworkers on the piering, the crew bustling on the decks below.
Nothing. Nothing.
Not yet.
The final checks were carried out. A last minute shipment of timber was loaded and stacked on the forecastle. At last the crew pulled up the gangplank. The gate was thrown down with a crash and locked into place. The engines kicked up, churning the sea. With the sound of groaning metal, a shudder rippled under their feet, then a great thrumming vibration. Slowly the tanker began to move. The docks slid away. Sephiroth felt the smouldering tension in his gut relax, just a little.
They slipped back, faster and faster, gaining momentum by the second.
Now it was undeniable. They were under way.
Somehow, they had made it off the Northern Continent without incident.
Suddenly wide awake, Aerith held the railing as they accelerated, cold mist gusting at her back. The lights of Iskaarsport were receding fast, orange and white and red, shimmering like a mirage.
The wind changed. A breeze from the sea swept over them, sweet and clean. Sephiroth felt it slide through his hair like a blessing. He squeezed Aerith closer. It was still a new thing, a wondrous thing, to enjoy this simple contact, but he took nothing for granted.
Together they watched as the shoreline faded away at last into nothingness, finally blending into the misty twilight as if it were never there.
A man in an orange jumpsuit approached them. He gave an awkward sort of half bow, half nod in greeting, fiddling with the ID card clipped to his belt. He adjusted his helmet, then adjusted it again.
"The captain asked me to show you to your quarters. It's late so we can do the safety orientation tomorrow."
Sephiroth nodded and let him lead the way.
The room was better than he expected. Instead of a rusting bulkhead reeking of tobacco and months of unwashed bedding, the room was clean and neatly kept, paneled and furnished in the same deep red cedar that was stacked on the deck. The bed was a curtained alcove built into the wall. A copper samovar, screwed down like everything else, percolated quietly on a chest of drawers, its polished sides reflecting the light from the electric sconces on the walls.
A cutglass distillate lamp flickered on a table, subtly perfuming the air with the same scent as the wood it was made from, blending with the bitter fragrance of tea.
Sephiroth dropped his pack.
It was a nice room. It had been worth the expense. Aerith would be comfortable and their position on the uppermost deck was a good vantage point. It would be harder to corner them if they needed to fight their way out. They were far enough away from the other crew members that hopefully interaction would be kept to a minimum.
Aerith made a beeline for the bed and shoved the curtains aside. She flopped face down on it, still in her coat, her feet hanging over the edge.
"At last," she groaned, her voice muffled in the blankets. She wiggled her legs weakly in a half-hearted attempt to kick off her boots, but then gave up and lay still.
Sephiroth knelt down on the floor and undid his harness. He laid Masamune on the floor and began to unwrap it.
After a few minutes Aerith huffed and rolled over, turning onto her back. She rubbed her face, sighing heavily.
All the lights in the room suddenly clicked off with a snap. Aerith sat up, gasped.
"What's going on?"
"They shut down the secondary generator. They're trying to save fuel," he said, continuing his work as if nothing had happened. "I imagine they'll keep it off most of the time."
"Ah. Ok." She waited for a few seconds as her eyes adjusted to the weak lamplight. Sighing heavily, she bent down and took off her boots, then began to peel off her heavy outer layers.
"It seems like a well-run ship," Sephiroth said. "This crew may be one of the better ones, but do not leave the cabin unless I am with you." His voice was low and grave.
He drew Masamune out into the light, more out of habit than anything else, and examined the blade, turning it back and forth. "Keep the door bolted. Always be armed when we go above deck. The open sea is lawless. And this is not a passenger vessel."
Aerith nodded. "I won't go anywhere," she said, yawning and easing herself off the edge of the bed. She wandered across the room and nudged open the mirrored door to the bathroom, poked her head into the darkness inside, "Besides, I think we have everything we need in here."
Grimacing as she pressed her hands into the small of her back, Aerith went to look at the room's only decoration: a large framed lithograph of the world map that took up most of the wall. She studied it intently then reached out and touched it, spanning the space between the Northern Crater and the Inn between her index finger and thumb. It was odd to see it like this. So much distance, so much time, years of her life, limed in just a few inked lines and gradations of ice blue paint.
"I can't believe we walked all this. Here it looks so small," she said, "like it was hardly anything." She touched the dot that was Icicle Inn, tracing out to the southwestern peninsula, resting on Iskaarsport. She tapped around on the image of the sea-green ocean, south, then east. "This region we'll pass through, though, it's not very familiar to me at all."
Sephiroth got up from the floor and stood beside her.
"This is the halfway point." He indicated the narrow gap between the Northern and Western continents, then the scattering of rocky islands on the northernmost shore of Corel. "The Strait of Safe Passage. These islands: the Outer Herridia, Inner Herridia. We'll reach them in a few days." He touched a point in the middle of the sea north of Costa Del Sol.
"Somewhere near here is the Northern Gyre. The currents will be with us once we're through."
"Hmm." Aerith laid her head against his arm, wearily.
"One thing concerns me. We don't have anything for the Gatefee once we get to Bone Village. I used almost everything we had for the passage." He frowned. "We were in no position to negotiate."
"We'll figure something out," Aerith said. "Like you said, there's always a way."
Aerith flinched, torn from sleep by a harsh metallic pounding. Four blows. There was a pause, just long enough to hope they would not return. Then five more. She felt the blankets flip back, Sephiroth pull away from her, quick as light. Aerith heard him pull on clothes, the jangle of a belt buckle being fastened, the light sound of his feet padding across the floor, moving away. She rolled over, into the deep warm depression he left in the oversoft bedding and burrowed her head under the pillows. The pounding started again, then stopped as the door to their room scraped open, letting in a gust of frigid air.
A crew member stood in the hallway.
Sephiroth blinked at him coldly.
"What is it?"
"Eh, I'm here for your mandatory safety training," the man said, glancing at the floor. He sighed. "I can come back later if it's not a good time, but it is mandatory. For everyone. Captain's orders. "
There was an uncomfortable silence.
"Come back in an hour," Sephiroth said.
"Ok, I'll, uh, see you then."
Aerith heard the bolt on the door slide shut, lock. A moment later the bed compressed as Sephiroth sat beside her.
"You've got to get up now," he said.
"Do I?"
He leaned over and kissed her shoulder. "Yes. You must."
"Urgh. Why?" She made a vague motion to pull the blankets back over her head but gave up halfway.
Sephiroth smirked at her. "Well. It is past noon. They'll have a meal for us. Which you should eat. After the safety training."
Aerith didn't move. Sephiroth pushed the pillows off her head. She murmured unintelligibly.
"Come on," he said, "you'll feel better after a shower."
An hour and a half later they stood on the deck, enveloped in a freezing mist. Aerith clutched Sephroth's arm, yawning in spite of herself, as the crewmember gave his required spiel.
"There are four lifeboats on the Sylvan Queen, two fore, two aft," the man said, his tone dead flat. He half heartedly gestured at the bright orange submarine-like vessels that were hanging from chains over the sides of the ship. "They're completely self-contained, with their own external fire suppression system. If you could come with me, I'll show you how they're deployed and operated. Then we'll go over the other safety features of this Nevis-class D21 tanker."
"That took so much longer than I thought," Aerith said once they had returned to their cabin. She shrugged out of her sodden coat and hung it on the back of a chair.
"But necessary," Sephiroth said, sitting down at the table.
Aerith laughed. "Mandatory. What did that guy do, I wonder, to be stuck with safety training duty?"
"We can only imagine."
"Ah, well, it looks like they didn't forget about our lunch, at least." Aerith sat down next to him, her eyes twinkling. On the table was a plastic tray tightly covered in tinfoil. "Let's see what they gave us."
She peeled back the foil to reveal two generous bowls of seafood chowder, a green salad, and a pile of buttermilk biscuits. Two pieces of apple pie, slightly dented, rested next to them on a chipped stonewear plate.
"Not bad," she said.
"I'm glad you approve," Sephiroth said. After one taste of the chowder he concluded he did, too.
The lights clicked off.
"There goes the generator again," Aerith said.
"It's nothing to worry about."
"I know. It's just such a dark day, the lamplight will only make me sleepier. I just want to eat, then go right back to bed."
"A magnificent idea." A slow sly smirk spread across Sephiroth's face. "As long as I may join you."
Aerith laughed again, at his sudden perplexing formality.
"You're ridiculous. Of course."
It misted unceasingly, 72 hours straight. Chains of icicles grew on every wire. The decks became treacherous, the windows frosting over, as the ship slowly accumulated a thick blanket of ice. The air rang with the staccato sound of chiseling long into the night as the crew chipped away at it, trying to keep the navigation equipment clear.
While Aerith drowsed through the days, Sephiroth stalked the decks like a spectre, unable to rest, straining his eyes and ears, waiting for something to happen.
As they descended the stairs for a walk on the morning of the fourth day, however, they could immediately feel the shift that must have happened overnight. The ship glistened, shiny and wet, the puddles on the decks reflecting the peach and blue of a swiftly lightening dawn. Dripping water pattered from every wire and guyline, clots of ice crumbling, melting off, and falling to the deck with a crash. There was a softness in the air that had not been there before. Even the intensity and color of the light seemed subtly different. Later that afternoon, under a wildly blue and cloud dappled sky, they passed through the Strait of Safe Passage.
"This is a sight you'll enjoy." Sephiroth handed her the binoculars.
She scanned the water, over a group of barren rocky islands as they slowly passed them by.
"The Outer Herridia. But look at that one over there." He turned and guided her so she could see what he meant.
Her sudden gasp of delight told him she had found it.
Along the top of the island was a lick of green, a field of soft grasses, waving in the wind.
Sephiroth looked at her, relishing her obvious enjoyment. For a fleeting moment he could almost believe it, wanted to believe it, that their life could always be like this, that moments like this could last forever.
Daily they slipped further south and west. Morning and evening they consulted the map, noting how far they had travelled in their sleep, the progress at the end of every day.
The clouds broke apart, sunbeams lighting the choppy surface of the sea, the last of the afternoon light. Aerith and Sephiroth stood at the railing of the forecastle. They had exchanged their heavy coats for light ones the day before and spent as much time above deck as they dared, just to feel the light and breeze on their skin. They had been in an arctic climate for so long they had completely forgotten that for the rest of the world, Spring had come.
"Aerith, look."
This time she didn't need binoculars to see it. Ahead of them the sea was split in two, a river of deep black water mixing with vibrant turquoise in a blurry spiral six miles wide.
"It's the Gyre," Sephiroth said.
Aerith watched the water as it flowed and swirled, her face lit up with wonder.
"How beautiful. And strange," she said.
"It's the warm current that flows up the coast from Costa Del Sol. It keeps the Bone Village region temperate. This is where it meets the Arctic currents from the North."
Aerith felt a deep vibration begin to ripple up through the steel of the deck. The engines ramped up and up and up, louder than she had ever heard them before. Her smile vanished. She clutched the railing.
"It takes a lot of power to push through the crosscurrents of the Gyre. It might get a little choppy. It will be safer in our cabin. We should decide what gear to keep and what to leave behind. The climate when we land will be quite different than what we're used to."
Aerith nodded. She took one last look out at the water, her eyes far away.
"Yes," she said, suddenly swept back into bittersweet memories, "that much I remember.
It was well after nightfall, much later than usual, when they reappeared on deck for their evening walk. They descended the stairs, then began their regular circuit around the perimeter of the tanker, stretching their legs.
"It's such a nice night," Aerith said dreamily, holding his arm. "I'm glad we came out after all."
Sephiroth looked up.
It was.
Cool and pleasant, with an embarrassment of stars. Above them the milky arch of the galactic core divided the sky in two, connecting the horizons.
"I'm glad, too. But we're too far south for the aurora now," Sephiroth said. "I will miss it."
"The aurora was beautiful. But I think I like this better," Aerith said, closing her eyes and resting her head against him. Perhaps it was her imagination but if she concentrated she thought she could almost smell it now, carried towards her on the wind, the fragrance of the ancient forest; earthy, rich, green. The smell of home.
Her real home.
They walked arm in arm around the deck, back to their usual lingering spot on the stern of the ship. The engines murmured, churning the sea, leaving a long trail of blue phosphorescence that glittered and danced in its wake.
Sephiroth felt the breeze shift, warmth rising from the current, pushing them on. Dreamily, his gaze drifted back and forth across the sky, meeting all the familiar constellations. And there it was, just as it always was, sparkling blue-white just above the horizon like a welcome old friend, Reina Nova, the guidestar.
But, wait.
Sephiroth blinked.
There was something else there. Moving. Something that shouldn't be.
His blood turned to ice.
Silent as death, a cluster of dark red lights glimmered, moving towards them, barely visible against the blackness of the sky.
The nightmare had come at last.
For a fraction of a second, he was almost impressed.
They were deadly serious. An entire squadron, for just for the two of them. It was more than triple than they had ever sent for him before.
"What's wrong?" Aerith asked, alarmed as she sensed his breathing change, the sudden tension in his body.
"In the sky," he said. His words were colored with uncharacteristic dread.
His mouth was suddenly bone dry. So many retrievals had begun, just like this.
But this time, he vowed, one way or the other, it would be the last.
" I don't see anything."
"They're just above the guidestar. ShinRa helicopters. We only have a few minutes until they arrive." He quickly scanned the deck, looking for places that would provide cover. His mind raced. There were so many.
They'd be surrounded if they returned to the cabin. If they took a lifeboat now and tried to make for the shore, they'd be exposed on the open water, an obvious and easy target.
Sephiroth stared at the sky. They were incredibly outnumbered but still had the element of surprise. If they could manage to take down the first wave before they could board, perhaps somehow, in the chaos, they might be able to escape before the second.
"Aerith," he said to her, gripping her shoulders, "They're going to come at us with everything they've got. Weaponry. Mages. Paralytic rounds. They want us alive. But they will not stop unless they aren't. Do you understand? You can't hold back. At all. "
"Yes." Her eyes narrowed, grim, determined. She swallowed hard. "Yes."
"They will try to board the ship. We need to stop them before they do."
He stood and looked at her for a moment, brushed the hair away from her face.
Whatever happened now, he wanted to remember her, just like this, before the decree of fate descended and ruined them all.
He bent and kissed her, feeling the hot tracks of her tears welling against his face. He tasted their salt as he drew back, almost as if he had wept them himself.
Clinging to him, Aerith murmured hopeless promises into the fabric of his jacket.
"Aerith, we're running out of time."
"Right. Right." Aerith stepped back, wiping her eyes. They stood a few arm lengths apart on the deck. The infrared arrays of the helicopters shimmered in the night sky, red and copper, like beetles eyes. Eerily silent, they were close enough now that they could see the pale starlight glinting off their black sides.
"Do you see them now?" Sephiroth asked.
Aerith nodded, setting her feet and raising her hands to cast. Her heart was pounding so hard it felt like she would choke on it. But as she watched them close the distance, she felt her initial despair sweep away, replaced by a seething, white-hot rage.
How dare they.
ShinRa had robbed her, robbed them both, of so much. But she was not yet powerless.
"I'll take down as many as I can," she said, her voice suddenly clear and strong.
She took a breath. Called. Augmented by her rage, powerful magic rose within her, crackling through her heels and up the backs of her legs, burning up her spine to concentrate in her chest.
It was agony to hold it there, as she carefully judged the sweet spot between range and potency.
It was now, she thought. They must win their freedom, or die trying.
With a quick prayer to her people, she made her decision, executed. Her heart stuttered, just once, then fell back into rhythm as the powerful spell left her.
Gravity: a sphere of ultraviolet darkness expanded out of nothingness and swallowed one of the flanking helicopters, blotting out the stars behind it. The unexpected strength of the pull nearly threw Aerith to the ground as it came under her control but she recovered, staggering back to her feet. Shaking with the incredible effort, she manipulated her hands, pivoting them around each other, twisting them, then, screaming like a bird of prey, she threw herself down onto her knees. In concert with her movements, the helicopter flipped sideways, skipping unnaturally in the air. It snapped around, catching its rotors in the one next to it. The chain reaction rippled down the line as the pilots tried and failed to correct. The shriek of tearing metal split the silence as an entire flight of helicopters tumbled like toys, crashing into each other and catching fire. Their destruction lit up the sky, raining burning debris down into the water.
The formation scattered like roaches.
Driven back down to hands and knees, Aerith panted, recovering her strength.
Before she got back on her feet Sephiroth followed with a spell of his own; a shearing vortex of air that cracked rotor blades like brittle bones, burst windshields, zipped open fuselage. Reduced to twisted black wreckage, four more helicopters fell away, burning, into the sea. The tanker rolled in the waves, rocked from the impact then its nose began to drift wide, pushed off its course. The engines beneath them began to churn, trying to compensate. A pool of burning helicopter fuel began to spread on the surface of the water.
From somewhere behind him, Sephiroth heard one of the crew shouting, then the sound of running feet as others joined him. Alarms began to blare from all quarters, but his eyes were trained on the sky.
The pilots were cannier now. The remaining helicopters spread out, keeping their distance from each other, dodging wildly to be harder to track. As Sephiroth called his next spell he watched a pool of whitish light shimmer briefly across the nose of each one, then vanish. His spell landed but did only a tenth of the damage it had before; although damaged, leaking fuel, the helicopter he had targeted kept coming.
"Take them down, Aerith, before they're on top of us," he shouted.
She cast again but this time the helicopter fought her, skipping strangely as it was pulled in and out of her control.
"It's hard to hold," she cried, but managed to twist its path just enough so that it couldn't correct.
It plowed into the sea, but kept its forward momentum, heading right for the side of the hull. With everything she had, Aerith pushed back, slowing it down. The helicopter impacted, scraped down the side of the ship with an unholy screech of tearing metal, its tail stuck up out of the water, its rotor still spinning. Slowly it upended, then, belching air, sank into the dark water.
Sephiroth looked up. The sky was red, black smoke blotting out the stars. Fresh helicopters swarmed, he could hear their rotors whistling. They were almost directly overhead. He realized with dread that the side bays were open; they were preparing to send down their teams, but it was too dangerous to drop them now, standing on top of three million gallons of pressurized distillate.
There was a rush of footsteps directly behind him.
"What is all this?" It was the captain. His grizzled face was lit with the orange glow from the burning fuel. The crew was scattered over the decks, staring at the sky, bewildered at the sudden appearance of the burning wreckage in the water all around them. They rushed for hoses, wielding extinguishers.
"ShinRa elite forces. You should escape while you can."
"ShinRa has no jurisdiction here. I'll be goddamned if they think they can seize my ship."
"You may not have a choice. At least save your crew."
The captain had no time to answer. Gunfire erupted from the nearest helicopter bay and peppered the deck. The sound was odd, crystalline and tinny. The rounds left sparkling dust wherever they struck.
Sephiroth dodged, ducking behind a winch for cover.
The Captain made a move to hide but was not nearly quick enough. As if slapping a fly that had bitten him, he put his hand to his neck, to the fine glass dart embedded in his skin. His knees buckled; his body dropped like a stone. His eyes wild, his body twitched, then was still. The crew scattered. A helicopter broke off from the group and followed the men as they fled, bright flashes erupting from its gunbay.
Sephiroth focused deep within himself. Already they were overrun. He had to push them back, decisively.
"Aerith," he shouted, "get down."
Opening his arms to the sky, he called. Black clouds spooled down from the sky and shrouded the deck, forming a swirling maelstrom fifteen stories high. Around them the swirling winds lifted timber from the deck, ripped winches from their fittings, swept away inch thick steel cables like cobwebs. Buffeted by debris, the helicopters fought, struggling and failing to hold their position. Those within the radius of the storm tumbled upward, sucked into the gale, turning end over end. For one shining moment he tasted a pale fragment of the power he had once had, the intoxicating elation when he, as Sephiroth the God, Jenovas' Harbinger, had bent Nature to his will.
Aerith cowered against a pile of cargo, protecting her face in the crook of her arm. It was impossible to see: the air was a chaotic blur of smoke, flying debris and sea spray. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the wind died, leaving her in a deep and awesome silence.
She looked up. Pieces of broken glass slid off her shoulders and fell to the ground. Almost every window and light on the deck had burst, the few lights that remained spat sparks, flickering weakly. Across the deck, Sephrioth stood untouched in a circle of ruin.
Before she could call or take a step towards him, a dark blur appeared behind the crate that sheltered her: a ShinRa soldier. He was soaking wet, dripping with seawater.
"She's over here!," he barked, raising his rifle.
Aerith sprang to her feet. A barrage of whistling shots splintered the wood of the crates, just missing her. She broke into a wild panicked run toward the front of the ship.
Another soldier appeared in front of her, evaporating out of the air. She pivoted, too fast, and lost her footing, the soles of her boots screeching as they slipped on the wet decking. The soldier was too close to fire. He lunged, managing to grab her by the front of her coat. Aerith fought, kicked his knees out from under him. His grip loosened and she pulled free, just for a moment.
"C,mon you bitch," he grumbled, catching the chain of her necklace, jerking her forward like a ragdoll. The chain sawed at the back of her neck as they struggled. She clawed at his face, kicking, then reared backward with all her strength. She felt the chain give, then snap . Broken fragments of the necklace danced away across the deck, lost forever.
Suddenly released, Aerith fell hard onto her side, recovering enough to toss back a lightning spell. Her eyes dazzled in the brilliant blue flash. Above her she saw the soldiers body arc, whipping back up onto his toes, arms clawing, shuddering with electricity.
Aerith scrambled to her feet and ran, disoriented in the overwhelming chaos. There didn't seem to be anywhere safe she could go. Burning debris was falling into the water and onto the deck. The engines were screaming but the tanker was still drifting sideways, out of control.
Sephiroth stepped over the prone bodies of a quartet of men he had just dispatched and stole a glance at the sky. The air was swarming with fresh helicopters. The second wave was already on top of them. More troopers crawled up the side of the boat. He took them out, one by one, as quickly as he could, but there were always so many more.
With a rising sense of panic he scanned the deck, hunting for Aerith. These were not poorly trained, poorly equipped NordKaats. They knew exactly what they were dealing with, and could not be intimidated. Any advantage they had had was already spent. As strong as he was, he could not hope to hold them for much longer.
Sephiroth saw a flash of a familiar silhouette run across the deck, heading towards the stairs to the upper deck. He ran to her, grabbed her hand and led her back in the other direction.
"There's one lifeboat left. Come on."
They fought their way, ducking between twisted piles of burning wreckage, climbing over scattered piles of logs that were just beginning to ignite. Broken glass from thousands of shattered vials, the cores of the paralytic rounds, sparkled on the deck like a perverse sort of frost.
The lifeboat swung back and forth on its chains. The gantry that held it was damaged but still looked usable.
Sepiroth opened the door and stepped aside. "You have to go now. I will hold them off."
"What? No! I won't leave you!"
He seized her roughly by the front of her jacket, kissed her one last desperate time.
"Get as far away as you can," he growled, pushing her toward the door. "North to the shore, then east."
Aerith clutched at him wildly, digging in with her nails. "No, no! This is not what we agreed. We can go together."
Sephiroth shook her off. He threw her down into the belly of the lifeboat.
Sprawled on her back, Aerith scrabbled, trying to get up.
He gazed down at her.
"It must be you. You must survive," he said.
Before she could move or say anything more, he kicked the hatch closed.
She heard the bolts lock into place. Through the porthole window she saw his face, contorted with pain.
His mouth moved: Forgive me.
Then, with one elegant swipe of Masamune's blade, he cut the chains.
The last thing Aerith saw before she began to fall was his silhouette moving against a wall of blue and orange flames.
A shadow, a phantom.
Then he was gone.