Chapter 21: Sister

Warning: Later part of this chapter isn't for the squeamish.

Tifa watches from behind the counter as Sephiroth coaches their four year old daughter on sword-maintenance. Not quite the parental bonding activity she envisioned in years past with her own imagined child, but considering the father in question, its a good and educational thing for her to learn. Not that Tifa wasn't planning on starting Jen on martial arts soon enough. First lesson would be to hit or kick a guy right between the legs if they got too handsy. She was hoping Jen wouldn't have to use that knowledge anytime soon, few men (and the occasional woman) were the kind of scum a pedophile was, but the fall of society had brought out all kinds of degenerates after Meteorfall. She's glad Marlene had been to young at the time to understand some of the innuendoes thrown at the girl in her youth...

Tifa briefly flinches at the thought of Marlene, it had been a long while since she had last though of the sweet girl, and Tifa's sin in murdering her. She looks at Jen for a long moment, sadness is what she feels; Marlene would have been a wonderful sister-figure to Jen. Tifa and Sephiroth had discussed the potential for more children, but had decided to wait until Jen hit her teens, or became a young adult, so they would have time to learn from raising a Child of Calamity to adulthood. It wasn't to say any other child would be the exact same, but lessons learned could be useful.

It wasn't like they aged anyway, they had an eternity to have more children if they wanted to. Not to mention other 'quirks' have being part Calamity, especially a female one. No more periods, and she was fairly certain she'd never actually hit menopause. That did also mean that she and Sephiroth had to be more careful when they occasionally sought eachother out sexually; not that it happened often, they both had absurd restraint. She wasn't going to bitch and moan about a parched love life, the both of them had gone years between sexual encounters before and between Meteorfall and Nibelheim after all. She had been to wrapped up in revenge, and him the Shinra General. Neither had time for love.

And of course, considering how emotional projection worked, they did NOT want to risk that leaking to Jen.

Ick.

"'Xpectin Rufus or Reeve, da?" asked Jen suddenly.

Sephiroth paused, his whetstone tapping lightly against his blade, before he turned his ear towards the door. "No."

Tifa caught it a moment later, her enhanced hearing picking up helicopter blades in the distance. "They could be heading to Gongaga instead."

Sephiroth hummed briefly, eyes closed, before answering, "It's angled towards here rather than towards the settlement."

She raised an eyebrow at him.

He opened his eyes and returned the gesture. "Reverberations through the air."

"Pfff," grumbled Tifa, "How the hell can you tell that?"

"I grew up with my enhancements," he answered, "I am far more in-tune and have greater understanding of them than you are and do. Give yourself another decade or so and you'll learn most of it on your own."

"I'll take your word for it," she said, before countering, "Though, I have the rest of my life being used to normal senses working against it."

Sephiroth paused to consider that for a moment. "We could make it into a training exercise I suppose."

"Something to think about later," said Tifa, setting the topic aside as she rounded the countertop and made for the door, "I suppose we'll see whose coming..."

"Shelke."

Tifa blinked and turned to look at Jen, who had a slowly forming smile on her face. "Shelke is coming."

Tifa frowned intently. Shelke had stayed well away from their home since... since the Jenova memory revelation. That, along with Jen's stubborn refusal to spill any more information on the Calamities and their Progenitor had caused a... tension of sorts. Its not that the others didn't visit from time to time, but that Jen kept her silence over a 'childish demand with a heavy cost' offput many of them, especially with the severity of the topic. Aerith and Reeve had tried to poke the subject whenever they came, but Jen's refusal, along with Sephiroth's unimpressed looks, usually shut it down.

Tifa closed her eyes and exhaled through her nose. "I swear, if they pressured Shelke into trying to 'accept' what Jen wants to get information out of her, someone is getting the shit kicked out of them."

Jen crossed her arms and gave Tifa a scowl. "Mum s'pose to help Shelke."

For fucks sake, not this argument again. Whenever the girl was mentioned even in passing Jen would start in on it.

"And I've told you, Jen, trading one problem for another isn't helping," stressed Tifa, "Look, I understand that you want to help her, and I know that Shelke was hurt, but putting my cells in her is only going to make things worse, it would be a mistake."

Jen gave her that look. The one of utter disappointment. "Am I mistake?"

That was new attempted angle, and Tifa recoiled at it. "What? No!"

"I have mom cells," she countered, chin tilted up defiantly.

"That's not the same Jen," said Tifa softly, "You were born with them, you weren't changed to become how you are."

"Is same, wouldn't be me if mom weren't changed," countered Jen proudly.

Jen never had any issues with any facet of being a Child of Calamity so far. It scared Tifa as much as it made her proud to see the lack of self-doubt of being different.

"You are not a mistake, Jen, you're my special little girl," said Tifa softly, focusing her intent and love into a ball and projecting it at her, watching a hazy smile cross across her daughter's face as she practically melted into jello against the chair she was in. Tifa did oh so love being able to win an argument by projecting emotion and turning her daughter into mush or a sputtering mess. She could already foresee teenage arguments Tifa could shut down instantly. Well, if Jen even had anything like a normal teenage life.

The little girl propped herself back up and scowled up at her. "No fair!"

Tifa gave her a teasing smile. "What's not fair Jen? That I love you?"

Jen's face turned into a flustered mess, mouth opening and closing, struggling to counter.

"I do believe," mused Sephiroth, "That I agree with Jen. That's hardly fair."

Tifa chortled. "You always agree with her."

"Cuz Jen is aways right!" exclaimed Jen, tilting her head back to look and smile at her father.

Tifa smiled sloppily at the sight. The warmth of the moment spilling along the connection between them all. She wishes the price of it all had been different, but, here with her family, faults and all, she had never felt more happy. Then the smile faded as the thud of the helicopter touching down outside hit her ears and she settled in to wait. Arguments about Shelke always caused a small rift that set Jen withdrawn and sullen. Whatever this turned out to be could potentially be worse and make the next few weeks to a month unpleasant.

It is Shelke who comes in, and she comes alone. She pauses in the doorway, eyes flickering around. "No business today?"

"A few truckers earlier," commented Tifa absently, "Our location is off the beaten path."

"I suppose that would be for the best," states Shelke.

The girl is stoic, always has been save perhaps when around Vincent, it makes it difficult to read her. Those words however, are not. The discussion she wants is to be kept private an unobserved by those not involved. Tifa readies herself for an argument, and is most definitely going to go after whoever the hell pressured Shelke into coming here.

"What can we do for you, Shelke?" posed Tifa.

"I have been contemplating what your child proposed two years ago," stated Shelke simply.

Tifa expects Jen to start gleefully cheering or shouting or something. But... she is surprisingly silent, eyes focused intently on Shelke, saying nothing. Much like Sephiroth himself.

Tifa narrowed her eyes at Shelke. "You've been contemplating? Or others have for you?"

Shelke blinked. "I have. Everyone else has tried to talk me out of this decision."

Tifa holds back a startled response.

"Others are convinced that, given time, your daughter will grow out of her 'tantrum'," said Shelke, "If that is why you think I was pressured into coming here. If I am to be clear, that has little to nothing to do with this decision."

Tifa takes in a deep breath before letting it out. "Why would you want this? To be infected with my cells?"

"Because I am damaged, and I will never find healing outside of death and rebirth from the Lifestream without it."

Tifa swallows. "You could get Aerith to ask Minerva."

"She did."

Tifa doesn't hold back her startlement this time. "And the goddess REFUSED?!"

Minerva had already been deep on Tifa's shit list, the goddess was very quickly heading towards rock bottom.

"The Goddess is not beholden to our whims or desires," said Shelke, "Especially at the cost of the Lifestream itself. The choice she gave was either keep Yuffie alive and slowly repair her, or let her die and move onto me. One or the other, she does not wish to spend anymore Lifestream from this point on unless it is of critical importance."

Tifa takes in a sharp breath, ice hitting her heart. "I've never wanted to kill a god before, but I'm so very much considering it."

Shelke hummed in acknowledgement. "To return to my reasoning, I am damaged..."

Shelke pauses to consider how to speak, "What Jen said back then is nothing I do not know myself. I have met with psychiatrists, doctors, surgeons, anyone Mr. Tuesti thought could help. Both my mind and body are not what they should be, and likely will never be through conventional means. The fact that I can feel anything even at remote levels was only thanks to a fluke with Synaptic Net Dive and encountering and absorbing a small portion of Lucrecia Crescent's consciousness."

That got a flat statement from Sephiroth. "Absorbing."

"I took in some of her memories and feelings, mostly around Valentine," said Shelke, "I feel as if Vincent is a close friend, that I've known him most my life when that is not true."

Sephiroth hummed thoughtfully.

Shelke gazed at Jen for a long moment. "Everyone still thinks and sometimes speaks to me as if I am as young as I look. I may have the body of a child, but I am a woman. I have not given it much thought until Jen made the suggestion, because the possibility was never realistically possible. These last few years I have carefully considered the risks, the pros and cons, the consequences, and now knowing that it is even possible rather than an impossibility, I have come to a conclusion."

Tifa steels herself. "Which is?"

"If I don't do what has to be done to fix myself," said Shelke, "I will never be able to start my own family."

Its like a punch to the gut. Tifa is winded in an instant.

"Everyone has been kind to me, friendly," admitted Shelke, "Going out of their way for me, some would call that a family, and perhaps it is. But, seeing what you have here, seeing Miss and Mister Fair and their children, watching other families... its not the same. I will not be capable of having a child even if I could find someone who could tolerate my damages. Aerith suggested adopting a child, the world has enough orphans, but... call me selfish, that is not what I want."

Tifa wants to say that Shelke is not being fair to herself. But she personally knows the difficulty of being in a sort-of relationship with Sephiroth, and Shelke IS damaged to the point of expressing less emotion than even him. It takes a strength of character few have to love someone who can't properly love them back. Most that she knows are either taken or not interested in relationships. There is also the -looks like a child- issue that would play on morality (and potential law incidents), even if they knew Shelke was a woman.

"At best," says Shelke quietly, "I would always be the pitied woman-child that everyone has to look after, who still needs weekly mako baths to simply survive without debilitating weakness despite Reeve's best efforts. Less if I want to spend time out of my mako suit."

She meets Tifa's gaze. "I want to be whole."

Tifa swallows thickly. "I... see."

Her gut churned with indecision. She did not want to do this, but Shelke's words were hard to disagree with and...

"Not whole, more," spoke up Jen.

Shelke turned to her, eyebrows furrowed. "More?"

Jen speaks in an unusually calm tone, not a single trace of her normal eagerness for this topic, her eyes are intensely focused, old patience that doesn't belong on so young a face sits there. "Never alone, aways connected. Feel pull to be near overs like you. Become ageless, never old."

Jen peers at her, almost with an air of skepticism. "Can handle, Shelke?"

Tifa slow blinked. "I thought you wanted her to choose this?"

"I do," said Jen, "But it should be willing, thouwht out, choice. Famiwly by choice, not force."

Tifa smiled a little. "And here I was thinking you would have done it without asking a few years ago."

Jen's face reddened a bit. "Well... maybe? Wasn thinking much, just wanted."

Sephiroth hummed. "Infants desires are more base, selfish, without consideration for others."

Jen shook her head. "Shuwd have know tho. Those gamma made love her didn't love her wike you and ma do me."

Those Jenova made love her.

Tifa shivers at those words and the implications of them. Sephiroth considered the words for a long moment before answering, "Jenova was an entity unlike you and I, Jen. She lacked things that made us who we are just as we lack things that made her who she was. Our existences were framed around differing purposes and concepts. Its likely she couldn't conceive of what love meant outside a means of contagion."

Jen peers up at him, an air of... something... around her. "She did once."

Tifa slow blinked. What?!

Jen turns back to Shelke. "Shuwd know, we diffwent, not nomawl, aways apart from others."

"That is no different than I am now," answered Shelke.

"You want to make family," said Jen, "But that family might never come. Hafta find your other. May never do, 'specially if they fraid of us."

Shelke nodded. "I know. Some people could go their entire lives without finding someone, I'm aware of that. I just... I want the possibility of it."

Jen tilted her head, considering. "Stay fo a week. See how we live. Ask qwestins bout us. Then decide."

That... was actually a reasonable suggestion. It also, Tifa admits, can give her time to come to terms with what is likely to happen, what she's going to have to do, because really, she doesn't see Shelke backing down, and Tifa...

Tifa doesn't have the heart to deny Shelke the right to have her own family...

The week passes far to quickly for Tifa's taste, in part, because Shelke is actually a nice addition to their household. Quiet and reserved, but will answer an attempt to reach out if she understands it to be one. She is just as inquisitive as Jen is, in a calm and logical manner compared to Jen's wild trampling. Though... that seemed to have all the sudden jarringly changed. Jen had always been so eager, possessive, and demanding in what she wants. To see this... restraint for Shelke was... strange to watch. For something she truly wanted, Jen seemed to have the patience of the stars.

Not to mention what was playing out in front of her right now.

"And how does this... emotional projection work?" posed Shelke, who was sitting at the counter next to Jen.

Jen tilted her head towards the ceiling in consideration. "Connection. Me n mom n dad are all connectwed. Linked. Puwsh what we feel down it. Feel it, but there's overness to it, not me, them, but its them you know and love. So feeling how they feel is... melty I guess."

The patience and guidance there, from a four year old, especially this four year old, is... alien to Tifa, and yet... warming. She does believe the two of them would continue to get along well. Especially as... a kind of sisters.

"Melty?" asks Shelke.

Tifa smiles mischievously and strikes, projecting warmth and love at Jen, who sags against her chair, a messy smile on her face. "Like that, Shelke. I can pretty much win any argument with Jen by pushing what I feel at her."

Jen flushed and sat back up. "No fair mom!"

Tifa just grinned at her in response.

"Are there downsides to it?" asked Shelke.

"Well, you can accidentally push what your feeling," admitted Tifa, "Its also a bit of a loss of privacy, because you can go and look too. I can focus on Jen, on feeling her, and... I guess I can... brush across her mind? Get a sense of what she's feeling? I haven't practiced it much, because it is an invasion of privacy."

"I no mind," answered Jen.

"You don't now," said Tifa dryly, "Just wait until you're older."

Jen gave her a perplexed look, Tifa only smiled knowingly in response. Truth was, she really hoped Jen's teenage years would be different than a normal person's. Having volatile teenage emotional explosions projected at her was something she really, really, wasn't looking forward to. Not to mention if she ever brought a boy home, Tifa really didn't want to ever feel that through the connection...

"Are there other uses to it?" asked Shelke.

Tifa glanced at her. "What do you mean?"

"If you're connected, does that mean you can always locate eachother within a distance?" asked Shelke.

"Umm... maybe?" asked Tifa, "I'm generally loosely aware of Jen when she's nearby."

"Can you speak to another through it?"

"I... don't know?" admitted Tifa, "We've... we've never really experimented with it. Its just there."

"Not knowing what you are capable of is a weakness," pointed out Shelke matter of factually, "Just as it is a danger if something happens that you don't know how to control."

Tifa jaw sets. "I don't exactly like being part Calamity, the less I am one, the better."

"You don't have to like it," said Shelke, "I hate my ability to Synaptic Net Dive, but I still use it."

Tifa slow blinks. "Why do you hate it?"

"Deepground," was all Shelke said to that.

Tifa hesitates, not sure if she should press or not. "That... doesn't really explain it."

Shelke stares at her, expressionless for a solid few minutes before answering. "My training to use it."

Again, not a full explanation, but Tifa gets a sinking feeling about it.

"Hurt," said Jen, "Dey hurt Shelke if she couldn do it write."

Shelke closes her eyes, lips pursed, but doesn't comment.

"I'm... sorry Shelke," said Tifa softly.

"Its in the past," answered Shelke, her eyes opening, expression cold, "And they're all dead."

Tifa went silent.

Shelke turned her head to look at Jen. "Jen, whatever you know from Jenova about me, you do not have my permission to share. Is that clear?"

Jen shrunk a little on herself, nodding sullenly. "Sowry."

"Its fine, just don't do it again," said Shelke.

"Can talk to you bout it alone?" asked Jen.

Shelke doesn't answer for a few minutes. "It depends about what specifically. There are things that happened in Deepground, to me, to others, that I will never speak of."

Jen nods. "Lotta bad stuff Gramma did too I dun wanna talk about."

Shelke frowns a little. "How much of Jenova's memories did you get from your father?"

Leave it to Shelke to ask a question Tifa had dreaded ever asking. Because having who knows how many planets worth of genocide lurking in her head would be a truly terrible thing.

Jen tilts her head back. "Dunno. All broken. Unlinked. So many howles. Know a lot of the beginin, the end, but not awot of the middwle."

Jen grows sad. "Gramma gone, only Jen left."

"Only Jen left..."

Shelke takes one last night to come to a decision, and in the morning, she speaks. "I want you to use your powers of calamity to fix my body."

Tifa breaths in and breaths out. she knew this was coming. She's had a week to prepare herself for this. "Are you absolutely sure? Once we do this, there's no going back."

"I'm sure," said Shelke.

Tifa swallows. "Very well. Lets... lets go to the bathroom, I'm... not sure how exactly this is going to work. The few times I... accidentally did anything like this on wildlife, it was... messy."

"Mommy messy," teased Jen.

Tifa huffed and swatted at her. "Well, you're going to be messy too since you have to guide me through this. You said you'd show me after all."

Jen's teasing fades away into solemn seriousness. "I will."

Tifa glandes over at Sephiroth. "If it feels like I'm going completely out of control in a way that would hurt others..."

"Knock you out," he finishes, nodding, "Like our initial sessions to teach you control."

Tifa leads Shelke and Jen to the bathroom. "Shelke, please take off your clothes."

Shelke strips out of her mako suit, setting it on the counter, and Tifa has to quickly move to catch her after she's done. "Shelke?"

"Been a little over a week now," said Shelke tiredly, a touch of bitterness there, starting to shiver with weakness, "Since my last mako bath. The suits reserves were starting to run low. My body does not like when it looses access to an even small constant flow. I would stabilize in an hour or so and run for a day or two before weakness really starts settling in. I'd have a few days to get Mako or I'd become comatose and start to die."

She couldn't even stay at someones house an extended period of time without her condition crippling her. A simple camping trip over the weekend without her suit could kill her...

Tifa looks Shelke over quietly. Shelke had always been pale. But under her clothes, she was dangerously pale, almost like someone in shock. Despite her enhancements, easily making her stronger than most humans could naturally dream of, she looks frail and weak and small. Tifa gently scoops her up and moves into the tub, sitting down with Shelke cradled against her chest. Jen quietly moves to sit on the edge of the tub, one hand hand on Tifa's shoulder, one on Shelke's.

"What do I do Jen?" asked Tifa.

"Make her yours," said Jen.

"I...," began Tifa, but stopped.

She was going to say she didn't know how, but she DID. She remembered the feeling, the awful feeling, when she had converted those wolfs during her initial time with Sephiroth. But she didn't want it to be like that, she did want to change and consume, she... she wanted to fix and heal.

"I don't know how to do it right," stressed Jen, "To heal, not consume."

Jen considered her for a moment. "How you see me?"

Tifa blinked. "What?"

"How. Do. You. See. Me," pronounced Jen slowly, "Make yourself see Shelke same way. You awready care, so not much different. Make her your child, your daughter, my sister."

Tifa looked down at Shelke, and imagined she was Jen. Imagined that every suspicion Tifa had on how Shelke had been hurt had happened to her, and the truth was likely worse than she could imagine. To conceive that her daughter had been marred like that...

Her arms tighten on Shelke.

Her eyes narrow into slits.

A hiss of fury escapes her lips.

Her hands melt into black ichor and slip through Shelke's skin, causing the girl to gasp...

Damage, corrosion, breakage, stillness, wrong wrong wrong broken and inhibited, stunted and weak...

Permanence of constraint. Forced stillness. Cells complacent and unchanged, return to same structure once damaged.

Organs wrong, damaged shape, healed to damage form.

Holes in soul.

Holes in memory.

Overdependence on souls-life.

Require replenishment to survive.

Own lifeforce leaking...

LIFEFORCE LEAKING!

Take and study, fix, mold, heal, possess, become one, mine mine mine...

Shelke sobs and screams as Tifa's arms melt into black ichor as well, pushing deeper and deeper into her body. Jen's presence is like a ruler her old teacher used to correct children in class, a swat here and there when her desires overstepped healing and making like them. She saw with a million eyes each of Shelke's own cells. She attacked to heal. Every cell that was wrong she stabbed into and injected all that was her, all that was -T-I-F-A-. Cell were steadily changed, fixed, made whole...

Made one.

There are echoes of memories as Tifa works. The holes, the damage to Shelke's soul, did not happen on their own. They happened through extreme pain and suffering. She sees Shelke, lives through it with her as the girl is strapped down and experimented on. She screams with Shelke in the Mako Showers, she screams at the injection. She screams at the horror and madness of Deepground, the constant death and punishment and beatings and murders and suffering-suffering-suffering. The feeling of an explosive chip in the back of her neck, of being controlled...

She feels Shelke try to push her out of the memories, but she can't.

Shelke is HERS.

She will know any who harmed what was hers.

If they are still alive, they will suffer and die. She will devour them, rip their soul out bit by bit, shred it into pieces. Then they wont even know the glory of being one, not even being used as food. They will be cast out into the void, into nothingness to wither and fade away...

Every time Shelke/Tifa... every time they were treated as nothing more than an object...

Every derogatory or condemning comment...

Every person that they tried to befriend at the beginning, either betraying her or murdered because she befriended her...

Every time it was kill or be killed, a child's hands stained red in a way no one so young should be...

Every beating...

Tifa's vision begins to bleed red.

Every time they were locked in a room and starved as punishment...

Every training session that left them broken and bloody on cold metal floor clinging to life...

Every time they were cut open without care, poking and prodded while restrained and screaming...

Every time they bore witness to someone else bearing the same kind of suffering...

Every time they run, desperate and afraid, from the other members of Deepground trying to hurt her because they only ever knew how to hurt and be hurt...

Cackles of energy, of black and red power ripple across Tifa's skin. Pure raw power making the room shake in her fury.

Every time they was pinned by someone bigger and stronger, hands groping and touching places a child should never be touched...

Every time a public session of torture, whether them or others, was put on display for all to see...

Every time they ripped their clothes, spread her legs open, and shoved agony into them...

Every time the threatened to take them to the breeders if they can't be useful, if they can't make their Synaptic Net Dive work correctly, and the one time they did...

Tifa seizes for a single moment of horrific clarity. Weiss and Nero and Rosso had been born in Deepground. But she had never considered what that actually meant. Never conceived that Shinra could truly, utterly, be that depraved. Tifa blinks once, unable to breath. She blinks once, taking in a breath full of suffering...

She screams.

She screams aloud and through her connections to her family, spilling out into the world around. She feels the eyes of Gaia and its Goddess turn upon her in alarm, and all Tifa can do is scream at them in fury and rage, flinging in their face the agony they allowed so many of their children to endure. Their home shakes with the force of her scream. She can feel the lifestream so far below their feet flicker and flinch, its chorus disrupted by the wave of fury and pain, the song turned sad with grief. Tifa screams and screams and screams, the hymn of the planet shrinking from their suffering.

If it can't acknowledge what it allowed their precious children to suffer through...

Then they don't deserve them.

Tifa acts on instinct, her clothes ripping open as her body twists and expands in an inhuman, monstrous way, like a gaping maw that lashes out, tendrils drawing Shelke inside of her before the girl can scream. Jen tries to make Tifa stop, but Tifa lashes out, sending her smashing into a wall and slumping to the floor. Tifa makes a womb within the cavity of her body, taking Shelke inside of her. Shelke writhes and tries to move, a hand trying to push out of Tifa's skin. She pulls her back, binding her in place as Tifa pours her cells into Shelke from every orifice, every pore in her skin. Inside her body, Tifa can see Shelke blacken utterly with Tifa's cells.

For a solid, blissful, euphoric moment, they are one.

Soul

Mind.

Body.

She knows Shelke's pain in a way only Shelke had ever known, and Shelke knows Tifa's grief and rage on her behalf, her compassion and love for her.

She knows that they are together.

That Tifa has claimed her.

That Tifa will always protect her.

That Tifa will always cherish her.

That Tifa will always love her.

That Tifa will die for her.

Shelke stops struggling and goes still, her eyes half closes in the symphony of her mother's love, cradled and warm within this new womb, awaiting her rebirth. Then Tifa begins to pull their souls apart, giving her new daughter enough of her own soul scrapped from the edges to close what was wounded and torn open. Shelke's cells sing a hymn that resonates with Tifa's own, complete and whole and healed, almost as strong as Tifa's. Tifa ignites Shelke's body's stunted growth, setting the ignition for the girl to steadily begin to grow and age to her proper and developed body over the years. She shows Shelke's brutalized mind and soul how to truly feel again, memory by memory, emotion by emotion. Then... then she sends Shelke to rest as the largest part finishes, all that's needed is to finish up and give her body time to recover.

Tifa sighs softly, hand resting on a stomach larger than it ever had been with Jen, full to inhuman size with child. She smiles dreamily, a petting motion repeated, sending comfort and love through her connection to her new child. She sits for a long time as Shelke is carefully and lovingly remade. Jen eventually stirs, and Tifa feels an air of irritation, but she merely offers a soft apology and a warning.

Her children should not interfere when she is claiming another.

She beckons Jen over with a mental calling, and Jen moves to sit on the edge of the tub, a gentle hand laid on Tifa's enlarged stomach, carefully feeling what she has done. Tifa watches her curiously, seeing the physical that is so at odds with the spiritual. Her child seems so old and yet so young at the same time. There are dark twisted stains on her soul that baffle and alarm her, and yet... there is a spark in them that feels warm, that feels of -Tifa- and -Sephiroth- and has the beginning of -Shelke-. Strands of feeling for others she has met, some good, some bad. Her confusion and alarm slowly fades at that, dismissing it as unimportant. She will protect her child and allow her to grow pure from her heritage, just as she will Shelke.

Her consort walks in and takes one look at her, his eyebrow raised.

She raises one back, daring him to challenge her claim to Shelke.

He bows out.

Wise.

She sits there for hours upon hours, slowly petting her stomach, and through it, Shelke, nothing but comfort sent between them. She finally finishes, though if she's honest, she finished some time ago, but wanted to double check every nook and cranny, and wanted... wanted to keep her child so close, so protected, within her, one with her. Safe. But a mother must know when it is time for her child to be ready. Under her own power she rises, bringing her swollen form up, and then leans forward. Her stomach slowly splits open, blood and black ichor spilling out. Tendrils slowly bring Shelke out, still wrapped in a dark amniotic sac filled with Tifa's cells. She sets her gently down in the tub before a tendril cuts the sac open, ichor gushing out. Shelke takes a rasping, gasping breath, eyes blinking tiredly...

Tifa quiets her child's mind through their bond, sending her drifting off to sleep. Rebirth was tiring, she needed time to recover.

The black ichor and blood in the tub slowly seeps into Tifa and Shelke, cells to be distributed and reused as their bodies need.

She picks Shelke up and takes her to the master bedroom, laying her down. Tifa wraps her arms around Shelke, drawing her close to her. Jen lays down on the other side, not touching, wisely allowing her mother the first night uncontested together with her new daughter, but still near. Her consort takes a position watching by the door, his mind hints at no sleep this night, an air of watchfulness, a flicker of protection emanating from him over the three laying in bed. For as much as Shelke was not made from him nor tied together as he and Tifa were, she had been chosen into and accepted to become part of their family by Tifa. So he will claim her in his own way. That's enough for her.

No one will disturb them this night

Review Responses:

Kyoandyuya: I'm curious if you can guess what Jenova was prior to becoming a Calamity. It'll be revealed soon, last chance for the guessing game!

chawng = change

wead = lead

fink day wook fow ternawty = think they look for Eternity.

The last one might not be obvious in what it means. you have to consider the cosmic horror angle. The pursuit of eternal life, of eternal knowledge, defining the unknown. One should consider if the answers they seek are something they should want.

Sak: Yeah yeah yeah, I'm terrible with certain minor grammar mistakes. Also, get your mind out of the gutter! They are very occasionally intimate. Mmm, maybe I overstretched the baby thing. ., or not let enough time pass. Eh... Jenova would be 'Chaotic Evil/Horror', beyond the alignment chart, Jen however has become more human, and currently would be somewhere between Neutral Evil and Neutral. She will however likely never go anywhere near any good alignment, though she will favor her family.

Lyanna: Sorry, I have way to many stories going right now to take another prompt. Probably wont for several years.

Ania: Yeah... I mean I don't particularly care about sexual alignment, but when its shoved into every story where it really doesn't have a point, it gets a little old, especially if its there just for the sake of it, or just for the smut. FF7 needs more Bro moments! You'll have to explain Prometheus/Species comparison, I haven't watched/read/played whatever they are. To be fair, Holy Materia was already somewhat a Deus Ex Machina anyway. Daww, thanks, trying to get characters just right can be a hassle, nice to know when I get it right.

And yes, I know I have grammar issues, :P.

To everyone else: Thanks for the comments!