"This is the observatory, step in, please."
Zorry stepped onto the small platform, Nanaki walked over to a glowing button and nudged it with his nose, he stepped onto the platform and it shuddered into life, Zorry almost fell over from the jolt, and as it rose into a hollowed out space the lights dimmed and the universe materialised around her taking her breath away.
"This is...amazing, I can't believe it."
"My grandfather constructed it...you're the first person other than me to see this in almost five hundred years."
She stood in silence, taking in her beautiful suroundings, around her, stars were born, waned and died, planets were formed and crumbled and races dried up,
"I brought you up here to show you this, something very terrible and unthinkable that almost happened a long time ago,"
As she watched, a planet drew closer, many colourfull spirits swirled around it, and then begain to disspate, eventually she realised they were being drawn to particular points on the globe and destroyed. Watching longer a meteor streaked towards the planet, a rocket was sent and collided with it with a crash, and she looked away, almost blinded by the light energy emitted, when she looked back, the planet was gone, replaced by just a few lonely fragments of rock, she reached out without knowing to touch...then curled her hand back, she noticed Nanaki was watching her,
"I-what IS this?"
"So you don't understand," he seemed disappointed, as though she had let him down, suddenly she realised that he had seen something unknown in her, she answered slowly, and surely, savouring the words as though they were the last she would ever speak,
"I will."
He nodded, listening not to what she had said but to what she had not said, the unspoken word, the unthunk thought,
"I brought someone back, I think I did, and...I think-I think it was Sephiroth,"
Suddenly Nanaki's eyes lit up with a fire brighter than that burning on the plateau, it was fear, she realised, he's afraid, a powerfull ancient creature afraid.
"How?"
She took the black stone out and showed it to him, it glimmered in the light for a moment, then turned completely black, it was fascinating, sometimes it shone, with a dark light darker than any natural light could be and sometimes it glittered, now and again you could see straight through it and at other times it was clear with a dark mist, right now it was perfectly black, a mini hole in the universe into which light poured endlessly, she wondered at it, it cast no shadow, but where it's shadow should be, anything that entered seemed to be grasped by an inexplicable fear, petrified and killed in a heartbeat by some unknown power.
"I found it in the Forgotten City, on the flower girl's altar. It was in a little alcove, when I took it out...I forget what happened, my memory blurs around there, but I saw him, I saw...Sephiroth."
"It appears that it awakened Sephiroth, he couldn't rest even now, he felt your power and now he has arisen."
"...It's my fault isn't it?"
"It was inevitable."
The silence grew, it ebbed and throbbed and suffocated, it was stifling, ringing around Zorry's head like so many alarm bells, she couldn't break it, it overpowered her and she looked pleading at the wise creature, begging him to save her.
"There is one thing we have to do, the only thing we can do,"
She sighed with releif, suddenly exhausted from the long battle with silence, he noticed,
"You had better go, keep your mother happy and come back tomorrow."
She nodded, unable to utter a word, and left.
Zorry stepped onto the small platform, Nanaki walked over to a glowing button and nudged it with his nose, he stepped onto the platform and it shuddered into life, Zorry almost fell over from the jolt, and as it rose into a hollowed out space the lights dimmed and the universe materialised around her taking her breath away.
"This is...amazing, I can't believe it."
"My grandfather constructed it...you're the first person other than me to see this in almost five hundred years."
She stood in silence, taking in her beautiful suroundings, around her, stars were born, waned and died, planets were formed and crumbled and races dried up,
"I brought you up here to show you this, something very terrible and unthinkable that almost happened a long time ago,"
As she watched, a planet drew closer, many colourfull spirits swirled around it, and then begain to disspate, eventually she realised they were being drawn to particular points on the globe and destroyed. Watching longer a meteor streaked towards the planet, a rocket was sent and collided with it with a crash, and she looked away, almost blinded by the light energy emitted, when she looked back, the planet was gone, replaced by just a few lonely fragments of rock, she reached out without knowing to touch...then curled her hand back, she noticed Nanaki was watching her,
"I-what IS this?"
"So you don't understand," he seemed disappointed, as though she had let him down, suddenly she realised that he had seen something unknown in her, she answered slowly, and surely, savouring the words as though they were the last she would ever speak,
"I will."
He nodded, listening not to what she had said but to what she had not said, the unspoken word, the unthunk thought,
"I brought someone back, I think I did, and...I think-I think it was Sephiroth,"
Suddenly Nanaki's eyes lit up with a fire brighter than that burning on the plateau, it was fear, she realised, he's afraid, a powerfull ancient creature afraid.
"How?"
She took the black stone out and showed it to him, it glimmered in the light for a moment, then turned completely black, it was fascinating, sometimes it shone, with a dark light darker than any natural light could be and sometimes it glittered, now and again you could see straight through it and at other times it was clear with a dark mist, right now it was perfectly black, a mini hole in the universe into which light poured endlessly, she wondered at it, it cast no shadow, but where it's shadow should be, anything that entered seemed to be grasped by an inexplicable fear, petrified and killed in a heartbeat by some unknown power.
"I found it in the Forgotten City, on the flower girl's altar. It was in a little alcove, when I took it out...I forget what happened, my memory blurs around there, but I saw him, I saw...Sephiroth."
"It appears that it awakened Sephiroth, he couldn't rest even now, he felt your power and now he has arisen."
"...It's my fault isn't it?"
"It was inevitable."
The silence grew, it ebbed and throbbed and suffocated, it was stifling, ringing around Zorry's head like so many alarm bells, she couldn't break it, it overpowered her and she looked pleading at the wise creature, begging him to save her.
"There is one thing we have to do, the only thing we can do,"
She sighed with releif, suddenly exhausted from the long battle with silence, he noticed,
"You had better go, keep your mother happy and come back tomorrow."
She nodded, unable to utter a word, and left.