Just Too Real
Lady Blackmour
"These wounds wounds won't seem to heal.
This pain is just too real.
There's just too much that time cannot erase
When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
When you screamed I'd fight away all of your fears
And I held your hand through all of these years
But you still have all of me."
-Evanescence
When the chaos began, my first thought was that I would not find Riku. That didn't stop me from looking, of course. I am his mother, what else could I do? It seemed like I searched fpr an eternity before I came to the beach, and saw him…there…on his little island connected by that bridge. I was only there in time to see him step willingly into the black. I saw him reach out to Sora, and I saw Sora trying to hard to hold on to him. In that moment I knew that I would lose him, for a time at least. But still I prayed that Sora would be able to hold him here, that he would not leave me yet. It was weak of me, I know, but I…I did not want to be alone.
My prayers were unanswered. The blackness enveloped him, and he was gone.
I sank to my knees, bowed my head. But I did not cry. I had always known that this would happen sooner or later. Now, I'm not saying I expected it to happen quite like this…How could I have known? But he is so much like his father. Too much like him to stay with me forever. Like his father, he's always looking for something. Sephiroth once told me that there was always something more, something better, if we only knew how to find it. I laughed.
"You don't believe me?" he had asked sharply, looking very offended. He was always so serious.
"Of course I believe you," I grinned back at him, taking a lock of long, silvery hair between my fingers and bringing it to my lips before giving it a gentle tug. "I believe everything you tell me. But why does it matter to me? I can't imagine being happier than I am with you, Sephiroth. I think anything else would be too much for me"
He smiled. People used to say I was the only one who could get him to smile like that, a genuine, happy smile. He pulled me into his arms and leaned his face against the top of my head. "Fair enough, Arianna," he whispered, and I could still hear the smile in his voice. I smiled back, burrowing farther into him, studying the way our long hair tangled together when he held me like that. Black on white…light and dark, dark and light…but which was which? I giggled at the philisophical turn my thoughts were taking. Maybe he was rubbing off on me more than I realized.
"What's so funny now?" he asked, sounding maybe just a little exasperated.
"Nothing," I replied. "I'm just happy. And I love you."
He sighed, giving me a gentle squeeze. "I love you too, Ari. You're right. It is enough."
I believed him, too. But it wasn't enough.
And it isn't that he lied to me! No, he never lied to me. I believed everything he told me then, and if he came back now, I still would. But everyone is wrong sometimes, even him. He just didn't know. He didn't, he couldn't. And he left. I don't remember why, I only remember…I was sick, and he stayed with me throughout, never left my side, always telling me I would get better, even though it looked as if I would die.
And then I was better, suddenly, but…he was gone. But I know…I *know* there was a good reason. He never did anything without a good reason. I was only seventeen when he left, and I was only seventeen when I discovered, soon afterwords, that he had left me with more than just memories. I don't know when it happened, and I don't know how. But in that moment, I was so grateful for it. This way, I would never really be without him. Of course, there would have been a scandal, so I left before anyone found out. I left and came here, to this island, though…I don't remember how I got here. Either way, I suppose it doesn't really matter. I was happy here. It's warm, and beautiful, and I love the smell of the ocean.
Riku was born several months later. I held him in my arms, and it was as if Sephiroth was there with me again. Riku didn't cry. He just looked up at me, blinking in the harsh light after nine months of darkness, and I saw his eyes for the first time. They were not the dark, cloudy blue that most enfants eyes are the first weeks of life, before they change to become their true colour. They were brilliant, electric blue, tinted with green…enough to make them almost turquoise. No one had those eyes except…I smiled, brushing a hand through his thick, downy hair. Riku had his father's eyes. My heart, already so full of love for this tiny being, swelled so that I thought I would explode. I wept. Riku was ours. We had created him, and he was the living proof of our love. I knew then that Sephiroth would return to me some day.
I would find out soon enough that his eyes were not all my son had inherited from Sephiroth. His hair was dark when he was born, but that did not last long. When he was a few weeks old it began to fall out. When it came back in, it could not have been more different. It was so light as to be white.
When he was five, he met a young boy named Sora, who was then only four. They were best friends in almost no time. Sora was sweet, and carefree, a good match for my son, who was always too serious, even at such a tender age. Sora adored me as well. I like to think he looked up to me as a second mother. I certainly considered him my second son.
Time passed. Riku grew unbelievably strong for one so young, became like a leader among the children of the island. And he began to wish for adventure. He wanted to see other places, other "worlds," he called them. He wanted more.
And so here I am, alone, on the beach, my world falling apart around me, both literally and figuratively. I've had him by my side for fifteen years, and maybe that's as long as I can expect for someone like him. It doesn't really make it any easier. But I take comfort in knowing that he'll come back to me. Just like his father, he has to come back to me. That is my last thought before the ground begins to tremble even more violently, and I look up to see pieces of the land falling away into nothing as if…as if there is a great void beneath us. I should be afraid, but somehow I know this is not the end. I look up to where Riku disappeared, and I see a horrible, black creature, and…Sora?...wielding a blade of some sort against it. I smile. Sora, little carefree Sora… Then darkness takes me, and I know no more.