Destroyed
~
Chapter Ten: In the dark of the Night
~
~
"The consequences that are rendered,
I've stretched myself beyond my means."
It's Been A While~ Staind
~
~
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The night was darker than the fanning of a raven's wing.
It was spread across the room as to darken it beyond all repair.
A week had passed since they had passed across the edge of Traverse Town, seeking out new worlds and new ways in which to fight the shadows which plagued mankind. Sometimes they came back with word of new places and new sights, sometimes they didn't hear from them for days. The past two days had been silent, one could only assume that they had passed beyond simple navigation, and they would return soon to bolster spirits with news, harbour up doubt and shore the bastions of hope.
The night however, pressed down damply against her skin.
Of late, she had been dreaming in earnest, why she had suffered these nightly torments was beyond her own ability to understand but she twisted and turned with the burning memories. With the icy sharpness of recollections of pasts and faces she had thought forgotten to her, and slowly she screamed in her mind.
She was wearing her thinnest shift, for the weather had turned warm recently, in pale pink. It clung to her slender form too easily, highlighting the curves of her waist and the rise and fall of her chest. It moulded her breasts in relief, and was hitched up about her hips from all the tossing and turning she endured. Long slim legs were entangled in covers as they moved against her will.
Her hands, used to create life and of late, benedicting the power to take it away, were crushed into her silken red pillows. Her skin was pale in the moonlight through open curtains, easily seen to carry a sheen of frenzied sweat. The same sweat glued sugar brown hair to her scalp, braid unravelled about her, the ribbon deadlocked about the few remaining strands of her plait. Her eyes were screwed up in pain, and her mouth slightly open as she dreamed..
What could she dream of any worse, in the night without sounds?
With a painful moan, she turned aside and dragged the covers with her.. a dark stain spreading ever so slowly across her slim form..
~*~
"Aeris, where the hell do you think you're going?"
The hand curled so tightly about her arm, and she tried moving away.
She had been so young then, so vulnerable and so sure that with a wave of her hand she could right all the wrongs of the world about her. But it never worked like that, not now she realised. Sacrifice was always involved, but then.. then she had been so sure..
"I have to do this, let me go!"
"No!"
"Tifa, please.."
Her friend was a good few inches taller than she, looking desperate and wild in the shadows of the night. Her hair was the colour of pitch, her skin so pale that moonlight easily reflected from it and made it glow etherally. The fringe of her hair hid those ruby eyes in deep contemplative shadows, the ungloved hands strong still, one clamped about her upper arm and holding on.
~ Don't let go ~ a small part of her begged.
~*This girl is strong. You see it. But her strength must remain, it must endure.*~
~ I know Planet, I know..~
"I can't let you go haring off into the night. Cloud's ill and you're running away, for all I know, you caused it!"
"No, I didn't." She shook her head, and felt the burning behind her eyes that always preceeded tears. "I just have to go away and do something really important. You won't understand right now, I doubt anyone will when they're so close to it, but if I don't do this then He'll win and think how much that will torture me for as long as I live."
Tifa pulled on the arm, dragging Aeris closer to her, back towards the inn. Gongaga, the place where one of her closest friends and a man she had liked for a long time, used to live. Memories bubbled even then of his kind smile and the laugh he always teased her with when she had found something new or exciting. Zack.
"Listen missy, why can't you damn well wait for us all?"
"Because it won't wait!"
Tifa wore only her night dress and slippers, but Aeris held the added advantage of her weapon, materia and being fully clothed. Digging in her heels she resisted the pulling, mostly, sticking her rod into the ground to add leverage against the insistance of her best friend.
"Tifa, just try to understand!"
"I can't!" yelled the bar hostess, those ruby eyes snapping at her in fury. That wild, untamed heart showing through the darkened depths. "Why should I even try to understand? You're leaving us."
"People do that, people will always be leaving you Tifa but if you don't learn to let go I can never find a way to come back!"
"What do you mean?"
In the shock of the statement, Tifa let her grip loosen and immediately Aeris drew her arm away, ignoring the stinging marks of her friend's fingers. It hurt, but right now she had other things in her mind.
The life of the planet, the life of her friends, their futures and the safety of innocents who weren't even aware that about them raged a war to end all wars, raged a battle between two great forces. It may only be a cameo role for her in this, but if she was the only one who could do it then by all the heavens above her, she would do it.
Holding her staff closer to her she murmured, "Juts don't ever stop, Tifa."
"Aeris, where are you going?"
"North, something's waiting for me there. I have to go. I'm being...summoned."
Tifa swallowed, and through the shadows she could see the frustration on those beautiful features. The need to stay behind and protect Cloud, the desperate urge to run with Aeris to the end of the world. "Then I go with you," she said finally.
"No.. no you don't."
But she wouldn't listen, and turned back to go into the Inn.
~*Save her*~ came the command from the Planet.
She had never disobeyed the will of the earth underneath her feet and she too, recognised the fact that Cloud would need Tifa later on, need her much more than she ever would. So sticking a hand into her pocket, she drew out a small green materia and concentrated on it for a brief second.
Tifa stumbled, and then went to her knees, slumped over and snoring lightly.
Dropping it, because her friends may eventually need it, Aeris gathered all speed to her heels and ran.. hoping for the best, and expecting as always, the worst.
~*~
She moaned again and choked out a slow soft crying noise as tears escaped her shut eyelids.
How painful had it been?
How much more painful could it get?
Her hands shook against the pillow, another dream eventually dragging her down...
~*~
"I've thought about it so much.. but never had the ability to come up with anything solid that can be called proof or lack of proof therein. Does that mean that as a being in itself I exist only as an equality of belief and the application of the fundamentals of that belief. Are my foundations built from seconds I spend thinking and dreaming and wishing of better things or reflecting on past mistakes which could only possibly serve to endanger my current state of mind. Did I dream myself into existance, as babies are said to do when inside the womb? Did I make myself a fantasy inside which I would exist solely as a benefactor of my own knowledge?"
She twisted her hands together.
"The world is a wonderful place in many aspects, filled with bright cadences of lovely light and the showerings of songs which only wonder can bring. I may have viewed it with a sense of the childlike and exotic, I may only have pressed about the edges of a world which under a thin veneer of civilisation is in reality, dark and forbidding and waiting to swallow those unwary enough to be caught deep within the traps and pitfalls it makes for us. I have seen my friends struggle on each day and how my heart twists in pain for each and everyone of them. Perhaps that is why..."
Her head tilted.
"No, I don't really tend to think of it like that. They are human, I am merely half human. The side of me which connects me with clarity to the world is treasured for I am blessed with a gift beyond that of simple, normal means and it is that gift which gave me the chance to help my friends once and for all. I was useful. You above all others should know my dislike of sitting still and never having a chance to show how much I could be of use, how much they could need me."
A soft smile approached lips of pink.
"Of course, for him. He reminded me so much of Zack in the beginning, a lot of things, such as they way he would hold his head or cock his hips in the funny little stance that Zack often took to when watching me pot my flowers. But he's not the same person. I think the others had the beginnings of an idea, but the execution of the idea came to me when he was speaking, it didn't always seem right. I could hear the sincerity in his voice and the need to find himself again in those beautiful eyes of his."
She laughed.
"But that's exactly what I have done. I have given him time to find himself, and along the way discover new ways of doing things."
Hands wore expressively, gesturing as the words came forth.
"I would have done so much more for them. My talents were employed for the good of the world, for the futures that could have been spent unseen and unknown, for children who would never know the beauty of a flower, or the spirits seen only at dawn when the brightness of a new day spills over a land waiting for the rain after a drought that is night. I have given everyone a second chance, and it is that which fills me with joy. Perhaps too, they will all find the peace which they can only seek inside themselves. I am no longer sad nor am I any longer worried for their own manifestations of a future which is all their own. They have taken the work I left behind and finished it and in doing so sealed my way back."
The sugar brown locks shook.
"I do not regret. I am happy."
The woman nodded across from her, almost a mirror of her and how she could look in another twenty years. The features were much more elfin than hers in casting, the eyes more tilted and more liquid, their colour a golden green rather than her own pale emerald. The hair was spun with spilt silver, and the skin a little darker in tone. But this woman was her, as much as she was a part of this woman.
"Then you have made all the choices a good Cetra would have Aeris. Your sacrifice ensured the survival of your friends, the dissolution of Jenova and Sephiroth and the future of the planet. You should be hailed as a martyr, an example of your race." The woman smiled, "What would you have of us?"
She took a moment to think, and a moment only for in truth that was all she needed.
"I want.. just the fields and the sky, and a place to remember."
"You desire your Promised Land?"
"I desire my own time, to think."
"Then it is yours."
Aeris smiled at her mother, then made to stand in the silent space of the inner chambers of her mother's home. But the walls wavered a little as Ifalna stood too. She had been told this was a place called "Icicle Inn" in the snow villages in the north of the Planet, the place where she had been born to this beautiful, fey woman and a scientist of incomparable talent. But she remembered it not.
"Wait, one last thing. Why did you reach out, in the end, to Cloud."
"Because, I love him," she replied simply.
And she would, for a long time yet..
~*~
"Ahhh.. so you remember your little soldier.. I have seen him, Ancient.. I have watched his face."
The girl known as Aeris twisted in her sleep, unaware of the shadow over her, not seeing the shadowed green eyes. His hand moved slowly until it hovered over where the ancient's heart would be.
Someone had unlocked her key.
So, she would be the one to face him, would she?
And this time, like the last, she would die..
A tortured moan escaped the girl's lips, brow creasing.
~*~
"Look, look!"
She pointed, unable to contain herself.
He tilted his head and smiled rather calmly at her, the smile full of love and compassion. It was a smile that had etched itself onto her heart, a heart that was divided clean down the middle. One side belonged wholly to him, to that sweet smile and those loving smoky eyes. The other remained the province of a shadowy man from her past with bright blue eyes and a beautiful voice.
Right now though, picnicking with him on the boundary of the world, she was happy enough to remain with her warrior, under the sunlight of a foreign star. He moved closer and slid his arm about her shoulders.
"so, you enjoying the day out?"
Aeris tore her attention away from the stray rabbit as it ran off into the faint stirrings of grass. It did feel good to get away from the stuffy confines of a room and the endless droning of the books that she read.
"Very much."
"We should do this more often.."
"You think?"
He nodded, and pushed some of one of the long bangs back from her eyes. With a small start of surprise, she realised he wasn't wearing his gloves and the stirring contact of his skin set fires in the pit of her stomach. Smiling sweetly, she leant back into him, resting her head on his shoulder.
"Though next time, I cook the chicken legs," she joked.
He laughed.
She loved the laughter. It reminded her that she was alive. And it was painfully true, he had burnt the chicken very badly.
"Whatever you so desire, Aeris."
~ Would he call me love? would he.. ~
They sat for a long time, just watching the day beyond them, her very much aware of the proximity of him in relation to her, the sun beating down on her dark crowned head making her feel warm. Leon perhaps, felt warmer in his denim, and delicately she suggested he take his jacket off, and he smiled teasingly.
"Stripping me already?"
The blush was instantaneous.. and stammering something, she shook her head.. completely unprepared for the sudden and almost hungry pressing of his lips against hers, his bare hands finding homes for themselves on her upper arms. The contact was arousing, and soon she felt herself kissing back with demand.
They kissed for what seemed like an eternity, each kiss sweeter than the last and threatening to pull her senses down from concious thought into something much more dangerous and primal. Scared of these sudden, fiery feelings and also strangely pulled by the desire to give in she eventually pulled away from his kissing, relaxing in his strong embrace.
There was a soft, contented smile on his handsome face, framed by spikes of his lovely dark hair which she had come to adore. Running her hand through it, she softly heard him whisper.
"...I'll find a way."
~ Find a Way ~
~*~
She woke with a small scream, jolting hands to her middle in a panic.
The window was open, the pans of it banging in the wind with some glass shattered on the floor. Her hands came back up to her face and even in the shadows of the moonlight she could tell she was bleeding. It was the same wound that had killed her, and her terrified scream brought the door to her room banging open.
Yuffie stepped in immediately, "Aeris?!"
She cried helplessly, pressing hands to her middle.
"Aeris whats- fuck!"
Another came running in, boxers and shirt and a gunblade in hand, almost falling over Yuffie as she backed up in a panic. "Don't swear.. what's going on?"
Yuffie pointed at her with a tremling hand, but she was beyond hearing. The gash hurt, the old pain and opening her eyes she could see the blood as it welled out slowly. Leon dropped his sword, and put his hands on her, then searched about the room. Yuffie moved across to the window, and with now blurring vision, Aeris watched her go.
~ I'm not dying yet, it's not my time... ~
"The window's open.. did you leave it open, Aeris?"
Painfully she shook her head, as Leon came back and poured the contents of two bottles onto her midsection. The icy relief swamped over her and almost immediately she felt the knitting pain of alchemical potions. Gritting her teeth and bearing it, she glanced up at Leon, his hands also stained with her blood.
The sheer gravity of the relief in her eyes drew her in, and removing one hand she touched the side of his face, leaving dark red smears there. He smiled in return, trembling, shaken, but a smile nonetheless.
"I love you," he whispered, "no dying, not yet."
Blinking at those words, she didn't have a chance to say anything more as Leon moved and went across to the window, and Yuffie picked her up, carrying her away from the scene of her own nightmares..
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
He watched the kid go with bloodshot eyes.
He could have killed a kid, he'd given everything at his disposal, and yet he hadn't even come close.
Sighing, he turned back and found the disapproving gaze of Hades hitting him from a courtyard away, then with a slight whirl of his dark blue robes, the God moved back into the Coliseum.
"Gods.." he said, in a disgusted tone.
"Yes, what about them.."
He whipped about, and found only the shadows, but the voice had been unmistakable.
"Sephiroth."
"The boy moves, the Door within all doors waits to be opened and consume the unwary. They don't know the secret.. I do."
"You're alive?" Disgusted, Cloud found it was all he could do to keep his hands from finding the sword on his back, the strips of bandages he had used in the time when Aeris was dead to peace-bond it. If he was alive then a whole world of trouble for them was only beginning to unfold.
"I've found your sweet little Ancient."
His blood ran colder than ice.
Painfully forcing himself to speak, he said as evenly as possible, "where?"
"Another world, another time.. another sword.."
"Sephiroth!" he yelled, and his hand graped the hilt of the sword coming over one shoulder, but the voice only laughed.
"Relax, puppet.. I have no bother with you. Her Key is unlocked.. and I intend to take it.. and finish the work Ansem won't complete."
"Ansem?"
More laughter.. and as Cloud moved into the shadows of the colisuem, he found no one, not even the traces of bootprints..
~
Chapter Ten: In the dark of the Night
~
~
"The consequences that are rendered,
I've stretched myself beyond my means."
It's Been A While~ Staind
~
~
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The night was darker than the fanning of a raven's wing.
It was spread across the room as to darken it beyond all repair.
A week had passed since they had passed across the edge of Traverse Town, seeking out new worlds and new ways in which to fight the shadows which plagued mankind. Sometimes they came back with word of new places and new sights, sometimes they didn't hear from them for days. The past two days had been silent, one could only assume that they had passed beyond simple navigation, and they would return soon to bolster spirits with news, harbour up doubt and shore the bastions of hope.
The night however, pressed down damply against her skin.
Of late, she had been dreaming in earnest, why she had suffered these nightly torments was beyond her own ability to understand but she twisted and turned with the burning memories. With the icy sharpness of recollections of pasts and faces she had thought forgotten to her, and slowly she screamed in her mind.
She was wearing her thinnest shift, for the weather had turned warm recently, in pale pink. It clung to her slender form too easily, highlighting the curves of her waist and the rise and fall of her chest. It moulded her breasts in relief, and was hitched up about her hips from all the tossing and turning she endured. Long slim legs were entangled in covers as they moved against her will.
Her hands, used to create life and of late, benedicting the power to take it away, were crushed into her silken red pillows. Her skin was pale in the moonlight through open curtains, easily seen to carry a sheen of frenzied sweat. The same sweat glued sugar brown hair to her scalp, braid unravelled about her, the ribbon deadlocked about the few remaining strands of her plait. Her eyes were screwed up in pain, and her mouth slightly open as she dreamed..
What could she dream of any worse, in the night without sounds?
With a painful moan, she turned aside and dragged the covers with her.. a dark stain spreading ever so slowly across her slim form..
~*~
"Aeris, where the hell do you think you're going?"
The hand curled so tightly about her arm, and she tried moving away.
She had been so young then, so vulnerable and so sure that with a wave of her hand she could right all the wrongs of the world about her. But it never worked like that, not now she realised. Sacrifice was always involved, but then.. then she had been so sure..
"I have to do this, let me go!"
"No!"
"Tifa, please.."
Her friend was a good few inches taller than she, looking desperate and wild in the shadows of the night. Her hair was the colour of pitch, her skin so pale that moonlight easily reflected from it and made it glow etherally. The fringe of her hair hid those ruby eyes in deep contemplative shadows, the ungloved hands strong still, one clamped about her upper arm and holding on.
~ Don't let go ~ a small part of her begged.
~*This girl is strong. You see it. But her strength must remain, it must endure.*~
~ I know Planet, I know..~
"I can't let you go haring off into the night. Cloud's ill and you're running away, for all I know, you caused it!"
"No, I didn't." She shook her head, and felt the burning behind her eyes that always preceeded tears. "I just have to go away and do something really important. You won't understand right now, I doubt anyone will when they're so close to it, but if I don't do this then He'll win and think how much that will torture me for as long as I live."
Tifa pulled on the arm, dragging Aeris closer to her, back towards the inn. Gongaga, the place where one of her closest friends and a man she had liked for a long time, used to live. Memories bubbled even then of his kind smile and the laugh he always teased her with when she had found something new or exciting. Zack.
"Listen missy, why can't you damn well wait for us all?"
"Because it won't wait!"
Tifa wore only her night dress and slippers, but Aeris held the added advantage of her weapon, materia and being fully clothed. Digging in her heels she resisted the pulling, mostly, sticking her rod into the ground to add leverage against the insistance of her best friend.
"Tifa, just try to understand!"
"I can't!" yelled the bar hostess, those ruby eyes snapping at her in fury. That wild, untamed heart showing through the darkened depths. "Why should I even try to understand? You're leaving us."
"People do that, people will always be leaving you Tifa but if you don't learn to let go I can never find a way to come back!"
"What do you mean?"
In the shock of the statement, Tifa let her grip loosen and immediately Aeris drew her arm away, ignoring the stinging marks of her friend's fingers. It hurt, but right now she had other things in her mind.
The life of the planet, the life of her friends, their futures and the safety of innocents who weren't even aware that about them raged a war to end all wars, raged a battle between two great forces. It may only be a cameo role for her in this, but if she was the only one who could do it then by all the heavens above her, she would do it.
Holding her staff closer to her she murmured, "Juts don't ever stop, Tifa."
"Aeris, where are you going?"
"North, something's waiting for me there. I have to go. I'm being...summoned."
Tifa swallowed, and through the shadows she could see the frustration on those beautiful features. The need to stay behind and protect Cloud, the desperate urge to run with Aeris to the end of the world. "Then I go with you," she said finally.
"No.. no you don't."
But she wouldn't listen, and turned back to go into the Inn.
~*Save her*~ came the command from the Planet.
She had never disobeyed the will of the earth underneath her feet and she too, recognised the fact that Cloud would need Tifa later on, need her much more than she ever would. So sticking a hand into her pocket, she drew out a small green materia and concentrated on it for a brief second.
Tifa stumbled, and then went to her knees, slumped over and snoring lightly.
Dropping it, because her friends may eventually need it, Aeris gathered all speed to her heels and ran.. hoping for the best, and expecting as always, the worst.
~*~
She moaned again and choked out a slow soft crying noise as tears escaped her shut eyelids.
How painful had it been?
How much more painful could it get?
Her hands shook against the pillow, another dream eventually dragging her down...
~*~
"I've thought about it so much.. but never had the ability to come up with anything solid that can be called proof or lack of proof therein. Does that mean that as a being in itself I exist only as an equality of belief and the application of the fundamentals of that belief. Are my foundations built from seconds I spend thinking and dreaming and wishing of better things or reflecting on past mistakes which could only possibly serve to endanger my current state of mind. Did I dream myself into existance, as babies are said to do when inside the womb? Did I make myself a fantasy inside which I would exist solely as a benefactor of my own knowledge?"
She twisted her hands together.
"The world is a wonderful place in many aspects, filled with bright cadences of lovely light and the showerings of songs which only wonder can bring. I may have viewed it with a sense of the childlike and exotic, I may only have pressed about the edges of a world which under a thin veneer of civilisation is in reality, dark and forbidding and waiting to swallow those unwary enough to be caught deep within the traps and pitfalls it makes for us. I have seen my friends struggle on each day and how my heart twists in pain for each and everyone of them. Perhaps that is why..."
Her head tilted.
"No, I don't really tend to think of it like that. They are human, I am merely half human. The side of me which connects me with clarity to the world is treasured for I am blessed with a gift beyond that of simple, normal means and it is that gift which gave me the chance to help my friends once and for all. I was useful. You above all others should know my dislike of sitting still and never having a chance to show how much I could be of use, how much they could need me."
A soft smile approached lips of pink.
"Of course, for him. He reminded me so much of Zack in the beginning, a lot of things, such as they way he would hold his head or cock his hips in the funny little stance that Zack often took to when watching me pot my flowers. But he's not the same person. I think the others had the beginnings of an idea, but the execution of the idea came to me when he was speaking, it didn't always seem right. I could hear the sincerity in his voice and the need to find himself again in those beautiful eyes of his."
She laughed.
"But that's exactly what I have done. I have given him time to find himself, and along the way discover new ways of doing things."
Hands wore expressively, gesturing as the words came forth.
"I would have done so much more for them. My talents were employed for the good of the world, for the futures that could have been spent unseen and unknown, for children who would never know the beauty of a flower, or the spirits seen only at dawn when the brightness of a new day spills over a land waiting for the rain after a drought that is night. I have given everyone a second chance, and it is that which fills me with joy. Perhaps too, they will all find the peace which they can only seek inside themselves. I am no longer sad nor am I any longer worried for their own manifestations of a future which is all their own. They have taken the work I left behind and finished it and in doing so sealed my way back."
The sugar brown locks shook.
"I do not regret. I am happy."
The woman nodded across from her, almost a mirror of her and how she could look in another twenty years. The features were much more elfin than hers in casting, the eyes more tilted and more liquid, their colour a golden green rather than her own pale emerald. The hair was spun with spilt silver, and the skin a little darker in tone. But this woman was her, as much as she was a part of this woman.
"Then you have made all the choices a good Cetra would have Aeris. Your sacrifice ensured the survival of your friends, the dissolution of Jenova and Sephiroth and the future of the planet. You should be hailed as a martyr, an example of your race." The woman smiled, "What would you have of us?"
She took a moment to think, and a moment only for in truth that was all she needed.
"I want.. just the fields and the sky, and a place to remember."
"You desire your Promised Land?"
"I desire my own time, to think."
"Then it is yours."
Aeris smiled at her mother, then made to stand in the silent space of the inner chambers of her mother's home. But the walls wavered a little as Ifalna stood too. She had been told this was a place called "Icicle Inn" in the snow villages in the north of the Planet, the place where she had been born to this beautiful, fey woman and a scientist of incomparable talent. But she remembered it not.
"Wait, one last thing. Why did you reach out, in the end, to Cloud."
"Because, I love him," she replied simply.
And she would, for a long time yet..
~*~
"Ahhh.. so you remember your little soldier.. I have seen him, Ancient.. I have watched his face."
The girl known as Aeris twisted in her sleep, unaware of the shadow over her, not seeing the shadowed green eyes. His hand moved slowly until it hovered over where the ancient's heart would be.
Someone had unlocked her key.
So, she would be the one to face him, would she?
And this time, like the last, she would die..
A tortured moan escaped the girl's lips, brow creasing.
~*~
"Look, look!"
She pointed, unable to contain herself.
He tilted his head and smiled rather calmly at her, the smile full of love and compassion. It was a smile that had etched itself onto her heart, a heart that was divided clean down the middle. One side belonged wholly to him, to that sweet smile and those loving smoky eyes. The other remained the province of a shadowy man from her past with bright blue eyes and a beautiful voice.
Right now though, picnicking with him on the boundary of the world, she was happy enough to remain with her warrior, under the sunlight of a foreign star. He moved closer and slid his arm about her shoulders.
"so, you enjoying the day out?"
Aeris tore her attention away from the stray rabbit as it ran off into the faint stirrings of grass. It did feel good to get away from the stuffy confines of a room and the endless droning of the books that she read.
"Very much."
"We should do this more often.."
"You think?"
He nodded, and pushed some of one of the long bangs back from her eyes. With a small start of surprise, she realised he wasn't wearing his gloves and the stirring contact of his skin set fires in the pit of her stomach. Smiling sweetly, she leant back into him, resting her head on his shoulder.
"Though next time, I cook the chicken legs," she joked.
He laughed.
She loved the laughter. It reminded her that she was alive. And it was painfully true, he had burnt the chicken very badly.
"Whatever you so desire, Aeris."
~ Would he call me love? would he.. ~
They sat for a long time, just watching the day beyond them, her very much aware of the proximity of him in relation to her, the sun beating down on her dark crowned head making her feel warm. Leon perhaps, felt warmer in his denim, and delicately she suggested he take his jacket off, and he smiled teasingly.
"Stripping me already?"
The blush was instantaneous.. and stammering something, she shook her head.. completely unprepared for the sudden and almost hungry pressing of his lips against hers, his bare hands finding homes for themselves on her upper arms. The contact was arousing, and soon she felt herself kissing back with demand.
They kissed for what seemed like an eternity, each kiss sweeter than the last and threatening to pull her senses down from concious thought into something much more dangerous and primal. Scared of these sudden, fiery feelings and also strangely pulled by the desire to give in she eventually pulled away from his kissing, relaxing in his strong embrace.
There was a soft, contented smile on his handsome face, framed by spikes of his lovely dark hair which she had come to adore. Running her hand through it, she softly heard him whisper.
"...I'll find a way."
~ Find a Way ~
~*~
She woke with a small scream, jolting hands to her middle in a panic.
The window was open, the pans of it banging in the wind with some glass shattered on the floor. Her hands came back up to her face and even in the shadows of the moonlight she could tell she was bleeding. It was the same wound that had killed her, and her terrified scream brought the door to her room banging open.
Yuffie stepped in immediately, "Aeris?!"
She cried helplessly, pressing hands to her middle.
"Aeris whats- fuck!"
Another came running in, boxers and shirt and a gunblade in hand, almost falling over Yuffie as she backed up in a panic. "Don't swear.. what's going on?"
Yuffie pointed at her with a tremling hand, but she was beyond hearing. The gash hurt, the old pain and opening her eyes she could see the blood as it welled out slowly. Leon dropped his sword, and put his hands on her, then searched about the room. Yuffie moved across to the window, and with now blurring vision, Aeris watched her go.
~ I'm not dying yet, it's not my time... ~
"The window's open.. did you leave it open, Aeris?"
Painfully she shook her head, as Leon came back and poured the contents of two bottles onto her midsection. The icy relief swamped over her and almost immediately she felt the knitting pain of alchemical potions. Gritting her teeth and bearing it, she glanced up at Leon, his hands also stained with her blood.
The sheer gravity of the relief in her eyes drew her in, and removing one hand she touched the side of his face, leaving dark red smears there. He smiled in return, trembling, shaken, but a smile nonetheless.
"I love you," he whispered, "no dying, not yet."
Blinking at those words, she didn't have a chance to say anything more as Leon moved and went across to the window, and Yuffie picked her up, carrying her away from the scene of her own nightmares..
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
He watched the kid go with bloodshot eyes.
He could have killed a kid, he'd given everything at his disposal, and yet he hadn't even come close.
Sighing, he turned back and found the disapproving gaze of Hades hitting him from a courtyard away, then with a slight whirl of his dark blue robes, the God moved back into the Coliseum.
"Gods.." he said, in a disgusted tone.
"Yes, what about them.."
He whipped about, and found only the shadows, but the voice had been unmistakable.
"Sephiroth."
"The boy moves, the Door within all doors waits to be opened and consume the unwary. They don't know the secret.. I do."
"You're alive?" Disgusted, Cloud found it was all he could do to keep his hands from finding the sword on his back, the strips of bandages he had used in the time when Aeris was dead to peace-bond it. If he was alive then a whole world of trouble for them was only beginning to unfold.
"I've found your sweet little Ancient."
His blood ran colder than ice.
Painfully forcing himself to speak, he said as evenly as possible, "where?"
"Another world, another time.. another sword.."
"Sephiroth!" he yelled, and his hand graped the hilt of the sword coming over one shoulder, but the voice only laughed.
"Relax, puppet.. I have no bother with you. Her Key is unlocked.. and I intend to take it.. and finish the work Ansem won't complete."
"Ansem?"
More laughter.. and as Cloud moved into the shadows of the colisuem, he found no one, not even the traces of bootprints..