Disclaimer: I don't own the characters that you know of from the game. I own everything else.
Chapter 8: Introduction to the Twin Dragons
Tifa poked her head out of the door of her and Yuffie's room. She looked both ways of the dimly lit hall and walked down the hall. She pinned herself to the wall and looked carefully around the corner. She waited until someone went inside his room and walked around the corner, repeating this until she came upon a special door she made sure to memorize. She knocked on the door and waited for an answer.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maverick looked up from his copy of the script of Pandora's Box and looked up when he heard the knock on his door. "Come in, it's open." He smirked when he saw Tifa walk in. 'This has got to be interesting,' he thought.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When Tifa heard his voice, she entered the door. She looked back at it as it closed automatically. She looked around the room. Contrary to what it looked like a few days earlier, it was a very beautiful sight. It was dimly lit by candles and looked warm and cozy. She looked at Maverick. He was sitting cross-legged on the pillows of his bed with some kind of book in his hand. She stood by the door awkwardly, wondering what possessed her to sneak here. She was reminded of herself several years ago, back when she sneaked out of her house to meet Cloud.
"Welcome to my humble abode. Do you need anything? Or perhaps there is something you wish to discuss? You can take a seat on this bed, or is it too intimate for you?" Tifa sat about a foot away from Maverick mimicking his position on the large bed. It was a very comfortable bed, and she liked how it sunk slightly under her weight.
"First of all, you don't need to be so formal with me. Just because I am a guest doesn't mean that I need to have such formalities that you have given me. I'm not far away from you age, either."
"True, true. I am a slang kind of person myself." Tifa let a smile creep slowly onto her face. "Secondly?"
"Underneath my optimistic nature, I am very curious. What better place to vent out some of that curiosity than on the most secretive man in this place?" Maverick smiled back at her.
"Starting from when?"
"From birth until now."
"Okay. I was born Marcus Xavier, son of Maximus and Laura Xavier. I'm the second of three children. My older sister, Sonya, was a great poet. In fact, she was excellent in all the arts. She was the one that wrote the Warrior's Lament. We do an annual showing of one of her plays, Pandora's Box. My younger sister, Penelope, also died during the war. We were all very close."
"How sad...I know it bothers you, but tell me about this war. I hear a lot of people here get introspective because of this war."
"Remember what I told you about Lena? What happened was there was a conflict on who should be the leader of the Council. The Council leader position was usually a heredity thing. However, the former leader passed it onto my father. It was really a war fueled by jealousy. A real shame it is, that so many people lost their lives for such an unholy purpose. My father ended up winning, of course, and secured his position.
"As I said, my sisters and I were very close. When they both died, not even a week apart, I was destroyed on the inside. I kept myself a secret, a treasure waiting to be found. For letting me tell you all of this I thank you. I never felt so relieved before..." Both of them paused, looking at each other's eyes. "Anyway, as I was saying, that is why I am so mysterious to people."
"How did your sisters die?" Tifa asked softly. She knew what she felt when she looked into his eyes, and she could see that he felt the same way.
"Sonya died of magic. You may think that your human materia magic is strong, but there is magic out there that is stronger. A Cetra's powers can be many times stronger than your strongest materia. Their natural powers may be over elements, or they can summon something. My natural powers are healing powers and control over wind. That is why my ears are very keen. My mother is half-Cetra, half-forest nymph. My sister was, as a result, a fire sprite. Of course, being a nymph doesn't include males. She has a vulnerability to water and wind strengthens fire so that it doesn't go out. If I were there sooner..."
"Marc, stop it. Even though I was not there, you and I both know that it was not fault. Don't torture yourself like that," Tifa replied, first being strong with her feelings and then fading into a whisper. Maverick smirked.
"You do know that I don't let just anyone call me Marc, right?" Tifa smirked back. She knew exactly what he meant. She moved so that she was sitting next to him. She moved her face inches from his, her wine colored eyes looking into his green ones.
"Just your precious mama, right?" she asked huskily. He laughed, which had a nice sound that seemed to vibrate the air in the whole room.
"With my sisters, but now you're included in that very selective group."
Maverick stood up and walked up to a silver box that had two dragons embossed on it. He opened it and came back, holding a glowing crimson ball in one hand and a pair of earrings in his other hand. He walked back to the bed. "My younger sister was a Shine Princess. She held control over the Twin Dragons, Kreutz and Jess. This is their vessel into this world. The Shine Princess had to wear these earrings and call an incantation." Maverick set the materia onto the bed in front of Tifa and took one earring in each one of his hands. "Kreutz was the blue dragon of water, and Jess was the red dragon of fire." As he said their names, he held up the corresponding earring. One earring was a blue dragon, and the other earring was a red dragon. "Dragons are crafty, and half the time the ones they possess succumb to their evil wishes. That is how my sister died. She told me when she died to give these to someone I thought was strong enough to become a Shine Princess." He held the earrings out to Tifa.
"Me?"
"Yes. I think that you are strong enough to handle them. As a matter of fact, you should test them out now. If you think that they might be manipulating you, take them off straight away."
"Okay, I'll try." She put the blue earring on her right earlobe and the red earring on her left earlobe and closed her eyes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Jess! Jess!" the blue dragon exclaimed, desperately trying to wake his twin up.
"What do you want, Kreutz?" Jess asked sleepily.
"We have a new mistress!" Kreutz exclaimed happily. Jess woke up immediately.
"A new mistress? We should be nice to this one; she must have put the earrings on right if you sensed her instead of me."
"Let's go meet her!"
"How do you know it's a she?"
"I know what a woman feels like, Jess." Kreutz sounded mad.
"'Feels like'? You've never touched one. We sense, not touch."
"I meant feels like as in sense language. Wait up Jess!" Jess started to fly off to the Wellspring of the Earth to speak to this woman.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Do you feel anything?" Maverick asked.
"No." Tifa opened her eyes. Suddenly, she heard a pair of voices echoing in her head.
"Hello, new mistress," a gruff voice said.
"We're the Twin Dragons," a friendlier, goofy voice said.
"I'm Jess."
"And I'm Kreutz." Tifa thought about what they might look like.
"You want to know what we look like, eh?" Jess asked. "You can try a preliminary summon with our materia."
"Don't listen to Jess, new mistress. It takes a long time to get used to summoning us." Kreutz let spill out. Tifa felt Kreutz wince as Jess growled. "Great, you can feel us already. She may be a better mistress than Miss Xavier."
"We can read your mind, so don't be like the crazy Miss Xavier and speak to us with your mouth. We can understand either, but think not talk."
"Silence is golden."
'My name is Tifa Lockheart.' Tifa thought.
"She catches on quick, doesn't she?" Jess asked. Tifa felt Kreutz nod in agreement. "I may decide to be nice to you after all, Miss Lockheart."
'Just call me Tifa.'
"Are they talking to you?" Maverick asked. Tifa nodded.
"Silence isn't that golden," Kreutz joked. Tifa laughed. Maverick smirked.
"I hear they are quite the pranksters."
"Awwwww... he actually complemented us," Jess commented sarcastically.
"As you can tell, we did not get along with Miss Xavier," Kreutz admitted sheepishly.
"Come on, Kreutz. The whole family is cuckoo!"
'Don't talk about them that way,' Tifa scolded.
"Seriously, you didn't know them. The son and older daughter were okay, but the younger daughter..." Kreutz trailed off.
'What was wrong with her?' Tifa asked.
"Stubborn, jealous... she was the whole enchilada, so to speak. Now I'm lazy, and I'll admit it. If you, as in the Mistress, call me for no reason, I will stop listening," Jess said frankly.
"He will stop, and if he doesn't go, I don't go. Ask the son..." Kreutz started.
'Maverick,' Tifa informed.
"Right. Ask Maverick to take us to the highest mountain that is warm, please Tifa."
"We'll begin your training there," Jess said.