Author's Notes: See chapter one for disclaimer and explanation.
Separate Destinies By Annie-chan Chapter Six: Hard Adjustments"Mmm…"
Riku stirred in his bed as he began to wake up, his eyelids fluttering. He rolled over onto his back, partially stretching, and turned his head to his right to look at his clock—
—but when he opened his eyes, he found that he was not at home at all. He was in what appeared to be an underground chamber, the walls carved out of white stone.
He gasped and sat bolt upright, too fast for his inner ears' comfort, and his vision swam from the sudden change. He sat hunched forward for a moment, waiting for his head to clear. When it did, he rubbed his eyes and shook his head, then looked up again.
He was in that same strange room.
Finally, his sleep-slogged brain dug up the memories of yesterday. He had come back to the One World with his father, and had committed himself to the ylfe lifestyle.
And lifespan, he thought. So, it wasn't a dream, after all.
He slowly stood, still half thinking that it couldn't be real, and looked down at himself. He had been very sleepy the night before, so he didn't remember much between getting home and going to bed. He was in a blue-white, ankle-length nightgown, the fabric light but warm, soft but sturdy. He must have borrowed it from either his father or his brother.
Looking around the room, he took in his surroundings. It was a medium-sized room made up as a bedroom, and though it had no windows to the outside, the whiteness of the limestone walls kept it from being suffocating. Small lamps that looked like they held oil were burning low along the wall at about head level, giving light to the room that would otherwise be pitch-dark. Along with the bed, there was a desk against one wall with a chair, a small round table with three other chairs around it, a couch next to a small bookcase with a number of books in it, and a door in the wall opposite the door leading into the room from the hallway. Opening it, he saw it was a walk-in closet. On the floor was a blue rug that took up most of the floor space. The shag wasn't terribly long, but it was soft, easy on bare feet. The whole room, aside from the walls, ceiling, and floor, was in blues and greens, and the metal things, such as the doorknobs and mirror frame, looked to be polished steel.
This must be a guestroom, Riku thought, sitting back down on the bed after turning the lamps up. The flames were whiter than candle flames, so he guessed that it was very hot-burning oil. He saw a pair of slippers the same color as his nightgown on the rug next to the bed, and he put them on.
He noticed a ticking noise, each tick about half a second apart from its neighbors. Looking to his left, he saw a small table by the head of the bed, and on it was a fourhanded clock. Looking closer, he saw that it was much like the clocks that he was used to. A short hand indicated hours, a long hand indicated minutes, and a second, thinner long hand indicated seconds. The fourth hand was about the same length as the hour hand, and it was the fastest. It, according to the number of small marks between second marks, indicated tenths of a second. Every time it got to a second mark, the clock ticked louder, and the second hand moved one mark over. He looked at the clock for several minutes, keeping time in his head, and finally decided that one second on this clock was about five seconds on the clock in his old bedroom back in Fate.
No wonder they have a fourth hand, Riku mused. Five seconds is a long time for the smallest time increment, so they went smaller.
After examining the room for a while longer, he decided to go out and see who was up and about. The clock had said it was two twenty-five, and though he wasn't sure how many human hours that was, he knew it was much later in the morning that two twenty-five was in the Destiny Islands.
I wonder how long it will take me to fully adopt these time measurements and stop trying to figure out how it compares to time in the Destiny Islands, he thought to himself. Forever, for all I know.
Opening the door, he saw a curved hallway going in both directions, lined with the same kind of lamps that were in his room. They were dim, and there were too many to bother turning them all up, so he chose a direction and went on in the soft light. He had no idea in what direction he was going in. He didn't know if he was going toward the outside, deeper underground, or parallel to the cliff face. Choosing a door at random, he opened it and looked in. It was completely dark in there. The room wasn't in use at the moment.
"Get lost?" a voice said suddenly behind him just as he closed the door.
Riku whirled around, his heart in his throat, totally surprised. It was Sephiroth. His father had walked up behind him without a trace of sound. His boots had made absolutely no noise on the bare stone floor.
"Don't scare me like that!" he gasped, trying to calm his wild heartbeat.
"Sorry," Sephiroth shrugged. "You need to be more alert."
"How could I be alert for no sound?!" Riku growled, though he wasn't truly upset, just miffed at the scare.
"There are more ways to sense an approach than by sound," his father said. "You'll learn about that later, though, so don't worry about it. Go back to your room and get dressed. There are some clothes your size in the closet. After that, go down the hallway in the other direction, and you'll come to the outside rooms. You can't miss the dining room, so go in there. Samara is finishing up making breakfast."
Riku nodded, and on the way back to his room, he posed a question. "Where do you get the oil for all these lamps in a canyon like this?"
"Oil?" his father asked, puzzled. "Oh, these lamps don't hold any—er—conventional fuel in them. These are magic fires, and they never go out unless we want them to."
"Magic fires?" Riku thought aloud.
Sephiroth nodded. "This world, especially in and around ylfe settlements, is saturated with magic and other forces humans consider supernatural. A theory states that the presence of magic, psychic forces, and other such things in the Many Worlds is caused by a dimensional crack between the Many Worlds and the One World. Personally, I don't think that's true, and I believe those things come from the world hearts in that dimension, just like it comes from the heart of the One World in this one. Anyway, I have some books that can explain the different theories better than I could, if you're interested."
"So, ylfe can manipulate the magic permeating this world?" Riku asked.
"Yes," Sephiroth nodded again. "Learning how is part of the training you'll start soon. Here's your room. I'll see you in the dining room, then." He continued off down the hallway, leaving Riku by the door.
Riku found an outfit in the colors he most liked (blue, green, and yellow), and put it on. When he did, the material seemed to mold to his body, fitting him perfectly, as if it were custom-made. Ylfen seemed to like clothes that accented the shape of the body, form-fitting but not tight. The design was similar to what his father was wearing, though simpler and straighter. After several minutes of figuring out how everything fastened, he went out and followed the hallway in the direction his father had indicated.
Breakfast consisted of three dishes: one was poultry-like meat in a faintly salty sauce, another was a sliced fruit similar to a pear, and the third resembled oatmeal, but it tasted more like wheat. In a glass was a clear liquid that he at first assumed was water, but it was tangy and sweet, like nectarine juice. He learned that on the side of the canyon opposite the gate he and Sephiroth had entered, the barrier ballooned out to encase an area of several square miles that held wide expanses of farmland, livestock yards, and orchards. Aerie got the majority of its food from there, but some of it was imported by guarded supply caravans from other settlements, and Aerie exported a certain amount of its food products back to the other cities. A small percentage of food was hunted or gathered from the Wilds, but it was a dangerous business. The kitschen only populated about half of the Wilds at any given time, but they were nomadic, so one never knew when a group or two would come into an area. Primitive though they were, they had hunting and attacking methods that made them a danger to any ylfe caught unawares, proof that heightened senses and magic abilities can never truly ensure victory.
After breakfast, Riku went out onto the veranda. The wind was light and cool, and as he looked out, he saw dozens of ylfen going to and fro across and along the canyon. The main transportation method appeared to be flight, and he felt a desire deeply ingrained in his ylfe blood stir in his chest. The desire to fly and ride the wind was waking, and it manifested itself as a dull ache in and around his heart. He closed his eyes and took a step toward the edge before he realized what he was doing.
A gentle hand on his shoulder stopped him. "Don't," his father said behind him. "No sense falling to your death on your first day here."
Riku opened his eyes, but did not turn around. "I want…I-I need…"
"I should teach you the flight spell soon," Sephiroth said, as if reading his mind. "It's not complicated. It's the first spell most ylfe children master, and they learn it before they're even full-grown, usually."
"Why to ylfen wait so long to be declared adults?" Riku asked, his eyes still fixed on the others of this race so new yet so familiar to him. "Why not at the average age of reaching full size, like humans do?"
"It's because of our lifespan," Sephiroth answered. "If I remember right, humans used to be considered adults at age twelve or thirteen. It wasn't because they grew up faster, but because their lifespan was shorter and they were considered old at age thirty."
"Mm…" Riku muttered. "Will I be able to fly, even if I don't have a wing?"
"Yes. Remember how I told you that our wings really have nothing to do with flight?"
"Yes, but Sora told me that Cloud extended his wing whenever he took to flight in battle."
"It was just a symbolic thing. He did it because he wanted to, not because he needed to."
"I see." After a pause, Riku asked the question that had been burning in his mind since yesterday. "Do I have a wing?"
"Well, let's see," Sephiroth said, and as he said this, he reached around Riku and unfastened his shirt.
"Hey!" Riku yelped, startled. He turned around to face his father, his expression more than a little jarred.
"Just relax and hold still," Sephiroth said matter-of-factly, taking off his gloves. "It's easiest if we have skin-to-skin contact. Are humans really all that inhibited when it comes to touch?"
"Er…well…yeah," Riku answered. "A lot of us are, especially when someone of our own sex does that." He still looked doubtful.
Sephiroth sighed, giving Riku a look. "Just turn around. We're a lot more touch-oriented than humans are, and we touch each other for plenty of other reasons besides sex. Believe me, after a while, you'll think the same way we do about it. You can take your shirt off yourself, if you want, just be quick about it."
Riku blinked and did what he was told, slipping his shirt off and letting it hang at his waist, held up by his belt. He felt his father's hands laid gently against his shoulder blades, putting on a very light pressure. His touch was cool, though a shade warmer than the breeze.
"What are you doing?" Riku asked.
"You wanted to know if you have a wing, so I'm checking," Sephiroth replied. "It's not physically inside of you, if you do, but I can sense it more clearly if I'm in direct contact with you." His hands were slowly and meticulously feeling about, the fingertips pressing into his skin. Riku was reminded of checking to see if a fruit is ripe by squeezing it.
"Mm…" Sephiroth finally said after several minutes. "You do have one in there. It just needs to be broken out so you have access to it."
"Well then, break it out," Riku said.
"Not here," Sephiroth shook his head. "We should go into your bedroom. Your body is through growing, and this will be the first time you extend your wing. It could be painful, and you should have a place to lie down if you need to."
"Painful?" Riku asked. "How painful…?"
"I don't know," Sephiroth said. "Let's go find out, huh?"
Several minutes later, they were back in Riku's room.
"Are you sure you're ready for this?" Sephiroth asked.
"As ready as I ever will be," Riku answered.
Putting his hands to Riku's back again, Sephiroth extended his senses back into Riku's spirit, feeling about in his as yet mostly untapped power for the wing. Finding it, he grasped it, and knowing no better way to go about it, he pulled.
Riku shivered as he felt his father's power seep into him, piercing into what had to be his soul, searching. He instinctively pushed against the invasion, but held back as much as he could, knowing that his father meant him no harm. He stiffened as he felt a part of himself surrounded and gripped, and his teeth grit tightly as it was pulled upon. It became more and more uncomfortable, and he began to shake as pain started throbbing in his back. He moaned.
"Almost there," he heard his father say. "Brace yourself."
Riku's moaning turned into a keening sound as the pain got worse, then suddenly exploded into a scream. It felt as if a hole had been ripped in his back and his innards yanked out through it. Off-balance, he tipped backward before he could accommodate the change.
Sephiroth caught him before he hit the ground and quickly picked him completely up. He turned toward the bed and laid his son gently on it, facedown.
Riku was trembling terribly, pain-wracked, but he seemed to calm some when he was laid down on the bed. Tears of pain stained his cheeks, and it was several minutes before he could say anything. The wing, a carbon copy of his father's, lay limply to one side. The flesh of his back around it was red and undoubtedly tender to the touch.
"I'm sorry, Riku," Sephiroth said softly, sitting on the bed next to him. "I'm here. The pain will pass soon." He was gently stroking his son's soft hair, keeping it from sticking to Riku's sweaty face.
"H-hurts…" Riku murmured. "I feel…torn inside out…"
"Just relax," his father soothed. "It won't seem as bad if you relax."
"Mm…" Riku moaned, and tried to nod, but his consciousness suddenly retreated from the searing pain, and he fainted.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"It shouldn't have gone on this long," Sephiroth murmured, more to himself than to his half-conscious son, who still lay facedown in the bed. As expected, the flesh around the base of his wing had swollen in reaction to the new appendage, but it was more swollen and painful than he thought it would be, and it hadn't receded at all since it had begun a day ago. It was burning hot to the touch, and Riku could barely speak from the throbbing agony.
"Mmmnnnnn…" Riku moaned, flinching as his father removed the now warm damp cloths from his back and replaced then with cool ones.
"I'm sorry, Riku," Sephiroth said. "I'm sorry I put you in so much pain."
"I-it's n-not your f-fault…" Riku stammered. "I-I gave you th-the go-ahead."
There was a knock at the door.
"Come in," Sephiroth said.
The door opened, and a blond spiky head poked in.
"Hey, I hear Riku's in pain," Cloud said. "Is he all right?"
Sephiroth sighed. "His body's reaction is worse than I expected. The pain and swelling is worse than I anticipated, and it hasn't begun to abate at all since it started yesterday."
Cloud came in and shut the door. "Well, if he's in that much pain, and it's not going down on its own, then do a healing spell on him. There isn't any reason you can't, is there?"
Sephiroth sighed again. "No, but whenever it crosses my mind, I think that it's gone on for so long, it must be getting close to receding. Then, it doesn't, and I wait a little more, and the next time I think of healing him, the same thing happens, as well as the next time…it's kept happening, and now a day has gone by."
"Well, stop it, then!" Cloud said. "I know healing spells beyond simple Cure magic are a delicate business, and easy to mess up, but go ahead! You're son is hurting, and I haven't know you to screw up a spell for at least five hundred years!"
"I guess you're right," Sephiroth assented, brushing his hair back from his face. "I could use an extra pair of hands, though."
"Okay," Cloud nodded, then turned his head and sneezed into the crook of his elbow.
"Getting sick?" Sephiroth asked.
"Yeah, I think so," Cloud said. "Wouldn't you know it? Home only a few days, and I'm already getting sick. Feels like just a common cold, though. What do you need an extra pair of hands for?"
"Hold his wing up," Sephiroth said. "Hold it at a ninety-degree angle to his back, so I can get both sides." As he said this, he picked up the limp wing and began to lift it up for Cloud to take.
A sudden, anguished wail from Riku stopped them both cold.
"D-don't!" he yowled, tears slipping down his face. "Hurts!"
"I'm sorry, Riku," Sephiroth said, a sick feeling washing through him as he imagined what his son was going through. "Just bite the pillowcase and hold out for a few seconds longer. The pain will go away very soon."
Cloud took the trembling wing, his face a shade paler than normal. "Are you sure this thing came out all right?"
"Yes, I'm sure," Sephiroth said as he laid his gloveless hands on Riku's back, clenching his teeth as his son tensed up and shrieked again. "That's not the problem!" Cool, soothing power seeped from his hands into Riku's skin, and the suffering boy moaned piteously, the relief so sudden and so sharp, it at first felt like a new pain.
"Just relax, Riku," Cloud said softly, brushing stray wisps of hair out of Riku's eyes. "It'll be over in a minute."
Sephiroth's eyes had closed and his head had bowed slightly forward as he concentrated on the puffy, sore tissue under his hands. His power and consciousness moved through the fibers of his son's body, inducing it to increase its healing ability for as long as the power lingered. Any injuries for the next day or so will heal uncommonly fast until the residue from the curative spell completely dissipates, but for now, he concentrated solely on Riku's back.
Little-by-little, bit-by-bit, Riku's hyper-tense body relaxed, the trembling stopped, and his pained whimpering tapered down to soft, easy breathing. The swelling shrank and cooled until it was completely gone, his back restored to the way it was naturally.
Sephiroth withdrew his power from Riku's body, lifting his hands from his back at the same time. Opening his eyes, he looked down at his son. "There. Do you feel better? I'm sorry for making you wait so long."
"Mmm…" Riku muttered, cracking an eye open. "Thank you, Father, Cloud."
"Oh, don't thank me," Cloud said, easing the wing back down, aware that Riku's flight muscles—in name only—were probably not yet strong enough to support the wing's weight. "All I did was hold your wing up." He turned away to cough briefly.
"Still, you helped," Riku said.
"You should rest, Riku," Sephiroth said, pulling the bedcovers up and over his son. "You haven't had an ounce of rest since I brought your wing out."
"Mm," Riku said, nodding against the pillow.
"Sleep now," Sephiroth smiled softly. "You took that better than a lot of ylfe I know, I'm sure."
Riku managed an exhausted smile back, then let his eyes slip closed and sleep overtake him.
"Come on, Cloud," Sephiroth said as he stood up. He made a brief hand motion in the air, and the lamps around the room dimmed. "We should let him rest." Just as the door was about to close completely…
"Ah-choo!"
"Hey! Don't sneeze on me, you spiky-headed jerk! I don't want to get sick, too!"
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Knock, knock!"
A shrill, cheery voice could be heard through Riku's door in unison with the sound of someone knocking. Samara entered an instant later, a tray with two bowls and a glass balanced on one arm.
"I thought you'd might like something to eat, Riku, since you haven't eaten for over a day," she said, setting the tray down on the table by the head of the bed. We didn't know if you'd feel strong enough to get up yet, so I brought you some supper." She tilted her head, looking at the ball underneath the blankets that represented her brother. She poked at what she guessed was his shoulder. "Hey, are you asleep? Wake up, you lazybones!"
The ball twitched, like he was making a feeble attempted to shrug her off, and a muffled grunt could be heard. Or, was that a cough? Was it just her, or were the blankets shaking some? Concerned, she took hold of the edge of the bedclothes and eased them back.
She gasped, her eyes flying wide, all the cheer gone from her. A violent coughing fit from Riku spurred her into action. "R-Riku! Oh, my goodness! FATHER!" She bolted out the door like a woman terrified.
Riku barely moved, not bothering to pull the bedclothes back up and over himself. He hardly seemed to respond when Samara burst back through the door, dragging their father behind her.
"What are you screeching about, now?" Sephiroth asked, only half alarmed. His daughter tended to over-exaggerate the seriousness of things.
"Look at him!" she practically shouted in his ear. "He's very sick!"
Sephiroth looked over at his son, and was suddenly VERY alarmed. He leapt over to the bedside and ripped the covers completely back. Riku was curled up tightly, shivering violently. His skin was red and slicked with sweat, his hair and feathers drenched in the stuff. His breath came in short bursts, and it was painfully raspy. Blood could be seen at the corner of his mouth, as his throat had been coughed so raw, it was bleeding. Saliva and nasal discharge were staining the sheets around his face, as he was too preoccupied with his discomfort to swallow or even sniff. Finally, his wide green eyes were weepy, and his eyelashes were starting to crust over.
What the hell happened?! he thought frantically. I left him alone for less than an hour! Why didn't I sense his suffering?! "Don't just stand there!" he barked at Samara. "Go get your brother and send him here, then bring back clean sheets! Get going!"
Panicked by the nearly vicious urgency in her father's voice, Samara raced out the door to do as she was told.
"Hold on, Riku," Sephiroth gritted, forcing his son to straighten. He picked up the stiff, trembling body and set it on the nearby couch, then stripped the covers off the bed, wadding them up loosely and throwing them on the floor by the door. He had figured out what had happened, and was not happy about it in the least.
"What do you need, Father?" Darius asked from the door. He had been unsettled by his sister's frantic state, but wasn't sure what was going on.
"Riku is very ill!" Sephiroth answered. "Take those bedclothes to the dirty laundry, then bring back what you need to take care of a cold, only LOTS OF IT!"
Darius blinked, then he, too, quickly obeyed.
"That Cloud is so dead," Sephiroth seethed, kneeling down by Riku and making sure he was still breathing. He knew Cloud hadn't done this on purpose, but Sephiroth needed something to rail at at the moment. Cloud was coming down with a common cold, and though the symptoms are similar to a cold from the Many Worlds, the virus is fundamentally different from its Many Worlds counterpart. Riku's body had no defenses against it, so he had caught it after only a few minutes with the blond warrior, and he had caught it bad. The symptoms had blown way out of normal proportions.
Riku had a fever, and his shivering was from the "coldness" of the air around him as felt by his overheated body. He suddenly convulsed in a hacking, raspy cough, flecks of blood spraying from his flayed throat. He whined thinly.
"Wh-what's…happening to…me…?" he managed to croak out.
"You've caught the most common illness in the One World," Sephiroth explained, taking Riku's hand and squeezing gently. "Your body has never encountered it before, and you got no natural defenses against it from your mother as she carried you. You've caught a cold, so to speak, only magnified several times." He hoped Riku wasn't too delirious to understand.
"Here," Darius said at Sephiroth's side, setting a bowl of water with a cloth in it on the floor next to him. He had brought in that, another bowl of water, several packets of tissue, and a larger bowl in case Riku had to vomit. "Anything else?" Behind them, Samara was remaking the bed.
"No, that's fine to start with," Sephiroth said. "Thank you." He stood up, went over to the closet, and got a long white nightgown, almost like a hospital gown. He stripped Riku's sweaty clothes off and redressed him in that. When Samara finished, he picked Riku up and put him back in the bed.
"Can't you heal him, Father?" Samara asked, sounding strangely timid. She was still shaken up by the sudden discovery of Riku's illness and their father's explosive reaction.
"He can, but he shouldn't," Darius said.
"Right," Sephiroth nodded. "I can heal him, but I don't want to unless his life is threatened. Even then, I would only heal him to the point where the disease was manageable again. If I heal him completely, his body would have no opportunity to fight the virus by itself and build up immunity. Hopefully, the next time he catches this, he'll have no more violent a reaction to it than the rest of us."
"Oh, I see," Samara said.
"Mmnnnf…" Riku groaned through his ravaged throat. "A-am I e-ever g-going to get o-out of th-this b-bed…?"
Sephiroth smiled softly in bittersweet amusement. "You two can leave now, if you want," he said to Darius and Samara. "I can handle this for now, though it looks like I'll be here for a long time. I'll call you if I need you." As his two older children exited, he added, "Oh, and tell Cloud that, if he comes within a hundred yards of here before both he and Riku are healthy again, I'll hit him so hard that he'll be able to count his teeth on one hand."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Riku rolled over from his side to his front, holding the blankets wrapped around himself. He had been sick and stuck in this bed for around a month. After two to three weeks of complete misery due to the cold gone terribly wrong, he finally began to recover. Over two weeks, his fever had gradually disappeared, the cold symptoms had lessened to more manageable levels, and his throat had slowly healed. His voice was still rough and raspy, but his father had said that that would disappear soon enough. Even without healing magic, ylfen has recovering abilities higher than those of humans. There was much less chance of his throat scarring than there would be if he were full human.
"Are you feeling a little better, Son?" a voice said at the bedside, and he felt a warm hand on the skin of his back, gently rubbing up and down his spine, causing him to relax.
"Mmhm," he muttered, opening his eyes a little bit. His father sat beside him, as he had almost constantly during Riku's sickness. He had slept on the nearby couch, eaten in here with Riku (though Riku seldom ate during the first few weeks), and he only left when Darius and/or Samara had insisted that they take over for a while to let him rest a bit. He had never said it aloud, but Sephiroth was terrified of how this illness would leave his youngest child. Riku was half-human, the only known hybrid between a human and an ylfe, so who knows what lasting consequences an ylfe disease like this would leave on him? Riku was strong, however, and even though he had sunk into a timeless delirium for weeks, his body's immune system and his survival instinct had constantly fought, until he was finally on the road to recovery. He appreciated his father's diligence, though. He most likely would have been much worse off without it.
"Would you like some water?" Sephiroth asked.
"Yeah," Riku whispered hoarsely. Though his throat felt almost no pain anymore, it sounded uncomfortable for him to speak. He tried to push himself up. However, he still felt weak, and his arms trembled as they lifted his weight from the mattress.
"Here, let me help," Sephiroth said, and without waiting for an answer, he maneuvered Riku up into a sitting-kneeling position. His shoulders were slumped, and his wing was still held limply, but just sitting up was much better than a week ago, when he could still barely lift his head up.
Riku took the short, wide cup of water his father handed to him. It was more like a high-sided bowl with a handle on it. He drank down half the water, then sighed as he felt relief slowly spreading through him. His fever was gone, but he was still a little sweaty, stuck as he was in bed. It felt good to replenish his body's water supply, and his throat was constantly itching for some kind of cold liquid. Until it started to heal, his shredded, bloody throat reacted violently to him swallowing anything, even his own saliva. It was agony to force anything down, so he had become starved and dehydrated, no matter how much his father and siblings had tried to get him to eat or drink something. Now, his throat was recovering, and it felt dry and scratchy. Cold water helped that immensely.
"You've been looking much better, Riku," Sephiroth said, squeezing his shoulder. "You'll be fully recovered soon, I'm sure."
"I hope so," Riku said, taking another sip of water. "I'm getting tired of this bed, and I'm absolutely sick to feel the wind in my hair again. I wish this room had windows."
"Well, that's one of the cons of living in an underground house," Sephiroth shrugged.
"Mm," Riku replied, and he downed the rest of the water. He handed the cup back to his father, then eased himself back down. He really wanted to get up out of bed, but his body still complained if he wasn't lying down for more than a few minutes. It still hadn't quite gotten its strength back up again.
"You're hair is getting longer," Sephiroth observed, tucking it behind Riku's ear to keep it out of his eyes. Indeed, his hair was about three inches longer than it had been when he had first come to the One World. "Would you like it cut when you're feeling better?"
"No," Riku answered, rolling over onto his back and adjusting himself as best he could. "I've had it the same length for years. Maybe it's time for a change."
Sephiroth smiled as he looked down upon his son, very strongly reminded of what he himself had looked like as a child before his training period.
"Maybe, Son," he sad. "Maybe."
To be continued…Author's Notes: Poor Riku. He's had it really hard adjusting to his new home, hasn't he? I had thought Riku's coming to the One World wouldn't all be tea and biscuits, so I thought up two obstacles to his starting life as an ylfe. Though, I made his illness a little nastier than I expected. O_o;; I tend to do that a lot. I plan something out, then make it a lot worse than I planned. -_-;; Ah, well. I hope you all liked this chapter. We're having troubles with our phones, so we may have to temporarily disconnect at least the computer phone line. I'm telling you this so you know what's going on if there's a long stretch with no fics or chapters from me (not necessarily right after this one, as I'm not sure if and when it will happen or what kind of writing I will do between now and if/when it happens). On the other hand, I could just be suffering from writer's block during that dry spell. -_-;; Anyway, if it happens, don't worry, as the phone line will be back up as soon as possible. Riku will be all better in the next chapter, and in fact will be training age. I hope I get it written and posted soon, but if I don't, for whatever reason, just be patient. Let me know what you think of this in a review or an email to mangareader@hotmail.com, onegai shimasu!
