Author's Notes: See chapter one for disclaimer and explanation.
Separate Destinies By Annie-chan Chapter Seven: A Glimpse of the Past"Just who is he, anyway?" Riku asked. "He doesn't seem to have connections to anybody besides friendship."
"Who are you talking about?" Darius asked, looking up from his book.
"Cloud," Riku said, pointing. He and Darius were outside on the veranda, and Cloud could be seen a few balconies away.
"Oh, him," his brother said, nodding. "He doesn't really, not anymore. He has no siblings, his parents are dead, he has yet to meet his soulmate, and he "dates", as humans say it, less often than the majority of single ylfen. Your father is a distant cousin of his, but they're distant enough that it's hard to consider them relatives. They're something like tenth cousins twice removed, and it was by accident that they found out the relation at all as Cloud researched his family history in Aerie's central library. They're more considered master and pupil than family members."
"Master and pupil?" Riku asked, confused. "Isn't it the parents' job to train their children?"
"Yes, and he was trained by his parents," Darius answered. "I didn't say that he wasn't, but he learned teleportation from Father. He is more adept in physical weaponry than sorcery, though he has an average skill level in magic for an ylfe his age. Besides swordplay, teleportation is his most developed talent. You realize that he can teleport between dimensions and worlds as easily as Father, yet he is only about half Father's age."
"Um, yeah," Riku said, "I guess I noticed it."
"It's not that he's any more powerful than the norm for his age," Darius continued. "As I said, he's about average. The thing is, his wanderlust was so powerful that he desired to learn teleportation more than any other magic. He sought out Father as a teacher, and he became skilled in it before most ylfen even begin to learn. I don't think he had even yet reached one thousand when he first went unassisted to the Many Worlds."
"I see," Riku nodded. "He's about thirty-five hundred years old?"
"Something like that," Darius affirmed. "He's older than both Samara and I."
"Is it often that ylfen seek out teachers other than their parents?"
"About half do. They wish to specialize in one thing or another, and if neither of their parents specializes in it, they find someone who does who's willing to teach them. Most who find outside teachers do so once they've completed their training under their parents, so it's not like they're snubbing their parents' training abilities."
"What about the half who don't seek outside teachers?"
"Their skills are usually more generalized. It's entirely possible to master one skill or power to the level of special expertise without an outside teacher, but that usually takes a lot longer and considerably more will, patience, and practice."
"Hm," Riku nodded. "I wonder if I'll choose any particular thing I want to concentrate on."
"You've only been in training about a year," Darius said. "There's no hurry to decide."
"I guess so," Riku said. "Well, I'm going to take off."
"Okay," Darius said. "See you later, then."
Riku stepped off the edge of the veranda. He fell for several feet, his descent slowly lessening until he had stopped going down completely and instead was going forward. He had learned the flight spell with no difficulty, and was now as natural aloft as any native-born ylfe.
He began to descend again, arcing down toward the bottom of the canyon in a wide, lazy curve. The river at the bottom of the huge limestone crack appeared to slowly grow as he neared it. In the wider parts, it was slower and calmer, while its flow was swift and violent in the narrower parts. He leveled out again near the water's surface and closed his eyes, enjoying the feel of the wind in his hair. It was a lovely day…
His danger sense suddenly pinged, causing his eyes to snap open. He threw himself to the side, knowing something was about to come down on him from above.
"Ack!" Cloud yelped, barely stopping his dive before hitting the water. He had meant to get the drop on Riku, but failed. "Damn it!" he growled, flying just inches above the surface.
"Ha, you missed me," Riku grinned, "again."
"Don't get sassy, kid," Cloud warned, though he was grinning as well. "I've nailed you plenty of times. Besides, you're supposed to respect your elders."
"Only if my elders earn my respect," Riku shrugged, acting like Cloud was barely a threat to him. In truth, Cloud could probably kick his ass six ways from Sunday in an all-out fight.
"Oh, you want me to 'earn your respect', huh?" Cloud asked. "How should I do that?"
"First, you gotta catch me," Riku answered, and without another word, he was off like a shot.
"Tag, is it?" Cloud smirked, and took off after him. Riku and Cloud weren't really rivals, but they did have a yen for racing each other. They had become fast friends soon after Riku had come to the One World, and as all friends do, they had a thing for friendly competition.
Riku had many times proven himself very fast, and he zipped around over the water like a skeeter, zigzagging around like a gazelle with a predator after it. He often "bounced" off the canyon walls, landing and taking off like they were springboards. The silver-haired speed demon was a very hard target to catch.
Cloud, though, was not one to take a challenge lying down. He wasn't as fast as Riku, but speed doesn't matter as much if you have strategy. Because of his speed, Riku was often hard to see, but he wasn't any harder to detect by his spiritual signature than he was standing still. Cloud closed his eyes and concentrated, locking onto Riku and "following" him with his mind. Soon, Riku passed very close to Cloud, and the blond warrior suddenly surged into action, taking off in the direction Riku was going in almost before Riku had entirely passed him. The younger man yipped in surprise and tried to veer off sharply, but wasn't lucky enough to avoid Cloud completely. The older man got a hold of him, and he lost his equilibrium, flipped over midair, and tumbled down into the water.
Unfortunately for Cloud, he was pulled in as well before he realized that Riku had also gotten a hold of him.
SPLASH.
The coldness of the water was enough to make Riku stiffen up. Growing up on a tropical island, his body was much more partial to warm water, and he still seized up if suddenly submerged in cold. The river wasn't frigid, but the Destiny Island climate that he was used to made it seem to him much colder than it was. His eyes had reflexively shut tightly, but he forced them open to see where he was. He was in a calm part of the river, and he was sinking much like if he had fallen into a lake, the river current only slightly altering his downward course to the bottom. He tried to swim upwards, but his body all but refused to respond, and he hadn't had time to take an adequate breath before entering the water. His lungs were already burning for air, and his shocked body was even less responsive for it.
Panic seized him as he hit the riverbed, the impact causing him to release what little air was in his lungs. His eyes had closed again, and his mind was racing. Where's Cloud oh don't leave me I need help I can't do it oh God help me I'm freezing I'm dying I can't die now someone help me please get me out of here…
Strong hands grasped him by the ribs, and he was being hauled up to the surface of the water. His heart and lungs felt ready to burst within his chest when he could suddenly breathe again. He gasped and coughed violently, clutching at his savior. At first, he thought it was Cloud, but then he realized that there was hair tangled in his fingers. Cloud's hair, even when wet and limp, didn't fall this far down his back. Opening his eyes, Riku found himself looking into green.
"Father!" he gasped, then choked, coughing more.
"I saw you go in," Sephiroth said, holding his son tightly as they hovered a few feet above the water. "I knew you were still not well-adjusted to the water temperature, so I came over. It's a good thing I did, because Cloud had hit the water awkwardly, and was stunned enough to be unable to come to your aid."
"Is he all right?!" Cloud asked, scared, coming over from the small ledge near the surface that Sephiroth had set him on after snatching him out of the water. "I'm sorry, Riku! I didn't mean to throw you in!"
"It was an accident, Cloud," Sephiroth answered for Riku, who was still gasping to fill his starved lungs. "It could have turned out much worse, but it didn't. Be thankful for that."
"O-okay," Cloud nodded, though he still looked spooked. If Sephiroth hadn't seen them fall in, Riku may have drowned. He wrung the water out of his hair. Due to the direction it was spiked in, most of his hair fell down to the right when it was wet, making it look longer on that side.
"Go home and dry yourself off," Sephiroth said. "If you stay wet like that, you may catch a chill."
Cloud left for home only after he had made absolutely sure Riku wasn't in any danger. He felt that it was his fault that they had fallen in, and he needed to be totally convinced that he hadn't inadvertently hurt Riku.
"Come on, Son," Sephiroth said, still holding the shivering Riku. "Let's go home. You may get sick, but I doubt there will be any lasting consequences to this."
Riku nodded, holding onto his father as they headed home. He probably could have flown at his father's side without any help, but he was absolutely freezing. Sephiroth's warm body and firm hold brought some relief to him, however, and he chose to stay in his arms for the trip home. His desire to warm up was stronger than his desire to look strong and self-reliant. He could give up his dignity for a while.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Riku ran his fingers through his hair as he walked slowly down the central hallway, straightening it. He wondered what Sora and Kairi would think if they saw him. He hadn't cut his hair since coming to the One World, and it was much longer now. It fell stick-straight midway down his back, and his bangs had all but disappeared, as he had taken to combing them to the side in with the rest of his hair.
His hair was exactly like his father's, not just in color. He had the same fine, soft, thick hair as his father, and it shown nearly white in direct sunlight. He doubted he'd let it get as long as Sephiroth had, though.
I wonder how long I'll let it grow, Riku mused. Maybe I'll just decide one day that I like the length and keep it there.
His thoughts traveled back a few moments and landed again on Sora and Kairi. He hadn't seen them in over a year and a half, which was somewhere around six or seven years in the Destiny Islands. The two would be in their mid-twenties by now. He wondered how they were getting along. Where they still a couple? If they were, were they married? Did they have a child? Or children?
Riku almost choked at the thought. Sora and Kairi with kids? Worse yet, kids with each other? Kairi's influence on the kids wouldn't be so bad, but if they were like Sora had been in his early years, they were busy being holy terrors to the neighborhood around them. Their parents would have their hands full.
I wonder how the others are, Riku thought, sobering some. Their main group had been composed of himself, Sora, Kairi, Selphie, Tidus, and Wakka. Was the gang still close? How was each individual getting along? What about all their other friends? Had Selphie made up her mind between Tidus and Wakka, or had she pursued someone else, instead?
As his mind flooded with these and so many other questions, he felt a rolling feeling of nostalgia move through him. He hadn't visited home at all since coming to the One World. He hadn't even made contact. The One World was where he belonged, but some parts of him would always consider the Destiny Islands to be home. The people he had grown up with were all there, and he had so many memories, good and bad, of his years spent there. Even when he had been consumed with a desire to explore, he knew he would never forget the islands. As he had said to Sora, he may never have been able to come back, but home would always be in his heart.
Maybe I should visit soon, he thought, but another thought came right on the heels of that one. Can I visit? Is it allowed for trainees to leave? It could and probably would detract from my training time. Sure, it's over forty human years, but the ylfen take their training very seriously. Leaving for a period may be taken as me saying I don't think it's important enough to stay diligent to. There may even be rules against trainees leaving home before their training is up. I have to find this out sometime soon, before too much time goes by.
As he thought, he had traveled down the central hallway further than he normally went. He wasn't as familiar with this part of the house as he was with the rest. In fact, now that he thought about it, no one normally came down this far, except for perhaps Sephiroth. Maybe this was the direction his bedroom lied in. Riku realized that he had never been in his father's bedroom or even knew where it was.
I haven't seen Father at all today, either, he thought. Today is over half over, too.
He got to the very end of the hallway, further than he had ever gone. He realized that it turned at a ninety-degree angle to the right, the turn not easily seen from further than a few feet from the end. The branch-off continued deeper into the cliff about thirty feet, and the short hall ended at a double door. Walking closer, he saw that the wood of the door was embossed, a delicate design of vines and leaves lined with crimson paint carved gracefully into the dark wood. The doorknobs were polished and bright, like most of the metal in the house, but they looked like brass instead of chrome.
Curious, he stood inches away from the door and listened intently. Even though the most used part of the house was on the other end of the central hallway, and his hearing wasn't impaired by any noise coming from it or the outside, he could hear nothing through the doors. Perhaps his father wasn't in there, or the wood was too thick to allow sound through. Also, he still wasn't sure that this was his father's room.
Hesitating a moment, he knocked on the right-hand door. The doors were solid and strong, according to the sound of his knuckles against it. The knock echoed faintly in the hallway behind him as he waited. No one came. He knocked again and waited longer, and still no one answered.
A tiny part of his mind told him to leave these doors alone and not go snooping. It felt like a part of his danger sense, but it was very faint and weak. His curiosity scoffed at it, and he nodded to himself as he decided to see what was on the other side. These doors were different in design and decidedly more foreboding than the rest of the doors in the house. Something other than an ordinary room was bound to be on the other side.
He would come to curse his powerful curiosity.
The doorknob turned with barely a squeak, and the door swung open with no sound at all. He stood there a moment, waiting for anyone who may be inside to react to his presence, but nothing came. He stepped inside, careful not to make no noise himself, though he wasn't exactly sure why. The door, however, decided to swing shut behind him. The click sounded like a clang in the silence, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. Taking a few minutes to calm himself again, he looked around.
It was a small sitting room. The room's theme was warm colors: red, yellow, and brown, mostly red. The soft light from the lamps along the wall glinted off the smooth surface of the polished wood and glittered in the brass of the knobs on the ends of the arms of the chairs. In the center of the room was a small round table with two chairs, one on each side of it. The table was probably used for tea or small meals. Against the wall on the opposite side of the room from the door was a bookcase with many books, and two other chairs identical to the ones at the table were near the bookcase. Perhaps those chairs were pulled up to the table if more than two people were going to sit down to tea. A red rug covered the floor, and a few smaller tables were around the room periphery with things like small plants or table ornaments on them. One wall had a large mirror on it, making the room appear bigger, and the other three walls had a scattering of artwork hung on them. The entire room had a cozy, warm feel to it.
However, though everything appeared polished and dusted, and a regular cleaning was apparently given the room, he had a very distinct impression that no one had used this room for the purpose it had been made for in a very long time. He felt like he was in a display of a sitting room made to give people a look into a less familiar lifestyle. The sensation was strange, and he had no way to explain it.
This whole room feels…forgotten, he thought, empty.
He realized that there was another doorway at the back of the room on the left side. The double doors were identical to the doors that led to the hallway. One stood ajar.
His ever-curious mind compelled him to go through, though something in his heart pleaded with him to go back. You're intruding here! it cried. You're going to get in trouble!
Not listening, he pushed the door all the way open. It was a bedroom on the other side.
This is the master bedroom, he recognized. This is Father's room. So, I was right after all.
This room was predominantly red, even more so than the sitting room. A large bed with crimson covers and a deep-brown frame stood furthest away from the door, and the part of the room closer to Riku was furnished with a set up much like the table and chairs in the sitting room. He walked further into the room, looking around. It seemed more used than the sitting room, though something about it suggested that it hadn't been altered at all for at least as long as the sitting room had stood unused.
So many memories were made in this room, he thought, a brief flush of embarrassment coming to his cheeks when he realized what kind of "memories" were most likely made in that bed. And, then, they just…stopped. The memories ceased to be made.
Something caught his eye. There was a painting on the wall where it could be seen as one sat up in bed. Walking toward it, he realized it was of Sephiroth and Wenna. The painting was pretty good-sized, the ends about two feet long and the sides about three feet long. In it, the two lovers stood, Sephiroth behind Wenna, his arms around her. Neither was looking out at the viewer. Sephiroth's half-mast eyes gazed down at her, a soft smile on his face, and even in the flatness of paint, Riku could see the indulgent adoration he held for her. Wenna's body was not turned toward him, though her head was turned to the side, her cheek pressed against his chest, eyes closed in complete trust. Her right hand was about level with her face, idly playing with an errant bit of her mate's hair. Her left hand was caught in his right at her waist, their fingers meshed together. His left arm was wrapped tightly around her waist, holding her against him in a possessive but not exactly jealous fashion. She was substantially shorter than him, the top of her head not even reaching his collarbone.
Riku slowly approached the painting, as if cautious. It was breathtaking. The resemblance to life was astounding, and he found himself wondering who did it.
Without exactly knowing why, he removed one of his gloves and reached up toward the painting. The back of his mind said that skin oils could damage paints, but he nevertheless laid his palm flat against the surface. He could feel the rough smoothness of dried paint, but the sensation was quickly drowned out by a flood of…of…something pouring into his mind. He jumped in surprise and nearly drew his hand away, but he refrained from doing so. He somehow knew that his touching the painting was responsible for the unexpected thoughts, and he wanted to figure out what they were.
After several moments of just staring at the painting, he was finally able to separate the individual sensations and sort them out. These were emotions he was feeling. They weren't just any emotions, but the emotions that the two people in the painting harbored for each other and freely shared between them. Love, intense love, was the core of it all, but there where many others surrounding and piercing into the love, threading them all together and weaving them into one intricate tapestry of feeling and thought. There was affection, devotion, protectiveness, concern, tenderness, understanding, compassion, and many more like that. He blushed deeply when he also recognized a powerful physical need for each other.
Wincing, he laid his other hand on his chest, over his heart. On the heels of all the positive emotions these two felt for each other, another totally different mixture of feelings bombarded his senses. Terror, pain, devastation, grief, loneliness, helplessness…somehow, he knew that this was what Sephiroth's tortured mind, heart, and soul had been forced to endure for months after Wenna's sudden and cruel death.
Why am I sensing these things? he asked himself, confused. Why can I—
There was a noise behind him. It sounded like someone exhaling with a soft groan. He whirled around in surprise. The bed was about three or four feet from the wall on the side farthest from the door, and he saw someone that he hadn't noticed before crouching in that space, facing mostly away from him. It was Sephiroth, but the way he held himself didn't look right. He was balancing on his toes, his bent knees almost touching the floor, and one hand was in front of him with the fingertips on the floor, giving him more stability. His back was arched, his shoulders slumped, and through his hair, Riku could tell that he had no shirt on. In fact, he appeared to be wearing only pants. The blue-and-black wing was held in a half-extended position, and it appeared taut. His long silver hair covered him like a shroud, flowing over his lithe body like a liquid and pooling around him on the red carpet. He was holding himself very stiffly, and he swayed slowly back and forth, as if keeping time with something.
Alarm bells went off in Riku's head. Something was not right. His father was emanating a very unsettling feeling, almost like an aura.
I have to leave! Riku screamed at himself, suddenly frightened. I should never have come here! Quickly, he turned to go toward the door as quietly as he could, but Lady Luck was no longer on his side. He inadvertently kicked the leg of a desk that he hadn't noticed before, making a vase of flowers on it rattle an inch over the surface.
Sephiroth's rigid figure came to life, and he rose up and turned at the same time. At the same time, Riku turned to see if his father had heard, and found Sephiroth looking at him. He saw burning green eyes staring out through a curtain of silver strands, and as soon as their eyes met, the vertical pupils narrowed to mere lines of black, the glitter deep in the irises flaring up brightly. Riku found himself unable to move.
"What do you want?" Sephiroth asked, his voice very low as he turned completely to face his son.
"N-nothing," Riku stammered, feeling fear well up in his heart.
"What are you doing in here?" Sephiroth's volume was rising, but so was the rage in his voice and eyes.
"I-I was c-curious!" Riku answered, his teeth close to chattering. Sephiroth was acting very strangely. "I-I d-didn't know what was in here!" He was going toward the door, but he didn't want to turn his back on Sephiroth, afraid of an attack. He backed into a chair and stumbled.
"No one comes in here!" Sephiroth suddenly roared, springing forward at Riku. "No one! You're not welcome in here!"
Riku cried out in dismay and tried to flee, but he had forgotten about the chair just behind him, and he ran into it again and fell awkwardly to the floor.
Sephiroth was upon him, and just as he realized this, a fist rammed hard into the side of his face, knocking him completely down and making his head bang hard against the floor. Bright lights and black spots exploded in his vision from the impact, and the world spun.
"Get out!" Sephiroth was shrieking, gripping Riku's shirt and hauling him up. "GET OUT!!!" His cry drew out into an animalistic howl as he literally threw Riku out the door into the sitting room.
Riku landed gracelessly on his feet and was just barely able to keep from falling again. His heart pounding in terror, his head still swimming, he stumbled clumsily toward the door, knowing that his father would attack again if given the chance. He yanked the door to the hallway open again and bolted out, a final scream of get out reverberating after him.
He ran blindly down the central hallway, not watching where he was going. He got nearly to the outside when he suddenly ran right into Darius as he came walking in the opposite direction, almost bowling him over.
"Whoa, Riku!" he exclaimed when he regained his balance, holding onto Riku's shoulders to steady him. He grew concerned when he saw the panicky look on his little brother's face. "Hey, come on into the living room," he said gently, not wishing to aggravate whatever was ailing Riku. He helped him sit down on the sofa when they got in the room.
"What's going on?" Samara asked, looking up from the jigsaw she was trying to solve.
"That's what I want to know," Darius said. He made Riku look at him. "What happened? Can you tell us?"
In a shaky voice, gradually calming down, Riku related what all had happened, going from reaching the end of the hallway to being run out by a seemingly possessed Sephiroth.
"You were right, Darius," Samara said softly when Riku finished. "He is going into one of his spells. No wonder we haven't seen him at all today."
"Spells?" Riku asked, now mostly over his fright, though still feeling a deep sense of dread at what he had seen. "You mean he's—"
"Yes, he's in another of his periods of madness," Darius sighed. "Your sister and I suspected it, but we weren't sure. What just happened to you confirms out suspicions." He rubbed the bridge of his nose, as if he had a headache. "Damn, I wish we had told you what we were thinking. You may have been more cautious."
"You probably wouldn't have made that mistake, either," Samara said.
"Mistake?" Riku asked, puzzled. "What mistake?"
Darius sighed again, more deeply. "I don't know why no one told you this. You should have heard it right from the start. I supposed Samara and I assumed Father would tell you, and I don't know why he didn't. Those two rooms are Father's inner sanctum, especially the bedroom. It belonged, of course, to him and Mother, and while she was alive, Samara and I were allowed to go in. We of course had to knock first and wait to be told to enter, because you can't just go barging into your parents' personal space uninvited and unannounced. Family members and close friends were also often brought into at least the sitting room for tea or conversation. However, since Mother died, it has been where he goes to remember her. No one, and I mean no one, is allowed in there at all anymore. I believe he's kept the rooms exactly the way they were when she was alive. In his fractured reasoning, someone besides him setting foot in there is blasphemous toward her memory, and I doubt even he goes in there without a certain amount of respect, almost as if he believes her ghost to dwell in there, watching everything he does."
"You going in there would have been bad enough, had he been of normal state of mind," Samara added. "He would have gotten very angry with you and shooed you out as quickly as he could. But, since he's entered another of his spells, his reaction was even worse. I have a feeling he didn't really even recognize you."
"He didn't seem to," Riku nodded slowly. "He was like…I don't know…God, he scared me!"
"I'm sure he did," Darius said, his voice sympathetic. "Be glad you came away with only a few bruises."
Riku nodded again, staring down at his hands. One was still bare, and he drew his glove out of his pocket and put it back on. He was lucky he had stuffed it into his pocket, or he may have lost it for who knows how long. "The rooms had a feeling," he said, "of disuse. They weren't dusty or stale, in fact very well kept, but they seemed to be telling me that nothing had been altered in years and years. The sitting room seemed totally unchanged and unused, and the bedroom was little better. It's as if he only used the bed in there to sleep in and perhaps to sit on and think. It was almost surreal."
Samara looked sad. "I think he's desperately trying to keep a hold of her," she said. "I think he thinks that, if everything stays exactly as it was while she still lived, that she would never truly go away and leave him." She shook his head. "Her spirit has long since left this world. He's clutching at straws. He has been for centuries."
The living room fell silent. Only the ticking of the clock on the wall was heard for several long minutes until Riku spoke again.
"I felt two other things," he said with a nearly timid tone. "I don't understand how, but I did. One was that many irreplaceable memories were made in that room, but they suddenly stopped at one point long ago, and none have been made since."
"Well," Darius said, "Samara and I were born in that bed, and it's where both of us spent most of the first few months of our lives. While we were growing up, we played in there as often as we played in our own bedrooms and the rest of the house. Perhaps that's what you mean. Also, Mother and Father were of course soulmates, thus their need to be together sexually was rather high. That being their bedroom, it was where they most often made love. You could also mean that."
Riku blushed. He probably wouldn't have put it that bluntly, though he knew of several other more explicit ways of saying it than Darius had used. "Yeah, I thought of that, too."
"What was the other thing you felt?" Samara asked.
"Oh," Riku said, "well…it's really strange. On the wall by the foot of the bed, there was a beautifully done portrait of Father and your mother. I don't know why, but I was drawn toward it and compelled to touch it. When I did, my mind was flooded with feelings and emotions that weren't my own. I finally realized that they were the emotions that Father and your mother felt for and shared with each other."
"That painting is very precious to Father," Samara nodded, "as it was to Mother while she lived. She painted it herself, and she considered it her highest masterpiece. She labored for months on it, taking every single care she could to make everything in it perfect. Everything was painted from memory, without any models. I mean, she looked at Father every day, but he never posed for the picture, and there was also the deal of getting herself to look right."
"She finished it as her pregnancy with Samara was beginning to show," Darius continued. "I remember seeing her lay down her brush when she finished and just bursting into tears. She was so happy that she had finally finished it and that it had turned out as perfectly as it did."
"So, that painting was a gift to Father and herself?" Riku asked, and they nodded. "It's the keepsake from her life that he values the most, then, because she put so much time and effort into it."
"Yes," Samara affirmed.
"You said you felt the emotions they held for each other when you touched it?" Darius asked.
"Yeah," Riku said.
His brother and sister looked at each other, as if sharing a single thought.
"What?" Riku asked. "What does it mean?"
"We don't know yet," Darius said. "We have a suspicion, but we have no way of proving whether it's right or wrong."
"Let me guess," Riku said blandly. "You're not going to tell me, right, in case you're way off?" He sighed, disappointed, when they both nodded. Not only was his curiosity banefully strong, his imagination was vivid almost to levels of insaneness. It would have a field day with this, he was sure.
To be continued…Author's Notes: Hmm…I'm splitting the idea up for this chapter into two chapters, because it's getting longer than I expected. I'm trying not to bother about chapter lengths much, but I don't want them to get too long. So, chapter eight will be the second part of what I had planned for chapter seven, with what I had planned for chapter eight moving back to chapter nine. Luckily, this doesn't mess up my plans, because chapter eight was the last chapter I have anything specific planned for, so I'm only bumping back one chapter's events. I have to take the time to plan out how I want to structure the events of the next few (or next several) chapters, and I hope that won't take very long. Hopefully a half-hour to an hour at the most. I don't know how long this fic will be at the moment, but that will probably be figured out soon. I know what I want to happen and how I want the fic to end, but I haven't decided what to group together into this chapter or that chapter. Anyway, enough prattle. I hope you all liked this chapter. I don't know if I described the feelings Riku got in the sitting room and bedroom well, or Sephiroth's fury at finding him in there. Did I? Let me know what you think in a review or an email to mangareader@hotmail.com, onegai shimasu!
I also have a request. I'd like you guys to wish me luck in finding work. I've been job-hunting for months, and I've been having absolutely no luck. I know the economy is bad (I curse the Bush administration!), and it's making it even harder for me and everyone else to find jobs. So, I'd appreciate it if at least some of you would wish me well. My confidence and spirit are faltering, and I could use a little encouragement. Thanks.
