Righting the Wrongs 2
Eyes, ruby red and oceans deep, blinked away heavy fog and lips, parched, tried to speak. Everywhere around her was blurry and she couldn't properly focus, no matter how much she tried.
Had she been rescued or was she dead and in the Lifestream? Tifa didn't know.
All she knew was the fact she was warm. Warm and surrounded by safety.
Her family would be okay, she thought with relief, they would be okay.
Snuggling further under the warm blanket and laying her head down, she allowed sleep to claim her once again.
But not before she felt a gentle hand soothe and comfort. Smiling at her saviour, the realisation that she may not be dead after all, Tifa mentally thanked whoever it was with her and vowed to repay him with whatever he wanted.
"Hush." Her hero whispered. "Drink."
One hand was place at the soft nape of her neck and her body was raised high, Tifa felt something nudging her lips open and liquid poured into her mouth.
It was delicious and so warm, the effect was immediate and so was the coughing it instigated.
Her body lurched and convulsed as the water entered her lungs and the brunette's face was turned to the right. Her throat so cold and parched, contracted tightly and she wheezed as the excess was spluttered out.
"Easy." The Hero soothed, a hand smoothing circles on her back. "Sip."
Tifa nodded and, this time, did as advised. Taking the offered drink sip by sip, she sighed as the heat spread from her stomach through her veins until her fingers tingled as remnants of biting frost melted away.
"Good girl."
She was gently laid back down and that hand, so tender and giving, ran softly down her cheek. Turning her face into his palm, Tifa felt the rough skin of masculinity rasp across her features.
It was good.
He felt good.
It took all of his willpower to pull from her, but he did. Bereft of touch and comfort, the general stared at his hand as though it had been burned by hell and, after a moment, looked away.
Nothing remained but the cruelty of a torment so sickening, it quenched what little delight gained from her sleepy response.
In lieu of dwelling upon his lonely situation, the silver haired man moved from her side, focusing all his attentions on the more important things that needed to be tended.
Now that her survival was ensured, Sephiroth felt it was a good time to get the needed supplies. If he was to take the utmost care of his unexpected charge, then food, wood and skins were a necessity.
Not wanting to disturb or scare, he eased himself out from his bed and stood, stretching his tired muscles until they cracked. He could feel weakness setting into his body and he frowned.
He must fight today.
He would take the skins and use the meat from his enemies as food.
It disgusted him to live as a brute savage but after the crisis of the Planet, he had no choice. His mouth longed to taste food and tea, his body longed for a soft bed and warmth, his soul longed for companionship and love.
Living as a prisoner of an empty heart left him cold, so much colder than the weather outside.
Looking at Tifa in apology before lifting his cloak, it would do her no good if he were to freeze.
His eyes searched and found a skin, though it was just over a week old, it would be better than nothing.
The smell was not as pleasant as he'd like and it was almost certain it was something she would not choose as perfume, but as always, it would have to do. At least until he was able to replace it.
Perhaps, Sephiroth mused as he cocooned Tifa inside, the skin of a wolf would be more appropriate.
Leaving the girl sleeping, safe and sound, the general didn't think twice before grabbing Masamune and willing it not to take him under.
Every time he touched the handle power, like no other, spread hellfire and brimstone through his veins. Memories of war, of bloodshed and violence, plagued his waking brain and made him relive his nightmarish past.
The smell of disinfectant still burned his senses, the white walls and light harsh in his eyes. Needles pricked his skin and the laughter…
Sephiroth could hear the laughter, so victorious and proud, ringing through his ears. Hojo, his creator, stood vigilant and condescending, watching each experiment in twisted excite.
Callous hatred and blind rage clouded the general, Masamune gripped tighter as the urge to make others suffer as he had done welled up inside. His chest hurt from laboured breaths and eyelids squeezed back the onslaught of images so horrible, they made his dead heart bleed.
He cried out for all those who fell at his feet. For the towns he had pillaged, for the girl who lay secure in a killer's bed.
"No." He would not allow it to happen again.
Before he could relinquish control to the hate, Sephiroth trained his gaze on Tifa and stopped.
He was no longer held imprisoned, no longer under the control of the destructive entity.
Sweet and feminine, her scent was all over him and diffused the sickly smell of laboratories. The serene expression on her dreamless face replaced the mocking of Hojo, the vision of a woman-child removed those of terror and brought back faint hope of a life he wanted.
"In time." He told himself. "All in good time."
With those final words directed at her, Sephiroth exited the cave and went in search of supplies.
Accompanying him on every step were fantasies of humanity.
Of love and a life.
&&&&
Along the way, Sephiroth had discovered discarded items obviously dropped by ambitious adventurers and without hesitating, picked them up. Everything had a use and since he had some in need of him, that use was all the more important.
His fighting regime was quick and painless, the skins were taken and rinsed down in the hot springs. The meat cut into manageable chunks and, to keep it somewhat fresh, wrapped up in ice and snow. Fire cast upon small trees provided wood and ice put it out so as not to destroy it all.
With practised skill, Sephiroth took note of the area and marked the stars.
No more than thirteen hours ago he had come across Tifa in this very spot.
A faint but shrill ringing noise was heard, capturing his attention and curiosity.
Could there be someone else out here?
He doubted it but, as it had happened once today, it was possible.
Directing his feet in the direction and hurrying, Sephiroth focused his gaze on the ground, carefully seeking out what or whoever it was making that sound. Just below the snow, he saw a large outline and, dropping the blankets to examine it.
A black bag, compact but well sized, was his find and he wasted no time in opening it. The sound was louder and he dug around, bypassing objects of little interest to pick up an outdated PHS system.
His breath froze in his throat. Cloud's name was highlighted on the ID.
Answering it was impossible so he simply placed at the very bottom of the bag and zipped it up. Slinging it over his shoulder and looping it twice, Sephiroth retrieved the blankets and resumed the journey back to the cave.
&&&&
Not quite fully awake but sitting up, Tifa kept her modesty with the Chocobo skin firmly around her body. Her crimson orbs, so unique, drifted around the cave and offhandedly admired the walls. Crystals, of all shapes and colours, shone and sparkled, reminding the girl of an expensive jewellery store.
Who had brought her here?
Seeing her clothes, neatly laid out, on a nearby rock answered her next question and she sighed in relief. At least she wouldn't be around a stranger naked.
Heavy footfalls crunching the gravel just outside had Tifa gripping the blanket in anticipation, her pretty face etched with trepidation and worry as she prepared to fight if needed. Never leaving the cave entrance, her eyes reflected the heart bruising her chest.
The hero entered and, judging by the build, it was definitely male but she didn't get a good look at his face as he had turned upon entering.
In complete silence, the brunette watched as the man pulled another Chocobo skin across the exit, blocking out the minor draft floating in from the passage.
"You are awake."
His voice, though gruff and husky, sent thrills down her spine. "Yes, thank you." Tifa clutched the blanket a little more and stared warily at his back.
"Do not thank me." Sephiroth knew that was one of the two things he did not deserve.
Confusion warred with gradual recognition. "Why not? You saved my life, you should get a lot more thank a simple thank you."
"I also ruined your life." Turning to look at the girl and lowering the black hood, the general merely stood there and waited for the fear.
The fear always hit when he stared. It would drench the air like an aphrodisiac and he fed on it. Lapped it up like a cat and it's cream. After the fear, it was always the pleas.
"Please, have mercy." One hapless human would beg.
"Please sir, take me and leave my wife." Another would plead.
Standing there, face-to-face, with his former enemy and waiting for her to cower before him, Sephiroth was prepared to take whatever punishment she felt necessary.
Feeling her face pale and body begin to tremble, Tifa could barely choke out his name as her gaze refused to leave his. Slowly, shaking fingers were raised and clamped over her mouth.
No.
Not now.
Not after all this time. Things were only just beginning to be put right. The Planet was beginning to heal.
This could not happen again. She would not allow Sephiroth to destroy all that they had done.
Seeing the decision of his survival made, the general carefully deposited all the gathered objects and set them down. Kneeling on the floor and closing his eyes off from the world, feeling the sting as tears burned the lids.
If she was going to strike him down, then he did not wish to see it.
The memory he would perish with would be that of laying with her, feeling her hold him and allow him to protect and care for her. He would die with the memory of something real.
"I won't let you do it again, Sephiroth."
Full of spirit, her tone made his eyes open and he looked deep into rubies.
"You saved my life and for that, I'm grateful." Nodding once, Tifa huddled further under the skin and simply shut up, her orbs never leaving the kneeling general.
Head lowered and remorse swallowed, Sephiroth bit his tongue and rose. His muscular body unfurling with feline grace and he stood at full height. "I am in your debt, Miss Lockheart." Removing Masamune from his back, he winced when the fear hit and she clutched her chest. "I beg, do not be frightened."
Hysterical laughter bubbled up. "It's a little late for that, don't you think?"
The sword was placed in it's home in a small crack and he glanced at her, his eyes so expressive but face blank. "Perhaps." Not really wanting a walk down memory lane just yet, the general nudged his head in the direction of his goods. "I have food. We need to eat."
She was everything fiery and defiant. "You gonna poison me?"
Sephiroth's lips twirled up into a twisted, sardonic smirk. "Poison is not my way. You, of all people, should know that." His cloak taken off and he walked towards her, deep green orbs clashed with red and he saw the shiver he caused. "You are not yet strong enough to brave the weather."
As he closed the distance between them, Tifa stifled the urge to scream out and leaned away from his presence. Her nails threatened to cut holes in the Chocobo hide and tears vowed to fall.
Only when the general held out his cloak did the brunette begin to relax.
"Please, take it."
"You'll be cold." The objection came quietly and meek, her throat dry and lips cracked. Shaking her shoulders, a cough rattled her body and in an instant, he was there.
"Seven months is long enough to adapt." Sephiroth tenderly patted her back and smoothed her hair, unable to stop his eyes roaming her naked figure. "I will build the fire then, bring some water to boil."
Watching as he moved around, doing this and that, curiosity overcame the urge to take revenge on the man who had destroyed not only her life, but the lives of friends and family. "Have you been here all this time?"
He had too, because if he had been seen then Avalanche would surely have been notified.
Sephiroth worked diligently, arranging the wood in a pattern and surrounding it with rocks. "I have." Leaving the safety of the crater just yet was an impossibility.
Tifa nodded and shivered. "I guess it isn't as if you can go anyplace else." No doubt he would be lynched. "Don't you have a home anywhere? I mean, you must have made a lot of gil for your work as a general."
"I have no home. Never did."
That, right there, was the sad truth of his existence. No home or family, no nothing. His world was made up entirely of war and death, of blood and horror.
"Oh." What else could she say? She wanted to bring up how she didn't have a home, either, but refrained. The confrontation that needed to happen could wait until they were both ready to deal with the fallout.
"Fire." A snap of his fingers and the wood was blazing, the firelight danced off the cave walls and gave off incredible effects.
Almost immediately, warmth filled the place and both sighed, taking comfort in the heat.
"Thanks. You want I should boil the water?" Offering held seemed the right thing to do, but she needed her clothes first. "If you'd pass my clothes."
"No." The commanding tone once used upon insubordinates was directed at Tifa and her eyes grew wide, wary and scared. Softening his voice, "You must rest, Miss Lockheart, if you expect to leave shortly."
She nodded in submission. "I guess I owe you another thank you."
Sephiroth countered her statement. "Indeed not. Ensuring your well-being is the very least I can do."
A blaze of anger, dazzling and bright, clouded crimson orbs and delicate fists clenched tight. Tifa ground her teeth together in an effort to contain her emotions. "You're what? Looking for redemption? Forgiveness?" She couldn't believe his audacity.
All she wanted was to get up and make him pay for everything. For the childish crush she'd had so long ago, for killing her father, for almost ending her life. There was more, so much more and it was too much to sit and listen to him try to make up for it.
Laughter, a sound rich with sadness and a bitterness rivalling her own, echoed throughout the cave. "Redemption and forgiveness are beyond my reach." Poking the fire with a piece of wood and sighing. "I seek nothing more than to live out my days in peace."
Seeing her ready to explode, Sephiroth deftly changed the subject. "It will be an hour or two before the new skins are dry enough to use. In the mean while, I suggest you attempt to get some more rest."
His shoulders sagged and head lowered, he glanced at her from the corner of his vision. "For your own safety, I suggest you take my advice."
The longer she was here, the more tempting she became.
Not only was the urge to fuck her getting stronger, but also the urge to leave his secure prison. When she left, Sephiroth knew, he would want to go with her.
To see the sun, without snowy clouds and heavy wind, high in the sky. To feel the heat burn his skin.
To simply feel.
Disgust washed over her face. "Why?" Tifa sneered, her eyebrows rising in challenge. "You planning to take advantage of me while I sleep?"
Sephiroth said nothing.
He didn't have to.
The closing of jade eyes and tensing of muscles said it all.
After a few moments, the general held the girl in place with a glare so hot, it set her skin alight and nerves on edge. "Miss Lockhart." His voice, gruff and husky with desire, raised chill bumps all over her body. "I have lived so long without needing to act as a gentleman. It would serve you well to take my warning."
"Poor Sephiroth." Smirking seductively and completely unaware of how serious he was, Tifa leaned back and allowed the animal skin to slip down, skirting her cleavage and showing enough creamy flesh to make his eyes darken. "Whassamatta?" Her tongue, pink and hot, moistened her full and pouting lips. "Can't get a girl without force? That really doesn't surprise."
Faster than she could see, Sephiroth had her hands pinned above her head and body trapped between heavily muscled thighs. "You have a lot to learn." His lips parted and brushed, teasingly, over hers and made her breath lodge deep in her throat. "Force, or rape, is an ugly word."
Through the barrier covering her, Tifa felt his excitement as though it were on her bare flesh. "My lips say 'No, no' but my eyes say 'yes yes'?"
Leaning further into her softness, the general inhaled deeply and committed her scent to memory. Roses and honey, he groaned low in his throat, lilies and baby's breath.
Lilies. A death flower for a woman full of life. A delicious contradiction.
So perfect for her.
So perfect for an innocent.
Tracing a path from throat to lips, Sephiroth captured her lower lip between blunt teeth and soothed the bite with a tender lick. "I have not felt a woman's touch in so long, my sweet. Your passionate temper and fiery spirit merely serves to arouse."
The blanket slid down her torso, revealing her breasts to his hungered gaze. Darting past his lips, his tongue tasted strawberry nipples and lips savoured her unique flavour. "I can make you want it, Miss Lockhart." The general purred, his voice a husky whisper. "I can make you beg for my touch."
Hard and firm, fingertips trapped pert buds and tugged, sending delicious but unwanted thrills through her. Licks of fire seared each nerve and Tifa felt herself wanting to do as he said.
Beg for it.
But she never would.
Bracing her palms against his chest and ignoring the muscles rippling beneath his clothes, Tifa used what strength she had and pushed him away. Left with an ache between her thighs and breasts burning for more, she panted sharply as she glared at him, willing away the all to recent memory of heat.
Quickly, Tifa replaced the blanket and hid herself from view, much to his irritation.
Wiping his mouth and staring, Sephiroth couldn't find it in him to apologise for taking what he wanted. "You see, Miss Lockhart, even now your body wishes to know mine."
"No." The exclamation was weak, lacking in truth. Her face was flushed a pretty pink and the berry tips of her breasts hard, glistening from his attentive and talented tongue. Her thighs trembled and core clutched at emptiness, wanting to be filled.
Tifa hated that he knew what he said was true.
He smirked but backed away a little further. "It is amazing how that boy never took you and made you his own."
The boy was indeed as stupid as he appeared.
"The boy?" She hated her curiosity.
Sephiroth merely looked at the brunette, his head shaking in dismay. "Cloud."
"Cloud isn't a boy." With all the passion of loyalty, Tifa defended her lifelong friend. "He's more of a man than you'll ever be."
Eyebrows rose in mild amusement. He highly doubted that statement but didn't push it. "Why has he not had you? By your choice or his?"
Her fingers plucked at the Chocobo skin and crimson orbs searched the general's face for signs of insincerity. Seeing none, she gave him the answer. "Cloud and I have never been that way, you could say."
"Then perhaps he needs to wake up, as young people say."
Hurrying to Cloud's defence once more, "No. The attraction is there, we both know it but that's all." Whimsical expressions covered her face for a moment or two before a smile, tender and soft, flirted at her lips. "There's always been something stopping us from taking it further."
Her eyes hardened. "Why I'm telling you this, I don't know. Cloud and I are none of your business."
Sephiroth said nothing, just sat there and contemplated her words. "You are correct, Miss Lockhart. It is none of my concern, but I merely wished to understand and you are telling me this because, if I rightly recall, Cloud and you share a platonic bond."
He waited for a nod of agreement before continuing. "It is difficult to talk to the object when the object is the subject. Yet, others in your life are to close and at the same time, to distant for you relate your feelings."
His accuracy stunned her into silence. In all of a few minutes, the Great General Sephiroth and all round psychopath, had gotten closer to her than her friends and family.
"I, on the other hand, am a complete stranger who has no-one's feelings, but his own, to bother with."
"Maybe." Tifa agreed, the word falling from her lips in a sigh.
Sephiroth looked at her, truly looked. Seeing past the temper and act, uncovering what she kept hidden and smiling when her eyes met his. "I cannot imagine you being one for talking where your feelings are concerned. We have many things in common, Miss Lockhart. Including that of wanting things we fear we may never have."
Again, he silenced her with truth.
Lightening the conversation for her benefit, "Not including a poor judgement of wanting to destroy the Planet."
With that, Sephiroth earned himself a genuine laugh from the young lady. "Ruling the world would be way too much responsibility. Can't imagine why anyone would want to do it."
"As with everything, my lady, people would prefer to enforce their beliefs rather than live by those of another." The general shifted his body and relaxed by the fire, the flames danced off his silver hair and dazzling jade irises.
"Tifa."
"You have a pretty name, I have never known another Tifa."
"And I've never known another Sephiroth. I don't think I could take another you."
An awkward silence descended and, trying to make herself more comfortable, Tifa shuffled further under the Chocobo hide and sighed. "You think my clothes are dry enough to wear yet?"
He didn't want her wearing clothes, his mind was pleasantly occupied with watching her as a wild beauty. "They might, but I would not suggest wearing them until your hypothermia is definitely cured and I don't wish to have you hidden from me just yet."
Seeing her cheeks redden and posture tense, Sephiroth simply smiled like the predator he was. "It is not every day a man has a young lady displaying such a… Charming and untamed sight. I ask you to allow me the pleasure until you consent to being my lover."
At his request, if she could call it that, disbelief and shock overrode her face. Ruby orbs blinked and her mouth opened but now words came out. Incredulous laughter bubbled up until it the sound ricocheted off the cave walls.
His lover?
"I will never consent to being your lover, Sephiroth. Now pass my clothes, I wanna get dressed and get out of here."
"No?" The general glanced at Tifa, arrogance and surety lazed within the unnatural depths of his eyes. "There was a time when you would have been more than my lover but, to an extent, I am a patient man."
The memory of how she had blushed and shied from him, of how she had timidly approached and offered him a smile, came rushing back to her. Yes, there would have been a time when Tifa would have wanted to be more than a lover, but not now.
Not after everything.
"The way your body reacted to mine tells me we will be lovers, the way you arched into my touch tells me will be lovers." Sephiroth purred, the relaxed gentleman gone in place of a sensual man solely focused on getting what he wanted. "The way your body is wet with need and aching for more tells me we will be lovers."
Her breath hitched and his voice, low and melodious, encased her senses in a shroud of lust. "No."
"Do not lie to me, my sweet, or yourself. We will be lovers and, when you have gone back to your friends, your dreams will of me."
Fear erupted within her and she shrank away from him.
Deep inside, Tifa had the feeling he was right.
