The Lord of Dreams that Terrify glided through her chaotic order, stirring up eddies in her wake, causing worlds to spin and bump off each other like so many marbles. Worlds caught in her hair and glittered like jewels as she turned and dived through her infinite creations.

Hanging in the distance, further away from where the Lord of Nightmares occupied herself with causing chaos, two worlds drifted closer together. Brushing realities.


Daylight came to the island early and Sephiroth was one of the first awake after having a long night of dreaming about a girl who seemed slightly older than him; a girl who told him how much she loved him. His morning was haunted by the memory of that dream, by the memory of her hazel brown eyes behind a pair of thick glasses.

Sephiroth sighed, rubbing his forehead as he looked out upon the encampment, a forest of tents plopped out in the middle of a grassland with islands of trees growing out in the middle of nowhere like zits. Silence reigned though the camp, for it was actually just before dawn and only the cooks and Sephiroth were fully awake.

Turning, Sephiroth made his way out of the camp, wanting to be by himself for just a little while before he was forced to hunt down the enemy in their own territory. They seemed to have made a deal without ever exchanging a word. No attacking at night, no hostages. Or maybe it was just Sephiroth's ingenious planning that kept them from attacking at night or taking hostages.

Once outside the encampment, he reached into his pocket, his eyes gazing up at the grey clouded sky. There was a hard wind blowing from the northwest, bringing in probable rain. Sephiroth pulled his hand from his pocket, a piece of paper clasped in it. He gazed at the twisted bit of paper that contained his wish for a long moment, watching as it fluttered in the wind from time to time.

Who am I kidding? Something like this could never come true for me. I'm just a tool for Shinra. Nothing more. He lifted his other hand, preparing to rip the piece of paper to bits when someone came huffing up behind him.

"Sir," Sephiroth turned toward the man who was wearing a dark blue uniform of the regular SOLDIERS. A strong gust of wind blew and the piece of paper was filched from his hand before he could close his fingers over it.

He looked up to see the piece of paper fluttering away and stifled his sigh. Maybe it'll land in the ocean and never be seen again? No one will know it's mine... hopefully.

The soldier continued to stand at attention, saluting and waiting for Sephiroth to acknowledge him. "Yes?" Sephiroth finally turned and said to the man.

"Sir, Lieutenant Kresh asked me to remind you of the meeting-" he was cut off by Sephiroth's turning and walking back the way he'd come. With a sigh, the young man dropped his salute and looked in the direction he'd seen the piece of paper flutter, "I wonder what Sephiroth would be wishing for?" He squinted and thought he could see a shimmer in the air. He shook his head and turned, heading back into the camp to continue what he'd been doing before he'd been forced into messenger service by Lt. Kresh.


The sky was grey and heavy with clouds while Katy and her best friend sat on the rafters of the lookout tower that stood watch in her friend's backyard. They both sat shivering in the hard wind that blew from some direction. It was hard to tell from which way the wind came because it swirled around in the trees so much that they were swaying in every direction. They both had no coats on, having come out intending just to be out for a short time, but that short time had expanded to almost an hour of inane and sometimes insane conversation. Michelle's newly cut medium brown hair flapped around her face like a wild animal while Katy's dyed strawberry blonde hair was tied up into a ponytail and braided, still, it hung down to the back of her neck, giving proof of how long it actually was, even if Katy refused to believe that it was anything but short.

"You wanna go behind the fence?" Michelle asked out of the blue when there was a pause in their conversation. She was hit by a bout of shivering and Katy grinned in response to the question.

As one, they climbed down off the rafters, taking their time in getting down out of the playhouse. Katy was the first down the ladder, her best friend immediately after, having jumped halfway down the six-foot rickety thing. They hurried into Michelle's house to get warmed up a bit and get their coats and within ten minutes they were past the fence and walking toward the old hills of dirt that belonged to the mulch plant a little further away.

Michelle's backyard was small, but far more preferable to be in than Katy's. There was a swing set, a nice tree to climb in, a watch house to perch on, and not to forget the extensive cotton field that stretched behind the fence that separated her backyard from the property of the farmer who owned the cotton field.

Katy and Michelle walked in silence for a few feet of the quarter mile or less that was between Michelle's house and their destination. Finally Michelle spoke up, "How've you and Chris been getting along?"

Sighing and lowering her gaze to the overgrown dead grass that she was stomping through as they walked, Katy answered "He's still treating me like his mother. I wanna be protected too!" Michelle nodded sagely, looking away for a moment. "I kinda wish I hadn't asked him out. Stupid crush. I don't think I'll ever have him as a friend again."

The dark-haired girl heaved a sigh, "At least he wants to talk to you still."

Shaking her head, Katy replied, "But I don't feel like talking to him." She moved closer to her best friend and put a comforting arm around the younger girl's shoulders. "We'll find better guys. Until then, Anime guys are Bishonen and the girls are always too stupid to really deserve their guys!" That got a laugh out of Michelle and Katy was glad, having her friend crying over her ex-boyfriend was enough to depress her for half the day.

They were both wearing fleece pullovers, though Katy's was light grey with a Grinch snirking on the left breast and Michelle's was dark with no pocket, hood, or Grinch. Denim pants covered their legs, though Michelle's were darker in color than her friends. They also both wore ratty sneakers, going against the fashion of new shoes every month that seemed rampant at school. The only difference in clothing type between them was their shirts, Katy's was a 'Holy Relic', an old green T-shirt that had Buggs Bunny blasting a cannon at Yosemiti Sam. Michelle's shirt was a long sleeved sweater type shirt that was somewhat small on her but it didn't look bad.

"I like my new pants. They fit good," Katy proclaimed, smiling once more. She was talking about the pants she was wearing. They were bell-bottomed and fit perfectly, and her grandmother had just guessed at her size too. "What I like best is that I didn't have to try on ten thousand pants to get a pair that I like and that fit and mom couldn't tell me 'no'."

Michelle sniggered, she was a year younger than her best friend of almost seven years, but she was taller and until recently, she'd had longer hair than Katy. Her eyes were dark brown with a cute slightly upturned nose and her mouth was framed by soft pink lips.

Katy envied her, she was rather cute when she wanted to be, but most of the time she was sad about something. "You know what?" Katy said suddenly, Michelle turning her head and lifting her hand to pull her hair back from her face, "I don't think I could live without you and I'm very glad we met. Thank you for being my best friend in the world!" She stopped walking and super glomped her friend, much to Michelle's embarrassment, though Katy had a hunch that she wasn't all that upset about being told that she was special to someone.

Finally, Katy let her friend go and they continued walking toward the west where the 'Dirt Hills' had sprawled once upon a time. It had been almost a year since they'd last been to their hang-out site and they were saddened to find that most of the grassy dirt hills had been mowed over with the usual construction equipment.

"Bugger it," Katy stated and folded her arms on her chest. "And this was such a fun place before."

Michelle nodded in agreement, being her usual quiet self once more, and started forward. Katy sighed and started after her, there was a crunch under her old ratty sneaker and she looked down, finding a dead leaf. Beside her shoe, she found a strip of white paper, five inches long and tied at the middle. It looked like it had been ripped out of a notebook of some sort, but the quality of paper was strange. It wasn't the blue-white with lines on it that she was used to seeing, instead it was a yellow white and seemed cheap, like some sort of standard issue paper.

She crouched and picked the paper up then slowly untied and unfolded it. There was writing on the paper, it looked like Japanese writing of some sort and Katy was disappointed that she couldn't read it. "Hey Michelle!" she stood up and trotted over to her best friend, "look what I found!" Michelle took the paper and looked it over carefully.

"I think either it goes up and down like this, or it was written on the back or side of a page."

"It'd be neat if it was Japanese," Michelle replied, handing the paper back to her rambunctious and perverse best friend.

Katy grinned, "Of course it would." She gazed at the paper, squinting through her overly dirty glasses, "Woah... Check out the watermarks on this paper! It looks like the Shinra logo off of FF7!" Once again the paper exchanged hands and Michelle gave a soft 'hrm' as she looked at it.

"I dunno," she told her friend. "I didn't play very far into the game."

"And shame on you for that," Katy replied, "Sephiroth's the hottest hottie ever!"

Michelle sniggered, "And what about Zelgadis?"3

Katy made her eyes wide as she looked at Michelle, "Well, they're both hot." She clasped her hands into fists and put them under her chin, bouncing from one foot to the other. "Biishoonen!" she crowed happily and Michelle shook her head. "In any case, maybe I can find someone to translate this for me. It'd be neato to find out what it says."

Once more, Michelle nodded, returning to her silence, though this wasn't unusual. Katy had always been the more talkative of the pair on most days.


3 Zelgadis: Zelgadis Greywords, a young man who got cursed by his grandfather or great grandfather into a 'Chimera', one third human, one third brow demon, one third rock golem. In all a very depressed character and very upset about his looks. (Slayers)