Disclaimer: Don't own SquareEnix...you should be happy about that...

AN: Chapter three, why the heck not? I should finish this darn thing. That'd make a whopping 2 fics finished!(not including Alone series which isn't technically finished)

Forgotten Bliss

Chapter 3:Shattered Bliss

She heard an intake of breath. Was it her? Was it the crowd, perhaps? The very planet?

She wanted to laugh, to cry, This isn't real! Just a pre-ceremony nightmare! This cold that's biting into me...the pain thats eating away my insides...the silence that is so complete in this world...not one sound anywhere in the world...so sudden...this has to be a dream!

In the total silence that cloaked the area after the shocking announcement, the sound of her tears splashing on the ground below her resounded like tiny explosions.

A dream...A dream! It...it has to...it has to be...

Her throat caught in a suppressed sob. My father...my father..the man I thought I could always trust...betrayed me...

OOOOOO000000ooooo

It seemed unreal at first, a mistake perhaps...but there could be no mistakes..no second chances...the first name spoken by the father is the man to wed...nothing around it. Sephiroth knew the rules only too well.

The many suitors who had not the gall to offer for Aeris' hand against Sephiroth sat in silence behind him, too shocked to even remember to breath. It was no secret the love the young couple harbored for one another.

The soft sobbing of Aeris seemed to reach only his ears, her once graceful pose was reduced to a crumpled heap. I should do something...say something...break this terrible spell of cruel reality...

And then, the silence was shattered by a single, earsplitting screech. "FAAAAATTTTHHHHEEEEERRRRRRRR!"

OOOOOO000000ooooo

It's over...it's all over...everything I've lived for...so passionately dreamed for...anihilated in one breath.. She was sobbing uncontrollably now. I can't! I can't marry him! I want Sephiroth!

"Aeris...Aeris, please...stop crying..."

She froze, that soft voice, pained with restrained tears...it could only be..

"I--I'm sorry, Please stop it...I...I don't understand how he could do this..." He stuttered, struggling for any words at all through the thickness of his throat.

"Oh, Sephiroth!" She sobbed, turning around and flinging herself into his arms, "You promised! Y-You promised you would...y-you did!"

"I---I know! I'm...I'm so sorry!" He cried, holding her tightly, perhaps more tightly than ever before. "I...I broke my promise to you, and nothing I can do will ever make up for that! not even just a little bit! But...but...but...I...I still...still..."

"Oh...why? Why did this have to happen to us?" She wept into his shirt, "What have we done? We have never gone against the planet, we have not rebelled against authority...we did not even violate the marriage bed--despite the fact that those around us tried to tempt us into doing so!"

"I...I cannot say, Aeris...a-all I can say is..Dance or now...you are still the only woman I will ever love...and nothing will change that."

She looked up into his beautiful emerald orbs solemnly, "Let's run away...go somewhere were we can be together! I don't care about this place anymore! I won't live without you!"

"You would throw all you have away?" He asked, bewildered, "What of your duty to the Planet?"

"What of it? It cares nothing for me!"

"Do not say such a thing! What about everything you've done for it? You've spent your life serving it!"

"And it has scorned me in return!" She paused, indescision tearing her insides to shreds, "Are you so attached to this place that you would turn your back on me? Why won't you leave with me?"

"That's not it!" He insisted, shaking his head, "I'll go anywhere you go, regardless of consequences, I'll follow you to the end of time!"

"Seph..."

"I love you..." He whispered, kissing her softly.

"This...is an outrage!" Came the roar of her father.

In an instant, the both of them spun toward the big man. His face was purpled with rage as he scowled at Sephiroth.

"You!" He spat, pointing an accusing finger at Sephiroth, "How dareyou attempt to seduce my daughter--to touch her when you are not her beloved!"

"No! He is my beloved! To me there can be no one else!"

"Nonsense! He could not prove his love for you, and thus it is not true! Your union is not pure!"

"No-"Aeris began, but she felt Sephiroth put a gentle hand on her shoulder, staying her words.

"Indeed. By your regulations I am not her 'true love'...but know this...I have watche dover her since I was a child, defended her against even the slightest danger or offence..even given my life up to training to ensure hre well-being. I would go anywhere and do anything to protect her...to know that she is safe and content.." He said in a softly, perhaps a touch too quiet. "I ask you...what can that man offer her? What is he willing to offer? Pretty jewels in a pretty house in some over-populated over-polluted slab of 'city'...if she is lucky, perhaps he will give her the honor of producing him an 'heir' before he tires of her."

"Silence! I have heard enough!" The man barked. "Guards! Come in here at once!"

Immediately, several personal guardsmen--compliments of Shinahara--appeared in the doorway.

"Escort Aeris to the dressing room, we have little time before the ceremony!"

"Immediately, sir!" The leader nodded, and walked up to her, "Please come with us, Lady Shinahara."

"No!" She snapped, "I am not lady Shinahara!"

"Well, whatever you wish to call yourself, my orders are the same."

"Too bad for you! I'm staying with Sephiroth!"

"Take her however you need to! Without the boy!"her father ordered.

"No! Let me go: She insisted,wrestling against the guard's irongrip.

"Surely youneeded be so rough!" Sephiroth called, anguished.

"Stay out of this,boy...you don't want to start this fight."

"Nnooo! Sephiroth!" She cried, wrenching herselffree enough to reach for him.

For just a moment, she caught a glimpse of her beloved's sad, beautiful, emerald eyes...pain wasmirrored in them, indesicion and anger seemedblendedwithin as well...he had sworn before never to harm her family...why exactly was lost to her.Then again, with his strange sense of honor, she realized she may never have known when or why.

"Seph..."

OOOOOO000000ooooo

"You're a real piece of work, you know that?" Sephiroth said coldly, "Leaving your own daughter to such pain and misery."

"Heh, you flatter yourself too much! She will be over you in two months tops."

"You're assuming she lives that long."

"Are you threatening my daughter?"

"You stupid old fool! I would never harm Aeris!"

"Hah! You already have!" the man laughed, "Your presence and constant insistance on pushing her to break her vows is tearing her apart!"

"I did not tell her to break her vows." He said, "But perhaps I have hurt her as you say."

"Eh? You admit it?"

"What more is there to say? Save the fact that the pain caused indirectly by my love for her is nothing compared to the pain you are so directly inflicting on her now."

"How dare you speak of such things to me, when you would not lift a finger to help her from her supposed 'pain' earlier!"

"You and I both know if I were to try to rescue her, you people would huntuslike animals, relentlessly, until the day we finally die." Sephiroth replied bluntly, "Once again, the pain I inflict isonly indirect--a direct cause of your grossly inappropriate actions that caused hre pain originally."

"I have no time for this, I must helpget my daughter ready for the ceremony."

"You selfish little scum." Sephiroth spat, "All you care about are the 'things' given to you by that slimeball!"

"I care very much about my daughter!"the man yelled back, "And Iintend tomake certain that she looks flawless on her wedding day!"

CH end

AN: aw, so mushy.There is something to besaid about not worrying about OOCness. Anyway, next chapter...is very...very... scarily violent--and I'm theonethat wrote it! 0.o

-Yusagi Sombermoon