Advent Children – Sephiroth's bride.

Clouds were always hiding them from the sun – the creatures that loitered upon the wet roads. They cried… the clouds. Each drop was cold and heavy, and as it smashed against the ground, it would make an exploding sound in her mind. As if every drop gave birth to thousands of other. They were falling slowly… lethargically, just as though they wanted to drive her mad.

She was just a girl that had no perception of the evil world around her. A twenty-year-old with a desire to live, to have fun and to learn. Strange how world works… Strange how fate plays with people's lives…

She crouched in the corner, listening to the voices in her head. Many, many voices. Only one of them was loud enough for her to make out the words. He was calling her with a chilly tone of his voice. She knew he was evil, but she couldn't help hearing him. Every utterance that filled her mind soon started to become a thunder echoing across the mountains of her lost memories.

The one with the gun-arm guarded her on top of the tower. He never spoke to her. Nobody ever did. They were said not to when she was first brought there. She was on the beginning of her teenage years, eager to know about life. But, when she fell into the Northern Crater, it was too late. She breathed him into her… He lingered inside of her lungs making his way toward her brain. It wasn't about her anymore. He wanted her to set him free.

"Why do you keep hassling me, ghost?" She asked out loud, her voice spread across the tiny, dark room on the highest tower. She was exhausted, unaware she had limbs to move. They were out of function for quite a long time now. She didn't have a desire to continue living, anymore. Not since everyone started ignoring her.

She couldn't even remember her own father or her mother. She started wondering if she were born at all. Maybe this was all just a seven-year-old long nightmare out of which she couldn't wake up.

"When are you going to bring me my Jenova?" The words whispered. Suddenly, a lightening-bolt bleached the dark walls of the hollow room. She caught a glimpse of her pale hands and bare feet that were hiding beneath a grey, dirty tunic. That was all they had given her. Just a rag to cover her thin body.

"I don't know what that is. Please, leave me alone. I am not in a mood to listen to you again." She said and ran her long fingers across the dumplings of her blond hair. It has been quite a while since that girl came to wash her. Almost three weeks now. Tifa was her name, yes. She was running a bar called 7th Heaven not so far from here. She was a rather nice girl, considering the fact that she, also, didn't speak to her at all. She would just come, beaming with beauty and life as every girl should, bringing soap and towels with her. What was the use of washing when she was to put on that rag again? Tifa would wash her every month, but that was all. After a while sweat and dust would grab it and wouldn't let go till the new coming of Tifa.

"You know, Aeorynn… You know where to find the Jenova box." The voice spoke again. It was the voice of a man who desperately wanted to return, but somehow he was restrained. As if he were held by the dark shadows of hell. She felt sorry for him, actually. Sorry for having to listen to him whining, urging her to break through and find that darn Jenova box or whatever it was. However, the voice still didn't say what it was for. Jenova…

"I don't know anything. Leave me alone!" She howled and twisted her body, punching the wall in rage. A tiny niche was the result of her strike. Even though it was dark, her young eyes could see clearly. They got used to the darkness in the past seven years. She noticed the hole and jerked backwards. Her legs wouldn't listen to her. She fell onto the other side, meeting the ground up close. It was then she realized that it was her own self she was afraid of. Where did she get all that strength, she never understood. She didn't stand up for a year, now, and that was why her legs weren't obeying her brain.

"Shh… Calm down. That's my girl." The voice whispered. In some moments it felt as if he were sitting right next to her, whispering into her ear. But when she looked, there was no one there. That was another thing that was driving her mad. Another thing out of many...

"I am not your girl." She said after a while.

"Don't fight me, Aeorynn. We both know I won't let you go. You got me under your skin." The voice said sarcastically and chuckled slightly with delight. She smiled and let out a weak chuckle herself. She revealed her straight white teeth that were, at the moment, craving for food. Her stomach whined, all of a sudden and she wrapped her arms around it.

"Where is Barret?" She asked herself out loud.

Suddenly, a tiny opening that was covered with a titanium plate from the outside opened and the upper part of Barret's face showed up. He was searching for her with his eyes, but he couldn't recognize her anywhere. When he caught a glimpse of a dark shadow in the left corner, just beside a great broken window, he slid a plastic plate with something funny on and a plastic glass full of cold water.

The moment she started crawling toward them, Barret shut the opening and isolated her again. She always wondered why they were so afraid of her. It wasn't like she was going to hurt them or anything. Well, now she started thinking about that, too. However, at the beginning, she just wanted to go back home without hurting anyone.

"Open the door… It is easy." The voice said when she looked at the door knob.

"Even if I could, I wouldn't be able to." She replied and took a bite of an older slice of bread. This one was about three days old. She would usually get old leftovers from the orphans in the town, "They keep it locked." She added and took a sip of water. At least the water was fresh, if not the food.

"There are five of us in this body. We could break them down." The voice said after a short while.

"Leave me alone, demon!" She shouted with her mouth full and then she heard Barret talking to someone from behind the door:

"She is talking to them again." She heard, "No, no. She is eating. Yeah… Ok, I will. Bye." He was talking on the phone. Perhaps with Tifa, since she was the only one wondering about her.

"They think you are crazy." Another voice was heard. This one was younger. It was Kadaj, the eldest of the brothers. She disliked him the most, since he was exactly like the main voice – Sephiroth. Kadaj would usually be the one talking about madness, while Sephiroth urged her to break through the door. She could, actually. There were four men united with her muscles… and herself as an addition.

"Yes." Sephiroth added, "Break the door, Aeorynn."

"I am eating. Can't you see I am eating? I am eating!" She kept repeating nervously because she started getting into temptation to break the door, as they were all persuading her to. But, why? The only thing she remembered was that her name was, presumably, Aeorynn and the only thing she could do outside was to look for that stupid Jenova box!"

"You could also throw yourself off the window." Another voice said. It was a calmer, quietest voice of all. That was the other brother – Yazoo. He would usually just recommend suicide. By the advices they were giving her, she would recognize each one of them. There was Sephiroth, who wanted her to break loose; Kadaj, who kept repeating how everyone thought she was a lunatic; Yazoo, who kept urging her to jump off the window or even bite her veins to bleed; and the last one… Loz. He would keep reminding her she was all alone in the world. And that the only ones that really cared about her were they – the four voices.

"Why are you doing this to me?" She asked them when they all shut up.

"Because you like to snoop around too much." Kadaj replied through a loud whisper that sounded more like a long breath then words.

"Northern Crater isn't for little girls to play around." Loz put in and Sephiroth interrupted them loudly:

"Enough!"

Silence… They would always start arguing and that was another thing that irritated her so much – the constant arguing between the brothers. Kadaj was the one that held all the strings in his hand, but Sephiroth was the one that pushed the break. Once Sephiroth hushed them, only mad silence remained.

"You there?" She whispered, after drowning in the stillness and peace. She loved silence, but after a while, it would start driving her crazy. Even talking to the voices calmed her down in such occasions.

"Do you want me to be?" The eldest voice whispered calmly. She sighed in a strange relief, wondering what made Sephiroth's voice so special that it could calm her down. She had nothing to say on his question. When he spoke, she wanted him to shut up. When he was quiet, she wanted to hear him speak… So confusing. The only thing that was good about all that was that neither one of them could read her mind, despite being inside of her head. That was quite strange.

She finished eating. She started scratching the surface of the steel door, calling for Barret to take over the empty plate and empty cup. The plate on the opening slid down a little bit, just enough for him to see if she was close to the door. She started crawling away into that corner again, bearing the pain which kept reminding her that nobody wanted to see her lonely face.

After some time, loneliness starts getting under one's skin… Burning the cells and driving tears to show up. But, her tears had all ready run dry. She had no reason to cry anymore, ever since her memories started fading into darkness… Forever forlorn.

Suddenly, a metal scissor-like device showed up from the opening, seizing the plate and the cup and dragging them out. She still wondered why they were so afraid of her that they had to use strange devises when it came to getting in contact with her.

Not too long afterwards, Tifa's voice reached her from behind the isolated door. Aeorynn couldn't make out the words, since the beautiful girl spoke quietly most of the time. Her voice was so calming and peaceful that it was pure brilliance to listen to her speak.

The door started unlocking and Tifa showed up with towels and a funny metal bottle. It was tiny and Aeorynn knew it contained a cheap shampoo. It was as if she wasn't worth of anything good in life. As though she were a slave of the world… Hated by it, an outcast for no reason.

Tifa was a beautiful girl with dark eyes and long, dark hair. Sometimes, Aeorynn would discern shiny stripes of the light coming from the broken window on her hair. Tifa's face was so clean and meek that sometimes Aeorynn wanted to be like her.

"Is it all ready time?" Aeorynn asked. Her voice was thin and weak, reminding on a voice of a dying patient. Her thin arms started unfolding from the bent knees, as they were wrapped around them. She spread her legs and tried to stand up. It was strange to stand. The ground seemed so far away and she would get dizzy. Her knees hurt from the long-term sitting, but still she gathered enough strength to approach beautiful Tifa. She gazed directly into her eyes and Tifa looked away as if she had witnessed a bright explosion of light. That action squeezed Aeorynn's chest.

"How do you like the feeling of being detested?" Loz asked her. His voice was always followed by an echo, as if he was located in a cave or something like that.

"They don't detest me, Loz." She said as Tifa supported her toward a metal box on wheels. That was the transportation to the neighbor room, in which Tifa washed her.

Aeorynn noticed Tifa's horrified look with the corner of her left eye when she replied to Loz.

"They fear what they don't understand. And what they fear…they detest" Sephiroth explained shortly. This time, Aeorynn said nothing. Sephiroth was the one she trusted for he always used sayings. The longer she thought about them, the more she thought Sephiroth was on her side.

When Barret pulled the cage out of the dark room, Aeorynn caught a glimpse of the long, narrow hall that lead toward stairs made of stone. From there, there was only shadow. That was the way out.

All of a sudden, she was overtaken by a desire of freedom. In that moment, she felt like breaking the bars and running away. She wanted to breathe the polluted air of the Planet once more. She wanted to enjoy the cold rain.

"Break out…" Kadaj said.

"We're with you." Yazoo added

"You have the strength." Loz put in and Sephiroth finished:

"I will lead you. I promise."

Whispers of four voices started bombing her, diving her mad. Sephiroth was the one who spoke the least, but whose voice was the loudest. He was the one with the greatest impact on Aeorynn.

And they kept shouting and whispering, arguing and reconciling… And all that was driving Aeorynn into madness.

Tired of being an arena in which the four spirits fought, listening to their complaints, hearing their scolding… Enough… She couldn't take it anymore.

"Shut up!" She shouted and grabbed herself by the head, covering her ears. Barret lifted his gun-arm and looked at Tifa, who stepped back, "No more!" Aeorynn kept shouting and twisting, as she sat in the narrow cage.

Suddenly, a terrible head ache overcame her and then… as if veins started bursting inside of her head… she closed her eyes and screamed. Tifa was out of herself.

"Bring Vincent and Cloud! Now, girl!" Barret howled and prepared himself for a fight.

Everything went dark in front of her eyes. Curtains down… Nothing made sense, she could hear nothing, she could feel nothing… Just emptiness. As if her heart stopped beating and she died.

When she opened her eyes, everything was blur and bright. She found herself in a bright place covered with white mist that kept rising and sinking again. He was there… The tall man in a dark coat and with a long, straight silver hair. His back was facing her. She looked around in a mean to find a way out. But, the entire place seemed endless. Like a cold dessert, whose ground was just one long, silver plate that reached into eternities.

He started turning around, his head down – covered with the long fringes. She shuddered, as he started approaching her. She stood calmly as Sephiroth kept circling around her, examining every part of her young body.

"Where am I" She asked in a trembling tone and wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep her own body as warm as possible.

"Welcome to my home." Sephiroth said, as he continued circling around her. It felt as if the two of them were still and everything around them rotated.

"Your home? You're dead!"

"I can't be killed that easily. I live in your head. I drink your thoughts, I vanquish your nightmares, I sleep on your dreams, I grow the flowers of your future." At last, he stopped right in front of her. Gray irises of his eye entering her mind, as his narrow pupils moved slowly across the little of her sanity.

"What do you want from me, Sephiroth?" She whispered, feeling the weakness taking over her. Her knees gave in and she stumbled into Sephiroth's arms. His body was warm, even though he was only the embodiment of her madness.

He leaned his lips against her right ear and whispered through a warm storm of his breath:

"I want to release you, Aeorynn." Her heart started beating faster as she listened to him speak softly into her ear.

"Why?" She asked him, straining his neck with her arms that felt so heavy to her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and held her tight, but soft enough for her sensitive body not to be hurt.

"Because you are the only one that can set me free from this torment. I will give you… everything. I will make you stronger than God. I will make you… impenetrable… invincible."

His words were like rose-thorns stabbing into her heart, making it bleed and moisten the roots, out which more thorns grew. She felt changes in her body. It hurt so much, as if someone kept pushing blades into her skin… slowly… painfully. But afterwards, she felt as if each limb had gotten stronger. Her heart kept beating as she whimpered quietly before the one that had started changing her.

"Why me…?" She put in. He reclined his face onto her neck and smelled her skin. It smelled like years of torment washed by tears of a little girl.

"You offered me yourself that night when I felt your tiny body float amidst my thoughts. You were the one that gave me the idea of salvation."

He started rubbing his soft cheek against her neck, as he kept whispering on and on:

"Help me, Aeorynn… Help me…"

Many thoughts plundered her mind. Each one stronger than the other. It was her way out of this torment. And Sephiroth's strong arms holding her close, warming her after so many days of coldness, felt so good… and so wrong.

"I will…" She whispered and with those two words… she sealed her destiny.

He looked into her eyes once again, then he pulled her closer… so close she could feel the smell of power on his skin. Gently, slowly… as if he were handling a fragile sculpture… he touched her lips with his. He kissed her so softly it almost felt unreal – like a dream more than reality. But it was a beautiful dream.

Aeorynn never thought that falling for her greatest fear would bring her such pleasure. It felt so magical that she never wanted to let go of him. Suddenly, while he distracted her with a seductive kiss, he squeezed her tighter. She couldn't breathe. He was blocking her lungs with his tight grip. He didn't stop kissing her.

She started struggling for her life, twisting and turning in his arms as much as she could. And as she moved like that, her arms were getting stronger and stronger. Instead of heaviness and exhaustion, she felt strength and energy. As if her pain was removed by her own force.

All of a sudden, he let go of her and she pushed him away as much as she could … She opened her eyes to find herself in that very same cage of hers.