Children of Prophecy
Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy 7 or any of its characters.
Ch. 6- Fevered Developments
Sephiroth almost heard Aeris' warning too late. He had been too absorbed in his fight against the black mountain dragon that he didn't became aware of the ground's vibrations until a pebble hit him on the head. Just a second later Aeris' shout was cut short by the cave-in caused by the dragon's flailing limbs in the battle. The only reason why he hadn't been crushed by the falling rocks was because of his highly tuned reflexes developed from a lifetime of fighting. In the spilt second between the pebble hitting his head, Aeris' cut-off warning, and the cave-in, Sephiroth jumped quickly backwards, thrusting Masamune against the floor for added leverage. He didn't get more than six feet back, but that short distance he propelled himself backwards was just enough to barely get him out of the worst danger.
Sephiroth landed hard, but he had no time to reflect on it since, while he did escape being killed by the falling rocks, quite a few of the smaller ones fell on him and he instantly blacked out. He never saw what had had become of Aeris during the cave-in and had no way of knowing that she had been hit by a stray rock. There was no way he could have predicted what was to happen in the near future and what the consequences of this event would have for them.
The sliver haired warrior awoke to a world of pain. There wasn't a part of his body that wasn't in agony. Sephiroth knew that he had barely escaped instant death during the cave-in, what he was left with from his near fatal experience was pain like he had hardly ever felt before. The only other time when he had felt such agony was when he went back for Aeris in the Temple of the Ancients where a piece of the floor had broken and ripped a huge gash in his stomach. The only difference between then and now was that Sephiroth knew that he was in no danger of dying anytime soon due to his injuries.
A slight shift in the pile of rocks that he was half buried under informed him that he wasn't in the clear yet. The possibility of a second, lesser cave-in was very real and if he didn't want to be caught in another one, he had to extract himself from his current predicament. Sephiroth quickly took stock of his position. An arm and both legs were buried in the rubble leaving his head and his other arm free. From what he could tell, he was bleeding in several places and had bruises everywhere else. He would have to be very careful as he moved the rocks on top of his body as the rubble piles of cave-ins and rock slides were notoriously unstable. As he slowly shifted the first rock from his shoulder that was the size of a normal head of cabbage it occurred to Sephiroth that this was a task that the useless Cetra could actually help in.
"Aeris, where are you?" Sephiroth called in a tightly controlled manner. Silence answered him. Either the Cetra was unconscious or she had left him for dead. Either one was likely since she probably didn't see what had happened to him during the cave-in.
Sephiroth grumbled, it looked like he was on his own. It was probably better this way since the girl might have set off another collapse in her clumsy movements. Quit wasting time, he told himself. His first concern was freeing himself, he could check on the herbalist later. By now he had removed enough rocks so that he could see his previously buried shoulder. Just his luck, he had a shallow three inch long gash on it. He wondered what other damage he would discover the cave-in had inflicted on his body. Hopefully nothing too serious to impede his progress, this whole fiasco had cost him enough time as it was.
It seemed to take forever, but eventually he had both arms free which greatly speeded up the removal of the rubble from his person. Once he was able to pull his legs out without causing another collapse, he got up and examined the rubble pile that had blocked the entrance to the cave. The fates seemed to be against him today, not only was the rock pile too big for him to quickly remove, but even if he did try, the cave was so unstable that it would cause another collapse. To put it bluntly, they were trapped.
A low groan informed Sephiroth of Aeris' presence. So she hadn't left him for dead after all. He followed the source of the noise to its source and found the herbalist sprawled on the ground. He swiftly knelt down and felt for her head, he had to make sure that it wasn't cracked open by a stray rock. His fingers encountered sticky, half-dried blood on the back of her head, but judging from the groan she had made earlier, she was coming to.
Her limbs started twitching as Aeris became more aware. Green eyes dulled by pain cracked open, but it was almost impossible to see since there was almost no light in the cave now. Sephiroth even with the superb eyesight that came from being Jenova's son could barely see Aeris through the gloom. If she hadn't groaned he might not have even found her at all. It was pure dumb luck that they had both made it through this relatively unscathed. Now that he had found her, Sephiroth had to next find an alternate exit from this cave, if there even was one.
"Sep...roth, iss hurz, isss zo haa iin her…" Aeris mumbled. He could barely understand what she said, he figured she was trying to say, "Sephiroth, it hurts, it's so hot in here". He frowned, it was not even warm in the cave, if anything it was quite cold. Aeris shouldn't be complaining that it was hot. He put a hand to her forehead. He cursed violently, she had a fever. Just what he needed. Now not only would he have to carry her, but he also had to get out quickly to treat her fever and prevent her from dying.
The swordsman quickly gathered up the delirious girl in his arms and extended his senses to try to feel a fresher source of air. It didn't work, so he set off in a random direction, hoping for the Aeris' sake that he would find an exit. Sephiroth had been walking for a few minutes when Aeris stirred in his arms. He looked down, her eyes were bright with the fever but she seemed semi-lucid. She extended her arm to the left and clearly spoke, "that way" and fell back into her restless sleep.
Sephiroth mentally shrugged, why not go that way? It wasn't like he had any better ideas, maybe the planet was telling her what way was out. All he knew was that it was worth a shot and had as much of a chance of succeeding as any other plan. So he proceeded to set off in the direction the Cetra had indicated without a word.
Hours passed as he traveled deeper into the heart of the mountain. Time had no meaning for him as he strode to what might possibly be a way out. Nothing mattered to him anymore, not his mother, not the Black Matera, not summoning Meteor and wiping out humanity, nothing but to keep moving. After that last time Aeris spoke, she had remained silent. It was definitely a bad sign and Sephiroth found himself slowly starting to worry for the girl as she continued to hang listless in his arms.
The further he went on, the more the air grew musty, and the more restless he grew. He was just about to turn around and head in another direction when Aeris all of a sudden started yelling "Stop! Stop! Don't you know what you're doing!" over and over again. Sephiroth started running, he had to find an exit fast, Aeris probably didn't have much time left. But he wasn't able to get far, the events of the had taken their toll and he tripped over a rock he hadn't seen and was sent tumbling down a long slope holding Aeris to his chest like his life depended on it. When he abruptly stopped Aeris had grown quiet. He pressed the back of his hand on her forehead. Her temperature was still high, but it had dropped slightly. She might just be able to fight the fever off. Aeris' strength of will impressed Sephiroth, since that was the only thing that could be causing the fever to lessen somewhat.
Keep fighting Aeris, Sephiroth thought, you're stronger than it is and I still need you. Together, little Cetra, you and I will destroy the impure and make paradise. It was only after he had spent so much time with her that he had realized just how different Aeris was from the humans. She cared for everything, even her would-be killer. Her knowledge of her craft and how resourceful she had been in using it on him had at first sent him into a murderous rage, but after he had a few days to cool, he was impressed about how dangerous she could be using the contents of those little packets. As he spent more time with the girl he had come to grudgingly respect her perseverance and strength of will, even if it irritated him most of the time. But what really made Aeris different from the abdominal humans was her lack of avarice and her concern for almost anything above herself.
It was amazing that such a creature such as the Cetra hadn't been tainted by the humans. Even more so that she couldn't truly hate them after all that they had done to her. An entity like her was impossible to find in the humans and that was what made her so dangerous, what made her his enemy. But Sephiroth no longer cared about how dangerous she was now, he had realized that she was a being worthy of existing in his utopia after Meteor fell. Right then and there he decided that he would make sure that she survived Meteor's impact and would have a place in his perfect kingdom.
Sephiroth was cut short from his thoughts when he sensed a slight shift in the atmosphere. The air was just as musty, but he smelled water off in the distance of all things, fresh water at that. The air also seemed slightly warmer from where the scent was coming from. Even if it didn't come from outside, the warmer air would be better for her and the prospect of fresh water gave her an even better chance at survival.
It only took about fifteen minutes for Sephiroth to reach the source of the scent of water and when he got there he was pleased to find an underground stream flowing. Kneeling down Sephiroth gently set Aeris by the water's edge and carefully washed her face with his hands since he had nothing else to use. After checking her temperature, he was pleased to find that it hadn't risen again, Sephiroth cupped his hands together and drank his fill from the stream. The water tasted as fresh as newly fallen rain without any hints of salts or sulfur in it. Water that fresh couldn't have come from a thermal hot spring and it didn't smell like it had come form a normal underground spring either. It smelled like a clean river open to the outside air. It was a long shot, but perhaps if he followed it upstream, he would find where the stream fed into the cave.
"Gaia, why?" Aeris mumbled in her fevered sleep.
Sephiroth quickly turned his attention to the sick healer again. He was worried, if she was talking again, it meant that her condition was changing, but whether it was a positive change or not wasn't certain. She could be sinking back into her fevered dreams or she could be regaining consciousness. Sephiroth hoped it was the latter, because if it was the former it meant that her fever was getting worse.
When Sephiroth heard no more from the girl, he picked her up again and proceeded to follow the stream uphill. The going was rough, rocks and uneven footing often made him stumble. Since it was so dark that even he was having real trouble seeing, there were several moments where he almost crashed into stalagmites and stalactites. But he was never deterred and kept on doggedly moving ahead. Once in a while he stopped to check on Aeris, on several occasions dribbling water into her mouth to keep her from getting dehydrated. During the whole time she never stirred and Sephiroth noted that her temperature was slowly decreasing. After a while her temperature stabilized to being slightly above normal and Sephiroth figured that she had fallen into a natural sleep.
Again it seemed like time had no meaning to the silent pair. Sephiroth kept on marching uphill while Aeris slept peacefully. Without intending to Sephiroth fell into an alternating rhythm of walking and then stopping and checking on Aeris while making sure that they both got water at the same time. When her fever totally disappeared, Sephiroth felt all the tension that had been building up in him vanish, leaving him feeling much lighter and more limber than he had felt when her condition had been worse. Moving much easier, the peaceful atmosphere that had been growing ever since she slipped into a normal sleep shattered when Sephiroth stepped onto some loose rubble, slipped, and fell hard on his back.
The impact had caused him to lose his hold on Aeris and she was roughly jostled out of his arms. She hit the ground a foot away and rolled for a few more feet. A soft "oomph" signaled her landing and abrupt awakening. Sephiroth cursed and quickly got to his feet again despite his banged up and bruised back.
"Ouch! What did you do that for Sephiroth!" Aeris yelled clearly but weakly, her voice no longer garbled by the fever.
She was obviously aware and coherent as she started ranting at Sephiroth for being a violent brute without any manners or grace. Her tirade only lasted a few minutes since she was still very weak from fighting off and recovering from the fever, after which she fell into silence as Sephiroth approached her.
"Good, now that you're awake, you can get your own water. I'm tired of having to carry you," Sephiroth said.
Aeris's face scrunched up indignantly.
"I'm not an invalid you know!" She yelled back.
"Sure seemed like that to me for the last fifteen hours that I had to carry you through this dank and miserable cave," Sephiroth retorted.
"Why would you do that?" Aeris asked bewildered. Why would he inconvenience himself so much when it would have been faster for him to go alone she wondered.
"Can you walk?" Sephiroth asked, changing the subject.
Aeris tried in vain to get to her feet, she collapsed after she had struggled to her hands and knees. Sephiroth sighed, everything with this girl never was simple. Either Aeris herself made things complicated or she attracted things that made it difficult for the silver-haired swordsman. And to think that he actually had the patience to put up with her. If it were anyone else, they would have felt Masamune's blade much earlier. The only reason why he hadn't poked her with his sword in the first few days he was with her was because of Jenova's nagging and the fact that he did need her despite his vehement wishes otherwise. Yet still he had grown to admire her creativity in tight places and her unshakable resolve. While he would never understand the peculiar Cetra, Sephiroth knew now that she was as different from the humans as fire was from water, absolute opposites.
Sephiroth knelt down and slung Aeris's arm over his shoulder, letting her lean on him. When they reached the stream, Aeris limply slid out of his grip and gently settled on the cavern's floor. She greedily scooped up water and noisily slurped it up out of her hands to quench her fierce thirst, not caring at all about modesty. Aeris had only drunk a couple handfuls of water when Sephiroth reached down and stopped her.
"Slow down Cetra, or you will make yourself sick. That really wouldn't be a good idea especially after you just recovered from your fever," Sephiroth warned her.
Aeris smiled at him and went back to drinking from the stream with a bit less urgency. She seemed to actually be enjoying the taste of the water since she was taking her time with each mouthful, relishing its clean and refreshing flavor. Only after she had drunk her fill did she turn back to Sephiroth.
"I had a fever?" she softly queried.
"When I regained consciousness I heard you moaning off somewhere in the dark. You had a high temperature when I finally found you," Sephiroth responded just as quietly.
"How bad was I?" Aeris asked, interrupting his explanation.
"Somehow you had developed a high fever between the time the cave ceiling collapsed and the time I woke up. You came close to dying while I was looking for a way out," Sephiroth continued.
"You carried me for all this time?" Aeris asked incredulously.
"There wasn't any other way to transport you around," Sephiroth answered with a note of sarcasm.
"You sound like you were worried about me. Thank you," Aeris said ignoring his tone.
Sephiroth fell into a contemplative silence after she spoke those words. Her feelings about him had definitely changed from what it was when he first confronted her on the Ancient Isle. The thing was that Sephiroth wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. Sure her having a better opinion of him would make her more cooperative, but he wasn't certain if he wanted to have to deal with her getting too close for his tastes. Right now the last thing that he needed was an emotionally unstable woman with him.
But on further reflection of Aeris's reactions in the past, Sephiroth concluded that Aeris was anything but unstable. She had recovered remarkably after her encounter with that scum who tried to rape her. Either she was the most stable person on this wretched planet or she was a very good actor with deep rooted mental problems. He highly suspected that the former was the case. The way she had gotten away from him in the first place could only be the product of a desperate but sane mind.
"Penny for your thoughts," said Aeris, interrupting Sephiroth's contemplative mood.
"That's none of your business," Sephiroth replied trying to put some distance between himself and Aeris.
Aeris wasn't phased by his coldness at all. Instead of trying to further any conversation with him, she just started humming while she was washing off as much of the grit on her body that she could under the circumstances. Several minutes passed while she meticulously cleaned as much of her face, neck, hair, and arms as she could. Sephiroth tried not to get irritated by her actions. It wasn't like she was deliberately ignoring him while she was cleaning herself, but her lack of attention to the situation at hand was rather irksome to Sephiroth.
"If you're quite done grooming yourself it would be wise to start thinking about how we will get out of this dank hole," Sephiroth wryly remarked.
Aeris blushed, but Sephiroth had a hard time seeing it in the almost pitch blackness of the huge cavern. She spent a few minutes fidigiting after his comment obviously offset about her short-sidedness. Despite their predicament, Sephiroth smirked. Aeris might know how to survive out in the wild and how to interact in human society, but she was also foolishly naive at times. But even I was like that as a young child, Sephiroth mused, the same could be said about Aeris, that she has a child's naiveté. She just hasn't grown out of her childhood yet.
"Who's the one spacing out now?" Aeris joked.
Sephiroth's eyebrow twitched, the only sign that she had gotten to him. Instead of replying to her, he simply went over and got Aeris to her feet. He started walking but was brought up short by Aeris collapsing after only taking her first step without his support. Sephiroth sighed, she was too weak to walk. He would have to carry her again.
Aeris let out a startled squeak when Sephiroth picked her up and settled her in his arms without warning. As she settled against his chest she couldn't help but admire how well toned it was. Her face turned pink at the thought. She wondered, why is he being so kind to me?, but she never voiced her thoughts.
"Which way Aeris?" Sephiroth asked. When she didn't reply he asked in a louder voice, "Earlier the planet told you which way to go when you were feverish, can you not ask it the way out again?"
Caught off guard, Aeris's blush only deepened. He noted that she had been doing that a lot in the past half hour. Whatever the reason for such reactions on her behalf, it wasn't his concern. Females in general, no matter what species, were baffling to Sephiroth; Aeris and his mother being prime examples but for different reasons. Aeris and Jenova were about as different from each other as cats were from dogs. One was kind and easy to get into a good mood, the other was controlling, critical and involved herself in his every thought. Speaking of which, Sephiroth had noticed a distinct lack of his Mother's voice in his head for the last few days. Perhaps the distance between them was getting too far for their mental link, although that had never been a problem with them in the past.
"Um…, Sephiroth. How did you know which way the planet indicated to go in?" Aeris asked confused.
Sephiroth looked sharply at her. He hadn't realized it, but after he had picked her up again, he had started traveling uphill alongside the stream again. Why had he started traveling upstream again? If he didn't know any better he could have sworn that he had felt the same presence guiding him now as he had felt had been guiding them towards the central mountain range in the first place.
"What do you mean Aeris?" Sephiroth demanded.
"From the start of that day when you prevented me from taking a nose dive over the cliff in the foothills I've felt a subtle presence guiding my steps. It only just occurred to me why I followed it so unquestionably, because it felt familiar and subconsciously I trusted it," Aeris explained.
Please don't tell me that she thinks that her "planet" has been this presence she felt her guiding her Sephiroth exasperatedly thought.
"Funny, I should have recognized the planet's presence from the start. I don't know how I didn't," Aeris continued, Sephiroth inwardly groaned, "perhaps it was deliberately hiding its aura from me, but I wouldn't know why it would do so."
"So what you're saying Cetra is that this blasted planet of yours has been 'escorting' us for the past few days?" Sephiroth interrupted her.
"Don't speak so badly of the planet!" Aeris retorted, flaring up.
"Just answer the question Cetra! What has this planet of yours ever done for me? Answer, nothing! It seems like your precious planet only cares about you and the blasted humans." Sephiroth replied just as heatedly.
"The planet cares for everything that lives on it, not just me and the humans. Even as we speak it is lamenting for you about this self-destructive path you are going down! And yes it is the one who has been guiding us in this direction. For what purpose I don't know, nor do I know to where it is guiding us. By the way you describe it you can feel it too! So stop giving me this crap about you not caring," Aeris started ranting.
"Why should I give a damn about your precious planet? It's the one that spawned the filthy humans that have made both of our lives miserable! How can you forgive them so easily?" Sephiroth shot back.
"I can because I am mature enough to realize that holding grudges is childish and only hinders one's development. Unlike you who holds a grudge against the whole human race," Aeris a replied in a tightly controlled manner.
"You're the one who's the child! You can't even take care of yourself without someone to hold your hand. If it weren't for me-" Sephiroth shouted, but Aeris cut him off.
"You might think that I act like a child but take a good look at yourself. At least I'm able to express my emotions openly. You just hide and suppress them, keeping them bottled up until you explode. And when that happens, someone usually ends up dead! Now tell me how healthy is that!" Aeris practically screamed.
Sephiroth was beyond angry. If it weren't for the fact that he was carrying her he would have slapped her. The impedance of that girl to call him childish and petty! He would have dropped and left her there if she wasn't so weak and that he still needed her to help summon Meteor with him. The time they had spent together had taught her nothing about how she should behave around him. She hadn't changed in the least bit. As it was he felt like he really should teach her a lesson in manners and respect for her superiors.
Then it hit him like a bolt of lightning. If she really could hear the planet, she must have some mental powers as well. That means that while he couldn't physically harm her, he could deliver her a through mental beating in much of the same way Jenova had delivered onto him on occasion. Sephiroth was just preparing to lash out at her with his mind when he felt overwhelmed by such a powerful force that just the act of contacting him with its full attention sent him into peals of agony.
For what seemed like hours, but was only a few seconds the powerful entity that had invaded his mind ruthlessly sifted through his mind, exposing everything to its scrutiny. After the short mental inspection of his mind that seemed to last for a horrendously long amount of time, the pressure on his mind abated and he belatedly realized that it had shifted part of its focus on another source. He tried sensing what had distracted the entity's attention but was strongly rebuffed when he sent out a small probe to identify what it was.
"Yes, yes. Alright! I'll calm down. You didn't have to shout at me!" Sephiroth heard Aeris speak.
"Do I have to?...Alright already! Just stop doing that. You're right, I over reacted and things got out of hand. But he was at fault too you know," Aeris spoke a bit louder to what seemed to Sephiroth was thin air.
"Fine, fine! You don't have to scold me like I'm a child, he was acting more immature than I was anyway. But I'll be the better person and apologize. There happy?" Aeris exclaimed sounding exasperated.
During her conversation with what Sephiroth had assumed was the planet by the way she was talking, Sephiroth had felt the presence that had invaded his mind slowly withdraw all the time exuding a calming and soothing aura. Before it entirely left his mind it sent him a clear warning not to try such a thing again or there would be dire consequences for him. He was not under any circumstances to try to harm her again in any way or he would feel the wrath of the mysterious entity.
A soft thump made him aware of the physical world around him again. While the unknown presence had attacked his mind he had kept a grip of steel on Aeris in his arms but as it left his mind his whole body turned limp as it left its soothing balm on his mind. As his body had slowly relaxed, Sephiroth's arms had started lowering and his legs had given out from under him, causing Aeris to slowly slip out of his grip and him to sink to his knees. The soft thump signaled Aeris finally falling out of his arms and hitting the ground, but she never noticed that she had ever fallen out of his arms since she was paying too much attention to her conservation with the planet.
His attention shifted back to Aeris when she sighed tiredly. He watched her for a few minutes while she collected herself and waited for her response. Aeris sighed again and shifted so that she was directly facing Sephiroth. Her weary green eyes slowly rose up to his own. Silence filled the cavern as she spent a moment gazing into his slightly glowing green-blue eyes as if she was trying to gaze into his soul. Finally she spoke, her words slowly rolling off her tongue, all signs of her earlier aggression gone.
"Sephiroth I formally ask your forgiveness for our earlier dispute. Both of us were over stressed by the situation and it was obvious that neither of us were clearly thinking when we both said those cruel and hurtful words. I acknowledge my own lack of self-control as a contributing factor in the cause of the confrontation, and I truly hope that nothing I said caused you any grief. I only ask that you like wise accept your part in the argument and that we can both put this event behind us," Aeris sincerely said.
Sephiroth was speechless, he had never thought that Aeris would ever swallow her pride and admit that she was wrong. He himself had never admitted any fault and he belatedly realize that if he ever did, now would be the best time to do so to put their relationship back on even ground. He too sighed, this would be the first, and most likely last, time he would ever do such a thing.
"I…I'm sorry for lashing out at you without thinking," Sephiroth forced out, "Anger was clouding my judgment, this argument should have happened and it wouldn't if I had kept a better reign on my emotions. I admit my fault."
It hurt more than he had thought to admit that he was wrong. But for once he was forced to concede that the best thing to do under the circumstances was to apologize. He couldn't afford to alienate Aeris, not if he wanted to be able to complete his plan. Plus if he got on her bad side, she would be insufferable for the rest of the duration of the time which he would have to stay with her. There was even a small part of him that was beginning to appreciate how good it felt to keep Aeris happy. In a small way, it made him content.
Now it was Aeris' turn to be speechless. She hadn't expected him to actually give her an apology, much less one that he meant. How she knew that she didn't know, she just did. He had changed so much since the Ancient Isle yet she hadn't even noticed any difference in his behavior until right now. It was startling how much he had progressed, had become more sociable (with her at least), since the start of their travels. Even though his progress thrilled her, there was a faint sense of foreboding that she couldn't explain.
Sephiroth also had noticed a difference in his demeanor. He was actually making allowances for her weaknesses and was trying to avoid aggravating her. Five years ago he never would have done such things for anyone, he still wouldn't ever treat any of the humans with such kindness as he showed Aeris. Such disgraceful and treacherous beings didn't deserve mercy and he had no intention of showing them any, no matter what Aeris thought. He had earlier vowed to spare Aeris from the human's obliteration and now he decided to treat her as she deserved to be, with respect and patience. He should have treated her so much earlier he realized. He hadn't before, but he would now.
The fact that Aeris's opinion of him had improved also helped Sephiroth make his decision. He was a firm believer of treating others as they treated him. When Aeris wasn't fond of him, he wasn't fond of her at all, he absolutely loathed her in fact. Now she treated him with more respect and civility he would do likewise for her. But there was one thing that would never change about him, the way he deals with the humans. He would die before he showed any human mercy or kindness, they never showed him any.
A drop of water hit Sephiroth on his nose, reminding him that they really didn't have time to be dawdling around examining their psyches in this damp hole in the mountain. He was about to pick Aeris when he suddenly thought that she might want a warning before they started off again.
"We're moving on, do anything you need to do now before we go," Sephiroth told Aeris.
He walked a few meters away from Aeris to give her some privacy. She had been unconscious for the better part of twenty-four hours and probably needed to relieve herself. He heard her shuffling around a bit then she called out to him telling him that she was ready. Sephiroth walked back over to her and extended a hand to help her up. With his help she shakily got to her feet. She was able to walk on her own now, but she was so slow Sephiroth picked her up again to speed things up.
Aeris shot him an indignant glare when she suddenly was deposited in his arms again. Sephiroth suppressed a chuckle at her mild irritation. They still had a long way to go to get out.
Sephiroth tried in vain to hide his annoyance. It had taken another two hours, but they had finally reached the source where the stream fed into the cave system. They had found a way out of the cave, but it was too small for even the petite Aeris to fit through plus it was underwater to boot. Aeris was just staring dumbly at the underwater tunnel. She couldn't believe that this was where the planet was leading her too. It was less than a foot wide and about twenty feet long with sunlight filtering through the water at the end. There was no way that they could get out of the cave through that. Sure, Sephiroth could probably hack through it if he really tried, but that was at least twenty feet of solid granite and the possibility of another cave in was always there. While she could ask favors of the planet, it couldn't precisely control the reactions of any actions it made to alter its geography to better accommodate her. She didn't even dare to ask it help in this situation.
Sephiroth for once in his life felt powerless to do anything about a problem he faced. He had already deduced the problems that Aeris had identified could occur if he tried to force the opening wider. Furthermore his encounter with the massive consciousness that had invaded his mind had sapped his powers that he got from being the son of Jenova to less than half of their usual strength. He wasn't even sure if he could even do anything to open the underwater passage wider. He idly noted that Aeris had been keenly studying the opening for the last minute, frowning. He wondered what she was observing about the waterway. Then suddenly he noticed something odd about the water that he hadn't before. There were faint traces of a green tint in it that he hadn't seen before because it was too dark to see before.
"Th..this can't be…" Aeris stammered, "and yet somehow it is. But how?"
"How what, Aeris? Please enlighten me on what you know that I don't," Sephiroth calmly asked remembering how the previous argument had started.
"This water carries traces of the lifestream in it. I didn't think that it was possible for it to exist in any medium except itself. When separated from the major flow of the lifestream, any portion of it dries up and in a sense dies since it is alive. This stream must hook up to the main flow of the lifestream further downstream," Aeris distractedly explained.
"That's fascinating, but how will that help us?" Sephiroth inquired.
"I have no idea, the planet must have had some purpose in leading us here…," Aeris trailed off.
Suddenly both of them sensed a massive shift in the natural flow of energies around them. An odd sound reached their ears. It was like a low churning that sounded faintly like music. At the same time Sephiroth found where the sound was coming from and evidently where the energy flow was shifting Aeris gasped.
Right before their eyes the faint traces of the lifestream flowing in through the hole on the outside were moving into the mountain's bedrock while it was slowly taking on the consistency of wet clay. Then much to their amazement the underwater tunnel first became perfectly smooth, and then it even more slowly the edges of the tunnel pulled back at an even rate all throughout the tunnel's area. When it stopped, the tunnel was as smooth as a river rock and was five feet wide in diameter. With what seemed like an exhausted shudder the energy flow returned to normal and reality set back in. Overall the whole process took between twenty to thirty minutes, the whole time Sephiroth and Aeris watched silently and awestruck.
"Oh planet, thank you!" Aeris softly but full-heartedly exclaimed.
"I thought that you said that the planet couldn't control its geological shifts very well," Sephiroth commented, still recovering from the seemingly impossible feat that he had just saw.
"It must have been the direct contact the diluted flow of the lifestream in the stream over the ages soaking into the channel that allowed it to happen," Aeris reasoned.
Now that he thought about it, the traces of pure, natural lifestream in the stream explained many of the coincidences that had happened after he found the stream in the first place. Aeris had been recovering remarkably fast from that terrible fever she had developed after the cave in. Surviving the fever Sephiroth attributed to her incredible strength of will and her own remarkable healing powers which she must have been subconsciously using the whole time to fight it off. But how quickly she recovered consciousness and awareness seemed a bit too unbelievable. The water of the stream must have also had healing properties due to the traces of the lifestream in it. It must have also sustained him as he trekked along, he certainly was feeling the effects of traveling for so long without food or water with many injuries before he first reached it. He was sure that if he hadn't been drinking from the stream periodically he probably would have collapsed from exhaustion hours ago.
After the planet had apparently altered the tunnel in the rock that the stream flowed through, the stream was only about two feet deep as it ran through it downhill into the depths of the cave. The tunnel was now ovalish in shape, five feet across and three feet high when going through the center. While Sephiroth was studying the tunnel and pondering the properties of the lifestream in the brook, Aeris had got onto her hands and knees and had started crawling into the tunnel. Sephiroth noticed this and reached out to haul her back, but she was too far up the tunnel for him to get her.
If there was one thing that Aeris was not, it was un-initiative. She always seemed to be doing her own thing, acting on her own observations. She certainly wasn't afraid to do her own thing. Five years of living on her own in the wilderness had made her very independent and had self-sufficient. But her independence in itself had proved to be a major problem for Sephiroth in the recent past. Her ingenuity and resourcefulness was what had allowed her to get away from him back when they first came to Werely continent.
Even though she had acted without his approval, Sephiroth found himself following her lead into the tunnel. He had to make sure that she kept her head above water while she was moving through the channel, she was still weak and recovering from the fever. The passageway itself was smooth, almost too smooth to be able to crawl up it. Several times Aeris lost her grip on the slick stone and crashed into him. The only reason that they both didn't slide back down into the cave was because Sephiroth had braced his arms and legs against the tunnel walls just a second before her backside impacted on his chest. Each time that happened, Sephiroth slid back a few feet setting their progress back a few minutes. There were also times when Sephiroth found his grip on the rock slipping too but he never fell back due mostly to the grip his combat boots had on the rock. In all it took them the greater part of an hour to transverse the twenty three foot long partially submerged tunnel, fighting the stream's current the whole time.
Finally after a long process of slowly climbing up the slick tunnel with all the slips and setbacks involved, an exhausted Aeris emerged into the golden sunlight of late afternoon and practically collapsed in the middle of the stream. She was barely able to force herself out of the stream, onto the streambank and then collapsed. Sephiroth came out of the tunnel not a minute after. He was soaking wet and his limbs were trembling from the pressure he had put on them when working his way up the tunnel. Even though the air was warm, Sephiroth shivered.
Now that they had finally gotten out of the cave, the most important thing was to get warm and dry off. In her weakened state Aeris could easily catch a chill or have a relapse of her fever. But first he had to get them out of the stream. Aeris had hauled her halfway out of the running water and Sephiroth was still fully in it. He forced his protesting limbs to get up, gather Aeris up in his arms once again and stagger a few feet away from the stream before collapsing at the base of a tall, lush tree with huge green leaves.
Sephiroth spent the next few minutes panting and catching his breath. He had obviously over exerted himself during the whole journey through and out of the cave. He had hardly ever worn himself out this much. The most recent situation he could think of had been when he had decided to rescue Aeris from the collapsing Temple of the Ancients and had got his stomach ripped open where she had saved him from certain death at her own expense. Though worn out, he still could move about a bit and he needed to get up and make a fire to dry them off.
Groaning, Sephiroth rolled Aeris off his chest and gently onto the ground and slowly got to his feet. He staggered around collecting fire wood and then arranged it into a pile to light it. He wasn't looking forward to having to start the fire since it took a lot of work and he was already at his limit. Sephiroth had just picked up two dry but sturdy sticks to start rubbing together when Aeris laid her hand on his arm. He looked in askance at her, but she only smiled.
Aeris held her hand over the pile of wood and a look of intense concentration spread over her face. The air around her fingertips started shimmering and he could almost feel the heat that was gathering in them. Sephiroth had no idea that Aeris could do anything like it. Sweat was beading on her brow when she touched her finger tips to the wood and immediately small flames formed at the points of contact on the wood. Sephiroth yanked her hand away from the rapidly growing fire after she had started it to prevent her from getting burns. When he looked back over at her, she was out cold. Apparently she had used too energy in that move to stay conscious.
Sephiroth place his hand on her head, her temperature was normal. Just to be safe, he moved Aeris closer to the fire and exhaustion soon over took him as well.
Here's an extra long chapter for all you readers. Hope it makes up for the long wait. Seems like I'm not as fast at updating as I originally held myself too. But as a result my chapters tend to be long. This chapter didn't have all that much plot development, more character interaction instead. But I felt that it was needed. To those of you who noticed, this chapter was in mostly Sephiroth's POV, writing it like that was more challenging than I thought. No idea when the next update will be. Might get out another chapter before college restarts again in mid January. And now to my reviewers:
To Noacat: cliffies are just a fun part of reading and writing fan fics. It helps keep readers coming back I believe, but they shouldn't be used too often. Looks like it is working.
To Brdm18: you're a dork and a smartass. So shut up and enjoy the fan fic runt-runt.
To dragonfly63126: glad that you liked it. Keep reading and I look forward to more of your reviews.
To The Hot Mage Aeris: such a high compliment from the inventor of the totally random and awesome Aeris/Sephiroth fic. Looking forward to that sequel and leave me a review or two.
Reviews, like tips, are greatly appreciated but not mandatory. But without them both writers and waiters find life a lot harder to survive in.