Twilight Perfection
Chapter 9: All your words, they make no sense. I find bliss in ignorance. The less I hear the less you say, you'll find that out anyway.
It worked. That thought alone made Aeris take a very long and very deep breath. Somehow they had gotten onto this ship and no one had asked them any questions about what they were doing there, they were just another squad of Shinra guards. As soon as they had gotten aboard they had split apart to meet up once the ship was docked in Costa del Sol.
Of course splitting up completely seemed hardly a smart thing to do on a Shinra ship out in the middle of the ocean. Thus Aeris had watched which way Mirri had gone and followed her. Mirri had traversed this way and that across the ship like a cat turning three circles on a pillow before going to sleep.
In the end she headed for a small, secluded, and most importantly, empty cargo hold that they had seen first entering the ship. She closed the door behind her when she went in, and a few moments behind her Aeris opened the door and walked in. What happened next was so fast that Aeris could barely comprehend it.
A gloved hand grabbed Aeris and yanked her into the room, and she saw light flash off of five metallic blades. The only thing between throat and getting it slit five consecutive times was a very thin Shinra uniform. The voice of death rang in Aeris' ears; surprisingly, the Grim Reaper was female. "You have exactly five seconds to live, so I suggest you make good use of them."
The door had already been slammed shut so that no one outside would hear Aeris scream, that was probably the only thing that kept them both alive. "MIRRI IT'S ME!" Very carefully, the left hand removed the helmet while the right one remained at her throat. The helmet bounced across the ground and the left hand lifted up Aeris unresisting chin to look into Death's eyes. When she met them, Death reverted back into Mirri Catwarrior and the bladed glove was withdrawn.
"Aeris, what in the name of whatever you believe in made you want to follow me, into a secluded spot, while you're wearing a Shinra uniform? James must be rubbing off on you." Aeris cringed slightly under Mirri. "Sorry, it's just I've never had any training unlike you or Sephiroth. So I wasn't sure of what I would do if anyone started asking me questions and I didn't have anyone to rely on. I guess I'm not as brave as you are Mirri."
There was an extremely odd pause in the conversation for Mirri to laugh her head off. When she finally finished she flicked her right hand to the side as if tossing aside the comment (but physically firing off the five blades currently in the glove) without a thought. "Bravery has nothing to do with me at all Aeris. Bravery is what happens when men stop thinking and start suppressing a survival mechanism.
Courage is what I have a lot of, and it's what someone uses when they do the right thing because they feel it's the right thing. That and luck, in the end you would be surprised how many things come down to a matter of luck. I'm courageous, yeah, but what really sets me apart is the fact that I'm impetuous and I'm lucky.
There is one solid rule of life Aeris, you never succeed at the things you don't try to do. Now Aeris, you had the impetuosity to follow me in here, whether or not you knew that I would try to kill you, and in the end I didn't. Kill you that is, I did try. But that aside, the important question you need to answer is... what's your goal in life?"
There was a long pause that drifted through the air, Aeris searched her mind, she couldn't think of anything. What did she want out of life... how was she to know? "I'm not sure, I guess..." Mirri cut her off before she could finish her answer. "No one knows Aeris, trust me on that. Your better off if you don't have a goal in life, it limits you. It's not a very important question at all and I knew that before I asked it to you. The important thing is what do you like in life, and what don't you like?"
That one was one she could answer. "I like doing this, it's scary and I'm not very good at it, but its better then just sitting around waiting for what will happen next." Mirri smiled at Aeris again. "Good girl. Nothing in life is as bad as sitting around waiting for something for happen, that's why I joined on. Besides, just because you're not good at this kind of thing yet, doesn't mean you can't get good at it. All you need is a little training, a little practice and some help. I can easily provide you with some basic training if you would like me to."
Aeris nodded, and Mirri cleared her throat before she started speaking with complete confidence. "You already have one advantage going into this whole 'war' thing. Men think god put them on this earth for the sole purpose of sticking pointed objects into each other. However the dirty little secret is that men make worse fighters then women. Before I go into that, though, let me remind you that most of these things don't apply to Sephiroth or any surviving members of his Vanguard. Fortunately, Sephiroth seems to have vested a fair deal of interest in your well being, and he's as far above his Vanguard as they are above normal humans. That said, men have a lot of extra muscle mass to help them lift stuff up, but in reality they're nothing but big targets. Men move slower then women, they swing with less finesse, they get all emotional about fighting, and men find blood a real turn off. I wake up a couple of days every month and find blood on my body, I got used to it along time ago.
This entire world is geared towards making women more effective killers than men. If you can dance, then you can kill, and dancing is a much better way to train for battle then any sport men play. Sports are all about being "tough", and fortitude matters quite a lot. In battle when I decapitate someone how 'tough' they are maters about as much as whether or not they have 'guts' after I open up their chests like a fish." Aeris listened, and learned.
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It was easy for Sephiroth to spot Alex. Not everyone on board the ship had gotten their sea legs, but only one person was holding on to a railing for dear life. Sephiroth came over and glared at him and Alex glared back. "I don't know how you manage to stay upright with only two legs on this confounded vessel."
Sephiroth's glare did not lessen, the boat rocked slightly and Alex held onto the railing, his feet slipping to the side slightly. Sephiroth rode it out perfectly well. "Your ability to maneuver aside, I have something more important to do with you right now I'll make this quick. Red, James. Blue, water. Green, eyes. Silver, hair. Brown, Aeris' hair. White, the streak between the brown in Mirri's hair. Black, the uniform I normally wear. Understand?"
Alex closed his eyes, opened them, looked around looked at Sephiroth again and then slowly nodded. "Yes, I think I am starting t understand these 'colors' now. Now tell me how you ride out this shifting ground with only two limbs to balance on." Another small wave hit the boat and Alex's feet started to resemble someone attempting to keep his legs under him after first stepping on an ice rink.
"Your trying to stay perfectly stationary, and to simply adjust your body. You have to ride it out like any other blow, don't try to fight it, let your legs and feet get used to the rhythm." Alex pulled himself up into a standing position and looked questioningly down on the ground as if still not trusting it, and waited.
He did better the next time the boat rocked, but he was still holding onto the railing. Suddenly, before he got another chance to practice, a piercing alarm siren went off. Sephiroth clasped his hands to his ears for a moment as did Alexander. Through gritted teeth Sephiroth spoke. "I just know Firecat has something to do with this..."
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James had been given very specific instructions about what to do from Sephiroth. Find a place to hide, don't let people see you on your way there, and leave the scythe some place no one would look for it. James had followed those orders.
He figured the last place that anyone would look for someone, and the first place to be in case something went wrong, was a lifeboat. As such after a bit of searching James had found the unguarded lifeboats, tossed his scythe in the front seat, tossed off his Shinra uniform, and made himself as small as possible.
He somehow managed to fit himself completely below the boat so that only if someone would look directly for him would he be seen. He sat there and waited, and waited, and waited.
He kept on waiting doing nothing at all till eternity, and then he heard it. /Come to me...\ It was like Alex's voice, but different, more commanding, like Mirri's voice transmitted the same way Alex's was.
No that wasn't quite right, Mirri's voice had a relaxed and smooth quality to it, this one was sharp and abrupt. James followed it all the same. He got out of the lifeboat, and picked his scythe back up, the engine was only a room away. When he opened the door the guards had already been dealt with. /Yes come to me...\
James stepped carefully over the dead guards, his sneakers leaving a trail of bloody footprints. The door that had been locked and guarded was unlocked and he opened it, stepping in. His eyes where momentarily blinded by an impossibly bright light. He couldn't see, couldn't think, it scorched his corneas to dust.
He shut his eyes but it still wasn't enough, no matter how tightly he squinted, the light came in. /Yes my child, return to me...\ James finally managed to hit on the idea of holding a hand in front of his eyes as well as closing them and that finally managed to hold back the light.
He blinked very fast, drops of water rolling down his cheek. /Yes, witness my glory, the glory that these pathetic humans wish to oppose...\ James diverted a hand from blocking the light to catch the drops of wetness, they where new to him. He searched his mind, Mirri had told him about these things before "tears" they where called. James didn't like them very much.
/What are you waiting for?\ That was odd, all the other times the voice had held an invincible, never ending quality to it, this time it came to a very abrupt and startling halt. It was very unsettling, rather like running along a field that should have gone on forever but suddenly came to a cliff face. After all, that meant that the voice wasn't all knowing, otherwise it wouldn't have to ask him a question if it knew the answer.
"Umm... for someone to tell me what I'm supposed to do?" /FALL ON YOUR KNEES AND WORSHIP ME!\ The voice did not seem happy at all about James' question. Now not only was the voice not omnipotent it was short tempered. It was going farther and farther from godhood. After all, Mirri had never seemed to need to force James to kneel before her.
/What... are... you... WAITING... FOR?\ Now, that was just plain pushy. "I'm thinking, okay?" Some people needed to rethink their values of time. Because time was clearly not a constant the way people seemed to keep thinking about it. What with saying things like "I'm out of time", "I'm late", or the ever famous "Time is up". The problem with the idea of time being a constant was that it so clearly wasn't.
Time flowed around people and things and it was up to the people and things to decide when to grab time. Thus if you needed more time you simply had to tighten your grip on the time you had and pull a little harder, which would instantly give you more time.
Time was extremely malleable, it was simply that some people were so set on focusing on their preconceptions of time that they didn't have any idea about the reality of the thing. If you where so busy being a miser with your time then you never realized how much you had. The better idea was to leave your time open as much as possible and let each day be a challenge with how much stuff you could cram into the "time" you had.
Granted stuff did not necessarily have to be work or actually "doing" something. Stuff could simply be lazing around with a few good friends. That of course was the method James followed, if you let your notions of time control your life they you weren't much better then a machine.
Day in day out, doing the same thing over and over again. It was truly amazing how difficult it could be sometimes to tell the difference between Shinra guards and robotic sentries, after all because of those helmets neither one had a face. Nor did either one have a name when you thought about it, at least a name that you knew of.
Of course James might just be biased in that situation because of the fact that technically, he wasn't human either. Because he wasn't human he didn't have any right to make statements about what it was to be human.
Dimly in the far back of his mind, the part of his brain that was currently in contact with reality James knew that the voice was trying to say something. It sounded rather angry to James, oh and there were some alarm sirens going off. That was most likely because of something that James had done, it always seem to be something James had done.
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Sephiroth felt it like a physical blow to his misdirection. No worse than that, no physical blow could have made him topple to the ground so easily. His mind was filled with screams of bloodlust that had no language, he couldn't think. What could he do against something like this, what could anyone do? What could man do against such reckless hate?
He clutched his skull as he lay on the ground, Alex was standing over him protectively. In wolf form his 'voice' momentarily cut through the chaos long enough for Sephiroth to comprehend it. /Odd... that a warrior like you is felled so quickly while the Ragabash doesn't even seem to have felt anything.\ Through gritted teeth Sephiroth spoke. "Alex... you can't... harm something... that doesn't... exist."
Alex took a moment to understand Sephiroth's words and he took a quick look between Sephiroth and James, and then he nodded. /Ahh... as humans say 'just so' one might as well try to sink teeth into mist.\ Jenova apparently was finally getting around to realizing the same thing Sephiroth had, her mental command was almost frantic. /OBEY ME, CHILD!\
If Sephiroth could have made himself smile through the pain he would have, and it would have been one of the very few times in his life that he ever had. The command had managed to "snap" James back into "reality" as much as he ever had contact with it, however not as Jenova intended it.
James looked Jenova up and down one time, and then holding his scythe in his right hand and made a gesture with his left that Mirri must have taught to him. /What does that paw gesture mean? It is extremely odd, to hold up only one claw.\
A fresh blast of pain spared Sephiroth from having to explain the various vulgarities of human body language. Jenova may not have had any more understanding of the particular gesture than Alex, but the spirit in which it was given was clear enough.
She let out another scream of rage, and ghastly appendages rose into the air, firing blue lasers at James. James wasn't phased for a moment, switching the scythe from his right only to a two handed grip he darted between them, and cut a huge chunk of flesh from Jenova's body. Various limbs thrashed in pain, James dodged back and forth between them, using his scythe to take chunks out of any that came too near.
Alex was apparently caught between aiding James and making sure that no permanent harm befell Sephiroth. James darted between the various tentacles that tried to catch him and dodged the laser beams other ones shot at him, all the while chipping away at Jenova with his scythe. In a rare moment that he looked backwards (just so he could make sure it was safe to jump that way) Sephiroth saw his eyes.
They were not the twin rubies they usually were. They were two flaming spheres of death, "seeing red" was a mild way of putting it. /Fenris in the Fields of Slaughter, what a son of a wolfbitch!\ The pain made it take more time then normal to translate Alex's meaning to understandable terms. That and the additional note that "son of a wolfbitch" was, in Alex's terms most likely a phrase used exclusively for positive connotations.
Sephiroth nodded slowly, this must be how other people felt watching him. There was James and his scythe, no just James and a metallic extension of his arm ending with a blade. Working with the quiet diligence of a machine, pounding a hammer against a mountain until it gave way one rock at a time. Slice, slice, slice, dodge, slice.
James, who couldn't give a proper salute if his soul depended on it. James, who had all the mental maturity of a 10 year old, if that. James, who always had a smile on his face, James who kept that smile while he was mowing down living breathing beings in the Shinra reactor.
The meanings brought on by those thoughts hurt almost as much as the mental blast Jenova was hitting him with. Then Sephiroth noticed that the pain was gone, the only thing left of Jenova was various pieces that had been cut to bits.
James turned around, and the flames in his eyes were dual infernos, and he smiled at all of them. Aeris and Mirri were also there watching, and from their faces, they had seen enough. Aeris was still trying to find words, and more amazingly, so was Mirri.. "Hey, Mirri!" Then turned back to his work, even if his foe was nothing but scraps of flesh now. "It's time to take this garbage, and get rid of it forever!" His eyes closed as he mouthed the silent words to a limit break.
A moment later flames danced around James in an ever expanding circle. Flames that scorched the pieces of Jenova to ash, and Sephiroth knew why. Jenova was like a hydra, if you cut one piece off it would regrow into another smaller version of Jenova. If they hadn't been burnt to ash there just would have been a bunch of smaller Jenovas soon. As ash, nothing would come back, that was the end of that.
That thing was most likely once of one Jenova's arms, well that was some small comfort. Suddenly, James adjusted his hat slightly, revealing his left ear, and the flames finally banished from his eyes. "Oh by the way guys, who's up for getting while the getting is good? I know were the lifeboats are!"
There was a long pause, and Sephiroth nodded quickly. "Yeah we need to get out of here fast. James lead the way, well hit the dock before this ship does and we'll scuttle the lifeboat." James nodded and instantly fell into line.
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The scuttling happened a bit more violently than one would have expected it to. The "Lifeboat" was really more of a motorboat, and had a powerful engine. Sephiroth set the thing up to ram another boat of approximately the same size, and the five had bailed a few moments before the two connected and both were consumed in an explosion.
In the chaos which followed that event it was easy for five people (or even four people and a wolf) to blend in with the crowd that came to see what was happening and be quite forgotten. They checked into the inn, and then the left to do various things, except Sephiroth. He sat on the bed thinking, thinking, thinking.
Himself, James... Hojo, unknown and now dead scientists... mental weakness, none... That was hardly true in retrospect, but there was only one tool that Jenova knew how to use for such a task, a sledgehammer. If you swung it hard enough you could break down any mental wall that was erected or at least impair the person. Trying to use that strategy against James was like trying to smash a rubber ball.
Both the muscle behind it and the hardness of the tool were of no consequence, the rubber would bend and bounce right back. Jenova would never be able to control James, because James would never be controlled.
Quick thoughts of Mirri altered his thoughts off that track, no one could force James into doing something, but a little cajoling, he was quite vulnerable to. But that wasn't the problem, it was the principle. When Hojo had decided on how to make Sephiroth, he had left that weakness in, the ability to be effected by Jenova. Hojo was insane, but he was not stupid enough to do something like that unless he wanted to.
That fact meant that Hojo wanted to create a weapon of death that was not singularly loyal to Shinra, but could be made loyal to Jenova. Which meant that Hojo's loyalties lay with Jenova first and Shinra second. But he had been excluded from the designing of James, who would have been singularly loyal to Shinra.
Which meant that Shinra knew that Hojo was a risk, or at least the former President Shinra had. It didn't mean that Rufus did. Hojo was obviously on Jenova's side, which meant... what? Was that why Jenova had the President killed, so she could have Hojo keep his position of power?
He could only be thankful of one thing, if Shinra had tried to design a weapon of death that couldn't be controlled by Jenova at least they had done it right. No matter how Sephiroth tried he couldn't banish those flaming eyes from his mind, every time he closed his eyes he saw them. Flames hot enough to scorch a planet to ash.
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Mirri had left her jacket back at the hotel. While sun tanning had never particularly tickled her fancy, (Mirri found she frequently got enough sun for a healthy tan just spending her time out in the sun fighting whenever she wasn't in Midgar) there were plenty of other things to do at the beach that she did actually like. One of them was currently grasped in her ungloved hands.
The process of taking them off had of course reminded her why she generally never did take them off. She had to disconnect the almost second skeleton she wore with her gloves that fed blades from her pants and other places into her gloves. The thing was lightweight and flexible as hell, but getting it just so felt like it took an hour. Doing outright stupid things never worked out well for Mirri.
It was probably the trade off she had for her good luck when she did impetuous things, when she did outright stupid things they always turned out badly. Removing the gloves had been a stupid thing, and it had taken a lot of time to do.
Mirri had not however pushed her luck more then that, if she had gone without any weapons she was sure she would have run into a legion of her former comrades on vacation. Thus blades still rested in sheathes under her armpits, strapped to her legs, and two in sheaths in plain sight where her bodysuit met her pants. They wouldn't be much good for fighting with hand to hand as unlike the daggers/knives they resembled they had no hilt to grip.
However, Mirri had grown quite adept at how to grip them correctly so as to throw them from practice. A blade between the eyes would take care of even a first class SOLIDER. Blades weren't what Mirri was thinking about throwing at the moment. "Mirri, are you sure he's safe?"
Mirri turned to Aeris who had taken off her red travel jacket and just kept her pink dress, and laughed. "Aeris, that's like asking if any of us are safe! Like asking if humans are animals or something different, no one knows the answer! You might as well be asking if I'm safe, or if Sephiroth is safe, or if Alex is safe! Aeris, everyone has that thing inside them, it's called the Id. It's the thing that makes us, well us, instead of a composite of the events we've experienced! The only difference is that James had a perfectly developed id and ego, but his superego is the five months old he is. You should spend some time with him, sometimes it seems you have bit too much superego and not enough Id."
Aeris' eyes widened and Mirri smiled at her surprise. "I took a couple classes in psychology while I was in SOLDIER training. Know thy enemy and all that. Anyway, I'm proud to say that I got sort of good at this kind of thing, now watch, in James what we have is an inner child without any outer adult. It's not actually so bad, there are plenty of worse ailments. It's a self curing condition, till then we just live with what we have. By the way, you don't have to worry about saying things when we're all together, none of us bite, not even Alex; I'm getting him muzzled."
Aeris apparently didn't find Mirri's comment as funny as she thought it was, so she just kept going. "Anyways it's important to remember that James is just as much a person as you are. If we alienate and mistreat him he'll grow up with all kinds of problems and turn out just like Sephiroth."
Aeris was caught completely by surprise at the ease with which Mirri tossed out that comment. "Sephiroth was mistreated as a child?" Mirri shrugged, confronted with a subject about which she had no actual knowledge. "Well I never actually got a doctorate in the subject, I'm more of a back street practitioner, still if you spend much time with him, it's sort of easy to spot. He has a classic lost child complex.
In laymen's terms, it's a problem that you generally only see in orphans, but I've never asked Sephiroth about his past. What happens is that the kid in question doesn't have anyone to cling to growing up, so even when he's full grown he'll take just about anyone for an authority figure."
Now Aeris' head really was spinning. "That doesn't sound at all like Sephiroth." "As I said, Sephiroth may have an entire closet full of Freudian problems, but he takes it like a man. By which I mean you would have to hurt him real bad before he admits to feeling it. I spent time with him though, Sephiroth treated president Shinra like a father, and the President treated Sephiroth like something of an estranged son, weird as hell.
Oh yeah, that and something else is weird as hell about him. I'd put money that his childhood was screwed up, but he seems to have dodged the bullet on most of the early-development problems.. My guess would be that he had someone look after him when he was very young, but he lost that person somewhere between the ages of four and eight.
Still, I'm just more or less pulling this stuff together from educated guesses. What I know for a fact is that James will react to people the way he's taught to react to them. If he sees humans as being mean and spiteful towards him because he's different then nothing good can result. However if somebody has the inner strength to say 'who gives a fuck what he looks like' then I think he'll grow up just fine. Let's run a quick test hypothesis. HEY JAMES, FRISBEE!"
James, who had up to this point been sitting by the sand looking out to the ocean, suddenly turned around. He was instantly on his knees and a moment later Mirri released the orange disk gripped in her hand straight towards James. He caught it displaying his perfect hand to eye coordination and then looked at it not quite sure what to do with it next.
"Throw it back!" Armed with Mirri's advice, James instantly did so, slinging it back to Mirri . She calmly tossed the disc back and forth between her hands while taking a few moments to give James some advice. "The game is more fun if you make it more difficult for your partner to catch. Like this."
Mirri threw the Frisbee again, and this time did so with wicked skill. The disc sailed so straight at James that he threw himself to the ground to avoid the possibility of getting a concussion from the impact. "That's one for me, your shot James." James slowly got up from his prone position having used his hands to cover his head (with them located over his ears) and began to inspect the Frisbee. After a moment of careful contemplation he picked it back up as if realizing for the first time that it was a weapon.
He held it on both hands, before realizing that it worked better if he held it with just his left one. Then scratching the right side of his head, with his right hand, he made his battle plans. He threw the Frisbee so that instead of going straight past Mirri it sailed past her on an arc, though she still managed to snatch it out of the air with practiced ease.
"Not bad James you just have to practice a little more with your grip and with thinking deviously, the first one I can do something about." Even as Mirri spoke, she stretched for a moment, placed a foot forward like a pitcher taking the mound, and released the Frisbee. To his credit, despite Mirri's twist on the throw James managed to catch it.
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From there on in it was only a matter of time till what came about came about. James lacked the instinctively deceptive frame of mind that Mirri used to make herself so proficient at the game, but he made up for it with skill and speed. Between the two of them they managed to get an enjoyable game of Frisbee going, and Aeris even took part in it for a while.
It all went down hill in an instant however, Mirri threw another wickedly curving pass to James, who was determined to catch it through any means necessary. He had already proved that his sneakers could give him traction on sand, and for a brief moment it seemed that the cause for this was because he was running so fast his feet never touched the ground.
James leapt with a cry of desperation in a vain attempt to grab the Frisbee that in reflection was not so vain after all. He did manage to catch the Frisbee. However what he failed to do was land on his feet. In fact he failed to do so quite spectacularly.
He put his feet down after catching the Frisbee but somehow stumbled through a group of beautiful women, and landed on the man they where gathered around. Not to mention that his hat came off. So he lay there over the man's chest, and found a pair of blue eyes looking back at him.
The man looked rather familiar to James, but just not familiar enough to place his name. However there was one thing he did know. For the fist time in his life, James was afraid. He usually wore his hat because of the fears of others (such as Sephiroth and Mirri) that had been transferred to him. However, under that man's gaze, James desperately wanted his hat. Forget his hat, James was ready to hide his head in the sand to avoid the man's gaze. "Well, well. Surprising that we should meet here. You're not one of mine, and your almost not one of hers from what I have been told. Now how can that be? Can you even hear her voice calling you to go west?"
James quickly grabbed his hat back from the ground, and slammed it back on his head. Then he turned around and forced a small smile onto his face as he stood up and cast one look back at the man. He paused for a moment, and thought back to what Mirri had told him to do in this kind of situation. "Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm schizophrenic, and so are we." The look on the man's face was well worth documenting as one of James' top million moments in life. It truly was impressive the power of a little wordplay.
End Chapter 9
OWAN: Okay, then. Because I'm trying to garner increased audience participation, I'm opening a vote. Who wants to see James use a Frisbee or other typically innocuous item as a weapon? Anonymous commentators welcome, if we get enough votes, we'll work it in.
On another note, I hope you enjoyed the James/Mirri fluffyness. Although this IS an Aeriseph piece, a guy with Seph's emotional baggage isn't exactly the type to throw himself into a relationship, so any fluff between those two will come a bit later.