2: Déjà vu, Motion Two

-----

I stepped out of the store and ran towards the edge of town, to the skinny gray wrought-iron arch overlooked by the two-story inn. As soon as I reached that, as it stood flanked by such inviting picket fences, I'd be as good as home free. Out of the frying pan and back into the kitchen.

I guessed I expected too much.

A hand came out of nowhere and took hold of my shoulder. I jumped in shock, my bag slipping from my arms and clattering in a heap at my feet. But I wasn't about to pick it up, not at all. Instead, I stood frozen in place, hoping against hope that it wasn't another one of them that accosted me.

"Excuse me," said a low, deep voice.

I flinched. I came very close to spinning around and expecting to see Sephiroth, but I knew his voice. It was softer than the one speaking to me now, and I dared think more polite from those two simple words. What could I do? Just what could I do now? I shifted one foot forward, but other than that attempted nothing. I wasn't sure enough of myself.

"Did you hear what I said?" asked the mystery man.

"I-I don't want any trouble," I blurted out.

"Neither do I."

"So..."

"I know who you are," he murmured.

"I-I just, wanna go home, now…"

"Calm down, Drana. I won't hurt you," the man said despairingly.

I was thoroughly confused.

"Vincent Valentine. Tifa passed a word to me that you were in town. So I thought I'd see you before you left."

A pretty quick word, I thought bittersweetly, turning slowly to face the man. Out of all their faces, his was the second I recognized most, the first being Cloud's, if only because of his eyes. That stony, unmistakable light, like Sephiroth's.

There was a new characteristic air about Vincent, in his voice, his posture, his looks. He still favored red and black when it came to clothes, but this time, he appeared genuinely trim, styled in something a bit modern compared to those old, well-kept rags. The cape in general was still present and accounted for, but this one went around his shoulders instead of over and was a darker red than anything else. His hands were gloved, with one of the gloves running up nearly the entire length of his left arm. I could have assumed it was still healing, or didn't heal the way he wanted it to, so he kept it hidden; the reason might have been a dozen different things. But the gunman didn't seem self-conscious about it. My eyes also spied that his boots weren't as flamboyant anymore with the long gold toes removed. They were stern, they were angular, they were buckled and banded. Lastly, he didn't wear a red band around his head anymore, so his thick, black hair fell very loosely over his shoulders.

An eerie ghost of a smile hung on his face— Sephiroth's sort of smile.

"Oh…"

"Can I see your face?" he asked.

"I-I can't," I told him. "You know how it goes, how it…"

"I won't tell."

I blinked up at him vacantly. At this point, all he could have seen of my face was my mouth. Vincent's lips parted oddly, to which I retreated back into the shade of my hood.

"Fine. I just wanted to say hello." His fingers interlocked for a second. "Some of us will be in town for a while. We're fixing up Shinra Mansion as a WRO outpost."

"… th-that's nice," I said offhandedly. "I-I have to go now. It was nice meeting you and… Tifa. Goodbye."

As I ran off, I realized that my behavior was out of line. Stupidly. I didn't want to be scared of any and everyone I met, always living in fear of whomever schemed to do away with me in the worst way possible. Of course, there was only one person to thank for my paranoid actions. Sephiroth. Such fear had never lived in me before, but now…

An imaginary vein popped in my temple.

---

I made it home later than expected, due to the run-ins I had leaving me frazzled to some extent. I saw a little luck shine my way, as Sephiroth hadn't been waiting for me when I dashed inside. I stripped off my cloak, leapt out of my shoes and ran into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind me. I gazed deeply into the mirror, at my own image standing there gazing right back. I smoothed the top of my hair down and put a finger to each of my eyes, first blue then green, left to right.

"Hmm…" I sighed. "How could you act like that in front of those guys? You used to be only interested in people... not scared of them. So what's wrong now? It has to be Sephiroth. Always telling you that people mean harm. Not everybody can be that bad. Not everybody is that bad...

"Well, time to get yourself back in gear. You don't have to be afraid. Sephiroth's just paranoid." I looked into the bag still dangling from my arm. I reached in for the wind chime and examined it. None of the wires had gotten tangled up in themselves, or snapped. Everything was fine, everything was in order. I sighed again, slapping a palm to my forehead. Getting stressed out wasn't a forte of mine. The word and all its tenses barely even graced my vocabulary.

I exited the bathroom, headed for the front door. I minced onto the porch, noting the sun was nowhere near setting yet; so, I'd have a few more hours to myself before Sephiroth returned from his frequent all-day ventures to who knew where. I inhaled deeply and then spun around, peeping up, down, left, right for a place to set my new wind chime.

"Hmm... I guess it's time for an arm and hammer," I said to myself, going back inside.

I glided into the kitchen, hung an immediate right and darted into the pantry. I kept all of what little tools we had here. Sephiroth didn't use them very often compared to the ones for maintaining his sword, except when I pestered him enough to do something around the house that didn't involve dragging me across the floor. I crouched down and rifled under the shelves for the toolbox.

Finally, I returned to the porch with a long nail and hammer, rose on my tiptoes to the porch's left post and drove the nail home. It only took two heavy taps to make sure it was secure. Finally, I slipped the chime onto the nail and bounced off the porch to take a clearer look at my work. I nodded.

"Not bad," I muttered.

With that done, it was time for a bit of garden work.

---

"Drana."

It was almost midnight when Sephiroth arrived. I'd been sitting on the porch drinking a glass of water, watching the black sky, most of all its stars twinkle in and out of nothing. He moved to sit next to me, sliding his sword between his knees as he did so. I let my head roll onto my left shoulder, whereas I flashed him a tiny smile.

"You're early, Mr. Explorer," I piped.

"Were you expecting me?" he asked. I shook my head.

"Just noting it out loud…"

"I have plans. Come with me?"

"Oh, you're asking rather than commanding me now?" I smirked. Sephiroth stared darkly at me, and then shrugged in the way only he could, thoughtless.

"If you want to be like that, fine," he said dismissively.

"Okay," I sighed and frowned, defeated. "Okay, what do you want to do?"

"Nothing more than a walk. To the beach, on the beach. I thought you would have liked that, but it seems you're sour tonight."

I catapulted to my feet and swiveled on a heel towards him. "Thinking ofwhat I'd like for once? Heh, well what are we waiting for?"

---

The beach was little more than a half hour's walk from our house. Of course, there wasn't any delay in our departure. After the ordeal in town, I needed something like a simple walk on the beach to calm me down. Tending to my flowers had only half accomplished the task. Now I needed more. And Sephiroth provided just the opportunity.

I strolled ahead of the man, sometimes skipping, other times stopping to dig my toes into the grass for no reason other than to feel its damp coolness. He lingered silently behind me. I would have liked to break that silence, but ever since my status changed from hostage to mediocre companion, he became significantly less talkative and preferred it that way. Except, of course, when he wanted to warn me off from other people.

In the dead of night, there wasn't much to see of the beach, not to mention it was a moonless night. So, from his hands, Sephiroth warmed up a tiny ball of light to illuminate our walk. He held it out at arm's length, lifting it over me, around me, and down over the sand we treaded upon. A guiding light threaded on a piece of invisible string; it was amazing. He then urged it into my hands, which I took reluctantly but excitedly all the same. I pranced, juggling the ball of light on my fingers, spinning and crouching in the sands.

"You should tell me how to make these, I really wanna know," I breathed.

"In your body lies the wisdom of the Ancients," he explained matter-of-factly. "I doubt you need to be told since you can just reach inside yourself."

"But I don't know how to do that," I said, slumping down on the ground.

"You'll just have to learn how," he replied.

"Who'd teach me, though?"

"I'm more than just eye candy, woman."

I blushed.

"There's also your precious little ghost," Sephiroth added mockingly.

Aerith. Truth be told, I hadn't heard from her in a while, so I assumed that she was either done with her work, being me, or decided to take a vacation somewhere, in some apparitional resort. Wherever she was and whatever she was doing, I hoped her well.

"Well… since you're already here, you can do it," I decided.

He smirked, and then gestured to the water with a toss of his head. "You do know how to swim, don't you?"

"Huh?" It took some time before his words finally managed to register in my head. I then answered slowly, "Oh uh... I don't know. Maybe I do, but... I never thought to try."

"We've been here next to the beach for over a year and we, or rather you, have never gone swimming…" He stroked his fine, sharp chin, standing askance and deep in rumination.

"Well, guess who wants me cooped up in the house all the time like…some... silly housewife," I said sardonically. "Of course there's gonna be things I haven't done yet... Not only that, but I'm so busy with my garden sometimes, anyways. I guess I should make time on the side for other things…"

"Well," Sephiroth started to say, "I'm going for a swim. Come on in if you want. That's why I invited you, after all."

"You wanted to bond? Is that it?" I quirked an eyebrow at him. He said nothing in response. Instead, the man began to peel off his clothes, one article at a time, all while facing me. He knew how uncomfortable I got when presented the view of what made him a man. Those easy to see aspects, the physical ones. Oh, those physical ones. I could feel how he liked to bother me in any little way he could. Like an annoying child that knew he was being annoying and took pleasure in it, too. His body would glow darkly yellow with mischief, even tinged a bit red with other rampant thoughts.

"That's not bonding, you know," I called to him. "That's just showing off. I can see everything…"

"You love the view."

I choked on my own embarrassment. "I, I do not."

Sephiroth approached me suddenly while I sat in the sand fiddling with the orb of light. His hips rocked into my eyesight, demanding all of it no matter which way I turned my head. I closed my eyes and held my breath because even the smell of him this close literally drove me insane. That animal scent. Was this female shell really attracted to that? After all this time, I was still confused about myself. My body, my personality, my actions. His body, his personality, his actions. Why we were here, together like this. Maybe I loved the conflict. I had to admit it kept me busy inside, to say the least; it kept me from feeling like a thing, but a person.

"Oh come on," he uttered without patience. "Stop thinking so hard that it hurts my head. Just live. Isn't that what you always wanted?"

"I…"

"Don't abandon your precious humanity," Sephiroth said in mock sadness. "Go on, touch. Will I mind? You tell me."

"Oh, d-don't tell ME about abandoning MY humanity when you-"

Instantly, he took my head in his hands and pulled me in to his bare belly. As delicate as that smell was, I still found it dizzying and distracting and everything in between. Heady and pungent and strangely clean and... I reached for his hips and pushed myself away with a sour look of more than just annoyance. He'd merely smiled like an imp in return.

"This isn't about me," he interjected, his voice astute. "In my nice little advent, I've become quite comfortable. Drana. I'll use this human flesh in however I see fit, such as 'torturing' you-"

"I-"

"-so I see no more need to make changes," he finished. "As for you and your... descent from the Promised Land, learn to accept that you are human, too, in these parts. Accept all that it entails, including but not limited to, all matters and desires of the flesh. Which is, I must say... everything that being human entails?"

"I-I just don't understand," I huffed, falling backwards into the sand. "You'd think so in the time that passed, and from all the Ancient stuff that you say is in me, but... The Planet kinda leaves me in the dark here. And Aerith, too. She hasn't spoken to me in a while."

"Imaginary friends will do that."

'She's not imaginary!" I exclaimed. "You saw her, too! She showed herself to you, don't you remember? She's real... or... she was real."

"Your ghost friend, then." Sephiroth stretched his arms high over his head and exhaled aloud. He turned towards the water, flexing as if it was no big feat. "Well, time for that swim..."

"Oh wait, what's that? Is that a plane?" I pointed towards the black sky as tiny white and red lights zipped and blinked overhead. Sephiroth craned his neck up and to his right, searching.

"Yes, yes it is…" A muted green light burst from his eyes as he continued to stare heavenward. The resolve in his albeit naked stature left me unnerved just a tad. Alert, plain and simple. I stood up and came to stand right behind him, gazing at the side of his face.

"What's that look for?" I asked. "It's just a plane, isn't it? No need to look so grave, right?"

"That plane says Shinra on the side," he told me. I jerked my head back in surprise.

"Wow, you can see that from all the way down here? I want to do that, too."

"… hmph."