10: Atropos Cuts to the Finish
"Learning is some tricky stuff. If you don't know where to look, then it's definitely a hard road ahead. You'll end up learning the wrong things and getting completely lost in the process. But… that just makes it more adventurous trying to get back on the right track. And adventure is fun, right? I learned…" -Drana
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"Kit, the others are on the way, right?"
"Yessir."
"They won't believe it, they won't. I think we've hit the jackpot... Now all we've got to do is figure out where their little rat's nest is. I've got literal butterflies, Kit. I saw them. Two odd characters in the general store. Black capes. You'd think it was Professor Hojo's mystic Reunion all over again. But I saw one of their faces. It was a woman. The shape of her jaw, so fine and round. You'd think I was in love by the way I sound. Oh… Kit. To think, we might have found her, it. AND the general."
Saristis took the deepest breath his lungs would muster and dropped himself soundly into a chair around an outward corner of the room. Kit went to the window and stared out over the dusty townscape, notepad flipped open in hand but without a present purpose. Instead, he watched the shadows bleed together in the square, pooling under the old water tower and slinking up its stilts. He hadn't known the nights to be sinister looking in this sleepy little town. But its history allowed it this atmosphere. Always.
The sweet taint of Shinra.
Kit adjusted his goggle-glasses and went to sit on his bed which was nearest the window. Something about waking up to an open portal— and the southern exposure of whatever little there was in Nibelheim— stirred his creative juices shortly after waking.
"If that was the long lost general... No, regardless of who it was, chills ran down my spine. Something abnormal… Unnatural. Oh Kit, if you had only been there with me." The redheaded scientist laughed aloud as he tipped back in his chair. "Oh, if Quelin were here... He would probably die. He's so fragile but we'd need him to make sure we were in the right place. Otherwise, I'll have failed my right to make an educated guess."
"Continue to think positive, sir," Kit said from across the room.
"Oh, I do, Kit. I do. I've nothing to lose. The only way to go is up." Saristis sighed comfortably. "We'll need to check in with the Turks in the morning. We can't have a moment to lose."
---
A cloud of darkness engulfed Sephiroth.
As soon as we'd left the general store, it bled out of his skin in awful wisps, smelling like the death of countless people. It was a tremendous sadness, a mystifying hate, and unbridled fear all rolled into one. It was an aura I'd never seen or felt in him, never before. I could have feared for my own life. He didn't speak a word, but his normally unassuming vice grip cut a vicious, monumental volume into my arm. It only stopped when we reached home, where he stripped off all his clothes and stalked into the bathroom, slamming the door. And he stayed in the shower for what seemed like an eternity. But no amount of showering could make the cloud go away. It lingered in the living room, threatened to turn everything black.
I stayed in the kitchen, busying myself with food and dishes.
An angry shiver rattled my entire body. Wondering. "That man… Could, could he be the reason? But why?"
His mind was blocked off.
The cloud menaced the whole house with black gossamer claws. It scared me, baffled me, even urged me to anger, hate, and sadness as well. What was it about the man that alarmed Sephiroth the way it did? Why, he looked harmless. Was it the coat?
"Lab coat," I said to myself.
I remembered. Sephiroth had a fond hatred of the Shinra Company. And scientists. When he talked about them, this black cloud never arose. Never. It was always a bloody red. So there had to be something else. But what was it? Was it because I was there? I had to find out.
Dinner was done, but Sephiroth still kept himself holed up in the bathroom. And only a fool would've bothered trying to reach him through the door.
So I ate alone in silence.
So I sat in the living room reading a book of his.
So, finally, I prepared myself for bed.
There was still no sign of him by the time I closed my eyes for the night.
--
My awakening felt rather strained, something uncommon for me because I loved getting up in the morning. It wasn't until I actually awoke that I had at least partly understood why.
"Oh..."
A naked Sephiroth straddled me like a pillar of salt with legs, his face a deadpan mask that could not have been more disturbing at any other moment. The black cloud was thin, less pervasive than it'd been last night. But it infused something cold and evil in his toned features. I drew the covers half over my face in an effort to shield myself from his feline glare. I wanted to ask him what was wrong, but I feared the cloud would fly out of his mouth and try to hurt me. There was no helping the fright and the fretting, no matter how ridiculous it got.
"Don't be scared, Drana," he whispered, his lips with a seductive sheen I found menacing.
"G, good morning," I said, forcing a smile.
"Good morning, little angel," he returned, stroking my cheek. "My angelic treasure that no one can ever take away... Not without going through me."
"Are, are you okay... ? I mean, last night, at the store, what was it about that-"
"Quiet."
"But, I want to help you," I told him. He took my hand and laid it against his chest. His heart rapped dull and sluggishly.
"Aren't you just precious," he hissed. "All mine. How I'd love to show you, how much you're mine. No one else's. They can't take you. They won't take you. Not without going through me. You know that... don't you?"
"Uh, uh I... guess."
"All of you. You belong to me. My Promised Land. Not merely the road... Your power is mine. You are all mine."
"I'm a little... un-uncomfortable, I-I'm sorry." I gnawed on my lip and held my breath. There were few instances where I wanted to fly away from it all. Now, the feeling screamed to be acted upon. Everything seemed ready to turn to pieces, to be so far scattered and so far wrong that what else could be done? His loins were hot against my stomach, hot enough to start a fire. Not normal, not normal at all.
"I need to show you that you're mine. That no one else can have you. And I need to show them… I need to teach them a lesson. No one will touch what is mine. No one will even think about what is mine. You, you're mine."
The cloud surrounded him like a halo of gore.
His hips churned in a way that revealed a growing fire. His hands fell heavy upon my shoulders, fingers pressing deep into my neck. There was something insatiable in all the parts of his body and how they moved. It only meant one thing. And what it was caused me to cow into something small, too small, beneath him. The will of dominance. The sting of lust. The collar of control. His fingers itched with the intent to choke it into me. I knew it, I felt it, I saw it.
Sephiroth had checked out for the moment.
Something else was here, the whole of which I only saw a glint in the past.
"When I'm done with you, all you'll ever want is me." He grinned, tongue fixed at the corner of his lips.
"I-I understand that... you're a little distraught right now. Distraught, yeah…"
"I'm as clear as the sky," he uttered, peeling the covers away from me. He shifted forward until he was almost completely sitting on my chest, his hands shifting from my shoulders to gently wringing my neck. The heat burned across the bosom of my nightgown, even stifled my breath.
"I-I'm sure there's, that there's a better way to go about this... Sephiroth?"
"Oh, why don't you ever want me? Am I not good enough for you?" He pulled away with a mock look of disgust. But in the background, his hands acted on an independent mission, gathering my nightgown into tight, heavy bunches. "I grew up in a harsh world... so I am a harsh master. But I care. I care for you. It's just a shame that I have to remind you so often who's the owner and the owned. This will be the last time. I will take especial care to brand you with this truth."
"A, Aerith..."
I closed my eyes.
For whatever happened, happened.
It only took seconds for Sephiroth flip me onto my face, to separate cloth from skin with little more than a stern whip of fingers. He chuckled softly as I struggled to get a fixed grip on the nightstand, to no avail. He groped. He squeezed. His fingernails dug in slowly, eliciting icy then hot crescents of pain. The full length of his body went flat against my back, scorching heat bubbling out of him into me. These extremes of hot and cold pressured into one body were maddening. I couldn't bear any of it.
"One can't always be gentle.
"I've known. Your body can handle so much more. More than I can ever dream. No holds barred, my dear. No more mincing over baby skin." Sephiroth grinned wide against my ear, that I could feel his teeth and searing breath. His hands hooked and clawed into the underside of my thighs as he shifted down between them. I withheld all yelps, all twitches. I hoped for hope that maybe if I clenched my teeth it would nullify some of the pain, that the uselessness would be a nice little diversion.
"Se…"
"That man was a follower of Hojo. Of Shinra, whom I abhor with passion..." Teeth sank into the nape of my neck, not yet tempted to break the skin. "I never forget a face. I never forget."
He pressed hard. I groaned.
"But... why..."
"I pray the light will be good this time. The best I never had in life…"
-
Could you tell me something? Please? No one's ever told me... No one's ever told me the answer to my question: Who's Drana? Who is she? Who is she to have this life? Why is she to have it... That's what I want to know.
I blinked up at the black sky, the streams of light playing amongst the stars and the Great Heart. It was my dream come true. The womb of the Planet embracing me within the tranquil streams of its lifeblood. The grace of melodic coos, hums, and muted whistles to my ears. This was music I could sleep to, when and wherever. Here I felt welcome most of all. It felt more like home than Icicle ever would. Or anyplace.
Was this where I truly belonged?
I was Lifestream.
I was born straight from this very blood, unlike the rest of mankind. I wasn't given this energy to be born with it from a human womb. I was this energy. Supposedly. Supposedly by Lucrecia's thesis. Supposedly by Sephiroth's and Vincent's and who knew who else's insistence. I was the purity that opposed the impurity.
Chaos. Vincent's recollection of calling that name out. That black umbra. Had that been Chaos? Where was it now? He told me it'd left his body, left him mortal and free. So where did that leave this mysterious impure thing?
I am Drana? No, there's got to be more. Am I? I am... born of will? Whose will? Your will? Aren't we all? You have to tell me more, please... It's all so hard to understand. I can't...
The Great Heart twisted down on its axis. The movement was so delicate, I didn't even notice. That big yellow orb seemed so alive, not like the moon, never like the moon. I was always told that the moon was little more than a huge hunk of rock spinning in space, shining on us reflected light from the sun and the Planet. But this. Though it didn't throb like a heart, or look like one at all, I called it by how it felt to me. A heart.
For a moment, I brimmed with love. Love for everything. Everyone. Even Sephiroth.
Even he, as he tore this body asunder.
I gazed into the river of Lifestream as I waded. Every unfurling ribbon of green-white light strove to wind its way to, through and around me. Did they want to be part of me? With Aerith, wherever she was, and Lucrecia, who sometimes pulled at my heartstrings, and faceless ones content with just watching and mulling from deep down. I wasn't sure I could handle anymore.
He's… I feel like letting go. Should I go back? But I still have things to talk to you about.
-
I cried.
"Mine. All of it. All of you. Beg, Drana. Beg..."
I never shed a tear. My body felt a pain I never knew, but I could shut the feeling out of my mind. Sephiroth, a dangerous beast, tender and severe in matchless unison.
I breathed in the Lifestream that collected on the pillows, the sheets, in my hair. I tasted its wateriness as it poured out into my mouth. I blinked its coolness as it dripped into my eyes. My shoulder opened as a humble pool from little I could see of it. Sephiroth bathed in it, teasing and rocking lazily atop me. His hand wriggled within the ragged, gaping sink, sending a sickening sensation throughout my body and cutting all feeling through my arm to the wrist pinned beneath his knee.
"Why can't you ever say how good this feels? God and angel in union." He cackled drunkenly, hooking and twirling a finger in my mouth.
I hated the delusion rising in his voice. I wanted to smack him back to reality but I was trapped. He had me.
"Drana…"
The black cloud.
I sensed it. Fusing with the red cloud of lust, becoming unimaginably bigger. I couldn't see it, only feel it. Dread gnawed at my every pore.
And a single black feather fell.
--
From Sixth: Long ago, I had an idea… I didn't want to connect everything too much, so much but it's a habit, unfortunately. Too much cause and effect, correlating crap. Loose ends? Oh well. Funny, the original chapter was... so much of a poor lemon-lime, whatever the fuck you call those things. I wanted to… maybe get away from that. But in the end, I guess I decided to keep it in some form or another. I drained the 'love', though. Now it's Sephiroth being a progressively possessive creep. It's an okay speculation; funky upbringing can bring out the psychosis in anyone. Hell, even good upbringing. People are so messed up.
P.S.: You know, I would have rewritten this entirely instead of some covert editing in the midst of late night boredom (circa 2010), but I actually want to move on with some things. Sometimes. Mm. Quite.