16: Gray
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Sephiroth let his body to carry him where he neither cared nor refused to go.
Like a man possessed by legions of ghosts or a leaf caught in a lasting updraft, he sailed, eyes glimpsing only the endless blue space that circled the Planet, instead of the bountiful lands and oceans below. Sometimes patches, trains, and blankets of clouds blocked his view but were soon driven or burned away by the sun or the passing of time.
The blue sky gave way to black space spangled with stars and nearly sliced in half by a gigantic crescent moon, back to blue sky and black again. It all came to elude him in the end. His feline eyes never wavered in the way of the world all around him.
Black feathers sprinkled the air, shredded and tossed without a care.
"Mother." His voice was so low as to not even register as a whisper. "Will you take me again? Into your arms? That soulless embrace? I remember. You weren't like other women. You were driven, driven by power, by need. You were never distracted by human emotions like jealousy and anger. You were pure in what you sought to do. You were pure...
"But in her, there is purity far more enticing. She is the Planet. She is the very thing we fought to obtain— her power— and I have it now. Without you. So. I have a decision to make, don't I? Shall I keep you close, my dearly beloved Mother? Or shall she become my every want and need in flesh? The decision is so easy yet so hard to make…"
Sephiroth stopped abruptly in mid-flight, lifting himself up to be fully outlined by the silvery-blue glow of the moon. Slowly, carefully, he drew his arms about his waist and surveyed the land as it stretched far and wide below his bare feet. The darkened terrain looked unfamiliar as far as he chose to be concerned, from dimly lustrous forests set upon tapering plateaus to barren canyons the color of old blood at their bases. In some deep, dark pit of his soul, he found this night-shaded scene beautiful.
He took in a long breath, neck crooked back for his eyes to take in the twinkling space above him. With a wounded joker's grin, he voiced, "After what I've done, how wrong of me to abandon you. It's not like me to go back on my word. But since I've found you, I haven't been... myself for a while. Heh…
"I can't sense you. Are you hiding from me? That's impossible. No matter what, you're still mine and you... You're not home. Then, who is that? A residual trail…" Sephiroth's head lulled listlessly upon his shoulders, mouth slack and eyes closed as though all his senses had overloaded and it either lashed him with bliss or woe. A knit of hostility worked its way into his brow, and the joker's grin returned baring teeth as more of a wolf's maw gnawing on a child's arm.
It was settled.
"You. I never forget a face. You'll haunt the woman and I for the last time. But first…"
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The promise of ecstasy-filled violence drained promptly out of Sephiroth as he reached what he didn't care anymore to regard as home. Much to his anger and dismay, no souls or bodies but markers of their presence occupied the dwelling, dancing in the bedroom and meandering through the living room with forlorn childlike precision. These residual trails he recognized rather easily, bristling at one and longing the other.
"Did he take you away?" he questioned the air.
A soundless reply.
"Mm… No matter if he did or not. He will pay."
Sephiroth ambled towards the porch, snatching handfuls of the near invisible haze when there roamed another, a stranger among the rest. It had only gone as far as a few steps past the threshold, drifted along the floor, then twisted around and fled the scene. Insult flushed his pale face, that others should come into his house unwelcome and pursue what was his. Immediately he came to the awareness that his absence allowed this situation to arise. His hormonal flight had invited others to come knocking where few should have dared to tread.
He sighed in not so obvious defeat. Hugging his arms about his waist again, Sephiroth hissed, "This is your fault. The things you make me do. The call you shout to others. That sweet Lifestream is a curse."
His body dragged itself slowly into the bedroom. The lasting haze stung his nostrils, and discarded crystals of materia lay scattered on the floor poking at his toes as he glided by. A wanting hand shot out in front of him. Begging for his sword. "Masamune" slipped from his lips in unusual sensuality.
The blade of nameless masterwork rattled on its rack secured above the bed. The locks that held it in place flew back on their hinges, and the sword rocked out of the slots with eerie animation. As if Sephiroth's hand was a magnet in itself, the sword virtually phased into his clutch within less than a second.
"We have work to do."