I get by with a little help from my friends Universe. Part 1
For the 64 damn prompts challenge
Title: "I get by with a little help from my friends." Or the “A Little Help” universe as I’m calling it in my head.
Author/Artist: Myself
Character: Vincent Valentine, Veld Verdot, OC Turks.
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Theme: 56. the beginning is the end is the beginning, 8. passions run, 10. lull and storm
56; the beginning is the end is the beginning
"Death--the last sleep? No, it is the final awakening."
The call comes in and for a moment there is a book in Veld’s head called “Life” and the chapter named “Vincent” is turning onto the final page, empty to make a break between it and the chapter probably entitled “A partnerless Turk is simply a hired thug.” Veld’s mouth closes tight on the cigarette in his mouth, crushing the filter as he stares at the corkboard in their office, plastered with various memos, reports yet to be filed, pictures of home and family, printed out joke emails and every so often an inspirational quote or prayer with just the corner managing to make it out of the less pious rabble stuck to the crumbling cork.
It’s 1977, the strange tree like structure of the future “great platform”, just the stem for now with metal work branches that will one day support a whole layer of city looms everywhere, casting strange shadows over the formerly sunny city. Midgar benefits from its plane based location with no mountains to block the sun which filters down all year long.
The man on the other end of the line is very clear, it was a horrible accident, and the remains have been disposed of chemically as they were too toxic to be sent home for burial. It’s a pity, the man on the other end of the line comments before he hangs up, like father like son… a horrible accident. There is nothing to investigate. But something stinks, stinks badly and for a moment Veld Verdot looks down two paths, he can go with the science department’s wishes, signing off on the file that will end the adventure filled career of one Vincent Valentine. The director will agree if the department says there’s nothing more to investigate, they have the forwarded files right here, a bad chemical reaction, Vincent too close to the beaker in question, a sizable explosion… and the requests for money to pay repair men to back all this up.
The director will agree indeed, he’s been putting more and more of the decision making power of the Department of Administrative Research’s onto Veld’s shoulders which are handling the weight of it just fine. He is ready for the time in the not too distant future when Saltore finally sends his suit to the dry cleaners a final time and settles his feet up at that nice bungalow he’s got in Costa del Sol. The second road is a harder one, he can go investigate, maybe drag some of those rookies that hang around, looking for a piece of the action beyond silencing the occasional “upstanding business man” and quietly hacking Shinra’s competition’s computers.
The clock ticks over, it’s four in the afternoon and the sunlight is streaming through the window, hot on his back, piercing the thin material of his shirt with ease since he’s not wearing his jacket. His girlfriend, well, he’s promised to spend more time with her… he should sign off, go home and privately mourn his partner (though on a solo mission this time around) when she can’t see. She never approved of Vincent, or his job… or anything, but she especially wasn’t fond of Vincent despite all attempts by the other to get along with her. Suspected him of the gay she did… strange woman. Vincent was more fascinated with “sin” and “atonement” then a priest in a confessional, and despite the somewhat bouffant haircut, went through the ladies in the secretarial pool like Veld’s girlfriend’s chuhuahua through a soup bone.
8; passions run
But no he wont leave it be. As effective as a landslide he ignores the path he might have chosen in some other time turning a blind eye to the strangeness of his partner’s disappearance. They’re Turks, an organisation almost as old as the company they protect, and if your partner goes down you personally make sure all the ends are tied off and that you know that your partner went into the ground (or chemical vat) the way that someone claimed they did.
“Get me a copter ready for a trip to Nibelhelm..” he orders as he walks out the door and rookies scramble to get the unofficial second in command’s orders followed through. He shrugs his coat on and tugs it so it lays perfectly, guns in their holsters against his chest, materia bracer hidden in his sleeve. He’s not going alone though, the offices are crowded for once since there hasn’t been a lot of work lately, nothing particularly important to steal or someone inconvenient to quietly hide the body of.
“Shawnie…” a voluptuous turk, who doesn’t mind flashing cleavage about since when their eyes are down there, they’re not seeing the shank knife plunging into their neck, nods and gets up, shrugging on her coat and delicately adjusting her skirt. It’s the height of fashion right now, just below her knees which is an outrageous shortness even in these slowly modernising times, and it displays her dainty ankles in her equally dainty strappy sandal shoes. He’s not taken in by the illusion, she had that skirt made custom out of the same material as a normal Turk suit since she’s never been “a pants sort of a gal”. It falls as perfectly as any other of their suits, the special material blend that manages to lie almost flat over holsters and sheaths. Her skirt has as many little knives as she would work into the hemlines and about the waist, and just so that “the boys” don’t worry about “little ol’” her with only bladed weapons, she’s got a nice miniature pistol and silencer that fits into the padding of her bra which takes her from a D to a F (or so Vincent has told him).
“Robert” this Turk is remarkable for his plainness. He could disappear into any crowd, even wearing that distinct blue suit. His face is a plain oval, his nose not too big, not too small, his mouth average and his eyes and hair a dusky sort of non-brown, non-blond that tens of thousands of other citizens have. He has no birthmarks, no distinguishing features and the patience of a saint on any stakeout. He welds guns and knives with equal skill, jack of all trades, master of none save safe cracking which is how they recruited him. Old man Shinra had a sense of humour and admired the gall of the non-descript ruffian who tried to break into his family safe.
“Úlfr” this Turk is the opposite of Robert. People turn in the street to stare when he walks past with his pale rose skin, the magnificent unruly crown of golden hair and his startling blue eyes. Veld picks him for one reason only, he comes from the backwater of Niblehelm where he picked up his charming ability to convince you to part with your soul with his dulcet tones and mastery of a language he only began learning when he was sixteen.
“We’re going on an investigative look about Nibelhelm where Vincent disappeared five weeks ago, apparently in a toxic explosion in the labs. They’re being very evasive about what was in the experiment and about his remains which apparently have been chemically disposed of.” Eyes gleam in acknowledgement. There was some worry when Vincent did not call in for his monthly check in but the scientists are a chaotic bunch and Vincent had been late before since he was usually playing both bodyguard and nanny to them. Shinra wouldn’t be happy after all if their pet scientists dropped dead because they forgot to eat after all.
“Silly Vincent…getting caught up in something fishy again. I bet he shagged someone’s wife…” Úlfr sighs and shakes his head. “Silly, silly Vincent” Shawnie agrees as she buttons up her coat neatly and bemoans the looseness of the waist as she always does. It’s just Vincent to them, there is no Valentine attached to the end, no matter how illustrious Vincent’s ancestors were. Turk’s only have a last name when you’re talking to their families, and then that’s only temporary.
“We’ll get him back boss” Robert is picking up a professional looking briefcase that holds all the tools he can’t hide about his person, apparently anticipating more than the usual padlocks on the way.
“Good…” Veld growls and starts barking at rookies to set up the communication lines so that they have a feed back to the office.
10; lull and storm
The helicopter ride is silent after Veld briefs his team a second time, this time with the information he isn’t going to spill in front of gossiping rookies. They haven’t weeded this bunch yet for the ones that are proper material and he’s always had to deal with two information leaks related to rookie water-cooler gossip.
The chopper is one of the best and the sea below them does not last more then a few hours. They touch down in Costa Del Sol and admire the view while the copter refuels and then they’re off again, foreboding mountains, Hell’s chain herself, loom before them. Nibelhelm clinging to a rocky shelf for dear life, like the goats the town is (marginally) famous for.
“Ah home…” Úlfr mutters without much love for it. He comes from old stock in the region, old families who are being driven further and further into the mountainsides by Shinra personel who come in with their strange ways and strange “modern” language and treat those established here for centuries like backwards barbarians then expect said “barbarians” to be polite and happy that Shinra is plugging a ugly house of metal and mako stink straight into the mountainside they consider almost sacred.
“Laboratories are kept in the old Shinra mansion…” how pretentious. Old Man Shinra had a holiday house here, god knows why, he only used it three times and usually just planted his mistresses and many illegitimate welps there till the welps were old enough to be sent to boarding school and the mistresses paid off to go live a comfortable life somewhere, where the wife wouldn’t see them.
The helicopter is left unlocked, no one is going to touch a Turk machine, and they walk into the town with blank faces, neat suits and the blood of many long ago washed from their skin. Many will comment later they had to double check, just to make sure it wasn’t a pack of Nibel wolves up on their hind legs that strolled into the town centre and then without a word towards the Shinra mansion.
Veld’s swipe card does not let them in despite his clearance. Robert sets to work and in a moment the doors are beeping open and they are walking into the foyer, ignoring the security guards who start in surprise and try and call them back. The layout is almost cliché and Veld wonders if Hojo might be reading the same mystery novels as him in his spare time because that hidden stairwell was right out of “My gods man! It’s a chocobehalmut!”
“Hey…HEY!” their first scientist is a frazzled looking intern sort and Shawnie takes care of him with a sway in her hips, a rather luscious pout on her lips and just enough preening under his sudden besotment to impress a gold chocobo.
Hojo is not here… there are signs the lab has been stripped of some rather important components despite the continued activity and Shawnie finds a half full baby bottle of week old formula which causes a slight shudder to ripple down her spine. The lab technicians are clearly in the midst of a data purge when they come to the main server room and sadly they have to resort to violence to stop the continued purge of important information that would otherwise have been kept to a few personal computers. “So this is the much vaunted project S?” Robert asks with disinterest as he clicks a few folders and hacks the passwords on them without batting a eyelid. Hacking was the next step for the lock picking master and Hojo’s convoluted protection systems have always been his version of the gym, exercising his mental muscles on the increasingly nasty cybernetic defence codes that Hojo wields around to the envy of most of the IT department in Shinra (“wasted on science” they say.)
“Coffins in the other room…” Úlfr comments while Shawnie gently love taps the four lab technicians they had to incapacitate earlier, since they’re showing signs of stirring and they can’t have that.
“Oh? Did you look inside?” Veld asks distractedly.
“No? You want me to?” Úlfr’s Nibelhelm accent thickens for a moment, his vowels growling out as he looks back over his shoulder.
“You’ve been a Turk for six years Úlfr, you should be over any squimishness about dead bodies by now” Veld waves him off.
“Isn’t Vincent more likely to be in a vat… or a jar? They did say they had to chemically dispose of him, I would more be looking for a vat of acid then in coffins boss” Robert doesn’t glance up, humming as he loads information onto floppy disk after floppy disk, the best and newest of Shinra technology.
“Oh…” a pause “…Vincent…” those two words come from two directions, the computer and the coffin room and Veld is torn as Robert’s eyes widen and he begins to copy files like a maniac while there is the sound of a large wooden something (a coffin lid?) falling to the floor.
“Found him boss...” again Robert and Úlfr speak in tandem and Veld goes to Úlfr since there is no way Robert will magically pull his partner out of the computer screen, as much as the Turk second in command is itching to know what the hell is going on.
Vincent sleeps, his face the paleness of someone who has lost far too much blood, his careful haircut shaggy from five weeks of not seeing that little pair of scissors he takes with him to keep the fast growing locks in check.
“Vincent… Vincent!” only the slow rise and fall of a chest bely any life and Vincent doesn’t stir, the deepest sleep of all upon him, one step away from death, the blue veins across his eyelids emphasising the ghastly paleness.
“Goddamn it Vincent what have you gotten yourself into this time?” Veld growls and takes a hold of a limp shoulder and roughly pulling. He promptly discovers the upright position of Vincent’s body is only supported by the coffin’s sides and when he pulls the other out too far the other Turk crumples forwards and has to be grabbed by Úlfr and Veld both.
“Was he always this heavy?” Úlfr groans as he readjusts his arms and with Veld’s help, manoeuvres Vincent over his shoulder. “Did he always wear a red bandanna?” Shawnie asks as she walks into the room and raises an eyebrow at the pair who stare back at her and then at the red bandanna that is sitting innocently under Vincent’s bangs.
“No….” it wouldn’t fit with their uniform regulations but who knew what those crazy (and soon to be quite sore and perhaps inhumed) scientists got up to in their spare time. Dressing up an almost-corpse might be considered normal family entertainment here.
“He’s out of it…” Úlfr comments as they leave, Robert with a case of floppy disks and Shawnie with the gil she filched from the pockets of the lab assistants. “You think?” Veld snaps his fingers in front of Vincent’s face and finally gets a reply, just the slightest flutter of eyelids but that’s enough. Funny though, he could have sworn Vincent’s eyes were a odd sort of reddish brown, like expensive wood, not gold like a polished brass plate.
I hope the OC Turks aren't too annoying. I'm trying to write this according to the FF7 timeline on the FFWiki. So only Veld, Vincent, Hojo and Lucrecia are currently canon. As I progress Before Crisis, Crisis and FF7 Characters will start appearing. Slash/Het etc warning, if I see it will work I'll be putting it in. For now I'm letting this strange new AU in my head take me where it wants to go.
Title: "I get by with a little help from my friends." Or the “A Little Help” universe as I’m calling it in my head.
Author/Artist: Myself
Character: Vincent Valentine, Veld Verdot, OC Turks.
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Theme: 56. the beginning is the end is the beginning, 8. passions run, 10. lull and storm
56; the beginning is the end is the beginning
"Death--the last sleep? No, it is the final awakening."
The call comes in and for a moment there is a book in Veld’s head called “Life” and the chapter named “Vincent” is turning onto the final page, empty to make a break between it and the chapter probably entitled “A partnerless Turk is simply a hired thug.” Veld’s mouth closes tight on the cigarette in his mouth, crushing the filter as he stares at the corkboard in their office, plastered with various memos, reports yet to be filed, pictures of home and family, printed out joke emails and every so often an inspirational quote or prayer with just the corner managing to make it out of the less pious rabble stuck to the crumbling cork.
It’s 1977, the strange tree like structure of the future “great platform”, just the stem for now with metal work branches that will one day support a whole layer of city looms everywhere, casting strange shadows over the formerly sunny city. Midgar benefits from its plane based location with no mountains to block the sun which filters down all year long.
The man on the other end of the line is very clear, it was a horrible accident, and the remains have been disposed of chemically as they were too toxic to be sent home for burial. It’s a pity, the man on the other end of the line comments before he hangs up, like father like son… a horrible accident. There is nothing to investigate. But something stinks, stinks badly and for a moment Veld Verdot looks down two paths, he can go with the science department’s wishes, signing off on the file that will end the adventure filled career of one Vincent Valentine. The director will agree if the department says there’s nothing more to investigate, they have the forwarded files right here, a bad chemical reaction, Vincent too close to the beaker in question, a sizable explosion… and the requests for money to pay repair men to back all this up.
The director will agree indeed, he’s been putting more and more of the decision making power of the Department of Administrative Research’s onto Veld’s shoulders which are handling the weight of it just fine. He is ready for the time in the not too distant future when Saltore finally sends his suit to the dry cleaners a final time and settles his feet up at that nice bungalow he’s got in Costa del Sol. The second road is a harder one, he can go investigate, maybe drag some of those rookies that hang around, looking for a piece of the action beyond silencing the occasional “upstanding business man” and quietly hacking Shinra’s competition’s computers.
The clock ticks over, it’s four in the afternoon and the sunlight is streaming through the window, hot on his back, piercing the thin material of his shirt with ease since he’s not wearing his jacket. His girlfriend, well, he’s promised to spend more time with her… he should sign off, go home and privately mourn his partner (though on a solo mission this time around) when she can’t see. She never approved of Vincent, or his job… or anything, but she especially wasn’t fond of Vincent despite all attempts by the other to get along with her. Suspected him of the gay she did… strange woman. Vincent was more fascinated with “sin” and “atonement” then a priest in a confessional, and despite the somewhat bouffant haircut, went through the ladies in the secretarial pool like Veld’s girlfriend’s chuhuahua through a soup bone.
8; passions run
But no he wont leave it be. As effective as a landslide he ignores the path he might have chosen in some other time turning a blind eye to the strangeness of his partner’s disappearance. They’re Turks, an organisation almost as old as the company they protect, and if your partner goes down you personally make sure all the ends are tied off and that you know that your partner went into the ground (or chemical vat) the way that someone claimed they did.
“Get me a copter ready for a trip to Nibelhelm..” he orders as he walks out the door and rookies scramble to get the unofficial second in command’s orders followed through. He shrugs his coat on and tugs it so it lays perfectly, guns in their holsters against his chest, materia bracer hidden in his sleeve. He’s not going alone though, the offices are crowded for once since there hasn’t been a lot of work lately, nothing particularly important to steal or someone inconvenient to quietly hide the body of.
“Shawnie…” a voluptuous turk, who doesn’t mind flashing cleavage about since when their eyes are down there, they’re not seeing the shank knife plunging into their neck, nods and gets up, shrugging on her coat and delicately adjusting her skirt. It’s the height of fashion right now, just below her knees which is an outrageous shortness even in these slowly modernising times, and it displays her dainty ankles in her equally dainty strappy sandal shoes. He’s not taken in by the illusion, she had that skirt made custom out of the same material as a normal Turk suit since she’s never been “a pants sort of a gal”. It falls as perfectly as any other of their suits, the special material blend that manages to lie almost flat over holsters and sheaths. Her skirt has as many little knives as she would work into the hemlines and about the waist, and just so that “the boys” don’t worry about “little ol’” her with only bladed weapons, she’s got a nice miniature pistol and silencer that fits into the padding of her bra which takes her from a D to a F (or so Vincent has told him).
“Robert” this Turk is remarkable for his plainness. He could disappear into any crowd, even wearing that distinct blue suit. His face is a plain oval, his nose not too big, not too small, his mouth average and his eyes and hair a dusky sort of non-brown, non-blond that tens of thousands of other citizens have. He has no birthmarks, no distinguishing features and the patience of a saint on any stakeout. He welds guns and knives with equal skill, jack of all trades, master of none save safe cracking which is how they recruited him. Old man Shinra had a sense of humour and admired the gall of the non-descript ruffian who tried to break into his family safe.
“Úlfr” this Turk is the opposite of Robert. People turn in the street to stare when he walks past with his pale rose skin, the magnificent unruly crown of golden hair and his startling blue eyes. Veld picks him for one reason only, he comes from the backwater of Niblehelm where he picked up his charming ability to convince you to part with your soul with his dulcet tones and mastery of a language he only began learning when he was sixteen.
“We’re going on an investigative look about Nibelhelm where Vincent disappeared five weeks ago, apparently in a toxic explosion in the labs. They’re being very evasive about what was in the experiment and about his remains which apparently have been chemically disposed of.” Eyes gleam in acknowledgement. There was some worry when Vincent did not call in for his monthly check in but the scientists are a chaotic bunch and Vincent had been late before since he was usually playing both bodyguard and nanny to them. Shinra wouldn’t be happy after all if their pet scientists dropped dead because they forgot to eat after all.
“Silly Vincent…getting caught up in something fishy again. I bet he shagged someone’s wife…” Úlfr sighs and shakes his head. “Silly, silly Vincent” Shawnie agrees as she buttons up her coat neatly and bemoans the looseness of the waist as she always does. It’s just Vincent to them, there is no Valentine attached to the end, no matter how illustrious Vincent’s ancestors were. Turk’s only have a last name when you’re talking to their families, and then that’s only temporary.
“We’ll get him back boss” Robert is picking up a professional looking briefcase that holds all the tools he can’t hide about his person, apparently anticipating more than the usual padlocks on the way.
“Good…” Veld growls and starts barking at rookies to set up the communication lines so that they have a feed back to the office.
10; lull and storm
The helicopter ride is silent after Veld briefs his team a second time, this time with the information he isn’t going to spill in front of gossiping rookies. They haven’t weeded this bunch yet for the ones that are proper material and he’s always had to deal with two information leaks related to rookie water-cooler gossip.
The chopper is one of the best and the sea below them does not last more then a few hours. They touch down in Costa Del Sol and admire the view while the copter refuels and then they’re off again, foreboding mountains, Hell’s chain herself, loom before them. Nibelhelm clinging to a rocky shelf for dear life, like the goats the town is (marginally) famous for.
“Ah home…” Úlfr mutters without much love for it. He comes from old stock in the region, old families who are being driven further and further into the mountainsides by Shinra personel who come in with their strange ways and strange “modern” language and treat those established here for centuries like backwards barbarians then expect said “barbarians” to be polite and happy that Shinra is plugging a ugly house of metal and mako stink straight into the mountainside they consider almost sacred.
“Laboratories are kept in the old Shinra mansion…” how pretentious. Old Man Shinra had a holiday house here, god knows why, he only used it three times and usually just planted his mistresses and many illegitimate welps there till the welps were old enough to be sent to boarding school and the mistresses paid off to go live a comfortable life somewhere, where the wife wouldn’t see them.
The helicopter is left unlocked, no one is going to touch a Turk machine, and they walk into the town with blank faces, neat suits and the blood of many long ago washed from their skin. Many will comment later they had to double check, just to make sure it wasn’t a pack of Nibel wolves up on their hind legs that strolled into the town centre and then without a word towards the Shinra mansion.
Veld’s swipe card does not let them in despite his clearance. Robert sets to work and in a moment the doors are beeping open and they are walking into the foyer, ignoring the security guards who start in surprise and try and call them back. The layout is almost cliché and Veld wonders if Hojo might be reading the same mystery novels as him in his spare time because that hidden stairwell was right out of “My gods man! It’s a chocobehalmut!”
“Hey…HEY!” their first scientist is a frazzled looking intern sort and Shawnie takes care of him with a sway in her hips, a rather luscious pout on her lips and just enough preening under his sudden besotment to impress a gold chocobo.
Hojo is not here… there are signs the lab has been stripped of some rather important components despite the continued activity and Shawnie finds a half full baby bottle of week old formula which causes a slight shudder to ripple down her spine. The lab technicians are clearly in the midst of a data purge when they come to the main server room and sadly they have to resort to violence to stop the continued purge of important information that would otherwise have been kept to a few personal computers. “So this is the much vaunted project S?” Robert asks with disinterest as he clicks a few folders and hacks the passwords on them without batting a eyelid. Hacking was the next step for the lock picking master and Hojo’s convoluted protection systems have always been his version of the gym, exercising his mental muscles on the increasingly nasty cybernetic defence codes that Hojo wields around to the envy of most of the IT department in Shinra (“wasted on science” they say.)
“Coffins in the other room…” Úlfr comments while Shawnie gently love taps the four lab technicians they had to incapacitate earlier, since they’re showing signs of stirring and they can’t have that.
“Oh? Did you look inside?” Veld asks distractedly.
“No? You want me to?” Úlfr’s Nibelhelm accent thickens for a moment, his vowels growling out as he looks back over his shoulder.
“You’ve been a Turk for six years Úlfr, you should be over any squimishness about dead bodies by now” Veld waves him off.
“Isn’t Vincent more likely to be in a vat… or a jar? They did say they had to chemically dispose of him, I would more be looking for a vat of acid then in coffins boss” Robert doesn’t glance up, humming as he loads information onto floppy disk after floppy disk, the best and newest of Shinra technology.
“Oh…” a pause “…Vincent…” those two words come from two directions, the computer and the coffin room and Veld is torn as Robert’s eyes widen and he begins to copy files like a maniac while there is the sound of a large wooden something (a coffin lid?) falling to the floor.
“Found him boss...” again Robert and Úlfr speak in tandem and Veld goes to Úlfr since there is no way Robert will magically pull his partner out of the computer screen, as much as the Turk second in command is itching to know what the hell is going on.
Vincent sleeps, his face the paleness of someone who has lost far too much blood, his careful haircut shaggy from five weeks of not seeing that little pair of scissors he takes with him to keep the fast growing locks in check.
“Vincent… Vincent!” only the slow rise and fall of a chest bely any life and Vincent doesn’t stir, the deepest sleep of all upon him, one step away from death, the blue veins across his eyelids emphasising the ghastly paleness.
“Goddamn it Vincent what have you gotten yourself into this time?” Veld growls and takes a hold of a limp shoulder and roughly pulling. He promptly discovers the upright position of Vincent’s body is only supported by the coffin’s sides and when he pulls the other out too far the other Turk crumples forwards and has to be grabbed by Úlfr and Veld both.
“Was he always this heavy?” Úlfr groans as he readjusts his arms and with Veld’s help, manoeuvres Vincent over his shoulder. “Did he always wear a red bandanna?” Shawnie asks as she walks into the room and raises an eyebrow at the pair who stare back at her and then at the red bandanna that is sitting innocently under Vincent’s bangs.
“No….” it wouldn’t fit with their uniform regulations but who knew what those crazy (and soon to be quite sore and perhaps inhumed) scientists got up to in their spare time. Dressing up an almost-corpse might be considered normal family entertainment here.
“He’s out of it…” Úlfr comments as they leave, Robert with a case of floppy disks and Shawnie with the gil she filched from the pockets of the lab assistants. “You think?” Veld snaps his fingers in front of Vincent’s face and finally gets a reply, just the slightest flutter of eyelids but that’s enough. Funny though, he could have sworn Vincent’s eyes were a odd sort of reddish brown, like expensive wood, not gold like a polished brass plate.
I hope the OC Turks aren't too annoying. I'm trying to write this according to the FF7 timeline on the FFWiki. So only Veld, Vincent, Hojo and Lucrecia are currently canon. As I progress Before Crisis, Crisis and FF7 Characters will start appearing. Slash/Het etc warning, if I see it will work I'll be putting it in. For now I'm letting this strange new AU in my head take me where it wants to go.