Meeting Mother Part Two, Turkverse
This has become an ongoing theme thing. Now from poor neglected Cloud's POV.
The cave gets brighter the farther down they go, the blood of the planet pooling and twining around them, coating the very air in green mist at times. Cloud hates it, hates the voices at the edge of his hearing, the visions of people who aren’t real, dead and gone and still somehow pulling at him, the almost painful hold Sephiroth has on him, like a chain around his mind that’s yanking him along despite the rest of the world trying to hold him off.
Cloud wishes this place more than Midgar, could be wiped from the planet and a tiny part of his heart wishes that same explosion would destroy what was left of Sephiroth as well. Give them all some fucking closure.
“I can’t believe that suicidal idiot. Sure, face Seph, face Jenova, save the world, make up the plan as we go, that I get, but doing it alone? Thought he got over that back in Wutai!” Zack is a muttering mess of seething tension a little ahead of Cloud, shining with vibrant violet light around the edges that Cloud is pretty sure only he and Aeris can see. Maybe Sephiroth. That thought isn’t comforting.
“What was he like then? I mean, he’s a little…. odd.” Tifa’s lost some of her bounce, latching onto any conversation, her gloves already worn shiny at the knuckles and Cloud wishes she weren’t here. She’d be safer anywhere but here, anywhere at all.
“He’s immortal, it makes him annoying.” Vincent’s voice didn’t echo, too low pitched it rumbled through the caverns and set off a low vibration, right under the skin like an itch you had to peel your dermis off to reach. Or maybe that was just him again, just Cloud the crazy puppet reacting to everything around like a good little marionette.
“He isn’t... okay well, he’s immortal to an extent. I knew him as a kid, ol uncle Leon, kinda quiet and grumpy, a lot like you Cid.”
“Who the fuck you calling old?”
Cid is bringing up the rear with Red XIII and Vincent, the girls in the middle and he and Zack are the frontal team, Cait off to one side and listening enraptured but Cloud doesn’t put much stock in the toy anymore. He’s an okay fighter but still, toy, Sephiroth. Yeah, stuffing guts all over in the picture in his head.
Yuffie is twitchy but she won’t try much with Vincent behind her watching everything like an angry hawk. At least, he hopes not. From what he’s seen, Vince doesn’t have any issues shooting allies. Which is worrisome because Cloud is kind of *counting* on that in case he himself goes too far, one way or another.
“Anyway, he looked the same then, hair longer I guess, and this kind of weariness in his eyes. He was breeding chocobos then to, left his stud with my mom when he took off, refused to help me get into Shinra early. I never did get to thank him for that.” Wistful apology in Zack’s tone and Cloud can almost see it, this guy with a tired smile and a young Zack pestering him with questions about the world.
“But then, in Wutai he was completely different. I mean, hair to his waste, tan as buckskin, lean as a whip and twice as angry as a brooding dragon. Took Seph and I both by surprise, nearly killed us, *got* killed a few times and… he was just a mess. You wouldn’t have liked him Aeris love, he was cold through and through. Made Seph look teddy bear soft.”
Cloud shivers at the mention of that name but now he’s curious. The images don’t add up. How could someone Zack speaks fondly of have become so different? How could the man Cloud has seen, tired and snarky and a little broken at the edges, have been a monster so terrible Zack’s light dims just a bit remembering? There’s layers of history here and Cloud finds he can distract himself from this place and time by listening to Zack’s voice change, growing warmer or colder like an emotional barometer.
Maybe Sephiroth is listening through him, seeing through him, but Cloud knows neither of them are understanding, they can’t because not even Zack really knows maybe. Maybe no one can.
“How did he… change?” Yuffie isn’t asking about the war, her hands twirling her weapon nervously, eyes flickering back to Vincent every so often. Which is both interesting and irrelevant and Cloud *knows* that thought isn’t his because he doesn’t think of his friends in terms of relevancy.
“I… don’t really know. One day we were fighting, he was the ShinRa Phantom then and one scary dude, and the next day we were hiding in a cave with a mako spring and the *next* day he was… a completely different person. I always thought maybe he and Seph talked things out but now… I just don’t know.”
“The ShinRa Phantom? My dad met him! He was one of our greatest fighters, completely ruthless and invincible! They said he could match the Silver General blow for blow!” Yuffie’s excitement is palpable, her eyes shining and a new bounce in her step.
“Why was he called that?”
Cloud glances at Zack and then at Cid, the blond chewing on his cigar and not really looking at anything in a way which meant he was far more interested in the story than he wanted to let on.
“Cause he would come in like a ghost, kill every living soul, steal all the supplies he needed and level the camp before moving on to the next target. Before Seph and I, no one on our side had ever lived long enough to give a good description of him.”
Cid’s grunt of understanding probably isn’t the response Yuffie was hoping for, she wilts a little.
Sephiroth and Cloud and Zack and Aeris. In school Cloud had learned that the triangle was the strongest shape, the pyramid stronger than the arch depending on the material used to make it. Facts. Facts gathered over lifetimes but none of them matter in the end, not all the knowledge of all the races can help him understand. Sephiroth and Cloud were a lot alike, and Cloud hates that but he can accept it. They both had plenty of facts to work with, but neither would ever be able to understand, and for a long time both had been comfortable with that.
Zack was something that didn’t ask to be understood in order to be loved, and it was so *easy* to love him. Aeris didn’t want them to understand because she didn’t understand herself and it scared her, and it was easy to dismiss things if it made her happy. But now Sephiroth doesn’t care about understanding because he will exert his own laws and boundaries on them, on Zack and Aeris and Cloud himself. And Cloud doesn’t know if what he understands is his own, or Sephiroth’s twisted logic.
It was Vincent’s hmm though, that catches Cloud, and the presence riding behind Cloud’s eyes. Vincent, who had no ties to any of them, except Sephiroth himself. Vincent who was carrying the black materia and who Sephiroth couldn’t *quite* reach, though why not was a mystery because surely in all the time Hojo had him, the madman had used Jenova on him at some point. Hojo was obsessed with Jenova, he couldn’t *not* have injected the demon carrier.
Unless it was the demons who held the calamity at bay, and that thought makes the virus in his blood scream and whisper and hate in ways that Cloud almost finds enjoyable because he can feel Sephiroth receding, feel Jenova aching and it’s almost enough to let him know things will be alright again. They can hurt the bitch. Not just Aeris and her dead but them, the living breathing mistakes Hojo was too stupid to permanently erase.
“How can a man be immortal? I mean, is he like you Aeris? An Ancient?”
Aeris shakes her head before Tifa even finishes the question, a frown gracing her features. “No, they don’t know much about him actually. Something about a veil and a lion but he isn’t like me at all. He’s not like any of us.”
Cloud knows differently. While they walk and talk and hunt Sephiroth is waiting, Jenova gathering in the lifestream all around them, knowledge gleaned from years of peering through the eyes of her infected being passed to her chosen son. Hojo had dismissed the brunet stranger too easily but the other, Lucretia, the woman from the waterfall knew, and used that knowledge to her own ends. And now Sephiroth knows, because Lucy belongs to Jenova and Cloud, pulled by silver chains, can’t tell anyone the conclusions being drawn in that frightening mind.
Chaos, the herald of Omega, born of corrupted lifestream, given host in this world through Valentine. The process determined through study of a demonic carrier, Project X, Lionhart.
The demons prevent complete Jenova infection. The demons can not be removed without damaging the host. The carriers have no place in the plan of Reunion. The carriers will be eliminated and their energy gathered into the lifestream to help call upon Meteor.
Sephiroth will kill them. As he is preparing to do now, deep under ground with Masamune gleaming from reflected lifestream, a pale god rising from the ashes of a world he set a flame. And Squall, seen through emerald cat slit eyes, an inky blot, shadows and darkness and burning blade.
“How immortal is immortal?” Cloud’s voice sounds strange in his ears, the blade in his hands too long, too light, his friends too far away. The answer comes as no real surprise.
“Enough to deal with you.”
The cave gets brighter the farther down they go, the blood of the planet pooling and twining around them, coating the very air in green mist at times. Cloud hates it, hates the voices at the edge of his hearing, the visions of people who aren’t real, dead and gone and still somehow pulling at him, the almost painful hold Sephiroth has on him, like a chain around his mind that’s yanking him along despite the rest of the world trying to hold him off.
Cloud wishes this place more than Midgar, could be wiped from the planet and a tiny part of his heart wishes that same explosion would destroy what was left of Sephiroth as well. Give them all some fucking closure.
“I can’t believe that suicidal idiot. Sure, face Seph, face Jenova, save the world, make up the plan as we go, that I get, but doing it alone? Thought he got over that back in Wutai!” Zack is a muttering mess of seething tension a little ahead of Cloud, shining with vibrant violet light around the edges that Cloud is pretty sure only he and Aeris can see. Maybe Sephiroth. That thought isn’t comforting.
“What was he like then? I mean, he’s a little…. odd.” Tifa’s lost some of her bounce, latching onto any conversation, her gloves already worn shiny at the knuckles and Cloud wishes she weren’t here. She’d be safer anywhere but here, anywhere at all.
“He’s immortal, it makes him annoying.” Vincent’s voice didn’t echo, too low pitched it rumbled through the caverns and set off a low vibration, right under the skin like an itch you had to peel your dermis off to reach. Or maybe that was just him again, just Cloud the crazy puppet reacting to everything around like a good little marionette.
“He isn’t... okay well, he’s immortal to an extent. I knew him as a kid, ol uncle Leon, kinda quiet and grumpy, a lot like you Cid.”
“Who the fuck you calling old?”
Cid is bringing up the rear with Red XIII and Vincent, the girls in the middle and he and Zack are the frontal team, Cait off to one side and listening enraptured but Cloud doesn’t put much stock in the toy anymore. He’s an okay fighter but still, toy, Sephiroth. Yeah, stuffing guts all over in the picture in his head.
Yuffie is twitchy but she won’t try much with Vincent behind her watching everything like an angry hawk. At least, he hopes not. From what he’s seen, Vince doesn’t have any issues shooting allies. Which is worrisome because Cloud is kind of *counting* on that in case he himself goes too far, one way or another.
“Anyway, he looked the same then, hair longer I guess, and this kind of weariness in his eyes. He was breeding chocobos then to, left his stud with my mom when he took off, refused to help me get into Shinra early. I never did get to thank him for that.” Wistful apology in Zack’s tone and Cloud can almost see it, this guy with a tired smile and a young Zack pestering him with questions about the world.
“But then, in Wutai he was completely different. I mean, hair to his waste, tan as buckskin, lean as a whip and twice as angry as a brooding dragon. Took Seph and I both by surprise, nearly killed us, *got* killed a few times and… he was just a mess. You wouldn’t have liked him Aeris love, he was cold through and through. Made Seph look teddy bear soft.”
Cloud shivers at the mention of that name but now he’s curious. The images don’t add up. How could someone Zack speaks fondly of have become so different? How could the man Cloud has seen, tired and snarky and a little broken at the edges, have been a monster so terrible Zack’s light dims just a bit remembering? There’s layers of history here and Cloud finds he can distract himself from this place and time by listening to Zack’s voice change, growing warmer or colder like an emotional barometer.
Maybe Sephiroth is listening through him, seeing through him, but Cloud knows neither of them are understanding, they can’t because not even Zack really knows maybe. Maybe no one can.
“How did he… change?” Yuffie isn’t asking about the war, her hands twirling her weapon nervously, eyes flickering back to Vincent every so often. Which is both interesting and irrelevant and Cloud *knows* that thought isn’t his because he doesn’t think of his friends in terms of relevancy.
“I… don’t really know. One day we were fighting, he was the ShinRa Phantom then and one scary dude, and the next day we were hiding in a cave with a mako spring and the *next* day he was… a completely different person. I always thought maybe he and Seph talked things out but now… I just don’t know.”
“The ShinRa Phantom? My dad met him! He was one of our greatest fighters, completely ruthless and invincible! They said he could match the Silver General blow for blow!” Yuffie’s excitement is palpable, her eyes shining and a new bounce in her step.
“Why was he called that?”
Cloud glances at Zack and then at Cid, the blond chewing on his cigar and not really looking at anything in a way which meant he was far more interested in the story than he wanted to let on.
“Cause he would come in like a ghost, kill every living soul, steal all the supplies he needed and level the camp before moving on to the next target. Before Seph and I, no one on our side had ever lived long enough to give a good description of him.”
Cid’s grunt of understanding probably isn’t the response Yuffie was hoping for, she wilts a little.
Sephiroth and Cloud and Zack and Aeris. In school Cloud had learned that the triangle was the strongest shape, the pyramid stronger than the arch depending on the material used to make it. Facts. Facts gathered over lifetimes but none of them matter in the end, not all the knowledge of all the races can help him understand. Sephiroth and Cloud were a lot alike, and Cloud hates that but he can accept it. They both had plenty of facts to work with, but neither would ever be able to understand, and for a long time both had been comfortable with that.
Zack was something that didn’t ask to be understood in order to be loved, and it was so *easy* to love him. Aeris didn’t want them to understand because she didn’t understand herself and it scared her, and it was easy to dismiss things if it made her happy. But now Sephiroth doesn’t care about understanding because he will exert his own laws and boundaries on them, on Zack and Aeris and Cloud himself. And Cloud doesn’t know if what he understands is his own, or Sephiroth’s twisted logic.
It was Vincent’s hmm though, that catches Cloud, and the presence riding behind Cloud’s eyes. Vincent, who had no ties to any of them, except Sephiroth himself. Vincent who was carrying the black materia and who Sephiroth couldn’t *quite* reach, though why not was a mystery because surely in all the time Hojo had him, the madman had used Jenova on him at some point. Hojo was obsessed with Jenova, he couldn’t *not* have injected the demon carrier.
Unless it was the demons who held the calamity at bay, and that thought makes the virus in his blood scream and whisper and hate in ways that Cloud almost finds enjoyable because he can feel Sephiroth receding, feel Jenova aching and it’s almost enough to let him know things will be alright again. They can hurt the bitch. Not just Aeris and her dead but them, the living breathing mistakes Hojo was too stupid to permanently erase.
“How can a man be immortal? I mean, is he like you Aeris? An Ancient?”
Aeris shakes her head before Tifa even finishes the question, a frown gracing her features. “No, they don’t know much about him actually. Something about a veil and a lion but he isn’t like me at all. He’s not like any of us.”
Cloud knows differently. While they walk and talk and hunt Sephiroth is waiting, Jenova gathering in the lifestream all around them, knowledge gleaned from years of peering through the eyes of her infected being passed to her chosen son. Hojo had dismissed the brunet stranger too easily but the other, Lucretia, the woman from the waterfall knew, and used that knowledge to her own ends. And now Sephiroth knows, because Lucy belongs to Jenova and Cloud, pulled by silver chains, can’t tell anyone the conclusions being drawn in that frightening mind.
Chaos, the herald of Omega, born of corrupted lifestream, given host in this world through Valentine. The process determined through study of a demonic carrier, Project X, Lionhart.
The demons prevent complete Jenova infection. The demons can not be removed without damaging the host. The carriers have no place in the plan of Reunion. The carriers will be eliminated and their energy gathered into the lifestream to help call upon Meteor.
Sephiroth will kill them. As he is preparing to do now, deep under ground with Masamune gleaming from reflected lifestream, a pale god rising from the ashes of a world he set a flame. And Squall, seen through emerald cat slit eyes, an inky blot, shadows and darkness and burning blade.
“How immortal is immortal?” Cloud’s voice sounds strange in his ears, the blade in his hands too long, too light, his friends too far away. The answer comes as no real surprise.
“Enough to deal with you.”