marmaladecat (marmaladecat) wrote in kinkfest, @ 2007-09-14 22:09:00 |
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Entry tags: | a: marmaladecat, f: final fantasy vii, p: cloud/sephiroth, september 14 |
Changing Seasons, Final Fantasy VII, (Sephiroth/Cloud)
Title: Changing Seasons
Author/Artist: marmaladecat
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None.
Word count: 1,188
Summary: For prompt:- Final Fantasy VII, Sephiroth/Cloud - redefining boundaries: "It's a bit late to be calling me sir."
Set post DoC.
Of course, he comes back. Just like he always does.
It's like the turning of the seasons, winter rising again after the lazy endless summer. Except the summers are getting longer now; each turn of events, each slow descent after the rise back to sureness, certainty, peace, that much longer in its beginning. Cloud wonders if they'll ever reach the point where the cycle will stop and he'll be left alone in the hazy summer days and winter will no longer matter for any of them.
But Cloud has killed him a thousand times over, with sword and fire and sometimes his own bare hands. In dreams, in visions, in real life where the blood that runs over his hands is hot and burns with the poison of mako. It makes no difference in the long term. What little satisfaction he gets from the replaying of the action merely allows him to hold out against the turning of the seasons that little bit longer.
Always he's dogged by the dark mocking he sees in those eyes and the certainty of a man dead many times that it's still not over. The General's charisma was always legendary and even in death he commands an obedience and loyalty that are above the ability of any other. One cannot help but have faith in the promises that man makes, if only because one is sure that the strength of his black will would negate any possibility of failure.
Still, the distance between one flashback and the next is slowly widening. Years now, instead of months or weeks and on the day it seems like summer has set in for good, Cloud is so busy relaxing in the warmth of the dream that it's as though he's ten years younger and life hasn't yet turned insane. He's lost in the vision as surely as though the field he sits in is the same field they used for training when he was still a recruit. In fact, he can hear Sgt Alteim's parade voice ringing out at his squad-mates in the far distance and he thinks to himself, just a little longer and then he'll go back to join them.
"What are you doing here, Cloud?"
And of course he recognises the voice immediately, but the dream he's in places it in an entirely different light as though the years of strife and bloodshed that have passed have never even existed.
"S-Sir!" he exclaims, scrambled ungracefully to his feet, guilty of what he's not quite sure.
The General's pale cat-eyes regard him curiously, their focus burning a hole in his flushing face as easily as one of the weapon's department's lasers.
"It's a little late to be calling me sir," the General drawls with dark amusement, and Cloud blinks and blinks again. "After all, you've killed me three times already."
The dream fragments and the training field melts away to the barren plains outside Midgar. He can see the ruins of the city rising in the background and smell the smoke of oil burning on the wind.
"Sephiroth," he acknowledges, with the calmness born of one who has seen this too often to care any longer. "What is it this time?"
"The end, Cloud," the General replies, tilting his head to one side, just like he used to when Cloud said something that particularly amused him. "Of all things."
"A little melodramatic don't you think?" Cloud says evenly, wondering where the dream has hidden his sword. It will come to him when necessary he knows, just like it always does.
"Accurate," Sephiroth states, that smirk still upon his lips. "The Planet needs you again Cloud, to do her work for her."
"And you're a strange messenger for her to send."
"Perhaps. But we were close once. Whatever happens, she knows that I can always reach you, even when the others cannot."
"Why would she send you?" Cloud's voice is flat and wary, tiredness threading through each word. Weary of the repetition, the game and the endless sense of falling towards something dark and inescapable that always permeates these dreams.
"In the end, Cloud. I know you best," is the reply. And suddenly he can remember the feel of pale skin beneath his palms, long silver hair that makes him shudder beneath the drag of it across his back. The frailties he whispered in the nights after everyone else had left them and the things they did together he couldn't tell anyone, not even Zack.
"You killed Aerith."
"Yes," Sephiroth replies. "That too."
Cloud takes a step back as the General reaches for him, his fingertips brushing lightly down Cloud's cheek. "You were always so simple," Sephiroth says. "The other one is coming now, and he's not going to be alone. Use every resource you have available to you, Cloud Strife. Even those ones you would normally hesitate to think of. Make use of your allies and their strengths and do not be afraid to do what you must. He's stronger than he used to be, and now I'm not around to hold him in check, it falls to you."
"What are you talking about?" Cloud growls, pulling back from his touch furiously. It's been a long time since he was in a position to allow the General to do that to him and so many things have changed between then and now that it's barely condonable that he has not already drawn his sword and charged.
"I have already told you," Sephiroth says sternly. "Pay attention, Cloud. There's not much time left."
"Right, right. The end is coming and suddenly you're back and ready to offer your bestest advice," Cloud says, sarcasm lacing his voice. "Forgive me if I feel the need to query your intentions, Sephiroth, but you killed too many of my friends for me to just let you walk back in and tell me what to do."
The smile that ghosts across Sephiroth's lips is the smile of years ago, when life was still simple. "You always were such a serious youth," he says. "Disregard my warning at your peril. He is coming back and he will try to bring about the end. The real end. Of everything. Now, be ready."
"Who is he?" Cloud relents, giving in to the dream.
"My brother," Sephiroth replies, and at Cloud's shocked jerk he reaches out and taps him sharply on the forehead. Cloud winces and Sephiroth says, "You need to wake up now."
Cloud wakes to the slow spin of the ceiling fan in Seventh Heaven and the rattle of glasses that is Tifa behind the bar. Across the table Shelke looks up at him, her attention drawn by his sudden shift in awareness. Her mako-bright eyes see straight through him with the ease of one born to the same twisting of reality that he was. "Bad dream?" she asks and he blinks at her.
"I think," he says eventually, "That summer's over."
She nods with the understanding of one who has shared the experience of mako and blood and ShinRa and pushes her glass aside. "I'll begin the preparations," she says.