The Sleeping Forest awoke to the step of the Planet’s dearest child.  Ever fragile but never afraid, she ran without pause towards her fate.  Soft bangs brushed wind blossomed cheeks as the trees turned from grey to pure white.

Lonely…

Yes, but never alone, she said without word to the breeze.  It joined sea and sky and all life between to be part of that intricate dance.  Beneath high hanging boughs she sank to her knees and the grass below bent without rue.  She was praying in the position she knew she would die as starlight white lilies grew round.  Not meaning to call them, she felt swift regret to be squandering such precious gifts, but the pulse of life was too great in this instant, knowing it soon would be silenced.

She squeezed her eyes shut, shielding the green that had always marked her as different.  No common hue, they shone with the color of the tide that dwelt inside all.  The memories were hard, but the prayer came easy…strength, light, and hope above all.  It would not be enough.  Not this last time.  Not enough to quench the darkness.  Her people’s last city awaited her shade, and she needed more than courage.

There was no sound for warning or herald, but the maiden knew that he was there.  Opening her eyes, auburn veiled her vision to his sturdy, black boots standing close.  Their proximity startled though she hid the gasp as she lowered her hands to her thighs.

In awe she looked up, lips pink and parting.  She always forgot just how tall…but more than that she forgot he was beautiful, despite darkness that ate as his heart.  A winter angel draped in black with moonlight swirled around.  His skin was whiter than alabaster cold as if the sun were too frightened to touch, and the hollows dark beneath his eyes were spilled with emerald light.  She remembered again how to breathe through her awe and wished memory would grant her this grace.  As though in his absence there was a forgetting cast upon like a spell.  The wind then in mocking blew silver strands forward so they barely brushed her cheeks.

He was looking down at her with face still as marble, clenching gloved hands into fists.  The living heat of those green eyes could bring grown men to their knees, and slit pupils to shame the king of cats cut sharper than the sword at his side.  Behind dark lashes longer than hers, the Mako light sheared through, and though she knew she had no choice, the fragile maid still shook.

“You know I will not do this.”  And she quivered all the more.  His low voice awakened deep heat in her skin, and she blushed to suppress the plea.  It was almost enough to abandon her purpose and give into her shameful desire.

“And you know we have no choice.”  It had always been there.  The unspoken arrangement.  Ever since he’d protected her long ago in the labs before they could make separate escapes.  Though neither one was truly free.  All the players knew the farce, the jailers and the jailed.  A bigger cage was still a prison even if it contained the world.

“The darkness is coming.”  She held taut his gaze, though blinked as he did not. “And the light will soon be veiled.”

“This is madness, Aeris.” He turned away, ripping fingers through silver hair.  No matter how ripped how flung or torn, it always fell in perfection.  The high bangs ever cross his face were just the same as hers.

And no matter how blood soaked, she thought without willing, it will always shine so fair.

“No, Sephiroth,” she said aloud but so softly, “the madness is yet to come…”

He glared at her over his shoulder, staining armor with verdant light.

“You are the one it will corrupt.”

“That will never happen.”  He stepped slowly toward her like a cat in the hunt.  Aeris just shook her head.  As though she had seen.  As though it had happened.  As though past and future had met.

“It will.”  Her own small hands clenched tight.  “Your very cells will betray your will.  Even now you fight…”

And in his eyes arose a gleam as though woken at those words.  It came not from the Mako that swirled in his veins, but from something far deeper and old.  The Planet’s dear child knew true fear then as the ground beneath keened lament.

“The horror that gnaws at the heart of the world.  The thing that we must stop.”  She could feel the touch of that terrible corruption trying to worm beneath her skin.  He blinked in that instant and the glow became true, though his jaw clenched on words to curse fate.

“You can rage against heaven.  Hate the gods if you must.  You know it will do no good.”

The maledictions he spewed were so coarse in their vehemence Aeris wanted to stop her ears.  When he was done, silence full reigned as if the forest were too shamed to echo.

Sephiroth walked slowly back to where she knelt, whispering, “Why me?”

The wrath made him paler as green light was swallowed in the darkness beneath his eyes.

“You’ve killed people before.  Women, children…”  She looked away for the pain of that truth and forced herself not to think.

“That was different.  That was war.” His voice was flat with no regret.  “And I have never killed a child.”

“There were children in Nibelheim…”