He stood at the gate, gazing up at the large shadowed structure. Behind him, the Highwind was still unloading the people who had decided to live here after Midgar's destruction. The town had been nearly deserted after the Sephiroth clones left for the Jenova Reunion, but now people swarmed through the central square, exploring the houses and surroundings of the little town as their belongings were carefully lowered to the ground.
The Highwind hovered over the hamlet like a silver falcon, it's engines kicking up great columns of dust in the field. A violent gust of wind tore through the town as the Highwind rose quickly, causing Vincent's jet black hair and dark red cape to toss and flutter wildly before it dissipated. The Highwind majestically soared across the western Nibel mountains, towards Rocket Town. Vincent watched it leave, his ruby eyes tracking it far beyond the range of normal human eyesight before it disappeared from view. With a quick glance over his shoulder to assure himself that the people were settling in without problem, he turned back to the mansion.
The old iron gate was rusted, and it creaked loudly as he slowly pushed it open. The yard was wildly overgrown, with rampant shrubs, tall grass, and shy flowers springing up everywhere but where they had been originally planted. The pointed metal toes of his boots struck sparks on the stone path that led to the door as he walked. Pausing momentarily with his hand on the doorknob, he cast a quick look over the house again before pushing the door open and entering.
Inside, the house was dark, but his unnatural eyes had no trouble picking out every detail of the familiar main hall. A small glint of light from the heavy shadows beneath the curving staircase attracted his attention. As he knelt to peer into the concealing blackness a golden key, hanging from a chain about his neck, slid out from his shirt and landed with a dull thud on the floor. The cloud of dust its impact had caused slowly filtered back to the ground as Vincent took the key in his hand.
It was an old key, elegant and worn, with the picture of a lovely woman's face at the head. It sat in the palm of his steel claw, gleaming softly as the light seeping through the dust covered stained glass windows glided across its surface. Long forgotten memories danced behind his eyes, summoned by the key's presence.
***
The rain fell in heavy drenching sheets, turning the world a dark, gloomy gray. It soaked through his jacket and plastered his black hair to his head. The long locks of his bangs fell repeatedly across his eyes, blocking his vision. He irritably brushed the strands back again.
"Long enough to get in my way, but too short to push behind my ears," he thought. "I need a haircut." He made his unpleasant way to the store, brushing the extra water off of his coat beneath the awning that overhung the door. "At least it'll be warm inside," he thought, shivering slightly at the biting autumn wind as he slid the door open. The waft of warm air that greeted him was comforting and he hung his dripping coat on a hook on the wall, brushing his hair aside again.
"Welcome," The shopkeeper said looking up, "Terrible day to be walking about, Vincent. What can I get for you?"
"Hi, Charlie. I need some more medicine. Mom's not any better yet," he replied, worry clearly shining in his dark brown eyes.
"I hope she gets better soon." Charles responded, "You're too young to be forced to take so much responsibility, Vince."
"I'm fifteen, Charlie."
"My point exactly." he smiled, handing Vincent a bottle of pills. "Do you want anything else?"
Vincent thought a moment before saying, "A package of peppermint tea, a loaf of bread, and a jug of milk, please."
"Coming up. Hey, Vincent. If you don't need to get back to your mom right away, would you mind sticking around? It gets sort of boring minding the store by myself, and not many people go shopping when it's pouring that badly. Besides, you look like you could stand to dry out a little before going back out."
"Sure. My sister's watching over Mom."
The bell rang, signaling the entrance of another customer. Vincent turned and saw an old man, with gray hair that seemed frizzled despite being soaked and a marvelously wrinkled face. The man staggered slightly, coughing so heavily that it looked as if his lungs might pop out at any moment. The old man surveyed the two young men, then gestured for Vincent to approach.
"Come here, boy," the man said, his voice rasping like a rusty saw cutting down a forest.
"Yes, sir?" Vincent asked. He approached but did not draw near, his keen eyes picking out the sword at the man's waist.
"Boy, take this," the man said, reaching into the packet of the ragged long coat he wore. He drew out a gold key, hanging suspended from a fine chain, and held it out. "Find her," he commanded.
Vincent took the key, confused. "What is this?" he asked. "Find who?"
"It is the key to her prison," the man said, coughing. "For thousands of years we have sought to find her. She sleeps, ageless in her beauty, waiting."
"Who is she? Why are you trying to find her?"
"Her name is Luciath, my boy, and look at her. What man could not seek her? I ask you," he said, a smile parting his old lips.
The key contained a face. A woman's face, full of youth and impossible beauty. As Vincent stared at the key in his left hand, the old man continued to speak.
"Long ago she served as a knight under Lionart's rule. The Lionart house has since lost it's power, but back then, we were kings. The woman was a knight, one of the best fighters in the land, but she disappeared. The only clues to her whereabouts this key and the words '{Seek her out, the maiden fair; with gold of sunshine in her hair; eyes so green the grass is shamed; and flashing blade that can't be tamed. Go find the glass containing she; and free her, should you bear the key.}'" The man spoke the last part in a strange, flowing, oddly beautiful language.
"Um, I don't understand what you just said."
The man smiled a brittle smile. "It is the old language," he explained, and repeated the poem in the modern tongue.
***
He didn't sense the monsters' presence until one of them attacked. In the confusion, his gun went off in his hand, a searing pain jetting through his side. He focused on the monsters now, three Dorky Faces. The second Dorky Face attacked, purple fog billowing forth from it's jack-o-lantern like head. This time, the confusion spell missed. Slightly angry, Vincent shoved his gun back into the holster at his hip and raised his arms to the heavens. "Fire 2," he commanded, dropping his arms as the energy rose around him. His gun was already back in his hand as columns of fire rose beneath the monsters, who glowed red as they disappeared. From habit, he spun the gun around on his finger before putting it away.
Turning back to the staircase, he knelt again and looked deep into the shadows. There appeared to be a plank, no, a door, lying flat on the ground. What light managed to find its way there played across a dully reflective surface marred by darker lines. He reached under and pulled it out.
The door contained a stained glass panel, covered with thick dust. He wiped away most of it, and found that it was a picture of a woman. She wore dark blue shirt and pants and black, knee high boots. Her black cape was pushed back behind the steel armor she wore on her shoulders. Her hair, a rich golden blond, stood out in sharp contrast against the dark colors of her clothing, and her green eyes were almost exactly the same color as magic materia. One of her hands rested on the hilt of a sword and the other clasped her wide belt. His eyes widened as they jumped from the face in the glass to the face on the key that hung about his neck.
Under his breath he repeated the poem the old man had told him, matching the features described in the poem to those possessed by the woman as he spoke. It was too close to be a coincidence. He removed the chain and put the key in the door's lock. It fit.
A blinding flash of light burst forth and Vincent jumped back closing his eyes and throwing his arm up in front of his face. The light dissipated and he blinked rapidly, his eyes still burning with the blast's after image. He heard ragged breathing, smelt blood laying heavily on the air, and, when his eyes cleared, saw the young woman kneeling on the floor with a gaping wound in her abdomen.
As he approached, the woman slowly crumpled to the floor. He rolled her over onto her back, and her eyes, still open, flashed surprise over the pain.
"{Who . . . Who are you?}" she said in the same language that the old man had spoken. Her voice was forced and hollow, full of pain.
"Don't worry," he said, though he doubted she could understand him, "I'm trying to help you." He looked over the wound, his face, as always, emotionless. Half of a bloody arrow protruded from her body. Inwardly, he winced. "This might hurt a little." he warned, gripping the bloody shaft and pulling it out. She gasped in pain, her eyes widening before they rolled back into her head.
"Cure 3." he said. Energy rose from the dusty wood floor and small green points of light materialized and floated down over her body. The wound closed, the muscle and skin solid to the touch. The only evidence to the wound having ever existed was the blood that stained her shirt, their hands, and the arrow. He picked her up and carried her upstairs to the bedroom, carefully removing her armor and cape and laying them on the other bed.
He watched over her as she slept, his mind swimming with questions. What plagued his mind the most though was how much she looked like Lucrecia.
Lucrecia. Even now, thinking about her made his heart ache in sorrow. And now here was a woman who had been imprisoned in a stained glass panel who looked exactly like her. Well, almost exactly. This woman's hair was a deep golden blond, while Lucrecia's had been a beautiful rich brown. But that was where the differences ended and the similarities began. The face was the same, with soft delicate features and large eyes. The eyes were the same deep green, the likes of which he had only seen before in Lucrecia's son, Sephiroth. Even her eyebrows bore the same sophisticated arch. It would not be a good idea to think about Lucrecia's body, he decided, closing his eyes and turning away. He had often said, and even thought, that his emotions had died during his long slumber, but he knew that was a lie. He always felt something.
Anger was a constant companion. Anger, at himself usually, at Hojo. He even felt anger towards Professor Gast, and later at Sephiroth, though they hardly deserved it. And every once in a long while, at Lucrecia herself. And accompanying any thought of Lucrecia came the love, the sadness, the guilt, and the pain.
"Lucrecia," he whispered, his throat tight. "Can you ever forgive me?" He had hoped that by destroying Sephiroth he could in some way atone for his sins, but now he only felt even more empty, direction less, and consumed.
***
"Luciath," a voice called from the darkness. "Luciath, wake up."
"Mom?" Luciath asked drowsily. She sat up partly, leaning on her elbow as she rubbed her eyes. She realized that she hadn't had to push her bangs out of the way in order to do that. Sitting up quickly, entirely awake, she traced her bangs with her hand and found that they only came down to her eyebrows. She hadn't had her hair cut like this in years! She pulled her hair over her shoulder and found that it only came down a few inches past her collarbones. Had somebody hacked off her hair? And her clothes! She wasn't wearing the same clothes anymore, either.
She looked around frantically, trying to see were she was, and saw the woman standing over her. Her mouth fell open in surprise as she scrutinized the woman, making certain that this woman was who she thought it was.
"Is something wrong?" the woman asked, her large green eyes questioning and concerned. Her dark hair fell about halfway to her waist, pulled back in a ponytail, and it's color was a deep brown with red highlights. Her face was fair and youthful, but fine wrinkles were beginning to play about her eyes and mouth. She was exactly the same as Luciath remembered her, from seventeen years ago.
"Mom," Luciath said in disbelief, getting up. She stopped when she saw that she only came up to about her mother's shoulders. "What's going on?" she asked, looking down at herself. What had happened? She looked like she was still ten!
The woman looked confused. "What do you mean?" she asked. "Is something wrong?"
"Yes!" Luciath shouted, looking around in disbelief. They were back in the cave behind the waterfall. She ran past her mother and out into the crater, falling to her knees by the lake, staring at her reflection. She was ten again. Tears started streaming down her cheeks. "What's going on?" she moaned. Her mother ran to her side, begging her to tell her what was wrong, cradling her in her soft lap. Luciath hardly noticed.
"Was it all a dream?" she thought. "How could you live seventeen years in a dream? In one night?" Deep inside she knew something was wrong about this whole thing. She wasn't back home. How could she be? She pulled away from the woman who so resembled her mother.
"Who are you?" she asked in a hard distrusting voice. The woman looked stricken. "Answer me!" she demanded when she got no answer.
"I'm your mother, Lucrecia," the woman said, tears welling up in her own eyes. "Don't you even remember me? Please, Luci, tell me what's wrong."
Lucrecia. That was her mother's name. But some how it didn't work, it wasn't right. She was staring into the face of her mother, and a stranger at the same time.
"Everything's all wrong," she said, her eyes dry but her face still tear-streaked. She pulled back when the woman tried to hold her again, running to the far side of the grassy ledge, the only flat surface in the lake filled crater. "You're not my mother!"
The woman stood, her face now impassive and cold. "Very perceptive, child," she said in a voice that was neither masculine nor feminine, but managed to be both at the same time. "You're much more careful than your brother was. You are also much stronger." The voice was cold and impersonal. "Child," it continued, softening, becoming very caring and persuasive. "I need you to help me." The body that was Lucrecia's wavered. "I will no longer lie to you," it said.
Luciath gasped as the creature shifted its form. It became a tall being with a feminine torso and face. Its lower body flared outwards at what could be called the hips so that it looked like it was wearing a dress, and there were tentacles around it's base. Where arms would be on a human, this being had what looked like a cross between tentacles and wings. Its skin looked blue at first, but when Luciath kept looking at one spot she saw every other color flicker by under the blue layer. The entire effect was both revolting and oddly attractive. Luciath drew back as far as she could.
"What are you?" she asked.
"I am Jenova." it replied. "Come to me, child." It moved forward, the tentacles around its base pulling and pushing it along the ground.
"No!" Luciath shouted in horror. "Stay away from me." Her mother had spoken of a being called Jenova once, and she remembered her mother's lamenting words. "Jenova takes control of you, manipulates you. And you don't even know you've been manipulated until it's too late!"
"Come, child." it demanded, its voice carrying a hypnotic singing quality.
Luciath narrowed her eyes and jumped back into the lake. The current carried her to the collapsed crater side where the lake became a river. She saw the creatures tentacles extending towards her and swam as hard as she could. There were more waterfalls up ahead and the water sped up. Luciath had ridden down these falls before but she was more afraid of what that thing could do to her than she was of what the water could. She started over the edge of the first fall, but the tentacles shot through the air and wrapped around her legs and torso.
"No!" she screamed, struggling.
"Calm down," a low voice said softly. "I'm not going to hurt you." The tentacles wrapped around her suddenly changed form. They were more like . . . Arms? Her eyes snapped open and she stared into the red eyes of the man she remembered seeing before she blacked out. He pulled away and she found herself on the floor of a dark room. She was sitting beside a bed with her legs tangled up in the covers. A dream? That certainly seemed more plausible than anything else. She pushed the blankets away from her and stood, regarding the dark man. He was not just dark in the fact that his hair and clothes were black, but he also seamed to be surrounded by an aura of gloomy sadness and anger. His skin was so pale it looked almost white, and a scarlet head band covered his forehead. His lower left arm seemed to be clad in some sort of steel armored glove, the fingers of which ended in sharp-looking claws. All in all, he looked more threatening than Mecha had, but Luciath did not jump to any premature conclusions. She'd seen evil wear a pretty face. Besides, this man had probably saved her life. Though her mind was a flutter of thoughts and emotions, she kept them as masked as he did.
"What is your name?" the man asked finally, a tiny glint of curiosity shining through the neutral ice of his eyes.
"Luciath Magewood," she replied with nonchalance. Her speech bore a light, lilting accent that was pleasing to the ear. "You?"
"Vincent Valentine."
Luciath's eyebrows moved almost imperceptibly upward. "{Valentine? If you are he, you've changed quite a lot.}" she said softly. Louder, she said, "I must thank you for you assistance, Mr. Valentine, and apologize for any inconvenience I have caused you." She bowed as she said this, and picked her armor and cape up from the other bed. "I'll go now so as not to intrude upon your life any further." She walked past him into the hall and glanced around.
A door to the left led to a small room almost entirely filled with plants and ahead was a room containing a large safe. To the right was a short flight of steps leading to a hallway. This flight she followed. She stood for a moment as the right wall gave way to a gigantic entrance hall, again considering her surroundings. The hall she was in continued along the back wall to another short flight leading upward into another shadowed hall. A staircase towards the middle of the echoing room led from the central hall to a landing that also spanned the entire distance of the back wall. At the left end of the landing, another staircase curved down to the main floor. Everything in the entire house seamed to be wrapped in a heavy sheet of dust. Luciath had already descended all of the stairs and was heading for the front door when she heard Vincent's voice from behind her.
"So, you're just going to leave," he stated, almost questioningly.
She looked back at him over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised. "Do you want me to stay?"
Well, the woman I introduced in the preface has shone up. Now what role does she play in any of this? Why is Jenova out to capture her mind? How will Vincent react when informed of her parentage? What are Merian, Emily, Aaron, and their new friend Green Eyes doing now? You'll find out in the chapters to come. ^_^
Author: Kami Jadeheart