Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Because of a Garden and a Twilight Walk ❯ Prologue ( Prologue )

Author's notes: Whee! I'm so very happy and thankful to all who reviewed the teaser-idea! I hope I can keep all of this story as good as you hope/expect/anticipate it to be! Please review and inform me of any mistakes in the fic on my part, I would appreciate it and positive feedback. ^_^ Please review this part of the story, this is going to be a very slow beginning, but..I hope it's okay. I need to start it before they meet. How come noone told me if I was correct on the assumption that Sephiroth had green eyes?! I still don't remember! Waah! @.@ After this fic...could someone tell me if they'd be interested in a Rufus/Aeris fic? or a Vincent/Aeris or Vincent/Tifa or a Reno/Yuffie? Hopefully somebody'll like one or two of these couples and would like me to write a fic for them! I really hope someone wants me to do the first and the last couple ideas..I know, Reno/Yuffie's been done before, but it's good, and...i've never seen a Rufus/Aeris fic!

This deals with new characters, by the way. Sephiroth and Aeris were reborn by being given birth to by mothers that were not involved in the ff7 storyline. Therefore, they're young, while the other ff7 characters are older. Some of the characters even had children!! Sephiroth and Aeris weren't the only two given another chance at life, either, one or two more have. But they aren't major characters, Sephy and Aeris are the main! =D
[Spelling Errors fixed.]
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"Even as I breathe,
as I sigh,
the words escape me,
I don't know why."
(no stealing this little line, I made it up. o.o;)
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Sephiroth looked at his watch and sighed as the girl next to him on the elevator chattered endlessly. What did she say her name was? Oh yes, Relena. She had chin length red hair and blue eyes, with a small frame, wearing a black jacket over a loose white button down shirt. The girl had said she was the daughter of Reno and Elena. These words seemed slightly familiar to him, which he had found odd. He shook his head, why worry about trivial details? This girl was a secretary for a job he was not involved with, at least, not yet.

The elevator stopped and Sephiroth stepped out of it to enter a rather large hallway, white marble tiles covered the floor, and a long blue carpet stretched from the entrance of the building to the reception desk. The place was new, just having been build about two weeks ago. The business had been built for the reason of protecting citizens of Midgar. If monsters from the world ever came too close to the large Midgar, the people of this job would be out there preventing them from entering. They had proclaimed to never take control like the small business of Shinra had slowly done, and the people believed that.

Shinra. The historical name still brought terror to those who had been alive during it's reign of Midgar. They also seemed to fear Sephiroth whenever he walked across the streets casually. He did not understand why. He was told earlier as a child that he had been named after the main reason of the terror of everyone living, because his mother had seemed so insistent upon it. Why she had been compelled to name a child such a cursed name after this Sephiroth that the current Sephiroth had never known, he did not understand. He brushed some white strands of hair away from his aqua-green eyes, sighing frustratedly. It was not easy to get a job when some people feared him for his name.

The woman at the reception desk stared at him with wide-eyes as he approached. "Um, Hello sir. I'm Marlene, what is your business here?" She smiled at him, trying not to look fearful as he told her his name and how he was supposed to apply for a job here. She gave him a pamphlet and asked him to fill all of it out and return it later that week. He nodded, and walked out of the building briskly.

He always felt like he should be repenting for something. He had set that thought to words when he was a child, speaking to his mother. His mother laughed whole-heartedly and put a hand on his head. She had told him that it was for a reason he would probably never know. Sephiroth scanned through the pamphlet as he continued his trail of thought. His mother had always seemed to know more than anyone else.

Someone had bumped into him. Sephiroth stopped scanning the pamphlet application for a job and looked to see who it was. The girl looked up at him. "Hello." She seemed to be around sixteen, seventeen or so, roughly ten years younger than he. "Sorry for bumping into you. What's your name?" She was a little short for her age, but fit and seemingly agile. Her eyes were chocolate brown and her hair was a light shade of brown, dark brown and blonde hairs mixed in.

Sephiroth sighed boredly. Most likely this female would hear his name, think of the history of the world, and run away screaming or something along the lines of it. "Sephiroth." Against his assumption, the girl's eyes widened in excitement and curiosity.

"Wow! You're names the same as the guy who my two parents fought with! And from their description of him...you look just like 'im too!" The girl jumped up, excited. "Could you meet my parents? They're annoying sometimes, but I want to see their reaction to you!"

Sephiroth put a hand to his forehead and called for the patience that would stop him from saying something rude to the girl for being so annoyingly friendly to a stranger for resembling a would-be destroyer of the world. He forced a smile on and looked down at the girl once more.

"You know my name, but I do not know yours."

"I'm Aerith! My mom and dad said they named me after an old friend of there's that was killed. They said they still hoped to see her again, so they named me Aerith, instead of Aeris. My dad said it was 'cause my mom wanted the letter 'h' in my name to represent hope..or something like that...Oh! Oh! I'm being a blabbermouth, sorry! I'm in a hurry to go to my job, too! Gyah!" The girl ran into the building he had just left and Sephiroth's eyes widened slightly. The girl worked where he was going to apply for a job? They took people younger than 18? Interesting. Sephiroth's mouth went thin. Once again, he was thinking of something not very important to the current time. He stored the knowledge of the odd, chirpy young girl in the back of his head in case he met her again if he joined the business. He was confused, and thought on why the name Aeris seemed so familiar to him, bringing a spark of pain.

A young woman smiled gently as a the small hand of a child was held out to her, holding three neatly and freshly cut pink roses. She brushed her chestnut brown hair aside and reached down to the child. She was given the pink roses and she lifted them to her nose, inhaling the scent. The young woman smiled. "Thank you, Sophia." Children that lived in the town of Kalm seemed drawn to the young woman. They loved her and her gentleness, and helped her care for her garden without complaints. They were the ones who had offered to help tend to her garden one day when she seemed tired. Now all the children of Kalm new how to tend a garden.

"You're welcome, Miss Aeris!" The child said, her young blue innocent eyes twinkling in joy to have pleased Aeris. The young woman noticed Sophia's tousled and messy blonde hair, and laughed.

"You've been out playing and you tangled your beautiful blonde hair, Sophia," Aeris picked the little child up. "Would you like me to fix it?" Sophia nodded, and was carried inside of Aeris's home.

Aeris sat Sophia down on the edge of her bed and reached for a brush. She smiled patiently and brushed the fidgety child's hair with so much care that Sophia never felt any hair be tugged tightly in an effort to detangle a knot. She felt gentle tugs when their were large knots, but not any that were painful or near it. Sophia smiled when Aeris was done. "I love you Aeris!"

She laughed quietly at the girl's proclamation. Everyone at Kalm, the place in which she had grown up in, seemed to like her. Her laughter quieted to a stop as she thought. Everyone, except for one blonde-boy who seemed to gaze at her coolly and regard her coldly. He held emotions in his eyes like no child should, but an adult. The thought of the cold blonde boy chilled her to the bone. His mother had been compelled to name him after the president of used-to-be Shinra. Rufus...

Familiarity of the name and of the Shinra whenever mentioned, scared her slightly. The fact that it scared her made her confused and even more scared. Why would she, Aeris, be fearful to something in the past when she had not even been born to meet those people. She shook her head, realizing she had been silent too long in thought, for Sophia was staring at her concernedly. "Miss Aeris, are you alright?"

"I am fine. Thank you for caring, Sophia." Aeris smiled softly and led Sophia out of her house, to come face to face to Sophia's elder brother, Rufus. Sophia smiled at her elder brother and tugged at his hand, but Rufus ignored her for a moment and stared coolly at Aeris, almost as if he could see into her soul with his cold blue eyes. He spoke as if he thought before he spoke every word, almost as if he was far more educated than the other children of Kalm. "You don't belong here, you know. You may have forgotten, but I remember. We were born with the memory, but you forgot it. You forced it to the back of your mind and decided to make a new life here. You don't belong here, and neither do I." Aeris blinked at Rufus' words, and stepped back.

"Rufus, I do not know what you mean." Aeris smiled, covering her slight fear that she felt whenever she spoke to Rufus, but his chilling words full of meaning she did not fully understand and eyes that bore into her like he knew a secret about her that she herself didn't know made her fearful all the more. "Go and play with you're little sister Sophia."

"You should try and remember, Aeris Gainsborough." He said, almost spitefully, and turned away from her. He smiled softly to his sister, the air about him changing immediately as he layed eyes on this little child full of hope that was his sister in this new life. He patted her on the head like she was extremely young compared to him, and laughed. "Alright, let's go play." Sophia's eyes brightened and tagged him, running away. Rufus looked back to Aeris, who was still watching him. "You murdered noone, so you were allowed to forget. I was not," He said, his voice cold once more. "If you remembered, you'd either try to push it back into your mind again so that you would forget...or you would try to find your old friends." He smirked. "They would probably think you were some sort of ghost, anyway." He laughed coldly and ran after his sister.

Ten year old Rufus, the seemingly-cold; distant child, and Sophia. They were like two sides of a coin. Male, female. Cold, Warm. Serious, Silly. Seemingly-pained, Happy and filled with laughter. It was like Sophia was his reason for life now. Aeris shook her head. But what had Rufus been talking about? She didn't understand...

She let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding, and shut her door, leaning against it, taking comfort in the warm surroundings of her home. "What was he talking about?" She put a hand on her heart.

"What did he mean?"