la_belle_laide (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
la_belle_laide) wrote2003-12-01 11:19 am
la_belle_laide) wrote2003-12-01 11:19 am
Just some scenes...
Just a coupla scenes from this longass FFVII story I've had on the burner for about three years. I don't know. I like this fic and I really like writing it; as far as my own writing goes, I get a kick out of this story. I don't think it's the best thing I've ever written, but it's (usually) easy writing and, at least for me, easy reading when I read it back.
So, yeah. Lines or whole scenes.
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(Elena and Rude meet Cloud in the cemetary)
"Likewise," came a soft, distant voice from behind them. The voice sounded amused and almost sarcastic.
Elena reached for her weapon out of habit before remembering that it wasn't there. She stood up and turned slowly.
Cloud Strife leaned carelessly against a tall monument a few yards behind them, watching them with an amused look. He took a sip from the drink he was holding, then casually swirled it with the straw.
Elena faced him, filled with confusion and anger. "Are you a clone?" she asked.
Cloud's eyes darkened for a moment, then he smiled easily. "Nope," he said. "Though others might try to tell you that. I'm just Cloud Strife from Nibelheim, same as I always was." He pushed himself off the monument and walked toward them, taking another sip from the straw. "Tifa bring you here?" he asked.
Elena nodded. She had a million questions she wanted to ask, but didn't know where to begin. She decided to just let him talk.
"Yeah, I figured that. New ShinRa's been after me for a while, so this was Avalanche's plan. You guys still with ShinRa?" he asked.
Elena was a little shocked at his easy confidence. Apparently Strife wasn't worried at all about whether or not they were from the new ShinRa. He must have known that, had they been working with Scarlet, they'd either kill him or run right back and tell Scarlet that he was alive. She thought that should worry him plenty.
"No, we're not," Rude said, eyeing Cloud warily. "But what if we were?"
Cloud shrugged and smiled again. "You guys haven't beaten me yet, have you?"
Elena frowned, feeling indignant, but something made her hold back her comments. He was making her skin prickle.
She thought perhaps it had something to do with the way that Cloud seemed be to purposely keeping himself under tight control. Underneath his easygoing posture and smile, she sensed something more going on. As Cloud came closer, Elena could see that he was deliberately taking deep, even breaths. He was edgily calm, a practiced calm that seemed to remain intact by the force of his will. She wondered how long after beating Sephiroth it had taken him to win that self control.
Strife could only have been about thirty one or maybe thirty two by Elena's calculation, but his eyes looked older. His hair was longer, and didn't stick straight up as it used to. It still seemed to fall in long spikes, though. Elena vaguely wondered why in the hell that was.
"So why'd you come here?" Cloud asked, with a tilt of his head.
"We ran into some trouble and we needed help," she said simply. "Tseng is alive; he's very sick. There's a lot more to the story. We didn't even know you were here," she said.
Cloud raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Tseng survived?" he said.
"Yeah, no thanks to you," Elena shot back.
Cloud nodded. "Yeah, that's true. But then, I survived too. No thanks to you guys." He smiled again.
"Anyway, it's probably better that we met you," Elena went on, in a brusque, businesslike voice. She decided that her resentment was there for a reason, and she'd better let it run its course. She'd let go of it when she was damn good and ready. "We have news that I think might concern you. Sephiroth is back."
Cloud blinked, and his hand tightened around the cup that held his drink, but he otherwise controlled his reaction. Still, Elena was reminded of the time when she had stepped out onto a frozen lake by her childhood home on the Northern Continent and heard the ice crack in the distance.
Cloud took a deep breath, smiled vaguely, and nodded. "I guess it was only a matter of time," he said. "Did you actually see him yourself?"
"That's one way of putting it," Rude said slowly. "But he said he didn't mean anyone any harm."
Cloud nodded slowly. "I guess he could honestly mean that, at least for now," he said.
Elena frowned. It was not the reaction she had expected. She almost wanted to remind him that Rude had said "Sephiroth," and not "cuddly stuffed mog."
Cloud saw the dubious look on Elena's face. He shrugged. "You don't know the real Sephiroth," he said. "You never met him. I remember him a little, once in a while. He was cold, but he wasn't, you know. Evil."
"So," Rude said warily, "who's to say he's not still 'evil' now?"
"I didn't say he wasn't," Cloud said. "I just said it was possible." He took another sip from the straw, and nodded toward the headstone with his name on it. "Mind if we go back and talk?" he asked. "I don't like looking at that thing."
----------------------------------------------------
(Reeve and Cid at Cosmo Canyon)
The sun was setting as Reeve descended the last hill before the stairs to Cosmo Canyon. It made the parched, red dirt all around him look like blood. *An ill omen,* Elmyra would have said. *Blood on the horizon.*
And sometimes he remembered her eyes, and how Aerith's eyes had always reminded him of Elmyra's, though he knew that there was no blood relation between them.
*Blood relation...blood on the horizon...Goddamn blood on your shirt...*
Reeve looked down at his tattered clothes and wasn't entirely surprised to see that he was bleeding again. He supposed it was the only time in his life since Meteor that he had ever wished that Sephiroth was around. The bastard could heal, damn him.
Talking to Sephiroth like a normal person again had been beyond strange. Cursing him to his face had been so surreal that a part of him wanted to wonder if he hadn't dreamed it all. But then, there was Sephiroth's cloak to consider. Reeve was wearing it. Perhaps he was still dreaming.
"Bastard could have gotten me something to eat," he muttered aloud. "Conjured some food...some water. Bastard."
He pulled his torn shirt and the cloak closer around him, wondering fleetingly if he wasn't symbolically trying to hold his insides in. He wondered what it looked like in there.
The sand was dry in his mouth. It took him a second to realize that, and another second to wonder why there was sand in his mouth. Reeve opened his eyes and saw that he was on the ground. He had no memory of falling. One moment he had been wondering what his insides looked like, and the next, he'd been eating this dry, red dirt.
"Jesus. It must be 'collapse at the entrance to Cosmo Canyon' day," said a voice from above him.
"It is," Reeve answered, though he had no idea whom he was answering or why they'd said that. "I like to observe all the minor holidays."
Someone turned him over onto his back. "Wow. Something made a mess of your shirt."
"Yeah..." Reeve said, too tired to open his eyes. The other person didn't sound like they were about to kill him. The voice sounded familiar. "A piece of NeoNeoMidgar and some kind of...of metal thing. Shame. Good shirt."
"You look like shit."
Reeve opened his eyes, because if he was going to make a snarky return comment to the person, he had to at least know what they looked like and maybe base it on that. He couldn't quite focus, but he didn't need to. The blond hair and the goggles were all he needed to see.
"Oh," was all he could think of to say in his relief. "Cid."
"I'd ask you how you've been, but I guess I already know the answer."
"I've been better but I've already been helped by..." With sudden panic, he remembered why he had come here. He sat up too quickly and had to grab onto Cid's arm to keep from falling back down. "Sephiroth-- Christ, Cid, Sephiroth is back, it's really him, not just a clone, he's here to see Cloud, he seems..."
"I know, I know," Cid said, and took Reeve by the arm. "It's all good. That's why I'm here. They got your message through Cait Sith and they radioed for me while I was on the Highwind. Come on." Cid was slipping his arm around Reeve and trying to haul him up. "You gotta help me here; I ain't carrying you up all these stairs."
"Right," Reeve said, and stood up with Cid's help.
"So," Cid said in a conversational tone as he braced Reeve up the first step, "you've seen Sephiroth?"
"Seen him. Was with him. Talked a long time."
"Talked," Cid said, surprised. "Well that's different. He do this to you?"
*Yes!* Reeve wanted to scream. *The murderous bastard came back and did this; we have to kill him!*
"No," was what he ended up saying. But he refused to tell Cid that Sephiroth had helped him. That he had saved his life.
"The ShinRa's here."
"ShinRa?"
"Well, the Turks."
"Oh," Reeve said. "Turks aren't ShinRa anymore. Anymore than I am. Anymore than you are."
*And thank god they're alive,* he added mentally. But he didn't want to say anymore about them, because he wasn't certain how much Cid knew about Midgar, or their possible involvment in its destruction, which he still didn't totally believe. *And now you're keeping secrets. Isn't this just like old times?* he thought grimly.
"Right, well..." Cid said, "anyway, they saw Sephiroth, too."
"No shit?" Reeve said.
"Maybe, maybe not. That's what they say. They're wanted. Everyone's after them."
Reeve turned his head so that he could see Cid's face. It was hard to read him by his voice. "Wanted? By whom? For what?"
"By...the authorities. For blowing the living Christ out of Midgar."
Reeve stopped putting one foot in front of the other and Cid had to catch him around the waist so he didn't fall backwards down the stairs. He was glad that his first reaction hadn't been to believe that the Turks had been out to destroy his city, but rather to wonder why other people believed it. Sephiroth had said that naivete was endearing but useless. Reeve believed in hoping for the best while being prepared for the worst.
"How'd you hear about this?" Reeve asked.
"Saw it on the TV. Goddamned Scarlet with pictures of them, saying that they'd had their confessions on tape but the Turks had escaped and destroyed..."
"SCARLET?!" Reeve tried to bellow, but only managed to rasp. "Goddamned Scarlet? Scarlet?"
"Yeah, Scarlet. Reeve, settle down, you're gonna make us fall."
"Scarlet? Cid, Scarlet?!"
Reeve wasn't exactly sure why he could do nothing but repeat her name in outrage, but the damned thing seemed to want to keep coming out. Of course she'd had something to do with it; of course. *He* had sent the Turks on the mission without checking it out. And if, for some reason, the Turks really had destroyed NeoNeoMidgar, then*he* had destroyed NeoNeoMidgar, which would apparently have to be NeoNeoNeoMidgar in the future. Scarlet had played *him.*
But how had she gotten the power? How had she gotten the information? And even more appalling--
"How'd she get on television?!" Reeve said as Cid hauled him up the last step.
"Jesus, Reeve, calm down, will ya? Don't make me slap you! I don't know how she got on television. Had someone tape her is my guess."
"That bitch!" Reeve said. He realized with no small surprise that he was laughing. It felt great to shout, or at least to try to shout. It felt great to call her that. It felt great to be in Cosmo Canyon with Cid.
Cid turned him around and held him at arms' length, looking at him critically. Reeve found this even funnier. Cid rolled his eyes.
"Great," he said. "That's just brilliant. Your psycho ass will be a huge help. Glad to have you aboard."
Reeve laughed so hard that Cid had to catch him.
I think what I like writing in this is the dialogue. I can be a little looser with it than I can in the Hero series because FFVII is a more modern and slang-y and I don't have to think as much.
I guess. I'm tired and rambling. Just some mana'o for tonight. ^_^
So, yeah. Lines or whole scenes.
-------------------------------------------------
(Elena and Rude meet Cloud in the cemetary)
"Likewise," came a soft, distant voice from behind them. The voice sounded amused and almost sarcastic.
Elena reached for her weapon out of habit before remembering that it wasn't there. She stood up and turned slowly.
Cloud Strife leaned carelessly against a tall monument a few yards behind them, watching them with an amused look. He took a sip from the drink he was holding, then casually swirled it with the straw.
Elena faced him, filled with confusion and anger. "Are you a clone?" she asked.
Cloud's eyes darkened for a moment, then he smiled easily. "Nope," he said. "Though others might try to tell you that. I'm just Cloud Strife from Nibelheim, same as I always was." He pushed himself off the monument and walked toward them, taking another sip from the straw. "Tifa bring you here?" he asked.
Elena nodded. She had a million questions she wanted to ask, but didn't know where to begin. She decided to just let him talk.
"Yeah, I figured that. New ShinRa's been after me for a while, so this was Avalanche's plan. You guys still with ShinRa?" he asked.
Elena was a little shocked at his easy confidence. Apparently Strife wasn't worried at all about whether or not they were from the new ShinRa. He must have known that, had they been working with Scarlet, they'd either kill him or run right back and tell Scarlet that he was alive. She thought that should worry him plenty.
"No, we're not," Rude said, eyeing Cloud warily. "But what if we were?"
Cloud shrugged and smiled again. "You guys haven't beaten me yet, have you?"
Elena frowned, feeling indignant, but something made her hold back her comments. He was making her skin prickle.
She thought perhaps it had something to do with the way that Cloud seemed be to purposely keeping himself under tight control. Underneath his easygoing posture and smile, she sensed something more going on. As Cloud came closer, Elena could see that he was deliberately taking deep, even breaths. He was edgily calm, a practiced calm that seemed to remain intact by the force of his will. She wondered how long after beating Sephiroth it had taken him to win that self control.
Strife could only have been about thirty one or maybe thirty two by Elena's calculation, but his eyes looked older. His hair was longer, and didn't stick straight up as it used to. It still seemed to fall in long spikes, though. Elena vaguely wondered why in the hell that was.
"So why'd you come here?" Cloud asked, with a tilt of his head.
"We ran into some trouble and we needed help," she said simply. "Tseng is alive; he's very sick. There's a lot more to the story. We didn't even know you were here," she said.
Cloud raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Tseng survived?" he said.
"Yeah, no thanks to you," Elena shot back.
Cloud nodded. "Yeah, that's true. But then, I survived too. No thanks to you guys." He smiled again.
"Anyway, it's probably better that we met you," Elena went on, in a brusque, businesslike voice. She decided that her resentment was there for a reason, and she'd better let it run its course. She'd let go of it when she was damn good and ready. "We have news that I think might concern you. Sephiroth is back."
Cloud blinked, and his hand tightened around the cup that held his drink, but he otherwise controlled his reaction. Still, Elena was reminded of the time when she had stepped out onto a frozen lake by her childhood home on the Northern Continent and heard the ice crack in the distance.
Cloud took a deep breath, smiled vaguely, and nodded. "I guess it was only a matter of time," he said. "Did you actually see him yourself?"
"That's one way of putting it," Rude said slowly. "But he said he didn't mean anyone any harm."
Cloud nodded slowly. "I guess he could honestly mean that, at least for now," he said.
Elena frowned. It was not the reaction she had expected. She almost wanted to remind him that Rude had said "Sephiroth," and not "cuddly stuffed mog."
Cloud saw the dubious look on Elena's face. He shrugged. "You don't know the real Sephiroth," he said. "You never met him. I remember him a little, once in a while. He was cold, but he wasn't, you know. Evil."
"So," Rude said warily, "who's to say he's not still 'evil' now?"
"I didn't say he wasn't," Cloud said. "I just said it was possible." He took another sip from the straw, and nodded toward the headstone with his name on it. "Mind if we go back and talk?" he asked. "I don't like looking at that thing."
----------------------------------------------------
(Reeve and Cid at Cosmo Canyon)
The sun was setting as Reeve descended the last hill before the stairs to Cosmo Canyon. It made the parched, red dirt all around him look like blood. *An ill omen,* Elmyra would have said. *Blood on the horizon.*
And sometimes he remembered her eyes, and how Aerith's eyes had always reminded him of Elmyra's, though he knew that there was no blood relation between them.
*Blood relation...blood on the horizon...Goddamn blood on your shirt...*
Reeve looked down at his tattered clothes and wasn't entirely surprised to see that he was bleeding again. He supposed it was the only time in his life since Meteor that he had ever wished that Sephiroth was around. The bastard could heal, damn him.
Talking to Sephiroth like a normal person again had been beyond strange. Cursing him to his face had been so surreal that a part of him wanted to wonder if he hadn't dreamed it all. But then, there was Sephiroth's cloak to consider. Reeve was wearing it. Perhaps he was still dreaming.
"Bastard could have gotten me something to eat," he muttered aloud. "Conjured some food...some water. Bastard."
He pulled his torn shirt and the cloak closer around him, wondering fleetingly if he wasn't symbolically trying to hold his insides in. He wondered what it looked like in there.
The sand was dry in his mouth. It took him a second to realize that, and another second to wonder why there was sand in his mouth. Reeve opened his eyes and saw that he was on the ground. He had no memory of falling. One moment he had been wondering what his insides looked like, and the next, he'd been eating this dry, red dirt.
"Jesus. It must be 'collapse at the entrance to Cosmo Canyon' day," said a voice from above him.
"It is," Reeve answered, though he had no idea whom he was answering or why they'd said that. "I like to observe all the minor holidays."
Someone turned him over onto his back. "Wow. Something made a mess of your shirt."
"Yeah..." Reeve said, too tired to open his eyes. The other person didn't sound like they were about to kill him. The voice sounded familiar. "A piece of NeoNeoMidgar and some kind of...of metal thing. Shame. Good shirt."
"You look like shit."
Reeve opened his eyes, because if he was going to make a snarky return comment to the person, he had to at least know what they looked like and maybe base it on that. He couldn't quite focus, but he didn't need to. The blond hair and the goggles were all he needed to see.
"Oh," was all he could think of to say in his relief. "Cid."
"I'd ask you how you've been, but I guess I already know the answer."
"I've been better but I've already been helped by..." With sudden panic, he remembered why he had come here. He sat up too quickly and had to grab onto Cid's arm to keep from falling back down. "Sephiroth-- Christ, Cid, Sephiroth is back, it's really him, not just a clone, he's here to see Cloud, he seems..."
"I know, I know," Cid said, and took Reeve by the arm. "It's all good. That's why I'm here. They got your message through Cait Sith and they radioed for me while I was on the Highwind. Come on." Cid was slipping his arm around Reeve and trying to haul him up. "You gotta help me here; I ain't carrying you up all these stairs."
"Right," Reeve said, and stood up with Cid's help.
"So," Cid said in a conversational tone as he braced Reeve up the first step, "you've seen Sephiroth?"
"Seen him. Was with him. Talked a long time."
"Talked," Cid said, surprised. "Well that's different. He do this to you?"
*Yes!* Reeve wanted to scream. *The murderous bastard came back and did this; we have to kill him!*
"No," was what he ended up saying. But he refused to tell Cid that Sephiroth had helped him. That he had saved his life.
"The ShinRa's here."
"ShinRa?"
"Well, the Turks."
"Oh," Reeve said. "Turks aren't ShinRa anymore. Anymore than I am. Anymore than you are."
*And thank god they're alive,* he added mentally. But he didn't want to say anymore about them, because he wasn't certain how much Cid knew about Midgar, or their possible involvment in its destruction, which he still didn't totally believe. *And now you're keeping secrets. Isn't this just like old times?* he thought grimly.
"Right, well..." Cid said, "anyway, they saw Sephiroth, too."
"No shit?" Reeve said.
"Maybe, maybe not. That's what they say. They're wanted. Everyone's after them."
Reeve turned his head so that he could see Cid's face. It was hard to read him by his voice. "Wanted? By whom? For what?"
"By...the authorities. For blowing the living Christ out of Midgar."
Reeve stopped putting one foot in front of the other and Cid had to catch him around the waist so he didn't fall backwards down the stairs. He was glad that his first reaction hadn't been to believe that the Turks had been out to destroy his city, but rather to wonder why other people believed it. Sephiroth had said that naivete was endearing but useless. Reeve believed in hoping for the best while being prepared for the worst.
"How'd you hear about this?" Reeve asked.
"Saw it on the TV. Goddamned Scarlet with pictures of them, saying that they'd had their confessions on tape but the Turks had escaped and destroyed..."
"SCARLET?!" Reeve tried to bellow, but only managed to rasp. "Goddamned Scarlet? Scarlet?"
"Yeah, Scarlet. Reeve, settle down, you're gonna make us fall."
"Scarlet? Cid, Scarlet?!"
Reeve wasn't exactly sure why he could do nothing but repeat her name in outrage, but the damned thing seemed to want to keep coming out. Of course she'd had something to do with it; of course. *He* had sent the Turks on the mission without checking it out. And if, for some reason, the Turks really had destroyed NeoNeoMidgar, then*he* had destroyed NeoNeoMidgar, which would apparently have to be NeoNeoNeoMidgar in the future. Scarlet had played *him.*
But how had she gotten the power? How had she gotten the information? And even more appalling--
"How'd she get on television?!" Reeve said as Cid hauled him up the last step.
"Jesus, Reeve, calm down, will ya? Don't make me slap you! I don't know how she got on television. Had someone tape her is my guess."
"That bitch!" Reeve said. He realized with no small surprise that he was laughing. It felt great to shout, or at least to try to shout. It felt great to call her that. It felt great to be in Cosmo Canyon with Cid.
Cid turned him around and held him at arms' length, looking at him critically. Reeve found this even funnier. Cid rolled his eyes.
"Great," he said. "That's just brilliant. Your psycho ass will be a huge help. Glad to have you aboard."
Reeve laughed so hard that Cid had to catch him.
I think what I like writing in this is the dialogue. I can be a little looser with it than I can in the Hero series because FFVII is a more modern and slang-y and I don't have to think as much.
I guess. I'm tired and rambling. Just some mana'o for tonight. ^_^