The Flowers of the New Gods
By Faronon Star Wolf
For the glass of the years is brittle wherein we gaze for a span
"Hymn to Proserpine", by Algernon Charles Swinburne
It hadn't taken long for him to remember why he avoided people as much as
possible.
"--is that--"
"--rteen, it's--"
"--Nanaki--"
"That guy--"
"Is that Valentine?"
"Vincent Val--"
"--he does exist?"
"--who are--"
"--familiar--"
"--tattoos--"
"--specimen."
Vincent looked up at that. While all the other voices had been those of
teenage girls, the last had been in a man's voice--
It was a tone he'd heard before, cold and without passion, and yet
interested--from Hojo, during the time he was--
While he was in Hojo's...tender...care.
He inhaled resolutely and scanned the crowd--anything to stop thinking about
that hellish month--but there wasn't anyone who even slightly reminded
him of the scientist.
And it took very little to do that.
There was no one with the expression of cold interest on their face that had
been burned into his mind--no one staring at him over the rim of their
glasses--
He looked forward again, regarding Aeris helping Yuffie to walk, to Red in the
lead, his tail flicking in time to his steps, his ears twitching as he
listened to the conversations going on in the crowd around them.
Vincent Valentine was getting thoroughly sick of people.
"--red--"
"--good on him--"
"--so freaking hot--"
Yuffie--the girl--was curled up in one of the chairs in the cabin, asleep.
They didn't want to take the chance she was like the Yuffie they had
known--incredibly sensitive to motion--and none of them wanted to test how
aware she was in such a manner.
"What are you thinking about, Vincent?" Aeris asked from her seat in the
corner.
He glanced over at her, and then away--away from both of them.
"You are aware, but Yuffie is not. And Cait Sith implied that Cloud and Tifa
are unable to speak. It is... odd."
Aeris took a few minutes to respond. "It might be because I was Cetra," she
said slowly, with a sigh. "With how close w--they were to the Planet, maybe--they
were able to handle the transition between life and death better."
He turned back to look at her, but she was staring intently at the wall. "What
do you mean?"
"I... can no longer hear the Planet." Aeris laughed, but there was no humor or
happiness in it. "And now, I'm--" Vincent waited for her to continue, but she
only shook her head. "No, never mind. It's--nothing."
Red pushed the door open before Vincent could give into the unfamiliar prick
of concern. To be worried about someone, after so long on his own, was
almost--
Frightening.
Red's tail was twitching. "The captain says we're approaching Mideel," he
said, and his ears pressed backwards. "And she would prefer that we take
Yuffie with us."
"Why?" Aeris gasped. "I didn't want to leave her alone anyway--but
why?"
"The crew that saw her as we were boarding were disturbed by her... It seems
that knowledge of the Sephiroth Clones was more widespread than we believed."
Aeris covered the back of her left hand, as if hiding the tattoo would remove
its existence--
"How?" Vincent demanded, feeling the same dread that had hit him when he heard
that voice. "Who would still know the details?"
Red shook his head, looking grim. "With how long it's been... I can only
assume someone had found Hojo's files."
The girl shifted in her chair, and all three of them turned to look at her.
With her darker skin, the red tattoo didn't stand out as much as it did on
Aeris--
But it still was out of place on her, an implied involvement with something
that should have ended with its creator's life.
And confronted with the faces of two people who had died--who he knew
had died--
Vincent began to wonder.