Quaero
quero redemptio: Chapter one.
Disclaimer: These toys aren’t mine. Sephiroth, Cloud and the others belong to Squaresoft, who can have them back in perfect condition when I’m done, honestly. The plot is mine though, and so is ‘Creci, although, considering that she’s a Chocobo, I can’t really use her for anything but fanfics…
He wasn’t sure how many days it had
been since he awoke, but he guessed it had been a while. He was
hungry, but there was nothing edible out here, this close to the
Northern Crater. The tall man closed his eyes for a while, and
leaned against a tree. There were more trees here, outside the
Crater, he noted.
Outside the Crater... There was supposed to
be a town here somewhere, at least as far as he could remember.
Opening his eyes again, he tried to remember more. There was a
cliff here. He knew that, could even remember seeing it. He had
never scaled it though. He’d been flying? He couldn’t
remember. Even when concentrating, he could only remember
fragments of his past. “I must have hit my head pretty
badly, “ he told himself quietly, and then chuckled, as he
realized that he had even forgotten what his voice sounded like. Slowly, he pulled his cloak closer around
himself, and got up, moving towards his goal, a goal he didn’t
know, but he could feel it, summoning him. He couldn’t move
very fast, as his body ached like he had been cut into pieces,
and then put back together again by some clumsy child. Still, he
moved, slowly getting closer to whoever, or whatever, was calling
him. It would take him some time, but he would get there. * It had to be relatively late when he finally
reached the cliff he remembered. He hadn’t remembered that
it was that steep, though, and it was terribly cold. The climb
would exhaust him, so he had to hope that nothing unexpected
happened when he reached the bottom. In fact, he wasn’t even
sure he’d make the climb. But he had to try. Carefully finding cracks in the cliff’s
wall, he started the climb. He instantly wished he hadn’t,
as his already weak body was stretched, pulling painfully at his
muscles. Pausing, he took a moment to adjust, the initial pain
dulling down to a far too familiar ache. He was going to be sore
for days after he reached the bottom. If he reached the bottom… After a while, he reached a cave, and
quickly slipped inside, sitting down. If his body hadn’t
been aching so much, he might have fallen asleep. As it was, he
curled up against the cave wall, closing his eyes. He really
wished that he could have been able to sleep. He was already
exhausted, and he wasn’t even halfway done. Suddenly, something large came around the
corner. The man’s eyes snapped open, and widened in alarm as
he noticed the creature. A large Blue Dragon was standing a few
feet in front of him, looking around. The man coiled closer to
the wall, hoping to avoid attention. No such luck, of course, as
the dragon turned its head and looked at him, hunger painfully
obvious in its eyes. He slowly got to his feet, making sure that
he kept his eyes on the dragon all the time. While most people assumed that dragons were
just another kind of monsters, he knew better. Dragons were very
intelligent creatures, perhaps even more than most humans. “I
killed dragons easily, didn’t I?” He thought. He could
remember killing them, but it had to be wrong. It was impossible
for any human to kill a dragon on his own like that. Slowly, he backed, trying to make the dragon
see that he wasn’t food. “It’s not like I’ll
be much of a mouthful in my current state, anyway,” he said,
smiling bitterly. The dragon hissed and opened its wings, and he
knew it was preparing to use its breath attack. The man took
another step backwards and suddenly; the dragon was forgotten as
he fell from the cave’s opening. It was surprising, how long time seemed when
he was falling, compared to how fast he knew he had to move. He
was surprised that he could even think coherent given the
situation. Fate took any choice he might have had out of his
hands though, as he hit his head on a protruding rock and fell
into darkness. His last conscious though, was that the fall would
kill him. -TBC Author’s notes: Next chapter will be
longer, I promise. I wanted this to be, too, but I couldn’t
think of anything to write. Don’t worry, though, the fall
won’t kill him. I wouldn’t resurrect him just to kill
him again; even I am not that silly. It’s been a while since
I last played, so my version of Gaea’s Cliff is a bit
different. Oh, and next chapter will introduce the (hopefully)
only original character in this fic, ‘Creci the Mako
infected Chocobo…