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Sephiroth blearily opened his eyes when he heard movement around him. He made a pathetic weak groaning noise and rose to his feet, tiredly staggering out of the tent. Then there was a dull thump as he fell forwards onto the grass outside. He lay there for a few moments before tightly curling up again, wanting to resume his sleeping.
Seferia frowned as she heard the thump. A quick telepathic scan proved to her that Sephiroth was once again on the ground. Hissing in frustration, she released an annoying telepathic buzz straight at him. She fully intended to keep up the noise until he started assisting her on taking apart the tent.
“No… don’t…”
Sephiroth flicked his ears and growled, raising his paws to clutch and claw at his head when the buzzing noise came through it. He sat up and quickly moved away, heading for the river. The noise caused him quite a bit of distress, and it immediately reminded him of Jenova’s ways of getting his attention.
Thus, his desire to stop it, or null it out somehow was very strong right now.
Seferia paused as she felt Sephiroth’s distress. Also noticing that he is moving away from the tent and thus awake, she ceased her psychic signal. The dragon then sighed, for she didn’t particularly enjoy having gone to such lengths to wake Sephiroth.
~My apologies, but all my other attempts to be your alarm clock failed.~
Sephiroth continued to claw at his head, moving down to the river. When he was there he splashed cold water into his face, immediately wincing at just how cold it really was. It served as a good distraction however – while he sound was all gone from his head, being reminded of it it was almost as bad as it being there.
*”That’s fine… though next time I would consider something else…”*
As Seferia responded to the general, her mental landscape was tinged with a slight red hue due to her annoyance, ~I did try something else first. I nudged you, but you refused to wake. I played with your ear, and once again, you refused to wake. Then I spoke to you and nudged you again. I assure you, I was given little other choice other than causing physical discomfort.~
Sephiroth grunted unhappily. *”I was thinking of something like… flicking water on me, or something similar to that…”*
He rubbed at the side of his head, pawing at it for a few moments. However, the memory of that horrible noise and the thought of a thousand needles trying to painfully penetrate his mind persisted. He splashed more water into his face, flicking his ears back as some went down his ear canals.
The male feline rapidly shook his head in response.
“Yuck…” He hissed. He sat on the riverbank and folded his arms. What a horrible way to start the day.
Seferia sighed at Sephiroth’s response. She then slowly shook her head.
~I did not have expendable water nearby. Anyway, I can’t walk too quickly, Sephiroth. It would have been a burden on myself to gather water for such a task. Then, the camp would have suffered because we would have been delayed. I did the option that felt like the least painful. However, I am sorry for causing bad memories to emerge.~
The dragon then grunted as she began to tear down the tent. Soon enough, she called out to Sephiroth, ~I need your help.~
Sephiroth walked back to the tent, still very much wet from his splashing at the river. He kept his ears down and back as he helped to dismantle the tent for storage. It didn’t take him very long at all because he was so used to doing it by now.
Within minutes he had the support beams packed away and ripped the tent pegs out of the ground.
“It is done.” He said simply, once it was all away.
Seferia nodded with appreciation at Sephiroth’s help. She managed to give him a brief grin before she moved to sit on the ground. As she waited for the troop to call for the march to continue, she reached down to massage her scarred inner thigh.
Since her thoughts centered on her own pain and discomfort at the moment, she left Sephiroth be. Not to mention, Seferia had noticed how bothered Sephiroth was this morning.
Sephiroth just sat near the supplies, rubbing the back of his paw across his face. His fur was still damp from his time near the river and grooming it like this dried it off nicely. When they were ready to move, he lugged the majority of the items over his back, grinning at Seferia before swaying his tail.
“How long until those eggs hatch? Surely it’s not long now…” He nodded. “Do they move yet?”
Seferia sighed as she considered how long it has been since she laid the eggs. Shaking her head, she slowly pushed herself to her feet. However, she initially faultered, for her bad leg did not want any more strain on it. Baring her fangs at her own weakness, she took a breath before pushing herself upright.
Once standing again, the dragon slowly responded, doing everything in her power to keep the pain out of her voice, “I imagine it will be another four months at least. However, I have felt some movement from them. I believe that the fetuses are healthy from what I’ve felt.”
Sephiroth nodded his head. “Good…” He said slowly. “If they are healthy, that’s all that matters…”
He didn’t say much more. All he wanted to do right now was help carry the majority of the load and get moving to the final destination. The feline was happy to carry the larger portion of their poessions today as he could tell through the mental connection that Seferia was hurting – thus he didn’t want any undue stresses on her.
“Do you know the genders yet?”
Seferia shook her head, not minding the conversation at all. At the very least, it kept her mind off the soreness of her muscles, especially those that had been torn into by wicked black claws. Before she moved off to follow the group, she strapped on her pack and picked up one of her eggs.
Then, he simply responded to Sephiroth, “No, I cannot tell their genders quite yet. If you want to speak to them, I’m certain you can try. I’ve sung to them many a time during the nights. You are a psychic, and probably can have just as much success as I do.”
A faint grin graced her features as she nodded toward the egg in Sephiroth’s grip. “In fact, I think that it will be quite beneficial for them to know your mental feel as much as they know mine.”
Sephiroth glanced down at the egg. He knew that even though there was a baby… something inside of it, he couldn’t help but feel a little silly talking to what looked like an inanimate object. He patted the underside of the egg he had nestled in his paws, feeling somewhat better at touching it rather than talking to it.
“I might try psychic colours.” He said slowly. “That’s about all they could understand, I think…”
He glanced down at the egg and tried to telepathically transmit a gentle signal of imagined blues and greens to the creature inside.
Seferia nodded at Sephiroth’s statement before confirming for him, “Yes, that is what I meant. Speak to them with your mind. It is the easiest manner to do such. Also, we dragons naturally don’t use words to communicate. We only took up words to speak to those who couldn’t touch minds and simply share emotion with each other.”
The black dragon shrugged her shoulders before continuing, “Of course, I was never raised by dragons. My moth- Queen only knew spoken word, so I learned how to construct my emotions into words quite readily.”
Sephiroth smirked openly, seeming smug for a brief moment.
“Your mother? Your Queen? Which one is it?” He was amused at her stumbling over her words. At the same time he didn’t want to push too hard as he remembered that Seferia had lost her original caretaker to the Nemesis.
He tapped the egg he had spoken to, sighing. Maybe it wasn’t ready to talk yet.
Seferia’s ears tilted downward as she lowered her head. A frown tugged at the disguised dragon’s lips before she glanced to the side.
“My apologies. It was improper for me to even start with that terminology,” a hint of sadness managed to appear in her voice as she spoke. “I am fully aware that Clawina was not my relation by any form of blood. However, she did raise me. So, yes, it is both. However, I shouldn’t refer to her as my mother. She insisted quite often that I should keep things professional.”
Sephiroth grunted. “When you put it like that, it sounds like a business transaction.”
“Jenova never cared what I called her,” He went on to quickly add, wanting to steer the subject away from Seferia’s sadness. “All she wanted was loyalty. She never gave anything, however…”
He sighed. “I’m glad she’s gone.”
Seferia quickly shook her head in disagreement to Sephiroth’s statement. Tilting her head to look at him, she firmly responded, “No, it wasn’t a business transaction. It was politics though. She was a queen, and I was her general, so to speak. At least, once I was old enough to have a grasp of such things as war.”
She paused in her explanations before she shook her head once more. Her eyes then turned to look down at the egg in her hands.
“Of course, the war that the two of us planned together never occurred. We were to take out the humans in the name of her god. However.. After everything that happened-” her voice trailed off for a moment. However, she soon returned to speaking at full volume, “I am certain that we would have failed. Humans are a very resilient species. And… the two of us had our judgments clouded by anger, pain, and revenge.”
Sephiroth raised an eyebrow.
“What fuelled your Queen’s desire to kill all humans in the name of her god?” He made a slight coughing sound. “I’m sure I probably would have been targetted also, yes?” He frowned as he proceeded to walk on, considering that idea in his mind for a brief moment.
“It doesn’t matter.” He said finally. “That was then, this is now.”
Seferia bobbed her head in acknowledgement. However, she felt no shame in continuing her conversation with him. Mostly, the commanding officer over the resistance forces felt that Sephiroth deserved to know her past. Hiding anything from him would do neither of them any favors.
So, after taking a slight breath, Seferia responded, “Yes, you would have been counted in amongst the humans. Despite the fact that you have traits that are clearly not quite human, your smell, appearance, and mannerisms would have been enough for us to feel that you qualified as one. We were quite blind in our prejudice.
“As for why.. It was for our respective peoples. At the turn of the industrial age, when Clawina was born and raised, humans began a massive invasion into lands that were once considered sacred. Entire species vanished overnight. The god that Clawina had the support of had become angered by the loss of so many species. Humans were killing without the need. They took pieces and parts and left the rest to burn.
“However, Clawina herself probably had no reason to personally hate humans. At least, none that I ever knew of. In her mind, she was protecting those that she was placed in charge over by divine right. She needed to keep her followers safe, and to do that, she needed to remove the threat.
“As for myself… Well, I do not know how far you know of the history of dragons on this planet. However, dragons once had a dominion over the planet. They permitted humans to flourish because the humans entertained them. However, one day, a religion emerged, Christianity, and that religion taught that all dragons and other creatures of mystical existence were inherently of the devil. Thus, dragons were slaughtered by the dozen.
“My egg was found with no signs of sires. Clawina stated that the other eggs that were most likely of my clutch had been crushed and long since dried up. These facts along with the history of my kind’s downfall.. Well, it wasn’t hard to paint a picture that displayed the death of my sires at human hands. Whether this belief is true or not though… No one will know.
“However, with the knowledge of how the dragons were slaughtered in the name of a Holy Crusade, along with the lack of a true family.. Well, I was more than happy to adopt Clawina’s crusade against the humans. We were going to raise them down to the ground just as the humans were raising down all other species on this planet.”
Sephiroth was quiet as he listened through Seferia’s explanation. He didn’t do very much more than offer the occaisonal small nod, flicking an ear occaisonally as he was otherwise quiet through the whole story. When it was done, he did nothing more than make a simple humming sound, slowly nodding his head in understanding.
“I see…” He sighed. “Well I suppose her goal was ultimately acheived. Maybe not in the fashion or the method she was hoping for, but the humans are no longer the threat…”
He began tapping a claw against the surface of the egg he was carrying, and to his surprise it began very quietly tapping back.
Seferia hummed in agreement to Sephiroth’s comment. However, she wasn’t fully certain if she even wanted to have achieved that goal at all any longer. Earlier on in her life, she had been certain that the humans would never listen to the concerns of other species. However, after seeing how they had managed to accept the refugees from other planets- Well, there were always some disagreements. Certain individuals from any given species had dislike for those that were different. Still, most species on the whole had learned to adapt. So, perhaps a war was never needed at all.
Eventually, she looked over at Sephiroth again before she managed a smile. “Managing to communicate to your offspring?”
Sephiroth was transfixed by the egg and Seferia’s words only barely registered with his mind.
“Huh…?” He said, looking back at her. He blinked and shook his head, nodding back to the egg again. “Did you hear that?” He grinned and tapped on the egg again, though this time it was silent.
He pinned his ears back, dissapointed. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out.” He said, frowning, feeling like he was trivializing everything Seferia had said just a few moments ago. “It’s also a shame the world has come to the state it is in. Humans, dragons, everyone else…. it’s all pretty much razed to the ground after everything that has happened.”
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