#theexecution

  [in reply to: MY MUSE IS PUT ON EXECUTION AND YOUR MUSE IS STANDING IN THE CROWD, WATCHING. WHAT ARE YOUR MUSES FEELINGS ABOUT THIS?]

 The crowd of Remnants parted as Sephiroth approached the crashed airship. Cloud lay behind him, defeated, lifeless. Sephiroth towered over Tifa. He nudged her face with his boot. He recognized her from two years ago. She moaned, and it would have sounded sexy in a different setting. He felt no remorse, just hatred, and the tongue-curling taste of victory. "Execute her, too."

 The scraps about her arms could be discerned from the aged blood streaked like a line before distorting and fading away. As she regained consciousness there was a fierce banging of her head, and the few words that could be heard felt like screeching. The urge to hold the back of her head was stopped though, as fingers could barely curl, but Tifa still managed to look up, spout his name with flaming narrow eyes, and eventually lose herself to the exhaustion that claimed her. 

“Sephiroth.”

 "It’s over," he said. His voice was calm as ever, but had gained a satisfied tone. He crouched down, next to her head, and grabbed her shirt. He turned her over. "There is no version were you could have won. Your attempts were admirable."

His hand trailed over her hair, and a finger stroke it away from her eyes. He was so happy he could laugh, but he didn’t. She had helped Cloud defeat him, his victory over her set the records straight. "You grew. You became an honourable fighter. Remember our first fight in the Nibelheim Mako reactor? Remember where I stabbed you-? Yes, do put your hand over the old wound… I made sure you’d never forget me."

  His touch was ice cold, where slender fingers brushed the skin of her collar bone. And yet, it also meant a warmth emitted from her, that life still remained. To swear on the day, to allow for anger to surge through her veins, it was the bittersweet taste of revenge that fell from her gritting teeth, not just the blood from her cheek dripping over those thin lips. But the moment to relish that satisfaction had passed, as this defeat will too. It was simply a matter of finding out how to escape. 

"If I grew… Then what of you?" Her voice betrayed her, what Tifa wanted was not what she heard of herself, but rather soft tones gurgled and broken. "You’re the same as you were before… Broken."

"I’m not the one lying on the floor like a rag doll," he said. Still, her words stung. He brushed her hair out of her ashen grey face. She was like a child’s puppet indeed, with a face of porcelain and a pouty mouth red with blood. Maybe, in another time, in another universe, they could have met under different circumstances.  He discarded the thought. He was a God with an army of enlightened children, cured from the Planet’s disease of mortality. With Midgar in ruins, it was only a matter of time before he would get the rest of the world. There was no stopping him.   "Tifa!" a girl’s cry came from the crowd. Sephiroth glanced around. Marlene was standing a few metres away, in the crowd of drowsy calm children.  He turned back to Tifa. “A daughter?” he asked, surprised. He lift his hand and shielded the back of his head just before the pebble hit. He wouldn’t fall for the same trick twice.  And yet, it caught him off-ease. His anger didn’t disappear - he ignored it. Regardless of how much he disliked Tifa, he felt no ill will towards the child. And taking a mother away - he would not be that cruel: as a God, as an Angel, as a SOLDIER, as a man, he had his honour.  He stood up. "I will give you a choice. Children, roll her over. Put her on her knees."

A growl emanated deep in her throat, that hatred she allowed to simmer for so long now emerging from its numbness. To put to rest the issues of the past, she struggled to face the deaths caused by his blade, and ran towards a future unclear. Yet with that silver hair she envisioned flames, and already she fought with her muscles to move. Attack. Give him that sense of defeat once more. Someone, put him to rest again. Blinding rage was not what they had in common, but perhaps in some disturbingly twisted sense the way an emptiness and confusion reigned within gave then something shared. Control was what she sought, because though the taste of revenge in the years past was so sweet, the afterwards of bitterness gave struggle in moving on.  And here they were again. Where that smile angered her, but surroundings muffled him. For that cry so gentle tore Tifa away from the burning hot rage seeping from her teeth and eyes, as easy as breathing but never as important. "Marlene!" She called out, the dryness of her throat breaking the girl’s name up. A shift was made, that hardened gaze never capable of denying the care she held for the young girl.  "What… Do you plan on doing?" The direction to Sephiroth did not regard herself. It was merely the matter of the girl, that girl that needed not be here. What choice did she have here?

The children pushed Tifa on her knees. Sephiroth lift his hand into the sky. His sword Masamune appeared, dropped into his fingers. The hilt felt cold and confident in his grip.  "Tifa! TIFA!" Marlene screamed and cried. She kicked against the older boys that were holding her. Tears were streaming over the little girl’s cheeks.  Sephiroth licked the inside of his lips. He pushed the de blade of the sword against the spot he had stabbed last time they had fought. He rubbed the metal over the old wound, not yet cutting - he didn’t want to.  "Turn the little girl around and cover her ears. She doesn’t need to witness this," Sephiroth said. He looked down on Tifa, towering over her once again. "Because you’re a mother, I will give you a choice. If you die here as another nameless body, I will let the girl go free. If you would rather stay alive… you’ll be treated most kindly: you would be a priestess to Jenova, a knight to me, a caretaker for the children of the New Race. Then you, and the girl, will be under my influence. Which is it, Tifa Lockhart: martyr or mother?"

She remembered the day, the moment she met the man with the machine gun for a hand and his insane suggestion to save the world from Shinra. Her anger colored eyes red, bruised palms with the clawing of her nails, yet there was still a calm resonating in the pounding heart ragged with age and weary traveling. To see the young girl clinging to her adopted father’s hand, by far big enough to hold her and then some rather than just her little hand encompassed by his protection. But to say hello was difficult, because a shy disposition resided in both. That way… It was just the beginning for Tifa, in finding out more they had in common. A mother and her child, they brushed their hair the same way. Woke up to the same breakfast. Found familiarity in their safe home, a body so soft and embrace so secure. But was that all that makes a mother? 

"What’s most important in this life… To me, it’s her. But for her?" For her, that little girl scared of strangers but loving to the adopted father that killed her real one. To her, that stood firm and strong as she played the dreadful waiting game, unsure whether anyone would come back for her or not. To her, the audience, the viewer, who stood by and watched as the world made it’s choice whether she was innocent or not. Everything affects her. I could never protect her from it, even if I tried. I wasn’t trying to in the first place. She always knew better.  "For her… It’s to know that morals still mean something in this world. That what you hold dear can’t be swayed by fear or the unknown." The rocks were jagged on her knees, skin all but numbed by this point as children far stronger than needed tugged on her arms. She brought that delicate chin up, dark hair outlining a pretty face contoured by the blood and scraps. And still gritted teeth came, and anger continued to color those eyes red. But far more importantly, that calm came the same, with Marlene and now with Sephiroth. It was an acceptance, and it was patience. "I won’t let you hurt her that way Sephiroth. Not through me… Not through anyone."

"You chose wisely," Sephiroth said. The joy of finally -at last- being able to eliminate her felt much better than keeping her around. The choice he had given her had never really had had any other outcome than this: she chose to be a loving, responsible adult in front of the child. He could respect that. It was in line with all her earlier deeds. Tifa, the good mother to her children.  Marlene screamed till her voice became one tone, a long, desperate noise. Masamune slid easily into Tifa’s warm body. The sword was like an extension of his hand. He could feel her gasp, her muscles tense. He could feel her heart beat, and the falling movement she made when she was no longer strong  enough to keep herself up. She was no SOLDIER, just a human, just an obstacle, just a body. “You could have begged for forgiveness.” He lift the tip, so she was standing. He lift it higher, so she was hanging in the air, feet dangling above the ground. The yellow smoke of the crashed air ship surrounded them on all sides. Flames licked up the wreckage, Midgar’s sky scrapers lay in ruins. The Planet would soon meet her end. He watched her die. "If it brings you any solace, know this: I will be a good father figure to the girl… like my Father was to me."

  The End