Chapter 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

She knelt on the marble altar, in the temple of Ancients eyes closed, hands clasped in pray.  He walked up the smooth marble steps towards her, she looked up opening her bright green eyes, as she heard him approach and smiled at him.  There was a brief moment of silence, then he heard a sword whistle through the air.  He looked on shock as the slender blade of the Masamune plunged through her chest, splattering bright red blood on the cold marble floor.  She lurched forward, her pink ribbon fluttering to the ground and the faintly glowing white materia plunging into the still water below. 

 

Already life quickly fleeing from her wide, glowing, slightly mako enhanced green eyes.  Drawing the slender blood stained blade out, with an ever so slight metallic hiss her body slipped onto the cool marble altar.  Ignoring his silver haired adversary he stumbled numbly to her side, the blood staining the front of her dress already beginning to spread in a crimson pool around her crumpled form.   Her eyes were barely open, but the bright glimmer of life was already fading, her voice was barely louder than a whisper but he heard her just fine.  Only one word.  Goodbye.

 

He blinked back tears, as he lowered her lifeless body into the waters of the lake, and watched as it slipped out of sight, through those crystal waters to the sandy bottom of the icy, clear lake in the City of the Ancients.      

 

 

~*~*~

 

 

 

He remembered it all.....he wound never forget.  He didn’t think he could forget, even if he had wanted to. 

 

Lying in the soft, warm, sweet smelling straw of the Chocobo Stables behind the Inn, Cloud fingered the pale satiny ribbon between his fingers and stared aimlessly out the window at the delicate snowflakes that drifted lazily down to edge the dark wooden window pane with its powdery whiteness.   

 

Slowly standing up, he brushed off the pieces of straw that clung to his comfortable black pants.  Patting his chocobo’s downy blue head one last time, he left the stables, closing the door carefully behind him.

 

 Shaking his head sadly he put on a cheerful face and walked slowly through the snow back to the inn.  But if he had happened to look upward to the window of the inn he would have seen a pair of concerned burgundy eyes, sadly watching over him....