Chapter Text
Zack had tried to say something, but the world was already fading, fast, into darkness and light. That's when Angeal knew he was dying, at long last. He felt a tug. A small one. He let it take him into the Lifestream. It pulled at his soul, a string of consciousness. Every wave stretched its current, green and ebbing and alive. Angeal let himself be carried away by the flow. There was no reason to fight anymore. He was, for once, without wings.
And then he was falling. A weight settled into his bones as he felt the world release a sighing breath, shift, and then give way under him. He slipped away and down, down, down he went. The wind howled and rushed in his ears. It snapped at his body, pushed him this way and that, and then....nothing.
Thud.
The fall was over before it even began. It didn't hurt. Angeal had his eyes closed the whole time. When he opened them, he was looking at a blue flower in front of the hundreds spanning behind it, all of them stretching out into a green field filled with the same flowers. The clouds rolled in the vast sky above him, carrying the promise of rain. A light wind carried their scent to his nose, unfamiliar as their name. It did not have the smell of mako or the heavy pollution from Midgar, nor did it have the pure air of Wutai at dawn before it started raining blood. It was sharper and cleaner, fresh like the morning dew falling from the leaves. Heaven, perhaps.
"Hello?"
Angeal turned his head to the voice. A young woman with blonde hair kneeled beside him, cautiously removing her hand. She was beautiful. She did not seem to mind the dirt clinging to her dress as she looked over his wounds. His vision doubled. One blink, and he was looking at a girl in pink with a bow in her braided hair. Another, and he was looking at the woman in white again.
"Where did you come from, soldier? What had hurt you so?" She murmured as she ran a hand along his wounded arm.
She did not sound like she came from Midgar. Angeal sat up and looked around him slowly. Behind her, a huge mansion stood with its front filled with flowers, crawling white rose vines and the spray of green leaves flung high in the air. The woman moved in alarm.
"Pray, do not move so brashly. I have not yet finished in healing your wounds."
Angeal looked her up and down without judgement and said gently, "You have no materia, miss." Perhaps angels did not need one. "Besides, I am dead. I did not expect to be here. I was in the Lifestream...." He trailed off, eyes growing distant as the flowers dipped and bowed their heads to the wind.
The woman's hands faltered. She looked at his face and stared fully into his eyes. Angeal looked back at her. She looked younger than him, with blue eyes and braids pinned and rolled around the back of her head that was adorned with a single, black crystal, ornamental pin, the only thing different from all the white that she wore.
"I do not need one," she said firmly, and placed her hands against his own. "And you are not dead, not while I draw breath and have the power to help." Angeal startled but did not move as she closed her eyes and whispered, "Blessed stars of light and life..."
A glow came into her hands. Angeal tried to pull himself away, to stop whatever was happening, but then there was a strange feeling flowing in him. Like the first of spring's rain rushing down his whole being, it washed away his toils and heaviness. The degradation. The coldness in his veins. The weight that he carried for days, months, and endless nights dragging him down like a living corpse no matter how he tried to cling to his honor. The feeling stop and the sickness simmered down like bubbles popping air. Still there, but a little less now, and Angeal breathed out when he felt lighter than he had for a long time.
The light faded. The woman tiredly opened her eyes. "Just the same, I cannot heal all of it at once. I must invite you to stay here for some time, just until I take it all away."
"How did you..." Angeal removed his hands and stared at them. They looked healthier. Not pale, not trembling, but warm. The woman gave him a gentle smile. She was looking at something behind him as she spoke. "Who are you?"
The lady smiled. She placed a hand on his cheek. It was calloused like she held a weapon, gentle like she used it for healing people all her life.
"Answers for later. For now, rest."
There was another glow. Angeal closed his eyes.
He drifted in and out of sleep, always waking to voices each time, murky as ghouls. Visions slipped in between them, cruel and cunning like Genesis' tongue when he lashed out. Sometimes flames licked the white walls of the room he was in.
Sometimes it was the cold of the prison of Wutai he howled in when he was taken captured that filled the empty room, only to be rescued by Sephiroth who went slicing his way through hordes of screaming men. He was young, then. And his hair only reached to the middle of his neck.
When Angeal blinked, that version of Sephiroth stood before him littered with scars they never spoke about. He murmured words, things Angeal couldn't hear, before turning into the adult he'd known later in life. He was clad as he always was, still and silent as stone without a single injury marring his face. Perfect as the experiment he was born from.
The silence was stifling. Angeal had often wondered how he did when he and Genesis defected. How he would act, how he would speak. Deep in his aching heart, if monsters still had them, he imagined that it would be like this. Unmoving, unresting, mechanical, and functioning. Empty. Angeal tried to imagine a Sephiroth without an Angeal and Genesis. He could not, so he whispered apologies until Sephiroth turned away and said one thing.
"Traitor."
Day or night made no difference to him in this strange way of existing. Genesis appeared from time to time, insulting him, mocking him, then encouraging him to get up all the same.
'I'm trying,' Angeal tried to say, hands curling and unfurling on the sheets. He was gasping. Genesis sneered.
'Try harder'.
A cool hand touched his hot forehead. He looked up to see whose it was. He couldn't. A bright light, again. Blessed silence.
His mother never made an appearance. Small mercies, he thinks. But, the cruelest one, he thinks, came in the form of Zack.
He was older. Taller. His hair was different. It was wild like a wolf's, tame like a soldier. He had his back leaning against the door with his arms crossed and he was staring at Angeal with eyes that held the weight of the world. If Angeal looked closer during the nights he appeared—and only at night did Zack appear, bathed in darkness and starlight, he thought he saw anger.
Zack never said a single word. He never moved. He just stared and stared and stared until Angeal closed his eyes, unable to form the words to an apology he did not deserve to ask for.
The day came when Angeal awoke to voices that were clearer than the nightmares that haunted him. They sounded far away yet also so close, the way things always did for SOLDIERS.
"—one of them, how long has it been?"-—
--—-"Have you called King Regis?—
"My lady...No, not yet. We have yet to confirm if—"
——"The war's only just finished. It could be a trap."
Angeal blinked a few times. The crystals from the chandelier that hung in the ceiling softly threw glistening reflections on the walls. He waited until the world stopped spinning and he could hear better, in the way all SOLDIERS did.
Five rooms away.
"Sister, I must advise you against taking in such a suspicious-looking—"
"Ravus," That was the lady's voice. "He has their eyes."
"............."
"Do you swear it?"
"I swear it. Gentiana has spoken to me. I believe he is just like them."
"Then we must hurry." Another voice. "If he truly is like them...if has the same ailments...."
"He does. I felt it coursing within him. He is tired. He was hurt. And yet....it is not the same. There is more in his body."
"Those wings..," Angeal felt a shudder run through him. He did not dare move, even though his head was pounding and his heart felt like lead. "did they have them too?"
No one answered.
That name sounded familiar. Angeal tried to get up and sighed in relief when his body obeyed him, no matter how weakened. His hand found purchase on the the bed he was in and pulled himself up. His wings dragged themselves on his back, torn and tattered and bloodied. The voices hushed. For a moment, the only noises were his own laboured breaths and birdsong in the trees outside his tall, glass windows. He winced as the headache doubled with a vengeance.
"Could they half-humans after all? Beings sent by Astrals?"
"They're human."
"Their strength tells otherwise."
"They have proven themselves worthy. I've heard enough. I will send a letter to Noctis later. Perhaps they know of each other."
Angeal took leaned out of the bed and tried to push his legs out of it. He couldn't. He slid off the edge and fell a heap on the floor with a thud and a quick grunt. The voices quickly stopped.
"He is awake."
The door was already opened, and a white—Angeal was quickly learning the color scheme to this place—armed boot stepped in, followed by an elegant coat billowing at the edges of the man who quickly fixed his grey eyes on him, then the luggage on his back. His hair was the lighter shade of the lady Angeal met earlier, but his face had the same features to match hers, if only to get pass its roughened edges. They regarded each other warily. Soft sunshine slanted towards them and glided on the marble floor as a few seconds ticked by.
"Tell me. What are you?"
Angeal's wings twitched. "I may look the part, but I assure you I bear no monstrous ill will to your estate."
"Ravus, don't be rude." The same lady entered, and she came with a smile. "It is good to see you've awakened." She moved forward, and the man—Ravus—made a half-aborted motion to stop her. He decided against it, and continued staring at him, hands twitching to his sword. "Though I see you haven't such a good start, I see."
Her hands spread forward to help him up, and Angeal backed away distrustfully. She stopped. Ravus continued to watch him.
"Answers for later." Angeal repeated, searching her face and finding enough strength in his legs to stand. He towered over her, like he did with many. But she did not look small or squirm as she leveled his gaze and gave a small nod and made gesture he was unfamiliar with.
"My name is Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, princess of Tenebrae and the Oracle of this world." After landing such a statement, she waved at hand to the older man. "And his is my brother, Ravus." At the sound of his name, Ravus stepped forward.
"Ravus Nox Fleuret, prince of Tenebrae." The syllables easily rolled off his tongue like he was used to giving his name in a powerful way, if not for the hesitation he gave after. "Former High Commander of the magitek army of the Empire." He seemed to wait for a reaction. When Angeal gave none, he looked away and sighed.
"It is true, then. I did not mean to look at you the way I did, but you must understand that you seem to be an exception in this world."
"Ravus—" Lunafreya started, but Angeal interrupted her.
"You've said that twice now," he frowned. "This world?"
Ravus nodded. Lunafreya frowned and turned to him. "At least let him rest and eat for a moment."
He gave her a stern yet gentle look. "Luna, it has to be done."
"I'm afraid I don't follow," Angeal said clippedly. More often, his patience went long. Now, however, he was tired and sick (and yet not.) and he was supposed to be dead. The visions were proof of the judgment he deserved. The glaring sun and the wind and the warmth in his skin defied all that and he was forced to stand between supposedly two royalties speak about things he did not understand. "You haven't told me about what you've done to me," Angeal held a hand to his face and flexed his fingers. Already his palm was not so pale or his fingers blue and blackened. "But I will ask this first: where the hell am I?"
The two gave a silent battle of stares. Then, Lunafreya dropped her head and sighed. When she raised it, her eyes were filled with concern.
"Eos, the planet of this star. You have come a long way from your world, soldier." At Angeal's stunned silence, she gave him her long, sad, smile. "The Astrals seem to have gotten the habit of taking in wounded souls."