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Fandom: FFVII AU
Characters/Pairings: Ifalna, Lucrecia
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Wake up, Lu.
Notes: Not much of a story, but since this is kind of a serial, I'll let it stand as one. Stuff right after this goes better together in a more action-y way, this is a tad more character study than anything. It'll be much more interesting when the whole gang's involved. Anyway, so this is the next installment of "Must Be Dreaming" if you didn't get that.
It didn't take Ifalna long to find Lucrecia. Maybe it was the few years they'd been roommates and friends, or maybe it was just the singularly different vibe that Lucrecia possessed, but finding her wasn't an issue.
Predictably, she was hiding in a cave.
"Lucy, what are you doing here? Come on, let's go. It's me."
She'd taken this whole ice princess thing a bit literally.
"I'm not leaving until I get you out of here, you realize. So I'll sit and wait while you have your little pity party."
Ifalna wasn't meaning to be harsh, but Lucrecia always had that tendency to fix so hard onto an idea that she had blinders to everything else. And in her position... well. If she got no response after that she was going to try a different tack. But for now she would sit on the stone and wait. She had gotten good at waiting, even if why and how she had waited had changed subtly over the years.
The sun set, and the cave was lit rather prettily by the mako Lucrecia had sealed herself in. How humans missed out distilling it from its natural state. But wasn't that always the way of things?
---
"Above all things, you have to defend the Planet. Let nothing get in your way."
Grandmother had reached the age where she was almost a plant herself, Cetran hair went green with age, and their skin browned from the porcelain of youth. Her wrinkles looked more like crevaces, so very unlike the soft folds of human wrinkles. Grandmother was very old, considering the patchy lichen spots on her hands.
"Ifalna, stop daydreaming and pay attention."
"But what if a human gets in the way? Aren't they a part of the Planet too?"
"They rejected that and make their own gods out of metal and unclean things."
---
Ifalna woke with a start. Same soft mako glow, but Lucrecia was no longer in her crystalline coffin.
"Lucy?"
"I didn't want to wake you up."
Several questions occurred to Ifalna, and she didn't know where to start. She'd been in Icicle when all the real drama had happened, playing house with Gast and trying to make herself believe that those left behind in Nibelheim wouldn't implode in the worst ways. That human nature wasn't at all what the Elders had always said, and maybe they could create something that woudldn't destroy all that came before it. All that pressure on one unborn child. She wouldn't be surprised if he'd already been driven mad by it.
How old would he be now?
"Well that was thoughtful."
Once, before husbands and boyfriends and virgin-mother complexes they were the best of friends. Never in the hand-holding cheery music way, but in the leaning together on the couch and discussing gross anatomy sort. Ifalna had always found it fascinatingly backwards how science had to cut something up to understand what she could know by simple resonance.
"I think that you and I, the bad mothers of the world need to fix a few things."
There was no point in dodging it. She'd left Aeris in good hands at least; even if Vincent was crazy, Veld was there to remind him what reality was. He might even turn out to be a good influence. Lucy certainly wouldn't approve, but really, what room did she have to talk?
"Fix things?"
"You know what took everything away from us."
The key players and the blame on them would be different for the both of them. Ifalna couldn't bring herself to the kind of rage that Vincent or Veld could summon at people, only a sort of piercing sadness. Save for one thing. She had feared it before her resurrection and now she simply would not stand for more of it. Parasite, being, whatever it was, there was simply no reason for it to have caused so much tragedy.
"Iffy I don't..."
"Do you want to see your son?" Do you want to see your husband?
Lucrecia frowned at her formal dress and pearls. "Yes."
"Then come with me."
---
"You need to get used to all places, Ifalna. Never stay too long or else you'll take root."
"But what happens if I want to stay?"
"Then it'll be time. But not yet. You have so many years to go. Be sure to root yourself for good reasons, child."
---
They didn't quite have a plan, but they were at least leaving the place. The place of self-imposed exiles and misplaced atonement. Ifalna had always thought that Vincent and Lucrecia's tendencies to hide themselves away in the face of the human sort of unforgiveable things was telling. They had sought each other's company out of a common ground. Crazy is as crazy does.
"You can't interfere when I talk to him. I get to decide what happens to him."
She liked that the spark was back in Lucrecia's voice.
"I know. Just don't waste all your anger on the wrong person."
She would wait before telling Lucy who their allies were.
Characters/Pairings: Ifalna, Lucrecia
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Wake up, Lu.
Notes: Not much of a story, but since this is kind of a serial, I'll let it stand as one. Stuff right after this goes better together in a more action-y way, this is a tad more character study than anything. It'll be much more interesting when the whole gang's involved. Anyway, so this is the next installment of "Must Be Dreaming" if you didn't get that.
It didn't take Ifalna long to find Lucrecia. Maybe it was the few years they'd been roommates and friends, or maybe it was just the singularly different vibe that Lucrecia possessed, but finding her wasn't an issue.
Predictably, she was hiding in a cave.
"Lucy, what are you doing here? Come on, let's go. It's me."
She'd taken this whole ice princess thing a bit literally.
"I'm not leaving until I get you out of here, you realize. So I'll sit and wait while you have your little pity party."
Ifalna wasn't meaning to be harsh, but Lucrecia always had that tendency to fix so hard onto an idea that she had blinders to everything else. And in her position... well. If she got no response after that she was going to try a different tack. But for now she would sit on the stone and wait. She had gotten good at waiting, even if why and how she had waited had changed subtly over the years.
The sun set, and the cave was lit rather prettily by the mako Lucrecia had sealed herself in. How humans missed out distilling it from its natural state. But wasn't that always the way of things?
---
"Above all things, you have to defend the Planet. Let nothing get in your way."
Grandmother had reached the age where she was almost a plant herself, Cetran hair went green with age, and their skin browned from the porcelain of youth. Her wrinkles looked more like crevaces, so very unlike the soft folds of human wrinkles. Grandmother was very old, considering the patchy lichen spots on her hands.
"Ifalna, stop daydreaming and pay attention."
"But what if a human gets in the way? Aren't they a part of the Planet too?"
"They rejected that and make their own gods out of metal and unclean things."
---
Ifalna woke with a start. Same soft mako glow, but Lucrecia was no longer in her crystalline coffin.
"Lucy?"
"I didn't want to wake you up."
Several questions occurred to Ifalna, and she didn't know where to start. She'd been in Icicle when all the real drama had happened, playing house with Gast and trying to make herself believe that those left behind in Nibelheim wouldn't implode in the worst ways. That human nature wasn't at all what the Elders had always said, and maybe they could create something that woudldn't destroy all that came before it. All that pressure on one unborn child. She wouldn't be surprised if he'd already been driven mad by it.
How old would he be now?
"Well that was thoughtful."
Once, before husbands and boyfriends and virgin-mother complexes they were the best of friends. Never in the hand-holding cheery music way, but in the leaning together on the couch and discussing gross anatomy sort. Ifalna had always found it fascinatingly backwards how science had to cut something up to understand what she could know by simple resonance.
"I think that you and I, the bad mothers of the world need to fix a few things."
There was no point in dodging it. She'd left Aeris in good hands at least; even if Vincent was crazy, Veld was there to remind him what reality was. He might even turn out to be a good influence. Lucy certainly wouldn't approve, but really, what room did she have to talk?
"Fix things?"
"You know what took everything away from us."
The key players and the blame on them would be different for the both of them. Ifalna couldn't bring herself to the kind of rage that Vincent or Veld could summon at people, only a sort of piercing sadness. Save for one thing. She had feared it before her resurrection and now she simply would not stand for more of it. Parasite, being, whatever it was, there was simply no reason for it to have caused so much tragedy.
"Iffy I don't..."
"Do you want to see your son?" Do you want to see your husband?
Lucrecia frowned at her formal dress and pearls. "Yes."
"Then come with me."
---
"You need to get used to all places, Ifalna. Never stay too long or else you'll take root."
"But what happens if I want to stay?"
"Then it'll be time. But not yet. You have so many years to go. Be sure to root yourself for good reasons, child."
---
They didn't quite have a plan, but they were at least leaving the place. The place of self-imposed exiles and misplaced atonement. Ifalna had always thought that Vincent and Lucrecia's tendencies to hide themselves away in the face of the human sort of unforgiveable things was telling. They had sought each other's company out of a common ground. Crazy is as crazy does.
"You can't interfere when I talk to him. I get to decide what happens to him."
She liked that the spark was back in Lucrecia's voice.
"I know. Just don't waste all your anger on the wrong person."
She would wait before telling Lucy who their allies were.
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I also like the way they mirror each other. They are wonderful complements.
I know it's nearly hopeless, but I believe in Lu. She's capable of far more than she leads herself to believe. In a good way.
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Positive would be if you’re working with the virgin mother complex does that mean Aeris gets to be Romlus and Sephy gets to be Remus. The Veld/Ifalna I’m assuming will be in the next segment is going to be far more intense than I would have thought and with how you’re working Lu into the mix the development afterwards will not be what I actual expected.
The idea of Lu and Iffy being a mirror is a fantastic idea with a lot of interesting potential that seemed crammed in here. Firstly, would be the bad mother concept. Last section Iffy certain didn’t see anything wrong in ditching her family without a reason or goodbye in the keepings of a sort of friend to go off and play prince charming for…an ex pretty much as the original Lu/Iffy story in this arc were intended as mildly slash. While her thoughts say she’s doing all this to deal with Jenova her action certainly seems to be saying otherwise.
So last story you leave us with Iffy being an awful mother and an awful lover and if she were a guy the either situation would be getting more negative treatment and then in this story she pulls the whole bad mother out of the blue to guilt Lu if anything. As she has absolutely no idea if Lu was a bad mother, as it hasn’t been discussed at all in this or any of the other stories in the arc. For all we know Lu purely had Sephiroth for the sake of science so she wasn’t ever his mother and if she wants to be know it is because she’s been rotting in a cave for years with nothing else to think about. That isn’t even getting into how it was likely Hojo who locked her in the cave in the first place if her situation is even vague similar to Vincent’s.
Then, of course, there is the whole Lu should want to see her husband. Her husband, who she was having a falling out with when last Iffy saw her, who killed Vincent, experimented on him, who kill professor Gast, who would have tortured Iffy to death had Veld not innerved, and who was going to do the same to her daughter. It seems rather insane Iffy would be thinking about him at all even if Lu was wishing to see him again.
What you have with the mirror concept is Lu was a bad wife and lover, while Iffy is a bad mother and lover. Because we don’t at all know if Iffy was a bad wife and from what has been mentioned so far she certainly doesn’t sound like one and as I stated before there is no indication so far Lu was a bad mother. So the bad mother concept seems fairly out of the blue given what you’ve given us so far.
What I guess I’m say here is that you have an awesome concept that wasn’t expounded on when it really should have and you left the last story with lots of problems that weren’t particularly addressed in this one.
While I understand you’re likely building up to a huge conflict between Veld and Iffy that will deal with the true issues and control issues between them. You just make one of the other seem bad in this particular serial as opposed to how you handle the situation in your other works with the notable expectations of Fairy Tales and Tall Tale. This could be because in the other stuff I traditional say well Veld is a villain that is what they do but for this you've sort of left me wondering on both parts.
Also, as I believe I’ve stated before pretty young nymphs taking up roots conjures up some terrible imagery. I personally don’t care for the how Iffy has to settle down because that’s what Veld’s fantasy woman would do but the inclusion of the rape imagery I could you know do without.
So yeah, a filler story were there was lots of potential for a full story.
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Then, of course, there is the whole Lu should want to see her husband. Her husband, who she was having a falling out with when last Iffy saw her, who killed Vincent, experimented on him, who kill professor Gast, who would have tortured Iffy to death had Veld not innerved, and who was going to do the same to her daughter. It seems rather insane Iffy would be thinking about him at all even if Lu was wishing to see him again.
I meant that she was thinking about Lu wanting to see Hojo in more of the context of revenge than anything. Which was why she didn't say anything and just thought it, because she wants Lu's focus on one thing at a time or something like that.
Oh and this:
That isn’t even getting into how it was likely Hojo who locked her in the cave in the first place if her situation is even vague similar to Vincent’s.
No, it's canon she put herself there, and I'm going with that bit. It's even more self-pitying than Vincent's case. I'd imagine Iffy pulled the bad mother card out as a bluff to see how Lu responded--if Lu were to scoff at it, she'd pull out the "alright then don't you want to get back at the guy who put you in that position?" card instead. It just happened to be the one that worked.
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Or are you saying Lu didn't want to get Sephiroth and she was leaving purely to get Hojo.
Are we going with original canon or Dirge? Lu’s reason for how she ended up in the cave wasn’t directly addressed in the original canon. The whole flash back was fairly ambiguous on any point. If you’re using Dirge than I shall believe you as reading through the entire game script is far more of a hassle than reading a smidgen of a section.
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Mildly strange you would be using canon for agreements sake as you directly go against it such as Iffy naming Aeris as opposed to Gast which fits in with your verse.
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I have to say though, your comments really make me not want to work on this for a long time. XD Kind of disconcerting if everything's going to be picked apart.
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Next time I say endeavor to be silent.
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And don't worry, I'm not mad, just a little discouraged. It's been a rough semester, so I may also be a little more susceptible to discouragement than usual.
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Sorry again. I really, really don’t mean to make you feel like an idiot. You are much smarter and much more motivated than I am.