#oliverslewty asks

[secret-engima]

AMOSC ask, have you heard the song from the Encanto movie Surface Pressure? It has Star Vibes to it for me, but the Caleb Hyles version also has Hardwire Vibes, lemme know what you think? (Unless it's one of THOSE songs)

I have! I've seen the movie and honestly I think that's one of my favorite songs. And ... I guess I can see Starwish vibes. But yeah definitely Hardwire vibes.

[secret-engima]

Yknow how the Cloud-Prom thing is a thing? Yeah well I was thinking of it in reverse. Prompto reborn as Cloud.

FINALLY FOUND THIS ASK.

It’s been buried so long I thought I’d never find it again.

BUCKLE UP NEW AU RAMBLE TIME AND IT’S A LOONNNNGG ONE.

Also before we begin *yeets canon FF7 timeline because it MAKES NO SENSE*.

There.

...

-Prompto wakes up when he’s 4 and he falls into a stream tainted with a LOT of mako while fleeing from bullies.

-Well technically he wakes up two weeks after that little mishap because mako poisoning plus sudden memory reboot is an Ouch and took a while for his tiny body to acclimate too. His mom (he has an actual non-adoptive mom now, that’s weird) is so relieved he’s okay and Prompto feels ... really bad that now he doesn’t entirely feel like her kid.

-He IS her kid and he knows it, but he remembers a time when he wasn’t, when he was an escaped science project and a Prince’s friend and a Crownsguard who saw the world end and then pick itself back up afterward. It’s impossible to go back to being ... well ... who he was before he Remembered.

-His mother accepts his new personality changes and “quirks” and Prompto loves her all over again for it.

-Cloud Strife is now a strange mix of too old and mature for his age and a bubbly, cheerful sunshine child. The residents look down on him because he “has no father”, but Prompto has suffered worse than their petty scorn and refuses to let it bother him.

-The local bullies learn to leave him alone pretty fast too, because Cloud may be small, but he has all of Prompto’s memories to back up his techniques, and bullies dislike pain. His mother just scoffs at the angry parents who complain about twisted wrists and black eyes and says maybe if they controlled their own children, hers wouldn’t have to resort to violence to defend themselves. It makes them no friends in Nibelheim, but there are a few neighbors who don’t buy into the town’s cliquish nature and they keep trouble away from the Strife home.

-Cloud is 7 when his mother finally stops letting him just handle her unloaded rifle with constant supervision and actually teaches him to shoot it. It feels young to Prompto, but Prompto had grown up in the sheltered city of Insomnia. This is Nibelheim, and Nibelheim’s wildlife don’t care how young he is or that they aren’t “supposed” to enter the town when they are young and dumb and hungry. Nibelheim also doesn’t have much in the way of a grocery store, and if the table needs food, someone is going to have to go shoot it.

-This at least, is familiar. Even in a world where he is no longer Prompto, and he’s pretty sure the world has been taken over by an evil Niflheim empire knockoff pretending to be a power company, he’d long gotten used to having to defend a settlement from things with teeth and go hunting to provide food.

-But back to the Evil Empire Pretending to Be A Power Company that he’s pretty sure has taken over most of the world- yeah. That was a nasty shock to figure out when he was 6. It’s nothing overt ... sorta. Just- you know- the way the elders grumble over how they were always small, but they were never ABANDONED until the reactor came and everyone started to work there rather than learn the old trades. The ivory carving and fur-tanning, the jewelry made of bones and fangs and shed dragon scales and the parkas made from wolf fur and rabbit hide that were second to none in quality. It hadn’t been the most thriving trade perhaps, but it had been something. Now all there was was the reactor, and that ... sat wrong with Prompto. There was also the rampant propaganda that was always pro Shinra, the news that this power company had just started a war (???) using their super soldiers (??????) and honestly why no one saw anything wrong with that was a mystery to him.

-Cloud is honestly glad that he’s living in such a backwater town. The farther away he is from That Nonsense the better. At least until he’s old enough to be able to properly fight and wield dual pistols like he used to.

-His mother buys him his own pistol when he’s 10. He’s responsible enough for it, and Nibelheim doesn’t really care about things like age laws that city folk do. Every child here knows how to safely use a firearm of some kind out of sheer necessity, even if most of them are not allowed to have their own until they’re closer to 12 or 13. He still primarily uses the family hunting rifle, since hunting for supper with a pistol is stupid, but he carries the pistol everywhere he goes in case something decides to try to make a meal out of him. It’s a battered old revolver, but Prompto spent ten years keeping equipment functional with minimal supplies, and soon his little Quicksilver is as fast and reliable as any “new” model.

-His mother doesn’t ask how he already knew how to disassemble and clean the pistol. She never asks when he knows things he has no right to, and he’s glad for that.

-Cloud is 11 when the abandoned Shinra Mansion stops being abandoned and those instincts that kept Prompto alive through the Long Night start screaming. It could be something innocuous, but those military trucks pulling around to the back of the mansion don't look like they’re only carrying supplies, and he’s not the only townsperson who thought they heard pained sobbing and smelled burnt flesh from inside some of those vehicles. Cloud thinks about keeping his nose out of it, he’s physically only a child after all, but the rest of him knows that if something goes wrong with ... whatever this is, then his entire town could be at risk of “disappearing” if Shinra is as bad as he thinks they are.

-The townsfolk aren’t supposed to go in there, too many monsters and it being private Shinra property after all, but the kids like their dares and their scary stories, and all of them know the secret ways to get inside and out again that bigger monsters can’t fit through and adults don’t notice. Cloud creeps around cautiously, pistol loaded just in case, and he can’t get INSIDE the actual building without being spotted, but he sees enough.

-This mansion isn’t a mansion. It’s a LAB. Those trucks were carrying lab equipment and supplies.

-And human victims.

-Cloud rushes home and throws up in the back yard and all he can think about is how two weeks ago the news mentioned a “radar malfunction” or something that led to an entire town being bombed out of existence and oh wouldn’t that explain the smell of burned skin?

-Cloud tries to stay out of it, but he CAN’T. He can’t in good conscience, so he keeps sneaking around, avoiding the guards and wondering what, exactly, to DO.

-He finds the ... disposal area and Regrets™, but every time he sees someone being thrown down there, he creeps over to check for a pulse. Just in case. Just in case.

-He’s thinking of stopping for his own sanity, because all of this is bringing up every trauma and nightmare he tried to forget from Prompto’s life, when he-

-Finds a little girl. Bloody and injured, with something imbedded in one frail hand that looks like shards of materia, and he expects her to be dead like all the others except she’s not and Prompto breathlessly carries her away on his back to hide in one of the tiny mountain caves he’s turned into a hideout over the years. He keeps a lot of stuff in there that his mother would never allow if she knew, things like a restore materia he won off a drifter in poker (and oh the man’s face at being outmatched by a 6 year old), and a surgical kit he ... found out in the wilds (it wasn’t like the man would need it anymore, the wolves had seen to that).

-He uses the restore materia five times before he’s sure the girl is as stable as she’s going to get on such short notice, then he stuffs a rag in her mouth and ties down her arm, because he may not know a lot about this world, but he knows shards of materia in her hand CAN’T be good for her health, long term or short. Materia absorbs magic from people on skin contact, so even in shards, there’s a high chance it will absorb her magic until there’s none left and then start going after her life force.

-Two hours later, he uses one last restore to seal shut the hand he just extracted the last bits of materia out of, throws the materia shards into the nearby mako spring that has been providing his light out of sheer spite to whoever imbedded the things in the first place, then passes out because he’s an 11 year old who just used six restore spells and performed field surgery on someone’s hand using his own tools and the bottle of alcohol he smuggled up here a long time ago as disinfectant.

-He wakes up a long time later, and by the time he gets back down the mountain to find his mom, the town is looking for him. He tells no one what really happened, but he needs SOME cover story because he’s kinda covered in blood from that whole- rescued a child out of a death pit and then did surgery on her hand thing. He makes up a story of a hunt gone wrong and hiding in a small cave until the wolf pack left and is grateful no one asks to see if his pistol is out of ammo or not. They just buy his story and move on to talking about hunting down this supposed wolf pack.

-When his mother takes him home, he tells her the truth. It’s the first time she’s doubted him since he was 4 years old. Shinra has already left again as suddenly as they’d come so it’s safe to take the bigger of the hidden entrances into the mansion grounds. He shows her how to get in, and while the death pit is a pile of smoking ash now, the signs (the bones) are still there and she is horrified. She is more horrified when he lets her into his secret cave and shows her the little girl, huddled up in his secret hideout’s fur blankets, still unconscious and deathly pale but at least not actively dying anymore.

-She agrees that this must remain a secret, for when Shinra eventually came back.

-They keep her hidden up there for three months with only a handful of other people in the know (all folk who Claudia has trusted with her life before and who she knows won’t go blab to the mayor). They feed her and care for her and discover she’s lost all her memories. They know about Kalm, it’s not hard to guess that her parents are likely dead and burned by now.

-Claudia names her Storm and says she will take care of Storm now, and Cloud hugs the stunned girl close and whispers that he’s always wanted a little sister.

-Six months after Kalm’s burning and Shinra Mansion’s return to empty haunted building status, Claudia lets the rumors spread that her cousin has died and left a child to be sent to Nibelheim to live with her. Since Claudia has always been closed mouthed about her family, this rumor is believed wholesale, and when one of those other folk in the know sneaks Storm down to the next town over a few hours before Claudia arrives in her battered old truck to “pick her up”, their alibi is as complete as it’s gonna get.

-They estimate that Storm is 9 years to Cloud’s 11, and she takes to being his cousin/sibling with a desperate sort of fervor. Cloud throws himself into being an older brother with equal devotion, even as he trains harder with his guns and survival skills and passes them on to Storm too.

-Cloud is 14 and maybe going a little stir crazy in his small town life (he’s grateful to be away from most of Shinra’s nonsense, but it does get REALLY BORING out here, especially with everyone his age leaving to go work for the Evil Empire In Disguise) when Storm tentatively asks what happened to her in the mansion. Cloud doesn’t know. But he’s got two pistols now and he’s not afraid of the local monsters, so he kisses her forehead and treks off to the mansion to find out.

-He fights his way into the mansion and finds all the creepy science papers and learns ... a lot.

-Apparently Evil Empire was playing god with things they knew little about, surprise surprise.

-Cloud tucks away Storm’s file (Felicia was her old name, interesting), and keeps digging. It takes a couple days of repeated visits (in between which he updates Storm and his increasingly alarmed mother of what he’s learned), but eventually he finds the files on Shinra’s golden boy Sephiroth and learns he’s had his DNA combined with a dead “ancient” (and if that’s really an ancient cetra and not some kind of horrible alien Prompto will eat his own shoes because there’s a picture of Jenova in the file and yeah, NOTHING HUMAN IS THAT SHADE OF BLUE kthanks). He digs even more through the mad ramblings, used to it after having to decipher ancient texts and Besithia’s mad rants with Ignis during the Long Night, and finds...

-Oh.

-That could be useful.

-Prompto treks down to the basement, then further down to a room filled with coffins. He wanders around until he finds the right one, flips it open, waits until the guy with Intense Vampire Vibes starts to wake up and ask who has disturbed his slumber, then interrupts with a cheerful, “I’m Cloud Strife. I’m going to steal everything in here I think is useful and then burn the rest to the ground. Do you wanna leave now or leave later when your cape is all crispy?”

-The man stares at him, “...What?”

-Cloud grins a little too wide and knows he looks very insane and ghoulish with the monster blood on his clothes, the dust and cobwebs in his hair, and the fire materia he’s juggling in his hands as he perches fearlessly on the edge of the coffin and simplifies, “Mansion go fwoof soon. You staying or leaving?”

-The man doesn’t seem to believe him, or even believe that he isn’t some kind of bad dream, so he just nudges Cloud off the coffin edge and shuts the top again. Cloud shrugs mentally, too frazzled and angry to care right now about Vampiric Drama Queens.

-He removes the relevant files that he’s found as well as any materia and weapons (and the diary of this one lady named Lucrecia who is apparently Sephiroth’s REAL mom and Mister Vampire’s former lover), then “borrows” a gas can from his mom’s shed and ensures that the dry, rotten floorboards of the mansion are thoroughly soaked in the stuff before wandering outside the back way, getting to a safe-ish distance and throwing a fireball through the broken window.

-The mansion does indeed make a loud and eager “fwoof” sound as it goes up in flames. Cloud watches the inferno with possibly too much maniacal laughter (hey he’s STRESSED okay? He’s getting the impression that HE’S the one the lifestream has decided to make it’s errand boy to save the world and he DOESN’T LIKE IT so just let him VENT), then laughs harder when a wall breaks open and out storms a slightly crispy and very unimpressed Vampire Drama Queen. Did Cloud maybe take too much glee in ensuring the gas had gotten into the basement too to make sure ALL  of the mansion went up? Probably. Did he regret it?

-No. Not in the slightest.

-One very unimpressed Vampire stare down that became genuine alarm when Cloud’s laughing fit turned into childish bawling later (stupid child stress hormones turning everything to tears when he least expected it, then again he’d always been a crybaby as Prompto in his own eyes) and Cloud leads Vampire Man home because he isn’t sure what else to do. He also makes Vampire Man (Vincent Valentine, the man sighs after the seventh time being called a Vampire) carry the diary and the most relevant papers down to his house. The other ones he hides in his cave for now, just in case.

-His mom breaks out the strong stuff halfway through Cloud’s story and shares sympathetic looks with Vincent over Cloud’s pyromania. Then he explains what he’s found and thinks about “Jenova” and while Vincent is skeptical, his mom has seen too much of Cloud’s weirdness not to believe him at this point. Cloud mentions that there are hints that at least some of the thing is up in the reactor. Storm cuddles up to her brother and solemnly asks if he’s going to go set the blue alien on fire too.

-Cloud says yes, Claudia sighs, and Vincent looks like he has a headache.

-Two weeks of preparations (and waiting out Shinra’s investigation of the fire, which they SOMEHOW deem an accident), a long hike, and some angry swearing from Claudia as she shorts out the security cameras (since when could his mom do that) later, and they have indeed found part of the blue alien woman. Their plan is interrupted when Vincent unexpectedly transforms into some kind of mini- dragon- monster- THING and aggressively fills the entire glass tank Jenova is in with blood red fire, but after THAT little episode is done, the Thing in Vincent’s skin eyes Cloud, starts laughing, calls him “the Chosen’s Little Argentum”, and cedes control back to one very dizzy Vincent.

-They all decide to call it a week after that.

...

Gonna wrap this up soon because ow my hands but some other thoughts on this is-

-Cloud and Storm start traveling to get answers and also to stay under Shinra’s radar, Vincent goes with because for some reason Chaos finds Cloud amusing and is willing to be quiet around the boy and also because this child CLEARLY needs a keeper and his pseudo-sister is his old partner’s DAUGHTER who was experimented on by Hojo and saved by Cloud so he can’t just leave now can he? Also the Lucrecia diary enlightens him to some things, like how Sephiroth is still alive and kicking (and currently sane!).

-Also Claudia comes with because she is a Good Mom and not about to let her 13 year old, her 11 year old, and a quasi-immortal Turk galavant around the countryside without adult supervision.

-Claudia and Vincent bicker like an old married couple and honestly Cloud is content to ship them so long as Vincent treats his mom right, and the ex-Turk would be amused by the Shovel Talk he gets early on if not for the sneaking suspicion (read: Chaos’s cackling) that this tiny blond menace guising as sunshine could actually pull it off, science immortality or no.

-Storm takes to swords like a duck to water and Cloud teaches her what he remembers, which is around the time Vincent asks about why Cloud Is The Way He Is and Claudia tells him that her son is a reincarnation. Honestly Cloud is just as flabbergasted as Vincent because since when did his mom know that?

-”Since you started talking in ancient forgotten languages during your hyper moments when you were four,” is the placid answer.

-They eventually wander into Midgar because What Is Self-Preservation and find Aerith. Aerith gloms onto Cloud and smiles a teary smile and calls him “Prompto” and that’s when he learns that Aerith is LUNA.

-They meet Zack outside of Midgar where Zack is playing Hunter rather than joining Soldier. Cloud and Zack stare at each other for like- twenty seconds before hugging for dear life and crying all over each other because it’s NOCTIS and THEY MISSED EACH OTHER SO MUCH.

-Zack still has armiger magic and gives it to everyone involved save Vincent, who looks like he might actually have an aneurysm if anymore Weirdness gets attached to his soul. He already has two (now three and one absentee sort of fourth) crazy children to look after, please keep the ancient magic away from his already battered soul.

-Not sure who/if Iggy and Gladio are reborn as, I’ll think about it.

-Fixit shenanigans ensue. The Turks get converted to the cause because 1. Veld’s old partner is back and 2. his supposedly dead daughter shyly turns up decidedly NOT dead and with proof that Hojo experimented on her (he nearly flips a table and the scars on her hand from Prompto’s field surgery hurt Veld’s SOUL).

-Claudia is Team Mom of the Turks now, she’s not sure how.

-Zack and Cloud put their heads together and decide the PERFECT way to infiltrate and ruin Shinra’s hold on Sephiroth is to-

-Have one of them become his secretary/assistant. Cloud loses the coin toss, so now Sephiroth has a personal ray of sunshine and good morals following him everywhere like a stray kitten. It’s working WAY more than it has any right to.

-Someone (read: the newly converted to the cause Turks and a gleeful Vincent) start slipping Reeve data on what the mako reactors are really doing to the planet. Also Hojo ends up dead. So does Rupert.

-Also also Claudia is Rupert’s sister, so Rufus gets an aunt figure to imprint proper morals into his skull through love, sarcasm, and good food.

-There I’m out of thoughts on this AU for now.

[secret-engima]

Also, just realised I have you two more verses to mess around with, didnt I? Whoops. Should check my impulse control (what impulse control?) Tiny Nox going around riding on peoples shoulders Should Be A Thing. Like—this is HIS thing. Are you tall? Yes. Nox will Ride You Now, please Drive Safely. Also Sephiroth nearly stabbing nobles n shit is hilarious and I want more protective!insanely!devoted!Seph just for the LOLs of everyone's reactions to this Big Mess.

*wheezes* THIS.

If you are Tol and Trusted then you are automatically a Nox Perch. Please Be Responsible With the Smol Child Now Riding Your Shoulders.

Seph being overprotective is the BEST.

Snobby Noble? Is threatened with sword.

Strange new servant in the Citadel? Is threatened with sword.

Crownsguard who is frowning too hard over something unrelated to Nox but coincidentally in Nox’s general direction? Is threatened with sword.

Regis: Sephiroth I appreciate your dedication to protecting my son but please stop threatening everyone with your giant sword.

Sephiroth, giving Nox a shoulder ride and pointing his sword threateningly in the direction of a random passerby: But what if ... I didn’t.

(Regis is a Stress™. His son has come back with an adult madman as part of his Retinue, Nox PLEASE WHY).

(Iris thinks Sephiroth is Amazing and gives him some flowers she plucked out of the garden as a welcome gift.)

(Sephiroth starts threatening people on her behalf too.)

(Clarus joins in king in being a Stress™.)

(Cor doesn’t see the problem, this guy is clearly too loyal to betray the royal family and he’s fun to fight).

[secret-engima]

Heyheyhey two things; Seer!Cloud Strife, who wakes Vincent up like, when he's six/five because of what he /saw./ or sky!Cloud that happens to awaken Vincent from his sleep 'cuz sky attraction. (Sephs mum was a sky?? Vincent was 'flame courting' her??) (I JUST WANT PROTECTIVE VINCENT, OKAY? I LOVE HIM.)

Oooooo hmmm tricky. Gonna focus on Seer!Cloud because that’s real interesting-.

Real quick on Sky!Cloud tho: that would be such a chaotic combo. Sky!Cloud in all his feral glory and wild instincts (because Flames are forgotten, secret things in most “civilized” places but Nibelheim is not what one would really call “civilized” in that way so Flames are still a thing) senses a powerful Flame in the mansion and is curious. And he doesn’t want to court the kids his age who have flickers of fire, because they are too weak still and he will smother them on accident (like he nearly did with Tifa, but it’s not her fault, her Flame is young and not Blessed like Cloud’s with Destiny, so it does not roar like a bonfire yet even though it will in time). So he gathers himself and marches to the mansion to find this big Flame, and Vincent is yanked out of sleep when his own Cloud Flames howl at the feel of a young, powerful Sky fighting and fearing the mansion’s monsters above his head. Vincent is moving before he is aware of it, rushing up the stairs on pure, feral instinct that he has tried to hard to bury since losing Lucrecia at the cusp of finalizing their bond, and he-

Arrives. Snatches up the child in one arm while the other fires his gun and obliterates any monster nearby. The child latches on, scared and desperate and longing-

There is a click and a jolt and Vincent keens in a heady mix of guilt-relief-shock-pain at the sudden snap bond. Because he promised he would only love one Sky and she turned her back on him, yet now there is another, younger Sky would understands his soul and bonds with it instantly, before they even know each other’s names, and it HURTS but it is also a RELIEF.

And that is how bby Sky Cloud got the most monstrously protective Turk Cloud Vincent ever. XD

Canon goes yeet. There’s no way Vincent is letting Cloud anywhere near Shinra unprepared, and no WAY he’s letting Cloud get pumped full of drugs in this “Soldier” program led by Hojo. Vincent’s just: welp time to kill the mad scientist that hurt me. And then he finds Sephiroth and he’s like !!!!!!! because he can feel Lucrecia’s Flame signature in Sephiroth’s and Cloud blinks a few times and then is like: oh. Friend? Son of Friend? Okay. My Mist now.

Everything gets more chaotic from there with Cloud casually picking up Soldier and Turk Flames left and right without anyone able to stop him because his Cloud is Vincent and his Mist is SEPHIROTH.

...

Cloud is a not a strong baby when he is born. He is not a healthy one. He is small and fragile and Nibelheim is not kind.

But Cloud’s mother remembers the Old Things and she is desperate and stubborn. So when other mothers would have just accepted the doctor’s grim declaration that Cloud would likely not last to his third month of life, Claudia wrapped him up in every warm layer she could and sets off up the mountain.

She finds the mako spring up there and kneels before it and begs. Begs any who would listen to please, save her child, lend him strength.

The Lifestream hears the cries of a mother, the thready life of a soul that could-be-has-been-one-was their champion in a hundred-thousand other timelines and takes pity. Light reaches up and curls around the whimpering child and a hundred-thousand voices sing softly of healing and Blessing. But such things are not free, and since Claudia is not the one to receive the healing, she is not the one who pays the price (and it is not fair, to make a child pay for the plea of the parent, but the Lifestream is not fair, it just Is, and this is how it has always claimed its dues). Cloud takes a breath and wails, strong and loud in a way he has never been before and Claudia weeps with relief.

She weeps again, later, when she realizes her son’s eyes do not track her movement. When she realizes that he is blind.

(He is not really blind, they learn later, he just sees too much. His gaze is always locked on the future, and every time he opens his eyes he sees a thousand pathways to what-might-be-what-could-be-what-needs-be. He sees people and places, tragedies and joys, laughter and tears and fates not yet woven into place. With all that to look at, is it any wonder he cannot process the present that is right in front of him? It is already a wonder he does not go mad in his first years of life).

Claudia learns to hide Cloud’s eyes and help with his blindness, and Cloud learns to not open his eyes even while awake if he does not want to lose himself. But even with his eyes shut, things whisper behind his eyelids. Not the far future and all its possibilities, but just the near future, the split second decisions that his mind can see minutes ahead of time and choose between. It makes him light on his feet and strange in his words and deeds. The townspeople think he’s Off and they do not like their children playing with him (though some, like Tifa, play with him anyway).

Cloud warns Tifa not to go up the mountain after her mother dies, but she does not listen. He follows her up and tears slide past his closed eyelids as he runs. He is just in time to banish the paths that end in Tifa sprawled out at the base of the high mountainside with a shattered neck. He grabs her hand and brings her back home, but the townsfolk do not like him. They blame him. They tell him to stay away. And Cloud opens his eyes for just a moment when the voices get too close and sees a rush of near-far-unlikely-likely and he cannot tell which it is when he sees paths that lead to the townsfolk hurting him and so he runs away. He slams his eyes shut because he cannot flee if he is too far in the future to remember how to run, but even so the Lifestream curls and twists around him and for a moment, one unlikely path rises to the surface and Cloud SEES.

A friend.

A father.

He turns and instead of running home, he runs for the old Shinra mansion.

He almost dies to the monsters, but his instincts are sharp even with his eyes shut, and though he has never SEEN the world like regular people do, he knows where he is going as he runs down the stairs and flings himself down into the room of coffins with half a dozen monsters on his heels. He crashes against the side of one and screams, “Vincent, help!” and in his voice the Lifestream echoes and yanks and demands just like it does those rare times he opens his mouth and frightens his mother with the disjointed prophecies of Future that spill out.

Chaos roars in Vincent’s head, driving him up and out of his coffin to protect the Little Seer and when Vincent next blinks, he’s standing for the first time in years, there are monsters dead at his feet, and a child sobbing in terror against his leg.

Vincent is confused.

He looks down at the child sobbing past closed eyes and ... doesn’t know what to do. If it were an adult he wouldn’t care, but this is a little KID. Who somehow knew his name. Vincent crouches and forces his rusty voice to ask, “Who are you? What are you doing down here?”

“I came to f-find you,” sobs the child.

“How did you know I was here?”

The child sniffles, clinging to the fabric of Vincent’s cloak and opens his mouth.

The Lifestream’s prophecy spills out “Mourner in Red with no son of his own. Sleeper in Guilt while the world falls to ruin will always awaken and follow when the Cloud calls covers his coffin.” The boy’s mouth snaps shut a moment later with a strangled sound, like he’s choking on more words, and Vincent is an Alarm.

No child says things like that normally. No child SOUNDS like that. Like he is both normal yet not, like when he speaks the world is whispering alongside and giving it an echo of thunder. Chaos stirs in his head, but instead of trying to take over, it just laughs, dark and old and bloody, “So a new seer has been chosen,” it sneers, “I thought Minerva would cease that practice after the death of the last ones.”

Last ones? Vincent thinks uneasily at the more talkative of the monsters in his head.

“People are fickle creatures. Every seer that has lived is either scorned and disbelieved, or revered and isolated. They are either shams or gods in the eyes of other mortals, and their wisdom is both rejected and clung to. With a connection as strong as his that it takes his normal sight, he will either be forced to speak of the futures people desire and then be killed when a different future comes to pass, or he will be shunned and locked away by ‘wiser’ minds who deem him mad.”

Vincent can feel his insides turn cold. And it shouldn’t matter. He is too broken to help in such things and yet-.

The child knew him.

The child knew his name, trusted whatever he saw in the futures unwritten that he came to Vincent for help.

Just long enough to get him home, Vincent promises himself as he awkwardly picks up the child and carries him out of the mansion and into the town. Then I will return.

Except the boy’s mother finds him and she cries in relief and somehow her tears of thanks lead to dragging him home because the boy refuses to let go of him and the woman (Claudia) is very kind and the boy is clingy and the food is warm and-.

And somehow. Despite all his intentions. Vincent stays.

[secret-engima]

Little Nox in FF7???

Pfffft. I assume you mean he trips into FF7 by accident for a while so sure!

Setting this in like- just Pre-Crisis Core because it’s funny to me.

Also I make no attempts to be serious with this it’s just going to be as much fluff and humor as I can fit in it.

-There is a child hiding under his desk.

-Sephiroth blinks down at the small child, the child blinks tearfully back up at him. Sephiroth is still trying to figure out how a child got all the way up here, let alone into his office to hide under his desk, then the child crawls out from under the desk and-.

-Hugs him.

-“M scared.” Whispers the child into Sephiroth’s pant leg as he stands there stunned, “Wan’ Uncle. Wan’ frien’.” Big, big blue eyes (truly big, how do children make their eyes that large is this normal) look up at him and Sephiroth feels something ... small and fragile and trusting brushing against his senses, like a materia but alive and scared and seeking comfort, “Seph friend?”

-....Oh dear.

-Angeal comes to Sephiroth’s apartment several hours later, concerned because Sephiroth took a sick day? Just- out of nowhere, he called in a sick day to Lazard and retreated to his apartment. Lazard had called Angeal about the issues because this behavior was Concerning™. Angeal agrees. Angeal has known Sephiroth for YEARS. The man does NOT get sick from anything and he never tries to use sick days to get out of work, so what in the world is going on?

-He knocks twice, then enters without waiting because he has the spare key and comes face to face with-.

-“Seph,” Angeal manages in a strangled voice, “What is a child doing in your apartment?”

-Sephiroth turns his head to look at Angeal, then looks away again when the child busily braiding his hair makes a noise of protest, “I found him,” Sephiroth answers with all the serenity of a man who found a stray kitten rather than an Actual Human Being, “he didn’t know where his uncle was or how to contact him. I did not think the offices were an appropriate place for a child, so I brought him here.”

-Angeal stares, the child looks up briefly from braiding and stares back with solemn but content blue eyes. The boy can’t be more than seven, probably closer to six, and Angeal is Professionally Concerned as he steps further into the apartment, “You didn’t think to call Lost and Found? Or security? Sephiroth, his parents are probably worried sick about him.”

-Sephiroth, if anything, looks politely baffled, “I was unaware Lost and Found dealt in children. And Security would just frighten him, they have guns.” Angeal takes a moment to pointedly look at the swords adorning Sephiroth’s apartment walls, the only decorations the man seems to care about, then back at Sephiroth. It’s clear that Sephiroth misses the point.

-Angeal sighs and steps toward the boy, “I’m going to take him to-.” The boy cringes away from Angeal’s approach and a moment later is possessively cradled in Sephiroth’s arms as the Silver General backs away with a frown.

-Sephiroth scowls, “No.”

-“Sephiroth-”

-“No.”

-“You can’t just keep him!” The responding silence is telling and Angeal flings his hands in the air, “Sephiroth, he’s a human being! A child! You don’t know the first thing about children!”

-Sephiroth looks down at the boy, who seems oddly content to curl up in the arms of a near stranger and play with long silver hair, then looks back up, “He appears to be very well trained.”

-Angeal facepalms, “Human. Being. Sephiroth. You can’t just keep him like a stray puppy. We need to contact someone so they can find his parents.”

-“And if he has none?” Sephiroth sounds almost hopeful and Angeal is a Dread™. It’s rare that Sephiroth gets into one of his possessive modes (Genesis jokingly calls it Dragon Mode for the sudden onset of hoarding tendencies), and he’s never done this over a person before and Angeal can already see this becoming a disaster.

-Angeal insists on calling Security, even if he grudgingly lets Sephiroth keep the boy “until his guardians are found”.

-There is no one in Shinra’s citizen registry that goes by the name Izunia. They assume that either the boy said it wrong (he is young after all) or that he’s possibly foreign-born, since “Izunia” is a Wutaian name. The Turks want to know how he got into the building, let alone to Sephiroth’s office, but the boy’s only response to these questions is a shy blink and a mumble into Sephiroth’s shoulder of “I tripped.” which makes absolutely no sense to anyone.

-While Security looks for this “Izunia” person anyway, Sephiroth hoards the boy (who’s name is Nox) with all the possessive fervor of a dragon. Rumors abound and spiral out of control among first the SOLDIER’s, then the regular employees, then all of Midgar over the sight (and few grainy pictures the Turks didn’t censor in time from the public) of their famed Silver General doing his paperwork with a child in his lap, or inspecting the SOLDIER recruits with said same child riding in a makeshift sling on his back.

-The rest of SOLDIER (including Angeal and even Genesis) is enamored with him by the end of the week, but it’s clear that Nox’s favorite person is Sephiroth. Genesis is jealous and tries to bribe Nox with poetry and candy, but Nox will always wander back to Sephiroth as soon as Sephiroth calls for him.

-No one can explain why they’re so attached, other than the fact that Nox is sweet and polite and adorable (and also his magic is curling around their souls in hopes of finding friends-protectors and though they don’t know what they’re feeling, it makes the Mako-sensitive SOLDIERS parental instincts kick into overdrive.

-Hojo takes an interest in this boy who can sway all of Soldier and who gives off odd mako readings.

-Hojo is mysteriously found shanked to death in his lab a day after expressing his creepy interest and making noises about “examining” Nox.

-Nox helpfully holds out a polishing cloth for Sephiroth once the man is finished wiping blood off one of his wall-decoration daggers (he wasn’t stupid enough to use Masamune, the wounds the blade left were too distinctive, but no one ever expected his wall decorations to be combat-ready sharp).

-Nox “helps” Genesis make tea at one point, as much as a small child can anyway. Genesis thinks it’s his imagination that the tea is faintly glowing until he, Angeal, and Sephiroth drink it and then promptly spend the day vomiting black sludge while Nox cries in concern from Zack’s arms.

-Surprisingly, the three feel better than they have in years once the vomiting fit is over. They still never let Nox help make tea again though. Just in case.

-About three weeks after Sephiroth first finds a child under his desk, Shinra tower is summarily invaded by one Very Agitated Hat Man looking for his nephew and not afraid to wreak havoc to do it. The Turks get rings run around them and all of SOLDIER gets slapped over the head repeatedly until Sephiroth enters the scene with Nox and the boy’s face lights up in joy and a cry of “Uncle!!”

-Sephiroth is honestly sad to turn the child over to his Uncle, but the boy looks so happy to be reunited he reluctantly lets go. Izunia blows out of Shinra Tower as quickly as he came and before the Turks can catch him and then immediately disappears off the face of Gaia. No one knows what to make of it. Sephiroth and SOLDIER are a Sad™ that their little mascot person is gone.

-Years later, Sephiroth is summoned to another world on the opposite side of his apprentice Cloud Strife and is overjoyed (and also concerned) when a young child of around ten or twelve runs up and cannons into his waist with a gleeful shout of “Seph!” while a similar-looking teenager follows behind looking agitated and harried.

[secret-engima]

Some cute fluff with Titus and baby!nox?? Please and thank you!

FLUFF.

-Titus is Bby!Nox’s fifth favorite person (behind Iggy, Uncle, Da, and Noctis). He likes hanging out with his Grouchy Uncle, and if he’s not with any of his other babysitters or Iggy, then he’s absolutely with Titus, piggybacking around as the man oversees glaive training, sitting on his lap as he does paperwork, or giving the poor man a heart attack when Nox figures out how to warp up into the rafters to explore and then gets stuck up there (Titus buys a child leash, he regrets nothing, and no he doesn’t care that it’s bright florescent green because the glaives pay close attention to that color and he needs all the help he can get).

-If you want to put Bby Nox down for a nap and for some reason his Uncle and Iggy and Regis aren’t available, just plop him in Titus’s arms and let the man read his paperwork aloud. Kiddo will be OUT in twenty seconds and it’s not because of how boring the paperwork is, Titus has CHECKED. Nox will zonk out just as fast to a storybook so long as he’s curled up in Titus’s lap and it’s Titus doing the reading.

-Titus gives Bby Nox shoulder rides. Nox adores the sensation of being Tol.

-Nox made Titus a coffee mug (with a LOT of help and supervision for various other responsible figures). It’s lopsided and kinda lumpy, the handle is big enough to stick his entire hand through it like it’s some kind of watering can and not a cup, the rim is uneven even though thankfully the bottom is flat and it’s been finger painted with things that are possibly either brightly colored flowers or shields and the words “Best Captian” (yes spelled incorrectly just like that) on it.

-Titus adores it. It’s the only one he will drink coffee out of in the morning, and it has a place of honor on his desk far away from any dangerous edges or falls. Nobody touch his mug without permission. Touch his mug and he will have the offending party on cleaning duty until the day they DIE.

-Nox is trying to learn how to scowl like Titus. Sometimes he will follow Titus around and mimic his scowl and his body language (hands on hips, chin tilted to look down at everyone since Titus is taller than a lot of people) while he lectures the glaives. The glaives are dying inside from trying to suppress their laughter and “aww”s because oh my word it is so CUTE.

[secret-engima]

Pretend it's home by beth crowley

*vibes intently* yessssss. I like this. This is prime muse fuel right here.

Absolutely muse fuel for Always I Dreamed verse and probably a few more besides.

[secret-engima]

Regis and Clarus reaction to Cloud!Prom remembering Cor taking him from the labs??

A LOT of horror and a LOT of guilt. Because they want to disbelieve, but they CAN’T. Because nobody has ever told Prompto about that day, very few people even know about that day, let alone the details but Prompto REMEMBERS it and they are- they are horrified.

Because if he remembers that? What ELSE does he remember? Does he remember the experiments? Oh Astrals does he remember the dissections????

Suddenly his rabid fear of all things medical and doctor is heartbreakingly understandable.