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Title: Dain af Niohoggr
Author: GW Katrina
Beta: Skeren
Fandom: FFVII: Mercverse
Claim:![[insanejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/ij-community.gif)
mercverse for story_arc
Themeset/Prompt: Thirty Set 01: Spell
Wordcount: 1605
Ratings: PG-13
Link to Archive Post: Here
First off, for those of you who have never read the Mercverse AU of Final Fantasy VII, here’s a few details.
Cloud is immortal. Zack isn’t fully human. Vincent and Chaos are half-demon twins. Sephiroth is a mage adept.
That is the basis of Mercverse. Below are more details, which are useful, but not absolutely required to know.
It’s a feudal system, with kings and princes, and noble families. Thousands of years before this story, there was a great war, where the demons, lead by Jenova and her three sons, battled with the Cetra and humans. Jenova was sealed away, and her sons were slowly hunted down and killed. Sometime after all of this, the Cetra vanished, magic hiding the path they took, though a few were still scattered around, or have reappeared throughout the ages.
Cloud Strife was born during that time frame. His father is unknown, and his mother would never speak of the man.
He’s been alive ever since. Death never did seem to take, and he has lived through the centuries, watching as part of his family line went on to become the Shinras, the royal family of the country.
Currently, he has a pack of people that he enjoys spending time with.
Zack Strife-Cloud’s heir, someone who has just enough demon blood in his system to pull off some impressive actions. He was a street kid until found by Cloud, and was adopted as a ward before being made his heir. Given Cloud is rather immortal, Zack just uses Court time to annoy the other nobles and have fun. He and Cloud were the first two of the current mercenary group that Cloud runs.
Vincent and Chaos Valentine: A set of half-demon twins. Something of a rarity, even with all the humans and demons in this world. While both can shapeshift, Vincent prefers to stay in his human form, while Chaos is more likely to follow his demon side.
Sephiroth: A mage who Cloud has known for a few years now, and the last to join the group. He mostly did it to make Zack stop pestering him, but has enjoyed his time here.
Outside of the people who are the core of his group, there are others, such as Tifa, Aeris, and Yuffie. He has a variety of connections, given how long he has been alive, and the jobs he has taken up doing over the years.
Mercverse focuses primarily around this group of people, and more can be found on Livejournal and Insanejournal under the community/asylum name ofmercverse. There, various people have written in the universe, adding their own touches and playing with the ideas. Feel free to join in, though I no longer visit the LJ version.
Dain af Niohoggr
Under the light of the blood red moon, the group of people who really had no right to be there continued to chant and move, each gesture and word particularly placed to have the most effect. While not the most regular of magical rituals, the creator of this one had been very precise on what he had wanted. Each detail had to be perfect in order to make this spell work.
So much work had gone into the ritual these people were working their way through, clothed in the pale, almost sterile robes as they moved over the dust.
No plants grew here, and they had to move carefully, or else someone would choke on the stirred up earth, and that would be something bad. It would have been easier if the earth was covered in plants, or pavement. But nothing was here, all the life forever killed in this area, going to feed a truly massive spell that had been going for millennia. So it would take a lot of focus to keep the magic of this ritual from fading into that steady, unending pull to feed the older spell.
Not that this ritual was going to do what they thought it would, Hojo thought as he watched them from a distance. Oh, no.
The fools thought they were doing a magical ritual that would gain them power over all demons. Power to make them do as the group wished.
Such pitiful beings, to think so small. In a way, Hojo wished that he wasn’t the only one to think in such a grand way. Or that he had been born of a species with a longer life span. To have such great thoughts and to be limited to a single human lifetime.... Sometimes, the world was even less just than normal. If there was any true justice, he would live for many long years, bringing forth greater and greater achievements.
Watching, Hojo found his head bobbing in time with the chanting and forced himself to stop. For such a powerful force, magic was so messy sometimes. It required the most obscure things in order to work properly. But it was a power that he had focused on since he was young. Messy, but he had found ways to make it cleaner, more exact.
Building up to this moment. This ritual. One he had been working on for years now. His son had been a mere step along this path, and now, after years of work and manipulating that fool of a king, Hojo was almost there.
It had been difficult to find the details of the ritual. There had been a great deal of digging, of pouring through rotting, filthy books, of putting the puzzle pieces together in order to get the whole of it.
Once he had done that, it had taken years more of planning and preparation, always ready for when the right moment came.
How did one find a blood red moon, for instance? Or ring it with ice?
Hojo found he enjoyed riddles, puzzles. They were simple far too often, but the challenging ones, oh, those were well worth the hunt to find them.
And there was no greater puzzle than this spell.
When the volcano to the west had erupted, he had watched. Watched as the ash filled the sky, and the moon slowly darkened, and turned red. It came in time with a cold front, with ice high in the sky. And so the moonlight made a ring of ice around the moon itself.
Science had brought him the answer. It solved so many of the other mysteries as well.
Like the skull of the man drowned on air. Someone who suffocated on foul air could fill that one.
Or the eyes of frogs that flew. Really. That one was just too easy. The ancients who set this spell must have had very low opinions of the ones who came after.
The most puzzling of the riddles was how to do the spell itself. The one casting -must- know what they were casting.
Still smug over that, Hojo watched as the movements became more frantic, words becoming unintelligible.
That was fine. They had done the part they needed.
Raising his own hands, he cast, and the people began to scream as words burned onto their skin. They really should have checked their robes better.
As suddenly as the people began to scream, they stopped, and for a moment, he wondered if the spell had failed.
Then power flared up, painting the area in a blinding white light, so bright that Hojo had to cover his face. Even then, it was almost painful against his closed and shielded eyes, a palpable force against his skin. So much magical power that it was almost unimaginable.
Just as suddenly as it arrived, it vanished. No, not vanished. He could feel it pulling back, sliding over his skin, and he took a step forward before he was able to control himself.
Slowly, carefully, he opened his eyes and lowered his arm, ready to cover his eyes again if needed. He had too many important things to do to risk being blinded.
In the spot that the people had been holding their ritual, there were only scorch marks. Nothing of them remained, not even the altar that they had put together under Hojo’s careful observation.
It was a single white dot in the air at first. He almost didn’t notice it.
Then the black strands began to creep out from it, looking like cracks in the air itself. Bit by bit, the scene in front of him seemed to flake away, leaving a bright, blinding light behind it.
With a roar, the world exploded into white light again. Unable to hide from it quick enough, Hojo had to wait, blinking his eyes to clear them of the haze. When his vision cleared, the man’s eyes went wide.
Before him, the woman who stood where the altar had been watched him with red-violet eyes.
He had succeeded.
“Yes. You did.”
Hojo bowed, as he had never bowed to any other being, and truly meant it.
He had freed her.
It had begun.
Author: GW Katrina
Beta: Skeren
Fandom: FFVII: Mercverse
Claim:
mercverse for story_arcThemeset/Prompt: Thirty Set 01: Spell
Wordcount: 1605
Ratings: PG-13
Link to Archive Post: Here
First off, for those of you who have never read the Mercverse AU of Final Fantasy VII, here’s a few details.
Cloud is immortal. Zack isn’t fully human. Vincent and Chaos are half-demon twins. Sephiroth is a mage adept.
That is the basis of Mercverse. Below are more details, which are useful, but not absolutely required to know.
It’s a feudal system, with kings and princes, and noble families. Thousands of years before this story, there was a great war, where the demons, lead by Jenova and her three sons, battled with the Cetra and humans. Jenova was sealed away, and her sons were slowly hunted down and killed. Sometime after all of this, the Cetra vanished, magic hiding the path they took, though a few were still scattered around, or have reappeared throughout the ages.
Cloud Strife was born during that time frame. His father is unknown, and his mother would never speak of the man.
He’s been alive ever since. Death never did seem to take, and he has lived through the centuries, watching as part of his family line went on to become the Shinras, the royal family of the country.
Currently, he has a pack of people that he enjoys spending time with.
Zack Strife-Cloud’s heir, someone who has just enough demon blood in his system to pull off some impressive actions. He was a street kid until found by Cloud, and was adopted as a ward before being made his heir. Given Cloud is rather immortal, Zack just uses Court time to annoy the other nobles and have fun. He and Cloud were the first two of the current mercenary group that Cloud runs.
Vincent and Chaos Valentine: A set of half-demon twins. Something of a rarity, even with all the humans and demons in this world. While both can shapeshift, Vincent prefers to stay in his human form, while Chaos is more likely to follow his demon side.
Sephiroth: A mage who Cloud has known for a few years now, and the last to join the group. He mostly did it to make Zack stop pestering him, but has enjoyed his time here.
Outside of the people who are the core of his group, there are others, such as Tifa, Aeris, and Yuffie. He has a variety of connections, given how long he has been alive, and the jobs he has taken up doing over the years.
Mercverse focuses primarily around this group of people, and more can be found on Livejournal and Insanejournal under the community/asylum name of
mercverse. There, various people have written in the universe, adding their own touches and playing with the ideas. Feel free to join in, though I no longer visit the LJ version.Under the light of the blood red moon, the group of people who really had no right to be there continued to chant and move, each gesture and word particularly placed to have the most effect. While not the most regular of magical rituals, the creator of this one had been very precise on what he had wanted. Each detail had to be perfect in order to make this spell work.
So much work had gone into the ritual these people were working their way through, clothed in the pale, almost sterile robes as they moved over the dust.
No plants grew here, and they had to move carefully, or else someone would choke on the stirred up earth, and that would be something bad. It would have been easier if the earth was covered in plants, or pavement. But nothing was here, all the life forever killed in this area, going to feed a truly massive spell that had been going for millennia. So it would take a lot of focus to keep the magic of this ritual from fading into that steady, unending pull to feed the older spell.
Not that this ritual was going to do what they thought it would, Hojo thought as he watched them from a distance. Oh, no.
The fools thought they were doing a magical ritual that would gain them power over all demons. Power to make them do as the group wished.
Such pitiful beings, to think so small. In a way, Hojo wished that he wasn’t the only one to think in such a grand way. Or that he had been born of a species with a longer life span. To have such great thoughts and to be limited to a single human lifetime.... Sometimes, the world was even less just than normal. If there was any true justice, he would live for many long years, bringing forth greater and greater achievements.
Watching, Hojo found his head bobbing in time with the chanting and forced himself to stop. For such a powerful force, magic was so messy sometimes. It required the most obscure things in order to work properly. But it was a power that he had focused on since he was young. Messy, but he had found ways to make it cleaner, more exact.
Building up to this moment. This ritual. One he had been working on for years now. His son had been a mere step along this path, and now, after years of work and manipulating that fool of a king, Hojo was almost there.
It had been difficult to find the details of the ritual. There had been a great deal of digging, of pouring through rotting, filthy books, of putting the puzzle pieces together in order to get the whole of it.
Once he had done that, it had taken years more of planning and preparation, always ready for when the right moment came.
How did one find a blood red moon, for instance? Or ring it with ice?
Hojo found he enjoyed riddles, puzzles. They were simple far too often, but the challenging ones, oh, those were well worth the hunt to find them.
And there was no greater puzzle than this spell.
When the volcano to the west had erupted, he had watched. Watched as the ash filled the sky, and the moon slowly darkened, and turned red. It came in time with a cold front, with ice high in the sky. And so the moonlight made a ring of ice around the moon itself.
Science had brought him the answer. It solved so many of the other mysteries as well.
Like the skull of the man drowned on air. Someone who suffocated on foul air could fill that one.
Or the eyes of frogs that flew. Really. That one was just too easy. The ancients who set this spell must have had very low opinions of the ones who came after.
The most puzzling of the riddles was how to do the spell itself. The one casting -must- know what they were casting.
Still smug over that, Hojo watched as the movements became more frantic, words becoming unintelligible.
That was fine. They had done the part they needed.
Raising his own hands, he cast, and the people began to scream as words burned onto their skin. They really should have checked their robes better.
As suddenly as the people began to scream, they stopped, and for a moment, he wondered if the spell had failed.
Then power flared up, painting the area in a blinding white light, so bright that Hojo had to cover his face. Even then, it was almost painful against his closed and shielded eyes, a palpable force against his skin. So much magical power that it was almost unimaginable.
Just as suddenly as it arrived, it vanished. No, not vanished. He could feel it pulling back, sliding over his skin, and he took a step forward before he was able to control himself.
Slowly, carefully, he opened his eyes and lowered his arm, ready to cover his eyes again if needed. He had too many important things to do to risk being blinded.
In the spot that the people had been holding their ritual, there were only scorch marks. Nothing of them remained, not even the altar that they had put together under Hojo’s careful observation.
It was a single white dot in the air at first. He almost didn’t notice it.
Then the black strands began to creep out from it, looking like cracks in the air itself. Bit by bit, the scene in front of him seemed to flake away, leaving a bright, blinding light behind it.
With a roar, the world exploded into white light again. Unable to hide from it quick enough, Hojo had to wait, blinking his eyes to clear them of the haze. When his vision cleared, the man’s eyes went wide.
Before him, the woman who stood where the altar had been watched him with red-violet eyes.
He had succeeded.
“Yes. You did.”
Hojo bowed, as he had never bowed to any other being, and truly meant it.
He had freed her.
It had begun.