He knows, when he's awake, that it's impossible. He'll never have children. For a variety of reasons. He's devoted to his work. He has no time. Physiologically, due to his altered genes and the radiation treatments, he is unable to father children. Even if he could, with medical assistance, would he want to? Wouldn't any children he fathered belong to ShinRa as well?

What would become of such children? Would they grow wings and fly away? The idea isn't as far-fetched as it should be, considering what had happened to his friends. Why would he want children in a world like this?

But he's dreaming now. In dreams, he can have another life. He's dressed in plain clothes, black pants and a white dress shirt, standing in a a room, in a house. An ordinary house. It's not in Midgar, but somewhere else, far away. He can look through the window and see trees. The curtains are wide open, and sunlight pours in through them, and he knows, somehow, that this is "home". His home. With the certainty of a dreamer, who can believe impossible things, he knows that his family lives here. His children. There are pictures of them on the wall. Their possessions can be seen here and there, and some of the books on the shelves are theirs--not his own dry volumes about science and military history. He stands there for a while, not doing anything in particular, quiet and distantly content as he takes in this place, this existence, becomes accustomed to it.

He doesn't stir until hears a sound behind him. There someone here with him. He turns and smiles at them, a casual, fond smile for someone he sees almost every day of his life. "Hello." He asks a simple question. "How was your day?"


[[OOC: Anyone is welcome to be one of Sephiroth's "kids". (Relatives or spouses of any gender to talk about family are also welcome, if you prefer.) Feel free to age characters down, if you like, but grown up kids are also fine. Prose or action spam both welcome; I'll match you.]]

The beach was pristine when the young pirate stepped out on the shore, giving a slight hop to avoid the surf. He grabbed the rope attached to it and pulled it up on the sand to avoid it being swept out to sea. Yes, the beach was pristine, but would not remain for long, though. He was here looking for the stash of the infamous pirate, Old Gunner Longshanks, the most notorious pirate ever to live during the Adventure Era. The island was a fairly typical one of the greater Mideel islands. Full of monsters and dangerous plants, yet beautiful at the same time with the rich jungle and warm weather. The sky, however, was a completely different story.

A dark, blood colored orb hung in the clear blue, staining the blue and marring an otherwise beautiful day. Time was short, and he was determined to make his dream come true before that!

So that was all the more reason to hurry and find the treasure. Captain Reno would be the first to find it after so many years, and the prestige would be his. They would sing his praises in the taverns and cheer whenever he showed up, for he would be generous and order a round of drinks on him! That was definitely the life, and it would all be made possible if only he could find out where the marlboro shaped rock was. Searching all of these little islands was getting tiresome. His loyal crew was on board his ship in the little cove they had anchored in, ready to come ashore at his signal, but this was one thing he wanted to do alone.

So, with map at the ready, a compass and a telescope, Captain Reno set out to find that treasure.

On his way home from a foreign land, a young man with a retinue of three meets an old witch. The witch asks the young man to climb down into a hollow tree. Inside, she says, he'll find three rooms: one filled with copper, one with silver, and one with gold. Each room will be guarded by a dog. In the first room, the dog will have eyes the size of teacups. In the second, it will have eyes the size of mill wheels. The third dog will have eyes each the size of the Round Tower.

She gives him an apron and instructs him to pick up each dog and lay it on the apron and then help himself to as many coins as he wishes. In exchange, she merely wants a tinderbox, which her sister left last time she was down there.

The young man agrees, leaves his retinue to keep company with the witch and climbs down into the tree.

Inside he finds the three rooms with the three dogs with enormous eyes, exactly as the witch said, and he fills his pockets with coins. He leaves the tree and asks the witch what she wants with the tinderbox. She says it's none of his business. He says, "Tell me, or I'll have your head chopped off."

She says, "No." And he orders one of his retinue to chop her head off.

He takes the best room at the best inn in the nearest city -- a city which is home to a beautiful princess who lives in a copper palace and is never allowed to see anyone but the king because it has been foretold that she will marry a foreign man -- and he spends every coin he has on food and entertainment.

One night, he uses the witch's tinderbox to light a candle, and the dog with eyes as big as teacups appears and says, "What is my master's command?" He promptly asks for more money, and the dog fetches him a sack of coins. After some experimentation, he learns that if he strikes the tinderbox once, the dog with copper coins comes. If he strikes twice, the dog with silver comes. And if he strikes three times, the dog with gold coins comes.

One night, the young man decides he wants to see the princess who no one ever sees, so he summons the dog with eyes as big as teacups and commands him to bring him the princess. In seconds, he returns with the princess on his back, asleep.



ooc: This is the tale the above is from, feel free to be the princess or one of the trio traveling with the young man (Rufus).

The labyrinth is endless.

Twists and turns fill its hallways. The walls are made of metal and bent in strange places, as if someone had taken a hammer to them, in an effort to shape them into something different.

There are engine bits and pieces everywhere. Little piles make homes in corners while the bigger parts lean precariously against whatever is near. The ceiling is low, and the lighting is dim. There's a faint smell of oil in the air, not unpleasant but it gets stronger as one travels toward the middle of this strange place.

There Cid Highwind will be found, hunkered over the world's messiest worktable. Bits of scrap metal are scattered across the scratched wood, no discernible organization or order to be found.

He rummages through everything, throwing things to the side without looking up. He pauses a second to take the cigarette that had been dangling from his mouth, jamming it into the already overflowing ashtray before continuing on his mission.

Not that he knows what he's looking for, just that he's looking for something. Once he finds it, he'll know. Until then, he's digging through the pile of scrap in front of him, wondering if he should get an assistant.

Not Shera though. Damned woman insists he needs breaks, but who can think about taking a break when he has all this shit to do?

Once upon a time, for all good stories start with once upon a time, there was a great forest.  It stretched on for days, for countries, for unclaimed fairy tale after unclaimed fairy tale in fact.  This was the Great Wood, the Olde Wood, the Place Where All Things Start.  This was the forest of all the old tales and it will ever be, until men are legends that dogs tell each other around the fires at night.  Everything lives in the depths of these woods and nothing at all.  Be careful what you whisper when you go into the dark for even the trees are listening and stories have a way of happening here whether you want them to or not.

Deep in the darkness, in one of the less traveled spots, there lives a wolf.  The Wolf, if you will.  For he is the Big Bad, the Howler at the Door, the Winter Wolf, the Devourer, the Nightmare That Creeps In Windows, the Child's Warning and, occasionally, the Huffer and Puffer, though he's taken to outsourcing the last one after one particularly embarrassing incident involving a hay allergy.  He's the wise talking beast or the prehistoric feral fear.  He is, in short, whatever your story needs him to be.

Don't expect him to be particularly pleased or even helpful about it though.  He's been doing this job for a while now and he's getting sick of getting yanked out of rolling in dead animals just so that he can trot his fuzzy butt over to make menacing, half-assed attempts at your basket of treats and God help you if he has to dress in old lady drag One More Time!


OOC: so.  Here's Cloud to provide all your Big Bad Wolf TM needs.  Or frankly, the forest isn't above dragging him in to take over any animal need.  There appears to be a shortage of fairy animals going around at the moment, something about better paying jobs in Hollywood.  Does your story need a talking bear?  Suddenly you've got a snarky wolf as your guide.  Your brothers got the mill and all you got was a cat?  Well, it's a wolf now and it's not happy about having to wear boots or do all your work for you, you dolt.  Need that straw spun into gold by morning?  Looks like you're duck out of luck.  Wolves can't spin, though he does a very impressive cats cradle if you give him enough yarn and tie the knots for him.  Point being, if your fairy tale has an animal of any sort in it, you've now got a very grumpy wolf who can't say 'not interested' the way he'd really rather.  And, of course, he's still here for all your big bad wolfish metaphorical needs as well.

A little girl lost her father when she was still young. Realizing she also had no godfather, she decided to seek one out for herself. However, who should it be? The Light, she felt, was too careless of the people it should care for; but the Darkness often deceived its followers, too. In the end, she chose Death as her godfather, for Death put no person above another.

Once this was arranged, Death took his goddaughter to a well-known research laboratory. There, he showed her certain compounds and medicines that could cure any illness, no matter how grave. Moreover, whenever she made her rounds at the hospital, Death himself would appear at the beside. If he stood near the head, then she was free to give the patient the medicine and see them recover. But if Death stood by the feet, then the patient was already claimed by him and nothing would suffice. It was their time to go with him.

As Death knew she would, the girl worked diligently and became a very famous doctor, said to be the youngest in the world and praised for being able to tell when a patient would live or die, and for her miraculous cures. One by one, her patients lived, and they showered her with fame and money. For as long as she obeyed her godfather's advice, everything went well for her - for as long as she obeyed her godfather's advice.

And so, the physician walked confidently into the room with her next patient.

(ooc: Taken from Godfather Death. Open to any type of encounter, including cheating Death for close friends/CR.)

The city, Midgar was full of people. Soulless, faceless people that ate and breathed and worked and slept. People who didn't have a prayer when it came to protecting themselves from the evils of the world. The monsters that lurked in the darkness, in the streets at night and threatened their very lives as they lay sleeping. Then there were the creatures that inhabited the city, just as monstrous and inhuman but somehow more honest about wanting to destroy you and for what reason.

The Turks were the last bastions of defense against the evils that was AVALANCHE led by Fuhito. They were the only thing separating the world from teetering beyond the brink of despair and falling into destruction. Everything they cared about would disappear. Homes, lives, family. They were a family. Drastic measures had to be taken, consequences notwithstanding. They were underpowered, short handed. There was no way to win against these guys. Reno could not let any more fall to Fuhito and his bunch. He had lost too many people he was willing to call friend. This was where it ended.

This room.

Reno held the grip of his EMR tightly, knuckles turning white with the force, standing in front of an impressively carved oak desk. It was an audacious plan, one that could backfire or cause any number of unexpected things, but it was their one last hope. They needed help, more power, something, and Reno was going to sacrifice himself to get it- not that he had that much humanity left anyway. Not with most of his friends six feet under. He was a lone turk against the world.

The person behind the desk was sitting in an over-sized winged back chair, facing the large floor to ceiling window overlooking the city basking in the glow of mako. Nothing was going to get done like that, he had power to buy and a soul to sell. He walked forward and grabbed the chair to swing it around.

[Rufus was inclined to consider what he'd been experiencing in dreams as merely dreams, nothing more or less. However when one starts hearing things when awake... no matter how boring the paperwork or search for new energy sources might end up causing one to start to doze off.. hearing voices is not something one cares to overlook or ignore.

Thus why Rufus had left his own home to come visit Tseng to check on the man. Look up, Tseng. You have company.]

Tseng, what are you doing?

[Answers first, and currently debating on if to do something to sober your obviously drunk ass up or leave you like this to suffer the consequences of the following hangover.]

Anyone who's seen Midgar in her heyday, or during what might be called her early prime, should recognize the city which provides the setting for this dream. It's a hell of a view really, provided by a building which is still under construction, though it's coming together rather quickly. But then that is what power and money are good for it seems.

Off a small distance from the view is a older man, dressed in a reddish suit which looks a bit strained by the man's girth. It's not that easy to see any resemblance between the suited man and the apparently distracted and bored young blond which stands a ways away from the man and his cronies. Perhaps the only thing they might obviously share is hair color and eyes.

The younger blond had already given his performance for this event of which he sees no use for, and as a waste of time and money. And now instead he's letting his gaze take in the city below, noting silently the areas still under construction.


Later in the day, he's been been dragged by the same man into one of the rooms which has been claimed by the man called Hojo. The meeting hasn't lasted for long yet, but the young blond has already decided the science-related part of this company has at best limited use for him and is paying more attention to a black furred creature than he is to either the older man or the professor. He's seen the adults of what the critter is, but this is his first time actually seeing the immature version. As he strokes the young cub's head lightly, an idea comes to mind and he considers it as he studies it.


[ooc: Feel free to join either of the above scenarios. Set pre-Before Crisis, thus Rufus isn't quite vice president and he's not yet gotten involved with avalanche during the time the above be set in. More or less, someone's been thinking about the ordeals one must deal with if you want a company to succeed and also thinking of his four-legged guardian/friend, thus the man in the dream with him is his father and the critter is a young Dark Nation. Also Rufus in the dream looks as he does in the icon, one might say he's around 14-15 here. Also one might say certain reports being made in the waking world have him thinking of 'home' so to speak.]