"Shera!" Cid yelled. "Damnit what were ya thinking? Hedve taken yer head off! Whatta trying with that damned thing, ya don know how ta work it!"
"I gave it ta her," Yuffie said, ignoring her bare chest. "Thought it was the last one he oulda gone after fer it. Not no more."
"Worry not, its safe."
"Safe?" Cid asked. "How in hell could it be safe?"
"Its with someone else now. Hell take care of it," Shera said, spreading her hands to reveal they held nothing but air. "He knows not to open it."
"Whered it go? Howd ya do that?" Cid asked.
"I made it go away. Its safe now. Mister Valentine knows enough about it. Im certain he will keep it safe."
"If I may interrupt your argument of the metaphysics of jewelry, we have a worse problem than before," Nanaki said
"I agree with the dog!" Barret yelled over the wailing.
"We lack both the last pendant as well as Black Valentine and we need at least one right at the moment."
"Why?"
"Cloud has opened the pendant. Remember what transpired, or at least what was meant to transpire, when Black Valentine did the same?" Nanaki asked.
"Whats going to happen to Cloud?" Tifa asked.
"If anyone knows, it will be Black Valentine, who will soon prove difficult to be hung to death for Shinra. A man with previous no blood within him, bled from his wounds for three days straight. Clouds wound has already done the same for three years. There is not telling between all of us what will happen to him; yet we all know this noise was made by the creature that caused the cursed bleeding. We can all hear it right now. None of us heard this cacophony before save for Black Valentine after he opened the pendant. The creature has awakened now, and this might bode that things will be different for Cloud. That is all I can say."
"Too many words," Cid said.
"Whats it all mean?" Tifa asked.
"It means we have no means of returning to our siren or finding another. It means he may be in more danger than Black Valentine was. It means, that pendant must be kept safe, and it is with a man about to be hanged."
"Damned kid," Cid said.
"And you would have done differently in his place?" Nanaki asked.
Cid glowered, realizing he was being trapped by something that wasnt even human.
"Either way, I recommend keeping a close eye on Cloud, and a closer eye sword in case he tries anything, now that his master is awake."
"He would not do such a thing!" Tifa said.
"Pray he complies with your accusation."
.
"Cid," Shera asked, only barely aware of how close he was, nowhere near aware as to how concerned he was. "It be colder now. And getting darker."
"Aye, the sun be setting."
"I thought as much. How does the sky look, Cid? It has been too long since the light of the sunset touched my eyes."
"I aint good with words, ya know that," Cid said, stalling. He loved the sky as much as he loved boats. For him the two were not separate worlds, merely two different halves of the same one. He loved the fiery orb in the sky and tried to always be awake and able to watch as it displayed its fantail of colors at the horizon. He loved the sky so much, he loved to make his own constellations and name them and give them all his own stories, stories he thought such miraculous tiny lights deserved as they individually shone down on him.
He knew Shera had a similar, thought he suspected not as deep, love as well. His favorite tale he knew was told to him by her, about how a sailor was so in love with the sea, his blood spilled all over the sky, for he never wanted to soil the water with mortality, thus creating the sunset.
"So many colors. A treasure chest strewn on the sky. Gold spilled all over. Like a tail o one o them pretty birds. The ones with the really huge tails. So much gold," he lied. The sunset was nothing but bright red, just like the blood in the tale; a bad omen. Red at sunset, danger was just over the horizon the sun was disappearing behind. It matched the wailing that had yet to stop. It matched the blood Cloud was now bleeding everywhere, staining the ship and soon to turn into a stain encompassing the room and a smell sickness.
"I see," Shera said, and watched the sky she would never see while Cid stood by her and silently saw it for her.
There were no stars that night. Somehow the sky was too dull and the only lights in the darkness came from the ship itself.
The miracle itself went unseen, for nothing before had made such wailing disappear into insignificant silence. The two merely watched the sky, ignorant of the fact that their love for an inanimate thing held such power.
More happenings under the blank darkness than two mere people forgetting a wail of a creature brought from its slumber were to happen.
There was mercy and the pilfering of rum to slake greed that had been planned for three people asleep in a boat and adrift in the water, lost in the unwelcoming darkness.
Where one Shinra boat led, the entire fleet followed, hidden too close for most enemies to keep their confidence.
Indeed the seemingly random waves were drifting them to their fleet. Indeed they would soon meet rescue. Indeed the three had forgotten, too many happenings in the day had prompted a lack of memory in the eve.
Green eyes flashed open at the sound of a loud splash, but settled down again and stayed such at the next identical sound.
The waves had calmed and were now steered by a forced other than the current. The boat drifted precisely to the side of a ship, lost in the dark, a superfluous convenience with all passengers were asleep.
As well did they in their sleep and in the dark notice the fine trail of blood sliding down the edge of the boat, persistent in its intent to reach the water, the source of the horrid scream.
The ship held only one man of a crew now, all others dead and meeting a sailors funeral without the mourners.
A rope was lowered and none of the sleepers disturbed, nor as they were brought aboard.
One lacked walked the boat. One man perpetuated the plans of five half-breeds. One man lacked any fear for the still screeching creature, though he understood more than any other of the meaning of the noise.
One man shared the things intent, and as well as its blood.