Adult-FanFiction.org : Final Fantasy

To the Skies	By : sailtheplains Category: Final Fantasy VII > Het - Male/Female Views: 866 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
- 6
I had actually meant to combine this chapter and the one before it--but circustances forbid that--so I'll just post it now. It's short and I apologize for that because I try and get a certain quo of pages before a post and this one wasn't even close.

Vahlanangel, Chocolate Paperclip (what an awesome name) and Lyra--Thank all three of you for your wonderful comments. I have to agree. I never thought of him having siblings either. It's one reason why I like writing about secondary characters like Cid--you're open to do a ton of things. I love it! Thank all three of you for being awesome!

Drakken_Lite--Wow. Thank you and just wow. You just completely blew my mind. I hadn't even considered the thing about the cross motions but I went back and played the game again and you're right. This thrilled me because I had already planned to do some stuff with religion and that just adds a whole other element to work with! Thank you so much! I owe you!

Mahara--Thanks for reading, by the way. I hope I can keep your interest. Like I said above, I adore writing about characters like Cid because so little is known about them that you have all these opportunities to really develop their personalities! I love that kind of stuff! :D
---
Every reader knows about the feeling that characters in books seem more real than real people. (quote by Cornelia Funke)
--

When they exited the room, Mistress Nova took Morgan"s shoulder.

"You must come with me, Miss Highwind."

Cid gripped Morgan"s hand. "Why?"

The look Mistress Nova gave him was chilly. "She needs to be shown where her dorm is, meet the prefects and be fitted for her uniform."

"Uniform?"

"He mentioned it, I can see you failed to listen."

Cid dug his fingers of his free hand into his flesh and considered ripping Mistress Nova"s eyes out. "Why does she have to do that now?"

"You"re not at your little country school anymore, Mister Highwind. You need to come to terms with that. I don"t need to explain myself to you. If you feel so strongly about it, go take it up with Mister Manzanilla." She gripped onto Morgan"s shoulder and, with a miserable glance, Morgan dolefully let go of Cid"s hand.

Cid glared at Nova"s retreating back.

Mister Wood tapped him. "This way," he said, with a pitying smile. He started to walk down an opposite hall. Seething, Cid followed him.

"The headmaster"s name is Manzanilla. I know Nova just told you, but I don"t believe he mentioned it to you. The first place we"ll be going is the laundry, where I"ll fit you for a uniform. Don"t worry though; they"re not as stern as Manzanilla"s. The Commander (that"s Manzanilla), said that"even though you just started here"we"ll go ahead and place you in your Fourth Year class. It goes by age, you see, and he felt that putting a nine-year-old in with a bunch of five and six-year-olds might be disheartening. Plus, they have to wear little white uniforms and we have none that would fit you. Your class will have brown uniforms. It helps us identify your class, rank, and your name. They"re really nice, actually. The colors change for every year. Your sister will get a white uniform, and your brother, since he"s"what? thirteen?"he"ll have a"probably a dark red uniform, if they put him in with the Eighth Years.

"Oh, there are Eight Years, by the way, up until you hit your brother"s age. After that, the fourteen through eighteen-year-olds are all taught together as just "upperclassmen" because there are usually only a handful left."

"Why?" Cid asked, in spite of himself.

"Because when you turn fourteen you have the option of going for military training. Some go for that. Some students drop out. Some stay here to train as officers or teach younger students. A plethora of reasons really."

"What"s plethora mean?"

Wood stopped and smiled at him. "Sorry. It means "a lot", basically."

Cid followed the man down a set of stairs into a cold, old-smelling basement.

"I"ll give you the rundown on our laundry system later. For now, come in here."

Wood led him into a large room. It was dimly lit with racks and racks of different colored clothes and uniforms. There was old weaponry, equipment and a bag of mothballs in the corner.

"Are these all uniforms?"

Wood nodded, shuffling through a rack of brown uniforms. He spoke while he did it. "White, for First Years, like I said. Royal purple for Second Years. Yellow for Third Years. Brown for you Fourth Years. Grey for the Fifth Years. Green for Sixth Years. Red for Seventh Years. Dark red for Eighth Years. And black for upperclassmen."

Cid nodded, just staring around at all the racks of clothing. He jumped when Wood held a hanger to his chest. "That looks about right."

It was a dark brown. The slacks were pressed and wide-legged, obviously meant to either be worn in or over boots. There was a black stripe down each pant leg. The jacket had a patch of brown leather where the elbows and where normal shoulder-pads might have been. It buttoned in the front with two sets of plain, brown buttons. There were two pockets at the breast and two normal pockets in the sides. A white dress shirt went on under the jacket, along with a plain, brown tie. A set of black boots completed the ensemble. Wood had Cid try on the jacket and he found it touched his wrists exactly. It was cut very precisely but Wood took it away and yanked a jacket that was a little larger.

"You"ll need room to grow," he told him. After adjusting the garment on Cid"s shoulders, Wood nodded. "That"ll do. Commander already has someone embroidering a tag for you. It"ll be stitched on either tonight or tomorrow." He motioned for Cid to remove the jacket, which he did, giving it back. "We"ll send all this to be washed (after all, it is a basement) and they"ll do the rest. You"ll have this back by tomorrow afternoon at the latest. This way."

Cid nodded, suddenly exhausted. He just wanted to crawl into a bed and hide from all of this. Why a military academy? He didn"t want all of this. He just wanted to be home, running in the grass and firing his Wind-Rider at Rick.

Rick.

He hadn"t really thought about Rick since his father had been yelling for him. He wondered, suddenly, if he"d ever see him again.

"Probably not," he told him miserably. He bit his lip and hurried to follow Wood.

Wood dropped his new uniform off at a strange office with a man who looked extremely harried and bad-tempered.

"You"re bringin" this t"me now? Goddammit, Wood! Can"t you get those goddamn boys o" yours t"bring this stuff when th"term starts?"

Wood laughed pleasantly. "It"s not for them. It"s for this one," he inclined his head to Cid. "He just got in today."

"Oh," said the man, showing a wild mess of brown hair out of his face and pulling his glasses down to look at Cid. "You"re the new unlucky bastard, are you?"

Cid glared away.

"Won"t last long with that attitude, boy." He took Cid"s uniform out of Wood"s hands, examining it. "Commander says yer interested in planes? Unless you wanna fly bombers your whole life, you"ll have to be in command. Command implies leadership an" teamwork. And some of the older boys here will eat you alive if you act like that."

"Stop trying to scare him, Jack."

"Jus" tellin" "im."

"Oh, and I suppose you would know, Oracle of the Void, working as a sewing hand."

Jack scowled at him. "Hey, I was in command "fore I quit. And I"d prefer you not use that name in public." He grinned.

Wood grinned back. "Whatever you say, Oracle""

"Please, please," replied the man, closing his eyes and putting his hand up with an air of great dignity and modesty. "Call me Jack."

Wood chuckled. "Sure thing, my lord."

"And don"t you forget it." He lifted his glasses back to their original position and raised the uniform up slightly. "What"s your full name again, kid?"

Cid, staring at the ground, said, "Cid Maxwell Highwind."

"Okay." He shuffled through a few papers, put his finger down and read something. "All right. I"ll have this cleaned up and back to you."

Wood showed him all around the school. The classroom wing and the cafeteria came first. The weapons and Materia sections had a wing to themselves. There was a shooting range and an armory. There was even a runway.

"I thought he said they didn"t teach pilots?" Cid asked Wood.

Wood looked down, brushing his beard with his fingertips. "Well, we don"t, really. He probably thought you meant to be a war pilot or an airship pilot or something. You can move on to that from here"go to an official flight school. We only have a couple of bi-planes and you have to have special permission to learn to fly them. Since you"re going into engineering and electronics though, you may have a chance. You want to fly a plane?"

Cid looked away and shrugged. "I"dunno"it just seemed like it"d be fun""

Wood gave him a curious look, as though he had suddenly understood something. "You want to get out of here, don"t you?"

Cid looked at him.

"You know, away from whatever it is that made you come here."

Cid looked back at the planes.

Wood said no more on the subject. "I"ll show you where your dorm is."

The dorm was on the third floor down a long stretch of dimly lit hallway.

"This part of the academy is older than everything else. The dorms actually started off as a base but as newer places were constructed and schools and bases were combined, they left them. So now we use them for our students."

"Is this a base?" Cid asked, looking around at the dark wood and navy blue carpeting that stretched, like a long tongue, in the middle of the walkway.

"No, not anymore. Now it"s just a school. Here we are."

Wood led him into a wide, long room with several beds and doors next to each bed.

"Closets," Wood explained, walking towards the window at the very end of the room. "There is a study lounge on every floor. To do any weapon or Materia practice though, you"ll need to go the wing. They don"t allow it in the dorms. But you"ll find out about most of that tomorrow. And here"s your bed."

Wood stopped at the very end of the row where a little twin bed sat. It had a thick, rough blue blanket on it and dark blue sheets. There was one pillow.

"They put your stuff in the closet."

"How did they know it was mine?"

"Your mother specified which ones were yours."

Cid looked at the closet door. An image of his mother wiping down the counter came into his mind. He frowned. Better not to think about her.

Behind them, the door grated open.

A boy entered. He looked about Cid"s age, maybe a little older (but he was wearing a brown uniform so he couldn"t be that much older). He was scrawny and pale. His hair was black as jet and his eyes were dark.

"Ah, Trent, you"re here. Thank you for coming on such short notice," said Wood, waving the boy down. "This is Trent Winter. Trent Winter, this is Cid Highwind"I want you to help him out during his first week, okay?"

Trent nodded and stuck out his hand. "Hi. M"Tickie."

Cid cocked an eyebrow at him. "Tickie?"

"It"s his nickname, all the boys call him that."

"Why?"

Tickie shrugged, grinning as though he really did know but just didn"t want to tell him.

Cid glanced at Wood. He smiled and shrugged. Cid reached out and shook the other boy"s hand.

"I have my Materia class with you," Tickie informed him. "Commander told me. He"s arranged your schedule to follow most of mine. "Cept for the engineering and electronics classes you"ll be taking. You like science? He said you liked planes. I"ll bet you"re wondering right now what everyone seems to know about you. Word travels fast, you know"

"Trent, get on with it."

"Yes, sir," said Tickie, smiling and not missing a beat. "You"ll be fine. Captain is all right. He helped me think of another word for "plane" once."

"What was it?" Cid asked, honestly curious as he couldn"t think of one himself.

"Don"t "member anymore. Long time ago."

"Trent likes to write," Wood threw in.

Cid ticked his head to the side curiously. "What do you write about?"

"Religion. History. Planes. Thunderstorms. Fighting. Whatever I want."

"Oh," Cid replied, not really sure of what to say. He"d never written anything like that in his life.

Tickie didn"t seem perturbed. He was smiling again.

"Well, I"ll leave you to it, Trent. When your uniform is ready I"ll lay it on your bed with your finalized schedule, okay? Remember, if you have any questions don"t be afraid to ask."

"When can I see my sister?"

Wood paused, a very sad look crossed his face. "I don"t know. Nova is setting her up with a guide, like Trent."

"How long will that take?"

"I don"t know, I"m afraid."

"Little girls are cruel creatures," Tickie said, still grinning.

Cid snapped his gaze over to Tickie.

"Don"t worry about it, Cid," Wood told him. "Morgan and Fletcher will fine."

It didn"t ease the sweep of dread and hot anger that rushed through him. "They better leave her alone. I"ll kill them."

Wood stilled and clamped a surprisingly strong hand on his shoulder. "Don"t talk like that. Your mother pulled a lot of strings to get you here. She had to cash in old favors and sacrifice a lot""

"She sent us away," Cid said coldly, burying the miserable urge to cry.

"Not willingly," Wood said, looking deathly serious. "And you know it, Cid Highwind. Your mother has managed to get you an education that most parents only dream about"I suggest you not waste it." Wood let go of his shoulder and stepped away. "I"ll see you later, Cid. Trent, be patient and try to give him a good first impression."

Tickie bowed extravagantly but his peaked face was solemn.

---
- 4
- 5
- 6
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

To the Skies