Idk What High Fantasy Ghoul Possessed Me To Think I Had The Skills To Write This Scenario, But The Chapter

final chapter list for At Dawn

it's about to hurt for a couple chapters, sorry

but they say it's always darkest before the dawn...

Feeling a little better today, better than yesterday.

revamped the inspo playlist for At Dawn and feeling hyped to drop the next chapter this week - we're about to hit the song 'Apocalypse'.

<3 as always to all the other sfkr inspirations for this inspiration - you have amazing music taste! If you have any other recs I would love to hear them

if you're into 'how it's made' rambling, themes to listen out for are:

Flowers/growing/bodies/organic motifs (got a wolf or two in there for Cloud)

lab/tech/medical vibes/sickness/wounds/infection

Water/washing away/cold/falling/floating/drowning/baptism

Fire/destruction/heat/burning

Sun/moon/stars/planets

Dawn/day/night/twilight/light/dark

Life/death/apocalypse/rebirth

Dreams/memory/transformation

Love/longing/safety/togetherness/ties and threads

Silver and gold/Green and blue

I originally called this 'a gently Sefikura epilogue' and then went and sketched out 10 chapters and now it's looking like an *aggressively* Sefikura epilogue haha. We start with a speculative stab at the Remake/Rebirth universe final battle and go on from there with some ✨Cetra magic✨ and eventual warm fuzzies.

CONSIDER YOURSELF OFF DUTY TILL SUNDOWN

AerTi In Space: AU concept

When the team fight their way through Hojo's lab in the Shinra building, Tifa and Aerith pass the central pedestal and see cracks in Jenova's tube. In a split second, glass shatters, mako splashes, black tendrils are everywhere. Around Tifa's throat.

This body fades. And you are...

Compatible.

We must continue. We must endure.

Bluish veins snake down Tifa's limbs as Jenova's infection spreads, dissolves into her.

One eye jitters and flashes scarlet when Tifa first connects to the hive mind. She summons a lightning storm which shorts out most of the containment in the lab, then blows a hole in the ceiling and ascends to the roof of the Shinra building.

By the time Aerith and the team reach her, she's surrounded by robed figures, R&D monsters, flanked by Cloud and Sephiroth.

They all call her 'Mother' now.

Aerith, one of the few not under Neo-Jenova's thrall or restrained by those who are, fights through and begs Tifa to wake up, to come back.

But when she touches Tifa's hand, she feels something more invasive, more wrong than she's ever felt in her life. Aerith's skin bubbles where they touch, something is crawling and burning through her veins, and she screams.

The awakening of a new Jenovan node has caught the attention of both the Jenovans and a spacefaring sect of Cetra who departed thousands of years ago and evolved separately to those who remained on Gaia. Two warships glitch into existence in the blue lightning bruised-sky maelstrom above the Shinra building.

Tifa and Aerith are whisked away by their respective alien peoples. (To avoid making Gaia even more of a mess, and because Tifa's now a crucial, living part of the Jenovan collective.)

Aerith tries to understand what it is to be Cetra far from Gaia's lifestream. The Cetra who left and became space-farers are entirely different - the only similarity is their connection to the energy flow of the universe, but it is strange, and unfriendly, and metallic, and far too big. Where does Aerith belong now?

Kept apart by their peoples, who are bitter enemies, Aerith and Tifa maintain a mysterious mental connection across the galaxy.

They meet in dreams, but when you're both lifeforms whose consciousness transcends physical bodies, where is the line between dreams and reality? And how much are the Jenovans, watching now that Tifa is the centre of their everything?

If they escape, will there even be a home to return to?

stargazing

⭐️ ✨ ⭐️

✨ ⭐️ ✨

⭐️ ✨ ⭐️

divider by @saradika

"What I want, Cloud, is to sail the darkness of

the cosmos with this planet as my vessel."

October At Last!!!

insomnolent