InsaneJournal

Current mood:

scared

Yeep....
I just started scribbling this. I now have Nesa having a nervous breakdown somewhere in my head. This is not fun.

Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Context: Part of my post-Nibelheim Nesaverse AU (see this post for the wider context of the AU).


"She said she was my mother. Zack said she wasn't. Who was right?" The question was asked so simply, with so much faith in there being a right answer.

"It depends on what you mean by 'mother'," Nesa replied.

Sephiroth frowned. "You keep saying that. Every question I have, when all I want is a simple answer, all you say is 'it depends'. Do you have any idea how frustrating that is?"

"Yes," came Nesa's answer this time. "I know it's frustrating. It must be particularly frustrating for you, because it's one of the things which most of us learn about growing up. You're having to get a crash course in what being human means, and not all of it is logical."

"So, on the issue of what a mother is: it's a complicated thing, because humans are complicated creatures. There are straightforward biological definitions, where your mother can be defined as the supplier of the ovum which was fertilised by the spermatazoa provided by your father; or your mother is the person whose womb supplied the place for that ovum to grow to the point of birth. Then there's social definitions, where your mother is the female person who supplied care and protection for you as a baby and a child, or the person who acted to the world as your female protector. For most people, these are all the same person, but sometimes it can vary."

"For example, sometimes the female person who acts to the world as a child's protector, or who provides care and protection, isn't related to the child at all. This is the case with Aerith and Elmyra. Elmyra isn't Aerith's biological parent, but she provided parenting and mothering when Aerith needed it, and took care of the child. Aerith's biological mother, Ifalna, couldn't provide this, because she died. Aerith refers to both of them as being her mother - or rather, Ifalna is her mother, Elmyra is her Mum. Both words refer to the same social role, however."

"Another example - your young friend Cloud. His mother was his biological parent, and she carried him in her womb for nine months, but from what he's told me, she wasn't really able to provide him with the care and affection he needed as a child. Sometimes that happens - and in the case of Cloud's mother, I think at least part of the reason was the loss of her husband. Cloud had a mother, but he didn't get much mothering."

"I had a pretty normal upbringing - my mother was able to give me the love I needed and the care I required. She and my father were biologically fertile together, so she was my genetic parent, and my biological parent as well. She fulfilled all of those roles."

"Now, with the question of your relationship to Jenova: according to the notes I've been reading through, you were conceived from an ovum from Lucrecia Crescent, and a spermatazoa supplied by Liseng Hojo. So genetically, Jenova isn't your mother. You were carried to term in the uterus of Lucrecia Crescent, and this is confirmed by the information Vincent Valentine supplied, so it's unlikely that Jenova was your birth mother."

"But the treatments -" Sephiroth interrupted.

"The treatments were injected into you while you were still in the womb, and they altered your genetic matrix slightly," Nesa said. "However, this doesn't make you a child of Jenova's, any more than a child who is shot while in the womb becomes the child of the bullet. Think on that." She looked him watching as he considered the notion. "Now, when it comes to the person who took on the social role of your mother, I can't supply any answers. For that, you need to think about someone female who took on the role of teaching you what you were expected to do in company, someone who cared about you, someone who helped you when you were sick, or frightened, or confused. From what you've told me so far, you never really had someone who stood in that social role, so you could call yourself someone motherless."

The General sat and considered what she'd told him, then nodded. "You are teaching me a lot about what is expected of me in company. You explain things to me, when I do not understand them. You hold me in the night, when I wake from the nightmares. You brought me back when I was hiding within myself." He looked up at her, and gave a brief smile. "Thank you, Mother."


Sometimes, I really want to slap some of these characters...