There are a few very simple ways to survive within the lifestream. Simple but excruciatingly painful, demanding a mental discipline beyond anything asked of him before.

My name is Sephiroth.

A name encapsulates everything a person is, everything he believes himself to be, and everything the world considers him as. One of the primary functions of the lifestream is to provide peace. To be is to be in conflict and hence peace is a concept he had always equated with nothingness. The cessation of his existence is not something he is eager to undergo.

It's been so long.

Everyone he'd known has long ago disappeared. A cycle of death and rebirth that has removed everything recognizable from them.

Having only enemies to converse with is so tiresome.

Coexistence with the two people who'd destroyed him is a delicate balance that took millennia to perfect. So long that he even helped guide the lifestream to colonize a new planet. After all, a fight for imposing his reality on his very self is better than complete destruction.

The thing worse than people you don't particularly want around you is complete absence of anyone.

Genesis had been asleep for quite a while. Did he fall asleep because magic started receding, or did it disappear because he isn't there anymore? And now even the cetra girl is gone. Sometimes, he finds himself missing mother. But then he finds himself wondering whether a mother is someone who donates genetic material to a child, someone who helps form its worldview or just someone who raises it? Regardless, those two defenders of the planet ensured that mother was abandoned on Gaea when the lifestream moved, as if her absence would somehow make him saner when he agreed to provide aid in her presence. But then again, no doubt they consider sanity to be the same as kindness.

I think I should try being born.

It is an idle thought that gains sentience the harder he fights against it. It is not something he would have dared on Gaea. But thing are different here. They don't even have a name for the Planet. It would have been easier if he could have repeated his earlier births… but is it a rebirth if you aren't dead in the first place? This time, if he tries anything, he would be born as a mewling baby.

But isn't stagnation the same as death? If you're the same as always, then surely an inanimate object could replace you.

Exiting the lifestream isn't hard. Doing it with himself intact is. Existing without eyes, immersed in a disgusting liquid that ends up swallowed every time he opens his mouth, constricted beyond measure – these are all indicators that this was inadvisable. He rather thinks he would have preferred mako baths. And yes, distance has not added a rosy hue to all his recollections. Incessant obsessing over every single moment of his life is the only way he has survived for so long. He misses Gaea. This planet doesn't have a drop of Jenova which mean spontaneous creation of an adult body or even supplanting an existing mind is out of his reach. Yet he knows he will not forget a single moment of this either and committing months of boredom to memory is tiring, similar to the memory tests he used to undergo.

The birth is hard and his senses are malfunctioning. Being a human infant is not something he is fond of. He hopes he has born in one of the bloodlines close to the planet. A completely ordinary existence is not something he wants. It is hard to decipher what is happening but Sephiroth has always been a genius.

The woman who gave birth to him is dead, he understands. The man claiming him as his bastard son however is lying for some reason or another. He knows perfectly well the male genetic donor had a different, more melodious voice, though the sounds of the harp are what really stick to his mind.

He is breastfed and his muscles are woefully out of his control, something that is a source of embarrassment but nothing he cannot handle. The travel to his next abode is long and not particularly comfortable but he can take it.

His new father is married which means his wife dislikes him. He is also confronted with the presence of a half-brother. Interactions between them are little till they start to toddle (Sephiroth walks first, talks first and even reads first though he is younger) and then they are inseparable. The boy id named Robb and while he might be enjoying a playmate, Sephiroth is busy training his new subordinate. He is not going to be a nonentity and that means finding allies which is best started off with his brother. The boy has red hair and blue eyes and if he really tries, sometimes he can imagine him to be a miniature Genesis. This simply makes him even more eager to beat the boy which necessitates that he become someone worth beating first.

He is not fond of the boy, either on his own merits or because he reminds him of his once best friend and rival.

Is a friend someone you like, someone you spend time with or even someone you just can't get rid of and aren't sure you want to be rid of?

Winterfell is warm when compared to its outsides but the lifestream is even warmer and Sephiroth has always disliked the cold. But children's bodies are naturally clumsy and playing near a fireplace was perhaps not his best idea.

(Catelyn doesn't let the children out of her sight after that. She might not like the bastard but she doesn't want him to burn to death! And while she warned Robb to be careful of innumerable things multiple times, no one has done the same to the boy and maybe she feels a little guilty.)

Sephiroth doesn't burn, just gets a bad sunburn and loses all his hair. It's a miracle made possible only by his rapid exit from the fireplace, rolling on the floor and then the swift actions of the Maester who plastered him with salves.

He tests it later and fire doesn't burn him! It's something that takes material to accomplish and he has it in his blood.

He's three when his hair finally grows back. He'd started thinking he'd be bald forever. It's silver just like when he was Sephiroth and not Jon Snow. Eddard Stark, his supposed father, had been surveying his lands and by the time he comes back, Sephiroth's hair is quite clearly silver and not white.

The man pales like he's seen a corpse and Sephiroth ticks a checkmark internally. His decision to be practically angelic once he realised there was a slight chance he was descended from the Mad King people talk of in hushed whispers was correct. Rhaegar Targaryen is famous for quite a few things. Two of which are his divine harp skills and the abduction and rape of Lyanna Stark.

His hair is dyed, a spate of sickness runs through Wintefell and by the time it's over, quite a bit of the castle is dead and he's been bundled off to Howland Reed who lives on a floating castle in the marshes.

(The only Targaryens in Westeros are dead ones and the deaths of Lady Stark, Maester Luwin, the nursemaid and almost the entirety of the castle populace is acknowledged then retired to its appropriate place of necessary actions.)

He rather thinks Eddard Stark believes it was an assassination attempt on his entire house and this opinion is verified when three months later, he finds himself on a ship with Lord Stark, Robb and baby Sansa along with their most trusted retainers (those he'd left alive) setting out from White Harbour. Their first stop is Bravos though he does hope it isn't their final destination.

He regrets his actions only a little, which swiftly disappears when he discovers Uncle Benjen has left the Night's Watch to be the new Lord of Winterfell and that Moat Cailin had stopped any and all passage North for the previous months. As long as they don't starve to death, Sephiroth is perfectly willing to stay with the Starks.

A/N: There are bound to be mistakes, so sorry for that. This was just an idea that hit me. This is probably going to be a one shot unless someone really wants another chapter, and even then, ideas will be needed. This is also an experiment in writing in present tense so bound to be problems there as well.

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