[ Fire purifies, that's what they say. Aerith thinks to herself she could never be that kind of force in the world, burning down what exists to make room for what could be. Dancing happens all around her, in the rolling coil of a slithering, serpentine line dance, lead by someone she thinks she recognizes but whose name she can't place. They're laughing like the world's problems are burning away, reducing to ashes. Dancing is how the people around her are communicating: Couples twirling one another, gently swaying of hips. Children and adults alike kicking up sand with their bare feet, little grains sparkling like dairy dust before falling back onto the flats of the beach. A smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes spreads across Aerith's slips, slow but not insincere.
Her eyes fall on the fire. It, too, dances, reveling in the burning. The burning of what? Air? Wood? Life? She can't help but wonder. ]
Fancy meeting you here. [ She's no wallflower, but Cloud is. That much she knows— seeking him out is not a complex task. She thinks she would have liked to make him win a prize for her at the bazaar, or something else. Something that feels less like the end of a date. With a hum, she claps her hands together. ] The Cloud Strife, relaxing on the beach. What a sight! I almost feel bad no one else has noticed you.
[ His gaze unfocused on the horizon, Cloud doesn't realize Aerith is there until she's literally on top of him. There's a small start — broken out of his own thoughts. He gives a small snort. ]
Guess I'm finally learning to take it easy, but maybe I'm more comfortable not being the center of attention.
[ Words without barbs. As much as Cloud wants to try and play the cool and aloof loner, playing it against Aerith has been a continuously impossible task. Doesn't mean he won't spar with her verbally, but the familiarity is welcome, especially when the environment feels so... alien to him. Midgar was too industrialized for this kind of festival, and the only fires that Nibelheim were known for... well, the less said, the better. ]
[ He doesn't fully turn to face her, turning his head halfway, but his eyes lock on her. It's been a couple months but Aerith being the most familiar thing in this city that has changed so much since they got here still gives him some small anchor of reality. ]
Surprised you're not leading the dance, yourself. Figured this would be exactly the kind of thing you'd get caught up in.
[ Maybe that's how he asks if she's doing alright, or if she's feeling the weird unfamiliarity of the world as much as he is, right now. ]
[ Ah, thinks Aerith dully, he's well aware of the mood she's in. It's disorienting, in a way, trying to mingle with people still. Months of being herself again aren't enough to shake the déjà vu the covers her like a blanket, the memories of another woman ghosting along the corners of her brain. The wires inside her skull are wound tightly at all times, overworking themselves while plucking out the falsehoods from the reality. In truth, she can't help but miss that life. A free one, where burden doesn't hold her down. ]
I heard some people talking over by the pier. [ Cloud's well aware of her idiosyncrasies, Aerith thinks. This isn't a topic change: It's lore. ] They said that people usually throw things that symbolize what they want to let go of into bonfires. The dancing, the celebrating... that's the second half of a bonfire. The freedom that comes with letting go of something.
[ She turns, falling over to his side now. With clasped hands, she watches the flames reach up to the indigo, star-mapped sky. ] I guess... I was wondering... what we were celebrating burning.
[ The idea causes Cloud to ponder a bit, himself. He hadn't really looked back on the memories of the month he was... well, a freer him with much thought. Like many uncomfortable things, Cloud was more than willing to push it down and out of his mind. He remembers an uncomfortable feeling, like the memories, despite being knowably false, felt too similar to memories her was sure were true. And with the way Aldrip transformed into something all-too-similar to Midgar, it had been playing tricks on him. No amount of odd jobs seemed to be able to quell the nagging doubt. ]
[ Maybe it's for that reason that the memory starts to come back to him, unbidden — flames, screaming, the rage that sat i nthe pit of his guy like a heavy stone. He was going to tell everyone anyway. Now's probably the time. ]
Dunno if I can see burning and letting something go in a celebratory light. [ He has to look away, if only for a moment. A gloved hand grasping at the pauldron-less arm, as if to steady himself. ]
I... never got around to telling you what happened to my hometown, did I?
[ Contemplation wedges itself into Aerith's chest like a thorn needling into a cat's paw. She feels it heavily, sees something shift inside of Cloud. Getting to know him in the last few months has been like learning to take care of a new bed of flowers. So she watches him for any indication of wilting, something infecting the petals of himself, the dendritic branching of Cloud Strife inspected like searching for weeds in a garden.
She hums, thoughtful. ] I don't think you did, Cloud. But... I'm all ears. If that's what you want, I mean.
[ It's like a pebble in a shoe. Something about the memory nags at him, right now. Something he feels he needs to deal with. But at the same time... there's an unbidden fear of something, of not knowing whether examining that memory is a good idea. He doesn't know exactly why. Maybe Aerith might have some idea, maybe she doesn't.
Maybe this is what he's throwing into the fire — an unknown fear of examining where he came from. ]
It's... kind of a long story. I'd hoped to tell all of you, when we got to Kalm, but... [ He trails off. He doesn't really need to explain the unfeasibility of it, now. ]
It was after I'd become a SOLDIER. Routine inspection on a Mako reactor - Turk gig. But they were sending two SOLDIERs to check on it. Those SOLDIERs were me... and Sephiroth. And the reactor was the very first reactor Shinra ever built — the one on top of Mt. Nibel.
[ It starts to flow freely, now that he can actually start to tell it. The story before it became a scar on his heart. A dull pain in the pit of his stomach, lessened only by time and distance, but never back to what it once was. ]
[ A pebble is a rock. They line the pathway to the front door of her home, back beneath the plate. They play home to bugs you can only see when you life them up, look beneath the surface. Aerith imagines Cloud turning stones over in his mind, inspecting the pathway to the answer he's trying to give her— whatever it may be. She nods as she listens, attentive and careful as always, green gaze burning with curiosity. It slips away at the mention of Sephiroth's name. ]
Is that how you know him? Sephiroth.
[ In another world, Cloud's recounting of this story would not be to one person. She isn't capable of feeling guilty for being there for him, but something presses into her spine, straightens it out coldly. Pay attention. He said fire. She has an idea of where this is going. ]
Yeah, we were in SOLDIER together. But he was on a whole other level, even back then. I could hardly keep up.
[ He remembers the feelings of inadequacy, even back then. Remembers Sephiroth being able to casually swat down monsters like flies. ]
But he wasn't like... how you've seen him. He was... I don't know. Normal. Normal enough.[ It's such a strange idea, now. A Sephiroth who was worried about Cloud's safety. About his fatigue. ] He didn't exactly like the attention, but I can't say I blame him. Way everyone was fawning over him when we got to Nibelheim, no one even looked at me.
[ In retrospect, it was stupid. Real stupid. Become a SOLDIER for the glory? Yeah, right. Once you became a SOLDIER, everyone looked at you the same — a mix of pity, awe, or suspicion — depending on where they fell on loyalty to Shinra. ]
So he spent most of the night holed up in his room at the inn, I took a bit of time to take in the sights, and the next morning we made the trek up the mountain.
[ "Normal" isn't how she'd describe Sephiroth, no, and it's nearly impossible for her to pick out any instance of imagining him as such. As she listens, she tries to put Cloud next to him, tries to imagine what their teamwork might have been like. It's difficult. There's no smile on her face as she drinks in Cloud's memories. ]
You grew up with Tifa, right? So, she'd know this mountain, wouldn't she?
[ Instinct pulls the question out of her. Where is Tifa Lockhart when you need her, honestly? ]
[ Where is Tifa when you need her? The golden question, but Cloud manages to meet Aerith's gaze for a moment as she asks. His eyes are shifting around a lot as he recounts the tale. Not looking at Aerith or the nearby bonfire. Seeming smaller, almost, in their gaze. ]
Right. Tifa's dad actually was the one who helped guide people up the mountain, when we were little. It's a pretty dangerous climb, so you usually need a guide. Tifa managed to browbeat her dad into letting her take us up.
And Mt. Nibel was feeling pretty capricious that day. The usual route was out, so we had to take a detour, and a rope bridge gave out while we were on it. We lost half of the escort Shinra had sent with Sephiroth and I on the way up. And that was before you factor in the monsters on the trail.
[ He trails off, suddenly, his eyes looking down at the ground, his brow furrowed. There's that creeping feeling, that something about what he's saying, what he's reliving, is the same as those memories this place gave him. ]
But that was nothing compared to what we found inside the reactor. That's... [ His voice gets low. ]
[ A shift comes to pass in front of his face. Aerith sees it plainly, spots it like she can spot a storm cloud in the hole sat over her church in Sector 5. It hangs heavy, disruptive. ]
Cloud? [ She closes the distance, free of hesitation. With worry in her butterfly green gaze, Aerith peers up at Cloud, head tilted gently, as though staring at him from a different angle might unearth what's settled onto him like a boulder. ]
[ The closer he gets to the climax of the tale, the harder it is to continue. He pauses, drawing a breath. It seems harder, right now. Like the story itself is trying to choke him to death. His eyes meet hers, briefly, the luminescent green of mako gleaming in the firelight, almost eclipsing any of his natural blue. ]
...When we got there, Sephiroth had made it plain — don't speak to anyone about what we were going to find. And despite being such an old reactor, it was still drawing Mako at full steam. Not like the other older reactors.
It turns out it was being used for... experiments. Test subjects of Hojo's, infused with mako on a cellular level. Animals. Monsters.
Humans. Or they were, once upon a time. They didn't look anything like you or me.
And the door to the reactor's core had a single name engraved overtop it. [ He lets himself say the word after a pause. He needs to get this right. He's the only one who can. ]
"Jenova". On the way to Nibelheim, Sephiroth had said that was his mother's name. I don't... know if he knew.
[ She's trying to picture it. The image comes to her like a wave crashing on the beach, knocking over a sandcastle. Experiments. Always experiments. Aerith is watching him now, sympathy flooding her as quickly as worry had. She knows what it's like, to be an experiment of Hojo's. Her mother's fact fills her thoughts, the sad way she'd looked when she hunched behind the couch to take her medicine. Away from Aerith, protecting her like always. In that moment, she understands why her mother did such a thing. ]
Jenova.
[ The taste of its name is familiarly bitter on Aerith's tongue. ]
[ He can only press on. Not much farther to go in the tale, now. ]
Sephiroth... took the experiments hard. We cleaned them out, and headed back for the inn, but he didn't speak to anyone once he got back. And in the middle of the night, he left for the Shinra Manor, the old building on the outskirts of town, before you hit the mountain trail. It was... basically an old research facility, before Shinra got really big.
He found a basement none of us knew about, he reading old... scientific journals, I think. Research notes. About the Jenova Project. Shinra's initiative to revive the Ancients. He wouldn't talk to me when I first found him down there.
[ Again and again, doubt nags at Cloud. There had to have been something. Should he have been more insistent in pulling Sephiroth away from those old books? Just one more question about those night he'll never find the answer to. Frustration and grief knot together the features on his face, impossible to untangle one and not the other. ]
This went on for days. I couldn't really wrap my brain around what he was reading, so I finally marched my ass back down there to get some answers from the guy.
But by that point... it was too late. He was— well, as you know him. He told me Shinra had created him as part of the Jenova project, and that 'Mother is waiting'. I tried to get him to hold up, but he tossed me aside like a rag doll. Hit the wall so hard I blacked out.
[ Cloud's hands tighten into balled fists, saved only from drawing blood by the leather gloves he wears. His body is coiled tighter than a spring. His jaw sets and he stares at a point in the sand below him, refusing to look upward. ]
If I had come to sooner, I could have tried to do something — anything — about what happened next.
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expiationlogs2024-06-10 07:58 am
bonfires
Her eyes fall on the fire. It, too, dances, reveling in the burning. The burning of what? Air? Wood? Life? She can't help but wonder. ]
Fancy meeting you here. [ She's no wallflower, but Cloud is. That much she knows— seeking him out is not a complex task. She thinks she would have liked to make him win a prize for her at the bazaar, or something else. Something that feels less like the end of a date. With a hum, she claps her hands together. ] The Cloud Strife, relaxing on the beach. What a sight! I almost feel bad no one else has noticed you.
no subject
Guess I'm finally learning to take it easy, but maybe I'm more comfortable not being the center of attention.
[ Words without barbs. As much as Cloud wants to try and play the cool and aloof loner, playing it against Aerith has been a continuously impossible task. Doesn't mean he won't spar with her verbally, but the familiarity is welcome, especially when the environment feels so... alien to him. Midgar was too industrialized for this kind of festival, and the only fires that Nibelheim were known for... well, the less said, the better. ]
[ He doesn't fully turn to face her, turning his head halfway, but his eyes lock on her. It's been a couple months but Aerith being the most familiar thing in this city that has changed so much since they got here still gives him some small anchor of reality. ]
Surprised you're not leading the dance, yourself. Figured this would be exactly the kind of thing you'd get caught up in.
[ Maybe that's how he asks if she's doing alright, or if she's feeling the weird unfamiliarity of the world as much as he is, right now. ]
no subject
I heard some people talking over by the pier. [ Cloud's well aware of her idiosyncrasies, Aerith thinks. This isn't a topic change: It's lore. ] They said that people usually throw things that symbolize what they want to let go of into bonfires. The dancing, the celebrating... that's the second half of a bonfire. The freedom that comes with letting go of something.
[ She turns, falling over to his side now. With clasped hands, she watches the flames reach up to the indigo, star-mapped sky. ] I guess... I was wondering... what we were celebrating burning.
no subject
[ The idea causes Cloud to ponder a bit, himself. He hadn't really looked back on the memories of the month he was... well, a freer him with much thought. Like many uncomfortable things, Cloud was more than willing to push it down and out of his mind. He remembers an uncomfortable feeling, like the memories, despite being knowably false, felt too similar to memories her was sure were true. And with the way Aldrip transformed into something all-too-similar to Midgar, it had been playing tricks on him. No amount of odd jobs seemed to be able to quell the nagging doubt. ]
[ Maybe it's for that reason that the memory starts to come back to him, unbidden — flames, screaming, the rage that sat i nthe pit of his guy like a heavy stone. He was going to tell everyone anyway. Now's probably the time. ]
Dunno if I can see burning and letting something go in a celebratory light. [ He has to look away, if only for a moment. A gloved hand grasping at the pauldron-less arm, as if to steady himself. ]
I... never got around to telling you what happened to my hometown, did I?
no subject
She hums, thoughtful. ] I don't think you did, Cloud. But... I'm all ears. If that's what you want, I mean.
no subject
Maybe this is what he's throwing into the fire — an unknown fear of examining where he came from. ]
It's... kind of a long story. I'd hoped to tell all of you, when we got to Kalm, but... [ He trails off. He doesn't really need to explain the unfeasibility of it, now. ]
It was after I'd become a SOLDIER. Routine inspection on a Mako reactor - Turk gig. But they were sending two SOLDIERs to check on it. Those SOLDIERs were me... and Sephiroth. And the reactor was the very first reactor Shinra ever built — the one on top of Mt. Nibel.
[ It starts to flow freely, now that he can actually start to tell it. The story before it became a scar on his heart. A dull pain in the pit of his stomach, lessened only by time and distance, but never back to what it once was. ]
no subject
Is that how you know him? Sephiroth.
[ In another world, Cloud's recounting of this story would not be to one person. She isn't capable of feeling guilty for being there for him, but something presses into her spine, straightens it out coldly. Pay attention. He said fire. She has an idea of where this is going. ]
no subject
[ He remembers the feelings of inadequacy, even back then. Remembers Sephiroth being able to casually swat down monsters like flies. ]
But he wasn't like... how you've seen him. He was... I don't know. Normal. Normal enough. [ It's such a strange idea, now. A Sephiroth who was worried about Cloud's safety. About his fatigue. ] He didn't exactly like the attention, but I can't say I blame him. Way everyone was fawning over him when we got to Nibelheim, no one even looked at me.
[ In retrospect, it was stupid. Real stupid. Become a SOLDIER for the glory? Yeah, right. Once you became a SOLDIER, everyone looked at you the same — a mix of pity, awe, or suspicion — depending on where they fell on loyalty to Shinra. ]
So he spent most of the night holed up in his room at the inn, I took a bit of time to take in the sights, and the next morning we made the trek up the mountain.
no subject
You grew up with Tifa, right? So, she'd know this mountain, wouldn't she?
[ Instinct pulls the question out of her. Where is Tifa Lockhart when you need her, honestly? ]
no subject
Right. Tifa's dad actually was the one who helped guide people up the mountain, when we were little. It's a pretty dangerous climb, so you usually need a guide. Tifa managed to browbeat her dad into letting her take us up.
And Mt. Nibel was feeling pretty capricious that day. The usual route was out, so we had to take a detour, and a rope bridge gave out while we were on it. We lost half of the escort Shinra had sent with Sephiroth and I on the way up. And that was before you factor in the monsters on the trail.
[ He trails off, suddenly, his eyes looking down at the ground, his brow furrowed. There's that creeping feeling, that something about what he's saying, what he's reliving, is the same as those memories this place gave him. ]
But that was nothing compared to what we found inside the reactor. That's... [ His voice gets low. ]
That's where it all went wrong.
no subject
Cloud? [ She closes the distance, free of hesitation. With worry in her butterfly green gaze, Aerith peers up at Cloud, head tilted gently, as though staring at him from a different angle might unearth what's settled onto him like a boulder. ]
What went wrong?
[ She can guess. But could it be true? ]
no subject
...When we got there, Sephiroth had made it plain — don't speak to anyone about what we were going to find. And despite being such an old reactor, it was still drawing Mako at full steam. Not like the other older reactors.
It turns out it was being used for... experiments. Test subjects of Hojo's, infused with mako on a cellular level. Animals. Monsters.
Humans. Or they were, once upon a time. They didn't look anything like you or me.
And the door to the reactor's core had a single name engraved overtop it. [ He lets himself say the word after a pause. He needs to get this right. He's the only one who can. ]
"Jenova". On the way to Nibelheim, Sephiroth had said that was his mother's name. I don't... know if he knew.
no subject
Jenova.
[ The taste of its name is familiarly bitter on Aerith's tongue. ]
That's not what went wrong, though... is it?
no subject
[ He can only press on. Not much farther to go in the tale, now. ]
Sephiroth... took the experiments hard. We cleaned them out, and headed back for the inn, but he didn't speak to anyone once he got back. And in the middle of the night, he left for the Shinra Manor, the old building on the outskirts of town, before you hit the mountain trail. It was... basically an old research facility, before Shinra got really big.
He found a basement none of us knew about, he reading old... scientific journals, I think. Research notes. About the Jenova Project. Shinra's initiative to revive the Ancients. He wouldn't talk to me when I first found him down there.
[ Again and again, doubt nags at Cloud. There had to have been something. Should he have been more insistent in pulling Sephiroth away from those old books? Just one more question about those night he'll never find the answer to. Frustration and grief knot together the features on his face, impossible to untangle one and not the other. ]
This went on for days. I couldn't really wrap my brain around what he was reading, so I finally marched my ass back down there to get some answers from the guy.
But by that point... it was too late. He was— well, as you know him. He told me Shinra had created him as part of the Jenova project, and that 'Mother is waiting'. I tried to get him to hold up, but he tossed me aside like a rag doll. Hit the wall so hard I blacked out.
[ Cloud's hands tighten into balled fists, saved only from drawing blood by the leather gloves he wears. His body is coiled tighter than a spring. His jaw sets and he stares at a point in the sand below him, refusing to look upward. ]
If I had come to sooner, I could have tried to do something — anything — about what happened next.