oo4 ❄ An ancient puzzle piece

[anonfantry]

[ On the outset, there's nothing really sinister about the little mountain town. Cast in the dull, grey-green daylight filtering down through a summer-thinned cap of fog, it may seem eerie - especially mountainside, where the winding trails begin and the shadow of that grand, abandoned manor looms (if asked, of course, the locals will tell you it's haunted; about this, the children are quite serious, and the adults only moderately less so). But it is a safe haven away from the badly mutated monsters that roam the countryside freely and before the equally bloodthirsty spires of the nigh impassable range beyond.

There is a cozy inn, a well-stocked general store, and a small population of drably-garbed villagers bustling about. The shouts of the town's few children racing to and fro echo through the crisp, clear air; nearer to the center of the town's miniature main common, the steady flow of water in the towering well adds to the calm, almost sleepy atmosphere that pervades this simple, scenic little wide spot in the road.

On the surface, there's nothing wrong at all. Unless, that is, you happen to spot the lone resident here who seems the least bit out of place.

He looks just like a native: a pale, blue-eyed child with blond hair that stands up adamantly in messily arranged spikes - even at the ends, where it's been pulled back into a short ponytail. His clothes are a little big for him - a boy of no more than seven or nine, give or take a year or two if he's small for his age (and he is) - including the scuffed up, clunky brown boots on his feet. There are grass stains and ground in dirt in dark patches on his shirt and shorts, both a little threadbare. And he is insubstantial to the point of transparency, a shadow in the shadow of the well with his half-corporeal hands clasped around something obscured just enough to be of no shape at all, hidden in his grip where it hovers just before his chest.

He seems anxious, as children attempting to keep obvious secrets out in the open often are, but not bothered by the fact that no one else here appears able to see him. Whenever a villager drifts close, they always abruptly change course, or stop, as if remembering some other forgotten errand, and promptly trace their steps back. Nobody glances in his direction except to look past him to some other point in the distance. (If asked, of course, he'll say it's normal, and with all due sincerity, too.)

With one last furtive glance cast over the house across the dusty little plaza from him, he rolls the object over in his hands and comes to some crucial decision. Setting out determinedly from the safe spot beneath the water tower, Cloud skirts past his own home, giving it a wide berth, and forges determinedly on toward the twisting path that leads out of town - and up into the Nibel mountains. ]


[ ooc: no theme, just horrible!! childhood dreams. B[ i have no excuse. responses will come from justskinnedknees unless/until Cloud reverts to his usual self. ]

Comments

well good because you do. and it comes with a free ride in this handbasket

[justskinnedknees]

[ Cloud, on the other hand, is not very used to strangers politely stating the obvious at him.

But he knows he doesn't like to be made fun of, and that that's probably what's going on, here. So he shuffles back hastily away at Sephiroth's curious advance, that stormy, preemptively hateful look coming back full force on the wake of his surprise. ]

Go away. [ he snaps, instinctively guarding his possession closer.

Especially once Sephiroth starts showing off; at that, an even uglier feeling sweeps in under his defensive attitude. It's embarrassing, suddenly, to think he was ever proud at all of what he found (not that he understands the why to this, exactly, but it doesn't change the way he feels it so acutely). ]

Leave me alone. I don't care what you have.

[pinnaculum]

[Sephiroth, for his part, was only being his usual poorly socialized, overly direct self, so he stares, then blinks. He still isn't sure what to make of Cloud's reactions. He is a little disappointed that his sword didn't make a better impression. He thought the other boy might like it. Who doesn't like swords? Obviously, everyone does! Except maybe researchers. If he were more emotive, he might look crestfallen.

He considers Cloud's command, but he doesn't have to follow Cloud's orders.]

I don't know where to go.

[He doesn't know the town, and he doesn't know the mountains. He doesn't want to admit that he's lost, because becoming lost isn't something responsible people do. He's never been lost, but he doesn't know where he is. He needs more information. He glances back toward the mansion, again feeling that odd echo of familiarity.]

Did you ever see any scientists here?

[justskinnedknees]

Go wherever. I don't care.

[ It's weird not to get any reaction at all - but Cloud's stock response to the things he doesn't understand is the same as the one reserved for everything else: his unhelpfully guarded attitude only ramps up further. He remembers that he had a plan, before this unwelcome interruption, and that it's important not to get sidetracked.

(Because if he does, he might have to admit to himself that he's a little afraid, or that there are better ways to go than back up the mountain. And he doesn't want that, if it means admitting on any level that he might not be as strong or brave as he thinks.)

Before turning his back completely on the stranger still watching him so expectantly, though, he does bother to shake his head once more. Scientists? He wouldn't know one if he saw one, but he's sure he hasn't, just the same. ]

[pinnaculum]

All right.

[Not having expected anything so definite as caring, Sephiroth isn't offended. He sheathes his sword.

As he's not sure where to go, Sephiroth doesn't go anywhere yet. He's not supposed to be outside the lab. He's especially not supposed to talk to unauthorized personnel. But since he's here and can't help it, it can't be wrong, can it? Part of him doesn't really care about proper procedure at a time like this, when he'd much rather explore and see new things. Still, maybe he should minimize his contact with others.

He doesn't give up. Cloud said he could go anywhere, so there's no reason for him not to follow. He moves closer again.]

Does anyone live there? Where are you going?

[justskinnedknees]

No.

[ Cloud's muttering, but still responding, for lack of anything better to do. He doesn't know how to get rid of somebody who doesn't respond to being told off, so the next best thing is to walk rapidly away - and when that doesn't seem to be working, what else is left? ]

S'posed to be haunted. [ Not that he really believes that, himself (or claims he doesn't, because that's baby stuff - ghosts). It's probably just full of cobwebs and bugs and moldy old junk, none of which he finds particularly intriguing.

It's up past the mansion, where he's headed, anyhow. He stops at the mouth of the trail that winds back around the empty house, not looking back - but speaking clearly enough, this time. ]

I'm going where the soldiers go. [ And just for good measure: ] You can't come.

[pinnaculum]

Haunted?

[Sephiroth turns toward the house again, skeptical. That's just superstition, clearly, but it makes him thoughtful.]

Probably not. Perhaps someone does not want people to go there.

[Which means that there might be something interesting there. He would be tempted to go inside and investigate--maybe there's equipment! papers! experiments!--but something else has attracted his attention. Telling Sephiroth not to go where the soldiers go is an incredibly unproductive move on Cloud's part.

Of course he can go anywhere! Especially where soldiers go.]

When I'm older, I'm going to be a SOLDIER.

[He should be in SOLDIER already!]

[justskinnedknees]

[ Whether or not the townsfolk's stories are made up for the explicit purpose of keeping people out of that old, moldy house on the hill or just the combination of abandoned property and probably monster infestations - Cloud doesn't particularly care.

He's written it off as unimportant, and so that's that.

The mountains, on the other hand, are explicitly forbidden. Not that that stops him from starting up the path that leads to their highest peak, and the ugly structure that looms just below. ]

I don't care. I'm going by myself.

[ Which obviously means Sephiroth can't come with him, his future career as a soldier (or a SOLDIER) notwithstanding. ]

[pinnaculum]

Yes.

[In spite of his answer, Sephiroth regards him with a blankness that's familiar to his research team. They would call it stubbornness, but it's a curiously empty expression he develops when he has decided he is not going to listen to someone, his pupils narrow and his eyes a calm, luminous green. Some of the researchers find this look more unnerving than others.

He has been conditioned to obey orders, but he has also been taught the chain of command, and Cloud is not on it.

He stands outside the mansion, watching Cloud go, patient and still. If this boy lives here, then he must have a family here. Sephiroth wonders what that's like. What parents are like. He doesn't really know what other children are like, either, as he's never had a friend.

Of course, Sephiroth is going to follow Cloud, as soon as he's out of sight. Being small and capable of moving quickly and quietly, he's very good at following.]

[justskinnedknees]

[ A decade or two older, and Cloud could have perhaps appreciated the irony of his present situation. As it is, though, he's just a little kid with a chip on his shoulder and when he sets his boots on the starting line of the twisting, narrow path that leads past sallow, brownish, weedy ground and up into the slate grey of the real mountains, he sees nothing but his own determination - and the brittle, pale sunlight's eye-catching reflection in his one unmeasured line of defense.

Tightening his fragile little kid's grip on the single piece of materia, he takes to the familiar trail, quick and silent besides the shuffle of his hasty, solitary footsteps.

It isn't until he's reached the first step onto one ancient and surely rotting rope bridge that he hesitates at all. The ravine below yawns into darkness around the tips of rising rock spires wherever the vertigo-inducing view isn't muddied by clouds of the same fog that obscures the sky above - a nasty fall, from any height.

So he watches the ground, as he goes, very far below, and only flinches passingly as the sweeping dark shadows of the ugly, monstrous birds that roost in the cliffs above travel on top of the fog below his feet- And over him, as he stares down through the rough wooden slats he's crossing with a nearly expectant trepidation. The fraying, unwinding ropes creaking away at the poles anchoring them shallowly in the graying earth, all the while.

Dangerous might be an understatement; at this juncture, the path up looks almost suicidal. ]

[pinnaculum]

[Sephiroth follows in leaps and flickers, moving in his soundless, swift way over the rough terrain. It's not a human way to travel, because why should he walk as other people do? It hasn't been drilled into his head, yet, that there are proper procedures, that appearances matter, that the way he is might be frightening, so it's better, at times, to seem to be something else.

It's easy to remain hidden until he arrives at the bridge. Even he can't leap the ravine all at once, and there's nowhere on the bridge to hide. Here, the wilderness is stark and rocky. He studies the route ahead with an almost clinical air. He's not afraid, because as far as he believes, there's nothing he can't do. How would there be anything beyond him? That's not what he was taught.

He stills on the near side of the ravine, watching Cloud cross. He's a small figure, and his pale hair could be taken for a scrap of unmelted snow, up this high. He could cross the bridge himself in a mere few bounds, but he waits, almost polite in his patience, for Cloud to finish crossing first.]

[justskinnedknees]

[ The ominous feeling that follows him up the mountain is not one that raises any alarm; there is and always has been a forbidding air in the world above Nibelheim, where neither trees nor grass can be found to grow, and the earth alternates between dead grey and a certain sickly yellow-green.

It's on more of the former, crumbling, rocky outcropping that he sets his feet again as a breath he hadn't been consciously holding escapes him in a silently relieved rush. The bridge is the worst part, in some ways, in its own way - all of that emptiness looming below, the mist hanging underfoot like clouds, hiding things. Spires of stone. Predacious birds. Both hungry and waiting. He tells himself not to look, but can't help it, either way.

Even once he's back on deceptively solid ground, Cloud hesitates, looking back - and what he sees there at first baffles and then angers him.

It's that kid, that same kid, and he's come all this way even after Cloud explicitly told him not to. He thinks the bridge might stop him up (he hasn't stepped on, yet, after all - maybe he's too scared, though even from a distance... he doesn't look it). But that's still a chance. Rather than waiting to find out, Cloud darts ahead up the path, hoping to duck out of sight around the bend.

Maybe then Sephiroth will have to turn back. ]

[pinnaculum]

[Sephiroth realizes he's been spotted. Maybe he hasn't been as careful as he could have been, but stealth wasn't his first concern. He hadn't been planning to remain hidden for the entire time. He doesn't want to spy on Cloud, even though he was curious enough to follow him, and some might consider this a kind of spying. Sephiroth doesn't, though.

But when Cloud spots him, Cloud suddenly hurries ahead, and although Sephiroth doesn't really expect he'll lose him, as there's a path to follow, he doesn't want to lose sight of him. Even though Cloud told him to go away, this is like a game, and it's a little--well, fun. He's enjoying it, not really understanding that it might be rude, or his behavior unwanted. In spite of what Cloud told him, he feels he has just as much right to use the path, and he's not particularly empathetic.

Turning back is not in Sephiroth's vocabulary. So he hurries ahead, with a few of his light leap-bounds, more like a bird than a child. Now there's no point in hiding at all, so he catches up with Cloud quickly.]

Hello.

[justskinnedknees]

[ If his goal was to completely terrify the boy he is chasing, empathy notwithstanding, he's already near to accomplishing it. When he stops to look back (just to check), and sees Sephiroth not a leap or a bound but probably less than one step behind, Cloud tries to jump right out of his skin.

All he succeeds at is twisting in his slightly too big boots and taking a very abrupt tumble from stalking forward determinedly to sprawled out on the rocky path. He can feel his knees and palms scrape as he hits the ground, but the pain is relatively minor, at first, thanks to his shock. When they're stinging, later, he might regret his haste - but not now. ]

G-Get away from me!