onepassingnight | oo4 ❄ An ancient puzzle piece

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oo4 ❄ An ancient puzzle piece

[ 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. ]

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[ Teasing is exactly what he takes it for, whatever she means in that deceptively airy tone of voice; there's no reason to think otherwise, and he digs in his heels, ready to demonstrate the worst form of that stubborn streak he'll have all his life.

He doesn't lower his arms, and the slightest tremor betrays his tough front. ]

I'm going to use it. I'll be stronger if I learn how.

[That's different, and Mercury eyes the object with a new appreciation.]

Could it be... a materia?

[ He nods again, hesitantly, before lowering his weapon - only to clutch it back possessively, once more. ]

I found it. [ Cloud repeats persistently, thinking of the reactor, and other places he isn't supposed to go. ]

[She smells a lie, or at least a half-truth or a rationalization; no one who believed they came by something honestly would be that defensive.

She doesn't particularly care. Mercury owns more than one thing dubiously acquired, and usually for the same reason: to become even more powerful. (Of course, she tells herself, some of those had been intended for Mercury.)]

And you have no intention of returning it to its owner. [It's an observation, with no particular disapproval.]

Nobody owned it.

[ Or if they did, they shouldn't have left it lying around in the dirt like that.

At any rate, no, he doesn't look like he's about to go stick it in the lost and found and wait for the rightful owner's return. (If they do exist; it isn't all faulty, childish logic to assume the easiest justification, when perfectly good materia does, in fact, just spring up out of the ground.) ]

[Well, she's willing to believe it wouldn't be possible to find the owner, anyway.]

So you were running off with it to somewhere else?

[ Technically, coming back to town was that somewhere else, so Cloud shakes his head, again. ]

I'm going back.

[ For more, maybe, or just to try it out. There are plenty of monsters in the mountains that he thinks he can beat with his new weapon, and all of the blind confidence of youth. ]

[On the other hand, he doesn't necessarily have to go alone. Not that the offer is without her own reasons, as Mercury tacitly invites herself along.]

I kind of want to see what could be out there.

It's dangerous.

[ Which doesn't bother him, but is still a caution ingrained by the isolated world in which he lives. Most travelers don't dare the mountains without plenty of precautions, and even then, they often return in fewer numbers. If they do at all. ]

Then I'll see how well I fare against danger. [The confident smile suggests she expects the answer to be 'very well indeed'.]

Hmph.

[ Outwardly unimpressed (the slight decline in his tough front side), Cloud pulls his single, treasured materia up to his chest again, and starts on his path once again - skirting unnecessarily wide around the stranger. ]

Go your own way. This one's mine.

I'll go where I choose.

[She turns her head, following him with her eyes as he stays so laughably far from her. As if she's plotting against him at this very moment.

She isn't; and if his path reminds her of the wariness people of her world feel towards the strange and half-mythical soldier called Mercury, she doesn't comment on how that may make her feel.

Then it occurs to her that he is treating her as a stranger.]

It couldn't be you've forgotten me? [She keeps her tone light - but she's never liked being overlooked.]

I don't know you.

[ More an affirmation to himself than an answer to her question, he puts up only another insistent denial. The faint shock that cuts through that childish, brooding look that seems to be his permanent default is nothing, easily dismissed by equally childish rationality.

He doesn't know anybody from outside this isolated, backwater town. He doesn't have any reason to. Just the same way he doesn't have any reason to pause again, instead of bolting off up the mountain path - though he does, anyway, for a moment more. ]

[He doesn't remember her. This is not precisely a shock - after her time in the world called Econtra, and her time in the Nexus, she's used to fluid and confusing timelines.

It might, if she were being more honest with herself about her feelings, be a disappointment. But the wariness he treats her with is no more than she'd give - no more than she has given - to others claiming to know her.]

Cloud Strife. Are you the type of person who remembers your dreams when you wake up?

[ He jumps at the sound of his name, but in the end it only serves to strengthen his unpleasant resolve. His hands ball into fists a little firmer, and again he stands on the precipice of simply taking off ahead, up his treacherous mountain path. ]

I don't know. What's a dream got to do with anything?

[She considers how to answer. Finally, she settles for simple truth, whether it might be believed or not.]

You may not remember it; however, we've met before now.

[But while she can't quite let him completely deny it, neither does she want to hear his continued refusals if she keeps going.]

It doesn't matter - if it was a dream.

I guess.

[ Which puts a strange end to this equally strange conversation, as far as he's concerned. It's getting late and the light's already poor; if he wants to make it all the way up to the reactor before nightfall, he'll have to go quicker, the longer he waits.

Shuffling his feet as he turns back toward the threshold of his dangerous venture, he shoots for determined and only comes up impatient and indecisive. ]

...I gotta go.

[Guess who's walking that way, too? Must be a coincidence.]

We're going, then!

[ If he wasn't too busy being sullen, he'd get suspicious!

But he is, so he doesn't - just looks surprised that she's going to go along with him so (seemingly) cheerfully. Instead of trying to answer, he only nods his head a little and starts on his way, accompanied by the quiet rattle of natural gravel rolling out from under his determined footsteps.

And his unwelcome entourage, at whom he steals only what he believes to be the stealthiest of glances. (Though, at his age, stealth is not an art he has mastered.) ]

Why do you wanna go up there?

[She notes the look, but remains unperturbed.]

Because, it's somewhere I haven't seen yet.

[In a large part of her, it really is that simple. New places, new sights, new experiences, are all something she hungers for - the further away from what she wants to leave behind, the better.]

It's not a good place.

[ People die there. (People die everywhere.) The unprepared rarely make it through. The path is unstable, and the weather gets inclement fast. The bridges necessary to pass are old and rotting, and could give way completely in as little as another day (or a week, or a year) of twisting in the icy wind. There are monsters - and not just Nibel wolves, but dragons and great birds and slithering beasts that don't look anything like the life from which they've mutated.

It's a bad place. And a part of him knows it spells doom, even if he goes on, anyway. ]

I'm not worried about that. [She has confidence in her own power and strength. She does.]

I can fight for myself.

There's lots of monsters in the mountains.

[ But it doesn't slow his careful, determined pace, any. Just a casual warning. ]

They're bad. Even if you can fight.

I won't let my guard down. [An answer as simple as his explanation.]

[ There's nothing to say to that; he's done his part to warn her away, and at his age (and size, and nonexistent strength), he knows he can't do much more. Turning his single piece of materia over in his hands, Cloud puts his focus instead back toward the path ahead of him.

As they round the first narrow bend, the way begins to thin, steepening drastically on the side not shortened by the sheer slope of the mountain. Going up at a nearly ninety degree angle, there's no climbing in that direction, either. They're walking on the edge of a cliff, and it's kind of a miracle he doesn't trip over his own feet, still.

But the only signs of life other than theirs have been passing, so far - the scattering of dirt that rolls down from higher altitudes as they pass, kicked up by something unseen. The shadow of a beast that only barely resembles a bird coasting smoothly along an updraft, distorted by the looming cap of dark grey fog above. Maybe it's because he's traveling with a party, now. ]

...Why did you come here, anyway?

[ Here, on the mountain or here, as in Nibelheim - he doesn't stop to clarify. ]

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