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

[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!