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

[waterfell]

No. [This suffices as an answer while Mercury navigates a particularly narrow passage. It doesn't really tell Cloud anything. She continues once she has her footing steady.]

The one I know is you. We've met before now, several times.

[She turns it into a joke, but there's something that suggests it's not entirely humorous:]

How rude of you to forget! [No one would like being forgotten.]

[justskinnedknees]

Why do you keep saying that?

[ He doesn't go on entirely unchastised by that reprimand, but it's not enough to scold him out of his firm belief. ] I don't know anybody from outside town.

[waterfell]

[Because it's true, and because she likes rejection now no more than she'd ever liked it as a child.]

Think again. Remember your dreams.

[justskinnedknees]

I don't remember you.

[ He says with a huff and a glower, and a renewed fervor for moving forward.

From here, the way winds up to a massive rope bridge, lined with old, weathered boards longer twice over than he is tall (not that that's saying much). And just beyond that - the rising grey spires of the summit. At their very highest, the mountains disappear into the stormy, low-hanging clouds, but their shadows stand out starkly still, and it's clear there's no point in attempting to reach the very tops of any of them. Even Cloud, at his present size, would have marked trouble trying.

Not that he seems likely to let any of that stand in his way, at his current pace. The destination he's aiming for is only a little lower than the mountain's highest reach. ]

I will laugh if she transforms into a mountain climber... XD

[waterfell]

[Mercury has more trouble with the words than the route. A part of her says she's being needlessly... emotional. Expecting to be remembered when she's nothing more than a dream, just as the people she meets at night are nothing more than dreams to her world.

Part of her wants to make him remember her.]

Decide about that after we finish climbing to the peak.

lmao oh no not again!!

[justskinnedknees]

[ He favors her another decidedly wary look - but doesn't add another denial. If the first five didn't work, the next fifteen probably won't; even a little kid knows that (sometimes).

He does pause long enough in his dogged forward march to shake his head, however. ]

I'm not going all the way up there. [ No, their destination is a little lower, though it still hangs over an impressive altitude. The reactor built into the mountainside. ]

/snicker. she'll behave this time. really.

[waterfell]

To there, then. [It's the same point, Cloud: Give it time.]

[justskinnedknees]

[ At the foot of the last bridge - the longest, and steepest, arches up impossibly high toward that looming, metallic monstrosity perched on the last flat plateau before the summit - he hesitates. ]

...Why do you wanna go there?

[waterfell]

[Cloud, don't make her say these things. Don't make her sort through those muddied half-impressions to find out her true feelings.]

Because... It seemed like somewhere someone shouldn't go alone.

[In short: to accompany Cloud.]

[justskinnedknees]

I go everywhere by myself.

[ Including up dangerous mountain paths, and through monster-infested caves, and to the river where he likes to play at fishing, and down into the foothills where most of the other kids spend their afternoons. ]

I don't need anybody.

[waterfell]

[Oh, Cloud. She, of all people, knows that no one wants to be alone.]

I never said 'need'.

[What about want?]

[justskinnedknees]

I like to be by myself.

[ As if to prove his point, he steps ahead onto the steep, swinging rope bridge without looking back. ]

I'm not like those stupid little kids.

[waterfell]

[With almost anyone but Cloud, she'd have left long ago. It's so much easier to just not care when they don't want her with them, to treat it lightly and laugh at their folly in spurning her, and leave them to flail in troubles of their own making.

With his words, the fragile thread of understanding breaks, and she's ready to do just that.]

Good luck to you, then! [And she starts to move past him.]

[justskinnedknees]

[ Well, that's- ...Nothing new, actually. It'd be nice to say he's a little surprised, but he isn't, really. Everyone leaves, eventually.

And that's what he prefers.

A SOLDIER wouldn't want to waste his time with a bunch of bratty little kids - or rude adults, for that matter - and since that's what he's going to be, why should he? He waits a moment, on the impossibly steep incline of the rickety bridge, and then starts up again, himself.

It's actually a little easier to rationalize her presence once it's clear they're not going together, even if they both still have the same destination. As long as he has his materia to fight with, it shouldn't matter that he doesn't have a party to help. ]