[011 ☿] Silent Planet Mercury

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

Unearthly quiet falls over everything. This place is empty and barren; nothing grows in its desolate grey soil. It's a void without atmosphere, but those who arrive here find themselves able breathe normally and withstand the incredible heat of planet Mercury's sun-turned side.

To the daughter of this planet, it's breathing the nostalgic air of thousands of years ago. Here, she is at her strongest and her best. She thrives in the sun that appears several times larger than it would on Earth, she basks in its intense rays despite the dark sky of space.

Without turning around, Mercury speaks with her eyes fixed on the sky. "Watch," she insists. She nods to where the sun travels towards its highest point - and stops for several long moments before beginning to unwind its arc backwards. It's a sight only seen here, and only now while it's been sped up enough to be observable.

Before she can say more, a second brightness flares so strongly that it almost overshadows anything else. Mercury suddenly lets out a pained whimper and shields her eyes from the holy light of Venus. She has that flesh-crawling feeling of a nightmare somehow.

(ooc: artist conceptions of Mercury sunrise. The effect described with the sun's path is due to Mercury's orbit and happens over the course of a Mercury day - about two months of our time.)

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[hisdreamsmyfate.livejournal.com]

When he opens his eyes, all he can see is stars.

Stars shining down, that he hadn't remembered seeing for quite some time. One arm instinctively reaches up, waving back and forth slowly above him, before he realizes he's no longer confined to a small, trapped area. And with this, he starts to stand, feeling the absence of various cords, IVs, and the breathing tank he'd started to forget he was wearing.

No. This was some sort of barren landscape, coveted by eternal night.

And he wasn't alone.

The sun moves, then moves back, also squinting at the bright light he hasn't seen in so long. Struggling against it, to adjust, he starts to walk forward. Boots thump against the dry dirt of the Planet, slower than what was usually possible for him. Was he that exhausted, or did this dream work in different physics?

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

A part of her is thankful that he ignores her condition while she grimaces and pulls her hand into a tight fist to regain control of herself as the bright flare finally returns to normal. A part of her is glad for the distraction from what it may mean.

In the lower gravity, her body feels lighter, and she enjoys that sensation as she turns to face Zack.

"Normally, this would be impossible." What part she means, she doesn't specify.

[hisdreamsmyfate.livejournal.com]

"...impossible?"

He has to ask, lowering his hand once the flare dies down, to better focus. It still feels... weird, to be moving like this, and not just from the sudden shift in gravity. His body is still unused to walking for so long.

"Where are we, anyway? How'd we get outside?" He... recognizes the landscape, a bit, but only subconsciously. If one were to ask, he would assume they were out in the wasteland surrounding Midgar, on a one, warm night.

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

Impossible. Impossible for him to breathe and walk here. Impossible for him to stand up to its intense heat, or the cold of its other side. Impossible for him to have traveled here.

"We're standing on planet Mercury." She doesn't shy away from looking at him directly as she adds belatedly, "Where I was born."

She remembers this place, in the vague and hazy way she remembers things about her past life, when it was full of life within its dome similar to the Moon Castle's. It had earned its name back then, of the Water Planet. Fountains, artificial streams and lakes, every source of water imaginable had been here. Now, it is dusty and dry like the surface of the moon itself.

Very like, in fact.

[hisdreamsmyfate.livejournal.com]

Planet Mer--

...

Wait a minute, this was a whole new planet? The surprise is visible on the SOLDIER's face, g;ancing around to their enviroment warily, but continuing to listen as she talks on. This is... her homeworld. He was on her homeworld somehow, far away from Nibelheim or ShinRa or anything else...

The man relaxes, trying to register this news. Then, he nods once, finally understanding. This... was probably just another hallucination, then. Because there was no way he could have gotten here when they'd barely been able to make a ship strong enough to survive space.

"I see..."

He walks closer, his footing still a little awkward but he's getting used to moving in general again. Words come slower than they normally would have, and when he does speak, it's hesitant, as if he's having difficulty remembering how to talk.

"Sorry if I'm just bargin' in or anything - I don't even know how I got here." He still smiles, despite it all. "Looks like you could get lonely easily."

[thatoldthatkind.livejournal.com]

The Doctor remained quiet, eyebrows lifting and looking up at the sunrise. He had seen a Mercury sunrise of course, as well as a sunset, and a few eclipses as well (he'd argue that it was possible no matter what). He put his hands in the pockets of his green coat and said nothing. He hadn't seen Ami in some time, given the way their last conversation ended.

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

She's never seen an eclipse, here.

She seemed not to notice him at first. Then, as if pride were a physical force that could draw her upright, she stood straight and tall and betrayed the struggle of a moment earlier only by the tightness of her fist as she clenched it at her side.

"Do you know where you are?" It's a neutral enough question.

[thatoldthatkind.livejournal.com]

"Mercury." The Doctor said with a small shrug.

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

He was one of the few people she'd expect to recognize it, and even realize how different it truly was from the moon it was so often said to resemble. She nodded, and turned to face him finally, now that she had mastery of herself again and her voice was strong.

"Nothing could live here now," she says. She is telling him nothing he doesn't know, still. "If humans were to try to populate this place, it would have to be closer to the polar regions. Right now, we're only a short distance away from the Caloris Basin."

[thatoldthatkind.livejournal.com]

A small nod. "That is why they develop terraforming." He mentioned, glancing out over the landscape again.

[findmyownreason.livejournal.com]

He opens his eyes disorientated, greeted by a barren desert and a sun too large. For a minute the vertigo hits, linger traces of a fever spiking and he wonders if they failed. If Meteor did impact those two years ago and this is all that's left of what his world had once been. It takes him a minute to shake the feeling off and it's not until a voice speaks that it fully falls away from him.

Ami...

Her back is to him and he takes that moment of privacy to focus himself, re-orientating himself in the present. Wherever the present is. The sun slips backward and threatens his grasp on reality in this place so far from the familiar. But at her sound of distress, his mind focuses and he jerks forward, good hand out to catch her if she stumbles, his own eyes liding against the painful light to filter it through his lashes. His voice stays low though, calm.

"What is that?"

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

Cloud.

She won't fall; she won't let herself sink or collapse. The struggle for mastery of herself is won, this time, and although the fist at her side stays strongly clenched as she pushes those emotions down, it makes her wild-eyed when she turns around to answer him.

"The light of planet Venus." She does not speculate about its meaning. She can't let herself, yet.

"Where we are now is planet Mercury." To first appearances, there aren't even ruins left to mark the thriving civilization once housed here; they're just a short distance away, and very hidden. "Near the Caloris Basin."

[findmyownreason.livejournal.com]

Most of what she says doesn't make sense to him. He picks up on her distress but that's all. Planets though... it jars loose in his mind, picking through the mild fever and the subtle headache and he remembers another conversation what seems like a lifetime ago. With a girl with Ami's face who called herself Mercury and said she was the princess of a planet. His mind jogs further back to a final battle and an attack Sephiroth used that destroyed solar systems. Two of the planets wiped out in that attack had been Mercury and Venus.

He hadn't cared at the time because he hadn't recognized them. It hadn't connected to anything familiar until this moment.

He has to resist the sudden urge to sit down.

"Mercury's your home," he can show that he paid at least enough attention for that. "Who does Venus belong to?"

edit for some clarity

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

"The soldier of planet Venus. Like this planet, like all the planets of this solar system, it was ruined by Tsukino Usagi and its future was destroyed by her." The words are deliberately chosen to be cold; he has chosen to love Usagi and defend and comfort her for the very acts of taking away her, Mercury's, future and so many others.

If she knew it, she'd walk away and refuse to let him even one inch closer. As it is, she can't forgive that friendship. Because just once, she wants Tsukino Usagi to pay for her crimes and to taste loneliness and pain; and she wants to have that comfort and understanding for herself instead. But those words, that second half, Mercury can never bring herself to say.

"If you intend to remain here, look at it while understanding that."

this could go so, so badly...

[findmyownreason.livejournal.com]

"I know. I saw. A little."

It's said with his usual quiet tone and he deliberately turns his head to take the barren world in. Even the wasteland outside of Midgar boasts a little life in the form of monsters. Here, there's not even that. He's a bit confused by exactly what it means though. Usagi said that her warriors wouldn't be reborn. Ami says that she will. But he saw Ami and she was one of Usagi's soldiers in the dream the blond girl had. He thinks it has something to do with the alternates Ami spoke of with their cliff diving what feels like a lifetime ago. Close enough to each other's world and remembered person to be tangled but not quite an exact fit. This planet though... it's what a stolen future looks like in any dimension.

And it drives home the point that he's stolen two very precious futures himself.

Lifting his head he looks back at where that light in the sky appeared.

"So is Venus alive now? The soldier, not the planet."

[burnamotherdown.livejournal.com]

[Axel winces a little in the face of such a bright light, but he's a little surprised to hear Mercury- especially Mercury, of all people- whimper like she does. It wasn't that bad, was it?

He hesitates to reach out to her at first; Mercury doesn't seem like the touchy-feely type- but after a moment, concern wins out and he's turning to place one hand on her shoulder, while using the other to protect his eyes.]

You okay?

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

[It wasn't that bad, unless you happen to be a girl who lost herself to the Darkness a long time ago, a girl cast off and forgotten by the Light that burns and blinds her now. Her jaw tightens, and her fist clenches at her side to help her push back the reaction, before she turns away from it and turns a surprised face towards Axel.

The words she wants don't come. Her mouth does not form the shape of 'I'm fine' even though she intends for it to. She does not step away from his hand like she should. Instead, some of the tension leaves her shoulders finally.]

It's passed, now. [As if this means it was nothing to start with.]

[burnamotherdown.livejournal.com]

[Axel knows a lot about darkness, and being lost to it. Fortunately for him, however, this light doesn't seem to be affecting him the same way it does Mercury. If he'd really been thinking about it, he'd probably assume it was because no matter how realistic any dream was, in reality he was still entirely enveloped by the darkness.

But then, Axel also knew that some of his dreams lately were some kind of weird exception to every rule... and they were also starting to feel like more and more of a reality then the void he was left wandering otherwise.

His lips curl into a half-smile for a moment, but something about his expression remains questioning. Axel's still not entirely convinced she's doing okay.]

Yeah, but that's not what I asked.

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

[He's supposed to be brushed off by that cool response, not persist. She takes a breath before answering. She isn't sure herself, yet, what exactly just happened; only that it isn't the first time she's felt the same holy light, looking in Venus' sacred mirror.

That time had hurt, too.]

It's nothing. [Nothing serious.] Just the light. [She's not being evasive; it's the truth. But pride forbids saying it hurts her. That much was pathetically obvious already.]

If you're here... Is this a dream?

[burnamotherdown.livejournal.com]

[Sorry, Mercury. He's almost as stubborn as you.

Axel draws his hand back to rest it on his hip, watching Ami carefully. Why was she so keen on hiding what she was feeling? Not that he could really talk about feelings.]

Yeah. I guess so. Where are we?

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

He would normally turn away from her, but now he stands from his spot to just barely brush the back of his hand with hers.

"You know what this is, don't you?" He says quietly as the brightness flares, his own eyes closed against the bright light almost enveloping everything. Like her, he's dressed in all blue, to reflect Mercury.

/squees!

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

For a moment, she thinks about pretending to be ignorant. But the moment he says it, the moment he asks, she's sure, as sure as if she could see it through his powers.

"Planet Venus flared into a new life." She couches it in the half-mystical, half-astronomical terms. It says so much about what this means to her to note she doesn't pull away from that touch.

More than that, she sincerely doesn't know, and that's why, even as the pain of the light recedes, she is disquieted. She asks it more of herself than of him, "What happens next?"

Do they become hunters, perhaps even butchers, of a child? A baby? Unthinkable. Do they allow the girl to become a powerful threat, as surely her regrets from her last life would make her in this one? They cannot.

And so Mercury stands motionless, still.

<3

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

Riku breathes out something of a sigh as they stand together, and it's only then that he shifts a little away. He puts a hand against his head and winces, then lets his hand drop at his side. There are more new paths to take. He knows that and he knows she knows that. He breathes in and then out.

"I can't tell."

And they both know that's a lie, to cover something he may or may not want to say.

He hesitates.

He brings a hand up to her shoulder and gently pats her clothed back.

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

She thinks of forcing him, if she can. This is too important to leave to chance, when an answer is right beside her.

But it's wrong, for the simple reason that she knows what it is to be wanted only for her powers and abilities. She can't treat him like that. She tells herself the decision is only that, and nothing to do with also being unsure whether her powers would be strong enough.

She grabs at the faint hope that it's irrelevant. Venus was once born on Earth, but once born in the Heavens where her planet still shines, dimmed to its normal brightness now. Perhaps she will be born somewhere else.

If she has been born.

Mercury stiffens as she squares her shoulders, perhaps from nothing more than determination. At the very least, she will have to search and find out.

"Next time," she instructs Riku when she finally speaks, "Just say 'I won't'." Remove the lie.

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

"Hm."

He regards her quietly.

Concern hides behind his exterior, but then he straightens and looks back to the heavens. "I will."

Maybe.

Riku breathes in and drops his hand, closing his eyes, shaking his head.