- 006 || eternity stares back.

[hisdreamsmyfate.livejournal.com]

Is it dark? Are you still awake? Where are you? Is this a dream?

All of these thoughts and more would flutter through your mind, caught on the thin wire between consciousness, and being trapped within the confines of your own imagination. In time, it slowly dissapates, burning away as the universe reveals itself. You might find yourself standing on a tall, icly pillar, gazing at the stars that seem forever locked in twilight. Or perhaps you're deeper, nearly drowning in a pool of water that seems to have an almost green tinge, wouldn't you agree? and just barely managing to float to the surface. Planets are out of line, the clouds are tricoloured and thick, but no matter what.

The stars remain.

This land is open, free. Shattered. There are absolutely no restrictions here, and the asteroids have already grasped the concept. They shift and crumble before you, just before drifting into the great abyss. You might see those you know, wandering the stars - some with a confused stagger, and others with defined purpose.

Look down.

One of the asteroids is misshapen.

And there is the faint outline of a man resting upon it, sitting as if in meditation.

The will of this world guides you towards it.

Comments

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

[She flies, with those same great, black wings he's seen before. She shows no surprise at being in space or being able to breathe here; she was born here. Sailor senshi are born from stars and planets. Such a grandiose setting suits her, and this is the air of home. She is not awed by it, though she lets herself watch it before she finally turns away.

Mercury doesn't take too long to watch the starscape with that distant, impassively quiet expression before she turns to go towards the man, who she recognizes. She lands gracefully a short distance away. The feathery wings wrap around her as though to keep her warm in the cold of space; but the cold is equally something that doesn't trouble her. She greets Zack blandly.]

I didn't think a human would also make it this far. [Without a ship or spacesuit, at any rate.]

[hisdreamsmyfate.livejournal.com]

[It's a voice among voices, lost in the sea of souls. He recognizes this one, however, and the former-SOLDIER's head lifts slightly from its position.

He's Asleep here, in this world. This is his own personal Promised Land. He just hasn't built on it yet.

His eyes open.

The glow eminating from his irises is all but gone now, replaced with a dull glaze of death. He can see, he knows where he is...

He knows Mercury, the woman he'd encountered when he was yet alive.

And he smiles fondly.]

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

[She's not used to that sort of smile, and it says something that her first thought is to wonder what he's up to. People aren't glad to see her. She gets down to business instead.]

It's easy to tell just by looking that we're in space. So, just where is it?

[hisdreamsmyfate.livejournal.com]

[The voice comes, more from inside her own head rather than his own, physical being. It's soft, and still weakened slightly, not sounding very much human at all.]



[This much, he doesn't need to explain. A hand gently comes out, to wrap around her wrist.

Zack Fair has no pulse.]

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

[He's dead. Or, if he's standing here beside her, undead.

Or she's also dead. Mercury listens for the sound of her blood rushing through her ears.]

You already gave up your life, then.

But I haven't. Why am I here?

[hisdreamsmyfate.livejournal.com]

[He allows his hand to fall back in his lap, to its previous position. As if nothing happened. As of nothing changed.]



[He laughs softly, the tone lacking any life - the bounce it had before.]

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

[It's the truth. No matter how listened-to, no matter how respected for her power, no matter how much she's accomplished, no matter how many times she refuses to be the slave, she is not free. She cannot take her life into her own hands when it's already been put into someone else's.

She knows it. She nods.]

Sometimes... I seem to feel more dreaming than awake.

[plotdeviceturk.livejournal.com]

Tseng's stood on the edge of this abyss a few times, nearly stepped over the edge on three occasions. It's a heady sensation, but he's always had a reason to turn back around or simply been dragged. There's a different quality to this time though, like it's not his perspective on things he's seeing.

He recognizes Zack in an instant, regrets that had lost some of their bite clawing at him again. He'd tried to get there in time, to save instead of destroy for once and failed. He doesn't know what to say, or how to even begin so he simply stands there waiting and watching the brilliant sky around them.

[hisdreamsmyfate.livejournal.com]

His back is facing the Turk - the very same Turk he'd ask to watch over Aerith those years ago as he, Sephiroth, and Cloud headed to Nibelheim. It was the mission that would change their lives forever, and ended two of them that night. And he's still in that meditative stance, a lack of a Buster Sword making it difficult, but manageable.

The voice booms in the man's head, nonetheless.



He doesn't even need to turn around to know who it is.

[plotdeviceturk.livejournal.com]

"She waited for you." Came the non-answer, "At least, for a while."

He still had those letters for Zack, sitting in a locked drawer of a desk. He'd never read them and never would either. Their contents weren't meant for him. He'd had a plan, once upon a time, a sideways manouver that had never come to pass because Zack had been just that good at hiding.

"I'm sorry."

[hisdreamsmyfate.livejournal.com]

The former SOLDIER is quiet, only shifting a little in his near-transparent position to give the man at least some acknowledgement. But then he eventually nods, taking in the information. Aerith had waited for him... then she stopped. She stopped when she realized he was never coming home, and maybe it was better this way.

She'd be safe. He trusted Cloud.



Finally, he turns to glance over his shoulder - dead eyes staring back at the man, still alive, though laced more with curiousity than anything else.

[plotdeviceturk.livejournal.com]

"My duty is to the Turks."

It wasn't a lie either, they'd walked out on ShinRa while Zack had been held in Nibelheim and Veld had been ordered executed. Tseng had shot him yes, but Veld had lived quite nicely after being patched up.

"It's been seven years since I last saw you. A lot has happened."

[hisdreamsmyfate.livejournal.com]

Tseng's comment is bypassed - he's heard enough of the 'because it's my jobs's or 'because I was ordered to'. What does he think, he want? Not the Turks as a whole.



He isn't angry, or accusing. Just... sad. The air has gotten thick around them, even in what was meant to be the vacuum of space.

[findmyownreason.livejournal.com]

At first, Cloud thinks he's back in Bugenhagen's observatory. It's the same forever of stars with the planets drifting through the eternal night, no up or down to trust except where his feet are standing to prove otherwise. He sees the asteroids and there's a single sliver of cold down his spine, remembering another not so long ago and the way it had filled the entire sky. But no, that's past. He's here. And as he looks around, trying to orient himself in the spinning world that's threatening to make him motion sick if he pays too much attention he sees:

"Zack!"

(ooc. as if I could resist an opening like that)

[hisdreamsmyfate.livejournal.com]

Cloud Strife.

For you, the landscaping is even more unsteady than usual. Your footing will cause even the sturdiest boulders to crumble, the sky blacker than it ever should be. It's a cold, haunting land of desolation, and it just continues to give way the deeper you move inward.

Nearly impossible to navigate, you would eventually find yourself in a new area anyway - a cliff, overlooking the outskirts of the still-bustling city of Midgar (with one sector graciously leveled, mind you). The wind is unforgiving, the faint outline of a man standing on its peak.

A familiar man, though the timelines are that skewed. He doesn't realize this yet.

He's not even a memory to you.

[findmyownreason.livejournal.com]

It's a struggle to get anywhere and Cloud's cheeks and the fingers of his gloves are streaked with dirt, a fine dusting of the powdered earth that falls apart under him in his hair too. But he doesn't slow down and he doesn't stop, chin tucked, unnatural blue eyes narrowed as he slowly, steadily makes his way forward no matter how many times the ground gives way or shifts under him. Zack's ahead. He's dragged his mako fevered body across rocks and dead bodies before to reach his friend. This - this is nothing and there's a streak of a younger him in the set of his jaw and the stubborn slant of his pale eyebrows.

He doesn't notice Midgar beyond. Not yet. All he sees is that peak where so much of his world ended and the man at it's summit and he remembers, heart tightening and tearing and thumping too loud in his chest, in his ears. Zack.

Determined he may be but he still finds himself hesitating before that last climb and his voice comes out as dusty as the earth falling apart around him.

"Zack!"

[hisdreamsmyfate.livejournal.com]

He doesn't move, doesn't breathe from his perch upon the wastelands. The now-paled, now-bloodied SOLDIER simply stares out into the distance, head turned from Cloud and black hair lightly flowing in the wind. The most amount of life you'll get, mister ex-SOLDIER sir.

Why should he respond? What has Cloud done for him? He didn't even exist for a long while and that shouldn't earn the other's respect. Zack Fair's legacy was just as ruined at the sword in the ground, the sunflowers molded and wilted in the dirt. Blood drips steadily down to the rotted plants, landing upon them but disappearing almost immediately. It's a slow trickle at first, but then the crimson begins gushing out.

Maybe you'll trip and get it on your face again.

Maybe that would be enough to remind you.

[findmyownreason.livejournal.com]

He stands at the foot of that rise and it seems as if there's an eternity between where he is and where Zack stands. Zack. His friend, his hero, his role model. His savior. And - for far too long, his forgotten ghost, haunting around inside his head with all the other voices that had rattled there. Something about being ignored, about not being heard - it strikes him close to home and he's hit again with the emptiness of realizing he'd forgotten the man that had saved him.

He remembers now!

- but that doesn't make up for forgetting then. And it doesn't make up for living the life now that Zack should have instead. It never should have been Zack on that rise dying.

He's got the SOLDIER eyes at least. His eyesight is sharp enough to see the blood and the dead flowers and the rust on the sword. If the world was right, none of that would be there.

"Zack!" If he's supposed to leave, it's too bad. He's not going. And his pale brows come down as he starts the struggle up the incline. The blood coats his boots, slicks his gloves when he has to hitch forward to catch himself and pull himself upward. He's forgotten. He's made a mess of his future that was supposed to be something Zack could be proud of. He's failed to keep the woman he knows the man above him loves safe and his guilt is layered when it comes to green, teasing eyed Aerith. But he's not going to give up and he's not going to leave Zack alone in a world like this. If his friend doesn't want him anymore than so be it. But he'll take his stand there if the world is crumbling. He can't do much, he never could. But he can stubbornly refuse to give up.

[hisdreamsmyfate.livejournal.com]

A wing sprouts. A wing grows.

And a wing is enough to wrap around Cloud, aiming to keep the other suspended in the air while the SOLDIER finally turns around slowly, lifeless eyes now turned towards his friend and locking onto blues. But there's a sadness there, and concern for the one who'd forgotten him so long ago.

Time be damned, he wants him to remember.

Cloud is Cloud. Not a former First Class. Not someone he wasn't.

The words threaten to come forward, bloodied mouth opening in speech but more blood simply gushes forward. It stains his shirt, riddled with bullet holes and dead flesh. It's the most amount of color on a face completely devoid of the pallor of life. Even though he doesn't verbally speak, the words come through to his friend anyway.



His frown deepens, his hands coming up to rest against the other's shoulders firmly.

[promotedpawn]

[Dreams. Games played by the subconscious, doors that open to endless worlds outside human reach. His whole existence could very well be considered one of a dream. Existing as long as he thinks, vanishing the moment he stops only to reappear again if he ever starts once more. A being outside worlds, above and below them, a dream and a nightmare, that's all he is.

He had thought that he had lost the ability to dream when he was born. Apparently he's wrong, or he has discovered a power to visit dreams from others. It doesn't make a real difference, he's used to observe things and to immerse himself in them occasionally. Primo stands, observing the stars lazily, they look so much like world fragments that he's almost tempted to try to reach for one. It always feels strange to observe the stars, something humans do quite often, something he himself did before as one.]

What kind of dream is this?

[hisdreamsmyfate.livejournal.com]

[If he happens to look down, the rubble moves. It crumbles and groans, shifting into a pathway that then leads to some sort of portal in the middle of this aether. The blurry sight of a dark city can be seen, the sky forever obscured by black and green-tinged clouds.

Will you do it? Will you step forward?]

[promotedpawn]

[The heart of a world. He has never looked deep enough into a world to reach it. Primo turns his attention to the pathway, feeling the light ping of curiosity inside of him.]

I don't believe in luck. Even if I did, we both don't get along.

[hisdreamsmyfate.livejournal.com]

[The world will urge him forward, seeing the destruction ShinRa will cause to his own world. To show him what greed will do, how lingering sadness can be... it's his memory, combined with others in this realm who had experienced the same, playing in the air like an old, distorted film.]



[Underneath his feet, this newcomer will find bright, yellow lilacs sprouting through the grimy, cragged surface.]

[promotedpawn]

[Primo gives in to the urging, fine, show him what you want to show though the reasons of why escape him. He observes the scenes played in front of him with little reaction or expression, used to see tragedies like this or even bigger ones to play right in front of his eyes. He stood aside watching the girl he loved the most have her body teared into pieces until nothing recognizable of her pretty face was left. Nothing this world can show him will unnerve him particularly.

He eyes the yellow lilacs and the sight manages to steal a smile from his face. He can't help to be reminded of Beatrice's Golden Land.]

Because there's always hope? Or because it simply doesn't matter how screwed things are?

[hisdreamsmyfate.livejournal.com]

[Because even if the land around Midgar is dead and dry, travel a while out. The world becomes beautiful again and riddled with life. Suffering has an ending point somewhere - it just takes some moving on to get to it.]