oo1 ❄ I've seen this somewhere before

[anonfantry]

The scenery within this new (perhaps not quite) foreign subconscious is a confused jumble, as if its unsuspecting creator cannot quite decide just where to be — a snowy mountainside has burst up from beneath the streets of a staircase city set into the rise of sheer, seaside cliff. The pieces are whole, details sharp and clear on narrow, towering buildings all crammed close together and rocky outcroppings with their blankets of heavy snow (still falling, as it is, in weird pockets only over corresponding ground).

But these little scenes are shattered among each other, shifting constantly, uncertain as the blank, white sky above, which reflects a dull grey in the ocean below. Where these two endless, colorless stretches of space reach to meet on the horizon, they blend seamlessly, as if meeting the edge of this conflicting reality might be as easy as setting sail for the fragile inner boundary of the eggshell shape it almost appears to be locked within.

Bright and cold, the silence falls as heavy as the inclement weather, in each vacuum of space that covers the mountainside, doing its best to muffle the staccato beat of his boots on uneven pavement broken over icy faces of stone and the competing race of his heart, now trying its hardest to burst clear out of his chest. (And in a dream, who's to say it mightn't?) With his rifle hugged tight against his back by its strap, where it beats a solid rap against his shoulder blades, a sharp reprimand for every stumble, a lone soldier in drab blue is fighting a very literal uphill battle.

The uniform he wears obscures all of him but the lower half of the pale, strained expression writ across his face, solemn as he barrels up the insurmountable slope in leaps and bounds, shadows chasing behind as he rounds a street corner onto another craggy patch of open ground. Snow kicks up in misty clouds around his ankles as he stumbles, but doesn't stop, always only one step ahead of his pursuers.

They're monsters, or maybe only the distant memory of a child's imagining of such, solid enough as they crumble up out of the earth in his wake. But they fade to dust as phantoms while he manages still to evade the catch of claws and snapping jaws at the heels of his badly scuffed black boots, the shirttail tucked under his belts. Shameful as it is not to stand and fight, outpacing them is this dream's objective, instead, and he can't seem to stop his feet from moving on, hands scrabbling at each new hold to pull himself higher.

At least not on his own.

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[anonfantry]

They're there one second and gone the next - that's all he knows, for certain, and the relief in that instant is so overwhelming that he thinks he might shatter into mist and crumbled permafrost the same way, as his feet slow and stagger to a stop beneath him. And that might have been a relief, too, to spend the rest of this momentary existence as nothing, dust. But the feeling is fleeting, swirling away with the deepening snowfall over the loosely strung together patches of mountain ground, a path carved into the cliff and winding upward aimlessly, past the daunting figure barring his way.

He takes his first step backward, and the wind in those gaps of storm becomes a gale, protesting retreat. The sound dies down as despairing builds under the hollow sheer exertion has left beneath his frantically beating heart. It has a SOLDIER's eyes, unmistakable, but he's suddenly sure he's come to face it down, just the same. His hands shake more than he'd like as he reaches back for his rifle.

(This is wrong. Something's wrong.)

[lottato_prima]

He doesn't give chase, nor does he back away.

The black, smoldering mass of a man or something else holds its ground beyond the struggling boy. And there's something in his stance that truly, genuinely, offers a sense of condolence. He felt sorry for the other, facing such terrible elements, being in this tight situation with little an escape palpable. The motion for the rifle is not un-noticed, hand dropping at his side and a small, pitiful sound rolling into the gusting wind. He doesn't want to hurt his friend, but it's clear the boy still perceives him as a threat.

The black mist fades, so the form of the man and not creature is more distinct.

Though words still don't come. His eyes flicker to the weapon, then to the young Infantryman's face, as if searching for answers to unspoken questions. Within the Lifestream, he seemed to have the ability to talk to others from different times, dimensions and eras. There was no limit to what he could do, and yet a limit on what he was.

Cloud was still young here. Still learning. He probably hadn't even met the SOLDIER yet, at this point. So his hands extend, to make himself vulnerable. He had no weapons, and no intention of ending the other's troubled life.

But whether Cloud would attack... well. That was up to him.

[anonfantry]

He may be frightened, still bleeding off the frantic chill of adrenaline from the chase, but he isn't any more cruel at heart than he's ever been.

It hits him harder even than that initial burst of terror - that it may be a monster, still, standing before him, whatever its apparent form, but there isn't any malice in the wretched thing. His hands falter in position on his gun, dropping his aim- And then dropping the weapon, loose in an idle, one-handed grip as he tears off his helmet with the other after another moment's worth of indecisive hesitation. The scowl on his unmistakably young face is more confusion than anger (though he might be angry, too, at himself, on some deeper level of this not at all complex dream).

"...Who are you?" The waver in his voice comes of the effort it takes to keep the words from breaking up, but he doesn't try to take them back. Because it's a who, not a what, if it can radiate anything half as close to sympathy for him, and sound so wounded by his simple self-defense.

"What do you want?"

[lottato_prima]

He drops to a knee, a hand on the younger's shoulder in a semblance of comfort, trying to look him in the eye.

They probably haven't even met yet, where he's from. They are but two strangers, intertwined in the same dream, and left to fend for themselves in a realm where anything could happen. And for that, the familiar protectiveness comes again, threatening to encompass the boy until he physically came his shield, keeping his friend same from any attack, no matter how savage.

And oh, he wants to.

He really wants to be the one to keep Cloud safe. But... this is also the boy's trial. And for that, he holds back, moving away a little, and urging the other to follow instead. The monsters would only be kept at bay temporarily, and they were running out of time.

He's on his feet.

And he silently waves the other over, further up the crooked, cragged mountain.

[anonfantry]

Close, but he's missed his guess by a few days' time. Modeoheim has come and gone, but there's simply no reconciling the memory of the Zack he knows, has only just met as recently, with the stranger in front of him, now - couldn't be, even if he claimed outright to be who he is, rather than wrapping himself in silence. In some defensive instinct (not for himself, though, not at all) that Cloud can't seem to fit his mind around, either.

He doesn't move for the hand on his shoulder, that weirdly entreating gesture, but matches that piercing blue gaze until he's forced to turn away by the sheer oddity of all the feeling in it. He knows no one who would aspire to such lofty heights for him, and it's not a prospect he's any more prepared to handle than that of Zack's obscured identity.

Cloud's always been pretty good at denial.

With the wordless invitation to move forward, again, he drops his focus to his feet, studying the toes of his boots, half-buried now in snow, as if it takes some concentrated, careful effort to fall back into step. Maybe it does, but he manages.

The cold bites at bare skin, where it can, and seeps into his toes (and perhaps he's thrown off the covers in a fit of unrest, to feel it so well, in the waking world), and he stares openly at the stranger as he moves on.

[lottato_prima]

There's some nostalgia hidden in those blue eyes, nearly impossible to spot in the snowdrift, but it's there.

It's almost hypnotizing, the way he's urging the other on, moving slowly through the snowy gust, yet staying close to his friend as to not lose him amidst the chaos. And the gust itself might be pushing the boy on as well, trying to move him to safety and prevent the bitter frost from biting deeper into him. He can't control what happens in another's dream, even with all of his power within the Lifestream, and he wouldn't change it even if he could.

Though he knows its only a dream, and it was likely that Cloud would wake up before anything bad happened, Zack's own consciousness was very much real. He would remember this easily, even if Cloud didn't. Still, he had the need to help, in any situation, if he was able. It was what he promised his friend, no matter what the age or situation.

And the more Zack moves, the more cohesive his form becomes. He's less of a monster now, and his hair might even be changing a little to something more familiar, to keep Cloud's nerves at ease. He wants to show that he's a friend, that he wants to help.

Where do you want to go?

His voice is gentle.

I'm here to help.

Comforting.

[anonfantry]

The quietly irresistible force is unnecessary, almost irritating, in some benign way - he keeps moving of his own accord, in quiet determination, and he doesn't need to be ushered along. He's run far enough alone; what's one more leg of this journey?

That's just a childish matter of pride he barely has a hold on, though, and the little bit of Cloud that knows when occasionally to be mature sees that, stays him from protest as easily as the weirdly prevalent comfort in the presence beside him. The increasingly familiar presence that he finds himself reaching out toward without thinking, before long-

"...Zack?" Something clicks in his head, and there's almost a touch of bewildered amusement in his tone as he reaches out a hand to confirm that it's not just some phantom shadow with Zack's face walking beside him. The change in him is instant, either way, where he softens distinctly around the edges of his closed off demeanor. Cloud may not know the SOLDIER very well, yet, but he's sure enough from the few times they've spoken, already, that it's probably impossible to not let down one's guard at least a little, around Zack.

"What d'you mean? Don't you know where we're supposed to go?"

[lottato_prima]

He stays still when the other moves.

He feels the touch of another's hand, resting against his own. He remembers what it was like, when he was alive and this was all solid and tangible. He remembers Cloud, after his first real mission in ShinRa, just having killed a man and coming to him to talk about it. He remembers the advice given, and how they both promised they'd be there for each other until the world stopped turning and his breath ceased. And he just continues to quietly smile, gently wrapping his fingers around the younger boy's palm. It's to say, 'it's okay. it's okay, I'm here.' Because he never left in the first place.

And he won't now.

There's a light tug on that hand, trying to guide his friend. They needed to get out of this storm, into the light, into someplace safe and warm and away from grabbing claws or snarling fangs. The monsters would be kept at bay, as long as he was around. Nothing would ever hurt Cloud again.

Only a visitor.

You control this world.

You control your own reality.

He wasn't all-powerful.

And he can't keep the monsters at bay forever.

[anonfantry]

His own grip is startlingly childish in its brief enthusiasm, tightening into something not so tentative at that careful encouragement - before relenting a little, as he reins in the sudden, overwhelming reassurance of just having Zack around. Or anyone, really, to drag him through the snow by anything but the thin, fraying thread of his own driving fears. But it's better that it's Zack, the only real friendly face he's known in far too long. There's really no need to justify it to himself, beyond that simple fact.

Even if his words don't seem quite right, somehow, and Cloud can't begin to understand the meaning in them. It doesn't dampen his high spirits enough to matter. It does strike him as strange that a SOLDIER might not know better where they're meant to go from here, however. But he simply reminds himself that he isn't on any assignment he can remember, and that if Zack's here, that probably means he isn't either, and sets the mild curiosity aside. There'll be time for such reasonable leaps of logic when the rule of the waking world has reasserted itself.

His response sounds enough like permission to pick their destination, at any rate, that Cloud needs no other excuse to put his vote toward getting out of here.

"Come on!"

There's a mixed up little village around here, somewhere - that he knows without question. It's safer than the mountainside, if no less definite, made up of memories and speculation (echoes of Nibelheim and faded textbook pictures of Gongaga, which is a place he's only heard of once and will never admit to having looked up as soon as possible, afterward, just to know a little bit more). And his next step forward is nearly a bound, as he turns to pull Zack onward in his wake, instead, snow and miserable white alike melting out of sight.