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]

"You, too," he replies, automatic, as it's expected. There's even a faint, distracted smile in return that he casts back over his shoulder after he gives the door one last, wary glance. It doesn't belong there, and might disappear as soon as he turns his back, again, but for the moment he still worries something might break through.

At least there's no shortage of clear space to fight in, now, though - the runway might as well be the top of the whole world, spread out beneath the vault of sky and a good, long walk from edge to edge.

"I mean, if we weren't sort of in trouble, anyway."

[isomorphology]

"It's still good to meet new people." She insists. It's how she met Anon, Flynn and Sam. Always some kind of danger. Something that threatens the way the existence of the Grid. It's not a problem now. She and Sam are in the User World, and she's learning.

[anonfantry]

"Yeah." He nods again, though his conviction is not so great. It's probably only the distraction, the concern - it isn't as if he can be so choosy in making new friends, anyway, and for the very few that he has, to begin with, the circumstances of their first meetings haven't been much better.

Just as he opens his mouth to say something else, the droning roar of engines preemptively drowns him out, a great shadow rolling slowly over the runway beneath the huge metal bulk of another passing airship. Cloud makes a face (a flatter version of what appears to be his default frown) and turns his gaze up to watch until the earth-rattling sound begins to die down.

No use trying to talk over that.

"Er... Maybe we should get moving, again."

[isomorphology]

Her head tilts at the uncertainty of his voice. All she can do is offer a smile and hope that he believes it. Her head then snaps around to look at the airship, her eyes wide. It's nothing like the Recognizers of the Grid, but it's enough to make the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

"It might be a good idea. Where do we go?"

[anonfantry]

The ship's a largely unremarkable sight to him; time spent stationed in Junon has either assured his desensitization or eventual deafness, and so long as he isn't slated for a ride on one, airships have become no more significant than the occasional, benign distraction - or annoyance. Where to go, now, though - that's a good question. It seems they've plateaued, and the door to the stairwell is gone, after all, forgotten as he moves into a far more meaningless dream.

"Well... Where are you from? I can escort you back. You should probably stay in until we're sure the danger's past."

[isomorphology]

"The Gird." Quorra shakes her head. "Except I'm not even there right now. So, we can go wherever you want to go."

Her eyes go back up to the airship. Sam has told her about planes, but she wonders if they are anything like the airship. She hasn't gone to an airport and seen it for herself just yet. Sam told her they may have to, given he was going to be CEO of ENCOM again.

[anonfantry]

"The Grid?" He hardly has to clarify, given his incredulous tone, but- "Never heard of it. Is it in Midgar?"

The name sounds about right, at any rate - or so his short stay of experience in the city says, though by now he's become far more accustomed to the workings of this port than that massive hub of civilization (for a given value of civilized, in that equation).

Regardless, though, that means something of a change of plans. The Company facilities are probably out of the question, given she's obviously civilian, but there's an exceptionally cheap inn in the upper city that he knows of (and not a bad place, either), or perhaps lower town hospitality-? (Though in the latter most case, he certainly wouldn't be able to follow her all the way, given the small fishing village's reeking opinion of Shinra.)

Noting her close attention to the passing airship, he lights upon another idea, "Oh, uh, were you- Waiting for a flight?"

[isomorphology]

"No. It's inside a computer." Quorra smiles at him and laughs a little bit. "I've never heard of Midgar... so we're from different places. I don't know how yet, but sometimes I meet different people when I fall asleep."

Maybe it's a side-effect from being in the User World. She hasn't sat down to figure it out just yet.

"No. I was exploring when I found you."

[anonfantry]

"Um..." The smile softens the blow a bit, but the disbelief in his hesitance is unmistakable. "Inside a computer" is not any figure of speech he's ever heard before, and the weirdness miraculously doesn't stop, there.

"When you-" Fall asleep? Now he's certain she's messing with him, or maybe just not all there, though if it's the former, he can't even pretend to get the joke. "Uh, okay." Right. So. Maybe he'll just... Focus on the stuff he can handle, for now.

"You were looking for something? Or lost?"

[isomorphology]

"No. Exploring doesn't always mean you're looking for something. Sometimes you just want to know where you are." She smiles. "You've never just explored before, Cloud?"

[anonfantry]

"Not since I was a little kid," he admits, struggling (and meeting moderate success) to sound nonchalant as he shuffles his feet and casts his gaze away. "I don't have the time for that stuff, anymore."

Idle pastimes, hobbies - these are undertakings he's always gone through alone, anyway, and back then it had been just for something to occupy his time. In recent years, he's found it much simpler and easier just to bury himself in his service and in training.

[isomorphology]

Her head tilts as she glances around. "But, we're in a dream. You can have all the time you want! Especially if you go into another person's dream."

[anonfantry]

"But I'm not..."

Asleep - the word sticks in his mind rather than finishing his sentence, snagged on some hook shaped like certainty. The world seems far too real to be a dream; he can smell the scent of the ocean on the breeze, the fleeting taste of fresher air, and the sharp, pungent exhaust overtop it all. He can feel the cool morning atmosphere, carrying along the promise of unseasonable heat, and the weight of his uniform and the gun on his back.

And even without all of that to convince him, it's difficult enough to overcome the staunch position of his better sense.

"That's impossible. Besides, even dreams end, eventually. Nobody can have all the time they want."

[isomorphology]

She doesn't pretend to understand dreams. The are strange to her as the User World. How she can be in places she has never seen or meet people that she's never met before... she keeps meaning to ask Sam about it, but it never seems important enough to ask about. He is so busy with preparations for ENCOM. He and Alan work into the night.

"Is that how dreams work?" She asks. "I wake up back in my own world, but when I go back to sleep? Sometimes I'm here. Sometimes I'm in other places. I don't understand dreaming."

[anonfantry]

"Sort of," he fails to clarify. Dreams don't work just any which way, though, and that's probably hard to explain for somebody who does have a way with words. Cloud, decidedly, does not, and so he's left to work with what he's got.

"If this is a dream, we should be able to do anything. Like-" Concentrating on the task at hand, now, the trooper rounds on the far edge of the airfield, toward the horizon. "Decide what time of day it is, or change the color of the sky."

His skepticism remains largely intact, right up until the unearthly blue bursts through the soft orange of Junon's sunrise, turning the whole world ahead abruptly to a sunny afternoon. Just the way he'd imagined it, a moment before.

"Wh-What the-?"

Well, he hadn't really expected it to happen. The passing flock of bright, white gulls scattering all around them as they change course to light on the runway startles him just as badly, as he whips back around to face Quorra, dumbfounded.

[isomorphology]

Her eyes widen as the sky changes. The only control she's ever seen like it was when Flynn could manipulate the code of the Grid. Quorra moves in a small circle, spinning around to take everything in view. The sky changes from blue to orange. Colors she thought she'd never see.

"It worked!"

[anonfantry]

"It... Did?" Mouth still agape, Cloud continues to visibly flounder, as if there's any room left for his practical disbelief. Another half-turn back, and one of those idly milling seagulls is replaced in a flurry of feathers by a miniature chocobo, which toddles around in a warking circle before he decides against it and the bird vanishes altogether. The rest have taken off in a startled scatter, but he hardly notices.

Lucid dreaming is a new feat for him, and there's no easy learning curve. Just the thought seems as if it should wake him - but it doesn't, or at least not yet, and he's left just to stare.

"I guess- This isn't real. But you're not a part of my dream, either, are you?"

[isomorphology]

"It did!" Quorra nearly starts bouncing where she stands. Instead she runs over to his side, pointing up to the sky.

It's beautiful. She's only seen the colors like it before on some sunsets and sunrises with Sam. It looks different in a dream, but still just as gorgeous. She stands close to him as he manipulates the dreamscape, her head tilting at the sight of the chocobo. She's never seen a bird like that before.

"No." Quorra smiles sheepishly. "I'm from somewhere else. Sometimes we run into dreams that belong to other people."

[anonfantry]

"That's... Really-" Crazy? Unbelievable? Impossible? He's run clean out of potential descriptors (not all that verbose, to begin with), and so he settles again for that apprehensive silence that hopefully isn't too hard to decipher. Setting his sights back on the faraway horizon, Cloud shakes his head and watches the familiar shades of sunset invading, pale clouds painted with gilded edges the color of fire - it's a memory, not a conscious effort, this time, and comes through much clearer for it. Sunsets off Junon are always pretty spectacular, but he's gotten so used to them that his gaze drifts aimlessly, without transfixion, as the shadows grow long around them.

"...So what do we do, now?"

(If I don't wake up)

The thought sends a few of those shadows trembling with the fleeting threat of becoming more of the monsters that had been hounding him, before, but he manages to tamp down the fear - this time.

[isomorphology]

"I don't know. We could try talking?" She laughs and sits down on the ground, despite the fact they are on an airfield. Cloud can change it to however he wants it to look. Quorra hardly feels like she's in danger when she knows that. Maybe it's a bit too early to trust him, but she does. Cloud seems like a good person.

"What do you want to talk about?"

[anonfantry]

Visibly taken aback by her simply making herself comfortable in the middle of the runway, Cloud hesitates before realizing - oh. Well, it hardly matters, does it? As long as he can keep control of things, here, then there shouldn't really be anything to worry about.

Just. Waiting out the dream without somehow putting his foot in his mouth or mortally wounding himself by embarrassment, alone.

"Um. Okay." With a slight nod, he looks around (almost self-consciously), before awkwardly taking a seat a good few feet away. When prompted for a topic, though, he's still at a bit of a loss.

"...I don't know. Uh- What kind of place are you from? The Grid - it kind of sounds like a city."

Not touching on that inside a computer bit, just yet.

[isomorphology]

"The Grid is a computer system." She clarifies. "TRON City is the hub of the Grid. There was another city... a long time ago." Except it was destroyed by CLU when he went to purge the ISOs.

She quickly glances down before looking back up at him. "Now I'm in the User World. I guess you'd call it the real world? I'm supposed to help change the world, but I have no idea how to do that."

[anonfantry]

"So you're- Not really..."

(A person?)

No. That sounds a lot meaner than what he intends to ask, because she certainly seems real enough, so Cloud cuts himself off in a way he hopes comes off more thoughtful than chagrined. Pulling his knees in toward his chest, he rests his arms over them, looking out toward the horizon, again.

"You're supposed to change a world you've never been to, before? That doesn't sound very fair."

[isomorphology]

"Like you?" Quorra guesses and shakes her head. "No. I'm... not a User. I'm something else." She isn't sure if she should explain that she's an ISO. What they are, and why they were eliminated. It might be best if no one knew that.

She laughs. "I'm not alone. I think that makes it easier."

[anonfantry]

"Oh." Of course she isn't; hadn't she mentioned someone else? (Or maybe he'd just imagined that.) "Yeah, I guess so.

"Even if it's still a... Pretty tall order, it must be a lot better with somebody else."