☄ let down your hair

[nohometown]

You find yourself standing beneath a dark, clouded sky, with a great tower rising before you. A forbidding sight, so at first it's easy to overlook one aspect of the scene that seems somehow out of place.

Yet if one is observant, one may notice that there's a long, unbound skein of silver hanging down one side of the building, from an open window that's quite high up (the 67th Floor, to be precise). In that high chamber, Sephiroth sits waiting, thoughtful and even a little wistful. He isn't supposed to let his hair down without being ordered to do so, but he tires of his seclusion here, and of following orders.

The doors and lower windows of the tower cannot be entered, sealed by some force, and guarded. There appears to be no viable way to enter, other than that strange, pale, silver fall of hair.

So, do you climb it?

[[OOC: The tale of Sephpunzel. Relevant image. If you'd like to be already in the story or play some character other than the rope-climber, be my guest!

You can also request child Sephiroth (pinnaculum) instead of adult Sephiroth, but I'll default to adult if not specified otherwise.]]

Comments

[nohometown]

[However, he doesn't comment on her appearance.]

It's good to see you, but it's dangerous here.

[His world tends to be bleak. Utilitarian at times; but even the more frivolous designs aren't usually colorful or bright.

In this dream, he has no agency; like a princess trapped in a tower. (Bringing up the question of how much agency he has in his waking life.)]

They might return at any moment. [However, he pulls up his hair, coiling it up and resting it beside him.]

[waterfell]

[She knows what it is to live a life determined by others, whether as the dutiful girl who only lived to make her mother proud, or the soldier expected to melt to the whims of a cold man, who infuriates him by refusing.

Maybe that's why she doesn't like the note of futility in Sephiroth's words.]

So you're saying I should hide?

[nohometown]

[He turns to regard the floor where they find themselves. It's the Science Department. The light is dim and greenish. He gets to his feet, curling his hair around his arm.]

It might be for the best. The professor won't be pleased if he finds you here.

[waterfell]

[She smirks, cocky, as if to say the professor's wishes (should) matter very little.]

If you didn't want someone here, you wouldn't have let down your hair.

[nohometown]

I didn't say I didn't.

[Why did he let his hair down? Perhaps it was a mistake, whim that it was. Well, he did it, and there's no undoing it.]

I only wished to warn you. No one's here now.

[There are ample crates and equipment to hide behind, and he's not worried.]

They'd have to climb up first, so you don't have to hide yet.

[waterfell]

You were lonely. [It's a guess from the knight's own experience; but she'd deny that if asked, and perhaps it's true of the one closed away in the tower.]

[nohometown]

[Of course, she's right, and Sephiroth can't readily admit to that true as it might be.]

I was curious as to what might happen. Perhaps I wanted something new to happen, so I tried something different. And now you're here.

[waterfell]

[Curiosity that required a person - or else the hair would have been of no use, and he's a man sharp enough to know it. But thieves do not question whether goods are stolen; and a girl running away from her own loneliness doesn't push the issue with another.

Though... if he had been lonely... perhaps they would have shared that in common.]

Like whistling for an entertainer. How unflattering!

[nohometown]

I hadn't thought of it that way. Do you? I don't wish to be entertained.

[What is it he does want? Aside from an end to the loneliness he can't admit.]

I want a change.

[waterfell]

I can give that to you. [She is, after all, water: change itself, and her proof of this power is in all the ways she's changed her own world.

It might be warning more than proof.]

[nohometown]

Can you?

[He's skeptical. He's never been promised much, and none of those promises he had been given had meant much in the end.

After all, here he is, stuck in a tower. Alone. Except now, not so alone.]

What can you do?

[waterfell]

I can take you to see any part of this planet, or even the stars.

[She is, after all, no ordinary knight but a magical being capable of these feats - if he lets her.]

Somehow, I don't think someone should have to be content without having the experiences they long for.

[nohometown]

Even the stars?

[He asks this question thoughtfully. The stars hold a certain appeal to him. They draw him, though ShinRa has no active space program, only the latent beginnings of one.]

And what would I do, among the stars? What does one do there? [It seems a very distant, impractical dream.]

[waterfell]

Why not find out for yourself? You wanted to explore, to see somewhere else, to go somewhere else, didn't you?

[nohometown]

Yes, I did.

I wanted to see everything. To experience everything. To know--everything.

[But he can feel the world closing in. As he sits here, in the tower. If he stays here long enough, there will be no more choice for him to make.]

So many things. But I've always been a SOLDIER.

[Serving these people faithfully, and for what?]

[waterfell]

[That's why it's time to leave with her. She, too, has always been a soldier - without the capital letters. The knight knows that fate.]

Are you saying there's something you want before that? What is it?