Sephiroth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nohometown) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
onepassingnight2012-04-29 07:41 pm
nohometown) wrote in onepassingnight2012-04-29 07:41 pm
☄ let down your hair
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.]]
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.]]
he's just the cutest tiny-winy chocobaby :3
It's simple enough. Sephiroth doesn't hesitate any longer. Reaching out, he casts Mini, the magic surrounding Cloud for a moment before it diminishes him. This done, Sephiroth bends down to scoop up Cloud with one arm, holding the now-miniature chocobo carefully, though securely.
He's not a very comforting person, but he does offer a little comfort.]
It won't be long.
[And with that, he heads for the hair rope leading down, which used to weigh him down, but now is his way out. He looks out. The way seems clear. However, the time they're heading down is when they'll be most vulnerable. All the more reason not to delay another moment. After taking a deep breath, he starts to climb down.]
yup he's just going to curl up into a ball and die now
He'll only ever stab you in the back once, Sephiroth.
BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THAT.
Whether or not he manages to affect an appropriately reassuring air, that minor comfort appears to assuage the better part of Cloud's concerns - well, that, or maybe he's just too busy trying to cope with being carted around like a chocobo-shaped care package, as they embark on the first monumental step in what is sure to be the grandest journey. His motion sickness is still something to be contended with, after all, and although it's nowhere near as bad as in a closed space, there's something to be said for the way his stomach drops at the sight of the real drop below.
No matter how it nauseates him, however, Cloud understands the effort Sephiroth is undertaking to climb down while keeping a steady grip on him. Craning his neck around the arm holding him in place, he does his best to determinedly (if woozily) keep his eyes on the ground, way too far below.
Maybe it doesn't make much of a difference that he's far smaller than normal, under the unfortunate effects of the spell - being outside is enough to make him feel damn near pocket-sized, all on its own. ]
but curling up makes him EVEN CUTER!
[Good one. Ha ha, those foreshadowing jokes will NEVER GET OLD.
Seriously, I still think they're funny. ;_;
BUT YES, ENOUGH OF THAT FOR NOW.
Sephiroth has a sure hand, and though most would find it difficult to manage carrying a chocobo and climbing a hair rope down all those many stories, if there's anyone who could handle it, it's him. Somehow, Hojo and the executives manage to climb up the ladder of hair, and those jerks aren't nearly as skilled.
Everything seems to be going well as Sephiroth descends, but of course, that's always the case when things suddenly go wrong. After he's gone about the length of ten floors, suddenly, drifting up from below, he hears the sound of a voice. A very familiar voice.
The professor's voice, saying his name. Sephiroth freezes, his grip on both hair rope and tiny chocobo tightening.]
baby choboco butt wiggles... are the cutest thing i've ever seen
I'll stop abusing my future knowledge eventually.
(No I won't.)
It's involuntary; he can't help it. At the sound of that voice, the (now extra) miniature chocobo first freezes, and then seizes onto his support with his only means to do so: those big-clawed bird feet. He's been watching the ground, however many (hundreds? thousands? birds can't count) floors below - and he thought himself doing a fairly good job.
But it's shadowy, still, even by the light of the moon, and he knows coping with the swaying, woozy feeling of being carried on downward has left him further removed from the top of his game than he would like. But - even in the dark, that bright, white blur of labcoat he's certain he wouldn't have missed.
That there might simply be an open window just below them, letting on the open night air, doesn't occur to his frantic mind - he's practically toppling over the arm holding him to get a better look around. It's a minor miracle he manages to keep his beak shut, in the process. ]
aren't they? see, that's how cute cloud is!
go on with your gratuitous augury!
I know you can't help it.
Both Sephiroth and Cloud are absolutely still, for that moment, as if Hojo's voice has some power over them, like a Time Materia. But the moment is brief. As Cloud begins to search the vicinity, Sephiroth tightens his grip, as if worried that Cloud will actually fall, and he looks down, to see where the professor is.
It's true, Hojo isn't far away on the ground below, gazing up at them but much closer at hand. Several floors down, yes, but still close enough to be a threat, dangerously close to the rope of hair as he leans out, laughing. Sephiroth isn't sure, at first, what to do. Their position is precarious, and Hojo could easily cut the rope from where he is, cutting off their route of escape with it.
He could possibly do worse, but Sephiroth suspects he wouldn't, wouldn't risk damaging his most precious specimen.]
You didn't think it would be that easy, did you? To escape from me. I've been watching, you see...
[And it seems he's never free of him, no matter what he does, how far away he tries to go, always that face leering out of the darkness, laughing. A wave of hopelessness washes over him.]
no subject
and your small, difficult words.
Panic is not a new centerpiece, in a bird's mind - their fight-or-flight is mostly supposed to be flight, after all. But underneath that immediate, blinding shock, there's something else, in Cloud.
He wouldn't call himself brave (and would likely be right not to - there's a marked difference between bravery and wild, stupid determination, and he doesn't so much skirt it as stomp all over it, on the best of days). But once the initial rise of shock begins to plateau, he doesn't think once of turning back (or, worse yet, fleeing and forgetting all about his loyalties to the man attached to the solid arm around him, keeping him from falling to the inevitable, should he really want to try getting out of this all on his own). No, turning back doesn't cross his mind, nor going ahead on his own, in whatever impossible fashion he might imagine that possible.
When he sees the way Sephiroth has frozen (feels it, because that's all that's supporting him, now), he blanks for an instant, himself, as if in sympathy. And then he sees very clearly what he must do. The chocobo barely even spares a glance for the Professor, abhorrent as he is (and perhaps some small, terrified part of him knows that if he looks, he'll probably be hypnotized by his own mounting horror, in the same fashion).
He twists his neck around and pecks, once, hard, against the side he's being held to. It doesn't even occur to him that he might be dropped for this, either, but that's the nonsense level his brand of courage lives on, anyway.
(Come on!)
If Sephiroth can't spur himself onward, maybe he'll answer to a little dumb persistence. There's certainly no going back, now. ]