finalflight | PSL; [FLOWER, STARDUST, STEEL EXPLOSION]

[Sephiroth is a young boy barely on the cusp of his teenage years; a youth already threatening to grow too-fast into a tall frame the rest of his body must fill out to match, with silver hair shorn short but paired with bangs long enough to cast into his eyes. Those same feline eyes are keen and observant, though the rest of his features have already fallen into the habit he’ll carry with him into his adulthood — the line of his brow holds a considering quietude, the press of his lips are serious, his profile something nigh carved from marble. A solemn, quiet boy, one of many researcher’s attendants would say. Those who work more closely with him (who lead him to and fro through the daily rounds of tests and assessments, the proper scientists with a primal need to categorize and analyze his progress) would not dispute this; yet they would add that his reticence is oddly paired with a stubborn streak, a sort of prying curiosity that he has not yet learned to grow out of, and a propensity to display a well-earned pride.

Well-earned, because he does nothing short of excel at his SOLDIER’s training. Shinra’s military departments dole out combat scenarios, practice methodologies, stratagems to research and recreate, and he goes above and beyond, often without trying. It is as though warfare runs through his blood, as though targeted destruction is something he was born and bred for, and it comes to him as easy as breathing. In these early years, of course, he has no idea just how true that is.

But it hardly matters. With natural ease comes a sincere enjoyment of the regimens, and he learns how to wield a sword, how to fight hand-to-hand, how to properly hold a gun when the kickback of bullets threatens to send the stock careening backwards. How to operate any manner of Shinra war machines, from cumbersome bastardizations of metal and wiring and firepower, to automated drones and impossibly fast motorbikes, whose engines pitch and whine like an animal untamed.

There are smaller, more niche exercises that are so outdated that they fall rather close to being categorized as ridiculous in Sephiroth’s mind, were it not for that strange, pervasive fascination with the unusual, the non-mundane. But even they cannot be ignored, for what good is Shinra’s most promising future SOLDIER if his repertoire has even the smallest of holes marring it as incomplete, imperfect?

This is exactly why, on a day where one of these outdated methods of warfare is on the docket, Sephiroth finds himself in the cold expanse of the largest VR training room at HQ. He is mounted atop this exact plumed and anxious method — a bright yellow chocobo, whose coloration is comically at odds with the training area not yet brightened with illusion and faux sensation.

What a sight, his dark form (already his preference in clothing runs along the lines of black) balanced on the top of an oversized bird that shuffles a little beneath him, making his frame sway side to side. Sephiroth remembers himself just enough to keep his hands gripped around the reins of the saddled creature, instead of fisting them in the bird’s feathers.]

...Aerith, what are you doing here?

[He looks down at her, an unexpected sight in the midst of what is basically an official SOLDIER training exercise. There’s no reason for her to be here, though there is a chocobo astride him without a rider — but he had assumed that was for the whomever was assigned to be the trainer, scheduled in at least another half hour from now.]

Edited 2020-06-29 04:54 (UTC)

[ aerith is a young girl barely on the cusp of preadolescence -- or so all of her charts seem to say anyway. really, honestly, she lost track of her birthdays a while ago. is she twelve now? thirteen, maybe? if she hits sixteen, will they finally let her go outside without any supervision? at eighteen, will they finally leave her alone? whatever the case may be, time is but a thing with no real meaning behind these metal walls. there's not much to look forward to except for getting something over with: the next medical appointment, the next long, needling interview, the next simulation that tests the magic that she hears like a harmonic thrum inside of her veins sometimes, that they try to measure with too much wiring on their too big machines. on the worst days, the electrodes leave indents that she can still feel along her skin for a full week after. sometimes she digs her fingertips into the marks like she can simply reach inside of them, claw out that secret energy just so she'd have something to throw into these researchers' faces, something with more impact and weight than a book when hojo comes around to sneer at her -

cabin fever, is what her latest medical report reads, what hojo probably scowls at over the gauze pad plastered to the bridge of his nose.

and so it goes. the intercom chimes to mark the date. red lights flashing from somewhere, an obvious warning and almost comical because of it. another day, another interview to answer on her screen. how are you feeling? satisfactory? review lesson 3 before noon tomorrow, there will be an exam, and it's the same kind of boring thing that she thinks will continue on until shinra tires of treating her like a human being. she doesn't know why they bother. they don't seem to stop reminding her any chance they get as it is, with ancient this, and ancient that. she tried correcting them once, when she was littler -- cetra, my mother says we're cetra, but she's since stopped when they care about the difference as much as she does, which is not very much at all.

but that is neither here nor there. time has some sort of meaning today, and maybe she fidgets nervously and can't sit still because of it. her fast heartbeat nearly betrays her when they check her vitals, her pulse and the pressure in her blood to "clear" her as if this is anything like what she's seen them make the others do, with knives and guns and big metal behemoths that sometimes breathe fire. routine diagnostics, a crackle of static, her core temperature is normal, they tell her, as she's surrounded by mechanical whirring and the faint, far-off echo of voices on all sides.

she's seen this training room before. the central computer system, the metal plates straining underfoot, and the way sephiroth looks like he fits in with all of it keenly, with his too dark colors and his deliberate sort of air, as finely tuned as any machine she's ever seen.

but on a chocobo, he looks -- ridiculous. and she's peering up at him with big eyes and a slightly tilted smile, but she doesn't laugh at him.

yet. ]

... Ooh! Well, that's nice.

[ he kind of looks more like a kid than a machine up there, which she remembers him being once, before they gave him a big sword to play with, whom she still finds herself missing most days. ]

Hello to you too, grumpy.

What, upset that I got invited to join the big boys' club?

[She doesn’t look like she belongs in here, is the first thing that sweeps across his mind, and perhaps that’s cold and too empirical to say without sounding like he doesn’t wish for her company. That isn’t the case, not necessarily, and it’s a good kind of fortune that he was never the kind of boy to say exactly what he was thinking. Never one for hot impulse, everything kept tamped down and turned over in his head before given clearance to speak.

And besides, that isn’t how he means it. Aerith doesn’t look like she belongs in here the same way the chocobo doesn’t; too bright against the fenced-in walls of steel and exorbitantly expensive, advanced tech. Too alive and fluid, a thing of organic matter in a program existing to train Shinra’s best in stamping out life, one heartbeat at a time. Not like him, a war machine atop a chocobo. Straight lines and militant manner being slowly hammered into his bones as each day passes them by.

It’s in the face of this stark dichotomy that realization overcomes him. When was the last time they spoke like this, face-to-face with no one to oversee or overhear? It feels like an age since they were children, as if the space between then and now had been stretched too thin — days when they would play together, or she would invite him to draw sprawling, colorful lines across the planes of her room. Listening to her speak about the proper way to grow plants, or what it really meant to be an ancient (a Cetra, wasn’t it?), or the somber veil that overcame too-knowing eyes when she spoke about her mother; and Sephiroth merely listened, because he could not relate, and sympathy was an alien thing he wished to give, but fished for clumsily because Shinra never thought to equip him with anything beyond the expectation of the battlefield.

Though the distance between them is negligible — high on a chocobo, versus feet planted on the ground — she seems taller, or older, or more tired than he recalls, and thus further away. A restlessness in those eyes he’s come to know because he’s worn it, too, on the days where Hojo is more needling, more unsatisfied with the ream of results, patience worn thin. (He would have liked to see her throw that book at the man. He had asked about the gauze over the bridge of the scientist’s nose because he had felt churlish, told only, That’s hardly any concern of yours.)

Yet the advent of the SOLDIER program had loosened the science department’s grip on him, granting Sephiroth the ability to release that listless nature in the vicious swipe of a sword, not so much a freedom than it was an expansion of his cage. Perhaps it wasn’t the same for her, for when he passes by her room, or spies her through glass, or down the long corridor of Shinra’s corporate belly, she turns to him with something bright and wistful on her lips, and maybe sometimes he barely smiles, but ultimately he’s pulled away by appointment or obligation.

All this rushing through his thoughts like a flood, the pinch of a brow the only proof for it. Though his mind churns, his words are plain, as always.]

I’m not upset. But this isn’t—

[For no reason, other than pure animal whimsy, his chocobo kwehs melodiously and shuffles its bird feet just enough to jostle the words from his throat. It dips its head low towards Aerith, curious.

Sephiroth’s hand moves to the horn of the saddle, gripping tight to keep balance, his thighs pressed hard against the bird.]

...This is my training.

[How ridiculously childish that sounded in the wake of holding steady. Silver has fallen into his eyes as he lowers his gaze upon Aerith again.]

You’re authorized to be here?

[The second chocobo shakes out its feathers, unimpressed by the sterile surroundings so far departed from the wide expanse beyond Midgar’s walls — likely from where it had been temporarily requisitioned, a ranch out in the middle of nowhere, swathed in green with bright yellow birds preening behind wooden stables.]

[ ... geez.

even as a child, she doesn't think she's ever seen him like this before. even out of his element, cradling a handful of daisies, or with his white clothes caked in colorful chalk, sephiroth's lines have always presented a little too severe for her. straight-spined, dainty, and exacting -- and that was before she saw him hold a sword with a blade twice the length of him, and considered, for all of a moment, if she should be scared.

alas, he would be so lucky. she's ignoring his half-hearted, level protests. she has to be if she's reaching out for his curious chocobo instead, eyes bright and her hum canary-blissful as she cups its feathery head, hands soft as she leans in to nuzzle, unafraid of its giant beak and the very real possibility that it could easily pluck her eyes out.

because apparently danger and proper training etiquette are just jokes to tell to other people. and if there's anything in this room that's going to keep pecking at her, it's sephiroth, really. ]

Mm... is it? Does that mean you're not going to share, even a little teensy bit?

[ which is a point that, if she were younger with her older temper, could be an easy lead-in to a fight.

the fact that she's still smiling, bright and wistful and practiced, must be a testament to her growth without him. where sephiroth seems just a little bit more animated (strange, she thinks, when all that's really changed is the blood), she's a little bit more subdued. it's a difference she can feel.

their differences used to annoy her more than they should, when he would be so quiet, and she'd feel like she'd just chatted his ear off. it's been a while, and it's almost as if he's gained enough secrets to be a complete stranger to her. maybe she wouldn't mind it so much if he didn't already know all of hers.

or if she didn't miss him terribly. ]

You could tattle on me, I guess.

[ she does, after all, have a bad habit of roaming. it isn't a bad guess, if he weren't wrong. ]

But then you'd be tearing apart true love... I think your chocobo really likes me!

[Share. He wonders what that's supposed to imply, if it implies anything at all; does Aerith believe that he is keeping all of this training — these endless exercises to make him deadlier across the blood-soaked plains of a battlefield than he realizes — to himself? She words it as though it is something that he has agency enough over to share, when the reality is that he is constantly at the whims of those who would curate his schedule for him. The researchers, the military strategists, dredged up from the interior of the defense department. One of these people, from Shinra's vast catalog of them, has dictated that today, Sephiroth was to learn how to properly ride a chocobo at various velocities, in any number of (faux) environments. That she was not a part of this regimented purpose is no fault of his own.

As his chocobo nuzzles its head against Aerith's touch, eyes closed in warm comfort, he decides not to say that, either.

Because it, too, could be an incorrect assumption. Sephiroth shifts a little. Gloved fingers coil around the reins lightly, giving them a gentle tug, and the bird lifts its head.]

Love at first sight? I wonder.

[What, upset that I got invited to join the big boys' club? Perhaps he was far too assumptive from the start. She is given to roaming, yes, but even she knows where the lines of participation are drawn in the sand. What she can and cannot participate in.

An exception must have been made to the rule. Curious.]

The other might like you even more. Do you need help mounting it?

[It's very tall, and Aerith is not.]

Edited (nitpicking) 2020-06-30 18:52 (UTC)

[ that nearly begs the question. now, how would you know anything about love at first sight?

but there's already so much negative space that he's leaving behind between them. barely a few minutes in, and she's feeling no small amount of guilt for teasing him as it is. sharing a childhood, locked up and in pseudo-privacy, she's had more than enough time to key into the slight shifts of his mood and expression. a little tic in his brow, maybe; the way the muscle in his jaw goes split-second tight, sometimes, if he's irritated. these are all easy reads, but they can only tell her so much.

sephiroth is less quiet than he used to be -- which, she thinks, would be a funny thing to say out loud. it's taken some time to unlearn his habits of silence, and surprisingly it doesn't come as unnaturally to him as she expects, hearing him try to fill the space, to give her what he can in the only way he knows because she'd asked once, when they were smaller, and he was somewhat keen to please her. he's good at it when he wants to be, but more often than not, he looks at her for a second too long, and aerith can only guess at what he's trying not to say.

like right now.

but! this is supposed to be fun! kind of? there has to be a catch somewhere, and she knows it'll come up eventually like a splash of ice water. but for now, sephiroth's here, and she's happy to see him. ]

Who do you think you're talking to? I'm a big girl, you know.

[ ... because she can tell what he's thinking, at least in this, when he's probably straining his neck, bowing his head to look down at her. ]

Mounting's the easy part. Just watch me! And you might learn a thing or two.

[ lilting as she motions her chocobo over. and as far as this part goes, she seems to have an uncanny knack at communicating with animals, because the giant bird squawks, ruffles its feathers, and bends right down with the simple gesture of aerith's hand.

even the climb goes pretty smoothly, her hand steady as she shuffles on, only slightly awkward when it's still a new experience, and she's definitely wearing a dress not suited for riding. but she manages somehow, her perch stable when she's straddling astride the saddle, and she's peering up at sephiroth with some owl-eyed, bright look that must mean she's awfully proud of herself! ]

[

you know, right before the chocobo decides to actually stand, and she tips too far to the side of it, her entire body going over. ]

[And though time has pressed subtle changes into them both, whether for good or ill, Sephiroth finds that the core of Aerith is something that cannot be so easily shaken — that brightness of spirit, a sort of immutable color that refuses to fade despite the steel belly of the corporation they live in. Paired with it is a fierce stubbornness, like a hardy flower in winter (apt, he thinks), the sort that roots itself into the ground and refuses to budge, a smile brightening her eyes the entire time.

The same sort of stubbornness that has her mounting the neighboring chocobo with ease; so easily, in fact, that Sephiroth thinks for a moment that she has done something with far less effort than he even managed, that perhaps her hidden talents are as such: exchanging secrets with the Planet, possessing a green thumb that makes plantlife grow and dance within the humid air of a glass greenhouse, and... chocobo riding.

The bird seems to like her well enough, warking a happy noise that his own hasn’t thought to utter. It even straightens with that same enthusiasm, and before Sephiroth can think to remark, the words catch in his throat—

Because he can see it as it’s happening. A slow-motion tragedy on display, playing out before his scrutinizing eyes. Aerith tilts, and then she tilts too much for him to call her anywhere near balanced, and soon she’ll be fumbling out of that saddle and straight into the floor.]

Aerith—

[Sephiroth is liquid, silver smooth as he hops off his chocobo with such militant vigor it might be called a leap. His boots thud against metal as he lands and lunges himself forward, an arm extended to catch her along her back, hooking around her shoulders if he’s successful. The momentum is nothing against him — so very little is — and his frame barely even jostles.

Brow knit, he finds himself huffing out air between his teeth.]

Practicing how to properly fall off one of these animals is getting ahead of yourself. Are you hurt?

Edited 2020-07-01 21:32 (UTC)

[ caught.

it's not the first time she's fallen! not in the least, but she's used to bracing herself for these predictable hurts, always quick to pick herself back up immediately after and to dust herself off so that the people that see her, too, brush her off. showing weakness is something she's learned to hide over the years. this place, she thinks, makes that necessary. so the fact that he's suddenly there -- the effortless sturdiness of him, the solid and thoughtless strength in sephiroth's arms when he carries her -- it takes her back a little, and she feels more floored than if she had actually landed anywhere harder. ]

Ah.

[ that's new, she feels like she's about to say, not sure if she means it in a good way or bad. her throat's a little dry and her body's winded, but that's probably from the fall. ]

Nope, I'm all good here.

[ that comes out... a little softer. maybe from the shock; maybe she's shy. either way, they're things she's never really felt around him, which makes them new and incredibly difficult to react appropriately to without the context of the ordinary. but it's one thing to look at him, and talk to him, and realize there must be a change -- and another thing entirely to feel it, the physical fluency of him, and to acknowledge that it's real and not just her imagination. ]

Thank you, my hero!

[ but she's... okay, maybe too obviously restless, straightening herself with his arm supporting her back, her hand fisting thoughtlessly in the fabric of her dress as she stands properly, leans into his space and looks up at him.

too tall, almost. the distance there has grown too. ]

That was pretty neat. If you're gonna be that fast when we race here in a bit, I might actually be in trouble.

[There was no guarantee that she would have been hurt at all; a fall from that height could have meant anything, from a bruise splattering across a shoulder, to something altogether dislocated. And Aerith might not need saving — she was never the type — there is a part of Sephiroth that cannot merely sit by and watch it unfurl as a spectator. For all her resoluteness, the way she might dictate that a bed of flowers sprout beneath her body and break her fall for her, what kind of old friend would he be to allow that? He has not grown that cold, not that distant. He has not had the humanity wrung out of him, though perhaps Shinra would like for that to happen someday, too.

For now, however, he braces himself against her, becomes the pillar that keeps her upright. She’s warm, some useless part of his combat-infused brain informs him, and her hair smells like morning blossoms and loam. It’s silly to be surprised by a proximity that he had swept in to provide, but he finds himself hyperaware of the places where her body presses into his own — the exact color of her eyes as she lifts her gaze to level on his. It hooks into his throat and drags all the way down into his chest, knotting there like something foreign, and he wonders if this has happened before, a thing forgotten, but no, he’s reasonably sure he would have remembered something so jarring.

Maybe he really has been away for too long. To be surprised by Aerith’s existence, it seems, thoughts jarred sideways by a simple declaration of, Thank you, my hero!

She straightens, but when Sephiroth believes himself to be free of her closeness, she leans in, and he finds himself tilting his chin up at an angle, as though to keep his head above some imaginary water line, else air might not make it to his lungs. Ridiculous, really.]

Race? You just fell off. If you can’t hold steady standing still, how well do you think you’ll fare darting around a race track?

Ouch...!

[ but that doesn't exactly sound very pained, what, when she's grinning like she sometimes does when she's just been caught in a blatant lie.

the only difference, maybe, is that her eyes are still wide, looking at the upturn of sephiroth's chin with a curious sort of air, watching him look down his nose at her and thinking it doesn't really translate into arrogance in the way that she expects. she thinks she knows him, after all: by voice, by shape, the slant of his shoulders, and the set of his feet. but she's got change on the brain it seems, because maybe his posturing's all wrong, and the way he seems to tilt away from her however slightly is a far cry from when he was smaller, when she could still reach over to ruffle his hair and he would tolerate it, however sulkily.

there's a small part of her that almost wants to try it now ‐- just to see if that much has stayed the same.

( or maybe she just wants to pull his head down so she can look into his eyes properly, make sense of the changes between them, because whatever it is about them -- his height, the way her body hums with tension at the points where he's touched her, how she's hesitant to touch him now, where she's never been before -- it makes her feel like she's still falling, like she's trying to brace herself for impact, and she's not sure if it thrills her or makes her feel afraid. ) ]

There goes that morale boost... but I guess underestimating me only works to my advantage.

But, you're the expert.

[ she can get onto a chocobo. that isn't the problem at all.

still, it doesn't stop her little smile or the way she's holding her arms up at the ready, tilting her head at him, expectant. ]

Well?

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.... /2 i don't have the proper icon i'm sorry

THAT ICON IS STILL KILLING ME

it's got the right kind of panic energy????

maybe seph needs panic energy icons around her too

they'd get a lot of mileage tbf

1/3

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this is so fucking stupid

STEPHANIE........Stephanie Roth

is apparently an actress who played in deception 2008 starring hugh jackman says google ... 1/2

which has nothing to do with anything except for the fact that i went and googled it

I’m crying thank you for this trivia

welcome, i hope it serves you well

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#justgodlikebeingthings