sephiroth, “tol alien boy”, SOLDIER first class. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
supersoldier) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
finalflight2020-06-28 03:13 pm
supersoldier) wrote in finalflight2020-06-28 03:13 pm
supersoldier) wrote in finalflight2020-06-28 03:13 pm
they'd get a lot of mileage tbf
[ 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?
no subject
Still, he’s figuratively shot himself in the foot. Declaring her need to be more careful in his own way, while simultaneously wanting to reorient himself, make for conflicting desires. After all, now she’s looking at him with easy expectance, arms outstretched, and how can he possibly step away now?
And just as in those early years, for reasons that have grown and become more complicated in the same way he has, Sephiroth finds he cannot.]
…Here.
[He directs her attention back to the chocobo, turning to face it, with one hand offered as an anchor to hoist her up and over if she decides to make a second attempt. With Sephiroth’s proximity, she’s guaranteed to stay upright; he’ll not let her topple over, and instead give her a chance to feel steady atop that overlarge bird.
In the interim—]
Have you thought about what you want the environment to be?
[The VR in “VR Training Room” is not just for show, after all.]
no subject
[ she makes a good show of being a captive audience, at least. it is interesting in the manner that all tech vaguely interests her. there's something fascinating about this type of innovation, the way it still thrives even now, even with the bubbling of mako drowning out the planet's softer crying underneath all of this metal, a kind of double-edged cruelty she thinks must only be obtainable by humans.
it's interesting, and she's only (partly) human, after all. and the way that sephiroth withdraws has always been a habit that she's fought against since she was smaller, scooting closer to him in her room, or grabbing his arm to keep close pace with him in the hallway when his stride grew longer and more difficult. maybe practice means she can sense it even now, when he's not exactly pulling away, but staying close, extending an arm however stiffly for her to take.
and aerith, because she's always fought him somehow, someway, in more ways than one, takes his hand firmly in hers.
... and then she reaches up to tug down his other hand, and settles both of them at her waist. ]
I thought it was already programmed...?
[ yes, best to keep on talking about the fascinating wonder that is shinra technology. anything to dismiss the slight indignity of being boosted up -- even if his reaction might be arguably worth it. ]
SOLDIER training, and all.
no subject
[Request the change aloud. Almost anything is in its database, he means to say. The programming would recognize the request and alter its surroundings to match; he had rifled through the options one day, on a whim — the environments ranged from anywhere on the planet, to places far more fantastical and alien, like drummed up from someone’s dreams. He cannot imagine why SOLDIERs would wish to train in areas so unfamiliarly jarring, but maybe keeping focus despite the distractions was the overall point.
But this intent, too, is derailed, like so much in a short time. His hands are placed on her waist, forcing him to face her directly again, and the rare hitch in his words is unavoidable. They stumble out, free from their usual careful filter.]
—talk to it. [Comes the far less explanatory remark, and where his palms press against her, they suddenly feel now too warm. Does she really want to be boosted up by him like they were still children? Somehow, the feels far removed from nostalgia, something that has the squared line of his shoulders tightening even more. Fingertips press gently against her, testing.]
...You can tell the room where you want to be.
[Comes the second try, a little better than the first.
He stands there, just a second short of it being hesitation, before Sephiroth commits to what she wants: he’s hoisting her up, his strength a strange mixture of undeniably strong and consciously careful, and does his best to place her on the chocobo’s saddle, eyes everywhere but her face.]
no subject
[ a response for the sake of a response. no real meaning to it. there's probably more meaning to discern from the way she can't stop looking at sephiroth's face, staring at his eyes or at the pinched line of his mouth, searching for something that aerith's not sure was ever there, or simply will ever return.
but that's before the hitch of her breath, as the floor falls away from under her.
she can feel the force it takes, the raw effort of lifting her, and no, she has no idea what she's expecting, just that, maybe, she wanted to see if he could. it's nothing like when they were just two kids running around the facility, when she'd insist and he would sigh before interlacing his fingers into a stirrup, and boosting her up a wall so they could go exploring together, getting into trouble for it. the way she'd felt the hunch of sephiroth's shoulder muscles as she'd settled onto her chocobo; the feeling of his finger pressure lingering on both sides for seconds after he lets go of her -- all of it makes her mouth go dry, her head swimming dizzily after the fact. she's still staring at him wide-eyed even when he doesn't seem to want to even look at her, and for some inexplicable reason, aerith finds that she's disappointed.
but her chocobo, animal and not patient machine, kwehs and jostles her out of her train of thought, and she sputters inelegantly, face a little flushed as she reorients herself on the saddle, holding the reins. ]
Flowers—
[ she commands without knowing anything, the slightest idea about how talking to it might make the program come to life. ]
Just . . . give me flowers–!
[ but to her credit, it works.
the hologram shudders and glitters and pieces itself to life, bit by bit. what happens then must be a day in high spring, the beginning of some faint humidity and endless sunlight, a one-hundred year old oak tree, and a gurgling mountain spring.
a long stretch of an open field, and wild flowers, daisies and white clover speckling the grass, as abundant as the clouds that weave lazily through the vast sky above their heads.
and aerith, who's definitely if not furtively looking at him, breathes out a faint, but audible - ]
. . . wow.
no subject
It’s odd; paradoxical. Almost-anxious but not unpleasant, he doesn’t know what to do with it. So it’s a swift blessing that the world soon turns into carpeted flowers and an impossible stretch of cornflower sky, a beautiful distraction coming alive at her request.
He’s never seen anything like it — even though he knows it isn’t real, that it’s all light pieced mathematically together to imitate reality, there is no SOLDIER training that would dictate the environment transition into a field of blossoms, sunlight, an oaken tree that would never grow in Midgar soil, and therefore it’s all shockingly strange and new. It steals what words still remained on his tongue, and his hand finds idle purchase on Aerith’s chocobo, fingers carding through yellow feathers.
The birds seem to like it well enough, warking with excitement. Sephiroth cranes his head up to squint against the artificial sunlight, watching white tufts of clouds stride overhead— a parody of a military march.]
You’ve picked something out of a storybook.
[It’s hardly a complaint, light as the observation is, as though saying it to himself. And maybe it’s telling, that a young boy raised in a steel structure would see untouched, unyielding nature as fantastical.]