Howling and Hollow (Cloud Catch-All)

[relativefugue]

WHO: Cloud Strife and YOU
WHAT: What does your heart desire? (A place for planned threads outside prompts!) Cloud is settling in.
WHERE: Around Town and the outskirts, depending!
WHEN: A week or more after arrival, ongoing.
WARNINGS: Probable mentions of mental health struggles and trauma.

SUMMARY: A catch-all for Mister Final Fantasy! Here he is, trying to...Leave. Inevitably, he will be settling in, whether he likes it or not. What are those weird bumps hidden in that chocobo fluff hair? He fell and hit his head, probably.

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[silver_soldier]

"I wonder." Sephiroth still isn't looking at Cloud, but he doesn't seem to be intentionally looking elsewhere; he seems, rather, as though he's looking at nothing, perhaps because he's looking inside himself instead. "I wonder whether I'm truly not a monster...or if I am a monster, and perhaps what I'm meant to do is redefine what that means. Not every monstrous thing I've done was because of Jenova. At what point do one's actions define one's nature? And if they do...then I suppose the only hope one has is that you can change how you are defined by what you do, and so long as one is in control of oneself, you can choose to do things differently."

He shakes his head. "But...mostly I try not to indulge in those thoughts. Genesis and Angeal...they think of themselves as monsters, too, for their own reasons. Reasons even less their fault than my own. And Angeal, in particular, doesn't think of being a monster with any nuance. Rather than let themselves consider themselves monsters if I think of myself as one, and see that hurt them...I will continue to say that none of us are."

He glances up at Cloud again at last. "But monster or not...you deserve what has happened to you, what has been done to you, as little as anyone can deserve it. And Jenova has...focused on you, on tormenting you, in ways it hasn't with anyone else. Perhaps killing the perfect vessel Hojo created for it, dealing it the immense setback it suffered in needing to find a way to exert its influence through the Lifestream...maybe that explains its fixation. But certainly it targets you in a way it hasn't anyone else. So while there are many victims of me, and of Jenova...in many ways, I feel you have been put through the most. And anything I can do for you seems like not nearly enough."

[relativefugue]

From what Cloud has been able to gather from both this Sephiroth and the younger, his recent altercations with ShinRa, and his (apparently) fractured memories...Cloud isn't so sure about Sephiroth's actions being any more his own fault than the other Firsts. Or any SOLDIERs for that matter. Jenova was not the only monster in his life. In all their lives. Cloud was just whisked away from his fight against those very monsters that worked alongside her. Enabled her. It is with a pang that he realizes Sephiroth is trying to do things to help others at his own endless expense. Lifting those around him whilst turning a purposely blind eye to himself- a self he does not fully know. It feels familiar. Close to home in an uncomfortable way the blond is not ready to unpack fully.

"You're as much a monster as any SOLDIER who got dragged into the crap ShinRa fed them. Even less if you were born into it. Jenova might be fucked up, but you weren't exactly taught or set up to be anything but a weapon. Didn't you compare yourself to a sword? I know how the Science Department worked," Cloud grimaces at that. There's horrible whispers of things like Deepground, which he knows all too well is so very real. That isn't even counting the cruel experimentation going on basically in the open at the labs- at least for those in SOLDIER to see.

"What matters is you didn't want it. You still know you didn't. That part is your nature. The actions that you took were what you were taught, or forced to do- and never agreed with at the end of the day. Doesn't mean you didn't do those things and are blameless. But I-" He hesitates, looking away. This is genuinely a little scary for Cloud to admit, and to reaffirm. To say this is a tangible start of letting go of things he hadn't realized kept him going back home: "I don't think the guy I am talking to now is a monster. Dunno if this guy right here with a chicken shitting in his lap would be able to do the things he did to innocents before with a clear head." He isn't positive, of course. Scars as deep as Cloud carries, both physical and mental, do not heal overnight or even over years. But a cold read judgment of things in the moment? Just from this conversation and the one before? It has him questioning a lot. "Doesn't look like redefining what a monster is to me. Looks like taking back your own life for once."

Cloud can feel his stomach twist into knots at the mention of how hard Jenova seems to be after him- and how deeply Sephiroth feels he needs to make things up to him. Is it fear? Anger? Frustration? ...All of the above, as well as something unfamiliar to him that makes his heart beat just a little faster. What has been done to you stands out as a little strange to Cloud. The burning of Nibelheim was more of something that happened, and not done to him directly. Most everything was a sort of something that happened to him. Did Sephiroth just let something slip? What could that be?

"I don't know what the hell that thing wants with me. Probably is a grudge over the setback. It...She? Said a lot about needing me around. With your face. Tried to control me a few times. Mostly just sent me into a state where I couldn't function. Whatever it is, and whatever happened, I haven't really felt it here."

[silver_soldier]

"It's true I was not given...choices," Sephiroth says, somewhat reluctantly, as if he grudges himself any grace at all. "Or any guidance that could be relied on to be worthwhile for many years. But even on my very first deployment...perhaps even before..." He lowers his eyes. "I knew something was...wrong. That I was wrong. That what I was doing felt - terrible, and I hated it. But - I made myself do it anyway, because I was afraid. Afraid of being weak, old-fashioned...worth leaving behind. Everything I was told soldiers with compassion were. Afraid of abandoning the only instructions I'd ever had, the only way of being I was ever told was correct. Afraid of having nowhere to go and nothing to be, if I stopped being ShinRa's perfect weapon.

"But I knew, still, that I was wrong. From the first. And I only realized it more deeply the more years passed. And yet I kept doing what I knew was wrong, for selfish and cowardly reasons. How can that be excused so easily? If I can be considered...less responsible for the atrocities I committed when my body and mind weren't my own, how is my responsibility not mine when they were?"

He sighs, shaking his head. "Forgive me. I know...these aren't questions you can really answer for me, about events you had nothing to do with. I don't...believe you undertook enough missions for ShinRa, certainly not the kinds of missions I did, to be haunted the way I am by what you did in their name." This is Sephiroth, very delicately, navigating around the fact that he doesn't even know what missions Cloud did undertake as a trooper, if many at all, and certainly none of them major or glamorous. What missions Cloud may have done other than the Nibel reactor mission, Sephiroth wonders if Cloud's memory has even retained them. But certainly Sephiroth is certain Cloud never slaughtered civilians for ShinRa. "But it's difficult to know the extent of what I've done - with a clear head, as you put it - and accept those weren't the actions of a monster. To the people of Rhadore, of Wutai...I was a nightmare. No malevolent demon could have done worse to them. Does my reluctance and regret change that?"

He shakes his head again. "You don't have to answer. Again - it's not an answer you can give me. But...you've always had a kind heart. Don't let it be so quick to absolve me."

At Cloud's acknowledgment that he hasn't felt Jenova in this world, Sephiroth nods slightly in agreement without lifting his head. "Considering I don't even feel it active within my own mind...I doubt it's active in this world at all. You don't feel anything like its oppressive presence because it's not there to feel. Only the echoes of its pull." Then, a touch hesitantly: "I worry, at times, that its obsession with you is that it wishes to make you its new host. With my own body dead, it would no doubt benefit from a living vessel. In my own timeline, in your initial encounters with it, your fractured mind was...rather weak to its influence, which would only have encouraged it.

"But if it's any comfort in the wake of such a disturbing suggestion, you also become uniquely resistant to that influence over time - especially when your memory issues are addressed. Even if I wished to tell you why that is, I can't - I simply don't know what allows you to shake it off where others can't. But the fact remains that whether or not Jenova wishes to make you its vessel, I don't believe it could succeed - regardless of whatever it may think, or want."

[relativefugue]

It's a lot to take in, but Cloud is fully certain of a few points whilst listening to Sephiroth: first, the man has thought about this to an agonizing extent- remorse is barely brushing the surface. He near sounds tortured, which in turn tugs at that kind heart of Cloud's that Sephiroth mentioned. Second, some of the answers he's looking for....Are not fully ones Cloud can give, and they are both aware of that. It sounds like whatever training Sephiroth was given, though, must have been magnitudes worse than even that given to typical SOLDIER Firsts.

He listens attentively, petting down the hen's back as his expression shifts in small ways. A slightly knit brow, a twitch of the lip, a widening of the eyes to the smallest degree.

"Yeah. I can't give you all those answers. I barely have my own. Plus we were playing for the same team that set up what happened in Wutai. Not my place to forgive you for that."

Cloud's memories of Wutai are absolutely not his own. But for now he can agree he likely contributed significantly less to the "war effort" than Sephiroth, by miles.

Rhadore...That, however, is a name he's only heard in passing, on magazine profiles regarding the great hero. Cloud makes a mental note to ask around about that one- pressing Sephiroth further into pain doesn't seem like a terribly appealing option right now. He must really be in some strange world to be worrying about that.

"But moving ahead does a hell of a lot more than sitting with it." Which, it seems, Sephiroth is doing some of by reaching out to Cloud in the first place.

A chill runs up and down the blond's spine at the mention of being vulnerable to Jenova's influence, and its likely want for a new physical host. How much of the strange whispers he heard were Jenova all along? "...Well if it isn't here, at least I get a break."

Cloud Strife has no clue just how much he really needs a break.

[silver_soldier]

"Yes." Sephiroth nods slightly. "When I was in the Lifestream...the consciousnesses of those I had killed made their presence known. Their grief, their rage...their suffering. They - made sure I experienced as much of it as could be communicated. And I couldn't begrudge them that. How could anyone?"

A pause. "But...I don't know that my pain lessened their own. It didn't ease their regrets, didn't right any wrongs that had been done. It was just...more pain. The time I experienced their suffering felt interminable, but...it passed. I don't know if they simply lost interest, or couldn't maintain focus to inflict prolonged torment, or if...perhaps they recognized that it served no useful purpose. All I know is that eventually, their pain faded, and I was left with only my own. But...it did feel pointless, in the end. Pain without purpose.

"The guilt I carry now...I don't carry it in self-indulgence. I carry it as a reminder of those I've hurt, those who have to carry their own weights because of me. I don't feel that I have the right to an unburdened life when I've dragged so many others down. But...if I can still find happiness beneath those burdens, then perhaps they can as well." He nods again, a bit more certain now. "Because you're right. Moving forward is the only way. Especially when there are so many who will help us shoulder the weight so that we can keep going."

[relativefugue]

Sephiroth's description of the pain he felt in the Lifestream is numbing. Perhaps if Cloud were home, he would feel some sort of smug satisfaction over it- that the man was getting what he deserved. But like this, it leaves the blond hollow. Especially as Sephiroth describes his realization that the cycle of suffering was pointless.

The resolve that then appears to wash over Sephiroth has a sort of satisfaction and...something light settling in Cloud's chest to flutter there. For a brief moment in time, Cloud swears he feels positive emotions in Sephiroth's presence for the first time in what feels like forever.

It will be a hell of a lot to unpack later. For now, he gazes at the hen in his lap with a barely-masked fondness.

"Finding good people will do that." A realization Cloud was approaching himself back home, before being sent here. He says it not only to Sephiroth, but to the both of them. Cloud only wishes with another pang that the others were here for such a realization to happen. He cannot believe he misses them, but their absence and the return to a lonely, aloof quiet in his life puts things into startling, inevitable perspective. At the very least, wildly, it seems Sephiroth wishes to help shoulder his own burdens- many of which were indeed caused by the silver himself. Yet more to unpack alone.

"...Don't expect the Buster Sword at your throat again, then. For now."

[silver_soldier]

Sephiroth's lips quirk, ever so slightly. "Did it ever get so far as my throat?" he asks, mildly. Is he teasing? Maybe a little bit. Don't give yourself too many airs, Cloud. Whether or not Sephiroth lives or dies isn't entirely dependent on Cloud's mercy. "But I appreciate the reprieve...for now."

A pause. "Would you like me to leave you with the chickens? I believe my presence here has accomplished everything Angeal could have hoped it might." And, rather more than that...Sephiroth feels as though he doesn't want to push his luck too far. Doesn't want to overstay his tenuous welcome with Cloud, or risk damaging the progress it feels like they've made. Better to pull back for a time, he thinks.

Besides, they've been talking about some very heavy subjects, and Sephiroth feels that both of them can only keep that up for so long before they need a break.

[relativefugue]

Cloud swears that had to be a genuine, lighthearted tease, which may be the most shocking thing of all over this entire fucking rollercoaster of a conversation. Perhaps it is just the contrast with every other time he's ever been taunted by the man- or, rather Jenova. "Yeah, well better watch it. I can take it back as fast as you get it. Make sure to get the throat."

That, from Cloud, is absolutely his own awkward tease back, even if the veiled threat isn't fully out of the realm of possibility just yet. The slight upward quirk of his lips and slouched pose give it away.

The blond is absolutely exhausted, and it truly sets in when thankfully, Sephiroth offers they part. Some quiet with the birds sounds much needed right now, and he can only imagine -

...He can imagine that Sephiroth is just as tired from speaking of these things. What kind of weird timeline is Cloud in now, where he offers enough grace to Sephiroth to think he's capable of being emotionally drained?

Whatever!

"...I think that's good. I still got work to do here for that meddling asshole anyway. You're distracting." Though his tone is brusque, Cloud's features remain softer. The tiny smile remains for a few seconds more, then fades. The overall whisper of softness doesn't go away until Sephiroth's form inevitably recedes from the chicken pen.

A single word leaves Cloud's lips, quietly, when the silver is far enough away that he figures he won't hear it. One that surprises him.

"Thanks."