It doesn't need to be said; for all that he had always wished it so, he has never been normal. But he could after a fashion pretend. After all, he was still human, just .. a little modified. 'Was'.
Not anymore, not with the sharp chill of cold creeping across wet, scaleless new skin in a way sixteen years of familiarity can't quite map properly onto an old and familiar bodyplan. It's a preview perhaps of what Angeal and his closest friends would soon be enduring themselves, if they weren't already.
Sephiroth knows he's supposed to formulate a response, hold a dialogue as Angeal had seemingly wanted with asking about his traplines and Gaia, some mundane task to keep his mind focused on anything other than the suffocating tide of emotions that made his hand shake when he raises one to scrub at his face and erase the suspicious wetness there. It's not conscious action but rote experience that makes him go once more as still as he can at the bite of blade under scale, moving always made things worse. Even if he couldn't quite stop the minute quaking of his entire too-tense frame, he tries. Compliance is not an option. There's no protections on the inside to preven the knife from doing its work, only cutting through the annoyingly tough skin, easier form below than above. Generously, it doesn't seem to be more of a struggle than the first had been, save that the first lay in the dirt carefully still. The limb still trapped beneath dark scales is as stained red as the first as it's exposed, just as strangely shaped and as unmoving as he can make it.
This isn't the sterile rooms of Research and Development. It isn't the Professor and a few handpicked aides, pursuing some new experiment.
He knows it. But the dread and despair tastes the same, tinged only new by a change of circumstance; this isn't a test, this is the destruction of ever being able to even pass as human again. Any impulse to fight back against the pain, resist in any way, do anything at all but remain still and as quiet as he can manage, has long since been driven out. It's useful here; he'd asked for this. Deliberately. The least he could do is try to bury anything like sniveling childish nonsense and endure.
Answer. "Charlie-" His voice doesn't sound right to his own ears, a betrayal. He tries again, desperately working to match what seems awfully like utter calm in Angeal. The second time it's less of a strained squeak. "..Charlie means well."
Better. Not good, but better. Just reasonable stress of the moment, surely, and nothing more. Breathe. Slow and deep. "But.. he's guessing." No, that's not the response anyone would want to hear, even if he knew it wasn't accurate there was an expected response. Doing otherwise was insulting the aid he's being given. "... Everything is living a life." Aside from him, SOLDIERs were perfectly normal to start with. "I'm sorry. You're right." Technically it's a kind of normal.
Technically they're all going through this. They're just dealing with it better.
no subject
Not anymore, not with the sharp chill of cold creeping across wet, scaleless new skin in a way sixteen years of familiarity can't quite map properly onto an old and familiar bodyplan. It's a preview perhaps of what Angeal and his closest friends would soon be enduring themselves, if they weren't already.
Sephiroth knows he's supposed to formulate a response, hold a dialogue as Angeal had seemingly wanted with asking about his traplines and Gaia, some mundane task to keep his mind focused on anything other than the suffocating tide of emotions that made his hand shake when he raises one to scrub at his face and erase the suspicious wetness there. It's not conscious action but rote experience that makes him go once more as still as he can at the bite of blade under scale, moving always made things worse. Even if he couldn't quite stop the minute quaking of his entire too-tense frame, he tries. Compliance is not an option. There's no protections on the inside to preven the knife from doing its work, only cutting through the annoyingly tough skin, easier form below than above. Generously, it doesn't seem to be more of a struggle than the first had been, save that the first lay in the dirt carefully still. The limb still trapped beneath dark scales is as stained red as the first as it's exposed, just as strangely shaped and as unmoving as he can make it.
This isn't the sterile rooms of Research and Development. It isn't the Professor and a few handpicked aides, pursuing some new experiment.
He knows it. But the dread and despair tastes the same, tinged only new by a change of circumstance; this isn't a test, this is the destruction of ever being able to even pass as human again. Any impulse to fight back against the pain, resist in any way, do anything at all but remain still and as quiet as he can manage, has long since been driven out. It's useful here; he'd asked for this. Deliberately. The least he could do is try to bury anything like sniveling childish nonsense and endure.
Answer. "Charlie-" His voice doesn't sound right to his own ears, a betrayal. He tries again, desperately working to match what seems awfully like utter calm in Angeal. The second time it's less of a strained squeak. "..Charlie means well."
Better. Not good, but better. Just reasonable stress of the moment, surely, and nothing more. Breathe. Slow and deep. "But.. he's guessing." No, that's not the response anyone would want to hear, even if he knew it wasn't accurate there was an expected response. Doing otherwise was insulting the aid he's being given. "... Everything is living a life." Aside from him, SOLDIERs were perfectly normal to start with. "I'm sorry. You're right." Technically it's a kind of normal.
Technically they're all going through this. They're just dealing with it better.