wingsdreamt

[wingsdreamt]

Zack opens his mouth, prepared to respond, only to find that silence hangs between them. His first instinct is to reach for an it’s fine (it isn’t), don’t worry about it (that’s even worse), or even a no biggie, happens all the time! (terrible, just terrible). He's had time to come to terms with his own death, but Sephiroth wasn't so lucky. There’s no cure for humanity that doesn’t involve burning it away, inside and out.

“Sephiroth…”

The man he knew then had unraveled before him in a matter of days, but Zack never thought him vulnerable. Distressed, certainly, but not like this. Funny, that the few who might have witnessed the Planet’s greatest SOLDIER brought to tears, exposing his humanity, are no longer counted among the living. 

That’s one way to keep a secret safe.

He fixes his dumb gawking with a sympathetic, close-mouthed hum. Better not to say anything here, maybe. To let Sephiroth simply feel.

Sparing Sephiroth further eye contact for the moment, he focuses instead on the discussion at hand.

“Fair point. But what about the logistics of it? You’re an experienced guy. I assume.” The tone of his voice grows pointed there, because, well, reasons. 

Zack proceeds with a snicker, “Do I wash up butt-ass naked by some mako wellspring? Heard Mideel’s real popular for that sorta thing. Feel a funny tingle in your feet and come to in the middle of nowhere?” 

Just spitballing. Maybe one of those ideas will stick.

What would he do if he were in Aerith’s shoes? Assuming she was the only one orchestrating this whole back-to-life business. There must be a reason he and Sephiroth talking about it right this very moment as opposed to any other point in time that Zack figures would have been just as opportune. She's radio silent, so they're on their own.

Zack scruffs at a spot just behind his ear, brows drawn in concentration.

“I mean…What if this all has something to do with you? I didn’t exactly wake up today–not that I did any waking up– and decide, wow, I feel like talking to Sephiroth!”  

@wingsdreamt

Zack remains hard to look at. Or, hard to see, to process a presence that Sephiroth is continually telling himself has to be a dream at best or a hallucination at worst. The hell of it is, he wants Zack to be there. Desperately.

And worse -- or better, depending -- is how he's starting to believe it. This isn't the Zack that's appeared in his dreams before. Or night terrors. He's too familiar. He's--

Dead. He knows that, but hearing it again prods at the same wounds. Add to that, he doesn't remember his own time spent in the Lifestream. It was all vague impressions and a searing headache if he tries to remember details, but he supposes that's for the best. In a way.

He watches because he can't look away, and it's eye contact that starts cracking through the certainty that all of this is his mind playing cruel tricks. Is that better?

"Stop, please--" It's so instantaneous that he thinks for a moment the wet heat sliding down his face might be blood before he realizes: water. saline, tears. He wipes at his face angrily. "There aren't apologies to give. Especially to you. After everything I put you through-- You were only trying to help. You were only trying to do the right thing as always and all I saw was--"

Traitor. Everyone had felt as much, at that point. Genesis, Angeal, Lazard; it had become the rest of the world easily enough. Losing one grasp and gaining another, hand-over-hand, grasping with claws forming from his own being--

Sephiroth swallowed back bile. That was real enough. Like the moment he needed to breathe. One of the few people who saw him as a person, and here he was...

Being painfully human. What's a little more, then. Wiping at his eyes a bit more calmly, the gravel of his voice still reflects his emotional state. He is trying, though. Doing all he can to return to something lighter and far less deeply mortifying. "If you're requesting my help in presenting an argument for your miraculous resurrection, consider this a yes. Though I tend to believe the only thing you'd really have to say might be, 'Well, you did it for him...'"

That doesn't give Aerith nearly enough credit, he supposes. But she can certainly yell at him directly if she feels the need to.

#calamitysshatteredson #sephiroth. #i wonder-- could seph...y'know. track high concentrations jenova cells? lmao

[wingsdreamt]

hello! i'm back from my trip overseas and getting back into the swing of things. high activity not guaranteed but if you're interested in interactions feel free to like this post and i'll drop something short from a meme or otherwise into your inbox. or, if you prefer, send me something instead.

#ooc.

[wingsdreamt]

Zack nods along as they walk through the hypothetical, then tips his cheek against his fingers with a moue formed on his lips. Sephiroth is using that voice. The one reserved for exploring those fun sort of topics that keep you staring up at the ceiling at night. He smiles and drops his chin, melancholy. 

As far as second chances go, he would have liked one. The present has turned out mostly alright, even without him or many of his loved ones in it. 

“Oh, I’m definitely dead,” Zack assures, hand-waving away any vague doubts that Sephiroth might have held as to otherwise. “Dead…but still me, y’know?” That’s an important detail in its own way, and one he’s continuing to drive. If he were truly dead, then he shouldn’t be himself.  

He remains quiet after that, giving Sephiroth space to think, space to carefully shape the words that are so difficult to form. His expression softens, and Zack gazes out to what he thinks would be the horizon if it existed in this sliver between the world of the dead and the living.

Zack laces his fingers behind his back and spins on his heels into a slow, thoughtful rocking motion. He’s fully looking away from Sephiroth now, at the nothingness in particular, because they have no other means of affording privacy. 

“But I’m here, really. The real me, and not some intensely convincing manifestation of your guilt and sins. Who’d have thought I would make such a great bogeyman? Already had that happen once and that was awkward enough–” Zack, realizing he has effectively sidetracked himself, clears his throat with a laugh before proceeding with his main point. “For what it’s worth, Sephiroth, I accept your apology.” 

Forgiveness, well, that’s a matter they won’t solve in this stretch of dreamtime. If ever.

Given time, and he had nothing but (nor a corporeal form with which to effect much of…well, anything), Zack gained a solid understanding of his own purgatorial circumstances. For the very same reason they could have a conversation now, the Plant would simply not let it happen. All living things return to the Lifestream. This is a truth every one of Gaia’s inhabitants come to learn, whether through witness or through oral histories and lessons. Unfortunately, getting your cells mixed up with an unholy star scourge complicates the natural order of things to varying degrees. Dangerous, to continue down this line of thinking. It smells suspiciously hopeful, smacks of a poor consolation attempt, and insults all common sense. And yet.    

“Well, if it could happen to you…” Zack shrugs, allowing Sephiroth’s imagination to do the rest of the heavy lifting. “I don’t fully understand how it all works, but I’m pretty sure Aerith has been dropping hints. And by pretty sure, I mean…eh… seventy, eighty percent? What do you think?”

@wingsdreamt [From here because words showed up!]

Sephiroth tenses, because it's-- It's so much like Zack. As he remembers him and something completely new. Similar, familiar, but altogether different. It's been a long time since any illusion has been this realistic, this full of detail, and he knows he should do whatever he can to wake up. Dismiss it. It's not real, you're not real, I read about how you died, I--

Well. He won't be saying that. Bit of a... thing about research he'd done in the past and all. Paranoia stuck around, he supposed. (And he did not under any circumstances admit, even to himself, that the only reason he has to worry about what a Zack-illusion might think of him talking about another few days of near-sleepless research was because this might not be an illusion.)

"As it so happens." He parrots drily, one eyebrow raised and feels like kicking himself because it's so familiar. It's too familiar and too real to be real. "Dead men--" He halts in the middle of the sentence, suddenly making a noise that sounds like a cross between startled laughter and the low wheeze of a dying Behemoth. "'Dead men stay dead', says the dead man." Convincing, that.

As for her-- No, he has no animosity toward her, not really. Complicated... something, now, but somehow that felt neither here nor there.

He can't quite resist the urge to scrub at his face with one hand; it's a habit he picked up while he was empty of all this. Blissfully unaware and not able to enjoy it, the mystery of who he was and why he had no memory of it weighing more heavily than the threat he would someday remember and wish he didn't. Hand falling limp to his side, Sephiroth stares. He stares for a long time, taking in details. Not as well as he used to, photographic memory a thing of the past, but he still remembers. Enough. It's almost worth playing into when surely this unreality must end like all the others, isn't it?

He sighs deeply. "Alright, assuming. We'll pretend for a moment that I'm me and you're you and we're both here. Because of all of us, you're the one who deserves another chance at life most." It's a thought he's had. One he's agonized over for a long time, but never said out loud. There'd never been reason to.

It's hard to speak for a moment. He tries to push that aside; control over his emotions has gotten harder along with everything else that used to be so, so easy. Gaze downward, he just. Breathes. "I wish you were here. Seeing as how apologies aren't possible."

#calamitysshatteredson #sephiroth. #zack: look. i'm just /saying/....... #[ ν ] – εγλ 0010 - 0015.

[wingsdreamt]

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He doesn't even know how he's supposed to answer the next question, really. One small question, several very long-winded answers. The better questions was, how was it this guy didn't know who Shinra was? If he was some kind of a Wutaian spy or secret agent then he had to be one of the worst.

Zack holds up his hands, waving Knives's questions away with a sudden scowl.

"And why the hell should I answer you anyway?"

He'll give this weirdo the benefit of the doubt...for now. Even if he's rude as hell. "Shinra runs this city, top to bottom. The Turks? You might not know who they are, but it's their business to know who you are."

"Ah, that explains it." Mentally he checks off Vash and nods to himself. Mystery solved, great job. "Moving on to more important things, who or what is a Shinra?"

A pause. "And why do people fear turkeys?" That one's been baffling him for weeks.

#millionsnife #knives.

[wingsdreamt]

Oh. Oh. Zack feels her hands in the front of his uniform, then her loud sniffling and quivering shoulders as she crushes herself against him.

All while he’s fighting the vague urge to hurl his guts all over the garden. She probably wouldn’t appreciate that very much after putting so much work into their care. So, green in the face and very nauseous from the journey that stretched both lifetimes and the blink of an eye, Zack tentatively wraps his arms around Aerith’s waist and holds her. Long enough for the sobs to subside, for the roiling in his stomach to clear, for him to figure out an answer to Aerith’s question himself.

What happened?

He’s been stuck as soulstuff long enough to know that wherever this was, it wasn’t the Lifestream, it wasn’t even the Lifestream’s approximation of Aerith’s church. Zack drops his cheek onto Aerith’s head, gently, then turns to breathe in her scent. It was…the real deal. All of it. Her. The flowers, the church.

He understood too late. Just as she intended, he supposes. That little minx. He almost wants to cry as he lifts Aerith off her feet, linking his hands together against the back of her dress to form a seat for her as he buries his face against his collarbone. And then he does cry, wetting the collar of her jacket with his own sobs.

“You…You brought me here,” he manages, which is as much of an explanation that he can piece together while his face decides to turn up the waterworks. Zack pulls back far enough to squint at her through a long, ugly sniff. 

He doesn’t know the when of it exactly, but he can guess, and the likeliest possibility makes his heart ache.

“Long time no see, beautiful.”

Though Zack awoke completely and utterly alone, it wasn't his fate to remain that way.

The groan of the heavy wooden door was the most obvious sign of life being breathed back into the church. It would take a moment even for an enhanced pair of eyes to adjust to the backdrop of light that framed a familiar figure. A sharp gasp was his greeting. "Zack?!" Aerith's voice cried, frantic and confused in equal measure. The stillness shattered as her footsteps thundered across the old floorboards.

Heavy boots trod upon precious blooms where she threw herself down — it was far from a romantic reunion like fairytales might have painted, her shaken hands landed upon his chest.

Only, this time he wasn't pushed.

Her fingers gripped into his uniform and pulled more of the fabric than actually-him forward. "What happened—??" she demanded, or at least she tried, her voice cracked with emotion.

The mature Aerith, the one who embodied a gentle calm had been replaced. He would meet her again in the future, perhaps. For now, though, he sat with Aerith as he had left her. Imperfect. Irrational. Immature.

He wasn't given the grace to respond, or to ask a question of his own. If anything he was suffocated by how Aerith threw herself onto him with a messy hug, her face buried into formerly-stretched fabric that now acted as a mop to clean up her mess of tears and snot. She cried as though he were dead in her arms, which was telling in its own way. It had been five years. She thought him dead.. what else could explain his absence?

#holyguardian #aerith. #ah yes; the tearful reunion and then...the hard questions

[wingsdreamt]

Stares directly at him, eyes bright. Staring. Staring. Staring.

He's not very snack-sized, last he checked, but...if he were pressed to describe the intensity with which this strange, strange man fixed upon him presently, it would be something like a predator sizing up their afternoon meal.

SOLDIERs could be pretty weird in their own right, but this...

Zack checks over his shoulder, just in case anything supernatural happens to be going on back there.

"Can I...uh, can I help you?"

#millionsnife #knives. #zack: ಠ_ಠ???

[wingsdreamt]

alias / name : fair, short for carnivalfair, which is my usual handle elsewheres. 🙃 zodiac sign : aquarius height : 5'2" hobbies : making art, writing, baking/cooking (especially stuff from scratch, like bread, noodles, greek yogurt...mmm), road cycling, video games favourite colour : i've been fond of aqua/teal colors as of late, especially in my art favourite book : probably the animorphs series, especially the hork bajir chronicles. i've been working my way through the year of the flood by margaret atwood most recently. midnight mass by f. paul wilson is next on the docket. last film / show : watching dungeon meshi and frieren with friends. last movie was the man from earth. inspiration : usually what i'm reading at the time, or matching to whoever i'm writing with. story behind url : made this blog on a whim, the url really just revolves around the quote 'those wings, i want them too.' fun fact about me : i was in an art rut for the longest time and then...trigun happened and i've made more art (for fun!) and improved than i have in years. writing with awesome people certainly helped. tagged by: @kunselxsoldier

#ooc. #about.

[wingsdreamt]

“Hey man, that hurts.” 

Not Sephiroth’s first rodeo with uninvited visitors, dreamspace or otherwise, given the chilly reception. 

He is still himself, last he checked. 

Zack Fair, SOLDIER First Class. Property of Shinra, recapture failed and pronounced dead and all that, ex-all of the above, except maybe the dead part. Like hell he was ever going to let them stuff him in a copter or a truck so they could disappear him a second time. 

Being Lifestream-adjacent never did really provide any clarity on the distinction between mortality and consciousness, and Aerith had never been very forthcoming with her explanations beyond ‘you’ll understand when it’s time’ and all that follows with the woefully cryptic manner of speaking people tend to effect when they can but simply won’t tell you how it is. 

“I’ve been told my face is generally pretty nice to look at, as it so happens.” Vaguely miffed, Zack folds his arms over his chest, then opens and closes his mouth a few times as he tries to process the imagined cross-examination that Sephiroth subjected himself to in the span of a few seconds. He scruffs at the back of his neck, then laughs sheepishly. 

“Heh, that’s what I get for trying to pull that mystic bullshit, I guess. Works for her, but not for me. No-ted,” he mutters under his breath.

“Soo…you think you’d know if that guy was ever gonna come back?” He’d sure like to be sitting on the edge of somewhere right about now, swinging his legs around. This conversation is way too heavy. Zack balances the invisible weight, juggling it between his hands. “I mean, you’re you. And I’m me. Someone must’ve decided that was good enough to work with.”

❛  you were once and perhaps continue to be the myth you tell to scare yourself  ❜

Not Here prompts | accepting but slow

His initial response wavers. It'd been almost automatic, offended, bitter; then it dries up under recognition. Voice, first. Then appearance.

Probably a dream, then. Maybe just a hallucination. That wouldn't be entirely new, but this is different and interesting, and what's the harm in playing along before it becomes some kind of nightmare?

"And if I were at all truly intelligent, maybe I'd find a way to make use of some of that fear." He'd found that despite being called a brilliant tactician on a number of occasions, that applied only to specific circumstances. Fearless and cunning and brutal and nearly immortal--

Yeah. Words of yesteryear. And he does not need another dreamscape to feel sorry for himself in. To tell himself things far too late. He ought to turn his back and walk away, but the dangerous longing for familiarity keeps him there. "Rightfully terrified, I would say. And not by being the kind of myth that bleeds and dies." He'd gotten so close to embodying all those fears. To moving right past them and becoming...

What? Becoming what? Sephiroth sighs. "Let's skip to the end, shall we? I took feelings of betrayal very badly and now I am actually susceptible to being wounded and pained by the sharp edge of a sheet of paper. This information is not helpful to me, as I know it quite intimately already. And whatever psychological thing is happening could at least go about it without wearing your face."

#sephiroth. #calamitysshatteredson #[ ν ] – εγλ 0010 - 0015.

[wingsdreamt]

That's right. Zack's head bobs right along in time to Aerith's nod. This is good. This is nice.

Zack suspects nothing.

"That's okay!" 

Aerith usually has to work pretty hard to get him mad. That isn't to say it's impossible, but stranger things have happened. He tilts his head, slow, ponderously curious until Aerith corrects the tilt of the world's axis with her hands on either side of his face. Zack blinks. "Huh? Wai--" His stomach drops out from under him. Then his legs. Then warmth, light, color...Until he realizes his eyes are closed, and Zack wakes up a second time.

Alone.

He sits up in the same bed of flowers. The same, or...maybe not. Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe this is the dream. It's all very confusing. His brain manages to hold onto a few precious scraps of memory. The smell of Aerith’s hair, the weight of her hands, how soft her voice sounded in the nebulous past. 

Zack rubs his face with his hands. His skin feels warm beneath calloused palms. Sun-warmed. Light still streams in from the broken roof above, illuminating the sea of pollen and dust floating in and out of the shadows. It is silent in the church save for the occasional breeze sweeping in from above and through the cracks in the great stone walls. The church looks the same, but then, that's part of what makes it special.

"...Hello?" Zack ventures after a lengthy, internal argument over matters of questioning his reality and a warped sense of time. “Aerith?”

@wingsdreamt | X

There was a sympathetic edge that softened Aerith's smile and around her eyes. The selfish part of her hadn't wanted this to end. What she wanted was to simply lay beside Zack and feel comforted by his warmth, no matter how restless his sleep. He was usually a rock. Usually. Even if he tossed and turned, she would have taken it, would have been his little jetpack along for the ride.

But that was only playing make believe.

Her teeth flashed in a wider smile and she nodded. Of course that was the type of dream that coloured his sleeping mind. He was a guy with a good heart, he wanted the best for others. He was selfless even here, where he hadn't even dreamed his own happiness.

"Sorry for waking you." she spoke, not sounding the least bit apologetic. Her voice was rather gentle though. "I needed to tell you..." Aerith leaned closer, with both hands cupped against his face. "You're a hero. The world needs you to keep fighting on, okay?"

A hand slid from Zack's cheek and snaked down to his chest. There was a subtle shift in her expression. Her smile saddened with a blink, and before he could speak, the hand at his chest shoved him with a force that ripped his soul across the tides of the lifestream. Pulled like a rubber band, it was time to snap back and make everything right again.

#aerith. #holyguardian #[ μ ] – εγλ ????.

[wingsdreamt]

.

#my art. #wip. #sometimes you get jump scared by old art and are compelled to redraw it..... #writing will resume at some point but im gonna be traveling for two weeks in a few days 🤷‍♀️

[wingsdreamt]

'Returned from the dead' doesn't quite describe their circumstances. The nature of the Lifestream is that it is cyclical.

Cycles can be broken.

Blood and bone, the Planet's lifeblood, have made him as much as the calamity from the skies has unmade him. The many voices coalesced from the will of the Planet never did let him past the welcome rug. They were polite, at least. As polite as Aerith could get them to be.

So then, when he runs his fingers along the groove in the door, the door left open by a sliver atop dusty steps, Zack isn’t entirely surprised to find a familiar silhouette within. He pulls the door closed, shutting out the gutted remains of Sector Five behind him.

“Hey, Angeal.” 

By the time Angeal turns to look at him, Zack has already thrown up a two-finger salute against his temple. Normally, Angeal would have been the one to scold him for letting someone sneak up on him.

“This place feels special, doesn’t it?”

@wingsdreamt

Ever the wanderer Angeal had become. He found himself in the depths of the slums in the old church that used to house a flower girl. It seemed so quiet and empty now. His eyes were focused on the flowers that decorated the floors. It was oddly peaceful. He found himself finding peace there.

Sunlight was rare and the upper plate must of been removed to allow it to peek through the broken beams of the roof. It was an odd feeling to be back in Midgar. It wasn't exactly like a home sick feeling but just returning to a place he hadn't seen in years.

The black haired man was so deep in his reflections that he didn't hear the door open and floor creak with familiar footfalls.

#angeal. #uponthyhonor #[ ν ] – εγλ 0010 - 0015.

[wingsdreamt]

[ WORRY ]: the sender grabs the receiver by the shoulders to take a good look at them for any sign of harm or injury / verona!

"Ah-- woah, hey!"

His complaints seem to fall on deaf ears. The inspection will proceed with or without his say so as Verona angles him this way and that to examine the deep gash cutting across his collarbone to shoulder. Blood seeps steadily into his uniform, dampening purple to black and the left strap of his harness has been completely severed.

"I'm okay. It's fine, see? Just a little blood. It's already clotting up and everything. I mean, yeah, uniform's a total loss but the Company deals with that stuff all the time." He chatters away, seemingly unconcerned now the dust has settled and they've stolen space aside from all the chaos.

In the slums, pretty much anything goes if you can cobble or weld it together yourself. Naturally, that leads to some...dubious attempts at DIY civil engineering, but who hasn't had a leaning tower of boxcars-turned-tenement housing nearly collapse on them nowadays?

"Look on the bright side! No one got hurt!"

Zack pauses, sucking in his lips in response to the blithe irony of his own words. "Much. What's the point in calling myself a SOLDIER if I'm not making use of these bad boys, right?" He bounces from the ball of one foot to the next to demonstrate just how nimble he is.

#strywoven #verona. #[ μ ] – εγλ 1992 - 0000.

[wingsdreamt]

[ WAKEN ]: the sender touches the receiver's shoulder to waken them from a nap or sleep.

"Don't wanna," Zack mumbles, already awake whether he wants to be or not. The inertia of sleep cannot save him now. Nothing can, really, but getting obligatory sympathies from Aerith might help him feel better.

"I was having the nicest dream," he sighs wistfully, finally sitting up and propping his elbows on his knees. Zack tilts his head to one side, reminiscing in the vestiges of that wonderfully fuzzy feeling as details become impressions.

"You were in it! You, my parents, Angeal, Cissnei, Kunsel. Even Sephiroth."

Everyone seemed happy.

Maybe dreams are the only way they can be. What a melancholy thought.

Deciding his head is suddenly too heavy to hold up, Zack props his chin on his knuckles and peers at Aerith with mild curiosity.

"You ever try to go back to sleep when you're in the middle of a dream and suddenly wake up? Like, sometimes I just need to know what happens next even if I forget it all the next time I open my eyes."

#this kind of went in a...direction #also is he really actually truly awake? who knows #when does this take place? also unclear 🙃 #aerith. #holyguardian #[ μ ] – εγλ ????.

[wingsdreamt]

[ STAY ]: the sender, noticing the receiver attempting to escape a meeting or a conversation, quietly rests a hand on their shoulder and pulls them back into their seat.

Foiled.

Either his tells are way more telegraphed than he thought or...Kunsel is Kunsel. Because of course it would be Kunsel. It could also be Angeal, but that can't be the case because Angeal is too important to be in the room while the compliance video is playing on the projector.

In fact, if Angeal were in the room, then Zack would know it because his mentor would also be glaring daggers at him the whole time for making faces every time one of the actors said something outlandishly implausible.

Real people don't freaking talk like that!

This is the same security and safety meeting they have every week, always about the same issues regarding the war effort. All the hubbub about keeping company secrets safe, reporting suspicious characters in the company housing tracts, loose lips sink ships and blah, blah, blah. All the SOLDIERs, the Company's prized warhounds, were kept on a short leash anyway.

Zack has the sneaking suspicion none of them could even use the damn toilet without some poor, brand-spanking new Turk having to document it in their reports.

Doing their duty, heh.

"Aw, c'mon, man. It's not like anybody would know if we just left halfway through." He folds his arms over his chest and looks aside.

Not that Kunsel couldn't already tell that he was wearing a big, exaggerated pout.

#kunsel. #kunselxsoldier #[ μ ] – εγλ 1992 - 0000.

[wingsdreamt]

.

#working through asks on both accounts! #been a while as far as ff7 so just getting back into the swing of things #maybe i'll get through them all today #maybe i wont #but i have them dw #ooc. #tbd.

[wingsdreamt]

[ WAKEN ]: the sender touches the receiver's shoulder to waken them from a nap or sleep.

"Bwuh?"

Zack blinks once, then several times as the world slowly comes back into focus. He must've really needed that sleep. Granted, he's got a sleep deficit about as wide as the biggest canyon in Cosmo, so that shouldn't be a shock to much of anyone he's talked to in the past few days.

With Aerith paying close attention to him now, however, Zack does his best to look diligent and not like he could stand to sleep for another twenty hours.

She's spent enough time worrying, not adding to that pile is the least he can do.

"What's going on? Did I miss dinner again?"

A tentative sniff tells him no, he hasn't missed out on any delectable nutrients that didn't come out from a rusted can or an expired meal kit, but he continues to operate on the assumption that food is involved anyway. Zack leans forward, holding Aerith by both arms and staring directly into her eyes.

"Aerith," he says very seriously. Serious. Solemn. Not an ounce of humor glittering in his eyes in the slightest. "You. Are. The. Best. I knew you wouldn't let me miss out on Tifa's cooking a second time!"

#breathofthearth #aerith. #[ ν ] – εγλ ⟳0007⟳

[wingsdreamt]

[ SURPRISE ]: the sender, noticing an otherwise occupied receiver, moves forward silently and suddenly grabs their shoulder to startle them.

"Sky above Planet below you sonnuva maloceros scare the fuggin' shitoutta me willya--?!" Zack whips around with his fingers clawed and his teeth bared only to deflate just as fast when he realizes his commanding officer is responsible for the mischief. His sword clatters to the ground, echoing across the tall walls like a gong.

Practicing flow drills was one of the few times he could utterly dedicate his entire attention span to a task. It was almost meditative, at times. That meant, however, sacrificing in other departments. Like not paying attention to anyone who might've snuck into the training room behind him.

"Sir, General Rhapsodos sir!"

Zack automatically stiffens up into a salute until his brain catches up with his mouth. All his training with Hewley have conditioned somewhat of the right level of decorum. That is, if he cared enough about Rhapsodos's respect to give it to him when he's being an ass.

"Man, what did I ever do to you? I was concentrating! Now I have to start over," Zack groans, punching Genesis in the shoulder.

#unforestalledreturn #genesis. #[ μ ] – εγλ 1992 - 0000.