[ writing w2 in the header of this aged me 40 years and i'm a mod. anyway she can enter the penthouse, c+ps this
The penthouse, as one might expect of... a penthouse, is more spacious than the studios and built out with actual rooms. It's modestly furnished and nondescript to the point of emptiness: austere, wooden furniture and plain windows, impossibly fogged and streaked with water, even if the weather outside is clear; the sound of rain persists. Atop the desks are tidy lines of jars filled with looted supplies from the pharmacy, tools from the hospital, vials in a stand, and a stack of notes. It's neat, academic, and impersonal. There's also a small, whittled statue of a wolf to the far side.
The 'decor' is otherwise limited to flowers. Drying from the ceiling, dying in vases, dropping petals that decay and vanish before they strike the ground. Two lotuses set in a china bowl, one starting to wrinkle and wither. His Death mask is hung up, but beside it is another fashioned firmly on one of the walls, as though grafted in, swollen onto the wood like a tick to skin. Basically these are the vibes, except less cozy and more surreal, gritty and strange as any of the other rooms. There's some couches and a TV too, for convenience.
death is currently heating some water in a small fireplace and working, so she can come in and have a seat wherever. ]
...Aerith. [ WHAT A TRIAL ] You all must be tired.
[the absolute jumpscare i got from this second mask, jesus. anyway, this is...perhaps gritty and strange, but given she spent a lot of formative years captive in a room at shinra's headquarters she isn't really that uncomfortable. she should maybe sit down, but when she wanders in she finds herself quietly entering the suite and walking to observe everything. she's a little too curious for her own good sometimes, interested in what kind of a person death is, but there's the little bit of restless energy, too.
and now that the trial has concluded, some of her brightness has dimmed though her demeanor remains calm. still pleasant. still thoughtful of and grateful for his time.]
It's a little funny. I thought maybe being on this side would be a little less stressful than trying to solve everything, but I think it might have been worse. [wowee.] This probably doesn't get any easier for you though either, does it?
[ sometimes you wear a mask all the fucking time!! but right now he doesn't bother with either. he meets her demeanor with his own sort of calm, which is less pleasant and more deliberately neutral. ]
For me? I came here alone and died early. I don't have any issues.
[ imagine getting attached to people..... ]
You're the ones watching people struggling and mourning after you, without any means to intervene. That's the hard part.
[there are some days she does, in fact, imagine not getting attached to people actually just to spice things up and it's wild but also understandable in its own way.
and yet here she is. attached. drifting to look at the dried and dying flowers.]
I can't tell if it's easier the second time, or if I'm just refusing to admit there isn't anything I can do for them now. [she could stand for a better lead-in to that information but it's also something she's already mentioned to at least one overseer. she kind of gets the impression death won't really have much of a reaction to it.]
the flowers mostly seem like one of the many strange room fixtures of the apartments, there but not quite right, the petals falling and turning ashen, before they turn to nothing at all. but there's some real ones hanging in the windows, too. ]
You're not the first person to say they've died before. [ but yes, maybe given his moniker, he does not seem very fazed. sympathetic, maybe, but not shocked. ] Maybe it's like when... for instance, a bone breaks. It comes back stronger. ...Or in your case, more stubborn.
[these are actually fascinating to her both as a "florist" and as a magic user, so she watches for a while before returning to the real ones.]
That isn't surprising, I think. [a lot of people really do have terrible canonpoints. she does appreciate that he does not seem fazed by this.] I don't think I mind being a stubborn bone either.
[she does finally sit down though.]
I read through the notebooks that were put together, and...I'm sure you get a lot of these questions every time somebody new shows up. Do you mind if I ask anyway?
Thank you. [polite. she's take a few moments to determine what, exactly, she wants to start with.]
...the others said you were killed by the cult itself. Was that a cover so they wouldn't know what you were really doing? [because she can kind of imagine if the other overseers went "oh yeah death died in an accident while we were building a machine to shield you and get you out", people would start talking and the cult would catch wind.] Also whose hand did I find.
[this has been haunting her for weeks. please help.]
[ he does not look affected by his own death. except that he looks Tired. ]
I have no idea where they got the hand.
[ gazes into the abyss ]
But yes, it was a cover. My assumption is it was partly to hide what we were working on, partly to get you all to trust them more. Either way, it's for your benefit.
[WHY DID YOU GUYS JUST ADD A HAND i can't stand it here. anyway aerith sort of momentarily looks tired and stares into the void but...it is fine. she will not ask about it.]
Right. [moving on.] Well...it did work. A lot of people changed their opinions about all of them knowing they were risking themselves...even if it feels a little silly that something so drastic had to happen instead of thinking they might've wanted to actually help in the first place. With the machine you were building...have you built something like it before?
[ hands just happen in murder sometime........... ]
I don't think it's silly. In the end, us Overseers are still lying to everyone. It's only reasonable to believe we might not have your interests at heart. [ why trust some randos in cult garb honestly ] As for the machine... it's not. I'm a doctor, not an engineer. It was mostly Famine and Pestilence who put it together, while War and I played support.
I remember how it's put together, but considering it exploded, I think it'd need substantial improvements to be any more help.
[because randos in cult garb are a little better than familiar people in lab coats...
so yeah. she knows she's the outlier here, too, in being someone who wanted to trust the overseers' intentions even before nehan died.]
And yet as it turns out, you all do. [so point negated. she seems a little interested in the fact he's a doctor, if only because she sort of got the impression from things said and. well. she's a healer primarily, of course she's going to look at the common ground.] That sounds about right though, with War mostly knowing magic and Famine's technology they put together themselves. Do you remember anything in particular that happened to it that caused it to explode in the first place?
[ aerith your trauma...... you can leave this as a business audience if you want ty but i want your memshares at some point, hooks claws into u
he scoffs a little. yes, it turns out that maybe they do care to help. he has the worst bedside manner in the world, but they are technically both healers. ]
If I had to guess... I think it was the parts. We weren't able to order anything we wanted, considering how much attention it would draw—it's also why we only smuggled so much inventory into the village. [ one order a week. ] Either something was faulty, or the whole thing just wasn't very reliable.
I don't know if that's a problem they'll be able to get around.
Anything too visible would mean a higher risk of everything being taken away. Yeah, that makes sense to me. When you're infiltrating and going against the order of things, you have to blend in as much as possible and change things right under their nose. [she ponders on that though.] If it's not a problem they can get around...what do you think our chances are here?
[she agrees! makes total sense, would rather not hurt things in the long run. and even as an optimist, she did come to see nehan and ask him these questions solely because she knows he has a much better understanding of their situation than any of them. blind faith isn't going to help, and being positive will only get them so far if there are actual possibilities for results.]
It...almost feels like this is a two steps process. Designing a way for us to get out of here, and bringing materials over to the village to recreate the machine you all were building to then maybe get all of us out. If each person only brought one part, that should escape the cult's watch, shouldn't it? But building a different machine here probably won't work the same way, huh. If this place really is just a dimension that ripped open on accident.
Yet, Death. The keyword in all of that is "yet." [...] Would you prefer to still be called Death, by the way? Or is Nehan alright?
[she's called him both while talking to other people, but she thinks it's fair to ask for his take on it. that aside, she continues.]
You found the workaround with the veiling trick you guys were able to do at certain times. And this place isn't exactly supervised either, so that means that much is possible. While it's not ideal to keep us all here for as long as it takes, we know what kind of results we've been able to achieve so far. [hum.] Do you believe there's something out there that might give us a chance to go back?
[it's one thing to be trying, but it's another to know if you really believe in revival after death in the first place.]
I'm not banking on anything. What we've found so far in those tomes seems like it could help us with regards to the ritual itself—it's a rare opportunity to see that kind of information. And we can communicate it to the other side, if only through the other overseers.
[ he does not think they'll share overmuch, but at least it's there. ]
I believe we can be an asset to them. Or a threat to the cult. But I don't know if we can be 'saved.' It isn't that simple.
Nehan then. [goodbye death.] The others told me that at first even communicating with the other overseers wasn't a possibility and that's since changed. If there's a rip in this dimension allowing a bridge...those who have died can slip back and forth between them. I've seen this before, I think.
[she says this but what she means is "i think that's happening to me at home."]
We might not be able to save ourselves on this side, but...I don't know. I don't want to put the pressure on them to think too much about it. They'll remember us for a while, but after that...[...well. people die all the time here. they'll mourn for a little while and then refocus on getting themselves out and not losing more people. and that's okay. that's life.] That said, I do wonder if by us being an asset, it also would give them a push to find some way to accomplish that on their side. Not that bringing the dead back is easy. Most of them probably don't even think it's possible.
[ this is such a specific thing to relate to, aerith ]
Have you...? [ hmmm ] I can't rule it out as a possibility. Our situation is changing, and our connection to them does seem stronger now. Just keep your expectations tempered.
[ but the rest gives him pause. ]
We haven't told anyone about our presence here yet. For caution's sake. [ besides the other overseers, of course. ] Do you want them to move on, or to be saved?
[looks at her other conversations with nehan so far. listen man you keep hitting her with specific examples idk what to tell you. but there's a slow nod because she realizes that really does sound unhinged. so she's going to try to explain even if that also sounds unhinged.]
...I was killed. That's a fact. But something happened and now I don't...really know where I am? No one else can see me, even if some of them can feel me. I'm still able to be on the planet, and Cloud...can see me. And hear me. I don't think he fully knows what happened. Like a different reality where he managed to save me. [and it's why she has not told him she's actually dead. but beyond that.] But recently he told me he saw Zack, too. And Zack's been gone for a little while. So...if we're in the same situation, then it feels like we're both in the lifestream and we're not. If Cloud was able to see both of us, and hear and talk to both of us...[well there's entirely the possibility that cloud's fucking insane, but she's thinking more about red who definitely felt she was there and petting him.]
I don't have expectations, but I don't think we're hopeless in this situation either. I guess that's what I'm getting at. It makes sense not to tell anyone we're here in case that information falls in the wrong hands. [...] But if I had the option, I think everyone should be saved. I know that when it's a person's time, you can't change that. But I don't think that this is it. They all had their lives taken too soon, or they were removed from their own afterlives. They deserve the chance to regain what they lost.
[anyway before i get too derailed, this occurs until 3:28:28, minus zack's part in the middle.]
[ everyone and their very specific triggers... anyway i'm sorry this is late i had to learn how to write emotional gravitas again after rectangles
there's a lot to absorb about this scene without context, a world-shattering threat and the howls of an entire planet's worth of pain. that, and the framing of everything that aerith mentions gives him plenty to chew on when the scene ends, the tiniest furrow in his usually stoic brow. ]
...I'm usually a believer in fate. But I do think people have been taken very far from their paths, here.
[this is the funniest thing you could have said to me but also what a mood.
anyway yeah! sure is a lot to absorb, and she seems to be registering all of this fairly calmly, watching the memory back while nehan processes what he's seeing. everything happens a lot, and she's not fully sure of the question he'll ask, but when it comes she's not surprised either.]
Things that have happened here, for better or worse, were likely never part of the original plan. [so she agrees. this was absolutely spitting in the eye of fate whether one's defying it or believing in it.] That...was destiny's crossroads. The first time we crossed the gap to try and fight Sephiroth, and stop him from proceeding with his plan to destroy the planet. He's...there are ways he's able to control the flow of destiny now, I think. Those black figments you saw...the Whispers? They always appear when we try to stray from destiny's path. Sephiroth wants things to go a certain way so that he can destroy the planet and absorb the lifestream into himself. He wants to create a "forever." And it's up to us to stop him.
[ it's a little complicated, but he can get the gist of it. ]
Someone trying to take all of fate into his own hands... [ destroying the world in the process. ] Something drastic must have happened for him to go so far.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
week 2 saturday
The penthouse, as one might expect of... a penthouse, is more spacious than the studios and built out with actual rooms. It's modestly furnished and nondescript to the point of emptiness: austere, wooden furniture and plain windows, impossibly fogged and streaked with water, even if the weather outside is clear; the sound of rain persists. Atop the desks are tidy lines of jars filled with looted supplies from the pharmacy, tools from the hospital, vials in a stand, and a stack of notes. It's neat, academic, and impersonal. There's also a small, whittled statue of a wolf to the far side.
The 'decor' is otherwise limited to flowers. Drying from the ceiling, dying in vases, dropping petals that decay and vanish before they strike the ground. Two lotuses set in a china bowl, one starting to wrinkle and wither. His Death mask is hung up, but beside it is another fashioned firmly on one of the walls, as though grafted in, swollen onto the wood like a tick to skin. Basically these are the vibes, except less cozy and more surreal, gritty and strange as any of the other rooms. There's some couches and a TV too, for convenience.
death is currently heating some water in a small fireplace and working, so she can come in and have a seat wherever. ]
...Aerith. [ WHAT A TRIAL ] You all must be tired.
no subject
and now that the trial has concluded, some of her brightness has dimmed though her demeanor remains calm. still pleasant. still thoughtful of and grateful for his time.]
It's a little funny. I thought maybe being on this side would be a little less stressful than trying to solve everything, but I think it might have been worse. [wowee.] This probably doesn't get any easier for you though either, does it?
no subject
For me? I came here alone and died early. I don't have any issues.
[ imagine getting attached to people..... ]
You're the ones watching people struggling and mourning after you, without any means to intervene. That's the hard part.
no subject
and yet here she is. attached. drifting to look at the dried and dying flowers.]
I can't tell if it's easier the second time, or if I'm just refusing to admit there isn't anything I can do for them now. [she could stand for a better lead-in to that information but it's also something she's already mentioned to at least one overseer. she kind of gets the impression death won't really have much of a reaction to it.]
no subject
the flowers mostly seem like one of the many strange room fixtures of the apartments, there but not quite right, the petals falling and turning ashen, before they turn to nothing at all. but there's some real ones hanging in the windows, too. ]
You're not the first person to say they've died before. [ but yes, maybe given his moniker, he does not seem very fazed. sympathetic, maybe, but not shocked. ] Maybe it's like when... for instance, a bone breaks. It comes back stronger. ...Or in your case, more stubborn.
no subject
That isn't surprising, I think. [a lot of people really do have terrible canonpoints. she does appreciate that he does not seem fazed by this.] I don't think I mind being a stubborn bone either.
[she does finally sit down though.]
I read through the notebooks that were put together, and...I'm sure you get a lot of these questions every time somebody new shows up. Do you mind if I ask anyway?
no subject
I don't mind. Ask as much as you want.
no subject
...the others said you were killed by the cult itself. Was that a cover so they wouldn't know what you were really doing? [because she can kind of imagine if the other overseers went "oh yeah death died in an accident while we were building a machine to shield you and get you out", people would start talking and the cult would catch wind.] Also whose hand did I find.
[this has been haunting her for weeks. please help.]
no subject
I have no idea where they got the hand.
[ gazes into the abyss ]
But yes, it was a cover. My assumption is it was partly to hide what we were working on, partly to get you all to trust them more. Either way, it's for your benefit.
no subject
Right. [moving on.] Well...it did work. A lot of people changed their opinions about all of them knowing they were risking themselves...even if it feels a little silly that something so drastic had to happen instead of thinking they might've wanted to actually help in the first place. With the machine you were building...have you built something like it before?
no subject
I don't think it's silly. In the end, us Overseers are still lying to everyone. It's only reasonable to believe we might not have your interests at heart. [ why trust some randos in cult garb honestly ] As for the machine... it's not. I'm a doctor, not an engineer. It was mostly Famine and Pestilence who put it together, while War and I played support.
I remember how it's put together, but considering it exploded, I think it'd need substantial improvements to be any more help.
no subject
so yeah. she knows she's the outlier here, too, in being someone who wanted to trust the overseers' intentions even before nehan died.]
And yet as it turns out, you all do. [so point negated. she seems a little interested in the fact he's a doctor, if only because she sort of got the impression from things said and. well. she's a healer primarily, of course she's going to look at the common ground.] That sounds about right though, with War mostly knowing magic and Famine's technology they put together themselves. Do you remember anything in particular that happened to it that caused it to explode in the first place?
no subject
he scoffs a little. yes, it turns out that maybe they do care to help. he has the worst bedside manner in the world, but they are technically both healers. ]
If I had to guess... I think it was the parts. We weren't able to order anything we wanted, considering how much attention it would draw—it's also why we only smuggled so much inventory into the village. [ one order a week. ] Either something was faulty, or the whole thing just wasn't very reliable.
I don't know if that's a problem they'll be able to get around.
no subject
Anything too visible would mean a higher risk of everything being taken away. Yeah, that makes sense to me. When you're infiltrating and going against the order of things, you have to blend in as much as possible and change things right under their nose. [she ponders on that though.] If it's not a problem they can get around...what do you think our chances are here?
no subject
Exactly. It's better to integrate yourself into something you want to break apart. Drawing attention is only going to hurt in the long run.
[ but as for their real chances... his expression is staid. ]
We have advantages of being here. Secrecy, access to materials they don't have, and whatnot. But it won't matter in the end if we can't leave.
no subject
It...almost feels like this is a two steps process. Designing a way for us to get out of here, and bringing materials over to the village to recreate the machine you all were building to then maybe get all of us out. If each person only brought one part, that should escape the cult's watch, shouldn't it? But building a different machine here probably won't work the same way, huh. If this place really is just a dimension that ripped open on accident.
no subject
That would require a way to send them things, first off. I don't know that we can. And we don't currently have any parts to take to them.
[ but he doesn't reject the idea outright, thinking. ]
The original machine was to create a safe pocket for us to work without surveillance. Obviously, we're beyond that now. We'd need something better.
no subject
[she's called him both while talking to other people, but she thinks it's fair to ask for his take on it. that aside, she continues.]
You found the workaround with the veiling trick you guys were able to do at certain times. And this place isn't exactly supervised either, so that means that much is possible. While it's not ideal to keep us all here for as long as it takes, we know what kind of results we've been able to achieve so far. [hum.] Do you believe there's something out there that might give us a chance to go back?
[it's one thing to be trying, but it's another to know if you really believe in revival after death in the first place.]
no subject
[ he truly does not give a damn. ]
I'm not banking on anything. What we've found so far in those tomes seems like it could help us with regards to the ritual itself—it's a rare opportunity to see that kind of information. And we can communicate it to the other side, if only through the other overseers.
[ he does not think they'll share overmuch, but at least it's there. ]
I believe we can be an asset to them. Or a threat to the cult. But I don't know if we can be 'saved.' It isn't that simple.
no subject
[she says this but what she means is "i think that's happening to me at home."]
We might not be able to save ourselves on this side, but...I don't know. I don't want to put the pressure on them to think too much about it. They'll remember us for a while, but after that...[...well. people die all the time here. they'll mourn for a little while and then refocus on getting themselves out and not losing more people. and that's okay. that's life.] That said, I do wonder if by us being an asset, it also would give them a push to find some way to accomplish that on their side. Not that bringing the dead back is easy. Most of them probably don't even think it's possible.
no subject
Have you...? [ hmmm ] I can't rule it out as a possibility. Our situation is changing, and our connection to them does seem stronger now. Just keep your expectations tempered.
[ but the rest gives him pause. ]
We haven't told anyone about our presence here yet. For caution's sake. [ besides the other overseers, of course. ] Do you want them to move on, or to be saved?
no subject
...I was killed. That's a fact. But something happened and now I don't...really know where I am? No one else can see me, even if some of them can feel me. I'm still able to be on the planet, and Cloud...can see me. And hear me. I don't think he fully knows what happened. Like a different reality where he managed to save me. [and it's why she has not told him she's actually dead. but beyond that.] But recently he told me he saw Zack, too. And Zack's been gone for a little while. So...if we're in the same situation, then it feels like we're both in the lifestream and we're not. If Cloud was able to see both of us, and hear and talk to both of us...[well there's entirely the possibility that cloud's fucking insane, but she's thinking more about red who definitely felt she was there and petting him.]
I don't have expectations, but I don't think we're hopeless in this situation either. I guess that's what I'm getting at. It makes sense not to tell anyone we're here in case that information falls in the wrong hands. [...] But if I had the option, I think everyone should be saved. I know that when it's a person's time, you can't change that. But I don't think that this is it. They all had their lives taken too soon, or they were removed from their own afterlives. They deserve the chance to regain what they lost.
[anyway before i get too derailed, this occurs until 3:28:28, minus zack's part in the middle.]
no subject
there's a lot to absorb about this scene without context, a world-shattering threat and the howls of an entire planet's worth of pain. that, and the framing of everything that aerith mentions gives him plenty to chew on when the scene ends, the tiniest furrow in his usually stoic brow. ]
...I'm usually a believer in fate. But I do think people have been taken very far from their paths, here.
[ ... ]
What was all that?
no subject
anyway yeah! sure is a lot to absorb, and she seems to be registering all of this fairly calmly, watching the memory back while nehan processes what he's seeing. everything happens a lot, and she's not fully sure of the question he'll ask, but when it comes she's not surprised either.]
Things that have happened here, for better or worse, were likely never part of the original plan. [so she agrees. this was absolutely spitting in the eye of fate whether one's defying it or believing in it.] That...was destiny's crossroads. The first time we crossed the gap to try and fight Sephiroth, and stop him from proceeding with his plan to destroy the planet. He's...there are ways he's able to control the flow of destiny now, I think. Those black figments you saw...the Whispers? They always appear when we try to stray from destiny's path. Sephiroth wants things to go a certain way so that he can destroy the planet and absorb the lifestream into himself. He wants to create a "forever." And it's up to us to stop him.
no subject
Someone trying to take all of fate into his own hands... [ destroying the world in the process. ] Something drastic must have happened for him to go so far.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)