wingenvy | [Action]

[Okay, so. He'd been en route to Midgar with Cloud. With a motorcycle, it had been awesome. And they'd been making good progress! Sure, he wasn't all that certain about directions, but being underground for so long can screw with a guy a little. There's no helping it. He'd been in a pretty good mood, though.

So if things had been going well for the first time in ages, why did he wake up this morning and find himself in the woods, alone and unarmed, in a fresh pair of white pants that didn't belong to him? It meant he hadn't been captured, since he wasn't in the lab, so... what? Seriously, what?

More importantly, where is Cloud!?

There's a sense of panic he hasn't felt since the troopers in Nibelheim had first started dragging Cloud away from him, so he wastes no time getting up and heading off to get a look around. If the military isn't responsible for this, maybe Cloud just wandered off (somehow) after whoever it was had taken Zack out. Man, so much for life getting easier...

tl;dr Zack will be ducking around the village early-ish in the morning, trying to make the most of the late November sunrise by doing his best ninja impression. He's trying not to be seen, but how effective he is at doing so? Really depends. SOLDIERs are sadly not ninjas.]

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[Zack.

It's like a mental hand grabs hold of Cloud's memories and yanks them to the surface. He winces -not from pain, just from the shock of it- and lifts a hand to his forehead, staring wide-eyed at the ex-SOLDIER.

scratches in curved glass walls

"We're friends, right?"

He mouths Zack's name and absently rubs his forehead.]

You're...that SOLDIER...

Different worlds!? [Zack gawks at her in disbelief, then looks around hastily.] But- that can't be right! How could I have gotten here!?

... Guess no one told you anything just yet. [S-slight sigh. He was pretty certain it'd end up this way, but damn does explaining things annoy him. Guh. All right. Because it's Zack, he'll make an exception.] I won't blame you if you don't believe this right off the bat, but this is a completely different world from your own. Actually, it's a completely different world for everyone living here. [Except ... one, but there's no need to get into that.]

[... "That SOLDIER"? Is that all Cloud remembers? Is that how they end up?

That SOLDIER...

What happened?]

Hey, are you okay?

[....Buh. Zack just sort of stares for a long moment, because seriously? Seriously? It's true that he doesn't seem to be lying, but it's not like he isn't sometimes kind of overly trusting...]

You're not kidding, are you.

... I wish I was. [ ... ] You woke up with a book near you, right? You still have that?

[Yes, unfortunately, it is. Just of the village.]

"Midgar"? [Giles shakes his head] You're in Luceti. Sorry. There's the village, the forest, and the desert, but after that there's a barrier that no one's managed to get through yet.

A book? I don't remember seeing one. [He's pretty sure he didn't have one with him before he got here...]

They kidnap you. Like they kidnapped the rest of us.

A barrier? Wait, we're trapped here? [Oh god, is this some kind of situational experiment or something? Out of the pods, into the... wait, that doesn't make sense.]

I'm afraid so. [All the sympathy in the world, Zach] People are sent home sometimes, but no one knows when or where or why it happens.

[Yuri starts to open his mouth to say some snarky comment about him leaving the journal behind, but he manages to bite it back. Given how Zack reacted when he called out to him, he's not so sure he can blame him for not even seeing it.]

Guess it must be wherever you woke up. That thing tends to find its way back to whoever it belongs to anyway, so don't worry about it. [Or is that what happens if someone tries destroying it? Whatever. Probably in that guide thing he read maybe a paragraph out of.] Anyway, whenever you come across it, or if you manage to borrow someone else's, there's a guide in there that explains this place in much better detail than I can. It's kinda long, but it should answer any questions you could have about this place.

... Why? [Probably shouldn't say how much trouble he's having with believing her right now.]

For experiments. It's why we have these. [ She flutters her wings once. ]

[Oh god oh god oh god. This is seriously messed up.]

Is it just- randomized or something? Do people even know why?

[Where he woke up? Crap. He's not sure of that one. Think, think, think...] I was in the woods somewhere... [Vague gesture in a vague direction. Eh-heh.]

Wings? [Zack stares, eyes snapping wide, and takes a step back. Wings meant- oh god, experiments too? Was Hojo behind this!? All the things that had been done to Angeal, and what Hollander had done to Genesis, and how Sephiroth was raised- just what was going on!?

Yeah apparently he hasn't been clued in about his own yet.]

The arrivals used to be on a fairly regular basis, but recently the situation...changed and now no one seems to be certain. The arrivals, as far as I know, at least, are random.

This is a really messed up place, then. [...hey. Hey. Peering a bit.] Are- ...are those wings?

Everyone has them here. Even the people that are native to the town, apparently. You can't fly with them, not really anyways.

[ She nods to him, waiting for him to realize he has a pair. ]

[Blink.

Wow, you were really focused, weren't you, Zach?]

Yes, they are. Everyone has them. Try not to jostle them too much, and do not under any circumstances allow them to be damaged or removed.

... Yeah, there's no way you're gonna find it. I'd just wait for it to show up on its own if I were you.

What's the point of wings if you can't- [Wait. Everyone? She can't possibly mean-

-bhjkashfdkjshkjf OH GOD HE HAS WINGS WHAT IS THIS]

...Can it really do that? [Books can't teleport, dude.]

You can talk to people through it, so it should. [SENSE MAKING! Sort of.] But if you happen to remember where it might be, then I guess looking for it yourself would take less time.

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