Day 53: Music Room

[rocksthecourt]

Well, if it wasn't his favorite time of the week. They say distance makes the heart grow fonder. Of course in this case, distance makes Klavier feel like an abused, neglected animal who was only now being allowed a taste of actual food. These people were such savages. It was still absolutely absurd that they were allowed access to this room so

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[heroesdontshave]

Unlike the room with the books and the supposed Game Storage Room, this room really had little to nothing that held Snow's interest for more than a few seconds at a time. Maybe because he wasn't sure exactly what he was looking at. Plus, you know, he didn't really care. At least actual paper books were interesting in that "wow, check this out" kind of way. Man. At this rate, he was just going to get even more restless.

He sighed with some exasperation and scratched the back of his head as he turned to continue walking along the perimeter of the room. That was when he finally noticed the figure standing right there out of the corner of his eye. He whipped his head over immediately, only to see... Light. Just standing there. With her arms crossed.

She... so did not just startle the crap out of him.

There was a small relief in that -- wait, why relieved? What had he expecting? -- so any alarm that might have been apparent on his face melted quickly enough. Still he had to wonder just how long Lightning had been standing there without him noticing. And why did he feel like he was about to be scolded for something? Huh. Well, anyway.

The expression brightened like nothing had happened at all, and Snow lifted a hand up briefly in what was supposed to be a greeting. "Hey! How you feelin'?"

[thestormishere]

It shouldn't have surprised Lightning that it only took one reaction and four words before she was silently wondering just how hard the man had been dropped on his head as a child. Her brows drew together a bit more, nursing mild incredulity at the question, then a sort of depressed frustration. This wasn't right at all.

"You should really consider paying better attention," she commented quietly instead, flat as always, though with a level of annoyance much lower than what the man might have expected. As confused as she was about how to deal with all this, still... surely it wouldn't hurt him to learn ASAP being a little more on the ball observation-wise, right? Lightning thought that even though Hope was just fourteen, the teenager probably had a better grasp on that than what Snow just showed. All things considered, they were in a weird Pulsian prison and all.

Though actually, if he thought they were still... where did he think they were, anyway?

She looked away from staring up at him, agitated not only with that, but already growing extremely irritated at the rising cacophony from other prisoners with... instruments. She recognized her roommate as a part of it and frowned vaguely in her direction- music wasn't really her thing either, but she was pretty sure that what was taking place here so far made the title of 'music room' an outright lie.

[heroesdontshave]

"Hey hey. I'm payin' attention," he said with a small smirk to show he was only fake-offended. "Just when there's stuff worth payin' attention to."

It was true. As much as he'd been wary of the whole thing, the nurse-guards tended to keep to themselves and just supervise. The only time they did anything was when they were planning to escort people to another room or if there was a "problem." So they just had to stay low key and stuff, and they'd be fine. Sitting still and following along was a lot easier said than done, but it meant for the most part, there wasn't much to worry about. Lightning probably hadn't noticed this since she hadn't been here as long.

That aside, there was one observation Snow noticed pretty quickly. She hadn't answered the question, but her voice sounded tired somehow. It was a little... Well, not that she needed him to worry after her, but it was just weird, okay? Maybe the place was starting to work on her nerves. Or she hadn't been getting much sleep herself. Or they shot her up with that groggy stuff.

...He looked her over slightly.

No. No way. They couldn't get her with that. Come on. As completely ridiculous as it was that he'd been contained by just two or three people, it was even more ridiculous with Light. She was a trained soldier. Fighting was pretty much... you know, her job. Plus he'd seen her handle more guards than were even stationed in this room all by herself. So it was pretty much impossible that she'd gotten held down. ...The thought still irritated him, though.

He nodded his head over toward some of the tables at the center of the room. "Here. Wanna sit down?" They should, right? If she was tired. Yeah.

[thestormishere]

"No." Lightning nearly outright scoffed at that- why in the world would he want to sit down in a place like this? Was he that tired or something?

... Well no, that didn't sound quite right. If anything, Snow was the type to keep going until he broke so hard he couldn't go any more. That much had been proven back in Palumpolum, after he'd spent that time split up, running around the city and into trouble with Hope- Lightning wasn't clear on all the details of what had happened there, but afterward, it had taken more than a few Cure spells to patch him up, and she more than suspected that something big had happened, beyond what had later been said.

Of course, she'd seen him knocked down even worse than that firsthand too, from emotional rather than physical causes. The shock of being told their and Serah's true Focus had done that pretty well....

But something like that didn't seem to be the case here. Not with that silly grin plastered all over his face and him still acting as ignorant as ever. She wondered if somehow he'd escaped running into a 'shadow' like she and so many others had the night before.

..... Maybe the noise here just didn't bother him and he found the offer to be entirely appropriate, then.

And actually, on second thought, all the noise- maybe it could serve some good. She couldn't imagine anyone having much luck eavesdropping on them here, which would be fortunate if... things got personal. Not like that, obviously.

"Wait," she said suddenly, and briefly glanced over her shoulder towards the doorway and loitering guards. "Yeah. Come on." Keeping her arms crossed, she tilted her head for a beat and then turned to walk towards some of the chairs set up that he'd already indicated. In the mean time, she still tried to decide on what to say.

[heroesdontshave]

Uh. Okay. That settled that then. Snow silently followed Lightning toward the tables, staring at the back of her head in slight bafflement. Something had to be wrong. Lightning wasn't really the indecisive type. Or she didn't come across as one, anyway. Maybe she secretly was and he just hadn't seen it yet? ...Yeah, no, something seemed like it was eating at her. It was kind of hard to tell since she always seemed like she was distracted and closed off and stuff anyway, but this definitely seemed different somehow. Was she upset? Tired? Hungry? Man, she was so hard to read.

It was times like this that made him realize how completely different she and Serah were. How was it two people could live in the same place but be so completely different? Serah had a more quiet strength to her, completely different from the harsh aura her sister gave off. And unlike Lightning, he could usually tell how Serah was feeling right away. There was no hiding it with her.

...Well, maybe they were different, but they were sisters. They had to have a few things in common, right? Maybe he could cheer Lightning up the same way he cheered Serah up. That being a complete change in subject to get her thinking about better things. Problem there was he knew Serah waaay better than he knew Lightning. He wouldn't even know where to begin when it came to talking to her. Ah well. If he just talked about whatever came to mind, something had to hit, right?

Snow quickened his pace slightly so by the time they reached the table, he was alongside her rather than just behind her. "Hey, so! You know that thing in the big room outside?" He jabbed his thumb in the direction of the big lounge area they had set up in the center of all the activity rooms. "The thing on the wall, I mean? You try it out yet? I mean, it's kinda hard to use, but you watch a few people, you kinda get it. And once you get goin' with it, it's almost kinda fun, you know? Never even know who you're talkin' to!"

That was the best part. It was like passing secret notes and waiting to see who would respond. Snow even knew what they called it here. The "bulletin board." See? He was so paying attention! "Think that's weird, though, you should see what they got in storage. Bet you never figured they'd keep antiques in a place like this, right?"

[thestormishere]

Lightning glanced aside at Snow and took a long breath in. Then, she let it out, trying valiantly not to grind her teeth. She hadn't thought she had any patience to give, but she must have found a bit of it somewhere, considering she was still standing there and Snow wasn't on the ground with an impression of her fist in his face yet. Sometimes it really was the little things that mattered or... something like that.

"No, but I've seen it," she answered simply- for real this time. What was the deal with everyone trying to aim her at the bulletin thing? If she didn't know better, she would have thought that maybe either Zack or Tifa had gone and met Snow in the meantime, just so that they could tell him to bother her about posting.

In glancing over her shoulder toward the door, it was then while looking back that she spotted the other guy she'd just talked to during today, right in the middle of most of the insanity... not very surprising, actually, but that didn't mean it wouldn't cause her frown to deepen even more once she realized it.

Still, despite her demeanor and burns, she dropped into a chair with unusual grace, crossing her legs immediately as she looked up at the man again, not showing even an ounce of intimidation over how he was basically twice her height that way. What was he even going on about now, though?

"Antiques?" she asked slowly, wondering just what in hell he'd managed to find here worth that description in his head. This whole place was more or less an antique anyway, right? It was even more primitive somehow than both the Pulsian Vestiges she'd been in so far, and that... was really saying something.

[heroesdontshave]

Every time Lightning turned to look elsewhere, Snow found himself following her gaze, too. Instinct, really. But right now, it was kind of distracting since she was looking around a lot. On high alert like always. He wasn't really sure what she was so worried about. It wasn't like anyone could sneak up on her in here without her noticing. Well, without either of them noticing, since he would have told her if it was happening. Bad habit, probably. She should really just relax.

That was going to give bad vibes to whoever she ended up looking at, like the kid she was frowning at now. Probably cause the noise they were all making. He'd... barely noticed any noise, actually. With how rowdy NORA members could get during some of their meetings, he'd gotten used to tuning out a bunch of random background noise.

When Lightning sat down and asked about the antiques, Snow felt a small twinge of victory. Oh ho! So that grabbed her attention, huh? She was into antiques? Go figure. Snow sat himself in the seat next to Lightning's in a careful but still significantly less elegant manner than the other had. He slouched forward in his seat, resting both elbows on his knees.

"Yeah. They got this whole room that stores nothin' but paper books. Just shelves of the stuff. They're in pretty good condition, too. Musta spent a load gettin' all that in here." Which just raised the question of why the Sanctum would go out of their way to do something like that, but hell if he knew. Why do a lot of the things they were doing? "The place's so huge, they're probably stashing stuff like that all over."

[thestormishere]

Lightning paused. That... was a little weird. What purpose would they have for a collection of books anyway? Information storage? But even the old Pulse armaments were autonomous and such... how could they not have at least basic computers for that kind of thing here? And why would they allow prisoners any sort of access to them if that was the case?

The young woman put her hands in her lap, curling them as she thought and forcing herself to keep from wincing out of pain. It seemed that somehow her arms were starting to hurt even worse as time went on- particularly the one she'd caused injury to with her own magic. She... really did need to do something about that.

"They seem to run everything on paper here," she said after a moment, lowering her chin and glaring aside. She wondered if the self-styled 'hero' had even looked through any of the books he'd found, or noticed that many of the overly-cheerful women here on staff even carried little boards to write things down. Paper-based books and journals and bulletin boards...

"Snow, just where do you think we are?" She looked up, meeting Snow's eyes just as abruptly as she'd asked the question, far more demand in her voice than any sort of uncertainty. Part of her was uneasy, though. She doubted she was going to like his answer.

[heroesdontshave]

...Actually, now that she mentioned it, she had a point there. There was an awful lot of paper use here. And the whole time that he'd been here, he never once saw a computer or console or even a monitor. Even the bastard in charge used a solely audible system. As weird as everything was, Snow had actually figured it was part of some big deprivation campaign or they thought things like that would be too dangerous to have around potential l'Cie. But now he saw that didn't make much sense either. It was a clear disadvantage for the staff, too. Hmm.

But before more could be considered on that point, Light went and changed the subject in a, um, pretty intense manner. It was a pretty basic question, honestly, but the way she asked it sounded more angry than conversational. Not that he could blame her on this one. There were plenty of reasons to be pissed about this place. Snow leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms, dropping the smile a bit for what could almost have been a contemplative expression.

"Beats me. I been tryin' to figure that one out, actually. Managed to get outside my first night here, but I couldn't make out anything. It was too dark." That fact alone was weird. Even in the areas outside the cities, things were always well illuminated. Then again, Snow himself couldn't say he'd made a habit of traveling far outside Bodhum. There was a chance other places weren't like that? No, something still wasn't right about that. Some detail he couldn't quite put his finger on.

Normally, he would use the fact that it had been extremely cold out as a clue, but that wouldn't really work. He'd kind of been sent tumbling into a lake or something in the middle of the night. It'd feel freezing anywhere if you had that happen.

"Far as I can figure, we're not anywhere near any of the cities, though. Probably hauled us all into one of the restricted zones." It made sense. With what they were trying to pull here, it would make sense to build it out in the middle of nowhere. And why he didn't know anything about it. Lightning on the other hand... Snow fixed his gaze on her, blunt and neutral. "You tellin' me the Guardian Corps were kept in the dark about this place?"

[thestormishere]

At that final question, clear irritation passed over Lightning's face, escalating from the mostly blank state she'd been using to brace herself while listening. His assumptions seemed fairly easy to put together, as wrong as they were, of course, but... as much as she wanted to just blurt that out, she couldn't. The things she'd said before out of anger still remained a constant reminder that she needed to watch what she said.

How annoying, though. Lightning had just been a sergeant from Bodhum. What chance was there that she would be privy to something like... secret imprisonment facilities or-- whatever it was that Snow was circling around in his head? If it wasn't directly within the scope of her work, then it wasn't important- in fact, her superiors had often seemed fond of making that point as clear as possible: you didn't stick your nose into things that didn't concern you, and that was that.

And no, the Sanctum didn't actually care. Cocoon was quickly spiraling out of control, and the source of that sat right at the top of the infrastructure that was supposed to protect it. Why do something silly like letting your military know what was going on?

... Unfortunately, that wasn't even close to the reason why his question was off, either. That meant that, as difficult as it was, it was her job to break the truth to him. One piece at a time. "Of course the Guardian Corps wouldn't know about this place," she said, her voice harsh and quiet as she leaned forward, "This isn't Cocoon."

[heroesdontshave]

The way the conversation was going, Snow was kind of expecting her to start throwing out ideas about where they might be, yeah. But he definitely wasn't expecting that kind of answer. "Wha?" He frowned at her. "What do you mean this 'isn't Cocoon?' Course it's Cocoon! Where else... I mean, why would... How could it not be?!"

He actually hadn't meant to raise his voice. It just came out that way because he was so confused. What was Lightning saying? They weren't on Cocoon? So then where the hell were they?! If they weren't on Cocoon and they weren't on a ship, then there was only one other place they even could be, but that was...

Was she trying to say they'd all been relocated successfully?! That was impossible!! It couldn't be!

[thestormishere]

"Quiet!" Lightning snapped, just short of jumping across the space between them to make him do it- it was loud in the room, sure, but not loud enough to cover huge blond idiots practically shouting what she didn't want heard. She glared at him, practically baring her teeth between glances aside to make sure nobody had noticed anything awry. After all, she still had no clear idea about what the people here would think about hearing the name of the place that had definitely once been considered nothing more than a 'nest of vipers.' Never mind learning they were both from there.

"You said you'd been outside; you said it was dark," she started, seeking to explain quickly before he had much chance to dismiss it any further, "Have you ever been somewhere like that before? Somewhere where you couldn't see the lights of cities on the other side?" So Snow probably wasn't the brightest guy around and... definitely hadn't near as much experience outside of Bodhum like she had, but surely he had to get that, right? She'd feel bad about confusing him later if she had to.

[heroesdontshave]

It wasn't until Lightning told him to shut it and started looking around the room that he even noticed he'd raised his voice. He pursed his lips, looking almost annoyed, but he didn't say anything else after that. Instead, he sat up and listened, still frowning in confusion. He was holding his hands between his knees, one fist clenched in the palm of the other hand.

Thinking back to that night, he hadn't really thought to look up, but he couldn't say he remembered seeing any of the usual lights he would see after dark. The only time that ever happened was when they were supposed to have rain, and it definitely hadn't been raining. Then the lack of any lights at all... When NORA went out on patrol on the outskirts of Bodhum, it was still illuminated enough for the security regimen and anyone else to move around properly. He had never gone outside and been in pitch black like that.

"Well. No, but..." His eyes moved down to the carpet then to his hands then up at Lightning as he thought of what to say. "So... what? You're sayin' we wound up on Pulse? That this is like some kinda... Pulse prison or somethin'?"

To imagine that they might be on Pulse was kind of... Well, he had to admit it was a pretty terrifying idea if he thought about it too long. Pulse was basically hell. He and every other person on Cocoon had heard all the horror stories and rumors about it ever since they were kids. But it still didn't seem right. Wasn't Pulse supposed to be crawling with monsters? ...Oh wait, people said this place had those. Nevermind. OH! What about the crazy people? ...No no, the people in charge here were pretty screwed up if they were doing half the stuff Snow had heard about.

Okay, fine. Looked like Lightning was pretty justified in this. That didn't make him any happier about it, though. Here he was, someone who'd never been outside his hometown suddenly in a world so completely different from everything he knew. And what about Serah? She was still safe with the Cavalry, sure, but... He didn't like thinking about how far away she was. Even more so now. If nothing else, he had to find a way to get back to her.

[thestormishere]

"Exactly," Lightning said, a touch bitterly. She could have said something less certain or even vaguer, but ultimately it was useless, considering she knew it had to be true- she clearly remembered that they'd gone through Barthandelus' little l'Cie training ground, through the transgate there, and then following the destruction of their ship, been basically stranded on Pulse below. In all its... wild and unknown glory.

And now they were here. Alone, for some reason. Lightning didn't look at Snow, but she didn't look at anything else either, her eyes unfocused as she seemed to glare off towards the floor. Sure, unlike him right now, she'd actually had a little more time to wrap her head around the idea of leaving Cocoon, but it was still something she found unbelievable. For anyone raised inside that floating world, the idea was bound to be a little crazy no matter what light you tried to put it in. It wasn't really something you could do much easing into.

Lightning shook her head slightly, so that her fringe would fall differently across her face. "I've seen people do magic here," she began again, as matter-of-fact as she could manage, "I think most of them are l'Cie." Not marked by the same fal'Cie obviously, but what other explanation was there? What other explanation could there be for how the guards already knew how to restrain them?