Taura's stomach was growling, but she could be patient. Her nails were still tacky; she'd rather wear nail polish and eat lunch than vice versa
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As someone who was by nature a leader type, Zack didn't mind at all that Hope was following close behind him. In fact, it seemed like the smartest thing to do, considering it would be easy to slip on the ice here -- and there was something to be said for huddling for warmth. Not that they could do that when they were wandering around, but...
As expected, Hope wasn't interested in checking out the kitchen supplies, which meant that they'd already run out of ideas. He sighed, watching his breath visualize in the air, before turning to the kid with a raised eyebrow. "I thought you wanted to stay out of this bad weather," he said with a tilt of his head. "You sure you want to keep going? Which direction?"
They could head further down, but it seemed like the only thing there was that park, which wasn't going to have anything too interesting in it -- or so he guessed. There were streets other than this main one, but he didn't know that any of them had that many shops on them.
Then again, there was nothing wrong with exploring, but he was only going to keep moving if it seemed like Hope was truly okay with it. The last thing he needed was to be responsible for getting the teen sick.
"I don't know," He admitted. For all that he was unused to such weather, there was something comforting in the cold beyond the freezing and the shivering. It was sharp and biting and like ice down his throat with each breath he took in a way that kept him awake and going as if reminding him that slowly down would mean being colder. Keep moving. It pushed all other thoughts out of his head, and that made it a good incentive to go on.
He just pointed down the street for reference, not sure where to go, before stuffing his hands back in his pockets again, even those few seconds of his hands being exposed drawing more warmth away as snow continued to land, making him trying to blow the snow off his nose with a huff. Not that it worked, since it just seemed to melt the flakes.
"Just keep going?" Because that's what he was telling himself right now. Just keep going, and maybe he'd end up someplace okay again.
He scuffed at the snow with half soaked sneakers a size too large, trying to keep the wet part of his pants off his legs. It was a futile exercise, though, and he gave up on that soon enough, determined that if other people could stay outside, then so could he.
That wasn't much of a plan, but if it was what Hope wanted to do, then Zack was willing to go for it. He wasn't about to lead him too far away from the main area, but they could go for a short walk. "Sure, that's something," he replied with a quick laugh as he took off again. The snow was getting in his hair and dampening his clothes, but he didn't let it bother him much.
Still, if they were going to wander like this, then he might as well make the most of it by asking some more questions. So after taking a few steps, Zack glanced over his shoulder at the kid.
"So... the place you're from, what's it like?" And just what had Hope been up to, to get dragged into something like this at such a young age? Yuffie was toward the end of her teens by now, at least. It was weird enough that she was here when he'd known her before she'd hit her double digits, but seeing young kids like Hope around bothered him.
He realized that both he and Cloud had been Hope's age once, and he knew that he'd been ambitious and eager in his early teens. It meant that Hope probably had a good chance of being able to handle himself in battle, but in the end it really all depended on what sort of background he came from.
"Different." He wasn't sure what he could say about it even as he tried to avoid the higher mounts of snow on the ground, huddling into his clothes and stepping around them carefully despite how he had been jumping in them before. That had been the excitement of actually being able to play in snow and before he got his jeans wet, and now he got why other people hadn't been doing that as well despite there being a more solid footing in the untouched snow rather than on the worn roads. "We didn't have those movie boxes. Or weather this cold."
Especially since the weather had been regulated and controlled by the fal'Cie. But from fal'Cie, there were l'Cie--
He shook off the thoughts, concentrating instead on the cold.
"What about you?" He kept his head down, staring at the ground more than anything else, occasionally kicking at a mound of snow that had gathered into one area as if it had melted away from the commonly walked areas. "Are people there are paranoid as the people here?"
He had seen more than one villager make a wide berth around him when he went down the street, and had been more than a little relieved despite the negative attitudes. He wasn't sure if he wanted to be around 'normal' people right now. At least the people at the hospital were all taken from their homes and that was something he could have in common with them. But still, the reactions were milder than what he was sure he would have gotten at home. At least no one here was calling for his death or picking up guns and knives against him. With all the l'Cie hatred he had been taught, he already knew the reactions of everyone else on Cocoon. Purge, kill, destroy.
The snow was definitely thicker over at this side of the town, probably because it was less traveled and so manmade paths hadn't been worn into the area. It meant that it was hard to judge when his next step would hit a solid packing of snow and when he'd just sink down into it, but that was sort of the fun of it, wasn't it? Sure, it was cold, but they'd at least been dressed appropriately and so that was something. He could always find shelter after they headed back.
In the end, Hope's answer didn't give him a lot of information. Zack didn't know if he was being vague on purpose or if he just had a hard time putting it into words, but all he'd done was explain what his home didn't have. Zack didn't even get a name.
Well, maybe if he gave a more detailed answer that would push Hope to open up to him some. Zack certainly didn't mind talking about his home, even if some of the details were probably outdated by now due to the fact that he'd missed the past few years. That did tend to happen when you were dead.
"Paranoid? Oh, you mean the townspeople? Well, they're only acting that way because they think we're crazy..." And because of the supposed vandalism, but explaining that would probably just classify as too much information. That was old news by now, so he'd focus on the basics for Hope. "Gaia -- the planet I'm from -- well, it's beautiful, but it's also in a lot of trouble because the corporation that basically has a stranglehold over... most of the world is using the planet's natural energy source for electricity and things like that." There was also materia and mako, but if he started getting into those terms they'd be here for a long time.
"It's a drain on the planet, and really, that company -- Shin-Ra is what it's called -- is way too involved for its own good." When towns were rebuilt and people were experimented on, that was taking it too far.
"But that's all the bad stuff. Gaia has snow! The northern continent has a bunch, and you can go skiing and snowboarding there. But there are also beachtown resorts that are really nice, too. You can get around by bus or even airship if you're lucky, and... I guess some people use chocobos, but those are mainly used for racing," he finished with a grin on his face. He hadn't been to the Gold Saucer in a while now. Man, it would have been a treat to see it again...
But Zack wasn't stupid. He realized he might never get that chance.
Maybe we are crazy, was the thought in Hope's mind even as he shrugged nonchalantly. "Gaia's a nicer name than Earth, at least." He had to mull over the natural energy part for a while, though, not understanding it. Besides, why would a company be in charge of something like that? Shouldn't it be the government, instead?
It was strange to hear the different things, though, from companies to snow to travel-- "You guys still have Chocobo racing?" That was the safest topic he could think of through all of it, even if it all sounded strange to him. "We just have them as pets. Didn't really ride them around much." Mostly because everyone had faster methods of travel than Chocobos, after all.
There was one word he wasn't entirely sure about, though. Although he wasn't sure if that was just a word they had for that world or just a name that he wasn't supposed to know anyway, so it took him a few more steps through the snow before he looked up again, too curious to not ask.
"What's... continent?" He figured that meant area, maybe city. It was probably just a term that he hadn't heard of, that was it. and if it was northern and there was snow, maybe it was a mountain of some sort. He felt silly for asking, but he'd always been told to ask about a word if he didn't know it. Therefore, his mom had said before, even if he didn't use the words, he would understand what it meant when people said stuff.
The kid had a point. Earth was... sort of a boring name, whereas Gaia just fit somehow. Zack had to admit that talking about home made him miss it all the more, even though he realized that there wasn't a place for him there anymore. He was lucky enough to have gotten that chance to see it, real or not, when he had been teleported there with Cloud and Yuffie.
Now, Cloud didn't even remember that. There was so much he still had to tell his friend. It was almost exhausting.
Though in all honesty, Zack had figured that Hope wouldn't know what a chocobo was. He'd never heard anyone in this place talk about them, and so the fact that their worlds shared that in common was actually kind of bizarre. "You have chocobos too? Big yellow birds? Well, some of them come in other colors..." Zack had only heard rumors about the black chocobo, but he believed that it existed. It was always more interesting to believe in things like that. "But yeah, we have racing. It's just for sport, really. Some people even bet."
What was even stranger was how the boy knew about chocobos but had no idea of what a continent was. Hearing that just made Zack even more curious about what sort of place Hope came from. Was it just one big land mass? "A continent is a large piece of land. Gaia has five of them, give or take. They're separated by the ocean. Why, how does it work where you come from?" he asked, turning to face the boy as he tilted his head.
They were getting further and further away from the rest of the patients, and even the staff was having a hard time keeping an eye on them at this point. They were going to have to head back soon.
"Other colors?" He tried to think of other colors, but couldn't really come up with anything. He had heard about someone trying to dye Chocobo chicks in other colors before, but that person had been shut down almost immediately by the Sanctum and the overwhelming protest to to treatment of chicks like that. And that had been a really old news story once. From what he knew, they were all big and yellow. And they seemed such a normal thing that he couldn't imagine any world without Chocobos... that would almost be like trying to imagine a place with purple grass and green skies. Just too different.
...This world had Chocobos, right?
And-- land separated by oceans? That was such a strange thought. Why would anyone want to live so far from each other? It was just inconvenient. But... it was okay to say, right? If this place was another world; if people had a hard enough time getting back.
It felt strange. Only his first day away, and he wasn't sure what to feel about things anymore. About home, and about what he was supposed to do. With his brand concealed, it was almost like he was pretending to be normal again, as normal as he could get while walking down a street in a foreign town on another world (probably in another universe), under falling snow. Any moment now, he expected to wake up and realize that this was all just a dream.
Any moment.
"We have one land. There's... rivers and stuff, but the ocean is just kind of... around us?" It made more sense to him. The fal'Cie kept the lands together to make it more convenient. He tried to think of similarities to that description, though. "There are... cities? We've got lots of cities away from each other, and there are forests in-between... um. Why would you have so many lands far away from each other?"
"Well, the ones that are other colors are pretty rare, I think..." Any regular chocobo farm was definitely only going to have the normal yellow kind, that was for sure. Zack had even heard rumors of a special gold chocobo, but he didn't know if that was an old wives' tale or not. Either way, he was getting a bit too caught up in thoughts of a home he might not see again.
It was far more interesting to hear about Hope's home now that the boy was finally explaining it. So it was as Zack had guessed -- they only had one large landmass surrounded by an ocean. It was an odd concept, to think that all that land could stay in one piece without breaking off eventually, but maybe Hope's planet was smaller than Gaia. At least they did have an ocean. The idea of there not being one at all was too bizarre.
"We have lots of forests and cities too," he explained. "But uhh... I mean, the world just developed that way. It's not like someone made a conscious decision for the continents to be broken up the way they are. That's just how the planet is." He shrugged, not knowing if there was any better way to explain it. He didn't really want to launch into a science lesson when they were in the middle of trudging through thick snow.
"But we should probably turn around," he said as he spun on his heel (as best as he could in the snow) and looked back the way they'd come from. "I don't know if I can feel my hands anymore," he joked. Although it was sort of the case.
He nodded along absentmindedly, more than willing to head back as well. As ready as he had been to walk along outside, especially where there was less people, the cold was more than starting to get to him again. Even with his hands in his pockets, they were still starting to go numb once again.
It took him a bit longer to get a grip on his trail enough to turn around, but it wasn't that bad now that he had at least a little bit of experience in walking in the snow.
Still, he couldn't seem to wrap his mind around the idea of multiple lands. "But why-?" He cut off, trying to figure it out himself. Why would the fal'Cie even create land masses like that? But then, thinking about it, maybe this was more like Pulse. He had heard stories about the fal'Cie there being merciless and terrible. Maybe that's what happened...?
He still wasn't sure about that, though, but then... worlds were different, right?
It seemed like Hope was really hung up on this continent thing, which caused Zack to run a very cold hand through his hair as he wondered if there was any easier way to explain that that was just how it was. There was no reason for it; things had just ended up that way.
So for a moment he just focused on making his way back, which was much easier since he was able to step back into his own footprints. He didn't want to be responsible for a young kid getting hurt or lost or catching cold, though, and so he continued to glance over his shoulder to make sure that Hope was keeping up.
"There's no reason," he said after a pause. "I mean, the water and the land just moved around and ended up in that shape. Nothing made it that way." Some people did pray and believed that there was some greater being that had crafted the planet to be the way that it was, but that was more myth than anything, just like all that talk of WEAPONs...
This conversation was making it clear that they were coming from two very different places, and yet both at least had chocobos in common. Zack wondered how that sort of thing was even possible.
He hesitated in asking, but that just sounded... odd. Awkward. Where were the fal'Cie in that? He learned from school that Cocoon had over million fal'Cie controlling different aspects of the world, so he wasn't sure which one actually controlled the land, but...
"But how come no one moves it back?" Okay, so he could picture time and planetary shifts moving land... kind of. And he could get that certain things might not be controlled-- like the weather in this world. But that was just something he was... missing, wasn't there? Something seemed wrong. Which was saying something, considering all the things that had happened.
"Isn't there--" He couldn't even figure out the question to ask, and made a frustrated noise at his own inability to understand why this entire thread of questioning felt so wrong. It took a few moments for him to calm that agitation, at least enough to just shake off the thought. "Never mind. I guess it's just... different."
He took a moment to bring his hands out of his pockets again to try and tug the collar of his shirt up higher and hide his chin in there, trying to shake the flakes off his hat and hair as well.
The kid's questions were just getting odder as they continued to fumble through this topic. Maybe it had been a bad idea to bring it up in the first place, although there was no way Zack could have known that and now he was legitimately curious. "Move it back? How could you do that?" There were definitely some people on Gaia who had abilities that were out of the ordinary -- hell, he could be counted as one -- but nothing even close to the amount of strength it would take to move a whole land mass.
"Are there people on your world who can do that kind of thing? Move continents around?" he asked Hope with genuine interest. They had made it back through the stretch of park that they had walked into, hitting the concrete again as they reached Main Street.
From the looks of it, most people were going to get lunch at this point, and Zack had to admit that he was starting to get hungry. Still, he wasn't going to part ways from the kid until he at least got this sorted out. Arms crossed over his chest (another attempt at generating some warmth), he waited for Hope's reply.
He frowned at the idea. "Don't you guys have--?" Fal'Cie? Except from what he had gotten so far, it seemed to be a negative. Still, that couldn't be right, could it? The fal'Cie were everywhere-- Hope wasn't even sure if worlds could exist without fal'Cie. The thought of it boggled him.
Boggled him enough to venture into the topic, as mine-filled as it was with him.
"Don't the fal'Cie take care of the lands?" Because what else would they be doing if not taking care of the lands and such? Phoenix had provided sunlight, Carbuncle generated the food supply, Eden provided shelter and advice for the Sanctum... what would the fal'Cie of Gaia be doing if not taking care of people? They wouldn't allow the lands to drift away like that, especially if that meant it would take longer to get to everyone. "I mean, if they don't take care of the land, then what would they do?"
It seemed like things were starting to fall into place. Sort of. Well, Zack at least knew why there had been all this confusion floating between them. It sounded like Hope's world had something that he'd taken for granted as existing in every world, when that wasn't actually the case. It made him wonder if there was something along those lines on Gaia, but the only thing that came to mind was the Lifestream. Still, that was a pretty big deal. Where did people on Earth go when they died?
"Fal'Cie? What are those? Or... what is that?" He didn't even know if it was referring to a person, a thing, or a group of things, but he got the feeling that even asking that question was going to blow Hope's mind, considering how hard he'd been trying to grasp the idea of a planet that had separate land masses.
"Nothing really takes care of Gaia except for -- well, Shin-Ra would like to say that they do, but they control more than anything else." That was part of the reason why Gaia had been suffering so much. Only those resistance groups like AVALANCHE had been looking out for the good of the land itself, and Zack didn't know if they'd been very successful in the end.
What were fal'Cie? What kind of a question was that? Hope had no idea how to describe them. They just were, and they had always been. As long as people have existed, so had fal'Cie. He stopped in his steps, completely befuddled by the idea of even having to explain them. How would people describe air? Only that thing you've been breathing all your life.
"They're--" He cut off, unable to grasp his own words. Only the beings that provided light, maintained the land and weather, generated the food, gave people energy to use, and took care of people. Kept them alive. Kept order.
Created l'Cie.
Could worlds with people even exist without them? Even Pulse, despite being Hell, had fal'Cie. If not for the fal'Cie, Cocoon wouldn't exist. His would would never have been standing in the sky at all-- it would have crashed to the surface of Pulse, shattered as it collapsed into Hell. How could he even begin to describe something that had always been there?
"Maybe they just go by another name in your world." That was more likely.
As expected, Hope wasn't interested in checking out the kitchen supplies, which meant that they'd already run out of ideas. He sighed, watching his breath visualize in the air, before turning to the kid with a raised eyebrow. "I thought you wanted to stay out of this bad weather," he said with a tilt of his head. "You sure you want to keep going? Which direction?"
They could head further down, but it seemed like the only thing there was that park, which wasn't going to have anything too interesting in it -- or so he guessed. There were streets other than this main one, but he didn't know that any of them had that many shops on them.
Then again, there was nothing wrong with exploring, but he was only going to keep moving if it seemed like Hope was truly okay with it. The last thing he needed was to be responsible for getting the teen sick.
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He just pointed down the street for reference, not sure where to go, before stuffing his hands back in his pockets again, even those few seconds of his hands being exposed drawing more warmth away as snow continued to land, making him trying to blow the snow off his nose with a huff. Not that it worked, since it just seemed to melt the flakes.
"Just keep going?" Because that's what he was telling himself right now. Just keep going, and maybe he'd end up someplace okay again.
He scuffed at the snow with half soaked sneakers a size too large, trying to keep the wet part of his pants off his legs. It was a futile exercise, though, and he gave up on that soon enough, determined that if other people could stay outside, then so could he.
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Still, if they were going to wander like this, then he might as well make the most of it by asking some more questions. So after taking a few steps, Zack glanced over his shoulder at the kid.
"So... the place you're from, what's it like?" And just what had Hope been up to, to get dragged into something like this at such a young age? Yuffie was toward the end of her teens by now, at least. It was weird enough that she was here when he'd known her before she'd hit her double digits, but seeing young kids like Hope around bothered him.
He realized that both he and Cloud had been Hope's age once, and he knew that he'd been ambitious and eager in his early teens. It meant that Hope probably had a good chance of being able to handle himself in battle, but in the end it really all depended on what sort of background he came from.
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Especially since the weather had been regulated and controlled by the fal'Cie. But from fal'Cie, there were l'Cie--
He shook off the thoughts, concentrating instead on the cold.
"What about you?" He kept his head down, staring at the ground more than anything else, occasionally kicking at a mound of snow that had gathered into one area as if it had melted away from the commonly walked areas. "Are people there are paranoid as the people here?"
He had seen more than one villager make a wide berth around him when he went down the street, and had been more than a little relieved despite the negative attitudes. He wasn't sure if he wanted to be around 'normal' people right now. At least the people at the hospital were all taken from their homes and that was something he could have in common with them. But still, the reactions were milder than what he was sure he would have gotten at home. At least no one here was calling for his death or picking up guns and knives against him. With all the l'Cie hatred he had been taught, he already knew the reactions of everyone else on Cocoon. Purge, kill, destroy.
Sadly, being here seemed like an improvement.
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In the end, Hope's answer didn't give him a lot of information. Zack didn't know if he was being vague on purpose or if he just had a hard time putting it into words, but all he'd done was explain what his home didn't have. Zack didn't even get a name.
Well, maybe if he gave a more detailed answer that would push Hope to open up to him some. Zack certainly didn't mind talking about his home, even if some of the details were probably outdated by now due to the fact that he'd missed the past few years. That did tend to happen when you were dead.
"Paranoid? Oh, you mean the townspeople? Well, they're only acting that way because they think we're crazy..." And because of the supposed vandalism, but explaining that would probably just classify as too much information. That was old news by now, so he'd focus on the basics for Hope. "Gaia -- the planet I'm from -- well, it's beautiful, but it's also in a lot of trouble because the corporation that basically has a stranglehold over... most of the world is using the planet's natural energy source for electricity and things like that." There was also materia and mako, but if he started getting into those terms they'd be here for a long time.
"It's a drain on the planet, and really, that company -- Shin-Ra is what it's called -- is way too involved for its own good." When towns were rebuilt and people were experimented on, that was taking it too far.
"But that's all the bad stuff. Gaia has snow! The northern continent has a bunch, and you can go skiing and snowboarding there. But there are also beachtown resorts that are really nice, too. You can get around by bus or even airship if you're lucky, and... I guess some people use chocobos, but those are mainly used for racing," he finished with a grin on his face. He hadn't been to the Gold Saucer in a while now. Man, it would have been a treat to see it again...
But Zack wasn't stupid. He realized he might never get that chance.
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It was strange to hear the different things, though, from companies to snow to travel-- "You guys still have Chocobo racing?" That was the safest topic he could think of through all of it, even if it all sounded strange to him. "We just have them as pets. Didn't really ride them around much." Mostly because everyone had faster methods of travel than Chocobos, after all.
There was one word he wasn't entirely sure about, though. Although he wasn't sure if that was just a word they had for that world or just a name that he wasn't supposed to know anyway, so it took him a few more steps through the snow before he looked up again, too curious to not ask.
"What's... continent?" He figured that meant area, maybe city. It was probably just a term that he hadn't heard of, that was it. and if it was northern and there was snow, maybe it was a mountain of some sort. He felt silly for asking, but he'd always been told to ask about a word if he didn't know it. Therefore, his mom had said before, even if he didn't use the words, he would understand what it meant when people said stuff.
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Now, Cloud didn't even remember that. There was so much he still had to tell his friend. It was almost exhausting.
Though in all honesty, Zack had figured that Hope wouldn't know what a chocobo was. He'd never heard anyone in this place talk about them, and so the fact that their worlds shared that in common was actually kind of bizarre. "You have chocobos too? Big yellow birds? Well, some of them come in other colors..." Zack had only heard rumors about the black chocobo, but he believed that it existed. It was always more interesting to believe in things like that. "But yeah, we have racing. It's just for sport, really. Some people even bet."
What was even stranger was how the boy knew about chocobos but had no idea of what a continent was. Hearing that just made Zack even more curious about what sort of place Hope came from. Was it just one big land mass? "A continent is a large piece of land. Gaia has five of them, give or take. They're separated by the ocean. Why, how does it work where you come from?" he asked, turning to face the boy as he tilted his head.
They were getting further and further away from the rest of the patients, and even the staff was having a hard time keeping an eye on them at this point. They were going to have to head back soon.
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...This world had Chocobos, right?
And-- land separated by oceans? That was such a strange thought. Why would anyone want to live so far from each other? It was just inconvenient. But... it was okay to say, right? If this place was another world; if people had a hard enough time getting back.
It felt strange. Only his first day away, and he wasn't sure what to feel about things anymore. About home, and about what he was supposed to do. With his brand concealed, it was almost like he was pretending to be normal again, as normal as he could get while walking down a street in a foreign town on another world (probably in another universe), under falling snow. Any moment now, he expected to wake up and realize that this was all just a dream.
Any moment.
"We have one land. There's... rivers and stuff, but the ocean is just kind of... around us?" It made more sense to him. The fal'Cie kept the lands together to make it more convenient. He tried to think of similarities to that description, though. "There are... cities? We've got lots of cities away from each other, and there are forests in-between... um. Why would you have so many lands far away from each other?"
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It was far more interesting to hear about Hope's home now that the boy was finally explaining it. So it was as Zack had guessed -- they only had one large landmass surrounded by an ocean. It was an odd concept, to think that all that land could stay in one piece without breaking off eventually, but maybe Hope's planet was smaller than Gaia. At least they did have an ocean. The idea of there not being one at all was too bizarre.
"We have lots of forests and cities too," he explained. "But uhh... I mean, the world just developed that way. It's not like someone made a conscious decision for the continents to be broken up the way they are. That's just how the planet is." He shrugged, not knowing if there was any better way to explain it. He didn't really want to launch into a science lesson when they were in the middle of trudging through thick snow.
"But we should probably turn around," he said as he spun on his heel (as best as he could in the snow) and looked back the way they'd come from. "I don't know if I can feel my hands anymore," he joked. Although it was sort of the case.
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It took him a bit longer to get a grip on his trail enough to turn around, but it wasn't that bad now that he had at least a little bit of experience in walking in the snow.
Still, he couldn't seem to wrap his mind around the idea of multiple lands. "But why-?" He cut off, trying to figure it out himself. Why would the fal'Cie even create land masses like that? But then, thinking about it, maybe this was more like Pulse. He had heard stories about the fal'Cie there being merciless and terrible. Maybe that's what happened...?
He still wasn't sure about that, though, but then... worlds were different, right?
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So for a moment he just focused on making his way back, which was much easier since he was able to step back into his own footprints. He didn't want to be responsible for a young kid getting hurt or lost or catching cold, though, and so he continued to glance over his shoulder to make sure that Hope was keeping up.
"There's no reason," he said after a pause. "I mean, the water and the land just moved around and ended up in that shape. Nothing made it that way." Some people did pray and believed that there was some greater being that had crafted the planet to be the way that it was, but that was more myth than anything, just like all that talk of WEAPONs...
This conversation was making it clear that they were coming from two very different places, and yet both at least had chocobos in common. Zack wondered how that sort of thing was even possible.
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"But how come no one moves it back?" Okay, so he could picture time and planetary shifts moving land... kind of. And he could get that certain things might not be controlled-- like the weather in this world. But that was just something he was... missing, wasn't there? Something seemed wrong. Which was saying something, considering all the things that had happened.
"Isn't there--" He couldn't even figure out the question to ask, and made a frustrated noise at his own inability to understand why this entire thread of questioning felt so wrong. It took a few moments for him to calm that agitation, at least enough to just shake off the thought. "Never mind. I guess it's just... different."
He took a moment to bring his hands out of his pockets again to try and tug the collar of his shirt up higher and hide his chin in there, trying to shake the flakes off his hat and hair as well.
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"Are there people on your world who can do that kind of thing? Move continents around?" he asked Hope with genuine interest. They had made it back through the stretch of park that they had walked into, hitting the concrete again as they reached Main Street.
From the looks of it, most people were going to get lunch at this point, and Zack had to admit that he was starting to get hungry. Still, he wasn't going to part ways from the kid until he at least got this sorted out. Arms crossed over his chest (another attempt at generating some warmth), he waited for Hope's reply.
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Boggled him enough to venture into the topic, as mine-filled as it was with him.
"Don't the fal'Cie take care of the lands?" Because what else would they be doing if not taking care of the lands and such? Phoenix had provided sunlight, Carbuncle generated the food supply, Eden provided shelter and advice for the Sanctum... what would the fal'Cie of Gaia be doing if not taking care of people? They wouldn't allow the lands to drift away like that, especially if that meant it would take longer to get to everyone. "I mean, if they don't take care of the land, then what would they do?"
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"Fal'Cie? What are those? Or... what is that?" He didn't even know if it was referring to a person, a thing, or a group of things, but he got the feeling that even asking that question was going to blow Hope's mind, considering how hard he'd been trying to grasp the idea of a planet that had separate land masses.
"Nothing really takes care of Gaia except for -- well, Shin-Ra would like to say that they do, but they control more than anything else." That was part of the reason why Gaia had been suffering so much. Only those resistance groups like AVALANCHE had been looking out for the good of the land itself, and Zack didn't know if they'd been very successful in the end.
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"They're--" He cut off, unable to grasp his own words. Only the beings that provided light, maintained the land and weather, generated the food, gave people energy to use, and took care of people. Kept them alive. Kept order.
Created l'Cie.
Could worlds with people even exist without them? Even Pulse, despite being Hell, had fal'Cie. If not for the fal'Cie, Cocoon wouldn't exist. His would would never have been standing in the sky at all-- it would have crashed to the surface of Pulse, shattered as it collapsed into Hell. How could he even begin to describe something that had always been there?
"Maybe they just go by another name in your world." That was more likely.
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