A Brief Respite (Open RP)

[herlivinglegacy]

Smooth, slow motions.

Once, one of his colonels had commented on the oddity of Sephiroth, the General spearheading the war against the orient, doing something like Tai Chi every morning. Sure, he didn't believe in Da Chao and reserved his beliefs for science rather than Odin and his host of sons and daughters, but he believed in the calming nature

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[malikhuliya]

The Tai Chi had calmed him to the point where he was civilised enough not to slander Sephiroth, to call him for everything he would a human. Unlike his current company, he was not above the collective racism to all things that were under him. Everything was inconsequential. But the movements he continued to work through, slow and efficiently, seemed to slow his mind, calm it, and broaden its dismissive boundaries.

'Sephiroth,' he nodded, the limit to his new found etiquette. He breathed out through his nose as he shifted into a stage that meant him to extend out his arm, hand up as if to stop and on comer. 'An Espada is the highest rank amongst Arrancar. Perhaps in more colloquial terms, an Espada is a commanding General. We are allocated a set group of underlings, known as Fracción. I do not need any. Lastly, our Marshal would be Sosuke Aizen, he is my superior.' It could almost be said that he held some reverence for Aizen, but with his melancholic tone dragging it through the mud of self-nihilism, it was anyone's guess to its factuality.

This was the most he had ever spoken of himself.

[herlivinglegacy]

Sephiroth made an amused sound. "I was once a General," he said, though his tone had a slightly acidic lilt to it. "Of an army that commanded an entire planet. Ruled by one company." He snorted, clearly disliking that certain company.

He felt the calm lake of his mind state churn, turn vaguely rippled with his break in concentration, and he took a deep breath, willed himself back into that state of calm, of sanity. "Now I have no superiors."

[malikhuliya]

Ulquiorra brought in his arm, slowly, causing his muscles to flex and tighten under his skin. Sephiroth and he seemed to be one in the same. It was confusing to Ulquiorra, not because they were similar in rank, but because of something that stirred near the gaping hole in his chest. It was not cause for alarm just at the moment, but it was something he would need to keep his eye on.

His tranquility faltered and he found himself missing a beat to the Tai Chi stances, stumbling slightly to his left. This brought him closer to Sephiroth, but without acknowledging it, and calming himself once more, he fell back into the routine and soon all he heard in the cold, clear night was his breathing. He probably looked like a novice after that. What was that feeling! The awareness of his mistake that seemed to fog his mind. He worked to clear his thoughts. 'That must be satisfying,' he said begrudgingly, and would not be aware of this display of envy for some time to come.

[herlivinglegacy]

"It was well earned," he murmured. "Something I had to kill for." But he was trying not to think about that, for the moment, because it only made him miss Jenova all the same.

Out of respect for his companion, he didn't mention nor react to his stumble, not realising there had been an emotion behind it and instead considering it a lapse in concentration.

[malikhuliya]

Ulquiorra could understand having to kill for something, but it had never been for his own reasons. It was always for someone else's progress, be it for power or to eliminate obstacles. His loyalty for Aizen never swayed, but in saying that, he had a nagging feeling that perhaps things should be different, that he needed something ... more. But the feeling was so vague and clouded that instead of worrying the thought, he disregarded it completely. Ulquiorra hummed in ascent whilst stretching out his arm and shifting slowly forward, placing his foot farther from himself, bending at the knees and then turning to repeat the stretch to his corresponding side.

'Yet now you're without a title, without a purpose,' he stated monotonously. 'Stuck here where your position and right are foreign concepts. Stuck here, never moving forward, never to return.' He wanted to continue, to add "never to return home" but it sounded peculiar in his mind. He sounded ... emotional. It sounded human. He was ill with himself to have walked into such a tempered trap of human emotion, to have felt it, that Orihime wretch had infected his mind, destroyed his foundations. Violation to the extreme! But the fact remained, Sephiroth's and his achievements meant nothing to the ants that scuttled within the castles walls. Ulquiorra was an Espada, he demanded respect, but did not receive it.

He stopped himself, standing still for a breath of a moment to calm himself. If he continued on this internal tirade he would just as well end up acting like Grimmjow. That was a road he never wanted to walk, he was a calculated man, his revenge would be just as refined, just as methodical. He would not let the infections of that woman intercede on his dispassionate frame of mind, his frame of being.

He took a calming breath and then returned to Tai Chi, falling in smoothly with the stance Sephiroth had shifted in to. His voice was quiet when he eventually questioned: 'Do you regret anything?'