[INCOMPLETE]

[treastening]

Who: Lucrecia, anyone who wants to run into her and have their minds broken ♥ (open).
When: during the ball.
Where: the balcony on the second floor of the castle.
Rating: PGish.
Warnings: ... Lucrecia. By herself. Forming theories. About hypothermia. Baddd news.
Summary: Lucrecia can't really waste all the time at the ball socializing, can she?

Comments

[zacked]

Hanging out with Kadaj, it was something of inevitable: eventually his attention would wander, his agitation would grow and he would excuse himself. This was always done, of course, out of a social awkwardness and a lack of desire to interact in the first place, but there was also that ever present reason of finding his mother. Who had wandered off yet again and was sometimes difficult to keep up with, as crowded as the ball was becoming.

When those feelings set in for perhaps the millionth time that night (or seemed as such), Kadaj was actually speaking to Zack. Zack, who… well, didn’t really care how socially incapable a person was or how much they didn’t want to interact and, hey-if the other wanted to see Lucrecia, Zack was fine with that. It had been a while since he had last seen her, anyways, and he had promised to say hello to her at some point through the night.

It was lucky for Zack, when it became obvious he was simply going to follow Kadaj, that the silver-haired man… well, overall wasn’t as strict with his brothers as he was everyone else. Particularly when it was a brother who was fond of Lucrecia and encouraged Kadaj’s newfound wisdom, his repeated attempts at various things. (Tasks which Loz and Yazoo just kept failing at, it seemed. Not that there was any surprise there, all things considered.)

So, Kadaj allowed Zack to accompany him as he went in search of his mother. It took some time to find her, but eventually they did. And then Zack was lifting a hand and calling out a, “Hey!” whilst Kadaj was blinking, looking something between curious and confused. “What are you doing?”

[treastening]

By the time Kadaj and Zack finally reached her, she was visibly shaking, and the notebook had been tossed aside, fingers digging deep into the flesh at her arms in an attempt to still her body. Yet, despite the cold, she perked a little at their voices, and twisted her body around again (almost falling over in the process, considering the lack of muscle control hypothermia tended to bring along with it) so that she could see them. Her hand moved up from her arm in an extremely unsteady wave, and her jaw was trembling, teeth were chattering, and she looked unusually pale for someone standing outside in the freezing cold.

"Ah, hello, dears~" Despite the fact that her voice was shaking just as badly as she was, she seemed rather upbeat, cheerful. She turned her back to them, but continued speaking: "Just testing out a few theories, is all. I have about an hour or two left out here, I suppose. Come to keep me company?"

Of course, they were probably there to drag her out of the bucket of water and back inside where it was warm, though she didn't see why they would. But, then again, it was Lucrecia, and those who made a riot about things that weren't all that normal didn't even really make her blink. She supposed it came with the territory (or something like that), and her hands were moving up along her arms now, trying to rub some warmth back into them.

"It's lovely out, hm?"

[zacked]

As they drew closer, Zack’s cheerfulness and Kadaj’s curiosity turned to… well, concern. And who in their right mind (or even not in their right mind, as was generally the case with Kadaj) wouldn’t have been? From the way Lucrecia was looking, it was like she wasn’t doing well at all, and that seemed to be… all her doing, actually.

“Mother?” Kadaj asked, taking a step forward, closer to her. His brows knitted together slightly. He was torn between… well, letting her do whatever she was doing-certainly she knew what she was doing-and… well, common sense. Which definitely said it was about time to pick his mother up and take her back inside, before she got sick or worse.

Zack, meanwhile, was pulling a rare stunt: he was opting to go with common sense on this one. (Mainly just because he didn’t care to get punched by Cloud if he didn’t.) So, as he approached he was saying, “We’d love to keep you company, Lu, but I think we’re gonna have to do that inside. Where you’re not freezing to death.”

[treastening]

If their concern for her had been written blatantly across their features, she failed to notice and dismissed it with a small wave of her hand. She looked over a bare shoulder to where Kadaj and Zack stood (they were slowly getting closer, she noted; perhaps they were going to keep her company, after all?), and she offered them another smile (the best she could manage, anyway).

"Impossible," she said cheerfully, in response to Zack's statement. "I'm only in the second stage of hypothermia. Death doesn't occur until the third~"

That was, of course, supposed to be reassuring, in her odd little way, though it obviously wouldn't have been to two worried men who happened to be rather fond of her being alive. She was still hugging shaking limbs, and she tucked her chin down toward her chest, staring straight down into the glassy water at her feet. Little did they know that she had actually attempted something like this once before, back when she was a scientist working in ShinRa. Unfortunately, that event had ended up with her in the hospital for nearly a week with Hojo appearing at her side every now and then to mutter about the foolishness of her actions, but... ah, the past was the past.

Besides, she doubted that was what would happen this time.

[zacked]

… well, that pretty much decided the next course of action for both men, right there.

At once, both of them were taking another step forward. Zack raised a hand in a pausing gesture, a foot ahead of Kadaj, and said, “Got it,” before continuing towards Lucrecia. Kadaj thought to complain about this, but, aah-ultimately, he could stand by, since Zack was closer and Zack was his brother who also knew how to appreciate her. (Zack, meanwhile, was just thinking it’d be easier this way. He was bigger than Kadaj, after all.)

Once he reached Lucrecia, Zack paused only long enough to say, “Sorry, but I can’t let you continue this,” before he promptly… picked her up and proceeded to sling her over his shoulder. It was, of course, a task easily accomplished; Lucrecia wasn’t Naminé’s size, but she was still remarkably small next to Zack and, well-there was that whole SOLDIER strength thing that he had, that made it even easier.

He turned back around then, to face Kadaj. Using his free hand, he gave a bit of a salute and said, “Lead the way back to warmth!”

[treastening]

She barely made any noise at all when she was slung across Zack's shoulder (she was used to Cloud doing it on numerous occasions, of course, for other various experiments that she was always attempting). It hadn't surprised her that much, and she made a little "ahh, but--" in protest, before sighing and deciding against it. Well, she supposed it was for the best, wasn't it? Besides, she could always continue this when she was back at home, with less people around to find her (and also try and take her away from what she happened to be doing). She didn't really see what was the matter with it at all, considering... well, there were all sorts of different types of things she could have done that would have been far more dangerous.

Hypothermia wasn't that terrible of a risk, was it?

"You know," she started, voice muffled against the back of Zack's shirt, "I wasn't even cold."

Which was a little true. After awhile, after being in the cold for so long, the body began to adapt to it. Adapt in a poor way, of course, as every organ and function began to shut down. But she hadn't even reached that stage yet, so was it even all that bad? Granted, she had been extremely close to approaching the third stage (and remaining relatively coherent, which was a feat she would accomplish someday, she thought), but it hadn't been close enough to offer a real threat of dying or death.

Then again, the cold might have all gone to her head and was making her a bit delusional. She felt the same as she always did, however.

[zacked]

In getting to know Lucrecia, there was something very important that Zack and Kadaj was learning: she was a special, special woman. Of course, for Zack this generally just made him want to laugh and shake his head, whilst Kadaj found himself feeling some level of agitated and exasperated. (Natural for him, since Kadaj had absolutely no idea how to deal with or respond to things like this. Other than perhaps to stare.) Still, they both were quickly becoming knowing of the fact that dealing with something like this was just part of dealing with her.

So, Zack just gave a small, amused shake of his head and Kadaj had to resist the urge to turn backwards and stare at his mother.

“That still isn’t good for you,” Zack was saying, following after Kadaj, who was leading them back into the main area of the ball, but still trying to keep away from the larger groups of people. “You could get really sick, you know?” And planet forbid that, Zack thought. He could just imagine both Kadaj and Cloud’s overreaction to that.

(Really, he was thinking that he’d have to tell her that you only attempted things like that when no one was around and you were fairly certain no one would show up. Which was perhaps something he shouldn’t do, encouraging her and all that, but-that was Zack for you. Not like he himself didn’t think there were at least a handful of really stupid ideas that he perceived to be awesome.)

A moment later, when Kadaj finally decided upon a spot to remain, Zack carefully set Lucrecia down. He took a step back at once and that was a good thing, because there was Kadaj, approaching and standing directly in front of her, watching with wary eyes. “Are you all right?”

[treastening]

Well, she felt perfectly all right, but no - she probably wasn't. The tips of her fingers were a little blue, and her face was still completely devoid of color. She was still shaking rather violently, and the moment Zack put her down, her arms were up folded across her chest again as she offered them a rather cheery smile. It was also a little hard to keep her balance, and her hand moved out to rest against the wall when she swayed a bit, mumbling something about how it wasn't very funny of the room to jump up and down on her the way it was. When she saw Kadaj move closer, however, she instinctively reached out, tugged him a little nearer to her.

My, wasn't he unusually warm? She couldn't remember him ever being that warm before, but then again, she was lacking any body heat whatsoever at that current point in time.

"Oh, I'm perfectly fine~" Yes. Fine, despite the trembling and whatnot. Fine, despite the light-headedness. Fine, despite the sudden intrusion of heat on chilled flesh that was making her skin burn. If one were to look past all of that, she was completely healthy. "I wish you would have let me stay out a bit longer. I was so close to reaching the third stage."

And wouldn't that have been an experience?

... One that would have likely led to her death, perhaps, but being the optimist Lucrecia was, she tended to ignore that small little detail.

[paramounted]

Kadaj was definitely frowning. He didn’t want to think mother was lying to them, but she was so obviously not okay that there couldn’t be any way she wasn’t aware of it. (Could there?) His agitation only grew because this was something he didn’t really know how to deal with; the best that Kadaj could conclude was that his mother was cold and that needed to be fixed.

Options for fixing that at the moment, of course, were limited. Still, Kadaj would do his best and thus he forced himself-had to force himself, because it was so painfully awkward-to bring his arms up around Lucrecia, when she drew him closer. He pulled her into a tight hug and had to check himself at how cold she felt. (Something that made his frown deepen.)

“You need to be warm,” he murmured, as though that wasn’t obvious. “Do you want to go find a bedroom, mother? There must be some around here, with beds and blankets. That would help you, wouldn’t it?”

[treastening]

Now she was beginning to feel just a bit guilty. Glancing up at Kadaj a bit sheepishly, she offered him another smile, chilled fingertips reaching up to brush fondly against his cheek. Pulling back, she ran her hands up over her arms again, nodding a bit - mostly to herself - as she thought. In all honesty, she hadn't meant to worry anyone; then again, she never really did, did she? It didn't mean people weren't going to worry anyway, or that she wasn't going to stop and actually think something through before she did it. That was something she needed to work on, perhaps.

"No, no, dear, that's quite all right. You should go back to the party, hm?"

[paramounted]

Kadaj was quick enough to shake his head then. He didn't for a moment think that it was 'quite all right' and, anyways-well, the only reason he had come to the party in the first place had been to be with mother, wasn't it? He had no interest in socialising with other people, unless it was perhaps nii-san, but it didn't seem to him like nii-san was all that interested in leaving mother just then, either.

And he wasn't. either. Instead, Zack was still just standing there, frowning. "We can't exactly leave you like this, Lu. No way we could enjoy the party until you're warm and good again."