footsteps follow, down through the hollow sound
Characters: c-zacatechichi and you (open :: see HERE)
Date: March 31st
Summary: Fela is walking the Garden's dreams.
Warnings: To be updated as any appear!
( I was waiting down at the ancient gate... )
Date: March 31st
Summary: Fela is walking the Garden's dreams.
Warnings: To be updated as any appear!
( I was waiting down at the ancient gate... )
Sephiroth is seated on the edge of an examination table. Her feet do not reach the floor. She glances down at her legs. She is wearing pants of pale cotton, and her feet are bare. She watches them dangle in midair. They are small, and she must be a child, but within the dream she knows this instinctively and does not need to think it.
There is a mirror on the far wall. She sits facing it. Within it, she can see herself reflected. She can also see the wall behind her, and the door. She checks to see that the door is closed. It is. That's good. She's all alone here. She likes to be alone. She swings her legs a little, pleased.
A cylindrical radiation chamber sits in one corner of the room. She peers at it for a minute or so, frowning. Then her body stiffens as she hears a click! behind her, and the dream changes. The room does not shift, but the tone does. The light grows harsher, and there's a hum in the air, like the sound of machinery, as if something has just been turned on. Sephiroth turns to the mirror and sees that the door is open. Someone has entered the room, but the mirror doesn't show her who. Whoever it is must be standing in a blind spot, watching her. She could see for herself if she turned around, but when she tries, she finds that her body will no longer obey her. She can't move, and suddenly she knows that something terrible is going to happen.]
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So, she stays in the shadow of the cabinets, half hidden by a plastic container. The little girl on the table does not seem scared to be here, she understands the medical nature of her surroundings, and so Fela does as well, even if she thinks she would be frightened to be in such a cold place.
The dreamchaser retreats back out of the way a little further as the door opens, keeping herself out of sight, though... the way the air goes sharp and strident worries her. The dreamer's dread rising up, knotting in chaser's stomach.]
Who is it? What is happening?
[It is a faint voice, like a fairy in her ear, one could almost think they had imagined it.]
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She doesn't expect to hear the unfamiliar voice, and she's puzzled by it, her eyes narrowing. She doesn't answer at once, but when she does, her voice is as matter-of-fact as her dream.]
It's the professor. It's time for my treatment.
[As she says it, she can move again, and she turns toward him. He's standing in the corner, watching her, just as she'd thought he would be: a thin, dark-haired man wearing a white lab coat and round glasses. He smiles at her, briefly, but it isn't a real smile, and she knows it. She glares at him, not bothering to disguise her dislike. Her glare banishes his smile. He takes a step closer. She pulls her legs up as he approaches, rising up onto her knees on the table.]
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She wanders down the counter slowly, spotting a stack of plain white paper cups. She takes one quickly before lobbing it directly at the doctor's head.]
You don't have to, not today.
[That same little voice that seems to come from nowhere.]
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--I must protect him.
The thought, like the actions, are not her own, and it isn't fair. Why can't she do what she wants? Now she is standing on the far side of the room, farther away from the professor, though still facing him. He speaks, his words punctuated by a strange laughter.]
That's right, you want to get stronger, don't you? If you don't have your medicine, you'll get sick, you know.
[The floor is cold beneath her feet. Sephiroth looks down at the cup in her hands. It has filled with bright green liquid, the same liquid that fills the syringes. It glows. It's a pretty color, but she doesn't like it. She doesn't like bright colors.]
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Are you sick? I'm sure you're very strong. Is it all right?
[She pushes up onto her toes, neck stretched, trying to see inside the cup, but she sees nothing more than a very faint green reflection on the girl's pale face.]
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I'm not sick. I'm different. That's why they give me Mako.
[She says this without explanation, as if it's impossible for anyone not to know what the green liquid is. Still holding the cup, she raises her head, her gaze meeting the professor's, and her expression changes again. Her eyes narrow, her lips thin, and her body tenses. She is strong, so much stronger than he is, and he knows that, but he only smiles. He watches her, his face both narrow and sharp, his eyes bright.]
He lies to me.
[A word comes to her then. She did not know it as a child, but she knows it now, and so she knows it in the dream. It is an inescapable truth, though one she will not speak aloud.
Father.]
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Does the Mako hurt you inside? Do his lies hurt you inside?
[There is something sinister here, she could drag it out of the dreamer's mind, but that would be unnecessarily invasive, and beyond the rights of her duties.]
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The Mako is everywhere.
[Suddenly, the green liquid in the cup bursts into light. The room fills with it, the vivid poison of the radiation. It sweeps through the room, though it does not touch the professor; he seems to be protected somehow. The light washes over Sephiroth's body, with a sensation like burning, although her skin remains completely pale and smooth. She shudders, but she continues to regard the professor with that same intense dislike.]
I want him to tell me what I am. I want him to let me go.
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He does not have you. I can take you anywhere.
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But you don't look like a researcher. [She hesitates. Is this another test? She's not meant to ask the question she wants to ask, but after a brief struggle, she manages to speak the words.] I want to go play. Can I?
[The green of the radiation does not lessen, but for a moment, it flickers, giving way to a very different kind of green: a warmer gold-green, like light filtering through leaves. A forest--an orchard? It has a completely different air, more truly dreamlike than the lab. There's the sound of distant voices. Sephiroth knows that the professor is keeping her from that place. He laughs again, and his laughter drowns out the calling of the fainter voices as the other image disappears. She hates the sound of his laughter.]
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[The small voice that comes from Fela's mind suddenly takes on new light, louder, chiming. She rises from her huddled position, she keeps the scarf carefully across her face, but her other hand appears from the folds of her cloak, offered out despite how tiny she is at the moment.]
You can, you can! I will take you. I will take you away I know where it is the trees the sun
[The sound of rustling leaves is a whispering undercurrent to everything she offers, and though the smell of sonando (smokey, sweet, spiced, and tarry) hangs off all that Fela is (all she says, all she does) there is also the fresh scent of wet grass.]
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Angeal and Genesis live in Banora. That's a town. They play together there. [Her two best friends playing without her. It doesn't seem fair. They're like her brothers. All three of them should be together.] They grow apples in Banora. I always wanted to go.
[She hears the leaves and smells the grass, both sound and scent growing stronger as she takes another step. A vision of two boys appears before her, one with black hair and one with brown, but she never knew them as children. It's hard for her to picture them like this. They're faint, almost fading. Uncertain, she glances at the professor, and her body stiffens. She feels cold.]
But I can't go.
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Fela frowns, pushing against the heavy weight of the dreamer's memory, but at least the green glow of the mako, no matter how unnatural, can be turned to her purposes. Greenery begins to push its way through the scene, up through the grouted floor and from the seams of the door, out from the cabinets, up from the steel sink.]
Do you like apples? They're waiting, in Banora. Shall I bring them to you, instead?
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[Angeal and Genesis say that they used to play many games together, but Sephiroth never cared for the toys she was given, and she never had any other children to play with, not even once. The professor says she can only play if she takes her tests first, and she hates her tests.
She can feel the wind on her face. She smiles as the plants begin to grow around her, and suddenly, a sword is in her small hands, as if she conjured it from her body. It gleams more brightly than real metal would as her eyes light up along with it. Her pupils narrow. Her eyes are like a cat's eyes.
She wants to fight. There's no game she enjoys more. And there's something else--what is it? Something stirs within her, her heartbeat quickening. There's something lacking, something she wants. She needs to be close to her friends again.]
I can see them?
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[The little voice is strong, insistent, and Fela's determination is reflected in the continued infringement of growth, tiles shattering as thick roots overtake them, walls cracking as they are penetrated by earth and sky. It is not a gentle process, ripping apart such a dream, it has its own roots in true memory and the certainties of the real world can be hard to shake, if the dreamer holds on too tightly.
It is not gentle, but the violence is not fully Fela's, this is the girl's dream, and her heartbeat is the tattoo at which the scene is ripped away. It is her sword which gleams in the center, through the green and through the dust.
A branch extends itself carefully over to the examination table, its tip curled unnaturally, a place for Fela to stand. It lifts her gently, moving her towards Sephiroth and towards the frozen doctor. Fela casts him a disdainful look.]
Come, they're waiting outside.
[She motions to the door, while everything around it has been crumpled in, it remains upright, waiting to take them to the dreamer's desires.]
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