sleeping with ghosts
Characters: no_hometown & urbanwonderland
Date: Today
Summary: Sephiroth's "holodeck" is malfunctioning, with unusual results. Can Reeve make the necessary repairs?
Warnings: So far, just some good old fashioned FFVII gloom & drama! Edit: now there's some sexual content, but nothing graphic.
Since the incident with the apparitions--or ghosts, as some called them--Sephiroth has been more reserved than usual. She has not isolated herself completely, but she has gone out less frequently, socialized with fewer of the Gardens' residents.
She has noticed something curious. The mark on her palm left in exchange for the stone she found in the wilds has vanished from her skin. Yet she does not recall making a wish. It is possible she wished for something idly, but none of her casual wishes have been granted, have they? What can it mean? Another odd occurrence in the midst of so much that is strange. She will not worry about it until she has cause to be concerned. She is glad to be rid of the mark. She dislikes having her bodily autonomy violated, even in such a small way. She does not want to be involved with the Queen and her games.
When she wants to be alone, her Training Ground is a place of refuge. Since she created it, with Reeve's assistance, it has functioned--not exactly like its real world counterpart, but well enough. It has offered her familiar, challenging opponents, environments from home. She had assumed the mechanism was functioning along the lines of the actual machinery it is based on, but she has come to realize that that is not the case, since it has begun to function erratically. It appears to be affected by her state of mind.
She has never been at ease in the Gardens, but she has not had a strong sense of unease before now, so the holographic images had been stable, behaved as expected. No longer.
...spliced with the genes of Genesis.
You're a monster, Sephiroth.
Both the false appearance of Zack and the real appearance of the woman Rosso have made an impact on her, although she has no way to verify any claims, no way to do research, no papers to read, no calculations to study. Nothing. Only herself and the Training Ground she currently stands in the middle of. The environment it chooses to show her now is the town of Banora, which she has never entered in life. A collection of houses in the old style, the settlement ringed by apple orchards, brown buildings and green leaves. It is peaceful, and it is empty.
She has instructed the program to create Genesis for her to fight, but the female version of Genesis that it usually produces has not appeared, only the empty town. She searches through the houses, one by one, her sword drawn. More than once, she sees a flicker of movement in the periphery of her vision, but each time she turns her head, there is nothing there. "Genesis," she calls out, as if there were a real person there, who might respond to her. No one answers. She searches among the trees. A breeze blows through the branches, but otherwise, the orchard is quiet. She steps carefully, constantly alert. At any moment, the setting might change. It might become the professor's laboratory; the streets of Midgar; the forests of Wutai; the barren ice fields of the north; or the rooms of a house she does not know, its walls covered with once elegant but now peeling paper.
Earlier, Sephiroth asked Reeve to help her with the malfunctioning Training Ground, but she has almost forgotten she requested the other woman's presence.
Date: Today
Summary: Sephiroth's "holodeck" is malfunctioning, with unusual results. Can Reeve make the necessary repairs?
Warnings: So far, just some good old fashioned FFVII gloom & drama! Edit: now there's some sexual content, but nothing graphic.
Since the incident with the apparitions--or ghosts, as some called them--Sephiroth has been more reserved than usual. She has not isolated herself completely, but she has gone out less frequently, socialized with fewer of the Gardens' residents.
She has noticed something curious. The mark on her palm left in exchange for the stone she found in the wilds has vanished from her skin. Yet she does not recall making a wish. It is possible she wished for something idly, but none of her casual wishes have been granted, have they? What can it mean? Another odd occurrence in the midst of so much that is strange. She will not worry about it until she has cause to be concerned. She is glad to be rid of the mark. She dislikes having her bodily autonomy violated, even in such a small way. She does not want to be involved with the Queen and her games.
When she wants to be alone, her Training Ground is a place of refuge. Since she created it, with Reeve's assistance, it has functioned--not exactly like its real world counterpart, but well enough. It has offered her familiar, challenging opponents, environments from home. She had assumed the mechanism was functioning along the lines of the actual machinery it is based on, but she has come to realize that that is not the case, since it has begun to function erratically. It appears to be affected by her state of mind.
She has never been at ease in the Gardens, but she has not had a strong sense of unease before now, so the holographic images had been stable, behaved as expected. No longer.
...spliced with the genes of Genesis.
You're a monster, Sephiroth.
Both the false appearance of Zack and the real appearance of the woman Rosso have made an impact on her, although she has no way to verify any claims, no way to do research, no papers to read, no calculations to study. Nothing. Only herself and the Training Ground she currently stands in the middle of. The environment it chooses to show her now is the town of Banora, which she has never entered in life. A collection of houses in the old style, the settlement ringed by apple orchards, brown buildings and green leaves. It is peaceful, and it is empty.
She has instructed the program to create Genesis for her to fight, but the female version of Genesis that it usually produces has not appeared, only the empty town. She searches through the houses, one by one, her sword drawn. More than once, she sees a flicker of movement in the periphery of her vision, but each time she turns her head, there is nothing there. "Genesis," she calls out, as if there were a real person there, who might respond to her. No one answers. She searches among the trees. A breeze blows through the branches, but otherwise, the orchard is quiet. She steps carefully, constantly alert. At any moment, the setting might change. It might become the professor's laboratory; the streets of Midgar; the forests of Wutai; the barren ice fields of the north; or the rooms of a house she does not know, its walls covered with once elegant but now peeling paper.
Earlier, Sephiroth asked Reeve to help her with the malfunctioning Training Ground, but she has almost forgotten she requested the other woman's presence.