[closed thread]

[waywardwings]

WHO: Zidane and Kuja.
WHAT: Brotherly reunion! (Sorta.)
WHERE: The docks.
WHEN: Shortly after Kuja's arrival.

Comments

[de_novo_xiii]

He didn't know exactly where Zidane lived, so he was content in implanting a visual map of the town into his mind. It was beautiful here. It could have been much much worse.

There were other people milling about looking just as lost as he was. He half wondered how they would fare- he was luckier than most since he had found someone he knew.

The temperature had dropped as the evening began to set in. He quickened his pace, walking briskly to catch up with his brother whilst rubbing his upper arms in an attempt to warm himself.

Without thinking, his tail curled around his brother's.

[waywardwings]

Zidane almost jumped - almost, but remembered himself in time, merely glancing across to Kuja inquisitively. Although he didn't pull away, someone touching his tail was like some unspoken taboo. It was like touching a moogle's pom-pom; simply something one did not do. Not because Zidane decided it to be so, but because other people seemed to be instinctively wary of it. Instictive knowledge it was proof of his otherworldly origins

[de_novo_xiii]

Despite the evening chill, a blush flushed his pale skin. Kuja pouted, ducking his head.
"I have not!" He retorted, "It has a mind of its own. You would know that, you've got one too."

It was a weak defence, surely, one that Zidane could easily spot the holes in. Kuja relaxed, looking up at the first few stars that had begun to twinkle.
"I've...I'm not angry anymore. It's nice, you know? There isn't this burning feeling in my chest driving me insane."

He looked at his hands, brows creased.
"A part of me is gone, but I don't miss it. It's left me with a lot of...empty spaces in my heart, but ones I wouldn't mind trying to learn to fill with...with other emotions."

Kuja's high cheekbones were rosy now, and he was cross with himself for being so open with his feelings. Solitude could do that to you, he realized. No one had ever listened to him pour out his heart. No one thought he had one.

"I still can't understand why you've been so nice to me so far. You could've just pretended I wasn't here."

[waywardwings]

Zidane delicately unwound his tail from the other Genome's, pretending to be interested in the street more than Kuja's embarrassment. He couldn't help but smile a little at it, though; he'd never seen Kuja flustered like that before.

He noticed they were entering a more familiar area, now, and he was sure it wasn't far to go til they'd reach the apartment. "You say it like I had a choice. I could've, just like I could've ignored you when I realised you were still alive in the Iifa Tree. But I couldn't. I couldn't just leave you there when there was a chance to help you. It's just how I am.

"Look at it like the Black Mages. They did what they were created for, like you. But it doesn't make them any less people. Now they're free, they just want to enjoy what they have, even if they don't always understand life. But they're learning. Me and Vivi... we got lucky. We got away from what we were made for and found our own purposes," Zidane paused, letting what he said sink in before he continued. He looked past Kuja to the fading light of

[de_novo_xiii]

He didn't answer, choosing to mull over his words as they edged closer and closer to the aforementioned apartment. Choice. Something a Genome didn't seem to have, it seemed. Puppets of fate, but where Kuja tasted cruelty, fate had smiled kindly upon his younger brother.

Mortality. An even harder concept to swallow. They had been given no notion about mortality, whilst on Terra. If a Genome malfunctioned, it was disposed of. No one knew death could come for them on its own. It wasn't learning about mortality that had frightened Kuja, it was learning he was a defect that led to his madness.

"You were a really cute baby." Kuja giggled, speaking at last. "And somehow it didn't seem fitting for you to go through what I had to. I had to get you out of there. I wanted to live my life vicariously through you, because I could never escape."