( closed ) it's a new dawn, it's a new day

[amongstheclouds]

WHO: Cloud Strife, Jade Curtiss.
WHAT: Cloud makes a new friend, hurrah!
WHERE: SOME TEAHOUSE SOMEWHERE.
WHEN: Day 200something.

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[necroshmancer]

"How can you tell if people do not have hearts anymore, if, somehow, they keep on living? This is all very confusing, but the academic in me is fascinated. You see, I used to do a lot of research, back in my world. I simply love to understand how things work..."

Ever since childhood, Jade had wanted to understand everything, from life and death -how many parts could he rip out of a monster before he stopped moving? is moving life? what is death?- to fontech machinery and the use of fonic artes. He always pushed forward into the unknown, with sometimes disastrous results... it was his creation of the science of fomicry which brought so much suffering to the world.

But white he liked to think of himself as a genius, there was one thing that he could not brush away... one thing that always eluded him...

"Things are so much easier to understand than people."

[amongstheclouds]

"Nobodies don't... really exist. There is Darkness, Light and Nothing. They're a part of the Nothingness." Only now was Cloud realizing how hard it was to explain the concept of Nobodies and Heartless to someone who didn't already know -- and especially to such as critical thinker as Jade. "It's complicated."

A small break to finish the rest of the tea in the cup.

"My powers are dulled, but I can still tell a Nobody from a normal person. There's a difference in their... aura, I guess." Cloud didn't really want to explain his affiliation with Darkness.

He placed the cup down on the table. "I'm Cloud, by the way." It seemed his name, however, was something he would offer.

[necroshmancer]

Jade drained his cup, and left it on the edge of the table, waiting for it to be refilled by the waiter.

"My name is Jade", he stated as he extended his gloved hand over the table, "Jade Curtiss. Colonel, 3rd Malkuth army division."

He paused then smiled ruefully, "Although it doesn't mean that much anymore... nothing really does, in this world."

[amongstheclouds]

"I gathered." Cloud murmured mostly to himself, having picked up Jade's name in the little kerfuffle the man had created upon arriving in the teahouse. He quietly shook Jade's gloved hand with his own when it was offered.

"We're all set back to zero when we come here." The warrior replied, blue eyes cast away once more. Cloud was never good with eye contact.

[necroshmancer]

Jade's crimson gaze became piercing as he detailed the man on the other side of the table. He was quiet, and avoided his gaze -he wasn't sure if it was because he was shy, or because, like many, he was disturbed by eyes the color of freshly spilt blood- but there was something soothing about the blonde man.

Maybe it was simply his blond hair and blue eyes... Jade always did love that particular colouring.

"This world... forces us all to start anew."

[amongstheclouds]

"Yeah." His reply sounded idle, but he really was paying attention, even though his mind was starting to wander a little. The blond couldn't help but wonder what happened to one when they left Rivelata and their new beginning behind -- would they return home to continue their life there? Would they have memories of Rivelata or not?

But those thoughts were not shared with the other man.

Finally, Cloud's bright, almost glowing blue eyes caught Jade's piercing red ones; and he immediately realized he was being analyzed. He recognized that look some strangers gave him. "But at least that's something, I guess."

[necroshmancer]

Out of the corner of his eye, Jade saw the waiter refilling his cup with the fragrant tea. He reached out for it with one hand, never breaking eye contact with Cloud, and slid the cup in font of him, the steam rising between them.

Cloud's eyes were of a bright, unnatural blue, as bright as this new start that he had alluded to.

A new start was not what Jade had ever wanted... he believed in playing the hand you were dealt... but, as Cloud said... it was something.

"Indeed."

[amongstheclouds]

Cloud's expression, for the most part, was unreadable. Behind that front, however, the blond was thinking about Jade's eyes. Red, unnatural, piercing -- a contrasting match to his own unnatural blue, glowing eyes. It was eerie.

He wasn't able to keep eye contact quite as long as Jade could.

The waiter had poured Cloud's tea into his cup after tending to Jade's, to which Cloud murmured a quiet thank you and looked away from the colonel once more.

[necroshmancer]

Jade tapped the edge of his teacup absently, "Although, it's a new start I did not ask for. A new start I could have done without."

He finally looked away, his eyes straying towards the window, his expression undecipherable, like a crumpled up sheet of paper that, after being carefully smoothed out, still retained faint marks of something deeper.

"I have seen and experienced things much worse than anything I could have imagined. And I have done -and seen- a lot of horrific deeds back in my world. I even asked to die, and I am still here."

[amongstheclouds]

"Is that so...?" The blond asked softly, finally picking up his cup of tea and pressing it to his lips. He only took a small sip before setting it back down on the table though, hand still wrapped around it.

Jade's words had vaguely reminded him of his own struggles. The horrific things he himself had seen, the monster he himself had accidentally created. Cloud didn't ask to die, though -- he was too worried about his friends to do that. He didn't want to abandon them when he still had the power to protect them.

"There's a dark part in all of our hearts." The words were very soft-spoken this time, but there was no doubt in his voice at all.

[necroshmancer]

"Sometimes it is harder to see the light", Jade mused, taking a sip of his tea as he realized that he had perhaps opened up a bit too much to a complete stranger. He blamed it on the blonde hair and soft features that reminded him of his childhood friend...

"Although", he confided, smiling mischeviously at Cloud, "Some people's hearts really are all darkness and evil... Case in point: Emperor Peony outlawed bacon in the Malkuth military because he thinks that all rappigs are animals of superior intelligence and should not be eaten. Because of this rule, I was forced to smuggle black market bacon on the Tartarus."

He lowered his voice, "It's so difficult to find good Malkuth bacon... but in Rivelata..."

[amongstheclouds]

From the change in topic, the blond sort of picked up on the fact that Jade was probably wondering if he had opened up to Cloud too quickly. But Cloud didn't really mind listening to people's stories if it didn't get him in undesirable situations or if he wasn't required to discuss it -- so either way, the blond would have stayed quiet about it.

"People can spend their whole lives looking for their Light. Some find it, others... don't." The statement was general; but inside his head, he was thinking mainly of his own life.

He took another few sips of tea.

"I don't really eat bacon," Cloud replied softly when he stopped drinking the tea, seemingly willing to follow the conversation where ever Jade led it. "So I wouldn't know."

[necroshmancer]

"Isn't light always out of reach? Like the sun or the stars?" Jade asked, as he pondered Cloud's words. He thought, in a way, that he had been lucky: his light had been by his side most of his life... had been the better part of him. Still was.

He remembered, months ago, the fires burning in the town. And Peony, Peony had sat by the window, in the Inn, watching the sunset. But Jade did not see past his friend's reflection in the window. It blinded him. That, to him, was his sunset.

"Up in the sky, while we live chained to this earth..."

Jade was jolted out of his thoughts as he processed Cloud's comment... "Have you ever tasted bacon at least? Nice, crisp bacon, with a few eggs on the side... it's pure ambrosia!"

[amongstheclouds]

"It is for some." Like himself. "Others are surrounded by Light." Like Sora. He could still judge the levels of Darkness and Light in someone's heart fairly well -- although it wasn't hard to see his Darkness, or the keyblade bearer's Light at all.

But it was something, and it seemed that all he had left at this point were little somethings.

"People like to believe everyone has the ability to surround themselves in Light if they want." Cloud's fingertips idly tapped against the porcelain cup. "I'm not sure I believe that." Another sip of tea and then, "I've tried it. I'm not a huge fan."