Comments | puppy_fair: Gongaga, Gaia a-la Reno and Elena, Wednesday Fandom Time

puppy_fair

Gongaga, Gaia a-la Reno and Elena, Wednesday Fandom Time

Dec 29, 2010 15:29

Okay. So, Mideel had been a bust. But once Zack had been given clearance to leave the clinic that they'd found there, he and Ino had hunted down transit to get them the hell out of there. It didn't even matter where, at this point. Civilization. Any continent would do, so long as it wasn't Wutai, and wasn't drowned in mako. Fortunately, for some ( Read more... )

places: gaia-not-mine, people: ino, people: some other mom and dad, places: corel, places: gongaga, topic: future-dead-me is staring, topic: denial is delicious omnomnom

Comments 106

flowering_mind December 29 2010, 19:43:03 UTC

Ino was definitely not going to argue with anything that meant she'd get to see his hometown even if he wouldn't go for it in his own world which did... weird her out a bit.

It was the trees and greenery that got her attention first. A lot of it was new growth. Newer, she thought, than it should have been. But that could be anything, right? She could think of reasons that weren't the end of the world for there to be new greenery.

Nonetheless, she looked a bit pensive as they approached. Ino was letting Zack take the lead--she didn't know the area--and making her own observations.

puppy_fair December 29 2010, 20:07:34 UTC

The pathways, at least, were familiar. The types of plant life, the waterfalls and sprawling vistas out over the rainforest, even the occasional monster that popped up gave Zack cause to grin. He'd been dealing with these monsters since he was old enough to wave sticks at things.

He hadn't even realized how much he'd missed it until he'd gotten closer to it.

But after a while, when jungle pathways gave way to massive, broken tree stumps, and then those gave way to pieces of pipeline, broken bricks and other assorted rubble strewn about, Zack's smile broke.

It broke, and he hit the pathway at a run.

flowering_mind December 29 2010, 20:13:39 UTC

She'd been frowning, slowing down, more than halfway to stepping off the paths to inspect the rubble when Zack took off like a banshee out of hell and Ino's head snapped up as she scrambled after him.

"Zack!"

From the way he was running, Ino doubted he'd stop for her, and she flung herself into a run that got faster and faster.

puppy_fair December 29 2010, 20:29:41 UTC

Monsters leapt from the woods onto the beaten path. Zack didn't even slow down to take them out, crystal sword in one hand, Buster Sword in the other, cleaving frogs and kimara bugs in two as he went.

The reactor.

His run came to a screeching halt as he passed from the treeline into a clearing that seemed to span on forever, at the center of which, there sat the very ruins that he had been afraid he'd find.

He didn't linger long. He only needed a heartbeat to stare in horror before he turned and started to backtrack along the path.

He wasn't finished running. Not yet. He took a different pathway this time, one that would get him home faster, but took him up around the blast radius of the ruins, past stone peaks with massive gates that had once been intended to keep the locals out, which had clearly done little to keep the explosion in.

No. No no no no no...

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flowering_mind December 30 2010, 02:19:18 UTC

They'd managed to get out of Gongaga after a few more hours, some truly delicious bread--of which they had more of in their packs, now--and made good headway towards what her phone said was Corel.

Ino didn't really care what it was called so long as it wasn't another Gongaga or Mideel.

This trip was... soul crushing, in a lot of ways. She glanced over her shoulder at Zack. "How're you feelin'?"

puppy_fair December 30 2010, 02:26:18 UTC

Zack had been fairly quiet as they made their way north, shrugging his shoulders a little as she spoke to him.

"I'm not sure," he admitted, softly. "It was... good to see that they're okay. But that visit wasn't easy."

He suspected that it would have been a difficult visit even without learning what Gongaga looked like as a crater.

"He wrote them the same letter that I did," he said, after a few more steps, picking quietly at a piece of bread that he'd broken off once they were well away from the forest and the ruins and the feeling like his heart was in a vice every time his parents spoke. "But then he didn't write them again. I've been meaning to write them again, you know? I wouldn't just..."

Except that he had.

"They waited that long, and they're still looking for him. Me. I can't even..."

flowering_mind December 30 2010, 02:31:25 UTC

"They love you," she said, her smile a bit twisted. "And miss you and, you know, they told us 'bout grandkids and all of that but all they wanted us to tell Zack was that they miss him."

She looked up, and up at the sky.

"That's the most important bit."

puppy_fair December 30 2010, 02:37:54 UTC

Zack nodded a little and sighed.

"Think we'll find him?"

There was a lot of Gaia, and there were only two of them, and the farther they went, the more broken everything seemed to become.

Thread 19

puppy_fair December 30 2010, 14:05:15 UTC

Corel wasn't at all where Zack had remembered Corel being. The place that he'd been certain Corel was located at was surrounded on all sides by quicksand and desert so harsh that he was certain even a chocobo couldn't cross it. There stood the Gold Saucer, like some kind of twisting skyscraper monument through the dunes, but Corel...?

They'd had to consult the maps on their PHS systems, which were becoming ever more useful on this trip, and those had led them to a place which wasn't labelled Corel, but North Corel instead. And, while it didn't seem to be strewn with ruins the same way that Gongaga and Mideel had been, the sheer poverty that the people here were living in was...

Zack stared for a small eternity. And then shook his head and walked into the town, which seemed to be mostly made up of crates and tents and any junk that people would have been able to drag through the harsh desert from their old home. The other Corel. Or whatever Zack imagined was left of it ( ... )

flowering_mind December 30 2010, 17:14:56 UTC

Ino was... pale. A whole new shade of pale, truly.

This was the worst vacation ever and why was every place they visited something awful? This was a different sort of awful, but almost more oppressive for all of that.

She stared, swallowed hard, and hurried after Zack. "Do we need a tent to camp out?"

Really, she was okay with the under the stars thing. Totally okay.

puppy_fair December 30 2010, 17:17:28 UTC

"Keeps the monsters off," Zack pointed out, putting his arm around her shoulder and stepping up to the... to the... overturned crate which was apparently the items and tools shop. "I mean, not that the monsters here are really tough or anything, but..."

He wasn't certain where he was going with that.

flowering_mind December 30 2010, 17:24:11 UTC

Right. Right.

She was just going to... be glad for his arm around her and try not to think about the... village and the crate and oh god she almost wanted to be back in Gongaga where at least there was fresh bed and quiet persistence instead of this hopeless anger that filled the air.

"Right," she said, with a bob of her head. "Um. Hello?"

One tent, super fast, and then they were fleeing this place.

Thread 32