Voice

[wellsuited]

Tomorrow marks my four hundred and forty-forth day here. That's a pretty big deal, right?

[She'll let the significance of that sink in. ...Or complete lack thereof.]

Sometimes it feels like I just arrived here yesterday. And sometimes it feels like another lifetime. Sometimes I wonder, if I went home now...

[She trails off. That's probably not

Comments

Voice

[i_love_squats]

[Can't you just hear him getting paler?]

No way! No way no way no way!

Voice

[i_love_squats]

[Oh, no, Zack isn't necessarily surprised by it; the fact that you're a doctor and a from somewhere very different usually means all the questions and curiosity one can muster are a prerequisite. He might almost be more worried if you didn't ask.] What's wrong with a vacation? Everyone deserves some time off and to relax, you know? Even the boss-lady herself, though she won't admit it.

Mako is... it's from our home world. It's the liquefied Lifestream, um, the life blood of the planet I'm from. It's what let's us do magic --when we have materia-- and gives us energy, electricity, things like that.

Voice

[malfattore]

I've never felt the need to relax. Perhaps I'm just fortunate. {Or perhaps his work -- both occupations -- just never really stressed him out.} You people may be in the wrong line of work if you require time away from it.

{That's a lot of weird-ass info right there, but alright.} Your home is infused with living, liquid matter? An extractable resource that enables magics? {Ohhhh-kaaaaaay.} And you... you've been injected with it, and subsequently physically enhanced by it. Capisco.

Was this a voluntary process?

Voice

[i_love_squats]

[He knows people like you; he calls them "workaholics", a.k.a. "Tseng".] What about seeing your friends, your family? What about catching sight of everything the world has to offer? What about visiting far off places or doing something for yourself? I mean, I loved what I did, but even I needed to give the batteries a jumpstart sometimes, if you know what I mean. [Which, the doc probably wouldn't.]

Um... [And it didn't sound crazy to Zack; it was all he had ever known.] Your world isn't? And yeah, pretty much in a nut shell.

Mmm. Back home, it's like... it's a dream to a lot of people, being in SOLDIER. It is--was-- something to be proud of. Going off, being a hero. Most 1st Class members were even kinda like celebrities, with their own fanclubs and stuff. I even had one.

Voice

[malfattore]

{Heck no, he didn't. It didn't matter-- Zack was inching closer and closer to imbecile status in the Doc's book anyway, with the bizarre language, poor work ethic and apparent phobia of physicians. Loopy guy, this one.} I have friends, I had family. I travel with my occupation, I get to see things, and I've done much for myself. I suppose... it's just life, and I enjoy it thoroughly. {Check that: his "friends" were other Templars, he butchered his family, and... well, the rest was accurate.}

No, my world is just a world. No living matter infused, none extracted. None injected into people with... fanclubs? You sound like you lived large in your world.

I have a hard time believing a "hero" fearfully won't even visit a lowly doctor, though.

Voice

[i_love_squats]

[Hey, now, Zack never claimed to be normal! Besides, he wasn't the one running around in creepy bird masks and goggles.] Don't you wanna be able to spend some time with your friends then? You could go with them to visit these places. The world's just so small, and life's just so short, that having it swallowed up by work all the time, every second, doesn't seem fair.

[Lived large. Even Zack had to chuckle at that.] Yeah, I guess I did. I was a lucky guy. [And he never once forgot it.]

...[Dammit! You got him! Shit.] You don't understand. It's-- it's hard to explain. [Four years of time lost, of kidnapping, experiments, of living in a tube and torture... yeah, pretty hard to explain.]

Voice

[malfattore]

{Normalcy is relative? Or something. Besides, who the heck wants to catch the plague?} My friends aren't really the socializing sort either. We work together, I can count on them to do their part. I consider that a friend-type, but none of us spend leisure time together. I think what it comes down to is what an individual considers fair. You must put quite a bit of thought into it, what with it being your last name. {... so humour's not his forte... }

You needn't explain. Come to me sometime and I'll prove not all doctors are horrible, yes? In your own time. {Good luck with that, Doc, but it's worth a shot.}

Voice

[wellsuited]

You'll have to forgive Zack. He's a SOLDIER, not a Turk.