melodiesoflife | A Search for Answers (backdated to November 13)

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A Search for Answers (backdated to November 13)

Ashelia and Lightning have been talking for a while about checking out the lost city of Aqures Tosf. Surely, there must be answers there; it's the original resting place of the Crystal of Fire before it destroyed the city, crystallizing the inhabitants it didn't kill outright. With Aqures Ixen nearly coming to the same end on The Night of the Thirteen Moogles, answers are needed more than ever.

What awaits on that forsaken island? Marvels? Horros? Treasure? The truth? No one knows. Will you take on the challenge?

[Aqures Ixen Airship Port]

The Heroes gather at the Airship Port to depart on their flight to Balicea. Who is coming along? Why? What do you hope to find on this journey? One word of advice: don't be late. Ashelia cannot abide tardiness.

[Airship Ride to Balicea]

The ride on the ship is short, but it doesn't have to be uneventful. Is this your first time on an airship? Time to find out if you get airsick.

[Balicea]

The Heroes arrive in Balicea on a mission. Ashelia tells everyone that they'll have the day to themselves to explore, but they should be at the docks the next morning bright and early. Ashelia will make sure they have a ship chartered to take them to Aqures Tosf.

[The Voyage to the Lost City]

Ashelia hopes that some of the Heroes coming along are better sailors than she - not one captain was willing to take them to Aqures Tosf. It looks to be a safe enough voyage with the weather, but running a ship is no small feat and Ashelia is an amateur.

[The Lost City of Aqures Tosf]

This is it. The Heroes have arrived. What awaits them? Will they learn anything that will help them unravel the mysteries of the Crystals? Or will the strong creatures that have made the ruins of the once-great city their home prove to be too much?

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He wasn't sure that he recognized the small voice behind him to begin with but as Sephiroth turned his head over a leather-clad shoulder to look who it might be, he carefully engineered a half step back with a turn to face the blonde princess whom he had killed. Her expression, the tears that had fell from her face, shot across his memories like a flash of lightning but outwardly Sephiroth managed -ever the professional- to hold his composure. He too, was ever-so determined to maintain his strength in the face of adversity, or in this case, an awkward encounter that had only been a matter of time before he'd be faced with.

Sharp eyes, alight once more with remnants of the Mako he'd had infused once more last month, sought out Kopula and noted well the way that the moogle acted around him. No great surprise really. Equally carefully, he answered Zelda.

"I had considered it-" Obvious as it was, from his low tone, that he'd already decided against it. "-but no. Still it's important to wish them luck"

She covered her mouth as she coughed and then smiled up at Sephiroth. It was weird and she couldn't stop thinking of him with the hateful glint to his expression. "I came to wish them luck as well."

Zelda lifted her basket slightly. "And to give those going something for their trip."

Hateful expression Sephiroth was hardly a far cry from his usual serious semi-neutral one after all. Except without a certain spark behind it, though much made up by the ethereal glow his eyes would retain for weeks yet; the reminder even in his own reflection of what had passed. As if he was going to forget it in any short time.

He lowered his eyes from Zelda's face and broke eye contact, turning back around to where he had been overlooking the airships that were boarding. Certain he had been early, but who knows maybe they were all already on board and getting ready to depart. None of the other Heroes owed him any words whatsoever after what he had done.

"That's nice of you." He sounded as honest as ever, not lacking the sincerity that came with his manners but really there wasn't anything else for him to say about it.

She stepped next to him, looking out at the airships. Talking to him was harder than she had thought it would be but she wasn't ready to stop trying. She slowly let out a breath of air that she didn't know she had been holding. "I just hope they all stay safe."

Zelda didn't turn to look at him. It was easier talking into the distance and her usual confidence returned to her voice. "You wanted to see them off too right? That's very nice of you."

Undoubtedly he probably didn't make it very easy to either, not being the most conversational of Heroes to begin with, recent events aside. Sephiroth afforded Zelda another side-down glance.

"Hm. It's important to know more about Aqures Tosf. They are brave to be going at all, from what I've read it's hardly a safe place."

She gave him a nod but kept her eyes on the ships in front of her. She knew the dangers which is why she felt compelled to come today and see everyone off on their journey. "I think I might travel too."

Zelda felt the pressure of his glance and turned to look up at him with a pleasant smile. "I think there might be something to find in all the countries."

He knew she nodded even if he didn't see it. Sephiroth didn't need to, he imagined it well enough. He hadn't realized his gaze had been inspecting her profile once more when she looked up and smiled finally. Pleasantly as if nothing had happened. That knocked his nerve out of joint some and in an effort to try and hide any sheepish look he might express, Sephiroth looked away again.

"It's large world, where we have all found ourselves. There are bound to be all sorts of interesting things to learn, all over." He nodded, assuring himself that his comment made sense. He too was thinking heavily on leaving Aqures Ixen for a while, but wasn't about to give very much up even if she had been most amicable and -apparently- quick to forgive his own weaknesses.

Her gaze shifted back to the airships with a sad smile. It wasn't so much that she forgave him. She didn't blame Sephiroth for what had happened; she blamed herself. She was too weak.

She wasn't strong enough to be a hero.

Zelda felt a dagger twist in her heart as she thought back to the moment she awoke from her crystal sleep. She was to play the goddess, not the hero and that realization was heartbreaking.

"I think so too." Zelda only hoped that she could be strong enough when faced with this large world she found herself in. There was so much left unsaid but she didn't have the words to give voice to her thoughts.

And it was due to that weakness that was uncovered in himself, that he didn't deserve any sympathy whatsoever for what had happened. The barbed wire wrapped around his own conscience would just have to be there until Sephiroth could bury it and grow from the same, the only way he knew to get stronger.

Where he'd been the legendary hero, and worked for a lifetime to gain such a title, Sephiroth now found himself for the first time questioning...everything.

"Picking out the relevant details will be no small task." He murmured only, unsure of what to say to Zelda yet at the same time his conscience couldn't leave it. It would be rude of him to turn a cold shoulder to her, more-so considering what had happened.

Edited 2014-11-18 22:30 (UTC)

"It will be." She shook her head trying to organize her thoughts. She wanted someone to confide in and she knew that he wouldn't go telling others. Her voice was softer as she thought back to her home to a time before she was swept from Skyloft, forced to face the darkness in the world below. "You know, back in my world there are heroes."

She paused. "I wasn't one of them. I had a different role to play."

He caught only the flash of blonde hair out of the corner of his vision as Zelda shook her head. Sephiroth didn't have anything else to be said about it, the facts were there and he didn't do idle chit-chat very well at all anyway - right now it was a struggle to gather the words to continue talking to Zelda. He just remembered all the blood that had spilled from her, how he had felt the power of it filling the air between them and around that ritual-

A softer tone stole a twitch of a raised eyebrow that was invisible between his bangs and the side of his face that was away from Zelda. Immediately he wondered why Zelda felt the need to impart this information about herself to him of all people, yet after she finished speaking Sephiroth did partially turn his head towards her once more. If she felt the need to say something, he wouldn't be the one to stop her.

"Oh? And what role was that?"

Her gaze stayed forward as she thought back to her time at the knight academy that her father ran. She took classes with the others but often did more to help her father out. That day she had been flying with Link and she was happy, she thought her role was over. Now she knows that it is a part of who she is and that will never change. "I played the Goddess."

Zelda's voice was soft but she felt better telling someone. She wasn't a hero but the object that the hero fought to protect and save from the darkness. When she finally faced it herself she failed and was encased it crystal. It was ironic knowing that should she ever go home she would be put in a similar sleep once again.

The Goddess. There could have been anything else that Zelda might have said and Sephiroth wouldn't have been so very interested, he's hardly the agony aunt that anyone could pine about their displacement to after all. Until recently he had disbelieved his own adamantly, and now that those thoughts of being stuck in a dream were swept away from him he was having quite enough of a time coming around to the idea himself.

In a long silence, his thoughts slipped easily to The Goddess as portrayed in Genesis' obsession play-book LOVELESS, all his tireless musings over her 'Gift' and what it might mean - the underlying plot that ran through the story of the three friends. Sephiroth had always considered it a theme of morality only. He turned his head then to Zelda and inspected her perhaps more thoroughly than was comfortable. There were no limits to the possibilities, after all, coming as he was to accept the circumstances in Crystallis.

"The Goddess of your World? Now isn't that something."

The intensity of his gaze was unnerving but she didn't let her fears show on her face. She slowly let out a long breath of air in order to steady herself and turned to look directly into Sephiroth's gaze.

"So you see, I am not meant to be a hero."

It was knowledge that she still wasn't used to and it was a fact that has changed her life. She was fully awakened as the goddess before being brought here and that power was meant to seal away the darkness. It was her destiny to protect the planet and the people living on it but being here now, she felt as if she has failed.

Whether or not Zelda found it unnerving wouldn't make any difference to the green fire that simmered around the edges of contracted slits. Sephiroth always had been intense in his bearing, intimidating to the point of nearly being off putting in his demeanor -the difference now being he didn't have the history to back it up in this new Realm. Always and forever with the attention to details, and now Zelda had sparked his intrigue.

"You could have fooled me." It was hard to place what he meant by that remark and the following huff of breath, entirely intentional in its expression of course considering his conscience were still tumbling as if in a vortex and not knowing which was the right way up. "Heroism isn't really something that you aim for."

Well, at least his second comment sounded just a touch more positive.

"Fooled?" She turned towards him curiously, her eyes meeting his. She didn't back down from his stare. She understood his curiosity and didn't want to show her own uncertainty.

Zelda was happy to be able to tell someone and talk to them about the part of her that she will have to go home and face. She was almost thankful that she knows how it feels to be trapped in crystal.

Still Sephiroth hadn't turned towards her, he was still looking down across his shoulder at her. At the obvious curiosity in her bearing, both eyebrows raised quickly as she held his stare. He then flicked his head, knocking silver hair away from where it had been tickling at his chin a little too much and used it as an opportunity to draw his gaze back over the airship docks.

"It depends on your definition of a Hero."

She giggled softly. "I guess your right."

Zelda wasn't sure what else to say. She knew that this conversation and proximity had to be hard on him.

"Thank you for talking with me."

Try as he might to conceal the fact, all he could hear in his mind from Zelda were the words she had urged him with in that forest. They plagued heavily on his mind being as the events were still very fresh. She was right for the most part; Sephiroth didn't know how to really talk to, or be around Zelda currently. He still wasn't convinced even that killing her had been wrong, it had needed to be done, just like all the other times he's had to kill someone.

He swallowed thickly before quickly nodding to her and turning his whole frame away again.

"It's not a trouble." The distant tone he was keeping could be the only way.

Zelda smiled to herself at his countenance. "I need to hand out what I brought to the other heroes." She lifted her heavy basket and then looked back over at Sephiroth.

"I'll talk to you again." Or at least she hoped that they would speak again. Even if it was awkward or difficult.

"Hm." He replied shortly with only a nod that wasn't even facing her anymore. It was clear to him that Zelda was trying to urge him to talk with her more but Sephiroth couldn't make himself struggle to find what words he might follow with. He still felt so extremely hollow; he knew he was brooding and it wouldn't achieve anything but there simply was still too much to think about.

"I'd like that." Eventually he offered, probably as Zelda had already started to walk away.

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A Search for Answers (backdated to November 13)

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