melodiesoflife | Event || In Your Worst Memory

Event || In Your Worst Memory

Characters: All Heroes of Light. Only those who signed-up can start a memory.
Where: Interdimensional Rift
When: May 27th - May 30th
Summary: The Heroes of Light relive some of their worst memories, with a twist. All characters participating in this will be physically missing from Crystallis for the duration of the event.
Warning: It depends on the memory.

Where you were or what you were doing— It does not really matter. Not any more. Everything around you freezes, nearly as if time itself stopped, as if the world was frozen in time. And before you have a chance to understand what is happening, you can hear a voice right behind you.

"Kali Shashidhwaja."

Should you turn around, you may see a child who seems to be the only one aside from you unaffected by what is happening. And as she stares right at you, it makes no doubt these strange words are aimed at you. But before you can reply to her, the world around you collapses. Reality twists and shatters... Or maybe you are the one who is collapsing and shattering away from reality as you know it. No matter what the answer is, it will only take a few seconds for you to find yourself sinking into a void, Crystallis vanishing into the distance. There is nothing but darkness as far as the eye can see.

And once again you feel different: all the powers from your Jobs are fading. Not only that, but you might find that your Crystal is gone and your clothes back to what they were before you woke up in Crystallis. It is silent, cold and before long it feels as though life itself is slipping out of you... And yet, slowly the world reforms around you. The darkness fades away and a new world appears, yet at the same time this is not a world.

This is a memory. The question is, is it yours or that of someone else?

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A memory that was not yet a memory.

Zack's departing words rang loudly on the surface of Sephiroth's thoughts, calling deep to events that he already knew came next. Not only that though. They called to his sense of duty, that trust that so many had so willingly put in him and that he had forsaken so violently with-

Had he lost his mind though? Sephiroth had a moment of sharp introspection in the moments before Terra actually spoke to ask himself that question. It was -all things considered- both a relevant and irrelevant question to ask now. Sephiroth blinked and then Terra seemed to come into focus, staring up at him and asking the one question that was furthest from his mind in that instance.

"The same?" He questioned back before thinking to Terra's memory that he had been present in earlier, and also the other information he'd obtained about her previously. It did seem similar, just based off what she had now seen of his secrets. Jenova wasn't just any monster though.

"No, it's not the same, Terra."

She took a step forward, her hand resting on her heart as her gaze fixed onto that familiar frame. She didn't get to close. She wouldn't get so close knowing that he might be hurting. She couldn't understand what it all meant but she knew that he most likely hadn't wanted her there.

"Can you tell me about JENOVA?" Terra wondered about the woman before him that he called his mother. Is she really his mother? Or was it something darker than that but she wouldn't force it. She didn't know how she was here or how the dream might end. All she could do was stay by his side; like she promised.

She watch him, her heart heavy. She only wanted to help but she quickly realized that she didn't know how to do that. She was defenseless having faced memories that were stolen from her.

If Sephiroth had a choice in the matter he'd not have wanted any of them to be there. So then he could see it all himself and then take his own time to figure out how he'd go about burying it somewhere deep in the back of his own mind. No one had ever to know. Tough luck this time that this would-be memory was played out for anyone to see.

"Genesis told me once-" He started but wasn't sure if he wanted to put it into words. It would verify it, make it more real.

"-that I was a Calamity spawn. That we three were all part of the same set of experiments which involved 'Calamity cells' and that out of all of them I was the most accurately produced. I thought he was out of his mind. That-"

Sephiroth closed his eyes but he wished he hadn't; he knew well what lay beyond the sealed door at the back of the scene they'd all just witnessed, picked up easily from the stronger impressions that his predecessor had swamped him with. His Mothers face flashed across the forefront of his mind, how she'd appear in the chamber deeper in the reactor and he grimaced visibly, almost as if it were really a physical pain.

"-but Jenova. He's right, she's a monster. The Calamity from our own World."

Terra listened quietly taking each word and turning them over in her mind. She didn't understand and while she didn't want to push Sephiroth, she wanted to understand. Her eyes stayed on him glowing a little brighter than they had in Crystallis.

"Is being a monster bad? How do you know that she will bring the Calamity?" Terra found that people were their own downfall. They wanted power and they were greedy. It was the Empire who tore apart Terra's home and it was the Empire who was trying to tear apart Crystallis even as the threat of the Calamity rained overhead. The Calamity might not have even come if it wasn't for the meddling of men. So why was it that those tilted monsters were given the blame?

Of course it could be different. Jenova could have been someone who hoped to destroy everyone on his plant for no reason at all but Terra couldn't help but feel that people were worse. They they were just as bad as those they labeled as monsters.

It wasn't what you looked like that man you a monster. It was who you choose to be.

Another similarity. Sephiroth's eyes too glowed brighter while they were in this different Realm; reflective of the power restored in him by way of the mako that coursed through him. Not that she could see in that moment, being as he still had his closed with his face turned down towards the floor. Silver curtains doing that same trick as before; hiding any trace of an expression away.

"No. She -is- the Calamity." Sephiroth all but muttered. If he were going to say this, it would only be for Terra to hear. "And I became the Calamity after her, as only her true son could take the mantle of her Legacy and restore it all-"

He crushed his eyes closed even more than they were already, trying to dismiss the hot feeling behind them that might result in a show of emotion Sephiroth didn't want anyone else to witness. Before Terra might notice though he shook his head profusely, then forced his eyes back open and his head back up to look at her.

"-it doesn't make any sense. I had settled the questions of my origin years before, and though all I ever wanted was-" Family. A Mother where he hadn't ever had one. Some higher sense of purpose...

"-it didn't matter. Before."

Terra didn’t want to see Sephiroth look away. She knew every time his gaze was cast to the floor or his eyes clamped shut that he was holding something back. She couldn’t bring herself to push him but it hurt seeing him like this. The familiar pain in her chest returned and her hand came to rest over it as if to push it back into her heart.

She listened quietly taking each one of his words and considering them. He didn’t have to do what his mother did. Terra wished for some words of comfort but nothing came. The last time she had attempted to comfort him hadn’t worked either. He wasn’t the sort of person to rely on others.

“All you ever wanted?” Terra softly repeated his words. “Sephiroth. What is it that you want?” She knew some of his past and his parents. She knew of his future and his will to be strong to protect others but she didn’t know what he wanted. If he wanted a family he could make one of those too. That’s what Terra believed, it’s what she had to believe because she didn’t want to be alone either.

The difference being that this time his obvious internal strife was clearly written in his bearing, how his shoulders remained hunched forwards and his arms tightly folded. The very epitome of 'leave me alone' with little regard to how it made Terra -or anyone else for that matter- feel.

She wouldn't understand. He didn't understand much either, that a metaphysical reaction out of his control would tip the balance between what Sephiroth wanted to be and what he would become. A connection between Mother and Son. He remembered well how his future self had been filled with such strong fervor; a sense of purpose much more satisfying than anything Sephiroth might get while he still remained under the thumb of the Company.

"Like I said then, I was always different from the others. All the other children in the World. I was more capable. Special." He bit the corner of his mouth as he kept his eyes from locking with Terra's, as if he could stop himself from telling her.

"So naturally, there was a time that I wanted what all the other boys of the world had but I didn't. A Mother. A Father-" There was another uncomfortable swallow that didn't quite go all the way down and Sephiroth had to cough sharply to clear his throat. Imagining that remembered feeling of his to be dashed away, a creature he'd slayed a million times before.

"-but I got over that. I discovered that I didn't need the support that all the other boys of the world did. By then, I was strong enough on my own. There wasn't anything I couldn't do should I put my mind to it-"

He huffed then, with an almost over-exaggerated shrug. "-well, almost."

Like fix the rift that had been wedged between himself and the only two friends he'd ever had. Sephiroth pondered on his final words to Genesis -'You will rot.'- and wondered what else might be to come in the interim that would make him turn so bitter.

Terra's expression was filled with worried as the watched him. She knew him as someone strong and at times distant. The man in front of her looked like he might be cracking under a heavy weight. It hurt to see him like this, to have him folded in on himself but she couldn't think of her own feelings knowing that Sephiroth was in this state.

She listened and she waited letting him share what he was comfortable with before speaking.

Terra knew what it was like being special except she didn't have friends growing up. She hadn't been allowed freedoms because people feared her powers. She wanted a family and knowing that she would never have parents only made her want to build a new family. One that she choose with people who would care about her.

"You can still have a family." It might be a little broken and it won't be the same but it will be people who care about him.

Would that he could maintain that strong and distant demeanor now; Sephiroth would have been far more comfortable. Would probably scold himself something fierce for it later when all the dust that had been blown up again had time to settle a new layer of grit atop a conscious already heaving from recent revelations.

As far as Sephiroth saw it, Terra had had -for even just the small years of her life- a family. Before the Empire had ripped it out from under her. He felt a little guilty at that thought, here he was brooding over something he had never had in the first place...wasn't it worse to have and then have it taken away? At least Sephiroth had no sense of loss to feel? It didn't make him feel much better.

Terra's words urged a new rush of a feeling which choked him as it rose out of his gut. He forced himself to make eye contact with her then, attempting to will her to ignore the way they had started to shine just a little more than just with the effects of the Mako. As if realizing, Sephiroth blinked sternly a couple of times before speaking again.

"I don't think...that I'd want one, now." Even to himself, the words sounded forced and more than a little hollow.

Terra had a family except that she had no memory of the happy times with her parents. She just knew that her parents had once lived and that they had once loved her. She knew that she had a chance for something that was stolen from her but she also knew she had a chance to make a new family with those she has met in Crystallis.

Her hear stopped when he looked up at her. She hadn't expected to see that expression on his face and her heart reached out to him. She wanted to help him but she knew that he didn't want that.

Terra's hands clasp tightly together to hold herself back from reaching out towards him. He knew that she was there if he needed her which was all that mattered. She swallowed looking over at Sephiroth with a gentle stare.

"You might already have a family and not see it." The worst and best thing about family was that you didn't choose them. They were people who cared about you no matter what and Terra knew that Sephiroth had at least one person like that.

To make it worse, Sephiroth now felt entirely selfish for even suggesting that he had ever brooded so much over it. Terra's entire species, all bar herself, had been wiped out when she was a young age and the experiences of that day were still very fresh considering he'd had his part in interacting with them not long ago. How could his adolescent moping over not ever having a family even compare to the anguish Terra must harbor? It couldn't. It didn't even come close.

Sternly he schooled the damaged look from his expression and made to pull his posture back up straight. Sephiroth was the expert of swallowing it all down and just carrying on regardless of his own personal comfort, it was just another case where -somehow- he'd lost control over his emotions and they threatened to swell up and out of control; an outcome which was unacceptable to his own personal levels of discipline. What had happened to reason with him lately? Why did he keep over-reacting like this?

Terra's further words gutted him entirely. For a long moment Sephiroth just stood looking only at those glistening blue eyes while he tried to swallow the implication that they came with as well. Selfish for not seeing what he had around him and being content enough with that. ShinRa had for so long been all the family that he had ever needed...but that 'family' had betrayed him, for all his life had been lived as a lie concocted in such a way to raise him to be unquestionably loyal and beyond excellence in his form - and the facts had now been laid bare to him by the glimpse into the future that he'd been presented with. He wondered then if it had been Genesis' intent from the start, so that he might rise to take the glory he'd always wanted for himself. To destroy Sephiroth so utterly...

"No. I don't." Even though his thoughts were heavily on his experiences in his own world, as far as Sephiroth was concerned it could only be the same in Crystallis as well. There were only those he had offered advice to, those that occasionally he shared a kind word with -Terra included in both of those groups- still less that he spoke to on a regular basis just to let them know that he was still alive. He knew well enough that there had been a handful who had recently shown their concern in the wake of a certain dream, but that only went as far as the fact that it'd be detrimental indeed to the cause of the Heroes of Light - that is, to save the world.

Sephiroth didn't take kindly to being reminded of the fact that he'd betrayed them all last time, and that it could all well come around again.

Terra didn't understand her own feelings as Sephiroth careful swallowed whatever emotions he might have been feeling. Every time they talked about his past it was as if his walls would crack and then reform before anything could be done to asses the damage. It sounded so lonely and she didn't want him to feel alone but it wasn't her place to say. He knew her thoughts on the matter and she had made a promise to herself that she'd leave it at that. She's wait for him.

Her hand rested over her heart feeling her heart beat drum in her chest. He was a hero. He was at the very least her hero and has shown in merit on many occasions.

His words stabbed her heart like a dagger but Terra was skilled at showing no emotion. She had hid her emotions for her entire life. It wasn't so hard to pretend she didn't have emotions. Her eyes watched him glowing slightly in the dim lighting around them. She didn't smile and her voice was flat. "Your eyes..." She paused. "They are very pretty. I don't know if I've seen them like that. I think it looks better."

Terra slowly walked forward her eyes moving around the memory as if she had just seen it for the first time. When Sephiroth was around it was hard to see anything else. She stopped far enough away from him so that he'd still be comfortable. "I don't know what it was like here." She wanted to reach out towards the walls but decided it wasn't a good idea. "And I can't tell you something. If I don't think it's true."

The soft blue glow of her eyes looked towards him. "I won't lie to you." She couldn't tell him he had a family on Gaia but he had become her family; even if he didn't know it.

Walls cracked and were reformed so quickly, since it was desperate for Sephiroth to have that barrier between the real world and his emotions, but with little regard to the fact that in places they were becoming weaker rather than stronger. Fractured a million times like a glass pane that had not yet given up. Still stubbornly stood in the way, to weather the blows with no comprehension how it might hurt more to shatter later.

He wasn't sure where the flat-sounding compliment came from in the first place and the green of his eyes flared up minutely in response to the being caught somewhat off-guard. Sephiroth blinked and looked more intently at her eyes as if there might be a clue there. Terra's eyes looked different too, much more vibrant in hue for reasons he now knew why. It felt like he should say something too - to return the compliment but thankfully Terra moved before Sephiroth could conjure the words.

He gave off the impression that no distance was a comfortable distance; all present had now seen a glimpse into something he'd not known before and there was no going back from that. But as he found he met eye contact with her again, her simple words were similar to a burning fist deep into the gut. Stunned, Sephiroth looked over her face more, his eyebrows pulled together and upwards a little at the middle of his face.

"Wouldn't you? Truth sometimes hurts."

There was something different about Sephiroth in this memory. Here, he was himself. There wasn’t a part of him missing like back in Crsyallis. His eyes were almost a representation of everything that he was here. A part of him, like Terra’s Esper form, that defined who he was. She felt as if this was the first time she truly saw Sephiroth for who he was and that made this moment special. She could finally see him and she knew now, more than ever, of his strength. She was more sure now that he could be the hero that he wanted to be.

She didn’t want to give up.

“It does hurt but I know what it’s like… to learn of truth’s that hurt.” She paused keeping her gaze locked with his. “I’d rather know so that I could be stronger than the truth and face it. I want to create a future that I want. IT hurts and it’s hard but…” Terra felt tears rise to the surface but she quickly blinked them back. She hadn’t cried since she was a young child and she didn’t want to start now. She quickly composed herself facing Sephiroth’s gaze with an unwavering determination. “…it’s worth it.”

“What about you? Do you want to know the truth? Even if it hurts… to at least overcome it?” Terra knew that he was strong. She knew that he could handle the truth of his past but he had to believe in himself and those around him. She didn’t want him to lose sight of the hero who tried so hard to protect.

Funny that, as despite his obviously renewed strength which had made Sephiroth a thousand-times more confident during his interference's within others' memories, here in the aftermath of this revelation he didn't feel all that like himself at all. It was almost as if the fire that had been started within him again had been smothered and stomped on by the return of the weight of the issues regarding his future.

That Terra could see that still though, was testament to how much she'd managed to learn of him even if that had been by his actions alone rather than the rare words spoken. There was a similarity between them, and the more they were in each others' company the clearer that became. Subconsciously, and without his knowledge of it, Sephiroth quite likely was feeding off the strength of her conviction. Of her will to carry on; something he'd always kept fast about himself but had been waning.

He averted his gaze from Terra as soon as he caught the first sign of tears; the last thing he needed to see right now and he was sure Terra wouldn't like the embarrassment as well. Sephiroth only looked back when she was ready to speak again, and as always took a few long moments to consider his words in reply.

"This truth-" He pulled his arms in tighter against his chest and blew the rest of a breath out to keep his nerve; angry or sad, it wasn't welcome here. "-This truth ends up hurting far more than just my own sense of pride. This truth burns villages to the ground, brings a meteor down onto the Planet-"

He stopped, dumbfounded somewhat that he'd said it out loud. That greatest paradox within himself; he never had understood the reason for that from what he'd seen of the mind of his Doppelganger, yet at the same time a similar feeling had been his drive months ago when he'd been brainwashed. Sephiroth raised his hand to cup his forehead as that particular memory resurfaced.

It was the very least he could do, to destroy that which she had been refused the right to.
Calamity, Jenova, Mother; it made no difference what it was called, that feeling was all the same.

"-how exactly am I supposed to overcome that amount of hurt?"

Terra was comforted when he looked away from her the moment she felt her cool demeanor cracking. Sephiroth always showed her respect even when their conversations were awkward. She watched him curiously her gaze locked with that bright mako glow. It might have been random before but she truly loved his eyes. They were lovely and even compared to those with a similar glow; they were one of a kind.

She could understand that knowing the truth would hurt. There was nothing that she could do to stop that pain. At best, she could ease the pain but that was all.

Terra was surprised when he continued and she remained silent listening to him as he spoke. It wasn't often that he talked about himself and so Terra made sure not to interrupt. When he asked her a question she was silent for a moment carefully considering his words.

"I don't know." She wasn't him and she didn't have an answer for him. Even if that was what he sought. Terra was about to say more but then she wondered if he was truly looking for answers. If it was her in his position she'd live the best she could now, reaching for the things she wanted but she wasn't him. She couldn't make that decision for him.

Terra was silent for a moment longer. "Maybe the question is.." She placed a hand over her heart looking at him. "Is it worth it?" To Terra, one moment of happiness was worth anything.

It wasn't a question that did have an answer and Sephiroth knew that but he had felt the need to ask it all the same. As if by vocalizing it out loud might help to refocus his own thoughts into conquering the problem spawned completely within himself. Never in his entire life had Sephiroth felt so lost as he had these last few weeks, so hollowed out of any purpose that he once kept himself full of.

And now here he was spilling it all in front of one of the only people to have shown him genuine compassion, albeit compassion that he preferred to keep at arms length. So yet again the conversation between the two of them fell into an uneasy silence. Yet, Sephiroth did not drop his mako-tainted gaze from her face for very long - remembering well how rotten he had felt about trying to completely stone-wall her before. He didn't need that on his conscience, not today. Not after

The gesture, her delicate hand over her heart seemed to tug at some deeper meaning this time as he watched her do it but a taste of an emotion he didn't recognize was dismissed quickly away.

"Is it worth it?" He repeated, sounding as if he were tasting the words, her concept, mulling it around in his mind as if turning a jigsaw piece to see if it would fit. "You mean, is it worth...to get over?"

“Not exactly.” She paused trying to figure out what to say. She didn't consider his pain something that someone could just get over. “What I mean is… is it worth focusing only on that pain.” He can live his life as he wanted until the day that he would inevitably shifted down that dark path. Terra wasn’t about to tell him to live life to his fullest. It was a decision that he had to make and no matter how much she wished it; she didn’t have answers for him.

She only had her thoughts.

“There will always be pain but there are other things.” She hoped there were other things.

Terra’s chest ached slightly and her hand resting over her heart tensed at the feeling. She didn’t really understand but she wanted Sephiroth to be happy or if not happy, then content. She wanted him to find an answer he could live with instead of constantly being unsure.

Through out there conversation her gaze was locked with his. She wanted to do more but she held back keeping herself reserved. All she could do was be here for him.

Sephiroth kept looking over Terra the whole time that she found her words, eyeing every gesture, every small nuance of her body language as if he might be able to draw out some deeper meaning from it. The outside edges of his eyes softened as he really listened, really took her in.

Other things. After a few more moments of searching Terra's face again Sephiroth lowered and then turned his eyes and then his head away from her so it wouldn't be so automatic for him to look directly at her. It felt like a different sort of pain as he brought his wall up again finally between them once more.

"Yes. There are other things, but-" Reasons, excuses really, tumbled behind his eyes as their lids closed while he took a breath again in trying to collect them into a coherent thought.

"-it's the foundation of everything, Terra. It's not something I can just disregard."

Terra shook her head slowly. "I don't think you should disregard it."

She wished that she knew how to put her thoughts into words but instead she let the room fall into silence. Her fingers on her chest curled inward feeling her heart beat shutter in her chest.

Terra took a step forward stopping about a yard away. "Sephiroth." Her fingers moved in front of her lacing together nervously. Why were they being shown this? It didn't make any sense and it was turned into a spectacle for those who wondered across his memory. It was cruel and Terra didn't belong here.

Her tone was steady, her emotions safely locked away. "You shouldn't forget where you came from or who you are." It was hard but Terra didn't want to forget either. It hurt and it was awful but it was her life which made it important.

Shutting his eyes against it didn't help, those letters were burned into the back of his eyelids now. The monsters glowing in the various mako-pods, and the way that Genesis spoke to him rung deeply in the very depths of his ears still. What had happened to them all?

He didn't open his eyes again until Terra steadily said her final statement, carefully tracing the outline of the petite frame now stood a little in front of him. Her words might well have been lined with ice, sending a chill ever deeper into Sephiroth's concerns.

"That's just the problem, Terra. Where I came from, and who I am meant to be."

Her gaze steadily met his. "You know that I can't give you an answer." Her gaze betrayed the pain she felt. She wanted to help but it was something that he needed to face. Just as she needed to face her own past. There was more to learn and more to discover. She knew the frustration at knowing that you could become a monster. Though Sephiroth knew his future now and he had to decide what to do with that knowledge.

Terra thought to turn away and leave her friend with his thoughts. She felt helpless when she just wanted to help. There weren't many emotions that Terra was antiquated with and frustration was new. She didn't know what to do and she felt like she wanted to scream.

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Event || In Your Worst Memory

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