GARDEN CODE » Article 8, Line 7
… in the event that returning to the assigned garden is not possible, report to the nearest garden.
↳ INTRODUCTION » @souljaaboi
— easier said than done, except for when it becomes vividly apparent that this isn’t the home he was promised to return to when the war between god and goddess met its conclusion, his reward for dedicating his blade to their cause feeling all but empty in the wake of dawning realization. the idea of it had been frustrating ( as much as it was suffocating ) ... but however deeply felt in the rhythm beating in his chest, it extends no further than the furrow of his brow or the way his mouth sets in a hard line. instead, the facts sit like lead in his limbs when gloved fingers reach for his forehead, pressing briefly into the upper edge of the scar so prominently etched on his expression while soaking in what precious little information was available, filtering through options to determine his next move.
the objective was clear, but the means by which to achieve it? he just needed to think, to rely on his culmination of SeeD training, hard-fought experience, and well-honed instincts to come up with a solution — even if only in small increments.
additionally, the unnerving quiet in his mind was another red flag to consider. while he could sense his guardian force [GF] junctioned deep within his mind, shiva was entirely unresponsive to his every attempt to move and stir her normally reliable and faithful presence, leaving him truly bereft and alone. every attempt to summon her was met with stunning silence, uniquely cold ( not unlike some of his own. ) unresponsive to the extent that not even his para-magic was accessible. scan » cure » double. harmless magic to draw upon in foreboding experimentation, but dormant and beyond reach when pulling for his well-maintained reserves.
figuring out where he’d been stranded had been his first order of business, because any thoughts devoted to understanding how this was even possible proved an exhaustive corridor that would bring him no closer to some obscure solution that may or may not even exist. but it had to exist, right? if there was a way to slip in, then there had to be a way to get out. materia hadn’t seemed to harbor much care that she had extracted her warriors from their individual worlds to take part in her conflict against a will of their own. the very notion so aptly stated by lightning when she helmed their convergence with the goddess at the beginning of their last cycle — the declaration receiving his quiet approval from the back row. perhaps that same idle care had been applied when sending them back to whence they came, even though it had worked every other time before.
... maybe it was just as much out of her control; for some reason, as much as it was currently out of his own. the idea is an unreliable and bitter taste the more he observed what that possibly meant.
in the matter of a few days, dichotomously short as they were long — it had been enough for him to figure out the general lay of this city, and opportunity enough for him to learn some valuable information. time enough for him to finally peg that distant sense of familiarity that’s been largely absent since winding up here, the metal framework a loose thread that he’d been unraveling from the dredge of his memory, recognizing it now for what it was. their time spent in conflict had been built around locations prevalently drawn from their memories, and so these were his — cloud’s memory of this place — or something like it, an area by which they had fought countless battles.
which brings him [here] after quite the wait — not that he had anything else that exceeded the importance of an encounter with the only individual he would likely know, the only one that would recognize him and understood anything about their endeavors with gods and goddesses ( the only one that would have any remote idea that he could originate from somewhere else and actually believe him ) ...
“ — you’re not an easy guy to find,” his matter-of-fact observation, following a rather patient survey of the man he’d finally managed to track down concluding his business. undoubtedly, the last few days spent in his investigative feat for discovery, spent searching for answers and digging up what information was deemed worthwhile to his objective cause, introduced an entire catalogue of new and unusual that he knew only scratched the surface of his unfortunate circumstances. for cloud being such a seasoned fighter, this … delivery service had not been in line with any of his expectations to what existed beyond the realm of the gods, beyond their shared conflicts in the none-too-distant past. it wasn’t something he needed or had any interest in knowing until somehow winding up here instead of where he belonged.
“i thought i recognized some of the metal framework, but this tipped me off the most,” held between a gloved thumb and forefinger is a poster boasting ⌈ strife delivery services ⌋ proudly across the top. in the corner is an emblem that matches perfectly the ones worn by the man in front of him. he extends the paper like it’s some kind of olive branch, although he’s nothing but a bearer of bad news in the moment. doesn’t shy away from it, either, even at the likelihood of catching cloud off-guard. his presence alone most likely attests to that in volumes that exceed spoken word, few as they are as of yet.
as much as it goes against his very grain to have to rely on someone, he doesn’t exactly have a lot of options, try as he might to grasp at them. “have some time to spare? — somewhere we can talk?”
