colorofthesky | IC Contact for lastvoyages

[ Zeke is trained. He sniffs the treat first before taking it like a good and proper boy. Happy with this offering, Zeke lopes over to his dog bed and plops down to eat it.

As for Zack...he gets a piece of cornbread while Angeal talks. Not so much because he has much of an appetite, but it gives him...something to do while he's absorbing what the other man has to say.

He chews and he thinks, and though his eyes are clear, the smile morphs into something much more serious. Pensive. It takes him a minute to figure out what he wants to say, too - because he doesn't want to hurt with what he says. But...he has to be honest. ]

You're right. An apology right now wouldn't mean anything - and I think we both know why that is.

[ Because Angeal would do it again. Maybe not to Zack himself...but the things that drove Angeal to do that in the first place are still there. ]

The other thing is... I think before you can do that - you need to know about all the things that happened after you were gone.

[ In other words -- all the things he had left on Zack's plate because no one was there to help him. ]

Edited 2024-12-22 21:12 (UTC)

[Angeal keeps his fingers! Good boy or not, he knows not to bother a dog that settles on a bed with a treat, so he wipes his fingers on his pants in an absent sort of way.

Zack's right of course, and he doesn't deny it; the silence is weight enough of that. If he thought it was happening again he'd do what he had to in order to make sure no one was hurt. The lesson learned is making sure someone else isn't involved the next time. He'd been a coward.]

.. Sephiroth, I assume.

[He had the overview; it had been enough to tell him they'd both made a mistake leaving Sephiroth behind. But Genesis was dead, and he ... was on his way to a similar fate. What could they have done?

... Besides be there.]

Sephiroth, yeah.

[ Zack agrees with that easily enough. ]

Genesis, too. We found out later - but he didn’t actually die in Modeoheim. So things got messy again even before Sephiroth went off the deep end.

[There's silence, and then there's stillness, a rigid unmoving paralysis that, while Angeal's expression is blank, marks that this is in fact the first time he's heard that Genesis survived Modeoheim.

Survived the fight, survived the fall.

His best friend since they were little kids, alone in a hole in the ground, and he hadn't died there. Why hadn't he checked? Why hadn't he been sure, either to help or hinder? Genesis had been at Nibelheim and it doesn't sound like it helped any.

Red in the dark. Had it been blood, or a crimson coat?]

... What else do I need to know.

[It's anything but a refusal. The rest was needed now.

Sephiroth ruined Nibelheim, but all Angeal can think of is a crumbled walkway and blood on the ground.]

[ Zack gauges Angeal’s reaction quietly. It’s probably not news he wants — but the truth is what it is. And he reminds himself he’s not sharing this to make Angeal feel worse about himself - but rather so he has the full picture.

He picks another piece of cornbread and lets out a soft sigh. ]

The thing with Genesis…went on for a while. Even after what happened in Nibelheim. But to understand that…you need to know what happened there first.

[ Zack fishes a tape player out of his pocket. ]

It’s been three years ago now - but I gave a statement to a friend about…what happened in Nibelheim. I was trying to help him understand me and what we were dealing with in Sephiroth better. He left me a copy of it before he left.

[ Zack offers Angeal the recording. ]

That’s everything. The way I remember it.

[After a long moment the recorder is taken, and turned over in his hands. It seems obvious enough how the thing works, even if the technology is a little different.

He hits play and sets it on the table, pulling out a chair to sit in. Even knowing what he did about Nibelheim, this won't be a good story, surely. It couldn't be. It ended badly for everyone, even if as the tinny voices play it sounds routine at the start. SOLDIER was called in to handle monsters all the time.

But even the early stuff has a few surprises. Sephiroth, loyal to the end - or so he would have thought - actively planning to leave?

It's going to take a while to play the entire thing, but Angeal neither moves nor speaks, brow furrowed, gaze focused on some nowhere middle spot between himself and the table.]

[ Zack doesn’t say anything, either. He hasn’t listened to this tape…ever honestly. He gave the statement to Jon, and at the time, he hadn’t even wanted a copy of it. It wasn’t until much later that he got a copy, and he never listened to it then, either.

He remembers it like he said it all yesterday, too. Even though none of the spookiness is left to the recording…Zack remembers how it all felt. Vividly.

It feels strange listening to himself recount the events of Nibelheim, but it’s better than having to say it all again.

So he just sits. Still and quiet. At one point, Zeke comes over to lay his head on Zack’s lap, and that’s a welcome distraction.

The sequence goes through the encounter with Genesis in the reactor, the return to Nibelheim…and Zack going down to try and help Sephiroth in the basement of Shinra manor. ]

In hindsight…I don’t know why I left. Why I didn’t try to stay down there with him. Because I’d already seen how bad off Genesis was and…how Angeal basically ended up with a death wish, learning whAt he was. It was stupid of me, just…thoughtlessly expecting a better outcome.

[ Zack hears his own voice say that, and he looks down at his hands. He couldn’t save any of them, in the end - Angeal, Genesis, or Sephiroth. ]

[There's no accusation as the story unravels. No demand of why Zack hadn't gone back before over a week had elapsed, why he thought anyone would be doing well after that long of no sleep or food or drink--

But it's not Zack's fault and he knows it. Zack was caught in .. yet another bad circumstance he shouldnt' have had to contend with. Sephiroth wasn't going to listen to just anybody if he fixated.

Maybe Angeal could have, if he hadn't been dead. Maybe between the two of them Sephiroth could have been pried away from his dusty books and forced to rest, forced to remember he still had friends, people who cared about him deeply.

If Genesis hadn't been left to die at the bottom of a pit, perhaps all three..]

Is this why he doesn't remember? Jenova.

[It's quiet, barely over the voices on the recording as Nibelheim's gruesome fate is outlined.]

[ Zack doesn't answer. The recording is almost done so he just...lets it play out. The fight in the reactor, Cloud's heroic effort to stop Sephiroth, the brief mention of the four years they both lost...

And then, the end: ]

He fell into the Lifestream. His body died, but his spirit, his consciousness — it wasn’t absorbed. He spent the next five years inside the Planet learning everything he could about it. And when he emerged? He set in motion a series of events that almost destroyed our world.

[ Jon's voice says, Statement ends, and the tape stops. Zack takes just a moment to collect himself...and then answers the question. ]

Jenova's not the reason, no. He told me once that he released those memories into the Lifestream. So it was a decision that he made.

[It answered some things. Made more questions than it answered, none of them pleasant.

Afterwards ... Hojo. A man Angeal didn't deal with much, had no real opinions on, but the trauma the man inflicted was obvious in others. To go through the hell of Nibelheim, then years in a tube..

He'd abandoned all of them. All the people he'd cared about; Genesis, Sephiroth, Zack, his mother too, could he have tried harder .. if he'd been there, could any of it have changed? Or would he have made it exponentially worse by inflicting his degrading unpredictability on already unstable situations?

The doubt and guilt seesaws back and forth as he just sits there for a time, looking ever so much older than his relatively young twenty-five, a lifetime of worries etched like a map across his features, settled only darker by a fuller account of what happened after he was removed from the equation.

The eventual answer changes nothing. In a way everything can be traced back to him. Inadvertently or otherwise, his actions created an opening for other dominoes to fall, and fall they did. He'd accepted the Admiral's offer for the chance to make it right but ... how could he ever make that right? How could he make any of it right?

How does he apologize to the dead? How can he say sorry and have it mean something to a man who doesn't remember? How can he undo years of damage Zack endured, the suffering Genesis must have had on his own?]

..I begin to understand why he's been here for years.

[ He’s given Angeal a lot to think about. Zack knows that. It’s going to take a while to come to terms with all this, too - especially in any sort of productive way.

Still…he feels as though at least some of the weight he’s been carrying has been lifted off his shoulders. There’s more, of course…but at least this part is done with. ]

…he’s better than he was when I first got here. I came a few months after he did, and it was…hard. Especially until he got a Warden.

He’s never going to be the same man he was, but… he’s moving in the right direction.

[The weight lifted off Zack's shoulders merely transferred back to where it belonged to begin with.]

As much as I want him to remember, it might be better if he doesn't.

[Not for himself. The blame would go where it should. But Sephiroth didn't need to live through that twice. Didn't need to lose his friendships again. Didn't need to be alone again. Here at least.. he had something. Something important. Angeal didn't know if it was right to intrude on that, risk stirring things that had died and might be better left dead.

Some distant bitter part of memory supplies that according to Loveless.. Genesis would have claimed the long wanted position of 'Hero', with himself and Sephiroth dead.]

...And Genesis. How long did he last before.. [The inevitable.]

[ Zack shakes his head. ]

I don’t think it would be better. Pretending he didn’t have a life before Jenova doesn’t help him or anyone else. He might have thrown it away, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t important.

[ As for Genesis…well. Zack reaches over for one of the whiskey bottles and pops it open with a sigh. ]

It was about four years. Once Cloud and I got out…we kept running into Genesis all over the place. They - he and Hollander - figured out that a sample from me wouldn’t reverse the degradation. But from Cloud, who wasn’t in SOLDIER before the experiments…well, they were after him for that. Since Hojo was trying to make…Sephiroth clones or whatever - that was what they were after.

Eventually…I tracked him down in Banora. He’d found some…underground shrine to his Goddess. I offered to help him - but he didn’t want it. Turned himself into some kind of monster down there. We fought; I won.

I carried him out and left him under one of the dumbapple trees. As far as I know…that’s where that story ends.

It's important to us. [To him.] But he seems to be getting along without it. And life was never particularly kind to him.

[Even before he and Genesis disappeared. Remembering a lifetime of suffering and loss, how would that ever help towards a goal of a better future? It could just make everything seem unbearably worse.

In the end, Sephiroth's redemption or lack thereof was not actually his to see to one way or another even if he would regardless. That was between Sephiroth and his warden. And Angeal's warden wanted this conversation.

For all the good it did, really. It did at least outline that he had a lot more to try to find a way to make up for than he thought.]

I didn't know any of the trees survived the bombing.

[Two fights, two not-deaths. Left out in the open, Genesis was good enough to find shelter if he was capable, but ...would he have been at that point? Was he again left to die alone? He raises one calloused hand, scrubbing briefly at his eyes as if it would somehow help anything other than the mild tension headache that's sprung up. So many terrible things he had been too much of a coward to face.]

Thank you for telling me, recording and all.

[It fit pieces into the growing picture of a puzzle he wasn't sure he wanted to see the greater picture of.

When Angeal speaks again, his tone is morose.]

You asked me not long ago, 'what happened to honor?' I don't know. The same thing that happens to dreams. None of it got anyone anywhere good, did they? I used to think if I could just hold onto my ideals, then everything would work out in the end. Genesis used to chide me for being naive. Maybe he was right.

[ Zack looks at Angeal, and his stare is unwavering. ]

That's not what I'm saying, Angeal. Life wasn't kind to me, either. In fact, life isn't kind to a lot of people. Most of the people who show up as Inmates and Wardens here have had bad shit happen to them. The point is, he got rid of those memories because he wanted to throw away his own humanity. He cracked and made up this whole "chosen one" godhood thing because he couldn't deal with the truth in a way that was less destructive for him and everyone else. It's not about me wanting to be selfish and have him remember me, or you, or any of the rest of it. It's about acknowledging and dealing with the past so the future can be better. So none of those things ever happen again.

[ He leans back after that quiet but firm counter...and takes a chug of whiskey right from the bottle. He lets it burn and sets the bottle back on the table. ]

...and I don't think wanting to have dreams or honor was stupid or naive. Holding onto that stuff was what got me through a lot of hard times. The fact that other people didn't share or operate by that code doesn't mean it was wrong.

I'm not necessarily proud of the work I did for Shinra in hindsight, but I am proud of the work I did with SOLDIER and trying to inspire recruits to be better than the company wanted any of us to be. I'm never going to regret that. And you shouldn't either.

Edited 2024-12-26 02:10 (UTC)

Does that make it acceptable to cause more suffering? Everyone has it bad, so it's fine to tighten the screws a little? Unlike most here you know what he was like before. What would it do to that good, kind man, to know what he's done and that there is no way to ever make up for any of it? Would it help his 'redemption' or merely break him again?

[There's a disapproving note, a little sharp, but it's not quite scolding though his expression darkens a little. Though he'd been the agent of his own destruction, Angeal did not sit comfortably with the idea of deliberately causing someone else undue suffering under the claim of 'greater good'. He'd heard that line too many times even in his own life.

It's strange, more than a little bit, talking to Zack that way. Months of casual association had at least built up a certainty that Zack was also an adult capable of making right, proper decisions and to not treat him like the overeager student he'd left behind.]

Maybe moving forward is more important than looking back, in cases like his.

[The rest.. maybe he'll backtrack to it. Maybe. Avoidance comes in many forms, and it's always easier to fight for a friend. Even if the friend didn't remember.]

[ Zack’s stare remains unwavering. And it may speak to how much he’s grown that he doesn’t wither or flinch in the face of his former teacher’s displeasure.

He’s a grown man now who knows what he believes and why. And he isn’t going to be shaken from it. ]

That person we knew isn’t coming back, Angeal.

[ Zack says it quietly but firmly. ]

Sephiroth and I have talked about it. And that was one of the things that was a barrier for me making any progress with him. Real progress. Because I thought - wrongly - that maybe if I tried hard enough, that person would come back.

He’s not. With or without those memories, Sephiroth has changed too much to be that person again. And he didn’t give up those memories because they were hurting him. He gave them up because he wanted to focus more on his anger and hatred. And that was one thing he could give up to the Lifestream that would let him keep that core.

[ Zack takes another swig of whiskey, and boy, if he doesn’t wish it took more of an edge off of all this. ]

Either way- it’s pointless for us to debate this. I’m not his Warden, and I’m damn glad I’m not. I don’t tell Yunlan how to do his job so if it happens one day, it won’t be because I weighed in. Same with you and Shaw - if she asks me questions, I’ll answer, but I’m not going to volunteer things I’m not asked for.

I’m too close to both of you for anything to be without bias, and that’s…just how it is.

I will say, though - this isn’t just about him. It’s about the people around him and how he relates to them. The world he almost destroyed. The past can hurt - but you can miss perspective if you try to erase it.

Edited 2024-12-29 16:08 (UTC)

I know! That's why--

[He draws a breath and cuts himself off. There's no mistaking that for .. anger or pain or grief or some terrible mix of all three; Sephiroth was dead. Sephiroth was dead and a stranger was walking around this ship wearing his form and sharing his voice but the man he'd known and befriended and cared for was long gone.

And maybe he wouldn't be, had Angeal not taken a coward's way out.

Reminding Sephiroth of who he was had a risk of bringing back the man he was, and suffering all those torments anew. He deserved better than that. Maybe the man he was now didn't, but who he was ... deserved what little peace could be found in death.]

It's not pointless to me. He was my friend. I loved him like a brother and I might as well have run him through myself. And maybe he didn't degrade physically like we did but how he's described sounds a lot like what I was experiencing in my mind. He might not have been able to help it. I wanted to kill too.

[As soon as the impulse to violence became too strong to ignore, he knew what he had to do.

He rises, gaze not on Zack but on the table. On the recorder.]

You can wash your hands of it, it's your right and it never should have been your burden to bear to begin with. But you don't know what it's like having that fog eat you from the inside, and if there's a Goddess, may She grant you the mercy to never find out. Sephiroth would have never thrown his humanity away. Not if he were healthy, or sane. Maybe I can't help the man walking around wearing his shape, but I can protect his memory, and let him keep what peace death gave him. Take out the ruining of the world on the person who did it if revenge is needed.

[ Zack watches the storm raging inside of Angeal burst out into the open, and he silently reflects on how strange it is that he feels so calm. He’ll think more about why that is later, but for now he just sits. Silent and unmoving until Angeal gets everything out.

After a carefully considered pause, he gives a quiet answer. ]

I’m not going to argue with you about this, Angeal.

[ He’s made his case, and that’s where he’s leaving it. That said— ]

The only other thing I’m going to say about this is — I didn’t share this with you so you could blame yourself for everything that happened. You weren’t there, and there were a lot of messy factors involved.

I told you so you could have context — not so you would punish yourself with this information.

I’m not washing my hands of him. Or you. I’m just not going to Warden you guys. Because I can’t.

But I did promise Sephiroth I wasn’t leaving this boat until he graduates. And that’s a promise I’m going to keep.

Edited 2024-12-29 18:02 (UTC)

[He knows who's at fault. Not entirely his own, but much of it. His choices led to this, and so much else. Pretending otherwise was pointless. Wasn't that why Shaw sent him here in the first place? Surely she knew Zack had more information.

It's important to know, how could he even begin to make up for what he'd done if he didn't know the full extent of it?

The image in his mind of a broken, bleeding but still alive Genesis at the bottom of that pit is going to be with him for a very long time.]

He's never going to. Not while here is better than anywhere else he could be, and gives him the one thing he wants. And if his Warden hasn't figured that out yet, you're all wasting your time.

[How like, and unlike, his old friend. Such laser, absolute focus.]

.. Is there anything else you think I need to know for context?

[ Zack takes another swig, his eyes still on Angeal. He’s probably going to need to hit something after this — because there’s a lot that Angeal just said that he could haul him off and punch him for. ]

I mean, there is more - but I don’t think talking about it today is going to be productive for you or for me. Since what you just said is frankly insulting to those of us who have been working on this for years - and making progress, by the way - and all you seem to want to focus on is him, when you should be focusing on you.

[ It’s a lot of work to keep his tone even, but being a SOLDIER, he manages it. ]

So go talk to Shaw and tell her you talked to me. We can talk about something dumb and unimportant next time.

[It's only then that Zack is looked at again, scrutinized for a long moment, expression creased with a frown.]

If you want to take it as an insult to your work, that's your choice. But by now you know as well as I do if you've been at it for years, that he has no motivation to graduate as long as that kind young man is here to make him want to stay. Cloud is his reward.

[And it shouldn't be, that much is clear in his tone; he doesn't approve of such a strong focus. But maybe it can still be used. He liked Cloud, the blond had a good heart. But it can't be easy to directly be dealing with, day after day, the laser focus and obsession of the man who burnt his town to the ground.]

You and Sephiroth are part of what needs to be 'focused on' in order to leave myself. That's why she sent me here.

[And to find out the greater extent of things he's responsible for.

Which was greater by far than he liked to admit. At least it seems he's willing to leave it at that, by the way he turns for the door, but whether Zack's willing to is another matter.]

[ Zack stares at Angeal, and for just a moment he’s just…stunned. Absolutely incredulous that this man could be so pigheaded.

But then…then, it morphs into anger.

Zack stands up, too, but this time he doesn’t bother to hide how furious he is. ]

No, Angeal. I don’t want you focused on me. Or him. I told you at the start of this that an apology right now wouldn’t mean anything. And whatever you think you can do for him or for me right now is going to amount to the same thing until you can look inside and deal with the shit that got us here in the first place.

And yeah, I am insulted. Because you just walk in here and act like you know better than the rest of us when you’ve been here a few months. Because you’ve been told some things. You haven’t lived what we have over the past few years on this ship, and all you’re doing right now is falling into the same fucking pattern that got us to a stand off in Modeoheim.

Until you fix THAT? Nothing gets better. And that’s what you should take away from this talk.

[One day it would be less of a distant surprise to watch Zack stand up and find them closer to height and weight than they'd ever been in memory before this ship. But what Zack doesn't say is that no, Cloud is not Sephiroth's motivation and reward. The rest ... is noise.

Not unimportant, just not as important. Confirmation that he was right, and Sephiroth's future hinged on poor Cloud, was not exactly what he'd wanted, but ... so be it. He'd told Shaw apologies were meaningless, that Zack did too was also confirmation.

Nothing he'd said was actually wrong. Just unwanted, because it was an uncomfortable reminder. Well, he can live with that.

He didn't have much choice.

But it doesn't seem Angeal has anything to say about that, at least nothing he's willing to put into words by the way his jaw tightens briefly, lips thinning. And the pattern repeats: he turns and heads for the door, silent.]

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