for honor

Welcome to scenic Isola Radiale, Zack!

You will be housed in TOWNHOUSE 210.

You'll be returned everything you were given previously.

Enjoy your stay!

Until they are, much like now. And seeing as there's really no reason for her to brush him off now, it's best to keep him close if only because she's certain that they're being watched. "Anyway. I'd be a little quieter if I were you. I think I heard something in the vents earlier… and there are more than a few concerning logbook entries I came across…" One of which she holds up for him to see, its pages are clearly smudged in what appears to be dried blood. "This, for example, concerns me."

But she was right. There was definitely something in the ship.

“It’s not really a problem, for a few reasons - but we can talk about that when there’s not definitely some kind of...Something living on this ship.” He chirps - most people he knew or knew of him felt some measure of discomfort around him, and he understood why. Looking at the log book with her, he acknowledges the dried blood and pulls out the Buster Sword.

“The treasures ours for the taking, bud! Let’s go!” Multicolored materia shown in his sword, and he felt like he was definitely at full strength, and for the first time in a while. He started off at a good pace, not too fast and not too slow - definitely someone who has traveled on foot before.

Suddenly, Sif throws herself forward, lurching into a full sprint and kicking up the snow around her. Due to her size, she might bury a few cars behind her while sprinting towards one Zack Fair as fast as a bird can fly, but if she notices she doesn’t seem to care.

She knows her friend is a lot more durable than the average human… but surely she plans to slow down and not collide with him at full speed…

…Right?

He puts his arms out and up, but she doesn’t seem to be stopping.

Surely she’s going to start stopping now-

Oh, nope, she’s not doing that at all. And his arms are still up for a big wolf hug, and-

“Uuhh-” Anything he was going to say is caught up as a giant she-wolf collides with him at full speed, sending him flying back and crashing into a car with an ‘oof’ as the glass behind him breaks and he falls into the snow.

Which, at least, broke his fall. And he doesn’t seem to be any worse for the wear as he jumps up. “Sif! Damn I’m glad to see you here, too! I don’t know what I’d do without you!”

There is a mortified man standing on the sidewalk. His driver’s side rear door seems to be smashed in, with the shape of a person in it.

but barret could not express JOY - this is a world from his television set.

❝zack, holdin' up back there?❞ a glance over his shoulder towards his - friend ( after a moment of hesitation he decides that's a SUITABLE description of the soldier ) followed by a wave of his one hand. turning back ahead, he shuffles from foot to foot, trying to remember the ‘script’ as it were. ❝looks like we're in a documentary, so ya best watch out for SNAKES in the grass - ❞

FOR AS MUCH AS HE FEELS strange about another soldier in his life — and someone with the telltale buster sword in his grasp — he finds it to be a rather PLEASANT occurrence that said soldier knows what he’s doing. why, he’s been AVOIDING poisonous plants like a pro!

barret can’t help but find this whole ARRANGEMENT odd. a voice in the back of his mind says that it ought to be second nature to him, but he disregards that. why would he be used to touring someone around the woodlands like this? he feels a camera angled in his direction — but how could that be? he found fresh footprints moving in an utterly DIFFERENT direction not five minutes ago …

❝i can handle temperature change s'long as it ain’t too cold. NEVER before been t’ a place blanketed in snow an’ in our state, i ain’t so KEEN on changing that.❞

“Eh? You’ve never traveled up north? It’s a lot of fun to play in the snow, and there’s a bunch to do. Sometimes it can make travel hard, but if you can change over tires, then it just makes it fun.” It was true, he was pretty much handling and avoiding anything that came anywhere close to the two of them. Grinning back at Barret, he winked. “You’ve gotta explore the winter wilderness sometime!”

Poking his head through the brush, he turned back to his companion.

Hansol’s been laying on her side. Only one of her tail is swishing back and forth lazily, while the others just lays motionless just like herself. The one tail is the only thing that’s probably going to let people know she’s alive if they’re looking at her from behind. 

but barret could not express JOY - this is a world from his television set.

❝zack, holdin' up back there?❞ a glance over his shoulder towards his - friend ( after a moment of hesitation he decides that's a SUITABLE description of the soldier ) followed by a wave of his one hand. turning back ahead, he shuffles from foot to foot, trying to remember the ‘script’ as it were. ❝looks like we're in a documentary, so ya best watch out for SNAKES in the grass - ❞

Suddenly she stops. There’s a gate in front of her that she can hardly see, but the sudden smell of iron under her nose alerts her to its presence. 

Deciding the snow bank near the gate is as good a place to rest as any, she slowly lowers herself to lie down. The cool snow is soothing to her aching legs and scarred muzzle.

After heaving a long, tired sigh, she quickly falls asleep.

Zack was an outgoing guy, and there was no work for him out here. His commute was pretty long, and he had no neighbors to speak of. But there was something about this place, this castle, that tugged at him. Something in the back of his mind brought him to stay in cold stone walls.

And he could swear he saw someone at the top of the stairs once or twice.

But still, no need to be weird about it. He still went out and shoveled his walkway - it was something to do - and make sure people - who never came - could get in or out. Shovel tossed aside, he worked the gate free and stopped. Zack almost hadn’t seen the wolf, since she had blended in with the snow, but it was rare to see one so close.

Walking over carefully, he knelt down. She was old, and her face a bit smaller than some of the other wolves around. “Easy there, you awake?”

“More than that, what about working for a non-human? I have zero tolerance for someone that looks down on us in this city.” Her company was known for being financially cruel, and yet in the same breath it was always fighting for the safety of non-humans. A personal project of the fox woman, naturally.

“No problem working for non-humans, either. I work for pretty much anyone, but the last guy who took issue with me letting non-humans into his club got a punch to the throat...Aand that’s kind of why I’m looking for new work, eheh-” There was no reason for anything like that, in his mind. But...