Yet another successful, at least by standards of Materia, mission. Cloud watches with a deceitfully empty gaze as the manikin hits the ground and slowly becomes energy thatâll quench this land, attempt to bring back the glory that sleeps within its soil. He rests the fusion sword in its harness, strapped around his mid-section on his back. No matter how many he strikes down, no matter how much life he sees this place regain, it doesnât sit right with him. To feed a cause that only promises him and those he champions conflict, to feed it over and over again. He wonders if heâs the only one who thinks this way. âProbably,â he answers his own question, why should he act like he doesnât know the answer to that oneâalways the odd one out, let it be by choice or natural selection. Some things donât change. âHow depressing.â He mumbles to himself, so little to say yet with mind alone he could sure chat up a storm. He canât promise itâll light up a room though. And itâs that over-thought and sense of false comfort that makes him oblivious to the presence of one of their newest allies to this cause. He becomes an incomplete piece of art within realityâs canvas when a feather sways downward right before his noseâit immediately becomes the center of his attention and before allowing it to hit the ground Cloud holds his hand out to allow it to fall right on the center of his palm.Â
  â..A feather.â An observation, not a question. âWhere-?â Before he concludes the wonder of its origins it seems like this lone feather isnât as lonely as it deceived him to believe it was for soon after a couple of more start to rain down over him. Looking over his shoulder to find the culprit, for a moment heâs at a loss. Are his eyes playing tricks on him or are those wings? â..An angel?â He mouths in question, turning around completely and surely enough thereâs some trickery involved because thatâs definitely not an angel, but those are wings. âRinoa..was it?â Is that where theyâre coming from? âJust got a lot on my mind.â Just letting feathers detach from their source like that, doesnât it hurt? He didnât even know that was something she could do. âMy bad,â he brings a hand to the back of his neck and rubbing it. âUh..neat trick you got there.â He motions forward with that very same hand after heâs digested the fact that heâs been caught like a deer in headlights.Â