#ivoryparagon

Send me ⚔️for a sketch of your muse @ivory-paragon

Jae-hyo watches the coin flip it's way across Rufus' knuckles, first towards his thumb and back. Pretty words slipped past lips too soft looking to be a boy's, but he was a boy anyway.

Boy. Man. (Whatever.)

Where was the divide where his people were concerned? Did one just have to hit a certain invisible threshold and that was it? Like 'Oh yeah, that guy's a MAN, he ain't no boy.'

Well, he looked like a goddamn boy. A lordling clad in fine wool-gabardine and dyed silks, his golden hair and porcelain skin soft like... everything else.

Nothing like his grandfather: A veritable titan with his face zippered by a jagged scar almost from ear to ear, sparing the eyes with their flat black exposing nothing- except there was nothing to expose. Saying that the man had been strong was like saying the old white-peaked mountains spearing up into the icy clouds were tall. Larger than life, an ancient epic wrapped into a person, except everything was true- No exaggeration necessary.

The old man was long since dead yet his taciturn ghost commanded more respect than anyone else that Yoon had the misfortune of being beneath the thumb of. The image wasn't complete without one of his wolf-dogs, shaggy and mountainous- a bitch but after the old one-eyed alpha had died in a bear attack, she'd assumed his role without so much as a scuffle between the other hunting dogs.

'She's a good killer,' the old man had remarked one day, offhand like human language degraded what you were talking about the more words you put to it. When Jae had been a child, he'd reach out and his grandfather's biceps bulged like concentric steel braid fashioned to keep the Devil himself contained, lifting him clear out of the embroidered leather and fur gutals adorning his tiny feet. He'd laughed as he dangled from the crook of the old man's arm, being swung left and right before he fell back onto the wooden boards of the cabin.

He was a man who could be staring up at you yet be looking down at you at the same time, a rare softness melting away his goshawk's stare that was only for his favorite grandchild.

'What a shame it'd be to let Ji-ho rot away in some musty school house'- He'd told his mother, cradling the skeletal arm of whittled down birch branch to fashion him a hunting bow.

His mother had never held him as a child. She claimed that it bred weakness.

You want a child who's still clinging to their mother's tit when they're thirty- Is that what you want, Sang-hun?

Give me thirty- No, ten children who can shoot as well as she can and we'd drive those Wutai sons of bitches back to the sea where they belong-

He couldn't recall a time where they weren't arguing.

Now that he'd retraced the ugly steps down that particular memory lane, Jae completely lost track of whatever it was that Shinra Jr. had been pontificating at length about.

"Hasn't it always been like that?" he mused aloud, smirking as he rolled his shoulders back and stifled a yawn that would definitely not be taken well in his current company.

Lucas felt everything but ready, and he yet he still reached up to tug at his waistcoat, a habit that had formed in the last little bit that he hardly noticed. The suit made him feel a million degrees warmer than he felt should be necessary, the tie had been a hassle to do- the suit jacket had already been "forgotten" more than once in the past few months since he had started started working officially as a Turk- like how it was currently over the back of the couch across the room, as it had been most of the day.

It really wasn't easy. Being a Turk meant he had to go through far more tests than he already did for his medical issues, and a few of them he hated to admit seemed to only point out more flaws for him to fix. And not only that, but he had to admit that while he knew little about some of the staff, quite a few of the other Turk's terrified him. Now that wasn't something he was going to admit to out loud, ever.

While he had yet to officially go into the field, he had been given quite a few duties already however, leaving him to sit on the Turk's floor more often than not alone. A brand new laptop that he could use to get those jobs done when he was out of the office wasn't a bad deal either. He was more than happy to curl up at his desk and simply work through the things tossed at him, one headphone in to play some music and the other left loose in case anyone came into the room. The only real sound was the tapping of the keyboard as he worked through things, and if anyone was close enough, they might be able to pick up the sound of his music.

His first glance up as he heard someone come into the room was just to see who was coming in. The second was to make sure his eyes weren't lying as he saw the blonde in front of him, quickly pulling his headphones out. He hadn't yet had the chance to run into Vice President since he'd been put under house arrest, and he sure as hell didn't expect to run into the man while he was the only one around.

@ivory-paragon​ asked: The glow of his phone dowsed him in a soft blue light as he checked the text messages—still nothing.

Earlier in the day, he had set up a rendezvous point with Roche. A move that wasn't authorized by anyone other than himself. To be discreet, he opted not to inform anyone of this plan that settled deep in the time of night. The high-security breach was still heavy in the air, but long had Rufus been in the hands of his captors; his father and the Turks. With much of ShinRa in chaos over the few weeks prior, he was sure that his little outing wouldn't draw too much attention-- provided he was back at an adequate time.

SOLDIER these days were slim pickings when it came to trusting men that would put the Vice President's best interest at large. Rufus figured an excellent compensation would squash all suspicion if this were a 'good' idea or not. Roche happened to have a fast vehicle and one that needed to be less conspicuous than the usual approach Rufus took; dark windowed cars and enclosed spaces.

Besides, he needed a little thrill in his life Unprompted Asks - ALWAYS ACCEPTING

One to loath the fanatics of political warfare, Roche had not received the request to meet so kindly. It was one thing to wholly disagree with his own terms and conditions of employment but quite another to fight against invisible chains in the stead of a third party. The Third Class was certainly one of and on his own, and truth be told he quite liked it this way. 

Still, something inside of him, clambering and gnawing still at his psyche commanded that he respond, that he see this request through, for Roche was nobody at all if not a man infamous for his utter contempt of policy and procedure. He had seen too much to know that ShinRa’s waters ran far deeper than the mako reactors sucking energy from the ground, that their roots were invading, infecting everything around the folly of the Plate. Just how far those tendrils truly reached, he did not dare to hazard a guess though its presence and the slow invasion of this place upon what remained of the world would create an uprising in the west. 

A war he had fought amidst himself… conceivably on the wrong side of the tracks…  He’d seen things he could not possibly unsee. Forced to do things not possible to be undone.  The blood of the many and the innocent were on his hands also, but trauma could be ignored, for the most part~

Far more he knew of this Rufus Shinra than Roche truly knew was good for his general health, knowledge which could be deemed dangerous were it to fall into the wrong (arguably) hands. knowledge was power, as the saying goes -- though in Roche’s case it was a means to make ends meet and little more. The smallest ripples in the water often create the biggest waves, as it were, if occasionally at a detriment to ones self. Still, Roche was a man of his word, and the acceptance of that invitation had been followed to the very letter. To meet beneath the underpass, 235th pillar on the right southbound towards the train graveyard. 

The Third had been here for some time, long before the arrival of one Rufus Shinra, and he would remain in the shadows of the underpass, littered with many crevices and incomplete tunnels leading into dead-ends and simple storage units build for the highway maintenance crews. To remain inconspicuous it simply wouldn’t do to arrive here too closely together, many were the eyes surrounding the Plate, as were the ears which wished to listen. And there’s a sick satisfaction Roche would take from the way this man would check his device, waiting for confirmation from his person, perhaps a paranoid edge to the Vice President’s demeanour which he found quite satisfying to witness from his vantage point deep in the black. 

But he didn’t leave the man waiting for long, signalling his presence then with the illumination of headlights flooding into the dark, blinding and brilliant in every sense of the terms. 

“Ah! Finally permitted to come out and play with the big boy’s Mis-ter Vice President? For what does a mere trooper like me owe this distinguished pleasure~?” he called then, arms spread wide as if to present himself and his steed to this man as he would turn to spy his presence within the archway behind the pillar. Though certainly not without the sharp serration of pessimism hanging in his tone. 

It had been a while.

Two years. The assassin supposed a "while" wasn't even an appropriate description anymore. Astrid began a sliding career in politics that rocked to one side and then the other for about as long as she had recognition. The amount of wealth she poured into the restoration of her village, and for what?

For some opportunistic bastard to take almost all her progress, and soon, it didn't matter how much money went into Modeoheim. It didn't matter how much of that was her money. All she had was fragments of the location where the upper class lived, her estates, and everything else the jackal couldn't hope to steal.

Here, she sat, in a place she hadn't been for quite a while. And though her absinthe eyes linger on the fainting couch, she couldn't help but prop herself up on the desk. She sat beside the flowers she'd sent and sworn to herself she wouldn't look at them again until he arrived. Legs crossed, gaze fixed upon his office door, waiting; she couldn't believe how familiar the sight was, and yet, so alien.

But she was growing in her impatience. Usually, it hadn't taken this long for Rufus actually to return to the office and based on how long she'd been gone, a part of her considered throwing the flowers to the ground, but she resisted, knowing it would cement whatever she was feeling. How would she even tell him about the engagement she rejected?

She scoffed, her mind too quick to linger on the resentment toward her losses that burned in her chest, but whatever bubbling resentment was there suddenly left as she recognised the sound of the door—replaced by the slightest twang of anxiety.

Tenebrae.

There was a whole section of the ShinRa history museum about it, with it’s polished marble benches, enormous and cut sharp like gemstones. An old photo blown up to the size of the entire wall- floor to ceiling and saturated: Beautiful sprawling forests, mountains rich with ore, and fertile earth.

But Ravus remembered the tenement houses that came after the refugee camps. Crumbling and stacked on top of each other, rat cages for the impoverished and displaced, where you shoved people you didn’t want to acknowledge unless they were scrubbing your toilets, pouring your filtered ice-water, or selling you traditional clothing and jewelry that remained all the rage in Midgar.

He could smell the cheap paint and desperation- The former chasseurs with their tobacco-yellowed teeth and brown spit, everything wrong and nasty gathered in one massive sinkhole of poverty. Big, fat biting flies that swarmed and crawled all over the dirty, calloused limbs of kids running after the rations trucks with outstretched hands. If they were lucky, they might get a piece of chocolate from one of the soldiers thinking themselves kind- Assuaging their guilt with cheap sweets.

He’d lived there, in the dirt and despair, the mako glow of countless reactors built that turned the once nutrient filled soil into blackened and useless detritus. Moving on, there was only one small paragraph about the M-tek Knights and images from their first trials. No one knew about the dehumanizing conditions, countless experiments, the painful process of being permanently bonded to materia. Only the shiny after product with their white and black uniforms- Accents of purple for the High Commander and none else.

He’d heard rumors about the young president, but he also wasn’t looking to make a misstep by assuming things. Who knew what kinds of ridiculous promises had been made, what left of their native land yet remained truly theirs after his foolish father joined forces with the conglomerate. With Queen Sylva and Lunafreya gone, the only person who held proper authority to discuss such matters was Ravus.

‘ Listen , BOSS-- ’ Reno starts , the apprehension evident in his tone. Ever still , he follows obediently behind. Ensuring to chose his next words CAREFULLY.

‘ . . . when you said you had an assignment for me , this isn’t EXACTLY what I envisioned , ya’know ?? ’ He pauses , glancing up at the PRESIDENT to weigh his reaction before continuing.