#knoll 01

There is a man.

This is not inherently unusual. Though Temeraire enjoys the solace of the forest for the hunting it provides as he soars above the treetops, he usually passes a number of people in the process, too. No, it’s not simply the fact that a man is there that has Temeraire banking and gliding back overhead in the opposite direction, only lazily beating his wings when he starts to dip a little.

No, it’s that this man’s hair appears to be blue. Or... purple? Or somewhere in between. Quite an unnatural color for a human’s hair, he thinks, as he wings over for the third time. Then his curiosity gets the better of him and he dives down, pulling up at the last moment to land, neatly, not too far from the stranger.

The rats here talk. The rats here are HUGE and also they talk. There are huge talking rats outside. 

Sure, the Norn had the chicks, but they were small and they didn’t talk. They just pepped at you angrily. They refused to bring him food in his room so he didn’t really interact with them that much. Koharu thought the chicks were very cute and very nice. She thinks that about everything though. Senri wonders if she’d think that about the huge talking rats. Probably.

The rats are just everywhere, talking and selling things and being huge. Senri lasted about five minutes before he darted back inside. It wasn’t just the giant rats, it was everything. Before, it was easy to detach, to forget about whatever horrible future awaited at the end of the Norn’s flight, but now? Now, Senri misses home.

Not the Norn, but his real home. Koharu. Now, he had something to go back to. Something that mattered.

That’s the story of how Senri ended up under a table in his floors library. The idea of being in his room just didn’t appeal right now. This was the first place he managed to scramble into and now he doesn’t have the energy to scramble out. He really, really hopes Venus won’t want to read anything right now. He doesn’t want her seeing him, knees pressed to chest. Augh, he hates this. 

For all that he was a self-proclaimed dumbass, Levin was, at least, rather curious about the new world he’d been placed in. So when he’d managed to find a place that called itself a “train station” on a rare good day (when his hands shook less, and walking without any sort of support was a thing he could do), well, naturally he stuck around to see what, exactly, a train was!

To say that he was blown away would have been an understatement. A relatively clean method of transport that could carry large numbers of people at a time over very long distances, in a very short period of time!? It was nothing short of a miracle to him! And so he’d very quickly settled himself down in a seat near one of the doors, having no true destination in mind but wanting to see everything anyway. It was all so new, so beautiful – and with his holophone nearby and the Forseti tome safely on his lap (with him, as always; even in its unusable form he simply refused to leave it behind in his room), it wasn’t like he’d get bored of the scenery and find himself with nothing to do.

By the time the train arrives in Crises, his leg is bouncing idly as he messes around on his holophone; the scenery outside makes him anxious, feels claustrophobic and terrifying in the same way that almost dying did. He already knows he will not get off here.

Still, when the doors open, he can’t help but look up, and that’s when he sees the other man – an anxious looking fellow with silvery hair just slightly more purple than Tailtiu’s, all wrapped up in his cloak (what a relatable feeling that is!), who seems rather startled by the train’s arrival. He’s standing outside the station, and certainly doesn’t look ready to board, but Levin figures it’s only polite to ask, anyway.

Hifumi needs to get out of here. Like, in the cosmic sense he needs to get out of here and get back to Shinjuku, but more immediately he needs to get out of this building. It’s too stuffy, too lonely. He needs to talk to people and see the sun and feel like a better version of himself.

He carries his suit jacket slung over one arm like a shield, just in case, and as he’s taking the stairs down to the ground floor he feels sort of like the guy in every horror movie who thinks a flashlight is a totally reasonable defense against whatever’s lurking in the basement and then dies to it immediately. That’s not fair to women, though. Very few of them lurk and almost none of them have tried to kill him. Hifumi just has issues, and not knowing when he’ll see Doppo next is making them worse.

He’s temporarily distracted from those issues by the sight of a tiny man sitting on one of the lobby’s fancy haunted house sofas, engrossed in what looks like the first steps of a knitting project. The guy looks too anxious to be knitting, honestly. He circles around to the front of the couch to peer at him.

“Wow,” he says blithely, “you’re super new at this, huh?” 

@knollknelling​

Not home, as in Midgar, but home as in...the smell of hot oil and onions and fried potatoes. Genesis, Angeal, and he, standing huddled around his little barracks window, singing blessings as they passed around the shamash candle. The way Genesis’ nose would wrinkle and his brow would furrow when he lost in their game of dreidel, the way Angeal’s would relax biting into one of the jelly donuts they pulled from the oven. The way the candles, burning low, would reflect off their eyes and their teeth and their skin when they looked at him and smiled.

He remembered feeling nothing when he looked upon Nibelheim, set ablaze, seeing reflections of flames off his blade, off shattered windows and bodies and blood and— 

He ground his teeth and pulled Jenova close to him, digging his fingers into her helmet. (Was it worth it?) He swallowed down his shaky breaths, running fingers through her hair to gently loosen tangles, before tying it back in a loose braid. When he’d calmed, he placed the head back on his desk, and reached down below it to retrieve the bag he’d specifically purchased for carrying her. It wasn’t safe to leave her here; it wasn’t safe to let people see her, either.

Something nagged at Sephiroth — the feeling that he was beginning to become complacent in this place. Adjusting too smoothly. Accepting that this was what was happening to him, now.

It made him miserable.

It made him more than miserable.

He felt possessed when he stepped out of his apartment and began the long trek down the Lampadias stairs. The sunlight outside was hazy, filtered through a gentle rain. The few drops that clung to him were warm. He noticed, mildly, that there was a light sprinkling of snow on the streets, melting and running down, slicking the roads.

Eventually, he found himself along one of the many paths that wound their ways through the forest. He’d learned already not to stray too far from them, as doing so would end only in confusion, frustration, and many hours unaccounted for.

The thin slush crunched quietly under his boots as he approached the booth near the end of the path. People were filtering slowly through, speaking in friendly tones and laughing along with one another; nothing like the hubbub of the entranced crowds he’d encountered earlier in Crises. 

A little bear handed him a handful of lengthy wicks and he nodded thankfully, without looking at her. He stared at the wicks, then along the row of tables. Ah, so this was the candle-making event. He supposed he needed some candles.

He separated one of the wicks from the rest and folded it in half, carefully aligning the ends. Yes, these would work well enough at half length. He glanced down the tables again, not seeing any scissors or knives. How annoying.

But whether he should or shouldn't, he is. It's something familiar even in its unfamiliarity here - wherever here is, though he still doesn't quite understand that - that he finds himself drawn here quite often.

Ordinarily, he bothers no one, simply minding his own business, sitting still as the corpse he is, not breathing, not blinking, hardly moving except when he feels as if he had ought to, as if his limbs would have, in the past, stung with numbness of too long in one spot.

He was still, likely, still for too long - he was likely, in many situations, indistinguishable from a lifeless corpse, white eyes staring at the sky, ignoring the rain falling into them until his blurred vision annoyed him enough to blink them clear. It lets him feel as if he can cry, though he knows he is no longer capable of that.

One such blink, he catches sight of someone he thinks has been watching him, and he becomes aware of how he must look, sitting here, dead as he is. His hair is soaked, clinging to his body, plastered to his face, even likely some of it in his eyes.

He lowers his head, suddenly, black pupils lowering to look the other in the face, and then his voice, so that he speaks very softly and as kindly as he is able, voice rasping just slightly: "Hello."

Wen Ning clears his throat, tries to make his voice sound more presentable. He largely fails. When he speaks again, he sounds genuinely concerned, "Have I worried you? Is everything alright?"