master of my own illusionary world

The screams of her mother and father rang in her ears, as if it were happening right before her. What had happened? Why had this happened? And even the palace staff were.. They were gone.. Killed by her mother’s guard. The same guard who swore a blood oath to the throne, the same guard that her parents had trained and vetted themselves.

Her savior swam into view and the princess darted to him, clinging to him like he was her life line. A sob bubbled up out of her mouth and she pressed her head to his shoulder. A mixture of relief and sorrow that she tried to muffle, lest they be caught.

“C-Captain Heidegger.. He he-“ Aeris whispered, looking past Cloud, her hands trembling, “You- Cloud I- I don’t remember where we are…” she finally let go of Cloud and sunk to the ground.

Bile rose up in her throat and she covered her mouth with her hand. Her stomach was churning at the memory.

He held her tightly for a moment before she slid out of his grip and floated down to the floor in grief and terror. She put her hands over her mouth, and he looked away while she emptied her stomach.

Come on, Cloud, think.

He had to get her out of here. Where was the safest place to go? He didn't know. There was too much he didn't know. He didn't know where to bring Aeris so that she'd be safe. He didn't know if his mother was still alive, or if she'd been killed for being loyal to the King and Queen. He didn't know what to do.

One thing was for sure, though; if Heidegger found the tunnels, they would be shark food. Cloud thought hard. There was a little village that his mother had talked about when he had been small. Pretty far away, outside of the kingdom. She had talked about how the people were protective and kind there. She had showed him where it was on a map.

A map...they needed a map. Cloud would take Aeris to the town his mother told him about and hope they didn't recognize her there. It was the only chance they had. But he needed that map.

Blood splattered across the young lady’s face as the spear that was originally meant for her drove into her mothers chest. Aeris floated back and looked down at her hands. The room was clouding with blood making it hard to see where she was going but all she could do was move away. Was she dreaming? She had to be dreaming. Her mother didn’t just get murdered! She would wake up at any moment and then have breakfast with her!

A knife shot out of the plume of blood and slammed into the pillar beside her that Aeris darted away. Out of the throne room and down into the halls. All round her blood was pouring out of rooms and in hallways. It had to be a nightmare! Her stomach dropped in her belly as she slammed into one of the palace guards. He looked down at her, his expression like iron as he started to drag her back through the bloodied halls. 

Cloud wanted to join the royal guard, it was true, but he knew he didn't have much chance of it happening. For one thing, he was barely fourteen years old – still a fingerling, as far as the royal recruiters were concerned. For another thing, he had a problem with authority, and he got into fights after lessons all the time.

Right now, though, Cloud was glad he wasn't a part of the guard. Because the guards were, for lack of a better word, corrupt. The ones who weren't had already been gutted. He had seen it with his own eyes as he had swam through the halls of the undersea palace. Fortunately, no one had seen him as he had ducked into the secret passage way.

Aeris. He knew what was going on, and he knew how it was going to end. He furiously swam through the tunnels until he was close as he could be to the throne room.

The carnage was worse than he had expected. There were clouds of blood everywhere, making it impossible to see, to breathe, and bodies drifted aimlessly through the corridor. The guards were everywhere, killing off whomever was left loyal to the King and Queen, it looked like. Cloud was quick and small, and he used it to his advantage as he swam towards the throne room.

He was surprised and caught off guard when Aeris dove out of the throne room and smacked right into him. Convenient. He grabbed her by her arm and dragged her back down the corridor, past the worst of the carnage and back to the tunnel he had just emerged from.

“Get in, get in,” he whispered urgently. Someone was coming down the corridor, he could hear the mighty thrums of a large tail.

Aeris seemed to register what was happening and disappeared down the tunnel. Cloud slid in behind her, shutting the door as far as he dared. Through the crack in the door, he watched the large merman Heidegger make his way down the hallway, apparently unperturbed by the dead bodies littering the place. So it was he who had staged the coup.

[ # SENTMAIL ] SOLDIER OPERATIVE KUNSEL REIS ZANTOS — tutor / sleuth / busybody / best friend / liability

a selective && low activity roleplay side-blog for the ffvii comp. based on crisis core, heavily headcanon reliant and canon divergent.

— follows back from @vctlan, a multimuse with other ffvii characters. [ RULES / CHARACTER / NAVIGATION / THREADS ]

He was going to need to chat with Tifa later, compare notes.

"Are we going or what? It's going to be dark soon, and I'd rather we be as far from Midgar as possible if we're doing this whole escape thing. Probably less monsters to deal with the further we get from their cesspool too."

“We're going,” Cloud confirmed, hefting the heavy blade onto his back and wondering at how heavy it felt. He must be getting soft or something. He'd never had trouble carrying it before ( – through the desert, dragging it along the ground behind him – ), not in all his time in SOLDIER. He'd had it in SOLDIER, the Buster sword. He was quite certain of that.