dappered | it's midgar baby

[ it takes him almost a week to recognize the city.

he's spent so long wandering, now, half-sunk in shadows and walking along the twisting roads between worlds, that it's hardly worth it to glance up anymore; this planet or that planet, with yellow-eyed shadows chittering in the dark corners. the cities seem the same. the oblivious people seem the same. none of them realize how close the darkness is, and they wouldn't believe cloud even if he could warn them. he tried that once or twice, early on.

his own midgar is gone, or at least he assumes it's gone. or maybe he is the one that left, and everything and everyone else is right where he remembers them. he can't quite remember, anymore, how he went from his old life to this. he can't quite remember when he acquired the cloak and the wing, and the ability to walk through shadows.

that's not important. even if he could go back to his particular midgar, it wouldn't be a good idea. a certain powerful heartless spirit always stalks him, no matter where he goes, so it's best that he just keeps moving.

he keeps the hood of the ragged cloak up to conceal his face. the buster sword is always with him, but he hasn't carried it on his back in forever. he doesn't need to. it comes to him when he needs it. mostly people seem to sense that there's something off about him, and the way the shadows cling to him and stretch long behind him, and they don't approach. he can walk through a crowd and they just part around him, a little uneasily, but then they forget in the next minute that he was ever there.

it's the smell of mako that stops him, in the middle of the street. he looks up for the first time in god knows how long, and the plates overhead are familiar, and the sickly green glow of the reactors. the old midgar, just how he remembers it, before the turks dropped the plate.

his mouth must be hanging open like a country yokel. he actually reaches out and catches somebody's arm-- they look offended, and then a little afraid-- and asks, in a voice rough with disuse, where they are.

the man gives him the street name because of course only a fool would be asking the name of the city, and then jerks loose, quickly walking away.

he loses a couple more hours wandering, confirming that yes, it really is midgar somehow. the train stations, the slums. his own younger, alternate self is probably somewhere in the city, busy failing out of SOLDIER and into the army.

sephiroth is here, somewhere.

aerith is here, somewhere, and tifa, and everyone else, and--

and zack is here, somewhere. alive, right this minute. ]