they show you how to swim

[headandhand]

WHO: All Dualizens, old and new
WHAT: Your regularly scheduled NAPs event for the month
WHERE: Dualis Oasis
WHEN: Nov. 7-10
WARNINGS: Please use these if applicable!


Look at all of these bright, shining new faces! There’s even a few less bright, less shining faces - maybe even a few folks without faces - but hey, this city welcomes all types. Chances are, if you’ve just arrived, you're seeing some pretty crazy things, unless you're used to an eye-blinding amount of neon, robots, weird-ass technology, magic, and an omnipresent police force...and hey, if you are, congrats, you're gonna settle in juuuuust fine. But for the rest of you, the Head knows this has gotta be pretty overwhelming, right?

Well, since your quaint individual processing units are probably having a hard time, why not link up with another one? By which the Head means...

Hello, new citizens of Dualis,
and welcome to your monthly Network Adjacency Protocol~!

NAPs are a monthly community networking event similar to the Earth concept of speed dating! Two citizens (new arrivals and old hands alike) are placed at a table together with a handy cue card of queries to help break the proverbial ice. Ask queries and receive results, or ignore the card and yeet yourself straight into a brand new friendship! But don't be too shy, you've only got ten minutes together, and if you just sit in silence for the whole ten, the Network Admins are likely to come supervise and try to repair the uplink through a mild shock to the ol' central nervous system. You might find yourself saying all sorts of unintended facts about yourself if that happens...probably better to just make friends, right? Who doesn’t like friends?!

The weather outside may be taking a turn toward chilly, but you can still get your swim on during this month’s NAPs, held at the Dualis Oasis, an indoor temperature-controlled aquatic amusement park with giant slides, swimming pools, and lazy winding float rivers. Appropriate swimming gear is required for entry to this part of the park, but there are a number of shops just outside that will gladly sell you swimwear and accessories.

For those of you who wish to avoid a humid environment or just hate fun, a dehumidified lounge and restaurant offer quieter, dryer spaces for chatting and snacking. The actual speed-friending itself is in progress here, but you’re welcome to stick around and continue conversations with your new friends.

So c’mon, what are you waiting for? Just dive right in for fun and friendship - the water’s fine, fine, fine, just like everything else in this fair city. But hey, remember to play safe. No running!

Comments

[legacy_blade]

[There are... just so many ways to take what Cloud's telling him. So many painful ways. Should he hate his best friend? Should he forgive him for something Zack had no right to forgive him for, for something only Aerith could absolve him of? What had caused the behavior in the first place? It had never been in Cloud's nature to be needlessly cruel. In fact, it wasn't in a lot of Cloud's nature, what he'd seen of his friend lately. Though he could get Aerith wanting a bodyguard.

He needs time to think, and the best way to do it is to just hold Cloud close to him, leaning in to rest his forehead against the shorter man's head. Bury his face in the blonde hair so he doesn't have to look at Cloud as he thinks about it.

There's no good answer.]

Sephiroth was there? He spoke to you face to face?

[legacy_blade]

I... Cloud, I'm going to have to talk to Aerith about some of this, to understand it from her end, okay? But the fact that she would have told you where she was going? That's a sign of trust. Which from her isn't easily given. Trust me on that.

[Why she ever chose to trust him was a mystery that Zack couldn't answer. And yet he was thankful. he loved the woman, so much. And when he referred to Cloud in her presence, she hadn't seemed afraid. Maybe... Zack relaxes his hug enough so that he can pull back to look down at Cloud.]

All I can say for sure is that what you've told me? It doesn't sound like you. At all. That's not my Cloud. Just like the Sephiroth here isn't exactly the same one that he was at the end of Nibelheim. But...

Cloud, how much do you know about the SOLDIER mass desertion and the stuff I went through with Angeal and Genesis?

[legacy_blade]

[Why would he not want to be forgiven? Zack doesn't really understand. If he didn't mean to do it, didn't even think he would do it or have an explanation for why he did, why wouldn't Cloud want to be forgiven? Didn't he want to better himself? That... that doesn't make sense?]

I can't make Aerith do that, Cloud. I can ask her, for your sake, but I make no guarantees. She's a strong woman who knows her own heart and her own desires. Stronger now than she even was when we first met.

[The only mission he ever failed? That's not right at all, Cloud. What about Nibelheim? And there were all those OTHER missions to catch Genesis. Weird that Cloud didn't count those. Then again most of those were above his security clearance so it sorta made sense that Cloud didn't know.

But the rest of what he says... Apparently Cloud hadn't remembered anything of that trip from Nibelheim. Zack had told him so many stories. Apparently just to hear his own voice. Which sorta breaks his heart. But hey, Cloud was up and moving and conscious now. Take the miracles you can get.]

I don't think Genesis is REALLY still out there. When we were on the run after I broke us out of Nibelheim and Hojo's fucked up shit, I took us to Banora. I stopped Genesis there. Or... well, I think it was sorta a manifestation of the Goddess, or the Lifestream? It healed him. But before that he was breaking down. He went and was using his cells to taint other SOLDIERs too, the ones that deserted? He made them like him. Like, they LOOKED like him, and obeyed his every command. Some of the paperwork I saw when I was hunting Hollander implied that there was a connection to the source and to the 'Genesis Copies'.

[legacy_blade]

Yeah, that's why he needed Hollander. To save him. And it turned out Angeal was part of a similar thing. They were Subjects G and A. And... And some of the stuff that Sephiroth was reading in the basement of the mansion? Some of it sounded a lot like those mission reports. I think... I think Hojo might have been doing something a lot like Hollander did. With a different sort of failure. Not that I'm smart enough to confirm, one way or another.

[Still, he sighs, rubbing a hand through his hair. This is going to be hard to say.]

That... Creepy monster shit in the reactor? I think it was used in some of that stuff. Why else would Sephiroth think it was his mother? And the name overlap? And...

[Wait, he really has to figure something out here, doesn't he?]

Cloud, how... how much do you remember of Nibelheim? Of our time in Hojo's tender care?

[legacy_blade]

Yeah, I think Hojo mentioned her once, when I was helping him in his lab after an attack by Genesis clones. A 'Calamity from the Skies'.

[But that wasn't the important thing down. What was important is that Zack moves to sit back down, gesturing for Cloud to join him. Sit RIGHT beside him, so he can keep an eye on you, alright? Yeah. Good. Because the next part? The next part isn't good.]

We were definitely together. You must have stopped Sephiroth, because after I got out I found a message on my old phone about Sephiroth being dead. Definitely wasn't me that did that, Spike. That was all you. But yeah, I woke up some time later in this tube, with the burn of mako in my throat and nose and all over my skin. I don't know what Hojo was doing to us, but I know he was doing something. I resolved to break us out. After a time Hojo got bored, with me at least. I was a 'failure' or something. And you? Too mako sensitive I guess. So we were abandoned to a single scientist who wasn't very concerned with containment protocols. One day I finally busted out when he was opening my tube to check on me.

Maybe... Cloud, maybe Hojo did something to you then. Make you more suggestible to hypnotism or something. I don't know. Or to commands. He was TRYING to do something, that much is certain. I'm just not smart enough to figure out what. Kunsel could, no doubt. But he thought I was dead. That both of us were.

[legacy_blade]

[Okay, there is clearly something going on here. Like there was before, when Cloud wanted to leave. When Zack had caught his friend up and embraced him. Then he'd thought to offer comfort. Now, in the face of how Cloud curls in on himself once he finally sits down, he doesn't know if there is any amount of comfort he can truly give.

He doesn't know Cloud as well as he should, Zack realizes, as he watches his friend. There are some things he can tell, of course. What SOLDIER worth his salt can't notice some glaring details like white knuckles? But the rest? The lack of expression? What does it all mean? He wishes he was smarter. He wishes he was like Kunsel and could pick things apart. He wished he was like Angeal and knew how to support people with a firm word and an encouraging nod. He wished... he wished he was something better than he was, than he is.

And that tone? It makes his chest ache and he can't say why.]

Cloud, wait... Let... let me walk you back?

[Zack bounces to his feet and grabs his towel, wrapping it around his shoulders and moving to Cloud.]

I can carry your... towel.

[legacy_blade]

[Oh wow, way to make his heart hurt more. Zack squeezes the hand in his, leans into that forehead against his, and closes his eyes. Why does that feel so painful, though? Like he's losing something?]

You'll wait? You promise? I mean, I could walk you back and then come back to her.

[They're both his friends. Cloud's his best one, Aerith his girlfriend. They both matter.]