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WHO: Lorna and Zack
WHAT: Dinner and discussions about defense!
WHERE: Outside her room at the apartments then wandering elsewhere
WHEN: 2/01
WARNINGS: None as of now!

When Zack arrives Lorna's waiting outside her room leaning up against the wall with her arms folded over her chest. She's got the usual Lorna attire on: black pants, a long black shirt, steel-toed boots, and way too many metal bracelets around her wrists. Be prepared is a motto to live by, right? Especially when they were all just recently witness to televised executions. Now more than ever seems like a good time to be healthy paranoid. They do say it's only paranoia if they really aren't out to get you. It's strange, the entire thing probably should be a lot more jarring to Lorna than it actually seems to be. The last few years of her life seem like they've just been nothing but one death after another. At this point she's almost gotten numb to it. Maybe it's not even an almost, maybe she's really just crossed the threshold into being numb to it all. A part of her just wants to stay in her room in bed hiding from it all, but she's fighting through that desire.

Still, she's not one hundred percent sure if this is a great idea for a lot of reasons. Too late to back out now though. She flashes a quick smile as Zack walks up.

"Hey. Nice to see you again."

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Mutant underground? Wait, what even was that? But he nods at the thing she says.

"Yeah, I get that. Plenty of people laid into me. I guess I'm not used to it."

She looks over at him with a tiny bemused smirk. For some reason she figured he wasn't used to a lot of things. "Not used to what? Getting laid into or something else?"

"Verbally laid into. I'm really good at fighting, so I can protect myself if someone gets violent," Zack answers with a brief shrug.

But he's also not used to the paranoia. To the threats. To jumping at shadows.

"This place looks like Midgar but has a whole different atmosphere."

"See, me on the other hand, I'm used to both. Believe it or not I was something of a rebellious teen." Who got verbally laid into a lot. Shocking isn't it? "Maybe you could give me a few fighting lessons." It's occurred to her recently that she might rely on her abilities a little too much. Not to say she has no combat skills, but they're not as strong as they probably should be.

"Opposite for me. Doesn't look like my home but has a similar =atmosphere."

"You look it," he answers the teen comment, but his voice is light and playful. It's not meant to be an insult. Just a spirited agreement. He saw plenty of the type in Midgar.

"I mean... yeah, I could. But mostly I'm a swordsman. Which I'm apparently not supposed to broadcast?"

He's not great at hand to hand.

On the other hand he looks sad at the similar atmosphere thing. "Similar how?"

"Ouch, I'm almost hurt by that," but her voice is also teasing. She knows she fits the stereotype. "If only you'd seen me as a teen," she smirks and shakes her head.

"Never tried sword fighting. Which you think I would given my talents." Throwing knives, sure, but swords had never been a thing she'd given a try. "You really don't see why that might be dangerous?" Because it seems pretty obvious to her. Then again maybe that ties into her familiarity with the atmosphere.

"Oppressive. Like you're always being watched and one wrong step is going to have you carted off to the Hound program."

If he'd known her as a teen, he TOTALLY would have asked her out.

"Hound program?"

That's the thing that sounds the most important thing to him.

"Fun little program where they round up all the mutants they can and reprogram them to be weapons. Weapons that then get turned on their former friends," if looks could kill then the sour look on Lorna's face might have murdered someone right there. She'd had a friend get turned into a Hound and had seen directly what that had done to several other people. It still made her skin crawl and stomach twist into knots. Knots that made her want to scream and smash as much shit as she possibly could.

"Heard a few things about people being taken in this place. Wonder what kind of shit happens to us if that happens." More so she wonders how similar what happens here is to what happened where she was from.

Oh fuck, that's... that's terrible. Zack almost stumbles, but he catches himself and keeps pace. But then he pitches his voice lower, leaning in like he wants to whisper sweet things in her ear.

"I'm sorry to hear about that. But I've lost a few people here. My girlfriend and... Well, Sephiroth. I wanna hope the Head isn't controlling him because that guy has wiped out a village in my world, and is trying to destroy the world. It's pretty bad."

"Don't need sympathy, especially," she bites back a comment that she actually manages to think better of. It's a pretty impressive thing for her to do considering how impulsive she usually she. She takes a sharp, deep breath and clenches her jaw.

"Sorry to hear about your girlfriend. She wasn't here long was she?" The second name sounds familiar and she shakes her head. "I met him once. Sephiroth. Seemed like an... interesting guy. Hated the idea of the onesie party as much as me." Or at least it'd seemed that way.

"She wasn't here very long at all. And Seph was..."

IT's hard to explain Sephiroth. "I wanted him to not become the man that he became back home. Now... the risk seems pretty intense. I'm scared. I hate being scared. It's nto something I'm used to."

But they have to figure something out, don't they?

"Doubt that makes her disappearance easier." There's an attempt at a shrug to accompany her statement.

Sympathy crosses her expression but she still keeps some distance. That's Lorna in a nutshell: some distance wrapped in a hard package. She wants to offer sympathy or at least appear sympathetic, but she can't quite let her guard down.

"Sorry to hear that. It's tough when someone becomes a different person." First hand experience in that. "I doubt there's anyone here that's not at least a little bit scared."

It made it harder. He was dead back home. He'd never see Aerith again. And he's... got no choice but to accept that because he has to take care of Cloud.

"I guess the important thing for us now is surviving. Helping the people here who I can while I can."

"How are you even supposed to help in a situation like this?" The weight of how defeated and depressed she actually feels slips into voice. What were they even supposed to do with this entire situation? It seemed pointless. Hopeless. Like the only thing they could do was hit more walls.

Zack stops, and hopes he can pull her to a stop too. Makes a bit of a leaning in to whisper something sweet in her ear.

"We fight the system. Fuck the Head up. I mean, really, in the grand scheme of things it's a bit less pervasive than ShinRa was. So don't give up hope."

She stops with him and shakes her head as he leans in to whisper.

"You make it sound easy." But it's not. She'd tried fighting the system. She'd tried it in two different ways, two different extremes, and neither had worked out. The only thing she'd managed to do in the entire situation was make shit worse. What if it's the same here? She looks down. "Can't give up on something I didn't have to begin with."

"It's probably impossible. But I'm going to try anyway."

Because if he doesn't, he's failing his best friend. But wow, no hope at all?

"There anything back in your world that you want to go back for?"

She runs a hand through her hair and looks away with his question. After a second of thinking her shoulders slump forward and she keeps looking away.

"I have a daughter. Her name's Dawn. She's with my aunt right now, not really safe to be around me," she gives a chuckle that's seeped in bitterness. It's her own fault she's not safe and she can't put the blame for that anywhere else. Not that she would even if she could, the choices she's made are her own. "Of course I'd love to get back to her."

Well then, she’s got a reason to fight. And Zack smiles at her, warm and familiar. But when he speaks his voice is firm, perhaps even touched with a bit of steel.

“Then I’ll get you home and you’ll find a way to make things safe enough to be around her.”

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