towerofanimus | Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen

Characters: Nesir Aeser, you
Setting: Floor sixty two (beach), floor seventy two (door maze)
Format: Either
Summary: It's Nesir's birthday, she decides she should actually get round to reading her regain, and then sets herself a challenge
Warnings: Maybe talk of assassins/murder/last event. Nesir is generally not a nice person though she is not actively murderous at the moment...

[Beach] Nesir was quite surprised when she saw the date, though she knew it was coming up. In a few days she would have been in this place for an entire year and today she as sixteen. Nesir's birthday had never been celebrated and she wasn't about to start doing so in this fake place but she noted that she was a year older and that in her world she would have been considered an adult today. Ready to be apprenticed or to go out and find work, if she hadn't been a temple acolyte, if she hadn't been a dark trained assassin who had been training and working since she could walk.

The last few days she had spent training, working out her anger and frustration of being stuck in a room with Sephiroth for a week, of the hallucinations and the hunger. It helped that they ahad decent food, even if it was all pumpkin flavoured, which reminded her of her first month here, a year ago. She failed to see why in a world where everything was an illusion they had to eat pumpkin, surely there were other foods they could pretend to give them.

As it was the 'reward' she had been given had been thrown into her trunk and ignored for the last few days. Because as curious as she was, she at least knew when she was too angry to deal with more things. But today was as good as any day.

She liked the beach floor, because as little as she had actually spent time on the seafront as a child the sound of the sea reminded her of home, so she sat on the sand, cloak drawn around her and took out the folder. As expected it didn't have that many answers, the first few entries were almost medical, her and her sisters birth was recorded; they had been early it seemed and no one had expected there to be two of them.

Anyone on the beach floor would see Nesir lost in her reading, a half angry, half confused, sad look on her face.

[Maze] It was always good to be challenged, and Nesir needed something to focus on. For once she didn't feel like killing things, though she would, if need be. Her daggers were ready. She hadn't tackled this maze before but she set off, determined to solve it.

A decision she was beginning to regret a few hours later when she opened yet another door, to more doors, helplessly lost.

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Ivan frowned. He would have liked to retort that his luck wasn't normally so foul, she clearly just had that effect on him, but held his tongue. He didn't want to fight. All Ivan wanted was to get out of this mess.

"Not really," he grumbled through his teeth, turning toward another door. "I thought maybe we could solve this maze more easily if we worked together, but that was silly of me."

And, really, why did he think that it was worth a shot? Likely, Nesir didn't want to help him just as much as he didn't necessarily want to help her. It wasn't as if she was going to use her "favor" against him here, and Ivan didn't know what to say or how to act around her, anyway.

Maybe a part of him did want to talk to her, to ask more about what he had seen in her mind and how she had been feeling--about the hearts in the jars, if nothing else--but he certainly didn't want to be taunted mercilessly in order to find out those answers.

She laughed, she couldn't help it but really? He wanted them to work together? Not even Ral was that stupid. "How are you still alive?" Because seriously he was about her age, and yet had somehow lived being that stupid. He must be incredibly lucky, despite what she had witnessed.

She followed him, because despite everything he interested her, she expected anger or terror, not this... Offering to work together.

Ivan could feel his face begin to flush at her laughter, so he stared ahead of him as he willed the embarrassment to pass quickly. He didn't plan on giving her the satisfaction of seeing him flustered (and nervous).

"Because I'm not totally defenseless," the boy answered, as if this were an obvious fact. To him, it was. He hadn't traveled halfway across Weyard without helping his comrades fight off the monsters that blocked their path, after all. "You just caught me off guard last time, was all."

He didn't plan to let it happen again. Even as he moved through the door, into the adjoining room, he kept one hand close to his weapons. Ivan didn't think (or rather, he hoped) she'd attack him now...but he also had no reason to know she wouldn't. It was in his best interest to stay alert.

She smirked, liking his spirit. Even though he was obviously scared he wasn't cowed. Perhaps he was not such a baby after all. "You live in a tower of monsters, you should never let your guard down." She told him, she noticed his hands near his weapons. "That's better."

It looked like for better or for worse she was following him through this maze.

"A fair point," Ivan had to concede with a resigned sigh. He'd give her that much. And...well, it was true. The blonde remembers what Kido had said to him--that monsters came in all forms. And even back on Weyard, he'd had to fight bandits before, and other such humans willing to resort to violence to get what they wanted. He'd been foolish to be so lax in his caution. If anything, the new, strange surrounding should have put him on high alert. "And that's a mistake I don't intend to repeat."

In a way, he could've almost thanked her for the lesson--for the harsh dose of reality. But naturally, Ivan didn't want to. He stops when the two of them (he wasn't going to complain about her following him when he had halfway intended to work with her in the first place, though it did unsettle him to have a killer out of his direct eyesight) are faced with another set of doors.

"Which would you choose?"

"Good." She gave him a dark look and followed him, hands near her daggers incase he came to his senses and tried to get revenge on her. It was always possible.

"So far I haven't found any method or pattern to which doors to pick, but I don't really believe in luck." She told him, guessing seemed stupid but she knew no other way.

((ooc: I'm gonna try to keep it in check, though.))

“I’m not so sure I believe in it myself,” Ivan agreed absently. Perhaps as a measurable ability, yes, but as a force of nature? That was a bit more than Ivan cared to swallow. They weren’t exactly talking about anything else, so this was better than walking in complete silence as they opened door after door to more and more doors. It seemed as if the two of them would be in there for a while (longer). Might as well strike up a conversation for the time being.

"Who was the woman you were fighting with? The orange-haired one." The laughing witch had had a collar on, from what Ivan remembered seeing in her memories when Nesir had tortured him, so assumed the fight had taken place in the Tower not long before. Of course, this was a rather sudden way to admit that he had completely invaded her personal privacy but...well, what was a good way to actually go about that? And if he didn't simply launch into questions about that day...Ivan wasn't sure he'd ever manage to approach it naturally.

She stopped in her tracks, her eyes glinting dangerously as she turned to him, "You did be seeing that?" She had thought her and Beatrice had been alone when they had fought, and she did not like the idea of it being witnessed.

She had lost the fight fair and square, but it was between her and Beatrice, no one else.

Ivan stopped, as well, when the sound of Nesir's footsteps came to a halt. He turned to look at her, couldn't help his eyebrows from raising when her accent seemed to shift. He couldn't say he was particularly surprised, however. After what she did to him, he didn't blame her for wanting to hide truths about her identity.

Unfortunate for her, then, that she had chosen to assault a very liberal mind-reader.

"Not in person, when it was happening," Ivan admitted coolly, "and only partially. I couldn't tell who won. Or why you were fighting. Only that you were upset."

Her thoughts had been so scattered--and they kept coming back to those hearts in jars. But...Ivan didn't think it would be prudent to mention those. He was curious enough to want the bigger picture. Had he not been so out of focus at the time, he wouldn't need to ask.

"How did you find out then?" She had saw his eyebrow lift and realised her mistake. But she figured if she went back to talking without her accent and acted like nothing had happened he would think he had imagined it.

"How did you know that?"

Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen

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If I take too many liberties with what he knows from reading her mind last time, let me know! ;u;

I will but you're fine!

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