towerofanimus | search for something warm

He was on top of the clocktower, looking out at a picturesque sunset stretched out before him. It was familiar — almost painfully so. All that was missing was Roxas, Xion, and ice cream.

How many times did they sit in this spot, watching the sunset after a hard day's work? It had been a simple getaway, at first; something to do besides bounce between work and the Castle. Later, it became the highlight of his day.

It wasn't the same, without his best friends there. Not at all. But … he guessed he could hang around for a little while, anyway. After all, it was a nice sunset.

Well, it's not like Riku hadn't known that Axel is in the tower, it's hard to miss that particular shade of red, especially during confined occasions like Xion's birthday, but given the history - here and back home - he hasn't had any all too great desire to seek him out. It really is enough if his return makes Xion's life a little brighter for the moment.

When he comes across the sight of that sunset on the 100th floor - more than familiar, though not from this particular angle - he decides to wander further into the floor, assuming to find Xion. And when he doesn't... well, he supposes he should have a word with Axel at some point probably. So, have the oldest version of Riku leaning against the tower, a little taller than he might remember him form home, hair short, arms stuffed into the pockets of his Black Coat as he leans back against the clocktower.

"...Back again, I see."

By now, the voice is more than a little familiar. Axel turns away from the nostalgic view, coming face to face with.... Hm. This must be the one he hasn't met. Which would make this particular Riku the real deal.

"So I keep hearing," he replies — and so he continues to not enjoy hearing. He's been wandering around this Tower for nearly a month, and he still doesn't like the idea of there having been other-Axels who disappeared before him. Makes him wonder if the same thing is gonna happen to him, someday.

"You must be the real thing."

Not just a Riku who isn't a Replica: if he understood it correctly, this should be the Riku from his universe. (Or at least, a universe like his own.)

If he ever feels the need to do a headcount, Riku is more than willing to point him to the right places on the graveyard floor. He snorts, then draws his hands out of the coat to shrug before he crosses them over his chest.

"As real or fake as anything here."

It really depends on the definition of it.

That's yet another thing that doesn't thrill Axel about this place. True, he's an incomplete being to begin with: losing his body is just one more thing. He's still got his soul, right? But that doesn't mean he likes the idea.

"Do you feel fake?"

An honest question, regardless of whether Riku brushed it off or not.

Well, nobody likes it, really - it was quite a shock when the glamor failed the first time and they found that everything around them is as much illusion as their own appearance. Though, it hadn't taken Riku long to find his answer then, not does it now.

"What's fake is a matter of definition. I am me and that's all that matters."

His heart and his mind are his own and that is far more worth than the shell of a body.

A little smirk settles on Axel's lips. It's a touch bitter, as he recalls his little speech to Riku's Replica:

"Wouldn't you like to be real? All you need is the kind of power that the real Riku doesn't have. If you can get that, you can be a new person — not Riku, nor anybody else. You won't just be a copy of someone. You will be unique, your own self."

It had worked like a charm. He knows now, of course, that he was wrong to use the Riku-Replica. Hearing the real Riku dismissing the very thing that made the Replica so easy to use.... It just reinforces how different the Replica was. How it really was its own self.

Maybe the smirk is more than a little bitter.

"Interesting answer," he says. "That the way you've always seen it?"

Riku shoots him a flat look at that smirk; he doesn't see what's there to smirk about and he has no interest in what Axel may or may not be bitter about. He is different to Ira, would have insisted on that in Castle Oblivion already, but now - three years later - he exactly understands the differences, understands that no matter the circumstances of Ira's creation, they are each as real or fake as the other.

"It's the way I've learned to see it."

Hard won experiences and realizations that have only come to him with time to reflect, in his struggles with Ansem's darkness, through his interactions with Xion, and he has no need to hide or belittle that. But even so...

"Though, I don't particularly see how that's any of your business."

What is it with all those questions?

Axel shrugs and waves a hand. Both gestures are careless and dismissive; it's as though the questions don't mean much, and neither do the answers.

"It's not," he says. His smirk is still in place, though the bitterness has faded. "But there's no harm in asking, right?"

Nonchalant as it sounds, there's a slice of honesty with that answer, even though the answer itself is yet another question. Axel really does see no problem with asking Riku what he thinks of all this: if Riku considers the questions too invasive, Axel figures he wouldn't answer at all. Besides, his experience with Riku is limited. He can either work with observations, or he can try a more direct approach.

Given the fact that Riku's obviously met another Axel here before, the redhead's leaning towards the more direct approach.

Riku snorts softly, irritation flickering over his face - he doesn't care to be dismissed by Axel of all people, but well. There isn't much that he can say to that apart of...

"I suppose."

That doesn't mean he likes it. He's met Axel several times during his years in the tower, has watched him from afar before that and well, it's left him with mixed feelings about the Nobody. They've had something of an uneasy truce once at least, the very first time Axel had been here, but... that was a while ago.

Huh. And here Axel thought the Tower didn't have any shops.

He wandered through the place without reservation, casually examining the lifelike figurines as he passed. Dolls and puppets and … nothing else. Weird.

Eventually, he paused to pick one up. Curiosity demanded a closer examination.

As soon as Axel found himself on this particular floor, he knew that it was time for a well-deserved break. Who knew that trying to find as many warm places as possible would be so much work? And to think, he was doing this whole thing without orders from anyone.

He took a seat in one of the oversized chairs. Meaning that, he threw himself into the seat, sliiiiiiid down into an impossible slouch, and folded his arms.

Yup. He looked pretty cozy.

Edited 2013-12-12 23:30 (UTC)

Sephiroth wasn't one of those unfortunate enough to be too-sensitive to the frigid temperatures in the Tower, on account of the self-preservative nature of his innate powers. However fake as indeed the climate also had to be.

Last year had been worse, but he had spent a great amount of that month in a dangerously over-heated state and so hadn't covered up. For a man who was frequently clad in leather anyway, Sephiroth felt chillier than was comfortable but it wasn't anything he couldn't ignore.

Floor 38 was a most convenient lounge to retreat down only one flight of steps into after a workout on the Floor above. Sephiroth strode out from the stairwell, took only a single look over the red-topped bundle in a chair, that appeared to be another resident before passing Axel on his approach to the window that really wasn't one at all. Still the clouds pictured remained a focus point for the silver-haired man's thoughts.

Sephiroth, on the other hand, received more than just a casual glance. Xemnas was Axel's first thought, upon seeing the long silver hair. But no; it was too long, and not the right style. Some Xemnas from another universe, maybe? As the man's silence stretched on, that thought too was dismissed.

If he didn't start pontificating at the clouds — or even acknowledge Axel himself — the man was no Xemnas in his book.

Only so much could be gained by studying someone's back. Eventually, the silence could either be broken, or it could hang around until one of them took their leave.

"Enjoying the view?"

Axel chose to break it.

That silence did extend on for quite a while; Axel could have been forgotten entirely in all the mind that Sephiroth was paying at him. Pondering on the residency isn't something Sephiroth spent a great deal of time doing, after all.

When it was finally broken, Sephiroth blinked out of his reverie and lowered his head some. He imagined he might be able to glimpse at the red-head in the reflection of the window, but soon after the tall silver haired man turned more in the direction of Axel's seat. The grey of the clouds coming in from the window highlighted lighter silver threads in his hair, gleamed off the pauldrons on his shoulders.

"Not particularly. It's very much always the same."

The smooth, deep tones of Sephiroth's voice sounded rather flat in expression. As if he were reciting words he'd repeated several times, to several other people before.

The lack of enthusiasm wasn't lost on Axel, but neither was it noted as anything particularly out of the ordinary. After all, a Nobody had to work to attain the semblance of feeling in their voice. There were times when members of the Organization simply hadn't been up to it.

Axel himself wasn't particularly "fond" of the apathetic, emotionless tone. Saïx, on the other hand, definitely was. After hearing it from his former friend for so long, the redhead tended to simply ignore it.

So, it was with no hesitation at all that he continued, his voice just as casual and unaffected as ever.

"Not much you can get in terms of variety, with nothing but clouds and fog."

"That's true as well."

Sephiroth nodded lightly in Axel's direction. Odd that they look out of windows that weren't really there, to see the same illusions every single time - yet they can still provide the impression of the distance necessary to draw ones thoughts away. Though it did make him wonder what really could be out there on the other side of the wall of the Tower.

"I suppose the illusion helps, to get away."

He curled his lip up a little in distaste at that thought before shaking it off with a single shake of his head. It was very carefully that Sephiroth worded that last, all too aware of how each day finds him sinking further into generalization - considering himself the same as others in the Tower would be the first step in losing himself.

Judging from the way that Sephiroth spoke, Axel guessed that the other man had been in the Tower for a while. Either that, or Sephiroth had something that he felt he needed to get away from. Both could be the case, Axel guessed. Those who had been in the Tower for longer than he had warned Axel about its dangers. Although Axel himself hadn't experienced anything too bad, maybe the other man had.

It was a possibility, but not an answer for why Sephiroth's lip curled the way it did.

"Must get pretty dull, being stuck inside all the time."

During his exploration, Axel had found floors that appeared to be outdoors. But that was all it was: the appearance of being outside, not the reality. Just as he appeared to be human, but was very far from it.

Eternal Torment, whether one kept their thoughts within the walls of the Tower or even if they dared to let them extend outwards away from it. It was all the same, each carried with it it's own sense of hopelessness. That sense of being unable to affect, trapped as they all were inside their bubbles of wireframe cages of film and fluid.

Sephiroth hated all of it, and he made no great secret about it either. Axel would read it plainly in the way that Sephiroth's small curl to an upper lip threatened to turn into a scowl after that comment.

"It does. The same hallways, the same floors. Day in, day out. If days even pass at all."

The reply was guarded at best - Sephiroth doesn't know Axel at all and so naturally must be very careful. His thoughts are very much his own and no one would be allowed to dig very deeply into them.

A little smirk appeared on Axel's own lips. It wasn't a mocking expression, by any means: it settled on his face as easy as breathing. A natural state, as it were.

"Y'know, I've wondered about that. Here I thought things got dull back home, bouncing between work and sleep day after day. But this place?"

He shakes his head. Although the smirk stays in place, his tone drops, clear distaste seeping through otherwise casual words.

"I'm all for vacations. But this seems a whole lot like one big waste of time."

It almost might match one of Sephiroth's own smirks, though recently they had become rare luxuries indeed. Reserved for an occasion on which he might have twisted his heel down on someones nerves or irritated an administrator and felt proud of it, but as it was such endeavors change even less of the bigger picture each time. And they left more of a burning aftertaste behind them.

A single, slow nod followed up Axel's last.

"It would be a waste of time, provided any of us had anything more worthwhile to be doing back home. Whatever differences there might be between a dead Planet and an extended stay in this place."

At that comment, the smirk fell just slightly. Worlds being swallowed up and consumed by darkness was no new thing to the Nobody. The idea that all worlds had been consumed, however — which was the closest comparison Axel had, to what he'd heard had happened to the worlds back home — wasn't a pleasant thought.

"Dead planet, huh? Sounds like you've seen it yourself."

Despite not knowing this man, Axel was curious about what he may have seen, if he had indeed witness what was left of his world. Axel himself hadn't returned to the dead worlds that he'd heard were left behind in his own universe. Should that day come, however, it'd be nice to have some idea of what he may encounter.

"Hmph."

Sephiroth hadn't been back home, ever, since he arrived in the Tower. However he had taken to spending an obscene amount of time glaring into his viewfinder on the Fifth Floor of the Tower. The connection to his Planet told him enough this way, burned the memory of every significant little influence he had gained over the Lifestream into his subconscious. Some might argue it wasn't healthy at all but Sephiroth could not allow himself to forget.

"I go to see it often, on the screens. They aren't subject to the Glamour, after all."

Well, this floor is pretty warm - even away from the baths and sauna themselves, steam billows through the locker rooms and keeps the place warm and humid. The floor could use a wiping down, though; a few scuffs, tinged red with animal blood, lead into the men's locker room and around to a few places inside it, including to one of the lockers and the huge stack of towels.

A few more bloodstains - these looking more like drips from someone's hair - lead into the mixed baths. The "culprit" is there, sunk about as deep into the warm water as he can get without drowning, with red hair (much longer than Axel's) floating around him in the water. His towel is neatly folded on the rim of the bath, just within reach.

At the sound of someone approaching, Asch lifts his head from the water just long enough to see who it is before turning away and closing his eyes again. "Sorry about the blood," he mutters, sinking.

It may as well be a trail of bread crumbs. As Axel diligently follows, he can't help but remember a mission that he went on shortly after returning from C.O. It was him and Roxas, and Roxas couldn't understand why they'd deviated from their original orders in order to investigate a "suspicious character." He'd explained it as "flexible thinking."

Sadly, the same explanation doesn't quite work on himself, when he tries to justify chasing down a blood trail in a place that he's been (repeatedly) warned is dangerous. But it's not as though simple recon is dangerous. Not as long as it's done right. And as long as there's not some nasty heartless waiting in the shadows, ready to pounce....

The trail to the mixed baths does give him pause, but only for a moment. Long enough to remember what Sora said, about the heartless here grinding up feet.

If nothing else, he's prepared for a surprise. What he actually gets is ... some person sitting in a bath. And apologizing about the blood.

Well.

The Nobody shrugs and waves a hand in dismissal — not that someone with their eyes closed can really see that. "Doesn't bother me. Is it yours?"

There's a slight double-take - Axel doesn't look enough like Reno to make Asch care one way or the other, but they sound enough alike that he cracks his eyes for another look. Okay, no, not quite an alter-Reno so whatever.

"No," he says with a bit of a huff. "Mostly, anyway. Had a bad run-in with a couple of violent quail."

He says it like this is something that happens every day, which it almost is.

Violent ... quail?

The Nobody is quiet for a moment, waiting for the punchline. Only ... there isn't one coming. From the looks of this guy, he's being completely serious.

Alright then.

"Really?" he asks. "Didn't know we had aggressive poultry around here. Y'know, they really should have some kinda handout. Or at least a 'Beware of Birds' sign."

Not that he actually thinks such a sign would be posted in this place. From what he's seen so far, dangers go unannounced.

He's supernaturally serious. Axel's attempts at humor get mostly a flat stare.

"The animals on the sixth floor are as likely to attack as run from you when you're hunting them," he says for explanation. "The birds are especially nasty; it's not my first run in with them."

Quail, pheasants, he's had the works. The things you go through for your poultry in here.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), the stare does nothing to deter Axel. After being stared down by so many members of the Organization, he's developed something of an immunity to it.

"Hunting birds, huh?" Or maybe hunting something near them; Axel wasn't sure. "Any particular reason for that?"

Might as well ask. For all he knew, the birds around here might have some kind of magic healing feathers. Or the hunting was because of their aggressive behavior.

At least the guy he's talking to now has a heart to be amused in the first place.

"You can't be so new you've missed the state of the cafeteria." It's said like the reason is obvious. "And with Jason there's not even the certainty that that will remain all month."

No magic feathers here, just food.

"The cafeteria?" he asks. "What, did that carnival appear again?"

Even though it had ended up on the creepy side, Axel's tone suggests that he wouldn't object to such a reappearance. The rides hadn't been his thing, but the food had been good. The warmth had been even better.

Jason's name is known, but the implications that come with it are largely either unknown or disregarded. Axel's never experienced a month with Jason in charge.

As for the cafeteria's severe lack of selection: it doesn't enter Axel's thoughts. Sure, it's not great, but that just makes it ... not great. Nothing to dwell on.

search for something warm

floor 100 ❧ december 5th

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apologies for the delay

It's good!

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floor 54 ❧ december 10th

floor 38 ❧ december 13th

Floor 38 - Dec 13th

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sorry for the wait!

no problem! Hope you're having a good christmas!

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apologies (again) for the delay

/is technically on hiatus now until after moving - plmk if you want to handwave the rest of this!

[saunaaaaaaaaaaaaa I forget what the floor number is w/e]

77! C: just need to decide the day~

probably sometime late I don't want to backdate too far - 12th?

sounds great! /o/

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