just a day in the life.

[mostlycloudy]

Who; Cloud Strife (mostlycloudy) and you!
What; Making his way downtown; some memory threads/catch-all
Where; Multiple Locations
When; Throughout January
Warnings; Only what may come up in memory threads; will update accordingly



Cloud's occupation took him many places in and outside the city, and he wasn't about to let the snow impede his progress. What was his occupation? Nothing in particular, and yet everything. He did odd-jobs for people around the city: clearing out direrats, eliminating giant roach infestations in the Docks, whatever someone might be willing to pay him for, really. Today he'd been lucky enough to have been near a merchant's stall when he'd overheard the man grumbling about needing some textiles delivered to the noble district. He knew there was a delivery service around town, but Tommy had enough clientele to share and Cloud could use the coin.

Later, his delivery made, he's making his way back south towards the markets when a glitter catches his attention from a small drift of snow and he stoops to retrieve it. He'd been paying enough attention to the network to know what it might mean, but curiosity won out in the end. A sharp intake of breath sounded as his fingers touched the crystal in the snow and images flooded his mind.

(OOC: If you'd like Cloud to have found one of your character's crystals, just let me know! You can PM this journal or hit me up on discord (vikael#0221) or plurk (vikael. If you'd like to simply run into him for general threads, feel free to start a prompt below!

Some prompts are closed for planned shenanigans! Also, if you'd like to have anyone find one of his memories, they're right here!)

Comments

Closed to Aerith | Content Warning: Hojo is a psycho

[mostlycloudy]

For the most part, Cloud tried to ignore the memories that flashed through his mind whenever he picked up the crystals around town. They weren't his business, and addressing them just made them his problem, something he wasn't a fan of as a general rule. One crystal, though, didn't allow him to ignore it. He knew Hojo was a madman. Though his memories were fragmented, he knew that much. He still wasn't clear on what Hojo had done to him, but it had been enough to know it was part of the reason he had trouble thinking about the time.

He'd known Aerith had been in his custody, that Hojo had a vested interest in the Ancients, and he'd known as soon as she was taken he had to save her, but he hadn't know what she'd suffered at his hands, and hadn't known Hojo had known her mother. He needed to talk to her. Aerith, however, often proved hard to pin down, which meant he was going to do something he didn't do often.

He pulled out the cellphone they'd been given and sent her a quick text.

Hey. Where can I find you?

[cetrary]

There was no denying Aerith could be a bit difficult. Not only was she strong willed (read as stubborn) but she also kept a lot to herself. It hadn't always been her choice, but at this point she wasn't entirely sure if it wouldn't have been the choice she'd have made regardless of the outside forces. With the things she knew it really did just seem easier to keep it all to herself. Everyone else had plenty of their own issues to worry about, especially Cloud.

Poor Cloud. He had so much in his head and on his plate and she knew there was a lot more to come. The fact that memories were coming down now was definitely a worrisome thing for her. What would he end up finding? Nothing she hoped. Nothing at all. But would they actually be that lucky? The text she got told her that the answer there was probably not.

My garden of course. Do you need me to come meet you somewhere?

[mostlycloudy]

No. I'll come to you.

He started off immediately, though he had no idea what he was going to say when he got there. Hojo's madness was no surprise, and he knew that was personal knowledge, but a headache flashed behind his eyes anytime he tried to examine why; what that meant. Did he know Hojo's experiments were as mad as they were damaging because he'd heard so many people talking about it or was it something more, something...intimate? He couldn't remember, or his mind would let him remember, but he knew Hojo's words were true: he wasn't a SOLDIER. He didn't know what he was.

Well, that wasn't true. He was a bodyguard, damn it.

He stepped into her little grove carefully, mindful of any plants that may be blooming near the entrance. "Hey."

[cetrary]

Okay! See you soon :)

Things could never just be simple, could they? The thought popped into her mind out of nowhere and she couldn't figure out why. It was just this foreboding feeling that had fallen over her after he said he'd come to her.

"We'll just have to see, won't we?" she said to the flowers as she heard him approach. She brushed some of the dirt off her hands and stood up to smile at him.

"Hey there, stranger."

[mostlycloudy]

"Hey," his response was casual. He'd heard her voice as he'd approached and looked around at her already beautiful garden, blooming in abundance even in the middle of winter. She really was amazing.

"Have these learned how to talk to you?"

[cetrary]

"Not yet, but I think I'm working towards a breakthrough," she said with a little smile. Of course, that wasn't exactly true, but it also wasn't entirely untrue either. That was something she was particularly good at: sprinkling just enough truth into things to make things easier to just go along with.

"So...what did you want to talk about?" Might as well get it over with.

[mostlycloudy]

"That's good to hear." He wasn't sure he particularly believed her, there was something about her demeanor that suggested she wasn't being completely truthful, but if there was one thing he'd come to learn about Aerith, it was that she often omitted information, or at the very least, downplayed it.

He cleared his throat at her question, rubbing the back of his neck as the situation came down to it. How did you even breach the subject of Hojo?

"Have you noticed the weird crystals falling with the snow?"

[unbreakable_king]

Well met, Cloud. The merchant distract was where Rhy spent much of his time, so of course he was there when Cloud received the deal from man grumbling about textiles. Rhy himself was less than pleased by the deal because he had been trying to get those same fabrics, but he'd been beaten out, so he let it go.

But recognizing the blond... HE smiled at Cloud.

"Well, if it isn't Aerith's beekeeper friend!"

[mostlycloudy]

He looked toward the man for a moment, torn. On the one hand, he didn't want to deal with whatever this guy was talking about, but on the other, he wanted to know how this guy knew about him in the first place. He frowned at the comment, crossing his arm.

"Beekeeper?"

[unbreakable_king]

Yes, of course beekeeper. Rhy smiles happily at him.

"You are Cloud, right? Miss Aerith told my husband you worked with honeybees."

Clearly something was misunderstood.

[mostlycloudy]

"That I worked with-"

Wait.

"Well, I don't." He sighed, shaking his head. "I helped someone take down a guy he hated. He ran a place called the Honeybee Inn."

[unbreakable_king]

"Oh, so you only helped the bees," Rhy said, smiling at him. He understood better now.

[mostlycloudy]

"I helped a friend." He did not understand better. "...Helping Andrea was just...convenient."

[unbreakable_king]

"Ah, so HE is the keeper of bees and you just assisted him!" Rhy said with a smile. "Were you paid in part in honey?"

[gadaboutdetective]

Llewellyn had been out for most of the day at this point, trying to get some things done in all this weather.

He’d stopped a few times already, or been stopped, to talk and help people reorient themselves after running into a crystal that was more jarring than some others were. There were… A lot of memories, it seemed, and many of them a bit overwhelming with feelings that weren’t your own. Spotting a familiar head of hair (an understatement), the detective altered his course with a slight wobble at the speed he usually walked. Slipping a little on the icy cobblestones, but just keeping himself from falling over as he started in the direction of Cloud, as the man seemed to be working.

He’d seen… Well, a few things that day, and when he could offer someone their memory crystal back, he was making a point of doing so until something could be done about them. Cloud was one of said people, and he raised a hand in a wave, “Excuse me, sorry to uh- interrupt. Just want to have a word, if you have a moment?” Llewellyn was never as sure of how to approach Cloud. He didn’t know the man as well as he knew Aerith, for obvious reasons.

[mostlycloudy]

Cloud wasn't exactly a welcoming figure at any rate. He turned at Llewellyn approached, brow knitted slightly as the man came closer. He had a nervous energy to him that put Cloud on edge, but that might just have been how easily annoyed he was. Well, and awkward. He didn't know how to have a normal conversation with most people and it showed. Still, he'd been trying to be more personable with people as of late, mostly at Aerith's urging.

"Sure. What's up?"

[gadaboutdetective]

Well, at least Llewellyn had some experience with people who had particularly serious moods or were easily annoyed. Generally because he was prone to annoying people, of course. Sometimes it just took people a while to warm up to him, and he was stubborn. There were so many things he rather wanted to ask the man, but they both had a penchant for keeping rather busy, it seemed. “Uh- well, what with all this… Crystal memory chaos.” He gestured a hand vaguely around in the air to indicate the continued issue. He really wasn’t sure how to refer to it otherwise.

“I’ve been trying to… keep the ones I’ve run across safe? To return to the people they belong to, and I believe I’ve got one of yours?” He rummaged around in his pockets, the overcoat and suit jacket alike, random slips of paper escaping as he did. It took a moment or two, but he finally found the right handkerchief (he’d been using the various monogrammed and floral embroidered ones Rhy had made him to identify what was what) adorned with golden yellow stitched flowers and held it out. “Ah, here we are.”

His expression shifted slightly, a little awkward, “Er- I’m pretty sure it’s yours, anyway. I apologize, none of us mean to see these, but…” He shrugged with a wince. He was clumsy and had developed a habit of catch and fussing with things without much thought beforehand. Still, this one had felt… Terribly personal between him and Aerith. It gave an interesting perspective to the two of them, especially given his own hypothesis concerning them. So many of the words were not entirely dissimilar to things he and Rhy had said to one another, though the end had been… sad. It sounded complicated in many ways.

[mostlycloudy]

Cloud hadn't really had anything in particular he'd been expecting to be handed over anything else, but one of those memory crystals? He wasn't sure how he felt about that one in particular. Gingerly, he took the offered handkerchief, but didn't unwrap the crystal enveloped within for fear of what the crystal may show him. What if it was something he couldn't or wouldn't remember? Did he even want to know?

"What is it?"

Evidently he did.

[gadaboutdetective]

Llewellyn could understand that fear somewhat… Back at the Sphere, he’d confessed to not always remembering things and a fear of a memory share he didn’t recognize himself due to a few interactions in his world where he’d been told something or other he’d said or done and didn’t remember. Someone had offered to help him at the time, but… They had never been time, and Llewellyn had let the idea go.

Not knowing any better, of course, the detective was surprised when Cloud left the memory wrapped in the handkerchief. Somehow it seemed like it might’ve been less awkward for them both if he had, but Llewellyn rubbed the back of his neck lightly as he tried to think of a good way to explain what he’d seen. “It was you and Aerith? You were having a conversation amidst flowers on a hill at night… There were rather interesting lights in the sky, reminded me of the aurora borealis, a bit…” He described it absentmindedly, one thought interrupting another as something stood out randomly.

Llewellyn wasn’t sure if that would be enough to indicate what memory it was. For all he knew, the setting might have been a regular one for the two to talk. Perhaps that was why Cloud had seen her there when clearly she was expected to be elsewhere at the time. “It seemed like she was there with you, but also… not really there the more the conversation went on? The way you both were talking, it seemed as much.” He shook his head. It wasn’t really like anything he’d ever seen before.

[mostlycloudy]

Cloud could do little to hide the surprise on his face as he looked back down to the handkerchief in his hand, wrapped around what was a much more precious memory than he'd originally thought. There were large pieces of his memory missing, but that? That he remembered vividly.

He didn't look up from the handkerchief as he spoke. "It was a dream. Aerith..." He trailed off for a moment, not sure how to explain. "She was kidnapped, but...she has...abilities." He shook his head. "I don't know how they work, but she was in my dream that night."

[areasontohope]

Yuki was patiently waiting at the chocobo post. Mister Strife was supposed to be meeting up with him here and he felt a little antsy, looking at how big these birds were. Sure they were beautiful and all that but it was still a little dizzying to think that he would be up on one of their backs at some point today.

He kept himself to a part of the fence and decided that he was going to just do that until the man who'd promised to assist him showed up. He was determined to learn because as he'd seen, the chocobos could go really fast and it might help him if something happened again as had happened with the monster attack that slew Caelan and Jacob both.

[mostlycloudy]

When Cloud set an appointment, he did his best to keep the time, and so it was around the scheduled time that he approached. Good business, Tifa had taught him, would be including the fees for Chocobo rental in the lesson, and that was just what he intended to do.

He didn't know how to teach, but he could try. It'd been a while since he'd even ridden a chocobo, but he remembered from his youth enjoying the company of the beasts. This...shouldn't be too hard, right?

"Hey," he said as he approached. "Glad you made it." He looked to the post and the one chocobo he'd rented. Yuki didn't need to start off on anything crazy, after all. "Have you ever been around chocobos before?"

[areasontohope]

Yuki had come prepared with money he'd earned from work. Maybe he had more than Mister Strife was going to ask him for, but it would be worth it even if it did cost him everything he had.

It was hard to figure out how much currency to have when you didn't know how much you were being charged. So he brought quite a bit, because it was way better to be overprepared than be underprepared.

And no amount could repay being taught this important thing.

But Yuki looked up at hearing the man's voice and he smiled. "Thank you for helping me." The smile was there for just a moment before it faded. "I have a blue chocobo chick, but that's from here. We don't have them where I'm from at all."

[mostlycloudy]

One day the lessons an old friend had tried to give him on the idea of employment would sink in, and Cloud would know how to run a business, but today was not that day. He nodded at Yuki's response to his question, moving over to the beast he'd rented for the day, holding out a hand toward its beak in greeting, not moving forcefully, but taking his time.

"Where I'm from, they're used for a lot of things: farm work, hauling things, travel.  Cars and trucks are starting to take over, but there aren't many roads for them yet, not outside of big cities, so chocobos are important, but they can be startled easily. I know, when you raise them from a chick, like yours, they're loyal, but the adults don't trust easily." He looked over to Yuki. "Introduce yourself. Slow, let him smell you."

[areasontohope]

He watched Cloud who seemed like a definite pro when it came to the bigger birds. Yuki liked them well enough but avoided them for the most part because he wasn't sure how they would react to him. But then again of course the blonde man was going to make this look easy because he was used to the birds and their quirks, or even if he wasn't used to them, he'd been around them plenty and knew what to do and look for.

Meanwhile, he nodded at hearing how the birds worked back in Cloud's world. It almost sounded like farming to him, but then he was a city boy. Little Haru was here somewhere, no doubt hanging around the other adults or maybe he was with the other growing chicks. And then it was his turn.

So he slowly walked over because he'd seen some of the adults startle and they could put up a fight with those legs. So he held his hand out to it and looked over at the other man. "Like this?"