supersoldier | ( PRISMA INBOX )

[It’s all he knew. What he was trained for, what he ended up being created for, though his knowledge of his origins certainly do not extend that far. But he always existed for a singular purpose — to be deadly strong, quickly efficient, strategic and never hesitating. Shinra's sharpest weapon in their vast armory, used as intended.

Sephiroth is very aware of this, but his vision so obscured by what he’s always done, what his role has always been, that he isn’t so aware to see why being unable to answer her question is… problematic to most people.

After all, to him it’s odd that Aerith believes training, fighting, clashing swords and sharpening skills can’t be enough of an answer.]

There were always mission reports to file. [That was the mildest sarcasm, please don’t take that for a sincere answer. He continues just so she doesn’t.]

Is it so odd to you that a man trained to be in SOLDIER for years would skew his interests towards combat?

Well...

[Unseen, her hands twist anxiously in her lap.]

A little bit? Most people aren't the sum of their work. Like —

[There's the sound of her shifting around. Really she's just hanging upside down on her couch, letting the blood rush to her head. At a distance from him, she finds it easier to relax — it's as if he's less real somehow, or like she can separate the Sephiroth she knew and the Sephiroth this man appeared to be a little easier.] I love flowers! It's something I'm good at taking care of. If all I did was sell and grow them, though, I'd be pretty bored myself. Sometimes I'd do other things. Like haggle in the markets, you know? Or go to see that play that ran every year... Loveless? Read a book, or practice with my staff, or help my mother air out the linen... that part wasn't as fun.

I just wondered, that's all... if you ever felt restless, working all the time.

[Her end reveals shuffling over the audio, whereas Sephiroth is the opposite — quiet footsteps as he crosses over to his apartment window (where upon a stout table next to the windowsill sits a fishbowl, housing a little shiny goldfish that swims in lazy circles) but not much else.]

I think I would be restless if I wasn’t working.

[Which is how he feels now. Why he seeks out those who can spar with him, why he threw himself into the recent Moon Knight’s mission against zealous cultists even though he had criticized their desperation to her not that long ago.]

So you’re going to find my answer lacking. I didn’t make time for things like gardening, or have any inclination to see a play that’s already been drilled into my head. Sometimes I’d read, maybe, but if this boils down to asking what my hobbies are... I don’t know what to tell you.

Hm.

[There's a lull on her end, wherein she tries to figure out an appropriate response that isn't too forward. Normally, she would not be so cautious, but it was Sephiroth. Some discretion was warranted.]

If you don't have an answer, that's fine. I don't mean to pry. I was only curious. There's a lot of downtime here, after all.

... You've seen Loveless before?

[A pause, barely-there, his tone just a notch colder.]

No.

[Though it’s hardly any fault of hers that the associations run unkind.]

Another SOLDIER would always recite parts of that play by heart to me. Again and again, until I had it as memorized as him. I was more than familiar with it.

[The drop in tone surprises her, makes her tense by wary instinct.]

Oh. ... An odd play to quote. It's a tragedy. Kind of overwrought, I always felt. But my mom, she loved it.

[She does not ask about the other SOLDIER. It seems wise not to press her luck.]

You know. I was wondering. Were you born in Midgar? SOLDIERs have leave too, right?

[It’s best, maybe, that she not pursue it. Genesis’ name is marked in his mind by the sting of betrayal, a friendship severed in half without so much as a warning — he would answer her questions if she pressed, but the conversation would run drier, colder.

At least ushering it along seems to dispel some of that same tension.]

Yes. And SOLDIERs have leave if they choose to take it.

[The implication being that he doesn’t.]

Many take the opportunity to see friends and family, usually.

But you don't?

[Of course he wouldn't, she thinks. He thought that... thing was his mother, and that said mother was long dead. But surely someone most have raised him. The idea of a person having no home at all...]

I’ve been with Shinra for as long as I can recall.

[He isn’t hesitant to answer that question, which is so obviously fishing. Upon entry to Nibelheim, he has told the others about his mother, even briefly beginning to mention what little he knew about his father. Both gone from his life, Sephiroth harboring no true memory of either.

Still, there’s no need to delve to deep into the subject at hand, else she start treading on shakier ground — easier to just reply in a generalized manner.]

My mother died shortly after I was born, and my father was never a part of my life. [Both of these are untrue, of course, but ignorance is it’s own form of bliss.]

Shinra is, as a result, a substitute for both friends and family in my case.

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