Sector 5 Church, Midgar, Gaia, Friday Late Night

[intraspective]

This time of night all the good boys and girls were in bed.

At least, they usually were in the stories. Ino knew far, far too much about how Midgar (and life in general) worked to think that being up late was any real indicator of good or badness.

She didn't have to be out tonight, patrolling, and she wasn't officially on the clock anyway (not that that meant much) but she'd been away for the last few weeks, out in Wutai since it was easy for her to pass as a native there, and so she wanted to reacquaint herself with her home.

Midgar was an ugly city, all dark metal, rust, and green smoke skies. She still thought it was beautiful, when she saw the flicker and glitter of mako lit streetlights and the old empty-eyed fallen trains. Beautiful in a lonely sort of way, which suited her mood completely.

There'd been no time, out in Wutai to celebrate her birthday (she was twenty-two now), and while the Turks had offered to take her out tonight, none of them had been surprised when she'd begged off. They could go drinking without her.

As she usually did, when she was in this sort of mood, her footsteps ghosted her to Aerith's church. This time of night, Aerith wasn't there. Aerith was (mostly) a good girl.

Letting the door slip shut behind her, Ino approached the flowers, somehow lit by the moon despite the plate overhead (she knew, she'd gone looking once and it still didn't make sense), and knelt down to touch them.

"Hey," she said, smiling slightly as her hair spilled over her shoulders to touch the flowers too. "How've you been? Being good for your mom?"

[OOC: Expecting one, but open for calls/texts, sure.]

Comments

[intraspective]

"We didn't even get a chance to try," she said, sighing. "Thought we had more time to figure it out."

[puppy_fair]

It kind of came out of nowhere... I knew things were bad, but I didn't think Sephiroth would break like that...

There had been so... much... fire...

[intraspective]

"And you got stuck in the middle of it all," she said tiredly.

[puppy_fair]

Tell me about it...

Zack was tired, too. For different reasons, perhaps, but the overall effect was the same.

Is there ANYTHING you're looking forward to? Anything at all?

[intraspective]

"I..."

It was a sad thing, that she had to think about it.

"I got an email from the island," she said, after a bit. "Invitin' me to Homecoming."

[puppy_fair]

Homecoming, huh?

That was... actually kind of neat. Zack hadn't thought about the school in a while, really, unless he was remembering the people.

Are you going to go? You should, I think.

[intraspective]

"I don't know," she admitted. "I hadn't really thought of it. It's been a long time. Who knows if I'd even know anyone there?"

[puppy_fair]

You won't know if you don't go, Zack pointed out. And if you don't know anybody, introduce yourself to someone. Make some friends. Can't hurt, right? The island's cavalry is usually pretty good. And I should know.

...

Do they still have a reserves, do you think?

Priorities.

[intraspective]

"Maybe they do," she said, since it was easier than addressing anything else. "There's got to be people who can fight on the island still."

[puppy_fair]

Well, where would they be if there weren't any? All it would take would be one big invasion to do them in, you know?

There. Easy conversation. They always seemed to circle back to this sort of thing eventually. Maybe Zack's imagination didn't want to cough up the hard topics. Maybe his heart didn't.

I kind of miss that. I mean, not that it was necessarily a good time being overrun by monsters, but...

Okay, no, he was SOLDIER. It was always a good time being overrun by monsters. It gave him a challenge.

[intraspective]

"Oh, please," she scoffed. "You expect me to believe that? You love monster invasions."

So did she, quite honestly. It had been one of their first points in common.

[puppy_fair]

Okay, yeah, Zack had to laugh a little at that.

Yeah, he admitted. They kept me on my toes, you know? I can't complain about that, really, can I?

[intraspective]

"Not even a little," she said lightly. "Being kept on your toes is good. It means you don't stagnate. Which means you're less... likely to make dumb mistakes."

Which he wasn't going to make because he was dead. Great.

[puppy_fair]

Well, hey, never too late for self-improvement, right?

I guess that was what I needed all along... more monsters.

As though he hadn't been drowning in the stupid things before Sephiroth took him down, right?

[intraspective]

"You think it would've been better with more monsters?" Ino wondered, mostly seriously.

They'd had enough monsters at that time, hadn't they?

[puppy_fair]

Well, if they were going to be serious about it... Zack frowned a little.

No, he settled on, finally. I've actually just completely had it with monsters. They're more trouble than they're worth.

And they had a funny way of breaking his heart.

[intraspective]

"I think we just had too many monsters all at once," she said. "No time to rest. It got to be too much. Don't know what I'd do if there was never a monster again though."

[puppy_fair]

Deal with all the other stuff, I guess? I mean, the war is over, but there'll always be threats against ShinRa, even if they aren't monsters, right?

Not that Zack was feeling particularly charitable towards ShinRa these days, really. But... he wanted Ino to have a place she felt she belonged in, especially since he couldn't be there for her.

There's always a use for a Turk. It's SOLDIER who should be worried. No war and no monsters makes us redundant.

Overkill, Zack. It made you overkill.

[intraspective]

"We could always loan you out," she said, a bit impishly. "SOLDIER for hire, to deal with all those dangerous things the ordinary person can't handle on their own."

It wasn't really something she'd have said while he was alive, but he wasn't, so it didn't matter.

[puppy_fair]

Oh, hey, I bet I could do birthday parties!

Hey, if they were joking about it...

[intraspective]

"You'd be a real hit," she agreed. "Though I think you ought to stay away from pinata games."

[puppy_fair]

Wait, it isn't normal to send the pinata flying clear into the next sector? I thought they were just impressed by how much distance that thing got...

Zack could totally handle a pinata.

When he wasn't in a tube.

[intraspective]

Or when he wasn't being the pinata...

"Definitely not normal," she said. "I mean, not everyone finds hunting down the insides of it in the next sector fun."

[puppy_fair]

Well, you couldn't win 'em all...

But then it becomes a scavenger hunt! And if the monsters were gone, it isn't like it would be as dangerous as it could be, right?

[intraspective]

"There'd still be wild animals! And people!" she protested, laughing. "I wouldn't mind, but imagine trying to run a kids party that way?"