ⅴ┆a storm this way comes

[shrugs_a_lot]

[Did the weather forecast say something about having a nice sunny day today? Well, they were wrong!

Distant thunder can be heard over the journals, a storm is coming and it shows. There is a drop of water on the pages, then two... Then it seems someone left the tap open over the journal because it's suddenly pouring over it. Then the rain moves away but the thunder goes on and it can be heard passing by the corridors.

Hello people in the lobby, there is thunder and rain coming down the stairs. And at first you don't know who left the windows open, but apparently outside it's sunny and cloudless! So what the hell is going on?!

Oh, there seems to be your problem. Have a little stormy Ccloud coming from upstairs, moving slowly as clouds tend to move when there is a gentle breeze, only, there isn't any breeze coming from anywhere.

It must be your imagination but is that cloud a little spiky or something?

Huh... Run get your umbrellas!]


{{Loss start! There won't be journal replies but feel free to have your characters react to it and/or to find him passing by the corridors and lobby.}}

Comments

[doublethefun]

[have a pony looking askance at the mess. She frowns and opens a window before stepping towards the wayward cloud.]

Whatever art thou doing here?

[shrugs_a_lot]

[Huh? The cloud--well, Cloud, suddenly stops and the thunder and rain diminish considerable. How is he even supposed to answer that? So he... simply floats there.]

[doublethefun]

[wow, weather here sure is weird. At least she doesn't expect a cloud to respond.

Welp. Blue magic grabs him and he's halfway out the window before she notices a sodden journal underhoof. And continues pushing him out the window anyway.]

[shrugs_a_lot]

[WHAT, WHAAAAAAT!? What is this ... ... winged thing doing!?

Hey you! Stop that! Ah, but he cannot speak!

BROOOOM He gets all thundery again, but he cannot control it yet though he's aiming some lighting at the winged being.]

[doublethefun]

[there's a surprised yelp as the bolts land - but she just shakes herself and doesn't look any worse for the wear. Eyes narrowed, she launches herself into the air and prods him with a hoof instead. What the hell kind of cloud is this??]

Saturday 07/07/2012 || Sunday 07/08/2012

[bustered]

Zack was starting to get used to a routine. It was a good thing, being that he felt a little lost in this place people told him was Paradisa. It just didn't feel like paradise to him; it felt too... strange. It wasn't perfect, simply because in too many ways it seemed too perfect. But that faux perfection only made him dwell on what seemed a common theme to everyone: loss. The castle took something from people, he'd been told as much, but he had no idea what it had taken from him. An optimist might call it a good thing -- one could not miss what one did not know one once had -- but Zack was too much a realist these days. A realist and a pessimist perhaps; he wondered if Cloud's lack of memory of him was in fact Zack's loss, that he lost what he meant to others. There was no way of knowing though, and no way of finding out for sure, and Zack knew he shouldn't spend all of his time dwelling on it. Maybe all he needed was a routine to help him adjust, and when he'd fallen into the habit of morning workouts with a certain blond, things in general had gotten a little easier. Get up, chat and maybe tease a little over squats and weights and some time with the punching bags, shower and grab a bite together, and go about their separate ways.

And then Cloud... well, Cloud had disappeared. Oh, his name was still on the doorplate, and Zack had followed a trail of water down to the castle lobby. But it had disappeared there, and he was left without sign of either the blond or the water. It was like Cloud had just vanished into thin air -- like the clouds in the sky.

After leaving a note in the journal, just in case, Zack had gone to train on his own.

The same happened the next day, and the day after that: Zack went down to the fifth floor, knocked on Cloud's door, wrote him a note, and ultimately went to the gym on his own. And it was good, in a way; he felt like he didn't have to watch himself, didn't have to watch what he did or what he said as he tried to figure the blond out. And because he didn't have to watch himself, he actually could watch himself; taking care with a healing body, stretching properly, getting himself back up to where he knew he should be. The time alone helped; by the fourth day, Zack was feeling more than well enough to work out with his usual intensity, pushing his body to its limits, pleased when muscles responded as they should. He wasn't holding himself back anymore, and it showed in movements both stronger and faster than he'd allowed himself thus far.

The worry that maybe he'd dreamed up Cloud might have been good workout fuel.

It was a niggling sensation, something tickling the back of his mind every time he thought he could ignore it. Hermione's words rang strong with him: a person was still in the castle if his name was still on the doorplate. And Cloud's name had not disappeared; Zack made sure to detour down to that door every time he passed through the fifth floor. Obsessed much? Perhaps, but he couldn’t help it. He was still trying to reconcile in his own mind that he wasn't dead, that Cloud was okay, that Cloud remembered him, and that somehow he still had the Buster Sword even though he knew he gave it to Cloud, and that Cloud also had it even though Zack still carried it himself.

There were times, late at night and alone, where he wondered if he hadn't dreamed up everything. Martel and Hermione, Uru and Rude and Reno, the faces and voices of other men and women and even creatures, a magical castle filled with ghosts where almost every wish was granted. There was simply no way that it could be real, right?

But it couldn't be the Lifestream either, that he kept telling himself. Zack believed, with all his heart -- and with more than that as he lay on that cold cliff, his heart failing as life bled from him -- that in death, when he entered the Lifestream, he would once more see Angeal. There was no sign anywhere in the castle of his mentor; there was no way Zack could be dead.

And if he wasn't dead, he might as well train as he had in life.

On the fifth day -- still no sign of Cloud -- he skipped the gym entirely. With the Buster Sword at his back, Zack headed out to the castle grounds, his intent to find sunlight and warmth and space to really stretch and swing the sword. He was not disappointed. Actually, he would have been surprised if the lawns were not perfectly manicured and kept. But of course they were, and he spent most of the day outside: working out in the morning, laying on the grass and cloud watching after a quick lunch, and working out again in the afternoon. It was addictive to get outside and really move again, and when he finally returned to his room that night, he was grateful for two things: a hot shower to soothe a sore body, and a soft bed in which to collapse. The sweaty uniform had been hastily folded into a laundry bin in the bathroom, and Zack lazily pulled on a pair of loose sleep pants (incredibly soft; he couldn't remember owning a pair this nice himself). Not caring at all about a shirt -- he'd gotten good at ignoring his reflection lately, the scars of all the bullets that had riddled his chest, torso and arms -- he'd taken a moment to dash a quick note to Cloud in the journal before closing his eyes and letting sleep claim him.

[bustered]

It's a deep sleep, and long -- long enough that the sun is shining, albeit muted by curtains, when Zack rolls onto his back, the sheet slipping down a little. Hair tousled from sleep, head turned to the side, and one hand resting on the pillow by his head he dozes on, unaware of the time of morning, or that there could be anything unusual about the morning ahead of him. His brow wrinkles just a little bit, a fragment of a dream drifting across his subconscious, before it passes and he quiets once more.

[shrugs_a_lot]

[To be a cloud and not allow the winds to take him over the skies? It would have been ridiculous to avoid it! The sensation was phenomenal, and for several days Cloud let the winds take him away, it was a nice sensation... He didn't want to go too far from the castle in case he suddenly turned back into himself, it wouldn't have been good if that happened, so he kept himself close and observed what the others did from the heights. But in the end it was a little boring.

After a few days, he had gotten better at moving himself faster, he had noticed that if he didn't get all fuzzy about being a cloud, his body was lighter; something to do with humidity or something scientific about rain and thunder and et cetera.

He suddenly got an idea, why hadn't he thought of it earlier? Cloud drifted to a side of the castle, counted the windows, entering his room and checking it around! He hadn't been there almost all week, the door had closed on him after he had left the first time, and he didn't really had the need to get back since all he'd do was wet his bed, and he didn't want to do that.

Nothing was different, even his journal and everything that he had rained on was dry already; probably the castle's doing again. Hey, wait, there is something different in fact, where did those notes come from?

Hovers over them to read them and... Aw man, he had forgotten about Zack. Well! No! Not like that... But he would have never thought that he'd worry so much him disappearing a few days--granted that he had tried to let him know, but being unable to talk, to write, or to even move properly, he had given up to try to contact him in the conventional way. Now the poor guy was thinking he was avoiding him.

Ah... He should probably try to fix that.

Flying though his window, he started counting them as he had counted to find his and hoped he wasn't entering an stranger's room. This one had to be it. Zack's... Ah! The curtains were on his way, but he just wets them as he passes through them. This is so cool in its own way!

... and the guy in question is sleeping... And he's not going to lie, he envies him a little. When this ends he's going to hog his own bedsheets and not leave it a good while.

Hovers over him and since he can't poke him to wake up he goes...]

BROOOOOM!

[bustered]

[Zack had been chasing fragments of a dream -- snow and wind, steel and gunshots -- the whole thing indistinct and detached as if it was maybe a dream of a dream. The morning is peaceful and perhaps he'll just doze and work out a little later than usual...

...of course, that's before his sleep is interrupted by what sounds like Thundaga going off right above his head. He's awake instantly, reflexes pulling him from reclined to crouched on the floor, sword in hand and guard up in half a minute. He's ready to either defend himself or spring to the relative safety of a more advantageous position when the input from his eyes catches up to his brain: the room's empty save for himself and what appears to be a storm cloud. It's strange and he's more than a little wary, expecting a trick, but he slowly straightens, casting a glance toward the open window.]

Huh. How'd you get in here?

[Normally Zack wouldn't spend time in conversation with something so inanimate, but he's still a little fuzzy from sleep.]

[shrugs_a_lot]

[Though the window of course--ah let's show him because it's the only thing he can do right now. Cloud floats next to the window. There you go.

Ah, this is gonna be harder than he thought...]

[fishy_go_byebye]

[Del was treated to a drenched lap, with that little thunderstorm, but she isn't so much annoyed as curious. Especially when the owner of her soakedness came drifting down the stairs.]

You lost something.

[shrugs_a_lot]

[Excuse him if he doesn't say hello... But he does stop next to her, hovers right in front of her and there is a little thunder as a reply. He's definitely not happy about this.]

[fishy_go_byebye]

Grumpy.

[She decides that describes it nicely, and closes her journal with a squelch.]

[shrugs_a_lot]

[Hey! It's not nice to wake up like a mass of stuff and water! But he gets the hint and stops the rain thing, still looking stormy enough.]

[fishy_go_byebye]

You'll run out of yourself.

[Tsk tsking at him, she tries to reach out and brush his lost water back into his cloudness.]

[is0latedthinker]

[Cloud you got his snack all wet! Alan's just leaving the kitchen.]

What the--

[shrugs_a_lot]

[Did you say something?

Thunder, thunder...]

[is0latedthinker]

Since when did the Castle start letting in mini thunderstorms?

[shrugs_a_lot]

[Since there is a guy named Cloud to mess with... Either way, Cloud passes next to this man, he's not in the mood for chatting, you see?]

[is0latedthinker]

[Alan will be going to...dry off his food.]

What will it come up with next...

[ninjainviolet]

[Sheena's shaking her sopping wet journal out the window, amazed that none of the writing has disappeared. Satisfied that it's not going to overflow again, she closes it, and takes advantage of his size-changing abilities to slip it into her obi. Turning, she stops when she spots the peculiar-looking cloud coming down the stairs.]

Now, how did you get in here?

[shrugs_a_lot]

[Said cloud enters the lobby slowly and stops to look around, or at least that's what it appears to be doing. What is he supposed to do now being like this?!

Oh, is this person talking to him? Hmm... well you see, he can't talk so he'll just make some thunders there.]

[ninjainviolet]

[Sheena's staring at the revolving cloud, her eyes fixed on that one pointed spot as it does so. The thunder makes her jump slightly, and taking it for an angry tone, she narrows her eyes as she replies.]

It's a good question. You usually don't see clouds inside, now do you?

[shrugs_a_lot]

[Well, no, you don't but... This is ridiculous... Excuse him, he's not exactly in the best of the moods, but at least there isn't another bunch of thunder or lightning coming from him.]

[ninjainviolet]

[Thank god for that, since thunder's loud to begin with, and inside it's even worse. Now that it's calmed down, she gives the cloud a smile.]

That's better. I'd like to help you if I can.