Junon, Gaia, Thursday Afternoon

[raspberryturk]

Junon, Reno supposed, wasn't half bad. Sure as hell better than Edge, which he couldn't wait to get the hell out of, especially after that weird-assed argument in Tseng's kitchen.

Tseng's ex-kitchen, Reno supposed.

He was sitting in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant on one of the city's lower levels, the world's crappiest coffee slowly dissolving a coffee mug in one hand, waiting for somebody in particular. He'd left Edge a little early, dragged a few of the boxes of paperwork along with him so that Rude wouldn't have to haul it all here, and then he'd started to poke around.

Yeah, Junon had suffered a bit since WEAPON's attack. But then, where the hell hadn't?

... Besides Kalm. Lucky, lucky-assed Kalm.

[Open for anyone who might want to call, or who has reason to be in Junon!]

Comments

[turk_mailman]

Ninja. Really, Tseng knew what they were like, well enough.

"Does it count as a secret, do you suppose, if you never would have known about it but for a quirk of fate that led you do another reality entirely?"

[intraspective]

"It did not," Ino said, sipping at her lukewarm... water. "Not until I asked questions and found the answers kept from me."

[turk_mailman]

That earned the slightest upward twitch of one of Tseng's eyebrows, yes. Part of him contemplated, for a briefest hint of an instant, if simply putting a bullet between this girl's eyes would give The Planet half a chance.

The rest of him realized that, should Zack realize it was a Turk who did such a thing, The Planet would have a good deal to worry about, as well.

A rock and a hard place, as always.

Tseng hated that damned island.

"Which questions might those be?"

[intraspective]

She studied him for a long while.

"Can you not guess?"

[turk_mailman]

And there, that was the faintest twitch of a smile.

"Sometimes, providing a question is just as good as handing a person the answer."

Which meant, no, he wasn't going to hand her hints in the way of questions he thought she might be asking.

[intraspective]

Ino gave him a blue-eyed stare back, thoughtfully.

"And yet," she mused, "they get so angry when you go looking for those answers."

[turk_mailman]

"Particularly," Tseng mused, "when they've seen first-hand just what it is that they're risking."

That came with a pointed eyebrow raise, yes.

[intraspective]

"And yet, being paralysed with fear does no world any good. The lessons learnt here can save another Gaia."

And Ino really, truly, believed that.

[turk_mailman]

And the kicker was, Tseng could tell.

"When you show him Midgar, do you suppose he'll be in any mind to learn from it?"

Tseng was not naive enough to assume that they would stop at Junon, when she'd already admitted to sneaking into Midgar without Reno's knowing before, and to showing Zack other parts of Gaia on this trip already.

[intraspective]

Ino didn't even have the grace to blush.

"Maybe not right then," Ino said slowly. "He will need time to handle it. But I will learn and I will remember and when he is ready--yes, he'll learn."

[turk_mailman]

"And what, do you suppose, he'll learn?"

Besides what absolute desolation felt like.

[intraspective]

"What will happen if we do nothing but let history repeat itself."

Was that not obvious?

[turk_mailman]

"You don't think that it's changed already?"

Tseng took another careful sip of his... cold water.

Cold, brownish water.

"You didn't figure into his life, here."

[intraspective]

"I know.

Ino's eyes narrowed slightly. Something about that phrasing...

"But I doubt that my mere presence will be enough to stop all of this. I make things easier for Zack. That's my worth at the moment."

[turk_mailman]

"From the sound of it, your Zack has a fair bit more to contend with than ours ever did."

Tseng sighed. The Zack that he knew didn't know what tomorrow would bring. And for a moment he wondered if perhaps that was all the better for him.

Knowing would be almost like torture. Waiting.

"He'll need you."

But then, who did that leave for Aerith?

... He refused to let his brain wander to the possibility that there was a shadow's chance, for some other Tseng...

[intraspective]

"And yet," her voice was a bit sad, "that is all you'll say."

Was it not?

[turk_mailman]

Tseng looked up coolly at her over the top of his tea.

"You still haven't asked your questions."

[intraspective]

"Zack wishes to tell this world's Zack to go visit his parents," she said, arching an eyebrow.

And waiting for a response to that.

[turk_mailman]

"That," Tseng noted, his tone not changing in the least, "is not a question."

And then? More sipping at his tea.

If he was anybody else, he might have cracked.

[intraspective]

"The question is implied."

Her tone was carefully pleasant and empty as a sunny sky. "We wish to know where this world's Zack is."

[turk_mailman]

Leviathan help him, they didn't know.

"You'll have a difficult time finding him," he replied, not untruthfully. "I, personally, haven't seen him in years."

[intraspective]

"And why wouldn't the Turks and SOLDIER associate with each other. Two halves of ShinRa's coin."

And that, she thought, was a fair enough question.

[turk_mailman]

"There is no SOLDIER anymore."

Tseng finished off his tea.

"The Turks remained together out of loyalty to one another, not to the company. SOLDIER had no such compunctions."

This, too, was truth. It was also gross misdirection. And Tseng would dish it out shamelessly.

[intraspective]

"Lies." An accusation. "I know Zack better than anyone. His honour would not have him leave ShinRa so easily. Or a friend."

[turk_mailman]

Tseng's eyebrow quirked again.

"And what, then, do you suppose the explanation is? How can you be certain that our Zack and yours are so similar?"