[Today has been the first time he's felt sunshine on his face since he woke up in that strange hospital ward to machines telling him there was a function he and the others needed to fulfill. With few exceptions, the skies were constantly overcast, thick with clouds that broke only for periods of terrific thunderstorms and pounding rain or memory-scrubbing fog thick enough to cut with a blade.
The change completely transforms the beach and sunset, Cloud finds, is resplendent with color, it reminds him of travel advertisements for Costa del Sol peeling on the walls of small noodle stands and watering holes, mixed in with faded posters of Shinra propaganda and winking pin-ups.
Plenty of other things need doing right now, walking along the shore as night falls isn't checking anything off that ever-lengthening list of stuff Cloud needs to address sooner or later. He's wasted enough time, now he'll have to make the trip back to the city in the dark--
He doesn't see it happen, but he hears someone call out further down the beach and looks. One moment later, he turns his head and finds the waters closest to the shore have started to shimmer and glow. Storms usually turned the sea dark and treacherous before, pregnant with dangers like riptides.
It didn't breathe an ethereal illumination through the calm swells that softly slap the sand, nothing does, except-
Cloud presses the heel of his hand into his brow at the scratchy fissure of wrong fighting through his skull, something pressing up against a memory or a dream, leaving his throat tight with nausea. It clears and with it his head, but he finds the water splashing against his knees without remembering ever descending into the surf.
There's a man in dark clothing straight ahead of him, his silver hair spilling long down the middle of his back. His step backward is loud, a slosh against the slap of a wave, an arm pinwheels out briefly before his soaked boot getting sucked into the sand can topple his balance.
It's not him. He's too slender, too slight.
Chances are good Cloud has cost himself an opportunity to retreat unnoticed anyway.]
sparkles
The change completely transforms the beach and sunset, Cloud finds, is resplendent with color, it reminds him of travel advertisements for Costa del Sol peeling on the walls of small noodle stands and watering holes, mixed in with faded posters of Shinra propaganda and winking pin-ups.
Plenty of other things need doing right now, walking along the shore as night falls isn't checking anything off that ever-lengthening list of stuff Cloud needs to address sooner or later. He's wasted enough time, now he'll have to make the trip back to the city in the dark--
He doesn't see it happen, but he hears someone call out further down the beach and looks. One moment later, he turns his head and finds the waters closest to the shore have started to shimmer and glow. Storms usually turned the sea dark and treacherous before, pregnant with dangers like riptides.
It didn't breathe an ethereal illumination through the calm swells that softly slap the sand, nothing does, except-
Cloud presses the heel of his hand into his brow at the scratchy fissure of wrong fighting through his skull, something pressing up against a memory or a dream, leaving his throat tight with nausea. It clears and with it his head, but he finds the water splashing against his knees without remembering ever descending into the surf.
There's a man in dark clothing straight ahead of him, his silver hair spilling long down the middle of his back. His step backward is loud, a slosh against the slap of a wave, an arm pinwheels out briefly before his soaked boot getting sucked into the sand can topple his balance.
It's not him. He's too slender, too slight.
Chances are good Cloud has cost himself an opportunity to retreat unnoticed anyway.]