paixaorpg | A Wondrous Place. [Closed]

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A Wondrous Place. [Closed]

Character(s): Axel and Zexion.
Content: Axel lets Zexion in on a little secret.
Setting: ???
Time: Tuesday afternoon.
Warnings: None.

What a wondrous place. Axel slowly ran a hand through his hair; eyes closing as a warm breeze sifted through his obtrusive strands of red, his black coat billowing at his sides. He stood on the edge of some high, moss and foliage-covered hook of land; it overlooked what seemed to be a large, very large, expanse of... jungle?

The sky above him was barely visible; thick, lush, and huge trees and plants of thousands of different sorts canopied overhead. Shafts of what seemed to be sunlight filtered their way in, dodging their way through and around the leaves of the plants, desperate to touch the very bottom of the forest floor.

The entire world seemed to be green, bright, and damp. The air was pregnant; hot, thick, almost difficult to breathe in. Axel loved it. The gloved hand that ran through his hair moved down and rubbed over his face, damp with sweat. After allowing it to fall at his side—but not before unzipping his jacket a bit—he inhaled and exhaled slowly, taking in the inescapable heat.

He turned his back to the glorious sight, and retreated within the thick brush to move to kneel beside his unconscious comrade; Zexion’s body was slumped against a tree somewhere near there. His wounds were cleaned and dressed, his clothing mended. Axel quietly observed him with his curious eyes, gaze stark and obtrusive as a jaguar’s. A hand reached out, placing its back to his forehead, and then lingered down, black leather trailing his face for a moment.

Axel smiled, and then looked around them again. He knew Zexion would probably complain about the place somehow.

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Zexion lay prone, exhaustion and stress not necessarily related to his previous beating finally taking its toll. He slept for quite a while, though his rest was interrupted sooner than he would have liked. Slowly, reality began to trickle back to him, and oddly enough, he felt as though he were being suffocated. He gave a slight twitch or two before he drew in a deep, ragged breath, brows furrowing while a black-gloved hand rose to carefully wipe across his forehead. It was so.. uncomfortably warm and stuffy all of a sudden. His face even felt damp.

A complaint? Of course. "Too hot," he breathed out grumpily to no one in particular. Still struggling to suck down the humid air, his dull blue eyes finally opened, hand retracting so he could take a look. Honestly, he had expected to see blood as the cause of the wet feeling, but there was none. Strange. Axel must have been decent enough to clean him off a little... not only that, but his wounds even felt a bit better. Maybe the redhead wasn't so useless after all.

His gaze left his hand, looking past it, and he saw.. green. So much green.. blinking in confusion, Zexion took in the sight of all the foliage, head tipping back to give him a glance of the massive tree he was resting against. What... Paixao didn't have any trees. Or vines. Or flowers. Paixao didn't have anything living, save for its citizens.

Looked around once more, eventually reaching out to run his leather-covered fingers over the base of the tree, trailing them down to feel the moss-covered rocks and leaves littering the ground at his side, just to make sure he wasn't stuck in some kind of dream. "Where are we?"

..And why did it have to be so hot?!

Axel smiled. Of course the thing that came out of Zexion's mouth first would have been a complaint. How cute was that? He stood up slowly, and reached out, offering his good hand to the other, encouraging him to stand up.

"This is the Jungle of Secrets. I've been wanting to show it to you. Namine made it... isn't it beautiful?" He laughed quietly, looking over his shoulder and off into the distance, as far as the thick foliage would allow him to do.

"It's a secret place..."

..Hm. All Namine's doing, eh? Figures.

Zexion eyed Axel's outstretched hand for a moment before raising one of his own. He gripped onto the taller man's wrist, using it as an aid as he rose to his feet. As soon as he was steady, he let go, taking a moment to brush himself off. Always so fussy over his appearance..

Once he was satisfied, he let his arms rest at his sides, gaze wandering yet again as he took a few steps forward, examining his new surroundings. Indeed, it was ~~unbearably hot~~ beautiful.. but, like everything else, it must have had a purpose. He intended to figure out what that purpose was. "But why is it here?"

Axel always looked like he knew something everyone else didn't. That was because this was entirely true. He laughed again and ducked under the foliage, moving back out to his cliff with the nice view.

He answered him from a distance, awaiting for Zexion to join his side. "I figured I wanted to have a place as remote as possible. And as confusing as possible." His eyes shut, and he bowed his head. "I'd like to do some experimenting of my own."

A thin brow arched at the sound of rustling leaves-- Axel on the move. He turned towards the other man, peering with a questioning expression that probably went unnoticed. Now where was he going..? Zexion was not about to let himself be abanonded in this... this jungle-thing.

After gingerly wiping his face off for the second time already (ugh, sweating was so bothersome.. the humidity was terrible!), he followed the path Axel had taken, occasionally reaching out to snag at a leaf or hanging vine. When stationed near his fellow Nobody, he canted his head to the side, staring out at the view before the both of them. The place was huge..

"Experimenting?" That word never failed to catch his attention. Perking slightly, he turned towards the redhead once again, arms crossing. "You can't possibly do it by yourself." That was, more than likely, Zexion's roundabout way of saying he wanted to help. Heh.

"Why do you think I brought you here? And Saix," he added, "I'm sure he'll be joining us. I'm not going in this alone. And who knows, perhaps we'll have a few others..."

He opened his eyes and looked up, across the jungle again. "Unlikely, though. I want to keep this little project rather private. I've got my eye on a few subjects under the eye of some other members, however... this could be a problem, but we'll cross the bridge when we come to it, won't we?"

Axel was silent for a moment, before beginning to walk - off to the side, heading down the cliff. "I'll show you where I'll keep them."

Saix.. heh, that was understandable enough. He had the best reason out of all of them to agree with this. He was decent enough, too, so for once Zexion had nothing to complain about.

Made a quiet sound of acknowledgement after listening on further, indicating that he agreed. Especially with the 'secret' part. After all, some Organization members were just too.. loud about things. Example being a certain blonde, kunai-wielding female.

"I'd like to know who you have in mind," he stated as he followed Axel once more. He had to grudgingly admit, the other seemed to have this organized fairly well thus far. Good thing, too. Zexion hated being disappointed..

Axel headed down the slope, taking them through more foliage. It was a bit difficult to navigate, but even with that coat, he managed most of their walk. Though when the brush became to thick, he suddenly paused and unzipped his coat the rest of the way; after such, he slung it over his shoulder, and looked back to Zexion.

"It's a bit hard to get through this place," he said, laughing quietly. "But I know it like the back of my hand, so we'll be find. Besides, creating a path would be stupid. Then they'd know a path to escape on."

With that, Axel continued. After much traversing through the jungle, they came to something strange - a river. Foliage floated on the surface of the ruddy water, and Axel approached it's edge. Across from it was what seemed like some sort of ancient ruin - a huge, stone head with its mouth wide open was settled deep, tilted, into the ground, sunken in beyond removal. Its tongue poured from its mouth, producing a crooked set of steps which drained small streams into the pond it settled in front of. In the distance, behind it, seemed to be some sort of volcano...

He paused here, glancing back to see if he still had Zexion with him.

Why in the name of all things did they have to walk?! The fact this his muscles were still somewhat sore added to his discomfort as they took their little tromp through the jungle. Every time he got caught up in vines, snagged by thorny branches, or otherwise hung up in any way, he gave an irritable growl before smacking the offending greenery away. At one point, he asked the obvious question, "Why couldn't we have teleported?" Was that not fun enough for Axel?

After a while, complaining proved to be too much work. It was difficult enough to draw in the hot and heavy air for just breathing-- he didn't need to waste his oxygen on speaking. That, plus all the manuvering around in layers of black leather effectively shut him up for a while.

When they paused, Zexion was huffing for breath, hands immediately perching on his hips in annoyance. His lavender hair was a bit mussed, face flushed to the slightest degree, and the disgustingly sticky, sweaty feeling he was currently experiencing all over constantly nagged at the back of his mind.

Unacceptable. How could Axel stand it! Even if he did take his jacket off... puh, forget that, he was going to stay clothed, thank you very much.

He took a quick glance around, brow quirking as he caught sight of the strange ruin. "Oh, that's charming." Trust Axel to throw something odd like that in.

"You can't teleport in many places here. All forms of magic, actually, are disabled, save in secret areas -areas only I know. Such as this one." Axel moved forward suddenly, and took a step, looking as if he were about to step right into the water - before he suddenly dissipated, and appeared on the other side of the river, standing at the mouth of the fallen head.

"See? You have to do it like that, or it won't work. The area is over the water." Crafty bastard, wasn't he?

Zexion eyed the other man suspiciously, as if he didn't quite believe his words. He watched Axel step out over the water, before he disappeared and then reappeared on the opposite bank. Zexion's eyes narrowed a bit, and he decided to test what he had just been told.

He let his arms fall, head tilting as he stared across the river at Axel, concentrating on simply teleporting from where he was...

..And, apparently, it didn't work. After a few seconds, Zexion gave up, a brow quirking as he kept his eyes focused on the other. Well. Evidently Axel was smarter than he had given him credit for.. he had to grudgingly admit, disabling magic was a very good idea. However, he would refrain from saying that aloud. Axel did not need the extra ego-stroke, in his opinion.

"I see." With that, he glanced down, moving closer to the water. He was fairly sure it was the same spot Axel had been. Scrunching his nose slightly, he then stepped out, just as the taller man had done, and willed himself to teleport over to the other side.

It was, hopefully, the right area-- Zexion did not want to get wet at the moment.

It was, thankfully. Zexion would of course reappear on the otherside, right next to Axel. He smiled down at him, chuckling a bit. He knew Zexion was impresed; even if he was too stubborn to admit it, that was enough to boost that ego of his.

After taking a breath, Axel slung his coat over his other shoulder, and turned, beginning to head into the mouth of the tilted head. Black boots carelessly stepped in the small streams running from it, and he headed inside.

A gloved hand lifted; a single finger ignited with a flame, and Axel used it to light the way as he walked. He kept close to the wall; the small streams had been coming forth from a growing crack in the ground, which seperated wider and wider into a small river within the mouth. It became so side, Axel had to keep his body pressed to the wall in order to get past it, until the passage way widened, and there was more ground to walk on.

As soon as he found himself standing beside Axel, he tilted his head up to steal a quick glance at his face, then another back across the river, to where they had been standing moments ago. Hm. Handy trick, indeed.

He turned on his heel, also making his way to the ruin, careful not to slip on any of the slick stone as he trailed along after the other. Zexion was doing a good deal of looking around and examining things (as well as he could with only the light of a flame, that is) as they advanced further, brows furrowing a bit. They were quickly running out of decent walking space, he noted.

Turning to the side, Zexion pressed his back against the wall as well, arms stretched out a short distance on either side of himself to feel where he was going. He gave a short huff of breath, blowing a bit of hair away from his face before growling out, "This is almost like an obstacle course..."

Good move. He hated going through it, but nevertheless, it was smart.

"Exactly," Axel answered, snickering to himself.

He held the flame in front of him and continued walking, hooking around a bend, and finally coming to the desired area - a rather peculiar place, it was.

The area was wide open, and there were many craggy rocks about, climbing up the cave walls. The arch seperated at the top, letting shafts of light peek through and down into the area... but was mostly covered by foliage that had grown over it and snaked inside. Small streams ran through it, and there were various holes in the ground, endless black holes or pooled with water... some of them were steaming, and it was especially hot in this area.

"This... is where the testing will occur."

Maybe if circumstances had been different, Zexion would have felt a bit of pity for those future test subjects. Alas.

Instead, once there was enough room to move around, he branched away from Axel and began to make his way around the.. 'room'. He looked over eveything atleast once. The rock walls, the 'ceiling', even the streams of water trickling at his feet. If only it wasn't so HOT.

He gave a long exhale, looking nearly helpless for a moment as he tried to think of a means to cool himself off. One that didn't involve undressing. Fanning himself would do little good, so he decided to just suffer miserably through it for the time being. Ugh. Figures Axel would choose an oven.

In an effort to distract himself, he followed one of the aforementioned streams, one that led him to what appeared to be a small circular pool of water. Which had steam rising from it. Needless to say, he made sure he didn't lean directly over that thing.

"Are you planning on boiling them?" he asked, being only half-sarcastic as he glanced back at the redhead.

If he was about to have a heatstroke from just being there for a few minutes, he was thankful he would not be a subject. "How can you stand it in here?"

"How can I stand it? I love it in here!" he said rather enthusiastically, letting his voice reverberate on the walls. He made note of the echo and looked up slowly... smiling, and laughing loud, letting that echo as well. He was just like a child sometimes.

Whatever the case, he looked over at Zexion, and smiled. Approaching him, he looked down over the hole, and then snickered to himself. A hand lifted in the air - extended - and his free one moved to press against Zexion's chest. He eased it back, flicked his finger, and suddenly the hole errupted violently a stream of hot mist, moving all the way to the ceiling.

"Hahaha... boil them? No. But I thought these were a nice touch!" he said, over the roaring sound of the rushing damp air.

Of course he loved it. It was fifty billion degrees (okay, exaggeration and he knew it... but he was BURNING alive here), and Axel was completely insane, so it made sense.

While Axel was having his fun making his voice echo throughout the cave, Zexion shook his head, hand raising to cover over his face for a moment. The movement caused his clothing to slide along his sweat-slicked skin uncomfortably, making him curl his lip a bit in distaste. That pleasant thought was pushed to the back of his mind, however, because sometimes...

Sometimes Axel was such an idiot, it was astounding.

Anyway, he let his arm fall back to his side after the Nobody approached, watching curiously.. that is, until a burst of hot steam spewed from the hole in the ground. Zexion gasped, immediately jumping back, eyes widened slightly from surprise.

Well then.. hm. Maybe those could be put to good use.

"That's mostly it," Axel said. His hand lowered, and the pressure died down. The hole eventually calmed, and he laughed softly, making note of Zexion's surprise at it. "What do you think?" It really was an interesting place. It would be even more interesting when the cave was full of experiments... nevermind most of those on his list weren't even, technically, his own.

He stepped away from the geyser, and quietly began to head to the back of the "room". Settling down on a rock, he crossed his arms over his chest, and grinned. "I think I'm gonna like it here."

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A Wondrous Place. [Closed]

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