onepassingnight | (no subject)

[How many of her dreams lead to indecision? How many choices, how many beliefs to decide between, how many paths?

So she pauses a judged distance behind Dawn.]

What is it? [Her eyes stay on the door. Even to her, unknowing, it seems significant.]

[The door is significant. For her, anyway. How many times had she gone through them before, oblivious to what lay on the other side? But then... maybe that was what held her back, now.]

A door, and within it... memories that may not be mine.

[Memories, huh? There'll be no question why she dreamed this up once she awakes. For now, she steps closer to it with a measured stride that moves quickly without the impression of hurry. The door is given a quick look, up and down; she makes no move to open it. She turns her head to speak to Dawn again.]

Don't you want to find out?

[She always had.]

[She hesitates in responding at first, but eventually turns her head to speak to Ami.]

...Yes and no.

[Mercury, for the time being. Mercury seems to consider this answer. She glances back to the door, then back to Dawn.]

I'd always want to know. If those memories are yours, and they're real, what you're missing right now is a part of yourself.

[Right, then. Mercury. She looks between the other, then the card (http://images.wikia.com/kingdomhearts/images/0/02/Castle_Oblivion_2_%28card%29.png) in her hand. Will she find her own memories on the end... or would she see his? What lies beyond the door is tempting her greatly, but every other door has brought her pain.

All of her choices have brought suffering because some things... she was never supposed to know.]

But there's another couple possibilities: They could be another's, or they could be false. Whether or not it's a part of me that I'm missing, or a part of them...

[She shakes her head, gaze drifting back to the card.]

[She smiles coldly, not at Dawn precisely but at the simple fact that there's only one possible answer she's lived her life by.]

Then you throw them away.

[She remembers; oh she remembers. She remembers everything. The question was which memories to believe when they conflicted.

And she finally decided upon her answer.]

[...Conflicting emotions with that simple sentence. On one hand, that would be the easy route if it could even be taken. On the other...

She shakes her head, making up her mind.]

If only it were that simple.

[She holds up the card and the golden doors crack open as it vanishes in the light. ...One way to find out, right? No way was she going to be called a coward.]

[Oh, of course she'll maintain that front of absolute confidence, of surety. But of course she knows it isn't that simple. It isn't simple at all.

But she couldn't stop, either. She didn't want to be a stranger to herself, not even in the smallest way. She treats the decision flippantly even as Dawn opens the door.]

This probably isn't reassuring, but I'll also be here.

[She nods faintly, pausing as her hand touches the door handle.]

...Who are you, anyway?

The soldier of Water and Wisdom, Mercury.

Dawn. Nice to meet you. [-she guesses. This is just all too weird to meet someone that wasn't from their memories in a dream, no less.]

[But she then turns to the door and it opens completely, a bright, almost blinding, light beckoning them inside. A flicker of fear crosses her face before she walks in-]

[As the light fades, the images of rooms that belong in the memories are strewn about in faded upon the walls. Images of a laboratory, a dark room with no doors and one brilliant whit with a crystal orb placed in the middle. Scattered about the floor are half-finished sketches of what look like what a small child would do with crayons.

The sketches beg to be touched.

Just nearby, there are two. The first containing an image of a silver haired person--Dawn?--and one other in all black. The second?

A simple, golden star charm being held up by a gloved hand.]

Nice to meet you. [The polite habitual phrase comes easily.

The dreamscape, of course, is not familiar to her, and so she stays in a guarded stance just a pace behind Dawn, unafraid but refusing to take the lead this time. Her eyes go to the sketches, though she does not touch them immediately. She jerks her head in a nod towards them instead.]

Do you recognize them?

[It's very familiar to her, and Dawn's doing her best not to touch either drawing. But at the question... she nods.]

...The one with the star charm, but I know it's a lie just glancing at it.

And how do you know?

[How do you decide which to believe? (And if she's already made her choice about that, why is she still asking? She tells herself it's just curiosity - or confirmation of her choice, if anything.]

Because the promise it represents never happened.

[Like much of what I remember before my heart being... Dawn shakes her head, wanting to grab that sketch and hold it tight to her chest. One small memory; one of having a friend outside of Vanitas, of promising to protect- it's all still there in her head, something she's never come to terms with. It's a lie, it's a lie, it's a-

Then the dreamscape shifts, illusions beckoned forth by the insistence of the denial. Suddenly a blond woman in black is jeering at a younger, more scared looking girl seated in a chair. The voices flicker in and out, but the images and people stay the same.

Then a younger silver haired girl? enters the space. "Cut it out, Lar-"

Static. That's all that can be heard. No, she doesn't want to think about this- doesn't want to remember this after- It hurts to remember the betrayal. To see the scared and saddened look on the girl's face as the younger her holds up the charm to her, to watch as she mouths out the words as faint static covers the voice, but still she finds herself-]

"Whatever's hurting you... I'll make it go away."

[How could she have been so blind...]

[For long moment, she says nothing, standing stock still. Her lips purse and something in her eyes darkens.

It's too similar - all the broken promises. The memories of the senshi smiling at her. Wondering just what those meant. Driving herself onward and onward searching for it, for nothing.

We'll help, we'll come, we'll listen, we'll care. Later. And then later turned turned to never - they hadn't. She'd been alone in all her struggles, even in the battles they were supposed to be comrades for. They fell apart. And Usagi- All those pretty words boiled down to just one thing: come fight for me again.

It was all she'd ever been, to them.

Finally, when the vision winds to its close, she looks at Dawn.]

So pay back that betrayal.

[Flashes that don't belong to her, scenes she's never seen. Dawn blinks, standing still as she listens to that suggestion and thinking it over. The words were caught in her throat as the illusion fell apart and faded back to the same white room it had been upon their entry to this space.

Searching, searching. Any world-any moment where she could have but didn't. But nothing, nothing but a new sketch resting in front of them between the two that originally presented themselves first. The only difference being the fact she actually picks this one up: A sketch of a silver haired figure being held up by the neck by-

The same blond figure in black.

A quiet, scared voice fills the room: "Riku, stop! I said stop!" Another white room, only this time the younger her is falling to the ground, motionless. A boy in red's staring in shock, pleading with the other girl. "What did you do to him!"

Black... A portal opening up. "Broke his heart. More like smashed it, really. That is... if it really even had one to begin with. Eheehee~"

"Wha-? Smashed?! What's going to happen to Ri-?"

The one in black was laughing again. "Still worried about Riku? Well, don't. He's doing just fine. Don't tell me you never noticed~"

The boy blinks in confusion, fists clenching against the cold floor before he lunges at her, only to be kicked to the side like a dog. It hurts just to look at the scene, but Dawn can't look away. Her shoulders are shaking, wanting it to end-

Larxene picks the lifeless doll by the back of the neck. "Have it your way, then. It'll KILL you to know this, but I can live with that~ The 'Riku' you see before you--this thing is nothing more than a puppet. Vexen was so off the mark, he even made it a girl! I mean, how dim-witted do you have to be to fall for something like that~!" She sneers, flicking the wide-eyed thing across the face and leaving a nice little scar on her cheek.

"It's almost laughable, really... The toy calling you the fake when it was the lie all along~"

It's like someone pressed the fast forward button on the remote. Images, words going in fast play. Bits and pieces, reconnecting chain links, lies blurred vision... Sora... Naminé... Sora needs help, Naminé's right next to her. If only she could mo-

"You don't even actually know her!"

"Maybe not... but I still... made a promise." He glares at her. "And Riku, I don't... I don't care if she's a fake!" Sora's struggling to even get onto one knee, but he doesn't stop trying. She could almost see him glancing at her before making eye contact with the one that caused her and Naminé to suffer so much from the cruelty. "She's a friend of mine and a friend of Naminé's! I don't care if what I remember about them are lies... I won't let you hurt them!"

And everything goes white, and when the brightness fades Sora's standing there, triumphant while Larxene's fading into the darkness.]

There's no one... to pay back.

[She'd start with that obnoxious blond, personally.

Sora, though... For just a second, seeing someone swearing to protect their friend strikes a chord. But Dawn had called it lies. And in her experience, those sorts of oaths always were.

Besides, the lie is easy to see: No one cared for someone they didn't even know. It was something built over time. Carefully.

It's hard to remember she's just watching. Her hand tightens almost unnoticeably.]

For me, there was.

[Was. Past tense. It's taken care of now, for good or ill, right or wrong, whatever her reasons, done is done. She shakes her head, dismissing what she'd call idle words. She turns to Dawn.]

Now that we're here, what do you want from this?

[She would too, if Sora hadn't taken care of her already. Though that didn't mean she hadn't snuck into the Proof of Existence and smashed her tombstone.

While his intentions were sincere, Sora didn't quite get much of anything when he remembered the lies, and even now wouldn't remember her. Maybe it was better this way, or maybe it's just a pain in the ass. Either way, she doesn't exist in his memories so that promise to protect her and Naminé never existed--disappearing in a realm of sleep.

The lie was what brought the pieces together, the truth what tore them apart.

She notices. Both the hand tightening and the past tense.]

I'm not sure whether to consider you lucky or unfortunate, then. Revenge never brings peace.

[She turns to meet that gaze, a faint smile crossing her lips.]

To be free. [And it all goes black with the exception of the two women.]

[Mercury hadn't exactly minded that Usagi had truly had to die. She'd been after her anyway. And she'd taken a certain pleasure in learning the destruction of the sailor crystal would be a true end.

And she'll defend those decisions to her own death if anyone wants to question them that far. She speaks a bit distantly.]

It doesn't matter. Vengeance or not, it had to be done. That girl would have destroyed my world if she was let go.

[And it's still not freedom. She can tell herself it is, and the chains are so much lighter these days that it almost feels like it. But she still knows she can't really go far, she still knows the price if she turned her back on all of it. Maybe it's lucky that she doesn't intend to; maybe that isn't the point.]

Will you find freedom here?

Edited 2011-07-17 02:36 (UTC)

[She won't question them; she doesn't even know what the decisions were, really. So with that, she'll just nod. Destroying to save... She could understand that.]

So instead you ended the threat. It makes sense.

[Is one ever truly free from their past? It's an interesting question, and something she wonders the answer to all the time. But she still has to pause, think about it all.]

Running from it hasn't helped, maybe facing it will.

Running is no use.

[For all that it's been her battle cry throughout, she's done a good job of trying to run at times.]

However, facing it might not end it, either. Especially here.

[Endless worlds, endless alternates, endless reminders.]

Maybe not, but it's a start.

[And Dawn, she notes with envy, doesn't need to face it alone. Even if it's just Ami, even if she suspects Dawn - because anyone would - would call it being alone despite Ami being there, she knows it's different.

She doesn't dwell on the logical next step: the people she's failed to notice near her own self.]

And now? What will you do?

[She only has one other person she really chose to trust without a lie being in the way. Still, she almost finds herself envious of Mercury. She at least was decisive in which way to go, but Dawn...]

Only thing I can do: move forward.

[Behind Mercury's seeming decisiveness is a channel cut out for her from sheer rock by a man of inflexible will. She has taken it for her own.

She smiles now, almost a smirk. Approving. Pleased.]

You have a head. Use it to decide the truth.

Edited 2011-07-24 11:04 (UTC)

[It's still better than nothing, but if it prevents her from being herself... then it's a problem to be dealt with at her own leisure.

For now though, she'll return that smile with a faint version of ~~his~~ her own.]

I will.

[She's come this far; she may as well say it. She's certainly here because of it, the similarity that's all but screaming through her mind.]

I did the same.

[That made her catch her eye, particularly interested.]

How'd it go for you?

I understand it now.

[This comes confidently; the things she's seen over the past few years have reinforced the perceptions she chose. She is certain of the truth, after her search for it.]

[And Dawn nods, giving a wry smirk. Hopefully it would be the same for her, or maybe it wouldn't. There was only one way to find out.]

Maybe I'll be as lucky.

It's not about luck! It's about looking until you find it.

I stand corrected.

Waiting for luck is useless. To bring what you want is always a struggle.

I'm not waiting for luck; never have. I've always had to fight to get where I am, but I still see those who've had it easy- people who seem to just be lucky enough to have an easier course.

[Usagi. That girl can do things even worse than Ami's ever done, and she will always be safe and loved and forgiven - and lucky.]

I understand. But you're already above that.

Maybe. Doesn't stop me from wishing some things were easier, though.

There's no sense making a wish that won't happen.

[Or so she tells herself, this girl who used to have dreams and hopes. How long had she hoped and waited for things to improve, knowing they wouldn't?]

Not without working for it.

[This one is stubborn and, while not an idealist, knows what would happen if she abandoned hope again.]

That isn't hope. That's making it by your own effort. [And that, she can believe in. Isn't her world a testament to grueling effort and will?]

Depends on how long you'll be indecisive.

[A familiar face is behind her now, a smirk across her lips. Sorry, pseudodaguther, you're not free of her yet.]

[Oh, damn it.

She pauses, almost freezing at the voice. Why could she still hear it, even though worlds separated them? Dawn continues to stare at the golden door, fist clenching tightly at her side.]

...I'm not indecisive. [Because clearly denial is the best path.]

And I'm not blind. You've always been indecisive about everything except your desire to fight for your own future.

[She'll walk and stand right next to her.]

You'd know all about that, wouldn't you.

[She'll concede to that point, if only because the other knows her better than she knows herself half the time, lost in her own lies. She'll glance over, nodding faintly.]

But you're wrong about fighting being the only thing I'm decisive on.

Oh? Then what else are you decisive on?

[She's amused, pseudo-daughter. Very amused.]

I guess if we go in, I can show you.

[But the thought of other memories held within there...]