voidtreckerexpress | these days have opened up my eyes; [Open Post]

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these days have opened up my eyes; [Open Post]

Who: Ken and whomever wants to encounter him.
Where: Kitchen, training gym, games car. (And wildcard option.)
When: Between February platform and the healing/time reversal plot.
What: Ken's getting used to train life... and also makes A Mistake.
Warnings: Training prompt has suicidal imagery (thanks Persona 3) and the closed prompt has severe depression warnings.

[Kitchen Duty]

Ken is on red team, despite the orange hoodie he's wearing, and that means apparently one of his chores is to make food for other people. It might not be the prettiest, but he'll do what he can. He doesn't bother much with the avocado though, instead serving up a couple of plates of omurice to set out for whoever drifts past. It takes him a little bit to start working on some of the other things - the pasta is boiling away and he's wandering around trying to familiarize himself with where everything is.

Sometimes he's poking around looking for storage containers or having to climb up onto the counter to reach things, but he's always careful to clean off the counter afterwards.

[Training] (cw: suicidal imagery)

Ken is no slouch when it comes to training, and he's found the climbing ropes. He scales the large structure easily, rolling off of it onto a mat and springing up, miming stabbing a spear into something. He can easily be found doing handstands or practicing rolling or doing all manner of gymnastic-like exercises.

When no one's looking, he takes out his Evoker and presses it to his head, pulling the trigger and letting Nemesis take some shots at a training dummy with lightning. He presses a hand to his chest when she manifests a spear and stabs the dummy herself. It hurts, but it's the only spear he has right now.

[Games]

He can't practice forever. Once he settles down a little bit he heads into the game car on occasion. He's not all that hard to find - occasionally he's on one of the VR games, but more often he's playing solitaire or looking at the Duel Monster cards. He's studied the notes left nearby carefully, so all that remains is to try to build a deck.

... Somehow.

[Wildcard]

While he's found a few cars to frequent, he's still exploring. It's easy to find him in practically any car.

[Field Trip to the Darkness] (closed to Vexen) (cw: severe depression)

Vexen is not a hard person to find. He's very tall and the black cloak makes it easy to pick him out, even from behind. He's about to call out to the man to say hello, but suddenly a dark-colored portal opens up and the man disappears into it. Frowning, Ken runs in after him.

That was a mistake.

It's dark, so dark, everything is dark. He can feel something cold gripping onto him, Nemesis' whirring getting louder and louder, somehow sinister. What is he doing here? What is he trying to prove? There's nothing he can do to make anything right. There's no point in him continuing to pretend like he's innocent at all - he hasn't been for a long time. He can't rely on anyone here.

Better to just be alone, or just be nothing at all.

He suddenly stumbles out into brightness, a black-coated individual in front of him, but he's not really seeing Vexen. He's trembling, suddenly freezing and pale. His knees hit the floor, followed by his arms and head right after.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Oh. So it is based on how old you are?" she asked. Whhile that was confusing, it was less confusing than all that talk about being born and babies and growing and stuff. "What if you don't remember to count?"

Roxas was the one who counted, usually. But she was pretty sure she knew about how old she was. Maybe? Axel... would probably know? Right?

"Like you don't know how to count numbers, or you don't know how many years you've been around? I can help you with the first one... the second one I... can't. You'd have to ask someone who's older than you who's known you a while, maybe?"

Hm. "Though to me you... it's hard to tell with your hood down. But you sound like you're maybe between me and my friends in age, at least to me. Two of them are sixteen or seventeen, I'm not sure. The other one is I think a year or two older."

Hey, she knew how to count!

"I don't know how many days for sure," she said, frowning a bit. "I think... about three years? Maybe?" She wasn't sure how long she had been at Daitu before Axel showed up, but he was with her for the rest so he would know for sure. She could ask him. If it mattered.

... Huh. "Just around the number is fine. Three year olds in my world are a lot smaller? And they don't talk all that well. But if you're that young that explains why you don't know a lot of stuff." Wait. No. That was insulting. "I mean the kinds of stuff we've been talking about."

"Around... the number?" she knew how to go around something in the road or around the sofa. How does someone go around a number? And why did everyone keep talking about size like she was too big or too small or would become bigger. She was what she was created to be. And she knew that was less than human, and she'd never be as good as an actual human, but she was a person now, right? So she was allowed to be what she was, wasn't she?

She might have missed the insult as her mind had gone elsewhere...

"... Around meaning 'about' or 'approximately'. Close to that number. Not exactly that number." He was getting the sense there was a lot this person hadn't had explained to her.

"Oh," she said, considering that. And now she would come back to what he said before. "What kinds of stuff should I know, then?"

"... Um. I'm guessing you never went to school?" Just... checking.

She made a face under her hood. "For about a year," she said, shrugging. Though went was perhaps generous in its implications. She attended maybe grand total of an hour of class a week, and that hour was usually split up over a few days. She only went at all because Axel said they'd low up if they didn't go to classes, and because he wanted her to. But none of it ever made sense, so she never stayed long.

"... Hm. Do you know what grade you were in?"

"Grade?" she asked, confused.

"Um. It's like your year in school. They don't put everyone together, they divide it by age."

"I don't know if they did that." She was pretty sure they didn't. But she only knew that Roxas was a week older than her and that Axel was older than that. Beyond those two facts, she wasn't sure how old anyone at the school was. No wait, she knew Saïx was older than her too.

"Oh. Most schools I'm used to do that... do you remember what sort of stuff they were teaching you?" He could do his best...

She thought about it, trying to recall. "Potions and stuff." She was pretty sure, anyway, since it was a potion that had spilled all over her in the dorm.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Okay. "I don't think the sort of school you went to is the sort that I'm familiar with. We don't really have potions as a class..."

"Oh." Was she supposed to say something else? Could she leave now? She wasn't sure.

"It's okay. It just means I can't... really help on that front." Hm.

"Oh... I didn't introduce myself. I'm Ken."

"Ken," she repeated. "I'm Xion..." she said quietly. She no longer had that hesitation she had at Daitu, not knowing if she should use her number or her name. She was a person now, she knew she was never going back. She was Xion.

"Xion." Strange name, but that's not her fault. At least it's unique enough to remember? "It's... um. Good to meet you. If you have other questions that maybe I can help with... I'm in sleeper two, cabin C. You can always leave a note by the door or something if you can't find me? I'm usually here, sometimes the library... sometimes I'm in the kitchen."

"Other questions?"

Run. Run now. The questions are endless.

"I mean... I can do my best? There's a lot I don't know, too. But if you're really even younger than me I bet... a lot of things are confusing."

She nodded. Pretty much everything was confusing, really. She had so many questions starting to pile up in her brain now that she didn't quite know where to start.

"You can think about it. I... even though you don't know a lot you still seem smart. Smarter than a lot of adults I know." At least she's asking things.

"I seem... smart?" Not a word she was used to hearing. At least, not about herself.

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Warning: death mentions, heavy topics

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