voidtreckerexpress | [CLOSED] how could I ever think it's funny

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elidibus [ou]

[CLOSED] how could I ever think it's funny

Who: Ansem and Xehanort, later Vexen. Also Special Guest Elidibus!
Where: Quiet Car, later elsewhere
When: Llama 21
What: Ansem informs Xehanort of his actions upon others, and offers him a choice.
Warnings: Horrible Decisions and Regret. Highlight the following for spoilers, but this is a heavy log and has some heavy content. CW for manipulation, attempted murder/suicide via poisoning, and talk of trauma/death/etc.

Ansem's memories were coming back in time on their own. Mostly, they came dreamlike, in slow bits and patches that he was eventually able to connect to others for a larger pictures. Occasionally, though, there was a sudden connection, a sudden flash; most often, these came upon a familiar action or face.

Such as Xehanort's own.

After speaking with others, learning more- it was, perhaps, no surprise that the memories that surfaced afterwards were ones primarily connected with the other man. His apprenticeship. His betrayal. His actions on to others- and Ansem himself, trapped in darkness, with only anger and rage to sustain him. Letting it drive him once he escaped to spread further harm to others, all in the name of revenge...

He could not change the past. He knew that. But...perhaps. Perhaps one could keep it from repeating.

And so he sought out the other, first checking his room, then the library- and then, as he moved past through the quiet car, he happened to glance through a window and find him. Well. That was convenient. A light rap on the door, and-

"Xehanort- I'd like to speak with you, please."

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His eyes drop back to the cup and not Even himself for a while. At least he's not interrupting, either with accusation or wrath or ... anything else for that matter. It is of course a mask, the veil of politeness to hide the tempest beneath it. For all his terror in those last aware few minutes, the conclusions drawn then don't strike him as false.

"Your previous conclusion was the correct one." Even if it hurt. Even if it left him bewildered an wounded, even if he didn't want to die. Hadn't when he drank a poisoned drink, hadn't when he volunteered to remain on the platform. "Would any attempt at convincing you otherwise merely be advancing the inevitable destruction of-" his home, those he cared about, those he was capable of caring about "-Radiant Garden and countless other worlds?"

He turns a hand palm-up, not the steadiest yet but that too would even out in time. The pain, the lingering fear and shock and his own deep seated, unacknowledged anger is more than enough to call the darkness, and it ever responds eagerly to his call, an instant roiling of shadow around that upturned palm. "It answers when I call like an eager hound, and with it I bring to ruin and desolation, do I not? Master Ansem made the correct choice, you made the correct choice though halted it had been. And now.."

His fingers close, and the eager wisps of darkness are snuffed back out. "And now there won't be a third chance. It was hard the last time. I don't think I can do it again."

He watches the darkness come at Xehanort's call, but there's no fear or revulsion, or even morbid fascination in his expression. It's simply...observation. And when Xehanort is finished speaking, he simply holds out his own hand in answer and calls his own darkness. His, not the foreign Darkness roiling in its prison, but the darkness he carries in his own heart, has welcomed as a part of himself.

"The darkness is not, in and of itself, a thing of evil. I have chosen, myself, to live betwixt light and dark, and in so doing, rescued innocents from the brink of oblivion."

A point of light shines within the darkness surrounding his hand, and the coils of shadow settle into a swirling pattern around it. Rather than conflicting, his light and darkness seem to compliment each other.

"The Xehanort who doomed our world would not have been so concerned about preventing such an outcome. Indeed, as I think upon events without allowing anger to cloud my recollection, there was as marked a change in you as there was in those of us who agreed to follow you into the forbidden."

"My comparison to a hound is deliberate. The beast is not in of itself evil, it only does as nature and its master demands." There were those that feared darkness, or thought it evil or even corruptive... and these Xehanort still doesn't abide by. How can an element corrupt?

At best it could only bring out what's already there. The conflict of light and dark, of any potential necessary path between them - these are things that do not yet register as even remotely important. And while he certainly couldn't call on light in any way shape or form ... Even was a superior mage. Of course he'd manage to wrangle both, if anyone could it was him... and perhaps Ienzo.

"I wonder." Would this other mysterious figure truly have been so unconcerned? "He is me. I know my own wishes, my own desires enough to know that there is no 'me' who would not be affected, save that the prize might somehow be seen as worthwhile. What goal was there? What purpose to it? What did he want? What will I want?"

"If one is not careful...the darkness can, in fact, influence one's outlook. It can bring out the worst in a reckless wielder, and even steal his heart outright."

The shadows in his palm flare up to obscure the point of light, and then he dismisses both with a wave of his hand. As easily as the darkness answers his call, it's far more difficult to channel the light through that foreign Darkness lodged in his heart. As though the intruding power is attempting to block and consume it.

"What the traitor Xehanort wants...you have read the stories of the ancient clash over the light, I presume? Those stories are not mere fairy tales, but speak of a time in the distant past, before the barriers between worlds came to be. The destruction of our world, and the creation of Nobodies, was but a single step toward recreating that ancient battle and gaining access to the Heart of all worlds. I do not know what he meant to do with it, or if it was merely a destructively obsessive curiosity that drove him to see the power that inspired a World shattering war, but that place, Kingdom Hearts, was his ultimate objective."

As he explains, he keeps a close eye on Xehanort. Not accusing, but simply...questioning. Will the man be disgusted at his other self's actions, much as Even himself was upon regaining his heart and thinking back over what he'd done?

There's a slight shake of his head, but no verbal denial. That was all of course, utter nonsense, merely people losing inhibitions because they think they can, how is that influence?

This matter of ancient stories however - of course he knew it. And he could admit to some curiosity as to whether or not it was true, and what the heart of a world was .. what the heart of all worlds was.

Stripped of the knowledge of a heart's power, and thus the immense power a world heart must have - and how much MORE the heart of all worlds must have in turn, it rings... hollow and false, he might be curious to see what happened in that ancient war but not so much that he might try to recreate it, for any recreation could not hope to be faithful to the first without every detail known!

There is no immediate revulsion. "Unless this ... Kingdom Hearts, this heart of all worlds is somehow ..." Wouldn't it be interesting to see, the heart of all worlds? "... far more astonishing than my idle reading has led me to believe as yet, that seems a strange goal." Not a horrific one, not a vile one... strange.

But Xehanort's also looking at it with an active eye for explanation, not simple condemnation. He knew the result, in its horrors, and had been willing to pay the price for crimes not yet committed.. that didn't mean he didn't want to know precisely why it happened at all. "I feel as if I am missing some vital key. I am no closer to understanding my own future motivations now than I had been when the nightshade was set before me."

Edited 2021-06-09 23:21 (UTC)

Missing a vital 'key', indeed. Or rather, the full history behind said key, and its enormous power.

"Perhaps you are." A simple acknowledgement. "Your focus on the subject began after you discovered the door to the heart of our world. Such a thing...there is no substitute in mere description. But the mere fact of the power control of a heart gives you over its owner may offer some way of understanding the scope of what I speak of."

He pauses, then shakes his head.

"I do not know at what point it happened, but the you of my timeline also regained his memory by the time...I became a Nobody. I still know little of the details of your past, Xehanort, but I do know this: you are far older than you appear, and most likely knew more on the subject of Kingdom Hearts than any of the rest of us. You possessed a pre-existing obsession with the subject, which your amnesia has granted you reprieve from. I suggest, before you undertake any further efforts to recall your past, you consider the value of your current priorities compared to whatever desires you may remember from your previous life."

He couldn't do much at the moment with the idea of Radiant Garden having a heart, and if it did.. ... If it did, what would he do? Pursue it anyway, knowing how it ended? Pursue it, but a little more carefully? Throw it all out? Trying to explain himself to the king he knew, unfettered by a decade of suffering, would as likely result in forbidding further pursuit as this one, and not wrongly. Braig, he was sure, would go along with it, but the others?

Even, maybe, untainted by time and bad reactions..

It didn't bear consideration right now, in the wake of knowing where it could lead. Curiosity didn't triumph over it yet, and the tenuous hope that if he disembarked from the train everything would be as he'd left it, save himself and the terrible knowledge of how it would all unfold.

And the worst part was, it sounded familiar. Not as strange as the idea of destroying worlds, the idea of using hearts to control others, the idea he might not be the twenty-ish young man he looked like; some part of him knew that yes, he certainly knew more than he thought he did, and stirred in the distant recesses of his heart at the reminder. Unattached to the lure of potent negative emotion, darkness rises in a strangely sedate, languid tide, reaching for that familiarity, the echo of something that might finally provoke answers as nothing else could, calling to something beyond the most recent lifetime, beyond the research and experiments of Radiant Garden, to something that spoke of decade upon decade of relentless pursuit--

And met almost immediate by resistance. Resistance that isn't Xehanort's active intention, he seems oblivious to both it and the surge of darkness so bleak that others had rightfully called it stench in the past, and it isn't until it's dragged to a sudden stop that he winces, pain corkscrewing through his head as it's done countless times before, one hand rising to tangle in his hair as if it would somehow help, resting his head against the same hand. He's been plagued by headaches over and over, but they always fade. This would too. It's just a matter of plowing on in spite of it.

"I should think any priorities I may have had are rather permanently thrown awry." The problem isn't new, Even might find it as familiar as he does. His free hand rises to rub the bridge of his nose, nearly colliding with the still-neglected cup of coffee- it's moved slightly further away. "And now this new mystery to add to it-" long, lonely, bitter years of searching, planning, struggling "What else am I supposed to do? There's no going back, anymore, is there." His eyes are still brown when they reopen, but the tightness at the corners suggests the headache isn't going away any time soon. "You and I will never stand as trusted friends again. You will always see another."

He tenses at that surge of darkness. Normally, its scent doesn't bother him, can even be comforting in its familiarity. But this...this is fundamentally foul, and there's nothing comfortable in the way he can see it coiling around and through Xehanort's heart. He recalls his own pain, trying to suppress his own fragment of that horrid Darkness when the illusion had empowered him, and can't help but wonder if that is related to Xehanort's headache.

It's difficult, but as he generates a gently curved piece of ice, he works to infuse it with a soft light. The result is an ice pack that glitters faintly despite its lack of facets, which he offers across the table.

"I see another even when I look in a mirror. I see a madman, obsessed with knowledge for its own sake, to the point that he regarded the loss of his heart as nothing more than the removal of a shackle he had formerly lacked the objectivity to recognize. I have committed...countless atrocities. I even played an active role in casting Lord Ansem into the darkness. Things will not, could not be the same, merely because of how I have changed. But I am willing, now, to give you a chance to be different from the potential I have seen. Perhaps, if you are willing, we may even see our old friendship reforged into something more suited to who I am now."

The ice is considered for a long moment, lips setting into a thin line. Not hours before .. and then a few days before that, the very things Even speaks of were laid squarely at his feet, completely and utterly his responsibility. Things for which the highest price had been commanded. Maybe they had decided death was simply too easy, tantamount to letting him get away with it.

Slowly, the block of cold is picked up.

Darkness did favor negative emotions, and he had them to spare, one fueling the other in a tight, closed feedback loop.

"That sounds like misdirection," is the quiet response eventually. "And I am unsure of its purpose. Where was this talk of your choices and atrocities when I was called to task for my sins? Not long ago that too was my responsibility .. and mine alone." He gets quieter the longer he speaks, degree by degree, until at the end he's just one more whisper. "And now you speak of giving me a chance, in spite of earlier sweet words of apology for unfair treatment. A chance to live under judging eyes and suspicion, and only if I prove myself to not be myself.. then.. only then. Will the others who have encountered my future self, or heard the tales of my doings, give me such a generous a 'chance' too, I wonder."

Maybe Even didn't mean it that way, and he genuinely thought it was a generous and kind offer, an olive branch extended with only the best of intentions. But Xehanort didn't think so, it didn't line up with everything he'd experienced since finding himself in the fog on the platform, and the shadows in his heart agreed. "I suppose I should thank you for sparing my life, such as it is."

The ice, at least, should be cool against the headache. Unlike mundane ice, it won't melt against Xehanort's skin, the perfect ice pack.

"No, it was not. I have gone to...extreme lengths, to atone for my own sins. I had the opportunity to return to a normal life, yet I left that behind for the sake of fixing as many of my mistakes as possible."

He takes a breath, and sets his coffee down untouched. It's a sign of how serious he is that even caffeine can't hold his attention right now.

"The distinction is, none of us expected you to see the wrong of what you have done. You have changed horribly by our times, and there is going to be a general concern that you may change here. What I am offering is a chance to show that you will stay yourself, stay the Xehanort that I once called a dear friend and colleague. I had feared the you that sits before me to be a mere fabrication, and it is for treating you as if you were already scheming to bring us to ruin that I apologize.

"As for the others...I know Lea has come to similar conclusions, while the other Nobody on board, a man you have yet to meet, will more likely avoid you than act with hostility. Those who saw figments of your future self, or heard enough of my own history to potentially hold grudges on my behalf, I will speak with. The concerns are...my children. One knows you only by your Nobody, and seems inclined to respond to fear with aggression, while the other is prone to ill-advised thoughts of revenge. But I shall do my best to at least keep them from bringing harm to you."

"Demyx, I assume. The aquamancer." He says nothing about the idea of Even attempting any kind of atonement, there is just a small huff to which the meaning of is obscure.

The rest seems to require thinking about it, which might be difficult with a headache knifing through his skull. But it ebbs, by small degrees, aided perhaps by the bite of cold though doing nothing about its origins. The internal conflict continues, lessening incrementally, and he disregards it still.

It is at least confirmation that yes, he would be constantly weighed against a measure he doesn't thoroughly understand, with consequences if he failed in that nebulous task. How can he be anyone but himself?

The resonating echos of others' hate and fear will tell him all he needs to know. A voice might deceive but a heart wouldn't lie.

Xehanort takes a slow, deep breath, and sets the icepack where it can do most good - on top of his head. It squishes his hair about a bit but it seems determined to try to stick up regardless. "Understand that if I am attacked, I will defend myself." He wasn't extremely keen on combat, but he'd accepted already that he was going to have to change that, and quickly, if he wanted to see to his own safety. "From anyone, with as much force as necessary."

The expected response of course would be not retaliating against children, but if those 'children' attacked with intent to do harm then he would do what he had to in order to prevent it. "I have faced our Lord's judgment and seen to it myself that it was carried out; that he has chosen to rescind it is irrelevant. If I am innocent, then I am innocent and I insist on being treated as such, not as a scorpion waiting for the moment to strike. I will have no axe hanging over my head waiting for some vague notion that I might somehow not be myself. If I am guilty, then carry out the sentence and be done with it, for I already have."

What a ridiculous sounding statement, with a block of ice sitting on his head. He does not strike a fearsome figure.

"Otherwise, I will not be anyone's meek and obliging victim. Be they child or grown, I will respond with exactly as I am given, for good or for ill."

He nods in confirmation of the other Nobody's identity. There's really not much else to say about him. While he knows Demyx is far from the open book he pretends to be, he's not exactly inclined to spread around that the younger mage isn't as dumb or impossible to motivate as he seems.

His only response to Xehanort putting the block of ice on his head is a restrained upturn of his lips and a muffled snicker. Now that the anger and fear has ebbed enough to allow him to feel quieter emotions, he's started to remember some of his fondness...enough, at least, for a hint of his playful side to return.

If Xehanort was expecting condemnation for the idea of fighting back against children, he'll be surprised. Even just shakes his head, clearly still amused at the ridiculous image in front of him.

"You have as much right to defend yourself as anyone else. And seeing as I am a frequent volunteer in medical, being sent there for defying my wishes ought to put a fine point on things. Of course, I shall do my best to ensure it does not come to that...although perhaps more discussion on the matter ought to wait. Surely you are in need of some proper rest."

"I have just woken up within the last several minutes," is the low, surly response. "I am not eager to embrace it again so soon." His relationship with sleep at all is going to take some adjusting, now that it was linked painfully closely with never waking up again. Time and exhaustion would see to it that he does, whether he wants to or not.

It actually takes a small bit of effort to keep the ice pack from toppling off, it's not quite the right shape to stay put in spite of defiant hair. That doing so has brought something like a laugh is pointedly ignored; his fingers were cold and he wasn't going to hold onto the thing the whole time! "If you've other places to be, you don't need to remain."

"Heavily sedated sleep is not particularly restful. If nothing else, you ought lay down somewhere more comfortable than a bench with borrowed pillow and blanket."

He shakes his head, and finally takes a drink of his coffee. It's cooler than he prefers, but not quite cold enough to be pleasantly cold...disappointing.

"I've nowhere pressing to be. While I do have various ongoing projects, they are of the sort that I can pursue anywhere. I merely think any further conversation best pursued once your headache has faded."

Xehanort's eyes slit back open from where they had at some point closed against the ache of headache and turmoil of far too much in the past few days to come to terms with easily. "Of all people who could be pestering me about sleeping normally, I'm not sure you have enough experience with it to be making suggestions."

Unless something significant had changed in that arena in the past ten years, which he rather doubted.

He coughs into his drink at that, looking away as he wipes the coffee from around his mouth. From the air of embarrassment he exudes, it's clear Xehanort hit the nail on the head.

"My tendency to lose track of time does not preclude a basic understanding of what is or is not conductive to restful sleep!"

"Is that so?" It's a slow, drawn out drawl, pitched very deliberately doubtful. "Does this basic understanding include the ordinary side effects of giving a drink with caffeine in it?"

Which, if this coffee is even remotely worth its cream and sugar, then it is absolutely not decaf, because Xehanort has long been convinced decaf is a genuine abomination in need of being purged from the universe. That he had never made such a move rests entirely on the fact that he's always had access to ordinary coffee. "I will sleep when it becomes necessary. If I am to be truthful.." And he doesn't want to be, not with someone who he was not certain could again be trusted, but it's a small thing.. surely. "I am not keen on returning to rest so swiftly when my heart still tells me I will not wake again if I do."

The drawl immediately draws his focus to Xehanort, calling to mind memories of a deeper voice speaking in similar tones and cadences. But Xehanort is not speaking in the cold mockery of Xemnas. This...is a much more familiar form of needling.

"That was offered at the beginning of this conversation, with intention of it helping alleviate the grogginess of the sedative. It was not meant to sit there until you were fully awake anyway."

He gives an indignant huff, but it's deliberately exaggerated. While the original Vexen had gotten genuinely incensed at even the slightest joke at his expense, Even always had much more ability to go along with some playful sass.

"But...that is understandable. Still, laying down somewhere more comfortable may help with your headache. I don't think the hat quite suits you, after all."

There had always been, if anyone knew what to look for, little hints of the Heartless and Nobody he would become. He himself doesn't know either one enough to try to avoid any familiar and unpleasant habits, and so makes no such efforts. It's as close to normal as he can hope for, given all that had happened, and it's likely Xehanort's not really thinking about it at all, merely reacting. "The caffeine would not have simply evaporated over the course of a few minutes," he points out relentlessly - it's not really about having an argument, or being right, or being wrong, or harassing Even specifically. It never was.

After another moment or two, it fades, as it must. Things were different, would never be the same again. Forgetting even for a moment could lead to disaster. "...I begin to suspect you just want to oust me from my quiet room." Though he'd probably by now been there for hours, and other people might well want to make use of it, and thus ousting him is perfectly fair.

So Xehanort stands abruptly, managing to NOT unseat the icepack somehow in the doing; there's really no way that it will ever not look ridiculous but surely he'll remove it at some point, or at least before being seen by anyone else. "The headache will pass in time. Or rigorous application of aspirin, whichever happens first." He's pretty sure he knows where a medical car is, so raiding it might be a good idea..

This banter is familiar, in a way that Even's heart had formerly been too focused on the rage and pain of betrayal to even acknowledge he missed. Yes, there might be hints of the Heartless and Nobody in him...but he had also seen hints of the old Xehanort in the Heartless. Hints that he hadn't even considered to hope were signs his friend had been real, and that parts of him might still exist.

But even so, an awkward tension still exists between them, and it shows in the way he tenses at Xehanort's sudden movement. It's brief, only long enough to process what the other man is doing, but it's still something he never did before.

"Please, I've had plenty of time to myself here while you've slept. If anything, I expect to busy myself a few doors over. I've a chemistry lab to assemble."

He drains his coffee, then stands. He winces slightly as his stiff back protests, but there's not much he can do about it at the moment. Most likely, the soreness will fade once he finally gets a chance to properly relax from the days of stress and uncertainty.

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[CLOSED] how could I ever think it's funny

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