[CLOSED] Silence in the Library

[mustknow]

Who: Ienzo, Xehanort
Where: Library
When: Merriment, post vacation
What: Overdue conversations.
Warnings: Angst, more to be determined.




For better or worse, Ienzo had agreed to meet with Xehanort. And without company, as far as Xehanort is aware, which meant in theory not also contending with Even or Ansem or heaven-knew who else. It was either a positive sign, or a sign he's walking into an ambush.

And so he waits in the library car, tablet in hand, working on transcribing one of the more child oriented books into it for later, about a half hour earlier than the agreed upon time. There's no harm in waiting, and early meant ambushes would be harder--

The child he knew wasn't much into ambushes, but a lot could change in ten years. He had no idea at all what Ienzo was like now, how much changed and how much didn't. But what was surely certain would be the immediate, negative reaction he'd always gotten since arriving on the train, and ... so be it, if it happened again.

It looks peaceful enough. For the moment he's the only one there, the only sound the slow flip of pages. There's no weapons to be had unless one fought with books, and who'd be silly enough to do that?

Comments

[anxiousbookworm]

Ienzo, for lack of a better term, is freaking out.

Yes, he'd agreed to this. He's questioning his sanity right now, though. What had he been thinking? Clearly he'd lost his mind. After the massive panic attack he'd had that morning about this, he'd considered just not showing up at all- but that wouldn't solve anything in the long run, and would probably make things worse overall. The entire point of meeting Xehanort at this point was to get it over with on HIS terms, where he had control over the situation and wasn't surprised with it, where there weren't other people (Vexen, mostly) there to interfere. He could have potentially used the emotional support, but... well, it was better this way, Ienzo thinks. He's an adult, and he can handle this like an adult.

Right?

He peels himself off the wall outside the library he'd been leaning on to collect himself, straightens his clothing, takes a deep breath, and opens the door to the library.

It's impossible not to see Xehanort right away, of course. He looks not like the older version he became familiar with later, but like the man he got to know as a child. He looks so much younger than Ienzo remembers, though. He remembers Xehanort being very Grown Up, very mature, someone he looked up to and respected. Was he really that young at the time? He barely looks older than Ienzo himself now.

He hesitates by the door for a moment, bracing himself while his heart beats a million miles a minute- though not a panic, not yet- before approaching the place Xehanort sat.

"Hello," he says softly. His voice cracks a little, so he clears it and tries again, slightly louder. "Hello." Better.

[mustknow]

The letter had been poorly thought out; it would be best to let sleeping dragons lay and not go out of his way to cause further problems, wouldn't it?

Except it was another axe hanging over his head, waiting to jump out at him unexpectedly from around every corner. There would be no peace without the initial confrontation, of finding out where they stood so progress could be made - either towards actual peace or simply coming up with a reasonable schedule by which to avoid each other.

Making such a schedule seems reasonable to Xehanort.

He glances up when the door opens (brown eyes, not yellow, not orange--), half expecting someone else - but strangely, strangely, it's almost surreal in a way, Ienzo ... looks pretty much exactly like he did a few months ago to Xehanort's memory. Bigger, yes. Leaner, with the angles and build of an adult and not the roundness of childhood, but very much obviously the same person.

Even his hair.

"For what little good it will likely do to say so," is the eventual, quiet response to a broken hello and then a stronger one, "You don't have to worry about violence. The train has far too many people who would suddenly appear out of nowhere to interfere."

He's listening. Not just for the sounds, of voice and tone, but the sounds of darkness. The inevitable parade of negative emotion that went with every single one of these encounters. A surge of cacophonic rage and hate might well mean he has to move quickly to escape, after all..

"..Are you still called Ienzo?"

[anxiousbookworm]

The thing that had changed most about him was his voice, which is considerably deeper now. Not as deep as, say, Aeleus's, but still a fairly deep, rich tone. It doesn't really suit how small he is in comparison.

The darkness is definitely there, though it's mostly directed inward rather than at Xehanort directly. While the others likely blame Xehanort for his part in everything, Ienzo hasn't gotten there yet. Seeing Xehanort again, especially this blast from the past, is just salt in the wound of how absolutely stupid he'd been back then.

"It's less 'still' and more 'once again,' but yes, I'm Ienzo. It may surprise you to know that I wasn't worried about violence," Ienzo says. "Direct attacks were never your preferred way of things." In his experience, the other man tends to go more for manipulation tactics. Zexion had learned from the master, after all. But he thinks, or he hopes anyway, that he can resist that now if he needs to.

Ienzo nervously clutches the book he'd brought. It's more of a security blanket than anything, though it's thick enough that it would probably hurt a fair amount if he hit someone with it. Not that he has any plans of doing that. Normally he'd be anxiously rattling off about something or other, but he's not really sure what to do or say here, how to bridge that gap. Does he even want to? He's not sure yet. By far, even more than anger, the biggest negative emotion around Ienzo right now is anxiety. Not much different than when he was a child, really. He'd been an anxious sort then, too.

[mustknow]

It was, perhaps, for the best that Xehanort's dealings with Ienzo had not been as in depth as some of the other apprentices even in the time he does know. There's less of a memory of years of 'this is a child' to overcome.

"Or that," is the prompt, briefly terribly bitter response. "But saying so won't help, will it?" Slowly, neutrality reasserts itself, or something nearly like it. He could manage self control at least, fight down anything but placid evenness. "And I suspect--"

No. That thought is cut off before he can finish it, and he raises one hand to rub the bridge of his nose slowly, eyes closed. It's anxiousness, not raw hatred, and that's something at least.. but fear wouldn't encourage Ienzo to speak, or act, very efficiently. "Since the others seem to have found it somewhat cathartic, let's begin with a list of the sins I'll commit upon you, and the harm I've inflicted and so on. After so long, there's likely a considerable burden." So, so carefully neutral. So delicately close to cracking.

"And then we can work out an agreeable schedule as to where we plan to be, on average, so we may avoid each other in the future when possible, like reasonable people." He closes the children's book after marking a page, and sets it aside. "None of this.. popping up out of nowhere with accusations or hostility. I think we can get beyond that rather quickly here today."

[anxiousbookworm]

Ienzo is also trying very hard to be civil, not to lash out or just straight up leave. Because he really doesn't want to do this, and everything in him is screaming at him to get out. Hence the security book for comfort. He does, on a surface level, understand that this is a Xehanort that is not the one he came to know, not the one who betrayed them all and ultimately became Xemnas. It's unfair to have these feelings toward this person who hasn't done anything to deserve it- in fact, he might as well be a different person altogether.

His eyes brighten a little at that thought. Maybe that's it? Maybe the key here is to think of the two of them as two entirely different people? He doesn't know if it'll work, but it's an interesting thought experiment. Can it be done, when just looking at the other man brings back so many memories?

Sometimes, he wishes he could just erase his memories. But mostly he knows he wouldn't even if he could.

He blinks at the suggestion at a list, then frowns slightly. "I would rather not make such a list, if it's all the same to you," he says. "I'm far more burdened by my own sins than yours. Rehashing all of that will only be a laundry list of the ways I failed and the terrible things I've done."

"We've successfully avoided each other up until this point..." Ienzo says. He's not sure, though, how much of that is due to interference from the others. "But I suppose a schedule would be more comfortable. If it makes you feel any better, I never had any intention of approaching you with hostility. I'm quite aware of the roles that were played in events back then, and while I can't claim full culpability, I'm the one who's largely responsible for what happened. I don't push that blame or anger on anyone else." That isn't to say that Xehanort's future self carries none of that responsibility, but Ienzo didn't come here to be antagonistic. They clearly both had a lot of feelings they needed to work through.

[mustknow]

The train's dealt with duplicates before, and Even's made them before - but somehow the courtesy of treating him as if he were one of them simply wasn't extended to him. It no longer occurs to him that they should.

"Don't let that hold you back." There could be scorn or derision to those words but there aren't. There isn't much at all, really. He shouldn't push.. but if it isn't handled now, then Xehanort's certain a few days or a week or a month down the line it's going to be used against him anyway. He'd rather have it where he's already steeled himself as best he can, and is as prepared as it gets. "Aren't I supposed to be the origins of all those terrible things, and you and the others merely my unwitting and helpless puppets? The sword is hardly guilty when someone picks it up and strikes, after all."

He'd worked very, very hard to avoid Ienzo.. and the others for that matter, for weeks. It had for the most part worked very well, except for the one time Ansem caught him in the hallway. But it hadn't happened since! That was something, wasn't it?

"I don't think anything is going to be making me 'feel better' anymore." That's pretty high on the list of things he shouldn't be saying, it sounds manipulative, sounds like something that could be used to try to control another's reactions. "You do understand I can hardly believe you're largely responsible for any of it at all when people I once trusted absolutely tried to kill me twice over those same events. If someone's trying to convince you you're to blame, they're just looking for an easy target." One tanned hand rises, in a brief point. "And that includes yourself. Unless everyone's left out something very important of course, and you're the true mastermind behind everything, however unlikely that is."

[anxiousbookworm]

"No, I was not the mastermind," Ienzo confirms. "I'm not discounting that there were a lot of manipulative tactics used at the time. However, I should have known better. And I was the one who convinced Master Ansem to build the lab. Without that, without his initial cooperation, I don't think things would've gotten as far as they did. Everything that happened after that was my fault. And then I abandoned him." The Ansem in his own timeline had long ago forgiven him for that, but the betrayal still hurt to look back at.

Really, Ienzo had been just a child who had the adults in his life fail to protect him at every level, but he didn't see that. He looked back at that time and saw mistakes he made and the ways he personally had failed. The things he'd been able to convince others to do because they'd trusted him and his judgement, which had ultimately been faulty. It was likely the result of being a prodigy as a child- so he'd been treated as a child in some cases, usually when it came to his behavior, and as an adult other times, with his ideas and what his mind was capable of producing. Mentally, he'd certainly always been treated as an equal to the adults in his life- which, ultimately, meant that he felt culpable as an adult. He was too far deep into his guilt and shame to see otherwise.

"I could make excuses, but they were choices that I made. That's no one's fault but my own. I do not, and refuse to be forced to, blame you for that. Even if that changes someday... it won't be soon, and I can promise you that I won't physically attack you for it. Direct attacks have never been my way, either." He smiles a little at this- it hadn't been a shot at Xehanort, not really. "Aside from the fact that I'm fully aware that you could defend yourself against me easily, even as Zexion when I had more power, I only fought physically when someone forced the issue."

Xehanort having to avoid all of them to prevent issues was sad, though. It was understandable why, but there were too many of them for that to be easy or comfortable to do.

"A schedule, however, I can manage. I can work around whatever you've already arranged with others."

He wasn't here to be difficult, after all.

[mustknow]

"A lab?" There's STILL details being kept from him.. such as apparently Ienzo being a major part of getting some lab or other. "I may have only been in Radiant Garden a handful of months," he continues after a long moment, "But nothing I encountered there gave me the impression you or anyone else was particularly adept at dealing with malevolent forces of any kind." How were they supposed to know to look out for manipulating evil when such things simply didn't seem to EXIST there?

They were all painfully naïve. And they all paid for it eventually. "I'm uncertain how you think anyone at all in the castle should have known better, with Braig being the closest example to someone morally questionable to be had for miles."

So, clearly, they were duped by A DIFFERENT mastermind, which was not Ienzo.

And not a single one saw it coming. Well.. that's not true. Xehanort's still certain Braig knew much, much more than he was willing to let on..

He doesn't disagree that, barring some unknown magic Ienzo might have, it would be VERY easy to fend off any physical assault - he knows approximately what he's capable of on strength alone. "Zexion?" It's a distant echo, because there's more pressing matters.

He.. hasn't arranged anything at all with anyone else, and looks for a moment distinctly uncomfortable with the thought. "I have no schedule with anyone else." It's admitted reluctantly at best. "They do not give the impression they'd be ... willing. So when I hear them coming I leave."

Strong negative emotions are loud in the darkness, and they're very distinctive. It's easy to simply be elsewhere every time he catches a familiar whisper. "You're the only one I thought might ..." He gives a brief, helpless gesture with one hand. "Even consider it, working around fear is a lot easier than working around hatred."

[anxiousbookworm]

Ienzo isn't entirely surprised that Xehanort hasn't heard about the lab. It's... well. It doesn't reflect well on them. And while Ienzo deals with that reflection every day, it's also easier to bury that, to pretend like they hadn't lost parts of their humanity along the way instead of all at once.

"Yes. It's where we did experiments on the heart. Master Ansem took part at first, but when it started crossing the line, he put a stop to it... or so he thought. We continued behind his back, for science," Ienzo says, then grimaces. "Which is ultimately how several of us lost our hearts and became Nobodies. Zexion is my Nobody. I'm not sure what you've been told of Nobodies?" Might as well save the lecture if Xehanort knew, after all.

Ienzo also wouldn't have been surprised if Braig had known something. Braig, and especially Xigbar, had always been... well, different, for a lack of a better word. He didn't have particularly good memories of Braig, as even with a heart, he'd been kind of a jerk, and an anxious ten year old was an easy target. He hadn't been malicious back then, though, he just didn't think things through. But he was the closest to Xemnas, so there might've been a reason for that. To a point, it's unfortunate that Xehanort is from so early on, or else they might've been able to get some insight into why that was.

He doesn't even consider that Xehanort might be afraid of his magic. First, because he hasn't used it since he became human again, wanting to leave it behind with Zexion. Second, because it wasn't an offensive type of magic. It wasn't like Vexen, who could kill you with an ice shard, or Lea, who could burn you to death. Ienzo had illusions, which had never been effective against Xemnas, so he couldn't imagine Xehanort would be much different on that score.

"Oh," he says softly at learning that Xehanort disappears when coming into contact with the others. He understands, from both sides, but he's been surprised today to find that he feels a little bit sorry for Xehanort. It's not an easy existence he has on the train, it seems. He flinches, though, when he's called out directly on his fear. He thought he had it under control enough, but clearly not, as Xehanort has obviously picked up on it rather easily. "Oh." He's speechless for a moment, looking away, feeling distinctly embarrassed that his fear is so transparent to others. "I suppose, ultimately, you're right about that, at least, since I'm here."

[mustknow]

There's an opportunity here, and it's one Xehanort weighs very carefully putting to the test. So much has been kept from him, for all kinds of reasons, and some of it.. some of it surely would be worth knowing, if only to make sure it doesn't happen again. And while Ienzo's hardly an encyclopedia of willing information, there wasn't as much reluctance as Ansem or Even had.

Maybe fear really was easier. "I've ... found out, here and there, about Nobodies." Some telling, mostly just eavesdropping because some people forget that the network is an open source of information. "It seems to be a strangely beneficial state, aside from the obvious flaw." And yet something in his tone suggests he's not about to volunteer for it. Experiments on the heart.. light, darkness, their balance or lack thereof, and the memories attached--

The rest can wait a moment or two, because there's that flash of embarrassment, and all that hair doesn't quite hide it. "You're not as obvious as you might think. You're... better at hiding emotion than a lot of people on the train. I just.. cheat." Of course he cheats, he's Xehanort, he always-- "...Negative emotions make a sound in the darkness. Everyone's distinct, but hate always sounds like hate. Or fear. Or grief." Like a scent, for other people! It could.. almost explain some of the ways Xehanort later on is so fantastic at manipulating others; if he's got a finger on the pulse of their darker emotions, then altering what he says to fit the ebb and flow of their own doubts and concerns or greeds would be effortless.

No, he absolutely has questions.. they simply must wait. Maybe he'd get more of a straight answer from Ienzo, with a child's unclouded mind and perspective, and then ten years of the clarity of an unemotional life behind it. Why.

"You are here," Xehanort agrees, tone subdued. "I hadn't been sure you would come. You had a myriad reasons not to, and especially not alone. It's a great risk to take, even knowing what little I do of what comes of things."

[anxiousbookworm]

Ienzo has much the same thought about it- if he knows about what happens n his future, perhaps he can prevent it. Although perhaps that's also messing with a timeline that shouldn't be messed with, and will have an effect on all of them. Not that they have any clue what happens when you leave here. Maybe you forget everything that happened on the train, which would make the entire line of thinking mute. But... would it really be such a bad thing if things hadn't happened the way that they did? He wouldn't have met a lot of people that he knows now, that much is true. There were certainly some people who would argue that some good came out of everything, but in Ienzo's opinion, that was vastly outweighed by the harm that had been done to multiple worlds.

He frowns thoughtfully. "The obvious flaw being not so obvious, as there's more than one," he points out. He assumes it's intentional. "Nobodies are largely brainless, heartless creatures who cannot think on their own. However, if you have a strong enough heart, and then if you lose it, a sentient being will be created instead. A Nobody is... an abomination. Something that's not supposed to exist. You aren't supposed to continue living if you lose your heart, and yet..." he shrugs. "A Nobody has no memories of their past selves to begin with. They function much the same ways as humans, but without a heart, they have no emotions. They do, however, have some of the personality of the original person, just twisted into a dark thing."

"There are advantages. A Nobody is faster, stronger, taller, much more powerful than their human counterpart. But in my opinion, it's not worth the exchange. Even as Nobodies we largely thought so. We spent ten years trying to get our hearts back, after all." The fact that they could have long before they did was irrelevant. The point was that the main goal for most of the Organization had been to regain humanity, from the second they lost it. Obvious exceptions aside.

Really, he's actually not good at hiding his emotions- after ten years of having none or close to none, he hasn't really learned how to control them yet- but with Xehanort it seemed important to try. It's good to know he'd been at least somewhat successful.

Ienzo tilts his head slightly, curious. "I knew that darkness had a distinct smell, but I never thought about a sound," he muses. "That's interesting." Not that he wants that sense even if he could get it. He no longer has Zexion's nose and he's grateful. Well, mostly. In this new environment, it would be useful to know which people to be cautious of right away, but that's neither here nor there.

"I considered not coming," he admits. "Even outside the library, I considered going back. But I would rather do this now when I have some degree of control, than to have to suddenly be forced into a situation by circumstances on the train." It's a fair point.

[mustknow]

Something in all that causes Xehanort to make a face. "What terrible phrasing. If it exists, it's 'supposed' to exist. And before you take that tangent because I've heard it before, something you can touch, sense, interact with, speak with and get interaction back does exist, at the very least for the duration of the interaction. If it happened, not only is it possible, it may happen far more than our limited knowledge at the time thought. Which doesn't mean it's declared impossible, it means we declare our understanding incomplete and revise it as needed." He sits back, frowning. "Reality isn't limited by our ignorance. Besides which if most Nobodies are thoughtless, memoryless beings, why is it every single one I've encountered has been anything but? The odds should vastly be against it."

At least ... at least there's no sense he's going to suddenly run off and start experiments. Maybe run off and grab someone's dictionary and begin rewriting it. "On the surface it merely sounds as if someone wishes you and everyone else who uses such terms to think it is fact, for it would be a fantastic way of dehumanizing one's foes. You can't murder what doesn't exist. You can't torture what doesn't exist. Who cares what such a being thinks, they don't exist, and if they did exist they're abominations.." He leans back, gaze shifting away, some of the neutrality of his tone so carefully kept edging away bit by bit. "Is it my future self?"

Who clearly, if so, was ignoring obvious fact in favor of buzzwords, because it would have to make something easier somewhere. Not controlling people, that wouldn't work. If most Nobodies were brainless husks, that was completely worthless. Even a ten percent turnaround to getting a more powerful being would be vastly inefficient, and for what? To tell them to get hearts back again?

"..A smell?" That's somehow stranger than a sound, and Xehanort shakes his head. "No smells that I've ever detected. Always sounds, like conversations in another room. If you listen very closely, you can almost make out the words.." But never.. quite. "Overset by other things harder to describe. I think I'd prefer sounds over scents, an overpowering sound is bad enough but a bad smell can clear a room."

It only occurs to him afterward that he hasn't' actually mentioned this to anyone else before except Elidibus. ... It probably didn't matter, it kept him able to avoid the people he needed to avoid long before they could detect him.

"Likely the train will force exactly what it pleases when it pleases, and to hell with what anyone else wants." There is briefly, a touch of bitterness to that. "Be glad you arrived no earlier, for of late it's decided the best thing it can possibly do is subject us all to repeated psychological torture."

[anxiousbookworm]

"You've clearly never encountered a Dusk," Ienzo says dryly. "Or anything similar. Lower-level Nobodies are... one assumes they have brains, since they can follow orders, but they don't seem to have a will of their own, or a personality to speak of. They don't even seem capable of speech. There are millions of them, perhaps billions. Who knows, they might be the Nobodies of animals or something. We certainly destroyed enough worlds to make that happen."

It's sobering, to know that their actions directly created those sad creatures. He's not really sure how many exist now in his current timeline. Maybe they disappeared along with the old Xehanort? That didn't seem likely.

"You misunderstand. I can't speak for lower-level Nobodies because I wasn't one, but gradually, over time, a higher level Nobody will slowly regain their heart. Along with this, their memories will begin to come back to them. The Nobodies that you've met on the train, Vexen and Demyx, would largely have their human memories back at this point. Of course, back then we didn't understand that our hearts were growing back. We didn't know that the tasks we were being given were actively stunting the growth of our hearts, as was the fact that we were being kept away from humans." He pauses, thinking about who had started saying that they weren't supposed to exist. "I can't recall if it was Xemnas or not who started the abomination thing. Perhaps, but it's been too long now, and I can't solidly place the blame on him at this point."

"Yes, a smell. Zexion could smell a person's darkness and identify them from that from a significant distance. If someone entered the castle, he knew when it happened and who it was, as long as he'd met them before. He also could've told you the exact position of any singular person in the castle at any given time." Ienzo frowned. "It was a useful skill, but rather unpleasant, depending on what a person's darkness smelled like. I'm glad I don't have it. Sound seems... a bit frustrating as well, for different reasons. I'm not sure there are any methods of reliable darkness detection that aren't at least a little bit creepy." Smell being one of the higher ones on that list, honestly.

He nods at Xehanort's last assessment. "Exactly. Hence doing this on my own terms, rather than letting the train decide those terms." The torture thing he could understand anyway, that was just his day to day, trying not to go insane thinking about all of the things he'd done. It was why he frequently talked about Zexion as if he'd been a completely different person- trying to gain some psychological distance. He rejected everything about his Nobody, including that Zexion was still a part of him, just not as explicitly out there. Ienzo could bury him in his mind and spend the rest of his life trying to atone for what they had done between the two of them.

[mustknow]

"Should the opportunity arise, I'd gladly rectify the lack of encounter." If they were clever enough to follow orders, then they were above and beyond animals outright. If he got the opportunity, it would be worth studying. Carefully, of course, since they were once people, and could apparently become people again. He taps the tablet on his lap almost absently, before turning it back on and taking a moment to jot down an idea or two quickly; it's taking some getting used to, doing everything in a digital interface, but it had its uses.

It didn't quite sound right, any of it. Not to his fleeting knowledge of how things worked. The only thing to do would, of course, to be put it to the test.

In time. He suspected any such efforts would draw hostility rather quickly, so he'd have to be a bit more careful about when and how he chose to pursue it. "You clearly place a dividing line between yourself and your other self," Zexion in this case, "Why is that? I don't mean simply something like ... 'I didn't have a heart', that seems.. vague."

Not the word he wants, clearly, but finding the right word seems to be rather difficult. Language defined thought, and lacking the words he wanted for a description was seriously a problem. "And nothing at all remains of the skills you'd had for ... a decade, at least?" Powers, abilities, knowledge- whatever it was! Smelling darkness wasn't something he'd want to inflict on anyone, especially since surely perception would be altered by virtue of being denizens of the realm of light, and thus the antithesis of that existence would surely be foul..

He'll keep his perceptions as they are. Sound was useful. Sometimes it was keenly interesting. "It's.. not always terrible, perhaps unlike smells. Late at night, when it's quiet, and all there is, is the echo of your own doubts and fears, sometimes it sounds like it might be singing." Which of course it couldn't be, and was merely how his mind chose to interpret the chaos, but it was still..

The thought is shaken off, with a literal shake of his head. "But that's irrelevant. I want... I would prefer it if you and I might ... somehow manage to keep things from devolving any further. A schedule, or becoming used to each other's presences, or whatever might be most efficient. Additionally, there are a few small things you should know, so it isn't suddenly sprung on you in the future in some ... misguided attempt at confession."