Lea "Dark Rescue" Lastname (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
promises_to_keep) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
million_points_of_light2014-02-23 03:11 pm
promises_to_keep) wrote in million_points_of_light2014-02-23 03:11 pm
i need to get my bearings
Who: Lea and anybody who wanders in
When: (i'll get back to you)
Where: Casa de Bro, technically? Um. The depths of Lea's subconscious?
What: Dreamsharing isn't so fun when your dreams are like Lea's.
Warnings: Nothing too awful; Kingdom Hurts, the usual warnings apply.
Lea rarely remembered his nightmares. He always remembered having dreamt, when he was jerked awake with clammy hands and his pulse pounding in his throat, deafening in his ears, but nine times out of ten he simply didn't remember what had driven him so harshly to wakefulness.
When he did remember, it tended to be the same thing: the darkened streets of Radiant Garden, littered with the narrow red eyes of the little monsters that weren't Heartless but were something not unlike them. They moved silently, their needle-sharp limbs not making a sound as they darted across the cobbled streets, like shadows from flickering firelight.
He was always alone, which was the worst part. He'd gotten used to the nightmares being this way, honestly. The solitude was what made them frightening, somehow. His home had lost all of its color, all of its people, all of its hearts, and all that remained was an empty husk... outlines and shadows and nothing to fill them in. Just like he'd been, before he'd regained his heart: outlines, shadows...
Something felt different about this one. His feet were cold. His footsteps made noise as he walked across the abandoned stone roads, and that had never happened before. Usually his presence was as silent as that of the monsters, like he wasn't even there, like nothing he could do would change anything. That was the point, wasn't it? That was what haunted him, was the fact that he'd been unable to do anything. His home had fallen, his family had been taken away, his best friend had been lost... Lea had been useless, and it was that uselessness that still crawled up his spine and nestled at the base of his skull those dark nights when sleep refused to stay by his side. So if this wasn't a manifestation of that usual skeleton locked away in the closet of his mind, what did it mean?
A voiceless wind rushed past him and he shivered, shoving his hands into his po-- Wait, where was his coat? Why was he in a tee-shirt? Why was he wearing what he'd gone to bed in? Sometimes he would catch a glimpse of his reflection in the water in the fountain court and those cursed marks would be back on his cheeks, but whether the dream painted him as Axel or Lea, he was always in his Organization coat. It was part of it, after all--the Organization was to blame for everything, and he'd worn the coat himself. He had aided and abetted the downfall of everything he had ever cared about, and the worst part was he hadn't even realized until it was too late. He had these nightmares pegged to the last detail anymore. He might not have remembered everything when he woke up, but when he was immersed in them, he had memorized every line of the brick buildings, every shadow of the castle, every slanted rectangle of colorless light from the broken streetlamps.
This was wrong.
The wind was chilly against his bare arms, and that explained why his feet were so cold--he wasn't wearing shoes. This was officially the weirdest nightmare he'd ever had. At least from the ones he remembered. He rubbed his arms and kept walking, watching the little monsters dart out of his path and back into the shadows. He knew how this would end: the closer he got to the castle, the more of the world would lose its color, and eventually the lines would break apart and everything would collapse. He would hear Isa scream his name, he would feel claws tearing at his chest, the sound of a heartbeat would fill his ears, and then...
... then he would jerk awake with a cry stuck in the back of his throat and his fingers tangled in the sheet, and he probably wouldn't even remember why.
Might as well get it over with.
When: (i'll get back to you)
Where: Casa de Bro, technically? Um. The depths of Lea's subconscious?
What: Dreamsharing isn't so fun when your dreams are like Lea's.
Warnings: Nothing too awful; Kingdom Hurts, the usual warnings apply.
Lea rarely remembered his nightmares. He always remembered having dreamt, when he was jerked awake with clammy hands and his pulse pounding in his throat, deafening in his ears, but nine times out of ten he simply didn't remember what had driven him so harshly to wakefulness.
When he did remember, it tended to be the same thing: the darkened streets of Radiant Garden, littered with the narrow red eyes of the little monsters that weren't Heartless but were something not unlike them. They moved silently, their needle-sharp limbs not making a sound as they darted across the cobbled streets, like shadows from flickering firelight.
He was always alone, which was the worst part. He'd gotten used to the nightmares being this way, honestly. The solitude was what made them frightening, somehow. His home had lost all of its color, all of its people, all of its hearts, and all that remained was an empty husk... outlines and shadows and nothing to fill them in. Just like he'd been, before he'd regained his heart: outlines, shadows...
Something felt different about this one. His feet were cold. His footsteps made noise as he walked across the abandoned stone roads, and that had never happened before. Usually his presence was as silent as that of the monsters, like he wasn't even there, like nothing he could do would change anything. That was the point, wasn't it? That was what haunted him, was the fact that he'd been unable to do anything. His home had fallen, his family had been taken away, his best friend had been lost... Lea had been useless, and it was that uselessness that still crawled up his spine and nestled at the base of his skull those dark nights when sleep refused to stay by his side. So if this wasn't a manifestation of that usual skeleton locked away in the closet of his mind, what did it mean?
A voiceless wind rushed past him and he shivered, shoving his hands into his po-- Wait, where was his coat? Why was he in a tee-shirt? Why was he wearing what he'd gone to bed in? Sometimes he would catch a glimpse of his reflection in the water in the fountain court and those cursed marks would be back on his cheeks, but whether the dream painted him as Axel or Lea, he was always in his Organization coat. It was part of it, after all--the Organization was to blame for everything, and he'd worn the coat himself. He had aided and abetted the downfall of everything he had ever cared about, and the worst part was he hadn't even realized until it was too late. He had these nightmares pegged to the last detail anymore. He might not have remembered everything when he woke up, but when he was immersed in them, he had memorized every line of the brick buildings, every shadow of the castle, every slanted rectangle of colorless light from the broken streetlamps.
This was wrong.
The wind was chilly against his bare arms, and that explained why his feet were so cold--he wasn't wearing shoes. This was officially the weirdest nightmare he'd ever had. At least from the ones he remembered. He rubbed his arms and kept walking, watching the little monsters dart out of his path and back into the shadows. He knew how this would end: the closer he got to the castle, the more of the world would lose its color, and eventually the lines would break apart and everything would collapse. He would hear Isa scream his name, he would feel claws tearing at his chest, the sound of a heartbeat would fill his ears, and then...
... then he would jerk awake with a cry stuck in the back of his throat and his fingers tangled in the sheet, and he probably wouldn't even remember why.
Might as well get it over with.
no subject
The weirdest thing about this was that Sheena hadn't been sleeping. She'd been consulting Corrine's bell, talking to him as she so often did, and then she was sprawled on her ass in the plaza. Talk about a terrible sense of timing.
She tiptoed along the streets, looking for an exit. It was only more of the same, at least until she spied Lea shuffling along like a zombie. Maybe he knew what was going on? He'd been in Exsilium far longer than she had. And at least... she wouldn't be alone in such a sad, creepy place.
"Lea!" She sprinted over to him, Corrine's collar dangling around her wrist for lack of anywhere else to put it. Her cards and daggers had holsters. Mementos, not so much. "Where are we? What's going on?"
And why did he look like he'd just attended a funeral?
no subject
"Sheena?"
He turned toward the sound, momentarily disoriented as it sort of echoed and reverberated off the hollow greyed out buildings and empty streets, and he boggled for a moment. Yeah, that was definitely Sheena running toward him. In... her pajamas. With a bell in her hands. ... Okay. Well, at least he wasn't the only one in his PJs, but this was just getting weirder by the minute. For a moment he forgot the heavy feeling of wretched solitude that always seemed to grip him in his dreams and he impulsively reached out for her, closing uncharacteristically cold hands around her wrists as she came up beside him. She was really there! She was real!
What the hell was going on?
"What are you doing here?" he asked, shaking his head in confusion. "We're... This is..." He lifted his head to look around, like he had to make sure this really was his dream or something, and then he looked back at her again, frowning. "I thought I was having a nightmare," he admitted, squeezing her hands before releasing them and rubbing his arms. "How did you get here?"
no subject
"I don't know. I was about to go to bed, and then I blinked and I was here." She glanced around, making sure some nasty monster wasn't about to sneak up on the two of them. "This is your nightmare? That shouldn't even be possible. Maybe it's something to do with the Initiative...?"
no subject
"Oh is that why you're wearing pajamas?" he asked facetiously. "I thought we were just gonna have a slumber party."
Levity was good; if he could still crack a joke he hadn't lost his mind, right? He rubbed the crown of his head and cast his eyes up the side of one of the buildings nearby. "I know it shouldn't be possible," he admitted, letting his arm fall and licking his lips nervously, "but... I dunno what else this could be." He gestured down the road in front of them. "There, up around that corner is the fountain court," he said, "and... off that way, you can see the, ah... the castle." He rubbed his arms again. "This is definitely Radiant Garden," he said, giving her a haunted look, "so unless we both sleepwalked into a VR simulation of the town I grew up in, I think you somehow managed to stumble into a dream I'm having." A dream he had at least once a week, even lately. A dream that would probably continue to haunt him until Xehanort was defeated, if not beyond then.
In the long run, he supposed it probably wasn't the strangest thing he'd ever heard.
no subject
But-- wait. This was the town he grew up in? "This is... your hometown?"
It was a nightmare, though. So whatever happened here clearly haunted him, and not just because all the residents had 'died'. She caught a glimpse of some shadowy creature scurrying just out of her peripheral vision and couldn't help a shiver.
"How do we make it stop?" Sheena realized she hadn't pinched herself yet. She tried now, but all she ended up doing was making her arm hurt. "Ow! ... Okay, so the easy way is right out." She placed her hands on her hips. "If we have to watch the dream to the end, then we'll do that. I promise I'll be right here. And I won't tell anyone, okay?"
no subject
"Yeah," he said, "this is my hometown. Welcome to Radiant Garden. Though it doesn't seem too radiant at the moment, I'll admit." He watched a shiver grip her spine as one of the not!Heartless skittered past them, and waved a hand. "Don't worry too much about them," he said. "They're a pain in droves, but one or two aren't a big deal." He met her eye. "Remember how I told you about the guys who lived in the castle who brought about the downfall of the world?" A beat of silence, and then he spread his arms to his sides. "Welcome to the end of the world, I guess," he said, almost sullen. "If I'd known you were gonna be joining me I would have tried to have a dream about a beach or ice cream or something, sheesh."
no subject
Sheena couldn't even muster a smile. Lea was trying hard, maybe too hard. It was sort of like watching herself in a way. She shook her head slowly, one hand making a fist; she was thankful she wasn't unarmed, at least. Unlike all the nightmares she had where she couldn't change something, this was different. Maybe should offer a bit of support for someone else.
Yeah. She had a good feeling about that, even if the place was creepy as hell and crawling with shadow monsters.
"It sounds like we have somewhere to be." She paused, then she held out her hand for him to take. "Let's go to the castle. I'll be right here, so if you get scared... well, I'll probably be scared too. But at least we'll be scared together."
no subject
He stared at her hand a moment, then managed a bare hint of a smile. He really was lucky to have the friends he had here. He never expected to come to care about any of them the way he had... somehow he had just expected to keep living in the vacuum his life had been for so long, where emotions were nothing but a liability and Roxas and Xion were the only ones worth risking it for. In the end, he was so glad that had changed.
"I can live with that," he said, taking her hand and then linking their elbows. He didn't know why Sheena was here, but he wasn't really complaining.
It wasn't far to the castle. He knew the path with his eyes closed. As they walked, the little shadow creatures flitted around them, like rabbits or squirrels, darting in and out and away from them even as they curiously watched with their narrow red eyes. Reaching the stone stairs that led up away from the street to the castle gates, Lea hesitated, tightening his arm where it was linked through Sheena's.
"Wait," he said, frowning. He could hear his pulse thrumming in his ears. He knew he shouldn't have been afraid... this was the same dream he always had, he already knew everything that was going to happen. Why did it still frighten him? Shouldn't he have been over this by now? He took a slow, deep breath and held it a moment before exhaling. "So far everything's been the same," he said, "except... you're here." He glanced at her sidelong. "I dunno if your being here is actually going to change anything, so... I'll tell you that when we get to the top of the stairs, there's gonna be a boy. He'll be unconscious, and nothing we do will wake him. And then the castle will start to fall." He furrowed his brow. "So, ah..." He scratched the back of his head nervously. "Just. Watch yourself, I guess. Don't get hit? I don't know if you can get hurt here, but I don't wanna be the cause of anything else."
no subject
It was all part of the dream, but she wondered if the dream was unchangeable. She couldn't keep a whole castle from falling by herself, but what about the boy?
"I'll be careful," she assured him. She was still armed, and if things went from bad to worse she could always call on her other... friends. "We'll be okay if we stick together, right?"
She paused. "How does an entire castle just fall down anyway?"
no subject
"I'd like to think we'll be okay because it's just a dream, and theoretically it can't hurt us," he said wryly, "but if that falls through, I can definitely say I feel a bit more confident having you for backup.
"Ah..."
And then he shook his head, taking the first step up.
"No, no, it's..." He took another step and rubbed his chin. "Like it falls apart," he said, waiting for her to follow before continuing slowly up the stairs. The ground kinda opens up, and everything sort of..." He made a vague falling gesture and whistled, like the sound of a bomb dropping. "Falls in." He furrowed his brow. "That's... that's what happens when worlds end, where I come from. The darkness just swallows them up."
He didn't really want Sheena to have to see what he knew was going to happen. He supposed there were worse people to drag into a dream with you--at least she knew Sheena wouldn't use this against him--but it was still something private, something that hurt him terribly. This was his failure, and it wasn't one he wanted to share.
"Just watch your step," he said as they neared the top of the stairs. He could hear his heartbeat speed up, thudding in his ears. "That's about all we can do."
no subject
"Is this a bad time to mention I have a habit of falling into holes?"
There was always levity, even if there was truth to that statement. She'd fallen into a pretty nasty pit trap once but she'd been okay later on. Just a bit beaten up. She had Zelos to thank for that... even if he didn't remember in Exsilium.
She had to concentrate on the here and now. "Anyway, I'm right here. Don't worry."