networkinthenight | text; @bacura

No, I don't.

I can tie my cap around my ears if I gotta, but first I'm making sure you're safe.

[That everyone is.

He's the Hero, after all, he can't let people rush around foolishly on his watch. That's his job!]

Okay, see, I'd be down with that, but. [ And Sora sort of grumbles because man. He's not sure if he knows how Link feels, but he can see himself doing the same thing. ] I'll be safe. It might be better if only one person goes anyway. [ And if it comes down to a value judgment between himself and Link, he's pretty sure Link, the actual trained warrior, is the more valuable asset here? Beacon can't lose Link. ]

[Link doesn't answer but after a while Sora might notice the bobbing of a lantern in the distance.

At one point, just over a building's length away it stops and a figure surges towards him through the darkness. Once in range of his own light it reveals itself to be a large, black wolf and it is definitely leaping right at him.]

[ Sora's observation studies with the soldier have been going well, but the soldier's lessons haven't covered mid-flight observation technique. (It might just be because they can't fly. Sora isn't sure if that would necessarily stop them.)

Anyway, he spots the wolf too late, and had also landed a bit in a particularly hard to navigate tangle of trees, making him particularly easy to tackle. He may have been able to continue gliding if he wasn't so intent on getting somewhere, but that plus his still rather potent fear of being alone in these woods was kneecapping him. He'd already had an echo coming in and it was not comforting. At least he'd had friends wherever those dark woods were. At least there was light.

He's going to have a moment to turn and get an arm up so the wolf doesn't get at his eyes, but he'll go down hard, his head thunking against the ground and the wolf falling heavily on top of him. Is this a spirit? Is this how it ends?

In his blind panic, he does the only thing that he's prepared to do - soldier training. He gets a hand onto the knife on the back of his belt and frees it, trying to get the blade between him and the wolf. It's too close for the keyblade, anyway, and he's not thinking in the moment enough for magic. Knife or nothing. ]

[Link can feel Sora squirming in panic beneath him. He lifts himself up and places one large paw on Sora's back.

..Then the knife comes out.

He grabs the knife-wielding hand by the wrist in his jaws but doesn't bite down hard enough to cause any damage. Instead, he removes his paw and shifts his teeth to the sleeve so he can more comfortably start dragging Sora backwards.

Oh, the lantern.

He stops, keeping his teeth sunk into the cloth and waits for Sora to make sure his lantern is secure. He feels bad enough about scaring the metaphorical day light out of the kid, he certainly doesn't want to actually harm him.]

[ Wrist caught, he immediately tries to both jerk away, squirming around until he can get his other arm unpinned from under him. Switching hands. Keep a firm grip. Do not let yourself be disarmed unless you have a plan for what happens next.

Well, it is the plan until the spirit starts tugging him backward. It. Almost feels like a dog pulling at him? He's still holding that knife in his hand, his knuckles white and hand shaking, but he does risk a look at it now that it's clear that he's not getting mauled. That's when it just. Stops. Still with its teeth in his sleeve, still feeling a little dangerous in Sora's mind, but not out to harm him right away.

What does he do now? His lantern, still bumping at his hip, is almost the last thing on his mind. Eventually, he goes for his second instinct.

He whistles in the spirit's language. It's nervous, trembly, but perfectly understandable. Hello. Friend? ]

[Link feels for a moment like his mind is going to split open.

Hello. Friend?

He knows the language, it's the tongue of the spirits, a language he can understand quite well in his current form even if he's powerless to actually speak it.

Slowly, he releases Sora's sleeve, hoping he's not opening himself up to be instantly gutted.

He steps around into the lantern light, wagging his tail, then grabs him by the sleeve again and starts urgently tugging him towards the twinkling light hanging in a nearby grove of trees.]

[ Sora will allow the wolf to let go, then sit up as it walks around his lantern. Tail... wagging? (Also, aren't spirits supposed to have masks?) That seems... hopeful? He'll jump a little as the wolf comes back to bite into his sleeve, but he'll allow himself to be guided, looking up as he gets onto his knee, then on his feet. Thankfully, he does not drop his knife.

That's someone else's lantern out there in the woods. Or at least a torch? Sora looks at the wolf. It responded rather favorably to his whistling, he guesses. That's all he ever needed. No stabbings here. Sora is quick to trust.

He checks on his lantern - it doesn't seem cracked or damaged, thankfully - then he lifts it high, letting the wolf pull him along. Okay. He trusts you. Lead. ]

[Link continues to tug on the sleeve until the glow of the lantern in the distance is reflected in his eyes...

Then a lot happens at once.

Black shadows engulf his lupine body and surge upwards, pulling him erect along with them and he's forced to part his teeth. Link's now human hand grips Sora and he tugs him towards his lantern a bit more violently than he means to in his desperation to return to his light. Once his lantern is in reach he, without thinking and in a moment of urgency, performs a martial full-point shoulder throw and tosses Sora into the snow.

Then he falls to his knees.

His body convulses as he vomits up dark bile from the physical trauma of the transformation and the separation from his lantern.]

[ Sora is yote, summarily, but here's what happens before and after.

He's perfectly comfortable getting tugged along by his new friend, wondering who it is (and maybe trying to see if they could lead him to wherever Masaomi's gone) before looking at its back and jumping back as it stands up. Is that jaws on his wrist or a hand? Sora gets one second to look down to check, the swirl of shadows both puzzling and alarming, before he's tugged over and upside-down.

Ugh. The soldier is gonna have his head if they find out that he's been that off his guard twice in the same handful of minutes.

He falls on his back in the thankfully forgiving snow, but he's already scrabbling onto his front and onto a knee. (Pause: He actually trips a little as another echo hits. He's not sure what this one is, but if he doesn't remember anything new, it's something he's going to have to remember next time he's prone and in the air.) this time his Keyblade forming in one hand and his knife in another, only to find. Um. He knows those ears. ]

Link?

[ He lets the key dematerialize and stumbles a little trying to get back over to Link, his hands patting at his belt to put his knife back. That's not great! That's not good!

Oh, he caught him first. (Hey, Sora! Not important right now!) ]

I can tell you right now that whatever this is wasn't worth stopping me. [ He gets on a knee at Link's side. Is patting okay? This isn't exactly 3 am on a Saturday morning, him on a knee in some rich kid's house as a fellow jock barfs into a toilet. He's going to try. He's not sure what else to do besides wait with him. ]

[Link remains hunched over until he's sure his body has adjusted to being human and back in the light, then he wheels on Sora.]

People have been telling me about this parade! When you hear it you can't help following it and I'm guessing after that nothing good happens, right!?

[He reaches out and grips Sora's shoulder.]

It's dangerous to go alone!

I had a plan! I have a plan! [ Sora isn't sure if Link has seen the friends who reached out and effectively talked him down from a solo mission. ] I mean, I want to see if he's okay, and I'd like to just rescue him if I can, but I can't.

[ His voice doesn't exactly break on that, but he doesn't exactly look pleased with the situation either. He's made his accommodations! He's trying! No matter how unworthy and stupid he feels for making his friends worry in the first place, he's grateful that they're at least giving him a shot, but what he really wanted to do was just grab this network stranger from certain death and take him somewhere where nothing could hurt him. It kills him to think that he'd just break more hearts if he lost his own life on the way. ]

I'm not going to - Link, what was that? [ He means the wolf. ] Why all of that just for this?

I'm faster on four legs than two and you had a head start. If I'd called out to you, you might have ignored me!

[Slowly, he lets go and sits back.]

The way people were talking it sounded like anyone who crossed paths with this thing was good as dead. I couldn't lose you.

So many people here rely on you, right? As their friend.

Let me handle stuff like this. This is what I do. I'll find him.

[His voice deepens slightly, thickening with intensity.

It's not just the desire to protect everyone, though that's certainly there, as it always is...

There's something else as well.... The black shell of something dark within him that had manifested as a shadow and voices when his lantern turned green.

Arrogance.

Nobody else is chosen by the Gods to be a Hero. He was, though. As the Hero he needs to do heroic things... Otherwise what is he? Who is he? Would he go back to being his old self again? That poor, lone swordsman from the desert who howled and cried in fear and felt haunted his entire life?

He never wants to be that person again. That person was a coward who hid from danger and kept his head down. He couldn't protect anyone. He'd never accomplished anything but destruction. He was nothing.

He'll be that person again if he lets anyone be harmed doing something he feels only he is equipped to do.]

Please...

[ Point and point. Sora tries not to flinch at that. He does have a tendency to ignore his friends when he's too lost in his own desperate need to fix things. If Link has anything about him figured out, it's that.

Sora sinks onto the ground in sort of a cut string sit, his legs out to the side. He's not sure how to respond to the desperation there. Link's a hero. He inherited this. He inherited a need to fix things, and this is a thing to fix. He's a person to protect.

This is so much thinking for what amounts to simple recon mission, Sora realizes in a strange place in the back of his head. But it sort of built up to it, didn't it? Reincarnation, expectations, who you are if you failed to do what you were supposed to. If you failed to be what you were supposed to be. The imminent danger just made it snowball.

It's very lonely, he supposes. Even with all of the friends in the world at your back. He doesn't know how Link is faring, friendwise, but he thinks he might feel something like that too. ]

You know, I was just thinking? If I went alone, and if something happened to me, at least a real hero would still be here. Someone who knew what he was doing, who could do more than just be friends with everybody. Who was better at this whole reincarnation thing. [ .... He laughs, but it's shuddering a little. ] Do you think it's weird for me to be a little jealous of you?

Sora...

[Link crawls forward through the snow and curls up next to him, his blue eyes wide as if he's just been struck.]

I'm not worth being jealous of. I mean, I'm strong but...

...But I have no idea what I'm doing! Things just...happen to me and I react. I know what I have to but not why, exactly.

[He looks down at the toes of his boots.

He doesn't know the context for most things. Midna or the gods themselves point him in a direction and he goes. It makes his stomach cramp, he'd always wanted to be his own man and carve his own path.

Does his death, too, mean something? Was he brought to Beacon for a reason? It feels like he must have been...]

If I am a reincarnation or whatever nobody ever told me where I left off last time. So I just fight.

Honestly, I'm a little jealous of you. I'm not very good at making friends. I mean...there are people who like but...

[He shrugs and scratches the back of his neck.]

[ Sora sits next to him, listening carefully, overwhelmed himself. Link had always seemed like he'd at least done things that confirmed that he was the right person for the job - he'd gotten his powers, went on his journey, known the purpose of his quest from beginning to end and even what to say when Sora had felt down on himself. Sora has always just been trying, even back in Locke City. No universe quest, no Keyholes to light the way. Not even a heart of a world to seal away. Just struggling uphill in a way he isn't sure that he had in the past. Unsure if he'd been born the right way, with the right heart.

The universe had given him, or Sora, or the remnants of whoever he was, one last chance to do something to save the world, and he'd botched it back in Locke City. Knowing for certain that he'd never be the friend Riku remembered was just the terrible window-dressing that death decided to leave on his lap. Just another incomplete Sora with too few memories inside to be of use to anyone and bonds that ended up kind of worthless, in the end. Honestly, no matter how many friends who've told him that he was all right the way he is, that all he needs to do is be himself and go slowly, he sometimes even wished Vanitas thought he was worth his time. At least both he and Riku were up front about how badly he'd failed them. It was something to work toward, at least.

(Also, that last bit gives Sora pause, his eyes blanking out for a few seconds as he goes absolutely still. After all, no one's ever told him that they were jealous of him before while sitting in a world of complete darkness. The last time this happened in front of Link, Sora was bleeding out on a couch. He feels like he'd misunderstood why Link was distraught at the time.)

He closes his eyes after the echo, trying to play that moment normally. Naminé likes who he is. She's waiting for him at the bonfire. She must be cold. That's something to start with. ]

I like you for you. I think that no matter who you were, or are, with or without the reincarnation stuff, that wouldn't change. Even if that means I just like someone who only knows how to fight.

[ Sora laughs awkwardly. ]

Maybe I'm just desperate? I don't even know if, like, friendship means anything here, sometimes. Maybe me trying to help you feel better is just whatever's left of Sora trying to make the best of me dying too early. I just want us making connections to mean something, or else there's nothing but a bunch of people in the dark, afraid and alone. I don't want that. That's too scary. [ And the sheer weight of wanting something to be true is enough for him, a lot of the time. The alternatives are just too big and scary to think about. ]

So... Maybe we should just go together. [ A cramped amount of space in his lungs makes this hard to say. ] To make you feel like you're the person you were supposed to be, and to make me feel like stuff like friendship and light matters. I wanna think that'll make it real. Somehow.

[Link listens to this and quirks a smile at Sora.]

If you gotta go out there I'd feel better if I was with you... Or at least if I could know your plan.

Because you're my friend too!

[He reaches out and playfully claps Sora on the back, trying to draw some levity into a situation that's starting to feel heavy on his heart.

This existential despair he sees in the other youth strikes at the core of him. When Link started to Awaken he'd felt a similar sort of uncertainty.]

And we're real, you know? Regardless of who we were before. We're here now and living or...er...

[He pinches his nose. Words are hard.]

Existing.

You and me have our thoughts and minds and experiences so that makes us real. Who we are now matters.

[ That's a little lighter, the clap lifting some of the weight off him. Maybe making people feel better is a part of the hero bit too? Or maybe this entire conversation has been what's left of Sora trying his best to be whoever other people needed him to be. (Then again, his other was pretty good at that too. Kind of a macabre thought.)

This next smile comes out a little more easily, anyway. (Hey, words are hard. Relateable.) When it comes down to it, that's the only thing that's ever been important. ]

Who we are now. Okay. I believe that. I do.

The plan's just to go there, see if he's still there, and come back to report. I wanna do more than that, but I've made too many promises now. I can't. [ He laughs, but it's a little wrung out. ] I can't even follow you if you try to go in and rescue him yourself. So don't. I think that'd kill me.

Fine.

I won't go, but you have to come back okay?

If you die out there I'll kill you.

[He lowers his gaze, brow furrowing.]

....We all need to make it.

There's another lantern we have to protect. No matter what.

[ Sora... sort of frowns. Does Link not trust himself to charge in? Is that how far down this hero thing goes? That's... scary. ]

Don't worry, I won't. [ Sora sort of chuckles. ] Rosinante said there's a one in three chance that you don't come back if you die. [ He pauses, looks down at the forest floor. Now's not the time to joke about what happened to the Sora here who got lost in the forest months ago. ] I don't like gambling.

[ ... He'll lift off onto his feet, then turn to Link. ]

Are you... sure you don't want to go together?

Honestly... I'm not sure how I'd handle the parade.

I just figured I'd work things out in the heat of the moment.

[He growls.]

Otherwise I would.

[He stares down at his fingertips and considers his own words. Should he elaborate? He should probably elaborate.]

I mean, 'cause of the sound. I don't have ear plugs and my ears aren't like yours.

Uh. As I'm sure you've noticed.

[He reaches up and tugs at an earlobe.]

My hearing is better than a round-eared person's. My people can detect even the faintest sounds around 'em. Which is pretty useful most of the time but probably works against me in this case...

Tying my cap around my head probably wouldn't be enough, would it?

[ Sora nods along! Elaboration completely appreciated here, thank you. So it was just a problem from the plan from the start. Phew, one of the very few times Sora being worse at something than someone else has actually been an advantage. ]

Next time, we can think of a plan that we can do together. [ Sora looks at Link... then at Link's lamp. Why did he have to leave his lamp? Was it because of the wolf? And the darkness? Hm. ] I think I have a couple ideas of how I can help you, at least when it comes to things like the parade.

[ He holds out his hand to Link. Want up? ] If something happens to me, and I don't come back in a few, you guys have permission to find me to kill me. Even if I'm already dead! Deader. [ He scratches his own head. Yeah, words are hard. ] I trust you guys will find me. I'll come back to you. I promise.

[Link accepts the offered hand despite not needing it. He tries to push up with his free arm anyway, knowing that he weighs a bit more than people usually expect.]

Good, you'd better.

[He steps over his lamp and retrieves it from the low branch he'd hung it from. He'd noticed Sora looking between him and it with a curious expression.

It's probably not something he should comment on but the words tumble out of his mouth anyway.]

Yeah, my lamp.

Don't worry about that! I've got that whole thing under control, I promise!

[Which is actually Link for "this stunt will kill me someday but that's on me."]

[ Same hat. (Not literally, Link's hat is a very singular hat.) He'll haul and look at Link oddly. He... doesn't have cybernetics, does he? That's the same weight he'd expect of himself or the soldier.

Sora looks at Link, and then the lamp, and then Link, and then the lamp. This explanation means nothing to Sora, misser of context clues. ]

Okay, now I have to come back alive. I have so many questions for you.

[ But he'll just start... reluctantly moving away. He doesn't actually want to leave the company of a friend... but now he's got a mission and he has to see it through. ]

You'll hear from me in thirty minutes. I swear! [ And as long as Link doesn't stop him, he'll walk a little ways backward, and then get back on track to the school. Hopefully, Masaomi's okay! ~~8^)~~ ]

[Link doesn't follow but Sora will feel his watchful gaze until the light of his lantern disappears into the trees.]

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arsarcanum - 2020-02-08 02:54 (UTC) - Expand

text; @bacura

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action!

action forever

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cw: vomit

cw: less graphic descriptions but still vomit

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