cinderlea | (no subject)

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[ Riku disappears first. Vanished in her sleep, in the middle of the night, collapsing in on herself in a shimmer of starlights. This isn't like last time. No warnings, no chances to say goodbye, no hesitation or resistance. She just isn't there.

Lea goes minutes after Riku, in the same way. But she's awake, lounging on her couch, having a conversation as she flips through her phone. Here and then gone, like a flame. This isn't the first time either of them have gone home, but it's the first time it's so abrupt. At least it isn't death. The last time Riku went home was seven years ago. She was gone for a month, and she came back with shorter hair and the Mark of Mastery. The last time Lea went home, no one really noticed. She thought she was used to it by now.

Things are different this time. Disorienting. Lea meets Kai in the training, for real this time. Riku has her memories, or at least most of them. They're hazy, dreamlike, but real. She has them all. She remembers how old she really is and how long she's been gone. She remembers everyone she cares about, and everyone that won't change here. She keeps her ice magic and takes what she's learned here to use there. But time is fluid. She doesn't feel like she's been gone for seven years.

Lea's are gone, for now. She lives everything new and fresh, with the dressing room appearing only in dreams vivid enough to unsettle her.

Things aren't the same for every world.

Things go better than expected.

The core story is the same. The heroes rescue the ones that need it, they bring everyone back, they defeat the darkness, and they go home. How and when and who — these things vary, but they do it all together and they go home together. And then their story is over, at least for now, and they come back.

Unlike how they went out, Lea and Riku reappear together on the beach. Coming back is just as disorienting, and neither has their phone, so they get their bearings and confirm memories with each other, of the dressing room and of home, and then separate to find their friends.

They've been gone two months. ]

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You really haven't, or you wouldn't be saying that.

[ Casual bragging about her dad, sorry. ]

If I ever had to give up meat, fish would be the last to go. Not that it'll happen.

I do like crab, but only because food that takes work to get into is usually good.

[Axel has almost certainly expressed this sentiment in the past, and Hachibi's demonstrating by snapping one of these ribs in half like it's a twig so he can actually get a taste of some marrow with his meat. that's not how crab works, but whatever. melted butter is also a pretty good human invention, he can taste that, at least.]

Alright, you're forgiven a little for your taste.

[ Riku loves crab. She would fight someone for crab. That is not at all like eating crab, to her, and she wrinkles her nose a little. Maybe because the last time she saw him do that it was Red's. Haha.

Anyway. ]

I missed you.

[oh. that's. you're gonna give him the dokis, Riku. Axel's face probably shows that, where his own wouldn't (except it would because human faces are hard to control, and his ears would give it away otherwise), but he plays it cool anyway and rests his chin in his hand.]

If I knew how to use Axel's phone I'd ask you to repeat that so I could record it. I missed you too.

[he knows things are different now, but he has a long memory, and he remembers how she used to feel about him.]

[ You can't fool her. She knows Hachibi's as much of a gigantic dweeb as his host body. Maybe she's going for dokis! His reaction makes her smile, anyway, and when he mentions Axel's phone she reaches for hers. For photo purposes! She remembers how it was, but it's much more distant for her. So much has happened since then. ]

Good. I'd hope so, but I didn't get the reception from you that Axel gave me.

Do you really want me to lick your face? I'll do it if it's that important to you.

[ ♥ there's really nothing stopping him from learning to use the phone, he just doesn't feel like it. he's gonna steal one of her sausages, also.]

It's a shame you didn't have that phone while you were gone, I'd like to see some of your versions of people.

I'll pass on the licking. But— here, let me take a picture first.

[ Of you, that is. And she is, even if he's stealing her sausage. She'll just steal something from his side after she snaps it, it's fine. Once that's done she puts her phone on the table and navigates to the gallery. There's an entirely new folder called Gummiphone. She taps it, then turns the phone around so it's facing him. Here you go. That's a lot of island photos. ]

[what, why. she has plenty of photos of Axel already, plus that embarrassing one of actual Hachibi rolling in that field that one time. >:O but omfg. he's gonna mentally shout at Axel to wake the fuck up so they don't have to do this twice, which mostly means sort of the reverse of the thing that happens when Hachibi's actively using Axel's eyeballs at the same time as Axel happens, with green settled at the bottom of the gold. at least he knows how the touchscreen works.]

I won't even ask how this is possible.

They made us all phones. Mine came back with me, so I sent the files over here. I'm glad it worked.

[ Jeez! It's a picture of Hachibi! Just in Axel's body. She'll remember why she took the photo, anyway. She's paying less attention to him so she doesn't notice Axel's presence right away, and just scoots closer so she can see the photos too. It's mostly a lot of the islands. There's (younger) Kai and Nami, almost none of herself, and of course a lot of photos of Sora. Her parents, other random people on the islands, the replica, the gummi ship, some but less of Twilight Town and their crew, and also Radiant Garden. If he scrolls enough to see that, he'll be able to see her world's versions of the former Organization members. ]

[he lingers most on the ones of people he's never seen these versions of before, of course, to the point that one might think he's going to have to pick them out of a police lineup or something later, but he's just interested in them in his own weird way. if there's one or more that feature Mickey et al., he might seem slightly perturbed, but eventually moves on. and then, once he gets to the former Organization members, and in a statement worthy of Sherlock Holmes—]

Does Lea know this one's covered in burn scars from her?

[he's pointing at Even.]

I— probably not? She's so covered up all the time, I doubt it's come up.

[ She was taking a bite full of pork, but she leans up in her seat to be able to see the photo better, as if the scars are visible somewhere. On her neck, maybe? (There are indeed photos of Queen Mickie and all the rest, but most of the people photos are of Sora. Sora in the ship, Sora on the islands, Sora laughing in the water with Kai, etc.) ]

[there's actually nothing visible, but she's welcome to ask how he knew. does Riku even know how Vexen died? also g-god, Riku so transparently has a thing for her Sora specifically, it's really cute and he's honestly a little sad for her.]

Well, too late now, and it's just as well, she probably covers up for that reason, she probably wouldn't want Lea knowing about it.

[he's going back to the ones of Mickie so he can frown vaguely at them some more.]

[ Hey hey, don't be thinking of that, Axel's going to pick up on it. It's not THAT obvious. Obviously.

She's asking now, yes, because she didn't see anything in the photo. We're gonna say Riku didn't play CoM at all, and only knows that Lea was responsible for killing her, not the exact method. That it involved fire, however, doesn't surprise her at all. ]

You're right. I don't think she does. But how did you know? Is it in the game?

[dude are you kidding, Axel already knows. he played the games, and it's VERY obvious there, and this Riku has an even longer and more tangled history with Soras and her own in particular.]

Her death sort of was, it wasn't explicit but it was clear enough what happened. No, uh.

[he flips back to one of like, Even and the replica interacting.]

She's just unusually stiff in the way she holds herself, the way someone with lots of big scars would. Ours was kind of like that anyway, but it would make more sense that this one would have scarring. I think the most recent game mentioned something about her being bedridden after she recompleted, for a while, because of how destructive her death was.

[ Riku's frowning as she tries to remember her interactions with Even more closely. Whatever problems she had with her before are long-since forgiven. It's because if her that Roxas, Nami, and her replica have bodies. It's why Xion came back, even though that might not have been as intentional. How much was that pushed for? Regardless, she just always seemed frigid and stiff in general. It's hard to imagine her differently. ]

What did she do, set her on fire?

[ ...

She looks at Hachibi, because wait. Did she actually set her on fire? ]

Incinerated her, yeah. I think it was to try and prove her loyalty to Marluxia, but I don't remember. Kinda wish it'd been that easy with ours.

[that last is mumbled around a piece of beef. theirs went down pretty easily too, but it wasn't just a snap of the fingers. and whoops, he's not mentioning that Sora was present for it, which is just as well, she probably doesn't even remember that.]

[ The look on Riku's face is hard to read because it's so closed off, but either of them would be able to see the traces of resignation, and lack of surprise. ]

She's so much of a dweeb these days, it's hard to remember why I hated her in the first place, or how different she was before.

[ She's gonna reach to flip a couple photos over, to a picture of Lea, Isa, Xion, and Roxas. ]

Can't say it surprises me. Not that I was much better back then.

You were all assholes back then, it's fine.

[like he's one to talk. god, they look so happy. this Axel and their Roxas never looked that happy together. their Roxas never looked happy, period, but that's because he was trained from birth to be a cold-blooded killer.]

Thank god you wouldn't know anything about that.

[ Here, there's a photo of Lea struggling to pick up both of the kids under each arm, and also one of her successfully doing it and on her way to tipping over. ]

So you took out your world's Vexen?

[nooooooo that's cute, even to Hachibi! Axel's drifted off again, oh well. time to put some more meat on the grill.]

Right? And yeah, for the same reason. Then Larxene once she let her guard down, and then Marluxia, except then he got away from us.

[ She's taking some of his to put on her plate. Itadakimasu. Time to flip back to pictures of Sora and be vaguely sad. ]

At least you got rid of some of them.

Roxas and Demyx were the only ones who were tolerable, and good riddance to the rest of them.

[man, and this one also dealt with Lexaeus and Luxord, on different trips back, and then the other version of them managed to kill Xigbar with no backup at all. also hey, stop that, no being sad at this table. he's gonna gently elbow her.]

[ Hm? She looks confused, and then deadpan. Riku thinks the nudge was about the meat. ]

What? We're sharing.

[she's getting a deadpan look as well and he plucks the phone out of her hand and sets it on the other side of the table.]

If you're going to dwell on Sora you have to interact with me at the same time. How'd she feel about things being over finally?

[ Riku is frowning. ]

I'm not—

[ Huff. ]

Happy. You've seen her. Them. She's glad it's over, glad everyone can go back to their lives and relax. It's been going for... years. We didn't even start training again, we were just busy catching up back home.