cinderlea | (no subject)

(no subject)

[ 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. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[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.

That's good. All of you deserve the break. Some of you have grown up doing this, and Axel's definitely the best case scenario for how that turns out.

[mmm this meat has become charcoal on the outside. lov the cronch.]

[ It is a good cromch. Riku shrugs, because that's just how things are, and she knows they all have trauma to deal with. She still does, even after all this time in the dressing room. Going back... wasn't altogether great for it, but she's trying not to get back into that mindset. ]

Pretty sure we're all lucky we ended up here.

I'd drink to that, but, y'know. Also if you're still interested in ice cream after this I'll hand Axel back over for that, I'm not a fan of it.

[also he doesn't want to bogart the quality Riku time, not when Axel missed her just as much or more. hmm, is there anything left to talk about that won't make Riku sad?]

[ She's not really sad, jeez. She appreciates being able to talk to Hachibi, because he isn't going to give her nonsense answers or just cater to her all the time. It's reassuring. ]

Let's see how I feel after about... four more plates. You can let Axel appreciate some of this sauce, though.

[ As if he has more refined tastes. ]

[she's fortunate Axel doesn't automatically have memories from Hachibi, because he'd probably just be like 8D over her kissing Sora.]

I will when he surfaces again. He didn't sleep enough while you all were gone, he felt bad leaving Isa with no company, or only Riku.

I'm glad he and Isa were able to hang out. I hope she kept him busy, but I know Lea will be grateful too.

[ They're so fucking gay, Riku's just waiting on the inevitable. Also jeez, she'll tell Axel too, about her own gayness, don't worry. ]

She did, it was nice having her around.

[high praise from him, given his general attitude about girls. everyone around him is gay whereas he just enjoys fucking. :'( do u want some of this meat-flavored charcoal, Riku.]

She's... nice.

[ God it's still weird, okay. The science brigade is one thing. Saix actively tried to kill people, and seemed to like it. ]

Nicer than I would've thought. Quiet, but that's a relief when you've got Lea and Sora around.

[are you trying to tell me you never liked it, Riku. there was never even a single person where you were like "yes, thank god they're dead and it was me that did it/helped". really?]

Yeah. She's so different from our Saix, and it seems like that was probably true even when she was Saix and not Isa. Ours was quiet too, but not in a good way.

[ She's pretty sure she has no idea what you're talking about. Whatsoever. ]

I'm sure they were a lot different, just comparing Axel to Lea. But she was pretty scary, back when we fought the Organization together the first time.

[ Time to reach over and pluck a piece of sausage off the grill. ]

To be fair, I hadn't seen her powers before then.

She's never liked the uncontrollable part of them. She told Axel she's afraid of it happening here and hurting someone by mistake, which seems like a reasonable concern.

[dammit, there's no bacon here, unless Riku's hiding it somewhere. why is this.]