Don't Fuck with the Forest Spirits || OTA

[evulsed]

characters: Vanitas (evulsed) + OTA
location: mostly The Church, the Invincible + the Boathouse
date/time: July 19 and the days following
content: just waking-up-after-being-dismembered things
warnings: violence

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THE CHURCH | OTA

[evulsed]

[evulsed]

[ Vanitas comes back into his body like he's been slammed into it from a great distance, dropped from the sky and plunging into physical reality like hitting the surface of the ocean. He comes awake with a start and it all rushes into him the way the forest spirits had— too fast, too violent. He was strong, had felt stronger than he'd felt in longer than he can remember— and they'd been more than he could take. Cold, skeletal hands all over his body, pulling limbs and yanking at his hair, around his ankles and his wrists and his throat. They'd torn through his Unversed like they were nothing but paper, torn through him the same way. The popping of joints, the shredding of muscle, the acrid, iron smell of blood and the taste of it in his mouth. Vanitas knows what it feels like to be run through, he knows how it feels to break bone— but that—

He doesn't hear himself screaming, because in his head, it's as though he'd never stopped.

Darkness floods out of him, an solid rush of black magic that punches from his body and covers the floor of the church, throwing anything and anyone away from him within a one meter radius. He doesn't hear the clatter of furniture smashing into one of the columns holding up the church ceiling, or the subtle crack of floorboards splintering under the force of his terror. After the initial blast, it lingers around him, a black puddle that undulates where he sits, like a summoning circle that never quite manifests.

It's everything he didn't have a chance to do in the moment. He doesn't even think he managed to swing his Keyblade before the hand holding it had been separated from his arm. His scream morphs into a hysterical sob, and wildly Vanitas looks down at his body. He rips off his breastplate— it vanishes in a wisp of smoke— and pulls open his top to look at his own body. He's covered in scars, but none of them are from the gripping hands of the spirits. His guts are in his body, his ribs are unbroken. He puts his shaking hands on his stomach and his ribs, as if to check everything is really still there. ]

[preseance]

( he's in the vestry when it happens, that sound of splintering wood an' the impact of furniture hitting stone. gene hits the deck with his hands over his head. some kinda — damn bomb, or grenade? somethin', anyway. he's about to reach for his tablet and send a quick message out when the wail cuts over the settling sound. no time, then, if there's anyone injured. he gets back to his feet, grabs his bag and heads to the main body of the church where he. stops short. no blood in the air, no body parts strewn 'round from the force of the explosion. just that same kid that'd been in here a little over a week ago. gene eyes the destruction wrought on their surroundings, but that ain't ever stopped him on approach before.

he holds one hand out, the other wrapped around the strap of his med kit. )

Hey, hey. Easy. You hurt?

[evulsed]

[ Vanitas' head jerks up like he's been slapped, his pupils small and his eyes wide. For a moment, the darkness he's sitting in wells up around him, open horror flooding out of him in literal waves. The church is dark, beyond the wall of candles and the lantern the doctor carries, and in his terror for a moment all Vanitas sees is the pale shape in the darkness. The white of his skin like bone, the shadows of his eyes empty sockets.

What stops him from attacking is not the sound of a familiar voice, but the words. Words, not the endless, rattling death-moan of masks and teeth. Vanitas hiccoughs, like he can't breathe, and in most ways he isn't— each inhale is tight and high, each exhale bringing with it more tears and a wet, animal whine. The wall of darkness sinks again, a bubbling smoke that rolls against the floor of the church.

He can't speak, he can't string syllables together. Instead, Vanitas looks back down, pulling his shaking hands away from his bare chest and looking at them like he's expecting them to be covered in gore. ]

[preseance]

( the darkness writhes like a thing alive an' gene eyes it wary an' unsure. ain't like nothin' he's ever had cause to see before, even ghosts ain't like this.

but he steps into it anyway, grimacing at the wash'a cold that crawls up his legs when he does. the shock of it makes him draw a breath that ain't rightly steady, an' throws him right back into the foxholes at st vith. he has to. stop a moment. close his eyes against it. one boot in front of the other. ain't that what bein' a paratrooper's all about? you move up the stick an' you jump an' the air hits you like a battering ram. ain't any different.

he takes another step. comes up to the kid an' sits down beside him on the pew. he's fully aware this could get him killed or worse, an' wade ain't around this time with a gun, but. gene reaches out with the intent to touch the kid's shoulder. )

Look at me. Focus on how I breathe, an' follow along with that, all right? Just nice an' easy. In and out. Ain't nothin' here but you an' me, kid, we're okay. We're okay.

[darkeyed]

<sub>[There's an upside and a downside to living like a restless spirit in this place; he gets to know the lay of the land in his wanderings, but he's also away from the square during Vanitas' initial return, too far to hear the screams, only returning in time to catch murmurs of "the church."

Again with the church. Everything comes back to the goddamn church, doesn't it? Their mystery friend who fled from the hatch is only lucky they haven't bumped into M.K. so far, as he'd be just as tempted to strangle them for putting them on this wild goose chase as anything.

The weather-beaten door creaks open to admit him. What fun and games are on the agenda today?]</sub>

[evulsed]

[ There are probably plenty of people that come in and out of the church. Vanitas doesn't spend his time here— he spends his time in the town, or in his room, or down along the coast looking out at the enigmatic shape of the lighthouse. But now, his nerves are so frayed that some part of him is too afraid to leave just yet. Self preservation, he wants to tell himself, as if by staying just a little longer with other people around it might stop what got him from banging down the door of the church and getting him again.

He knows for a fact where the other people are that spend their time in this church, so when the door opens again a shock of terror lances right through his body. Vanitas turn sharply toward the sound— but so do half a dozen Unversed.

Without waiting to see who or what it is, all six of them rush at the intruder, launching themselves through the air with claws extended to attack. ]

[darkeyed]

<sub>[It's so sudden he doesn't have time to make sense of what he's seeing--there are things in the shifting shadows created by the church's many flickering candles. Child-sized, but that's the closest resemblance to children the misshapen creatures have as they lunge like a pack of starving dogs.

His muscle memory doesn't need to know what he's seeing to tell apart an attack. He's too far in to turn back and use the door for cover; not enough time. He moves with the purest reflex, darting to the side instead, putting space between himself and the nearest of the pack. That's all he can think of them as--a pack. A swarm. Monsters. Spirits?]</sub>

What the hell are you?

_{[He should be afraid of monsters like any sensible person who only grew up with the human kind, but the twinge of it is drowned out by an indignant surprise. They're ugly. Much uglier than the spirits in the bar.]}

THE INVINCIBLE | OTA

[evulsed]

[ He should go back to his room, so that's the direction he heads, but the way he perceives these things is different from before.

When he enters the pub on the way up to his room he stops in the corner, watching the forest spirits behind the bar with a fierce sort of intensity. It isn't aggressive, exactly, but the look is still pretty intense, given that Vanitas doesn't really seem to blink as he's doing it.

Eventually he'll head back up to his room, which has been very quiet compared to before. His Unversed vanished when he was killed, meaning it's been abandoned for the better part of a week, now. The first thing he does is crouch in the doorway and summon a Flood. ]

[withsadness]

It isn't polite to stare.

[Even though that's almost, nearly more of a glare. And Mary's staring at him, too, from where she's sitting in a booth and coloring. He's back. And maybe she shouldn't have said anything, but she just couldn't help herself. There's a prickling of fear in the back of her neck...but that just makes her angry.]

[evulsed]

[ Vanitas' eyes cut to the girl, and it takes him a moment to place her. Not because she's hard to recognize, but because he's been so wrapped up in what he's just come back from that he hasn't been thinking about anything that preceded his trip into the woods. On reflex, his mouth ticks up in the corners, like he can't decide if he's going to smile or bare his teeth. ]

Then what are you looking at?

[withsadness]

Nooothing...

[Pursing her lips, Mary looks back down at whatever it was she was drawing. She pulls out a black crayon from her box and scribbles messily on top of the artwork. At least this is a more productive way of letting out her emotions than, you know, with a knife.]

[evulsed]

[ He should leave well enough alone, but Vanitas is volatile at the best of times and now is no different. Now, in fact, is worse— so he turns toward her and slips into the seat directly across from Mary. His eyes flick down to her drawing, then back to her face. ]

I saw what you were hiding you know.

[voktys]

⟪ Moving like a ghost around a holy site is not new to her –– she had heard his cries, had seen Eugene care for him, and had chosen to leave the medic to it. No need to crowd the newly resurrected. She gives him some time instead, just a little to return back to his room and take a breather.

Eventually, she heads for the Invincible. Knock-knock at the door to his chambers, polite but insistent. She had taken a detour before heading upstairs, and if he opens the door, or calls for her to enter, she'll glide inside carrying a tray with a hot meal for him.

It's no universal cure, no. He hadn't screamed like a creature who could be soothed with food.

But it's a show of human care, and that could be worth something, maybe. ⟫

[evulsed]

[ Vanitas jerks his head up when the knock comes at his door, and every little Flood that's seeped out of him since his return does the same. It would be easy to tell himself that maybe they were knocking somewhere else, maybe across the hall— but he isn't so ignorant as that.

He doesn't get visitors. He doesn't want, or need them.

Still, he gets up off his uneven bed and pulls open the door. Without any expectations, he isn't as surprised as he probably should be that it's that witch woman standing there with her hands under a platter. The smell of food hits him like a truck, reminding Vanitas suddenly and violently that he hasn't eaten, and it prevents him from saying or doing anything to stop her gliding into his room.

Only once it's too late to do anything but accept the situation does Vanitas turn around to face her and speak. His Unversed retreat into the shadowy corners of his room, nothing but red eyes that follow Melisandre without coming closer. ]

I didn't know you could leave the church.

[ He means it to come out more aggressively provocative than it does. Maybe he's still tired. ]

[voktys]

They let me out for a haunt now and again.

⟪ To speak in jest has never been among her otherwise extensive skillset, though it doesn't seem to deter her from the occasional attempt. She sets the tray down on whatever flat surface he seems most likely to be eating at, not at all bothered by red eyes following her every movement. ⟫

I'll keep you company while you eat.

⟪ Alright, so perhaps her purpose is less to annoy him and more to make sure he eats at all. Whatever he has gone through, it must have been an ordeal, to reduce the arrogant youth she had met briefly once before into a screaming mess. ⟫

[evulsed]

[ It's so radially beyond Vanitas' realm of understanding of things that for a moment, he looks almost hunted, suspicion making his eyes narrow. Still, his gaze flicks to the steaming plate and whatever is on it.

Ever since speaking with the doctor, chiefly he only eats crackers; but whatever that is is making him salivate, which only furthers his discomfort. His fingers pull into loose fists at his sides. ]

Why?

THE BOATHOUSE | KH CREW

[evulsed]

[evulsed]

[ Even though it doesn't look it, Vanitas feels like his insides are trembling. It's a new sensation, a little like the weakness he'd felt from not eating for days, but deeper. Something hollow and straining right in the very core of him. He's heard that when you die here, you come back changed. At a glance, he doesn't look any different, but he can't help wondering— if those forest spirits did something to him when they ripped him apart. More than just take his limbs from his body, but rattled his head around to shake everything loose and uneven.

He can still summon his keyblade, he can still summon his Unversed, his magic is the same as it was before. It takes him some time, to realize that what he's feeling is vulnerable.

When he finds his way toward the coast, towards the docks, it isn't until Vanitas is on the beach and he can see the dim outline of the boathouse that he realizes what it is he's doing. It draws him up short, his feet scuffing in the barren sand. The pulling in his chest isn't just his own— it's the same tether that's been there since he'd been given a face. They've always been connected, but acknowledging the squeeze in his heart, knowing that what he's looking for is that warm, safe place—

Nobody wants to be alone, Sora said. He stares at the imposing shape of the building, the little lights winking through the window, betraying the inhabitants. He can feel Sora out there, a little star guiding him to his destination. Vanitas doesn't move, frozen in place.

Maybe he should go back. ]

[dualikey]

[It's been the same feeling for days- after that first night. It'd been at it's worst then, worse than anything he could have ever imagined, worse than anything he's ever felt. But the after was something else. A stretched out kind of hollow feeling that didn't stop. It was there when we woke up and it was there when he and Riku and Kairi sat down for breakfast together. It was there when he and Dawn went out along the shore and it was there when he went to sleep. It was there the day after that, and the day after that and Sora couldn't bring himself to head into town and be around the bonfire's warm glow, or to find his way to the Invicible and listen to the chatter of voices familiar or otherwise. When he leaves the boathouse at all it's to walk along the sand or to sit out on the pier, to listen to the small waves and to try to close his eyes. To pretend that they're louder.

Being alone was the hardest part- when his friends would head into town or go meet up with some of the others. When the graves had lingered and they'd all had plenty on their minds. He couldn't bring himself to ask because if he did then he'd need to know what the question would be. He'd need to know what words to use. And he didn't, still doesn't.

Only that big hollow space had remained.
Until suddenly, in one deep breath, it wasn't.

Sora's body stiffens from where he sits. The sensation is like- like being hit all at once, like his leg has gone from being asleep to being normal in one big go. He looks back over his shoulder on reflex, an instantaneous snap as if he expects to find the cause right there. But it isn't. He isn't. And Sora looks at both of his hands instead, head swimming. If he lets his vision get blurry around the edges he imagines they might be covered in gore- unrecognizable shapes barely stitched onto his own.

All there really is to do is wait. His lantern is a warm golden glow brought into his lap, obscured from anyone but the lake- and he waits. There's no way to describe that either; knowing that Vanitas will come. It's just there, the same way that there's air to breathe, the same way that his heart still beats. He doesn't know what the passage of time is, in the end, and that feels appropriate too after the timelessness of everything else. Small noises arrive behind him, two feet in the sand. And Sora turns to see him- spots the dark silhouette looking out at the boathouse. So he turns with his lantern too. A single bright point on a black horizon.]

[evulsed]

[ He couldn't miss the warm shine of Sora's lantern even if he wanted to. Some part of him knows it intrinsically, the same way he's always known Ventus'. It's familiar and draws him in, like a moth to flame. Vanitas' eyes cut sidelong, away from the almost threatening silhouette of the boathouse to land first on that little star-glow, and then on the boy holding it aloft.

Vanitas has never been afraid of a person. Even Xehanort, his powerful Master, who had forged him into the sharp blade he was today, hadn't scared him. The fear he's always known has never been tied to an individual— but the rushing sensation that floods his ears the moment his eyes land on Sora's unassuming outline feels similar. It's stupid, because what has just happened is proof he has nothing to fear. Even if they fight, even if Sora put the x-Blade that he inherited right through Vanitas' heart, he thinks the magic of this world would only bring him back again.

But facing him, Vanitas remembers what he'd seen in that vision, and what he'd felt. He remembers how violently it had taken his perception of things and shaken it, like a dog with a rabbit. How in that singular moment he understood Sora not just as the darkness to his light— but something else entirely.

His heart thumps hard in his chest. He can feel it like it's straining against his ribcage, like it could leap the short distance between Vanitas and the dock. He pulls both hands into fists, but it's the only movement he manages— caught between a yearning to come closer, and the desperate desire to run away. ]

[dualikey]

[Neither one of them move at first. It's like as soon as they see each other they get stuck in place, becoming two opposite points or a pair of bookends. But then, even if that is true of Vanitas- it isn't true of Sora. He isn't one half of a whole, and he doesn't need to hold this invisible line. They don't need to stay suspended like this so that the world knows what it's supposed to do around them.

It isn't graceful, with his lantern tucked in the cradle of one elbow. Sora's leg comes in and bends out, he puts one palm against the wood of the dock and climbs to his feet. The whole process is boyish in it's lack of self-consciousness and it leaves him standing for just a moment at the edge of the pier, like all the other moorings waiting for a boat to dock. And then he starts to walk forward. The planks are old but they're still standing against the heat and the storms, against who knows how many years; they count each stride with a creak or groan or thud until he he steps off into sand instead.

Vanitas hasn't moved. His hands are small fists at his sides. It doesn't occur to Sora that he might draw a weapon or that like every time before- they could end up circling one another. Waiting for the next fight to tear through them both. When he finally does stop they're left in arm's reach of each other. They have the same face, but they aren't really reflections. That was always someone else's job.] You're back.

[The small words seem to punch out of him, a precursor that needed to be said.

Sora's lantern remains loose in one arm, but his eyes rove carefully over Vanitas's face- as if he's trying to be sure of what he's seeing. To know with more than just his heart. If the feeling bubbling up inside him has a name, it isn't one he's ever heard before. Instead it's just the thud of his pulse in his ears.]

I was waiting.

[replicates]

[ nobody wants to be alone, you'll always have a place here. different words, but the same meaning.

dawn's fingers pause in his hair when he catches vanitas' scent, the same dark and smokey smell he's become familiar with in his time at beacon. it's not something he thought he ever would be familiar with — he knows darkness like the back of his hand, and vanitas' slips over him like an old friend he hasn't seen in a long time. the first time, it made him want to cover his nose, but now, he almost feels something like relief.

he still remembers the way sora looked that night, stretched out on the floor of the boathouse, eyes open wide but unseeing. he remembers the chill of his skin, the clammy paleness of it and the faint flutter of his pulse; limp, unresponsive. he thought he had nothing left to fear these days — he'd taken keyblades to his face, had his heart shattered and remade, broken and patched up time and again until the feeling of being whole became a nebulous concept. he thought he had nothing left to fear until he saw sora's breath leave him in a rush, like a puppet with its strings suddenly cut.

he blinks, breathes a little deeper and his fingers finish pulling his hair through the black band kairi had given him, tugging on the strands to secure its hold in a high ponytail. way to dawn sits upright in the sand, cords of woven cloth tied around the hilt and terminating in a single braid, held down temporarily by one of the logs they scavenged. his lantern casts a golden glow to the side of his face as he looks over his shoulder at vanitas, as if he knew he was there all along. ]

[evulsed]

[ It isn't as though Vanitas forgot Sora lived with everyone else from their shared universe in this boathouse, but being faced with the reality of it is another animal entirely. All of them orbit one another, tiny pinpricks of light, a little constellation that together make up one whole picture. Vanitas isn't part of it. If he were anything, he'd be all the black spaces in between— there, but not there. The shadow that makes their Light all the more obvious.

This Riku, the one like the one he had known, the puppet-no-longer a puppet, is one of them. Vanitas knows it because Vanitas is the one that maintains the boundary. It doesn't matter that he looks like the pit of darkness his Master had pulled from another time, his heart isn't the same. Vanitas doesn't know, or understand, why. Maybe because he'd been cut from the same cloth as that other boy, the one they say is immune to darkness. Maybe none of them were, in the end, suited to be vessels of darkness.

But despite being one of them— he doesn't always act like them.

The moon is almost full and it reflects like a mirror off all the replica's silver hair. It makes him look illuminated and ethereal, but it doesn't make him look warm. Not the way Sora, or Kairi, or even his carbon copy, are warm. Maybe that, despite the invisible line Vanitas has drawn between them, is what draws him in.

Everyone has been spending so much time, telling him he can be good and more. At least this replica has said he doesn't care what Vanitas does, or even what really happens to him.

Staring across at him, Vanitas pulls his dark lantern off his belt and puts it down in the sand. ]

[replicates]

[ he doesn't always act like them, not quite, not when he's still trying to figure out how to be around them to begin with. it was easier when he was in riku's heart, when no one else could see or hear him; he didn't need to hide, he didn't need to act. everything he did, the choices he made and the consequences that resulted from it, he and riku both understood.

it's different in beacon. here, everyone can see him; here, he's required to have interactions, good and bad. it's a learning process that he's only recently started to make a little more headway in, but sometimes even that much exhausts him. if sora and his friends are stars that orbit one another, then he is the moon — reflecting their light, taking it for himself but never able to shine on his own like they do. he's too dark for the light and too light for the dark; as always, he can never seem to fit in no matter how much they tried to bend and break him to make him fit. he's grown tired of trying.

he'd told vanitas from the beginning that he doesn't care about what he does or what happens to him. he still doesn't, if only because having the capacity to care about anything after fulfilling his promise is still something he needs to adjust to. but beacon has already started to change him, little by little — he knows that sora and vanitas are connected and he knows that whatever sora is dealing with, whatever he's struggling with, is something he can only reconcile with vanitas.

and maybe there's a part of him that resonates with vanitas as well, a part of him he thought he'd left behind when he took refuge in riku's heart. it swells up in him the longer vanitas stares at him, peaks when he sets his lantern in the sand. he runs his tongue along his teeth, the dryness of his lips, and makes a decision. ]

You hungry?