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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[evulsed]

[ The anomaly of this boy means that Vanitas can't actually predict what he's going to do. All the heroes, no matter which world they're from, react to Vanitas the same way, because in some fashion they all share one foundation. They all have friends they want to protect, they all have a duty to their own version of Light, they all have a darkness that they're trying to fight that Vanitas furrows after like a scavenger looking for his next meal.

But that's what he was created for. Ventus and Sora both shine the way they do because Vanitas reflects back the darkness that they fight so hard against, or to contain. Worming his way in to the hearts of others, stoking the black feelings inside of them— that's what Vanitas is meant to do and be. It's where his power comes from, and spreading that suffering means that— if nothing else— he knows that someone else might experience just a fraction of the anguish he's forced to live with.

The fact is this whole world is just perfect for him. All this pervasive darkness, all the despair that fosters week after week in it's citizens— Vanitas should feel as full and as strong as he's ever felt.

Instead, it's as though he's been dropped into a fight with a broken knee. His balance is off, his reality is just slightly skewed. He isn't the darkest thing in this world, and the Light that's meant to be his offset isn't holding it's position in the same place. The replica stands yards away from him without flinching, somewhere in the middle, somehow not dark and not light. The thin strip of diffused color on a black horizon.

Vanitas puts his hand out and Voidgear summons into his palm. His eyes go heavy in their intensity. ]

Something like that.

[replicates]

[ they all have friends they want to protect and so did he — that was his purpose, one that he'd made for himself and no one else. you give a weapon trajectory, not autonomy, and it was only a natural course of action for him to devote himself to that promise regardless of its validity.

maybe that's what sets him apart from the rest of them. sora's and riku's desire to protect is pure, unselfish, borne from the kind of love and compassion he's never known but always longed for. namine didn't need him to protect her but he did so anyway, throwing his entire being, his entire heart into it because he had nothing else to give and nothing left to lose. and maybe it was selfish of him to do so, to hold on to that phantom promise because he needed a reason to keep going, because he needed a purpose: a catalyst that finally freed him from the darkness, in between life and death. something more than just a failure (something more than just a copy).

but being selfish is all he's known; his whole life he'd been made to break, because that's what it meant to survive: he'd take and take so nothing more could be taken from him. not even a lie that he was made to believe.

vanitas is the long shadow cast by twin suns and dawn takes that too, absorbs it and reflects it back just like he does with riku's and sora's light. he is neither of those things; he is both and nothing at all. ]

Then you can wait here, [ he barely bats an eyelash when voidgear materializes in vanitas' hand, face smoothed into the same bland and disaffected expression he's taken to wearing more often these days. way to dawn remains embedded in the sand as he turns to head back to the boathouse. ] Or you can come in with me. Your choice.

[evulsed]

[ The replica turns his back on him, and through all the jagged pieces of his reality, everything that's been literally and figuratively torn apart around him, fury surges. It was one thing, to have that doctor speak to him so gently when he didn't know any better. It was one thing for Wanda, with her hurt that runs so violently deep as his own, to sit with him in his agony. It was different with Sora— who has always defined him.

Vanitas is hungry— but it isn't just the void in his belly, the one he knows gnaws because it's the shape of a lack of food and water. It's the need for stability, it's the need for things to be the way he wants them to be.

He feels so shaken and vulnerable, and everywhere he turns gentleness is reflected back at him. It's all so different from what he's been conditioned to expect that left to his own devices to ruminate, all Vanitas wants to do is lash out until something hits him back. He thought, surely, this puppet would give him what he wants.

Misplaced anger carries him forward, and Vanitas rushes the distance between them. It's just far enough from his lantern that he can start to feel the pull, but that doesn't stop him from raising his keyblade to strike the replica, undeterred that he's attacking someone seemingly unarmed with his back turned. ]

[replicates]

[ he doesn't know what happened to vanitas after he returned. he doesn't know the gentle kindness he'd received from gene, from wanda; from sora. he doesn't know how to provide it, wouldn't know how to, because kindness and gentleness are things he'd never been given. but it doesn't make him crave it any less, doesn't take away the longing for it, even if he doesn't think he'd ever really deserve it.

all he knows is how to break, himself and others. all he knows is how to survive. all he knows is the kind of desperation that comes off of vanitas in waves, fills his nose with that changing scent — the hunger that shifts to vulnerability that shifts to rage. he remembers that scent; it was his own, for some time.

and maybe he should have expected this too: the fact that vanitas would take and take, just like he did, because it's all he knows; it's all he's ever been given. and dawn's steps slow, tipping his head up as he closes his eyes just for a moment, embracing that rage and frustration, the lingering sense of longing just beneath it. he's not gentle, he doesn't know how to be and neither does vanitas, but he can imagine what it's like: soft sands and a warm sunset; a smile that holds nothing but understanding and acceptance.

take the time you need.

he sidesteps the strike and pivots in the same movement, reaching out to grasp vanitas' wrist. way to dawn remains embedded in the sand next to the dark lantern and he makes no movement to retrieve it. ]

You can wait here, or come in with me. [ his tone is even as he repeats what he says, the disaffected expression from before replaced with something less closed off. his grip is tight, careful, but not bruising. ] Your choice.