EVENT LOG: TURN THE LIGHTS OFF

[inthenightmods]

EVENT LOG:
TURN THE LIGHTS OFF

characters: everyone.
location: around town.
date/time: january 20-29.
content: the lanterns begin to malfunction.
warnings: body horror and psychological horror. please cw tags appropriately.

you'll become one

January 20th arrives the same as all the days before it. There's no great pulse of warning that throbs through the air, no ominous wind that causes the bonfire to shudder. The spirits are neither agitated nor do they hide. You could almost miss the change, if the lanterns weren't always by your side. There's no explanation that comes with the way that it's changed, but it's impossible not to worry when it's happened so suddenly.

Maybe it takes a few days, or maybe it only takes a few hours, but suddenly it isn't just the lanterns that have changed. You, yourself, have become somehow different. It's possible that you won't even have the right state of mind to wonder how long it will last. At the very least, it appears you aren't alone. All across Beacon, lanterns are changing, and changing the people with them.

Out in the distance, the lighthouse's beam has turned green.

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Comments

[arsarcanum]

Sora sort of... grins nervously and laughs, embarrassed. "Is it? It doesn't feel like a lot to me. That's just... all the parts that I can get into words." He thinks about his friends a lot! He has never exaggerated about that. Granted he does kind of have to, given the whole keyblade thing, but it's just how he is, too, and it hasn't been a bad way to live. His friends are the most important thing to him, and treasuring them and trying to understand them is indeed how he takes up hard drive space. No upper level critical thinking skills other than that, to be honest.

Sora takes a bite and chews on it for a second. "Is that all okay? Like, do I have the right idea?" He swallows and clears his throat. "I think by now, both of us know that neither of us want to hurt each other, right? So, if I do have the wrong idea, you gotta tell me. I'm too dumb to figure it out by myself. I need people to tell me what to do or else I'll keep doing the same thing, thinking that I'm not hurting anyone." He pulls a wry smile. "I've been wrong about the right thing to do enough times to learn that. I have a lot of darkness. It gets to me. I get confused. It's fine."

[worthallthis]

"Nothing you said is incorrect." Or even unflattering, which is nice of him. "I wanted to know how you think of me. There is no wrong answer for what's in your own head." They're not really sure why they wanted to know. It's not like it matters, there was just a moment of curiosity. Now it's lingering a little, though. Curiosity as to what other people think, in their private thoughts, about them.

Maybe not enough to ask anybody else. But it's still there, and it's a kind of new feeling. Weird.

[arsarcanum]

Hmmmmmmmmmm. Sora will continue to think whatever he wants, then! Buuuut. He is now a bit curious as to why the soldier asked in the first place.

"Lots of people want to, you know... make an impression on other people. Some people get really worried about what other people think of them. They don't want other people to get the wrong idea. Or the right one." He adds that last part because Skyler is definitely that type. "I don't think that's why you were asking though. Was it?"

[worthallthis]

"I don't know. Don't think so. Never thought about it before." Or at least not since dying, maybe not for decades, since HYDRA. They're pretty sure HYDRA wiped the part of them that wondered what people thought about them right out of their head. All that mattered was obedience and subservience. The only impression they were allowed to give was either to terrify on command, or be blank and accepting.

Now they're curious. More programming is adjusting to their new life, perhaps.

[arsarcanum]

Sora takes another bite of sandwich, sighing happily. Post-pot munchies are finally starting to subside - now it's just regular growing human dude munchies. Time to slow down a little.

"You should let somebody know if that changes, if it becomes important." He'll swallow, then look a little mournful. One last half of a sandwich left. "I think a lot of people would be jealous of you the way you are now, to be honest. A lot of times, people stop themselves from doing things because they don't think they're good enough, or because they want to impress someone else so bad they think they'll mess up. Or they think they've already messed up, so they're not worth saving." Sora takes in a deep breath through his nose. "But talking with people helps with that, I think. It helps to know that other people think differently from the way you do. At least, that's why I do it."

[worthallthis]

Some of that fits. The Soldier has already done everything terrible that they could ever imagine doing-- under orders, but they still did it. They stop themselves from doing things all the time. But not because they want to impress, or don't think they're good enough, or not worth saving. They know their worth. They are, in fact, very expensive to maintain.

That's all black and white, though. Numbers. That's probably not what the kid means. They consider a moment. "Would rather someone have those problems," they decide, "than have anyone have been through that. Not worth it."

[arsarcanum]

Sora pauses, tapping his fingertips against his jaw as he considers the last half of his sandwich. "A bunch of people from, um. My world? Did that." That seems right. His world. He's not going to think too hard about it and move on. "They separated themselves from their feelings. From their hearts. Mostly just to see what would happen, I think. They were scientists." Kind of... neutral on this, actually. He doesn't remember much about these people, he just knew that they sure did happen.

"I know some of them, um, got better? But don't remember if they regretted it or not. I do remember that I had to fight some of them, though. They... probably didn't remember how to regret things. It didn't seem like it." Sora stares into his sandwich. "The ones who did remember what it was like to have a heart only remembered the pain - the anger, the sadness - but it was sort of... like it happened to someone else, I think. I don't think that counts as being happy"

[worthallthis]

"No, that doesn't sound like being happy." Not that the Soldier really knows what "happy" feels like anymore. The closest they recognize is "content" and "caring", which they aren't sure is the same thing. The Soldier knows HYDRA tried very hard to take out all of their emotions, but only managed to take out some of them. Mostly the good ones. The fear never went away. (Still hasn't. I dunno, you're a little better than you were, I think. You think so? Yeah.. Huh.) "Was that different than being Heartless?"

[arsarcanum]

"Heartless, as weird as is it, are still... sort of hearts? It's like." Sora pauses here because the metaphysics of Kingdom Hearts make as little sense to say out loud as they actually are, sometimes. This one particular point has never made much sense even to him. "When a Heartless eats a heart, it's not like the heart just, uh, disappears. It's more like... the stuff inside? The light and the dark? Spill out and get lost. Kind of like an icecube in really, really hot water - like, sure, at the end of the day, the ice cube's water is somewhere in that water, but you wouldn't be able to make that exact ice cube ever again unless you're really lucky or knew what you were doing."

"What they did was different, though." Sora nibbles a little. Man, they do tend to talk about metaphysics over food a lot. "They wanted to exist without their hearts - without the light and the dark, and the feelings and, like, what makes people strong. Like, if we went back to the ice cube thing again, they wanted to just be the tray. People are more than just hearts, right? They've got bodies and souls too. That's the part the scientists were going for."

[worthallthis]

Ah. That makes Kairi being able to put Sora's heart back together make more sense. The Heartless would destroy, "eat", the thing holding the feelings and memories together, not the feelings and memories themselves. As if feelings and memories were actual tangible things, anyway. That part is still kind of weird, but at least it makes a little more sense. The Soldier doesn't nod, since that would hurt, but they do make a little noise of agreement and understanding.

And then they say, about the scientists, with the kind of bland affect that says they're making a joke, "Sounds dumb."

[arsarcanum]

Sora snorts, then laughs. "It was. I mean, I guess they ended up figuring out some things that ended up being useful later, but boy did they cause a lot of problems." More facestuffing. Sora doesn't get scientists much. He knows that, in theory, the pursuit of knowledge is really good for the world, but he's pretty sure that he doesn't want to know why people would want to take themselves apart like that.

"I feel," he says after swallowing, "way better. So." Sora spins toward the soldier, chewing on his last bit of sandwich. "What do we do about this?" He gestures at the soldier's back. This is still a problem, in Sora's opinion. "I mean, you might be fine now, but if you lose too much blood, you're gonna turn into a raisin."

[worthallthis]

The sideways look the Soldier gives him is somewhere between weary and unimpressed. "I will not turn into a raisin. I heal quickly. As long as I eat and drink regularly, I will be fine." They're enhanced, Sora, not just in cyborg ways. "Can't waste bandages that will just get shredded. And soaked. Can't remove the spines. Not really any options but wait."

And stay very still, but they're no longer really capable of that. (Well. Probably could be. But it would be terrible. Yeah, let's not try and train up your old "stare at one thing for hours" skill. So fucking boring. Useful when you aren't allowed to do anything else. Sure, but now you're allowed. Encouraged, even!)

[arsarcanum]

Logic is very nice and good, but Sora's got too much worry in his heart and nothing in his brain and his heart is telling him to GO FIX YOUR FRIEND IMMEDIATELY. It's not as bad as before, but he is still having difficulty surmounting the idea that there really isn't much else to do.

He scrunches his entire face. "So... you're just gonna sit there? For however long this lasts?" A narrow of the eyes. "Do you... get bored?"

[worthallthis]

"I'm not going to stay here and wait," the Soldier says with a little eyeroll. "At least not very long. You're just still here." And that's reason enough to sit still for a bit, anyway. They sincerely doubt the kid will stay here for too much longer, he has too much energy, but for now it's as good a reason to stay put and not bleed as any.

They look ahead again. "And yes, I get bored." A pause. "I didn't used to. I guess I've learned a new skill." The last is said bone dry.

cw: skyler related link

[arsarcanum]

Sorry, that is the funniest thing Sora's heard all day, and he fully remembers the events of this entire thread. He's going to double over laughing, kicking the air.

"We - oh no, the plate." Sora's going to grab his plate and hustle over to the sink to rinse it off. "We should go then. No point sticking around here. If you learned how to be bored, we need to teach you how to fill time, pronto." General store. Sora is going to pick up a few things. The soldier is going to learn how to play Uno.

[worthallthis]

The Soldier actually grins. It's not often they get a reaction that good out of people with their jokes. That's encouraging. Bolstering, even if it's just Sora who would probably laugh even at bad jokes because he's just that cheery (when he's not droopy; it's like the kid has no middle ground, it's all extremes).

They climb up and take their own plate to rinse, as well. That makes a few tears from the spines, but they're learning how to keep it to a minimum by moving just the right amount and in only the right ways, the longer this goes on. And they can handle pain.

More important is something to fill time. They have wanted to learn ways to fill time for months. This is exciting. "Okay. Show me what you got, kid."