towerofanimus | Aftermath

Characters: Taiki and anyone
Setting: meadow floor, morning after Hitori Kakurenbo.
Format: I'll follow you
Summary: Taiki revives, is miraculously not ill, seeks the most open bright space he can and cries.
Warnings: mentions of death and events of Hitori Kaakurenbo

Sleep paralysis was terrifying, it was longer this time and Taiki felt like he was trapped in darkness forever. Unable to move, unable to breathe, it was like he was drowning again. Maybe he was.

The first thing he saw when it faded and he could open his eyes was a teddy bear. On his bedside stand. Taiki's eyes widened and he screamed. He scrambled out of bed, the events of the night and day before him crashing down on him. Strangely he wasn't feverish, it was a strange thought, he remembered his cupboard filling with blood and yet...

He felt better than he had in months. But he wanted to be outside, he had been in a cupboard for hours and hours. He ran out of the room and down the stairs into the meadow. Transforming he flew around, a blur in the sky. Finally he landed; managing to pull on his tunic before curling into a ball and sobbing.

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Taiki heard the voice and looked up to see a troll with wings. He blinked and tried to wipe away the tears, "Sorry... I... sorry..." He must have made a racket flying around like that, and he felt embarrassed for it.

"I didn't mean to disturb you..." He buried his face in his knees.

"You didn't disturb me."

Aradia sat in front of him, still keeping a distance between them soas not to crowd him.

"I can understand if you don't want to talk about it, but maybe I can help?"

Taiki blinked tears away and sat up a little more. He squeezed his eyes shut to try and stop any more tears from coming. "I'm sorry... did they... did they get you as well?"

It didn't take much to realise what he was referring to and Aradia nodded. "Unfortunately. But it's over now and we're alive. That's what matters."

Taiki nodded, "Sorry... I..." She was right, they were alive. That was something good to hold onto. "They... they shouldn't have done that..." Killing people was bad. Torturing people and killing them just to bring them back and kill them again.

That was horrific and Taiki felt sick at the thought.

"They shouldn't, but they did. If we could take back everything that shouldn't have happened, our lives would turn out very differently."

There was so much more she could have said on that, but she had sense enough to know when not to dwell on the more morbid side of things.

"So, I don't think we've met before, have we? I'm Aradia."

Taiki blinked at that, but she had a point. As difficult as it had sometimes been growing up on earth, he would have been a very different person if he had grown up on Mount Hou. And he would have never met the humans who were his family.

"No... sorry... I'm Taiki, it's nice to meet you Aradia..."

"It's nice to meet you too, Taiki. Have you been in the tower long?"

It helped, sometimes, being curious; it was an easy distraction to talk about anything but that last event.

Taiki nodded, "About... erm... about five months now..." A long time, and a lot had happened. "How... how about you?"

"Quite a while, then." She considered his question. "I think about two months? Maybe a little more?"

"It is a long time..." He looked down again, "Two months is a long time as well..." Any time here was too long a time.

"There was someone called Aradia here before, I taught her to swim..." He remembered suddenly, she had disappeared though and he had never seen her again.

She thought about that for a moment. "Well, when I first got here I was told I'd been here before. So it might have been past me. Or, there was an older me around for a while, though I haven't seen her lately." She'd have to check up on her older self later, she decided.

"But if we were friends before, I'm sure we will be this time, too."

Taiki nodded, he knew some people had other versions of themselves here. Taiki didn't, he didn't even think there was anyone here from the Twelve Kingdoms. Keiki had been here for a little bit, but it was for such a short time when Taiki was first here that Taiki sometimes thought he had just dreamed that he was here.

He smiled a tiny smile and nodded, "That would be nice..."

"Okay, good." She smiled widely. "There's enough in the tower against us without us all being against each other."

Taiki smiled and nodded. "There is... I am glad most people are nice... even if what happens is bad..."

Aradia gave an encouraging smile. "Maybe it's bad but as long as we're all getting along and working as a team...a disjointed team, perhaps...I don't think it'll keep us down for long."

Taiki nodded, "There's a lot of us, if we all help each other... things wont be too bad."

"Exactly! So try not to let this last one get you down, okay? Because if nothing else, it got us to meet more people here and that's never a bad thing."

Because for Aradia, there was always a positive side.

Taiki smiled again and nod. "I guess... we made more friends here..." Except Lord Gyousou wasn't here, and Kirin would always be sad when separated from their Kings, it was the way they were created. They could not fail to be happy when their King was near and would always be sad to be parted from them.

And to be parted from Tai. But he tried to stay positive, because more friends was a good thing.

Aradia smiled and rose to her feet. "I'm going to head down to the cafeteria. You can come with me if you want?"

Because really, distraction was what was needed here.

Taiki blinked but then nodded, climbing to his feet a little unsteadily. He put his shoes back on and nodded. "Okay."

Aftermath

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