1369

[animusmods]

Characters: Anyone coming to Zo's carnival
Setting: Cafeteria; please specify the date and location in the carnival in your subject header!
Format: Anything
Summary: Zo has set up a carnival for the residents, but it's not meant to last. Anyone wandering after the bombs go off might see things they never wanted to see...
Warnings: Psychological and body horror
Note: Characters entering the carnival from the 27th to the 30th will experience visions! Please refer to the info post for details and reply to this thread if your character enters the carnival during these days.

[The carnival has taken up the entirety of the cafeteria. A large roller coaster and ferris wheel tower over the residents, while a child-sized roller coaster, a merry-go-round, and spinning teacups project much less daunting silhouettes. Stands are set up with standard carnival foods available, from ice cream to cotton candy. These stands do not ask for anything as payment.

On the twenty-seventh, the carnival appearance changes. The machinery all appears rusted and broken down, as if weathered with decades of rain and snow. Plants grow up and around the rides, ruining them, and all the food is rotten.]

Comments

[lethechained]

[She swallows, because she can see all of those things and even though his voice tries to hide it she knows what's in his eyes and that's what frightens her.]

[But she stays steady, even through her strain and her guilt and her pity.]

He'd be whole.

[A repeat, but also something she's had to repeat to herself, all this time.]

... But no longer separate.

[poisonousflame]

You mean he'd be gone.

[And there's the anger. This isn't an Axel who has driven away his friends. This isn't an Axel who has realized that, in the end, maybe Roxas returning to Sora was inevitable. This isn't an Axel who has tried to bring Roxas back, and eventually wound up giving his life to save his best friend's other.

[This is an Axel who came from a time when things were just fine. He had his friends, and they were inseparable. Sure, Xion was a Replica, and she wanted to find out where she came from. But no one was leaving the Organization. No one was going to—]

He'd be destroyed.

[lethechained]

[It's so dangerous, him being from that time. She knows it's a thin line she's toeing, here. She knows maybe it would keep things quieter at least for a little while to keep her mouth shut, to lie her way around it.]

[But she's not a liar when she can help it and even if he doesn't remember, even if he is not yet that person, she remembers him as he was, as he will be in the future. She remembers the man who sacrificed himself, who grew and changed and--]

[And she can't lie to him. She can't disrespect him so, can't betray him that way even though right now she is frightened.]

No...! Not destroyed. Just-- different. Whole. [She keeps using that word over and over again because she can't help it, it's what she's always needed to believe.]

Axel-- there wasn't any choice. ... We both had to go back.

[poisonousflame]

[Axel shakes his head, denying the word even as she repeats it. Not whole. Gone. Roxas is Sora's Nobody, but he's not Sora. And Sora may be a special kid, but he's not Axel's best friend. Roxas wouldn't be whole if he returned to Sora. He'd just be gone.

[No choice? No. He refuses to believe that. He could've gotten Roxas out of that mess somehow. (Why didn't he? What was the Axel that Naminé remembers doing?)

[The anger doesn't fade. If anything, it's only growing stronger, as Naminé uses that word again. But her last sentence does cause him to pause.]

Both?

[lethechained]

[It's cold solace, that's for certain - but she'd clung to it because that was the only kind of comfort she'd ever had; the bittersweet, the consolation prize, the 'you may not be able to be happy but you'll be able to do the right thing'.]

[She'd tell him, if he asked, as hesitant as she might be; telling someone they're to die is no easy task. (She knows that one all too well.)]

[The pause is as mixed a blessing as many other things, but at least he hasn't lost his temper yet.]

Both of us. [The weight of her words can really only grow heavier, at this point, and it does.] He went back to Sora, and I went back to Kairi. It was... the only thing I could think to do. It was the only way to be whole, and to stop myself from fading and make sure I didn't hurt anyone else, and--....

... And I couldn't let him go alone.

[poisonousflame]

[She willingly destroyed herself...? He stares at her, long and hard, working to fit this latest piece into the ever-growing puzzle. It still doesn't make sense to him. None of it does.

[How could he have let any of that happen?]

You think that makes it better?

[A cold question, simmering with anger — but an honest one nonetheless.]

[lethechained]

[She looks back at him, steady but frowning, and it's only once he speaks that she glances away, pausing just a moment before shaking her head.]

No. I know it doesn't. There isn't anything I can do to make it better. I made-- arrangements, but whether or not that'll help....

[Lips pressed together, she considers him again.]

It was just the way that things had to be.

apologies for the delay (again orz)

[poisonousflame]

The way things had to be.

[Again, he repeats her words slowly. Carefully. Like saying them will help everything fit together. Like it'll help everything make sense.

[It doesn't work.

[When he speaks again, his voice is quieter. The anger is repressed, though certainly not gone.]

You wanna tell me where I was in all this?

No problem /o/

[lethechained]

The way things had to be.

[She echoes his echo, quieter as such a thing ought to be and probably more forlorn.]

[And then he asks the question she does not fail to see the relevance of, but one she's not happy to have to answer. (None of these really have been the sort of question she would take pleasure in sorting out, as most questions asked of her have always seemed to be.)]

....

[How does one tell someone something like this? She has experience with it, yes, but--....]

... You had already fallen, Axel.

[It's pretty obvious by her expression what she means by that particular euphemism.]

At least, you had by the time he and I went back to our Others.

[poisonousflame]

[Fallen. He'd already fallen. It doesn't take a genius to figure out exactly what Naminé means by that.

[He exhales slowly, forcing himself to breathe through the tight knot in his chest. He'd fallen. He'd been destroyed. But how...?

["You're not hurt right? I mean, I didn't hurt you too much?"

[A memory. Roxas' voice, just after they showed up here, clear as day in his mind. He thinks, tries to remember what else Roxas said about that fight....

["In the future for you we fight because I have to be eliminated. You were going to eliminate me. I guess Saix said you had to."

["I won, but it was really close, I know and you, we said we'd meet in the next life. I thought this was here, but now I'm not so sure. I thought I really hurt you."

[It takes a long moment for him to respond. When he does, it's simply:]

Oh.

[Maybe he's wrong. Maybe he's putting the pieces together in all the wrong places. Somehow.

[But if he's right, he doesn't think he can take hearing Naminé say it.]

[lethechained]

[Somehow, she'd been hoping for a bigger reaction.]

[Well, maybe 'hoping' isn't the right word. Expecting? But that's not quite right, either, because that was a hard thing to say but a harder thing to hear and even harder, perhaps, to respond to. She doesn't blame him for his thoughts overtaking his words.]

[It just doesn't make things any easier. Even though she knows she hasn't any business asking, she really wishes she were privy to what he is thinking. As ever, her natural reaction is to try to help.]

Axel--....

[She swallows.]

Don't you want to know how it happened?

[poisonousflame]

[He refocuses his gaze on her, sees the expression on her face. Quickly, he forces a smile. It's strained, even by his standards, and does nothing to disguise how obviously troubled he is by the news. "Troubled" putting it very mildly.]

Think I've already got the picture.

[He shrugs, gives a dismissive wave — as though physically pushing the thought aside will make the awful sensation in his chest easier to deal with.]

[lethechained]

[Even a forced smile is probably better than things could be, but she hasn't got a smile to give him in return. Frowning slightly,]

Are you sure? After all-- a lot of things happened between your point on the timeline and then.

[And it's probably safe to guess that he's not in a position to accurately assume the circumstances involved.]