search for something warm

[poisonousflame]

Characters: Axel and OPEN!
Setting: Any floor where powers work. ALSO, any day between December 1st and December 13th. (Just note the floor and date in the subject!)
Format: Anything goes; I'll match you!
Summary: It's cold. Axel's trying to find a warm spot. Travel ensues.
Warnings: None yet!


The carnival, while not exactly his thing, had been warm. Not just warm: it was like a nice summer day, and Axel had enjoyed every second of it. He'd even taken a few naps. Sure, it ended up being creepy and full of crying girls and whatever else, but he preferred to look on the bright side.

As the temperature continued to drop, Axel began to search for more places like the carnival. Warm places, that is. And what better way to search than to open up a corridor and just ... walk through?


[ ooc: prompts for floors 100, 54, and 38 are also all OPEN! ]

Comments

[justabignobody]

Well, it's not like Riku hadn't known that Axel is in the tower, it's hard to miss that particular shade of red, especially during confined occasions like Xion's birthday, but given the history - here and back home - he hasn't had any all too great desire to seek him out. It really is enough if his return makes Xion's life a little brighter for the moment.

When he comes across the sight of that sunset on the 100th floor - more than familiar, though not from this particular angle - he decides to wander further into the floor, assuming to find Xion. And when he doesn't... well, he supposes he should have a word with Axel at some point probably. So, have the oldest version of Riku leaning against the tower, a little taller than he might remember him form home, hair short, arms stuffed into the pockets of his Black Coat as he leans back against the clocktower.

"...Back again, I see."

[poisonousflame]

By now, the voice is more than a little familiar. Axel turns away from the nostalgic view, coming face to face with.... Hm. This must be the one he hasn't met. Which would make this particular Riku the real deal.

"So I keep hearing," he replies — and so he continues to not enjoy hearing. He's been wandering around this Tower for nearly a month, and he still doesn't like the idea of there having been other-Axels who disappeared before him. Makes him wonder if the same thing is gonna happen to him, someday.

"You must be the real thing."

Not just a Riku who isn't a Replica: if he understood it correctly, this should be the Riku from his universe. (Or at least, a universe like his own.)

[justabignobody]

If he ever feels the need to do a headcount, Riku is more than willing to point him to the right places on the graveyard floor. He snorts, then draws his hands out of the coat to shrug before he crosses them over his chest.

"As real or fake as anything here."

It really depends on the definition of it.

[poisonousflame]

That's yet another thing that doesn't thrill Axel about this place. True, he's an incomplete being to begin with: losing his body is just one more thing. He's still got his soul, right? But that doesn't mean he likes the idea.

"Do you feel fake?"

An honest question, regardless of whether Riku brushed it off or not.

[justabignobody]

Well, nobody likes it, really - it was quite a shock when the glamor failed the first time and they found that everything around them is as much illusion as their own appearance. Though, it hadn't taken Riku long to find his answer then, not does it now.

"What's fake is a matter of definition. I am me and that's all that matters."

His heart and his mind are his own and that is far more worth than the shell of a body.

apologies for the delay

[poisonousflame]

A little smirk settles on Axel's lips. It's a touch bitter, as he recalls his little speech to Riku's Replica:

"Wouldn't you like to be real? All you need is the kind of power that the real Riku doesn't have. If you can get that, you can be a new person — not Riku, nor anybody else. You won't just be a copy of someone. You will be unique, your own self."

It had worked like a charm. He knows now, of course, that he was wrong to use the Riku-Replica. Hearing the real Riku dismissing the very thing that made the Replica so easy to use.... It just reinforces how different the Replica was. How it really was its own self.

Maybe the smirk is more than a little bitter.

"Interesting answer," he says. "That the way you've always seen it?"

It's good!

[justabignobody]

Riku shoots him a flat look at that smirk; he doesn't see what's there to smirk about and he has no interest in what Axel may or may not be bitter about. He is different to Ira, would have insisted on that in Castle Oblivion already, but now - three years later - he exactly understands the differences, understands that no matter the circumstances of Ira's creation, they are each as real or fake as the other.

"It's the way I've learned to see it."

Hard won experiences and realizations that have only come to him with time to reflect, in his struggles with Ansem's darkness, through his interactions with Xion, and he has no need to hide or belittle that. But even so...

"Though, I don't particularly see how that's any of your business."

What is it with all those questions?

[poisonousflame]

Axel shrugs and waves a hand. Both gestures are careless and dismissive; it's as though the questions don't mean much, and neither do the answers.

"It's not," he says. His smirk is still in place, though the bitterness has faded. "But there's no harm in asking, right?"

Nonchalant as it sounds, there's a slice of honesty with that answer, even though the answer itself is yet another question. Axel really does see no problem with asking Riku what he thinks of all this: if Riku considers the questions too invasive, Axel figures he wouldn't answer at all. Besides, his experience with Riku is limited. He can either work with observations, or he can try a more direct approach.

Given the fact that Riku's obviously met another Axel here before, the redhead's leaning towards the more direct approach.

[justabignobody]

Riku snorts softly, irritation flickering over his face - he doesn't care to be dismissed by Axel of all people, but well. There isn't much that he can say to that apart of...

"I suppose."

That doesn't mean he likes it. He's met Axel several times during his years in the tower, has watched him from afar before that and well, it's left him with mixed feelings about the Nobody. They've had something of an uneasy truce once at least, the very first time Axel had been here, but... that was a while ago.