towerofanimus | Endgame: Gathered on This Beach of the Tumid River

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Endgame: Gathered on This Beach of the Tumid River

Characters: open
Setting: all around the Tower from the 25th of May to the 1st of June
Format: any
Summary: A general mingle for all characters throughout the Tower.
Warnings: Standard Animus warnings; please note anything specific in the subject headers of your threads

[The Tower is stagnant, the only signs of activity confined to the second block. There isn't much time left; it might be a good idea to rest and do whatever strikes your fancy before the timer hits zero.]

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"Yeah, that kinda happens when you're facin' the whole world ending." Reno's tone started off more light than it should have, but it quickly darkened when he realized he might be giving off the wrong impression and shouldn't be so casual about it. He was rather tired of being grim though...

"I was like that when Meteor was coming down. This countdown... it's the same feeling. When it gets here, that's when it'll all hit ya in the face. But... don't worry," he added, reaching out to bump Shion's shoulder with a fist, "you won't be alone."

Shion looked up at him, the whole world ending. Maybe that was why. It was such a big thing, it was difficult to even think about. His world had already ended once, but he hadn't been witness to that, his world had almost destroyed itself before that, before he was even born. This wasn't his world but the idea of it ending...

He smiled at the fist bump. He wasn't alone. It was a strange feeling but not a bad one. But in a way it made the numbness greater. No matter what happened, if they survived this, if they restored the worlds, if they all perished here. He would lose those he had come to know as family.

He leaned into Reno, "I know. It would be a lot harder to face alone." And he wouldn't be able to face it at all if it hadn't been for Reno.

"Doesn't help much, does it?" Reaching into a pocket, Reno pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He had never been a heavy smoker but as the countdown wore away, he found himself dipping into Cid's stash more and more often. It was bad for the lungs and he'd always tried to stay away in favor of the job, but now...

Lighting up, he didn't even care they were glamour. "Hey, it's all right... two years ago, watchin' that rock fall out of the sky, I was a lot more scared than I wanted to admit. Last few days, I've been kinda wishing this place was really what they said it was."

Shion just shrugged and watched Reno take out a cigarette. He no longer believed Reno was completely without fear or flaws and so he wasn't surprised at the admission of fear.

"A haven to be happy... that would have been nice." A place where they really were saved, where they could make lives anew, the last remnants of their worlds.

If Shion told him that, Reno would be pretty proud of him. They both came a long way since the beginning.

"Yeah..." He folded his arms and worried the stick between his lips a little. "If this was really some kinda natural disaster... and we were really survivors of our universes, it's an overwhelming loss. Someone who was really saving us, who had empathy woulda treated us with kid gloves from the start. If the people of my planet were faced with saving survivors of other universes, I'd like to think they'd kinda grow up and work hard for 'em." It was a really odd thought, but one he'd been tossing back and forth since that day (or was it week?) down in the machine room, battling Riki.

The casual indifference Riki, Jason and Ruana showed is what really ate at the Turk. Even back home... only monsters didn't feel anything when battles were won or lost. That's what eventually helped him realize maybe he wasn't a demon after all, and that had been a long, hard road he walked. He did feel something about Sector Seven even now.

"Hey, Shion. I don't want to go back without you guys."

Shion nodded, a place where survivers were treated with kindness and were able to forge a new life for themselves. That would have been a good place, instead of this tower of illusions with administrators who saw them as experiments and playthings.

"I know... I don't want to go back alone either..." He leaned against Reno's side. "Xion... Xion's going back to her world though." Shion didn't like it, but it was her choice and he would be a rubbish brother if he didn't respect her choices.

"Yeah, I know. She's got unfinished business." He wrapped an arm around Shion's shoulders, patting his arm. "We just gotta trust she gets through it, we are her family here, after all. Don't trust her, can't trust us, right? Who knows, after this place it might be easy."

"She will." He took a deep breath. "I have too... if we fix the worlds to the point we left them... Safu was taken and I was trying to get her back. Though I might be too late..." Probably was too late, his memories of the mirror were vague and he knew they were everything that could possibly happen but he remembered seeing a brain and knowing it was Safu's... and there was a brain in a jar in his trunk.

"I don't..." Tears welled up in his eyes, "I don't want to leave you, I don't think I can leave you. But I could never forgive myself if I didn't at least try to save her... I can't let Rat do it alone..." Mostly because he didn't trust that Rat would save her, that he wouldn't just destroy No. 6 and be done with it.

"I just..." He gave up on words and just buried his face in Reno's shoulder.

"Hey, hey, Shion," Reno was slightly startled by Shion's sudden hiding, but he placed his arms around the kid anyway.

"You've cried and bled and shared memories with us. That's the kinda ties we got, and there's not much more that's stronger than that. You're not goin' to leave us. You're part of us now, we're part of you. You can't. I'd be real disappointed if you didn't go do what you had to, kiddo."

"I won't disappoint you." His voice was barely a whisper. They were part of him, family. Like he could never forget his mum, no matter how long they were parted.

"I just... I don't want to be alone." And although the futures he had seen had been as numerable as they had been vague he couldn't remember one where Rat didn't walk away if he survived at all. "What if I can't find you again."

"Hey, you're never going..." Reno trailed off, going somewhat pale.

Shion looked up, paling himself when he saw Reno's face. "What..."

"...Ah, you're never goin' to be alone, kiddo." Smiling, he reached up to ruffle his hair affectionately. "It was somethin' my dad was trying to tell me a long time ago... I guess that means all the people I ever loved didn't really leave, either, huh?"

Shion blinked and looked up at Reno with a small smile. "You only just realised?" It was a very Reno thing to do, teach Shion something and only later realise it counted for him as well.

"Hey I'm really bad at applyin' this stuff to my own life..." He grumbled, swatting at Shion's hair this time. "I'm not that old, you know. I'm still figuring this stuff out... go easy on me."

Sobering up a little, he glanced out at the dark outside. "I guess I just kinda focused on how alone I felt. Good friends helped, but they started feeling like family, then they left. What about you, kiddo?"

Shion grinned, blowing the hair back out of his face. "But you're supposed to be the all knowing wise one."

He followed Reno's gaze to the blackness outside. "I don't know... I never really had friends growing up except Safu and then Rat... I guess I never really realised how important things like that were to me until I came here."

Reno raised an eyebrow. "Never thought I'd hear anyone say that about me. You sure you got the right guy?"

But the other part, that's understandable. Shion hadn't really grown up with the right kind of... what's the word? Reno tried to turn his brain over for it, but failed. It didn't really matter though. "It's all right. There's a lot of things ya grow up thinking or feeling, and then something happens later that turns the whole world upside down. Kinda weird how the world didn't really change though, it's just your perspective. I think there's some kinda proverb about that."

The cigarette, almost forgotten, dropped some ash on Reno's hand, which made him wince and shake it off. "Sometimes you have to test yourself, or make a change. I know I learned a lot more 'bout myself and the world one year in Wall Market and in the Turks than I did. You've done a lot of that here, Shion. You'll do a whole lot more of it, whatever ya decide to do. Xion's the same. Even Elena..."

He grows sort of quiet then.

Shion just grinned at him and then thought about what Reno said. He had changed a lot in the time he had been in the tower. Looking back he scarcely recognised the boy who had arrived here. And part of him disliked him. He had been weak and unable to do anything.

At Elena's words he looked up, "Are you two going to try and stay together?"

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Endgame: Gathered on This Beach of the Tumid River

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