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RETROACTIVE DEFENSE OF PAST SELF
This is the first time it happens, so Vanitas is taken completely by surprise, mid-conversation even. The surroundings fuzz, blur; Vanitas's eyebrows come together but before he can say a word, the Ventus in front of him vanishes. So do the Unversed around them. So, as he turns and stands, turning his head this way and that, has the cairn.
Instead of the desert, there's a courtyard. White buildings, bleached as bone with doorways of mouths, surround it. He can hear and smell the sea, somewhere.
"What." Says Vanitas, into the listless air. He's not stupid, he's on another world somehow but he didn't do it, either by lanes or dark corridors.
An Unversed peels out of his shadow and into those of a bush. Fast enough he didn't get a good look at it, but one of the small ones. He ignores it for now, and starts walking, then using keyblade tricks to go from roof to roof. Staying in the empty streets makes him feel weirdly exposed, watched.
Ventus is nearby - he can feel it, he's always been able to feel it even when he had no idea what it was, when it faded over time to the point that, now, he has to really concentrate if he wants any kind of indication of it's truth, and more importantly, it's direction.
He levers up a skylight with his keyblade instead of tapping it, and drops down into the little atrium. This is a weird-ass house, but he's nearby, he knows it.
"Ventus!" he yells. "This better not be your fault!" Although it probably is. Either Ventus.
Instead of the desert, there's a courtyard. White buildings, bleached as bone with doorways of mouths, surround it. He can hear and smell the sea, somewhere.
"What." Says Vanitas, into the listless air. He's not stupid, he's on another world somehow but he didn't do it, either by lanes or dark corridors.
An Unversed peels out of his shadow and into those of a bush. Fast enough he didn't get a good look at it, but one of the small ones. He ignores it for now, and starts walking, then using keyblade tricks to go from roof to roof. Staying in the empty streets makes him feel weirdly exposed, watched.
Ventus is nearby - he can feel it, he's always been able to feel it even when he had no idea what it was, when it faded over time to the point that, now, he has to really concentrate if he wants any kind of indication of it's truth, and more importantly, it's direction.
He levers up a skylight with his keyblade instead of tapping it, and drops down into the little atrium. This is a weird-ass house, but he's nearby, he knows it.
"Ventus!" he yells. "This better not be your fault!" Although it probably is. Either Ventus.
no subject
"You're not Ventus," Vanitas snips defensively. It's like if Xehanort claimed to actually be Terra; injuring Terra's body or no, Vanitas would have attacked him on the spot. The Ventus that was in front of him wasn't his Ventus, but had more claim than whoever this was. "Pick something else."
Vanitas likes transactional, as a general rule. No mess, no fuss, no one owing each other anything, just the impersonal grounding of trade. No wonder he has such an affection for gifts. Darkness answered, with more than expected even, so Vanitas sets his jaw to reply. "Vanitas." A terse name for name.
"It's all Xehanort's fault," he says, the words coming easily from habit. "He wants Kingdom Hearts and had the bright idea that splitting Ventus in two would get him a Chi-Blade." Vanitas's eyes narrow. He'd taken a step back when Ventus stood up; that was a mistake. "Only it didn't work out." It's a reeling concept. 'You came from a boy that died', he was told once. "Who are you? Where did you come from? What do you mean, longer than it remembers?" There's just so much going on.