*Nobody is happy with this
Aug. 5th, 2019 04:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vapidusThe last shards of the piece of Xehanort's heart dissipate, unable to hold themselves together, and Vanitas stares out at the Abyss, keyblade hanging by his side. There's nothing but silence and the distant roar of wind.
"Ventus?"
Vanitas scuffs a boot on the featureless black disc below him, barely discernible, then kicks it. There's no response at all. Not even the hint of the potential for response. It's just silent and dark and empty.
"Ventuussss. Venty Wenty. Venbutt. Wake the fuck up." A pause. "I'm burning your chess sets."
Nothing. There's a hiss and Vanitas turns to see a piece of darkness dissipating from the disc into mist, revealing a piece of colour that shines upwards.
"About time."
He walks over to it, and stops short when he sees what it is. It's nothing that should be on Ventus's disc at all. A single blue, catlike eye, and a little of the red and black around it. There's another hiss behind and to the right of Vanitas, and another small shaft of exposed light spiking up.
Foreboding hits Vanitas like a freight train. So does consciousness.
He sits up with a gasp of breath, feeling like one big bruise, and he stares down at callused and scarred hands and arms, one ringed with a bracelet. These aren't the clothes he was wearing. This is not his beautiful house. He pats himself down, and he can't find his Wayfinder.
If there's one thing about the World That Never Was, it's no lack of reflective surfaces. Still puddles of rain that never fell. Dark windows in buildings never occupied. Vanitas stares at glowing red eyes in a face not his own, and swears.
Navigating this world was easier when it wasn't absolutely teeming with heartless fallen from the giant Unmoon above. Vanitas has never seen a swarm this thick or large, and he ran out of potions a while back. It's all he can do to find ways to disengage long enough to spam Cure, wait for his magic to recover, then spam it again, an increasingly taller ask as he makes his way back to the Castle where he's sure the others are still fighting. He wears the cloak, but he doesn't want to risk a dark portal just yet.
He wipes his hand across his eyes, curling his lip at the black gunk that just will not stop oozing from them like viscous tears. His clothes - Ventus's clothes - are smeared with handlines of it from nose and mouth and maybe ears, he hasn't checked. He's still wearing that blue lobster shirt, faded from time that chilled Vanitas. He sways and leans against a wall, fighting the urge to throw up. It hasn't been this bad in years.
The same liquid tar hits the pavement, and Vanitas waits, but no red eyes appear in it. A guard armor takes the opportunity to attack, and Vanitas barely dodges the attack and is struck by the pieces of wall produced by it, knocking him to his knees. His breath mists in the air as he pants harshly, disoriented.
"Ventus?"
Vanitas scuffs a boot on the featureless black disc below him, barely discernible, then kicks it. There's no response at all. Not even the hint of the potential for response. It's just silent and dark and empty.
"Ventuussss. Venty Wenty. Venbutt. Wake the fuck up." A pause. "I'm burning your chess sets."
Nothing. There's a hiss and Vanitas turns to see a piece of darkness dissipating from the disc into mist, revealing a piece of colour that shines upwards.
"About time."
He walks over to it, and stops short when he sees what it is. It's nothing that should be on Ventus's disc at all. A single blue, catlike eye, and a little of the red and black around it. There's another hiss behind and to the right of Vanitas, and another small shaft of exposed light spiking up.
Foreboding hits Vanitas like a freight train. So does consciousness.
He sits up with a gasp of breath, feeling like one big bruise, and he stares down at callused and scarred hands and arms, one ringed with a bracelet. These aren't the clothes he was wearing. This is not his beautiful house. He pats himself down, and he can't find his Wayfinder.
If there's one thing about the World That Never Was, it's no lack of reflective surfaces. Still puddles of rain that never fell. Dark windows in buildings never occupied. Vanitas stares at glowing red eyes in a face not his own, and swears.
Navigating this world was easier when it wasn't absolutely teeming with heartless fallen from the giant Unmoon above. Vanitas has never seen a swarm this thick or large, and he ran out of potions a while back. It's all he can do to find ways to disengage long enough to spam Cure, wait for his magic to recover, then spam it again, an increasingly taller ask as he makes his way back to the Castle where he's sure the others are still fighting. He wears the cloak, but he doesn't want to risk a dark portal just yet.
He wipes his hand across his eyes, curling his lip at the black gunk that just will not stop oozing from them like viscous tears. His clothes - Ventus's clothes - are smeared with handlines of it from nose and mouth and maybe ears, he hasn't checked. He's still wearing that blue lobster shirt, faded from time that chilled Vanitas. He sways and leans against a wall, fighting the urge to throw up. It hasn't been this bad in years.
The same liquid tar hits the pavement, and Vanitas waits, but no red eyes appear in it. A guard armor takes the opportunity to attack, and Vanitas barely dodges the attack and is struck by the pieces of wall produced by it, knocking him to his knees. His breath mists in the air as he pants harshly, disoriented.
no subject
Date: 2019-08-09 05:12 am (UTC)“Charming.” He said languidly. “I’m not a day over fourteen I’ll have you know. Give or take a decade.” Don’t ask him why this body didn’t age he won’t tell you. No need to let Vanitas know Vens real heart still exists.
He would do it again to spite Vanitas but thankfully insults really put him out of the cackling mood. Vennort is not as unshakable as Xehanort, even as a malevolent phantom with nothing to loose.
“By the light just heal yourself and be done with it or open the door.” Vennort complains as Vanitas fails yet another Cura. This is torture for a master of magic like Xehanort, torture. “The tedium of your incompetence will kill me twice.”
he looks like he's about to yell 'that's my OPINION'
Date: 2019-08-09 10:55 am (UTC)"Give or take a century." Vanitas's sense of time has been a little thrown off by dimension hopping, but he does know it's been ten years, somehow. He'd ask but he gets the strangest impression Vennort would not be helpful in this arena.
"Die then," Vanitas says deliberately indifferently, focusing on one red line across the back of Ventus's arm in particular. He's not returning this body in mint condition it seems, but Ventus probably won't notice some extra scars. He'd slow down the spell even further just to piss Vennort off that little bit more, but he doesn't have enough fine control for that. He prods a finger towards Vennort's apparition. "Like you can do better."
he fuckign WOULD
Date: 2019-08-19 06:32 am (UTC)"I could, thank you very much." Vennort leans backward to float a little, drifting by Vanitas like an asshole ghost that he is. "Of course, you'd have to let me~" He flashes a charming smile.
"I mean, it's better then dying right. I recall you being very particular about your desire to live overruling so much. Must have sucked to hang around the original guy, thinking like that." What a sad sack of lame suicidal tendencies and repressions! Can't you see the current Vennort is much funnier and cooler.
starring vanitas's spotty monk-education
Date: 2019-08-19 10:32 am (UTC)Vanitas's gaze follows Vennort's ghost across the room. Good thing no one's here to see you interacting with nothing at all, Vanitas.
"This isn't going to kill me, idiot," Vanitas gripes, the spell dropped with his concentration. "It's just cuts." The flutterings slashed him up pretty bad but they aren't too fatal, he thinks. Unless they get infected. Does he have to worry about that now? He's never had to. He's a bit iffy on how it even happens. A little bit of uncertainty slips into the back end of the sentence.
That likely isn't what Vennort even means, though. These cuts might be livable, but there's a crowd of heartless out there. Future ones might not be. And Vanitas has already noticed it - getting injured makes everything harder to do, so it's easier to get injured, so it's harder to avoid getting injured. Suddenly, healing spells are a much bigger deal than he thought.
He's... actually not sure what would happen if Ventus's body died with him still in it. Would he just be his normal self again, a mortal shell lying on the floor under him like in that one memory? Would Kingdom Hearts be like 'oh fuck I missed one' and grab him despite protest? He doesn't want to find out. Moreover, he wants to keep this body alive for Ventus - the real Ventus's - sake.
"I'd rather have him than you," Vanitas returns. It didn't occur to him until Vennort said it, that aspect of Ventus staying behind to fight Xehanort, and it feels like something sharp in a joint, only in his heart, for a brief second. His eyes narrow. "Why should I even trust you?"
He hasn't forgotten the thrown rock. Clearly Vennort coughing up healing spells isn't going to come without a cost or agenda, and Vanitas doesn't plan to just walk face first into it.