queenoflogs | [open] I'm Nobody, who are you?

Entry tags:

[open] I'm Nobody, who are you?

Characters: Xion and anyone who encounters her wandering the Gardens.
Date: 3/20, early afternoon onward
Summary: Xion has been hit with a wildcard while out gathering more dirt for her tram system.
Warnings: will update if needed.

Xion was lost.

That wasn't right. She knew the Gardens like that back of her hand, she'd been here long enough. Even with new scenery always popping up, she was able to keep track of it. But the tall spire of the Clock Tower was nowhere to be seen, despite the fact that she was just out in the dunes collecting sand. She clutched the bucketful she was carrying tightly, stopping to look around again.

[ooc: as an amplification of her usual weird changing appearance, the wild card effect will cause her to take on the appearance of someone important to the one looking at her. The full extent is up to you: who she appears to be, whether her voice changes, whether they look male or are a female version, whether the illusion wears off once they figure out it's Xion. Have fun with this!]

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Dizzy was fortunate enough to have the gift of flight. The shifting world around her seemed less daunting when she could get a bird's eye view of it. Even then, though, it did not help that much... But it was at least more comforting.

But it was then she spotted it. A tall dark figure, wandering the gardens. She practically fell out of the sky, heading towards it. She could hardly believe her eyes... it was really them. Her first family...

"Testament!!" She cried out, moving towards the figure at great speed.

Xion turned at the shout, recognizing the other girl. Relieved to see a familiar figure, she set down her bucket and lifted a hand to wave. That's right, Dizzy could fly! Maybe they'rd be able to find a way back together.

"Dizzy! I hope you're not lost, too."

"Ah, well...," Bad news, really. And it was odd hearing Testament's voice as feminine, but she'd come to accept that part of the Gardens.

"I am..."

"Oh..." she paused for a moment, thinking. She hadn't quite realized something was wrong, yet. After all, to herself she looked the same: a girl in a black cloak. Though perhaps if she looked in a mirror, she'd see something different...

Xion looked around again.

"Something strange is happening again. But maybe if we work together, we can find someplace familiar."

Dizzy nodded. "Absolutely. Just tell me what to do, bru... erm, maybe schwester is better now..." The last bit seemed mostly spoken to herself. Just how should she address Testament as a woman? It was odd thinking about it.

Xion tilted her head, curiously. She didn't quite understand what Dizzy was saying, but...

"Tell you what to do? I guess...we should start walking one way and see where it goes. Maybe mark the path with something..."

She looked around for that something, but leaves and sticks would be easily lost in the grass. She crouched by her bucket of sand and used some of it to make a handful of small crystalline stones.

"Like these. Here, you carry some."

"Like Hansel and Gretel?" Dizzy replied as she took some of the material. It seemed like a solid enough idea. Stuff like this caught the sunlight in such a way that she could even see it from the sky if she needed to.

She tilted her head, not familiar with the reference. "Like who?"

"Hansel and Gretel? It's that story you told me when I was still little?" For all of the year she could be considered 'little'.

"I--told you?" There was a sinking feeling in her stomach. "Dizzy, I didn't know you when you were little...we met here, remember?"

Dizzy stared at Xion/Testament as if she had grown a second head.

"Um... Testament? Are you okay?"

Rumia had been out and about practicing her swordplay and taking in the fresh air of an approaching spring. Spying Xion not far from her position, Rumia can't help but let out a rather loud and confused cry.

"Mom?!"

Xion jumped, not expecting the shout, and nearly dropped her bucket of sand. She let out a very unladylike yelp in the process, too.

"U-um...hello?"

"Why are you here?!" The snake girl cried while slithering up to the hooded woman.

"I-I, well, I got lost..." The tail did draw her attention for a moment, but since this girl didn't seem hostile, she set that thought aside.

"Why did you call me 'Mom'?"

The way the paths had changed was annoying, to be sure. Sol had been lucky enough that she had managed to more or less avoid getting lost before today, but it seemed she wasn't going to be so fortunate now. Oh well. If she just kept walking, she would eventually wind up somewhere, wouldn't she? When she had first noticed the changes, she had expected something like this to happen eventually, so it wasn't as though she was mentally unprepared for the frustration.

What she was unprepared for was stumbling across a painfully familiar face.

For a moment, Sol wasn't sure if she wanted to approach or turn on her heel and walk in the opposite direction. (With the paths as confused as they were now, she figured doing that was just as likely to take her where she wanted to go as continuing in the direction she had been.) It probably would have been wiser to do the latter, but instead her feet wound up carrying her towards the woman almost of their own accord.

"...Hey." A sense of surreality seemed to have blanketed the encounter, Sol feeling as though her words came from someone else entirely as she asked, "Need some help?"

Xion looked up at the familiar voice, smiling in relief. "Sol! Did you get lost, too?" It was always good to have confirmation that someone she knew was still around. Had they not talked since Dizzy had disappeared before? It was hard to remember. She shifted, placing the bucket of sand down for a moment. It was beginning to hurt her fingers.

"Something weird's going on...I wonder if the Queen made another mistake."

When Sol received that reply, though, her neutral expression faltered just faintly. She blinked, once, and she couldn't help but let her brow furrow slightly in confusion. That voice... It wasn't Aria's. It took her a moment to place it, but-- "...Xion?" Her lips pursed together, then. This... "...Yeah, looks like it."

[ ooo: Here! ]

Edited 2012-03-25 17:21 (UTC)

Xion paused, trying to process that reaction. Sol hadn't recognized her? Her chest felt tight for a moment.

"Y...yeah, it's me...is something wrong?"

Surely it was just the difference in the shape of the Gardens messing with their perceptions? Or maybe her cloak? She reached up to fiddle with the beads hanging from her hood nervously.

"...Maybe." She hesitated just slightly, her expression smoothing out again as she debated just how much she should say. A second later, she settled on, "You don't look like yourself." There had been a moment where she wondered if this was another effect of the changes the Gardens had been undergoing. But Xion had still recognized her, so...

There was a silence, and her eyes widened. After a moment, she looked away, unable to keep eye contact.

"I...I don't?" Xion clutched her hands to her chest, feeling her shoulders. Nothing felt different... "Who...who do I...why is this happening again?"

"Again?" She almost set a hand Xion's shoulder in a very understated gesture of sympathy, but then it occurred to her that probably didn't even look the correct height now. Attempting to do so would just end with her clutching at empty air, more likely than not. So, instead, she tried to make her voice softer as she said, "This place is playing tricks now."

"It's not," she started, then stopped for a moment, trying to organize her thoughts despite her nervousness. She hadn't wanted to run away and hide so much in a long time.

"It's...me," she forced out after a strained silence. "I don't always...look like I should. I don't know why...! But it...it's always been someone that makes sense before..."

"Ah." The noise was as understanding as it could be, given the circumstances. Regardless of whether or not any of this really made sense to her, though, she made no attempt to pry. If Xion wanted to explain, she would, or so Sol figured. "...You look like someone I knew a long time ago."

"I'm sorry--" It spills out without a second thought, and she bows her head. Even after spending so much time with Sora, after all they'd been through, she still felt the need to take the blame. Even if she couldn't help what she was made to be.

"I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to bring up painful memories, or anything. But I don't know how to make it stop."

For a moment, she didn't respond, simply watching Aria-that-was-Xion bow her head. The whole situation was frankly bizarre, and Sol had no real idea how to handle it. Eventually, she folded her arms over her chest and sighed, doing her best not to think about how surreal and disconcerting it was to talk to Xion with Aria's face. "Don't apologize." Ignoring this issue of painful memories entirely, she asked, "Is this bad?"

When Kuja sees the slighter figure, she freezes, staring, for once speechless, if only temporarily. Of course she knows anyone might arrive here, but as used to being alone as she is, she hadn't expected to see any familiar faces. Especially not this one.

Zidane doesn't look any different than he had at home, but that doesn't surprise Kuja, as there's little difference between male and female among the Genomes.

She's torn between a variety of emotions, and isn't sure which one to side with, so she doesn't express any of them, instead demanding coldly, "What are you doing here?"

Kuja is usually abrupt, but the question is still unexpected, and Xion stares for a moment. Was this place special to Kuja? Was she intruding?

"Kuja...? I...I got lost. Is something wrong?"

She comes forward slowly, peering down at Xion intently.

"Wrong? Lost?" She moves a hand, almost reaching out, then, as if rethinking the action, draws her hand back sharply. "How can you ask me these questions, when you must know? Or is it that you mean to mock me?"

She knows very well that Zidane wouldn't mock her, but she says this all the same, unwilling to unbend or greet her sibling, suspicious and--what else? It's a difficult emotion for her to identify, a weight on her chest and a knot in her stomach. She wants to speak to Zidane, but at the same time, she cannot.

She shakes her head vehemently. "I wouldn't make fun of you. I really don't know. Was it something I did?" She set down her bucket of sand, taking a step closer. "The Gardens are...changing. I went out to get sand, and I can't find the Clock Tower anymore."

Kuja isn't pleased with this reply, turning her head slightly to one side, her examination of this other critical. Whoever this is, it looks and sounds like Zidane, but what it says makes little sense, not if it is Zidane.

What trickery is this? "Yes, the Gardens begin to shift, uneasy." She pauses.

"Zidane?" But the slight hopefulness in the question is matched by an equal measure of despair. Zidane is gone, of course. Likely dead, as she will be, whenever she leaves this place.

"Zi...dane?" Xion bites her lip, unable to stave off a sudden uneasiness. "It's...I'm Xion. It's me." She clutches at the front of her cloak nervously. What was going on? Did Kuja seem...sad?

"Xion...?" For a moment, disoriented, Kuja doesn't seem to know what she means. Then she falls silent, as her expression slowly shifts from sadness into anger.

"Why have you done this? I don't take kindly to jokes at my expense." She doesn't think of Xion's earlier comment about not making fun of her. She stretches out a hand. Light rises from her fingertips, settles into bright spheres above them. The effect is pretty, but decidedly not friendly.

"How do you know his face?"

She takes a step back, her heart thudding in her chest. "I haven't! I didn't do anything! I don't know...I don't know what you see. I can't control it...!" There's a desperate edge to her voice, though she's more afraid of herself than Kuja at the moment. Why was this happening, why now?

Kuja didn't seem to be listening to Xion's actual words, or if she was, they didn't seem to register. Her own voice rose and sharpened as she looked at his face, heard his voice... Though she had heard and understood the name "Xion", it was so like him, and it was cruel, too cruel to see him like this. What a joke.

"Then why must you torment me like this? If he died, it wasn't my fault!" She seems affronted, when she knows in her heart that it was, it was all her fault, but she can't admit it out loud.

In the next moment, her voice lowers, and she addresses Xion as Zidane again. "I told you to go, but you refused. I'll take no blame for it--I saved your life, but you were too foolish to leave."

"Kuja, please--" Her face is burning with shame. Though they've been at odds before, she always considered the woman a friend, despite the fact that Kuja was hardly the kindest person she knew. Seeing her in obvious distress feels wrong, alien--after all, she'd always boasted about how strong she was.

She feels dizzy, lightheaded. She doesn't know what to say, how to fix it, and even though she's learned she needs to face things, her first instinct is to turn tail (no pun intended) and flee. So she runs, abandoning the bucket of sand, not even considering that Kuja was probably much faster than she was.

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[open] I'm Nobody, who are you?

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gah I hope I am remembering their interactions correctly

they also talked once on Sol's return post o/

thanks. @_@ whenever I start going through old posts looking for something I get sidetracked!

np!

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