allsoend | Second Sunrise

Entry tags:

Second Sunrise

Who: Xion (

memoryreprieved) & you!
What: After doing some wandering around stations, Xion embarks on an unplanned journey to the familiar world of...
Where: Twilight Town
Warnings: Potential awkward. Potential b'aaaw. We'll see!

One silly little thought.

That was really... all it took for her to find herself under that familiar warm, painted sky. Certainly, it had been a place she held dear to her. Easily, it could be called sanctuary. The pleasant memories she held there felt infinite. And while there were... bittersweet ones, too... none-the-less, she couldn't help but feel a sense of calm embrace her after the initial surprise ebbed away.

It had been one thing to hear about the worlds being there, after all. Another to see it for real. There was certainly much more to Sora's heart than she had ever anticipated, she mused to herself. But considering the sheer amount of people that were apparently roaming around, was this really all that strange? ...Okay, it still was. The distant chiming of the bells.. The undertone of lazy folks and laughing children could almost be heard, even in the deserted streets. A train bellowed its welcome from afar...

Surreal... She glanced slowly took a few steps forward among the sandlot, thoughts drifting uncertainly.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

After splitting up from Riku and Lea, Kairi decided to do a little more exploring of her own. It was kind of strange to call it 'exploring' in the first place, since the extent of it just seemed to be thinking of a place or person, and then finding herself there. However, there did seem to be some people that she couldn't reach (she'd gone looking for Goofy, but no one seemed to have seen him). For whatever reason, they remained cut off...or perhaps just not here.

In trying to think about some of the friends she'd met in Twilight Town, she once again suddenly found herself there. The air felt warm and calm as much as the first time she'd been here, but the streets were eerily empty. She bit her lip, and began walking towards where she thought she remembered the secret hideout being.

That is, until she heard another set of footsteps just ahead. Kairi sped up until she caught up with their owner...only to find it was a dark-haired girl with a face nearly identical to hers. Xion.

Well, this place just got a little stranger. Still, she wasn't going to back down from meeting face to face, and gave Xion a small wave. "Ah...hello."

There had been a handful of people that had swirled through her mind as she'd been walking the empty town. Axel and Roxas had come immediately, of course, but as she continued to trek along, she couldn't help but think of the old couple as she passed the stall where she would hastily run to buy ice cream with what munny she'd gathered from missions. Or she swear she heard the rowdy voices of those two boys and the protest of that girl when she started up one of the hills.

But her thoughts all came to a halt upon hearing that voice. That one that almost sounded exactly like her. ...The one that she almost sounded exactly alike. She stopped in her tracks, debating in her head what to do-- but she'd spoken to her already. Fought alongside the same idea, been given a body with her aide... And all that, without knowing how that entire year without...

Slowly, Xion turned around to meet the girl she resembled so much. Her lips quivered into an almost polite smile. Not quite there, but... "...Hi."

It was still so strange seeing and hearing Xion, even in this place. They were eerily similar, even moreso in some ways than her and Namine, but in others quite different. Xion looked nervous, so Kairi figured she should try to be encouraging...although admittedly she wasn't sure how to encourage her now. She supposed she could start with returning the polite smile.

And part of that may also be just listening to her. While they may have shared a lot of the same memories, with her coming originally from Sora's, she knew that Xion's experiences would also be totally different.

"Have you find anyone else in this world yet?" She wasn't sure who Xion would be looking for, but figured if she was looking for someone she'd say who they were if they were here.

At Kairi's question, Xion's smile tightened just a bit to something almost... a little bashful? Yet almost a little sad. Instead of continuing to watch the girl she resembled, her gaze traveled up the swooping architecture to the sky brimming with that orange glow.

"...No, I haven't. I don't think there's anyone here." Which... made for some sense. Even if Sora had visited that world at some point, it... wasn't as if Sora had personally known everyone in Twilight Town, right? But... again. It didn't seem like everyone necessarily knew Sora, too. Tricky... Still, there was one more spot she had thought...

"...But- I wonder if they're here.." Those three. There was really no way Sora couldn't have noticed them. Of all the people milling around the town... Curiosity took her and she turned to start off up the hill again.. before she paused to look back. "I'm going to check one more place."

"Oh..." She glanced up at the endless sunset around them as well. So this more and more confirmed their suspicions about the hearts of worlds being here, if all of the inhabitants weren't gone. But that still left the question as to where all those people were, if they weren't at their special heart stations.

"Oh, do you mean the usual spot?" That was what Hayner, Pence and Olette had called their little hangout, right? That, or they mentioned hanging out on the clock tower to eat their ice cream sometimes. She knew they'd met Sora, so of course they had some connection with him. "Hayner, Pence and Olette, right?"

Now that she thought about it, she never had gotten the opportunity to say thanks for explaining all that to her back when she'd first come to this world on accident. Maybe she could say that now.

'The Usual Spot'... The name sort of rang a bell if only vaguely. The thought was there and gone in no time though when names were brought up. Xion blinked before nodding slowly. Perhaps she shouldn't have been so surprised that Kairi might have known them. As far as she knew, a lot of things had happened since... and Kairi had traversed worlds before. Perhaps not entirely of her will, but... It wasn't impossible to believe she'd met them later. Perhaps with Sora, himself.

The more Xion thought about it, the more she found herself furrowing her brows until she finally shook her head. Hayner... That name was at least familiar. And perhaps drew out a bit of a soft smile.

"Yeah... I think it was those three. I- used to always hear them shouting at Hayner." He always seemed to be the center of attention between those three, whether he had wanted it or not. In most cases, it seemed the former now that she considered it. She stepped off again and this time she didn't stop although she did continue, "..When did you meet them?"

Kairi felt a little bit of that vague familiarity, but couldn't tell if it was Xion feeling that, or just her own thinking about it. Her encounter with Hayner's group of friends had been brief, after all. She shook it off for now.

But it sounded like Xion was at least a little bit familiar with them, too. Sometimes for how vast the worlds were, on another level they felt quite small. "Did you spend a lot of time in this world?"

Xion's other question, though, gave Kairi a bit of pause. The only reason she'd ended up here at all was to get away from Axel when he was pursuing her...but she also knew that Axel and Xion had been close friends for the time they had together. Would Xion find that upsetting? On the other hand, it wasn't much like they could keep many secrets from each other in this place, anyway. She didn't have to mention it until it became necessary. "It was back when Sora and all his friends were trying to stop Xemnas...I managed to get off the Islands, and the first place I found myself was here. Hayner, Pence and Olette helped me out, and we talked for a long while."

"I see..." Well, that would explain why Kairi would know them. And thinking about it, they had seemed nice enough. It wasn't really a stretch of the imagination that they might help out someone who just happened to land there perhaps in an unplanned manner. That was what it seemed like anyway... She couldn't help but get this inkling that something was off, almost missing, but... Xion hummed to herself before the prior question caught up to her.

There was a slight tension before it seemed to break just as quickly. She rolled her shoulders a little, keeping her eyes on what was ahead of her. "Every day." There was a pause and then... perhaps with a hint of guilt. "...We came here after work."

"Oh, wow." She hadn't expected them to be here every day...but then again, maybe that did make sense. This world was a much nicer one to hang out in than the World That Never Was, anyway. She caught that edge of guilt, but wasn't sure what it was about. Was it the work itself, or them coming here afterwards? Because the latter didn't seem like anything to be guilty about. "That sounds pretty nice! Just to hang out?"

Yeah, it was definitely much peppier than Never Was. Seriously, calming sunsets and the warm conversations of people down below versus lots of rain and gloom and doom? Was that even a contest? The guilt at least seemed to fade away as the conversation continued elsewhere. Another nod came from Xion as she looked up in the direction where she was pretty sure she would have seen the clock tower if the buildings weren't obscuring it so much.

"Yeah... Me, Roxas, and Axel? We- used to get ice cream here all the time." There was a sense of hesitance before she added, "..Axel liked to call it the icing on the cake." Unbeknownst to her, a more genuine smile seemed to come together from that comment.

Kairi hadn't been on this world enough to remember where everything was, so she trusted Xion to know where they were heading, especially since she'd been here every day for a time.

"That's pretty fun. They seem to have a lot of good ice cream here." Kairi definitely remembered Hayner, Pence and Olette mention getting it, anyway. She was glad to see Xion smile a little more, although was a little confused by the last statement. "'The icing on the cake'?"

It was confusion well warranted if the way Xion scrunched her nose in thought was any indication. "He never really explained what he meant by that... But I guess... it was like something to enjoy after a hard day's work." She shrugged her shoulders. "But I guess ice cream is on cakes, too?" ...Whatever a cake was. She was more than happy to have it by itself though.

Thinking about it, Lea would be the sort of type to come up with some odd saying and then not fully explain it to people who didn't 'get it.' He had a lot of weird quirks...some obviously more endearing than others.

"Hmm, I guess so," she replied. "Ice cream you can usually have with cake. But icing is something you put on top of a cake to make it tasty and special. Kind of like a finishing touch." When she thought it out like that, maybe that was more what he meant.

"A finishing touch..." She found herself touching a hand to her lips thoughtfully. "Then maybe that's what he meant." Hey, look, now after over a year, that phrase made sense. Who'da thought? "I wonder what it tastes like." The off comment came as she finally took the last few steps towards the gate only to pause.

There were many places she'd been to before, but their usual spot wasn't really a place she had ever gone in despite her curiosity. There was just something about it... Like how odd it would feel for other people she didn't know going up to the clock tower. And she found herself hesitating.

“It sounds like it,” she assured Xion. “Of course, he could’ve just said it was a finishing touch...but I guess he likes to use his more dramatic language.” That guy definitely wanted everything he said to be memorable, and she supposed he succeeded, for better or worse.

It never quite occurred to her that Xion wouldn’t have had the opportunity to try cake yet. They had gotten so caught up in fighting Xehanort that even the brief time she’d had separate probably wasn’t enough to do a lot of things. “Well, whenever we get out of here and everything’s right again, I’ll make you a really good cake so you can try it!”

Kairi noticed Xion hesitate outside the gate, and came to a halt. “...Is something wrong?”

He hadn't wanted to separate, but after wandering around with both Axel and Xion -more specifically, wandering around in what seemed to be circles, the trio seemed to end in reluctant agreement to spread out to cover more ground. Not like it admittedly meant much. A lot of it ended up being visitation to worlds they remembered. In many respects, Roxas couldn't help but draw comparisons to the days when the three of them were doing recon assignments for the Organization.

So a half-dozen worlds worth of turning up nothing later, Roxas decided to try his hand at going somewhere for himself. If there was any place he felt he could really call home, Twilight Town was the place.

Yet walking through both parts of town he'd actually been to as well as places he'd only seen in that digital recreation, he couldn't help but to feel something was off. He felt off enough that he didn't venture up to the clock tower where he remembered spending so many afternoons with Axel and a couple bars of sea salt ice cream. It didn't feel right even when he looked up there.

So instead he stood there at the station plaza, his gaze combing over the stonework as he tried to sort the strange feeling brewing inside.

Something... sad?

By that time, Xion had checked most of the spots she could think to see if anyone else was there, imagining that Kairi was doing likewise elsewhere... or maybe she had drifted off to another world for now. Regardless, that had just left... one more she had maybe been actively avoiding. She had just made it up the crest of the last hill to the station though when she caught sight of that familiar blond hair in those still notably unfamiliar clothes standing where... Something intertwined with her and she reflexively flinched back from the sudden stronger... feeling.

She remained where she was a moment longer, watching him and trying to gather herself enough to erase the weary expression that touched her features. But then she was taking measured steps toward him. Slow... and gradual. But certainly audible clacks against the cobblestone.

Some part of him wanted to react. The sound of the boots on cobblestone normally would have had him immediately snapping up to face whoever was approaching. Yet still he stood there, lost in his thoughts as he tried to figure out just what seemed so off about all of this. This was his home; where he spent afternoons with his best friend.

But there was more than that. Like there was something missing. And then something he couldn't put his finger on. It was strange, to say the least.

Finally, as the steps seemed to pause longer than he'd expected them to, Roxas brings his gaze off the ground and settles it upon someone that he'd half-expected was here. Not that he knew why some part of him expected to see her standing there, but by now, he was starting to get used to seeing things he wasn't expecting.

"Hey..." His voice was distance, though the look on his face told tomes of his uncertainty and just how much all of this mystery was starting to get to him.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Second Sunrise

no subject

And then after forever!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject