Stories From Long Ago [Emi]

[Emi]

Castle...castle...

Xaldin's words struck a chord with Emi. Filled her with the strangest feelings of nostalgia and desire. She didn't know why. It frightened her. Just more fractured, unattached memories flashing in her mind's eye like a movie played in flash-forward.

He thought it was a joke.

"A joke... A JOKE!?"
On the table next to her there was a lamp. She snatched it off the table and launched it across the room at Xaldin, jerking it out of the wall as she did. It didn't hit him. Instead, it shattered at his feet on the cheap linoleum floor.

Deep breaths... count back from ten...

"Stop. You can't leave yet... this isn't some prank. This isn't short-sheeting beds or freezing some girl's bra at a slumber party. This is my life, your life... the destruction of a whole planet, for chrissake! Are you trying to tell me the last ten miserable years of my life was just some stupid stunt pulled by a stuck-up Castle Apprentice!?"

Castle apprentice... how do I know that?

The water was still running in the kitchen. She walked the few short steps to the kitchen, pulling things off the wall, breaking cheap furniture. She over turned the dining table, sending plates and cups and silverware skidding across the floor. She threw any breakables she got her hands on into the floor just to watch them shatter. By the time she made it to the sink and turned the tap off, the room behind her was a disaster. She kicked the kitchen cabinet once, then twice... then as many times as it took for her to feel better.

Remorseful tears stung her eyes. She was genuinely sorry for acting out like this. But her fit-pitching had served one great purpose... her friend-enemy-frienemy hadn't left yet, but still stood on the threshold.

"So do you believe me yet? Maybe you are just in denial but... ten years ago, something happened to Radiant Garden, or in it... this is real life stuff. You said you would prove I was lying... I'm not. I wish I was, I wish you could prove I was. But if you are going to walk out that door... I'm begging you, please... take me with you," she said, quietly. She crossed her arms over her chest, looking to her feet like a child who had just been reprimanded.

"You haven't even told me your name yet. Your face looks so familiar..." she continued. She looked up, studying his face, looking for something, some clue. It was at the tip of her tongue. "But I just can't place it. Who are you? God... I should know who you are..."

[Beaver Dude]

The lancer watched the lamp shatter and became cold. Cold like the wind - he might have been chiseled out of ice and stone.

But on the inside Dilan raged at Ienzo who should know better than to toy with Hearts like this. Dilan had thought he had made it clear during experimentation protocols - no children. Their hearts were too pure, too malleable. If there was going to be a variable that was controlled for in the midst of ethical improprieties, it'd damn well be age.

"It should be completely safe," the young scientist said in a soft, clinical tone. "The Darkness has had no known effect on Xehanort yet and..."

Ah, but that was the crux of it, wasn't it. They'd all been toying with Hearts. Playing with Darkness, with the Fire of the Universe. Perhaps the apprentices had finally stooped to experimenting on themselves.

Or on each other, came the sober, frightening thought. Was it possible? Was this all just some sort of fragmented, fractured world of his own devising?

Am I dreaming?

The headache thundered back into existence, as if something were trying to crawl back into the surface and take possession of his body. He fought it down with a grimace and a snarl. He didn't notice her call him a Castle Apprentice and wouldn't have thought much of it anyway. He was in Radiant Garden or something close to Radiant Garden of course everyone would know what he was and what he did.

He watched her break things, silently remorseful that he'd been playing with lives. They'd been playing with lives.

He remembered what it was like to be powerless. Perhaps he should have put a little more effort into remembering when he'd been experimenting. But the lure had been so great...

"Dilan. My name... is Dilan," the lancer said with some visible effort. "And if ten years had really passed,"

not that they had because that was impossible,

"you'd have been a toddler back then. How would you have even survived something of that magnitude?"

His hand hovered at the door, ready to open it.

[Emi]

Dilan...

The name sounded familiar. She knew she knew who he was, but the word brought no recall like "castle" had. No nameless faces, swatches of color and sounds...

And it was so. Freaking. Frustrating.

There was nothing left to break in the house- except Xaldin, or herself... so she stopped her rampage and listened to what else he had to say. She visible struggled to restrain herself, gripping her owns arms tighter and tighter, clenching her jaw.

"Not a toddler," she snapped. "I was six, or seven... maybe eight. Too young to understand, too old not to be scared out of my head."

Don't stand there and patronize me. How did I survive? I don't know. He's right. I shouldn't have survived. It doesn't make sense.

Emi pushed herself off the counter, tired off this exchange. All they were doing was taking turns trying to prove themselves to the other. There was one way to settle this. Emi grabbed her coat and kali sticks off the floor where she'd thrown them.

"This is stupid. Let's go settle this. If Radiant Garden is out there, we'll find out the truth and you can gloat about it all you want," she said. She pulled on her jacket and elbowed him out of the way to open the door.

She looked at him expectantly, holding the door open. Her eyes flickered to the mess she was leaving- Doesn't matter. I won't be coming back, one way or another. -and then back to him.

[Beaver Dude]

"Your argument is not quite sound," Xaldin wanted to say but he held his tongue. She was right - once he cracked this illusion, or this practical joke, or the drugs went out of his system and he stopped hallucinating - it would be a moot point.

Now all he needed to do was find Radiant Garden.

Huhn.

He paused. Having said all these things he wasn't entirely sure how he could break this illusion. Turned around to mention something to this effect (and try, maybe, to dig a little deeper - it was possible she had the key to unlocking this mystery planted within her) when a memory skipped at the peripheries of his awareness.

Psst. Kid, can you get me something sharp? Like-

It was by far one of his most random of memories. It predated what would have been the fall of Radiant Garden by several months - and was, he was quite certain - real. That time he got sent to jail for investigating dubious Shinra produce. He shook his head, clearing it. Was he going insane?

A thought for another hour, perhaps.

He shoved hands into his pocket. Retrieved a stack of coins. While it was known as munny in Radiant Garden, on this particular planet (unbenownst to him) it was known as gold. His other pocket had this particular world's currency, but as it was in paper form, he hadn't noticed its presence.

"How much does it cost for transportation off planet?"[/blockquote]

[Emi]

Emi winced. In hindsight, it might have been a good idea to grab some money before storming out. Not that she had much. She reached into her own pocket, found a few coin, a crumbly piece of cinnamon gum.

"Too much," she mumbled."We don't have to pay at all."
In her experience, anything could be obtained. Pickpocketing was one of her better skills. She smirked.

"Okay, hope you aren't opposed to stealing... which I'm guessing you aren't, since you seemed to be okay with public drunkeness and destroying public property," she said after a few moments thought. She rubbed her hands together greedily, and then took off her gloves. Best to have her hands as free as possible.

"Just roll with it," she told him, and then started looking for a suitable target. Preferably some one old, a tourist who didn't know how to take care of themselves and wouldn't see it coming. She was already formulating a plan.

But then she stopped. "Wait... how much money do you have exactly?"

[Beaver Dude]

Dilan paused and rooted through his pockets, muttering to himself. He wasn't a thief. But, right, hallucination, no need to argue.

All told, he had-

"Hmmm. About 170 munny."

On Radiant Garden, that was barely enough for a potion and a good meal. Maaaaybe a train ticket if you pretended you were a suitcase.

On the world they found themselves on, a hundred seventy munny was more or less equivalent to a hundred and seventy gold doubloons. Even if sold as scrap, it was probably well over ten grand in gold at the least (and if properly bargained for, triple that). Which would be awfully hard to explain away if someone were to ask how it was that someone was carrying that much gold on them, but that wasn't a situation they currently found themselves in.

On the flipside, it did cost substantially more than that to fly to the moon (and considerably more than that to invent, test, and man a ship to a different world) so, it wasn't solving any of the immediate problems.

"Do you think that's enough?"

Of course, Ienzo wouldn't make one of his trick worlds that easy to solve. But it was the most likely route...

[Emi]

Emi was shocked. She reached out and snatched Dilan's wrist.

"Hoooooly Cambodia... where'd you get this!?" she whispered harshly. That was an awful lot of gold in his hand. It had been so long since she'd seen currency like this, but she knew that it wasn't worth much. Unless...

"Okay... there are two ways to do this..." Emi explained. "We can either hock this munny or I can steal some of this world's currency. Tourists in these parts are kind of retarded. I mean really, who carries that much cash on them? Anyways... I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy... he's an Off-worlder, like us..."

She put emphasis on "us" to try and convince Dilan that yes, this was really happening. He didn't look too convinced, but she rolled her eyes and kept going.

"This guy... he has one of those ship things... yeah, I don't know what they're called, but he has one. It's not cheap though. And the guy is kind of a jerk so I'm not sure how well this is going to work, but it's our only option."

She bit her lip. She sounded... shady. Even though she swore to herself she would be a good girl, here she was, contemplating going back to pickpocketing and shady connections. Next thing she knew, she would be stealing Dilan's money and running off to a bar. She chuckled to herself. It was kind of a funny thought.

"So what's it gonna be, Dilan?"

[Beaver Dude]

Two trains of thought started running in Dilan's mind, on parallel tracks but ready at any moment for impact.

He hadn't really been expecting the off-world thing to work. It couldn't be that easy - technology to get off-world was highly theoretical, involving gummi blocks for those who weren't Apprentices and... well, the less said about the other means the better. While the experiments would, eventually, be for the benefit and credit of Radiant Garden, the current crop of short-sighted administrators pretty much ensured that nothing would come of the more promising venues of research.

Ignore the fake memories. They're fake. FAKE.

Thus, Dilan really, really wanted to see this so-called 'ship'. He wasn't so foolish as to believe that Radiant Garden had the monopoly on foremost advances in technological know-how, but he was pretty confident that given the proper amount of time and resources he'd be able to at least understand if not replicate the effects of the ship.

(It was scary to think how much science he'd absorbed, almost purely by osmosis, merely living in the Castle.)

The second train of thought involved Emi's reaction to the munny. It seemed... conflicted. She had said something to the effect that it was indeed a great sum of money but the look on her face - she knew it wasn't, at the same time. While Ienzo was indeed a masterful illusionist, this particular point of subtlety would have probably been beyond him. Someone who had integrated into this world would have known what munny represented in two different frames of reference. Ienzo... would have settled for one.

Disturbed, Dilan decided to concentrate on what was before him:

"It wouldn't hurt," he admitted, "to have some emergency cash. How sure are you of your... capabilities? I would not want to fight with the authorities, if it could be avoided..."

[Emi]

Emi snorted.

"Well, considering it was my main source of income for a long time, I'd like to think I'm pretty good. It was either be good at it or go hungry," she explained. She wiggled her fingers. "I won't get caught."

He looked a bit distressed about something. Was he doubting her? Probably.

An eerie vision of people in hazmat suits, looming over her. Nothing but black behind the plastic masks. Gloved hands reached out of grab her...

It only lasted a second, but it shook and disturbed her. A memory? She hoped not... she shook it off and got back to the task at hand. She would come back to it later.

"Just go along with it okay. You're a smart guy, right? Just play along, everything will be okay. Oh... I never told you my name. It's Emi. Figure you should know for...reference purposes. But if you decide its safer to use code names or whatever, just in case, you can call me by my middle name. Soleil. Just.... don't ever use it again."

She looked over his shoulder, scanning for a target. There. An elderly couple emerging from a building. Bundled up against the bone-chilling cold. This was good because with that many layers, it would be harder to detect her hands inside his pockets. She watched as the man of the pair folded a stack of bills, presumably change from whatever transaction had been made inside the building, into the pocket of his windbreaker jacket.

She looked Dilan in the eye.
"Just play along," she insisted. And then she took off running. A smile burst onto her face, and in a shrill, girlish voice she squealed "Grandfather!"

She ran full force into the man, enveloping him into a hug. She was sure to place her hand just low enough to reach into his pocket... and she hoped Dilan knew what to do.

[Beaver Dude]

There was a moment of total internal panic as Dilan regarded the sudden and unexpected attempt to pickpocket. Ansem the Wise's voice echoed through his head on loudspeaker with the volume cranked up to max. It was quickly subsumed by a different sentiment: familiarity.

Once upon a time...

...

Anyway.

He paused a breath to construct some sort of appropriate response as he waited for the exact moment of inevitable collision. Meanwhile his mind worked furiously; an identity required a certain amount of internal cohesion. He couldn't pretend to be of close kin to her; they were too far apart in both age and appearance. It didn't help that as far as he could tell, his appearance was rather unique.

Ah. Well, there was always the other option.

"Sol?" He called out, feigning concern. It was close enough to her middle name that she should be able to recognize it. "Your mother told you to stay-" Pretending to 'just' spot her, he rushed towards the startled couple who definitely were not expecting a six-foot something behemoth with dreadlocks, living sideburns and a rather evil looking coat flying towards them. He was counting on it to shake them up.

Granted that they would act like normal people. Ienzo had a sick sense of humor sometimes.

"There, you are." He bowed, apologizing to the couple. "I'm so sorry, I lost track of her," turned to admonish 'Sol,' "sweety, that's not Grandpa, Grandpa's dead, you know that," switched back to the couple, who were apparently just recovering from the trauma of seeing a punk act so downright civil, "so terribly sorry, the death hit her pretty bad, she's been a little unstable recently-"

[Emi]

Inwardly, Emi giggled. At the mention of "Grandpa's" death and being unstable, Emi burst into fake but believable hysterics... covering the motion of her slipping the stack of bills into her pocket with a dramatic forearm over her eyes.

"Grandpa's deaaaaaaad," she wailed. She squeaked, covered her face with both hands and tried to change the sounds of her strangled laughing into the sound of sobs.

Wonder how much cash that was... probably not a lot...ugh, maybe I am getting rusty. This cracking up thing has got to stop.

She thought about sad things. Sick children. Dead baby ducks. Butterflies trapped in the grills of massive trucks. That last one really got to her and she actually choked up, feeling the hot sting of tears. When she looked up, she was actually crying, not just faking it. She felt slightly silly that the mere thought of dead butterflies would be enough to make her cry.

"I'm really sorry, sir, it's just that..."
She choked.
"...you look so much like my poor, dead grandfather."

She began to walk away, shoulders hunched, tears dripping down her face. She rubbed the heel of her hand against her eye and said "Come on... let's go find Mom."

[Beaver Dude]

Mr. Bernstein (one of, but not the only reason, he had gotten his nickname 'Papa Bear') nodded, a little dumbfounded as he watched the two strangers leave.

Mrs. Bernstein, soul mate, (vastly) more intelligent business partner, mother to his children, love of his life, etc. etc. clucked sympathetically at their retreating forms but had a squint in her eye that betrayed a certain level-headed interest that Mr. Bernstein would have noticed were he not still reeling from the encounter.

Good lord. Those dreadlocks. Those sideburns.

Uggggh.

___________________

Dilan babbled.

It was fairly random - don't worry, your mom'll be there, your grandfather's in a better place, stop crying, here, do we need to stop for a tissue, look! a demonic duck, do you need to use the ladies room, etc., etc., etc. The usual prosaic nothings that seeped into everyday conversation in the face of tragedy.

Dilan continued the charade until they had cleared some ground.

Not a lot, but enough to be considered significant enough so that screams of 'thief, thief' probably wouldn't damn them instantly. He looked down at his coat and then took in the rest of the scenery : too conspicuous. Too dang conspicuous.

"I need to fit in more if we plan to be doing this often."

If Braig had been around he would have (his own ponytail and unique appearance aside) fallen down laughing at the idea of Dilan, who saw nothing wrong with a dreadlocks and sideburns combo, looking normal.

But the sharpshooter wasn't, so Dilan was happily unaware of how difficult a concept this might pose to the average fashionista.

[Emi]

Dilan's act greatly irritated Emi for some reason even though she was aware is was necessary. She was glad to be away from the older couple, and while Dilan spoke of fitting in, Emi counted the cash.

"Forty dollars," she said with a hint of disgust. Two twenty dollar bills, slightly crumpled, and one was stained with red lipstick. What had the old man bought that he received forty dollars change? Maybe that building had been a bank...

"Well, if you want to go shopping, we'll have to use this," Emi replied, folding the bills and slipping them neatly into the inside pocket of her coat. No good if she was pick-pocketed and the money she'd stolen was stolen. "Just nothing expensive."

She was tempted to make a joke but she didn't. Seemed too familiar, too friendly. Instead she just chewed her lip, pondered, looked around... and then she actually stopped and looked at Dilan and burst into laughter.

"And, what exactly do you plan on doing with that hair?"
Not that she had much room to talk, with her own crazy locks. But at least it wasn't dreadlocks and sideburns.

Emi had an idea. "You know... its actually not that crazy. I'm no fashion expert but if you dressed the part..."

[Beaver Dude]

Dilan was confused.

He'd been confused before - it came with the territory of being the 'youngest' of the Apprentices. Ienzo and Even, prodigies that they were routinely left him in the dust as they scribbled on blackboards, paper, the backs of books, walls and countertops, throwing around big words and longer metaphors and half-hidden jokes that were a little literary and much too scientific for the poor orphan-boy to grasp let alone understand. Xehanort would join them, now and then, but the amnesiac usually remained aloof, content to watch and absorb in his own quiet way.

Aeleus and Braig rarely confused Dilan, but he was certain that if they wished to, they could. Braig was, though he kept it mum and tried to hide it through binge-drinking, small words and big swears, actually rather brilliant. A born astrophysicists with computational abilities that rivaled any supercomputer that Ansem was so fond of building. It wasn't merely luck or skill that let him shoot as he did it was pure ability. Impossible shots didn't just happen out of nowhere time and time again. Aeleus, on the other hand, had mastered several fields, among which geology, archaeology, chemistry, mineraology and some obscure branch of zoology that involved subterranean creatures, some mythical and some not. No, the only reason Dilan understood them at all was because they just didn't talk shop.

Or in Aeleus' case, mostly didn't talk at all.

So when he found hmself confused by Emi's pronouncement, Dilan didn't panic. He didn't run crying into the night (which he would probably find a solid option later on in the day). He didn't even blink but rather asked, neutrally,

"What part would I be dressing...?"

ooc: You may fast-forward until Dilan is in whatever awkward situation you have planned for him.

[Emi]

"Well...all of them."

~

She poked and prodded him along until they found a shop that looked affordable. Emi checked a price tag and nodded. This would do. She rushed around the store, grabbing things, looking over her shoulder back at Dilan just to estimate sizes. Not much of a choice. She realized this would be an excellent opportunity for humiliation but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She had a vision and she was going to adhere to that.

She walked over and dumped an armful of clothes on him.

"Go put those on and then we can pay."

{OOC: I'll let you decide what you want him to be wearing because I don't want to do it wrong and he's your character. xD}