Fear the Darkness

Fear the Darkness
Date of Scene:	22 November 2012
Location:	Bramble Orchard
Synopsis:	And in strange eons, even death may cry. Two Shadow lords meet in a tangled and snowy wood. There is a meeting of minds, and a casting of lots.
Thanks to:	Leida, for being a great Big Spooky
Cast of Characters:	Leida, Riku

---

Leida has posed:
In the aftermath of the previous day's unsettling encounter, Heartless have spilled out across the ancient forest. Most are the garden variety soldier sorts but a few of the stronger creatures have been sighted as well in the form of horrible beasts terrorizing the local wildlife. Venturing into the deep woods for now is something best left to the brave and the bold.

Here within the deepest parts, however, an unusual figure can be seen. The girl that wanders down the tangled path that cuts through the labyrinthine mass of brambles and thorns is certainly dressed as the adventuring sort with her intricate armor and the sword clasped at her belt. However, her delicate frame does not speak of power or deadly grace.

She stumbles haphazardly along, taking her steps one at a time with some apparent difficulty. The dark nails of the underbrush drag at her clothing and skin and several long red lines are already visible along her legs and arms as if she merely walked straight into the thorny weeds at some point but if the pain of her wounds bothers her any it doesn't show on her face.

Infact, little does; her expression is blank and empty like a person who has just woken up from a long sleep and is not quite yet fully aware of their surroundings. She hums softly to herself as she goes, a dark haunting tune that echoes faintly through this eerie land.

Riku has posed:
But not all residents of the forest fear or take heed of the approach of the heartless. In these deep reaches there those who seek these gloomy and haunted places for shelter and some measure of peace, and are not willing to be moved from their places by simple fiends.

As Heartless spill and gambole across the landscape, a group of soldiers clatter to a stop at the base of a tree, their hungry yellow eyes upturned to the cloaked figure sitting in the upper branches. A young man with silver hair is drawing in a little book he has propped up in his lap, his eyes distant.

His hands and face are also scored with the underbrush and thorns of a difficult passage through the labyrinth, the rest of him mostly obscured by the folds of a greenish-grey cloak. When he hears the humming he breaks out of the reverie, looking around the forest in order to pinpoint it's source.

The boy looks down at the Heartless staring up at him, frowning slightly as he finally spots the female adventurer. "Hello." he begins, raising his eyebrows slightly as he inquires. ".. Are you lost?"

Leida has posed:
The shambling girl draws to a stop near the base of the tree as the voice calls out to her, slowly and methodically looking around to find out who it belongs to. She turns in place, clutching her hands to her chest when her investigation comes up with nothing.

"Hello, wind..." Her voice is soft and wispy but distinctly feminine as she calls out to nothing in particular. "Will you please tell me which way you blow...?"

The Heartless turn and regard the new arrivel quizzically, tilting their round little heads this way and that as if trying to decide what exactly they are looking at with their beady golden eyes. The girl's gaze meets their after a few moments and she returns the gesture, allowing her head to loll to the side as if her neck no longer worked properly.

"So many faces... all the same..."

Riku has posed:
The young man starts to frown, brow furrowing as he looks down from his gnarled tree to regard the young girl as her actions.

He slowly closes his book, the sketching of a distant lake tucked away as the battered black journal is pulled back underneath the cloak to disappear. He stands up, precariously balanced as he folds his arms and leans against the greater surface of the old trunk. A cold wind blows through the forest, snatching at leaves and weaving through the closely packed tangle of woods.

A few flakes of snow begin to drift from an overcast sky. "I could." answers the young man after a sufficiently long pause. "but maybe I don't know myself." he brings up two fingers, rubbing the bridge of his nose but never taking his eyes off her.

"You have a name? I didn't see you-- from before."

Leida has posed:
"That is perfectly all right with me..." Her tone becomes dark and sinister, almost threatening. "You can do you as you very well please, by all means..." One of the snow flakes drifts lazily down through the chill breeze and alights on the tip of the girl's nose, causing her to blink and reach up to touch the tiny dot of coldness. The reaction is off somehow, too slow and deliberate for a normal person; as if she were moving is slow motion or unsure how to respond.

She looks at the water on her fingertip as it comes away, hazy amber eyes focusing on the digit and past it at the same time. The Heartless soldiers scamper closer about the girl, spreading out and encircling her but their actions seem to lack the usual menace and she does not pay them any mind.

Still staring at her finger, the girl finally whispers a response. "Leida..."

Riku has posed:
The young man jumps down to the forest floor in response, his weighted thump muffled by the already fallen leaves.

He slowly straightens, gathering the cloak around himself again as he peers around at the Heartless and then into her slowed movements. He brings up a gloved hand, gently encircling her fingers with his own unless she pulls away. "Can I?" his voice has downshift into the growl of a predator, the smile he is giving her made through slightly grit teeth.

Shadows peel themselves away from the labyrinth of thorns and underbrush, pulling themselves out of trees or fading into visiblity as they mill in a semi concerted fashion towards the gnarled tree and the two at the deepest part of the woods. The knight heartless don't interfere with the milling soldiers and other heartless, approaching only far enough to stand like silent sentinels as the snow begins to fall in earnest.

"Well that is a very generous offer. I will ask a question then. Are you her..?" his voice is calm, even genial. "Have you wandered on any traveling detectives? Have you met my friend Mercade Leida?"

Leida has posed:
Leida's childish face slowly tilts up to look at Riku as he takes her hand, staring at him with droopy-eyed indifference for several seconds. Her eyes drift towards his hair, the shimmering silver standing out against the darkness that closes in from all sides. She smiles faintly.

"Hmm. I think... you might be capable of killing me..." Her statement is quite nonchalant as if it were an idle thought that had drifted to the forefront of her mind and slipped out without her knowing. She reaches up with her other hand and wraps it around the young man's slowly and gently before leaning forward and resting her forehead on their interwoven fingers.

"I met a little bird...
He was kind and bright...
He said he was my friend....
But he ran away in fright..."

Riku has posed:
"I would regret that." Riku says, swallowing around a lump in his throat but his voice continuing to be calm and controlled as yellow bleeds into his eyes to swallow the shimmering blue and aquamarine. A shimmering heat mirage distorts the air around him as though an invisible fire burned within him and was only shielded from sight and never really extuinguished. "Well." Riku raises a hand, putting it on top of their interlaced fingers and leaning towards her to whisper into her ear.

"Why don't we trade? Sell me a promise that you'll keep, and I'll be your friend, if that's really what you want." his fingers flex ever so slightly, tightening his grip on her fingers as the knights continue their silent vigil.

A little snow starts to accumulate on the both of them as another peal of chilling wind moans through the woods. "My friends are mine to deal with, Leida. I want you to not intefere. Take your shadows and your crazy, and stay away from Mercade and his friends."

Leida has posed:
"You... want to be my friend...?" Leida says the words as if trying them out to see how they sound. She raises her head and closes her eyes, brushing the side of her cheek against Riku's like a kitten rubbing against its master. She shrugs her shoulders and rolls her head around on her neck as if trying to get comfortable in her own skin, disturbing the snow on her pauldrons.

Her head comes back around to rest on the tangle of hands and she lets out a soft breath, wispy white mist escaping from her lips. "You are a complete stranger..." Leid'a voice is dark and ominous again but this time there is something more. A sound burbles up from within the small girl, another voice adding its own to her words in perfect harmony that taints it with dark intent.r
All at once a hazy purple light engulfs her body, rising up to match the shimmering distortion. It pours out of her and into the ground, seeping into the snow and soil to paint it pitch black. The very shadows about them rise up, creeping up her legs like an inky ooze that spreads haphazardly over the innocent girl in a patchwork pattern. One half of her face becomes obscured by the impenetrable black and where her eye would be a shining star of the evil energy twinkles darkly. Her skin grows cold, colder than the falling snow.

"You cannot be trusted..."

Riku has posed:
Riku narrows his eyes slightly, ghostly flames beginning to flicker and dance around the edges of his cloak. There is a clatter of metal armor and a singing of steel as the knight heartless all unsheathe their swords in a single movement. They hold them at their sides, agitated but not yet threathening, yellow eyes staring at the two in the middle of their enfolding circle.

Riku shifts his weight but does not let her go as the darkness oozes up Leida and across her face. That is not to say he isn't afraid. There is a dark abyss here.. but he is more afraid of following where it might lead him than any immediate violence. He raises a hand to her face, to brush lightly across her cheek if permitted. "Well." his voice wavers with doubt and uncertainty, the wind howling around the abyss that is all in his head as well as around him in truth. "My name's Riku." his smile quirks up at one edge, lopsided but only an echo of an expression, brow furrowed in the concentration it took to hold everything in his head and try not to be afraid. To not fear the darkness. "There. We can't be entirely strangers now can we?"

Leida has posed:
Leida's soulless stare softens a little and she closes her eyes again, tilting her head to rub back against the brushing fingers affectionately with a wistful sigh. The shimmering haze of dark energy rolling off her body like mist dies down to a faint nimbus that sparkles and wavers in neon purple distortion.

"Riku..." She repeats, the twin high and low notes of her voice echoing faintly.

"Twinkle, Twinkle, silver star....
How I wonder what you are...
Burning through the shadows bright...
Your tainted soul will come to light..."

Leida lifts her hand and brings it up as if to place against the young wanderer's face. The roiling mass of shadows about her body responds to the motion, a slender tendril of inky black slithering to coil about the limb. It snakes slowly up her arm as the girl reaches out and, if Riku doesn't stop her, the darkness will be there to touch his skin when she places it on him.

Riku has posed:
Riku raises a hand, clamping it against the one across his face and squeezing. He starts to move backwards, letting out an angry cry as he makes to peel her hand away with gloved fingers digging into the flesh.

The cry cuts off in the middle of it's harsh course as the shadowy tendril makes connection with his skin. The teenager freezes in place, eyes bleeding into molten gold and spreading until he looks blind, his expression blank and completely absorbed. The knight heartless sag as if their strings had been clipped, milling aimlessly across the forest landscape.

The voices of children laughing and jeering. Whispers. In the place behind Riku eyes is a lonely beach where the stars above have all gone out.

"SORA." The teenager cries out, reaching for a haphazardly spiked brown haired boy who was enwreathed in tendrils of darkness. They were only a foot or two apart, but it might as well be miles. There is the screaming of a little girl as if she has fallen from a great height, the image of her, brown haired and pink clothed, falling from the sky towards the dark ocean but never seeming to reach anywhere at all.

"It's all my fault. I'm sorry. Please come back. I'm sorry." say the whispers. "It's all gone because I listened to him. Because I opened the door. I deserve everything bad's that's happened."

Riku in a distorted and nightmarish space, thrusting his hand which is now a armored and shadowy claw into the chest of a younger boy with a yellow scarf. Just a little more. Just an instant more and I can have it-- I'm so hungry. So very hungry.

Riku sitting in a dark cavern, fingers splayed on a crystal coffin as he looks in on the sleeper, head resting against the crystal. "Kairi. I'm so--" Flickers of violence. Pain. Frustration. It should be mINE. Why did you take what was mine? He promised. He /promised/ it would be mine. What did I do wrong? Why did I fail him?

The rustle of pages disturbs the cavern, disturbs the whispers. They become menacing and distorted by the sound of sourceless footsteps. Riku looks up from his mutterings, turning his head to glare with sightless yellow eyes into the darkness.

You shouldn't be here.

Get Out.

Riku bolts up from the chair which clatters to the floor, his voice echoing out of sync with the image of his mouth moving. "Get /OUT/."

Riku gestures sharply, this internal projection of himself in this place where his memories are locked away becoming aware of the intrusion and attempting to follow it, pushing against the darkness with one long and almost bestial scream of defiance. To follow and shred the dark connection at it's source.

Leida has posed:
The darkness looks back.

It has no eyes of its own to witness the fear and anguish, no ears to hear the pained cries that its probing dendrites bring screaming from the depths of deniable and dread. At its touch all is revealed for what it is.

However, to do this requires a risk. The darkness has no weaknesses, no fears, no regrets... but in order to exist it requires a host... and she has them in spades. The darkness recoils as the willful boy struggles against its control. Caught off guard, it cannot stop him in time, cannot block his access to the deepest corners of her fractured mind.

Riku finds himself floating silently in a deep empty darkness. Falling? Dreaming? Existing? It is impossible to tell, there is only the dark. An eternity seems to pass before a faint glimmer twinkles in the distance. Its glow is tiny and weak but merely being noticed seems to strengthen its presence. The light moves towards him, slowly at first and then in a rush, washing over him.

White light blinds him. When he opens his eyes he is standing in a castle. A girl kneels before several other people, each dressed in fine garments and armor. Their faces are gone, covered in shadows that emit a mocking laughter that swirls around the child. She buries her face in her hands and sobs, black tears running between her fingers to stain the carpet.

"Please, don't leave me...!" She calls, looking up at the figures as they turn to leave, still laughing darkly. "Why won't you acknowledge me...?"

The girl begins to cry again but this time her voice is different... deeper, darker... She lifts her head again and looks directly at Riku, purple menace glowing in her eyes. The light sucks him in and the scene changes. They are still in the castle but it is a scene from Hell itself. Blood coats the walls like the touch of a mad painter, smears of crimson and black across the stone and tapestries. The girl stands in the middle of large chamber, surrounded by the bodies of the faceless figures. They are broken and bent; lifeless.

Thin rivulets of crimson stain their cheeks, bitter tears of blood punctuated by the subtle moaning of broken dreams. They are crying even now. Blood drips from the girl's fingers in a steady patter. She isn't crying any more...

She's laughing.

Riku has posed:
Lost.

Lost in the dark again. No way out. No way home.

Riku starts to thrash, to panic, when the scenes change and he's thrust into the life of a stranger. Into the violent madness of a girl he barely knows the name of. He walks silently and unnoticed until the scene violently twists again and, if there was a mental way to lose one's lunch, he would be doing so. The grisly, stomach-turning violence and pain is everywhere. It surrounded him and he didn't know the way back. He was trapped here.

Riku disappears and reappears, each moment of attention jarring him somewhere different. He finds himself in front of the laughing girl with the blood leaking down her arms and fingers. There is a part of him that screams and runs away in absolute horror, the echoes disappearing with an anguished cry. The shadow left behind looks at her.

Don't leave us. Riku, why did you leave us behind? Why don't you come home?

I'm not afraid of the darkness. The teenager stares at her, searchingly, as if trying to see that faint spark of light again that led him out of the panicking darkness to this scene of horror. Perhaps in the hope that it would take him away from here. Anywhere but this place of death and pain. Riku's shadowy self tries to gather her hands together, blood leaking over his hands. "Leida. Stop. Please."

Leida has posed:
The dark vitae covering Leida's arms burns as it comes in contact with him, searing coldness that seems to seep straight into his core. An alien intelligence spills into his mind blotting out his thoughts with darkness. "She cannot hear you, boy."

The haze clears away and the girl is staring directly into his eyes. Purple light shines faintly within them, the glow of a corrupted soul mixed with something else. She grimaces and turns her arms upwards in his hands, revealing her thin wrists to him. Vicious gashes lay the flesh bare, pouring dark ichor freely into the air. The dark fluid swirls and engulfs her body, staining her flesh as black as her heart.

"I don't like this place..." She looks down, breaking their eye contact. "I don't want to feel this pain any more...!" Leida pulls her hands free and takes a step back, glaring at him with genuine hatred. "You promised me you'd make the pain go away forever! You'd drown the world in shadows for me! I don't want to see this! Make it stop! GETOUTGETOUTGETOUT!! The girl clutches her head and screams and the darkness obeys. Riku is swept up in the tides of her emotion, tossed about like a castaway on a tiny raft in an endless ocean of sorrow. The surging waters push him back the way he came, tossing him in the shell of his own mind once more.

Leida's screams assault his ears, transitioning from the pitiful wails of forgotten memories to the reality of true sound. She pulls away from him, clutching her hand tightly against her chest as if nursing an injured limb. "You saw... you saw...." She mutters the phrase over and over, glaring at him with a mixture of shame and hate.

Riku has posed:
Riku is now introduced to the unholy king of all headaches. He grabs at his head, groaning as every pulsing throb drives the shards deeper into his brain.

There is somewhat of an abstraction though, as if everything was happening to somebody else. A part of him that has become numbed by the images of pain and hate. "Ugh.. god.. what did you DO?!" the armored knights explode, one after another, in puffs of darkness as he loses his focus and can do little more than turn them away back to the Realm of Darkness instead of having them fall on him.

He starts to back away from her but then shakes his head, resolve filtering back into his whimpering mind as he tenaciously clings to the shreds of reality that came before this. He sinks slowly onto his knees, teetering on the edge of unconsciousness, but he has to see this through first.

"So.." he asks weakly, coughing out the words with voice trembling as he tries to grab for the last snatches of his control. "Do we have a deal.. or not?" He was certainly not in a position to fight her anymore, but he was just too stubborn (or stupid perhaps-- or both) to let go.

Leida has posed:
"Get away from me!" Leida hisses like a wounded animal, half sobbing the command as the lingering memory fades from her mind but leaves an acute sense of pain behind. She cannot remember why she hurts or what it was that he saw but she knows one thing for certain.

"I hate you! Get out of my sight!"

The girl throws her 'injured' arm out, swiping it at the air infront of her as if to banish him with the gesture. The massive surge of darkness that rises up in mimicry of her actions is less symbolic.

Bursting from the pit of blackness at her feet, a gargantuan bony arm claws its way into the air and looms ominously overhead for a few moments. Then it strikes out at him, sweeping sideways in a heavy backhanded blow with a fist easily bigger than his entire body.

"Get out!"

Riku has posed:
Riku realizes the danger and throws himself backwards. He does this an instant too slowly, his brain fogged with darkness and still reeling from the nightmarish horror of the darkness possessing Leida and her memories.

The blow slams him bodily against a smaller tree hard enough that it cracks in half with a sound of a gunshot. A smear of darkness appears beneath him even as he falls prone. The darkness swallows him and closes behind him an instant later, leaving the snowy ground untouched behind it.