ximilialog | dreamwalk two

Entry tags:

dreamwalk two | ota

CHARACTERS: Blue, any sleepin folks out there
LOCATION: Someone's subconscious
DATE: Late Oct/Early Nov, pre-mission things
CONTENT: Psychics gon' psychic, dreams gon' dream...it's free dream/memshare real estate
WARNINGS: none in the tl; tagged as needed

It happens one of two ways:

outside

When he sleeps, Blue's subconscious stretches itself outward, instinctively drawn to things familiar to itself: Feelings, imagery, names...bonds already made or half-formed. It's in a Mu's nature to connect in this way, to be linked in thought and emotion, and this happens even in sleeping. The universe he hails from lacks much of the color and diversity and freedoms of others', but there are common lived experiences to be tethered to, for better or worse.

Peril and pain, longing and loss, hope and harmony...while Blue reprocesses his own volume of them, he unconsciously seeks out meaning in those notions which might flicker throughout the station in minds other than his own.

That means a routine recollection or predictable dream comes with something new this time.

inside

The door swings both ways, for when Blue is asleep, he can't consciously keep it locked, can he? So those who have even a passing capability to perceive matters of the mind or heart, be it magic or something more, could find themselves drifting out of their own dreamspace and into his own, where pastel marble floors mold effortlessly with sheer metal surfaces dappled with clouds that shouldn't hold any weight, let alone a person's.

It's where the sky is no sky, but a gaping field of stars not unlike the view outside a station window...save for the massive, red planet crowning the horizon. Beyond it, a pale blue dot no bigger than what Earth's moon would be glimmers in the dark. A lyre's strings are plucked from some unseen place, filling the place as one would fill a vast, empty room, and Soldier Blue stands at the edge of the horizon in his old, familiar vestments and headgear, absorbed in...something...until the shuddering of the dream's veil prompts him to acknowledge the presence passing through.

Red eyes turn to fix on the interloper, unsure of what they are perceiving yet.

This is still simply a dream, after all.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

（ he did not intend to speak of genjutsu here at all. it is a pathway to being hated, being feared. in a world where his name carries none of the weight, none of the history of being uchiha, he had thought perhaps that he could carve out a different destiny in this place, among these people. it is not hope — not for a future, not for a better or easier time — simply utility. attaining his goals will have fewer barriers if people are unaware of what he is and what he is capable of.

the sharingan has earned the terror it instills in others, and he has lived his life in pursuit of being one more reason why. perhaps a clean slate is, ultimately, undeserved. ）

I am resistant to most forms of mental assault.

（ which is and is not an answer. however, he will not elaborate. ）

[there's a slight bristle at the notion of assault, and it comes and goes as Blue is quick to accept it. there is really nothing else he can come to expect from those outside himself anymore, is there? even in kindness there is still apprehension in most everyone.

save for the very special, limited few.]

And you remain so, I imagine. [he now looks to himself, his hands.] A tether was formed, and now I am here.

Though...I cannot see it, myself. [perhaps because the flames were banished? it is uncertain; it's rare to be so adrift in a dream not belonging to a Mu.]

（ he is not here to be considerate of another's feelings — if he regrets the choice in words, there is no evidence of it. no shift to his expression or stance. the world is stable and still as itachi studies him, eyes now black as the backdrop of the silvered moon and its unearthly court of stars.

but there is a sort of remote and lonely yearning in the other man that does speak to him, by degrees. a measure of it lives in the bristling disappointment of rejection, in the earlier fear, the desperation to escape the fire.

my kind are born of humans. unsaid is that he is, therefore, something set apart from them.

it is a breath to black coal that conjures up the mercy he had set aside earlier, a nurturing spark transmuted to a golden glow. changing the destiny of his clan will be meaningless unless he, too, can change. can remember all those soft, fragile things he has set aside to survive.

izanami is never far from his mind, after all this time.

at length: ）

Explain this tether to me.

[it says something about the dynamism of this person's mind that even in such a static, controlled state, the stance and tone he faces Blue with should all remind him of his killer - cold-eyed Keith Anyan, child and flagbearer of machines - yet they don't. glimpses into Anyan's heart were brief and cloudy, so that even the visual similarities between him and this person now are too easily missed.

for now, Blue considers the question just as much for himself as the one who asks. after all, his connections to humans are new...and this one...is he really human, too?]

Common ground...familiar feelings, or...memories which resonate between hearts... They make links from one person to another. It happens unconsciously, even among humans who may...never know they share a connection to anyone.

For Mu, it opens doors to other ways to communicate. Thoughts and dreams, like this...

( between hearts, he says — the phrase should not resonate, yet it bites hard on something shisui said to him once, in a quiet moment before the end of everything.

the curse of the uchiha is not that they hate before they love. it is that love is so deeply sown into them that its loss drives them mad. precious few have escaped that fate. shisui had said you have to remain open to connection, and there'd been a funny little downturn at one corner of his mouth as he said it — grief, itachi had later realized — for the friend whose death had given him the mangekyō. yet shisui still craved those bonds. he set aside the pain and found itachi, and held out a hand. a connection between hearts indeed.

itachi's tolerance is the perilous sway of the sword of damocles — suspended by a bare thread. worn thin by the intrusion and this strange conversation. but it holds. )

I see. Give me another, then. I will build it for you.

( tether, to him, implies a necessary anchor to your point of return. breaking a genjutsu is easiest with outside help — the logic of his world dictates this must be much the same. he is not certain he trusts that the man's presence is accidental, but he is prepared to proceed on good faith. )

[there's a distant echo of a conversation - a different stranger's voice softly reminding Blue:
Well, it's just... people want to feel safe in their own bodies, you know? If they feel like someone can just pop in without their knowing, they won't feel safe in it anymore. And if you can't feel safe in your own skin, how're you gonna feel safe anywhere? You get what I mean?

it reframes the words this man speaks, gives Blue pause.

he still doesn't get it, not entirely. but this person sees not Blue, but an intruder, doesn't he? just as other humans do.

Blue's eyes close for a moment, pressing a hand to his own heart as he accepts this, accepts the state of being in a dream, and the capacity has to do something about it. doing so makes a doorway for him - pale light at his back to lead the way to the prison of his body.

when he opens his eyes again, he gives the dreamer a thoughtful look.]

Will there always be flames here? Even though you have such control over it all.

（ if he picks up on the nuance of the echoes, there's no indication of it — his expression remains unchanging. however, when the door — for it can be nothing else but that — appears, it feels less an intrusion and more an abatement, like the pressure of infection eased in a wound. he would be satisfied to see the man gone, but while he has probable certainty he could oust him violently there is no guarantee, (being flung from tsukiyomi may have shaken him, if it had not been sasuke that did it. he had always expected his brother to surpass him, there was no other reason for living but that) and he does not like to act on uncertainty.

no harm has been done, after all. at his most honest, itachi understands that he is an adequate judge of character. the sharingan sees much and knows more — and now that he has assessed the situation and the man before him, instinct is no longer a clarion bell of warning. ）

It does not trouble me.

（ the fire. the ruin. he knows this is a fate avoided. ）

Fire is the nature of my clan.

But that isn't what you regret, is it?

[there's a probing quality to Blue's expression, but his mind does not press past the points at which it has found itself.]

What...brought you here with the rest of us.

No.

( he has yet to observe how openly people speak of them, but he has no wish to divulge his own. regret is... personal, for him. )

[Blue nods.]

You may hear another voice...a different one than that dream. It may ask you to do...unsavory things to others here. For your own sake. [as he says so, the distant whisper of the voice that petitioned Blue to sabotage others sounds, just barely audible.]

No one has...a solid answer about it yet. Though there are many guesses.

Be careful.

（ if unsavory things had ever troubled him, he would not be here. what should be more frightening are the things he wouldn't do to restore his clan — and the answer to that is perilously little.

would he sacrifice the people here if needs be? return to a place and time where sasuke calls him brother and wear that mantle well if he did? he has already borne cost beyond belief, to carve it out of himself again would be — survivable.

(is it enough, to survive? he no longer knows.)

he is a thing forged for war, and a violent end was the only one he ever saw laid out for himself. one thing the echo, one thing the answer. he knows he can kill, again, for his goal, but his heart is an anchor, weighted and wanting.

he does not reply to the statement itself. instead, he cants his head to one side. ）

My name is Itachi. You may find me beyond dreaming, if you wish.

[silence is as much an answer as anything, isn't it? Blue considers him for a beat longer in quiet, wondering on what it means to be made for fire...and why such a thing drew him so readily in his sleep.

he nods just slightly, taking a step backward into the light which lingers behind him. there is more he wonders about, more he'd ask, but...not as an intruder.

the light goes with him, leaving Itachi to the sanctuary of his own dreaming as though there were never anyone else there before.]

（ but he is done dreaming for now, and with the man gone from his mind, he rouses himself, sharingan-red eyes fixed briefly on the ceiling above his narrow bed. he gives himself a moment to orient on the present, and then rises to begin his day.

he has much to think on, it seems, and more care to take with the state of his mind. a good reminder and a warning both.

blue is one to watch, that much is certain. ）

[the Blue that visited his dreamscape is and isn't the one Itachi later finds in the waking world onboard the station. his mind has always been vastly more powerful than his body, and that's no more true than it is now.

when next their paths cross, the Mu sits on the ledge to one of the larger windows, his face dimly reflecting back at him in the reinforced glass. he seems smaller in the flesh, weighted by age and weariness that mars his youthful countenance.

his head lifts when he feels a gentle tug in his mind, and he looks away from the stars and toward the man whose dreams were on fire.

Itachi, he recalls, his expression shifting to something of regard.]

（ he was not looking deliberately — that is, he had not set out with any immediacy to find blue. if he happened across him, he expected it would be incidental, born of several dozen individuals trapped in a space that, while larger than their need, is still restrictive in its space.

he is carrying a small plate of mostly plain food — dehydrated cabbage and rice, or what passes for it — intending upon returning to his room when he feels it. something at the edge of his awareness twinges the way the distant familiarity of chakra might, only it isn't chakra, it's —

blue.

the physicality of the man is just different enough that recognition was born of instinct rather than visual acuity. nevertheless, itachi does not alter his path. his mind projects wary, guarded tension and tolerant curiosity. he isn't hostile, simply untrusting.

he too is different in person. his right arm is bandaged to the tips of his fingers, and there is a barely perceptible hitch to his gait that suggests perhaps a like damage to his left leg. similarly, there is a weariness about him, a sense of being older than the oldest he will ever be. tsukiyomi is not merely a theft of time in other minds, but his as well.

blue gets a nod, and a gesture to the far side of the window ledge. ）

May I?

Edited (words are hard) 2021-11-04 01:16 (UTC)

[Blue nods in turn, silent, and turns his head to the space Itachi soon comes to fill.]

Have the others...treated you well so far?

[his voice is quiet, but not so quiet as to be difficult to hear, especially in this solitary space. as he speaks, his extra sense takes in the state of mind Itachi brings with him. it's...strange how rare his particular countenance is here, when Blue would've expected more of it.]

（ an odd question. it comes, he thinks, from that fear of rejection, the resigned acceptance that seemed to follow at its heels. beneath the words lurks another — do they think you monstrous, yet? he can see no other reason to lead with that.

the truth is, he has no especial feelings one way or another regarding how he is treated. he recognizes kindness and cruelty, and is indifferent to each. if such things could sway him beyond logic, his life would have gone very differently.

he sits easily, drawing up his uninjured leg. ）

I have not felt otherwise.

（ it's a neutral response, no emotion curls and twists at the edge of it the way fire takes to paper. ）

Can you say the same?

[Blue's eyes drift to the window.]

I think...it will be novel for a long time. Because humans here are different...from what I knew before.

[even this strange person did not immediately lash out with violence the way Blue would imagine or expect.]

But...more common in nature...despite being from different places.

[present company politely excluded.]

（ to one raised to expect hostility, any lack of it would feel like a balm. it is the same way a person will accept a lesser pain gratefully when they are accustomed to bending to a blow.

he turns to study the stars as well, as if drawn by the motion of his companion. perhaps it is his experience with genjutsu that lessens the impact of what he sees — there is a certain remote beauty to space, but he is not ignorant of the faint chill emanating from thick viewscreen glass, either. stars are only magnificent until the proximity scorches you to ash. ）

Then I am glad you can have that peace here.

（ what does it say about the others, that they are so readily accepting of what the man had called psionic abilities? he cannot fathom a world where the sharingan is anything more than tolerated. ）

[what, indeed.

it says quite a lot, really. at least...as far as Blue's concerned. he's found that he can do very little but think about these kinds of things now. it's far more time granted him than he expected to have, and much, much more than the breakneck pacing of the mission on Braccia gave him to consider.]

Some have posited...that it's by design. That so many of those here...their natures mesh well, or...well enough to suit.

I'm not so sure. [his brow furrows slightly behind his bangs.]

The full nature of this place...its operators...it still hasn't been revealed.

Thus your warning.

（ it's his first real acknowledgement of it. what the man said did not haunt him, but it did bear considering, and itachi is prone to deep deliberation before action. ）

[Blue nods, slowly shifting his focus back to Itachi.]

The true purpose of our being here...may not be clear for some time.

I don't believe an offer to undo regrets would be given out of altruism, which to me means that something we obtain in pursuit of our individual goals is beneficial to the creature or being granting us that power.

（ he is silent a moment, observing distant nebulae.

then: ）

I've heard mention of 'orbs'. What do they feel like, to you?

[at the question, Blue's expression grows a bit cloudy, and his gaze drifts back to the stars.]

I've yet to stand before one. Touch one. And if I have connected to it... [he shakes his head just slightly.] Then it resonates in a way my psionics cannot yet understand.

Two are said to be contained...here in the north wing. Yet the door is shut, and when I press my will outward in that direction...

It is like a sheer wall, dark and indistinguishable from the rest around me...blotting out sense of any mind which may reside there.

[he goes quiet for a minute or so.]

I know nothing of 'magic,' but it is said to be real here and for some others now here. And it is said...these orbs are some variant of it, both powerful and dangerous. One had corrupted an uncounted number of innocents, and another seemed poised to do the same, yet...these are the things that are said to be harnessed to make those changes in our own lives.

（ he makes a faint, considering noise. he isn't one to be troubled by such things — after all, he has stood over the bodies of seven jinchuuriki — but he doubts there are many others here that will have anything approaching equivalent experience.

where power exists, it is misused. that is, after all, why so many fear his clan. ）

How would you describe this corruption? Were you in psionic vicinity to those affected?

dreamwalk two | ota

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and then i lost my tag on mobile... :c sadly cobbles together

phone crimes.....

heinous!!

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not me casually dragging the thread along cuz i like it 6_6

im down let's party

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