i am extraordinary, if you'd ever get to know me.

[limitstorm]

Date & Time: January 1st, afternoon.
Location: Winter-Exsilium; some emptier fields away from civilization.
Characters: Riku; open.
Summary: Riku has always been shown and been told that his powers are nothing but destructive. He's never taken the time to think to think that maybe it's not true--not until now. Maybe things can be different from now on.
Warnings: N/A. Long post ahead, but tl;dr: dark castle, anyone's invited.

[ he shudders; the breath catches in the cold air, instantly white and foggy, and riku curls his hands around his shoulders, shaking his head.

it's freezing out here. he shouldn't be out here. he's way too away from the cabin for anyone to see--he's not sure if there's anything inhabitable around here. and... well, that's the point, isn't it? he looks back ahead of him, his back towards the city, and breathed in deep. slowly, he drops down onto one knee, then both, shivering as he does so, and closing his eyes. pulling his hood down, he grits his teeth against the brisk, snowy wind, and exhales low. ]

Time to live up to being a Master.

[ his words are lost in the wind, but he curls his hands into fists and presses them against his chest, lips drawn into a frown. peals of darkness start to emerge, but it's too fast--and in an instant, he's gasping and sweeping his hands out to his sides. ]

That's wrong. [ too fast, too strong. he breathes back out, brings one hand back to his chest, and shakily splays out his fingers. he listens to his heartbeat and the worry and tension fades from his face, and the darkness comes out in a slow but steady circle around him, perfectly controlled and membrane-thin. little strings of white light accompany it randomly--riku has never tried to control his light, it has never needed to be controlled, but his darkness has always needed to be kept on a tight leash. he exhales again, but doesn't open his eyes, shakily getting to his feet. the darkness trembles, like it's ready to rebel, but he keeps calm. ]

This is my power, my Darkness. It's under my control. I'll use it how I want to.

[ as if following orders, it relents, smoothing out like the surface of a pond. only then does he open his eyes, and looks up. the pillar of darkness around him is tall; it drops off about ten feet above him, and the scent and feel of the power is strong enough to overwhelm. the purity of both elements is extreme; there is little mingling in greys, but it is pure light against pure darkness, and they rub and grate against each other as if both elements know they shouldn't ever be in close proximity together--they shouldn't coexist, they shouldn't coexist in one body like riku. this should, by all rights, be impossible. for a moment, he staggers--the strength of both of them in tandem would make anyone drunk on power; it's doubtless one of the reasons he's still been used as a pawn and a tool. riku's been burned too badly to ever think of using this power as anything but for higher powers and greater goods; he swallows hard and narrows his eyes, letting his arms hang by his sides before he starts stalking forwards, and his power leaves behind interrupted snow in his wake, like blades cutting through his path.

it's warm. the darkness is, somehow, warm. at first, riku mistakenly thinks it's the light mixed in, but that's not all. shouldn't darkness be cold? after a moment, he thinks of nights under the covers, of warm summer nights, of a mother's embrace, and not for the first time does he think of the darkness differently. with one leg forwards, he focuses, and splays his fingers out suddenly, as if sprinkling powder into the air. in an instant, dark spots appear everywhere like black glitter, flit around like fireflies. warm summer nights. he can almost hear the ocean breeze.

what more? the paopu tree. he jogs a bit forwards, chews his bottom lip, and tries to imagine a paopu in his hands at first, shutting his eyes tight like he was wishing--to open one eye and let out a breathless laugh when it manifests in his hands, heavy as it would be. lifting his gaze, he disperses the fruit in his hands, and remembers days of sitting on the bent paopu tree, with kairi and sora beside him. it's slower, with so many memories to shift through, but it grows, blossoming before his eyes, and before it's even fully finished he runs towards it, plants his hands onto the bark and leaps onto the bark. maybe it's his memories keeping him warm. there's a calm in him now, and as he looks down at his hands, he thinks, and stands on the trunk, walking to the edge of the tree; leaves dip down low into the snow as he walks.

the swirling membrane of darkness around him swirls tighter now, just an inch away from him. he crouches, and jumps high in the air--before he can even make it onto the ground, he swipes darkness underneath him to make a bridge, which continues on building, and as he walks up them with a growing sense of dread, walls come to life, sliding up air and snow like they were colliding with an invisible force. edges of trees are clipped and bent as it grows, snowy stones covered and disappearing in the darkness. riku focuses on his worst memories--of empty hallways full of dark monsters, of sterile white columns, of losing and gaining and loss of control.

two castles merge together like a lifeform all around him, leaving him standing in the doorway, large double doors of castle oblivion wide open, to stare right into a place he never wanted to see in hollow bastion.

it's warm. that's the first thing riku realizes, and the way he knows that this is his creation. the castles were always cold.

he walks in, and the doors stay open. ]

Comments

[chosenfake]

[Luke hasn't been there to see Riku do something like this before. Everything about it screams STAY AWAY, but he's curious. He can't help feeling like there's something terribly sad about this place. Whatever it is, it's been painstakingly crafted from memories, both good and bad. Even Luke can feel that.

Hoping he won't find an awful surprise, he steps inside, one hand on his sword hilt.]

... Hello?

[His voice feels so tiny in the dark, warm expanse inside the walls.]

wow tl;dr sorry

[buttpunch]

[Tsubomi takes walks, sometimes. She can't spend all of her time underground, tending plants. She needs to tend herself, too, and she's been forgetting that a little, lately. Her recent conversation with Riku and the light feeling of a new year, even without a temple or the other traditions she can't do all on her own, had her itching to walk outside of the town's vague limits despite the warnings of yetis, some time after lunch. She's wrapped up in her coat and cloak, her scarf tight around her neck and her earmuffs over her still somewhat overgrown hair. Her Heart's Perfume is clutched tightly in her mittens, just in case.

The castle is a massive change to the landscape, and she gasps a little as she takes it in. This castle didn't feel like the one they'd called "Loki's", before Exsilium died. It felt like the castle where Sabark--where Professor Tsukikage--had made his home, where his wilted heart's flower had covered everything with the miasma of his hidden grief.

She shifts her hands around the perfume, and she changes. She doesn't know this place, but there is sadness in it, and tending to heart flowers in the Heart Tree's place is part of her mission as a Precure. Perhaps this place is a cradle for something different--perhaps she's concerned for nothing--but she would hate to leave someone alone in a place like this if she wasn't. She can't feel the cold, once she transforms, which is a relief, and leaping to the black stairs isn't any effort at all. She runs up the stairs, urgent concern spurring her on. Who could be creating something like this, with these feelings?

The castle's doors are open and huge around her, and she stops before them, looking up at them with a nervous heart. But if there's sadness within, she intends on meeting it.

She steps inside, back straight.]

Is anyone here?

[Her boots click on the floor and join the slight echo of her voice in the hall. She continues her walk down the hallway, toward the center of the castle, ignoring closed doors but keeping an eye out for traps and suspicious movements.]

[promises_to_keep]

[Lea spent most of the afternoon playing gofer for one of the vendors in town. Corridors make for quick delivery and restock runs, after all. The daylight is fading when he gets home, and as he steps through the door he notes that there's a distinct lack of Riku. He can tell who's in the house at any given moment, after all--even Sora has a little darkness to him, and Lea can still sense it easily as he could when he was mostly darkness himself. There's definitely no Riku in the house.

[Well, no big deal, he knows Riku's a busy guy. A little too busy, if you asked him, but nobody ever does. Eh.

[He'll spend the next couple hours putzing about: reading half of a book from the shelf upstairs, beating his high score in the game with the pissed off birds, and even grabbing a power nap. When he wakes up and it's after 7 and there's still no sign of Riku, though, he gets a little concerned. It's not like Riku to miss dinner, after all, and certainly not without indicating it was someone else's turn to cook.

[Meandering back downstairs, Lea pokes his head into the kitchen and spies a couple of covered pots on the stove, ready to be reheated as necessary. ... Riku made food before he left? He was expecting to be gone for dinner? Now that's a bit unusual. Maybe it's time to go see what the hell he's up to. He did promise Virgil that he would make sure Riku stopped skipping meals, after all, and Lea never breaks a promise.

[Donning the hat and jacket he got from Sheena, he heads out in search of wayward SO. Hopefully there won't be call to drag him home unconscious this time. Lea's getting a little weary of that.

[It doesn't take him long to figure out where he's gone: there's a pretty heavy concentration of darkness somewhere outside of town.]

The hell are you up to?

[When he comes upon the structure in the field beyond the edge of town he's a bit flabbergasted. He recognizes bits and pieces of this castle... the great tall doors of Castle Oblivion, the uneven spires and spiraling towers of the phantom castle of Hollow Bastion. There's so many memories pumped into this peculiar fusion of light and dark and stone and steel, pain and grief and beneath them, wistful fondness and nostalgia. Did Riku build this? From darkness?

[The front doors are wide open, and though everything in him wants to stop just outside the doors, to keep out of this bastion of haunted memories, his curiosity is too strong, and his concern for just what Riku might be doing in a place like this drives him through the ingress. So help him, if he has to drag Riku home on his shoulders again...]

Riku? [His voice echoes off the high ceilings, the smooth walls, the strangely familiar yet completely alien mashup of castles, neither of which he has terribly good memories of. His throat tightens a little.] Hello? Olly olly oxenfree~

[Seriously, this place is giving him the heebie jeebies. There's such a cacophony of feelings thrumming through the walls: fear, sadness, joy, loneliness, confidence, all mashed together. It's almost deafening even in its silence. What are you doing, Riku?]

[sorrowfulcry]

[He was used to being indoors or underground for extended periods of time. Sometimes, the Vanguard would attempt to lay siege to the Embryon and those days were dull and taken in shifts. So... Not hard. But Heat got bored now and irritating snow or not, he needed to get out and stretch his legs. He needed to go somewhere else so people would stop glaring at him when he snapped at them for staring in the first place. You would think that the Karma Society would have conditioned him to that treatment, but Heat refused to just put his head down and carry on.

... And you have to admit, a dark looking castle in the middle of snowfields? Not the most inconspicuous thing to run across.

Heat's seen a lot of fortresses; Sahasrara had been built like a well guarded stairwell to Nirvana, the Solids' Citadel had been an 'impenetrable' fortress and even the strange building that had appeared in the Brute's territory had been fortress-like in it's size and twisting hallways. But this castle that had appeared in the snowscape didn't quite feel the same. The other locations had been cold and aloof; places of fighting and of reverence.

This place was more akin to Coordinate 136. Still fortress like, but with a touch of whimsy and an almost palpable sadness. It was one of the last standing monuments to Sera's loneliness left in the Junkyard. Heat hated the place.

He has a feeling he'll hate this place too. But that's partly what prompts him to walk straight through, if only to give a solid punch to whoever decided to make this thing. There were memories that were better left alone. This was one of them]