middleofsomewhere | Jema'grethy: Memory Cave

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Jema'grethy: Memory Cave

Passengers see a vision, an instance of someone's life, before just as suddenly - they find themselves inside a cave. It is light, a strange moss glowing on the walls and ceiling illuminates the cave nicely, and it is large enough for them to pace around in without trouble.

They're not alone. In the cave with them is another voidtrecker; maybe someone they know well, or maybe someone they've only seen in the aisles of the train. But they are together in this cave, and they will come to find out that it was one of their memories that the other witnessed. And them, one of yours.

The cave has no exit, at least not yet. They know that it will, eventually. When the time is right.

But for that time to come, they first must talk...

(OOC: Memories can be written either in this post or over here)

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"Then you can teach me about it."

"Sure!" she said, happily. "And you can teach me how to use this board thing to fight Heartless and stuff!"

"Sounds like the perfect trade!"

She nodded, happily. "Yeah!"

Then the final memory hit her and she staggered. "It's him..." she put out a hand on the cave wall to catch herself. "You... he..." her head hurt so much. "He's the one... who was with Naminé when..." she swallowed hard. "When she had to erase me... but... but you didn't know that, you didn't remember me... why....?"

Why did he attack the one in red, then?

Edited 2022-08-07 05:50 (UTC)

The one who was with Naminé? Riku? No, she knows Riku's name. She would have just said that. That meant this memory was of...

"Ansem," he says darkly. "He's the one who put me in the datascape. He's the one who was forcing Riku and Naminé to tell you you had to go back... the reason why..." He jerks away at reminder of just why he didn't remember Xion back then. Of what he did.

"That... was Ansem....?" Her head hurt so much now. Hadn't Axel said something about...? she couldn't think...

"Yeah, that's his real name. DiZ is just what he called himself when he didn't want to be that. He changed it back when he decided he wanted to make up for his mistakes." Mistakes like saying him, Naminé and Xion didn't have the right to exist.

"DiZ... is his... Nobody name...? He was... like us...?" But that... couldn't be right, could it?

Roxas shakes his head hard. "No, he's not like us. He just had a fake name for a while. People do that, I guess. When they don't like their real names."

"Oh.... I didn't know... Somebodies could just... change their names when they want to..." That was weird. And a little scary.

"Yeah, I don't get it either. I guess their names don't matter as much to them." Since they're born with them. They'll never understand what it's like to only have a name that's taken from someone else. That you have to fight to make it yours.

"But... our names tell people what we are...? Like if we have an X we're a Nobody, if we don't we're probably not, right?"

"I don't think most people use names like that. That was just something Xemnas liked to do, to bind us to him. Like, Naminé is a Nobody and her name doesn't have an X." Probably because Xemnas believed he had total control of her at the time. Or maybe it was his way of keeping her out of the Organization officially.

Xion blinked several times. She... had never thought about that, with Naminé. But back then she hadn't known Naminé long and even when she had, hadn't known Naminé was like them. "He... wanted to make sure we didn't find her...?" she asked, thinking hard. "Because we were never supposed to talk to Somebodies, but if we had talked to her sooner...."

Then they wouldn't have helped Xemnas for as long. Axl and Roxas wouldn't have had to have their fights...

But... they would have also vanished sooner. All those memories she had that Naminé had to erase. All that precious time...

Her shoulders hunched as she tried to reconcile those things. They should have met Naminé so much sooner and... if they had... would there have been even this small scrap of Xion left to have arrived in Diatu?

"We would have turned on him sooner," Roxas cuts in. "We would have realized he was just lying to everyone. We might have even be able to get Naminé away from Ansem."

What would they have done after? It's hard to say, but at least they could have all made their own choices, instead of being coerced by a man with a vendetta. Maybe they could have even found another way to help Sora.

"Maybe you and Axel could have... but I think... I would have been too afraid..." she admitted.

"I don't think so. You'd fight if it meant protecting us. We've always had each other's backs in battle." So what if Xemnas would have been a bigger battle? He knows now that they could still take him. Because they have.

She hesitated. "Now... Now I would.... but I was so scared all the time then, so much more than now. I didn't know how to not run away..." she said, softly. I was a bad friend... I... ran away all the time..." she said, swallowing hard. "I.... was always afraid also... that the two of you... would be tired of me running away and decide... that we weren't friends any more..."

"You ran away because someone convinced you that you weren't supposed to be with us. Nobody blames you for that. Riku truly believed that's what he had to do to bring back Sora." He shakes his head. "But that doesn't mean you weren't brave. You never ran away from a fight when we needed you. No matter how dangerous it was."

Nobody blames you, well, she was still a Nobody even if she was a person, wasn't she? And she blamed herself. So Roxas was both right and wrong at the same time. Or maybe just right, depending on how she was counted...

"I... I wouldn't now. But back then... I was scared all the time, Roxas," she whispered. "So much. Everything was just... I was always so afraid they'd destroy me... but when I realized that if I wasn't destroyed..." That Roxas would have been....

That had been the tipping point. The moment she realized that she didn't matter, couldn't matter. That they had to stop this. All of it.

Roxas shakes his head. "That's not what I mean. You might have run away from stuff you didn't understand or because you thought you were putting us in danger. But what about all those times we took the mega Heartless down together? Why don't those count as being brave? Why do you have to be brave in everything for it to count?"

"But... Heartless aren't scary," she said, dumbfounded. "That's not being brave that's... just doing what I was created to do... isn't it?"

"To you. Try saying that to anyone else from our world. Why do you think they always run away from them? Even if you were created to fight them, that doesn't mean you're invincible. But you stand up to them just the same."

"Who... would be scared of Heartless?" she considered that. Was it because she had a Keyblade? Well no, couldn't be that, because Axel wasn't afraid of them... But then he was Axel... So maybe that didn't count. But she couldn't think of any other Nobody who was afraid of them.

Was that the answer? Because they were nobodies? She fell quiet as she tried to figure it out for herself. Nobodies would make sense, because they didn't have hearts. Except Axel said that had been a lie. But she still wasn't sure.

Was Taiki afraid of Heartless? She should ask him. She was pretty sure he was a Somebody, after all. And he didn't have a Keyblade. Yeah, Taiki would be a good person to ask. Probably. Maybe. Maybe she should ask Axel if she should ask Taiki?

"A lot of people. Most don't have magic like us. And they definitely don't have Keyblades. But even with all that stuff, we're still taking a big risk every time we fight them."

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