markofthebrave | [ Action, Voice ] .042

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[ Action, Voice ] .042

[Even Katara can only deny the effects of the dreams so long. It wasn't so bad at first when they were just vivid and of a different Luceti... but this other world, with these strange people she feels connected to, and the strange consistency of them, as if they were actually telling a story...

...and she knows the dreams have been effecting her dad too. And that it hasn't been good. So... she's going to take today to do maybe what she should have done from the start.]

[Filtered to Sokka]

Hey, I need to talk to you. What time can I come by?

[Filtered to Zuko]

...can we meet later?

[Filtered to Chouji]
I know this is weird, but have you been dreaming that we--

[Filtered to Shikamaru]
Did we ever--

[Filtered to Masaomi]
Don't take this the wrong way, but I had a dream about us, and we were fighting. You broke my rib, but it wasn't a bad thing and I can't stop thinking about--

[Filtered to Nami]
...have you been having dreams that we were friends, once?

[Filtered to Ginko]
Ginko... have you ever heard of parasites that... live in the dark and steal sight from people's eyes, and can be drawn out by moonlight?

[Filtered to San]
I dreamed you had come into my house for food, that you drew a knife and nearly attacked Sokka, and I had to knock you down.

[Filtered to Sanji]
Sanji, did we ever...

[Filtered to Jet]
I - you - there was a dam that -

[Katara abruptly shoves away from her journal, scribbling through her filters madly. Checking with Sokka and Zuko would be enough. She didn't want to go and get people upset or excited about something that may or may not be true. She hesitates for a long moment at the doorway to her father's room, contemplating knocking and asking him-

What have you been dreaming about, Dad? They haven't stopped. Do you think they mean something?

-but eventually she just writes a note that she's going to spend some time practicing, picks up her yari, and heads into the forest. She's almost hoping to see one of the beasties everyone's been talking about. She could do with a good fight against something she can actually touch.]

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Mine are. Aa, more or less, anyways. I think. A lot of the same people keep showing up in them. It's just... out of order, or something.

Some of them, anyways. [The ones I don't like.]

Dreams are like that. Out of order, I mean.

Yeah.

[He thinks about leaving it at that - dreams are weird, what else is new. Let's just get back and ignore this, right? They should be getting closer to the village now.

Instead, he finds himself veering off to the left instead, keeping towards the very edge of the paths leading into town instead of walking into it.]

Tch. It's still stupid though.

[Katara takes this as a cue that he actually does want to talk about his dreams - it's hard to tell with him sometimes, and though she doesn't mind nosing about for her friends' best interests, she saves pushing for when it's vital - and this isn't vital. This is just dreams.

...but since he wants to talk about it, she'll do her best to give him the opportunity. It's rare - it's so rare - that Shikamaru gets rattled enough to want to talk about things, she almost wants to skip the talking and go straight to the reassuring.]

What is?

[It's not so much that as he doesn't want anyone else to see him so bothered.]

That they don't go in order. If they were gonna do it like that, I should've just got the end instead of going back to the middle. [What he presumes was the middle, at least. Maybe it was actually the beginning?] I get the feeling that the end was supposed to be satisfying, but it's not knowing what happened before it.

Like killing him wasn't good enough.

[Which is scary. Shikamaru can barely be motivated to hold a grudge, most days. Hating a person that much, or even attacking them with the intent to kill... it's not something he thought he'd be capable of, ninja or not.]

['Like killing him wasn't good enough.'

Just hearing that from was a little disorienting. Shikamaru just... wasn't like that.

...then again, in her dreams, she'd been fighting with a passion she didn't recognize. Fighting to protect someone whose name she didn't even know. Fighting like it meant.. everything.]

Did you recognize him? The man that you killed.

[He shakes his head.]

I'd remember if I'd seen him anywhere in the village before. His appearance is... distinctive. White hair slicked back and red eyes. Foul-mouthed son-of-a-bitch too.

[He stops walking finally; continues.]

His skin changes color, too, when he tastes someone's blood. It turns black.

[Katara listens, and stops when he stops walking, turning to face him. She makes a face. 'Tastes blood']

That... sounds really creepy. [Pause a moment, run through what he just said.] But... you remember the things he said?

Yeah. Like I said. Detailed.

[More so the recent ones.]

Edited 2011-05-09 04:53 (UTC)

And you still don't know why you killed him - in the dream? Not even a guess?

No, I know why. It just happened in a different dream.

[Katara looks at him expectantly. Either he'll tell her, or he won't. She's not going to try to drag it out of him, but she'll listen if he wants to tell her.]

[He doesn't speak for a long while, eventually starting to walk again, though he doesn't go far - a few feet away and then back, stopping in place from time to time before moving again.

He's thinking about it again now, which is something he's been hoping to avoid since last night. It's so stupid how it makes him feel; how fast it works him up and tears him apart as if it were real. Over people he's never even met. Pace, pace. Well there was Chouji, but he was the only one. In that one. He doesn't think he knew anyone else.

Definitely not the blonde girl. Definitely not the man with the beard, blood pouring into the dirt. No one to cry over, no one to kill over. Just a bad dream.

He feels sick to his stomach.]

There was this guy. [He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand when he talks, back turned.] No, I don't know who he was either. I called him sensei, but he wasn't Splinter. The other guy murdered him.

[Oh, Shikamaru...

Katara walks up to him and doesn't try to step over to see his face. But she gently places a hand on his shoulder.]

And I thought my dreams were bad.

[He breathes in, turning the rise of his shoulders into a shrug at the last moment.]

It's fine. It's not like it was anyone important. I'll get over it.

Don't say that. [And her voice is surprisingly - fast - like the crack of a whip.]

I don't know what these dreams mean, or why we're having them. I don't know why these people feel - so important, when they're obviously not people that we know.

[The boy with the arrow tattoos...]

But I do know that they feel... [she drops her hand, looks away herself.] ...there's a boy in my dreams I've never seen before, and I know that if he were to walk across this clearing right now, I'd give my life for him.

So maybe the dreams are trying to tell us something, or maybe they mean nothing at all... but the way that they're making us feel isn't unimportant. And yes, we'll come through OK at the end, but that doesn't mean that you have to dismiss it like it's nothing.

We don't have to make it out to be more troublesome than it already is, either. [He turns his head to look back at her.] I don't like the way I feel about it to begin with.

[...he doesn't like the way she feels about hers either, if it makes her think like that. Even knowing there's plenty of real people here she'd do the same for, because that's who she is.]

I don't blame you. They sound pretty miserable. [And then she offers him a small smile, as if to say - but they are only dreams, you know. it's daytime now. It's almost got a 'my son is having a nightmare and making up some crap excuse to have my company' feel to it.]

All I'm saying is that you don't have to worry about how they make you feel - things will sort themselves out. But in the meantime, you've got the right to be feeling that way... just remember that's not all there is to it. Didn't you dream of anything happy at all?

[What. This is nothing like that at all, okay. He's not a kid.]

...some. [Said like, okay, you have a point and I think I see it but I don't want to admit it'.] Nothing exciting, but it was nice, I guess.

[Hey, she can't help it. She's been a mom for a long time now. And Katara bumps him lightly on the shoulder with her own and starts walking.]

So tell me about one of those.

[Come on into the daylight.]

[He frowns at her back, but puts his hands in his pockets and follows. He's tempted just to tell her he doesn't need to talk about his dreams (now that she already knows about the more troublesome one), but that's childish. And wouldn't work anyways. Troublesome girl.

So he keeps it simple.]

Some of the dreams were in Luceti, but most of them were in this other place. It was sunny a lot, and there were a lot of clouds to watch. [He likes weather like that.]

So even in your dreams you were cloud watching?

[She doesn't even bother trying to keep the amusement out of her tone. That's just - funny.]

Did you dream about skipping classes too?

Yeah, actually. Different school and different people, but it seemed pretty easy to just get up and leave.

[She laughs at that, somewhat guiltily because - she really shouldn't be encouraging this. Her tone is fond and somewhat admonishing.]

Only you would actually dream about finding ways to avoid work.

[...as if she hadn't dropped out of school herself.]

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[ Action, Voice ] .042

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