Day 48: Courtyard

[thatdamnedninja.livejournal.com]

"I could tell you some stories," Yuffie suggested brightly, "of unquestionable legality." Illegality, that was. Petty little things like the law didn't usually mean very much to her, except for the times when she had to uphold it. Always fun for the breaking, though, the law, and messy for the clean-up. Just the way she liked it.

Her nurse looked like she wanted to rub her temples. With sandpaper. "No, thank you," she said instead. "Why don't you run along, now?" Please!, was the unspoken request. Before I spontaneously combust. Or commit various acts of violence that would have me arrested, or placed in a loony bin. Like this one. Yuffie had quite a bit of fun filling in the blanks other people left. Sometimes she did it outloud, just to see the reaction; sometimes she kept it to herself. It really, really depended.

"Don't mind if I do!"

She took off, bolting out into the Courtyard. The weather was dour, overcast and threatening rain, but Yuffie didn't care. She'd refused a coat on principle, and had found herself bargaining: Fine, fine, Plucky had conced she could go without a coat, but unless she had at least a sweatshirt on, there'd be no outside-time for her. She ran a little ways down the dirt path, then toppled herself into a series of cartwheels. Straighten, run. Cartwheel. Straighten, run, just for the sheer sake of movement, and the whip of the wind. She laughed a little giddily, checking her gait down to a jog. Gawd, Leviathan, she'd needed this. Right from the get-go, she'd needed this. Every day she spent cooped up in side, the more nervous energy she had.

Nanaki had helped, she realized. Sort of. He'd…helped. In a way. His presence and everything that was wrong with it weighed on her, for sure, but he was still Nanaki. He didn't deserve to be here, didn't deserve to be stuck in a body that he hated and couldn't use, but all the same, she found herself glad to have him.

Yuffie started to hum, as she jogged leisurely around the Courtyard. A cheery little tune, one of her favorites; no, it was her favorite. A Wutaian walking song, with the roughly translated title of Pathway After the Rain. The pace stayed even but the tune picked up, and she found herself half-singing snatches of the lyrics to herself. It felt like ages since she'd last said anything in her native tongue, at least outloud; she wrote in it all the time.

[The Doctor]

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[not-rly-fai.livejournal.com]

While he could sense some things with his magic about Yuki and Yue, there were still a lot of things he didn't understand. Like how much of the conversation the other day the guardian had been privy to or how it was that no injuries remained from the coliseum. Either way, he supposed it didn't matter. At least Yue seemed to agree with him on keeping Sakura from finding out any more than she had to know.

It was hard not to say he was sorry for what had happened. Of them all, he probably owed it most to Yue, whether or not any of them had known about the fight going in, it didn't change what'd gone on once it all began. He hadn't meant the things he'd said and most of all, for forcing Yue's hand. Even if he didn't regret the end result, he still felt guilt for involving someone else.

"Mm," he nodded instead, unable to force the words out. It'd been easier when talking with Yuki. While the body might be similar, it didn't have the same effect as speaking with the person, face to face. "But that doesn't seem like the only thing you came to talk about."

[winged_moon]

Though the wings were currently not present some mannerisms still persisted. Yue's shoulders shifted a little in an unconscious movement which would have drawn his wings closer about himself, as his attention still remained fixed upon some undetermined spot to one side of the bench. What had he come to talk to Fai about? He hadn't stopped to question the impulse, though perhaps he should have, since he had yet to decide just how he felt toward the magician at the moment.

Certainly, he was pleased that Fai had somehow survived. Despite everything, despite what the guardian himself had done, the one he had chosen to protect still lived. Or had been revived, through whatever power Landel seemed to possess -- there were patients here who claimed to have been dead in their home worlds, but were alive and breathing, so why couldn't that extend to those who had been killed while here? But power always carried with it some kind of balance, which made Yue wonder just what price had been paid to revive Fai. Did the man even know?

At the same time, however, there was still a balance between the two of them. Fai had forced his hand, certainly -- but it was still his hand that had dealt the fatal blow. It was his guilt to be borne, even though (or perhaps because) Fai was alive here and now. He still had to do something about that.

Yue drew himself up, forcing his shoulders to straighten despite the impulse that wanted the missing wings to curve tighter about himself. "I had thought it a good idea for us to visit that place. That it would be safer for the two of us to proceed onward. I was clearly mistaken, and will not make such an error again."

[not-rly-fai.livejournal.com]

It almost sounded like an apology. It was honestly the last thing he'd expected from Yue. He knew what it was like to be yelled at or threatened and he was certainly accustomed to hearing them when things went awry. But whatever it was, it was much harder to keep a smile on his face as he heard it. Why wasn't he angry? Yuuhi was the one in the wrong, not Yue. He'd forced the guardian to hurt someone, even though it was by himself and by his own choice.

He ought to agree, if only to push the other away, but... couldn't he break ties without hurting people?

"You couldn't have known what would happen," he said, much of the lightheartedness gone from his voice. He turned his head too, as if interested in whatever it was Yue was looking away at.

"And everything turned out just fine in the end," he added quickly, replacing the mask in a second. "It's not worth worrying over."

[winged_moon]

"Of course it's worth worrying over." Yue finally glanced back at Fai again, eyes narrowed slightly to complement his frown. It was true that Fai had insisted before that he wasn't worth protecting, as though his life was somehow entirely worthless, Yue had and would never believe that, and he rather resented being told what he could and could not think.

He folded his arms across his chest, suppressing the mild annoyance as he had to resettle the coat he was holding in the process, and gave the magician a look stern enough that it approached a glare without quite reaching that level. "Yes, Landel or...whoever, somehow managed to bring you back. But what matters is that you did die. It did happen, and fortunate as it is that you're here now, that will never change."

[not-rly-fai.livejournal.com]

Yuuhi had no logical explanation for why he was still here. It still felt surreal, like a dream, or more precisely, a nightmare. Waking up in that cold metal box, slowly bleeding out on the table, weak and helpless. His eye missing, taken away or given to his own doctor. Thinking back on it still made him feel sick. Was that the price?

Things shouldn't be so simple, he'd be the first to admit. Death could so rarely be undone, even if it was what he'd been searching for. Somehow he managed to keep living, though his brother had only been given one chance. Why couldn't he give up his sight before to the witch to bring back Fai? If that was all there was to pay, he'd have gladly done it. Or was it just the result of some failed experiment. Was he to be pieced away by the doctors or would he turn on the others one night without knowing how or why? There was no way of knowing what'd happened in that empty gap of time.

"What does it change? I'm the same as always, aren't I?" he asked, giving a shrug and looking for the easy way out once more. What did Yue want him to say? Yes, he'd died and somehow come back, but what'd been done was fixed. Damaged maybe, but still whole.

He shook his head, trying to free his mind of the oppressive thoughts. It was the last thing he wanted to be thinking about. He set a careful smile on his lips, fragile now, but too frightened of what might happen if it slipped. "Anyway, I guess it rules out the basement? Or are there other rooms to explore? At least you can mark that room off the list of possible exits, right?"

[winged_moon]

Even if Fai did know what had happened he wasn't likely to say anything about it -- even now he was wriggling his way out of any direct questions or statements, trying to deflect attention away from himself. Whether he truly didn't care or was glossing over truths he didn't want to admit to Yue was never certain, and it frustrated him more than slightly. All he wanted was an answer that would make everything...well, make sense again, and those didn't seem very common around here.

"Perhaps you are the same as always," he replied, though in a tone that implied that he didn't entirely believe that no matter what he might say. He paused again, then breathed out what wasn't quite a sigh but was close to it. "The rest of us, however, aren't quite so fortunate."

It was fortunate that Sakura apparently hadn't seen what had happened there that night, and that she believed the kindly-intentioned lie she'd been told. Touya, too, seemed to have missed at least the very end. The fact remained, though, that damages went far beyond simply physical injuries -- especially in his case, where all of his injuries had simply disappeared, new and old alike.

Something like anger flickered in the guardian's eyes, though it was quiet and slow-burning; he was too tired of this to even bother with anything more than that. "It was more than just yet another dead end in exploration." The third floor was out, along with the roof. And now the basement. And all they had left now was ground that had supposedly been trampled by many. Was it even worth continuing to search, at this point?