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May. 11th, 2009 11:16 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
shadowchaser.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
wrfmlogsarchiveWho: Amy and Song
Where: Rainbow's End
What: Discussing that oh-so-enlightening test
When: Same night
Dragging herself back up the stairs, Amy rolled her eyes, muttering under her breath. Stupid Lilith, stupid test...what did she want, she was still learning. Pausing for a second, she glanced down the stairs at Jalen, who had followed her part of the way back up. He motioned her to keep going, and for a brief moment she stuck out her tongue before obliging. A few moments later found her back at Song's door, and she stuck her head in.
"I've already ranted to Jalen, but I'm still...pissed, frustrated, annoyed, pick one. We need to talk about it anyway, so here I am again."
Song disengaged herself from her book more quickly this time, and straightened, her head raising in unison with that of the dog who now lay at her feet.
"Come in. Tell me what happened. I'm kind of at a loss, here, to tell the truth."
"What, she didn't gloat? I think I'm shocked." She moved over to the chair she'd been occupying earlier and sank onto the seat, wiggling her fingers at Yasha for a second.
"I was expecting her to be a bitch. And I tried to do what I thought I should be doing, but...it's a lot harder to learn things when the person doing the testing is already prejudiced against you." Rolling her eyes, she shrugged. "I know I still have a lot to learn, and I'm gonna do my best. I just- Ugh, I don't know." Realizing that she had yet to answer the question, she sighed.
"She created a dream-Jalen to screw with me, she showed me Radiant Garden burning down and Eli calling me, and she blew up my grandfather's house. That about covers it."
Yasha sniffed her fingers carefully, then laid his head back down, apparently satisfied that he wasn't needed for guard duty, as it were.
Song's eyebrows raised, but other than that, she didn't look terribly surprised at Amy's words. "And what did you do?"
"I- tried not to let myself get upset over what she was throwing at me. I thought the best thing to do was to try and ignore a lot of it. Emotionally, I mean. I wiped out the whole Radiant Garden illusion. I didn't really know what else to do." She glanced down at a table leg, studying it.
"I made wind blow the smoke away, I...Near the end of it, she asked if I'd ever considered stopping the source of the nightmare, stopping her. Sure, if you don't mind Kentucky Fried Succubus." Amy grinned slightly, though there wasn't much humor in it. "I thought it'd be a bad move to react to what she was doing with anger. Might not have mattered, I don't think she would've approved of anything I did anyway."
Song chewed on her lip thoughtfully before speaking. "Hmm. I wouldn't have attacked her either. Not unless everything else I tried failed. What I would have done, though, is rewritten the illusions. It's one thing to simply erase them. It was your mind, so that wasn't such a hard task. However, it's the choice between waking up from a nightmare or changing the nightmare so that it has a happy conclusion. It is, as I may have mentioned, how I learned to lucidly dream in the first place. What could you have done to fix the things she showed you?"
"Could have dreamed up my own Jalen," She mused, playing with her ring. "Or turned hers into a Care Bear." She giggled before continuing. "I could have made the city into sunshine and green grass." Amy shifted a little, frowning. "There was a lot I could have done in hindsight, but at the time...cripes."
"Yes, all that is true, but it wouldn't even have been necessary to change things so drastically. Take control of her dream Jalen, or put out the fires with heavy rain. I don't know what Lilith's expectations are, but I encourage as much change as possible. However... sometimes you have to play by someone else's rules, even in a dream, and in cases like that, you might have to work with what you're given."
She reached under the table and beckoned Yasha to move to her side and sit up so she could stroke his head, now that she'd been filled in roughly on what had happened, she seemed completely at ease again.
"To be honest, I didn't even want to touch her version of him. I mean, I knew he wasn't real so I didn't really feel anything towards him- well, that part's not exactly true. I was thrown off a bit at one point and I had to straighten myself out, and once that was done I didn't care. It was just an empty shadow." Mulling this over for a second, Amy pushed her glasses up a little higher. "I think Lilith had a better time keeping her rules to herself. Next time I'll do better, but may 'next time' be a hell of a long time from now."
Song nodded understandingly, reminded of a similar circumstance. "Maleficent did that to me, you know, when I was trying to help Ryuu with her phylactery. Made a dream-Xemnas, that is. It felt the same as what you described. As for next time..." She paused to give her dog a good scratch behind the ears. "Don't be too averse to another round soon. At least, relatively soon. Lilith will not be impressed if the one encounter scares you away from the whole thing for too long, and she would be right in that opinion."
"I'd like to think I don't give a damn what she thinks of me, but of course, on some level I'm probably worried about it. Whatever." She leaned forward, reaching a hand out to Yasha. "Hey puppy. Hey." Still focused on the dog, she spoke again.
"I don't like her magic. What she put us to sleep with, I mean. It felt weird. I can't articulate it more than that, and I know I can't change it, but I felt like saying it."
Yasha's ears lay meekly flat but he wagged his tail a little, stretching his neck to sniff her hand again.
Song gave another slight nod at the comment. "Well, she is a demon, born to seduce men and drain their energy. Even when she doesn't intend harm, I'm sure there's always a lingering sense of that."
Amy smiled a little, moving her hand to pat his head gently. "Yeah, well, maybe it was that. I dunno. Like I said. ...I was crying on Jalen, so you're lucky to be the second one I'm talking to. Think I ruined his shirt."
Yasha seemed to approve greatly of this, and edged closer so that she could reach him more easily. His movements were distinctly submissive.
Once again, Song seemed to mimic him in expression, though hers was of compassion. "I'm sorry she got to you that much... It was not what I expected, I promise."
"I'm mostly mad at myself for letting her get to me at all. It wasn't even the illusions that did it, or her...touching her version of Jalen..." And here she found herself trying not to twitch anyway. "Just some stuff said at the very end of things. Me being insecure. Bah." She continued to pet Yasha, focusing on that and not the sudden urge to go see what Jalen was doing. Chances were he was sitting at the bottom of the stairs waiting for her, anyway.
"She expected too much from you. I told her you were still learning. But, well... " She glanced at the door, knowing that Jalen was somewhere beyond. "You know how she is about other women. Especially ones with successful love-lives! Tch. I feel for her, but her bitterness isn't doing any good for herself or anyone else."
"I don't see her getting pissed at Mabry. Thank God." Pulling away, she sat back, playing with her ring again. "I feel bad for her too, but my compassion's starting to dry up. Not that she'd care."
"Hm. I don't think anyone can get pissed at Mabry these days. It's kind of funny, actually. Mab used to be quite fiery and argumentative. I guess being married does mellow you out." She glanced at Amy with searching eyes, as if looking for proof of this statement in her friend.
"Really? There's something I didn't know yet. Maybe it does. I know I've turned into a bigger sap than I was. ...Naw, I think I'm the same. I just...have someone to be sappy with, now. " She gave her friend a silly grin, clasping her hands over her heart. "I swear, sometimes I just have to look at him and I want to squeal and melt into a happy little puddle."
Song smiled indulgently, pleased that Amy was cheering up. Not that it was a hard thing to do, knowing the key to her heart.
"Heh. Nothing better, is there?" The question seemed to give pause to the one who'd spoken it. "Love's odd that way, isn't it? The way it changes one's priorities, sometimes it's hard to judge whether it's good or bad, in the long run... Am I making any sense?"
"You're asking Miss Random Trains of Thought whether that makes sense? Actually, it kinda does." She tilted her head back to study the ceiling. "Imagine if all the villains found true love. Dude. That's kind of frightening."
That earned a snicker,. "Well, it was a villain I happened to be thinking about at the time, but that's beside the point." The humor in her voice faded somewhat, despite her obvious efforts to keep it up. "Or maybe it is the point. I don't know." A flick of her eyes toward the windows said all that needed to be said.
Lowering her head, she watched Song for a moment, biting her lip. I wish...
"I wish," She said aloud, though almost in a whisper. "I wish I could learn all this faster, and be really good at it, so you could go to him. Or I could bring him here. Because it's not just knowing that you miss him, it's feeling that you miss him, and I hate that I can't do anything to help. I hate it when I can't help my friends." Amy swallowed hard, reaching over to pet Yasha again. Damn it, she was not going to start crying. She'd cry and then Song would cry, and poor Yasha would drown.
Song winced. She didn't look near tears. She looked frustrated, more than anything, but there was also the sense that her frustration was only a thin shield covering loneliness. Heartache. But also that the fraction of true frustration in that mask was directed at her own misery. As an optimist, she greatly disliked anything that could make her chronically sad.
"Don't get too worked up over it," she muttered, eyes now fully locked on the window, but this time as if to avoid eye-contact. Even though she wouldn't cry otherwise, if Amy did, it could trigger Song's own sense of empathy back upon herself. It had happened before.
"I'm sorry. I try not to get like this..."
"You shouldn't be apologizing. I need to be practicing more on blocking things out. I've been getting better, but it takes effort. Sometimes it's easier to just...not." Amy shrugged as she gave Yasha one final pat before standing and messing with Song's hair. "Try and smile before I sic Igor on you. You've escaped stuffed Heartless beatings for too long."
She leaned down and hugged her.
"Eep," Song said mildly as her hair was tousled, cringing automatically at first, but relaxing quickly enough and returning the hug. "I'm fine, really. If I can last four months, I can last four more, or however long it takes. Don't..." She hesitated, searching for words. "I don't want you to feel that you have to do this just for me. If you think it will be too much for you, tell me. It's not too late to change your mind."
"No, I'm good right now. I mean, for maybe five minutes I was ready to throw in the towel, and then I got pissed." Amy grinned, pulling away. "I need to keep trying. I can't just...give up. Stubborn that way." She tried to smooth Song's hair back into place, then caught herself, giggling. "Maybe I should just let you fix it. Anyway, if I get too stubborn, Jalen'll be the one in here telling you to put an end to it."
She just shook her head like a dog, settling her mane of hair roughly back into place. Yasha apparently felt left out, because he suddenly had his paws up on her lap and she chuckled, petting him.
"Heh. True enough. I'll just rely on him to be my alarm if I push you too much." She glanced at Amy only briefly, keeping most of her attention on Yasha. "There are basic things I could say, but I think they don't need to be pointed out. I think you know them already. If you're ever unsure, though, let me know."
"I will. I'd better get going anyway, bet his butt's fallen asleep by now." Smirking, she pointed in the direction of the stairs. "I could bet you munny that he's waiting for me."
One more pet for the dear puppy - seriously just this last one - and a joking almost-pat for Song, and then she was out the door, calling to her husband.
Song watched her go, wearing a faint smirk, then gave her dog a hug before pushing him off. "Not a lapdog. How many times do I have to tell you?" She mumbled affectionately. Her right hand moved unbidden to rest on her chest, loosely clutching her own set of rings, but by then she was already reabsorbed in her novel.
Where: Rainbow's End
What: Discussing that oh-so-enlightening test
When: Same night
Dragging herself back up the stairs, Amy rolled her eyes, muttering under her breath. Stupid Lilith, stupid test...what did she want, she was still learning. Pausing for a second, she glanced down the stairs at Jalen, who had followed her part of the way back up. He motioned her to keep going, and for a brief moment she stuck out her tongue before obliging. A few moments later found her back at Song's door, and she stuck her head in.
"I've already ranted to Jalen, but I'm still...pissed, frustrated, annoyed, pick one. We need to talk about it anyway, so here I am again."
Song disengaged herself from her book more quickly this time, and straightened, her head raising in unison with that of the dog who now lay at her feet.
"Come in. Tell me what happened. I'm kind of at a loss, here, to tell the truth."
"What, she didn't gloat? I think I'm shocked." She moved over to the chair she'd been occupying earlier and sank onto the seat, wiggling her fingers at Yasha for a second.
"I was expecting her to be a bitch. And I tried to do what I thought I should be doing, but...it's a lot harder to learn things when the person doing the testing is already prejudiced against you." Rolling her eyes, she shrugged. "I know I still have a lot to learn, and I'm gonna do my best. I just- Ugh, I don't know." Realizing that she had yet to answer the question, she sighed.
"She created a dream-Jalen to screw with me, she showed me Radiant Garden burning down and Eli calling me, and she blew up my grandfather's house. That about covers it."
Yasha sniffed her fingers carefully, then laid his head back down, apparently satisfied that he wasn't needed for guard duty, as it were.
Song's eyebrows raised, but other than that, she didn't look terribly surprised at Amy's words. "And what did you do?"
"I- tried not to let myself get upset over what she was throwing at me. I thought the best thing to do was to try and ignore a lot of it. Emotionally, I mean. I wiped out the whole Radiant Garden illusion. I didn't really know what else to do." She glanced down at a table leg, studying it.
"I made wind blow the smoke away, I...Near the end of it, she asked if I'd ever considered stopping the source of the nightmare, stopping her. Sure, if you don't mind Kentucky Fried Succubus." Amy grinned slightly, though there wasn't much humor in it. "I thought it'd be a bad move to react to what she was doing with anger. Might not have mattered, I don't think she would've approved of anything I did anyway."
Song chewed on her lip thoughtfully before speaking. "Hmm. I wouldn't have attacked her either. Not unless everything else I tried failed. What I would have done, though, is rewritten the illusions. It's one thing to simply erase them. It was your mind, so that wasn't such a hard task. However, it's the choice between waking up from a nightmare or changing the nightmare so that it has a happy conclusion. It is, as I may have mentioned, how I learned to lucidly dream in the first place. What could you have done to fix the things she showed you?"
"Could have dreamed up my own Jalen," She mused, playing with her ring. "Or turned hers into a Care Bear." She giggled before continuing. "I could have made the city into sunshine and green grass." Amy shifted a little, frowning. "There was a lot I could have done in hindsight, but at the time...cripes."
"Yes, all that is true, but it wouldn't even have been necessary to change things so drastically. Take control of her dream Jalen, or put out the fires with heavy rain. I don't know what Lilith's expectations are, but I encourage as much change as possible. However... sometimes you have to play by someone else's rules, even in a dream, and in cases like that, you might have to work with what you're given."
She reached under the table and beckoned Yasha to move to her side and sit up so she could stroke his head, now that she'd been filled in roughly on what had happened, she seemed completely at ease again.
"To be honest, I didn't even want to touch her version of him. I mean, I knew he wasn't real so I didn't really feel anything towards him- well, that part's not exactly true. I was thrown off a bit at one point and I had to straighten myself out, and once that was done I didn't care. It was just an empty shadow." Mulling this over for a second, Amy pushed her glasses up a little higher. "I think Lilith had a better time keeping her rules to herself. Next time I'll do better, but may 'next time' be a hell of a long time from now."
Song nodded understandingly, reminded of a similar circumstance. "Maleficent did that to me, you know, when I was trying to help Ryuu with her phylactery. Made a dream-Xemnas, that is. It felt the same as what you described. As for next time..." She paused to give her dog a good scratch behind the ears. "Don't be too averse to another round soon. At least, relatively soon. Lilith will not be impressed if the one encounter scares you away from the whole thing for too long, and she would be right in that opinion."
"I'd like to think I don't give a damn what she thinks of me, but of course, on some level I'm probably worried about it. Whatever." She leaned forward, reaching a hand out to Yasha. "Hey puppy. Hey." Still focused on the dog, she spoke again.
"I don't like her magic. What she put us to sleep with, I mean. It felt weird. I can't articulate it more than that, and I know I can't change it, but I felt like saying it."
Yasha's ears lay meekly flat but he wagged his tail a little, stretching his neck to sniff her hand again.
Song gave another slight nod at the comment. "Well, she is a demon, born to seduce men and drain their energy. Even when she doesn't intend harm, I'm sure there's always a lingering sense of that."
Amy smiled a little, moving her hand to pat his head gently. "Yeah, well, maybe it was that. I dunno. Like I said. ...I was crying on Jalen, so you're lucky to be the second one I'm talking to. Think I ruined his shirt."
Yasha seemed to approve greatly of this, and edged closer so that she could reach him more easily. His movements were distinctly submissive.
Once again, Song seemed to mimic him in expression, though hers was of compassion. "I'm sorry she got to you that much... It was not what I expected, I promise."
"I'm mostly mad at myself for letting her get to me at all. It wasn't even the illusions that did it, or her...touching her version of Jalen..." And here she found herself trying not to twitch anyway. "Just some stuff said at the very end of things. Me being insecure. Bah." She continued to pet Yasha, focusing on that and not the sudden urge to go see what Jalen was doing. Chances were he was sitting at the bottom of the stairs waiting for her, anyway.
"She expected too much from you. I told her you were still learning. But, well... " She glanced at the door, knowing that Jalen was somewhere beyond. "You know how she is about other women. Especially ones with successful love-lives! Tch. I feel for her, but her bitterness isn't doing any good for herself or anyone else."
"I don't see her getting pissed at Mabry. Thank God." Pulling away, she sat back, playing with her ring again. "I feel bad for her too, but my compassion's starting to dry up. Not that she'd care."
"Hm. I don't think anyone can get pissed at Mabry these days. It's kind of funny, actually. Mab used to be quite fiery and argumentative. I guess being married does mellow you out." She glanced at Amy with searching eyes, as if looking for proof of this statement in her friend.
"Really? There's something I didn't know yet. Maybe it does. I know I've turned into a bigger sap than I was. ...Naw, I think I'm the same. I just...have someone to be sappy with, now. " She gave her friend a silly grin, clasping her hands over her heart. "I swear, sometimes I just have to look at him and I want to squeal and melt into a happy little puddle."
Song smiled indulgently, pleased that Amy was cheering up. Not that it was a hard thing to do, knowing the key to her heart.
"Heh. Nothing better, is there?" The question seemed to give pause to the one who'd spoken it. "Love's odd that way, isn't it? The way it changes one's priorities, sometimes it's hard to judge whether it's good or bad, in the long run... Am I making any sense?"
"You're asking Miss Random Trains of Thought whether that makes sense? Actually, it kinda does." She tilted her head back to study the ceiling. "Imagine if all the villains found true love. Dude. That's kind of frightening."
That earned a snicker,. "Well, it was a villain I happened to be thinking about at the time, but that's beside the point." The humor in her voice faded somewhat, despite her obvious efforts to keep it up. "Or maybe it is the point. I don't know." A flick of her eyes toward the windows said all that needed to be said.
Lowering her head, she watched Song for a moment, biting her lip. I wish...
"I wish," She said aloud, though almost in a whisper. "I wish I could learn all this faster, and be really good at it, so you could go to him. Or I could bring him here. Because it's not just knowing that you miss him, it's feeling that you miss him, and I hate that I can't do anything to help. I hate it when I can't help my friends." Amy swallowed hard, reaching over to pet Yasha again. Damn it, she was not going to start crying. She'd cry and then Song would cry, and poor Yasha would drown.
Song winced. She didn't look near tears. She looked frustrated, more than anything, but there was also the sense that her frustration was only a thin shield covering loneliness. Heartache. But also that the fraction of true frustration in that mask was directed at her own misery. As an optimist, she greatly disliked anything that could make her chronically sad.
"Don't get too worked up over it," she muttered, eyes now fully locked on the window, but this time as if to avoid eye-contact. Even though she wouldn't cry otherwise, if Amy did, it could trigger Song's own sense of empathy back upon herself. It had happened before.
"I'm sorry. I try not to get like this..."
"You shouldn't be apologizing. I need to be practicing more on blocking things out. I've been getting better, but it takes effort. Sometimes it's easier to just...not." Amy shrugged as she gave Yasha one final pat before standing and messing with Song's hair. "Try and smile before I sic Igor on you. You've escaped stuffed Heartless beatings for too long."
She leaned down and hugged her.
"Eep," Song said mildly as her hair was tousled, cringing automatically at first, but relaxing quickly enough and returning the hug. "I'm fine, really. If I can last four months, I can last four more, or however long it takes. Don't..." She hesitated, searching for words. "I don't want you to feel that you have to do this just for me. If you think it will be too much for you, tell me. It's not too late to change your mind."
"No, I'm good right now. I mean, for maybe five minutes I was ready to throw in the towel, and then I got pissed." Amy grinned, pulling away. "I need to keep trying. I can't just...give up. Stubborn that way." She tried to smooth Song's hair back into place, then caught herself, giggling. "Maybe I should just let you fix it. Anyway, if I get too stubborn, Jalen'll be the one in here telling you to put an end to it."
She just shook her head like a dog, settling her mane of hair roughly back into place. Yasha apparently felt left out, because he suddenly had his paws up on her lap and she chuckled, petting him.
"Heh. True enough. I'll just rely on him to be my alarm if I push you too much." She glanced at Amy only briefly, keeping most of her attention on Yasha. "There are basic things I could say, but I think they don't need to be pointed out. I think you know them already. If you're ever unsure, though, let me know."
"I will. I'd better get going anyway, bet his butt's fallen asleep by now." Smirking, she pointed in the direction of the stairs. "I could bet you munny that he's waiting for me."
One more pet for the dear puppy - seriously just this last one - and a joking almost-pat for Song, and then she was out the door, calling to her husband.
Song watched her go, wearing a faint smirk, then gave her dog a hug before pushing him off. "Not a lapdog. How many times do I have to tell you?" She mumbled affectionately. Her right hand moved unbidden to rest on her chest, loosely clutching her own set of rings, but by then she was already reabsorbed in her novel.
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[OOC]
Date: 2009-05-12 08:19 pm (UTC)Re: [OOC]
Date: 2009-05-12 08:49 pm (UTC)Re: [OOC]
Date: 2009-05-12 10:26 pm (UTC)Why do I get the feeling that I'll soon be sharing Amy's craving for Kentucky Fried Succubus?
/won't be logging out >.>/
Date: 2009-05-13 07:55 pm (UTC)Chase: "so what are you going to do next?"
me: "I don't know"
Chase: "Calum's not planning anything? What about Lilith?"
me: "I guess we'll see"
Chase: "...you have no idea, do you?"
me: :DDDDD
sorry, folks - hate to disappoint, but I don't plot things way ahead of time /goes with the flow, huzzah!/
no subject
Date: 2009-05-14 03:10 am (UTC)