guidetoblivion: (♞ 004)
Riku ("Ansem") ([personal profile] guidetoblivion) wrote in [community profile] nysalogs2018-01-17 02:55 pm

[open]

Who: Riku ([personal profile] guidetoblivion) & Open
What: Riku has a breakdown, gets a permanent job and other shenanigans
When: first prompt is backdated to Christmas Day, the rest take place during January
Where: Thesa station, Wyver
Warning(s): Sadness, overuse of the word "Darkness"

[ A – Stasis Unit | Christmas Day, backdated to more or less right after this thread | open ]

[Riku would have come here anyway, he will figure later, to visit Sora and Kairi and spent a moment on thinking about everything that's transpired to get them to the point they are at now (a year past, at Christmas, he had sat at the foot of Sora's pod in the mansion of Twilight Town and done exactly that too).

Now, he tries to keep his thoughts in order as he races a long the corridors of the Stasis Unit, head turning from side to side as though he was searching faces, looking for someone familiar. It's been over a year and a half since he's last seen them, since he left the Islands behind… but he knows, he'd know his parents anywhere.

Would surely recognizes the sense of their hearts the same way he'll always recognize Sora or Kairi.

He doesn't find them.

Hours later, he finally stops looking when he stumbles across one particular person in stasis – slightly out of breath, disbelieve open on his face; he's heard that sometimes even people who are supposed to be dead were rescued by the Natha, but–]


Of all the people-

[His hands clench just at the scent of Zexion's darkness, he can feel bile rising in his throat as memories replay before his mind's eye ("And who threw away those friends? Maybe it's your own actions that you've forgotten. You destroyed your home!") – and maybe it's not his fault this time; nobody has been able to do anything about the Storm, but–

The smell of Darkness is so thick around him, the shadows darkening around him, a noise of rage and despair strangling in his throat – he hardly notices the way his left hand pulls back, black-blue fire sparking at his palm–

Then abruptly, he extinguishes the flame and lets himself sink to the ground, one knee drawing up before he drops his forehead against it.

It would be so easy, a faint buzz in the back of his heart whispers, to become somebody else. To shed 'Riku' for a different face, that nobody knows yet, for powers that are stronger than his owns, that might even help put an end to the Storm if he just were to use them to their full extend… and maybe then all the thoughts, the pain will end.

All he has to do is to slip off the damn blindfold and give himself to Ansem's Darkness for good.

Riku doesn't.

Instead he tries to let his breathing calm down, in spite of the anger he still feels at the unfairness of it all – he's known that there had to be many lives lost despite the Natha's attempts to save as many as possible, but it hadn't felt personal until now, until he's realized that he hadn't been able to find one single familiar face from the Islands aside of Sora and Kairi.

After a moment he reaches into his coat's pocket, pulling out a spherical object and turning it in his hands.]


…Maybe I have a use for this after all.


[ B – Altar of Volkkra | mid-January | open to visitors and other employees ]

[Admittedly, when Riku had decided to sign up with the Altar he hadn't quite expected the cleaning chores coming his way, but ultimately he has to admit that it makes sense… he is the lowest on the ladder as far as workers go and he can see how a vast labyrinth like the main temple would need constant upkeep.

He does his work without complaints, coming in during the early morning and immediately reaching for his broom while he makes his way through the endless seeming corridors. Maybe in a few weeks he'll stop getting lost all the time, he thinks. Hopes, really.

In the late afternoon, he always makes sure to put an hour or three into studying the old scrolls the shamans allow him access to, fingers carefully running across the scripts as he tries to deceiver the dusty language used by the Wyver. Magic theory is a dry subject, but it's something he's certainly never been taught… and just maybe, that will be the key to helping him grow better

Whether you come across him while he's busy with either task – he'll always be up to showing any visitors around (hopefully without getting them lost too badly)… or for a chat with a fellow co-workers.]



[ C – Wyver/Wildcard | January | open ]

[When he isn't cleaning or studying, Riku can sometimes be caught on small errants around the North End, or sitting on top of the hut he's rented in the Old City, watching the night sky... perhaps come by to say hello?]
abyssalflame: (thoughtfully)

[personal profile] abyssalflame 2018-01-26 03:18 am (UTC)(link)
[He can't help it; the admission strikes a chord in Sid, harder than he's probably willing to admit aloud. It moves him enough to at least draw a little closer, to look over the pods Riku seems so drawn to. At least those who were saved have a chance to perhaps wake up one day, but those who are unaccounted for aren't so lucky.

He has been through this song and dance before, but hells if he knows what to tell someone who hasn't. He sets a hand on the railing and looks away.]


...And yet, it's cold comfort, isn't it? Take care not to fall into the abyss without a guiding hand to lift you out.