video; unseelie locked

[needmetoo]

Um... I know people are probably still busy helping banshees and I'm sorry if I'm interrupting that, but I wanted to ask something. What are some other ways you use to contact people when the ways you have aren't working?

[Whatever you might be thinking, it's probably wrong. Xion just happens to have one particular friend who her messages don't seem to be reaching. He'd talked to her just before she'd left on her trip with Riku and the others, and now she's trying to do a better job of checking in than she did during her quest to Leathann.]

And if anybody sees Yuri, let him know I'm doing okay and want to talk to him.

Comments

[heralding]

... If this is about Yuri, I haven't been able to reach him, either. [And, well, she mentioned Yuri, so being Lightning she just goes for it.]

[needmetoo]

You too?

[On one hand it's reassuring to know that it's not just her. On the other, it increases her concern a bit.]

It's really strange. I hope he's okay.

[If he got into another fight...]

[heralding]

I'll ask Hiro if he's seen him. He might be the next best person to have a good idea.

[But if not him, then they really should get to worrying. Yuri takes care of himself well enough, but ...]

[needmetoo]

Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.

[Xion hadn't realized Hiro and Yuri talked to each other, but it's she's... relieved to hear.]

I saw him almost a couple weeks ago, right after the Shuck told us to help the banshees. He was fine then.

[heralding]

Where were you at then? [That may be a clue.]

[needmetoo]

We were both in Leathann. I'd just finished doing the deliveries I was asked to. [She hesitates.] And... other stuff happened, but I'll tell you later. [Whatever Hiro says about being careful about who she trusts, she thinks she can with Lightning. Just... not here.] It shouldn't have anything to do with this anyway. I'm not sure if he wanted to stay there much longer but... I don't remember if he said where he was going.

[She frowns. Rather a crucial oversight, in retrospect.]

[heralding]

He may have been headed back for the audience. [That she had missed herself. Oh, the Shuck's declaration made its way to her. Of course it did, but she had no desire to see the monarchs in the flesh.]

I'll keep an eye out for him. Let me know if you hear anything different.

(1/2)

[needmetoo]

Maybe....

[Given the shared mutual disdain the three of them had had for the monarchs, Xion isn't so sure. But still, it was possible. She hesitates.]

Let me know too.

[needmetoo]

[It's several hours later, after her conversation with Clarke, that Lightning gets another message from the locket. This time for her specifically.

Her voice is flat, dead.]

He's gone. Clarke said so. He... [She cuts herself off, trying to find the words she wanted. They don't come.] He's gone.

[heralding]

[There is a long stretch of silence on her end. Oh, she's definitely there. That much is certain.]

He was a good friend, Xion. And we can't just forget him. [Still, these words are spoken awkwardly. Lightning has lost a great deal in her life, but she had come to the end with all her friends.

Something tells her that it won't be the same here.]

[needmetoo]

[In some ways, talking to Lightning is easier. She doesn't have to explain nearly as much about who Yuri was or what he'd done for her. Lightning already knows. She was there.]

I won't. Never.

[She had so few memories now that the Heartless took them away from her, and her memories of Yuri were all the more precious now.]

He's not even home. He's- he's trapped, between our worlds. And there's nothing we can do.

[It's not fair it's not fair it's not fair.]

[heralding]

Trapped ... [Trapped. The hopelessness is there. That answers her curiosity: can she just go home, instead of waiting for the inevitable? Can she ensure that a new world is born? Or is that all hopeless? Now she knows. She doesn't speak as much to Xion, but it tells her of the significance of her role here.]

Right now, we can't. But I'm sure we'll find a way.

We have to.

[needmetoo]

[There's a certain amount of hopelessness weighing her own thoughts down. A part of her wants to ask how, petulant and self-defeating. But she doesn't really want to think it's hopeless. And just like that, something occurs to her. It's a half-desperate thing, and yet...]

Back home, we could use these special corridors go between worlds. I can't use them here but... maybe I can ask for them back.

[She may not like the monarchs, but she would be willing to go to them, for this.]

Even if I couldn't go home, maybe I could find him, at least.

[If he's trapped between worlds and she could somehow access that place...]

[heralding]

... To be brought into a space like that isn't safe. And it's even more difficult to leave.

[Though Lightning isn't certain that it's like Valhalla—in fact, it might be closer to the Historia Crux—she thinks it is likely that it's unsafe to go there.]

I think it wouldn't be bad to look, but I wouldn't trust the gods of this world to allow you to enter that space freely. [And if she doesn't enter it freely, it might mean that she's meant to be lost to this world, too.]

Let's consider that path, but others, too. [Lightning has lost friends before. She hadn't known Yuri as well as she knew Fang and Vanille, but that doesn't make him any less someone she wants to save.

But she doesn't want to lose Xion in the process.]

[needmetoo]

The Corridors aren't safe either, really. It's why we always have to wear our coats when we use them.

[The Coat, Lightning might remember, as the one that she was wearing on the night they had both arrived.

It's her kind of way of saying that she can handle it. Or at least she's not... totally a novice. Moving between worlds was a risky business, no matter where you were from, really.]

You think we could get trapped there, if we went there to look for him?

[It should be more of an "I" than a "we," most likely, and yet as looking for Yuri is something they're undertaking together, it feels... weird to refer to it singularly.]

[heralding]

I might be looking at it the wrong way, [she admits.] But if the monarchs need us to fight, wouldn't they just grant you that power and have you bring him back? And the rest of the people who've been lost, too.

Gods are powerful beings. [That's kind of the problem. And even if she's one herself ...] So we'd have to consider ourselves in comparison.

[needmetoo]

Hmmm...

[That does... sort of raise a good point.]

Clarke said that it's the monarchs from the other court that break the ties. Maybe that make them hard to find?

[Truthfully she doesn't quite understand all of what Lightning means, about comparing and considering themselves. All she can really think about is what she can do.]

We can still ask...

[There's an unspoken, hesitant, "right?" at the end of that. She may not trust the monarchs, but she's willing to do that. For her friends, she's willing to do that.]

[heralding]

You can ask. It's worth a shot. ["You" and not "we." It's not that she doesn't want to go there, but she doesn't want to ask the monarchs for any favors. If she has to go find Yuri, she'll make her own way to do it.]