recolle | [OPEN] ❁ don't let it get the best of you, you'll make it out alive

It's trying to trick you.

[ kyouko's voice is calm and steady despite the dream (the memory?), and as bluntly honest as she ever is. there's no judgement in that tone, and she says it because this is the nightmare itself, she thinks. if he looks over, her violet eyes are focused on him, and the mirror. ]

...You don't have to let it.

[He can't help but frown slightly at the sight of the girl joining him on the rooftop, mildly perplexed by this new development. It's right but it's wrong; yes, there ought to be someone up here with him, but it's not supposed to be a girl...maybe, and it puts this encounter just enough into the uncanny valley that he can't help but hesitate and try to make sense of it.]

It's not a trick. It's a trade.

[That's...right, isn't it? A trade. Yes, that's right, the mirror will let him fix this, take responsibility...

There's a trade to be made, somehow, and the responsibility is his to make it.]

But if I don't do it soon, it'll be too late.

An actual "trade" wouldn't be trying to hard to get you to make it, would it?

[ she doesn't know what using the mirror will do, or what it is meant to do. it is, she thinks, probably a piece of another lifetime - and one that makes no sense to her at all.

still. standing there quiet and unrelenting is impossible, because where else is she to go? so she keeps speaking. ]

What is the trade meant to do, then?

[He frowns, brow furrowing. There's something about this conversation that nags at him, something that he can't quite seem to reach unless he focuses very deliberately on it. It's something about hospitals — no, doctors, a conversation about doctors — something about the kind of person you would want to find in a hospital.

That's where he is, the rooftop of a hospital. And his mother is dying, but he can save her.

At least, he hopes he can save her.

That's the moment, the one when his dreaming mind finds and latches onto the word hope, that something jars free, and it occurs to him that of the various voices filling this dream, one of them is the voice of reason, and it isn't him.]

I don't remember.

[Naive, to follow through with something and not know the consequences, isn't it? Is there reason to be found in that?]

But if I use it, she can live. If the...moonlight...

[Does what? If the moonlight does what? It's all so hazy, he can't quite recall.]

...Would she want you to? Not the person trying to get you to make a trade now.

[ the moonlight, the mirror, and something to let someone else live.

kirigiri steps closer to the edge of the roof and peers off of it, frowning, before she turns back to eye the mirror. ]

But the person you truly want to save. Would she want you to?

...She would want to live. Who wouldn't want to live, instead of dying?

[But no, that's not right. The words feel wrong in his mouth, ill-fitted, like marbles on his tongue.

In the distance, as if through water and from very far away, someone can be heard faintly yelling: Yeah, well, it doesn't make sense rescuing your mom so she can spend the whole life mourning the death of her son!

He looks up, abrupt, and his gaze snaps from Kirigiri to come to rest on the figure in the bed.

I never asked for you, she'd said. Is that...the kind of mother who would mourn a son...?]

She...she...

Doesn't it depend on the person, and the trade? If it's for a life...

[ she doesn't know the price until she hears the faint yelling. but that's enough. ]

...I think there are plenty of people who wouldn't want someone they love to die in their stead. Rather, there are those whose wish would be "I want you to live for me", or..."Let's find a way to live on together".

[ ... ]

Which sort of person is she?

[He stills, eyes going unfocused for a moment as the options that Kirigiri presents seem to take shape in his subconscious, and in his mind's eye he catches a glimpse of a pair of school uniforms, one pink and one green — two boys, side by side —

One of them, he remembers, made that very wish: I want you to live for me.
The other...is the one who screamed no, who said take me instead, who —

Who in the end, found the way for all of them to live on, together.

Which sort of person is the woman in the bed? Maybe he can't answer that question yet. But he knows what sort of person each of those two boys were, and it sends him reeling from the memory and the magnitude of the recognition.]

She's not either one of them.

[In the bed, the woman sits bolt upright, like she's been shocked, and Fawkes's voice is low.]

And she is not my mother.

Edited (this joke is funny every fucking time so i couldn't resist) 2017-10-09 23:56 (UTC)

[ it earns the smallest possible fucking smile. because what is actually smiling like a normal person, i guess. ]

The mirror?

[ she means: is that the mirror, and does smashing it sound like a good idea to him? because she's pro smashing the mysterious magical mirror. ]

[Oh. Now there's an idea, isn't it? The mirror is sort of made to be smashed, somehow — or at least, he knows consciously that it ought to be, and here in this dream, it decidedly is not...]

It's neither good nor evil. It only does as it's asked. But it sows evil wherever it goes, just the same, because of how it tempts the desperate to use it.

[He gets up slowly, rising to his feet and dusting his knees off.]

Like me. Desperation — that must have been what it was.

In that case, perhaps the way to end this is to remove the possibility it could tempt anyone else in this place?

[ it seems logical, to her, even if it were outside of a dream. ]

...Temptation isn't a thing people are good at refusing, often.

[He stares at the mirror a minute, considering what she's said, and ultimately decides that no, she's right. Maybe the end of this is to remove it, shatter it. In the end, it shatters, and so maybe speeding that inevitability along is the way out.

And yet, dream logic being what it is, he realizes something without any basis for intuiting it, and turns to her quietly.]

You need to do it. It can't — it's not supposed to be me. It's the person I'm with.

[He picks up the mirror, holding it loosely in his hand with the backing against his palm.]

To take aim, and...bang. That's all you need to do. I don't know how, but I'm certain of it.

Take aim...?

[ take aim, bang. it doesn't sound like a kick, or throwing it.

after a heartbeat, she makes a fingerguns gesture at the mirror. it's kit's dream; he clearly knows better than kyouko.

no one else will ever know... ]

[And because it's his dream, it's precisely the right answer. Though by all rights and common sense, there's no chance that pointing a finger and making a sound with your mouth should be able to do anything —

And yet when she does, all the criteria that apparently matter are satisfied. The person he's with points and shoots, and in his hand the mirror inexplicably shatters once again.

It prompts a scream from the woman in the bed — not out of anguish or pain, but seemingly out of abject frustration, and for a few seconds the world seems to distort and blur before snapping back into focus.

When it does, she's gone, and they're alone on the rooftop. But the moonlight overhead is no longer ominous and oppressive, and there's darkness visible in the penumbras of the rooftop's expanse that hadn't been there before.]

[ it's a little calmer, and kyouko isn't certain how it worked, but she's glad it did. she doesn't know how to wake up, or if she hasn't quite finished what needs to be done -

but she glances sideways, and there's a soft, thoughtful frown on her face. ]

- that mirror. Has it ever granted a wish without causing trouble?

...I don't think so. It used to be kept under lock and key, with two other artifacts of similarly...troublesome qualifies.

[Two others that he'd helped steal, along with this one. But he'd only wanted this mirror, in the end. Only this one, for what it could do.]

We don't stay here; not for much longer, at least. I think when we both walk to the edge of the roof, that will be the end of it.

All right. [ she nods, once. there doesn't seem to be a reason to draw things out, so she'll immediately head to the edge of the roof, figuring he knows the rules better than she does.

...maybe someone else would offer some sort of comfort at this juncture, but he got kyouko instead. ]

[OPEN] ❁ don't let it get the best of you, you'll make it out alive

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the best edit

a vital addition

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