recolle | (OPEN) Because I danced...

Entry tags:

(OPEN) Because I danced...

WHO: Mariko and YOU
WHERE: Her various dreamscapes
WHEN: Backdated to August 21 because I'm bad at this.
WHAT: Mariko has to work through some STUFF, y'all
WARNINGS: Either mentioned or will possibly come up: parent death, car accidents and grisly/bloody joint injury.

[HOO BOY this is late, but I hope you enjoy. Mariko is going to half-fail in her recovery, so if you want to chat about that or if you have any questions either inbox me here or

wingedbeastie .]

The room you wake up in is dark, save for the eerily glowing path leading through the room. If you strain your eyes, you can see desks and chairs, the far wall covered in monitors - lit with with matrix green writing as code flickers through the screens. Underfoot, a mass of bubbles races by as if drawn to another destination by gravity.

Before you the closest monitor on the closest desk flickers with a textbox.

Loading...

10 percent loaded - The night bird calls out in sadness [CW: Eventual mention, description and effects of a car accident, parent death]

It’s summer, humid and uncomfortable.

Fortunately, the japanese countryside is beautiful and despite the heat, it’s easy to get lost in the view of the hillside. Sunset is kind to the hills and fields, washing everything in a haze of fiery red-orange light and leaves a golden cast on the nearby river.

As the incline evens out, there is something of a pronounced riverbank and there a girl walks - her brown hair is up in a ponytail, hair short enough that it poofs an inch or two past the elastic. She’s still young, the beginnings of a growth spurt showing in not quite gawky limbs. She’s dressed simply - a tank top riddled with music notes, shorts and carries sneakers as she walks barefoot. Everything about her manner says the heat has has gotten to her - the way the heels of the sneakers dangle on her first two fingers, the lazy way turns stones over with her feet as she assesses them.

When she finds a suitable stone, she reaches down and grabs it. There’s no excited or joyful noise, her eyes move straight to the water and she uses her fingers to assess the rock further. Sometimes, she drops the rock with a bitter sounding huff and goes back to her lackadaisical search. Most of the time, she turns the stone in her hand to make sure the curve settles just right in her grip just like Ma-

Just like she was taught. She throws hard, far too hard for it to be a game and when it’s right - she watches the stone skip clear to the other side of the river. When the rock doesn’t make it past a skip or two, or even worse when it lands in the water with an abortive ‘plunk’, the scowl returns even darker; that’s the face you recognize.

Mariko, age twelve.

60 percent loaded - The Moon fails to shine down on either day or night. [CW: Description of gore]

It’s a wedding. An actual wedding.

Mariko walks down the aisle, gentle looking and not a hair out of place in the white kimono and headress. Each side of the aisle is full, each seat occupied with family, friends and strangers. It’s where you find yourself as she continues the procession, expression carefully neutral. In the front rows, Derek and Togusa’’s distinctive hair can be seen, but the men next to Togusa - the six of them seem out of focus, some more than others. There are two women similarly unclear, but suddenly focus is drawn to the officiant and the man before him.

The man is non-descript, Japanese by appearance and the traditional black kimono, so blank it feels easy to put another face to his body. Still he seems pleased to be here. Not happy - just pleased. Then Mariko takes a slow shuddering breath that feels like it echoes in the skull of anyone who can hear it. The guests don’t seem phased and there is a compulsion to look back at Mariko.

She’s in a splendid white gown, veil ending tastefully at where her bob would usually sit. At the altar stands Matthew Murdock, red and white cane in hand, red-tinted sunglasses ever present. He smiles, turning the cane restlessly in hands as he waits for her, faithfully. Mariko chuckles, uneasy but entertained and it feels like it should draw attention to her.

She’s in a simple pale purple dress, hair just like always and she’s pressing her lips together because this is kind of ridiculous. Next to the officiant stands Tatsuo, hair a mess as always. The suit he has isn’t the fanciest, but he seems breathless like he was just dragged in on a whirlwind.

A gunshot deafens everyone present, and the guests scatter. The eight who exist here in dubious clarity turn in perfect unison to see Mariko in jeans, a plain shirt and her leather jacket over it, trained on a man who falls out of the sky just far enough away to be unreachable - his ankle a ruined, shattered mess and what could only be his foot leading your eye to where he would likely land.

But Mariko screams and drops the gun and as it clatters away - her three grooms stand shoulder to shoulder, nothing but damnation in their eyes - shining in the holes of oni masks.

The first groom speaks, blue mask rendering his voice neutral, almost computer-like .“You only love my grief. You don’t care about being happy with me.”

“Hideo, that’s not - I…” her voice is weak, tears silencing protest.

The second groom speaks, his mask a red-tinged black - voice frustrated and hoarse from yelling. “I was terrified for us and you just wanted me to enable you!”

“You never fucking listen to me, Matt!” her tears burn slowly down flushed cheeks.

The third groom speaks, in a placid, unremarkable tone through a white mask that looks like it was waved through smoke. “I’m just comfortable, I guess. Easy to keep. Easy to let go.”

“Tatsuo” her sob is short and shocked before she takes an impossibly long breath in and draws herself up to full height.

Mariko, age twentysomething, stands at the beginning of the aisle, her three Oni grooms at the other end and watching.

91 perc -- Data corruption. Please let the dawn be waiting in the Underworld

A mass of wires sits on what can only be described as a tech throne, the cables wind so smoothly into what looks like an intentional weaving. In front of it, as if to block interference, stands Mariko in three incarnations. The child met earlier is on the left, her eyes full of suspicion and heartbreak. One the right is the near-bride, frustrated and exhausted. In the middle stands Mariko as you know here - or not quite. Dressed in riot gear so dark it seems to suck in light, something in the ceiling seems to cast a shadow on her. The shadow obscures her, making her hair and eyes darker in the absence of proper light. She’s the first one to address you, interloper, in a voice that sounds more accustomed to giving orders than conversation.

“For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears...”

Little Mariko speaks next, fearless and clear - the way only kids can manage. “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.”

Near-Wife Mariko speaks next, tired and wanting this to be over. “When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.”

They stand together, hands clasped and fingers twisted together impossibly but between the gaps of their bodies, the knotted wires on the throne can be seen.

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Mariko cracks a weak smile despite herself, because any adult who would laugh instead of yell at her for being unladylike was okay in her book.

"Grown-ups." she says slyly, shrugging a little. "They forget I'm around sometimes so I hear all kinds of stuff when they think I can't hear them."

She throws the rock, skipping it along the surface of the water.

"Hi James." Pointedly not giving her name, her eyes widen a little - it's hard to tell if it's excitement or fear. "Are you from the military base?"

He returns the sly grin. "That's grown-ups for you--always underestimating."

He watches the rock skip across the water. It seems to be going further than her earlier attempts. "You mean Fort McCoy? Yeah, I live there."

That's not typically information he'd forfeit, not even to a child, but it's already fairly common knowledge to many people, apparently, that James lives in Fort McCoy. Saying it now doesn't exactly reveal anything.

The way he answers gives her pause, but she clearly isn't sure what to do with the information. Lives there, but maybe not works? She looks at him again, head cocking from one side to the other but ultimately she leaves it alone.

"Does your arm hurt?"

It's a rude question, but her fascination with it pulls her from the morose mood she'd been in. Mariko does have the good grace to flush after she asks him, eyes going to the ground in search of another rock.

"You don't have to answer, I just never saw one that look like that before."

He doesn't mind the question--in fact, he was kind of expecting it. Or at least, some kind of question about his arm in general. James had caught her staring at it earlier, and he can't blame her. It is very distinctive.

"No, it doesn't hurt at all."

He bends down to pick up a rock of his own with that arm, and skips it across the water as well. It goes far--far enough that it's hard to tell if it finally sank or if it's just skipped out of sight in the distance. Not that he's trying to show off, really, but he can put a damn good spin on a pebble, for whatever that counts.

"Oh...okay."

Mariko watches him, watches as he skips the stone and she can't help but marvel at his technique. It disappeared! Like it went all the way!

"Whoa..."

She reconsiders her assessment of him, before picking up another rock and throwing - doing her best to mimic his throw. Three skips. Hmmm.

"Do you...miss your arm? Like your old one..."

She tries to play off the invasive question by refusing to make eye contact with him, frowning and rolling her left shoulder.

His response is light and casual. "No."

And after a few moments of consideration--is this something he should admit to? Would he be giving away too much information? Would it even matter if he did?--he continues.

"It's...been so long, I don't remember what it was like to have a normal, flesh and blood arm. This"--he holds up his hand and flexes the fingers--"is how it's always been, as far back as I can remember. Nothing to miss."

"I forget stuff too." She supplies quickly, wincing a little and clutching her shoulder. "Or maybe it's like something should be there even though I know it isn't."

Her voice seems to lower momentarily, as she stills as motionless as the surface of the water. Everything is still - the birds are quiet and it seems like all the world has stopped.

"I feel like I forgot something important."

God, he is so bad at offering advice or consoling people--doubly so when it comes to children. James stands awkwardly in the silent stillness, almost breathless as he tries to figure out what to say to that.

"What makes you think it's so important? How can you tell?"

"I dunno. It feels like..."

She scowls, her gaze going distant as emergency vehicle lights reflect in the surface of the water.If she tells him what it feels like, then it makes it real and she doesn't want this to be real- everything changing and her and papa feeling so awful all the time.

"It feels like if I don't remember I won't be able to breathe anymore."

He's silent for a moment.

"I don't think you have to worry about that. There's a lot I don't remember, and I can breathe just fine."

"No, I mean..."

She scowls again, balling her fists and fighting to keep still with every fiber of her being. On the air, indistinct chatter can be heard: 'Poor thing' and 'recovery time' and 'it's a shame' discernible above the din. Each phase seems to make little Mariko a little more angry, a little more frustrated, a little more sad until she snaps with a stomp of a foot and a withering glare at James -- as if this was his fault.

"I don't want to forget my mom!"

It comes out in a rush and she covers her mouth just as fast, sobbing as she drops to the ground. The crying is hard to discern, save for the rush of gasping air she takes between sobs - but as she curls up, it's not hard to see other reasons for her tears.

Her shoulder is so swollen it's a wonder that it had gone unnoticed. The cast of red and blue light on her body seems to make it look worse.

"It hurts...it hurts...it hurts...."

Oh god. He can barely handle a young girl even in a calm state, he is absolutely out of his depth with...whatever this is. He can figure out that something happened to her mom--probably a serious injury or even death--but he doesn't know what to say. Condolences feel empty--and hypocritical, coming from him.

At the very least, though, he sees the swollen shoulder and figures that's something he can work with. That's a tangible, physical injury with a direct solution. One that doesn't require him to dig heavily into emotions or whether he should even discuss them.

"...there's an ambulance there, I think." It's hard to tell from here, when he can only see the lights--but he's guessing ambulance and not just police car. "You should go see them, they can fix your shoulder."

Mariko nods to his instruction, as EMTs come rushing to her in his periphery. The sound of metal being wrenched is distant as they reach the girl. Their rescue moves in impressions, she cries as they pull her away and the lights of the ambulance flicker faster until they become a violet pulse. Violet becomes white and the light obscures his vision.

It seems the dream has moved on, details filling in the featureless landscape impossibly fast. Before he knows it, the white is not a light but a dress - one that a Mariko closer in age to the one he met. The dream proceeds with him as part of the crowd until it reaches it's completion and only he's left standing in the seating area watching as Mariko stares down her three grooms. His presence is distracting enough that she turns to look at him, confused.

"James? You weren't..." she halfway begins before the man in the blue mask speaks.

"Another 'friend' of yours?"

A lot of stuff is suddenly happening, and James is so caught up in it that he ends up doing nothing but letting it all happen around him. By the time he's the only one left standing in the audience of this wedding, James looks just as confused as Mariko does. He looks over at the blue masked man.

"I'm not going to interrupt the marriage, if that's what you're asking."

The man in the masks laughs and it makes Mariko's blood run cold.

"It's nothing she hasn't done herself."

Mariko makes an abortive noise in the back of her throat, looking ready spit a tack. Blue mask begins to fade away in a column of blue smoke, the first thing dissipating being the mask itself. She turns to James when she's sure there's no more commentary from the other two, sighing.

"Sorry you're getting dragged into all this."

James shrugs.

"It's not my wedding." He looks around at whatever is left of it. "I'm guessing this isn't how it was supposed to go."

"No, it's not."

It didn't go at all. Not that she'd share that with James, who more than likely got his fill of overly personal information in the body swap. She sighs and averts her eyes from Matt and Tatsuo. Neither of those are feelings she wants to deal with and she wants to deal with them even less with a witness around.

That's just like you. Red mask steps forward, frustration bleeding off of him in waves. It's not going your way so you don't want to play anymore.

Mariko scowls darkly, forcing her attention to James and not the shade addressing her so callously.

"I actually never married, so I'm not sure what this is about."

"Really? Not even a failed wedding?" Because it strikes James as odd that they'd even be having this little scenario if it was entirely fabricated from nothing.

"Do you at least know who these people are?" He gestures to the grooms.

"No," Mariko clears her throat, feeling the flush spreading across her cheeks."It never got that far."

She'd gotten to venue tours when she finally succumbed to cold feet and found the whole idea of settling down so abhorrent that she'd sooner leave a country than deal with it.

"They're my exes."

Finally finished with me ? White Mask asks. His voice is gentle, like he expected this.

Mariko turns her attention away- to the aisle, to where exits should be.

"We have to get out of here."

James raises an eyebrow. This, like all the rest of Mariko's love life, sounds like some soap opera melodrama. Multiple ex-boyfriends all at the altar of a wedding that was never even supposed to exist at all.

"Alright then, let's go."

He'll let Mariko walk first and follow her up from behind to help put more distance between her and the men in the masks, who he watches over his shoulder suspiciously.

It's easy to track the eyeline of the men as Mariko departs ahead of him, they don't seem to even register James' presence.

You don't love me. Red Mask and White Mask say in unison.

Mariko stops moving, the breath she draws in clearly an effort fists clenching at her sides. The doorway seems miles away, impossibly far as she turns slowly on her heel. She is unsure and unsurprisingly, Mariko seems to be as uncomfortable James in the moment.

All you care about is control and power. Red Mask nearly hisses and Mariko...doesn't flinch.

Instead her head cocks and something seems to change about her. Her movement settles into unnatural smoothness as she stalks toward the men behind James.

In her wake lay bodies, ruined mechanical skulls in pools of clear and white fluid and as she halts in front of James, she seems to be dressed in some kind of strike gear with an assault rifle, in hand but not quite 'ready'.

"So I should have let him shoot you? It would save me your bitching."

The Red Mask audibly cracks and as it bleeds away in matching smoke, the man underneath looks shocked and a little offended. Mariko's gaze slides to James' and it's almost blank. Her expression is perfectly mastered aside from her faintly knitted brows.

"Have you ever felt like the person you are is a lie?"

James was carefully watching this whole scene unfold. He didn't know that she had some kind of combat experience--whether military, mercenary, or something else, he couldn't tell. But she clearly knows her way around violence and weaponry, which is a surprise to him.

What's also a surprise to him is her question to him. He tries to keep himself neutral, to keep from giving anything away, but he can't help but laugh. She doesn't even know the half of it.

"Of course I do. It sounds like you do too."

Her eyes flick back to the men behind him and this close the stillness is unsettling. Her breath, her blinking and any other cue to read her mood or her thought evaporates.

"I think I sped past that feeling a few weeks ago."

Red Mask and White Mask freeze, as if there flesh suddenly became stone under the admission and Mariko shakes her head.

"The only time things make sense anymore is when I'm dreaming. And the only dream I remember any more is Her."

James raises an eyebrow.

"So? What are you going to do about it?"

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(OPEN) Because I danced...

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