[ Bug gestures............... adorable......... but okay focus. ]
Yeah, I'll be there. It doesn't work if I'm not. And I can bring Khaji too. Though, I don't know if you'll be in one form or two, in that place. [ Her nose scrunches in good humor, but her tone is apologetic. ] It's not something I can test.
We'll be unconscious, but if something happens, my Mark would react to the danger. [ She doesn't gesture to it, but the only thing she can mean is that not-quite tattoo on her right arm. He sees it a lot more frequently, since she doesn't sleep with her gloves on, but it's a topic she rarely touches. ] It would force me to pull us out, and would keep us protected for as long as we need it.
[ It's not a thing she can easily offer. It's dangerous on multiple fronts, and the trust necessary is a rare, hard-won gift. Jaime always worries, and its intensity here is deserved. Even if he doesn't have the full scope of what it is she's offering. ]
We'd be in two forms. Probably. I dunno how it works with your powers, but I've gone into, um, Khaji before? His mind? In a way. And we were separated there. It's why I didn't go with you guys into Hiro's mind too, back when I had a secret ID. Easy way of getting found out.
[ Does he want to do this? Being a bug bothers him, but it's not the worst thing in the world. But he's not afraid of what Ruka will find - a little afraid of what he'll find, maybe - and more importantly, this is a way to find out more about the powers she holds so close to her chest. ]
I'd like to know more about all of your powers one day, [ he says, skittering up so he can wrap two buggy legs around her thumb. ] The empathy is the most obvious one, but -- they're all a part of you. Including this one. Which means I wanna know all of it.
[ The split with Khaji is in line with her expectations. It's not something she thought about, back when there had been that intervention on Hiro's mind, but Jaime was someone she had been actively trying not to think about. The whole thing had been at his house, and she doesn't think they exchanged more than two words — if that. It's probably for the best he didn't venture in. If he'd seen her then, he probably wouldn't agree to this now.
She hopes he never knows all of it.
Ruka lets her thumb move just a little in his buggy grasp, as though to return the embrace, while her other hand cups over his back. ]
Okay.
[ She takes a breath; she pulls at the power in her arm, and in her heart, and lets it bleed out around her. It's not the kind of thing the human eye can see, not when she still keeps her mark so heavily covered, but he's been exposed to enough of the strange power she possesses to feel it now. That's the warning he gets before he feels something nearly physical — the familiar sensation of her hand taking his, their fingers interlacing. As though he still possesses those human limbs, just out of sight. It takes a breath longer, but the sensation repeats — an anchor for Khaji Da.
The room goes black. The room spins. The floor drops out beneath them. It is all the quiet, mundane misery of trying to fall asleep in the midst of a fever, of knowing you have not moved but feeling dizzied, of spinning and sinking on a level plane. The only thing constant, the only thing still is the impression of Ruka's hands, holding theirs. No matter how tightly, how loosely they hold on, her grip is too firm to break. They sink.
The first new sensation is that of knees against the dirt — no collision for falling, no force for impact. One moment, nothing; the next, dry earth and soft grass. The bubble of slow water in a lazy, nearby river; the sway of branches in a gentle breeze, and enough wind to confirm the shape of body, of limp, of face. The feeling of filtered sunlight against cloth and skin and armor. A muted light in the darkness. ]
... You can open your eyes, now.
[ It is no place Jaime has been, but it looks as real as any he has: a temperate forest in spring. The trees are tall above them, canopy lush, but with breaks and clearances wide enough for sun beams to reach them at the forest floor. There's a bright cleanness to the air hard to find even nature — an absence of any of the fuels or fires used by humans for generations. It's peaceful.
And there's Ruka, kneeling in the dirt in front of them — grip still firm on both of them. She doesn't look quite the same as she did at the house, though. There's a looseness to the bindings of her hairstyle. The shoes are different. She's not wearing gloves. Here, there is a faint glow of red to her right arm, bleeding through the fabric of her sleeve. There is a faint, faint redness to the color of her eye. There is something else, but it's hard to place.
She smiles, nose scrunching up like usual. ] Doing alright?
[ It's unpleasant at first, in a dizzying, somehow familiar way; Jaime has been through mentalscapes before, has been to places that aren't real but feel real, is familiar with the muddled sensation of finding out that you're somewhere else but can't recall how you got there.
Only this time, he does recall. He opens his eyes, her fingers laced in his an anchor as he quietly tries to get his bearings, silent as he ever is when he's trying to sort something out. For a second he thinks he might get sick - he always gets sick with this stuff; he's got a great stomach for food, and a terrible one for motion - but it passes. His gaze rests on hers for a moment, eyes flitting from her arm to her eye, then to Khaji, steady and faceless beside Ruka. ]
What do you know, [ Jaime says, incorrigible. ] You're pretty here too.
[ Khaji makes a sound like clearing his throat, a buzz of static. Jaime takes a moment to link fingers with Khaji. ] Don't worry, [ he says fondly. ] You're pretty too.
[ There's a long moment when he just looks at Khaji, briefly squeezing his hand. He seldom gets to interact with Khaji physically. It always feels strange being separated, as though he's missing a limb or a sense, but it's always a treat too, to have a face - or a lack of a face - to look at, someone to hug, someone to touch. He hadn't considered that.
With Ruka... if it isn't an imposition, they could have this whenever they wanted. ]
I'm okay. [ He has a lot of questions. Where are they? Is this some medium ground? Is this him? What does this feel like to her? ]
[ Her nose scrunches a moment for good humor at his compliment, but lets it pass without comment. It's more interesting to see the way they interact in the physical — the plainness of love across Jaime's face when he looks at Khaji Da, different from the way he looks at Ruka but not by much, the way their hands slot together so easily when by look alone it should be a poor, dangerous match. It's strange. But it isn't strange at all, either.
For a brief moment, it feels like observing without existing — the way it felt when Khaji left her to reunite with Jaime on the moon — and so when Jaime turns back to her with a question, she's startled. A surprise to be seen. ]
Huh? Oh— [ She lets go of both of their hands, pushing up the sleeve of her right arm. The light glows brighter without the mute of fabric, burning along the lines of the talon-shaped marking he's now seen countless times. Normally it looks more like a tattoo, or a branding scar, lines too even and cut too regular for something she calls a birthmark, but now the outline burns with the white heat of hot metal. Her fingers glide over the marking, distorting the ambient red that surrounds her arm, but it doesn't lessen the intensity at all. ]
—yeah, it is. Usually I have that bracer on to hide this part. [ She can't remember the last time she looked at her mark while it burned like this. She tears her gaze away, dropping her hands to the grass to push herself up to her feet, brushing the dirt off her knees. ] It always glows like that when I use my powers, though.
[ It is, Jaime thinks, extraordinarily lucky that he met someone who loves him in all of his forms, not just the ones he shows to the world. Not everyone would be okay with having Khaji around 24/7. Fewer still would be okay with him being so actively involved as he had been. And the people in that slim fewest category are the people who'd be chill with watching their fiancee hold hands with his sentient robot spine friend who happens to be sans a face and making creepy buzzing noises.
Yeah. He got real lucky. He gets up and, moments after, so does Khaji, an unfolding of long, spindly limbs only for him to tower over both Jaime and Ruka. He appears to be looking at Ruka, but with his face as featureless as it is, it's difficult to tell. ]
It makes sense I've never seen it glow like that. S'not like you're gonna be using your powers at home when you don't need to. [ She never mentioned it. She never mentions a lot of things. It never feels like she's hiding to Jaime. More that there are things she hesitates to mention, to herself. Things that she would explain if he unwound it, but he wouldn't want to unwind the bandage, only to find the wound underneath festering and raw, unhelped by his primitive poking at prodding. ]
Not really. [ It burns, of course, like it always does — but she's too used to it for the hurt to show anywhere else. Power comes from sacrifice. Power comes from pain. It always has. It always will. She pulls her sleeve back down to hide the shape of it. ] It'll be sore later, but I usually sleep through most of that anyway.
[ It's downplaying the matter, but this kind of thing isn't a big deal to Ruka, and Jaime worries; it's easier on them both if he thinks of it closer to how she feels about it, rather than the objective reality of it.
At any rate, they came here to do more than sit around in the grass and talk about her arm under the eternal sun. There's much more to see than this. Ruka takes a moment to look around, getting her bearings. This 'landing point' is the familiar destination she expected — the memory of that forest, the world of spirits, bound and boundary to her heart. The familiarity is recursive: each tree, each breath, each natural sound reminds her of some other facet of the true world cleaved from her, and rebuilds it. It will never be the real thing, but it's... it's nice to be back. She belonged here, once. ]
Your doorways are near the river. [ She can feel them. Her head cants, angling towards the sound of running water. There's a looseness to the gesture — divorced from the tension she often carries in the physical world. ] They're not too far at all.
[ And with that, Ruka leads the way into the forest. ]
[ Jaime nods, fine with taking her at face value this one time. ] Once I'm not a bug, I'll bring you some Tylenol and an ice pack, [ he says, that being the happy medium between fussing enough to be uncomfortable and just ignoring the fact that she'll be in pain.
Jaime looks at Khaji. Khaji looks back, and rests one massive hand on his shoulder before lumbering after Ruka, Jaime trailing after her. He's the slowest of the bunch, taking his time to look around wonderingly. He's been in mental spaces before, but never like this, and never willingly. This is entirely different. ]
So this is where they're all connected, [ he muses. ] It's pretty here.
[ It's not quite right, the way he assesses it. She's not sure how to really explain it, when there's just so, so much to explain, but... it's not like she has to worry about him not believing her, does she? He's already right here. He's supported her through everything else, too. Reticence is a hard habit to break. ]
I didn't have powers like this, back where I'm from — at least, not that I know of. But this isn't just me, or something I'm inventing out of nothing. This is a real place.
This is the spirit world. ... How I remember it, anyway.
[ Ah, she's starting to get melancholy. That won't do. Ruka pivots mid-step, turning to face Jaime as she continues to walk backwards through the trees. Her arms fold behind her back, but the glow remains. ]
Think of it like... touring a museum in VR. The things you're seeing really exist, but you're only interacting with a depiction. There'd be a lot more activity if this were the real deal.
My heart was always connected to that spirit world. So, if you were in the human world and you wanted to travel to the spirit world, you would have to pass through me. Here, though, I guess it's the other way around. You have to navigate this forest to find my heart, or the ones I've connected to it.
[ Huh. ] I suppose that's good. If someone else tried to use my power, they wouldn't be able to do anything with it. It's easy to get lost.
She's not like this anywhere else. Barely even in their own home. Comfortable enough to walk backwards, poised and coy, happy to explain things without constantly having her eye on their surroundings. She doesn't need to do that as much with Jaime and Khaji around - particularly Khaji - but old habits die hard, and this is one habit that probably won't ever die. He knows how she is. How everything she's been through presents itself. The preparedness. The caution. The paranoia. The guilt, as though something has gone wrong, and it's her fault for not having found it yet. He hates that it's necessary, but he doesn't expect her to change. After all, how many times has she been proven right? And even if she wasn't, this is who she is. Being asked to change, or having him want her to change would just hurt her.
Besides, he's got a lot of foibles too. And she accepts them. Every single one. Still, it makes his heart pang a little to think of a time she was more comfortable, or a place. It makes him look at the spirit world with new eyes. She must miss it. ]
People would have a hard time figuring out your powers, [ he agrees, readily enough. ]
A whole world you're connected to. You must miss it.
... One person, once. [ It takes her a moment to say that much, reaching back through memory; she had traveled here for other reasons than then, but that guy was the only other human who crossed over. Her lips purse. ] By force, with cruel intentions. I managed to force him out, though, before he was killed.
[ His heart had taken damage, she knew that much, but he left with his life. She never saw him again after that, so there's no telling if he ever recovered from it, but... she doesn't want to know what would have happened if she hadn't stopped things.
It was a long time ago, though, and she can't feel regret for a man being punished for his own actions; Jaime won't hear any guilt in her voice. ]
I only came here a couple times, though, so I don't really miss the place. The spirits could cross back and forth pretty easily, though, and a lot lingered in the human world anyway, and partner themselves to humans. I never met anyone else who could ever see them, so they were always ready to talk to me. I learned a lot from them. The histories of the spirits, and human magics, and how to play different games, and all about the people I met. Stuff like that.
I was too sickly to go out much, or go to an in-person school, and we didn't live around many other kids, so I didn't have any human friends growing up. But, the spirits kept me company, so it wasn't so bad. I could always hear their voices. I was never alone.
[ The thicket of the trees grows thinner and thinner as they walk — Ruka doesn't turn around, but she does stop her backwards walk. As Jaime and Khaji cross the edge of the treeline, they'll find themselves on a short, grassy bank; just a few yards behind Ruka is the near edge of a wide river, moving swiftly. Across the river is a wide meadow of long grass and wild flowers, growth vibrant and green right up until butting against the high, rocky walls of a cliff.
The cliff itself is striking — the face is flat, like a stone cut open, but there is the large hollow press of something having once been embedded in that stone and no longer residing there, like an emptied-out fossil. It looks like a pterosaur of some kind — but not like any, at the same time.
But, still on this side of the river, Ruka leads along the bank downstream to ... an empty archway. There's no path running to it and none running from it, no building or doors or anything connected to it — just a large, hollow wooden arch, in the middle of the grass, seemingly leading only to more grass. Ruka stops beside it, arms still behind her back and looking exceedingly pleased with herself. ]
[ He means it. He doesn't want anyone to die, of course, but to take advantage of a young girl like that... if he had perished in the process, he doubts many would mourn him. Jaime certainly wouldn't. Jaime has a feeling Ruka wouldn't either, but he doesn't know; she was young then, and hadn't seen quite as much death and destruction as she has now. He listens quietly as she talks, squirreling away the details of her life as eagerly as when he'd first met her. No wonder she's so comfortable around Khaji, he muses. She's missing friends of her own.
It must be a lonely thing, to be separated, but nowadays she's nearly lived more time without them than with them, hasn't she? ]
I'm glad you had them, [ he says, but doesn't have time to speak again as he comes face to face with the archway. He leans from one side to the other, as though seeing if it changes at all, but it doesn't. Of course this is what it looks like. Magic stuff always looks like something it's not. ]
Huh. [ He puts one tentative hand on the archway. Khaji towers above him, behind him, a protective presence even in this place where he's capable of nearly nothing. ] You've really gotta know how to navigate your way around here, don't you...?
[ He turns to her, then reaches out his hand. ]
Ready?
[ He'll step in -- but he'd rather have a hold of her first. ]
[ Jaime's always so quick with that soft sympathy; ready at any moment to offer compassion and understanding, even when he might not understand the full picture. It's a rare thing; from anyone else, the comparative speed of assurance might seem flippant, thoughtless or uncaring, but Jaime always means it. And, more than that... or, at least, more important than that for Ruka is how easily he can accept the things she tells him. Not always how much responsibility she has about any given thing, maybe, but he never tries to dismantle the world around her to transform it into something less strange, less unusual than the things he already knows. How often had she tried to explain who she was to other people, only to be shut down at the start? How many times has she thought of speaking and only pushed the words back down, unable to muster the courage to face another wall of disbelief?
He doesn't have her whole story, but he has more pieces than she's ever given anyone else. If they take the time to venture to her own heart after this, he might more than she's ever known how to say. Ruka isn't even sure what she expects to find there, and may be a little afraid to see it herself, but... she's not afraid of how Jaime will react to it.
She's never trusted anyone like this. And, as she takes hand, she's reminded that nobody has ever trusted her like this. ]
Ready.
[ Passing through the archway is not some sharp jolt from one place to another, although by all rights it should be. There's no sun and no sky above them, no grass below their feet or landscape around them — but a ceiling, a floor, and walls running parallel beside them. It should be sharp, but it feels only like the zoning out and returning to alertness during a familiar, everyday drive; like coming to the end of a stretch of empty highway that hasn't changed in years.
It's a mundane little hallway, stone and natural light from somewhere unseen, nothing of interest along its walls. It is only a place of transition.
But as the hallway ends, the destinations reveal themselves: a pair of doors, one on each side of the hallway, facing the other. Beyond them, the walls bend from their parallel track and converge, an empty little triangle of narrowed floor until two walls become one, shared. As for the doors themselves, they look nothing like the hallway they're in — and nothing like one another.
Ruka looks up at Jaime's face, squeezing his hand. ]
I think you can probably tell which one is which.
[ On one side of the hallway, the door into the heart of Khaji Da. On the other, the door into the heart of Jaime Reyes. ]
[ Jaime holds his breath as they step through. It's a stupid inclination, more a reflex than anything else. It won't help anything. But he's still strangely trepidatious around all things magic. He trusts Ruka, of course, trusts that she'll keep him safe no matter what. Still, though -- magic is such an unknown quantity, so unpredictable, so undefined by the rules Jaime knows that he never quite knows what to make of it.
And then a moment later, he forgets entirely that he'd been nervous at all, returning Ruka's squeezed hand with one of his own. He lets out a gasp, surprised and delighted all at once. ]
Oh! [ His smile beams out of him, eyes bright. ] Khaji has one too! Of course he does, I just --
[ People have spent so long denying Khaji's personhood. Jaime knows he has a heart, had ventured deep into it with Dick those many years ago. But to see it standing here ordinarily beside Jaime's, even if it's far larger and far more foreboding, is something special. He places his hand flat on it then looks behind him, grinning at Khaji. ]
Khaji, look!
[ Khaji wasn't there when they retrieved his heart. He didn't know. He lumbers forward in great big hesitant steps, then places his gargantuan clawed hand just over Jaime's, claws skittering down the patterns embedded in his door. ]
Yes. I do.
[ There is something content in it. Jaime looks at Khaji, fond, then looks at Ruka, as though sharing something secret and important with her. He lets Khaji have his moment in silence as he slips away, looking at his own door. It's an ordinary wooden door. There's nothing noteworthy about it. ]
And this is the door to my house, [ he says, smile a little crooked. ] The one I grew up in. We couldn't get the same one back. It was too old.
...heh. Look at us. Getting more excited about a couple of doors than the whole spirit world.
[ Khaji's still looking at his. It seems somehow right that Ruka, the one who had never needed introductions, who had always included Khaji as though it was as natural as breathing, who knows what it's like to have a quiet companion of her very own, is the one to show him this. ]
[ It's a striking moment, heavy with feeling. Khaji Da doesn't wear an expression on his face, but she can feel the marvel, the novel contentment — the sense of finally having something confirmed that you've always believed. Although, some of that might be the overlap with Jaime. Even though they're separated here, and have separate hearts, even in this space those hearts share a wall; their bodies share a connection. Even here, it would take more strength than this to truly cleave them apart. ]
Without spirits, it's just a forest. [ she offers with a shrug, easy as anything. ] Of course this is more exciting.
I have to warn you, though. Before we go in there... these rooms contain manifestations of your heart — of your soul. All the things that are important to you, good or bad... or the things you've discarded, or tried to destroy. Things you remember, and things you don't.
But, even like this, it's still connected to you. So long as you're alive, your heart can change, so... if you try to change things here, it can change you.
You have to treat these things gently. Even the parts you don't like. Okay?
Yeah. I've done something like this before. A friend of ours helped us get Khaji back. He was locked in a place like this. If that worked in real life, then I figured a good basic rule is just, um, no messing with anything.
[ He's faintly worried about her words. He doesn't want to see anything he doesn't want to see, doesn't want that nagging doubt when he sees something in there that he hates about himself. He can see destroying it in an emotional fit if he was in a worse way, a more self-destructive way, but he doesn't think he's known that kind of feeling since he and Ruka got together properly. It smooths out a lot of the sharp edges to have someone else to talk to who you're not paying to do it. ]
So. No touching without your say so. [ At that, Khaji finally turns from his door, arms hanging low by his sides as he looks slowly between Khaji and Ruka. ]
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Yeah, I'll be there. It doesn't work if I'm not. And I can bring Khaji too. Though, I don't know if you'll be in one form or two, in that place. [ Her nose scrunches in good humor, but her tone is apologetic. ] It's not something I can test.
We'll be unconscious, but if something happens, my Mark would react to the danger. [ She doesn't gesture to it, but the only thing she can mean is that not-quite tattoo on her right arm. He sees it a lot more frequently, since she doesn't sleep with her gloves on, but it's a topic she rarely touches. ] It would force me to pull us out, and would keep us protected for as long as we need it.
[ It's not a thing she can easily offer. It's dangerous on multiple fronts, and the trust necessary is a rare, hard-won gift. Jaime always worries, and its intensity here is deserved. Even if he doesn't have the full scope of what it is she's offering. ]
Is this... something you want to try?
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[ Does he want to do this? Being a bug bothers him, but it's not the worst thing in the world. But he's not afraid of what Ruka will find - a little afraid of what he'll find, maybe - and more importantly, this is a way to find out more about the powers she holds so close to her chest. ]
I'd like to know more about all of your powers one day, [ he says, skittering up so he can wrap two buggy legs around her thumb. ] The empathy is the most obvious one, but -- they're all a part of you. Including this one. Which means I wanna know all of it.
Let's do it.
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She hopes he never knows all of it.
Ruka lets her thumb move just a little in his buggy grasp, as though to return the embrace, while her other hand cups over his back. ]
Okay.
[ She takes a breath; she pulls at the power in her arm, and in her heart, and lets it bleed out around her. It's not the kind of thing the human eye can see, not when she still keeps her mark so heavily covered, but he's been exposed to enough of the strange power she possesses to feel it now. That's the warning he gets before he feels something nearly physical — the familiar sensation of her hand taking his, their fingers interlacing. As though he still possesses those human limbs, just out of sight. It takes a breath longer, but the sensation repeats — an anchor for Khaji Da.
The room goes black. The room spins. The floor drops out beneath them. It is all the quiet, mundane misery of trying to fall asleep in the midst of a fever, of knowing you have not moved but feeling dizzied, of spinning and sinking on a level plane. The only thing constant, the only thing still is the impression of Ruka's hands, holding theirs. No matter how tightly, how loosely they hold on, her grip is too firm to break. They sink.
The first new sensation is that of knees against the dirt — no collision for falling, no force for impact. One moment, nothing; the next, dry earth and soft grass. The bubble of slow water in a lazy, nearby river; the sway of branches in a gentle breeze, and enough wind to confirm the shape of body, of limp, of face. The feeling of filtered sunlight against cloth and skin and armor. A muted light in the darkness. ]
... You can open your eyes, now.
[ It is no place Jaime has been, but it looks as real as any he has: a temperate forest in spring. The trees are tall above them, canopy lush, but with breaks and clearances wide enough for sun beams to reach them at the forest floor. There's a bright cleanness to the air hard to find even nature — an absence of any of the fuels or fires used by humans for generations. It's peaceful.
And there's Ruka, kneeling in the dirt in front of them — grip still firm on both of them. She doesn't look quite the same as she did at the house, though. There's a looseness to the bindings of her hairstyle. The shoes are different. She's not wearing gloves. Here, there is a faint glow of red to her right arm, bleeding through the fabric of her sleeve. There is a faint, faint redness to the color of her eye. There is something else, but it's hard to place.
She smiles, nose scrunching up like usual. ] Doing alright?
no subject
Only this time, he does recall. He opens his eyes, her fingers laced in his an anchor as he quietly tries to get his bearings, silent as he ever is when he's trying to sort something out. For a second he thinks he might get sick - he always gets sick with this stuff; he's got a great stomach for food, and a terrible one for motion - but it passes. His gaze rests on hers for a moment, eyes flitting from her arm to her eye, then to Khaji, steady and faceless beside Ruka. ]
What do you know, [ Jaime says, incorrigible. ] You're pretty here too.
[ Khaji makes a sound like clearing his throat, a buzz of static. Jaime takes a moment to link fingers with Khaji. ] Don't worry, [ he says fondly. ] You're pretty too.
[ There's a long moment when he just looks at Khaji, briefly squeezing his hand. He seldom gets to interact with Khaji physically. It always feels strange being separated, as though he's missing a limb or a sense, but it's always a treat too, to have a face - or a lack of a face - to look at, someone to hug, someone to touch. He hadn't considered that.
With Ruka... if it isn't an imposition, they could have this whenever they wanted. ]
I'm okay. [ He has a lot of questions. Where are they? Is this some medium ground? Is this him? What does this feel like to her? ]
You're glowing. Is that your powers?
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For a brief moment, it feels like observing without existing — the way it felt when Khaji left her to reunite with Jaime on the moon — and so when Jaime turns back to her with a question, she's startled. A surprise to be seen. ]
Huh? Oh— [ She lets go of both of their hands, pushing up the sleeve of her right arm. The light glows brighter without the mute of fabric, burning along the lines of the talon-shaped marking he's now seen countless times. Normally it looks more like a tattoo, or a branding scar, lines too even and cut too regular for something she calls a birthmark, but now the outline burns with the white heat of hot metal. Her fingers glide over the marking, distorting the ambient red that surrounds her arm, but it doesn't lessen the intensity at all. ]
—yeah, it is. Usually I have that bracer on to hide this part. [ She can't remember the last time she looked at her mark while it burned like this. She tears her gaze away, dropping her hands to the grass to push herself up to her feet, brushing the dirt off her knees. ] It always glows like that when I use my powers, though.
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Yeah. He got real lucky. He gets up and, moments after, so does Khaji, an unfolding of long, spindly limbs only for him to tower over both Jaime and Ruka. He appears to be looking at Ruka, but with his face as featureless as it is, it's difficult to tell. ]
It makes sense I've never seen it glow like that. S'not like you're gonna be using your powers at home when you don't need to. [ She never mentioned it. She never mentions a lot of things. It never feels like she's hiding to Jaime. More that there are things she hesitates to mention, to herself. Things that she would explain if he unwound it, but he wouldn't want to unwind the bandage, only to find the wound underneath festering and raw, unhelped by his primitive poking at prodding. ]
It doesn't hurt, does it?
no subject
[ It's downplaying the matter, but this kind of thing isn't a big deal to Ruka, and Jaime worries; it's easier on them both if he thinks of it closer to how she feels about it, rather than the objective reality of it.
At any rate, they came here to do more than sit around in the grass and talk about her arm under the eternal sun. There's much more to see than this. Ruka takes a moment to look around, getting her bearings. This 'landing point' is the familiar destination she expected — the memory of that forest, the world of spirits, bound and boundary to her heart. The familiarity is recursive: each tree, each breath, each natural sound reminds her of some other facet of the true world cleaved from her, and rebuilds it. It will never be the real thing, but it's... it's nice to be back. She belonged here, once. ]
Your doorways are near the river. [ She can feel them. Her head cants, angling towards the sound of running water. There's a looseness to the gesture — divorced from the tension she often carries in the physical world. ] They're not too far at all.
[ And with that, Ruka leads the way into the forest. ]
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Jaime looks at Khaji. Khaji looks back, and rests one massive hand on his shoulder before lumbering after Ruka, Jaime trailing after her. He's the slowest of the bunch, taking his time to look around wonderingly. He's been in mental spaces before, but never like this, and never willingly. This is entirely different. ]
So this is where they're all connected, [ he muses. ] It's pretty here.
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I didn't have powers like this, back where I'm from — at least, not that I know of. But this isn't just me, or something I'm inventing out of nothing. This is a real place.
This is the spirit world. ... How I remember it, anyway.
[ Ah, she's starting to get melancholy. That won't do. Ruka pivots mid-step, turning to face Jaime as she continues to walk backwards through the trees. Her arms fold behind her back, but the glow remains. ]
Think of it like... touring a museum in VR. The things you're seeing really exist, but you're only interacting with a depiction. There'd be a lot more activity if this were the real deal.
My heart was always connected to that spirit world. So, if you were in the human world and you wanted to travel to the spirit world, you would have to pass through me. Here, though, I guess it's the other way around. You have to navigate this forest to find my heart, or the ones I've connected to it.
[ Huh. ] I suppose that's good. If someone else tried to use my power, they wouldn't be able to do anything with it. It's easy to get lost.
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She's not like this anywhere else. Barely even in their own home. Comfortable enough to walk backwards, poised and coy, happy to explain things without constantly having her eye on their surroundings. She doesn't need to do that as much with Jaime and Khaji around - particularly Khaji - but old habits die hard, and this is one habit that probably won't ever die. He knows how she is. How everything she's been through presents itself. The preparedness. The caution. The paranoia. The guilt, as though something has gone wrong, and it's her fault for not having found it yet. He hates that it's necessary, but he doesn't expect her to change. After all, how many times has she been proven right? And even if she wasn't, this is who she is. Being asked to change, or having him want her to change would just hurt her.
Besides, he's got a lot of foibles too. And she accepts them. Every single one. Still, it makes his heart pang a little to think of a time she was more comfortable, or a place. It makes him look at the spirit world with new eyes. She must miss it. ]
People would have a hard time figuring out your powers, [ he agrees, readily enough. ]
A whole world you're connected to. You must miss it.
[ ... ]
Did many people do that? Travel here through you?
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[ His heart had taken damage, she knew that much, but he left with his life. She never saw him again after that, so there's no telling if he ever recovered from it, but... she doesn't want to know what would have happened if she hadn't stopped things.
It was a long time ago, though, and she can't feel regret for a man being punished for his own actions; Jaime won't hear any guilt in her voice. ]
I only came here a couple times, though, so I don't really miss the place. The spirits could cross back and forth pretty easily, though, and a lot lingered in the human world anyway, and partner themselves to humans. I never met anyone else who could ever see them, so they were always ready to talk to me. I learned a lot from them. The histories of the spirits, and human magics, and how to play different games, and all about the people I met. Stuff like that.
I was too sickly to go out much, or go to an in-person school, and we didn't live around many other kids, so I didn't have any human friends growing up. But, the spirits kept me company, so it wasn't so bad. I could always hear their voices. I was never alone.
[ The thicket of the trees grows thinner and thinner as they walk — Ruka doesn't turn around, but she does stop her backwards walk. As Jaime and Khaji cross the edge of the treeline, they'll find themselves on a short, grassy bank; just a few yards behind Ruka is the near edge of a wide river, moving swiftly. Across the river is a wide meadow of long grass and wild flowers, growth vibrant and green right up until butting against the high, rocky walls of a cliff.
The cliff itself is striking — the face is flat, like a stone cut open, but there is the large hollow press of something having once been embedded in that stone and no longer residing there, like an emptied-out fossil. It looks like a pterosaur of some kind — but not like any, at the same time.
But, still on this side of the river, Ruka leads along the bank downstream to ... an empty archway. There's no path running to it and none running from it, no building or doors or anything connected to it — just a large, hollow wooden arch, in the middle of the grass, seemingly leading only to more grass. Ruka stops beside it, arms still behind her back and looking exceedingly pleased with herself. ]
Here you are.
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[ He means it. He doesn't want anyone to die, of course, but to take advantage of a young girl like that... if he had perished in the process, he doubts many would mourn him. Jaime certainly wouldn't. Jaime has a feeling Ruka wouldn't either, but he doesn't know; she was young then, and hadn't seen quite as much death and destruction as she has now. He listens quietly as she talks, squirreling away the details of her life as eagerly as when he'd first met her. No wonder she's so comfortable around Khaji, he muses. She's missing friends of her own.
It must be a lonely thing, to be separated, but nowadays she's nearly lived more time without them than with them, hasn't she? ]
I'm glad you had them, [ he says, but doesn't have time to speak again as he comes face to face with the archway. He leans from one side to the other, as though seeing if it changes at all, but it doesn't. Of course this is what it looks like. Magic stuff always looks like something it's not. ]
Huh. [ He puts one tentative hand on the archway. Khaji towers above him, behind him, a protective presence even in this place where he's capable of nearly nothing. ] You've really gotta know how to navigate your way around here, don't you...?
[ He turns to her, then reaches out his hand. ]
Ready?
[ He'll step in -- but he'd rather have a hold of her first. ]
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He doesn't have her whole story, but he has more pieces than she's ever given anyone else. If they take the time to venture to her own heart after this, he might more than she's ever known how to say. Ruka isn't even sure what she expects to find there, and may be a little afraid to see it herself, but... she's not afraid of how Jaime will react to it.
She's never trusted anyone like this. And, as she takes hand, she's reminded that nobody has ever trusted her like this. ]
Ready.
[ Passing through the archway is not some sharp jolt from one place to another, although by all rights it should be. There's no sun and no sky above them, no grass below their feet or landscape around them — but a ceiling, a floor, and walls running parallel beside them. It should be sharp, but it feels only like the zoning out and returning to alertness during a familiar, everyday drive; like coming to the end of a stretch of empty highway that hasn't changed in years.
It's a mundane little hallway, stone and natural light from somewhere unseen, nothing of interest along its walls. It is only a place of transition.
But as the hallway ends, the destinations reveal themselves: a pair of doors, one on each side of the hallway, facing the other. Beyond them, the walls bend from their parallel track and converge, an empty little triangle of narrowed floor until two walls become one, shared. As for the doors themselves, they look nothing like the hallway they're in — and nothing like one another.
Ruka looks up at Jaime's face, squeezing his hand. ]
I think you can probably tell which one is which.
[ On one side of the hallway, the door into the heart of Khaji Da. On the other, the door into the heart of Jaime Reyes. ]
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And then a moment later, he forgets entirely that he'd been nervous at all, returning Ruka's squeezed hand with one of his own. He lets out a gasp, surprised and delighted all at once. ]
Oh! [ His smile beams out of him, eyes bright. ] Khaji has one too! Of course he does, I just --
[ People have spent so long denying Khaji's personhood. Jaime knows he has a heart, had ventured deep into it with Dick those many years ago. But to see it standing here ordinarily beside Jaime's, even if it's far larger and far more foreboding, is something special. He places his hand flat on it then looks behind him, grinning at Khaji. ]
Khaji, look!
[ Khaji wasn't there when they retrieved his heart. He didn't know. He lumbers forward in great big hesitant steps, then places his gargantuan clawed hand just over Jaime's, claws skittering down the patterns embedded in his door. ]
Yes. I do.
[ There is something content in it. Jaime looks at Khaji, fond, then looks at Ruka, as though sharing something secret and important with her. He lets Khaji have his moment in silence as he slips away, looking at his own door. It's an ordinary wooden door. There's nothing noteworthy about it. ]
And this is the door to my house, [ he says, smile a little crooked. ] The one I grew up in. We couldn't get the same one back. It was too old.
...heh. Look at us. Getting more excited about a couple of doors than the whole spirit world.
[ Khaji's still looking at his. It seems somehow right that Ruka, the one who had never needed introductions, who had always included Khaji as though it was as natural as breathing, who knows what it's like to have a quiet companion of her very own, is the one to show him this. ]
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Without spirits, it's just a forest. [ she offers with a shrug, easy as anything. ] Of course this is more exciting.
I have to warn you, though. Before we go in there... these rooms contain manifestations of your heart — of your soul. All the things that are important to you, good or bad... or the things you've discarded, or tried to destroy. Things you remember, and things you don't.
But, even like this, it's still connected to you. So long as you're alive, your heart can change, so... if you try to change things here, it can change you.
You have to treat these things gently. Even the parts you don't like. Okay?
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[ He's faintly worried about her words. He doesn't want to see anything he doesn't want to see, doesn't want that nagging doubt when he sees something in there that he hates about himself. He can see destroying it in an emotional fit if he was in a worse way, a more self-destructive way, but he doesn't think he's known that kind of feeling since he and Ruka got together properly. It smooths out a lot of the sharp edges to have someone else to talk to who you're not paying to do it. ]
So. No touching without your say so. [ At that, Khaji finally turns from his door, arms hanging low by his sides as he looks slowly between Khaji and Ruka. ]
I think we're all ready now.