pennysheets | Midpoint PSL: Round 90

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Midpoint PSL: Round 90

Sora wakes in a small, old-fashioned sort of jail cell-- the kind you'd see in an old Western, with metal bars and a tiny barred window at the very top of the wall looking out onto a thin desert morning. Anything remotely dangerous or useful is across the room on shelves against the far wall, well out of reach. Trying to summon his keyblade does... nothing. Whoever dropped him here didn't even leave him with his shoes, those are on the floor by the stairwell.

And upstairs, there are heavy boots walking across a wooden floor, clearly heading for the stairs down.

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He shouldn't have stayed in the forest for long. Sora's on his back whenever the newcomer walks in, his face in his hands, his lantern still hooked into his belt and lying next to him. He messed up. He messed up again. And now he's dead, and now he's going to open his eyes and see the endless ocean, and he won't be coming back -

He peeks between his fingers and sees a roof, and he yells because that was the last thing he expected.

He sits up, blinking, the lantern dragging along the - dirt? Floor? This isn't really where he thought he'd go. Was he still in Beacon? Did he survive? As far as survival in Beacon means anything, anyway. He's still blinking and looking around, getting more and more confused as whoever is coming for him enters. Wait, is he in jail?

He is indeed in jail. Weirdly enough, there's light, too-- sunlight. After Beacon, that's maybe a little unexpected.

At the yell, the footsteps speed up, and come charging down the stairs to stumble to a stop just at the bottom. It's-- well, it's probably Soldat? They're not as clean-shaven as usual, their long hair is tied back, and they're wearing a cowboy hat and jeans. Also, their lantern isn't on their shoulder. (It's outside on their horse, because nobody here except Misty knows what it means.)

But they're staring at Sora like maybe they're seeing a ghost.

The sunlight's one of many, maaany things throwing Sora off, so he's in the middle of soaking that in along with the sudden warmth and the new drier smell, trying to recalibrate his expectations, when someone bursts in. He jumps, then twists toward the entry. His spikes are still uncontrollable, and the green of the jacket Soldat gave him all that time ago still peeks through the rips and stains from his sojourn through the forest. Same old kid.

For Sora, it's been a matter of maybe a few days since he saw Soldat last. (Weeks? Months? Getting lost in the forest does funny things with your sense of time.) So he's relieved to see Soldat, sure, and he instantly perks up, thinking that this might not be a hallucination this time, that this might even be a kinder dream, but it's not as though the enormity of the moment is hitting him in the same way. He still thinks he's in some aspect of Beacon.

"Heya. Long time no see." He scratches the back of his head, his signature smile plastered on his face. "Sorry, I got kinda lost. Boy, is it great to see you again."

"Kid." Their voice is hoarse but recognizable as Soldat. They even remember to use "kid" and not his name, even though for them, it's been-- it's been years. Three fucking years.

They finally unfreeze, only to dart to the cell door and fumble with the ring of keys in hand to get it unlocked.

"That's me." Sora gets on his feet easily, brushing the back of his pants with his hands, but even a doofus like him can get a feel for something off in the air when it's as strong as the... distress? Relief? Urgency? Accompanying Soldat's entrance. He's not really sure if he understands what's going on here, but that's kind of par for the course for him.

Anyway, he makes his way to the bars, laughing weakly as he puts out his hands. "Hey, what's with you? Where are we? Is this one of those, um, dream things?"

"We're not in Beacon. Beacon ended. Years ago. Goddamn door--" Soldat very nearly drops the keys until they swap to the metal hand, which doesn't shake. Only then do they get the key into the lock and the door swung open. "This is Midpoint. You. You shouldn't be here, kid."

Misty was a surprise, a blow to the walls they'd built to survive this place. Sora, gone even before Beacon's final days, lantern and all-- it's a shock.

Here's an unusual sight for you, Soldat: the color drains from Sora's face. A combination of his worst fear and most impossible dream have combined and slapped him in the face. Beacon's over? How could it be over? If Beacon's gone, is he dead? Isn't he dead?

"Where'm I supposed to be," he asks, his voice sounding very far away. He isn't moving from the inside of the cell, but he does grab a bar to make sure he doesn't fall over. "Didn't I - I don't get it."

They step in, themselves, and put the trembling flesh hand on Sora's shoulder, patting once and then squeezing a little, as if making sure he's really there. "You disappeared. I couldn't. I looked for your lantern. I looked. Like I promised I would. I-- I failed, I'm so sorry, I failed and I could bring you back and now you're here--"

They can't get any more out, face crumpling, like they're about to cry.

Sora freezes up a little, looks between his shoulder and their arm and their face. They're... touching him? Voluntarily? Not as like, a training thing? It's confusing. He's not sure where to go from here.

Weak heart. Gotta follow it. He takes a deep breath and looks up at them. Going toward the hurt. That's what he knows.

"Hey. I'm here now." Which is undeniable fact as far as Sora's concerned, seeing as how everything feels as real as he could want it to be. "And I - I didn't get hurt. Or if I did, it's behind me now." And cautiously, he reaches up and puts a hand on top of the one on his shoulder. There. Solid. "You kept your promise. What could be better than that?"

You missed their intensive practice at getting better with touching, Sora. They're not perfect, they'll never be as casually comfortable with touch as the original Bucky Barnes was, and there was some significant backsliding during the lonely years they were stuck in Midpoint before Misty, but there's still advances.

"This isn't keeping my promise," Soldat says bitterly, but they do pull him out of the cell and into a-- a hug?? Sora, you're getting a hug. Don't have a heart attack, or anything. It's not a great hug, only one arm involved and with Soldat stiff and awkward, but there's feeling behind it, at least. "You shouldn't be here. But I'm. I'm still glad to see you."

Sora successfully avoids a heart attack! He does not, however, remember what he does with his arms for a split second. With Misty and Naminé, it was as easy as opening his arms and saying "go", but this is Soldat here. Soldat, whom Sora loves to absolute hell and back, but made absolutely dead sure not to even touch unless absolutely necessary. They needed the space. Sora got it.

Getting a hug after months of careful boundary minding and chiding himself whenever he even slightly got a boundary wrong is a little mindblowing, to be honest. He's not really one to overthink a hug, so he ends up snaking an arm around them and squeezing them back, but he did just unceremoniously die a sixth (?) time, so he might be shaking a little too. This is a lot.

"Well. Then this is me keeping my promise." ... Yes, that's a sniffle. Soppy, sensitive, and endlessly sincere Sora. "I said I'd follow you wherever you went. You didn't believe me, huh? Figures." He laughs, but it's a wobbly laugh.

"Kid." Their voice sounds kind of suspiciously thick, too. "I've been here for three years. Thought I was gonna be alone here forever. Misty showed up two months ago. Now. Now you."

They let go abruptly, step back out of Sora's grasp if he lets go too, and give him a look over. There's still no eye contact, which at least is normal. "She's upstairs. Of course they'd put me on a team with you. Us. Better than against us."

This is a lot of information still, but Sora freezes up and pulls away when Soldat does when he hears how long he's been away. Three years. He'd been wandering for three years.

She wandered alone in the darkness for ten years, and when we found her, the darkness had taken her.

He shakes off that echo and refocuses on Soldat, wiping his eyes roughly with his sleeves. Focus. "Misty's here? We're on the same team? Are we playing some kind of game?"

"Yes. Some kind of game." The moment of overwhelming emotion turns flat and unhappy. "It's awful, though. Stealing or killing or protecting for entertainment. Everything's recorded. Even this." They let their hand fall from his shoulder, then turn away. "Come on, get your things, come upstairs. Misty will have a proper hug for you."

"My things?" Sora looks around and spots... his shoes. Along with other random articles of use. This is still a lot. He feels like he's missing a lot, but he obediently walks over and starts pulling his shoes on.

"Who took my shoes off? Is it whoever's watching us?" Sora looks up at Soldat, eyebrows furrowed. "Why are they watching us? Nothing good on TV?"

"I don't know how they're watching us, if it's. Television. Or something else. We never see the audience. Or the game makers." They're frowning, watching Sora collect his things. There can be a number of items, the knife Soldat gave him even, but nothing like his keyblade (though that's summoned, anyway, so). "We'll have a mission upstairs."

Sora's relieved to see that knife. He didn't take much with him when he wandered into the forest, but that had been something he'd taken care of until the end. (He's pretty sure he did, anyway. Things got kind of blurry for the last few days.)

He pulls his supplies together, stands at attention, then looks at them, frowning slightly. "What happens if we don't want to do the mission?" He doesn't want to kill anyone or steal anything, if he can help it.

Soldat shakes their head a little. "Then I do it for you. Or you get punished. If they're smart, they won't ever put you on a team against me." The game makers know how that turns out, already. Soldat's killed (well, "killed") their entire own team to protect Misty when she showed up. "Come on. Upstairs."

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Midpoint PSL: Round 90

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sorry for the slow! was without power for two days :(

LSKJF oh no i hope everything's okay?? is it the fires??

fire weather threat. they turn the power off preemtively =/

sucks bro, i'm sorry :C

so long as they don't do it again this week >.>

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