[handset; audio] 002 - late at night

[needmetoo]

[Xion finds it easier to go with voice for this; it affords her a certain sense of anonymity, but doesn't give her the same opportunity to censor and second-guess herself that text has proven to allow, when she's tried to use it thus far. It's still not easy to talk about. Maybe that's why she does this when she does. Part of it is because these thoughts are keeping her up of course, whirling around her head until sleep seems impossible. On the other, it means maybe people are less likely to see this. Maybe.]

Is... there anybody you really, really miss?

[There's a moment, and then she laughs a little to herself, though there's no humor in it.]

I guess... that's almost a silly question, huh?

[Deep breath, in and out. Anybody can probably hear the sigh whuffling across the feed.]

Back home, I had my friends. But then I... left. A lot of stuff had happened, and I just needed to think for a while. But... I hadn't meant to stay away, not forever. I was going to go back... but now I don't know if I'll ever see them again. That's what everybody keeps saying, right? That there's no way to go home.

How do we know if they're okay? People we've... left behind? And... Even if they are okay, even if... if they don't notice we're gone...

[She trails off, not quite sure how to articulate her thoughts on the matter. Whatever else though, it's something uncomfortable she doesn't really care to contemplate. And yet it's hard not to.]

I guess I'm just... [worried] Never mind.

Comments

audio;

[merb]

... I was told we went back to the same time and place we left!

audio;

[needmetoo]

Yeah, that's what I heard too. But... still...

[She trails off again, afraid to voice her concerns aloud. What if something went wrong? What if everything was different now that they'd beaten that... bad guy she'd heard the others who'd been here longer talking about.]

Re: audio;

[merb]

Not being able to go back voluntarily... and not being able to go back at all are two very different problems. Let's... not invite the second one over.

[gathersnomoss]

"People occasionally go back," Zelgadis said. "At least they disappear from here. A friend from home had been here when I first arrived, and she was pulled back home. So, there's no way to control going home, but some link must remain."

[needmetoo]

Xion sighed again. "Yeah, I... I figured as much, for people to know that they won't notice we're gone but..."

He couldn't see it, but her hands clenched more tightly into fists, "We can't control it. We don't know when or how it even works. What if... what if we never do?" There's too much mystery or unknown for her liking, especially when there was so much she hadn't been able to really say to Axel and Roxas before she left.

[gathersnomoss]

"There's not exactly anything we can do to change that, is there?" Zelgadis said. He'd never really gotten used to the idea that someone might care he was missing.

[raavashing]

You can return to your world. You just can't choose when that will happen. Or if you'll come back. A little over a year ago, a lot of the Non-Kedan were trapped in the realm of the Dreaming. One of the Kedan worked very hard to send us back to our worlds. But even doing that, some of us returned. So we can go back, but it's not usually by choice.

[needmetoo]

Someone told me about that, a little after I got here. He said how some people chose to stay, too.

[And of course, as she'd told Zelgadis, she'd already figured that some people had to have gone home, to know how things went there.]

But... but if it's... if it's only by mistake or chance or something... what if "when" never comes? What'll happen to our friends if we're stuck here forever?

[Not to mention they themselves, who wanted to go home so much.]

[raavashing]

We won't be. When we go back, we return to the moment we left. We don't even remember our time here. It's like the whole of the world just pauses and we step out of it. And when we step back, it starts moving again. But for the rest of the world, there is no change.

[He tried to sound reassuring.]

It might be years, but we'll slip back eventually.

Video

[seismometrics]

[Admittedly, it's not normally a question Toph would answer. She's never been someone who dwells a lot on such things -- or never was. Right now, returned to the Turtle as she is, the past is lingering like an ever-present ghost.]

You have to believe it, I guess -- that whenever we go home, we go back to whenever we left.

Not like we get much of a choice.

[It's either believe it or fall apart . . . and the second isn't an option.]

Ugh I'm sorry this took so long

[needmetoo]

It feels like a lot to believe.

[To just... hope ant trust that everything was going to work out.]

But... it's what people who've been here a lot longer have been saying...

[She doesn't know what to think, really. She wants to believe, but there's the lingering doubts in the back of her mind.]

It's okay!

[seismometrics]

[A snort from her -- because frankly, it is a lot to believe.]

Yeah, well.

Again: Not like we get much of a choice.

You can sit there and worry about it, or you can move on. Time's not going to sit around and wait for you around here either way.

[Toph at her pragmatic best. In truth, she's probably talking just as much to herself, though, as Xion.]

[lordhotman]

I think about my sister a lot. The last I saw her, she ran into a forest, and I couldn't stop her. I'm worried, and I wonder if I'll ever see her again. Most people think I'm crazy, but I want to help her somehow, if she'll let me.

[Which was debatable since Azula had her own problems and had rebuffed Zuko's every attempt to help her thus far. But he tried to hold onto some sort of hope that she was okay and that he would see her again.]

[needmetoo]

[It's hard to say for sure, but he sounds a lot like how she feels. Maybe. Getting a read on emotions is hard, especially with so little practice. But still, his words are familiar, though one part makes her frown, puzzled.]

She's... important to you, right? Why wouldn't you want to help her?

[She asks it like it's a strange question, when it is, to her. The idea of not helping someone that close to you was just bizarre.]

[lordhotman]

"I do want to help her," Zuko insisted.

"But she doesn't want my help. ... I think she has some things to figure out before she's willing to come back." He had been there once after all.

"If she comes back."

[radio]

[strokeofgenis]

Well, I miss my friends Lloyd and Colette a lot. Oh, and Presea! And Sheena's kind of nice... sometimes. And I suppose Zelos can actually be not a jerk sometimes.

But I'm kind of guessing that our friends back home actually aren't missing us. In fact, I don't think they actually know we're even gone. My sister came here two years or so before me, and I never even knew about it!

[radio]

[needmetoo]

You have lots of friends, it sounds like.

[There's a bit of a sad smile in Xion's voice as she says it. But then the rest of what he's talking about sinks in.]

Your sister? And... she's still here?

[That would answer her question as to whether, with that... evil thing everybody kept talking about gone, if things still worked the same.]

[backwordscompatible]

[Zatanna actually smiled softly at the post, both at Xion herself and from more than a touch of nostalgia. It would have been a lie to say she didn't think about her home...and the people there...often.]

I don't think it's silly at all.

Of course there are people I miss. Every day.

[needmetoo]

What're they like? They're your friends, right?

[She supposes family could be included among people missed too, now that she thinks about it. But she's never had family, so the thought hadn't occurred as readily to her.]

handset, audio;

[inkulcation]

It's only natural.

...however, one of the very few people I might miss is too busy making himself a nuisance here for any like sentiment to linger long.

[A notable pause before the faintest of softenings in tone.]

There's nothing you can do about your home from here. Whatever business you left unfinished, clinging to it won't help.

[needmetoo]

[The fact that one of the speaker's friends is here in Tu Shanshu is vaguely noted, but set aside for the time being.]

I know... I know I can't... do anything here. [In some ways that's what hurts the most. Feeling so helpless on top of everything else that really stings about the situation.] But... it's so hard to just let go of.

I can't just... stop missing them, too.

[Or worrying about them, and what she'd done.]

audio;

[12goingon113]

It never really goes away. Missing people, I mean.
It gets easier, but, it doesn't really go away.

audio;

[needmetoo]

[She's beginning to wonder if this post was such a good idea after all. So many people were basically saying the same sort of thing - there's nothing you can do. Which she knew, and hated.]

I guess it wouldn't, would it? There's nothing we can really do.

[Not that she wants to forget her friends. Quite the opposite. It's just.. frustrating. Being unable to get home to them, and only able to really remember how much she misses them.

It's an awful situation. And just waiting for things to get better isn't a particularly comforting solution]

[audio]

[pushtheboundaries]

[...]

I don't think it ever gets easier, when you're away from people. But you do get used to it.

[audio]

[needmetoo]

[And again, it'll get better with time. There's nothing you can do now.]

I guess it's funny but... This isn't something I really want to get used to. I just wish I could go see them... or maybe they'd come here.

[And she could make amends for leaving them. Talk to them, something. This sick uneasy feeling in her gut, the prickling at the corner of her eyes as she thinks about how much she misses everything wouldn't be so bad if they were here.

This isn't something she wants to get used to. Of course, she's in some ways dealing with the perhaps childish notion that getting used to something, not being as upset about it, means caring less by default. Not that she realizes it's childish.]

I guess that's silly though.