paradisalogs | (no subject)

Who: Yuan and you!
What: Nightmares!
When: Now!
Where: Yuan's mind!
Rating: Minimum T, maximum R, warnings for blood, death, and psychological horror

Yuan, like so many others, was asleep in his bed when it happened, unsuspecting. Entering his dreamscape, you walk into a vast, richly-furnished but poorly-lit castle, walking up or down a vast spiraling staircase, with periodic landings, a door on each one. The rooms behind the doors are eerily empty and silent - despite a lack of dust, there's a sense of age and disuse about everything, as if nothing truly alive has encountered this place in years. You may also notice that there seem to be only a few different floor plans for the rooms, with slight differences in the arrangement of furniture the only thing that proves you aren't walking in circles.

Eventually, as you walk, a glowing circular seal lights up under your feet, trapping you within its boundary and teleporting you into a nightmare...

((Links: Eternity | Accusation | The Infected Mind | ...Halliwell Manor?))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You're in a room full of people, all of them staring at you angrily. At first, their words are only rippling murmurs, but soon they're bold enough to speak out. Anyone you've ever betrayed or wronged, anyone you've ever failed to protect - they're here, and they're angry with you for living on, for finding any kind of happiness when they've been deprived of their own. "How dare you?" "Do you know what I've suffered on your behalf?" "How could you have forgotten me?"

Yuan, too, is at the mercy of this crowd; he quails particularly at the sight of a tall, muscular man with pointed ears and dark hair that stands straight up from his head. Botta does nothing but sneer at him and turn aside, but it makes Yuan hang his head, visibly upset.

There's a veritable throng of people. Probably more than can fit into a room at all. Most of them indistinct, faces masses, their murmuring indistinct but for snatches of certain words and phrases - Virtu ... cruel ... let us burn ... Keeper ...

There are others, more distinct. Sherborne Foss, his eyes hurt and pleading, no words needed for his last cutting words to the younger man. Gideon, mute but expression accusing.

The clearest is his brother. Jade eyes vivid in their anger. He's had that expression directed at him before but never truly feared for himself until now. He feels pinned by those eyes.

"Everything bad that's ever happened to me was 'cause of you. Ain't nothin' ever gonna make it right..."

Felix can only swallow and look away, because he knows Mildmay is right. They all are.

Yuan turns aside from his own haunting voices as he realizes there's a newcomer, and stares unhappily at Mildmay. He doesn't know who that is, but he doesn't need to. Although the voices and gazes of the crowd still follow him as he moves, he walks silently over to stand between Felix and this stranger's words. He can't make any reply - not only does he not know the truth of their relationship, he's still stinging too much from his own regrets - but his gaze is unflinching nonetheless.

At least, until another voice speaks up. "And how do you know if he's right or wrong?" Mithos steps out of the crowd, his eyes far too cold to belong to the child he looks like, his tone mocking. "Does he deserve your protection more than I do? I thought you cared about me...but then, I guess I learned better a long time ago, didn't I? Are you going to do the same thing to him someday?"

Yuan stares at Mithos wordlessly, opens his mouth as if to reply, then closes it again.

"That's what I thought." Mithos laughs bitterly. "You'd betray anyone, even if you'd defended them. Even if you'd promised! All you need is an excuse."

Felix is a little stunned by that condemnation, breathless for a moment from the attack from his brother. He's wide-eyed, not sure of what to make of all this but Yuan is trying to shield him from their hate for reasons he can't quite place.

"Yuan..." he shakes his head, unsure of what to say but needing to say something, because he couldn't accept what Mithos was saying was true. "I've only known you to ever work for the good of everyone."

Yuan looks at Felix, eyes a little blank. Another figure steps from the crowd, and this one is Colette. Standing beside Mithos, the similarities between them are positively eerie.

"For the good of everyone?" Mithos asks Felix. "At whose expense?"

Colette frowns determinedly. "You...you tried to kill me," she tells Yuan. "All I wanted to do was save the world, and you didn't even try to explain!"

Now Yuan seems to find his voice. "I apologized for that already," he replies quietly. "And you'd forgiven me even before I had. Try a better illusion - Colette is too kind for her own safety."

He opens his mouth to reply to Mithos, but can't find any words. He can't say who has the right to make those sorts of decisions. It seems feable to insist the Yuan would never mean any harm, but how much does he really know.

Yuan's words, though, make him frown.

"Illusion? Yuan...what's going on?"

"I don't know," Yuan admits quietly, not quite meeting his eyes. "...But however much I may deserve it, Colette would not accuse me that way."

"You rely too much on what you think you know," says a deeper voice behind them, and Yuan stiffens as he turns to see Kratos standing there. "In any case...why should anything else matter, if her words are true?"

"There has to be more to it than that," he blurts out, not really sure why he's saying it when the details of his own misdeeds hadn't served to redeem him either. But it feels important to know.

And just on cue, Mildmay is edging into sight again. "Like how you sent me to kill Vey Coruscant 'cause she and Malkar had threatened to assassinate the Lord Protector, when we all knew it was 'cause you wanted to get back at him?"