Scene #8450: Talking Heads, Offscreen

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Xion	The Corridors of Darkness had twisted and snarled and gone every which way on their quick jog through the between spaces. It had taken seconds. It had taken hours. It took as long as it took, the memory of between a smear... Just like the colors on display. 'Behind' the two that stay behind, a tablet and a traveller, is a dip in the painted path where they had walked (had they?) to the sworling circular portal before them, slightly opaque, waving with the suggestion of the space beyond. There is an echo of color, a smear of silver and gold-blond, that lingers in the portal beyond. Xion, having just accepted Angela from Petra before the third departed, finds a seat, cross-legged in the darkness. Her black coat balls up about her legs and back while she places Angela in her lap and looks down. "So... I guess we've not really been introduced. Are you, uh... A phantom thief sidekick?" The noirette asks, to break the black ice.
Angela	Angela was rather distant and clinical during the operation though it is also true that being stuck on a screen with only her eyes up (and occassionally her mouth) poking out limits some amount of emoting even if the eyes, as they say, are windows to the soul. Once the two are brought into the Cooridors of Darkness and Angela's hands are no longer hidden by a helpful pocket, Xion might catch a glimpse of her left hand shaking for about one second before it goes back to being still. Angela's golden eyes slant open at being spoken too, a calculated effort spent to avoid emoting further now that she's aware that xion's eyes are upon her. "Thank you." Angela says. "Petra said that you were one of the ones I could trust with regards to Lilian but I would have not been of much assistance without the aid of your AI companion and yourself. Fairy Tech is rather frightening in the right circumstance." She uses the word frightening but she doesn't seem to mind it actually. What might seem off is that Angela doesn't exactly seem happy. There's some natural uneasiness there but she seems more contemplative than joyful at the (so far) successful mission. She has no idea how well Petra's conversation with Matthew Rook will go but they helped her about as much as they could have with her task. So it's not that either, exactly. "I am not a phantom thief sidekick. I am the assistant to the manager of Lobotomy Corporation." Angela says. "This was ... Not work related."
Xion	Xion is rather casual about the whole affair, placing her elbow against her knee, slouching down and resting her cheek deeply into her curled fingers and bare palm. Her thumb idly strokes the side of her ear while the noirette thinks and listens. Considering the golden-eyed woman and the stifled tremors and composed tone, Xion begins with a smile that only half-shows around her hand. "Fairy Tech, huh? I pick up a lot of things from people, and Wendy is one that I adopted more of than usual. We're partners of a kind, but mostly she lives in my phone and keeps herself busy posting on social media and starting trouble. Since I recently quit the Watch, I'm relying on her a lot more to do my tech work. She's really good with computers, and since she's my partner, there's no place she can't get into. A pretty sweet deal if you're a curious-" -ly sassy. "-burger girl. The key's pretty cool too, but it's not very interesting to rub it on stuff." Xion admits, very much in the 'haver's' view of absolute access. The act was never as interesting as what it allowed for! 'Assistant to the manager of...' "Oh! You're an assistant manager, that makes sense. No wonder you handled all of that data so fast."
Angela	"In our world, the Fairy singularity allows for locking and unlocking on an impressive scale. A colleague of mine utilizes it, though she mostly uses it to inflict pain it can be used more metaphorically as well." Another departee from The Watch, Angela thinks distantly. She listens to Xion explain Wendy but she adds, "It was very useful." She almost explains for the third(?) time that she has no ability to hack into systems. "I make other AI uncomfortable so she was a breath of fresh air. Metaphorically speaking. The air here is recycled." Angela blinks once at the mention of rubbing one's key on stuff. She doesn't seem to get it. "That is correct." Angela says. "I have a particular ability that is usually more troublesome than it is worth but proved helpful here. My mental processes move at 1,000 times the normal rate. Lilian was able to...provide some relief." Strangely, perhaps, she hasn't even asked about this weird Cooridor of Darkness she's in yet. And still hasn't. She certainly will eventually, it's just not on her top priorities right now. "You are a close friend of --the Dame Commander." Angela says eventually. "And you chose to intercede here as did I. However, I believe it likely the Dame Commander will not approve of us attempting to take the matter out of her hands." Angela is quiet a moment. "I doubt I would. I acted as I believed was the best option even if it was not ideal, but I cannot help but worry I have assisted in bringing harm to her all the same." Angela's eyes slant back to focus on Xion's own. "What led you to make this choice in spite of the Dame Commander's desires?"
Xion	Xion can't keep smiling through everything Angela says, spending a few moments imagining the sort of person that the administrator evokes with a Keyblade 'technology' user that would use it as a weapon to inflict pain and metaphor on another. It isn't something she had never imagined - she had plenty of relatives who thought hearts and the weapons of the heart could only cause pain. Larxene was firm on the point, even though she never said anything awful about Roxas or Xion. She was always judgemental, but Larxene couldn't find the hate for them in her hypocritical 'heart'. Xion, likewise, couldn't find much to scowl at as Angela talked. "So you're also someone who is alone most of the time, Then, it must be hard to have this much space and time between us - even if you're helping." 'You are a close friend of --the Dame Commander.' Xion rises in her posture, stretching back and chuffing in breathy laughter. "Yeah. Close friends." She agrees, and doesn't comment on what Lilian would wish or not, on taking the matter out of her hands. She does have an answer to Angela's question, immediately, though: "Because I was told what she needed by her first hero. And I thought it had been solved when I pulled her back. I pinned her first teacher's message to her second teacher's door, and tried to remind her of the lesson in the scars she earned, the lesson in the scars that didn't make her one bit less beautiful. I know what I need to heal, and so we're doing this right, and we're doing it tonight." "Because we are doing it tonight. I won't let some looming shadow grip Lilian tightly in claws and tell me politely to just wait, just hold on. It won't be later - it can't be. Even one second more is a failure."
Angela	''It must be hard to have this much space and time between us'' Angela hadn't minded so far largely because she had a lot on her mind that she could think and think and think about and still not come to a satisfactory answer. But it is true she's been talkin to Xion longer than Xion has been talking to her. It is a little sad that Xion stopped smiling but she's more grateful that she's an honest woman rather than the sort to stubbornly insist on joy. She seems confused by the laughter but she does say, "I am a jealous person so I am envious of you, of all her old friends. But do not take me to be ungrateful. A passing feeling must be acknowledged but not catered to." Xion tells a story in miniature. ''...We're doing it tonight'' "Technically, we already did it tonight." Angela says. "So in a sense, this is all needless. In the end I chose to trust those who cared to try rather than those too scared to. I am...inexperienced so I could not truly say what is better. Perhaps I will learn through all of you in the end to see what I should do, or allow, for myself--and how to properly treat ''friends''." She smiles. It doesn't feel entirely real, nor entirely false. "Or I'll learn something else equally useful." The hand curls inward into a light fist. Not clenched. She finally asks a question she should have really started with if she was normal. "What is this place, Xion? Truly."
Xion	"Envious?" Xion is immediately curious, hands falling to their partnered knees as she leans back down over the tablet in her lap. "Why me? Did you read that ridiculous wiki entry about me?" The noirette is lightly disbelieving, remembering the speculatory articles generated about her, like a cryptid, like a particularly obsessive and voyeuristic papparazi of her medals and keys and armored masks. The wordplay doesn't get a rise from Xion, too used to wizards and their technicalities to be impressed with clever turns. "It's not needless. We made choices. We did things in a specific order, specific ways. I could have followed Petra to Lilian's father. She couldn't stop me, or bar me, and she couldn't beat me. And when I moved past her, and drove the spear I want to hold into the heart of her father, I would wet it with disaster. It would be selfish, to take the satisfaction of him from her. So I don't. But I know it would 'fix' things too. Waiting for permission. . . Do you do things like that? Really? When it matters?" 'What is this place, Xion?' "The Corridors of Darkness." 'Truly.' Xion sighs, face lit entirely by the screen. The tablet is the only true source of light. . . anywhere even relationally in this space, and so the cone of camera and light washes out the reality of colors, and Xion is limned in a kind of smoky-inky black, and they walk on a grainy white-noise dark grey smear of a path on black. The subtleties of dark colors cannot be picked up by a camera tuned for light. She's not quite there, and Petra's tablet isn't quite that good. "It's the space between spaces. It's no-where, but not no-where in specific. It's para-zonal, not really a zone, not really a space. We haven't gone anywhere, but we had to travel to get nowhere. And if we travel some more, we can get somewhere." A soft, curious look lingers on Xion's face. "Make sense?"
Angela	"Mm? No. You have an article? I will have to seek it out and discern for myself what is ridiculous." Angela looks to Xion for a moment. "Because you are living freely. You cannot be contained. You have the power to undo any imprisonment." Angela is just like this way. She's not a wizard yet. She listens to Xion admit that she could not be stopped or barred. It would be selfish, Xion says, to stab that spear into Lilian's father. Angela knows this intuitively--though for all she knows, Petra is gunblade deep into Matthew Rook as they speak. She has nothing but the word of someone she's known for less than a week (even if for her, it was far longer). to assure her otherwise. Before Angela comments on that, she focuses on what Xion has to say about the Corridors of Darkness. She understands that sigh. It is the sigh of someone who has had to deliver exposition many a time. "Yes, it makes sense. If you can unlock anything it makes sense that you can unlock a path to a place that does not exist. Thank you." Angela doesn't seem to be too concerned about applying the scientific process here to get a better understanding which might be for the best. The last thing anyone wants is a Laxegna. "I have waited a long time. I have no choice in the matter. I've even killed my 'Matthew Rook' before. It simply added more waiting. Patience does not come naturally to me, it is not a talent, but I have learned to manage anyway. Lilian spoke to me of moving just at the right moment. I worry I took that away from her because I'd rather risk our friendship than see her suffer any more and do nothing--I am not unlike you in that regard." Her head dips, ever so slightly. "But that does not mean I do not wish to maintain it all the same. She is the first friend I had. It would be unfortunate if I lost it because of another man like that. I am exhausted of losing such opportunities due to men like that." She doesn't quite look directly at Xion anymore, instead her gaze remains tilted downward like a sad rpg sprite though her expression remains contemplative rather than sorrowful. "I worry I took away her opportunity to make that choice for herself in the moment she wished to--as she advised me to do." She looks back to Xion, heedless of the dark. There is comfort there after spending so much time in sickly light. "That is why when I speak of what I would learn... I do not know the precise lesson, or how I would come to a particular lesson--but I would learn one way or another how to handle my own father, whether or not to truly make my choice alone as I always had before."
Xion	Xion has an extremely overwrought rat's nest of incestuously referential sub pages and hashtags linked with underscores. Several different fandoms, from copcar hotrod enthusiasts to mega men considerers congregate on her page... To argue. Xion's page is an absolute wasteland of speculation, 'facts', alternative implications, and an utterly useless discussion page. Her 'Powers & Abilities (Displayed)' page is sorted like an episode list, and categorized like one too. Her 'Powers & Abilities (Theoretical)' list is a wasteland. One brave, unfortunate soul had taken to giving a continuity guide to follow where the black haired girl had lept into the lives of various folks. "Well, it is nice to be free, and to not worry at all about what people can do to hold you. I have to admit, it so rarely is something I think about, because it's not really..." Suddenly a little lost for words, Xion just smiles a bit emptily and nods. Angela is right, but it's hard for Xion to describe a negative so clearly. Having truly selective association with others made people a certain way. "I'm choosing not to worry about that now. It's such a luxury to worry about it, isn't it? Such a detached, sweet treat to get to fret over helping the correct way. Such a drug to try and make one... perfect slice across the problem, to find that absolutely storybook finish to thing that shouldn't be, to get to what should." The Nobody hangs her head, chin dipping, but her eyes remain on Angela's dipped golds. "I've known Lilian since I came to the Multiverse. She chose to help me, even though I didn't know how to ask her right, and even though I couldn't hear her heart. Even though I didn't know what to do, I still tried. I didn't wait for the perfect opportunity, and neither did she. And eventually that kind of thing kept working - not waiting, fixing it now, making it better now, not later. And even if it hurt, even if it was a risk, I kept trying." A sigh, non-expository. "I don't know about your father. I'd say try doing something, but really, I think it's more important to learn to not wait for perfect."
Angela	''I think it's more important to learn to not wait for perfect'' In a sense it's the opposite lesson from Lilian Rook who is certainly all about taking the whole pot at the right moment--and frankly, Angela is the same way. She has no choice but to wait for the moment, so it is a philosophy that appeals to her. But when Xion says that, Angela learns something else. In that moment when she can strike, she could take it--even if it is not perfect--because it may be the only moment she has. Angela cups her chin, thinking on this, weighing the two ideas. Is there a way to combine this Yin and Yang into a Yin Yang Dragon and destroy so many hopes and dreams? Even now, it's hard for Angela to fully commit to the idea but she shouldn't dismiss Xion out of hand. Angela is willing to edit Xion's wiki. Trying to out wiki-edit Angela is basically impossible unless you cut off her access entirely, which may be how it ends. It's a luxury in a sense to be able to worry about helping someone in the 'right' way. "I suppose so." Angela says, though she doesn't sound certain. Right now she's not appreciating the anxious wondering at all. Waiting for a shoe to drop is worse than the moment it lands on her fac but.. "It is true that fairytales should not be taken so literally--I did choose to help in the end after all, despite the risk--" ''She chose to help me, even though I didn't know how to ask her right, and even though I couldn't hear her heart.'' Even though she didn't know what to do, Angela continuse reflecting on Xion's words, they are unable to be contained in a singular set of apostraphes. "I see." Angela says eventually. "I will trust your lived experience, Xion." The smile returns, but the balance has shifted. "Thank you again. Perhaps it is not such a terrible thing that Rook has few friends she can count on, if Petra is to be believed." She folds her hands together. "The ones she does have seem to be of exceptional quality so far."
Xion	'A few friends Lilian can count on'. Xion can't help but look up and smile at that, placing her hands atop the two upper corners of the tablet PC. The camera, framed by her arms, has the particular angle that really only facetimes get the candidly odd camera shots of. "Lilian knows a few stubborn people who decided they kept liking what they discovered when they learned more about her. The rules she follows, the sounds she makes, the language she speaks when she's happy, and the language she speaks when she understands. People want to keep getting the gifts she spreads around, so they think they're her friends, and she thought they were too, but... It's like every girl who gives richly - you only keep the friends you'd have if you were poor. You just have more opportunities to meet people, but you attract people who are looking for something." "Right now, that's what's happening. All the people who can be given fifteen munny one week, and be asked for twenty munny a while later, and spend all sorts of time counting that 'gap' five, even when they were fine with getting fifteen before. People who were given someone and something incredible, and couldn't pay in. They wanted it, but didn't want it bad enough to help pay for it." Then, Angela is 'pulled' forward, flush to coat. Xion is hugging the pad, sighing over the microphone. The 'Lobotomy Corp Administrator' has a great camera view of Xion's neck! "She has a few okay ones. By the end, we'll see how okay they are. But if I set myself back in her eyes I'll just have to fight longer. I was ready to fight forever, so it's okay." The long beats continue, time in the realm passing twice-oddly for Angela. "We're in the space between spaces, and the times between times. We won't have to wait long at all for Petra. And then tonight will end, and tomorrow will start."
Angela	Angela listens carefully to what Xion has to say about Lilian. She reflects on the language, really, the word choice. Xion has a way with words that Angela doubts she herself has. She spends too much time on the words, really. ''You only keep the friends you'd have if you were poor'' Angela didn't say 'a few', of course, because she is certainly not an optimist. She simply said 'few'--but in the end, the definition of the statement is the same either way. Perhaps that is a difference between their two outlooks--no maybe not different outlooks at all, simply the shading of it. Worrying overmuch about it--is that a sign of her lack of faith in herself or is that a sign of her lack of faith in others. Perhaps she can fake it until she makes it. But it's Xion's last words that push away that anxiety of a first friendship as Xion reminds Angela of a time where she had precisely zero friends at all. Xion says ''I'll just have to fight longer. I was ready to fight forever, so it's okay.'' "Impressive." Angela admits, like she's kind of annoyed by it but-- --the ipad suddenly moves. Is it time to go, Angela immediately thinks and then-- ... ... ''And then tonight will end, and tomorrow will start'' It's a very profound statement that is utterly lost on Angela as her one thousand thoughts per second mind hopes desperately Petra doesn't see her put in such an ''adorable'' position.