trans_9 | Dollhouse [Closed to Aang]

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Dollhouse [Closed to Aang]

Asuka dreamed again. The Nightmare King aside, she has disturbing, surrealistic dreams and nightmares on her own. Usually they weren't that bad and only half-remembered the following morning. She can typically remember her mother. It's not something she talks about with anyone ever. However, tonight was different. Tonight was horrifically, terribly visceral and real to her. It was almost as if she was standing in that corridor again, staring at the door (except she's not a child anymore, but her grown self).

She didn't want to turn the knob. She didn't want to go inside that room. She knew what was beyond it, what lay in wait for her. Her mother was dead. Her mother had hung herself and hung her. Asuka. The doll her mother had treated like her daughter instead of the flesh and blood being. Her hand rose of its own accord - despite her silent screams and the will she threw behind the gesture, despite the rising horror and dread. She turned the door knob and the door flew open, sending a long rectangle of light into the darkened room beyond.

She choked back a sob and slid back against the corridor wall, siding down until she was huddled against the floor, staring. She was reliving it all over again. Her mother's corpse hanging from the ceiling. As if that weren't bad enough the doll - that horrible, wretched doll, with it's yarn hair and button eyes slowly swung around, almost like it had a mind of it's own, and seemed to stare at her.

Die with me.

A whispered voice on the edge of her hearing.

"No! I don't- I want to live...!"

Her voice was a thin, reedy wail as she began to claw at the wall behind her, searching for a way out of this nightmare. The doll twitched. Then again as the rope holding it snapped and it dropped to the floor to lie in a little heap.

She was trying not to scream again as she half-crawled away from the doorway. Not again. Not again.

It was following her. The doll was following her. Dragging itself along on it's arms, scuttling impossibly fast after her. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be happening.

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"...I'm Asuka," is her response, "Asuka Langley Soryu."

She clings to the basket as she peeks over the edge, "...this is the weirdest dream ever."

"That's because Appa and I came into your dream," says the monk, reaching over the edge of the basket to pet the coarse fur of Appa's neck. "We wouldn't normally be here, but the Nightmare King is going into everyone's dreams to try to make them afraid, and we've been trying to stop him."

Well, Aang has been. Appa, he'd only found recently.

"...oh. Right."

She remembered hearing about the NIghtmare King from the crew, but she hadn't thought about that much - why would she? It's not really her problem to deal with. Let the magical sorcery people handle it. At least, that'd been her train of thought.

"...I wasn't that afraid!"

This from the girl who'd been curled up in a corner sobbing her eyes out. Anything to protect the ego.

"It's okay to be afraid. I get scared all the time."

Aang looks over at her, and leans back against the edge of the basket. The bison starts to fly through a field of clouds that look like mountains. The moon and stars peek out from in between, and make the dream-sky they're flying through look almost as bright as it is that moment right before dawn.

"You could have frozen instead of trying to help me get us out of there, but you didn't. What makes a person brave isn't that they get afraid--it's how they deal with it."

There's something incredibly gentle about the way he speaks, but if Asuka thinks there's any true meekness there (like someone else she knows), she'll be mistaken.

"I don't. I'm not afraid of anything. I don't need help. From anyone."

Asuka curled her legs against her chest, watching the clouds roll by beneath them. It's soothing in a way. She's never truly flown like this before, out in the open with nothing in between her and the air. She glanced away from Aang for a moment, voice bitter, "Great. That makes me feel so much better. Compliments from arrow-head."

"I'm glad it made you feel better," says Aang. "I like making other people happy."

Either sarcasm goes right over his head or he's just playing at obliviousness to defuse her persnickety-ness.

"Yeah, I'll bet you do."

She's irritated that her jabs aren't hitting their target. It's like Ayanami. If Ayanami had emotions. And tattoos. And was a man.

"So, Aang, what are you doing in my dream?"

Besides saving her. She'd rather not dwell on that. Or that whole nightmare thing in general.

"I'm trapped where the Nightmare King is trapped. Because of where I'm at, I'm able to go in people's dreams just like him. Which means I can stop him from hurting people. I've gotten really good at getting around the dreams and learning how the dreamlands work."

He sits up to demonstrate.

"Watch this!" he says, and he reaches up and--plucks a star right out of the night sky above them as if its actually right there instead of impossibly distant. It glows bright and warm in his hand, about the size of a lychee fruit. He rolls it across his shoulders to his other hand and then spins it on the end of his finger.

"Tada!"

That little performance actually stopped Asuka cold for a moment. She stared at it for a moment, enthralled. She'd looked up at the night sky before and seen the stars (they'd always held a certain degree of wonder for her), so that single act brought her inner child to the surface for a moment. She stared, reaching her hand out.

"...how did you-"

Wait.

"...oh, dream. Right."

She carefully plucked the little glowing ball from the tip of his finger and cradled it in her palm, staring down at it. It was bright and warm for a moment, just a moment, she feels like everything is going to be alright. She feels like her mother is enfolding her, like she did when Asuka was a child.

Like she's back in her Eva.

Aang grabs another one, tosses it up in the air and then catches it in his mouth. And eats it.

Then he sticks his tongue out at her. It's glowing.

"Id math yul ton glow, thee?" he says with his tongue sticking out.

Asuka stifled a laugh and then gave him a shove, frowning, "...you act like such a kid! What's up with you?"

To Asuka, being a child was something she wanted to leave far, far behind.

He just laughs at the shove, and then he says:

"I'm not acting like a kid--I'm acting like I'm happy. There's a big difference. You have to enjoy the little things--and the big things, too."

His voice is a little more grave as he goes on, "The world can be a dark and scary place, and bad things happen all the time--and that's a way of protecting who you are: remembering how to feel joy."

Asuka waved a hand irritably, "No, adults don't act like that. And I'm an adult."

She sounded like someone was trying to reassure herself after being dangerously rattled. Still. Her expression softened slightly and she slid back with a sigh, staring sullenly out into the night. This is just a stupid dream anyway. Who cares about it?

"...I know that! And I'm happy! Perfectly happy!"

Not really. She can't remember the last time she was truly happy. Sure, there's been joy when she beats out someone, the thrill of victory. But there's always the fear that she won't be the best, that she's going to lose, that she won't be noticed. That she'll be left alone.

"Maybe adults are just different in your world. All the adults I know act like that. Well, the ones that aren't crazy and trying to keep the war going and the ones that aren't trying to do bad things are like that, at least. I know kings and great masters that know how to have fun or at least know how to enjoy things."

Aang bops another star back and forth between his hands and then grabs two more and proceeds to try to juggle them. It's very difficult with Appa moving.

"Seriousness and fun have nothing to do with young and old. They exist by themselves. There can be serious children and fun old people. All that matters is you laugh when you're supposed to laugh and know how to be serious when you should be serious."

Edited 2010-02-03 06:50 (UTC)

Asuka watched him. She wasn't sure how to react to him. Nothing phased him. He seemed so damn calm and child-like at times, but at other she caught a glimpse of a young man her own age - or older. He carried himself with an ease she envied. Nothing bothered him. She folded her arms and glanced away again.

"...I know how to have fun," she muttered, "Excuse me if I don't feel like it after that stupid thing."

She shuddered. Dolls.

Accidentally, he drops two of the stars and they break at the bottom of Appa's basket, turning into stardust that's swept away by the wind.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asks, bopping her the last of the stars, with the intention of playing catch.

"No."

Her reply was sharp, angry and hostile. There was also pain running as an undercurrent to it all, "It's nothing. Just a stupid bad dream."

"I have bad dreams a lot," he says, putting his arms behind his head. "Including this one I have over and over. In it, I'm in the temple I grew up in. No one is there and I'm all alone and the buildings are burning. I keep going from room to room to see if anyone needs help getting away from the fire, but no one is ever there."

Asuka grumped, "...am I supposed to care?"

She felt a little bad for saying that, but putting people down has always cheered her up before!

"You don't have to," Aang says, just as gently. "But I wasn't trying to make you care. I figured if you didn't want to talk about it, it still might help to let you know someone else knows what you're going through. When someone understands, it helps me feel better sometimes."

Unphased, Asuka. Still unphased.

She's wounded. Sometimes, when you tried to help a wounded lemur, it would bite you at first, because it was scared.

Scared pretty much describes Asuka's entire "adult" life. She's been scared of being ignored, of being second best, of being seen as a doll, of being a child, of being alone or accepting help. She's scared of a lot of things. She's scared to admit to herself (or, God forbid, others) that she's actually scared by all of this.

"How could you possibly understand anything about me?! You just met me!"

She sounded angry and defensive.

"You lost someone. Someone you loved. I could tell that from your dream. That's something that happens everywhere. That's something I understand."

He's still unphased.

"You can learn a lot about people from their dreams."

That rattled Asuka more then she would've liked. No one was supposed to know about that. She'd left that behind. She'd moved past it. At least, that's what she told herself. She almost believed it now.

"...I... that doesn't mean anything! That doesn't mean you understand!"

She flexed her fingers, balling them into fists.

"Now who's just met who?"

"Shut up!" she shot back, "You don't-"

She folded her arms, glaring, "You don't understand anything about me."

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