trans_9 | 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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"...it still hurts."

As therapeutic as that was, she's still got a lot of things to work through.

Aang just nods.

"I can't see how it wouldn't." He pauses. "But you need to decide what to do with that pain now. Whether to let it go and remember your mother's love, or to remember that, and let it make you feel like it means something about you when it doesn't."

"It does mean something about me," she responds, "I can't rely on people. I can't let people beat me. I have to be the best."

"How old were you when it happened?"

"...four."

She could still remember it, though. It was the defining moment of her life. She'd realized that she couldn't depend on others for anything. She had to be the best. She had to be noticed.

"What could a four-year-old do that would make them unloveable?" Aang asks. "Children are innocent. It wasn't something you did or didn't do. There isn't anything you have to do to be noticed or loved--you should have just gotten it from her for being you. You didn't do anything to not deserve it from your mother in the first place. You don't have to be the best to get it from anyone."

He shakes his head.

"It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anything you did."

Edited 2010-02-03 09:53 (UTC)

"...what if was?"

She's staring over the cloudscape again, "...I just can't rely on people, OK? I only have myself. That's it..."

Alone.

"Every life is worth something. Every person has a spark of energy that all other life has, connecting us all together. We're all part of a whole, and since it's a whole, that means every part is important just for existing."

He goes on, "And just because you lost one person--or even...even a lot of people--" Here he looks sad. "Just because you were hurt by one and then lost them, it doesn't mean that everyone you come across will betray you or hurt you or leave you or die. It means that something was wrong with that person--not you--and it was wrong just with that one person."

"...just leave me alone."

She hunched up again, "I still shouldn't need people."

"Maybe I don't want to leave you alone."

"Why?" She glared at him, "I don't... want your help!"

"You have the spirit of a warrior. I like people who are like that. Maybe I want to get to know you better to be your friend."

"...you're going to keep insisting until I let you, aren't you?"

"Yep!"

Asuka heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes. OK, maybe a bit of a smile crept in there. Maybe. Maybe.

"Fine. If it'll get you to leave me alone."

"You do need to dream and I'm getting in the way, aren't I. And there are other people tonight that need help, too."

They pass into a place where the cloud mountains give way to real ones.

"But I have something to give you for the rest of the night. A present."

Appa lands in a beautiful valley in the mountains, with soft, swaying grasses. The stars are still out, and the moon is up, and a stream runs nearby. And there's wind, a calm, cool wind that isn't too cold. There's the smell of lotus blossoms carried on the breeze.

Aang holds out his hand to help Asuka off Appa.

"You'll be safe here. If it changes to your own dreams, they'll still be nice ones."

Asuka watches and listens. She's amazed that someone would actually do this for her (well, everyone should, really). She looks at Aang, the landscape, then Aang again. Finally, reluctantly, she takes his hand and slips off of the flying bison. She lands - she's in her plugsuit for some reason. Well, it's a dream.

"...thanks. I guess."

It's more a grumble then an actual thanks, but her mind has been eased by all of this. And maybe Aang really does understand. Maybe.

"...am I even going to remember all of this?"

"You're welcome. And yes. You will."

Everyone is remembering their dreams lately, really. It's because of the Nightmare King's influence. Luckily, this part will be nice to remember.

"Good."

She lifted her hand in an awkward wave.

"See you, arrow-head."

"Sleep well," he says, "And be at peace."

Aang hops back on Appa's head, picking up the reins attached to his horns.

He shakes the reins. "Yip yip!"

The bison hops up off the ground into the air with a gust of wind, and Asuka is left alone--but not alone. This place is a place he loved and that means his presence is all around, keeping her safe, at least for tonight. If it changes to whatever else she dreams, she'll still be safe, too.

She also has the stars (that make your tongue glow), and the moon, which almost seems like a friend.

Edited 2010-02-03 11:08 (UTC)

Dollhouse [Closed to Aang]

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