songerein | [open!] you're only everything I ever dreamed

Entry tags:

[open!] you're only everything I ever dreamed

Who: The Kingdom Hearts cast + You!
Which: Open Log!
Where: The collection of treehouses that the cast has made! And other areas!
What: An open log for residents and adjacent CR to come and go. Top levels inside!
Warnings: tba!

[Now that the residents of Songerein are settling in it seems that a group of uncanny key kids (and a few others) have come together to make a nice little collection of connecting treehouses. The houses are dreamed up and put together with a patchwork of wooden bridges and boards and spruced up with fairy lights that glow and hang from the rafters. The treehouses are high in the canopies of thick trees and the balcony sections are open and breezy for any visitors to come to walk up the steps and see.

Down below the treehouses on the ground seems to be a rather flourishing garden of sunflowers. Where they come from or how they sprouted is still unclear. But it is joined with a rather chubby-looking chicken that pecks at the ground occasionally. Along with the grazing chicken, there seems to be a whoosh of dragonfly wings as a large dragonfly has taken to the treehouse as a home too. And what is this? It seems they might have a small collection of blue birds that won't leave the house alone. What other creatures are out and about?

Dreammotion energy seems to be strong around the treehouses. As the trees house a collection of boys with vivid and wild imaginations. Sometimes lights will flicker brighter or plants will bloom with various strange flowers. And the smell of baking chocolate and cookies is always in the air.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Tifa is on her way back from the orchard harvest, several large bags of a wide array of fruits and vegetables carefully balanced in her arms, when it happens. The sensation of something unknown slithering up her arm is almost—almost—enough to have her throwing the bags up in the air in disgust and surprise, but it's the sight of the culprit as its hand reaches into one of her bags to pluck an apple that stops her.

Muscles tense, shoulders hunched, she watches as it leaps off of her to land on the narrow path through the trees, and a frustrated recognition flickers over her expression before she's calling out to it, and its owner, who she figures is hiding away somewhere nearby.]

You could just ask, you know. It's rude to steal.

[She remembers these things from the night of their arrival in Reverein, at the banquet, when a certain dark-haired boy had helped her with the popcorn strings. Tifa had been wary of them then, but knows better now, scolding the Flood instead as if it's a child.]

[ Tifa probably isn't wrong, to scold the little creatures as if they are unruly children. Vanitas himself might not fully understand, but he has been slowly coming to terms with the fact that people are going to look at his Unversed differently than himself. Even differently than those guardians of Light or seekers of Darkness had. It still baffles him, no doubt, but he isn't trying to correct anyone or throw a fit.

Besides. They are just doing what they do best - be a source of Irritation. That's what Floods are. Can you ask them to be something they aren't?

Good on Tifa though. It's not as though Vanitas is really hiding. He's just sitting up high in one of the trees. The Flood does scurry up to him and deposit said apple in the teen's hand. ]

It's not as fun for them to ask. I could say stop being such an easy target.

[ Vanitas still doesn't really see the issue. It's just an apple... ]

[From where she's standing, Tifa huffs up at the tree, a hand coming to rest on her waist while she balances the bags. If she weren't more careful, she could have dropped them and then they wouldn't be "just apples"!]

And what about you?

[Is she scolding Vanitas now too? Maybe a little bit, but she's still glaring holes into the Flood as it drops the apple into his hand. Frustrated, she sighs and drops her head. She can't really blame him, can she? She can say that he should be teaching them better manners, but Tifa doesn't know any better.

An apple drops from her bag and she just... stares.... at it.]

They've got a mind of their own?

[ Dropping them would make them what? Bruised apples? Bruised apples are still apples... Right? ]

What about me?

[ He's kind of just taking the fruit in both hands and then just fiddling with it. Gentle shifts from one hand to the other. Small tosses. That sort of thing. Restless energy and the like. In a place like this, Vanitas really doesn't know what to do with himself. ]

Hmm. They partially do. They can think on their own when required. Though how much of it is thinking for themselves and acting upon instincts I don't know. Irritation breeds irritation, so perhaps they put their own thoughts in just how to keep gaining more of it.

Doesn't sound like a healthy lifestyle to me.

[It's more mumbled to herself as she bends down to pick up the fallen apple, only to drop a few more, and she sighs out loud. She probably should have brought bigger bags with her, but the others insisted that she take more than what she had originally grabbed.

Hearing the apple tossing from hand to hand, Tifa looks up at Vanitas again, her eyes sparking with an idea.]

How about you guys help me carry these apples, and I'll give you something in return.

[ It might not be a healthy lifestyle. However it is what it is. It is what Vanitas is. What he currently exists as does not permit for something like a healthy lifestyle. He feeds off negativity. Thrives on it. Is negativity and Darkness.

Negativity and Darkness that had already been slipping down the tree because of her constantly dropping apples. With the intention to "help" because it's just "pathetic to look at." And not at all because he's spent so much time around people like Sora, Kor, Roxas, Lio... Or Yona. Nope. Has nothing to do with them. ]

If you're going to offer...

[Tifa smiles at that, perhaps a little too wide given that she's still having some troubles balancing the apples as more of them continue to pour out of the bags while she picks them up, so she'll just leave them there until she can hand Vanitas one, while the other she carefully cradles to pluck what she can off the ground.

Bribery always does wonders.]

I was thinking of making some apple pie with these. You ever made one before?

[ Honestly? Vanitas is very food motivated. When spending something like four years in a complete wasteland, food is something that he hadn't really had a variety of. So it's pretty easy to get him to do things with a promise of a return on his efforts. It's... Stupidly easy really. How else can Sora get him to do a bunch of things he wouldn't have otherwise committed to? ]

No. I don't think I've ever even had one.

[ Though as he's picking up apples - not because she's asked him to! - it does bring another wave of loss. Learning to cook or bake had been something done with another.

Something he's going to have to learn to just let go. Well in this case, it's literal since a Mandrake seems to appear out of nowhere. ]

Really? You're missing out!

[Tifa's brows arch high with surprise. She can understand never baking apple pies, from either not having the means or know-how to do so, but never eating one before!? Tifa fully intends to change that. Well, that was her plan, until she sees the strange plant-like creature popping up out of what looked like thin air.

...

She greets it with an awkward, crooked smile.]

Uhh, hello...

Well excuse me for being stranded for years...

[ And you know, being "born" in the manner that he had been. All of these people seem to act like it's such a tragedy that he hasn't experienced all of the "normal" things that they have in life. Huff! It hadn't been until arriving at that other world that Vanitas had even begun to question.

But then he wrinkles his nose a bit at the greeting this girl gives his Unversed. Vanitas should just swallow it back up again. ]

Augh. Just ignore it. Where are we going?

[Tifa does look at him over her shoulder at the first part, concern pulling her lips into a thin line, and she'd question it were it not for the mandrake standing in front of them that's... admittedly, very hard to ignore.]

Back to my place. It's equipped with all the tools we'll need to make apple pie.

[She's just going to... slowly side-step the mandrake, and as they walk further down the paths towards the edges of the residential district, closer to the communal gardens, she slows her pace just enough that they can almost walk side-by-side.]

What was that thing anyway? Was that another one of your... friends?

[Is friend even the right word?]

[ For Vanitas, it really is just a statement of fact. Nothing more. He's not the sort that would use words in that way - not to gather any sort of empathy or sympathy aimed his way. The Vanitas of today is more accepting of those things, but he still doesn't think that he is in need of them. ]

All right. Your place it is. This apple pie of yours just better blow my mind.

[ All the while he just decides to leave the mandrake where it is. Maybe it will go off and hide. That's what they are best at - hiding until someone gets too close.

And should Tifa choose to walk next to him - with the other Unversed practically at their heels - then he doesn't really say anything about it at all. ]

That thing was no different than the others. They aren't created from the same base emotion, but they are emotions all the same.

[ At the very least, he is liable to explain things without needing much in the way of prompting. ]

Huh...

[Tifa has met the others before, but she's still no less confused by their presence than she was the first time, when they helped to untangle the unruly popcorn strings out of the horns she'd grown. There are a lot of strange things in this world, but they are still one of the strangest.]

So, is it how your dreamotion magic... manifests, then?

[Is that the right word?]

You create different ones depending on how you're feeling?

It has nothing to do with my dreamotion crap. Not even I have figured that one out yet.

[ Which makes him wonder if he's just a little more broken than what he thought. because shouldn't he know something? Shouldn't he be able to figure it out? ]

No. This is just. Me.

[ It's just something that comes from him and him alone. No one else had a hand in this. ]

[Okay, that's... admittedly kind of adorable, but she wouldn't dare say it aloud, lest she wound this poor boy's pride. So, she only smiles quietly to herself as they arrive at her treehouse, up in one of the canopies of the higher trees, where the sun shines brighter than on the ground floor.]

I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually.

[Is all she says before she points up to the ladder beside her and ascends, and when they reach the top, she'll welcome him in. The treehouse itself isn't much, and is actually rather small compared to the standard one, but it's bright, with light filtering in through the many large windows in the rooms. There's a permanent smell of vanilla and cinnamon that lingers, as if she's always baking.]

You can everything down on the counter, and we can get right to work.

[ Good practice to maintain, yes. Do not say such things out loud, nope. He does not take well to being called adorable. Vanitas would actually ask what about him is adorable and then proceed to be insulted when said answer is supplied. ]

Maybe I will when I actually need it.

[ As he considers himself to be quite strong already. Maybe he doesn't really need to figure it out. Or maybe that's something he is just trying to tell himself.

He isn't going to think too much of it right now. Because they're walking into this lady's special brand of treehouse ( unlike the cluster of them he and his actually live in ) but at the same time it's just as bright.

Thankfully, he's fairly good at following directions. Just going to set things on the counter like she says to. ]

[She has Sora to thank for this special brand of treehouse! He had helped her find the brightest one they could that wasn't too far out of the way from the rest, and she had made a few changes on her own to facilitate. When you've lived under sun lamps for the last seven years, you take all the sunlight you can get when you can get it!

Tifa follows, placing her own apples down before going to the pantry and pulling out two aprons, both with designs befitting a girl.

One is white and lined with pink frills, the entire thing is decorated with cupcakes with cute faces on them. The other is a bright yellow, with a picture of a peanut butter jar holding a jam jar's hand, with "you're my jam!" underneath it.

She holds them up for him.]

I'm guessing the yellow one for you.

[Sorry, this is all she has!]

[ Maybe that should come up in conversation. It's not as though Vanitas doesn't resemble the brat, after all. Honestly he wouldn't be so surprised to find this little bit of information out. Sora is annoyingly helpful when it comes to just about anything that he can do.

At the moment, Vanitas just watches Tifa move about. He doesn't really know what else to do so he stands out of the way. Feeling restless. It is the same feeling that he would have with other people. Not knowing what to do with himself. Not knowing how to be useful.

But then she pulls out the aprons and Vanitas certainly does make a face! At both of them. Why do so many people have to like cute crap like this? It makes his skin crawl even as he is snatching the yellow one up out of her hands. No one better see him like this, that's all he'll have to say. ]

I'm not wearing smiling cupcakes with little hearts dancing around them.

[She only smiles when he snatches the yellow one from her hands.]

I thought so.

[Maybe she should pick up an apron that doesn't have some cute logo or pattern on it. Although the yellow one does look good on him. It gives him a pop of colour! But don't worry, Tifa's treehouse is far enough out of the way that none of his friends will see him in it. She'll just take a mental picture for herself, thank you very much.]

So, have you ever baked anything before?

[ Well if she is going to consistently invite him over for further baking experiments, then maybe! Something in red though if she is looking for a color. He does favor that one. Or a dark blue...

Anyway. Vanitas nods. ]

My... [ Family. ~~Self Imposed Mother~~ Guardian. the word that he settles on for the moment is still hard for him to get out. It frustrates him immensely that it's so difficult when it shouldn't be. ] Friend. She and I would cook together sometimes.

[ Because he wanted to make sure he wasn't thrown out, at first. He had to make himself useful. Have some function or purpose so he thought that learning to cook and clean and things of that nature would make him valued. Then it just became something he might have enjoyed?

No, he did enjoy it. He did. It's an emotion he needs to hold onto. ]

[Tifa's smile only warms as she waits patiently for him to explain. It looks like that was difficult for him to even admit, but she appreciates him sharing that with her nonetheless.]

Well then, I'm guessing she taught you all the basics, like how to slice some apples?

[She's already slipped into her apron and is picking out the ingredients needed for the pie. Cinnamon, flour, sugar, butter... And don't worry, she'll walk him through every step of the way, demonstrating some of the steps first before having him finish it off, until they're left with an oversized and unbaked pie, the dough weaved neatly over top in perfect lines.

Covered in flour, she slides it into the oven at last.]

Now, we just let it bake for a while. Shouldn't be too long.

[Tifa offers him a napkin to wipe the flour from his face.]

That was fun, though.

[ Vanitas does give a nod. He knows how to slice apples, though not before asking how they should be done. Slices? Cubes? Thick or thin.

And he finds the process really isn't that difficult. Just different. Wouldn't it figure that it's not really the filling that he struggles with, but the crust itself. More importantly, he huffs that he can't get the shape of it to be perfect.

That is what might the tone for something else that contributes to Vanitas' huffiness. The need for things to be as is expected. ]

It wasn't the most horrible experience I've had.

[ that's a complement, actually. Even as he wipes his face off because Vanitas hates being messy. ]

[Well good thing Tifa hates it too! She's already started to clean now that the pie is stuffed into the oven, but even with all of the dots of flour on her face, she's still grinning, pleased with the two of them for a job well done.]

That's a start. Now just wait until you taste the fruits of your labour.

[No pun intended?]

Told you it wasn't going to be too bad. The crust is always the hardest part.

[ No pun might have been intended. Vanitas still catches that though. He makes a face at her for it and rolls his eyes. ]

Why. It's not like the ingredients are all that obscure or even hard to find or put together.

[ Getting it just right seemed to be the challenge. Vanitas isn't really sure why that is. But! He's not going to stand around and let Tifa do all of the cleaning either.

So at least he's courteous, even if that's a far cry from what his own intentions are by it. ]

Sure they are, but baking's all about the chemistry. A little too much or too little of something can change the entire taste and texture. If you wanna get it just right, you gotta get it to a tee. Sometimes, it takes a little bit of experimentation, too.

[Although the latter could make or break any homemade meal or dessert.

It really is all about getting it just right. It isn't putting them together that's the hard part, but putting the right amount of love and care into making sure that it turns out exactly the way it should. Oh, and mixing too, she guesses.

With an appreciative smile as he helps, Tifa pauses in wiping down the counters.]

So, what kinds of other things did you make with your friend?

[open!] you're only everything I ever dreamed

c!

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sorry for the wait! 😭

nah gurl you good i am the lame duck here

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we can probably handwave the actual baking part, I think!

Sure sure! It’s more about the togetherness anyway lol

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