Scene #6446: Resolutions: The Reversed Manor

Owner	Pose
Yuuki Kuran	It was a project that hadn't precisely stalled, but certainly had moved on from the original idea. Yuuki Kuran had settled on the possibility of using 'it' to accomplish some rather drastic resolutions with the help of mind science, and had enlisted some help in doing so. Maybe she just wanted to show off, as well, but there was certainly some internal mind-stuff that had plagued her for a long time. Things that had been taken away, or sealed, and things that now ground like rusted gears against each other. In any case. The interior of Yuuki Kuran's mind is 'soft', as the projection takes hold and things unfold out before the small group. Like awaking from a deep sleep just ahead of your alarm, the very first sensation is the color white: all around, white. A soft, gentle white that falls from the 'sky' and settles like a blanket over the 'ground'. Unlike all manner of reality, of objectivity, this white defies the strictest definition of the mind's first leap: snow, and instead is a more dreamlike ephemera lacking in many of the textures of frozen water. There is no bite, no wicking away of warmth, and only the barest crunch underfoot. The 'snow' is a transient fluff that washes away the definition of shapes and dapples the surroundings with curtains of what would be the searing crystal of white powder and simply is not. All around the clearing of white, dark black trunks of bare trees with fingers of skeletal branches rise, just past reach, ever at the periphery like a forest a few yards away in every direction, with 'empty space' of fluffy dream-snow tumbling into drifts all around the 'landing clearing'. Which is not the weirdest part. The perspective of everything is askew from a position of the spiritual inner ear, an entire half of the realm of the mindscape twisting and distorting away from the viewers until they 'stand' upon the cieling of dreamfluff banks with the trees reaching down into the empty air and fluff rises to dust them, a vertigo-inducing effect to get used to. Front and center, just at the 'edge' of the always-a-decent-handful-of-paces-away forest's edge, is the foundation of a cottage right at the meridian of the dreamscape, some sort of fucked up zig-zagonal yet flat plane that seems more stable than anything else around. A lone figure, paragon of upright stability in a long black coat and white hair, moves to add another rich, sweet, pine-scented log to a pile of split lumber on the foundation's surface, his woodsman axe shining and smelling of oil, leather, and ground steel-edge.
Zero Kiryu	Zero Kiryu didn't like this whole... /thing/ the last time he helped with it. But it's not as if he would really say no to Yuuki. He especially wouldn't say not to something harmlessly beneficial to her. The chair in which he is reclining fades into the back of his mind, and he finds himself... he supposes, somewhere in Yuuki's mind. Instructions on what might be what zips through his mind from previous dives. Psychohazards have a fraying effect on the surroundings but-- but they can be very different. Very subtle. The mindscape comes into being around him. Of course, he immediately jumps to 'snow' upon witnessing the whiteness of the surroundings. Only afterwards does he correct himself internally -- it is a perception of snow. Possibly, a romanticization of snow. Unless he's got it quite wrong, which he might. If Zero could interpret such things flawlessly on contact, he probably wouldn't have as many stupid problems as he does. Turns out he was right, though. The gentle crunch underfoot is what confirms it for him. That whole detail strikes him as so innocently childlike that he can't help but feel a little upset about it. An aggravated breath leaves Zero's lips, an expression that might be interpreted as a reaction to mild pain slipping across his features. It's not an unusual look for him. The ever-present cottage draws his attention, but... he doesn't think that's where he needs to go to find the things Yuuki wants taken care of. "What do you think?" He asks the others, deferring partway to expertise, and partway simply looking for outside perceptions. If Zero had to make an on-the-spot call, he'd probably meander off into the distortion that hurts to look at.
Starbound Flotilla	"Oh yeah, and when's the last time you got in someone's head?" "And when would have been the last time you were trusted with another's?" "Hey, hey, hey now, I'm super trustworthy." "You are not nearly as much so as I, George." "Well she'll trust ya more to go in, but what the hell can you /do/?" "Nearly everything, flawlessly." "Oh fuck right off, that's--" "Floran will go." "/You/ can stride into the mind of the Director of the Concord over my dead body, insolent weed, you would not have nearly the delicate touch required." "No, no... Hang on. Gut feel says, let's go with it." "George underssstand. Floran isss bessst equipped mentally for it." "/What?!/" "I'm givin' it my vote, and you can't outvote me." "Oh for goodness sakes, we intend to put the mental wellbeing of our director in the hands of a... Of a /savage/?" "Yep. My gut isn't wrong. Let's make it happen." "Tch..." And that's why Biteblade is the one who's here. It's strange, having them be the sole representative of the Flotilla at a time like this, but they're surprisingly focused and sober about this. The moment they get here into the clearing, they're a little tense, a little on-edge, and keenly observant. She blinks several times. "Floran can feel oddnesss in sssight." She says, realizing that something is off by the way the "off" sensation leaves when her eye is closed. She asides to Zero, "Floran thinksss maybe Director friend hasss ssstrong prescription for contacts." But then she stops joking. "Floran isssn't sssure, but, dark woodsss feels like a bad idea. Good to have shelter in a weird world. Maybe we should help." She approaches the lone figure. "Hi there!" She says, in friendly tones, letting them know she's there before doing any kind of speaking up. "Floran isss pretty good at architecture! Needing any help there? What isss building? Floran thinksss, great place for a hunting lodge, maybe." Even if the figure's silent to her, she might just get right into helping shift logs with her builder's expertise.
Zero Kiryu	"We wear reading glasses sometime." Zero replies to Biteblade, semi-helpfully. It really doesn't explain the bizarreness of things here at all, though.
Priscilla	Despite that it slightly seems a strange 'I showed you mine now let me see yours' affair, these psychoscape expeditions with Parsons at the helm have never so far been unhelpful (nor have they ever so far been dull or particularly safe). Priscilla has known Yuuki almost exclusively as a Very Normal Girl, eager to help, eager to make people happy, hard working, very occasionally melodramatic and theatrical, and adequately looked after by Zero. What could possibly be bothering her is something Priscilla can't quite intuit (she'd spent a good part of an afternoon puzzling over it while glazing through requests), but she had decided that if there is something the matter, she'd like to know what it is. Snow being the first thing through is a pleasant mood-setter. Priscilla likes snow. Her intimate familiarity with the cold, however, instantly tells her this isn't quite it. It's like a storybook illustration of snow, all of the pretty white landscape without any of the implicit feeling of coldness, vastly different on a page than looked at through a window. She spends a minute trying to examine the trees, but ends up performing a quiet and mildly disoriented circuit around the clearing without catching one, and so gives up on that quickly. "I wouldst hath less context than thee, Sir Kiryu." she replies to Zero after a minute. "Surroundings so soft and quiet and accommodating as these art perhaps appropriate to Lady Kuran, but I hath the feeling that one who remembers winter in such a way-" she holds her hands out to catch the 'upside down' snowflakes. "-spent most of it inside." That, and since she can't seem to get very far in exploring a procedural expy of woods, she assumes that the forest is scenery. Set dressing. She doesn't expect to find a real landmark outside of the cottage.
Yuuki Kuran	The Woodsman smells of shaving cream and shampoo and skimping on generic 'male' deoderant and the cold sweat of working out in a forest in winter. Broad shoulders and arms that strain the sleeves of a inner shirt, firm and upright neck bereft of mark with a strong adam's apple, and a healthy european complexion with just a hint of asian influences in his chin and cheeks and brow. With a smooth raise of one of his arms, he wicks away the droplets of exertion across his brow and then raises his hand to rake his fingers loosely through his shaggy hair. Oh gheez it's Girlvision Zero. With a smile like a sunbeam that brightens his entire face but doesn't split his lips much more than a hint of teeth, the Woodsman's deep baritone with just a hint of vocal fry on the lower register addresses Biteblade. "Thanks for the help." He offers with misting breath, letting Biteblade begin setting up the snowy logs. His face alights in quiet consideration, ready to offer some sort of support with that tactile feeling of a flower print hanging all around him like a greatcoat. He's idealized, a fantasy, and yet if you compare Zero Kiryu to the Woodsman, and strike all the 'clear fabrications and fantasies', there's a strong undercurrent of reality to him. That he's there. That he's real: more real than the trees, more solid than the foundation being built. "The Forest is too thick and unruly for anyone to pass through. A little distance can be healthy, but..." The Woodsman shrugs. "You can't split a person in two forever. You seem like you want to go into town, though..." The idealized Zero Kiryu watches Priscilla pace around. "The snow? What's wrong with it?" He asks, reaching down a hand to grip a crunchy fist of the ephemera. "Snow's always been this way." At the periphery of sight, shallow-faced figures loiter at the edge of the trees in grey overcoats and slicked back black hair, fading into shadows when someone looks at them too directly, or the Woodsman turns his watchful gaze around. "You can't go through the forest alone, though. Nobody can, with no path. I'll take you. If we go, though, don't get lost. There's some characters in the woods that belong there, but aren't kind to wanderers." Psychohazards, probably, or worse - some memory. "If you get lost, try to find the red river... But don't worry." With absolute certainty in a tone that was both promise and comfort, the Woodsman shifts his axe on his shoulder and ruffles Biteblade's plantlike 'hair'. "I'll protect you."
Zero Kiryu	Zero remains quiet for a little while, considering the snow. He shakes his head, "No. We've always lived in the mountains, so it snows heavily through winter. We usually walked everywhere, so she has definitely experienced the worst kinds of temperatures firsthand. That's just the world that we live in." It's probably a familiarity thing. Yuuki isn't as fatally realistic as Priscilla usually is, no matter how gloomy she gets when a mood strikes her, so he supposes it's only natural that their perception of the snow would be so very different. He glances at himself, and looks out through the woods in response. If this reflection of himself is capable of going through the woods, then, he's probably capable of doing the same. But as near as he can tell, it's never useful to even try to wander off on your own in these places. You end up touching things that shouldn't be touched, or setting off weird reactions. "She thinks it isn't cold enough," he explains to himself, "hers is much colder." "What's along the river?" Zero asks, staring out into the forest.
Yuuki Kuran	"Along the river?" The woodsman asks, before realizing it's a set of word he said, like a writer feeding an actor lines and the writer scrambling to remember why that vague thing they said last edition mattered. "The river..." The Woodsman snaps into clarity once more, his confidence returning like a skip in a film reel with the correct take spliced in. "The river comes down from the mountain, and forks to the two Manors. If you follow it, you'll find at least one of the two towns. But the Forest is vast, and there's only one river." Stepping past Zero towards the edge of the Forest, the Woodsman hefts his axe and swings it at one tree that he approaches completely normally, revealing a clear, straight 'path' through the forest, naked black trees standing sentinel on either side on and on and on into the distance, that strange 'are they rightside up and we're upside down' perspective shift kaleidoscoping down the "straight" lane.
Starbound Flotilla	Biteblade briefly considers the idea of Yuuki in glasses. "Bookish look. Isss good." She nods approvingly. "It's not woodsss if it doesssn't have some characters like that." Biteblade says, agreeably, to the woodsman. "Thanksss a lot to you too. Iss just trading favorsss!" She gives a quick, cheerful smile. Then she nods solemnly. "It'sss tough, yeah! Sssomething givesss way eventually. There'sss three partsss to every split inside a person." She says, holding up three wooden fingers. "And it's always important to make sssure the one that gives way isss the one that should." What her weird logic is, is entirely ambiguous. Biteblade seems to enjoy the Woodsman's company and affect. She shakes her head out a bit in a friendly way after the ruffling, and comes along. "Thanksss! Floran can survive woodsss, but won't turn down help. And would love to know the path." She has to resist her natural urge to hop onto his shoulders, but follows along easily. While she does, she speaks. "You help guide. But, you ssseem like you don't need much. Does sssomeone help you, too? With building cottagesss, and chopping wood, and all the other thingsss you do?" She's curious about the inner dynamics of Yuuki's mind, and about how things add up in here. She observes the felling of the tree with a silent admiration, but seems almost more interested in the tree itself when things are done, stopping for a moment to examine it. "Floran wondersss... Even now, does everything ssseem confusing like that? Weird pathsss, pathsss hidden away, is it alwaysss that way?" She frowns a bit, but then follows along to the path. "Which Manor do you like more?" She asks, brightly, just to get the conversation about it started.
Priscilla	It takes Priscilla just a moment longer than the others to figure out she's supposed to be looking at Zero. The second she does, she turns her head towards the real deal, in the slow, dry, utterly unhesitant sort of way practically designed as a setup for someone to explain what's going on, or at least offer some awkwardly unhelpful take. She stares. Boy does she stare. Occasionally her eyes flick back and forth to make finer comparisons, but she's just waiting for the comment. She's a little surprised to hear that Yuuki should have plenty of experience with mountain winter, apparently not quite comprehending how someone could not have memories mostly equating it to long forgetfulness and death. Eventually, she just decides "As expected of Lady Kuran, I supposeth." and moves on. "I beg thine pardon --splitting a person in two?" she asks instead, not quite sure how self-aware shoujo Zero is. While normally she might take some mild offense at being told she can't do something alone, chasing trees had been tedious enough before. "I am certain we wouldst appreciate thine efforts. Dost thou live here alone? I wouldst ill desire to distract thee from too-necessary affairs." Witnessing the Woodsman used Cut! and opening up the path just like that puts both matters to rest pretty quickly, but she still has to ask "If thou wouldst entertain mine curiosity, what is it of these 'characters' that concerns thee?"
Starbound Flotilla	"Sssplit a perssson in two, yeah." Biteblade says, nodding to Priscilla. "Look at big tree here." She hefts a chunk of the log, showing surprising strength. "Broken, right? Split up. Split apart. But, it's ssstill all of a tree trunk, right? People can be like that too. Break bitsss off, and ssstill be them. Even cut off the bassse at the bottom, and still be 'whole'. People do it all the time. You sssplit a bit off the edge, it dies and sssomething new growsss. But if you sssplit in the middle..." She shrugs. "If it's sssplit in the middle, you know, 'that's not a whole log', right? You can tell it's only half. That'sss what Floran thinksss." She briefly pauses and looks up at the sky for a moment. "And it's more complicated when the wood's like a Floran. When it wants to be whole." Then, back to cheerful snowy walks in the woods!
Zero Kiryu	"The Manors." Zero repeats, dully. It sounds to him like most of the important features of this place can be reached by following the river. Why the river, though? And why would she contextualize that as proportionately safe? Or is it not safe at all, and merely 'the best option in an emergency'? He nods affirmatively, pausing to side-eye this version of himself. Did he just have to reference a script of some kind? Seems kind of like it... Doesn't matter. "Yes." Zero agrees with Biteblade, on the subject of glasses. The look that he gives her relating to everything else is flatly uncomprehending, but he doesn't object. There's no real reason to. Without looking back at the Woodsman, he speculates on the answer to Biteblade's question: "If there's an assistant, it will only be the one. And even then, only sometimes. But I doubt whoever it is, is really an assistant. More like a visitor." He decides to let Biteblade steer the conversation tree towards one of the Manors, having been holding onto such a question himself. But... If it was him, that would be an impossible question. There is no one or the other. When Priscilla flips back and forth between him and the Woodsman, Zero sighs exasperatedly. He nods, "Yes, I'm sure it's exactly what it looks like." On the subject of how Yuuki relates to things in general and, consequently, how it distorts the snow, Zero nods. He replies, "That is the sort of person she is."
Yuuki Kuran	"I've been here for a long time, but I came from outside." The Woodsman answers Biteblade with a healthy chuckle. "The little one didn't know me, and by the time she did, didn't need me. The older one knew me her entire time, but I wouldn't have her, and by the time I would, she was..." Uncertainty clouds the Woodsman's brow. "Changed, to become the same." How helpful. "In any case, I'm sure the Woods aren't really that dangerous for you all. They're not too dangerous for me." The chad-like confidence of the rugged Zero-Woodsman shines through with just a touch of machismo - but there's a comfortable edge, that same certainty as before. "They're dangerous for both of them." He doesn't clarify that thought, simply adding: "I suppose... Being alone is." Biteblade guides the conversation as the Woodsman leads the party down the path in the woods as it spins like a biscuit tube, corkscrewing perspective almost nauseatingly. "There was another one like me, before. He..." the words come, but the world of Yuuki's mind cannot articulate the sound. A lack, an emptiness, a hole, the immense yearning of an unfulfilled heart, something intrinsic torn away, a dripping wound, pain. There's no word to the sensation, just a crashing tidal wave of quasiprompted emotional pain and lingering distress encapsulated in the simple idea of the Woodsman being here and someone else Not. "Out there, there's another me, I'm sure." The Woodsman notes, craning his neck back at Biteblade and Priscilla but not Zero. His smile is soft, comforting. "But she grew up. So I had to take the next step, in here. And build a place for the little one and the older one to meet." The whole realm stretches on and on and on, naked trees with flickers of grey-coated predators lurking here and there in the periphery, an empty space between for conversation on the path towards the manor. "I think I prefer the older one's Manor, but it's more work to keep it clean. The little one's Manor is much cleaner, but not as comfortable. It's got more characters, like those in the woods." The Woodsman points to one of the strange predator rapist men in coats lurking around, and if striking him, the shady dude's head just pops in a childish 'bip head gone', crumpling in an extremely graphic pile of blood-dappled snow-ephemera. The corpse stinks of desperation, and hunger, and the blood is sweet and tantalizing and succulent, a strange safety and yet terror in the way red mired the pure white. "They do things like that, too."
Zero Kiryu	Zero makes an uncomfortable noise. He didn't like one -- or several -- of the things that the Woodsman just said, but it's impossible to tell what it was. He might talk about it eventually-- he's been a lot better about taking care of himself and talking lately, all things considered. But that hardly makes him perfect or completely open. Some things are still too close to home. But there is a moment where he fills in, almost seamlessly, when the Woodsman lapses from words to a nauseating combination of raw feelings. With more than a little hatred in his voice, Zero fills the void: "Never cared as much as anybody thought he did." He never told Yuuki precisely how bad Kaname had been to him. Even if he insisted that the man wasn't what she expected of him, Zero didn't want to settle things that way. It felt like... he wasn't sure what it felt like. Like cheating, perhaps. No-- no, that wasn't it at all. As they walked alongside his reflection, he touched on exactly what it would have felt like to try to destroy their relationship that way. It would have been like grasping Yuuki as a weapon to hurt that man with. That was never what he wanted. The direction of the Woodsman towards one of the predator figures elicits an immediate and perhaps expected violent reaction. Zero swipes a hand in that direction, claws elongating from fingertips to ... pop him like a balloon. The claws retract impossibly. Zero steadfastly ignores the blood that's left behind, on the ground and on his fingertips. "It smells that way because it's like that to us all the time." He explains for Priscilla and Biteblade.
Starbound Flotilla	Biteblade seems unattached to geometry, as if the plant would just gently wander into a fractal herself and splinter into a dozen trees. Or maybe her own subjective experience of disorientation is strange. "Another you. Huuuuh. Another perssson with your job? Or another you, with a different job?" She asks, tilting her head, and thinking about possible meanings for either interpretation. Then she presses forward. She looks around, when she sees the corpse left behind. She is, after all, a cannibal, and her first thoughts when seeing fresh corpse is something along the lines of, "Are you guys gonna eat that?" But she hakes her head. "Mmmmh. Smellsss... tasssty. Hmmm. And they make problemsss for the little one and the older one?" She thinks about both, pondering which means which. She doesn't really understand vampirism, so it's something that jumbles around her head a little bit, flitting between angles of her skull like a forest spirit. "Which one are we going to now?" She decides on asking. "Floran would like to visssit both of them, yeahyeah. Maybe make them a little lesss alone for a while! Floran hopesss they'd like that. Do you think they would?" She asks the Woodsman, still firing questions at him in that way that feels distant and open, so that the gaps can fill in easily rather than under constraint.
Starbound Flotilla	Biteblade also taps her chin and looks at Zero. "Floran knowsss, a little. About sssmell, Floran means. Floran eatsss meat. But, Floran sssmelling can't tell the difference between alive perssson and dead prey. Floran eatsss, a little, when it'sss okay. Meat from bad people. Or woodflesh of honored warriorsss back when Floran wasss Floran of a tribe. But isss..." She frowns. "Blood sssmell very sssweet. Like candy. Candy you take out of bag one by one, and ssstill eat the whole bag in one day. Not good candy, and not good eating. What isss that?" The posture of her ambigous question seems like it's interrogating less for a particular answer on a particular detail, and more on just some vague answer for something to think about.
Priscilla	The mention of a different 'him', and the context it's spoken in, answers Priscilla's questions about whether the idealized Zero is aware of the Zero standing before him. Going on to describe two forks in the river, two manors, two girls, and originally two Zeros, begins to line things up. She'd ask why there is only one of him now, and at neither manor, but the lack of words, like the auditory equivalent of choking on a sudden lump in one's throat, was bad enough the first time. "If I may inquire, didst thou once maketh thine home at one of those manors? For one reason or another, I imagine it in neat symmetry. That, and I find difficulty in imagining the other one likewise chose to live out so far from anything as thou hast." She keeps thinking. A younger one and an older one seem fairly obvious as different time periods in Yuuki's life. She narrows her eyes sidelong at Zero completing !Zero's sentence, but doesn't know what to make of it, ultimately. For once, Priscilla also gets to witness someone else making someone explode into blood, albeit in a dramatically simplified and very odd fashion. It does indeed look like she was just about to ask Zero. "I cannot imagine." she replies to him, after a moment. "I hath long since forgotten its ordinary smell." Another moment's deliberation. "I suspect that if our protector for the day is so canny at destroying such distinctly . . . 'thirsty', vagrants, I shouldst assumeth they art the same creatures thou were once sworn to hunt, yes?"
Yuuki Kuran	The scent is like a siren song in the mythological sense, and it sings to the senses. Nothing is more definite than the heady crimson that Zero spills all over the snows to the side of the path. The dripping of it is the soothing sound not unlike a welcoming rainfall on a familiar roof. The way it pools draws the eye like a zen garden, and its spread like ripples on a tranquil pond begs the travellers to linger. It makes a parchedness in the throat, like swallowing for the first time after waking up. A heavy and unsatisfying gulp could be eased by it. Just a little bit of it. But the scent, as Biteblade articulates, is like candy - like processed chocolate or gummy worms, or sugary soda. And even so, even knowing exacltly what it is, from a garbage figment of a phantom memory, the pull isn't lessened. Thankfully, the Woodsman keeps walking, and so pausing by the side of the forest to jam the punctured stump of the predator's neck into your face hole would surely lose you by the path. The Woodsman doesn't even spare a glance for the blood. "I've never lived there. And it wasn't me, before." Other Zero picks up the slack - it was someone else, some other figure not unlike the idealized Zero protecting the inner workings of the mind. Some other person? "We're going to the older one, now. I'm sure they'd both recieve you all, but right now, as before, they're in entirely opposite directions." "Split." "I lived with the older one for a time, and took the place of another. The little one's manor was built by the one that came before. I was brought in by the man who built the older one's manor. The order of things is..." The Woodsman looks uncertain, but in the recollecting sense. "Well, I probably can't help with it." As if snapping from one scene to the next, or the turn of a page, the woods abruptly stop, spilling out into a lively little retromodern european town with a large manor house at the top of the hill that rises in the back-center of the area, surrounded by gates like a massive old-country property or a castle. All around are indistinct people who are barely there, the sort of mister potato head people you see once in your life filling every place with a jumble of features. The other thing in the city is just a complete mess of strange monsters. Long-armed demons with pale fingers reach out into the crowds to turn nondescript people's heads towards the demon's rainbow-flashing eyes, flying gargoyles lurk on roofs guffawing as people slip and fall on things, boards of cloven-hooved satyr-people sit in designer clothes on their upper bodies set up tables where they are given money by the 'populace' to shout indistinct judgements... It's a complete madhouse of anxieties, emotions, cultural mores and norms given freakish shapes, and completely rampant emotional cacophony, utterly unlike the quiet and snowy forest.
Zero Kiryu	"It's just hunger," Zero explains to Biteblade, "and there is no getting full enough that it isn't there." He might not have actually gotten the gist of what the Floran was getting at, but at the very least it sounds like they have moderate common ground on the topic of bloodthirst. The difference is, though... it doesn't seem like Biteblade minds it very much. It just seems to be a part of how she does things. It agitates him a bit, but it's qualified enough that he's not certain that's justified. "Copper. It smelled and tasted like copper." He describes for Priscilla, a reminder that he was human, once. Zero adds, "Now it depends on the person. But even somebody truly repugnant smells like a feast." "And yes," he continues, "but I'm still hunting. Don't worry about it. Level E's don't have the luck to get through the application process in the first place." That may be the most ironic thing he has ever said. Once again, Zero picks up the slack of his other self: "She has had four homes, not counting extraversal properties. Her childhood home, Chairman Cross's home, Cross Academy, and Kuran Manor. If these two are modeled on anything, I would say that one is Chairman Cross's home, and the other is Kuran Manor. But it could be more metaphorical than that." He nods towards the house up on the hill, "For instance, I would say that's more on the order of Cross Academy than either manor. If you'd like to go on ahead, I'll be fine here." With that having been said, Zero moves off through the crowds of /bizarre nonsense/ to intently observe one of the oddities. Randomly, he selects the satyr people as an appropriate sample and then he just sort of stares at them. He's trying to figure out whether or not they're proper psychohazards. If there's any erosion going on from them, or the things that they're touching-- or if they're just parts of this place, same as the Woodsman.
Yuuki Kuran	The Woodsman lingers at the edge of the forest, the line between town and forested path hazy and nondefinite, but clearly a dreamlike progression from where they were to where they are, even if the actual geometrical logistics don't match up. Like a memory connected by neurons and bundles of impulse, the two states flow together. The air is sweet in town, like an entire candy aisle, with bright colors all about. A glance at the sky has the daytime atmosphere of the still upside-down world lit by not the sun, but the moon in a paradoxial state, a strange comfort and compromise for a vampire 'like Yuuki' to still have a mindscape so bright. And yet, of course, as a Normal Girl, the 'working' parts of her mind are plagued with insecurities and eroding features all around. Tar leaks from under table of the satyrs onto the cobbled stone street, as they demons accept little baubles and googags and jewgaws, little ideas and tiny inspirations and hopes, hold them up, and then start delivering individual fiery sermons about how trash the pretty little things are, how shit the person is who made them, and how it's useless. After they smash, or tar up the objects, they're paid in faded, nondescript money from the blank-faced and dejected people of the town who stumble off. It's probably society or social media or something, incarnated as a bunch of shitty investor demons. There's dozens of different little set-ups, and mostly they're ignored by people, the bright mindscape covered in pockets of rot and filth like going to the dentist after eating lunch and not even swishing out your mouth.
Starbound Flotilla	"Hunger. Hmmm. Neeever? Weird. Floran getsss full sssometime. Is different. Floran wonders where the hunger comesss from. If it'sss like that, Floran think isss probably powerful. Blood isss very strong, anything that can keep being hungry after blood isss too ssstrong." Biteblade decides. And of course, the walk ends with all the abruptness of an axe coming down on wood. Biteblade is introduced to a much more civilized mind than her own, and almost feels a little overwhelmed. Out in the woods, things made a lot more sense, but here things are a lot more socially dense and stressed out. And, while those are only pockets, they're the kind of pockets that Biteblade doesn't like; a lot of this embodies all the things Biteblade is intensely averse to, as an exiled hunter herself. "Weird. Weird weierd weird weird. Why do people do thisss? Floran will never underssstand. Living like that makesss you build your own little bitsss of pain. Blech." She sticks her tongue out and makes that "blech!" noise again. "Can we go?" She looks back to the Woodsman. "Not gonna come with Floran?" She frowns, but decides to give him a quick thankful hug either way. "Thanksss for guiding! Good luck with building. Floran will make sssure to help!" She promises, before looking back to the manor in view. She glances to Priscilla. "Fuzzy friend, can head up to manor quick?" She's intent on getting through the city, even the brighter parts, and visiting the Older One soon!
Priscilla	Well, not specifically a second Zero, but a second man filling the Role of Zero. That is slightly less expected, simply because Yuuki had never much spoken of it, but then Priscilla doesn't share her past around and neither, as far as she knows, does Yuuki. "Is that why thou didst always look so uncomfortable so much of the time?" she just flat out asks Zero about the blood though. She'd never pried about it before, albeit seems to have sort of the wrong idea coincidentally tangentially related to the right one. She skips a footstep and falls just that far behind for a second, but finally her lips flicker with the ephemeral spirit of a grin at Zero's chosen explanation of his job though. "Very well. I shalt trust it in thine capable hands." She instead looks up to the manor (ignoring the absolute pandaemonium that is the town below it for the moment) and considers the rest of what he has to say. "Amalgamations of this sort art hardly unknown. Memory is little but confabulation, in the end. Wouldst thou say those four couldst be neatly divided into two, as everything else? I am aware that thou hast shared history with her regarding the Academy and no doubt her Manor. What of her childhood home and this . . . Cross?" She can't ignore that bizarre daemonic chaos for long though. She talks as she walks, continuing to ply Zero with question. "Am I to expect that this is . . . perhaps aside 'normal', that these things at least existeth in thine own world? They art . . . somewhat jarring, contrasted here. Vampires art at least not visibly so different from humanity." She replies to Biteblade. "It is clear that they art Pyschohzards. They may or may not be 'native', but they art certainly well situated. 'Civilized'. Patriated. Intense sources of stress, no doubt, though I wonder at precisely how unusual." She stops by one of the demons, in the middle of an especially shitty and vitriolic tirade, pausing to consider for just a moment, before the soft-burning blue-white beam of Moonlight sweeps from her hand and through the proselytizing monster, with the general attitude of an ancient samurai dispatching of a disrespectful peasant on the road. She wants to see what happens, if much of anything. At least the demeanour of the crowd after. "Hm? Ah, yes. That wouldst appear to be the most productive course of action." She glances back to swole lumberjack !Zero, sees he isn't coming, and motions Biteblade to follow her up the street to the doors.
Zero Kiryu	"It is too strong." Zero agrees with Biteblade, unreservedly. He glances back-- towards the Woodsman, and his wood. He shakes his head, "He doesn't need to go any farther than that. If what he said was true, he lived here a long time ago. Probably, he won't leave the wood because now, if they need him, they just go to him there. So if he's someplace else, someplace unexpected..." "There won't be anyone to turn to." Zero is given pause by Priscilla's question. She'd noted before that he was doing a lot better than he usually was-- it was probably pointless not to be truthful with her. He turns towards her properly, nodding, "I was usually starving myself sick." "As for the homes that we shared, I don't know anything about her childhood home. She was nine or ten when I met her-- Chairman Cross took the both of us in after our families were killed, because he was close to both of our parents." "No, these don't exist in our world. I'm not aware of anything supernatural that isn't vampiric in origin, but the world was ruined by a war before we were born. It's possible that there's more left than we know of, but it's nothing that Yuuki would have been exposed to. Probably, this is just how she sees the secret societies she's involved with. They're both..." "Catty." He falls silent as he surveys the unfathomable nonsense unfolding-- the rot of the satyr beings, in particular. It isn't until he's satisfied that he knows these are psychohazards that Zero says to Biteblade, "That's what humans do. We get a little bit hurt and before we realize what we're doing, we've spun that little hurt into a cage that we don't have the key to, pretending amazement of our predicament all the while." He draws the mental image of Bloody Rose from within his jacket, and gestures loosely towards Biteblade and Priscilla to let them know again that it's OK to go ahead without him. With that, Zero angles the firearm up towards the sky and fires. A streak of light cuts through the air from the barrel, issued without giving the first sound. As it rises above the rooftops the light bursts apart, spreading out for a moment as if it were a blooming flower-- and each increasingly drooping pedal descends... Only to begin turning abruptly. They descend upon the satyr and the gargoyles, the little demons and the big ones, twisting and turning this way and that to find their prey.
Yuuki Kuran	The Woodsman turns back down the path, leaving the group, presumably to go back to the unfinished cottage to keep chopping woods and being a sex object in the corner. At least that single part of the woods is more definite: Simply thinking about it brings the path back to clarity, the 'way to get out of the woods' a touchstone not unlike a key. The 'supernatural' demons continue their mentally damaging and painful cavorting, representing societies and social mores, but when Priscilla weilds Moonlight against the peasant-tirade of one, the surrounding faceless citizenry, the various thoughts of Yuuki exhale a pleased sigh. Biteblade or Priscilla may not directly know the feeling, but Zero doubtless would know it a little too well, being a modern man: It's precisely the catharsis of a toxic or painful source being struck down convincingly, shown for what it was, or given the perfect ending for re-seizing joy. A few of the errant people pick up their scraps of ideas or glimmering thoughts and dust them off with pleased noises, revisiting the little meaningless scraps of joy that had been sullied just before. Then Zero leverages his monster-slaying gun, a figment of Bloody Rose broguht into the dream and given yet greater power specifically because of how intimately familiar Yuuki is with the weapon - and arcs an absurd, anime shot into the air as Biteblade and Priscilla carry on into the Reversed Manor. Behind them, a rain of destructive catharsis obliterates an untold urban interchange pileup of just awful, awful emotional shit caused by 'society'. Another stumbling step, unhelped by the awful feeling in the inner ear, and they're past the (still closed) gate with the feeling they opened it, with Zero close at hand if he chooses to follow (as the town goes through a collective 'moment of happy sighing relief'). Inside the gates, what looked from the outside like a large school is more a single mid-sized early century europea mansion (really part-castle), with a very new-looking well in the courtyard surrounded by brick smelling delicious and refreshing - the stonework stands out as new among the much older and weathered stone of the building and simple snowy lawn with low-maintenance features. Before two large doors at the entrance, a single Extremely Real person stands - an high-school aged auburn-haired girl with bright brown eyes like Yuuki's without their tell-tale red, her hair cut quite short and fluffy-wavy. She wears a blac uniform with white lines and a red bow - a school uniform of some sort - and a moderately-stated gold necklace visible around her neck. "Welcome. Are you here to see her? Everyone had thought... you were going to see the other manor first. We would have cleaned up more if you had come."
Yuuki Kuran	"Please, come inside." As the scenery snaps to everyone into a sitting room in moderate state of disarray, the auburn-haired girl moves around with plates and cups of tea. "Would anyone like something hot to drink?" The sitting room has the feeling of relaxation, the safety of the smell of books and the distant notes of aftershave and quill ink. Bits and bobs of childhood are scattered around, nondescript except for their plain presence. The colors are more muted here, but in warm tones of pastels rather than the bright vibrance of 'outside'. Something rich - a 'Man's cooking', distinctly, some over-meated stew - simmers a few rooms away. After a few moments fumbling with tea that probably nobody drinks, 'Older' Yuuki arrives. This Yuuki moves like she is sleepwalking, in a uniform identical to the girl that met them at the door - who moves to flank the chair like a butler or assistant when the sleepy Yuuki settles in. She's distinctly younger, a 'high schooler' as opposed to the Yuuki-of-the-Now's vague college-age, though they are similar except for her far shorter-cropped hair. The most shocking bit to her, at least for Priscilla and Biteblade, is the lingering wound on her neck - a set of seeping holes, exactly like bite marks, which run dribbles down her neck and into the white undershirt of her uniform. "Oh... hello everyone... This is my mansion. Well, 'mine'. I live here. Were you offered tea? I'm feeling rather strange today, but I'm glad you're here." She brightens. "Sorry, just low energy. Are you here to help me? I'm trying to... reconcile things." If Zero is present at that precise moment, she gives him a strange eager-yet-wiped-out look. "I'm trying to finish growing up, I guess."
Zero Kiryu	Zero replaces Bloody Rose beneath his jacket, sincerely grateful that it really was that simple. He supposes that it's a perk of being known to the mindscape-- or perhaps a perk of being embraced by it. Or maybe it's just a coincidence. Hard to gauge things in here. He sighs irritably, rubbing at the back of his head. It wasn't an exactly inaccurate picture of the way things worked around here, but he wonders if the other village is any different. He glides past the parfait shop Yuuki loved so much, and heads up after the others. It takes him a little bit to catch up, partially because he's taking his time. By the time he catches up the introductions have already been made, and the other two have been invited in. That's fine. Zero emerges into their vicinity partially as a coincidence. He is followed a smell -- no, two smells. The one is a recipe he favors, and the other is blood. There's no hiding that blood from him, even if it's a mental construct. The fact that she's bleeding at all in here, though, is... Worrying. Out of sheer curiosity he does make certain to peek into the kitchen to see whether or not another reflection of himself is doing the cooking, but Zero doesn't spend long on it. He emerges into the sitting room through the wrong door, exactly in time to trigger a CONVERSATION FLAG. "Wakaba." Zero asides to the too-real-girl. Zero moves past her to take half-of-Yuuki's opposite side, one hand dipping unreservedly down to wipe at the blood coming from her neck. "What do you think that means?" He asks.
Starbound Flotilla	Biteblade really, really likes seeing all that urban stuff destroyed. It fills her with that wonderful feeling of positivity. A perfect introduction to getting jumblebrained through a gate and into a front door. "Oh! Hello! Yeahyeah, Floran isss here to sssee the Older One. Thank you! Floran would love hot drink. Tea isss like eating warrior in a drink!" No it isn't, but she loves making that joke. Biteblade keeps her own energy quite high. "Yeah! Floran isss gonna help out. Floran knowsss a lot about growing up, and reconciling, and thingsss like that." She leans forward, bright-eyed. "Floran reconcile biggessst problemsss, very good at it! Tell Floran what iss." She immediately takes a huge gulp of tea, irrationally large, and has to hold herself back from biting out a chunk of the cup. Then she leans forward, peering at the double-piercing. She starts tapping her chin. She peeeeeers... "Floran thinksss, thisss part of her mind, maybe it's cognizing the effect of vampirisssm externally. Disassociating and dissstancing. Yuuki isn't a vampire, she's a person, afflicted with vampirism. Ssseparate part, minor, but persssisting. That isss what Floran thinksss." She gives firm nods and contemplative "hmm hmm hmmmmmm" noises.
Priscilla	For a change, it actually is that simple. Kill the stress, cure the stress --at least that one particular source, for a time. It's moderately interesting to Priscilla, who so far has only done these excursions in situations of extreme emergency. With the exercise proven though, Zero instantly renders any further exploration of the idea pretty much moot, with his nuclear vampire gun nonsense. "Well met. Art thou a friend of lady Kuran's?" Priscilla asks the shorter-haired girl, fully well expecting that she definitely must be, even with the matching school uniforms aside, but politely prompting a name and some summary of their relationship. "The other manor may wait, for the time being. Worry not of the state of things, as it matters little to the reason we art here." After so many disorienting vertigo twists through space to get into this living room, Priscilla decides that sitting down and tea sounds good. Sitting in one place and doing something relaxing would be welcome at this point, even if nothing has popped out of the dreamy woodworks to kill them so far. She, at first, pretends not to notice the bite holes, but then no longer hides her silent, visual examination when Zero just gets up to clean them up, probably unable to help himself. "Indeed, thou look to be a little distracted, Lady Kuran." A lounge with tea and possibly stew seems like a good setting for this, all of a sudden. "Wouldst thou care to tell us what weighs on thine mind?" She glances back towards the door. "Outside of the obvious, that is." After a handful of dramatic, speech-punctuating teasips, Priscilla rolls around Biteblade's guesses in her head, and slowly, tentatively, replies "I am not entirely certain as such. I see well that this is a space bereft of the trappings of vampirism, and instead those of more modern society, and that the other road is quite obviously rife with vampires by comparison, but I can conceive of no particular way for 'humanity' to manifest as a stigmata or a blight upon a vampiric half. They most certainly seemeth to relate to places she hast been before, perhaps more relevant to 'communities' a part of."
Yuuki Kuran	The first part goes simply enough. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm being terribly rude. I'm Sayori Wakaba. Yuuki and I go to school together. We're roommates. I've known Yuuki since before she went to Cross Academy, and we're quite close - well, at least, I think so. Then, all that business with Kaname and the Night Class..." She serves tea about and returns to her position, her petite stature underlaid with a quiet confidence and posture that had been seen echoed many times in Yuuki's 'prior' acts in the waking world. Whether Sayori was Yuuki's inspiration, the pair were close because of their natures, or Sayori was simply some figment of Yuuki externalized into her 'closest friend'. Sayori laughs gently at Biteblade, fetching a second cup of tea at the perhaps-too-eager drinking of the Floran, nodding along as Yuuki's head bobs sleepily in her sitting chair. "I don't really understand vampires. I learned about them, certainly. The night Yuuki came into our room with her hair long, and her eyes wild, and Hanabusa came to protect me during that one night, years ago... Well, I never saw the appeal, really. Distant, and cold, and vicious. Pretty, but most of them just seemed like a wrapper around a monster." School Yuuki frowns lightly, as Zero's finger taps at the blood dripping from her neck. "I'm sorry, Zero, not now, I can't... Maybe in a little bit... And Yori, don't say things you don't mean." Sayori glances down at the rather drained-out School Yuuki, with a look as plain as day reading 'but I really did mean it'. "... Well, not all of them. But even your loyal dog was a pain sometimes." Yuuki laughs, more lively at that. "Hanabusa is a handful." Sayori moves on to Zero's stated question with some bafflement. "She's been like that since we moved in here, Zero. Since the split. Don't you remember? You were cooking, and then went out in the woods to cut a path. You said it was important." "For growing up." School Yuuki adds drowsily.
Yuuki Kuran	Biteblade seems somewhat on the money, if their angle of ideological attack pans out: something is clearly disassociated, between the Yuuki in here, young, yet being literally bled out by a wound she suffered some time ago - and some 'second mansion', ostensibly something the internal Zero had either been told to or went out to fix on his own - considering the internal mindscale Sayori doesn't see a difference between 'the Real Zero' and 'The Fake Zero, AKA, The Woodsman'. Shoujo Vision sure is powerful. Priscilla is given no small amount of attention as she settles in to the cozy atmosphere, Sayori flitting away to return with bowls of Dream-Zero's hearty meat stew - some sort of curry-stew fusion thing with a sweet spice that heavily tasted of gentle times and homey memories of contentedness. If this were a dreamscape RPG: You'd have found the best healing item in the entire vampire stress-scape. Yuuki retrieves a bloody handkerchief to daub at her neck, sitting up as Priscilla talks to her. "No, no, it's fine. You're my friend, I'm being a terrible host. It's just... Something happened, and I said some terrible things, and did some terrible things, and I keep on feeling myself slip away. It's scary. I wanted you to come, I tried to psych myself up, but I thought you'd be seeing the other mansion today, so I took the day off instead. "It's hard, you know. To do everything. It's worth it, and I want to do it, and I want to help you, but keeping a tight lid on everything and biting down as hard as I can and never, ever giving in: it's hard. I guess I don't have to tell you that, do I?" A classic smile, though more exhausted than radiant, shines through her weighed-down nature. "My first memory... Is white. Being in a field of whiteness, with trees all around me. There's a man there... or maybe two." She squints, hazy recollection fading in her eyes. "It's the same as my last memory." Odd, really - she has all the memories of the Concord, as no great change happened to her during her time in the Multiverse beyond letting down her hair a bit on actually being some absurd power princess vampire thing, even if she wasn't totally open about it. "Snow. Cross Academy... And blood. That's when I moved in here. When things... got harder. Or, was it...?" "Was I always here?"