I do not own Naruto.
Lien doesn't quite remember the first time she meets people in the dream land.
It's hard to remember something that could happen in the future, or may have happened in the past. It could be happening at that very point in time, because in the dream world, nothing is linear, and everything is always shifting. She may very well recall their first meeting to be at some point it is not, and therefore it would not be an accurate memory, and she would be wrong.
Or rather, not right, which is a shade of wrong.
It's a funny concept, she's found, this Right vs. Wrong. It seems entirely dependant on far too many variables for one person to ever properly calculate. You must know not only the situation, but the people involved, the history of the subject, how it may apply in the future, and the theoretical effects it may have on those it could possibly involve, and still you will be limited by what you speak and you ability to convert a four dimensional concept into flat, two dimensional language.
It spans even greater than Right vs. Wrong though. People, she finds, are very attached to sorting things into two particular groups. The groups will have seemingly firm, distinct lines and lots of space between them from a distant view, but upon closer inspection, the lines will fall apart, and there will be far more than just two groups, if there is are any groups at all.
Lien cocks her head to the side, her small body particularly suited for this action. She can't be more than physically three or four at the moment. Her short, spiky black hair is the same length it was when she first entered primary school, and her limbs are still plump and round. She was a chubby child, all round cheeks and bouncy flesh. It's always a fun form to take.
The boy across from her blinks and shies away, crouching back into the tangled branches around him. He has wide black eyes that shine like obsidian mirrors, and she sees herself reflected upside down inside of them. The perspective is a bit different, which means she enjoys the change.
"I think," she tells him, "I'm dreaming."
The boy blinks.
"You're not supposed to be here," he tells her quietly, his voice like the barest whisper of wind.
He slides back until the branches almost cover him completely, and she notices for the first time that she is barefoot. The grass underneath her feet is prickly and itchy, but much nicer than squishy mud.
"Maybe," she agrees with him, wriggling her toes and trying to get a solid look at the forest around them. It's big, much bigger than any forest she has seen inside the waking world. The trees make sequoia's seem small in comparison, and the canopy above only lets in streams of light here and there.
It's very quiet for a forest as well, with only the rustling of leaves and the periodic sound of bugs to fill it. Strangely enough, there is also the distant sound of bubbling liquid, like a test tube or fish tank.
She would try and explain it but this is his dream, not hers.
"There's never been anybody in here before," he tells her, peeking out from behind the branches. "It's not right."
She shrugs, deciding that she wants to take a closer look at the grass. She flops to the ground, and the moisture seeps up from the dirt and into her pants. It's oddly uncomfortable, because denim was never meant to be wet. Or, at least, she doesn't like wearing wet denim.
"It's not safe. You should go," he tries, and this time, he sounds less like he's talking to himself, and maybe like he's addressing her.
"Why are there water noises?" she asks, after a particularly loud bubbling sound bursts through the rustling trees. It sounds like a clogged sink that keeps draining in spurts.
The little boy's face goes white, and he stops moving completely, as if stillness will stop her from spotting his peach colored toes in the emerald stalks. It's not a very effective method of hiding, she thinks passively.
"He'll hear you, go away," the boy whispers at her, in that peculiar way children have. Which is to say, it isn't much of a whisper at all.
She hums, threading her fingers through the grass and leaf litter. There isn't much of the latter, which is weird considering all of the leaves on the trees. Actually, if she thinks about it, it is very strange that there is so much grass at all. There isn't enough sunlight coming through the canopy to support its existence, and it is all very uniform in length, as if a mower came through.
Still, it's a dreamscape, and applying logic to this world won't help in the least. She'll drive herself mad trying to figure it out. Or, more mad, she supposes.
"You're scared," she comments lightly.
"You're not supposed to be here," he says again, more vehemently.
She looks up from the grass, and notices that he's crouched on the ground in his fort made of tree branches. He balances on his toes, his arms wrapped around his knees, and she thinks that it makes him look very small. An acorn among the tower oaks.
"Where should I go?" she asks him seriously.
He seems to think about it for a second, his face scrunching up with the effort it takes him to formulate a response.
"Not here," he decides, and she frowns, her brows furrowing on her face.
"Is that the only choice?" she asks. "Here and not here?"
He huffs, looking frustrated. His eyes dart around the dark forest suspiciously, as if their quiet conversation will draw unwanted attention even though there is nobody but the two of them in the empty glade.
"If you move elsewhere, then obviously you are not here, so yes," he says.
Lien sighs, lying flat on her back and rolling over a few feet to the left, thereby fulfilling the strange boys desires. It doesn't harm her to do so, and it took little effort to do.
"There," she says, her voice muffled by the ground. "Now I am not where I was. Is that any better?"
"That's not what I meant!" he declares angrily. "You're still here!"
"But I'm not there! If you have a place where you need me to go, then you need to make more sense," she explains exasperatedly. "Because I moved elsewhere, which isn't what you said counted as here, but now you're including where I moved in your definition. You're confusing me."
"I'm confusing you?" He shouts. "You're not making any sense! You're crazy!"
She frowns, turning back to face him while still on her belly. He's emerged from his fort to stand over her, his big dark eyes narrowed in frustration, his hands placed on his hips.
"That's mean," she informs him haughtily, ignoring how some of the dry, crumbled leaves have found a new home in her hair and the moisture has seeped into her shirt as well as her pants. In the scheme of things, her mild uncomfortableness means very little.
"You need to go away, because you're loud and weird, and if you keep making noise, the snake man will show up and he'll hurt us!" he shouts at her, jabbing his tiny finger in her direction.
She makes a face, because nobody said anything about people hurting them. In fact, there's nobody here but them, but she won't question his logic because it's the other world, and anything could happen. She met talking dogs once.
"Why didn't you start with that?" she asks, popping up and grabbing his outstretched hand. He jolts at the sudden movement, looking surprised, but she's already busy dragging him through the trees, leaving his sad little fort far behind them.
"What?" he asks, surprised at the warmth of her hands. They are dirty and a little bit wet, but they feel so real. He's never had somebody hold his hand before, and it's….sorta nice.
"Well, if somebody is gonna hurt us then we should move," she answers, tugging him along.
"Obviously, both here and not here are out of the question, and when I rolled over to there, you said he could still come, so we have to go some place else," she answers succinctly, craning her head around. They could probably walk forever in these empty woods, but as long as it's someplace other than here, not here, or there, they should be fine. Heck, if they keep moving, then they should technically be nowhere at all or a bunch of places at once, so that's even better, right?
"That doesn't make any sense though," he informs her, staring at a leaf caught in her hair. It's weird, because it's a burnt rusty red that he's not sure he's ever actually seen before. In fact, he's sure he's never seen it before in the lab. He'd remember something so colorful.
"It doesn't have to, this is a dream," she answers him.
"But it's not a dream," he answers back. "We're both awake, how could we be dreaming?"
She snorts at him, her nose wrinkling up strangely on her face. He notices her eyes are dark like his, but not as large, and there is a bandage on her neck, just underneath her ear.
"You can be awake in a dream. Paradoxes happen all the time, like people being happy and sad, or energetically lazy," she teaches him, turning in a random direction, making them both careen around.
"What is a paradox?" he asks curiously, and her features droop when she registers his words. She looks at him through the corner of her eyes, like he said something silly, and he feels himself flush.
"A existing state of contradiction," she tells him. "Like being awake in a dream."
"Oh," he answers, not really understanding.
For a while, they walk, and it seems endless. The trees look similar, but not exactly the same, the grass stays the exact length throughout the journey, and the dark depths of the forest never get any brighter or nearer, but it's nice. Different.
It's not the clumsy fort that always collapses when the snake man comes, or the cold dark that sometimes hurts. It's just him and this stranger, and they walk together, hand in hand, and maybe for the first time in his entire life, he feels safe.
He feels like he would be okay if this went on forever, and he's just about to voice that when her head turns to the side, as if she can hear something in the distance. Her feet shuffle to a stop, and he hears water noises getting louder in the distance.
"You're gonna wake up soon," she tells him in that flat voice, as if it's an absolute fact. It's not good, or bad, it just is.
"I am awake," he tells her again, because she should know even if she is crazy.
"Well, then, I'm going to have to go soon," she tries instead.
He panics, gripping onto her hand just a little bit harder, because he doesn't want her to go. He wants her to stay, and they could walk in the forest forever. No labs, no tanks of water, no snakeman. Just the trees and grass and that leaf in her hair.
"Don't," he whines. "You should stay."
She smiles at him, and she squeezes his hand back. A part of him thinks it's a bit silly, because she's little like him, and she doesn't look strong at all. There's no way she could keep away the snake man, but he feels like she could. He feels like she she could do a lot of cool things, even if she is crazy.
"It'll be okay, it's just a dream," she tells him, and already he can feel the moisture on his skin, the weightlessness of the water.
"If it's a dream, then I want to stay asleep," he admits, panicking. " Don't make me wake up, don't let me go!"
She smiles, and he can see a light behind her, tinged green by the glass around him. He shifts, and for the first time, he notices that her clothes aren't like anything he's ever seen before. She isn't like anything he's ever seen before.
I won't let go," she promises. "If you're scared, you can always come back. We'll go nowhere together."
He grins, because he can see that she means it, and he can't help the happy noise that escapes his throat. The light gets a little bit bright, and the water even louder, and eventually the forest fades away entirely.
He blinks, and there is nothing but the lab. He floats inside his tube while the wires wind around him, and the halogen lights burn through the green glass. For a moment he feels like crying, because she lied to him, but the he notices that his hand is warm when the rest of the water is a tepid temperature that perfectly matches his skin.
Even though his heart beats in fear, he smiles, because he can almost imagine her fingers still wrapped around his. He's not alone, and next time, they can try and walk to nowhere together.
"So I had a weird dream again," Lien states idly. There's no heat behind it, not meant to be anything other than a passing statement. It's a comment, and she hears many conversations start like that.
"Please stop," groans her cousin Theresa. She's sitting across from her, cross legged on her sleeping roll, her head in her hands. Lien notes her copper hair is particularly shiny today. She should mention that later, she hears it's a compliment, and people like those.
"Why?" Lien asks, because there's a reason in the waking world. Or at least, most the time there is.
"I'm had the weirdest dream last night. I think you're starting to influence my unconscious," she states.
"Unconscious, or subconscious?" Quips her sister, and Lien's other cousin, Franky, curiously jotting down a few words in a battered looking notebook. She's halfway consumed by the work at hand, and Lien knows it's only halfway because she's still talking.
"Don't be pedantic, you know what I meant," Theresa snipes back without heat. There are bags under her eyes, she notices for the first time. She deems it unnecessary to comment on those though, because in the past, when she commented on such observations, it was considered borderline insulting.
Social Nuances. Lien gets them.
(...Sometimes.)
"Well, do tell," Franky prods. "Seriously, we've been psychoanalysing Lien's dreams for years now. Freud would cream himself if he could hear some of our conversations. It's only fair if we tear apart your dreams."
"Comforting," Theresa drawls tiredly. She takes a steadying breath, running her hand down her face. "I...don't know? I was a shadow, but like, a sentient shadow, and some dude used me to kill another dude."
"That's fucked up," Franky says, putting her notebook to the side. She twists around to grab her travel bag, the worn flannel shirt riding up her waist a few inches. "I can't wait to see what the book has to say about that."
"Oh Mary mother of Jesus," Theresa curses. "Not the book."
"The book," Franky intones ominously. "The mighty and all knowing."
"The book," Lien joins in. "It sees into your dreams, it sees into your soul."
Theresa sighs, wondering why fate sees fit to give these people to her as family. At this point, after years of seeing them at their best and worst, she should be used to it. Somehow, though, somehow they always found a way to exasperate her.
The book in mention, worn and abused looking, is drawn from the zippered bag without further ceremony. The half faded title 'Dream Interpretation Encyclopedia' scratched in places only legible to them because it had been around so long. Admittedly, Franky had only purchased it around eighteen, so it wasn't that old, but it was harshly, and heavily, used.
Franky flicks it open with a practiced twist of her fingers, skimming through crumpled pages stained with coffee and unidentifiable food bits. At this point, none of the assembled really believed the passages contained within, but it's always a good source of entertainment in their downtime.
"Shadows, shadows," Franky murmurs, making her way to the S's. She huffs out a sigh when she reaches them, her eyes darting back and forth.
"So, shadows mean you're an introvert. No surprise there," Franky ribs playfully. "Assuming the dude was using his own shadow to kill another dude, it means that you will find a protector, or that there is a problem you need to confront soon. Or both. Also, there could be a journey ahead."
"Particularly unhelpful," Lien summarizes. "As usual, the book provides vague wisdom."
"One could even say it was a bit….shady," Franky stresses, closing the Encyclopedia with a snap, sporting an overly self-satisfied smile. Her use of a pun draws groans from the other girls, who never fail to let her know their feelings on her word-play.
"Franky," Theresa grumbles, "That was terrible."
"Franky," Lien echoes, letting her tone say it all.
"I'm sorry," said cousin replies with a huff of laughter. "You two seem upset about something, care to shed a little light on the situation?"
Lien doesn't answer, simply throwing the nearest object -a half eaten piece of jerky- at her cousin. It hits the curly haired girl in the forearm and comes to rest on her leg moments before being snatched up and consumed. There are no worries of germs between them any longer. Not when they've basically shared enough to have the same immune system at this point.
"You're a menace," Theresa huffs out indignantly, "Barking at kids in supermarkets, spouting Franky-ism's everywhere. You need to be stopped."
Her reply comes in the form of a charming smile, half chewed jerky pushed between her teeth. She touts the half-mad look that Lien has envied for years and never duplicated correctly, her eyes wide behind her glasses, her short hair in careful disarray.
Theresa just rolls her eyes.
"Whatever. Next thing you know, you'll be getting Lien inspired dreams, and I'll get to whip out the book. Just you wait," the brunette threatens, pointing an accusing finger.
"I hope I'm one of those tree-jumpers. I want to spit in the the eye of physics," Franky mumbles around a mouthful of food.
"Not as cool as you think," Lien cites from experience.
"We'll see," Franky replies, finally swallowing her food. "We'll see."
Three days later, Lien get's an angry text on her phone in the middle of lunch rush that she can't check until break. It turns out to be from Franky, who complains that she had her dream, but she was the tree, not the climber, and it was all around weird and unsettling.
At the time, Lien writes it off, thinking that her cousin is right and she has been talking too much about her dreams lately. Tucking her phone back in her apron, she mentally determines that she's going to have to cut back on it a bit, for everybody's sake, and doesn't think on it anymore.
Later, she realizes that this may be her first mistake.