I do not own Naruto, or Alice in Wonderland. Alternate Title: Why Hidan doesn't wear shirts.
She's an animal this time.
It's always weird not wearing a human form, she'll be the first to admit it. Her mind usually stays, but there are strange instincts that drive her, and her body works even though she's used to operating a more ape-like form. She has no arms to speak of, no fingers or hands, but she has wings, small and speedy things that power her through the air as she hops among the stubby, bush like trees.
Her mind isn't quite human, not filled with idle thoughts and vague desires. She doesn't have the capacity to think too hard on certain subjects, or acknowledge abstract concepts of danger. She is only aware of some intangible pull telling her that winter is over now, and she must restore her lost vitality with the fruits of spring. The north is calling her back, the romping grounds of her ancestors, and she feels the need to venture that way once again. There are nests to build and territories to defend.
She knows that it is warm, wherever she is, and that the seeds she periodically picks from the bushes fill her stomach in a satisfying way. They have no particular flavor, or none she can detect with her dry, clumsy tongue, but some have hard shells that are satisfying to crack through, and others slowly give beneath her beak in a pleasant way.
In the waking world, her toes are not long and spindly, scaled over and dry. She admits she has some skill with picking things up with them, and perhaps they could operate in place of her fingers with much more training, but she doubts she will ever be able to hold a branch still with them to peck at a stubborn pod. She doubts she'll need to.
(She might, but it's not likely.)
Still, she enjoys this form, with keen eyesight and a dead nose. Her body is light, her bones hollow and filled with air, and she can feel the wind in her soul. She's small, true, but fast, and able to take cover foliage to avoid predators. Or, most predators anyway.
Humans, she's found, are the exception to most rules of nature. People are always finding ways to recreate the natural order, and her little bird mind tells her that loud noises are something to run from. It also tells her that sometimes humans leave tasty crumbs, and if she waits, her meal may come quicker and easier than expected.
"Fucking shut your stupid mouth!" Comes the enraged scream in an unfamiliar voice. She titters, protesting from her perch. Her wings open and beat the air while the branch jitters precariously beneath her, threatening to toss her off.
Lien cocks her head around to watch the potential danger, drawn by the sound. There is a flash of white, the gleam of silver, and fuchsia eyes so sparkly she wants to steal them and add them to her yet un-built nest. Her tiny heart races in her chest, and she stills, watching as he clutches his head.
"No!" He declares again to nobody at all, his fingers threaded through his hair. He looks manic and dangerous, his eyes never straying from the shirt laid out on the rock. They slip to the side like he hears something, and he scowls without cause.
"Don't get fuckin smart with me, you're in my fucking head, you shut the hell up!" He protests loudly, stomping his foot.
The dry grass is crushed mercilessly beneath his sandal, and she snaps her beak, feeling the desire to fly down and tear the broken stalks to pieces. Perhaps there are seeds in the stalks, or maybe she just wants to shred them. Instincts are strange.
There is a bit of movement that catches her eye, and she tilts her head even further, because it does not come from the man. No, it is from the piece of clothing resting on the rock, the black fabric twitching unnaturally even though there is nary even a breeze. It would surprise her, but the dream world is an odd place, and this isn't the strangest thing she's seen.
The man, however, seems to disagree.
"Hah!" He crows, -and she thinks it is a very good impression. Respectable birds, those crows- "I told you it was fucking moving! This shirt is possessed!"
Again, there is another beat of silence, and he looks as if he is listening to something. After a moment, his face floods red, and he bares his teeth at nothing, hands still clasped over his ears. Fury paints his features, and he thrashes around madly after a moment.
"THAT'S IT! THAT'S IT YOU DUMB SHIT! I'M CUTTING UP THE SHIRT, THEN I'M DIGGING YOU OUT OF MY SKULL WITH MY BARE HANDS!" He shrieks cacophonously. This time he is less crow and more eagle, which sets her nerves on edge. She hops closer to the trunk of her bush, hoping to avoid the gaze of any predators. Hungry things, those eagles, always ready for another meal.
Then, because the dream world has never failed to surprise her, he darts forward to the rock, hands leaving his skull to pick up the article of clothing. His pale fingers grab the hem, and the top seems to struggle in his grasp, lazily twitching and struggling as he grins maniacally, pulling it apart. A tear spreads down from the neck, the sound of snapping threads filling the glade, and the strange man laughs hysterically as he fists his hand in another section, ripping it to perfect, nest-lining sized shreds.
It doesn't stop there though, because once he's done with the shirt, he starts on himself. Lien watches in sickly fascination as he digs his nails into the soft skin of his temple and starts digging. She knows, somewhere, that it is horrifying, but her bird instincts are simply bemused, knowing that his meat will draw predators. What a silly human, this man. The vultures will come, along with the cats and racoons.
His pretty eyes have gone wide, and he's grinning from ear to ear, showing off a frankly unsettling amount of teeth. He keeps laughing as he digs further into his head with his graceful fingers, driven by some unseen force.
"That's right!" He cries. "Scream! Where are your puns now!?"
A strangled noise emerges from his throat after a beat of silence, and even though she didn't think it was possible, he pushes harder to maim himself. He's feverish in his devotion, and she watches trails of cerise well up and slide down his cheeks.
He grunts from the pain, but it does not stop. Quicker than she expects, he hits something important, and his motor control loses finesse. He's still gurgling out a laugh as he goes down, falling to the broken grass, legs akimbo beneath him.
Lien titters as he goes still, and peers out from her bush, curiously eyeing her surroundings. There are no sounds save for the quiet hum of bugs, and perhaps the distant sound of a stream.
Still, she waits a little while, just to be safe.
Then she flutters out, wings a blur, and picks a few pieces of the shredded shirt to carry with her, making sure to be quick. The meat will draw scavengers, maybe eagles, ever hungry as they are, and she is small and vulnerable. Once she has chosen a piece, long enough to use, but light enough for flight, she's off again. The scraps will fit perfectly in the nest she is planning, and the north is waiting.
Still, it's very sad those shiny eyes of his were so soft, and couldn't be carried. They would have surely made a lovely decoration.
The next time they meet, it's at market. Lien has been, and hopefully will forever remain, a fine connoisseur of Theresa's incredible baked goods and treats.
When they were younger, Lien may have thought (and even said) some rude things about Franky's and Theresa's alternative eating habits. It included a lot of her own opinions on things like flax seed and non-processed grains.
She will admit that she was an ass. It wasn't like they forced the food on Lien, so she really had no right.
Thankfully, Lien actually stooped to try some of her cousins baked goods. Now she pays for the privilege of consuming Theresa's non-dairy, organic, locally sourced goods. She's gotten into fights over kitchen scraps, and more than once she has been been lectured after a sloppy attempt at sneaking a treat before market day.
(True, it just means she got sneakier about it, but she took her lumps. Same as Franky.)
She's doling out the necessary amount for a rum-apricot mini torte made from scratch with rice flour and honey, eyeing her typical oatmeal walnut cookies and considering hoarding them when Theresa flinches behind the stall counter, recoiling at something behind her.
Instinct tells Lien to whirl, but when she does, all she can see is the quilter at the next table tearing some scrap fabric from an old jumper.
She turns around, money in hand, and raises her brow.
Theresa catches her gaze and purses her lips, taking the money with a frown. She looks like she's stopping herself from saying something something, but the market is fairly slow after breakfast rush, and there isn't anybody behind Lien. These facts probably assist in her decision to speak.
"I had a dream," Theresa states tersely, handing back Lien's change. She crosses her arms just beneath her ample bust, looking down the line of stalls for customers or eavesdroppers. "I was...a shirt. It was weird. Some dude ripped me up."
Lien actually is left speechless, and from her spot on the stool, Franky starts, staring at her sister with wide eyes.
"I mean, I didn't have eyes, or ears, or even nerves, but I got the impression I was a shirt. I touched some guy's flat pecs, and the idea of touching a stranger's nipples freaked me out, so I tried to run. Only I was a shirt, and I couldn't. The best I could manage was like, a wiggle," Theresa sums up, awaiting her families snark.
It doesn't come.
"Are you shitting me?!" Frank shrieks, shooting up from her seat. The bar stool topples over to the hard packed earth, drawing eyes from other patrons and stall clerks. The three girls smile sheepishly, doling out assurance to the curious onlookers, and Franky forces herself to smile as she picks the seat up and puts it back in place.
The moment everyone looks away again, though, she turns to her sister, brimming with energy.
"I need to know if you're messing with me Theresa, because I had a fuckin dream I was a in some dude's fucking head, and he kept screaming at his shirt because he thought it was sentient," she rushes out in a low voice. "I thought I had bad milk before I went to sleep, because he ended up trying to dig me out of his head with his bare hands."
Theresa turns to his sister, looking skeptical. The low-lighting of the stall does her expression no favors, and she looks like a caricature of a person instead of a human being.
"The puns," Lien says after a moment, causing both sisters to look at her. "He asked where your puns where now, I heard him from the tree I was in."
"You had a tree dream?" Franky demands.
"I was a bird in the tree, " Lien corrects. " I saw the man, and the shirt. Took a scrap to make my nest with."
The silence stretches on, and a curious looking man in a dress shirt makes his way over to the stall. Lien obligingly steps back with her bag of goodies hanging off her wrist, letting him agonize over the choices while the sisters put on their best smiles. A few moments pass, and he ends up purchasing some of the honey truffles, and a strawberry-lemon pastry to have with his coffee before venturing away again.
...Which leaves them all wondering the same thing, staring at eachother speculatively. Nobody wants to say anything out loud, because to even voice the thought is absurd. Giving it life in such a form would be having to acknowledge it exists, in some shape or form. It's less real if they allow it to remain separate and individual.
The theory of Gradient Reality, Lien thinks, looking down at her bag. The more people experience a thought, idea, or form, the more real it becomes.
"What will be will be," she says after a moment. "To anticipate the unknown is to take a burden upon yourself you weren't meant to carry."
Franky and Theresa don't say anything to this, far too used to Lien's random word vomit. They have had years to know that at least eighty five percent of it is nonsense in the long run, just babble she spouts at the moment without any real intent.
"I have work soon. See you at home?" Lien says again after a moment, focusing on the tangible once more, coming back to herself.
"Maybe," Franky answers, looking contemplative. She slips back onto her stool, placing an elbow on her knee and resting her chin in her hand.
"We got some stuff to take care of back at our place," Theresa clarifies. "We'll try though."
Lien just shrugs. She doesn't want to force them, and she genuinely enjoys having them over. Whatever societal rule said sleepovers ever stop is wrong, because they're still doing it after all this time. Horror movies, junk food, gossip, and all.
"You do you," Lien bids, waving her hand, and they echo her sentiment as she picks her way back to her car.
The idea, however, doesn't stop bothering her as the day wears on. Just because it doesn't have precedent doesn't mean it couldn't occur, and Lien doesn't like entertaining the idea that the dream world could now be preying on her cousins. It's not possessiveness, or fear for their safety, it's simple improbability.
From the sounds of it, they dream shared, but hopefully it was only ever a one time thing. In a few months, perhaps they all can laugh about it and wonder what a unique experience it was, but right now it's unsettling.
Lien...she doesn't know how to word it. The dream world has skewed her a bit, made it hard to do certain things or think in certain ways. She knows most people hardly remember the dreams they have, and she's never heard of anybody having a lifetime of them centered around a separate world.
It's not entirely special though. There is all that Alice in Wonderland nonsense, and there have always been fables and tales about dreams. It's just that this one is so weird, and she feels like anybody who experiences it is going to change.
And that's the thing, she doesn't know what will change, and so she's wary of it.
"What will be will be," she mumbles under her breath, picking up a tray of food to carry out to a customer.
But what will it be?
AN: Dibs on that theory name. All mistakes are mine.