I do not own Naruto.
Lien doesn't remember falling asleep.
That, in and of itself, is not too uncommon. It's hard, nearly impossible, to recall the exact moment she falls asleep. In fact, she knows most people can't. Instead, they denote the space of time it theoretically occurred in. It's always a bit of surprise, in between one thought and another, and it just sort of falls over people like a shroud.
She's done a lot of research on sleep. Tons of people have, and she's no certified expert, but she does know a few things about it. She knows that sleep disorders are more common than anybody realizes, and that nobody knows why sleep is needed. Yes, it is known that the body and mind need rest, but not why. Theoretically speaking, the body is a biological machine. In intakes energy in the form of food, parting out ATP and nutrients to help it along. This Adenosine Triphosphate is the currency of life, all the energy creatures need, and as long as the body is always processing it, theoretically, it should be able to stay awake.
Only, that's obviously not so. It's one of those things from the waking world that doesn't really make sense. It's a reason, an explanation, but not really.
(While she's at it, she also wants to ask why consumers are considered the ruling life-form of the planet, when photosynthesis is obviously much more efficient, and flore not only outnumber fauna, but seem to have a whole species dedicated to propagating them in order to survive. They say that humans domesticated plants, but she thinks it might be the other way around.)
Hopefully, Lien is just ignorant, and there is a reason for sleep (and plants). A real reason, as solid and as a super-dense Bose-Einstein condensate.
She wonders these thoughts while she walks, on two feet instead of four or none at all, which is important to note, because it means she has a bipedal form. Human, probably, if the shape of her toes and calves are anything to go by. In fact, they look like her own legs, just on the acceptable side of stubbly. Round thighs and small hands let her know she's herself in this dream. An oddity, but a pleasant one.
The grass and trees are indicative of the dream world though. Tall and wide, sprawling like cypress yet leaved like oaks, she hears them referred to as Hashirama trees by some. She wonders if the people here think that they rule these too, or if they have accepted the arboreal giants as their silent, long lived overlords.
Caught up in her mental ambling, she never notices Franky until the chainsaw in her cousin hands screams to a halt, the engine coughing up blue smoke, the two-cycle burning somewhere inside of , because chainsaws are loud, and it really should have registered as weird in the dream world. Or, weirder.
"What the fuck," Franky exhales, staring at her surrounding with shock and unease.
"Oh," Lien comments lightly. "Are we dream sharing?"
Franky whirls, wielding the chainsaw like a makeshift weapon, causing Lien to frown. They both know it makes a poor choice for melee device, too bulky and unwieldy by far. The intimidation factor is high, but the movements needed to properly fight are far restricted by the tool. However will one keep their hand on the throttle to spin the chain, and also maintain their dexterity?
"Lien?" Franky demands, staring at her cousin with wide eyes. She's dressed in her summer best, all ragged work shorts and flannel top, and her hair is mussed on the side, as if she was lying down on something. That could just be Franky's unruly hair though, it never quite behaves, and it charms Lien.
"I didn't know you came over," Franky says, trying to make sense of everything. "I was just getting some wood for the furnace, Theresa should have warned me-"
"You're asleep," Lien interrupts, adamant.
Franky laughs awkwardly, looking around them. "Uh, no, I'm not. I'm in the woods, or I thought I was, but I've never seen the trees like this before. Winter could have been so much easier."
The flannel clad woman pauses, placing her hand on her hip. "This is weird."
"No, you're dreaming. We're in the dream world, together, and that's a problem," Lien says, trying to get her cousin to focus on the important matter at hand.
Franky laughs again, a bit more unhinged.
"Lien, no. It's noon, I'm not asleep. I was out in the woods, in the middle of cutting down this pine. And now I'm here, with you," she stresses, looking a bit wild. "I swear it. I was nowhere near sleepy, let alone asleep."
"You don't remember falling asleep then. No one really does," Lien adds unhelpfully.
Her family member frowns at her, hazel eyes accusing. She pulls the choke back on her chainsaw, just incase, and hefts it to the side with her arm. It's an impressive feat. Chainsaws are terribly heavy.
"Lien, look, seriously, this isn't funny. I don't know how you did this, but we are going back to the house right now," her cousin says, looking distinctly ruffled. She's chewing on her lip like she does when she's particularly nervous.
"I think that's impossible, unless your house is in the dreamworld, and if that's so, we have even bigger problems than I first imagined," Lien snips back, feeling a tiny bit uneasy herself. Franky isn't supposed to be here. It's never happened before, not in all their multiple decades of familyship. That doesn't mean it isn't happening, obviously, because lack of previous history does not exempt future possibilities, but it does mean that things are changing in a pattern that Lien cannot comprehend.
"Lien," Franky sighs, and Lien is just about to bite out 'Franky' in that same stressed out tone when a forlorn shout cuts through the air, warbling in a familiar tone.
"My Granola bars!"
The two cousins have enough time to make eye contact with each other, and the same thought travels between them. There's only one person they know with that voice, and they also mentioned food, so a mimic is out. Also, there may be granola bars at stake.
They bolt.
Lien takes the lead, faster in the short term. Franky might be able to double her stamina at times, but Lien can be a speedy, jumpy girl if she wants too. Years of messing around, mimicking things she saw on the track field finally come in handy, and she flits through the undergrowth like a deer, hurdling brambles and logs, ducking around branches and tree trunks.
"Lien!" Franky shouts, but Lien pretends not to hear, because Theresa's granola bars are delicious, and terrible things could be happening to them at this very moment.
She bursts into the clearing her other cousin is in, ready to fight, but the battle has already been lost. Theresa stands, barefoot, adorned with a stained apron, staring at the baking tray turned upside down on the ground. She still has a rag in her back pocket, and a bottle of honey in her hand.
The granola based treats are little more than clumps in the dirt and grass, already being swarmed with ants, and Lien's heart sinks when she notices that there are dark chocolate and coconut flakes inside of them. The tragedy is heartbreaking.
"What a terrible dream," she whispers, right as Franky catches up, tackling her from behind, searching the clearing for her distressed sister.
"Theresa?!" Franky demands in alarm as the handle of the chainsaw digs into Lien's gallbladder. Her cousin's knee also deems fit to plant itself in her spine, making her wheeze.
"Franky?" Theresa asks, looking up from the lost treasures.
"Get off my back you ox," Rasps Lien, mouth full of dirt and weeds. The younger girl scrambles for purchase on the forest floor, her nails filling with earth as she tugs herself out from underneath her cousin, who shifts just enough to allow it.
"What the hell?" Theresa voices, and Franky nods as Lien huffs, going over to the baking tray, seeing if any bars are salvageable. She's not above eating off the ground in the waking world, and this is all a dream any way. A strange one, but that's on par with what she deals with.
"I know, right?" Franky agrees, recalling her earlier proclamation along the same lines.
"How-?...This isn't our forest," Theresa says haltingly, seemingly finally noticing her surroundings for the first time. She twitches, and doesn't seem to be taking it too well, her shoulders stiffening and breathing picking up pace.
"Lien says we're dreaming, but I'm calling bull, because I was in the woods, and you were obviously baking for market, but now we're here, and this has gone too far," Franky adds, her voice growing in volume and vehemence. Lien would notice that she's shaking, but she's busy trying to brush some dandelion tufts off a cracked piece of snack bar, wondering if she dares.
"This," Theresa says, her voice high pitched, her pupils wide, "This is impossible. This isn't happening."
"Depends on the definition of happening," Lien adds absentmindedly. "I mean, if it occurs in a dream, is it really occurring, or is it only inside your head? Does the fact that it may only be mental make it any less real to you as a person, and how do you feel about outside perspective? It's in the theory, we've talked about it."
"Your theory isn't tangible, Lien! This is happening!" Shouts Franky, agitated. "This isn't a philosophy debate, this is a hallucination! I've gone mad!"
"Hurtful," Lien comments without heat, stuffing a chunk of bar inside her mouth. Beside the grittiness of the dirt she wasn't able to get off, and an ant or two, it's still good. It's tasty and warm, the honey gone gooey and sticking to her fingers. The chocolate is just this side of melted, immensely rich, and accented by the earthiness of the coconut. Classic Theresa granola bar, just a few ingredients made into a masterpiece.
"I.." said baker and student stutters out, panting for air. "I...ca- no. Nope. This isn't- This can't be."
"Dream sharing," Lien mumbles around a mouthful of food.
"WE WEREN'T SLEEPING," Roars Franky, unhappy with her cousin's inability to take things seriously for a second. This is life and death. Where is home? Where is anything? What are they going to do, oh God-
Lien doesn't even consider that possibility. Of course they are sleeping, and Lien had either conceptualized her cousins into existing in her dream world, constructing avatars and forms to suit their roles in a mockery of the waking world, or their consciousness were joined irrevocably by long term exposure to one another, only capable of doing so long after adolescence, when the brain was still malleable and would be crushed by such a venture.
(Or whatever.)
"These are good," Lien comments.
"I...I don't...," Theresa rambles nonsensically. "You're eating food off the ground, and this isn't right. I was a shirt-"
"Lein," Frank warns, knowing the source of their trouble.
"-I touched a man's nipple. Oh God, I don't even know his name-"
"Go with it," Lien mumbles around her food, picking a piece from her tooth. She wonders how long she'll get to stay this shape before the dream world changes it. Will she be able to fly with honey covered wingtips, or will her hands turn into paws that she can lick clean?
"This isn't real," Franky stresses. "This is a hallucination, a terrible trip, and-"
"Doesn't matter if it's real or not, fact is that you are experiencing it. Your perception is telling you it exists, and therefore, you must react accordingly, because the only other options are to fight amongst ourselves, somehow fight the dream, or die. Maybe there's other ways, I really haven't figured it out," Lien clips back, becoming annoyed. Usually, this place is whimsical or dark, and the stress she receives is from life and death situations, not societal explanations or cultural standards.
She's tried for years to explain it to her cousins, she thought they got it. She thought that they knew, as much as anybody who didn't experience it could know, but they….they keep trying to reject the dream world, and that doesn't work. It doesn't work because then they will start selectively rejecting realities, and end up nonfunctional inside the waking world, only able to cope with assistance.
That will throw their whole dynamic off. How will they cope if they all are non-functional?
Franky seems to slump at this, retreating back and sitting down to stare at her chainsaw. The wind rakes through the trees while Theresa shudders, and staring down at the bars, panting for breath. Lien thinks it might be some sort of shock.
She doesn't know what to do, so she doesn't try to do anything. She exists in a stasis, her mouth tasting of earthy, bittersweet chocolate, and rich coconut. The sweetness of the honey coats her tongue, but she finds she's no longer hungry. She's frustrated, marginally, also also uneasy, because this is that change she was worried about.
How is she supposed to react, she wonders, playing with an ant glued to her finger by bee secretions. Should she comfort Theresa? Can she even comfort somebody facing a sudden, incredibly stressful crisis of such a magnitude? Will talking soothe Franky, who looks angry and wild, as if she can tear down the trees, rip up the grass, and dismantle the dream world itself?
Uncomfortable with her dilemma, Lien stands. She has no idea what to do, and she could make it even worse. There are too many options, so she's gonna just go. She'll come back later, maybe.
Feet solidly beneath her, and sticky hands wiped on her shorts, she begins walking. The direction doesn't really matter in the end because she just wants out of the situation. Her cousins are capable people, they'll figure it out, and if they don't, well, they'll all wake up at some point. Sure, it might seem like weeks or months here, but it's only ever been a single night's sleep in the real world.
And yet, the dream world conspires against her, because the moment she goes to step out of the clearing, a blade edged trowel plants itself in between her spread toes.
The sound of it sinking into the earth -a dull, solid thump- draws the attention of both her cousins. Franky lifts her head to stare at the trenching tool with horrified bewilderment, and Theresa looks on uncomprehendingly, still in shock.
"Is that a Kunai?" Franky asks, her voice pitched high.
Lien hums, stepping away from the sharpened edges carefully. She feels the sting of a fresh cut on the skin stretching between her phalanges, and she wiggles them curiously.
"The tree-walkers are watching," she declares nonchalantly, secretly more at ease. She can deal with this.
"What?"
As if summoned by her words, the shadows melt from the boughs, and masked faces stare down at them, each a painted caricature of a demon. Some stand upright on the wide branches far above, but others dangle unnaturally, sticking by their witchy feet, their cloaks still draped along their bodies as if to spite gravity. Others watch horizontally, jutting straight out like spring growths, and she thinks their core strength must be incredible.
Shadow eyes, as dark as india ink, stare out at them. The light hits a few just right, and she glimpses monolid eyes, like the parody of a human's, but they aren't. The Masked tree-walkers aren't as evolved as their more human like cousins. They are too quiet, too still, and though they have all the right limbs, they haven't quite gotten the sentiment behind people.
Or, maybe, she has it all backward, and tree-walkers become the masked shades. Maybe it's a metamorphosis, and they lose themselves to the hive, roaming around foliage and greenery, becoming shadows of what they once were. She wonders if life in the collective is peaceful, or if there is turmoil shared amongst them all. Are they like ants? Do they war? Or maybe they are more like Canadian Garter snakes in spring, emerging in hoards for brief moments before dispersing again. Buffalo, maybe-? Bees?
"Lien," hisses Franky, sounding alarmed. "Lien, get back here. Get away from them."
"It's alright," Lien soothes, placidly watching them watch her. They seems to be waiting for something, and she smiles calmly.
"Lien-"
"You're trespassing," one of them states, the tone bland and androgynous.
She cocks her head to the side, curious. Perhaps they were waiting specifically to interrupt Franky, which is rude.
"I'm sorry," she apologizes, bowing her head the slightest bit. Her mother and father taught her manners. Just because they aren't human, and this is a dream, doesn't mean she's going to forget them.
For a moment, it seems that the phantoms have no idea what to do. They look to each other for information, and she feels a little sad. Once they evolve, or de-evolve, or summer comes, they'll lose that hivemind of theirs, and really, it seems like a useful thing to have.
She wishes she could use it.
"Why are you here?" Asks another, this voice a little more feminine. Lien wonders is that means they are closer to becoming a regular tree walker, or if the tree-walker is slowly being integrated into this colony.
"I'm afraid we're all asleep," she answers. "But we'll wake up. Time is a bit funny here though, so it might take a little while. No more than half a year at max."
"Half a year?!" Franky exclaims, sounding terrified. "Lien, what are you saying? What are they saying? I've never heard anything like it."
Lien turns, appalled.
"Franky, they're speaking perfectly fine."
"No. They aren't. That's gibberish, I swear to you-"
"Enough code!" Declares one of them, and they sound anxious, nervous even.
"Sorry," Lien says, even though she's not. She's found that it appeases people, makes them more likely to listen to her. In a way, it could be considered lying, but not really, because she is sorry. Just sorry they are upset and that they are confused, not apologetic over any of her own actions.
Also, manners.
"It seems that my cousins don't understand you," she states slowly. "Which makes sense because this is my dream, but since they are sharing it, they should understand as well. Unless, of course, they aren't my cousins, and are constructs of my mind to take place the places of my cousins in order to relieve some sort of desire or longing I have inside of me, most likely to not be alone in my-"
Lien rambles on, and the Anbu stare at one another. The longer she speaks, the less sense she makes. The words are in the correct language, and it seems like someone should comprehend it, but the sentence structure and contexts are all wrong.
They hesitate to apprehend the trio, because the situation is so outlandish. The one that speaking to them is outfitted more for the privacy of her own home, barefoot and wearing little more than shorts and a plain shirt. One seems to have been transported directly from a kitchen of some sort, caught in a fit, her apron spotted with flour stains, and the last carries some sort of strange weapon, looking cornered and aggressive.
"-which can stem from an isolated childhood with family as a constant social circle. That is, of course, if you buy into the theory of nurture over nature, and deem my life experiences to shape me more heavily than my genetic code. There could be a correlation drawn to my own tendencies and my father's, but as we all know, correlation isn't causation, and it could be just a coincidence. I bet if I had Franky run the statistics, I could make a graph for an easy to understand visual representation of the data, but then I'm right back at the beginning again. Is Franky Franky, or is she a mimic my brain has made up?"
Frog stumbles forward, no more than a half centimeter, but it draws the eyes of the team leader. She bets Frog did his very best to try and listen to every word of that, and tried follow the logic of it. No doubt there's going to be trouble in the Nara compound tonight. The debates in that family can get out of hand.
"Lien," hisses the one wielding a strange weapon, and the squad leader connects the dots. It must be the girl's name, and oddly enough it sounds familiar. It drags up memories of a new recruit, looking for someone. What mask was he assigned again? Cougar? Lynx?
She babbles something else, and the strange woman leading them cocks her head around to listen to her. She appears frustrated at being interrupted, but then a calm, harmonious smile overtakes her face. The plain girl turns back to the group cheerily.
"Nevermind," she placates. "Franky says she's going to throw up soon, and when she wakes, she's going to call us and wake us up too."
The aggressive one makes some choking noise, her whole body heaving so hard she loses her grip on the weapon, and it thumps to the ground. It's a rookie move nobody above chunin would make, which is comforting, but the sound she creates are wretched. She gags again, and again, and the third time she vanishes completely. No smoke, no noise. She there one moment and gone the next, and Frog has to wonder if he really saw her at all.
The apron clad woman watches with horror, snapping her head around to babble something at the other girl, but her friend gives her the same smile she gave them. Like she understands the universe, can comprehend far more than any mortal mind was meant to.
The cooking woman screams, shouts something in the strange code language, but then she shimmers, calling out her friends name again. It's a touching scene of team loyalty, one refusing to leave the other behind, desperate to linger even when she's clearly displaying symptoms of shock. But the technique being used is strong, and the apron wearing teammate flickers, her form going fuzzy around the edges, collapsing in on itself, until it too is gone.
"Cease-!" Shouts the squad leader, but it's too late, and they are left with one, one who is unraveling in the strangest way they've ever seen. It's a jutsu so unlike the other two, and she just...changes. Her skin turns blotchy in places, the color leaching and fading away, and she begins to mimic the scene around her. Her toes turn to blades of grass, her legs meld together to become a tree trunk, solid and strong.
"It's alright," she soothes as her arms sprout leaves, her fingers twisting into branches and boughs. Bark crawls up her skin as she morphs, eating away at her flesh. A pale plum blossom unfurls from her hair, moving upward to dance in the light despite the fact that it's summer, not early spring. Bafflingly enough, the wobbling chirp of a bush warbler cuts through the air, as if called to complete the scene.
"It's just a dream."
-And then she's gone, a sapling in her place. There's nothing but crumbled ration bars in the dirt and a strange weapon lying around to reminds them all that it was real.
The Anbu squad has never understood anything less, and they comprehend that they know not. In that moment, they are harmonious, without benevolence, righteousness, or proprietary. They just are, as the sapling is, and life continues on.
Thus it was that when the Dao was lost, its attributes appeared; when its attributes were lost, benevolence appeared; when benevolence was lost, righteousness appeared; and when righteousness was lost, the proprieties appeared.- Lao Tzu, The Dao de Jing