A/N: Many thanks to Slifer for helping me write this. I'm...kinda losing my mind.
Not sure if anyone can see this, what with notifications breaking -App works- but here goes nothing.
I'm going crazy with the site being broken, so here we are, unleashing all the updates that have been pent up. I'll be going away for a week or so come the end of October. Might get back early, might not. I need some time to clear my head. I've been trying to shake my uncle's death off, but I just can't. I want to get over it, I do, I want to stop feeling sad, but I just can't.
Don't even get me started on the what-ifs, the helplessness, the rage...
In other news...depression's starting to hit reeeeaaaal hard these days.
Sometimes I wonder why I do anything at all. I can't claim to understand what's going wrong with my head.
I don't even know why! One moment I'm fine, then my mood craters for a few hours, then I'm back again for a bit, and the cycle repeats. Its rather annoying; as though I've become a prisoner in my own mind sometimes. Sure, what's one more mental problem on the pile. Not like I don't have enough, what with already being this old. Feels like every day is a battle sometimes. But when I go to the docs, they say oh no, you're fine, you're just tired. HA!
Writing helps fend it off the worst of it times, but when I come back to myself, its still there. Waiting for me.
*siiiigh*
Don't mind the rambling of this geezer...I'm still here, still trying to beat this thing.
As ever we're still sticking to the "Embers" rule here, folks. If folks don't like this...well, I won't continue. Every review, every comment, no matter how large or small, keeps me writing in spite of my busy work schedule. I don't get days off anymore, so I try to respond when I can, but lately it feels like this has become a job in and of itself; albeit one I don't get paid for, one that it is often thankless...
No reviews? No inspiration. No inspiration? Sad writer. So speak up! Your words matter! That's no joke!
As ever, I own no quotes, references, themes or memes.
Not a wit or a one! There we go. Hope you enjoy!
"I am you. You are me. We are one, yet also two."
~?
Spirit
The kingdom of Vale could be considered to be the image of idyllic life on Remnant, located on the east of continent of Sanus, the kingdom had perhaps the most normal set of conditions when compared to any of the three other Kingdoms or the distant tropical Menagerie. Sprawling forests and meadows covered the rolling hills and flatlands in a seemingly endless tide of green and the occasional vein of blue river running down from the alpine mountains to the distant sea.
This was not to say that Vale was without its share of oddities and weirdness. While it was a rare occurrence for Grimm to pray upon anyone within any of the walled metropolises, it was not unknown for the odd attack on those who lived in the wilds by themselves, for which Hunters and Huntressess were inevitably called upon to protect. However, there was one particular case of anomalous peculiarity that could not be categorised under Grimm, Dust nor long forgotten magic.
Stars shone down upon a house located at the edge of a rural street, twinkling aimlessly in the illusion of a pattern, the truth of the phantom arrangement only known by vacant gods or drunks passed out in the nearby tavern appreciating the heavens as they yielded to the darkness of sleep. The house was perfectly ordinary save for three notable if subtle differences from the other houses, the first being that it was larger than any other house of its style by a whole extra story. Secondly was the large garden that extended for half an acre from the back of the house, henned in and obscured from view by tall hedges and the occasional oak. And lastly, a flag hung from the turreted apex of the house affixed to the weather vein, the flag was white with gold filigree at its four corners and a pair of gold crescents in its centre.
Within the attic bedroom of this atypical house in an otherwise mundane street sat the anomalous one in question, a young man in his mid teens with shaggy blonde hair and tired blue eyes looking up through the skylight at the stars.
Mustn't fall asleep.
The words drummed through his mind like the steady beat of guide drums on a war-galley, rousing his scattered thoughts into some semblance of focus even as his body slowly but surely began to yield to the wiles of the sandman.
Jaune Arc was not at ease in his place of rest, for a longheld paranoia that he had kept secret for the majority of his young life had been rearing its head as of late and he was terrified of what it might become. It had started when he was very young, an intuition that he had implicitly listened to when he was in trouble, and for the majority of his life he had thought it just that, intuition.
A gut feeling.
Instinct.
In retrospect it was probably the reason how he had been able to survive a childhood with seven rambunctious, inquisitive and mischievous sisters of which he was the primary target of their chaos. As he had gotten older though and reached towards the start of puberty, he had began to notice something, while his upbeat psyche and musings on life had taken an expectantly depressing turn as childhood faded, the intuition remained stubbornly quixotic. A far cry from a thirteen year old questioning his place in the world that seemed to think it was okay to slip into mundaininty.
That had been the first time he had heard it, the 'voice', a concept of encouragement pressed against his waking mind when he questioned his mother expressing her distress at the idea of him wanting to become a Huntsman. It was in that moment that Jaune realised that those thoughts were not his own.
At first he had attempted to ignore it, it was just a phase his mother had said, or just a side effect of his changing body as his dad had mused when putting Jaune through the excruciating crime against existence that was the birds and the bees. He had smiled and said everything was okay, the voice was a thing of the past and he was ready to greet his family with the smiles that they were used to…
That was a bear faced lie of course, if anything over the past two years the voice and thoughts not his own had grown, gathering complexity and clarity until he could hear the whispering in his ears from within his skull, of annoyance and amicable amusement in equal parts. He had done his best to ignore it, his hardest to not address it or the tangible shade of golden vapour that visited him in sleep, but it was hard when one spent a third of their life asleep.
Jaune knew he had to stay awake. Had to. If he fell asleep again, he would see the talking shade. But he'd been struggling for so many days now. In the end, he was just a fifteen-year-old boy. He had his limits.
Eyelids feeling like lead, Jaune reached for the hastily made coffee he had taken to bed with him and drank deeply, wincing at the oversugared black liquid, so sweet that it was almost sour. By the brother gods it was an uphill battle just to keep his eyes open and it was only nine o'clock! Twenty minutes passed as he sipped at his coffee, his quavering will slowly but surely warming up to the idea of resting his eyes, lids brushing closed lethargically for a few minutes. Just for a moment. A second really.
His body failed him, the half empty cup of coffee slipping from his fingers to clatter to the bedroom floor, spilling its dreg laden payload across the wooden floor as Jaune lightly snored.
When next he opened his eyes, he found himself...somewhere else.
(.0.0.0.)
He blinked several times to clear the brightness from his vision and was surprised when what he saw did not fade like a mirage.
This was a dream. It had to be a dream, these rolling green hills, the wind in his hair. Because if it wasn't...
A hand clamped down on his shoulder. He screamed
"Finally!" said a familiar voice in a loud, annoyance tinged voice, "You've been ignoring me for so long now, this was the only way to reach you."
Jaune's head whipped around to stare into the eyes of the one that had grabbed him, startled to see a boy a few years older than himself. The boy -young man, really- didn't look much pleased with him. Blinking in confusion, Jaune was reminded of pictures he'd seen of his great grandfather in his youth but that quickly faded as he spotted the differences. He was perhaps nineteen compared to the freshly turned fifteen year old. His skin had a healthy peach tan to it compared to the Arc's creamy white, his hair was also a mass of unruly golden spikes. Whiskered cheeks were dimpled in a small smile, his slitted blue eyes sparkling with bitter mirth.
A beat passed between them before the younger of the two let out a girlish eep.
"Who are you? I'm you. You're not me!" Jaune bleated.
"Yes," The whiskered teen smiled. "I am, kinda."
Jaune hadn't asked for this. Any of it. For the whispers, the voices, the urgings.
"If you'd just let me help-" the slit eyed blonde began before Jaune attempted to pull away feebly.
"I don't need your help, whiskers!" Jaune shouted, unsure fear clear in his voice that echoed over the plains
"You really do. I didn't ask for this either, noodle arms!
"Noodle arms?!
"You called me whiskers!" anger flashed across the boy's face. Seeing the younger man's fear, he quickly muffled it. "Look, I'm sorry. I can help. All you have to do is let me."
Paranoia reared its ugly head. And what then? He'd seen enough horror movies to know how this ended. You listened to a friendly spirit and suddenly they weren't so friendly anymore. They took control of your body and locked
"Oh, please." the blond man rolled his eyes. "Why would I do that? I pull a stunt like that, and you'll never trust me again."
"You can read my thoughts?!"
"Sorry, didn't mean to."
"This is my body!"
"Our body." the blond held up a finger. "I've been stuck in your head since you were in diapers. Do you have any idea how annoying that was? Like living in a body where you can experience no bowel control but can't control it? It sucks!"
"You're not real! Just a voice in my head!" Jaune reasoned, making a shooing gesture with his hands.
The older blonde deadpanned at Jaune's actions, as if he was some kind of Saturday morning spectre banished by the power of friendship. "Is this how Kurama felt? Fine, let's make a deal. We'll start with names." the spiky haired teen said, dropping to his haunches to look Jeane in the eyes, hands held up placatingly in a show of good faith.
The younger of the two held the slitted eyed one's gaze for a few seconds, seeing nothing untoward in those strange eyes before taking a chance. "I'm Jaune."
"Kinda knew that already." the young man smiled. "And you already know mine."
"I do?"
"You know me." the blond clicked his tongue and leaned forward. "We're old friends. I've been watching you for a while now. Helping ya. Guiding ya. Keeping that head on your shoulders and out of trouble." an almost sheepish expression flitted across that whiskered visage. "Speaking to you really didn't seem like a good idea when you were little."
"And you didn't think to do that until now?"
"Buddy, take this as someone who had a rough childhood, questioning your sanity at the age of seven ain't exactly good for growing up a balanced individual." he chuckled bitterly while fixing Jaune with a knowing look. "You know me, just as one can look into a mirror and say 'that is me', you know me, Jaune."
He...he did? He did! Closing his eyes and letting his mind wonder, a name slowly swam to the front of his thoughts, one that he knew to be right.
"Naruto."
"Got in one!" the grinning blond clapped his hands.
Jaune let out a sigh of relief before his eyes turned quizzical, "...what do you want from me, exactly?"
"To see you actually make something of yourself." Naruto stated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
The words stung.
Naruto flopped backwards onto the grass and looked up into the sky, "I died, Jaune, with unfinished business at that, and where I come from if you have enough power and unfinished business you tend to linger and pop back up in the hearts and minds of those most aligned with you… It's in my nature to help those that need it. I hear your dreams, Jaune, I hear your thoughts. You said you wanted to join this...Beacon place. I can help."
Silence stretched between them in the void. He didn't dare to hope. "How?"
"Training, advice, that sorta thing. "Until I can find a way out of your head, we're stuck together. It's in our best interests to help one another, ya know."
"And what do you want in return?"
Naruto chuckled, hands lacing together behind his head, "A chance to stretch my legs is a good start. Well, our legs. Maybe a few minutes a day? I haven't felt the wind in my hair, tasted food, any of it, for so long…"
...it sounded reasonable. Which made him leery.
"Shake my hand?"
Naruto extended his arm.
"C'mon, won't you shake a poor man's hand?"
Jaune looked between Naruto and the dreamscape around them before coming to a decision. "I…"
A/N: Aaaaand there we go.
Once more! This is a teaser. A fragment from a story that never came to be. It might go somewhere. It might not. That depends entirely on you.
As ever, the Embers rule Remains. If folks don't like this fragment...well, it won't be continued. Strange as it might sound, live for reviews and feedback; without them, I simply can't write a single word. So by all means! Speak up! Really, that's no joke. Your feedback is the reason this story continues. Ever bit helps. It keeps me going in these crazy times. So by all means! Speak up! No review is too short or too small!
As ever, read the previews before you review, please.
So In the Immortal Words of Atlas... ...Review, Would You Kindly?
No previews this time. Nobody seemed to enjoy the the last ones, sadly... T_T