Pay no attention to the approaching deadline behind the curtain. Thanks all for sticking with me! We've got at least 1 new reader this month, or 1 brave soul doing a reread
Daisya dreamed.
He was running all over the place to find Tiedoll. The place in question being 'home,' even if he hadn't lived there for a third of his life.
The whitewashed buildings didn't cast shadows where they pushed up in front of him.
That was the thing, there just weren't enough crevices or secret spots in Bodrum to hide that much of a guy. Everyone on the team was huge. Daisya realized it in the dream, except he didn't know it was a dream then, checking all the hideouts he knew. There should at least be some dusty coattail sticking off of the low roofs where he'd go to cool down.
That's how he'd spent the last who-knew-how-long chasing himself around his old haunts.
He would have cursed his luck again if it hadn't stopped being an issue right then. After spending half the day looking with nothing to show for it, Daisya suddenly was on the outcrop where he'd run into the old man in the first place. Yeah, he had to be here! He'd be painting. There definitely wasn't any place in town for him.
On the scrubby outcrop there was a flattened rise you could look right over the bay. He should know, he used it as a diving board. The old man's easel should be set up there, shouldn't it? Maybe he could read the scuffs in the ground to find some kind of directions to go off of.
Daisya had circled around the dream-rock and dream-brush trying to get to a place where he could see everything. Nobody would have guessed that the plan wouldn't work. The high points just didn't line up with how he remembered them! As fast as he ran, he barely made it to the end of the point over the bay. It took longer to cross the space where the old man's bags should have been than it took to get up here from town.
And he couldn't move now that he'd got there.
Well, maybe that wasn't totally right.
Daisya was moving his legs, a yeah, and he was running, but everything else just got further and further away while the ocean at his back didn't go anywhere. What the hell was that? He couldn't catch a break.
There wasn't any time, anyway. Daisya would rip into Tiedoll if he ever found him. The wedding was going to be tonight. He already had to spend the morning going all over to tell the guests, but there wasn't any point without the groom. Mom was not going to like this.
Finally, Daisya gave up and stopped in place. All right. He'd been in sticky situations before. If going back the normal way wasn't going to work, he was just going to go back a different way.
He looked to one side. Normal, flat sand and dry sedges. To the other side. Ditto. Backwards. The empty space where the old man always had to pop up. Yeah. There was only one thing that'd work.
With a leap, Daisya crossed right over the edge of the land on to the ocean.
Not into the ocean. On to the ocean. He'd had his mind made up to dive through the waves and swim like hell for the bay, but his body didn't straighten out like he wanted. It just stayed put and drifted down to the wavy surface that was frozen still.
At least it didn't seem like he was going to stop. Only the waves were stuck. Daisya was racing overtop of them with the same breakneck pace he'd trained for. He grinned. Maybe he could salvage this, after all!
He picked his route. Out to the breakers, around the promontory, back along the beach as the hill sank closer and closer to ground level…
It was all going so well when his limbs started floating above the surface. Without having any trouble breathing, he was moving like he was underwater. What a joke. He didn't even have time to enjoy the feeling when he had some stupid mission from Mom that he had to do.
Damn it.
Why couldn't Dari have done it?
Daisya tried to figure out where he was in the warm soup of dream fog. Not that he knew what it was while he was in it, everything was just slow and warm. At least he wasn't back where he started.
Things weren't so great, though. He'd only got as far as halfway to town when suddenly he was coming at it from the middle of the bay, not the close-by shoreline. The same stretching distance kept him tired as he tried to push through. Where was he pushing, again? He'd been trying to get some for some reason, damned if he could remember.
Daisya stopped. Obviously, he wasn't getting anywhere.
He tapped his foot on the sea's surface. It rippled out from where he pressed the toe of his boot between swells. Huh. So it wasn't moving, but it was still water.
Daisya tried jumping as much as he could in the half-floating state. Yep, more ripples.
He danced in a circle, trying to feel if the ocean gave out under his feet at all. It should've been painful if it didn't. He didn't feel anything. For now, at least.
Then something caught his attention as fast as the water did, and he dropped what he was doing just as quickly as he'd started.
Now he looked out the other way.
Not into town. He was watching the horizon now, from the middle of the ocean. He'd never stood here when he was home. Maybe he swam out one or two times, but the current was too strong out here for a kid. That'd been what he was the last time he went home, even three years ago.
He didn't have any reference for this view.
That's what he thought when he took it in. There was a vague grey shape coming at him that he didn't remember, but maybe it was just because he'd never been out here by himself above the surface.
Daisya walked closer to it. This time, he noticed his boots stopping right below the water. It splashed up over them without moving on its own and without going any further than the top of his heel. Not taking him. Not soaking in. It was just lapping around his bandages like it was trying to find a way in.
The thing he'd thought was just a cool cloud, or maybe a boat, materialized.
Daisya stared.
He was looking at a hooded cloak that floated over a flat white foggy space like a drying sheet and a pair of boots that looked a lot like his.
That had to be him, right?
He glanced down to check. They were definitely his, he knew, except he wasn't wearing boots anymore. That's right, the water was working its way in. He only had bandages wrapping him from head to—oh, you get it.
The shape stood still in a calm patch between two swells. The fog had finally burned away, leaving a cloak that was fresh ink black and a face that wasn't just empty hood, no, it was an actual face, just smooth and white as bread dough.
Daisya shivered. Wasn't he supposed to be doing something? He was supposed to be cold if he was out on the sea in the wet winter.
Yeah, that was him. He didn't have a face as far as Daisya could see, but he'd seen himself reflected in windows enough to know that silhouette.
"Hey!" he tried to shout. He stepped forward. "Do you know—"
The water that had been rising up to his ankles opened up like scissors. Daisya fell straight down into it before he got to finish. Even back in the dream, he'd known he couldn't talk underwater.
From the bottom, Daisya watched the waves foam up over the spot where he used to be standing. The ocean was moving again like normal. Did the other guy wearing his cloak fall in too?
Daisya strained his dream-eyes trying to make him out and couldn't. If that was someone inside the hood, it'd still be walking, and there would be footsteps overhead and the shadow of the black cloak.
Right there, he remembered again. Tiedoll. The old man. He didn't find him, and the wedding wasn't going to happen. Mom was going to be all alone. She was going to be mad.
Daisya woke up in a panic.
…
Mom?
Daisya rolled his head off of the surface he'd smushed it into and gasped for air. He tried to pull himself together. There was…something he had to be doing? He couldn't get it done. Must've half-choked himself while he was thrashing around.
His eyelids stayed shut as he tried to get himself back into the actual body that was lying here instead of the dream-body he must've been moving around. Even if he was awake, he couldn't move much.
Daisya squeezed every muscle he could. C'mon. He was dying for a drink of water. Drowning was salty!
Finally, his shoulders twitched. The rest of him got with the program pretty quick as he tried to wake up.
He tried to remember what he'd been doing. Running. Searching. Home. Wedding.
"Oh, gross," he groaned.
Daiya rubbed his eyes as hard as he could risk.
"What?" asked Kanda.
"I think old man Tiedoll was going to marry my mom."
Tensing again, Daisya stretched out of the canvas bag the collapsed tent made around them. No rain, you see, so he'd convinced Kanda just to wrap it around them both and keep the heat in. Finally, he could feel his toes again. He must've had that leg trapped under Kanda. The feeling returning to his feet hurt like hell.
Next to him, Kanda huffed. He was laughing, the jerk.
"Yeah, yeah, very funny," Daisya said testily. "You see how you like it, if the old man was your dad. I even liked my Dad."
"I don't have parents," said Kanda.
The world was coming into focus. It was morning, probably. There was some kind of sunshine coming out behind the dark grey clouds that told them a storm had just passed. The light'd be dim all day from dawn to dinnertime. Daisya lay back with his arms crossed behind his head to watch them blow by. It wasn't cold, but it sure was windy enough by the sea to make him happy to have the extra blanket.
"Someday, I'm going to find out if that's right."
Kanda just grunted.
"Besides, why'd he ever want to marry her? I don't get it. Mom's smart 'n all, but she won't leave you alone."
Again, Kanda grumbled something under his breath. He'd only met her once, or was it twice? Daisya mostly remembered her talking about Lenalee and Marie in any letters he got. He guessed Kanda wouldn't make much of an impression when he was still in statue mode after that one brush they had with the Noah. Anyone else would think he was some shy, quiet kid instead of a massive jerk.
"The old man probably wants me to go home once we link up," Daisya asked. "Lenalee was saying, she's assigned to Japan. That's all the way east. She'd have to sail somewhere close by."
"That's only the Cross team," said Kanda.
"Yeah, and what're we doing after we find the old man?"
"Return to HQ."
"Like he'll come with us. You can't drag him off the road," Daisya said.
"Hm," said Kanda, which meant he couldn't think of any reason that was wrong.
The waves hissed somewhere off to the side. They were high up on a ridge that crumbled into sand as it sank down to the ocean. The dry dirt was a weird texture in this weather, not moist enough to stay together, just dusty enough to settle on your skin and turn to grit. Somewhere in the mix of breeze and bugs chirping, Daisya heard something else. That meant Kanda heard it too.
He turned over as a way to sneak his hand back under the covers and flick Kanda on the arm.
"What's that?" he whispered.
"It's not moving fast," said Kanda. What a useless guy. Here they were, undefended in between the roots of some old pine bush, and he didn't have any more than that?
Daisya wiggled his feet. He'd better be ready to jump up and fight, if Kanda was just lying there like a lump. He wondered if it counted as a warm-up if you just ran in a dream.
The sound got closer slowly. All right, maybe Kanda was right about that. Daisya heard it resolve from a scraping shuffle to footsteps after another few minutes, then panting. It didn't sound that threatening.
He sat up as quietly as he could. The canvas was so stiff it didn't make much noise as it folded down. Kanda was watching with a grim kind of smirk. Right now, Daisya had to just glare at him instead of telling him what was on his mind.
Shivering when the wind drifted under his sleeves, Daisya crouched on his wool-socked feet under the cover of the long needles and peered out at the hiker's path running by here only metres away.
A human. Humanoid. He couldn't make anything else out from this distance, not with his eyes.
All of a sudden his golem screeched.
Daisya jumped up into the branches as Kanda hissed laughing.
"H-hello?" a voice asked over the signal. "Um, Exorcists Barry and Kanda, are you there?"
Daisya ignored it.
"Geez, that hurt. That's a Finder, isn't it?" he asked. It seemed obvious now that he was standing up. Daisya turned his attention to the resiny needles stuck all over his gauze.
"This is the meeting spot," Kanda answered.
"Well, we met him. I'm going to be the one who says 'hi.'"
"He'll lead us to the main group. Lee's sending directions to all Exorcists in the area."
"I don't remember that," asked Daisya. He ripped a chunk of sap out of his hair. Not like it was all grown-in, anyway.
"Lenalee called. You were sleeping."
"Next time, wake me up. I did not need to have that dream."
Kanda decided to get up just then. At least, that's when he silently packed up the canvas and stood. He must've put his boots on while Daisya was dusting himself off, because he was armed and ready to go with all the gear Daisya made him take off last night. He slipped right between the same two long, scaly pine branches on either side of Daisya's head. When Daisya turned to him, he felt Kanda's breath on his nose.
"Marie's faster than he thought," said Kanda. "Let's go."
Before he moved, Daisya covered his wrist with his own hand.
"I dunno," said Daisya. "How long d'you think he'll take to find us? I want to watch."
"Hm," is all Kanda said.