seaofhearts | Be brave enough to burn

Who: All the Alices (and Ankh, his name is Ankh)
What: Just a mysterious castle built on top of a restaurant. What could possibly go wrong?
Where: World Two – Wings to the Sky
Warnings: Who even knows? Will update as necessary.

Ankh wakes up at the edge of the water, his arm draped over a rock and his face cushioned by a bed of sand and seaweed as the edges of waves wash over his body. The first thing he notices upon waking is that it's uncomfortable. The second, upon lifting his head and starting to pull himself out of the water is that it's familiar. Awareness dawning, he scrambles to his feet and looks around wide-eyed half expecting Eiji to be there somewhere. Of course he isn't.

But this... this is his last memory. For a moment he wonders if somehow this whole thing came to an end and he wound up back home, but that's wishful thinking. No, this is just his world. His heart, as the guides like to call it. It's only more obvious that this isn't real as he scans the horizon and finds Cous Coussier where it shouldn't be. And then on top of it... that's-

His eyes widen, and then narrow. He's not sure what to expect out of this other than nothing good.

But, after wringing the water out of his clothes as best he can, he makes his way to the restaurant and curiously to the freezer, where he finds the ice pops he expects to be there. Pulling one out, he gives it a skeptical look for a moment—does he dare assume it's really the same or even safe to eat?--but ultimately pops it into his mouth and discovers it tastes exactly like he expects. That much is something he can appreciate. But as for the rest of this...

With popsicle in hand, he continues exploring.

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[From the outside, the castle is an impressive size. It's not quite as big on the inside, but it's still amazing. He's never been inside a real castle before. He pushes open the door to what turns out to be a bedroom. What does he find?]

[ There are only four stained glass windows in the bedroom, one on each wall. Each depicts Sebastian himself. The first window shows him sitting happily with his family at the dinner table, just having a great time with all of them. The second shows him perfectly at home, chatting with a bunch of people on a college campus somewhere. The third depicts him sitting alone next to a motorcycle looking out at a city. The final window shows him helping his mother chop lumber, enjoying himself as he does it. Like the other two puzzles, he will not be able to point out the accurate one directly when Ankh is around. ]

[...He knew he'd never been to college, so that one was a lie. He'd been to that cliff before, many times - so that one was real. The others... he didn't recognize the people in them. He hadn't thought about home much while he was here, other than wishing he had his own bed and the privacy of his room back. But... These made him realize there was something missing. He'd lived in that house his entire life. But he didn't remember anyone else living there. He couldn't have been on his own that entire time, could he? Wouldn't someone have noticed?]

[This is the last window, and that makes it the most difficult. Not because it's hard to guess--it's one of the easiest in that sense, for a few different reasons--but because breaking it means Sebastian shatters, and now that he's down to the last one, it's worth collecting the rest.

Not knowing exactly what's going to happen to him, he decides to wait by the window that's marked, so that even if he can't see at all by the time Sebastian comes back he'll still know where he needs to hit. It's easier than having tried to find and break all the windows while potentially blind and deaf, he tells himself. Also harder, because he doesn't know when Sebastian will pick up each of the medals, and every time the effects are a surprise. Smell is the first to go, confirming what he already expects. Hearing and vision turn out less debilitating than he might have thought, but waiting for them is hell.

The memories are increasingly confusing. Snippets of him talking to Hina, and fighting by Eiji's side. He doesn't know what that means. He remembers everything up until that fight at the beach, and by then they were enemies, so when...? He realises, also, that he's not sure what the last medal is going to be. The rest have been ones that should exist; the medals he still had that hadn't been broken. Now there shouldn't be any more.

He doesn't bother talking when Sebastian comes back to the room. Now that he's there, Ankh knows exactly where that last medal--whatever it is--is going to drop, so there's no reason to put it off any longer. He does and doesn't see and hear as the final window breaks.]

[ When the window shatters, Sebastian shatters with it. He awakens in the hub, aware of his painless death with the Rabbit. This time, in his place, the medal is broken in half. And this time, when he picks it up, he will lose all supernatural senses save for those provided by the World. The last of his memories will be granted to him, filling in the gaps of his memories, but it is probably little consolation as the sound of the lock hitting the hard ground reaches him. The way up is now clear, and it will be up to Ankh if he wants to go upstairs alone or with back-up. ]

[He picks up the rest of the medals that Sebastian had been carrying first, before pausing to look (if "look" is the right word) at the new one. A Hawk medal in two jagged halves. He was right; there weren't any more that were whole.

Almost hesitantly, he picks up one of the halves, and he's struck with all the memories of Hina that he's still missing. How she came to the woods to make sure he was alright, how she held his hand the night before that last battle, and how he spent the last of his energy to give her one last smile. It takes him a moment to pick up the other side and fill in the last of the missing pieces. How when he thought Eiji was going to kill him, what he did instead was say "thank you." How Eiji wasn't the one who broke that medal, and Ankh gave up what was left of his life willingly...

Oh. Damn that cat. He thought he knew what the missing memories were, but he did lose something important, after all. He might have something to say about that later; for now, he punches the floor.

There's a long moment spent just sitting there, holding the medals and trying to process those memories. He hears (if "hears" is the right word) the lock fall, but he doesn't care, too wrapped up in just how wrong his assumptions had been. Thankfully there's no one else around to bother him, though he wonders if that's by design. He'd been passingly aware of the people who had shattered coming back. He can't feel their presence now, and he's not sure whether it's because he doesn't have the ability or because they just aren't there. Either seems possible from what he's seen so far.

It's fine, either way. He doesn't need them anymore, and they don't need to see him now, or whatever might still be waiting for him up the stairs. Eventually, he picks himself up and continues on alone.]

Be brave enough to burn

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Third Puzzle Found

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Re: Third Puzzle Found

Puzzle: Solved

Re: Puzzle: Solved