000 :: the second dream :: the details are unimportant
[ reference :: Edensphere death taken from this log. Canon death taken from Runaways #18, pg 19 (all panels on the page inferred shown). Argent as Ran's subconscious written with permission from riko . ]
The dream starts the way all of her dreams start: with nothing.
Just black - endless and infinite and wide, but claustrophobic at the same time. It’s cold here, just like the last time, and it cuts down deep into Ran - past bone and flesh, into parts of herself she never remembers exist once she’s woken upon. It bothers her, just how familiar it feels - the sensation of being lost indefinitely, though the hopelessness is tempered by a exasperated sense of here we are again, tinged with the slightest bit of irritation that she can’t quite place. She would try to move, to scramble against it, but if there’s one thing Ran has learned by now is that this place - this darkness - for some reason, is inevitable. A universal truth she cannot escape. A reality of her forgotten past that keeps managing to find her.
“Well then,” says a familiar voice suddenly. “So nice for you to join us again, my dear.”
It takes Ran a moment to realize that her feet are suddenly on solid ground and the darkness has dissolved away to merely the insides of her eyelids. It takes her a moment longer to recognize the voice, which comes from somewhere right in front her and above; the tone, the diction, the slightly bemused tone - all signs that point to, of all people, Argent. She shakes her head, the motion sluggish and reluctant at first, like her muscles need to struggle to remember exactly how to work.
“…Argent?” she asks as she opens her eyes, blinking at the light that burns the world white before resolving into his face, bent down to look at her. The glasses perched crookedly on the bridge of her nose slide down to the tip, and she squints at him in bewilderment as she pushes them back up again with one finger. He smirks at her and the familiar gesture, the same way Argent always does - like he knows something that she doesn’t, which in this case is probably true.
“Sharp as always, dear Ran,” he says and nods once, in acknowledgment and perhaps slight condescension. Ran’s head is still fuzzy so she can’t tell for sure, and in order to ground herself, she reaches out and touches him on the sleeve of his shirt. The cotton is smooth and crisp under her fingertips, and after a moment Argent’s hand moves to cover hers; it pats once and then twice in kind of reassurance. He smiles at the touch, much warmer and more genuine than any other smile Argent has ever given her before, and that’s enough to set alarms and whistles off in the back of Ran’s brain.
“Argent,” she says evenly and lowly, her brows lowering down over her eyes in slow-creeping suspicion. Her fingers flex against his arm in a kind of knee-jerk reaction and Argent’s smile rearranges itself to something much more vaguely amused. “What’s going on?” In all honesty, it’s not the kind of question that Ran likes asking Argent; if it were up to her, she’d answer it herself, but the harder she thinks, the more she feels an inexplicable panic start to rise in her stomach. As if, despite how confused and lost she is now, there’s still room for that to grow, and if she pushes enough it’ll be her fault that the other shoe drops, that the shit hits the fan, and the damn breaks, and then where would she be?
“Ah.” Despite the smile on his face, Argent sounds unsurprised but in a mildly put-upon way - as if the situation was expected but in a way that he’d hoped to avoid. His reaction is enough to twist Ran’s growing anxiety into all-out irritation, and she feels this shift in her mood quickly arrange itself onto her face, which Argent raises his eyebrows at, tapping his chin thoughtfully for a moment with the tip of one finger. “Regretful,” he says, almost to himself, “but in the end, perhaps unavoidable.” Another small smile crawls onto his face. “Well then, I take it upon myself as my duty to remind you.”
There’s a moment where Ran says nothing, does nothing beyond standing very still and thinking very hard. Turning inward, she tries to concentrate on what her internal clock is telling her is the last thing she remembers. There’s the bookshop, and the memory of her mouth moving as if to speak, and then, beyond that - nothing. And then, suddenly, as if on cue, the air around her is filled with the sound of movement; people gasp and whisper urgent things to themselves and somewhere, beneath it all, Ran can hear the sound of her own voice speaking in soft tones.
“…Everyone looks so serious…” she says, and Ran’s surprised by just how unlike herself she sounds - oddly cheerful, but distant, like she’s daydreaming. “Don’t worry. Argent said…” The voice trails off again.
At the mention of his name, Argent’s smile went very small, almost quiet. “I regret not being there, my dear, I do hope you find it in yourself to forgive me. But I’m afraid I wouldn’t have been much help. Death does not nearly hold the same sway over me as most.” He tilts his head to one side as he says this, and makes a small, dismissive flourish of his hand through the air between them. He then moves to one side, and Ran’s surprised to discover that they’re no longer standing in a vast empty space, but in the bookstore instead. Out of habit Ran immediately starts scanning the shelves around her, trying to spot any books that might be misplaced or out of order. It takes a second longer for her to realize that the hushed sounds of panic have gotten louder around her, and when she looks down to see what all the fuss is about, she finds herself.
“What…” and Ran’s voice is barely more than breath, “…what’s going on?”
“Well. Isn’t it obvious, my dear? You’re dying.” Argent says this so matter-of-factly that Ran turns to glare at him, angrily, but he merely gives his hand another curly-qued wave before continuing onward. “But you and I, we were made much more resilient than that. That’s why we have an understanding, yes?”
Deep down inside, Ran wants to believe that what Argent has said is true. That all of his strangeness, his resilience and persistence - the things that originally drew her to him - are in some way merely an echo of herself reflected back. But where once there was certainty, Ran only feels sense of thinly-stretched panic - as if part of her already knows that she’s wrong and that the answer is much more simple than that. Almost mundane. Considering this, she bows her head and looks off to one side to watch the slowly creeping tail end of a rivulet of blood make its way across the floor. “I don’t think that’s really true, Argent. I mean, I want to be like you. But you’re different. Singular. An anomaly. Me, I’m just - I don’t know - something else.” She shrugs uselessly.
In response, Argent’s eyebrows shoot up in almost-surprise, though his eyes show that he’s still a step ahead of her - there’s a kind of knowing in them, and still amusement. Like a poker player who’s gotten himself a royal flush and has given up pretense in trying to conceal the ace in their hand. “No?” he asks, mildly and gives her hand another short pat. “Well then, how do you go about explaining this, my friend?”
He snaps his fingers and suddenly the bookcases around them erupt and dissolve into great billows of fire. Vanilla and Shiro and some of the others vanish in a lick of flame until all that’s left in the scene is her and Dino, looking at one another. Dino’s hair is different and their clothes have changed, but the overall idea is pretty much the same. It’s strange, Ran thinks, just how little the expression on the other-her’s face changes; she’s still smiling up at him - fondly and adoringly but with a kind of acceptance.
“...But what you said, “ Dino says, his voice breaking mid-sentence, “I thought you hated me.”
There’s a knife or maybe it’s a sword buried hilt deep in her stomach, and yet the other version of herself still manages a crooked smile. “Sometimes you have to lie…to protect the people you care about…you taught me that.”
Whatever Dino says next is covered up by a long, suffering sigh as, beside her, Argent rolls his eyes and says in a heavily put-upon voice, “Honestly. Some people’s need to insist on-“
“Argent!” Ran hisses sideways, holding a hand up towards him in an attempt to shush him. In front of them, her and Dino continue to trade earnest whispers in low tones, and even though Ran can’t really make out what it is that their saying, she certain gets the gist of it - and what is certain to happen next. It’s important, Ranks thinks, that she see this - that she understands it and brings it back with her, back from wherever she’s gotten herself this time around. But instead of quieting in the way Ran had hoped, Argent merely blinks and shakes his head once at her, rather insistently. With another snap of his fingers, the scene before them disappears - Ran’s voice cutting off mid-sentence as the world flickers out into darkness around them.
“Bring it back!” Ran shouts, turning towards him, her voice reverberating after it ricochets it way through the darkness. Her hand on his sleeve suddenly tightens into a firm grip and without warning, she tugs - rather forcefully - once on his arm, almost forcing him into a stumble.
Despite this Argent continues to blink at her, unphased. “The details are unimportant,” he says simply, and his eyes grow dark and somber. He looks almost unfamiliar like this - his smile gone and his voice low and serious. It’s enough to wear the edge of Ran’s voice down to blunt, so that when she interjects again, it’s tinged with reluctance.
“Well, maybe not to you, Argent, but-“ Argent holds up his hand.
“You came to this place unafraid of death. I am merely trying to show you why. The woman from your first dream, the grave upon the hill; you barely panicked when you collapsed in the bookstore, even though you’d just been run through by a branch. Your answer, Ran, is right in front of you. Why must you insist I spell it out for you?” He looks down at her, almost disapprovingly, and whatever resistance Ran was willing to put forward suddenly melts away beneath his gaze, leaving nothing behind but the begrudging truth. Perhaps, she figures, Argent is right, and that this has been something that she’s been carrying all along. Or perhaps it’s never really been important up until now.
“My answer…” Ran says quality and looks away. “…yeah.”
The seriousness of Argent’s expression suddenly breaks and he smiles at her again, knowingly. “Ah,” he then says and leans down, resting on hand very lightly on the curve of her shoulder. “There we are.” He nods at her once, reassuringly, and there’s something in that small gesture, the feeling of warmth of Argent’s skin against the fabric of her shirt, that makes Ran nod - very small and very slowly - back. “I’ll take care of the easy part then, shall I?” Argent asks and raises his eyebrows expectantly. “The reason that you’re unafraid of death…”
Ran inhales deeply, holding it in her lungs for a second before letting herself speak. “The reason that I’m unafraid of death,” she repeats, “is because I’m already-“
The dream starts the way all of her dreams start: with nothing.
Just black - endless and infinite and wide, but claustrophobic at the same time. It’s cold here, just like the last time, and it cuts down deep into Ran - past bone and flesh, into parts of herself she never remembers exist once she’s woken upon. It bothers her, just how familiar it feels - the sensation of being lost indefinitely, though the hopelessness is tempered by a exasperated sense of here we are again, tinged with the slightest bit of irritation that she can’t quite place. She would try to move, to scramble against it, but if there’s one thing Ran has learned by now is that this place - this darkness - for some reason, is inevitable. A universal truth she cannot escape. A reality of her forgotten past that keeps managing to find her.
“Well then,” says a familiar voice suddenly. “So nice for you to join us again, my dear.”
It takes Ran a moment to realize that her feet are suddenly on solid ground and the darkness has dissolved away to merely the insides of her eyelids. It takes her a moment longer to recognize the voice, which comes from somewhere right in front her and above; the tone, the diction, the slightly bemused tone - all signs that point to, of all people, Argent. She shakes her head, the motion sluggish and reluctant at first, like her muscles need to struggle to remember exactly how to work.
“…Argent?” she asks as she opens her eyes, blinking at the light that burns the world white before resolving into his face, bent down to look at her. The glasses perched crookedly on the bridge of her nose slide down to the tip, and she squints at him in bewilderment as she pushes them back up again with one finger. He smirks at her and the familiar gesture, the same way Argent always does - like he knows something that she doesn’t, which in this case is probably true.
“Sharp as always, dear Ran,” he says and nods once, in acknowledgment and perhaps slight condescension. Ran’s head is still fuzzy so she can’t tell for sure, and in order to ground herself, she reaches out and touches him on the sleeve of his shirt. The cotton is smooth and crisp under her fingertips, and after a moment Argent’s hand moves to cover hers; it pats once and then twice in kind of reassurance. He smiles at the touch, much warmer and more genuine than any other smile Argent has ever given her before, and that’s enough to set alarms and whistles off in the back of Ran’s brain.
“Argent,” she says evenly and lowly, her brows lowering down over her eyes in slow-creeping suspicion. Her fingers flex against his arm in a kind of knee-jerk reaction and Argent’s smile rearranges itself to something much more vaguely amused. “What’s going on?” In all honesty, it’s not the kind of question that Ran likes asking Argent; if it were up to her, she’d answer it herself, but the harder she thinks, the more she feels an inexplicable panic start to rise in her stomach. As if, despite how confused and lost she is now, there’s still room for that to grow, and if she pushes enough it’ll be her fault that the other shoe drops, that the shit hits the fan, and the damn breaks, and then where would she be?
“Ah.” Despite the smile on his face, Argent sounds unsurprised but in a mildly put-upon way - as if the situation was expected but in a way that he’d hoped to avoid. His reaction is enough to twist Ran’s growing anxiety into all-out irritation, and she feels this shift in her mood quickly arrange itself onto her face, which Argent raises his eyebrows at, tapping his chin thoughtfully for a moment with the tip of one finger. “Regretful,” he says, almost to himself, “but in the end, perhaps unavoidable.” Another small smile crawls onto his face. “Well then, I take it upon myself as my duty to remind you.”
There’s a moment where Ran says nothing, does nothing beyond standing very still and thinking very hard. Turning inward, she tries to concentrate on what her internal clock is telling her is the last thing she remembers. There’s the bookshop, and the memory of her mouth moving as if to speak, and then, beyond that - nothing. And then, suddenly, as if on cue, the air around her is filled with the sound of movement; people gasp and whisper urgent things to themselves and somewhere, beneath it all, Ran can hear the sound of her own voice speaking in soft tones.
“…Everyone looks so serious…” she says, and Ran’s surprised by just how unlike herself she sounds - oddly cheerful, but distant, like she’s daydreaming. “Don’t worry. Argent said…” The voice trails off again.
At the mention of his name, Argent’s smile went very small, almost quiet. “I regret not being there, my dear, I do hope you find it in yourself to forgive me. But I’m afraid I wouldn’t have been much help. Death does not nearly hold the same sway over me as most.” He tilts his head to one side as he says this, and makes a small, dismissive flourish of his hand through the air between them. He then moves to one side, and Ran’s surprised to discover that they’re no longer standing in a vast empty space, but in the bookstore instead. Out of habit Ran immediately starts scanning the shelves around her, trying to spot any books that might be misplaced or out of order. It takes a second longer for her to realize that the hushed sounds of panic have gotten louder around her, and when she looks down to see what all the fuss is about, she finds herself.
“What…” and Ran’s voice is barely more than breath, “…what’s going on?”
“Well. Isn’t it obvious, my dear? You’re dying.” Argent says this so matter-of-factly that Ran turns to glare at him, angrily, but he merely gives his hand another curly-qued wave before continuing onward. “But you and I, we were made much more resilient than that. That’s why we have an understanding, yes?”
Deep down inside, Ran wants to believe that what Argent has said is true. That all of his strangeness, his resilience and persistence - the things that originally drew her to him - are in some way merely an echo of herself reflected back. But where once there was certainty, Ran only feels sense of thinly-stretched panic - as if part of her already knows that she’s wrong and that the answer is much more simple than that. Almost mundane. Considering this, she bows her head and looks off to one side to watch the slowly creeping tail end of a rivulet of blood make its way across the floor. “I don’t think that’s really true, Argent. I mean, I want to be like you. But you’re different. Singular. An anomaly. Me, I’m just - I don’t know - something else.” She shrugs uselessly.
In response, Argent’s eyebrows shoot up in almost-surprise, though his eyes show that he’s still a step ahead of her - there’s a kind of knowing in them, and still amusement. Like a poker player who’s gotten himself a royal flush and has given up pretense in trying to conceal the ace in their hand. “No?” he asks, mildly and gives her hand another short pat. “Well then, how do you go about explaining this, my friend?”
He snaps his fingers and suddenly the bookcases around them erupt and dissolve into great billows of fire. Vanilla and Shiro and some of the others vanish in a lick of flame until all that’s left in the scene is her and Dino, looking at one another. Dino’s hair is different and their clothes have changed, but the overall idea is pretty much the same. It’s strange, Ran thinks, just how little the expression on the other-her’s face changes; she’s still smiling up at him - fondly and adoringly but with a kind of acceptance.
“...But what you said, “ Dino says, his voice breaking mid-sentence, “I thought you hated me.”
There’s a knife or maybe it’s a sword buried hilt deep in her stomach, and yet the other version of herself still manages a crooked smile. “Sometimes you have to lie…to protect the people you care about…you taught me that.”
Whatever Dino says next is covered up by a long, suffering sigh as, beside her, Argent rolls his eyes and says in a heavily put-upon voice, “Honestly. Some people’s need to insist on-“
“Argent!” Ran hisses sideways, holding a hand up towards him in an attempt to shush him. In front of them, her and Dino continue to trade earnest whispers in low tones, and even though Ran can’t really make out what it is that their saying, she certain gets the gist of it - and what is certain to happen next. It’s important, Ranks thinks, that she see this - that she understands it and brings it back with her, back from wherever she’s gotten herself this time around. But instead of quieting in the way Ran had hoped, Argent merely blinks and shakes his head once at her, rather insistently. With another snap of his fingers, the scene before them disappears - Ran’s voice cutting off mid-sentence as the world flickers out into darkness around them.
“Bring it back!” Ran shouts, turning towards him, her voice reverberating after it ricochets it way through the darkness. Her hand on his sleeve suddenly tightens into a firm grip and without warning, she tugs - rather forcefully - once on his arm, almost forcing him into a stumble.
Despite this Argent continues to blink at her, unphased. “The details are unimportant,” he says simply, and his eyes grow dark and somber. He looks almost unfamiliar like this - his smile gone and his voice low and serious. It’s enough to wear the edge of Ran’s voice down to blunt, so that when she interjects again, it’s tinged with reluctance.
“Well, maybe not to you, Argent, but-“ Argent holds up his hand.
“You came to this place unafraid of death. I am merely trying to show you why. The woman from your first dream, the grave upon the hill; you barely panicked when you collapsed in the bookstore, even though you’d just been run through by a branch. Your answer, Ran, is right in front of you. Why must you insist I spell it out for you?” He looks down at her, almost disapprovingly, and whatever resistance Ran was willing to put forward suddenly melts away beneath his gaze, leaving nothing behind but the begrudging truth. Perhaps, she figures, Argent is right, and that this has been something that she’s been carrying all along. Or perhaps it’s never really been important up until now.
“My answer…” Ran says quality and looks away. “…yeah.”
The seriousness of Argent’s expression suddenly breaks and he smiles at her again, knowingly. “Ah,” he then says and leans down, resting on hand very lightly on the curve of her shoulder. “There we are.” He nods at her once, reassuringly, and there’s something in that small gesture, the feeling of warmth of Argent’s skin against the fabric of her shirt, that makes Ran nod - very small and very slowly - back. “I’ll take care of the easy part then, shall I?” Argent asks and raises his eyebrows expectantly. “The reason that you’re unafraid of death…”
Ran inhales deeply, holding it in her lungs for a second before letting herself speak. “The reason that I’m unafraid of death,” she repeats, “is because I’m already-“