dǫçţǫŗ şɭęęƥ (shone) wrote in valloic, @ 2020-07-03 13:15:00 |
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The beaches at Vallo weren’t really those typical paradises soaked in sunshine - they were rockier, lapping waves colder and laced with foam. The sun was bright but it wasn’t too hot - it rendered the ocean a glittering blue-green shade. Rugged, more like. And blissfully empty - which was good for Dan’s purposes, because the last thing he wanted was to interrupt happy, laughing picnickers or families swimming and enjoying that island life. Thinking of his mentor, of Dick, his cajoling laugh and gumbo recipe that could spice the devil outta you, and his words of wisdom and his meditation tips, Dan tried to focus. Many years ago, Dick taught him to lock up the ghosts that were haunting him, to turn what they wanted to eat into their prison. The ghosts remained there, on a dusty shelf in the corridors of his mind - the hedge maze, bitterly cold and unforgiving. But he knew he had to get rid of them - one at a time, if that was the way. He couldn’t just open all the boxes and let them unleash their fury - on him especially. Yeah, he was kind of terrified. But if Korra had experience with this, maybe she was the best person for the job. He waited there, picking up sand that ran like cold lava through his star-fished fingers, letting it go, breathing in that briny aroma and watching the water. And he attempted to relax as best he could. It was a good thing that he was watching the water, because a few moments later, having spotted him on the beach, Korra arrived - but from the ocean, where she had been calming her own mind by riding the waves for a bit. She belatedly realized that it might look like showing off, with her arriving onto the beach like the water had delivered her, but she hoped it was taken as a comfort to show that she knew what she was doing. She smiled at Dan and padded over to him, doing her best to put on a confident expression. She honestly had no idea if the 'spirit bending' techniques would work here, much less on the ghosts riding around in Dan's mind (which seemed really complicated as-is), but the least she could do was try. After all, she'd been mostly feeling useless in Vallo with no direction or expectations. It was both freeing and terrifying, so she had jumped right back into the idea of a fight club and had been just doing that until something came along. "Hey," she said, being a wonderful conversationalist. If Dan could ride the waves like that, he probably would have too. But surfing, whether it was with a traditional board or...whatever it is Korra was doing, that was just not his thing. Not that he would know for sure - he’d never really tried. New Hampshire wasn’t the best place for it, and before that - well, a lot of his life was a blur before that. Dive bars with only one pool table that leaned, and coke snorted off toilet seats - those were the main staples, really. “Hey,” he repeated, smiling a little; seeing her surf on into this meeting had caused the expression and it reached his eyes, and the lines there - he wasn’t kidding when he told Ronan he was old. Perhaps not in terms of numbers (he hadn’t yet reached forty) but he felt it in his bones. That was part of the reason why he wanted to try this out, see if it worked. The ghosts aged him. Whatever the next part of his life would entail in Vallo, he needed it to be free from their shackles. He inhaled the lullaby of the ocean and its salty breath, letting it out slow. “Do you need to know more about the ghosts before I open one of the boxes?” he asked cautiously. “Or need me to do...anything in particular?” "I haven't needed to know about spirits in the past, just that they're angry. The bending does the rest. It's a spiritual thing? I think they know it's granting them peace, I haven't had any that have struggled against it when I've started, at least, no matter how angry they are," was the answer. Korra pushed some hair (she needed to cut it again) behind her ears and straightened a bit. Some of the larger spirits had been difficult to at least start the process with because, well, they were lashing out and not willing to sit still, so it took a bit of a fight to get them to pause long enough. She hoped it wouldn't come to that if they could be released in a controlled manner. Maybe she could get started and catch them as soon as they appeared, before they had a chance to rage or whatever Dan was worried about. She could tell it was probably more dangerous than most of the spirits she'd faced, but she felt confident that she could handle it, even if it meant shifting into her Avatar state. "I guess all I need you to do is be careful? I don't know what kind of strain this may put on you." “I honestly don’t know either, but - only one way to find out,” Dan shrugged. He reached up and squeezed at his shoulder, rubbing tense muscle there - but then he let his limbs relax, closing his eyes and sinking further into his own mind. The hedge maze, where all of his trauma and pain were stored (literally, in lockboxes), a chill permeating the air. It was all snow, and the cold, and no stars in the sky but everything was midnight - black velvet and dark clouds. One of those lockboxes suddenly rattled, the top attempting to dislodge itself. He flipped the latch, and when he opened his eyes - they were flooded with white, no discernible pupil or iris. The ghost that materialized was one who was soaked and completely nude, like she’d crawled from the depths of a bloodied tub, scars everywhere, skin peeling off and rotting. A long time ago, Mrs. Massey was fond of seducing the young Overlook bellboys who came to her room - abandoned by one of those younger lovers, she became the embodiment of unrequited love. She grinned like a Halloween jack-o-lantern, dripping wet and inching closer, each step squelching. Korra took a step back involuntarily. This was definitely a more chilling spirit than any she'd ever seen. But reflex won out and she rallied quickly, squaring her shoulders and immediately starting the spirit bending process. It took only half a second before she had weaved a pattern of water around the ghost, forming a blue spiral of charged energy and causing Mrs. Massey to pause in her tracks, suddenly distracted by the energies coalescing around her. It wasn't enough, she could feel it, so Korra copied Dan, in a sense. Her eyes flared bright white as she shifted into the Avatar state and redoubled her efforts. This time, the glow began to creep up through the tendrils of water until they completed the weave and illuminated the ghostly woman. A short moment later and Mrs. Massey appeared briefly as she used to look, before the anger and rage and even sadness took over. The tendrils fell away and she looked back at Dan for a brief moment as a different kind of smile crossed her lips before she just faded away, letting peace release her. Immediately after that, Korra reverted from the Avatar state and took a sharp breath. It was more challenging than she'd expected. But it worked. She looked up at Dan with a sheen of sweat on her forehead and a victorious grin on her face. "One down, how many more to go?" Dan’s eyes faded to their normal color, a cornflower blue, and he stumbled back on the sand a little - just out of sheer surprise. The empty lockbox slammed shut, then - well, it just disappeared. He couldn’t feel it in the corridors of his mind anymore - its heaviness didn’t linger either. It was like someone took one of the barbells that weighed him down and flung it off of him, toward the sky and beyond. Actually, he was pretty surprised it worked. But he definitely wasn’t complaining. “There’s a lot of them,” he admitted, hand to his heart to slow the rapidfire pistons he had going on there. “I - we can do one more for now? I don’t want to tire you out.” The sweat on Korra hadn’t gone amiss, neither had the way that being in such a state seemed to take a lot out of her. He returned to the hedge maze, to its endless winter and the topiary peeking out from under blankets of white. With his eyes closed, he navigated the psychic plane, his own mind - he still heard the noises around him on the beach, the gentle sound of the waves and any birds that flew by, but the other part of his attention was diving deeper down the rabbit hole of his own head. In a way it was like two rivers feeding into an estuary, and he attempted to relax enough to focus. The locks on one of the boxes unlatched with a loud click, and there was a ripple and shimmer in the air before two little girls took their shapes. It would almost appear innocent, if they weren’t so dead-eyed and radiating madness; to get pulled into their world was to fall down a chasm that had no bottom. Come play with us, Danny, they spoke. Forever and ever and ever. Korra had started to respond, but Dan had dove back into his head quicker than she could form the words. Or maybe she was just slower to put them together than she realized. Still, the Avatar's work was never done, so she started calling up the helix of water as soon as the forms of two young girls materialized. "Creepy," was her most apt description as the scene repeated itself. She'd found her groove now, though, and didn't need to call on the Avatar state. The girls trapped in the water spiral didn't even seem to react, just continued staring straight ahead even though their voices could no longer be heard. Moments later, they just illuminated as well, and faded from view. She could hope they found peace, but their complete lack of reaction was a bit unnerving. Korra punched the air in triumph again and smiled as soon as she saw Danny's eyes come back to the- present? Real world? "I can do this as long as you can," she noted, smiling and feeling a bit rejuvenated by going two for two. Or three for three? It was its own sort of rejuvenation for Dan as well, to see Korra so triumphant - one of his biggest fears was that he’d unleash a ghost and end up seeing her get eaten alive. Or possessed, the angry spirit sinking into blood and bone and just living there, screaming and screaming - But no. She was clearly made of tough stuff. And whatever those Avatar powers were - they were nothing to sneeze at either. She was right though. Those twin girls (the Grady twins, murdered by their own father Delbert), axed to death at the Overlook, their bodies lying in pieces in a blood-soaked room, really were creepy. Dan would not miss them. It was amazing to think how he’d almost become like them. “I don’t know,” he chuckled weakly. Unlatching the boxes also brought back these feelings for him - ones that he’d tried to bury, beneath pounds and pounds of graveyard dirt. “Can we take a little break?” He sat on the sand, just to catch his breath. “But, you know - just. Thank you. This means...so much.” How could he even explain that he’d been afraid his whole life, terrorized, haunted by ghosts? That he didn’t know what it was like to be happy - not before ending up here, in what was likely an accident after he embraced death? So yeah, it meant a lot. More than he could say. "Oh," answered Korra, stopping her victory dance routine and taking a hard look at Dan. He definitely looked like someone who needed a moment. She knew this was hard on him, probably harder than what she was doing, actually. He'd said this stuff had been with him, locked in his head for a long time, and until she'd seen them, she hadn't any real idea how terrifying that must've been, "Yeah, a break is good." She plopped down on the sand beside him and used a few small hand gestures to build a sand castle in front of them, complete with a little miniature of Dan staring out at the water. "It'll get better. I won't stop helping until you get to be entirely yourself again. Okay?" The miniature of himself made Dan smile a little, genuinely. A cool draught of briny air whispered over the waves, and it brought the taste of the sea with it - he found that comforting too. He wanted to know more about what all Korra would do, and where she came from - he hoped that they’d become friends. “Okay,” he agreed, and he felt - good. Better. Like he could do this. With her help, of course, but he’d get there and then he wouldn’t have to wait for the other shoe to drop. Living with the lockboxes, he never actually felt like he was entirely himself - that there was darkness always waiting in the wings. To be without them, maybe he could finally move forward. For himself, but for Allison too and the family they’d built. Okay. Yeah - it would be. |