Time doesn't like to stay consistent, so stfu. >:\

[unforescoreable]

Characters: Replica/Luke unforescoreable, White Moon/Aizen iniquiticity.
Date/Time: Dec 22, late afternoon?
Location: Fourth Floor to Elevator.
Rating: G, most likely. ...>_>!
Summary: Replica was eaten by the Fourth Floor for about three weeks, though he's pretty sure he's only been gone half an hour, and when he finally gets the elevator to open, it apparently wasn't

Comments

[unforescoreable]

Looking to the older man as he spoke, Replica reached up to scratch the back of his head with his free hand, his other hand still holding onto the flower.

"I don't really know," he admit, feeling a little sheepish and expression betraying that sheepishness completely. He wore his heart of his sleeve--it was more than obvious that he couldn't lie to save his life. "I was trying to get to work, but the elevator stopped at the Fourth Floor instead of the Fifth. I thought the button for that floor didn't work.

"Anyway, when the doors opened, I was there--wherever there was. I don't know what that place was, but... it felt really familiar."

Here he paused to look at the flower in his hand. Really familiar, just like this flower that he couldn't place a name to. As the elevator started moving, he was hit with a small realization.

"Oh. Hey, have we met before--I mean, meet like, on-the-journals-meet."

Again, this place had a way of making him feel stupider with every word out of his mouth, but he knew what he was trying to say. Hopefully this other guy could figure it out too.

"I'm Replica."

[iniquiticity]

The Fourth Floor..!

Why it had stopped for this fellow that he'd never seen on the journals.. there could be a huge number of reasons. Had he spoken to Fugue or Canon in real life at some point? Had the world swallowed him up to give him something or take it away? He shoved these thoughts to the side for the moment and smiled again at him, a sort of welcoming smile.

"I don't think so, but that's fine with me. It's very nice to meet you, Replica; my name is White Moon."

He offered a hand to shake.

[unforescoreable]

"White Moon, huh? Yeah, nice to meet you too," Replica replied. He was left-handed and was holding a flower in his right. It took a little juggling of the flower from one hand to the other before he accepted the other's hand and shook. Part of him recognized that it was rude to shake hands with the left--though why it was rude was another story entirely--and well, first impressions went a long way.

Anxious to not give an awkward silence a chance, he continued with his next usual question: "So, how long have you been here for? I was born only a couple weeks ago."

Though he had no idea that 'a couple weeks ago' was actually more like a month and a half at this point.

[iniquiticity]

He was curious about Replica's love for his white flower, definitely. If it had come from his forth floor, then that meant they could go from one to another. Then again, Crescent Moon had given him his sword. The sword that was theirs, fully. He liked Replica's handshake, though. Strong. He looked thoughtful for a moment and tried to figure this out. "Oh, I've been here a while. A couple of months, I guess?"

Longer than that, really, but that was his secret. "How are you liking the sphere so far?"

[unforescoreable]

Replica had no reason to think White Moon might be lying about how long he'd been around for. In fact, he couldn't think of a reason for anyone to lie about something seemingly so trivial. And so he just accepted it as truth and went along with life.

"I'd be lying if I said I was used to it," he admitted, scratching the back of his head a little. "But I guess it's okay. I definitely don't like the fact that I don't remember anything about myself, but I guess it could be worse. I could be dead or something."

That was pretty much true. Or he could've died wherever he used to be and that was how he wound up here with a second chance of life, but he couldn't prove any of that yet, so he'd file those possibilities in the back of his mind for the time being.

[iniquiticity]

"Neither do I. I don't think anyone does, really. It seems like...part of my identity is gone." He frowned.

Honestly, death didn't seem like that bad to White Moon. Granted, it would not be the best situation ever, but after death.. well, there was something there, he knew. Something big. Death, he realized at himself, was the beginning of something. It wasn't an end.

"I don't know, death couldn't be that bed," he admitted after following this train of thought for a while. "I mean, there's sure to be something after that, right? Something new and interesting, maybe new opportunities."

[unforescoreable]

Replica could definitely agree with that--who really liked it when their entire frame of reference for the concept of 'self' had been torn away? Even though he knew, logically, that it wasn't the same thing, part of him faltered under the weight of feeling that not remembering who he really was was akin to running from the responsibilities he should have been bearing. That made him angry.

"I don't know about that," he said, skeptically, when White Moon shared his thoughts on death. "I always thought that when people died, they disappeared, and that would be the end of it. Then you live on only in people's memories. But I guess, if I died and this is the afterlife, you might be right after all."

White Moon didn't seem to be a bad guy. That was nice--Replica did need to know more friendly faces in this place.

[iniquiticity]

"Well, I wonder. Maybe we're all dead and this is an afterlife for all of us together. I mean, maybe you're right. Maybe death is just the end and nothing is there - surely I can't say otherwise for sure, right? I don't know." He grinned a little. "But I think that death is the start of something new, not the end of everything. It's just a feeling I get."

It wasn't just from his death here, either, though that had certainly factored into it. It seemed like a sort of strange conversation, though, considering they'd only just met. He mentally filed through all his notes and curiousities, and decided to change it. "What's that flower?" He asked, looking down at the white blossom that Replica clutched.

[unforescoreable]

Instead of chasing after the death and afterlife issue any further, Replica let that topic drop like it was on fire. There was no real answer that either of them could vouch for as the Absolute Truth™, so it was better to just let it rest. And regardless of whether or not death was simply the start of something new or not, he wasn't planning on finding out any time soon. He didn't want to die.

When White Moon brought the flower up, Replica reflexively held it out a little, as though to center his own attention on it again.

"Oh, this? It's a flower I got from the Fourth Floor. There was some kind of really huge, mechanical room and a flower garden. It all felt really familiar, so I thought no one would mind if I brought one back."

[iniquiticity]

"It's a really lovely flower." White Moon did have a fondness for something as simplistic and natural as a flower, and a white one as that. Nature could hold so much power. "Do you know what kind of flower it is, or did you just pick it up at random from that place?"

The idea that you could take things from the Fourth Floor.. pieces of oneself? It might not have bee as strange as he at first thought, as his twin had managed to give him the blade. But there was no way, none that he knew, to get there. He remembered watching Argent's memory in the fourth floor, but to his knowledge, had done nothing to end up there. "Well," he grinned, "I don't mind. I think it's very nice."

[unforescoreable]

"I probably knew what kind it was, at some point... you know, before coming here," he answered, spinning the flower slowly between his fingers. "But now, I can't recall the name, just that it grows without sunlight and only in certain areas. And that's all."

Replica had no context for what the Fourth Floor was, just that it had somehow hinted at what he had lost and what he had to regain. Well. What he would regain, given enough time.

"At least I know for sure one person doesn't mind," he added with a smile.

...it took a long enough time, but the elevator finally slowed to a stop at the City Without Walls. "Are you getting out here or heading back up the tree?"

[iniquiticity]

White Moon smiled and nodded, brushing hair from his face. "Maybe you should try to grow it somewhere in the Sphere. The park, perhaps, though if you need a dark place maybe under a chair or in a closet somewhere?"

He glanced out and nodded. "Yes, I am. I've unfortunately got things to do for work."