Beat of a different drum
It wasn't simple.
Babysitting that was. Of course, lessers were as far from 'children' as snakes were from butterflies, but that was beside the point. Lessers were groups of people (yes, people) who took their strength and direction from their higher. The greater Nobody that they clove to and followed defined their existence as much as they supported the greater in turn.
They were followers. Every one of them. They couldn't be more, not as the heartless had left them. That was alright. She was infinitely patient with the girls.
The problem, of course, lay in being the only greater Nobody in constant contact with the Dancers. She led Ninjas...and there was the very real risk of the Dancers slipping. Slowly devolving into Dusks or giving in to her presence and becoming Ninja. That possibility was simply not to be contemplated. It wasn't what...
...it wasn't who...
...the Dancers were. Circumstance shouldn't force them away from what little they were still able to believe of themselves. And so it wasn't easy.
She didn't dare take the bunch to Milliways, not with it's unstable reality and the possibility of connecting a princess's world as they were drawn to Demyx. No, instead she paired them with her own girls, sending teams off on every errand she could think of. Taking reports on everything from kittens to army sizes across a slew of worlds.
She paired them off and watched from her home. When a pair of Dancers began to sound too much like her own girls when they reported...they were separated and given time with each other, and things that spoke to what they were. She had both 'bedrooms' of her home, that empty second story under her office, filled with items Demyx would have gifted them. Silks stolen from pirates and sultans alike. Veils and bangles and bright, colorful things.
She even installed a sound system, always playing something with a dance beat, even if it wasn't the fast tempos she preferred. There were usually no less than ten Dancers in those rooms, recovering themselves as much as they could as the days passed. A solid core of...memory?... switched out as need arose and strength returned to those who had rested. A delicate system, a precarious balancing act...
The walls of her home, no matter their warehouse sizes, felt as confining as a cell within hours...but with so much depending on her watching everything, she dared not be gone. Dared not be hard to find when the teams returned. The confinement was telling, great electrical storms built across the breadth of New York city. Just energy without the benefit of clouds or rain, lightning crawling and screaming in the sky as days went by. By midweek parts of the city were dark, grids overloaded and blown in the intensity.
For her though, the chaos was calming. An outlet she needed as teams of lessers came and went. She smiled every time she paced her roof, or when she felt the discharges through the metal walls of the warehouse.
No, it wasn't easy.
And it certainly wasn't kind on the world around them.
But...
It was worth every moment.
Babysitting that was. Of course, lessers were as far from 'children' as snakes were from butterflies, but that was beside the point. Lessers were groups of people (yes, people) who took their strength and direction from their higher. The greater Nobody that they clove to and followed defined their existence as much as they supported the greater in turn.
They were followers. Every one of them. They couldn't be more, not as the heartless had left them. That was alright. She was infinitely patient with the girls.
The problem, of course, lay in being the only greater Nobody in constant contact with the Dancers. She led Ninjas...and there was the very real risk of the Dancers slipping. Slowly devolving into Dusks or giving in to her presence and becoming Ninja. That possibility was simply not to be contemplated. It wasn't what...
...it wasn't who...
...the Dancers were. Circumstance shouldn't force them away from what little they were still able to believe of themselves. And so it wasn't easy.
She didn't dare take the bunch to Milliways, not with it's unstable reality and the possibility of connecting a princess's world as they were drawn to Demyx. No, instead she paired them with her own girls, sending teams off on every errand she could think of. Taking reports on everything from kittens to army sizes across a slew of worlds.
She paired them off and watched from her home. When a pair of Dancers began to sound too much like her own girls when they reported...they were separated and given time with each other, and things that spoke to what they were. She had both 'bedrooms' of her home, that empty second story under her office, filled with items Demyx would have gifted them. Silks stolen from pirates and sultans alike. Veils and bangles and bright, colorful things.
She even installed a sound system, always playing something with a dance beat, even if it wasn't the fast tempos she preferred. There were usually no less than ten Dancers in those rooms, recovering themselves as much as they could as the days passed. A solid core of...memory?... switched out as need arose and strength returned to those who had rested. A delicate system, a precarious balancing act...
The walls of her home, no matter their warehouse sizes, felt as confining as a cell within hours...but with so much depending on her watching everything, she dared not be gone. Dared not be hard to find when the teams returned. The confinement was telling, great electrical storms built across the breadth of New York city. Just energy without the benefit of clouds or rain, lightning crawling and screaming in the sky as days went by. By midweek parts of the city were dark, grids overloaded and blown in the intensity.
For her though, the chaos was calming. An outlet she needed as teams of lessers came and went. She smiled every time she paced her roof, or when she felt the discharges through the metal walls of the warehouse.
No, it wasn't easy.
And it certainly wasn't kind on the world around them.
But...
It was worth every moment.