[open/intro]

[fireandfaith]

Ann knows this place.

This shade of blue, and the song...though its notes flow far more harmoniously than they had the last (and only) time she'd heard them, the melody itself is enough to make Ann's heartbeat kick up a notch. That song only plays in the Velvet Room--and the Velvet Room is not a place she wants to be. Lavenza had said it. Her gut had said it--and Elizabeth had confirmed it. The Velvet Room was in the control of Yaldabaoth, wearing the skin of Igor.

Ann had never met Igor, personally, but both Akira in the previous timeline and the Attendants she'd encountered had painted a vivid picture of him. Taking in her surroundings carefully (this Room matched neither the descriptions of a prison Akira had once given her, or the crumbling ruins Lavenza had pulled her into at the End of a World), Ann eyes the man she can only assume is Yaldabaoth. And, even if it is truly Igor...

She's never met the man, and she doesn't trust anything he has to say to her. She might not be garbed in her will of rebellion, currently, but Célestine is always with her, and steeling her spine with a little of her flame, Carmine stands tall and proud.

Ann takes in the doors. Makes a split second decision that she shouldn't just be rushing into making a decision; Lavenza, and Elizabeth, she trusts--and she's heard Elizabeth describe their siblings enough that she feels as though she can trust them too. She'll poke around in this unfamiliar Velvet Room for now, and see if she can't encounter one of them...or at least someone who can tell her what's going on.

[OOC: check out Ann's AU info and perms here!]

Comments

[fireandfaith]

It doesn't strike Ann that there's something kind of off about this Akechi. Like, she picks up on it, but the Goro Akechi in her mind exists in a sort of quantum state of being at least mildly twisted at all times. The uneasy vibes this one's smile gives off are chalked up as junk data to be ignored by the flesh computer known as her brain--this Akechi isn't snarling obscenities or waving a sword in her face, it says, and that is probably(?) an improvement(???)

"To make friends," Ann says, slowly, testing out each word as she tries to make them make sense. Lavenza--she'd talked about bonds, and Elizabeth had later elaborated, but they'd never implied it was something they got abducted about. The timey-wimey stuff is...both concerning and relieving, but Ann, Experienced Time Traveler (in that: she has experienced time travel. Once), decides that that is: not her monkeys! Not her problem! So long as things aren't burning down into chaos back home without her, she can deal. She can adjust (that's what she's been doing since Lavenza sent her back to save them all, after all).

"Oh, nothing too important!" Ann says, breezily. "I'm sure it will be fine." She widens her eyes with a concern that's neither entirely false nor true. "What about you? Nothing too bad waiting for you back home, I hope?" If nothing else, an answer about this would be informative in some way.

[pheasantboy]

And he takes her brushoff at face value, with a laugh and a nod, still smiling; most of the people he talks to here tell him such dreadful stories, about barbaric-sounding worlds where murder and cruelty exist. They tell him more relevant things too, in fairness, but then he forgets every single one. Or he did, until very recently.

"I wouldn't say bad. I can't wait to get back, to be honest with you. I don't think I'm bonding very successfully here." He means this as a self-deprecating little joke, as something funny; his smile brightens momentarily. "Most people here are from worlds with magical powers, or world-ending threats. Things of that nature.

"Myself, my one run-in with them was here, and led to me being walled up in a box for two months. Ah, but I'm sure nothing like that will happen to you. You'd have more sense." Breezy is the word, yes; he doesn't seem at all distressed by any of this. Even the part about the box.

[fireandfaith]

Ann's smiling along with Akechi, waiting for him to say something useful, when he instead says something so unsettling she has to fight the urge to take a few Very Prudent steps back. You'd have more sense--something she cannot imagine any Goro Akechi saying to her without a gun held to his head; not even one neck-deep in the Detective Prince act. Self-deprecation can be cute, sure, and the Detective Prince didn't shy away from using it in interviews when he had the opportunity...but he'd never been one to downplay his mind.

She doesn't comment on it, though, and keeps smiling with the not-quite-ease of long practice. "Two months? Wow, that sounds like it would suck," she says. "No Personas in your world, though? At all?" If she sounds a little pointed, it's just because...well. A Goro Akechi who isn't the Black Mask is hard to fathom. Is this what her Goro would have grown up to be like, if his life had been a little less fucked up? A vaguely unsettling actual pleasant boy?

[pheasantboy]

It becomes clear very rapidly that this is not the case. One moment he's listening, head tilted, laughing in agreement when she commiserates about his life in a box; the next, before he can reply, she's spoken the magic word Persona and he is out like a light.

He won't be out long; the impact is far less than it used to be, and lessening with time. But there is an impact. He stands there, eyes unfocused, mouth a little open, absolutely gone as his mind rewires itself. Behind them, Igor grunts in disapproval.

[fireandfaith]

Um.

That whole thing Ann had been doing earlier? Resisting the urge to take a Few Prudent Steps Back? Yeah, she's reneging on that bravado. She's Backing The Fuck Up, even, because what the hell?

She'd figured there was something wrong with him; a Goro Akechi with nothing wrong with him is like a unicorn, probably. Not real--or at least, not real in the vast majority of worlds.

This is...on another level.

(She contemplates, for just a moment, asking Igor what just happened. The idea is dismissed out of hand almost immediately; she thinks she'd rather pull out her own teeth.)

Should she just...wait? If he's having a seizure or something, it'd probably be bad to leave him alone, even if he's making every hair on her body stand on end...

[pheasantboy]

But no; there's no seizure. He doesn't fall, or struggle. Instead, after a few more seconds, he blinks, and comes back to life smiling, as if someone switched that light back on, picking up the conversation as if she never spoke his trigger word. "Haha, you'd think so. The truth is I just don't remember any—"

He sees her, of course, and his face falls harder than you'd think possible. Every time. Every time they say something, and he upsets them, gives himself away. "Takamaki-san, I'm... so sorry. I didn't mean... are you all right?"

He really does like Ann—his Ann, at any rate; he has no reason to believe they weren't always friends. Upsetting one of her is the last thing he wanted to do.

[fireandfaith]

Okay. This is getting nowhere fast, is the first clear thought that comes through Ann's internal monologue of screaming. Get it together, Ann!

"I'm fine!" Ann says, half on autopilot, with the sort of conviction and winning cheer that has even Ryuji backing off and believing her when she brings it out, on those days when she's just so exhausted the mask slips. "It's just, you just..." she trails off. This Goro, with his wide, sad eyes, is deeply unsettling, yes...but also, kind of pathetic? Like finding a sad wet puppy abandoned in a box in an alley, only it has six legs and three eyes.

(That metaphor might have gotten away from her somewhere.)

"Nevermind," she says. "You...drifted off for a second, I suppose. It worried me, is all."

Note to self, she thinks, Don't ask this Akechi any pertinent questions.

(The answers will just depress her, probably.)

[pheasantboy]

It really is unacceptable, the way his little problem, his different world, ends up hurting so many others. It makes him wonder, briefly, why he was brought here at all. Distracted by her, though, his own situation rapidly falls from his mind—not at all like him, but then, he's been programmed to do that too. Why ruminate on unpleasantness, after all, when you and the people around you could be happy?

"It's very kind of you to worry. You aren't the first, and I'm afraid you won't be the last. Perhaps I should get some little cards printed up. Normal service will resume shortly, that sort of thing."

Haha. It's a joke. Smile, Takamaki-san; you seem happy now, as if true happiness is a surface over nothing at all, and that feels right to him, he'll come with you.

[fireandfaith]

Ann laughs, as casually as she can. If it feels a little tight in the throat...at least it doesn't come out sounding like it was? "Sounds like it might come in handy!" she agrees. "Are there any Yusukes around to jazz up the design? Or somewhere around here to print them out in the first place..."

It might seem a little weird that she's grabbing onto this--simultaneously ridiculous and awful idea so fast, and so hard, but she's feeling shaky inside, still, and a change of topic to something lighter might...help? "Do you know where those doors lead, Akechi-kun? Maybe we can find something to help us through one of them." Help her find answers from a less creepy source, too. She throws him a playful wink to make up for the biting thought--it's rude, after all, even if he wasn't privy to it.

[pheasantboy]

She's safe enough; his smile is coming back as if it never left, as if nothing at all disrupted their conversation. "Ah, the doors. I hope you're all right with a little time travel." He indicates them right to left, around the room.

"Yes, that one leads to Tokyo—usually the locations at least are shared, in the year 2016. So last year, for me. Then that one there is Yasoinaba, in Yamanashi Prefecture, in 2011. Then Iwatodai, in Odaiba, in 2009. The last two are Sumaru City and Mikage-cho—but I don't recommend going into those two. I tried the last one before it had all the extra signs on the door, and it, ahaha. It ended as well as you might expect."

The Mikage-cho door is rather visibly sealed with yellow tape, as well as signs reading "WARNING: DEMONS". Someone has added a sign below that, in childish handwriting, reading "No, we really mean it about the demons."

[fireandfaith]

Ann can't help the real, genuine laugh that spills from her at the time travel comment--"Oh," she says, "I'm more than all right with time travel." A private little joke, except maybe here she's not going to be the only one laughing about it? If time travel sort of just...casually happens, here.

The other locations...she tilts her head. The sights of other Persona incidents, maybe? Lavenza and Elizabeth had both confirmed that the Phantom Thieves hadn't been the first, but they'd never divulged details beyond that...one name strikes her as familiar, though? After a moment's thought, she's got it: "Iwatodai!" she says, "Weird. I'm pretty sure Iori-sensei mentioned that he'd gone to school somewhere near there." Thinking on it, the dates would line up for him to have been going to school at that time too, but...nah. It can't be. Iori-sensei is so goofy.

The other places don't spark any sort of recognition in her, though her interest does perk at the mention of demons. She decides not to mention that in front of this Akechi, though.

"I might head for Tokyo, then..." She cants a glance Akechi's way, and then offers (not without reluctance), "do you want to come with?"

[pheasantboy]

"I'd love to." He glows, as if the last moments of unpleasantness never took place; as if he could ask nothing more. Unlike his former self, this Akechi is acutely aware of his need for others, and has no ingrained scorn to shield him from his loneliness.

"You're not wrong about Kitagawa-kun, by the way. I miss him too. Not just for the promise of business cards. Imagine the lengths this place would drive him to."

He reaches for the last of the five doors, meaning to open it for her.

[fireandfaith]

Ann follows behind Akechi, laughing while she muses along with him: "He'd get so much art out of here." Granted, she's only seen the Velvet Room, but even that alone would be enough to get Yusuke painting for weeks, probably.

[pheasantboy]

"Yes, it really is extraordinary how gifted he is. I've never had anything but respect for his work and his intelligence, even if it sends him down some uncomfortable paths from time to time." It's how he remembers his grudging recognition of Kitagawa as one of the less worthless of the group—as well as his infuriating knack for cutting to the core of a dilemma.

But Akechi is, in fact, capable of paying attention for more than a few seconds; he evidences this now. "You say you know someone from Iwatodai?"

[fireandfaith]

"My PE teacher, Junpei Iori," Ann says. "He's pretty young for a teacher, and he thinks he's 'hip with the kids.' I don't know about that, but he's better than the last PE teacher we had, that's for damn sure." For just a second, pure wrath fills her tone at the mention of Kamoshida.

"But yeah...Yusuke is so talented. I actually got him to paint a wall at my house, a while back. It's super pretty! I'll admit, the meaning behind it kind of went over my head when he tried to explain it to me...he's a lot smarter than people give him credit for."

Ann tries, very valiantly, to keep the conversation topics as normal as possible. No mentions of Persona shenanigans here, no sir!

[pheasantboy]

That's fine. Sparrow, as he's come to be known, will just make conversation and help as best he can. It's so nice to have someone so pleased to be with him... though, of course, her disquiet would never have escaped him before.

"Teachers can be a little much, that's true. I had trouble with some of mine for most of last year." Creepy PE teacher? He might never have heard about him, let alone told her the guy should have died at her hands.

They've emerged into Shibuya, onto Central Street, which looks familiar if rather plastic. "Is there anything in particular you need help with? Your home should still be there." He turns, looking at her face for the first time since mon went through the door.

[fireandfaith]

Shibuya looks the same as it ever does--except, upon second glance, or perhaps a longer one, there's a sort of unreal quality to the air that's initially a bit unsettling.

(Not as unsettling as her company, though! So there's that!)

"Teachers are the bane of all teenagers," Ann agrees, all casual highschool student and none world-weary Persona user. "Home might be good...I'd like to see what it's like, here." To see if it's the same as it is back home, or if it's a house made from...some other Ann, she supposes. "You're free to come with me, but I'm not sure how interesting it would be..."

[pheasantboy]

As if he was going to say no. Ann asking him to come along is almost the best thing that's happened to him since he arrived.

"I'd love to keep you company. As long as you're sure you don't mind?" He stares at her with big, hopeful puppyish brown eyes, as unlike his past self as it's possible to be.

:3 i think we can call it here. have fun on your playdate ann

[fireandfaith]

"Of course I don't mind!" God, Ann, this is how you end up going to the cinema to watch movies you really don't want to. How is it that she can say no about so many things, but when it's something small like this she crumples like wet paper? "Come on, let's go!"