Welcome to Gaia! ::

Chandra looked up at the rather large house and then back down at the address she had written in her palm. She didn't remember Dare's house being this large, but she had to admit she had only shattered memories of her visit here as a toddler.

She sighed and unconciously wrapped her arm tighter around The Book. She needed her past and it seemed like Dare was her last chance to get it. She marched resolutely up the gravel driveway, choosing the arm that seemed to lead up the house, and eventually ended up at the front door.

She wasn't exactly sure what to do, but knocked as hard as she could and hoped for the best.

Madeline had been working busily in the kitchen; she'd started up a small catering company on the side and was in the middle of putting in her third batch of cookies when the knocks began. Closing the oven carefully, she brushes at her apron before hurrying to answer the door.

Swinging the door open, her eyes rest down on the rather unhappy looking girl. Slightly unnerved, she clears her throat to welcome her. "No one told me they were expecting anyone, but please, come inside!"

Moving out of the doorway, she leans against the wood of the thick, heavy door and continues talking. "Who're you here to see?" she inquires, having not remembered someone like this visiting before - and usually her memory was quite good.

Chandra didn't take the invitation to step inside, instead awkwardly remaining on the threshold. She gazed up at the unfamiliar woman suspiciously and spoke.

"I need to speak with Dare. Is this his house?"

Ah, so this is one of Dare's friends? Madeline nods, trying to remain as cheerful as is natural for he. "He's probably upstairs. Do you want me to get him for you? It's quite a big house, so I wouldn't exactly want to go and send you off to find his room by yourself.."

Chandra crossed her arms over her chest, her scowl lifting a little.

"I can wait while you get him."

Madeline nods again, making sure the kickstand of the door is down before releasing it.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," she replies, taking a few steps towards the large wooden staircase. Madeline pauses, turning on her heel to face the visitor again, having thought of something. "Er, who should I say has come to see him? I wouldn't want him to think I just wanted him up to do my bidding or something." She gives a nervous, offset laugh, which quickly fades off as soon as it came about.

Chandra almost smiled at the stranger's nervous laughter, but stifled the feeling. She had a feeling her smile would only make the situation more awkward.

"I am Chandra." She said carefully, blinking slowly when she finished. Being out during the day wore on her eyes.

Madeline gives her another smile, gripping the hand rail of the staircase. "Well then, Chandra, I'll be back with Dare. Sorry if I keep you waiting, he hasn't been in the best of moods so I'm not sure if he'll listen to me initially.."

She forces herself to stop talking; she often finds herself rambling in awkward situations. Quickly taking two steps at a time, it's not long before she's out of sight, then earshot.

With the woman gone, Chandra leans into the house just enough so she can peer around. It doesn't appear sinister, so she relaxes a little. Perhaps Dare really does live here.

Enforcing stillness on herself, Chandra makes no more moves except to occasionally blink, forgoing the sort of fidgetting someone her age might engage in while waiting.

It doesn't take as long as Madeline had assumed to raise Dare from his quiet room. Within a matter of minutes and only one suspicious glance at his sister, he's well on his way downstairs.

"This better not be a trick, though, 'cause whatever it is you want me to do, I'm not doing it.." he barks over his shoulder at his sister as they make their way through the maze of hallways on the second floor. The older girl just rolls her eyes, giving him an encouraging push in the back.

Unlike his sister's comfortable flipflops, Dare's heavy boots make his arrival known before he's even in sight. Taking the stairs my storm, he yields near the bottom in order to steady himself and not take a face plant. Gripping both the hand rail and the nearest ridge on the wall, he lets a smile finally escape onto his face, one of his first in a few days. " 'Lo," he says shortly, stepping down off the last steps onto the main floor.

Chandra tenses again as Dare comes into sight, but offers him her version of a smile. The edges of her lips quickly turn up and then go back to their neutral resting position.

"I need you." She said, finally stepping into the house. "I need you to do... " She trailed off, looking around. "You know." She finished finally, giving him a meaningful look.

Madeline gives the two a secretive smile before brushing past the both of them. "I'll be in the kitchen if you need me," she offers upon exiting.

Dare watches her from the corner of his eye, waiting until he's sure that his sister is out of earshot. In a quiet tone, cautious anyway, he gives her his reply.

"I can do it, I know how to do it now. I just -" He brushes at the hair falling in front of his eyes, breaking his concentration for a moment. "- need four walls. My room's safest, it's got a lock so no one'll come in.." His eyes flash as they glance down to the right, sadness as well as solemn tone visible in this look. "I've got to warn you, you might not know what to expect. You might not like what you see at all.." His voice trails off; he can't bear to look at her right now, managing only to stand there and admit to her the truth.

Chandra tried to consider Dare's warning carefully, but her head was too full of questions. She had to know why she was brought back and who she had been, otherwise what was the point of her existence? As she thought, Chandra's wings rustled slightly, jarring her out of her reverie. She looked at Dare and sighed, trying to put her jumbled thoughts into words.

"I want to know the reason I am alive. I believe this reason lies in my past. The truth may not be pleasant, but it is still the truth."

Dare bites the inside of his lip, forcing himself to nod to let her know that he understands.

"My room's upstairs," he begins to say, taking a step in reverse without looking behind him. "We should probably go up there to talk more.."

Chandra glanced nervously up the stairs, not particularly comfortable in another person's home, but her trust in Dare eventually won out over her fear and she nodded.

"Very well. I will follow you."

He turns around now, leading her up the stairs. His house, unusually empty at this time of day as everyone seems to have their own activities to do or people to see, is rather straightforward and, even with its size, couldn't be too hard to navigate through.

"Is there something that sparked your sudden interest, or..?" He asks the question that had been nagging at him since downstairs, but waited until they were at least closer to his bedroom to do so.

Chandra started to shake her head even though she knew Dare couldn't see it, but stopped. If he was going to show her the past, it wouldn't be polite to lie.

"Kiran visited my room." She said calmly, unaware how odd that would sound to anyone who didn't have all the facts. "He said something that is nagging at me. Mictecacihuatl will not answer my questions, I killed Angerona, and I want to know what is going on."

She sighed, realizing that that was perhaps the most information she had ever revealed about herself to anyone in one conversation. She peered at Dare's back, wondering exactly what he would say.

They had already almost reached the doorway to his bedroom, not quite a long walk from the main hallway as one would think. But this new information, as it came all at once, overwhelms Dare in confusion and curiosity. He had been ready to turn the doorknob, but he lets his hand fall.

"You killed someone?" he replies slowly, feeling rather stupid at that. He hadn't seriously thought she was capable of such a thing, but is it really his business to get involved? He decides against leaving time between his statements for an answer, lifting his hand to the knob again and this time opening it to another staircase. "If you really think that your past'll help you figure what's going on in the present, I'm definately gonna try to help."

Chandra laughed a little, thinking about Angerona. It came out as a harsh bark, as Chandra rarely expressed mirth. Once she started though, she had trouble stopping. Destroying Angerona and having to listen to her screaming had taken it's toll on Chandra's grip on her emotions.

While laughing, Chandra tried to explain herself to Dare. It felt very important in that moment to have someone understand her.


"She was Dead to begin with, so I think I just destroyed her soul. She screamed and screamed, but I could not let go. I tried."

At some point the harsh laughter dissolved into sobs and Chandra sat, hugging herself with one hand while collecting tears in the other.

"Who am I Dare?"

Dare releases the door from his hand, simply dumbfounded by the reaction. Rubbing at the back of his neck in nervous contemplation, he takes a seat directly across from where she'd chosen to stay.

Eyebrows pressed together and expression overcome with grief again, he watches the tears roll down her cheeks in silent wondering. "I don't think anyone really knows who they are. Really, truthfully knows.. But you've got to trust that you're gonna find out, you're going to get your answers someday.." He reaches out with a hand with caution, touching her arm affectionately. Another thing he'd assumed she wasn't capable of was crying. But she can do it, she can cry and release her frustrations.. no risks for her safety. Not like me..

Pulling his hand back to his side, he uses both to raise himself onto his feet again. It takes a lot of effort to do so; he would have much rather stayed on the ground for a little while longer. Instead, he reaches out his hand, offering it to her to help her stand. "Once we go in there, you're going to know a lot more than you do now. I just want you to know that whatever we find out, you're still Chandra to me. That's who you are."

Chandra dropped her handful of tears, spilling them onto the floor, and then took Dare's hand. A tiny corner of her mind was thrilled by this rare contact, but it was drowned out by the majority of her mind.

"Thank you." She said haltingly, as she used his hand to get to her feet. The tears had stopped, but she still felt unsteady.

Carefully examining her to make sure she's all right to continue, he murmurs, "You're welcome," before passing through this doorway.

The stairs here are fairly steep, and there's a metallic, new age feel to the room at the top. His guitar rests up against his desk, burried in newspapers, and there hasn't been effort to make the bed. None the less, Dare passes all this to begin shutting the blinds to all three of his windows. "I need it all to be solid," he explains as he's doing this, maneuvering around these with ease. "It's a projection, all the way around, so it doesn't work right when I don't have all of the surfaces."

Standing down off the toes of his boots after finishing the last one, he turns around to face Chandra again. "I need a name, or something that'll help me distinguish your File from someone else's."

Chandra tailed Dare silently around his room as he shut the windows, happy at the decrease in natural light. She nodded absently at his explanation, not entirely sure what he was talking about.

It took her a moment to surface when she realized he had asked a question. A name, she thought?

"I believe I was always Chandra." She said, and then realizing he probably already knew that, continued. "But Kiran will be in there. I think we were close."

She looked at Dare and blinked, wondering if that was the sort of name he meant.

"It'll work," he decides, followed by a nod. "Let's just move over here - I stood here last time I did this, and it worked okay."

He refers to a space still cleared out, basically the only tidied part of the room. He hadn't, and still doesn't, plan on sharing anything about that experience, though the memory looms in the front of his mind as he prepares her. Giving her one last look, it seems to be that he's looking for confirmation in that what he's doing is the right thing.

Chandra followed Dare obediantly to the area of the room he indicated. The last time he did this? It made sense he had done it before, she thought, although she couldn't help but wonder what he had looked up.

When he looked at her, as if looking for something in particular, she just blinked slowly.

Dare raises his eyes to the farthest wall, standing straight toward it. He closes his eyes, trying to remember what Truth had taught him about the absolute concentration. It's much easier this time to reach this, surprisingly enough, and his lungs don't burn as badly as the wind is knocked out of him.

In the space between his conscious imagination and the inner workings of his mind, Dare stumbles forward, but only in his head. In reality, this goes much faster, and he's merely standing still to anyone observing. But inside his head, time is calculated differently. Files, luminated by an inner energy, shoot past him; but this time, Dare is fully prepared for what's to come.

Luckily for him, this process is made much easier for him. Only a single file comes forward, stopping briefly at his feet. He catches it between his hands, feeling a chill pass through his body as he does this. The file, is seems, had already been distinguished in his mind, easily traced from the repeated exposure to the subject in their current life.

As soon as Dare breaks the seal, the bedroom falls completely dark.

Chandra gasped slightly as the room went dark, hugging her arms to herself. She hadn't known exactly what to expect, but now Dare's comment about a projection was starting to make sense.

She almost asked Dare to stop, but she had already made him go this far. Instead she fought the butterflies in her stomach and opened her eyes as wide as possible. She didn't want to miss any of this.

All four walls alight. For the first few seconds, they are a dull white; unlike the last time, when they had been annoyingly bright, the four walls seem to have a much more diluted. Dare finally opens his eyes, immediately making sure that Chandra is still safe and at his side.

All around them, any objects that inhabited the room previously are eaten by the darkness. Everything, save for a small circle outlining where the pair's feet rest, is blocked out as if ink blotted them from their vision. The walls give another flicker; another thing unlike Dare's last experience, the walls decide to bring alive shortened clips throughout the file instead of full scenes. The first one rests in a dark study. The main interest, if there could be such with a view 360 degrees around, doesn't immediately rest on anything.. until movement. It is meant to catch the viewer's eye, and so it does; the wings of an owl as they ruffle from where it perches. It is hard not to notice the blood stained on its talons as they grip the perch.

As the study slowly came into view out of the darkness, Chandra was struck with an overwhelming sense of familiarity and... fear. It was an odd combination, but it felt old. Removed, like it belonged to someone else.

The reason for this became clear as Chandra's eyes were drawn to the movement of wings. Her own rustled involuntarily in reply as her gaze came to rest on the owl. On herself. On the blood on her talons.

"I was... I was an owl." She said breathlessly, to herself. She reached out a pale arm, forgetting this wasn't real, and the scene changed.

It felt to Chandra as if the temperature of the room itself dropped, but it was most likely an echo of her memories. Death was always so cold. So unwelcoming. It was easy to recognize here, even if she couldn't place the exact location.

She was here again of course, although this time it was in the guise of a more familiar human form. This Chandra was more owl and less human, even here - clearly a predator.

As someone began to cry, Chandra's eye was drawn to the other figures present. A woman with long blond hair lay on the ground before past-Chandra, clearly begging through her tears. Chandra wished she could make out exactly what the woman was saying, but that wish become unnecessary as she noticed the squirming child in past-Chandra's arms.

What is she doing with him? Chandra thought in shock, watching as she gripped the child and kicked the woman on the ground. The woman's words were unintelligible, but Chandra heard herself as she stood right there. She even mouthed the wordsas she heard them, feeling them fly out of her mouth as if she had said them only moments before.

"Young spirits have the most years left and thus are the most useful. Our master thanks you for your donation of a formerly healthy young son."

Chandra resisted the urge to sink to the ground and was suddenly reminded of Dare's earlier words of warning.

Dare takes this all in, every minute of these rapidly changing scenes, with a quickly falling enthusiasm. He remains concentrated in order not to break the connection with the files, preventing him from doing any sort of talking. Instead, his eyes just slide back and forth from the screen to Chandra next to him.

This person strikes wearily a resemblance to his friend, but doubts still linger in his mind about the validity. No, this surely can't be here. The files, they're just lies, they don't tell what happened. They..

But they're records. Living, breathing records of what used to be. It was one of the few things that Dare could rely on knowing was true, but all of this made him question if he really knew anything at all. It can't possibly be true... and yet it must.

Chandra almost breathed a sigh of relief as the scene began to shift again, making certain she wouldn't have to see exactly what dead children were useful for. As the new scene began to resolve itself however, she almost wished she could go back.

This was Death again, she could tell. It was in fact a familiar area this time, the clearing around the pond under which she knew Libitina now lodged. As she took in the pair of people there, she couldn't help but wonder if this was why she always ended up there when she passed into Death.

By the edge of the pond, near the center of the clearing, there were two people. One was again the past-Chandra. At first, Chandra thought the other person was unfamiliar, but as she heard him speak she knew exactly who he was and an uncomfortable knot settled into her stomach.

"Kiran." She said, her voice soft as she reached for him, both in the past and the present. "These stolen moments together please me."

Chandra just looked on shocked as she leaned forward and drew Kiran into a passionate kiss. In the present her cheeks burned, but the past-Chandra drew back after a bit and just laughed softly. Kiran smiled in return and put his arms around the past-Chandra, drawing her into a hug.

"You know the master doesn't approve of how human-like you've become." He chided her as he rubbed her back with one hand. "He's going to try and "fix" you."

"You don't sound too concerned," Chandra said back playfully. "And neither am I. Must be we know something that he does not." She gave a cold chuckle. "The old b*****d won't know what hit him."

In the present Chandra could do nothing but gape. She had known Kiran thought they were meant to be together, but... this? What was this?

Just before this scene too began to fade, Chandra heard the words she had been waiting for.

"Beyond Life," Kiran said.
"Beyond Death," Chandra chimed in.
"My love for you is ever true," They answered eachother simulataneously.

Astounding. Simply.. No, this isn't simple.

He has to be extremely careful now not to break the connection, his hands numb even in reality from mentally holding onto this file. This.. whoever he was, he doesn't like him near her, or doing that. Within him burns an emotion he's never experienced nor knows how to classify, and he doesn't like the feeling it creates and brings with its presence. It is as uncomfortable a feeling as the fuzzy one would be, if it weren't torn to shreds and lit ablaze with hatred. Although he struggles with the difficulty of keeping solid his connection and the projection, he momentarily forgets to control exposing his inwardly feelings on the outside; his face tells the tale for him, with already squinting eyes slitting and mouth drawing into a line.. everything spills out for those few vulnerable moments before catching himself offguard and dragging himself away from this exposure.

Instead, he forces his face to melt back to a neutral, unphased state. His eyes he directs back onto the current scene, ignoring the sickness of his stomach that tells him to do otherwise.

Luckily for Dare, Chandra is too stunned by the shifting scenes to even acknowledge his presence. As the last scene suddenly comes into focus, she isn't sure how much more of this she does want to see.

The last scene is in Life, in a totally unfamiliar location. Kiran is there, sobbing in the ruins of what had to once be a magnificent house. Some sort of fire must have been its downfall, as tiny swirls of ash surround the area where Kiran sits. He is cradelling something white in his arms and Chandra is momentarily dizzy when she recognizes it.

Again an owl in Life, her neck is set at an odd angle and one of her wings is burnt almost away. Whatever happened to the house had obviously consumed her as well.

"Beyond Life..." Kiran muttered and then paused. The silence which followed was obviously too much for him, and he clutched the dead owl to his chest.

Chandra felt ill. Something about looking at her own corpse was dizzying, and she stumbled, grabbing at Dare instinctually as she fell.

As she touches him, he is jolted out of the state of concentration. In his mind, the file drops from his hands and nearly slams into the ground, consuming life at the last second and whizzing before any damage is taken. Although most of it had been difficult for him to comprehend and come to terms with, it sends a sickening feeling through him anyway. As she stumbles at his side, he too acts on instinct, his arms shooting out to prevent any type of fall.

He avoids looking directly at her face now, keeping his eyes directed away. With the concentration gone, the darkness lifts into normalcy, comparable to the lights coming on in a movie theatre. Having steadied her, he makes a point to stop the contact almost immediately, even taking a step back from her.

Pain could be read all over his expression and composure. He holds onto one of his arms with the other, eyes still not meeting with her face. How could be stand to, after that? His voice, long retreated from his throat, is finally forced to resurface.

"I'm sorry," he says in a small, bitter and honest voice.

"For what?" Chandra asked honestly as she steadied herself again and adjusted to the light. "For who I am?"

She clutched The Book, which had been oddly absent from any of the scenes, as if to anchor herself here. She tried looking at Dare, but he wouldn't look at her, so she studied her feet instead. Even as oblivious as she normally was to emotion and the actions of others, she feels uncomfortable here. Everything has changed.

Without a word, she turns away from Dare and makes for the door. She is sure she can find her way out of here.

He doesn't decide to stop her. Instead, he turns his head away from the door, glaring plainly at the far wall. He couldn't find the strength in himself to reply to what she'd said - was that what he was sorry for? Or was it something more than that?

He felt it too, alongside the discomfort that surfaces in her company. This whole event has brought to them a change; to him, a now carved out space lingers within him where the threads of their friendship had been prematurely cut and snapped from their origin. Dare puts his fingertips to his forehead, discovering now that his hands have been shaking ever since the projection ended. It's funny how he'd never paid attention to the little details before now. Everything else had been on such a larger scale. Maybe now, as all else is changing, he too would have acquired a different viewpoint.

He waits to hear the door shut to make sure that she has left before moving anymore. If it were his choice, he'd never leave this room for as long as he lives. The world offers nothing to him any longer, not when you have everything within you to destroy what you cared about the most.