dissonates | [Written...? / Action, May 20th and beyond]

[It starts with a hum.

It's quiet, barely perceptible, like a fruit fry buzzing away in someone's ear. Across the village, it starts flickering to life in the mind of one Luke fon Fabre, miles away, awake and unaware and waiting for it.

The hum becomes a whisper. Wordless noise. An echo of something that used to be alive and loud and binding. Intrusive, almost, and yet not- because something missed, needed, eagerly and anxiously awaited is rarely unwanted.

The whisper becomes words, messy and jumbled and confused, a thought process born of desperation, fear, pain, loneliness. The words of the dead, or the dying, or the living. Of all three at once.

I'm here.

imhereimhereimherereplicaimherewhereareyou

help me

Alive. Alive.

And calling for him.]

[It's much later - after he's found, after he's awake and aware of his new situation - that Asch finally touches the journal. He toys with the controls, flips through the pages quietly, listening to everything that's open to hear. It feels... startlingly normal. Just your average day in Luceti. Life does go on without you- but then, he knew that long ago. This is nothing new.

...Well, almost nothing. It's hard to do much of anything when you can't see the world you're used to seeing around you. Not for the first little while, anyway. By touch and trial-and-error he finds the camera eventually, and he scribbles out a bit of nonsense in what he thinks is the entry area that almost looks like words, he sends out a few misfired comments to complete strangers, and in the end he thinks the entire journal system isn't nearly user-friendly enough. Eventually he gives up and sets it aside, leaving it open. Just. Listens.

It's not much. But for the moment, it'll do.]

((ooc: okay so here's the deal- Asch is back from the dead and blind. He'll be in the clinic for a while while he gets used to it, so feel free to use this post as a catch-all in case people want to visit/stumble upon him for the entire week. His scribble entry is also sort-of posted with a slightly-obscured picture, so if you'd rather use the voice function to bug him, feel free |D Word will probably get around that he's back one way or another.

Luke may or may not be with him depending on the time of visit; more often than not, he will be ~~attached at the hip~~ keeping an eye on Asch and helping him to see. He might also be asleep or taking a break. Feel free to specify; if he is there, he probably won't speak much (to save Kukki's inbox and to simplify things), so it's just a matter of whether or not your character will be seen.))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ So rude. Fine, no sandwiches for you, then. She considers for a second. ]

I think I'd better just bring it. You'll understand when I get there!

[ Translation: "It's a surprise! :D" ]

[....he hates surprises...]

Tch... do whatever you want.

[BUT IT BETTER BE GOOD. He'll just wait in his room with a quiet huff.]

[ She can't help it. She laughs, very gently. ]

I'll be there soon.

[ It took some searching, But she slips her "gift" into a bag and sets out from house 14.

She stops at Seventh Heaven to get some food anyway, and in about 20 minutes time she's walking into the Battledome clinic. She goes to see Asch, first, since she doesn't want to keep him waiting. Out of politeness, and to alert him she's there, she knocks on the door, first. ]

Asch?

[When Xion knocks, Asch looks up from his spot on the bed, but he doesn't move otherwise; when she comes in, she'll see why. His left hand is trapped beneath his replica's head, since Luke has decided to pass out beside the bed again. The visits, wandering around the hospital, and staying awake to help Asch see is probably taking its toll on him.

Asch purses his lips at her voice, turning back to the direction Luke is in, and answers her under his breath. His sudden gentleness might surprise her, but... well, he has a lot to be grateful to his replica for, all of a sudden. Between Luke's guilt and all the mixed emotions working their way into the fonic link from both ends, it's been an exhausting week. The only reason Asch himself isn't asleep is that he's slept plenty when no one else is around, since he has little else to do.]

Keep your voice down or you'll wake him.

[ She stops when she comes in the door, blinking at the scene. She has to lift one of her hands to press curled fingers over her mouth to hide the tender smile that suddenly blooms on her face, because seeing Luke like that is just sort of impossibly adorable.

Of course, Asch's reaction has an impression on her, too, and her smile softens into something just sort of gentle when she lowers her hand. It's amazing to watch the two of them like this... sort of really surreal. She remembers the family experiment, when they were brothers. How close they were. How bitter Luke was when it ended and Asch started scorning him again - how much it hurt him. And now they're like this...

Her voice is a stage whisper when she responds. ]

Sorry. I should have guessed he'd be in here.

[ She approaches the bed, first setting down the bag of food, then reaching into the other bag she's got on her arm. ]

I found something in the item store. I was thinking, maybe...

[ "Found something" implies it didn't take hours. Quite a bit of her time since she found the boys, actually, has been dedicated to doing just this. ]

It might help. I don't know if it's common across the worlds... have you heard of braille?

[ She had to look it up. An hour or two in the library, then a day and a half in the item store... but she'd found something. In her hands, bound up in string, is a set of braille flash cards. ]

[Asch glances down in Luke's direction, briefly considering waking him so he can see what Xion's talking about, but thinks better of it, turning his attention back to her. Let him sleep while he can.

The name isn't ringing any bells, unfortunately.]

I don't think we have that on Auldrant. Or if we do, it's not by that name.

[ She smiles a little, though she realizes he can't see, and approaches. ]

I didn't know what it was either until I looked it up in the library. It's ... it's a system of reading for the blind.

[ Carefully said. ]

Can you hold out a hand?

[...For the blind. Well, he should have expected that. An irritated retort is on his lips, but he manages to restrain it somehow; it's a brutally honest truth, after all, whether he likes it or not. For the next four months, bare minimum, he's blind. May as well try to adapt to it.

Pursing his lips, he offers a hand out. Do your worst.]

[ She presses a card off the top of the pile into his palm, not taking the extra step she would normally of curling his fingers over it. He probably wouldn't appreciate it.

It's a random card; it happens to be for the word FOOD. It's spelled out twice. First, in normal the normal roman alphabet, using raised dots. Then, below it, is the same word - only in the braille system. The idea is pretty clear.

She doesn't say anything. She just waits to see if she's about to be hissed out of the room. ]

[He's quiet for a few moments longer, letting his fingers slowly trace over the bumps. It takes a while for all the bumps to compute properly into letters, since there's still a bit of a translation disconnect between normal lettering and the fonic text - the missing letters doesn't help Luceti's auto-translate at all - but it finally clicks.]

...This could take a long time to learn.

[Well, it's not a refusal. A stubborn resistance to change, more like, even when change is forcibly thrust upon him.]

I know it must be pretty weird. [ For more reasons than one. SHE KNOWS Y'ALL USED TO GET HER NAME WRONG, DAMMIT. ]

But ... it's something to do, right? There's a whole set of cards here. I'm going to put them down next to you.

[ She does so, watching his face, and his hands. He doesn't seem averse to the idea... ]

...Hm. [Another long pause. His expression offers little feedback; a slight furrowing of his brows, a twitch at the corner of his lips. He reaches out to feel around until he finds the rest of the cards, brushing his fingers over them and feeling the letters.]

Are there books like this at the library?

[ ... she smiles, and is abruptly a little glad he can't see her do it. ]

Yeah, actually. I checked, before I realized it might be better to start with these instead. But I can go get one!

[He shakes his head, passing his fingers over the letters once more.]

It's fine. It's just that there would be no sense in learning a new language if there was nothing to read.

I think you'll be okay. I mean, in terms of reading material.

[ She's just beaming. She did something right! With Asch, anyway. That's no mean feat. ]

[If he could see how happy she is, he'd probably get a little annoyed, so thanks to his blindness, his tone is just marginally intrigued, flipping through the cards slowly, fingers already trying to learn the dots.]

...Thanks.

[Gratitude isn't generally his thing, but it's better than just food all the time. He's glad to finally have something to do.]

[Written...? / Action, May 20th and beyond]

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[action] I think this is okay, I checked with kukki |D

[action] oh that's fine i didn't need that heart anyway

[action] no one ever seems to need these hearts we keep breaking

[action] i've gone through about 20 hearts i apparently don't need, myself

[action] you need to take better care of them

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