[open] Your shadow at morning...

[denyamenti]

Characters: Bakura + OPEN
Date: Various throughout February
Location: Keeliai
Situation: Assorted memory shares. If none of the starters work for you, tag in with your own or hmu at sojourney
Warnings/Rating: None yet

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A. Beautiful Egypt

Bakura's been in Keeliai long enough to not be entirely unnerved by the oddities that occurred from time to time, but this one was quite a bit more personal -- and thus as unwelcome for him as it could get -- as he'd experienced in quite a while. Memories carried a much higher value to him than some people, and he guarded his with what could almost be called jealousy.

He isn't one to mingle with other Foreigners (or anyone, really) unprompted, so it's not uncommon to see him at one of the cafes at a single table. But it's very unusual for someone who gets too close to be inundated with the sudden vision of a sun-drenched and golden land; not just the image either, but sounds and scents as well.

A living memory.

B. Property

Master Ghazim leans down so his face is only inches from yours; his breath smells like three-day-sour wine and his eyes are bloodshot. "Now listen here, you little whelp," he growls. "I've sold you that man -- Kauib -- and being the little freak that you are, I couldn't even get a decent price for you."

(Continued... )

C. Companion

Your eyes go to the side where a little white bundle of scales on a nearby and smaller rock. The creature has been following you ever since you left the ruined village. Your hand still throbs where it bit you -- but it had done so only after you struck it.

(Continued... )

D. Infamy

The sun is almost at its zenith, covering the hot and dusty marketplace in a bronzed haze. You don't mind the heat so much, you're used to it, but so much dust can make it hard to breathe sometimes. You tug at the cloth draped over your head and fastened with a bit of twine you scrounged up from somewhere...

(Continued... )

E. Tithe

You ghost intangible fingers over the recently-opened envelope on the table, but in spirit form you can't touch anything in the real world. That doesn't stop you from reading it though, at least the part of the paper that hasn't folded over.

(Continued... )

F. Figment

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, the stone passage between your soul rooms is cold. The match between you and the Pharaoh may have started as holograms, but by the end of it, it was a Shadow Duel through and through, and now you're paying the consequence for losing it.

(Continued... )

Comments

B. Property

[lasergrenades]

The dojo may have been closed to the public for the month, but Pepper still made a point to visit regularly. After all, Bakura was at least sixty percent of the reason why she liked the dojo so much, especially these days. It was good to see that the repairs were mostly done, too.

She'd been hit by the memories of others twice already, but it hadn't quite processed that the trigger was close proximity, so Pepper didn't think anything of continuing with her usual brand affection around Bakura - squeezing his pinkie with hers, the occasional hug, nudging him with her elbow when she teased him.

Like the previous times, Pepper was unprepared for seeing a memory that didn't belong to her, and despite the shock of it, despite it being so utterly different from her own experience, it triggers a memory of her own: one where she had been just as calm in the face of inevitable consequences, even if those consequences and the crime (for it was a crime, she knew that hacking the FBI was highly illegal) were radically different.

It left her frozen, staring blanking at Bakura, and the only thing she could manage to say was, "Uh."

[denyamenti]

Bakura almost would have preferred not knowing what memories were pulled from his mind and thrust into that of others, except he disliked being in the dark of things and better to know than be caught unaware later. At least that one dropped onto Pepper was relatively benign, as far as his recollections went.

But he was aggravated that this kept happening: like Pepper, this wasn't the first time it had happened, and proximity was too broad a provocation for him to have pinned that down either.

The memory he saw was... fundamentally Pepper. The disregard of law in the face of justice was a theme that resonated very strongly with him, after all. Do what needed to be done and damn the consequences, when it was something ma'at.

"... You knew even then, that you knew better than what limited others, didn't you."

[lasergrenades]

Pepper was, oddly, more startled to experience Bakura as a child than to see what he had done - she knew a lot about his past, and the fact that he'd killed people wasn't exactly news. That he'd done it at the age of six, in a calculated sort of way, wasn't a great surprise, either (if she recalled correctly, he'd told her that already, anyway). She's not happy by any stretch that he'd crossed that line so young (or at all, really), but it was a clear mark of his sheer determination to survive, and to do it on his own terms.

It was strange to see through his eyes at that age; Pepper didn't think of Bakura as old, per se, but she had some little trouble imagining him being that small. He had changed, and yet he had not changed, over the past three and a half millennia.

Bakura's remark shook her out of her loss for words, reminded her that he'd seen a fragment of her past, too.

She smiled, and it was small but sly, without a trace of embarrassment for having broken several significant laws. "Yeah, I guess I did. I never liked being told I couldn't do the job just because I was too young," Pepper replied. It's not as though she was engaging in vigilante-style justice, either, at that point. "It drives my dad nuts."

Pepper hesitated for a moment, and then reached up to brush a few strands of Bakura's hair off his forehead - the thing he'd been called a freak for, if she understood correctly. "And you never let anyone tell you who or what you were supposed to be. Most six year olds aren't that sharp."

[denyamenti]

"Most didn't have to be," he replied, although his tone was acknowledgment of the kindness behind her words, not rebuttal. "Keep breaking expectations, biahbenat."