entrancelogs | In Progress; Xaldin and Xemnas

In Progress; Xaldin and Xemnas

Who: Xemnas (

firstsilence) and Xaldin (

wind_of_despair)
Where: Xemnas’s room.
When: Straight after this.
Rating: PG-13 for now. Rating will probably change~~, because neither of them are happy bunnies right now~~.
Summary: Xaldin needs to see Xemnas, and the Superior has a bit of explaining to do.
the Story:

Obviously, when Xehanort had brought up the red balloons and Xemnas had settled for popping them in the hallways in irritation, there were a number of things that he had conveniently forgotten about when he decided to leave their remains lying all over the hallways.

And one of them was that Xaldin also had memories concerning red balloons, and that he would of course be less than pleased to hear of their existence within the mansion.

Xemnas wondered half-heartedly if he was ever going to be able to explain his way out of the deep hole he’d just dug himself. Blaming Xehanort for it wasn’t going to help him, even though it was logical and quite valid for him to do so. No, he would have to face the lancer himself, and he didn’t have much time to think of an explanation before the lancer got there.

How many ways could you put, ‘Xehanort brought up a memory that is incredibly personal and flaunted it like some kind of joke,’ in a way that wasn’t going to offend or irritate Xaldin? Personally, he hardly thought it possible, and when the lancer arrived he probably still wouldn’t have an explanation ready for him.

Sighing, Xemnas brushed a lock of hair out of his face and patiently awaited the arrival of the Whirlwind Lancer, hoping that the man would remember that he could come in without invitation as he pleased. (Though, no doubt, with the mood he was in such things would be trivial.)

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While he didn't want to have to see the remains - as if those popped balloons were bodies of living things - scattered across the hallways, Xaldin still did not trust the Darkness of the Mansion enough to open a Corridor to where he would like to go. Instead he stepped into his boots and walked the distance between his and his former Superior's room. It felt strange thinking about it as "former" and "previous" and "ex-", but it wasn't entirely uncomfortable.. And yet, still it was just the two of them who knew anything about it. Until they could discuss it, it'd remain a private matter. But perhaps now was a good time to bring it up as well. If, of course, he could restrain his anger.

But then, manners had always been his forte; sudden kidnappings aside. He did place a rather heavy knock, perhaps more of a timber-shaking pound at that, on Xemnas' front door before he all but kicked it open and let the air slam it back shut. As well as turn the key. And toss said key somewhere into the recesses of the room.
While he wasn't exactly bristling, he might have been a few minutes ago. The walk had had the desired effect however, and calmed him somewhat. And. Then there was always Yachiru. But even that couldn't make him smile right now.

'Xemnas.'

The seconds ticked by, and still Xemnas had no explanation prepared. He wracked his brains desperately, trying to think of even the flimsiest reasoning he could cook up – but his train of thought was abruptly derailed at the loud knocking on the door. Obviously, this wasn’t at all a good thing – since Xaldin wasn’t in the Organization any longer, he didn’t have to listen to Xemnas. At all.

He made not a sound as Xaldin entered his room, locked his door, and disposed of the key all within a few seconds, merely looking up at the lancer and blinking, almost reluctantly meeting his gaze. ‘Awkward’ certainly wasn’t the right word to describe how he felt at current; but for a few moments, nothing would come to mind, and neither would words.

After a few more minutes of silence, he finally responded with a slight tilt of his head in greeting. “Xaldin. Good to see you could make it.” Nothing in his posture suggested or betrayed his slight unease; once more he hastily scrambled to think of an explanation before the lancer became irritated. With him. …again.

A welcome, indeed. "Make it", indeed. As if any force in this world could have stopped him from coming here when he "felt" like he did. Unbidden, he went over to Xemnas' desk, grabbed the swivel-chair and sat down in it, folding one leg over the other. His own gaze did not falter for a moment as he tried to bore through and read what was on the other side of the one he met, half curious to know if he was getting through to the other man at all, and half desiring to see a sign of discomfort other than the awkward silence.
He let his fingertips tap an inaudible stacchatto rhythm on the table-top, not allowing his nails any contact to further stress the situation.

'Well, then? Perhaps you would care to explain to me what exactly this is all about,' he rumbled. Not menacingly, good heavens, but that guttural whiskey drawl of his was less pleasant than it could have been, certainly.

The Nobody could bear Xaldin’s gaze no longer and involuntarily flinched, redirecting his gaze so that his eyes no longer met the other Nobody’s. He was beginning to feel incredibly uneasy, and he couldn’t pinpoint why; was it to do with the memories the red balloons had brought back? Or was it something else?

“With the balloons?” he asked simply in a voice barely above a whisper, waiting a few moments before daring to look the lancer in the eyes again. “They were not intentional, and I…” Here was the Nobody, the Superior of Organization XIII; the man who could talk for hours and hours on any given topic with little hesitation – and yet, he couldn’t even provide Xaldin with an explanation for a simple little thing. Xemnas faltered, and then he just shook his head. “To be completely honest? I have no explanation for the balloons. I know that you won’t find that acceptable, but… I don’t. I got irritated, and I popped them in the hallways, without thinking but for quite obvious reasons.”

Anything to kill the awkward silence would be appreciated right now, but Xemnas knew it was a delicate topic, and knew that the silence would be as awkward as it liked until it deemed it necessary to be otherwise.

'Without thinking.' Refusing a groan that threatened to make its way out of his mouth Xaldin rubbed at his face with the hand that had previously been making the dull little thuds against the desk. He was so tired, and the memory of all this anger was quite upsetting - in the way that only they could be upset, of course.. which was in a rather dull manner. That still didn't keep them from remembering how annoying it truly was. 'You seem to have been doing so quite a bit, lately. Not thinking.'
And yet he decidedly refrained from belabouring details on that. How Xemnas' lack of judgement had honestly been the downfall of the Organization; his so-called tactical genius apparently failing him. Perhaps the "splendour" of Kingdom Hearts had blinded him, after all. The first mistake the man had made had been to tell Xaldin to hold back, and let Sora live. Just toss him around a bit. And he'd done so.. albeit at the cost of his fleeting excistance. To this day he didn't understand why he'd let loyalty to his Superior go so far.

'I won't press the matter further then, albeit one'd think you could restrain yourself from letting your aggravation show so. Leaving traces of it behind. It's not like you to be so careless.'

Folding his arms across his chest, Xemnas shot a tired glare at the other.
"Okay, Xaldin," he said irritably, still glaring at the other Nobody, "try and imagine this. Having your Somebody, of all people, turn up in the same place as you when you finally thought you could lead a somewhat peaceful existence. Not only that, but having your other AND your Somebody, all living side by side. As if that isn't awkward enough, without entirely meaning it, your Somebody brings up your old, rather personal memories, and shoves them quite literally right in your face. Do you think you'd be thinking entirely rationally then?"

He knew, however, that Xaldin was quite right; he hadn't been at all careful as of late. Mostly since Xehanort's arrival at the mansion and in light of the murders, Xemnas knew, but...

"No. I think I had perfect reason to be irritated, and to show it so. You didn't exactly react to the balloons being there very calmly either," he pointed out, shrugging his shoulders tiredly. He knew all too well he had made far too many mistakes in the past to still have any sort of respect and loyalty from anyone, which was why he was trying to make things right in this... 'mansion' it looked like he was going to be stuck in for all eternity. Not that he had told anyone about it; but now that Sora was here... perhaps. Perhaps he could get back some of that loyalty and respect, but he wasn't going to get his hopes up.

Audacity. It was the only word that could possibly stamp onto what he'd just been told. He felt his shriveled, dried up little heart wrench about painfully, and something grabbed at his throat, pressurizing it to quench the outcry of rage he was wont to make. It was hard to not dash out of the chair and let his sudden flare of anger known to the other Nobody right then and there, but then he found the wood armrest making a loud cracking sound under his hand to distract him. He didn't care to give the tortured furniture a look though, as he felt that Xemnas was quite more deserving of the heat of his gaze at this time.

'So, what you're trying to tell me that your confusion about the appearance of Somebody and Heartless far outweigh the fact that I just spent a month hunting for a murderer of our kin without anybody seeing it fit to tell me that he was already taken care of? You have the nerve of comparing your faint irritation to downright ire of what I presumed an injustice gone unattended? A failure? And then crack down on how I loose my temper with this slight on top of that?'
He inhaled sharply to calm himself, and to lower the tone that had been building with mounting viciousness as he spoke. There was no point in exploding at Xemnas. As angry as he was, the man didn't completely deserve it. He'd apologised, and taken care of the mess. So Xaldin closed his eyes with a bitten-down groan, leaning heavily against the comfortable back of the swivel-chair to further calm himself. He wasn't really capable of getting angry anyway, he told himself. Kept trying to tell himself. Either of the two.

The man was just his friend now. Nothing else.

Ah, yes. The handling of the murderer... Xemnas hardly liked to be reminded of his own death, and then consequently Saix's at the hands of the man, and he could admit that how they had gone about tracking down Lucien... it hadn't exactly been the most organised hunt ever. But Xemnas wasn't going to stand for the whole thing with the assassin being taken out on him; it had been an oversight of a good deal of the Organization, and they all should have made sure it was taken care of in the best way humanly possible.

But it hadn't been. And here were the consequences.

"No, that is not what I'm trying to say. I found out about Lucien being found and taken care of at approximately the same time you did, actually," he said as calmly as he could manage, regarding the wooden armrest that had just met its end with nothing more than a glance. No doubt the mansion would fix it, anyway. It seemed to be able to fix anything -- except relationships.
"Xigbar is the one that you can talk to about that; I had nothing to do with it. As much as I wanted revenge for my own poisoning and subsequent death, I didn't take matters into my own hands."

He simply couldn't meet Xaldin's gaze at the moment; the other was making him feel incredibly uncomfortable, but Xemnas wouldn't dare show it. No, he had to keep up appearances. Or, at least, attempt to. Xemnas seemed to be failing miserably at that at the moment.

Xemnas took a deep breath, and still not facing Xaldin, quietly sighed. "I apologise. I... If I had known that Xigbar was planning on going after the assassin himself, I would have let you know immediately. It admittedly wasn't taken care of very well, as you can probably tell." In the end, Elphaba and the assassin himself had given the game away, but if Xaldin didn't know that, Xemnas certainly wasn't going to tell him. No need to make things worse -- if that was possible -- than they already were, after all.

After a few more moments, he dared to look at Xaldin, and just watched the seemingly quite irritated Nobody silently. He couldn't think of any more ways to try and make things better -- at least, not for now. And they'd probably end up sounding like mere excuses anyway, he mused.

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In Progress; Xaldin and Xemnas

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