#thesandmancometh

That voice...

Her head turned, just enough to see their former friend and Beacon student standing behind her. The young woman pushed aside the longer strands of hair from her eye and looked the other up and down. She'd grown, as most people do over the course of...how long had it been? The Faunus turned fully towards her, head tilted and a smirk on the side of her lips.

"Laura Galiceno. Member of Team CLST, of Beacon Academy. Weapon is a combination submachine gun and baton named Altagracia. Semblance...Shooting Stars." She took a step forward, her heels clicking against the cobblestone and her hands held behind her back. "One thousand, three hundred and twenty-three days since our last conversation. I'm surprised you could recognize me. What do you think?"

Date: Unknown Time of Day: Unknown

Experiment B14-D5T: Success Subject [REDACTED] Status: Alive

She’d not heard the door open, but his voice only made her pause and close her eyes. Gale had been working on the Dust, as was her priority and obsession as of late. Nothing else interested her: reading was boring, even if the book was of a subject she enjoyed; wandering the halls only made her lost, and she had to go up to ask the Twins for help (even if it was like plucking pricker bush barbs from her tail); trying to make a map of the facility was an impossible task, and after two weeks of trying she gave up. His words made her feel like the Faunus would be scolded and prepared for a retort, but heard the gears and turned in her seat.

He was right: things could be worse. She could be dead. She could get tortured and turned into one of his many experiments, or he could have left her in the swirling sands above and left her to fend for herself. No, he wouldn’t do that. She was too important to him, and he had knowledge that Gale craved. So she waited, bided her time and during the time experimented. Her curiosity sometimes got the better of her, from mixing incorrect Dust and ruining supplies, but there was never a shortage. If he had this much Dust, was he selling it? Was he doing a side business to ruin the Schnee Dust Company? If so...Gale could destroy the one thing that took her mother from her.

As he lifted the plate and saw the cake and the side of whipped topping, the Faunus went wide eyed. The last time that she’d had that cake was when she was fourteen, two years before the accident. Fresh berries from Menagerie, thanks to Liam, and the spongy cake from the Hayworth bakery and Mr. Hayworth would never give her the recipe. He said it was a ‘family secret’, with how sweet it was and the fact that it always was fresh. Gale looked between the cake and the figure and nodded slowly. “It is. How did you---”

Her dreams. When she slept (or at least, when she passed out at the desk or in the lab from exhaustion), he must have gotten into her head and saw her memories. Gale took a breath and reached for the plate, dolloping a small portion of the cream onto the top and cut a piece, glancing over to the shade. Why did she have any reason to distrust him? Why shouldn’t she give him a small chance? The Faunus lifted the fork and took the bite, her eyes fluttering closed as the memories flooded back and a soft sigh left her nose. It was the small bit of home she needed, that reminder she was doing this for them, to strengthen herself and better to protect the world and her family.

“Day...I don’t even know anymore at this point in time.  I haven’t seen sunlight, I haven’t heard rain.  I’ve not seen anyone around here in several days, other than him.  He likes to watch me work.  Says it reminds him of old days, of when he was working alongside her.  He doesn’t give me instructions, he doesn’t ask me to make him anything specific.  He just...watches.” “Sometimes, he’ll bring me food.  Always more than I can eat, but it’s fresh.  Which means he’s keeping enough food here for several hundred people...or he’s just keeping enough food for me.  It’s not bad, but it’s just different.  He keeps telling me I need to take a break, or that I have to stop and rest.  He’s insistent that I have a schedule, almost like I’m back at Beacon.” “I’ve done more research with Dust than I did before, now that I don’t have classes.  He sometimes gives me this new Dust...this deep purple.  It’s not Gravity Dust, it’s something else.  It’s...new.  It is Dust, it works with my aura but it doesn’t work like Dust.  It feels different when I interact with it.  It’s like...it wants to move with me.  It’s an entirely new feeling and I..like it.” “I don’t always like the nightmares that follow it, or the wandering through the halls.  I don’t like the fact that I’m being constantly babied, and forced to rest but...I like researching.  I like...being here.

Her fingers ran over the melted plastic of the name tag, trying to find some kind of relief with knowing but, it never came. A year ago, give or take a couple of weeks, he found her. The man with no face, the man with the voice that would ring out from every direction; who steped off her windowsill and disappeared into the very cloud of smoke he stepped into. The figure that came to bring her eyes a new way of seeing, a way for her ears to listen where they had not before.

The Sandman.

Whoever he was, he could find her without question. No matter where she was or where she tried to hide, The Sandman always had a way to get to her. Was it because she was more interested in who he was, and therefore more obsessed? Or was it because he was magic, like so many had said did not exist? Many said that magic didn't exist, and that would mean he didn't exist either. So, he was just a figment of her imagination.

But...he wasn't. Others had experienced him too. They'd heard his voice, seen the mask that covered his face and saw their fears become reality. They too saw the despair hidden beneath his fingers, grasping for someone to join him and help his dreams. Had they taken the bait? She didn't know. All Gale knew was that she sat in an empty study room, holding what was considered a relic. Lost to the world so long ago, her mother's name tag from under the rubble of the now dismantled and shattered Dust Sorting facility on Berkeley. It'd been too long since anyone had really talked about it. Her father wouldn't speak of the day, and any time she tried to coax Liam into getting information he rolled it off like water on a duck's back.

She never got anywhere...but he had it. He had knowledge, he had it there for her to find and take and use. She could get it and help so many people. She could help herself, bring balance to some small piece of the world. Taking a breath in, Gale's fingers closed around the tag and she nodded.