Challenge [294] Starting Out
Challenge: [294] Starting Out
Title: Boundless
Word Count: 600
Notes: One BBS spoiler, mainly about a villain, but nothing too serious...
In the darkest of hours, a tall, broad figure was sitting behind his desk, reading document after document in the sparse candlelight. Tallow was drip-drip-dripping on the mahogany surface, but his attention was caught elsewhere; his brilliant, aquamarine eyes (the eyes of his beloved mother) were travelling expertly over the old pages of thick volumes. From time to time, he stopped his intensive reading to make notes of the things he encountered. He couldn't simply mark them, because he had borrowed them from the library. How it was even possible that Destiny Islands had such a great amount of old books was beyond his knowledge, but he wasn't complaining.
The young man, at the tender age of seventeen now, let out a sigh and allowed himself to take a short break. He stretched, rolling his shoulders and felt how his sore muscles cracked at the slightest change of movement.
The beginnings were always the hardest, he mused, as he brushed his long, silver hair out of his bright eyes. But once you started out, time would become an illusion and before you became aware of what was happening, you would be in the middle of it, with no turning back.
Not that Xehanort wanted to turn back after all of this. His findings were too advanced to quit now and the critical researcher in him forbade him to do so.
The young man's gaze fell on the alarm clock, standing on his bedside table. It was past three o'clock in the night (morning?), but he wasn't tired at all. Sleep was for weaklings. He was more than capable of functioning well with less than seven hours of sleep. Besides, he couldn't afford wasting his precious time now with something so mundane; the sooner he could get out of this "Utopian" prison, the better. Xehanort didn't think he could handle ignoring the walls that were coming closer to him anymore, ready to crush him and make of this place his grave.
Xehanort would prove those ill-advised, narrow-minded fools that it was possible to travel to other worlds. He'd read every book he encountered if he had to, but so far, things were going well. Though it helped that he was a gifted young man; Xehanort was currently attending his third year at the university and he was always at the top of his class. His parents were so proud of their only son, a model student. They'd let him do anything, even staying up at this godforsaken time, because they thought he was studying for his finals.
If only they knew, he thought.
They didn't have a single clue.
Knowledge was a powerful thing in the right hands; the sky was no longer the limit for him. It hadn't been that hard for him to find the Heart of the world (that wooden door in the cave), either.
His mother would be devastated when she found out about his leave and his father would hate him forever, but he had to do this. There was so much that he had so see with his own eyes and he was absolutely sure he would wither like a rose in a desert if he stayed here.
Xehanort's eyes slowly travelled to his bedroom window. There was nothing about the starry sky that night to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening. However, Xehanort was so, so close to opening the door to Darkness, his vessel to other worlds, that his corrupted and twisted fate was as inevitable as his eyes changing from a calm blue into a glowing (smoldering) amber…
Title: Boundless
Word Count: 600
Notes: One BBS spoiler, mainly about a villain, but nothing too serious...
In the darkest of hours, a tall, broad figure was sitting behind his desk, reading document after document in the sparse candlelight. Tallow was drip-drip-dripping on the mahogany surface, but his attention was caught elsewhere; his brilliant, aquamarine eyes (the eyes of his beloved mother) were travelling expertly over the old pages of thick volumes. From time to time, he stopped his intensive reading to make notes of the things he encountered. He couldn't simply mark them, because he had borrowed them from the library. How it was even possible that Destiny Islands had such a great amount of old books was beyond his knowledge, but he wasn't complaining.
The young man, at the tender age of seventeen now, let out a sigh and allowed himself to take a short break. He stretched, rolling his shoulders and felt how his sore muscles cracked at the slightest change of movement.
The beginnings were always the hardest, he mused, as he brushed his long, silver hair out of his bright eyes. But once you started out, time would become an illusion and before you became aware of what was happening, you would be in the middle of it, with no turning back.
Not that Xehanort wanted to turn back after all of this. His findings were too advanced to quit now and the critical researcher in him forbade him to do so.
The young man's gaze fell on the alarm clock, standing on his bedside table. It was past three o'clock in the night (morning?), but he wasn't tired at all. Sleep was for weaklings. He was more than capable of functioning well with less than seven hours of sleep. Besides, he couldn't afford wasting his precious time now with something so mundane; the sooner he could get out of this "Utopian" prison, the better. Xehanort didn't think he could handle ignoring the walls that were coming closer to him anymore, ready to crush him and make of this place his grave.
Xehanort would prove those ill-advised, narrow-minded fools that it was possible to travel to other worlds. He'd read every book he encountered if he had to, but so far, things were going well. Though it helped that he was a gifted young man; Xehanort was currently attending his third year at the university and he was always at the top of his class. His parents were so proud of their only son, a model student. They'd let him do anything, even staying up at this godforsaken time, because they thought he was studying for his finals.
If only they knew, he thought.
They didn't have a single clue.
Knowledge was a powerful thing in the right hands; the sky was no longer the limit for him. It hadn't been that hard for him to find the Heart of the world (that wooden door in the cave), either.
His mother would be devastated when she found out about his leave and his father would hate him forever, but he had to do this. There was so much that he had so see with his own eyes and he was absolutely sure he would wither like a rose in a desert if he stayed here.
Xehanort's eyes slowly travelled to his bedroom window. There was nothing about the starry sky that night to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening. However, Xehanort was so, so close to opening the door to Darkness, his vessel to other worlds, that his corrupted and twisted fate was as inevitable as his eyes changing from a calm blue into a glowing (smoldering) amber…