[2010] Secret Santa Submissions Part I
We're one entry short, but the writer has let me know their circumstances, and will be submitting asap - ceylmallyn, I'm sorry, but you'll have to wait a little longer for your gift.
Merry Christmas, everyone! :)
To: iki_teru
From: ceylmallyn
Title: I'm Not Afraid
Word Count: 1346
Rating: G
Notes: For some reason, my imagination kind of took off running with this pairing, even though I've never written it before or anything close to it. Still, it was fun! (Also, you said you liked fairy-tale themes, so the concept was kind of based very lightly on The Story Of A Boy Who Went Forth To Learn Fear. Hope I managed to get a decent balance of fluff/dramatic here.) merry christmas!
"There are some things about you I really want to know."
The day above was sunbright and breezy, but underneath the rickety dock it was warm and dark. Riku wasn't sure how he got talked into this. Maybe just because it was Selphie, and Selphie was-- well, she was her, and she'd always been there, like Sora and Kairi.
Only she didn't know the things about him they knew. And like most of the other Islanders, she'd moved warily around him since he got back-- sensing some change in him, something she couldn't quite understand. He'd expected her to drift away. So when she told him after school that she needed to ask him something private, and didn't want anyone else hearing-- well, he'd been surprised.
And she'd dragged him down here-- unseen by anything but the sea and sand.
"I just... wonder. You're not scared of me?"
"Scared?" She blinked. "Nah. You're just kind of mysterious. But that's... not scary, it's cool."
"I..." He looked away. "I'm worried that if you knew more about me, you might not say that."
"Okay. I'll make a promise." She smiled, and there was an odd element in that smile he couldn't quite place. "If you can really scare me, then I'll stop asking you questions."
Riku blinked. "Scare you?" Well, she'd always been a daredevil-- the kind of kid who'd sit up all night in a cemetary hoping to glimpse a ghost. But there was child-scary, and then there was... scary. The dark places in the universe you could live without ever knowing about, and be better off for it. He felt he didn't want her to know-- she was cheerful and innocent and bright, and everything else that he would never be again. But somehow, he found himself saying "I guess so."
"I've heard rumours about you at school. I always wanted to find out the truth."
"What kind of rumours?" Long before any of them had heard of Keyblades or Heartless, he'd been the subject of gossip-- small towns had their definite opinions on the people among them who seemed out of place. And some of them were flat-out ridiculous, but with Selphie so close to Kairi... he didn't know what hints she had dropped.
"Well... I heard that you went on a long journey, the year you left the Islands." He nodded-- a journey could mean so many things that the rumours weren't necessarily close to truth.
"Go on..."
"That you found another world, and you traveled there. You and Sora. He jokes about it when people ask where he went, but I think some of them aren't jokes."
...yeah, it was just like Sora to do that. And just like Selphie to take it seriously, too.
"And I've heard that you have some kind of weird power." She leaned in closer, a thrill of excitement lilting in her voice.
"What would you do if all of that was true?" He tried to make his voice sound foreboding, warning, but it just kind of cracked.
"If it was..." Fingers pulled at her bracelet. "I'd wanna hear all about it."
"You would... want to? Why?"
"Because..." Her eyes shone with dreamy faraway thought. "I always hoped things like that really existed. Other worlds and magic and adventures." She moved to twirl hair around one finger. "You always talked about it, before you left. And I thought you were really cool and brave for wanting to do that-- leave the Islands, go on adventures in another world." Blushing, she drew back. "So... is it true? It's okay if it's not. I just, well..."
"Huh?"
"I always believed there really were other worlds. And that maybe you could... tell me about them, if you'd seen them." Her gaze fell. "Maybe it's silly, but..."
"Yes." He forced the sounds out. "There are other worlds. And I... went to some of them." His voice felt strange and thick, spilling out the truth so bluntly. "I don't know if you could call it an adventure. Or if it was, it wasn't a good one."
"Really? There wasn't anything good in it at all?" She didn't flinch at the revelation. "You didn't get to see anything amazing or wonderful in any of them?"
Well, he could hardly say that. Selphie did have a point, some part of him admitted-- there were amazing things, in the worlds he'd seen. Only he hadn't been able to appreciate them...
She caught the hesitation in his eyes. "There was, wasn't there? I know things can be amazing and scary at the same time. Like... like thunderstorms. Or volcanoes. But sometimes those are the most interesting things."
"Yeah, there were amazing things," he admitted, grudgingly. "I was just... busy. There was something I needed to do. Something I needed to fix, after a big mistake I made. So I didn't have time to focus on them."
"I'm sorry." The sympathy in her eyes was real, and Riku didn't know how to respond. "I wish you'd been able to. But, still..." She wrapped her arms around herself, smiling softly.
"But what?"
"It's just so awesome that I met someone who went to other worlds, and came back to tell me all about it!" Her hands fell to her lap. "So that doesn't scare me. You have to try harder."
"Okay." He fell back, leaning against a rock.
"So what about your weird power? Is that real, too?" Selphie propped herself up, peering as though it were something physical she could glimpse.
This was turning into a losing battle-- he didn't know what to do. "Um..." Riku knotted fingers in his lap, surprised to realize they were coated in nervous sweat. "Supposing that... I did have one, would you promise not to tell anyone about it? Whether it scared you or not."
"Hmm." Selphie bit her lip. "Well... maybe Kairi? I don't like to keep major secrets from my best friend."
"But Kairi already knows." He said it without thinking, and was then relieved she couldn't see him blanch with fear in the shadows. "I mean... if I did have one, she would know about it."
He realized that the strange noise she was making was laughter. "Hey, what's so funny?"
"Just that you're a bad liar!" She giggled lightly, rocking on her heels. "So come on, show it to me. I want to see it."
"Uh..." He balked; this was Selphie, sun-bright Selphie with her eyes and heart full of light. Someone untainted by darkness, who shouldn't see its powers. Selphie who'd always been there-- like Sora and Kairi and their hearts filled with light--
"Is it one of those things that are amazing and scary at the same time?" She studied him, wide-eyed with anticipation. "But it's okay. I want to see things like that. Even if they are a little scary. That's how life is, right?"
"...Yeah." He shrugged. And concentrated. Selphie watched, unblinking, as dark fire gathered in his hand and threw shadows across the sand, pulling rays and strands of light out of the sand and the dock-planks and her hair.
She watched the swirls of black-blue-violet carefully, as if it were something fragile that could disappear with a breath.
"Are you... scared?"
"Nope!" She hugged herself again. "Not scared at all. That's awesome!"
Riku blinked in strange befuddlement, wordless relief. The darkness dissipated into filaments, drifted outwards.
"Ooh, that's kind of cold." Selphie giggled again, rubbing her arms. "But shivering and being scared aren't the same. I'm still not afraid."
"So..." His voice shook a little, but he was laughing with joy, too. "What does scare you, Selphie?"
"I don't know! Maybe if you travel to other worlds again, I'll go with you, and I'll see something that's really scary." The tease in her voice faded. "Actually..." She reached for his hand, where he'd previously held darkness, and clasped it in hers. "I'm scared of losing my friends. That's what scares me. Please promise you won't ever leave again without telling me."
And he promised her, in their hideaway where light nestled with shadow, and meant it.
To: syvia
From: iki_teru
Title: And Look How Things Could Have Been
Word Count: 2,231 (think of it as several drabbles in one entry, m’kay?)
Rating: G? I don’t think I even used any bad words here :D
Spoilers: none that I can think of.
Notes: I tried cutting this down, really I did. But I felt that, a)you deserved the details, and b) it felt less to me without them. Also, there was much squeeing when I got my assignment and I know this isn’t under any kind of intense situation, but I hope you still like it ♥ (alsoooo, there is age jumping happening here, I’m not sure if that was clear or not. So, note, you gets one.)
Riku glares upward at the sky, as if it is personally responsible for his current bad mood - and not, in fact, his still absent best friend. He has no idea how long he and Kairi have been standing on the beach waiting for Sora. Long enough for Kairi to grow bored with conversations about the weather and homework and start building a sand-castle with supplies they keep for emergencies in the tree house. Neither of them had worn a watch, and while Riku had been trying to divine the time via location of the sun, so far all he had for his trouble was the beginning itch of a headache.
"He’s late," he finally announces, as if their entire existence hinged on this big reveal.
"And you sound surprised." Kairi sweeps the little plastic shovel against the side of her still growing sand-mound, smoothing it out with careful precision. She peeks at him from the corner of her eye and flashes a quick smile coupled with a little just saying kind of shrug.
He can’t really argue with her, and decides it’s not befitting his station as an almost-teenager to stoop to childish squabbling. "It’s just, we can’t really do anything til he gets here." Which isn’t entirely true, Sora very rarely cares what they do so long as they’re all together and is usually quite happy to jump into the first thing suggested. Still, and Riku is loathe to admit this, he feels off balanced when the numbers don’t equal three.
Kairi hums a tuneless melody as she packs more sand into the bucket. "We could play hide-and-seek while we wait?"
He scoffs at this and looks at her like she’s gone green and scaly. "No way, I’m too old for those kiddie games."
"You are not." She drops a handful of sand onto his head. It’s soft and dry and Riku only has to give his head a firm shake to dislodge the worst of it.
“I am so,” he insists, “I’m almost a teenager.”
It’s Kairi’s turn to make rude noises at him. "Almost only counts in horseshoes," she quips back so fast Riku has trouble following for a moment. Then she adds, "Oh, we could play horseshoes. I think that old set is still up in the tree house."
"Thanks, but I’ll pass. You get mean, and those things are kind of heavy." He rubs absently at his shoulder, still remembering the sting from last time they attempted a game.
"You’re such a baby," Kairi chides. She shoves the bucket at him, now empty and light it bounces harmlessly against his chest. "Go get some water; it’s time for the moat."
Riku stands and gives a dramatic bow. "Of course, princess." He laughs at her expression, her squinty eyes and scrunched up nose and protruding tongue, but still does as he was told.
Kairi has dug the moat too deep and wide for such a puny little castle and it takes several trips down to the roiling waves to fill it. "I’m going to catch a crab," she tells him upon his second trip back, "and name him Sebastian and this will be his castle. I think he’ll keep all his sheet music inside it." Riku wisely chooses not to comment on the strange places Kairi’s mind seems to drift some days.
There is nothing left to do but wait, the two of them and the little crabless castle, for the last member of their party to arrive. Kairi has taken to decorating her creation with remnants of shells and leaves, Riku finally bites the bullet and leans over to join her when they both hear a familiar voice shouting to them.
Sora comes tripping across the dock, going down on his knee once before scuttling back to his feet and talking a mile a minute. "Youguyswon’tbelievethisit’sthecoolestthingever."
Only Kairi interrupts his steady babble with a startled gasp. "Sora, what happened to your face?" She prods the dark bruise that has blossomed beneath his left eye carefully and shoots a suspicious glance behind her at Riku.
"Hey. I didn’t touch him." Riku holds his hands up defensively in a sad attempt to keep Kairi at bay.
Sora grins sheepishly. "Oh no. That was me. I was practicing my sweet moves with my sword last night and ran into the door."
Kairi looks shocked at this revelation and Riku is helpless to do more than laugh. "But that’s not the cool part!" Sora insists, taking several tripping steps backwards. "Watch."
He starts flailing the hand holding his sword in a wild manner, manages to bonk himself in the forehead once. "I’m alright," he tells Kairi who has taken a hesitant step towards him. "Hang on, it can take a while." His tongue is poking out the corner of his mouth and his eyes are screwed up in the deepest expression of concentration. Sora brings the sword down in a solid arc and sighs as the wood shifts into some sort of metal contraption. “See.”
They do see, although neither is exactly sure what it is they’re seeing. "Is that a key?" Riku finally asks, poking at the smooth silver much the same way children are prone to poke at unfamiliar animals.
"Yup," chirps Sora. "It was really weird, because I thought I saw a shadow in my room moving," and at Riku’s expression of disbelief he’s quick to add, "totally dumb, I know. But there was this tense moment where I thought it was going to get me and then," Sora motions to the key as if that explains everything.
Kairi makes appreciative little cooing noises and runs a hand delicately against the parts that make up the teeth of the key. "Does it have a name?" she asks quietly, blinking up at Sora with a far away expression.
"I call it Bob." Sora replies.
Riku fixes him with a mildly appalled look. "That’s dumb, what does it even do?" He slants his body a little to the side, already bringing up his sword to parry Sora’s incoming blow, which is delivered without fail.
Sora grins, launching into another strike as he says, "It kicks your butt."
Twenty minutes later finds the three of them gathered around the splintered remains of Riku’s toy sword. "Huh." He says, lost for any other response to this particular situation. "Now what?"
Sora looks first at Kairi and then over to Riku. His strange blade has disappeared, gone to rest in lands unknown until Sora bashes himself in the head again to bring it back. "Wanna play hide-and-seek?"
Riku shrugs, an easy unaffected motion. "Sure."
------------------------
There is something sitting on Sora’s chest. He grumbles in his sleep and tries to roll over to push the something off, but it’ll have none of that. "Sora," says the thing, "Sora, please wake up."
The something turns out to be Kairi and she’s not sitting on his chest so much as resting both her hands there and shaking him gently. He blinks sleep out of his eyes, stares from his open window to the girl kneeling next to him on his bed.
He wants to ask what she’s doing here so late, wants to ask if she’s okay, if she realizes she’s in a boy’s room, wants to know why she felt the need to sneak into a boy’s room past midnight. "Kairi, you’re a girl," is all he manages.
She smiles at him, offers a halfhearted giggle. "Yea, I am. But that’s not what’s important right now." Her face has gone all serious and Sora finds himself snapping quickly into the waking world. "Sora, do you remember last year when you first got the keyblade?"
"The what?"
"Bob, Sora. When you first got Bob."
A ding of recognition lights up his eyes. "More or less, yea."
"You remember the shadow you thought was in your room, the moving one?"
Sora nods mutely, trying to swallow the acidic fear bubbling in the back of his throat at what he knows Kairi is about to say. "I think they’re back."
His first time fighting the walking shadows happens while he’s barefoot and in pajama pants. There’s only three of them; they don’t put up much of a fight, but stare at him in an almost quizzical manner. He thinks they might be cute in different circumstances, if they weren’t so alien and frightening.
"Kairi, you weren’t out here with those things, were you?"
Her entire body is trembling a little, but she doesn’t cry like Sora expects her to. "No," she says, "I was in my room but… but I felt them, Sora." Kairi places both her hands over her heart, either shielding it or reminding herself she’s okay. "They felt wrong. I did try to attack them, you know. Stole a knife from the kitchen, but it didn’t do anything. Not like your keyblade did."
He wonders where she got the name from, decides it doesn’t really matter (and yea, okay, it’s a little cooler than Bob). Sora pats her once on the shoulder, like he would do with Riku after a good fight. "Sleep with the phone next to you; I’ll do the same - and if you feel anymore of them, call me. Okay?"
She doesn’t say anything in reply, only gives one quick jerk of her head in affirmation before stumbling back towards her own house. Sora does the same and tries not to worry about what he’s just gotten himself into.
There will be more shadows, Sora has no doubt about that, but the intervening years are so quiet he can almost completely forget about that night before they appear again.
----------
"You do know you could just ask the janitor to open it for you, it’s considerably less breaking-and-entering than this." Riku stares down the hallway, making sure no teachers happen their way while Sora does his increasingly familiar jig to try and summon the keyblade. "Haven’t you figured that thing out yet? It’s been four years."
"Shut up, this is a lot more complicated than it looks." He finally manages to pull the keyblade into the physical world, grinning a little maniacally as he does so and tries his best to ignore Riku’s pessimistic question of, "Is this even going to work?"
Sora stands a few feet away from the door in question and aims the keyblade like a shotgun. He feels a sharp tug behind his navel and thrusts the blade forward, turning it sideways in the middle of the air. The door unlocks with a soft click and he feels fully entitled to the happy dance he performs in the empty hallway. Also, the "I told you so" song he serenades Riku with.
Riku pushes him into the room, hissing a reminder that they’re here to grab his things so stop goofing around. His mind wasn’t occupying the same hallway as his body. Instead, he was thinking about secret places and unopenable doors.
----------------
Kairi has a little to-do list pinned to the mast of their raft. She has checked it over three times, and is going over it once more for good measure. "Well, boys, I believe this is it." She flashes her friends a brilliant smile. "Last day on the islands, are you nervous?"
Riku waves her question off, keeping his focus on the horizon as if he could picture their destination by sheer will. Sora, however, is staring doubtfully at the logs they had so painstakingly tied together to form their escape vehicle.
"I wonder," he says, "how far can a raft take us?"
"There is another option," says Riku, turning the full heat of his gaze on Sora. "Why go out, when we can go in?" At his friends' confused expressions, he continues, "The door inside the secret place. We have a key, Sora. We can finally open it - who knows what we’ll find in there? It might-"
"No!" Kairi cuts him off, eyes wide and a little wild, her breathing heavy. "Riku, no. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should." She stands tall, shoulders square but both boys can see the idea of the door bothers her, a lot. They promise to drop the subject, that they’d already agreed the raft is their best bet.
The sun sets, the three friends bid each other good night. "Sunrise," Kairi says, "don’t forget."
---------
Only, Riku can’t sleep. There’s a storm rolling in and he can’t stop thinking about that door, hidden deep within the secret place. He rolls out of bed before he can really consider his actions and is back on the island in practically a blink.
The door looms in front of him. It has remained unchanged for all these years. He touches it, tracing the keyhole emblazoned in light upon its center. There is a voice from behind him - the same old man who was in here when he came to gather the mushrooms for Kairi.
You have the power, you can open the door, says the man.
Riku does not speak to the man; words aren't necessary. He holds his hand up as a blade materializes. It’s similar to Sora’s, he knows that, but only on a rudimentary level. Because, unlike Sora, Riku isn’t afraid to use his for its true purpose.
He smiles as the mysterious door swings open.
(and now, we begin)
To: tabitha_dornoc
From: syvia
Title: "If you believe, clap your hands."
Word Count: 950
Rating: PG
Spoilers: n/a
Author's Note: *hugs* It's a pleasure to fill your request. :D Guess where the kids landed~ I'm sure you only need one.
The transformation spell wasn't dangerous. Theoretically.
It drew information from the World around it and imbued you with qualities that would enable you to blend in among the people who lived there, keeping you safe from superstitious and potentially dangerous residents. Merlin had neglected to mention the spell did not keep you safe from taking a header into the local shrubbery before you realized your legs had been switched out for flippers, or doubled, or encased in an extraordinarily tight pair of pants. Which Kairi seemed to appreciate, as she squeezed the material to feel its texture. Also his butt.
Riku congratulated himself on not jumping. He reached backward, fumbled past the cape on his shoulders - which wasn't long enough to cover much of anything - and snagged his girlfriend around the waist.
Kairi was already laughing. Already protesting. "I can't help it," she giggled, not attempting to evade his grip, "you look hot!"
He doubted that, but it was nice to know someone appreciated the costume. Kairi herself looked beautiful - fancier than he got to see her outside one of Queen Minnie's formal parties. The gown was royal blue trimmed in silver, floor length. Her shoulders were bare but the sleeves were long, tapered to points over the backs of her hands. There was cleavage - which could never be discounted. Any dress that showed cleavage was awesome. Still, this was formal, regal, and would have been even without the silver circlet perched on her forehead. The heart decoration at the center had been carved, throwing off light without a need for gems. It screamed royalty the way her mischievous expression did not.
Riku searched for the source of this debacle (Sora could cast just fine, really. It was the spell's fault. But Riku felt better if he could blame the boyfriend) and froze. Kairi felt his reaction, turned to look as well--
Mostly red with gold trim. The outfit had puffy shoulders above tight sleeves and a tunic belted at the waist. The lower half cut off at the hips. Riku's outfit probably matched it, up to and including the tiny cape which did nothing to disguise Sora's--
"Wings...?" Kairi breathed.
Riku very quickly checked between his shoulder blades. Nothing. Thank the Light. Sora didn't notice, examining his pointy little red shoes and grimacing.
"Something feels different."
Riku choked.
"No," Sora responded, not looking at him, "really. Something other than the outfit."
Riku was certain he knew what that something was, but he couldn't form sound at the moment. He was likely to laugh... or cry.
Sora was... was....
The transformation spell tried to fit your borrowed shape to what you actually were as closely as it could. Kairi was certainly a princess. Riku figured he was a knight of some kind. That made Sora a... he could barely think it. They were only lucky (if the clothing was any indication) this wasn't one of those Worlds where one half was in denial about the other. Magic was rooted in belief and in a world where half the populous did not believe, creatures that were more than half magical could be killed by denial.
Though Kairi had willed Sora back into existence before.
Riku had noticed - after a few Worlds and more casual interaction - that magic had its own smell. Separate from Light. Separate from Darkness. The basic 'smell' of any being was an overwhelming mass that broke into smaller, just as potent scents. A garden that became individual plants. A sewer that became distinct forms of refuse. More pleasant by far with beings of Light. But people, whether light or dark, smelled differently when their physical composition included a great deal of magic. There was a particular quality to their scent. Something he could only describe as... sparkly.
Princess, knight... Sorathing. There was something to this. Riku had ignored enough tirades about Princess Aurora and her always-do-well guardians to know-
Guardians. Sure. Cinderella had her Godmother, Aurora had her aunts, Kairi had Sora-- who had carried her heart around inside his own for months.
Better Sora than him. He'd had enough of transformation - both deliberate and involuntary - to last his lifetime. He avoided it whenever possible and tolerated it (barely) when necessary. Sora, on the other hand, seemed to relish it.
"I think I just learned five new spells," he said, smiling gleefully.
Riku was afraid to ask what they were.
"Is that normal?" Kairi murmured, stepping away from Riku and approaching Sora to (not so subtly) examine the wings. She didn't touch them, and Sora continued to - as far as Riku could tell - be oblivious to his new appendages.
What really got him was the color. The wings were pale red. Not pink. Thankfully. Red - transparent, gauze-like red. Spun-sugar butterfly-shaped wings the color of a candy apple which didn't look big enough to carry him. But Sora was more magic than not right now they'd probably work fine.
"Sometimes," he shrugged, not at all concerned. "I've got to try them out!" Then he drew his Keyblade. He blinked, and then stared.
Someone was laughing, and distantly, Riku understood that it was him. He realized it was quite loud, and he wasn't standing anymore, and Sora was too distressed by the sight of his tiny, deformed tool of Heartless Annihilation to ask what was wrong - or even become angry that Riku was laughing at him.
The Kingdom Key was now about the length of Sora's forearm, thin and luminescent white with tines and a hilt that looked in danger of snapping off if Sora held the blade too tightly.
Tears streaked Riku's face as he kept laughing.
"Um...." Kairi offered a smile. "At least it matches your wings?"
To: lettersandliars
From: tabitha_dornoc
Title: Games We Play
Word Count: 999
Rating: PG13 (for between-the-line implications)
Spoilers: post KHII
Summary: While world-sitting TWTNW there are only so many ways to fend off the quiet, the loneliness, and the shadows that lurk.
Notes: Eep, darling, I hope at least some of what you were looking for is tangled up in here. I enjoyed your prompts muchly! I just wish I had more words to play with. <3
Kairi wins with scissors.
The boys’ palms, laid flat, recoil and drop into pockets (Riku) and entwine behind neck (Sora).
Sora sighs, says he was going to choose rock, but whatever. Good luck, godspeed, and please please please bring back a haste block.
Riku shakes his head, makes a face at Sora, says, “I don’t think she controls the mail.” It’s either fond or annoyed - too early in the morning to tell, and they ran out of all drinkable caffeine two days before, so at this point their moods are anyone’s guess.
So maybe she’s glad to have picked scissors, glad to walk from the flickering hallways (the lights are powering down, they aren’t sure how to fix them and are hesitant to use magic too consistently here,) out into the rainy streets and down to the edge of the world.
Or maybe she’s wishing she chose rock.
Out in the main hallway, far from the boys’ bickering, Kairi has two options, and therefore a dilemma. The quickest way out of the buildings is across the east balcony and down the barred corridors. The quickest way also takes her past the rooms she occupied months ago with… entirely different company. The rooms pull at her, beckon her, and no. No.
The longer way is a small maze of turns and passages, and even without getting lost it takes significantly longer and then the boys will know and they will look at her and she stopped appreciating their pity before they even began offering it, thank you.
The lights are so ill-used on this path they shine solid and bright. Keep them on. Shadows are alive here. No matter how fast you run, they reach out, clawed and sneaky, grab at your ankle, pull at your arms, wrap around you and whisper, you are frightened, you are cold, your heart beats all its secrets to me, and she can hear the air being parted by a claymore, gloved fingers brushing and -
Outside, the sky is clouded and dark and not at all like home, spitting down rain like it’s sulky and offended. She has an umbrella, cherry red, and a basket for the mail - all three of them exhausted any jokes about Little Red Riding Hood within the first few days.
Between the worlds, at the border, in a space that smells more like heartless than nobodies, fire-tinged, and will forever make her pause, just for a moment, and remember Axel, is a small pocket of space where they can collect the things the king sends.
There’s nothing new to report on their end. The city is safe, is holding, is balancing the things that were and never were. The whole world was collapsing, before. It cannot stand empty, and they certainly weren’t going to create more nobodies to keep it full and existing. The faint pieces of Other the three hold are enough for the world, and as long as they stay here…
The king is working on a solution. Soon. All his letters says so.
It’s on one of these letters, envelope torn and folded in half, she scrawls: MORE COFFEE PLEASE. She doesn’t stay to watch it vanish.
Turns out there is a haste block, and Sora is not quite giddy-jubilant about it, but Kairi rolls her eyes as if he were. It makes him grin wider.
“You don’t even know, Kairi. C’mon, look at this. Look what I can do now!”
Sora (and Riku, though he feigns disinterest like the best of them) is designing the ultimate gummi ship. He’s had blueprints and schematics and lists of parts scattered across the basement floor since day one. There was an old clunker hidden below, and they all three spent some time speculating just what it was doing there and why, before Sora got hooked on the idea of scraping up some tools and some parts and mostly making Cid damn proud.
(Possibly the ecstatic note attached to the first shipment of gummi supplies was borderline homoerotic, except no, Kairi, Cid’s just real happy and this is going to be fun, and would you give that back I need to burn it.)
Gummi parts are hardly a rarity. They’re everywhere now that space is so congested and broken and they all wish they were out there instead of trapped here keeping balance, but at least they’re together in their helplessness.
“Check. This. Out,” Sora grins, backing away from the chalkboard sketch of the Best Engine Ever. Riku glances over the measurements and connections, frowning, but his fingers tap an excited rhythm against his arm.
Kairi’s response is less than noncommittal.
“Kai-ri, this is awesome. Don’t you wanna see? C’mon. You could design the outside! What do you want our ship to look like?”
She doesn’t take her eyes of the ceiling, just sighs. “Make it look like a blue phonebox for all I care. Sora, if it doesn’t crash, I’ll be happy. If we can use it to fly away from here, I’ll be happier.”
Then there’s a silence, and it’s lengthy enough for the lights to flicker, enough for the shadows to creep from their hiding places, to lick at her bare skin and laugh at her shiver and silly child, do you think they would rescue you, do you think they would come for you?, and her mouth snaps shut.
“Sorry,” she says. She’ll blame it on the coffee and it’s absolute absence. They’ll know it’s a lie, but it’s a pretty lie, so her boys will shrug it off, smile for her.
She’ll smile, too, even if the thought of smiling in this place still makes her breath hitch and her heart ache with pounding. “So, someone’s gotta weld that beast on, yeah?”
“Not it!” Sora cries, hands spread empty in the air. Riku and Kairi’s voice echo, “Not it!” and they glare, playfully, but there is only one true way to make fair decisions between them anymore:
Kairi wins with scissors.
To: scenotaphs
From: lettersandliars
Title: For Queen and Country
Word Count: 241
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None
Notes: Merry Christmas! :D
Marluxia knows a lot of things. He knows, with confidence, that no one will suspect a thing until it’s far too late. He knows that the Superior is anything but, that he is just as flawed and hollow as the rest of them. He knows how to win allies, and how to intimidate, and how to charm, honey-sweet. He does not quite know Larxene, but he supposes he is acquainted with her: with the soft, milky curve of her neck against her razorblade clavicle; with the malicious twist to her lips that both enthralls and terrifies; with the constant heat of her skin under his cheek. There is time enough to know her fully, after his work is done.
Larxene knows things, too. She knows how to make a body writhe underneath her, that it is a sight to behold to watch life drain out of it. She knows, a little, how things used to be. She sees flashes of another life in nightmares and wakes up, chilled but mostly vexed. She doesn’t think she enjoyed that life much. She knows that Marluxia is treacherous, but faithful in ways that she is not; it would be prudent for her to follow him, to simper at his side and take all that he has to give. Let him have his kingdom; she has him.
It’s good to be queen.
To: lazzchan
From: scenotaphs
Title: fragile things
Characters/pairing: Sora, Kairi, Aqua, Ven, Roxas; nonpairing.
Word Count: 1080
Rating: G
Spoilers: For Birth By Sleep!
Notes: Enjoy! And have a very merry Christmas C: Eeek I exceeded the limit a bit ;;
i.
Sometimes, it feels almost as though you’ve lived through things more than once.
It’s like you’ve seen your best friend fall prey to his own misgivings, his own insecurities, over and over. You know it has only happened once, but you can’t help but feel as though you’ve experienced this before - watching someone you hold dear submitting to the darkness which slumbers in their heart.
When you’re kept awake at night by fitful dreams of Castle Oblivion and the forgotten girl trapped within it, you wonder just how many times it has happened to you. How many times you have been sealed away in a bone-white silence, doomed to a Rip Van Winkle slumber? How many times you have had your memories picked apart and reassembled by the whim and fancy of some sorrowful witch or some disillusioned idealist?
Even before sleep claims you, even before you fall into dreamless rest, you always remember those wistful blue eyes on a face filled with more sadness than you’ve ever seen, with your name on her (but who is she?) lips, promising you something. I’ll come back for you, she says sometimes, or, I’m sorry.
You want to reach out so badly for those fleeing fingertips, but you can’t.
You wonder how many times you’ve felt the contours of a seashell-charm, sharp against the palm of your hand; how many times you have clutched it for reassurance; how many times it has acted as a beacon when you’re lost and alone, when the weight of the world seems too much for you to bear.
How many times-?
It’s a fragile thing, memory. Perhaps your time spent within the Naminé’s prison has scrambled your thoughts and addled your brain. You can’t rely on your recollections, not when they seem so fluid and ever-changing, never remaining constant for long.
Sometimes, you see Kairi in your dreams: she holds you so close, as though she can’t bear to let you go, and makes you promise to return. Other times, it’s someone else with sorrow in her smile and goodbyes on her lips, telling you she’ll never leave you behind.
But leave you behind they both do, in your prison of crystal petals and clamouring voices-voices that never seem to leave you alone.
* * *
ii.
It’s like she’s rewinding in slow motion - Ven seems so fragile, so breakable, sprawled in that cold chair which is more throne than humble seat. It seems as though he’s the lost boy again she met all those years ago, the very same boy who had looked at her with such trust in his eyes.
She feels like she has let him down, has betrayed him in the worst possible way. I couldn’t save you, she says to the slumbering boy. I couldn’t save you-I failed you, not only as a comrade, but as a friend.
There’s no way for her to forgive herself; how can she? The world as she knows it is tumbling down around her, and nothing is as it seems-Terra is gone, consumed by his own doubts and inner darkness, and Ven has been-
Wait for me, she says as she seals him away - like the witch cursing the prince, she thinks with a shudder - watching as the doors close on his sleeping form. I’ll make sure your heart finds its way back to you.
When she leaves, she doesn’t look back - she can’t, for fear of not being able to carry on.
* * *
iii.
Sometimes, when he sits atop the Clocktower, he remembers - but the memories that come to mind do not involve the familiar faces of Hayner, Pence and Olette.
Those faces surface when he least expects them: he could be gazing into the honey-gold skies of eternal twilight, abandoning the salty-sweet ice-cream as it melts sticky-cold to his hands, when he glimpses slivers of a life that never was.
Instead of childish smiles and laughing eyes, he sees tear-stained cheeks and lying faces; instead of homework assignments and Struggle tournaments, he thinks of missions and snap-jawed beasts with their hollow eyes and soundless voices.
He tries time and time again to reach out to these fleeing fragments of memory which linger at the edge of his subconscious, incorporeal as dreams. Sometimes, he sees a man with poison-green eyes who can never meet his stare; other times, he sees a girl, nameless and faceless who remains distant and faraway, a hazy figure seen through smoke-streaked glass.
It’s futile, Roxas realises belatedly as he faces the zipper-mouthed, silver-skinned creature whose limbs wriggle like river weeds-all the while, he’s been chasing shadows of dreams when the truth was in front of him all along.
* * *
iv.
You’re back in your own reality, and it’s odd - unsettling, even - to return to the world of the living, away from a hollow world of phantom memories and empty voices. You’re away from the stark white silence of your cell - you’re back home, surrounded by the sand and the sea, the salt breeze tickling your nose, watching the sun set alongside the girl with coral-bright hair.
“Did you say something?” you ask Kairi, but she only gazes at you with confusion on her face and a question on her lips.
“Never mind,” you say, answering her before she can voice the words which teeter on the tip of her tongue.
She worries about you - you can see it in her eyes.
You can’t tell her - not yet. You can’t tell her about the voices you hear at the back of your mind, the forlorn murmurs of those long gone: you hear all of their hopes and dreams, their fears and fantasies. You know what they wish for: you feel their anger, their regrets, everything, as though their emotions are your own.
Humans are such fragile things, you realise that now - you know it from the boy named Ventus who came to you so long ago, the one who lost his heart and had nowhere to go; you know it from the Nobody whose bitterness suffuses your soul, from the imperfect puppet-girl who nobody remembers, the weight of her decisions keeping you awake at night. You know it from the way the aster-pale witch-princess had shattered the heart of your friend’s doppelgänger, destroying him in one fell swoop.
It’s a delicate balance, a tentative state of equilibrium you’ve established between them all, and you can’t break it - not now.
To: cygna_hime
From: lazzchan
Title: First Meeting
Rating: G
Word Count: 100
Spoilers: None!
Notes: I hope you enjoy this ficlet. ^_^
Olette remembered the first time she had seen Fuu. They had been in elementary school and Olette was ready to take over the first grade class. She'd "nudged" a boy out of the seat she wanted and was ready to go and learn and make as many friends as possible.
Fuu was sitting in the corner, bangs falling over eyes and just watching people. There was a careful, almost calculating look on her face and Olette realized the Fuu was set to take over the class, too-just in a different way.
Olette knew they would be friends or enemies.
~
Title: New Summer
Rating: G
Word Count: 370
Spoilers: None here, either.
"It's so hot," Olette complained, flopping over on the dusty couch in the secret room that the boys had mostly outgrown, but Olette went back to occasionally. She missed the times when they were kids and they hung out here; when they plotted revenge on Seifer's gang or thought of ways to earn money so they could go to the beach.
"You wanted to be here," Fuu's voice was quiet. She talked more than she had before, but whenever she spoke, it was always direct and to the point.
"Yeah, but summer's so hot."
"Summer break."
Olette grinned. "Remember summer vacation before?" she asked. "When we looked forward to that whole month or so of freedom and didn’t do our homework?"
"I always did." Fuu shrugged. "You waited."
"Still- we had so much fun," she sighed and looked up at the pipes and listened to the sounds of the trains rumbling nearby. "Then we had to grow up." She sounded rather sad about that.
"Not always bad." Fuu sat down next to her, watching her carefully. She always watched. "Adults have fun, too."
Olette blinked up at her and sat up a little, so that she wasn't straining her neck to talk to the other girl. "Yeah, I guess so-" She grinned. "At least we're not battling like we did when we were teenagers."
"Boys are stupid." Fuu rolled her eyes.
"Yeah," Olette smiled. The boys weren't here-they were working out in the next town over and wouldn't be home for awhile. That was what friends did when they grew up; they moved away from each other. It didn't make them any less of friends, though and there were some amazing memories.
Fuu continued to watch her, expression intent and Olette wasn’t sure what to make of it. "Go to my house?" she suggested. "Cooler there than here."
Olette nodded and bounded to her feet, following Fuu out the door. It wasn't the same as before and Olette gave her old hangout one last look as she left it; hopefully some other kids would find it and make use of it, just as she, Hayner and Pence had. This summer was a new one and it was just beginning.
To: burningmayo
From: cygna_hime
Title: Cinnamon
Wordcount: 992 (*limbos in under the limit*)
Genre: Action/Romance
Spoilers: None (AU).
Notes: What is this I don't even. This universe didn't even exist two hours ago and now it's set up camp in my brain. Thanks a lot.
Summary: Christmas in the city (if killing monsters is what you do for fun).
December 25, 1:27 am.
In a city, no street should be this quiet. Even in the middle of the night, there should be people shopping late, walking home, living night lives in the night city. But not this street, not tonight. Not after five bodies in five weeks were found on this street on Friday nights, not killed by anything the cops can find. Just dead, and no one to say why. City people are tough, they’ll tell you. People die every day on city streets at night; what’s a few more matter? But even city people have their animals’ senses, and right now those senses are telling them it’s time to den close. No one wants to walk this street on a Friday night.
Olette’s got her hands in her coat pockets as she strolls down the sidewalk like there’s nothing wrong, but she can feel it just fine, the hunter in the shadows. It comes to her nose in a smell like old roses, with a curling hint of the cinnamon that is magic. She wonders how it could have caught its other victims unawares.
They were all sensitive, like her, people who can sense what is really there no matter how well it hides. That’s what brought her and her team in on this. Fuu can smell magic behind data like Olette can smell it on the air, after these years of practice; she was the one who picked out the obituaries and rumors and got them on the trail they’ve followed this far, the one who guessed that the victims, all of them a little strange, might be sensitive. As far as they can tell, it’s true, so the victims should have sensed somehow the same thing that Olette’s smelling.
She shrugs. Maybe they didn’t know how to interpret it. Maybe they didn’t know what it was they were sensing, the way she used to not know. Maybe they were on the lookout for mundane dangers, not a monster out of nightmares. It’s not important to her; she knows what she’s smelling.
It’s coming closer, drawn by the whiff of magic that curls around her. She pretends she doesn’t notice.
The monster, whatever it is, has been chasing people with magic. Now that this street is empty, it will move on to a new one. If they don’t give it something to chase first, a new victim that’s too good to be true.
Twenty-five yards behind her, a streetlight shatters. Olette starts to run.
She doesn’t look back to see what’s chasing her, but she doesn’t have to: she can smell it, old roses stronger and stronger like bad perfume, and she can hear it in the crashes of streetlights breaking. She can run, now, as fast as she can, sneakers slapping on the concrete; the real victims probably ran too, as fast as they could away from their deaths.
Only she’s not running away; she’s running to.
She gets the knife out of her pocket just before she turns the corner. She can smell the others waiting. Fuu smells like static electricity, ozone and wool. She’s never told anyone what Tifa smells like to her. Right now she can’t smell either of them, just the cinnamon of the magic they’re using to hide. She makes directly for the strongest smell, in the middle of the street where she spent a vitally important half hour earlier in the evening.
It’s gaining on her; the lights are breaking one behind her and then not even that. The one above her head breaks as she flings herself across the circle, as she slides the knife across her palm in the air, as she slaps her bleeding hand down on the meticulously etched chalk, as she closes the circle behind her.
The monster never even sees Tifa coming, she’s so well hidden. She strikes it with all the force human muscle can bring to bear, the enchanted gloves she wears letting her blows connect with something not entirely of the world.
Olette can smell the monster scrabble at the walls of the magic circle while something it never sees breaks its ectoplasmic bones. It smells like fine wine.
When she can’t smell roses anymore, she breaks the circle.
The enchantment swirls away from Tifa back into the amulet that holds it. All three of them have one like it. It was the first thing they made together, as a team.
Olette’s hand is still bleeding. Tifa takes it, her hands as gentle as if she never hit anyone in her life. “You should get that cleaned up. I don’t want to think about the germs that must be around here.”
The adrenaline pumping through her keeps Olette from caring about germs. Tifa never looks more beautiful than after missions like this. Victory suits her, makes her face flush and her eyes shine. “Can’t it wait a little bit?” She reaches up and pulls Tifa down for a kiss that smells like sunrise.
When she pulls away, Tifa is flushed even more, but she shakes her head firmly. “Let me bandage your hand first. Then we can.”
Fuu tosses Tifa the first aid kit she always carries. “Here,” she says drily.
“Thanks!” Olette says.
Tifa tries to look put-upon. It doesn’t work very well. “We should really go back and wrap up the file, you know.”
“Fuu, could you do me a huuuge favor?”
Fuu’s ozone crackles like a chuckle as she fades back into the shadows as only she can. “Merry Christmas.”
“That’s right!” Olette recalls. “It’s Christmas. And aren’t you supposed to spend Christmas with the one you love?”
Tifa attacks her palm ruthlessly with a disinfectant swab. “I have the strangest feeling I’m being had.”
Olette smiles, not the smile that gets her places she has no right to be, but the smile she wears just for Tifa. “I’ll make it up to you with a great Christmas present.”
To: lacunarity
From: burningmayo
Title: More Than Gold
Word Count: 966
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None
A/N: Rikku has the attention span of a mayfly and drives Tifa nuts. :P Hope you like!
“Another dead end.” Tifa stepped out of Merlin’s house in Radiant Garden. Leaned against the wall. “It shouldn’t be that hard to find him. There’re only so many guys with spiky blonde hair and huge swords.” She sighed. Glanced at the surrounding buildings. “Okay. If I were him, where would I-oh, wait.” Tifa smiled and clapped her hands. “There’s a fountain near here. Maybe he’s waiting for me there. That’d be romantic of him. For once.”
Tifa began walking down the path toward the fountain and glanced up at the sky. Nice day out today. Maybe if I find him I’ll have a little time to enj-“Ow.” She felt something small and hard collide with her knee, but continued on her way.
“Hey, watch where you’re goin’, you big jerk.”
“Huh?” Tifa glanced around. No one else appeared nearby. With a shrug, she moved on.
“Hey, listen. I’m talking to you, you friggin’ giantess.”
“Giantess?” She looked down at her feet. Saw a small fairy with wild, blonde hair fluttering around her legs. “What’s the matter?”
“You nearly ran me over.” The fairy flew up to Tifa’s eye level. “Are you paying any attention to where you’re going?”
“Sorry, I just, I was heading to the fountain to look for-”
“For treasure?!” The fairy’s eyes lit up with delight. She did a lap around Tifa’s head. “You’re looking for treasure at the fountain?”
“What? No.” Tifa shook her head. “No, I’m looking fo-”
The fairy cupped her tiny hands to her mouth and shouted, “Yunie, Paine. This big lady here is looking for treasure.”
Two more fairies flew into Tifa’s view. One, a brunette, wore a sweet smile on her face. The other wore dour annoyance. The smiling one spoke. “Did you say she’s looking for treasure, Rikku?”
“Yep, she is.”
Tifa sighed. “No, I’m not.”
“She says she isn’t.” The dour one shot the blonde a nasty look.
“Well, maybe she’s lying.” The blonde flew behind Tifa’s head. Tifa felt the fairy tug on her hair. She waved her hand at her.
“I’m not lying. I keep telling you-”
“Hey.” The dour fairy flew in front of Tifa’s face. Poked her nose with her tiny finger. “Don’t swat at her like that. What are we, flies?”
Tifa rubbed her nose. “But your friend started it. I didn’t-”
“Paine, stop.” The brunette fairy pushed herself between Paine and Tifa. She then gave Tifa a polite bow. “I apologize for my friends. I’m Yuna, and these are Rikku and Paine.”
Rikku flew around and pushed Tifa aside, excited. “We’re you’re friendly neighborhood something-or-others.”
Paine pulled Rikku away from Yuna. “She was about to say that, you know.”
“But I wanted to say it.” Rikku pouted. “I like doing that part of our intro.”
Tifa’s eyes wandered in the fountain’s direction. “Ooookay. Well, I’m Tifa, and I’m looking fo-”
“So where’s the treasure?” Rikku asked.
Tifa sighed. These three are exhausting. “I keep trying to tell you, there’s no treasure.”
“No treasure?” Rikku appeared shocked. “How can there be no treasure? You said you were looking for treasure.”
Tifa slapped her forehead. “I never said I was.”
Rikku began to respond when Paine fluttered behind her and clapped a hand over her mouth. “Rikku, have you been mishearing things again?”
“Mmm, marbyr.”
Yuna flew a loop around the others. “Maybe? Is that a yes or a no?”
Rikku pulled Paine’s hand away from her mouth. She glanced up at Tifa. “No?”
Paine scratched her head. “So she is looking for treasure?”
Yuna nodded. “Seems that way.”
Tifa stared at the fairies, dumbfounded. “How does, what, I- Why are you taking her word for it? Rikku hasn’t listened to a word I’ve said.”
Paine flew again to Tifa’s eye level. Tifa thought her stern face made her look imposing despite her tiny frame. “How do we know you’re not lying?”
“You can’t be serious.” Tifa sighed. “This. Is. Ridiculous. I’m looking for a guy, not gold.”
Rikku grinned. “Guys have gold.”
“That’s not why I’m looking for him. Can’t you three go bother Scrooge McDuck, or something? I’ve got work to do and you’re making me run behind.”
The fairies all averted their gazes. Yuna seemed to shuffle her feet in midair. “We already talked to Scrooge.”
Paine nodded. “The security at his home is pretty intense. We’re not going back there.”
Rikku shivered. “Newspapers everywhere. It’s safer goin’ after your treasure.”
I can’t deal with this. If I don’t get rid of them now, they’ll never leave me alone. Tifa squinted her eyes. Made a show of adjusting her gloves. Cracked her knuckles. “I’m looking for a blonde guy with spiked hair who carries around a really big sword.”
The fairies shrank back. Gave Tifa nervous looks. Rikku cleared her throat. “Is it because he’s got lots of-”
Tifa glared at Rikku. Shifted her gaze to a nearby barrel. Smashed it with a single punch. Shattered chunks of wood flew everywhere as water splashed across Tifa’s legs. She turned back to the fairy. “Don’t you dare insinuate I’m after him for his money.”
Rikku gulped. Hovered at attention. “Yes, ma’am. We’ll be going now.” She flew off.
Paine followed. “Rikku, wait.”
Tifa and Yuna watched the two leave, and then the remaining fairy flew up to Tifa’s eyeline. “I’m very sorry for the intrusion. I’m pretty sure the others are, too. Maybe.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” She watched Yuna fly off after her friends. “Greedy little buggers. What do fairies need treasure for, anyway?”
A streak of light shot in front of Tifa’s eyes. She blinked. Rikku had returned, an excited look in her eyes. “Well, since you asked-”
Tifa bit her lip. What have I done?
Merry Christmas, everyone! :)
To: iki_teru
From: ceylmallyn
Title: I'm Not Afraid
Word Count: 1346
Rating: G
Notes: For some reason, my imagination kind of took off running with this pairing, even though I've never written it before or anything close to it. Still, it was fun! (Also, you said you liked fairy-tale themes, so the concept was kind of based very lightly on The Story Of A Boy Who Went Forth To Learn Fear. Hope I managed to get a decent balance of fluff/dramatic here.) merry christmas!
"There are some things about you I really want to know."
The day above was sunbright and breezy, but underneath the rickety dock it was warm and dark. Riku wasn't sure how he got talked into this. Maybe just because it was Selphie, and Selphie was-- well, she was her, and she'd always been there, like Sora and Kairi.
Only she didn't know the things about him they knew. And like most of the other Islanders, she'd moved warily around him since he got back-- sensing some change in him, something she couldn't quite understand. He'd expected her to drift away. So when she told him after school that she needed to ask him something private, and didn't want anyone else hearing-- well, he'd been surprised.
And she'd dragged him down here-- unseen by anything but the sea and sand.
"I just... wonder. You're not scared of me?"
"Scared?" She blinked. "Nah. You're just kind of mysterious. But that's... not scary, it's cool."
"I..." He looked away. "I'm worried that if you knew more about me, you might not say that."
"Okay. I'll make a promise." She smiled, and there was an odd element in that smile he couldn't quite place. "If you can really scare me, then I'll stop asking you questions."
Riku blinked. "Scare you?" Well, she'd always been a daredevil-- the kind of kid who'd sit up all night in a cemetary hoping to glimpse a ghost. But there was child-scary, and then there was... scary. The dark places in the universe you could live without ever knowing about, and be better off for it. He felt he didn't want her to know-- she was cheerful and innocent and bright, and everything else that he would never be again. But somehow, he found himself saying "I guess so."
"I've heard rumours about you at school. I always wanted to find out the truth."
"What kind of rumours?" Long before any of them had heard of Keyblades or Heartless, he'd been the subject of gossip-- small towns had their definite opinions on the people among them who seemed out of place. And some of them were flat-out ridiculous, but with Selphie so close to Kairi... he didn't know what hints she had dropped.
"Well... I heard that you went on a long journey, the year you left the Islands." He nodded-- a journey could mean so many things that the rumours weren't necessarily close to truth.
"Go on..."
"That you found another world, and you traveled there. You and Sora. He jokes about it when people ask where he went, but I think some of them aren't jokes."
...yeah, it was just like Sora to do that. And just like Selphie to take it seriously, too.
"And I've heard that you have some kind of weird power." She leaned in closer, a thrill of excitement lilting in her voice.
"What would you do if all of that was true?" He tried to make his voice sound foreboding, warning, but it just kind of cracked.
"If it was..." Fingers pulled at her bracelet. "I'd wanna hear all about it."
"You would... want to? Why?"
"Because..." Her eyes shone with dreamy faraway thought. "I always hoped things like that really existed. Other worlds and magic and adventures." She moved to twirl hair around one finger. "You always talked about it, before you left. And I thought you were really cool and brave for wanting to do that-- leave the Islands, go on adventures in another world." Blushing, she drew back. "So... is it true? It's okay if it's not. I just, well..."
"Huh?"
"I always believed there really were other worlds. And that maybe you could... tell me about them, if you'd seen them." Her gaze fell. "Maybe it's silly, but..."
"Yes." He forced the sounds out. "There are other worlds. And I... went to some of them." His voice felt strange and thick, spilling out the truth so bluntly. "I don't know if you could call it an adventure. Or if it was, it wasn't a good one."
"Really? There wasn't anything good in it at all?" She didn't flinch at the revelation. "You didn't get to see anything amazing or wonderful in any of them?"
Well, he could hardly say that. Selphie did have a point, some part of him admitted-- there were amazing things, in the worlds he'd seen. Only he hadn't been able to appreciate them...
She caught the hesitation in his eyes. "There was, wasn't there? I know things can be amazing and scary at the same time. Like... like thunderstorms. Or volcanoes. But sometimes those are the most interesting things."
"Yeah, there were amazing things," he admitted, grudgingly. "I was just... busy. There was something I needed to do. Something I needed to fix, after a big mistake I made. So I didn't have time to focus on them."
"I'm sorry." The sympathy in her eyes was real, and Riku didn't know how to respond. "I wish you'd been able to. But, still..." She wrapped her arms around herself, smiling softly.
"But what?"
"It's just so awesome that I met someone who went to other worlds, and came back to tell me all about it!" Her hands fell to her lap. "So that doesn't scare me. You have to try harder."
"Okay." He fell back, leaning against a rock.
"So what about your weird power? Is that real, too?" Selphie propped herself up, peering as though it were something physical she could glimpse.
This was turning into a losing battle-- he didn't know what to do. "Um..." Riku knotted fingers in his lap, surprised to realize they were coated in nervous sweat. "Supposing that... I did have one, would you promise not to tell anyone about it? Whether it scared you or not."
"Hmm." Selphie bit her lip. "Well... maybe Kairi? I don't like to keep major secrets from my best friend."
"But Kairi already knows." He said it without thinking, and was then relieved she couldn't see him blanch with fear in the shadows. "I mean... if I did have one, she would know about it."
He realized that the strange noise she was making was laughter. "Hey, what's so funny?"
"Just that you're a bad liar!" She giggled lightly, rocking on her heels. "So come on, show it to me. I want to see it."
"Uh..." He balked; this was Selphie, sun-bright Selphie with her eyes and heart full of light. Someone untainted by darkness, who shouldn't see its powers. Selphie who'd always been there-- like Sora and Kairi and their hearts filled with light--
"Is it one of those things that are amazing and scary at the same time?" She studied him, wide-eyed with anticipation. "But it's okay. I want to see things like that. Even if they are a little scary. That's how life is, right?"
"...Yeah." He shrugged. And concentrated. Selphie watched, unblinking, as dark fire gathered in his hand and threw shadows across the sand, pulling rays and strands of light out of the sand and the dock-planks and her hair.
She watched the swirls of black-blue-violet carefully, as if it were something fragile that could disappear with a breath.
"Are you... scared?"
"Nope!" She hugged herself again. "Not scared at all. That's awesome!"
Riku blinked in strange befuddlement, wordless relief. The darkness dissipated into filaments, drifted outwards.
"Ooh, that's kind of cold." Selphie giggled again, rubbing her arms. "But shivering and being scared aren't the same. I'm still not afraid."
"So..." His voice shook a little, but he was laughing with joy, too. "What does scare you, Selphie?"
"I don't know! Maybe if you travel to other worlds again, I'll go with you, and I'll see something that's really scary." The tease in her voice faded. "Actually..." She reached for his hand, where he'd previously held darkness, and clasped it in hers. "I'm scared of losing my friends. That's what scares me. Please promise you won't ever leave again without telling me."
And he promised her, in their hideaway where light nestled with shadow, and meant it.
To: syvia
From: iki_teru
Title: And Look How Things Could Have Been
Word Count: 2,231 (think of it as several drabbles in one entry, m’kay?)
Rating: G? I don’t think I even used any bad words here :D
Spoilers: none that I can think of.
Notes: I tried cutting this down, really I did. But I felt that, a)you deserved the details, and b) it felt less to me without them. Also, there was much squeeing when I got my assignment and I know this isn’t under any kind of intense situation, but I hope you still like it ♥ (alsoooo, there is age jumping happening here, I’m not sure if that was clear or not. So, note, you gets one.)
Riku glares upward at the sky, as if it is personally responsible for his current bad mood - and not, in fact, his still absent best friend. He has no idea how long he and Kairi have been standing on the beach waiting for Sora. Long enough for Kairi to grow bored with conversations about the weather and homework and start building a sand-castle with supplies they keep for emergencies in the tree house. Neither of them had worn a watch, and while Riku had been trying to divine the time via location of the sun, so far all he had for his trouble was the beginning itch of a headache.
"He’s late," he finally announces, as if their entire existence hinged on this big reveal.
"And you sound surprised." Kairi sweeps the little plastic shovel against the side of her still growing sand-mound, smoothing it out with careful precision. She peeks at him from the corner of her eye and flashes a quick smile coupled with a little just saying kind of shrug.
He can’t really argue with her, and decides it’s not befitting his station as an almost-teenager to stoop to childish squabbling. "It’s just, we can’t really do anything til he gets here." Which isn’t entirely true, Sora very rarely cares what they do so long as they’re all together and is usually quite happy to jump into the first thing suggested. Still, and Riku is loathe to admit this, he feels off balanced when the numbers don’t equal three.
Kairi hums a tuneless melody as she packs more sand into the bucket. "We could play hide-and-seek while we wait?"
He scoffs at this and looks at her like she’s gone green and scaly. "No way, I’m too old for those kiddie games."
"You are not." She drops a handful of sand onto his head. It’s soft and dry and Riku only has to give his head a firm shake to dislodge the worst of it.
“I am so,” he insists, “I’m almost a teenager.”
It’s Kairi’s turn to make rude noises at him. "Almost only counts in horseshoes," she quips back so fast Riku has trouble following for a moment. Then she adds, "Oh, we could play horseshoes. I think that old set is still up in the tree house."
"Thanks, but I’ll pass. You get mean, and those things are kind of heavy." He rubs absently at his shoulder, still remembering the sting from last time they attempted a game.
"You’re such a baby," Kairi chides. She shoves the bucket at him, now empty and light it bounces harmlessly against his chest. "Go get some water; it’s time for the moat."
Riku stands and gives a dramatic bow. "Of course, princess." He laughs at her expression, her squinty eyes and scrunched up nose and protruding tongue, but still does as he was told.
Kairi has dug the moat too deep and wide for such a puny little castle and it takes several trips down to the roiling waves to fill it. "I’m going to catch a crab," she tells him upon his second trip back, "and name him Sebastian and this will be his castle. I think he’ll keep all his sheet music inside it." Riku wisely chooses not to comment on the strange places Kairi’s mind seems to drift some days.
There is nothing left to do but wait, the two of them and the little crabless castle, for the last member of their party to arrive. Kairi has taken to decorating her creation with remnants of shells and leaves, Riku finally bites the bullet and leans over to join her when they both hear a familiar voice shouting to them.
Sora comes tripping across the dock, going down on his knee once before scuttling back to his feet and talking a mile a minute. "Youguyswon’tbelievethisit’sthecoolestthingever."
Only Kairi interrupts his steady babble with a startled gasp. "Sora, what happened to your face?" She prods the dark bruise that has blossomed beneath his left eye carefully and shoots a suspicious glance behind her at Riku.
"Hey. I didn’t touch him." Riku holds his hands up defensively in a sad attempt to keep Kairi at bay.
Sora grins sheepishly. "Oh no. That was me. I was practicing my sweet moves with my sword last night and ran into the door."
Kairi looks shocked at this revelation and Riku is helpless to do more than laugh. "But that’s not the cool part!" Sora insists, taking several tripping steps backwards. "Watch."
He starts flailing the hand holding his sword in a wild manner, manages to bonk himself in the forehead once. "I’m alright," he tells Kairi who has taken a hesitant step towards him. "Hang on, it can take a while." His tongue is poking out the corner of his mouth and his eyes are screwed up in the deepest expression of concentration. Sora brings the sword down in a solid arc and sighs as the wood shifts into some sort of metal contraption. “See.”
They do see, although neither is exactly sure what it is they’re seeing. "Is that a key?" Riku finally asks, poking at the smooth silver much the same way children are prone to poke at unfamiliar animals.
"Yup," chirps Sora. "It was really weird, because I thought I saw a shadow in my room moving," and at Riku’s expression of disbelief he’s quick to add, "totally dumb, I know. But there was this tense moment where I thought it was going to get me and then," Sora motions to the key as if that explains everything.
Kairi makes appreciative little cooing noises and runs a hand delicately against the parts that make up the teeth of the key. "Does it have a name?" she asks quietly, blinking up at Sora with a far away expression.
"I call it Bob." Sora replies.
Riku fixes him with a mildly appalled look. "That’s dumb, what does it even do?" He slants his body a little to the side, already bringing up his sword to parry Sora’s incoming blow, which is delivered without fail.
Sora grins, launching into another strike as he says, "It kicks your butt."
Twenty minutes later finds the three of them gathered around the splintered remains of Riku’s toy sword. "Huh." He says, lost for any other response to this particular situation. "Now what?"
Sora looks first at Kairi and then over to Riku. His strange blade has disappeared, gone to rest in lands unknown until Sora bashes himself in the head again to bring it back. "Wanna play hide-and-seek?"
Riku shrugs, an easy unaffected motion. "Sure."
------------------------
There is something sitting on Sora’s chest. He grumbles in his sleep and tries to roll over to push the something off, but it’ll have none of that. "Sora," says the thing, "Sora, please wake up."
The something turns out to be Kairi and she’s not sitting on his chest so much as resting both her hands there and shaking him gently. He blinks sleep out of his eyes, stares from his open window to the girl kneeling next to him on his bed.
He wants to ask what she’s doing here so late, wants to ask if she’s okay, if she realizes she’s in a boy’s room, wants to know why she felt the need to sneak into a boy’s room past midnight. "Kairi, you’re a girl," is all he manages.
She smiles at him, offers a halfhearted giggle. "Yea, I am. But that’s not what’s important right now." Her face has gone all serious and Sora finds himself snapping quickly into the waking world. "Sora, do you remember last year when you first got the keyblade?"
"The what?"
"Bob, Sora. When you first got Bob."
A ding of recognition lights up his eyes. "More or less, yea."
"You remember the shadow you thought was in your room, the moving one?"
Sora nods mutely, trying to swallow the acidic fear bubbling in the back of his throat at what he knows Kairi is about to say. "I think they’re back."
His first time fighting the walking shadows happens while he’s barefoot and in pajama pants. There’s only three of them; they don’t put up much of a fight, but stare at him in an almost quizzical manner. He thinks they might be cute in different circumstances, if they weren’t so alien and frightening.
"Kairi, you weren’t out here with those things, were you?"
Her entire body is trembling a little, but she doesn’t cry like Sora expects her to. "No," she says, "I was in my room but… but I felt them, Sora." Kairi places both her hands over her heart, either shielding it or reminding herself she’s okay. "They felt wrong. I did try to attack them, you know. Stole a knife from the kitchen, but it didn’t do anything. Not like your keyblade did."
He wonders where she got the name from, decides it doesn’t really matter (and yea, okay, it’s a little cooler than Bob). Sora pats her once on the shoulder, like he would do with Riku after a good fight. "Sleep with the phone next to you; I’ll do the same - and if you feel anymore of them, call me. Okay?"
She doesn’t say anything in reply, only gives one quick jerk of her head in affirmation before stumbling back towards her own house. Sora does the same and tries not to worry about what he’s just gotten himself into.
There will be more shadows, Sora has no doubt about that, but the intervening years are so quiet he can almost completely forget about that night before they appear again.
----------
"You do know you could just ask the janitor to open it for you, it’s considerably less breaking-and-entering than this." Riku stares down the hallway, making sure no teachers happen their way while Sora does his increasingly familiar jig to try and summon the keyblade. "Haven’t you figured that thing out yet? It’s been four years."
"Shut up, this is a lot more complicated than it looks." He finally manages to pull the keyblade into the physical world, grinning a little maniacally as he does so and tries his best to ignore Riku’s pessimistic question of, "Is this even going to work?"
Sora stands a few feet away from the door in question and aims the keyblade like a shotgun. He feels a sharp tug behind his navel and thrusts the blade forward, turning it sideways in the middle of the air. The door unlocks with a soft click and he feels fully entitled to the happy dance he performs in the empty hallway. Also, the "I told you so" song he serenades Riku with.
Riku pushes him into the room, hissing a reminder that they’re here to grab his things so stop goofing around. His mind wasn’t occupying the same hallway as his body. Instead, he was thinking about secret places and unopenable doors.
----------------
Kairi has a little to-do list pinned to the mast of their raft. She has checked it over three times, and is going over it once more for good measure. "Well, boys, I believe this is it." She flashes her friends a brilliant smile. "Last day on the islands, are you nervous?"
Riku waves her question off, keeping his focus on the horizon as if he could picture their destination by sheer will. Sora, however, is staring doubtfully at the logs they had so painstakingly tied together to form their escape vehicle.
"I wonder," he says, "how far can a raft take us?"
"There is another option," says Riku, turning the full heat of his gaze on Sora. "Why go out, when we can go in?" At his friends' confused expressions, he continues, "The door inside the secret place. We have a key, Sora. We can finally open it - who knows what we’ll find in there? It might-"
"No!" Kairi cuts him off, eyes wide and a little wild, her breathing heavy. "Riku, no. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should." She stands tall, shoulders square but both boys can see the idea of the door bothers her, a lot. They promise to drop the subject, that they’d already agreed the raft is their best bet.
The sun sets, the three friends bid each other good night. "Sunrise," Kairi says, "don’t forget."
---------
Only, Riku can’t sleep. There’s a storm rolling in and he can’t stop thinking about that door, hidden deep within the secret place. He rolls out of bed before he can really consider his actions and is back on the island in practically a blink.
The door looms in front of him. It has remained unchanged for all these years. He touches it, tracing the keyhole emblazoned in light upon its center. There is a voice from behind him - the same old man who was in here when he came to gather the mushrooms for Kairi.
You have the power, you can open the door, says the man.
Riku does not speak to the man; words aren't necessary. He holds his hand up as a blade materializes. It’s similar to Sora’s, he knows that, but only on a rudimentary level. Because, unlike Sora, Riku isn’t afraid to use his for its true purpose.
He smiles as the mysterious door swings open.
(and now, we begin)
To: tabitha_dornoc
From: syvia
Title: "If you believe, clap your hands."
Word Count: 950
Rating: PG
Spoilers: n/a
Author's Note: *hugs* It's a pleasure to fill your request. :D Guess where the kids landed~ I'm sure you only need one.
The transformation spell wasn't dangerous. Theoretically.
It drew information from the World around it and imbued you with qualities that would enable you to blend in among the people who lived there, keeping you safe from superstitious and potentially dangerous residents. Merlin had neglected to mention the spell did not keep you safe from taking a header into the local shrubbery before you realized your legs had been switched out for flippers, or doubled, or encased in an extraordinarily tight pair of pants. Which Kairi seemed to appreciate, as she squeezed the material to feel its texture. Also his butt.
Riku congratulated himself on not jumping. He reached backward, fumbled past the cape on his shoulders - which wasn't long enough to cover much of anything - and snagged his girlfriend around the waist.
Kairi was already laughing. Already protesting. "I can't help it," she giggled, not attempting to evade his grip, "you look hot!"
He doubted that, but it was nice to know someone appreciated the costume. Kairi herself looked beautiful - fancier than he got to see her outside one of Queen Minnie's formal parties. The gown was royal blue trimmed in silver, floor length. Her shoulders were bare but the sleeves were long, tapered to points over the backs of her hands. There was cleavage - which could never be discounted. Any dress that showed cleavage was awesome. Still, this was formal, regal, and would have been even without the silver circlet perched on her forehead. The heart decoration at the center had been carved, throwing off light without a need for gems. It screamed royalty the way her mischievous expression did not.
Riku searched for the source of this debacle (Sora could cast just fine, really. It was the spell's fault. But Riku felt better if he could blame the boyfriend) and froze. Kairi felt his reaction, turned to look as well--
Mostly red with gold trim. The outfit had puffy shoulders above tight sleeves and a tunic belted at the waist. The lower half cut off at the hips. Riku's outfit probably matched it, up to and including the tiny cape which did nothing to disguise Sora's--
"Wings...?" Kairi breathed.
Riku very quickly checked between his shoulder blades. Nothing. Thank the Light. Sora didn't notice, examining his pointy little red shoes and grimacing.
"Something feels different."
Riku choked.
"No," Sora responded, not looking at him, "really. Something other than the outfit."
Riku was certain he knew what that something was, but he couldn't form sound at the moment. He was likely to laugh... or cry.
Sora was... was....
The transformation spell tried to fit your borrowed shape to what you actually were as closely as it could. Kairi was certainly a princess. Riku figured he was a knight of some kind. That made Sora a... he could barely think it. They were only lucky (if the clothing was any indication) this wasn't one of those Worlds where one half was in denial about the other. Magic was rooted in belief and in a world where half the populous did not believe, creatures that were more than half magical could be killed by denial.
Though Kairi had willed Sora back into existence before.
Riku had noticed - after a few Worlds and more casual interaction - that magic had its own smell. Separate from Light. Separate from Darkness. The basic 'smell' of any being was an overwhelming mass that broke into smaller, just as potent scents. A garden that became individual plants. A sewer that became distinct forms of refuse. More pleasant by far with beings of Light. But people, whether light or dark, smelled differently when their physical composition included a great deal of magic. There was a particular quality to their scent. Something he could only describe as... sparkly.
Princess, knight... Sorathing. There was something to this. Riku had ignored enough tirades about Princess Aurora and her always-do-well guardians to know-
Guardians. Sure. Cinderella had her Godmother, Aurora had her aunts, Kairi had Sora-- who had carried her heart around inside his own for months.
Better Sora than him. He'd had enough of transformation - both deliberate and involuntary - to last his lifetime. He avoided it whenever possible and tolerated it (barely) when necessary. Sora, on the other hand, seemed to relish it.
"I think I just learned five new spells," he said, smiling gleefully.
Riku was afraid to ask what they were.
"Is that normal?" Kairi murmured, stepping away from Riku and approaching Sora to (not so subtly) examine the wings. She didn't touch them, and Sora continued to - as far as Riku could tell - be oblivious to his new appendages.
What really got him was the color. The wings were pale red. Not pink. Thankfully. Red - transparent, gauze-like red. Spun-sugar butterfly-shaped wings the color of a candy apple which didn't look big enough to carry him. But Sora was more magic than not right now they'd probably work fine.
"Sometimes," he shrugged, not at all concerned. "I've got to try them out!" Then he drew his Keyblade. He blinked, and then stared.
Someone was laughing, and distantly, Riku understood that it was him. He realized it was quite loud, and he wasn't standing anymore, and Sora was too distressed by the sight of his tiny, deformed tool of Heartless Annihilation to ask what was wrong - or even become angry that Riku was laughing at him.
The Kingdom Key was now about the length of Sora's forearm, thin and luminescent white with tines and a hilt that looked in danger of snapping off if Sora held the blade too tightly.
Tears streaked Riku's face as he kept laughing.
"Um...." Kairi offered a smile. "At least it matches your wings?"
To: lettersandliars
From: tabitha_dornoc
Title: Games We Play
Word Count: 999
Rating: PG13 (for between-the-line implications)
Spoilers: post KHII
Summary: While world-sitting TWTNW there are only so many ways to fend off the quiet, the loneliness, and the shadows that lurk.
Notes: Eep, darling, I hope at least some of what you were looking for is tangled up in here. I enjoyed your prompts muchly! I just wish I had more words to play with. <3
Kairi wins with scissors.
The boys’ palms, laid flat, recoil and drop into pockets (Riku) and entwine behind neck (Sora).
Sora sighs, says he was going to choose rock, but whatever. Good luck, godspeed, and please please please bring back a haste block.
Riku shakes his head, makes a face at Sora, says, “I don’t think she controls the mail.” It’s either fond or annoyed - too early in the morning to tell, and they ran out of all drinkable caffeine two days before, so at this point their moods are anyone’s guess.
So maybe she’s glad to have picked scissors, glad to walk from the flickering hallways (the lights are powering down, they aren’t sure how to fix them and are hesitant to use magic too consistently here,) out into the rainy streets and down to the edge of the world.
Or maybe she’s wishing she chose rock.
Out in the main hallway, far from the boys’ bickering, Kairi has two options, and therefore a dilemma. The quickest way out of the buildings is across the east balcony and down the barred corridors. The quickest way also takes her past the rooms she occupied months ago with… entirely different company. The rooms pull at her, beckon her, and no. No.
The longer way is a small maze of turns and passages, and even without getting lost it takes significantly longer and then the boys will know and they will look at her and she stopped appreciating their pity before they even began offering it, thank you.
The lights are so ill-used on this path they shine solid and bright. Keep them on. Shadows are alive here. No matter how fast you run, they reach out, clawed and sneaky, grab at your ankle, pull at your arms, wrap around you and whisper, you are frightened, you are cold, your heart beats all its secrets to me, and she can hear the air being parted by a claymore, gloved fingers brushing and -
Outside, the sky is clouded and dark and not at all like home, spitting down rain like it’s sulky and offended. She has an umbrella, cherry red, and a basket for the mail - all three of them exhausted any jokes about Little Red Riding Hood within the first few days.
Between the worlds, at the border, in a space that smells more like heartless than nobodies, fire-tinged, and will forever make her pause, just for a moment, and remember Axel, is a small pocket of space where they can collect the things the king sends.
There’s nothing new to report on their end. The city is safe, is holding, is balancing the things that were and never were. The whole world was collapsing, before. It cannot stand empty, and they certainly weren’t going to create more nobodies to keep it full and existing. The faint pieces of Other the three hold are enough for the world, and as long as they stay here…
The king is working on a solution. Soon. All his letters says so.
It’s on one of these letters, envelope torn and folded in half, she scrawls: MORE COFFEE PLEASE. She doesn’t stay to watch it vanish.
Turns out there is a haste block, and Sora is not quite giddy-jubilant about it, but Kairi rolls her eyes as if he were. It makes him grin wider.
“You don’t even know, Kairi. C’mon, look at this. Look what I can do now!”
Sora (and Riku, though he feigns disinterest like the best of them) is designing the ultimate gummi ship. He’s had blueprints and schematics and lists of parts scattered across the basement floor since day one. There was an old clunker hidden below, and they all three spent some time speculating just what it was doing there and why, before Sora got hooked on the idea of scraping up some tools and some parts and mostly making Cid damn proud.
(Possibly the ecstatic note attached to the first shipment of gummi supplies was borderline homoerotic, except no, Kairi, Cid’s just real happy and this is going to be fun, and would you give that back I need to burn it.)
Gummi parts are hardly a rarity. They’re everywhere now that space is so congested and broken and they all wish they were out there instead of trapped here keeping balance, but at least they’re together in their helplessness.
“Check. This. Out,” Sora grins, backing away from the chalkboard sketch of the Best Engine Ever. Riku glances over the measurements and connections, frowning, but his fingers tap an excited rhythm against his arm.
Kairi’s response is less than noncommittal.
“Kai-ri, this is awesome. Don’t you wanna see? C’mon. You could design the outside! What do you want our ship to look like?”
She doesn’t take her eyes of the ceiling, just sighs. “Make it look like a blue phonebox for all I care. Sora, if it doesn’t crash, I’ll be happy. If we can use it to fly away from here, I’ll be happier.”
Then there’s a silence, and it’s lengthy enough for the lights to flicker, enough for the shadows to creep from their hiding places, to lick at her bare skin and laugh at her shiver and silly child, do you think they would rescue you, do you think they would come for you?, and her mouth snaps shut.
“Sorry,” she says. She’ll blame it on the coffee and it’s absolute absence. They’ll know it’s a lie, but it’s a pretty lie, so her boys will shrug it off, smile for her.
She’ll smile, too, even if the thought of smiling in this place still makes her breath hitch and her heart ache with pounding. “So, someone’s gotta weld that beast on, yeah?”
“Not it!” Sora cries, hands spread empty in the air. Riku and Kairi’s voice echo, “Not it!” and they glare, playfully, but there is only one true way to make fair decisions between them anymore:
Kairi wins with scissors.
To: scenotaphs
From: lettersandliars
Title: For Queen and Country
Word Count: 241
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None
Notes: Merry Christmas! :D
Marluxia knows a lot of things. He knows, with confidence, that no one will suspect a thing until it’s far too late. He knows that the Superior is anything but, that he is just as flawed and hollow as the rest of them. He knows how to win allies, and how to intimidate, and how to charm, honey-sweet. He does not quite know Larxene, but he supposes he is acquainted with her: with the soft, milky curve of her neck against her razorblade clavicle; with the malicious twist to her lips that both enthralls and terrifies; with the constant heat of her skin under his cheek. There is time enough to know her fully, after his work is done.
Larxene knows things, too. She knows how to make a body writhe underneath her, that it is a sight to behold to watch life drain out of it. She knows, a little, how things used to be. She sees flashes of another life in nightmares and wakes up, chilled but mostly vexed. She doesn’t think she enjoyed that life much. She knows that Marluxia is treacherous, but faithful in ways that she is not; it would be prudent for her to follow him, to simper at his side and take all that he has to give. Let him have his kingdom; she has him.
It’s good to be queen.
To: lazzchan
From: scenotaphs
Title: fragile things
Characters/pairing: Sora, Kairi, Aqua, Ven, Roxas; nonpairing.
Word Count: 1080
Rating: G
Spoilers: For Birth By Sleep!
Notes: Enjoy! And have a very merry Christmas C: Eeek I exceeded the limit a bit ;;
i.
Sometimes, it feels almost as though you’ve lived through things more than once.
It’s like you’ve seen your best friend fall prey to his own misgivings, his own insecurities, over and over. You know it has only happened once, but you can’t help but feel as though you’ve experienced this before - watching someone you hold dear submitting to the darkness which slumbers in their heart.
When you’re kept awake at night by fitful dreams of Castle Oblivion and the forgotten girl trapped within it, you wonder just how many times it has happened to you. How many times you have been sealed away in a bone-white silence, doomed to a Rip Van Winkle slumber? How many times you have had your memories picked apart and reassembled by the whim and fancy of some sorrowful witch or some disillusioned idealist?
Even before sleep claims you, even before you fall into dreamless rest, you always remember those wistful blue eyes on a face filled with more sadness than you’ve ever seen, with your name on her (but who is she?) lips, promising you something. I’ll come back for you, she says sometimes, or, I’m sorry.
You want to reach out so badly for those fleeing fingertips, but you can’t.
You wonder how many times you’ve felt the contours of a seashell-charm, sharp against the palm of your hand; how many times you have clutched it for reassurance; how many times it has acted as a beacon when you’re lost and alone, when the weight of the world seems too much for you to bear.
How many times-?
It’s a fragile thing, memory. Perhaps your time spent within the Naminé’s prison has scrambled your thoughts and addled your brain. You can’t rely on your recollections, not when they seem so fluid and ever-changing, never remaining constant for long.
Sometimes, you see Kairi in your dreams: she holds you so close, as though she can’t bear to let you go, and makes you promise to return. Other times, it’s someone else with sorrow in her smile and goodbyes on her lips, telling you she’ll never leave you behind.
But leave you behind they both do, in your prison of crystal petals and clamouring voices-voices that never seem to leave you alone.
* * *
ii.
It’s like she’s rewinding in slow motion - Ven seems so fragile, so breakable, sprawled in that cold chair which is more throne than humble seat. It seems as though he’s the lost boy again she met all those years ago, the very same boy who had looked at her with such trust in his eyes.
She feels like she has let him down, has betrayed him in the worst possible way. I couldn’t save you, she says to the slumbering boy. I couldn’t save you-I failed you, not only as a comrade, but as a friend.
There’s no way for her to forgive herself; how can she? The world as she knows it is tumbling down around her, and nothing is as it seems-Terra is gone, consumed by his own doubts and inner darkness, and Ven has been-
Wait for me, she says as she seals him away - like the witch cursing the prince, she thinks with a shudder - watching as the doors close on his sleeping form. I’ll make sure your heart finds its way back to you.
When she leaves, she doesn’t look back - she can’t, for fear of not being able to carry on.
* * *
iii.
Sometimes, when he sits atop the Clocktower, he remembers - but the memories that come to mind do not involve the familiar faces of Hayner, Pence and Olette.
Those faces surface when he least expects them: he could be gazing into the honey-gold skies of eternal twilight, abandoning the salty-sweet ice-cream as it melts sticky-cold to his hands, when he glimpses slivers of a life that never was.
Instead of childish smiles and laughing eyes, he sees tear-stained cheeks and lying faces; instead of homework assignments and Struggle tournaments, he thinks of missions and snap-jawed beasts with their hollow eyes and soundless voices.
He tries time and time again to reach out to these fleeing fragments of memory which linger at the edge of his subconscious, incorporeal as dreams. Sometimes, he sees a man with poison-green eyes who can never meet his stare; other times, he sees a girl, nameless and faceless who remains distant and faraway, a hazy figure seen through smoke-streaked glass.
It’s futile, Roxas realises belatedly as he faces the zipper-mouthed, silver-skinned creature whose limbs wriggle like river weeds-all the while, he’s been chasing shadows of dreams when the truth was in front of him all along.
* * *
iv.
You’re back in your own reality, and it’s odd - unsettling, even - to return to the world of the living, away from a hollow world of phantom memories and empty voices. You’re away from the stark white silence of your cell - you’re back home, surrounded by the sand and the sea, the salt breeze tickling your nose, watching the sun set alongside the girl with coral-bright hair.
“Did you say something?” you ask Kairi, but she only gazes at you with confusion on her face and a question on her lips.
“Never mind,” you say, answering her before she can voice the words which teeter on the tip of her tongue.
She worries about you - you can see it in her eyes.
You can’t tell her - not yet. You can’t tell her about the voices you hear at the back of your mind, the forlorn murmurs of those long gone: you hear all of their hopes and dreams, their fears and fantasies. You know what they wish for: you feel their anger, their regrets, everything, as though their emotions are your own.
Humans are such fragile things, you realise that now - you know it from the boy named Ventus who came to you so long ago, the one who lost his heart and had nowhere to go; you know it from the Nobody whose bitterness suffuses your soul, from the imperfect puppet-girl who nobody remembers, the weight of her decisions keeping you awake at night. You know it from the way the aster-pale witch-princess had shattered the heart of your friend’s doppelgänger, destroying him in one fell swoop.
It’s a delicate balance, a tentative state of equilibrium you’ve established between them all, and you can’t break it - not now.
To: cygna_hime
From: lazzchan
Title: First Meeting
Rating: G
Word Count: 100
Spoilers: None!
Notes: I hope you enjoy this ficlet. ^_^
Olette remembered the first time she had seen Fuu. They had been in elementary school and Olette was ready to take over the first grade class. She'd "nudged" a boy out of the seat she wanted and was ready to go and learn and make as many friends as possible.
Fuu was sitting in the corner, bangs falling over eyes and just watching people. There was a careful, almost calculating look on her face and Olette realized the Fuu was set to take over the class, too-just in a different way.
Olette knew they would be friends or enemies.
~
Title: New Summer
Rating: G
Word Count: 370
Spoilers: None here, either.
"It's so hot," Olette complained, flopping over on the dusty couch in the secret room that the boys had mostly outgrown, but Olette went back to occasionally. She missed the times when they were kids and they hung out here; when they plotted revenge on Seifer's gang or thought of ways to earn money so they could go to the beach.
"You wanted to be here," Fuu's voice was quiet. She talked more than she had before, but whenever she spoke, it was always direct and to the point.
"Yeah, but summer's so hot."
"Summer break."
Olette grinned. "Remember summer vacation before?" she asked. "When we looked forward to that whole month or so of freedom and didn’t do our homework?"
"I always did." Fuu shrugged. "You waited."
"Still- we had so much fun," she sighed and looked up at the pipes and listened to the sounds of the trains rumbling nearby. "Then we had to grow up." She sounded rather sad about that.
"Not always bad." Fuu sat down next to her, watching her carefully. She always watched. "Adults have fun, too."
Olette blinked up at her and sat up a little, so that she wasn't straining her neck to talk to the other girl. "Yeah, I guess so-" She grinned. "At least we're not battling like we did when we were teenagers."
"Boys are stupid." Fuu rolled her eyes.
"Yeah," Olette smiled. The boys weren't here-they were working out in the next town over and wouldn't be home for awhile. That was what friends did when they grew up; they moved away from each other. It didn't make them any less of friends, though and there were some amazing memories.
Fuu continued to watch her, expression intent and Olette wasn’t sure what to make of it. "Go to my house?" she suggested. "Cooler there than here."
Olette nodded and bounded to her feet, following Fuu out the door. It wasn't the same as before and Olette gave her old hangout one last look as she left it; hopefully some other kids would find it and make use of it, just as she, Hayner and Pence had. This summer was a new one and it was just beginning.
To: burningmayo
From: cygna_hime
Title: Cinnamon
Wordcount: 992 (*limbos in under the limit*)
Genre: Action/Romance
Spoilers: None (AU).
Notes: What is this I don't even. This universe didn't even exist two hours ago and now it's set up camp in my brain. Thanks a lot.
Summary: Christmas in the city (if killing monsters is what you do for fun).
December 25, 1:27 am.
In a city, no street should be this quiet. Even in the middle of the night, there should be people shopping late, walking home, living night lives in the night city. But not this street, not tonight. Not after five bodies in five weeks were found on this street on Friday nights, not killed by anything the cops can find. Just dead, and no one to say why. City people are tough, they’ll tell you. People die every day on city streets at night; what’s a few more matter? But even city people have their animals’ senses, and right now those senses are telling them it’s time to den close. No one wants to walk this street on a Friday night.
Olette’s got her hands in her coat pockets as she strolls down the sidewalk like there’s nothing wrong, but she can feel it just fine, the hunter in the shadows. It comes to her nose in a smell like old roses, with a curling hint of the cinnamon that is magic. She wonders how it could have caught its other victims unawares.
They were all sensitive, like her, people who can sense what is really there no matter how well it hides. That’s what brought her and her team in on this. Fuu can smell magic behind data like Olette can smell it on the air, after these years of practice; she was the one who picked out the obituaries and rumors and got them on the trail they’ve followed this far, the one who guessed that the victims, all of them a little strange, might be sensitive. As far as they can tell, it’s true, so the victims should have sensed somehow the same thing that Olette’s smelling.
She shrugs. Maybe they didn’t know how to interpret it. Maybe they didn’t know what it was they were sensing, the way she used to not know. Maybe they were on the lookout for mundane dangers, not a monster out of nightmares. It’s not important to her; she knows what she’s smelling.
It’s coming closer, drawn by the whiff of magic that curls around her. She pretends she doesn’t notice.
The monster, whatever it is, has been chasing people with magic. Now that this street is empty, it will move on to a new one. If they don’t give it something to chase first, a new victim that’s too good to be true.
Twenty-five yards behind her, a streetlight shatters. Olette starts to run.
She doesn’t look back to see what’s chasing her, but she doesn’t have to: she can smell it, old roses stronger and stronger like bad perfume, and she can hear it in the crashes of streetlights breaking. She can run, now, as fast as she can, sneakers slapping on the concrete; the real victims probably ran too, as fast as they could away from their deaths.
Only she’s not running away; she’s running to.
She gets the knife out of her pocket just before she turns the corner. She can smell the others waiting. Fuu smells like static electricity, ozone and wool. She’s never told anyone what Tifa smells like to her. Right now she can’t smell either of them, just the cinnamon of the magic they’re using to hide. She makes directly for the strongest smell, in the middle of the street where she spent a vitally important half hour earlier in the evening.
It’s gaining on her; the lights are breaking one behind her and then not even that. The one above her head breaks as she flings herself across the circle, as she slides the knife across her palm in the air, as she slaps her bleeding hand down on the meticulously etched chalk, as she closes the circle behind her.
The monster never even sees Tifa coming, she’s so well hidden. She strikes it with all the force human muscle can bring to bear, the enchanted gloves she wears letting her blows connect with something not entirely of the world.
Olette can smell the monster scrabble at the walls of the magic circle while something it never sees breaks its ectoplasmic bones. It smells like fine wine.
When she can’t smell roses anymore, she breaks the circle.
The enchantment swirls away from Tifa back into the amulet that holds it. All three of them have one like it. It was the first thing they made together, as a team.
Olette’s hand is still bleeding. Tifa takes it, her hands as gentle as if she never hit anyone in her life. “You should get that cleaned up. I don’t want to think about the germs that must be around here.”
The adrenaline pumping through her keeps Olette from caring about germs. Tifa never looks more beautiful than after missions like this. Victory suits her, makes her face flush and her eyes shine. “Can’t it wait a little bit?” She reaches up and pulls Tifa down for a kiss that smells like sunrise.
When she pulls away, Tifa is flushed even more, but she shakes her head firmly. “Let me bandage your hand first. Then we can.”
Fuu tosses Tifa the first aid kit she always carries. “Here,” she says drily.
“Thanks!” Olette says.
Tifa tries to look put-upon. It doesn’t work very well. “We should really go back and wrap up the file, you know.”
“Fuu, could you do me a huuuge favor?”
Fuu’s ozone crackles like a chuckle as she fades back into the shadows as only she can. “Merry Christmas.”
“That’s right!” Olette recalls. “It’s Christmas. And aren’t you supposed to spend Christmas with the one you love?”
Tifa attacks her palm ruthlessly with a disinfectant swab. “I have the strangest feeling I’m being had.”
Olette smiles, not the smile that gets her places she has no right to be, but the smile she wears just for Tifa. “I’ll make it up to you with a great Christmas present.”
To: lacunarity
From: burningmayo
Title: More Than Gold
Word Count: 966
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None
A/N: Rikku has the attention span of a mayfly and drives Tifa nuts. :P Hope you like!
“Another dead end.” Tifa stepped out of Merlin’s house in Radiant Garden. Leaned against the wall. “It shouldn’t be that hard to find him. There’re only so many guys with spiky blonde hair and huge swords.” She sighed. Glanced at the surrounding buildings. “Okay. If I were him, where would I-oh, wait.” Tifa smiled and clapped her hands. “There’s a fountain near here. Maybe he’s waiting for me there. That’d be romantic of him. For once.”
Tifa began walking down the path toward the fountain and glanced up at the sky. Nice day out today. Maybe if I find him I’ll have a little time to enj-“Ow.” She felt something small and hard collide with her knee, but continued on her way.
“Hey, watch where you’re goin’, you big jerk.”
“Huh?” Tifa glanced around. No one else appeared nearby. With a shrug, she moved on.
“Hey, listen. I’m talking to you, you friggin’ giantess.”
“Giantess?” She looked down at her feet. Saw a small fairy with wild, blonde hair fluttering around her legs. “What’s the matter?”
“You nearly ran me over.” The fairy flew up to Tifa’s eye level. “Are you paying any attention to where you’re going?”
“Sorry, I just, I was heading to the fountain to look for-”
“For treasure?!” The fairy’s eyes lit up with delight. She did a lap around Tifa’s head. “You’re looking for treasure at the fountain?”
“What? No.” Tifa shook her head. “No, I’m looking fo-”
The fairy cupped her tiny hands to her mouth and shouted, “Yunie, Paine. This big lady here is looking for treasure.”
Two more fairies flew into Tifa’s view. One, a brunette, wore a sweet smile on her face. The other wore dour annoyance. The smiling one spoke. “Did you say she’s looking for treasure, Rikku?”
“Yep, she is.”
Tifa sighed. “No, I’m not.”
“She says she isn’t.” The dour one shot the blonde a nasty look.
“Well, maybe she’s lying.” The blonde flew behind Tifa’s head. Tifa felt the fairy tug on her hair. She waved her hand at her.
“I’m not lying. I keep telling you-”
“Hey.” The dour fairy flew in front of Tifa’s face. Poked her nose with her tiny finger. “Don’t swat at her like that. What are we, flies?”
Tifa rubbed her nose. “But your friend started it. I didn’t-”
“Paine, stop.” The brunette fairy pushed herself between Paine and Tifa. She then gave Tifa a polite bow. “I apologize for my friends. I’m Yuna, and these are Rikku and Paine.”
Rikku flew around and pushed Tifa aside, excited. “We’re you’re friendly neighborhood something-or-others.”
Paine pulled Rikku away from Yuna. “She was about to say that, you know.”
“But I wanted to say it.” Rikku pouted. “I like doing that part of our intro.”
Tifa’s eyes wandered in the fountain’s direction. “Ooookay. Well, I’m Tifa, and I’m looking fo-”
“So where’s the treasure?” Rikku asked.
Tifa sighed. These three are exhausting. “I keep trying to tell you, there’s no treasure.”
“No treasure?” Rikku appeared shocked. “How can there be no treasure? You said you were looking for treasure.”
Tifa slapped her forehead. “I never said I was.”
Rikku began to respond when Paine fluttered behind her and clapped a hand over her mouth. “Rikku, have you been mishearing things again?”
“Mmm, marbyr.”
Yuna flew a loop around the others. “Maybe? Is that a yes or a no?”
Rikku pulled Paine’s hand away from her mouth. She glanced up at Tifa. “No?”
Paine scratched her head. “So she is looking for treasure?”
Yuna nodded. “Seems that way.”
Tifa stared at the fairies, dumbfounded. “How does, what, I- Why are you taking her word for it? Rikku hasn’t listened to a word I’ve said.”
Paine flew again to Tifa’s eye level. Tifa thought her stern face made her look imposing despite her tiny frame. “How do we know you’re not lying?”
“You can’t be serious.” Tifa sighed. “This. Is. Ridiculous. I’m looking for a guy, not gold.”
Rikku grinned. “Guys have gold.”
“That’s not why I’m looking for him. Can’t you three go bother Scrooge McDuck, or something? I’ve got work to do and you’re making me run behind.”
The fairies all averted their gazes. Yuna seemed to shuffle her feet in midair. “We already talked to Scrooge.”
Paine nodded. “The security at his home is pretty intense. We’re not going back there.”
Rikku shivered. “Newspapers everywhere. It’s safer goin’ after your treasure.”
I can’t deal with this. If I don’t get rid of them now, they’ll never leave me alone. Tifa squinted her eyes. Made a show of adjusting her gloves. Cracked her knuckles. “I’m looking for a blonde guy with spiked hair who carries around a really big sword.”
The fairies shrank back. Gave Tifa nervous looks. Rikku cleared her throat. “Is it because he’s got lots of-”
Tifa glared at Rikku. Shifted her gaze to a nearby barrel. Smashed it with a single punch. Shattered chunks of wood flew everywhere as water splashed across Tifa’s legs. She turned back to the fairy. “Don’t you dare insinuate I’m after him for his money.”
Rikku gulped. Hovered at attention. “Yes, ma’am. We’ll be going now.” She flew off.
Paine followed. “Rikku, wait.”
Tifa and Yuna watched the two leave, and then the remaining fairy flew up to Tifa’s eyeline. “I’m very sorry for the intrusion. I’m pretty sure the others are, too. Maybe.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” She watched Yuna fly off after her friends. “Greedy little buggers. What do fairies need treasure for, anyway?”
A streak of light shot in front of Tifa’s eyes. She blinked. Rikku had returned, an excited look in her eyes. “Well, since you asked-”
Tifa bit her lip. What have I done?