Because I've heard, 'It needs more Xaldin'...
So I did this fic a while back, and I thought to share it here. It's Xaldincentric and takes place in Wonderland, no pairings, and PG. It turned out to be a lot of fun to write and it went over somewhat well on ff.net.
Please enjoy!
We're all Mad Here
After traversing through many unusual places, encountering many unusual beings, and fighting off the resident nuisances ("Why, they're only a pack of cards, after all."), Xaldin very much wished he was back in the World that Never Was. The very reason he had thought to leave was to escape the insanity of his own world, but the madness in Wonderland far surpassed the realm of the Nobodies. Yet the most threatening thing he had yet to come across were the Card Soldiers, and though they were quite annoying (and their Halberds hurt rather badly) he could easily create a wind strong enough to blow their oblong and flat bodies through the air and out of his way.
The Whirlwind Lancer traveled through the Lotus Forest until he was sure none of the Card Soldiers were following him anymore (he was, after all, on the Queen of Heart's long execution list for materializing onto her majesty's croquet-ground and thus disturbing her game) but he then remembered that he had no set destination and thus no idea where he was going.
"It would seem," he said aloud, since hearing his own voice helped him to think, "that I could either keep in this direction and find where it leads, or I could take a dark corridor back to the World that Never Was. But I've been trying to get away from the World that Never Was and most of the other worlds bore me, so I might as well stay on this one. Besides, from what I've seen, this place presents nothing dangerous, just bizarre."
To which was answered,
"Bizarre can be quite dangerous, but mad people have trouble seeing what's dangerous and what isn't."
Xaldin looked up to be startled by a grin floating in mid-air. The grin was followed by the head, body, and tail of a purple cat, which sat still on a tree branch. He stared at the strange creature for a moment and decided it too was not dangerous, just one of Wonderland's peculiar inhabitants.
"I'm not mad" He told the cat, "in fact, from what I've seen I'm the only one who's not mad."
The Cat's grin grew wider
"If you truly believe that, you're the maddest of us all. Every one who visits Wonderland is mad. Every one who lives here accepts their madness."
Xaldin thought against arguing the subject and said,
"Are there any places of interest in this world?"
The Cat looked up, down, left, right, and it spun its head in a full circle before answering,
"Everywhere is a place of interest, Wonderland is an interesting place, you see."
Xaldin groaned.
"No," he said, "what I meant was...never mind, where are you going?"
It raised its paw down the way Xaldin was heading, "The March Hare lives just that way, he's holding the Mad Tea Party. I'll see you there." And with that, the cat was gone.
Deciding to follow the cat's instructions, Xaldin continued through the woods until he spotted a house with features that looked just like a rabbit's. He didn't see anyone inside as he looked through the windows, so he followed the sound of laughter that came from behind the building. In the backyard a large table was set, but there were only five present; the cat who had led him there, the March Hare who owned the house, a small man with a large hat putting butter in a pocket watch, a dormouse who was asleep, and a little girl in a blue dress who seemed to be enjoying herself in the odd company. The girl was the first to spot him,
"Good day,sir," She said cheerfully, "my name is Alice, who are you?"
"And would you like some tea?" said the man in the hat.
Xaldin sat down at the tea-party and took some tea from the strange man.
"My name is Xaldin," he said, "and I was asked to come here by that cat." Alice looked over to the purple cat, whose presence was upsetting the dormouse, now wide awake.
"The Cheshire Cat asked you to come here? I suppose you're not from Wonderland are you?"
Xaldin decided against explaining his situation in its entirety, so he stated,
"No."
The party was quiet for a bit, save for the trembling of the dormouse, hidden in one of the teapots, before the March Hare said,
"So, tell us, when did you go mad?"
"I'm not mad." Xaldin responded, more defensively then he might have noticed.
"Oh, we're all mad here," said Alice, "The Hatter went mad ages ago, the March Hare went mad...well, last March, the Dormouse is mad whether he's asleep or awake, the Cheshire Cat was born mad, and...well, now that I think of it, I guess I was born mad too."
Xaldin looked at the tea suspiciously.
"I can't be mad. I've got nothing to go mad with."
Alice tilted her head up at Xaldin,
"Do explain, Mr. Xaldin."
The Hatter, the Hare, and the Cheshire Cat were all looking at him expectantly. He tried to think a way through explaining without really explaining, but the only way to plead his sanity was to tell the party,
"I cannot feel emotion, therefore I can't go mad."
This sent Alice, the Mad Hatter and the March Hare into fits of laughter, and the Cheshire Cat widened his grin. This frightened the dormouse, who darted from the teapot up Xaldin's sleeve and into the safe refuge of his hair. Xaldin demanded to know what was so funny, without doing anything about the dormouse.
Said the Cheshire Cat,
"First, you tell us why you came here."
"Yes!" Said the Hatter, "Tell us a story!"
Xaldin was inclined to leave the Mad Tea Party. He was more inclined to spear the lot of them through with his lances, but he settled for entertaining them a bit.
"I decided to come here from my world to escape my fellow men for a bit."
"What kind of world is it?" Alice interrupted.
"...A very dark world. It's cold and almost always raining and I'd rather not live there."
"Then why do you?" She inquired further.
"Let him finish!" The Hatter snapped. Alice fell back into her seat.
Xaldin thought whether or not to relate his tale to these mad creatures, but against better judgment continued,
"I stay there because I have nowhere else to go. I made... a few mistakes early on and have lost a great deal. I, my group and I, seek to become whole again. First there were six of us, then there were thirteen, now there are six left and two have turned against us."
"How awful!" Alice cried out. Xaldin attempted a smile, the sympathy was a shallow relief. She was once again shushed by the Hatter and the Hare; the Cheshire Cat looked, if anything, uninterested.
"But our leader only thinks that we can correct our past wrong deeds with more wrong deeds, and I just couldn't help but think that there was something amiss with our goal to complete ourselves."
"How are you going about completing yourselves?" Alice ventured.
"Kingdom Hearts."
The Cheshire cat said to that,
"It answers everything. It's how you all went mad, you see?"
"I don't." Xaldin snarled at the cat he was beginning to strongly 'dislike', "Do tell."
"Yes, Cheshire-puss," said Alice, "I don't quite understand either."
The Cat took off its own head and started to toss and catch it in its paws.
"People with hearts can go mad, but so can those without. To go mad, one merely needs something to go mad over."
Alice clapped her hands and shouted, "I get it! Kingdom Hearts makes people go mad!" This annoyed Xaldin very much, since he wanted to know what a seven year old girl could figure out. "You can't not be mad because you don't have hearts! In fact, it's your lack of hearts that make Nobodies so susceptible to madness!" Xaldin inwardly twitched, realizing that he had never mentioned the word 'Nobody' and didn't want to know how she figured it out. "You look at Kingdom Hearts and think that it will make you whole again, am I right?"
"You are."
"But all the while, you keep on trying to complete it, and you don't realize that the more it is complete, the less you are complete. It's flawed logic, and thus, mad. Mr. Xaldin, you don't need hearts to go mad, just a mind. A mind that is full of paradoxes and 'contrawises' and circular reasoning is insane. And the reason that you can't think straight is that Kingdom Hearts makes thinkers go mad."
"Thinkers go mad! Thinkers go mad!" The Mad Hatter and the March Hare chorused as they toasted with their tea. "Thinkers go mad! Thinkers go mad!" Alice laughed and clapped her hands at her own cleverness. Xaldin felt suddenly uncomfortable.
"Without Kingdom Hearts, I can't get my heart back." The Cheshire Cat's floating head looked him cross-eyed and said,
"If you keep thinking that, you are going to die. Ashes to Ashes, Darkness to Darkness, Nothing to Nothing to Nothing to Nothing..."
"I have to go" He said suddenly and got up from the tea-party.
"Wave good-bye Alice," shouted the Cheshire Cat, "It's the last time you'll ever see him!"
"No! Mr. Xaldin, don't go!"
He left the Mad Tea Party and the Mad Party-goers.
"Oh, Mr. Xaldin, wait! Please!" Was the last thing he heard before he opened the corridor into the Darkness.
Back in the World that Never Was
"Xaldin?"
"What is it?"
"You have a mouse in your hair."
"I know, Xigbar."
"Want me to kill it?"
"No."
"You're crazy."
If only you knew... he thought. Kingdom Hearts. Thinkers go Mad.
K-I-N-G-D-O-M-H-E-A-R-T-S
T-H-I-N-K-E-R-S-G-O-M-A-D
Please enjoy!
We're all Mad Here
After traversing through many unusual places, encountering many unusual beings, and fighting off the resident nuisances ("Why, they're only a pack of cards, after all."), Xaldin very much wished he was back in the World that Never Was. The very reason he had thought to leave was to escape the insanity of his own world, but the madness in Wonderland far surpassed the realm of the Nobodies. Yet the most threatening thing he had yet to come across were the Card Soldiers, and though they were quite annoying (and their Halberds hurt rather badly) he could easily create a wind strong enough to blow their oblong and flat bodies through the air and out of his way.
The Whirlwind Lancer traveled through the Lotus Forest until he was sure none of the Card Soldiers were following him anymore (he was, after all, on the Queen of Heart's long execution list for materializing onto her majesty's croquet-ground and thus disturbing her game) but he then remembered that he had no set destination and thus no idea where he was going.
"It would seem," he said aloud, since hearing his own voice helped him to think, "that I could either keep in this direction and find where it leads, or I could take a dark corridor back to the World that Never Was. But I've been trying to get away from the World that Never Was and most of the other worlds bore me, so I might as well stay on this one. Besides, from what I've seen, this place presents nothing dangerous, just bizarre."
To which was answered,
"Bizarre can be quite dangerous, but mad people have trouble seeing what's dangerous and what isn't."
Xaldin looked up to be startled by a grin floating in mid-air. The grin was followed by the head, body, and tail of a purple cat, which sat still on a tree branch. He stared at the strange creature for a moment and decided it too was not dangerous, just one of Wonderland's peculiar inhabitants.
"I'm not mad" He told the cat, "in fact, from what I've seen I'm the only one who's not mad."
The Cat's grin grew wider
"If you truly believe that, you're the maddest of us all. Every one who visits Wonderland is mad. Every one who lives here accepts their madness."
Xaldin thought against arguing the subject and said,
"Are there any places of interest in this world?"
The Cat looked up, down, left, right, and it spun its head in a full circle before answering,
"Everywhere is a place of interest, Wonderland is an interesting place, you see."
Xaldin groaned.
"No," he said, "what I meant was...never mind, where are you going?"
It raised its paw down the way Xaldin was heading, "The March Hare lives just that way, he's holding the Mad Tea Party. I'll see you there." And with that, the cat was gone.
Deciding to follow the cat's instructions, Xaldin continued through the woods until he spotted a house with features that looked just like a rabbit's. He didn't see anyone inside as he looked through the windows, so he followed the sound of laughter that came from behind the building. In the backyard a large table was set, but there were only five present; the cat who had led him there, the March Hare who owned the house, a small man with a large hat putting butter in a pocket watch, a dormouse who was asleep, and a little girl in a blue dress who seemed to be enjoying herself in the odd company. The girl was the first to spot him,
"Good day,sir," She said cheerfully, "my name is Alice, who are you?"
"And would you like some tea?" said the man in the hat.
Xaldin sat down at the tea-party and took some tea from the strange man.
"My name is Xaldin," he said, "and I was asked to come here by that cat." Alice looked over to the purple cat, whose presence was upsetting the dormouse, now wide awake.
"The Cheshire Cat asked you to come here? I suppose you're not from Wonderland are you?"
Xaldin decided against explaining his situation in its entirety, so he stated,
"No."
The party was quiet for a bit, save for the trembling of the dormouse, hidden in one of the teapots, before the March Hare said,
"So, tell us, when did you go mad?"
"I'm not mad." Xaldin responded, more defensively then he might have noticed.
"Oh, we're all mad here," said Alice, "The Hatter went mad ages ago, the March Hare went mad...well, last March, the Dormouse is mad whether he's asleep or awake, the Cheshire Cat was born mad, and...well, now that I think of it, I guess I was born mad too."
Xaldin looked at the tea suspiciously.
"I can't be mad. I've got nothing to go mad with."
Alice tilted her head up at Xaldin,
"Do explain, Mr. Xaldin."
The Hatter, the Hare, and the Cheshire Cat were all looking at him expectantly. He tried to think a way through explaining without really explaining, but the only way to plead his sanity was to tell the party,
"I cannot feel emotion, therefore I can't go mad."
This sent Alice, the Mad Hatter and the March Hare into fits of laughter, and the Cheshire Cat widened his grin. This frightened the dormouse, who darted from the teapot up Xaldin's sleeve and into the safe refuge of his hair. Xaldin demanded to know what was so funny, without doing anything about the dormouse.
Said the Cheshire Cat,
"First, you tell us why you came here."
"Yes!" Said the Hatter, "Tell us a story!"
Xaldin was inclined to leave the Mad Tea Party. He was more inclined to spear the lot of them through with his lances, but he settled for entertaining them a bit.
"I decided to come here from my world to escape my fellow men for a bit."
"What kind of world is it?" Alice interrupted.
"...A very dark world. It's cold and almost always raining and I'd rather not live there."
"Then why do you?" She inquired further.
"Let him finish!" The Hatter snapped. Alice fell back into her seat.
Xaldin thought whether or not to relate his tale to these mad creatures, but against better judgment continued,
"I stay there because I have nowhere else to go. I made... a few mistakes early on and have lost a great deal. I, my group and I, seek to become whole again. First there were six of us, then there were thirteen, now there are six left and two have turned against us."
"How awful!" Alice cried out. Xaldin attempted a smile, the sympathy was a shallow relief. She was once again shushed by the Hatter and the Hare; the Cheshire Cat looked, if anything, uninterested.
"But our leader only thinks that we can correct our past wrong deeds with more wrong deeds, and I just couldn't help but think that there was something amiss with our goal to complete ourselves."
"How are you going about completing yourselves?" Alice ventured.
"Kingdom Hearts."
The Cheshire cat said to that,
"It answers everything. It's how you all went mad, you see?"
"I don't." Xaldin snarled at the cat he was beginning to strongly 'dislike', "Do tell."
"Yes, Cheshire-puss," said Alice, "I don't quite understand either."
The Cat took off its own head and started to toss and catch it in its paws.
"People with hearts can go mad, but so can those without. To go mad, one merely needs something to go mad over."
Alice clapped her hands and shouted, "I get it! Kingdom Hearts makes people go mad!" This annoyed Xaldin very much, since he wanted to know what a seven year old girl could figure out. "You can't not be mad because you don't have hearts! In fact, it's your lack of hearts that make Nobodies so susceptible to madness!" Xaldin inwardly twitched, realizing that he had never mentioned the word 'Nobody' and didn't want to know how she figured it out. "You look at Kingdom Hearts and think that it will make you whole again, am I right?"
"You are."
"But all the while, you keep on trying to complete it, and you don't realize that the more it is complete, the less you are complete. It's flawed logic, and thus, mad. Mr. Xaldin, you don't need hearts to go mad, just a mind. A mind that is full of paradoxes and 'contrawises' and circular reasoning is insane. And the reason that you can't think straight is that Kingdom Hearts makes thinkers go mad."
"Thinkers go mad! Thinkers go mad!" The Mad Hatter and the March Hare chorused as they toasted with their tea. "Thinkers go mad! Thinkers go mad!" Alice laughed and clapped her hands at her own cleverness. Xaldin felt suddenly uncomfortable.
"Without Kingdom Hearts, I can't get my heart back." The Cheshire Cat's floating head looked him cross-eyed and said,
"If you keep thinking that, you are going to die. Ashes to Ashes, Darkness to Darkness, Nothing to Nothing to Nothing to Nothing..."
"I have to go" He said suddenly and got up from the tea-party.
"Wave good-bye Alice," shouted the Cheshire Cat, "It's the last time you'll ever see him!"
"No! Mr. Xaldin, don't go!"
He left the Mad Tea Party and the Mad Party-goers.
"Oh, Mr. Xaldin, wait! Please!" Was the last thing he heard before he opened the corridor into the Darkness.
Back in the World that Never Was
"Xaldin?"
"What is it?"
"You have a mouse in your hair."
"I know, Xigbar."
"Want me to kill it?"
"No."
"You're crazy."
If only you knew... he thought. Kingdom Hearts. Thinkers go Mad.
K-I-N-G-D-O-M-H-E-A-R-T-S
T-H-I-N-K-E-R-S-G-O-M-A-D