| The Thirtieth Aura • Text | Offline |
[ - Back Dated To Dawn | Partially Filtered To Sango - ]
[Four o'clock in the morning probably wasn't the best time to be sending a text message, but to one resident of Adstringendum, it really doesn't matter. He had much more important things to worry about.]
I have a surprise for you. Meet me on the roof of the safe house at dawn.
[Dawn. His ( Read more... )
[Four o'clock in the morning probably wasn't the best time to be sending a text message, but to one resident of Adstringendum, it really doesn't matter. He had much more important things to worry about.]
I have a surprise for you. Meet me on the roof of the safe house at dawn.
[Dawn. His ( Read more... )
[But she runs over everything in her mind one last time, just to make sure. Just to make sure that he knows everything he needs to know, that she does, that Raven's words of wisdom resound the same way that they did a week ago, two weeks ago.]
[And to her surprise, everything falls into place. Not exactly--there are puzzle pieces that don't match up quite right, problems yet to solve, obstacles to overcome. But she can see the picture. She can see it, like she's never been able to see the constantly-shifting painting of her and the monk.]
[She can see it, and it is beautiful. Like the lilies: not perfect, not pristine. But beautiful, all the same.]
[So about a half an hour after sunrise, Riku will be getting a voice message. The first thing she's said since she got up.]
Where are you?
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But when the call finally came through, he was hardly expecting the demand that came through with it. A smile crossed his lips, one he couldn't help, foot steps light as he moved across the carpet, picking up the PCD to answer her back, voice calm and easy.]
In the study. You really didn't think I'd go through all that work and then just leave, did you?
[Because nothing could have made him leave at that point. He was set to camp out for the week is he had to. However long it took to get the answer he so desired from her.]
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[Instead, there is the quiet click of the door a few minutes later as it shuts behind Sango. She's facing it, so the only thing Riku can see is her newly-acquired outfit of patched-up jeans and a T-shirt, plus the long ponytail that swishes to her hips--afforded an extra inch or two of growth from her five months (so long already?) in Adstringendum.]
[When she finally turns, she has the silver pendant looped around one hand and the bouquet tucked under the other arm.]
[And she doesn't--know how to start. So for a moment she just--stands there, staring at him, looking almost like a deer in the headlights. A happy(?) deer in the headlights.]
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He allows the silence to settle between them for a few moments, before finally moving forward, across the room until he was within the limits of personal space, pushing through and breaking them, wanting to come into contact with her instead of simply standing and staring. Wanting to finish what it felt like they had started that day in the clinic. Wanting to know what her answer was, what her feelings were. Wanting to know if he would continue on as being just him, alone, or if they would continue on as being them.
And he found that he wanted more than anything to be a them.]
Hey.
[It was all he could think of to say. Hey. Just hey. He wanted to so much more, but couldn't, his mind wouldn't let him. He wanted to embrace her, but he couldn't, didn't want to take things too far and influence her. So instead, he kept it simple, saying what he should instead of what he wanted.]
Did you like your surprise?
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[And she understands why he said "dawn." There is no other time of day when he is so perfect, wrapped so comfortably in the time of day like a cat in a sunbeam. It is him in every way.]
[Dawn... the time for new beginnings. Their new beginning.]
[She could definitely learn to love the dawn.]
[Sango wants this, yes. But she is unused to indulging her own desires. Before, there's always been an excuse.]
[But now... why not?]
[Foreign words, foreign answers. There is no response to the silent question she poses herself.]
[After an eternity, she remembers to breathe.]
Yes. How did you know...?
[Her eyes fall to the lilies.]
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His keyblade was even named for it, for this time of day that had become his favorite, that seemed to embody everything he stood for. Way to the Dawn. Dawn. The pathway between light and darkness.
And suddenly, words he had once said to Sora popped into his mind unbidden:
"If you're the light, then I'll be the dawn. I'll always make sure you rise."
"You're my light. Don't ever think I'd put anyone above you."
His eyes fluttered closed as he tried to force the memories from his mind. He didn't want to think of Sora, not now, not when he was standing in front of her. It was time to move on. To put what had happened between him and Sora into the past and move on, to start a new life with someone else.
Dawn. The time for new beginnings. Their new beginning.
His eyes slipped open once more, the bright green sparkling gently in the early morning sunlight streaming in through the window. And they were only on her, only for her. It was in that moment that he finally let go of what had been between him and Sora. She was his future now. The one he was meant to be with. He believed in destiny, more than anything. Maybe that's why he had come here. Maybe this was his destiny. To meet her.
And he would have gladly of gone through all the heart ache and loss just to be here with her in this moment.
His eyes traveled down to the lilies, a soft smile crossing his features as they moved back up to her own.]
I didn't. It was just a wild guess. But.. I thought they suited you.
[And they did. Somehow, they only made her more beautiful.]
I thought the necklace suited you too.
[For once, his mind didn't flash to the ever present crown pendant that hung around Sora's neck, but instead to how the one currently clasped within her hand would look on her. A symbol of the promise they were making as they stood there, together, not quite whole, but strong because they had found someone who could understand, imperfect but okay because they understood that this was how things were meant to be.]
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[And then she stops, abruptly, and can't help but smile. She will never get used to being read so very easily and accurately.]
I should've known.
[A few days ago, she wouldn't have remembered that she loves, loves lilies, or why. She'd lost it all last week--and though she knew it was missing, she couldn't place it, and she'd felt--admittedly--lost. When that memory, along with all the others, had come rushing back at midnight, it'd been like a punch to the stomach. Everything (re)gained an entirely different meaning and suddenly everything made sense.]
[She had forgotten. She, who never forgets, who has been left to remember.]
[And that bothers her so much more than she'll ever admit. She's not afraid of death--not here, not at home; if anything, what scares her is the thought of failure--and of the loss. It is not losing a limb or a sense that scares her.]
[It's losing her memories. Because she knows, especially because of last week, that they make her who she is. They are what drives her, what motivates her--because without them, how could she know Kohaku? How could she know Naraku? What about all the friends and family, lying cold in their graves, with Sango as the last one who remembers, the last one who could possibly carry on that legacy? Even if Kohaku is alive--he remembers nothing. And she's seen what it's done to him. Without her memories, she's lost.]
[And the terrifying part is how utterly inevitable it is that someday, she will lose them.]
[Whether she's here, in Adstringendum, for three more months or three more decades, someday she'll go back. All she's lost here will be rightfully returned.]
[And all she's gained, all she's struggled and sacrificed for and learned and loved, will be lost.]
[It is a terrifying inevitability they face constantly--confirmed by this last event, that proved they could take her memories (her). With every day and every smile and every good thing and lesson learned--]
[Someday it will all be gone.]
[In Sango, the certainty of loss brings an eerie calm after months of wrestling against the idea. No, she hasn't given up--she's made to fight until she has nothing left--no, she hasn't accepted it, even tolerated it--but even recognizing it is enough. And some days it seems like she's been destined to lose from the start.]
[(Does she even believe in destiny? One step closer.)]
[That calm recognition is the only thing that allows her to stand, tall and broken and smiling, at him. Her loss. Her downfall, her vice, her mistake.]
[(Her gift, her strength, her hope--her missing piece.)]
[Hers.]
[Her island boy. Her keyblade master. Her charmer, her stubborn idiot, her (favorite) jerk. Her friend, her teacher, her one-time housemate, her pretty boy.]
[But never her number one.]
[Does she even have the right to think of him like that? As hers, when she can never fully be his? When he's not hers? When he belongs, body and soul, to his best friend, just as she belongs to her brother?]
[...Her second-best, then. Second-best in the way that only they can know, only they can be.]
[Much better.]
[She breaks his gaze again, smile faltering, and carefully pulls the card from the bouquet in her arms. Her thumb brushes at the edge of the dark writing on the square; her lips open and close and falter, inarticulate, because she doesn't know how to say what she needs to say. She doesn't say, she does.]
...I can't... be yours.
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But I can be second-best.
[And she can be the best damn second-best he's ever known.]
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But that moment passed, and in another, the next, the very next after that long wait, he could almost feel his heart (The one that still beat in his chest, not the one that allowed him to feel, because that one was gone, lost to him forever.) stop, his breath held in his throat.
And when it released it was with pain, physical in a way he could no longer feel emotional pain. But there was no memory to go along with this, no moment to compare it to. He had never been turned down before. He had gotten far to used to hearing the word yes.
His eyes fall closed once more, and he begins to move away, as if he can't stand being that close to her in that moment. How can he? It's like everything he had been looking forward to, hoping for, wanting had been ripped away from him again. Now that, that pain, that sorrow was one he knew well. One he had prayed to never feel again. One he wasn't sure he would be able to with stand feeling again.
"I can't be yours."
But I shared this with you. This. Dawn. My dawn. Everything I am and eveything I will be. And I just handed it to you on a silver platter and you can't --]
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And he knew, better than most, just what they were facing. That one day she would be taken from him or he would be taken from her and the chances of him every actually finding her were slim to none. And it scared him. His one fear, his one downfall. He didn't fear death, didn't fear changing, didn't fear the darkness. Didn't fear falling and losing himself, didn't fear losing his powers, didn't fear being taken over, not anymore. He truly was as fearless as the runes on his back said he was.
Destiny It all seemed to come back to that word. To that one word that had always played such a big part in his life. The island he was from was even named after it, and it had, in so many ways, been the catalyst for his entire life. His want and desire to leave it, his want and desire to find something bigger than himself, his want and desire to find the strength to protect everything, the strength that he knew was out there somewhere.
He had never told about the islands. His islands. His home. The place where his heart lied. He had never told her about the worlds he had visited, about the Dark Margin. Hoe could she possibly have understood what those things meant?
His home, his island, his childhood. His memories, his life, his heart. His land, his ocean his sky.
His sky. His hope. His dreams. His passion. His gift. His strength.
His puzzle. His pieces. His missing piece.
His.
And she fit into it perfectly. She fit into that space like nothing else and like no one else could.
But she could never really be his. She belonged to someone else just as he did. And at any moment, they would forsake each other for the people who truly held them, the people who they truly belonged to. And they would accept it because it was how things were meant to be. Because being second best was all they knew, and all they needed.
His second best.
The words would have sounded so degrading had they been applied to anyone else. And no one else would have accepted them, would have gotten their meaning. Only her.]
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And as the card with it's carefully crafted letters falls to the ground, her name stares back up at him, but he doesn't even notice. What he does notice is the way her eye shimmer in the light and the way she looks at him like he's the only thing in the world that means anything.
Slender fingers reach out, gently pushing back a stray strand of hair, fallen from the tight pony tail she wears, ghosting over her cheek gently as it travels. They brush against her jaw, before his palm cups it, tilting her head up just slightly. Just ever so slightly. And before even he truly knows what's happening, he's pressing into her, closer than he ever dared to before, his own neck bent as he leans downwards.
His nose nudges against hers ever so gently, those bright green eyes still opened and focused on her own swirling brown.]
I thought you'd say that.
[And then the shimmering green is lost behind thick lashes as he closes the space between them, lips brushing over hers briefly, warning her of what's to come before they press against them completely, the kiss soft, gentle, and everything he's ever dreamed of.]
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[This destiny she's still not quite sure if she even believes in.]
[She doesn't know, no; she can't know. Destiny Island. Destiny Is Land.]
[Destiny is Riku. Riku is dawn. The dawn of destiny. She is touching destiny--touching dawn. Touching the intangible, the impossible, and it is solid and here and someday, when she realizes exactly what it all means she will laugh at the irony, the impossibility, the symbolism and the truth, and she will know, consciously, that yes, destiny is real--and it is right here beside her. That dawn is not just the fleeting moment at the beginning of a day, of a lifetime, where things are bright with promise--but a state, where the dimness belies the struggles behind (and in front, and eternal). That dawn isn't a beginning, but every beginning.]
[She is beautifully, hopelessly unaware, but somewhere, somehow, she knows. She can feel it in the sunrise. In the dawn. In him. In the lilies crushed between them (she doesn't care) and the memories she never wants to have to forget. And perhaps she doesn't realize it, quite yet, but someday--slowly--she will. And it will mean all the more.]
[Someday, Riku, she will believe in destiny. And it will be because of you.]
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Don't lie to me.
[It is quiet, but firm. Definitely not a request--not even a reprimand--but not a command, either. It's more like a statement. A fact, even. Because no, he didn't think that. She'd seen just a moment ago the look on his face, the uncertainty, the pain, the devastation as he moved away. And then the look of surprise and elation. Reading and being read--it's a two-way street. Somehow, he guessed her favorite thing in the world. Somehow, he knew the perfect path to work his way into her heart. Somehow he knows so much about her when she's told him so, so little. It's only natural that she know he's lying, isn't it?]
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[And for a moment, it is Sango's first kiss.]
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And destiny didn't matter, as much as he believed in it, as much as he was it, it didn't matter. Only the next moment mattered, the next blink of an eye or the next beat of a heart.
But the words finally broke through the haze, through the fog, and slipped into his consciousness and made sense. Bright green eyes fluttered open as he broke the soft kiss, lips hovering over hers, warmth breath breezing over her face. Just close enough to be tangible but just far enough away to be maddening.]
Fine. I hoped. That better?
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[She won't stand for being lied to, Riku, not even for the sake of him saving face. They're beyond that, aren't they? Such childish games. (Or so she'd like to think.)]
[She shifts back a little, against the door, the lilies still in her arms and yet as forgotten as the card on the floor and the necklace now tangled in her fingers. Said fingers that drift to her lips, just-kissed lips, with a mixture of surprise and fluster and wonder. Not that she's going to tell him she's never been kissed (verbally), but still.]
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