100 Themes KH - Apple
Aaaalrighty, so I've joined http://community.livejournal.com/key_blade/ and http://community.livejournal.com/pyre_flies/ under Auron/Rikku pairings. I'll post them up here, I suppose, as I go on. Soo, first KH Aurikku!
Title: Apple
Game: KHII
Theme + Number: Red - #87, Voice - #31
Claim: auron/rikku
Characters Included: yuna
Rating: T
Warnings: none
Summary: Rikku on picking up apples, red as overcoats from days long past. It sucks to have what you're trying to move on move with you... in most cases.
Apple
Themes #87 - Red, #31 - Voice
Okay, okay, okay, so you wanna know something really funny?
(And when I mean really funny, I mean sort of sad in a kind of smiley way but sort of hurts a little, too, just a little bit and only a little bit but it’s enough-)
I used to… I used to sort of remind myself .Sometimes.
I didn’t mean to, it just sort of happened. I would see a flower, I would eat a cherry, I would be painting a customized sword, I would snatch up an apple and see myself in that shiny, barely-there reflection, and I would see myself in red and it would hurt, a little.
But after a little while, after I damn near killed myself with it, just kept picking up those apples, it started to fade. My chest wouldn’t pound so much, and it slowly didn’t feel like there was something inside of me trying to jump out my throat. It took a while.
But eventually, eventually I could see a red jacket or balloon and it wouldn’t remind me, but it still did remind me sometimes but I could get that image of lights out of my head, of a man bursting into a thousand million bajillion balls of light and he didn’t even say goodbye, not really, but finally I could shove that out my ear and think of him reprimanding Tidus for hitting a hornet nest with his blitzball again or think of a deep, full and rich laugh, one that never came out often, or teasing him that if he forget to shave, one morning he would wake up and wouldn’t be able to find his face behind a mass of grossness facial hair-
I cried and cried and cried when Auron, legendary guardian and hero and all of that good stuff that he didn’t really like in the first place, died.
Well, not died. The truth is, the guy had died ten years earlier. But he didn’t let himself go, because he still had things to do and miles to walk and he couldn’t sleep, not just yet, and it took ten years but he finally let himself rest. But I cried when he let himself go. Which is sort-of the same thing, right?
That was our story. My story. His story, and Yuna’s story and Tidus and Wakka’s story, and the story of a couple of other people you wouldn’t know. Maybe people you’ll never meet. And that’s fine. But it’s sort of not, too, in a little way because why did we survive the heartless when they couldn’t-?
(Story for another time. Nevermind, I won’t bother.)
Anyway.
Me ‘n Yunie ‘n Paine sort of got shrunk in the whole aftermath of the magic combining the worlds. And somehow learned to fly, which is wicked cool. It makes up for the complete and utter lack of human bodies almost. But still not really. But that’s okay - don’t sweat the small stuff, you know? (Oh, oh! Don’t tell me, I know, that’s a pun. How hysterically funny. Not that I’m a little sensitive about that subject, never.)
It was sort of nice that one day, I could just pick up an apple and think, what a nice apple. Or even if I did think this is the exact shade of that stupid red coat, I could totally smile and feel that smile on the inside and out.
(Heeey, you wanna know something else that’s sort of funny? Yunie asked me once how my big red-orange-yellow scarf doesn’t choke me to death, ‘cause the scarf is like my wings, and I think that’s actually a pretty good question-)
My scarf has a little red in it, too.
It’s not my favorite color. My favorite color has and always will be yellow and orange, depending on my mood, if I’m hungry, and how sunny it is or the color of my underwear-
But red is my favorite color to look at. And not because of him, because I’m not weak like that. I just like looking at it, have always liked looking at it, and that’s just another incentive. That’s all.
Anyway, so the Gullwings have been hanging around Hollow Bas- Radiant Gardens, I mean; it’s a nice place. Lots of flowers, way true to its namesake, a little overpowering at times but still real nice. Reminds me of my mama a little, only she never smelt like flowers, and she never had them around either, just maybe the way she smiled and the way her hands braided my hair when I was little (she’s dead, by the way. Has been for some time, so I’ll stop before I hurt myself).
Anyway, us three Totally Amazing Fairies of Awesomeness have been helping Leon and Aerith and Cid and Yuffie and Merlin out a little, in return for room and board. Not that they would mind, really, just set us up in a closet and we’d be fine. Well, not really. I mean, we’d fit just fine, but I’d really rather not live in a closet. Full of cleaning supplies and mops and stuff, just grossness. We’re set up in an extra bedroom.
So, when Sora came in one day and his clothes were different, the same but all red and for the first time in a long time, I picked up an apple and it hurt, it hurt bad and all I wanted to do was be me again the size of Yuffie and pick up a wrench and some metal and wires and oil and get down and dirty like I’ve always done, working away to make something amazing with my hands and focus so completely that it would just go away, go away and leave me alone because I’m not ready for this yet-
I… don’t know why it hit me like that. Like Wakka getting completely KO’d by a pissed-off Lulu (you don’t know her? Don’t ask me-) or getting completely mauled by a Berserked Tidus with his heaviest sword or getting a pound of bricks dumped on your face. (Scratch that last part. That was so totally meant to sound serious.) I don’t know why it hit me hard like all that.
But it did and I think my face just sort of went real pale or something, because Yuna got all worried all of a sudden and Paine just sort of watched her fuss over me with a little bit of concern but mostly just a raised eyebrow like she knew exactly what made me clutch my mini-fied claw so tight that my knuckles went ghost white and made my palms bleed a little.
Yuna sort of figured, though. I mean, I kept telling her I was fine, but she sort of figured anyway because Yunie is real smart and observational and just sort of has this uncanny ability to know, so when I couldn’t get to sleep in my little bundle of blankets (Aerith had convinced Cid to make us little wooden beds - it’s sort of insulting but Aerith only wants to make us more comfortable, which is real sweet so we don’t mind) at one o’clock in the morning Yuna quietly got out of her blanket and drifted over, elegant and pretty and lovely and everything that is Yuna, and my half-awake mind registered that she had put her hand on top of mine, smiling gently and a little sadly and she sang real quiet a song that everybody from where we’re from knows.
I don’t care what you say - this song, once sung by the spirits of our ancestors who sacrificed the rest for their souls to guide us, this song is the most beautiful song that ever made it to the top ten on any world ever. It’s just - when the spirits sang it, it was like they were reaching into you to coax something out, this feeling that was just good. It was like they were singing for you and only you, and like they were telling you that you are you, that they loved you for you. They loved you.
They had to rest, though. We helped them go back to sleep. And I think we all sort of miss it sometimes, but we still all know the song like - like it’s weaved into us. All of us, even me. Like it’s sort of knitted into what makes me me, you know?
So Yuna singing it for me - that just made me feel better. I’ll never hear the Fayth sing again, but it’s the memory and being reminded. It just feels good.
I dreamt of red.
I dream of that a lot. I dream of yellow and white and orange and purple and red, of singing and machines and things from my life. A lot of the time, though? It’s red. I don’t know why. But it’s still sort of there - like, like I can move on but it sort of moves with me, away from the pain and yet it’s still there. And I don’t mind that. (I doubt I’ll find any guy this small anyway. Just thought I’d throw that out there.)
So imagine my surprise when Sora comes prancing in, happy as a clam like usual, to visit and tells us all about how some guy he met finally got away from Hades, and oh yes, the guy is dressed all in red, name is Auron, have you ever heard of him?
Well, I think I just sort of sat there and it seemed like nothing was really there, you know? Everything was sort of dizzy but not really, just all very unreal and then Yuna came in front of me and timidly waved a hand in front of my eyes, smiling a little unsurely and saying Rikku… are you okay? You’re a little pale…
And I just sort of blinked at her. And she said, she said Sora just said… just said he’s back. Auron. Auron, Rikku.
And then I think I sort of just spun up and whooped jubilantly, Yuna smiling as I buzzed over like a tornado to the boy with chocobo hair to demand he tell me everything, and he just sort of went Oh, you know him?
Like hell I knew him, I practically made out with the guy-
Oh.
You weren’t supposed to know that.
…Nevermind. It was sort of a secret. Age difference that would make some people freak a little (like my pops!), you know?
But I just sort of laughed and landed on the table, laughed and laughed, laughing so hard that my eyes were streaming.
“Take me,” I more or less threatened the poor kid, and he blinked and said, sure, Rikku-boss, only not really. Okay, he said I guess you can come if you want to, Rikku. I think he thought I was a little crazy, maybe. Probably. But I laughed and sort of choked but kept laughing with my swirly green eyes all watery from laughing so hard and hugged him around the neck - couldn’t really hug him anywhere else, I hate being small - and I picked up an apple that was red as a coat, and it was all good.
(Oh, right - later? We went to the Underdrome, and he was right there, still red all over with a sword and one dark wood eye, so I walked up to him, cool as you please - who am I kidding? I swooped straight over, barreled all less than thirty-two ounces of me straight into him, grinning so much I thought my teeth would fall out, nabbed him in the nose and then kissed his cheek.)