100 Themes KH - Up
Title: uP
Game: KH-KHII
Theme + Number: growing up, #76
Claim: Auron & Rikku
Characters/Pairings included: Aurikku
Rating: K+
Summary: He thought her smile could fuel the sky as they laughed and he flopped onto the ground while she flopped down onto his little nine-year-old stomach and then they were quiet.
A/N: I've been have a rough time of it lately, and writing has been slow-going. In an attempt to fend off writer's block, stretch myself to start getting back into writing oneshots and writing Auron and Rikku, I decided that a prompt from either key_blade or pyre_flies would be nice and started writing random nonsense, having no idea where it would go, and I'm actually pleased with the results. I crave feedback. And cake. To cake!
Up
Onceuponatimetherewasalittleboy
And he was a little boy, just a little boy to the world to the sky to the rocks, and he was quiet for a little boy but made up for it with energy and smiles and life, pure life and then one day his precious people died and he didn’t smile anymore andthenheforgothowtoand
Onceuponatimetherewasalittlefairy
And she was a fairy princess because she wanted to be and she was brighter than the sun and couldn’t seem to live without noise, lots of noise like noise of birds or people or nature or machinery at work, and then she lost some friends but smiled anyway because itmadeherfeelbettersortofbutnotreally
Andthentheybothcriedalotandthenandthen
-
Once upon a time there was a little boy who didn’t smile, and once upon a time there was a little fairy who only smiled on the outside.
Once upon a time the fairy met the little boy by accident, because she flew right into his lonely little room like a firefly when the moon was out because if she was anything, she was a princess and if you asked her the title would be Fairy-Princess of Thieves and All Machina Anywhere, and she was looking for treasure all by her lonesome because she couldn’t find her friends and that made her sad
And the little boy saw her and then they talked.
They didn’t have very much in common.
The fairy was so vivid that it made the little boy a little uncomfortable to be so close, and the little boy was quiet, so quiet, and it made the pretend-fairy-princess want to shake him around a little and his little room was so bare that there wasn’t much worth taking so she left, and the boy went back to bed
andthenshecameback
Because they were both sortoflonely lots and lots and maybe they could be friends, would you like that she asked and he tried to smilebutcouldn’tandshesmiledenoughforthebothofthem
And things were alright.
Once upon a time there was a little boy and a little fairy who would tell you she was a thief and a princess to boot and do you have any treasure she could borrow, only for a little while of course - and they were the best of friends, little boy and tiny little fairy, tiny, because she couldn’t hold her human-like form for very long and soon left off trying altogether because they were comfortable and went on adventures together, lots of them, and the first time the little boy picked up a sword was the first time her smile dimmed a little, just a little and he noticed but didn’t say anything and they both brushed it off and went home.
The little boy met other people because he was not afraid of company so much anymore and the fairy began looking for her friends again but they stayed close because that’s what friends do. And they had many more adventures, countless and each one more daring than the last - recklessness and close encounters were laughed off, because we laugh in the face of danger she said and then went right ahead with ‘hahaha,’ and it made him smile because he didn’t smile much but things were getting better.
The first time she heard him laugh was when she owed up and told him that no, she wasn’t over twenty-bajillion years old and was actually twenty-seven, twelve-years-old in comparison and she shouted indignantly and repeatedly yelled that little fairy-princesses grew up much faster than silly old humans but he laughed and laughed and laughed and she thought that it was one of life’s little moments that really make it precious.
The first time the little boy saw the fairy smile a full-out grin, dopey and sappy and real, was when they found a hard spot on the ground and brushed it off to find the top of a buried little box. They were so excited about what was inside that they spent an entire afternoon whispering and shouting and dancing around so happily that when they unburied it and found loose string and a bright yellow paperclip, they both stared dumbfounded before they both started giggling madly, turning to full out laughter and she swiped the bright big paperclip and announced loudly that it was their Special Friendship Ring-Thing and bent it likewise, and he thought that the princess-fairy’s smile could fuel the entire sky for millions of years and they laughed and then flopped onto the ground only she was so small that she settled onto his little nine-year-old stomach.
-
Onceuponatimetherewasalittleboyandafairyprincess
And little boys grow up, and little fairies get restless. And soon he was twelve, fourteen and then seventeen and she had grown up some too but he was suddenly much, much older and wooden sticks were replaced with metal, and carefree days were replaced with training and grass ‘boy-bracelets’ were traded out for armor, and they tried to pretend nothing had changed because she braided his ponytail and he found pebbles smooth enough for her to skip across the ocean but it did, it did change and then one day the darkness came and she was handling her own and when she looked over and right before he killed it the darkness - the ant, monster-ant darkness yellow eyes - and then his eye, oh gawd his dark wood eye was cut straight down the middle and bleeding, bleedingsomuchandhewouldn’tbeherlittleboyanymoreeveragaingainever
And she cried while she healed up, fixed him up nice and good and then she dug up the old little Special Friendship-Ring-Thing and unbent it a bit and twisted it to latch onto his shoulder armor, over a red coat he had taken to wearing, one with lots of pockets that she had ridden in so many times, lots. And then one day he pulled her out of his coat-pocket as dawn came willy-nilly, gentle like rice paper and sand and he held her in his palm, in his palm that used to be real small in comparison and told her it was time for him to go fight for his world with the rest of the village men - boys, they were only boys pretending, to her, but he had to and one eye looked at her and she nodded and it hurt, it hurt lots because they had needed each other and that was nice so she smiled big for him and hugged him round the neck, hard as she could and kissed his nose for good luck and then finally left that world as he hefted his sword onto his shoulder to walk
and neither looked back as Rikku disappeared and darkness swallowed Auron whole.
-
“I don’t remember our world,” Yuna stated once, licking the ice cream off of her fingers thoughtfully as Paine amused herself by carving the bare wooden popsicle stick into swords and Rikku finished her own bit of the treat.
Aerith was sitting near them at Merlin’s house as Cid and Leon sat at the computer and Yuffie was god-knows-where, and she said, she said, “do you wish you did?”
And she shrugged good-naturedly, Yuna-esque because she was a little less demure now but she was always so willing to go with things and she was less quiet which made Rikku real happy and real sad at the same time, reminding her of something that she couldn’t quite remember until it all came back again like it did so often and she tried not to think about quiet little boys little men and then just quiet men not so little.
“I remember Rikku,” and that was a little surprising and then she went on, “but Rikku disappeared. For a long time. We met so many years after that.”
Nobody said anything after that and Rikku licked her own fingers and
tryingnottothinkisharderthanitlooks.
-
They both forgot.
No, not forgot, but Rikku thought about treasure lots and she finally found those missing fairy-friends and then went on more adventures together.
No, not forgot, but Auron really was swallowed up and spit out into the underworld and he didn’t even get much of a chance at life because it felt like everything was taken away from him in the end.
And little girls forget easy but young women’s minds are stronger than that, and Rikku grew up a little and night skies and shooting stars, especially those, made her think of little boys and little men and what friendship must really mean in the end.
And young men at battle have preoccupied minds but men who feel like they’re five hundred years old have all the time in the world to think and those memories were the only ones in all the worlds that could make him smile.
Auron met a boy named Sora, once.
Good kid. Big blue eyes, not green, because nobody had green eyes and he was tired but belatedly realized that he didn’t want to rest, so the next time the child with the hair like a starburst popped into the underworld the man said, ‘take me with you.’
Rikku met a kid named Sora, once.
Happy, she thought. Always smiling, smiling little boy. Not like hers, but warm and she was fine with her friends but she had to ask because this boy had been everywhere, a traveler by right and she had never found out, never known and some days she didn’t care much and others it ate away at her very core, what happened to her little boy little man, so once when he was visiting she asked, ‘you ever met a grump named Auron?’
And the boy said
‘Sure, boss’
And the boy said
‘Sure do, he’s in my airship’
And then things evened out, and Auron was asleep on a bunk in the back of the airship and when he woke up the first thing he noticed was that his cheeks were wet with little droplets that were not his and there was a little fairy sitting on him and they stared at each other stupidly before she punched his nose and told him that he bent it out of shape and should be super-ashamed.
And then they both laughed and laughed until they cried and cried and Rikkuevenshowedoffthemagicshecouldn’tdobeforeandtackledhimhumantohuman, and then she kissed his eye because shedidn’tdoanythingandwasstillrealsorry.
And then they were quiet for a long, long time and just sat.
-
“I don’t remember our world,” Yuna stated once, licking the ice cream off of her fingers thoughtfully as Auron sharpened his sword as Rikku sat on his shoulder and absently fiddles with a little, tiny piece of metal that was cut by a rusty old sword that she bent to make a bracelet, as it wouldn’t bend small enough for a ring; she watched the blade grow sharp.
Aerith’s lips were upturned and pretty as she said, she said “do you miss it?”
And Yuna smiled and asked how she could miss something she never had in the first place, and maybe that was a little ironic because Rikku and Auron shared a Look, despite the eye on that side of his face being closed and boy was she still sorry as ever about that, and he put his sword down and Rikku slipped into a coat pocket and Auron said in response, “how do you find things you never really lost?”
“Fate,” Aerith offered simply and it was good enough and then they went outside to enjoy the summer.
Game: KH-KHII
Theme + Number: growing up, #76
Claim: Auron & Rikku
Characters/Pairings included: Aurikku
Rating: K+
Summary: He thought her smile could fuel the sky as they laughed and he flopped onto the ground while she flopped down onto his little nine-year-old stomach and then they were quiet.
A/N: I've been have a rough time of it lately, and writing has been slow-going. In an attempt to fend off writer's block, stretch myself to start getting back into writing oneshots and writing Auron and Rikku, I decided that a prompt from either key_blade or pyre_flies would be nice and started writing random nonsense, having no idea where it would go, and I'm actually pleased with the results. I crave feedback. And cake. To cake!
Up
Onceuponatimetherewasalittleboy
And he was a little boy, just a little boy to the world to the sky to the rocks, and he was quiet for a little boy but made up for it with energy and smiles and life, pure life and then one day his precious people died and he didn’t smile anymore andthenheforgothowtoand
Onceuponatimetherewasalittlefairy
And she was a fairy princess because she wanted to be and she was brighter than the sun and couldn’t seem to live without noise, lots of noise like noise of birds or people or nature or machinery at work, and then she lost some friends but smiled anyway because itmadeherfeelbettersortofbutnotreally
Andthentheybothcriedalotandthenandthen
-
Once upon a time there was a little boy who didn’t smile, and once upon a time there was a little fairy who only smiled on the outside.
Once upon a time the fairy met the little boy by accident, because she flew right into his lonely little room like a firefly when the moon was out because if she was anything, she was a princess and if you asked her the title would be Fairy-Princess of Thieves and All Machina Anywhere, and she was looking for treasure all by her lonesome because she couldn’t find her friends and that made her sad
And the little boy saw her and then they talked.
They didn’t have very much in common.
The fairy was so vivid that it made the little boy a little uncomfortable to be so close, and the little boy was quiet, so quiet, and it made the pretend-fairy-princess want to shake him around a little and his little room was so bare that there wasn’t much worth taking so she left, and the boy went back to bed
andthenshecameback
Because they were both sortoflonely lots and lots and maybe they could be friends, would you like that she asked and he tried to smilebutcouldn’tandshesmiledenoughforthebothofthem
And things were alright.
Once upon a time there was a little boy and a little fairy who would tell you she was a thief and a princess to boot and do you have any treasure she could borrow, only for a little while of course - and they were the best of friends, little boy and tiny little fairy, tiny, because she couldn’t hold her human-like form for very long and soon left off trying altogether because they were comfortable and went on adventures together, lots of them, and the first time the little boy picked up a sword was the first time her smile dimmed a little, just a little and he noticed but didn’t say anything and they both brushed it off and went home.
The little boy met other people because he was not afraid of company so much anymore and the fairy began looking for her friends again but they stayed close because that’s what friends do. And they had many more adventures, countless and each one more daring than the last - recklessness and close encounters were laughed off, because we laugh in the face of danger she said and then went right ahead with ‘hahaha,’ and it made him smile because he didn’t smile much but things were getting better.
The first time she heard him laugh was when she owed up and told him that no, she wasn’t over twenty-bajillion years old and was actually twenty-seven, twelve-years-old in comparison and she shouted indignantly and repeatedly yelled that little fairy-princesses grew up much faster than silly old humans but he laughed and laughed and laughed and she thought that it was one of life’s little moments that really make it precious.
The first time the little boy saw the fairy smile a full-out grin, dopey and sappy and real, was when they found a hard spot on the ground and brushed it off to find the top of a buried little box. They were so excited about what was inside that they spent an entire afternoon whispering and shouting and dancing around so happily that when they unburied it and found loose string and a bright yellow paperclip, they both stared dumbfounded before they both started giggling madly, turning to full out laughter and she swiped the bright big paperclip and announced loudly that it was their Special Friendship Ring-Thing and bent it likewise, and he thought that the princess-fairy’s smile could fuel the entire sky for millions of years and they laughed and then flopped onto the ground only she was so small that she settled onto his little nine-year-old stomach.
-
Onceuponatimetherewasalittleboyandafairyprincess
And little boys grow up, and little fairies get restless. And soon he was twelve, fourteen and then seventeen and she had grown up some too but he was suddenly much, much older and wooden sticks were replaced with metal, and carefree days were replaced with training and grass ‘boy-bracelets’ were traded out for armor, and they tried to pretend nothing had changed because she braided his ponytail and he found pebbles smooth enough for her to skip across the ocean but it did, it did change and then one day the darkness came and she was handling her own and when she looked over and right before he killed it the darkness - the ant, monster-ant darkness yellow eyes - and then his eye, oh gawd his dark wood eye was cut straight down the middle and bleeding, bleedingsomuchandhewouldn’tbeherlittleboyanymoreeveragaingainever
And she cried while she healed up, fixed him up nice and good and then she dug up the old little Special Friendship-Ring-Thing and unbent it a bit and twisted it to latch onto his shoulder armor, over a red coat he had taken to wearing, one with lots of pockets that she had ridden in so many times, lots. And then one day he pulled her out of his coat-pocket as dawn came willy-nilly, gentle like rice paper and sand and he held her in his palm, in his palm that used to be real small in comparison and told her it was time for him to go fight for his world with the rest of the village men - boys, they were only boys pretending, to her, but he had to and one eye looked at her and she nodded and it hurt, it hurt lots because they had needed each other and that was nice so she smiled big for him and hugged him round the neck, hard as she could and kissed his nose for good luck and then finally left that world as he hefted his sword onto his shoulder to walk
and neither looked back as Rikku disappeared and darkness swallowed Auron whole.
-
“I don’t remember our world,” Yuna stated once, licking the ice cream off of her fingers thoughtfully as Paine amused herself by carving the bare wooden popsicle stick into swords and Rikku finished her own bit of the treat.
Aerith was sitting near them at Merlin’s house as Cid and Leon sat at the computer and Yuffie was god-knows-where, and she said, she said, “do you wish you did?”
And she shrugged good-naturedly, Yuna-esque because she was a little less demure now but she was always so willing to go with things and she was less quiet which made Rikku real happy and real sad at the same time, reminding her of something that she couldn’t quite remember until it all came back again like it did so often and she tried not to think about quiet little boys little men and then just quiet men not so little.
“I remember Rikku,” and that was a little surprising and then she went on, “but Rikku disappeared. For a long time. We met so many years after that.”
Nobody said anything after that and Rikku licked her own fingers and
tryingnottothinkisharderthanitlooks.
-
They both forgot.
No, not forgot, but Rikku thought about treasure lots and she finally found those missing fairy-friends and then went on more adventures together.
No, not forgot, but Auron really was swallowed up and spit out into the underworld and he didn’t even get much of a chance at life because it felt like everything was taken away from him in the end.
And little girls forget easy but young women’s minds are stronger than that, and Rikku grew up a little and night skies and shooting stars, especially those, made her think of little boys and little men and what friendship must really mean in the end.
And young men at battle have preoccupied minds but men who feel like they’re five hundred years old have all the time in the world to think and those memories were the only ones in all the worlds that could make him smile.
Auron met a boy named Sora, once.
Good kid. Big blue eyes, not green, because nobody had green eyes and he was tired but belatedly realized that he didn’t want to rest, so the next time the child with the hair like a starburst popped into the underworld the man said, ‘take me with you.’
Rikku met a kid named Sora, once.
Happy, she thought. Always smiling, smiling little boy. Not like hers, but warm and she was fine with her friends but she had to ask because this boy had been everywhere, a traveler by right and she had never found out, never known and some days she didn’t care much and others it ate away at her very core, what happened to her little boy little man, so once when he was visiting she asked, ‘you ever met a grump named Auron?’
And the boy said
‘Sure, boss’
And the boy said
‘Sure do, he’s in my airship’
And then things evened out, and Auron was asleep on a bunk in the back of the airship and when he woke up the first thing he noticed was that his cheeks were wet with little droplets that were not his and there was a little fairy sitting on him and they stared at each other stupidly before she punched his nose and told him that he bent it out of shape and should be super-ashamed.
And then they both laughed and laughed until they cried and cried and Rikkuevenshowedoffthemagicshecouldn’tdobeforeandtackledhimhumantohuman, and then she kissed his eye because shedidn’tdoanythingandwasstillrealsorry.
And then they were quiet for a long, long time and just sat.
-
“I don’t remember our world,” Yuna stated once, licking the ice cream off of her fingers thoughtfully as Auron sharpened his sword as Rikku sat on his shoulder and absently fiddles with a little, tiny piece of metal that was cut by a rusty old sword that she bent to make a bracelet, as it wouldn’t bend small enough for a ring; she watched the blade grow sharp.
Aerith’s lips were upturned and pretty as she said, she said “do you miss it?”
And Yuna smiled and asked how she could miss something she never had in the first place, and maybe that was a little ironic because Rikku and Auron shared a Look, despite the eye on that side of his face being closed and boy was she still sorry as ever about that, and he put his sword down and Rikku slipped into a coat pocket and Auron said in response, “how do you find things you never really lost?”
“Fate,” Aerith offered simply and it was good enough and then they went outside to enjoy the summer.