KH2 fic: Angelic
So I'm finally organizing this effing journal - I should've done it ages ago, really, but only now I'm feeling compelled to arrange my work - currently strewn across the universe and badly mem'd by mehself, even in it's shortness - at least decently around here.
Let's get started with the first one I've ever written in English, YAY!
Title: Angelic
Beta: the wonderful ascattereddream; plus further correction by the magnificent thanatophilia! Thank yooou!
Characters/Pairings: Somebody!Axel, and the obligatory AkuRoku hint.
Warnings: This is almost genfic, centered basically on Axel's somebody. The slight AkuRoku thing is just because I'm that much of a hopeless fangirl. Oh, and there is a HEAVY connection with Hunchback of Notre Dame, because that really should have been one of the worlds in KH.
Wordcount: 1400+.
Rating: G, worksafe, you know, really light stuff.
Summary: Being incomplete had always suited him best.
-----------------
He'd only stepped inside the great Cathedral once in his life, escaping for a few minutes from the ruckus of the Fool's Festival. He knew he'd have to go back soon, the party was their sole reliable source of funding for the upcoming months - but for that assurance, he'd have to perform a few hours longer with the others. Not that he minded, in all truth, but a break would surely help his make-up remain presentable for a while, and precious Kohl should never go to waste. The lady who usually sold him the good stuff - the paint that actually kept marking his eyes after a show, not his whole face - had been taken away by the Bishop's soldiers a few weeks earlier, and he knew the same would happen to him if he were caught buying make-up on the stores that sold the decent products. Devil's work, for sure, for a guy to trace his eyes a bit darker, hah. He was still surprised the Festival had happened at all.
They were still rumors in the streets of Paris, one more fear creeping from the shadow of Notre Dame towards the people, but no rumor lived long without support from the Path of Miracles. The elderly now flinched away from the darkness - which used to be the best ally of them all, and now twitched and clawed away at them - and the hard-earned gold of their teeth was bared with the same fear as that of the mention of the Bishop's dungeons. Demons from Hell, the Bishop said during the mass for the whole city to listen, demons brought into the world by the gypsy's evil ways. Let's eradicate them, let's burn them, let's take the lady who smuggled good Kohl to torture and horror and death. Yeah, let's blame the gypsies yet again, even if the old woman who watched over their many orphans prayed her nights away to keep the Heartless far from the Path.
As much as her prayers were for whoever listened, at that point.
He not once prayed in his life, much by the old woman's fault - had she never told him the tale of his birth, he'd be a far cry from realizing his was a somewhat cursed name. It was an old and beaten story, really - a pregnant girl kicked out of home who ended up at the Path of Miracles, a difficult labor, and one more orphan for the old lady to watch. The only peculiarity of the whole thing was that, pained as she was, his mother hadn't been able to say his name properly - and the women of the Path found it horrid luck to name a child anything besides it's mother's wish, even if what anyone understood was just half an angel's name. Raphael, Michael, Nathanael - those were just the ones that didn't sound too weird, but it really could've been any other angelic name out there.
There was nothing angelic in his red patch of a head, the old woman used to say. It would've been bad protocol with the Heavens, to name such a brat after a sacred being - so he got a harmless, if incomplete, Ael to label himself.
Most days, he couldn't care less about his chopped name, way more occupied juggling fire clubs while perched on a ball - like many of the Path's sons, Ael was a street artist. It stood as short for mostly overworked, scarcely paid, and definitely not respected, of course; but the spin of a club set aflame and thrown skywards never ceased to entertain him, and there was always the Fool's Festival to distract them from their misery for awhile.
The party still roared behind him as he slipped quietly into Notre Dame, as it would until the night was fully set - given that neither Bishop nor Heartless intervened. Ael doubted the first would be much of a trouble, once the Festival had already started - had he wanted to stop it, the Bishop would've needed to squash it before people forgot, at least for the day, how the colors, music and happiness of the gypsies were so, so, oh so evil.
The second, however... The darkness was no longer safe for anyone, and a slight tremor ran down his spine as Ael walked the empty rows of the Cathedral in absolute silence. The candlelight of a thousand promises flickered over the stone saints, casting shadows upon the marble that inked its soulless eyes even darker than Ael's make-up. The high stained glass windows weren't much help to illuminate the place, and occasionally a pole-legged artist would run in front of the ones on the lower levels, leaving an entire section in the dark for a second. Maybe a choir was rehearsing somewhere in the deeper wings, but only wisps of their song reached Ael's ears over the pandemonium just a thick stone wall away. No other soul stood on the great nave, and his grip on the unlit clubs threatened to break the handles with its tightness.
He couldn't possibly have felt more alien under Notre Dame's roof.
Sculpted and painted angels alike glared at Ael, assuring him that he'd never belong amongst them, with his red hair spilling like blood over his shoulders and colorful clothes clashing furiously with the stoicism of the Cathedral. His face, made up to impress, scrunched up at the Virgin's untainted expression of intended compassion, as much as it looked pretty blank to him.
He should have known, really should have guessed there would be nothing for a junk boy such as himself in the church of all churches - nothing, but the feeling of being a complete stranger. His were the streets and the Path of Miracles, the orphans, the desperate and the free, the fire spinning upwards and the Fool's Festival outside.
Gypsies cannot survive within four walls, old woman Esmeralda used to warn all her orphans, as she told her tales of sanctuary in Notre Dame; the only ties gypsies hold are those with the Path itself, and even that can be negotiable. For love. For chances. For survival, if need be.
Ael just wanted to check whether that would ever be a fair trade, and the cold air of the Cathedral even in the brink of summer couldn't be a more eloquent answer.
He turned his back to the altar as the first terrified shriek rose over the crowd, and all the time it took to turn into full chaos was that of his hurried steps back to the door. The bright glare of the sun didn't seem to affect the creatures born from darkness, which jumped the humans and ripped their hearts straight out. The swords of the Bishop's soldiers swiped right through the insect-like shadows and killed none of them, and Ael didn't stop long to rejoice as the bloody man turned into a Heartless just for a lack of better timing.
Ael lit his clubs on a flying red Heartless' magic, running as far away from the Cathedral's square as his legs would carry him - not that it helped much, as the creatures kept sprouting out of every shady corner of the streets, and wasn't Paris just too rich with those. He fought, he burned and kicked, he threw a Heartless four feet away from the cute blond thing who kept borrowing his Kohl, but he knew all along he never stood a single chance, and it was alright.
Under the shadow of Notre Dame, reflected at the looking glass of a bakery, Ael saw his heart be taken clean out of his chest, and rolled his eyes at the damn make-up for running like tear tracks down his cheeks.
Sitting on his throne at the Castle That Never Was and abstracting away every single word of Xemnas' halfway done speech, Axel let his eyes roam over his companions at Organization XIII, absorbing the calculated expressions, the fake smiles, the underlying nothingness that gnawed the back of each of their minds. The Organization was his refuge, the four walls that wouldn't lock him up forever and to which he'd hold ties with unless something better showed up - but for then, his new Path of Miracles had everything he needed. He could play with fire, there was a cute blond thing constantly by his side, and the make-up never smudged.
Observing the faces of the other Organization members, Axel found that being incomplete suited him, and it wasn't like he ever intended to be an angel - he'd been a Nobody from the start, anyways.
----------
I'm actually proud of this. ^^~ I wrote it back in November, I think, and it's still warm in my heart - I really should explore more this little universe...
X-Posted to khyaoi.
Let's get started with the first one I've ever written in English, YAY!
Title: Angelic
Beta: the wonderful ascattereddream; plus further correction by the magnificent thanatophilia! Thank yooou!
Characters/Pairings: Somebody!Axel, and the obligatory AkuRoku hint.
Warnings: This is almost genfic, centered basically on Axel's somebody. The slight AkuRoku thing is just because I'm that much of a hopeless fangirl. Oh, and there is a HEAVY connection with Hunchback of Notre Dame, because that really should have been one of the worlds in KH.
Wordcount: 1400+.
Rating: G, worksafe, you know, really light stuff.
Summary: Being incomplete had always suited him best.
-----------------
He'd only stepped inside the great Cathedral once in his life, escaping for a few minutes from the ruckus of the Fool's Festival. He knew he'd have to go back soon, the party was their sole reliable source of funding for the upcoming months - but for that assurance, he'd have to perform a few hours longer with the others. Not that he minded, in all truth, but a break would surely help his make-up remain presentable for a while, and precious Kohl should never go to waste. The lady who usually sold him the good stuff - the paint that actually kept marking his eyes after a show, not his whole face - had been taken away by the Bishop's soldiers a few weeks earlier, and he knew the same would happen to him if he were caught buying make-up on the stores that sold the decent products. Devil's work, for sure, for a guy to trace his eyes a bit darker, hah. He was still surprised the Festival had happened at all.
They were still rumors in the streets of Paris, one more fear creeping from the shadow of Notre Dame towards the people, but no rumor lived long without support from the Path of Miracles. The elderly now flinched away from the darkness - which used to be the best ally of them all, and now twitched and clawed away at them - and the hard-earned gold of their teeth was bared with the same fear as that of the mention of the Bishop's dungeons. Demons from Hell, the Bishop said during the mass for the whole city to listen, demons brought into the world by the gypsy's evil ways. Let's eradicate them, let's burn them, let's take the lady who smuggled good Kohl to torture and horror and death. Yeah, let's blame the gypsies yet again, even if the old woman who watched over their many orphans prayed her nights away to keep the Heartless far from the Path.
As much as her prayers were for whoever listened, at that point.
He not once prayed in his life, much by the old woman's fault - had she never told him the tale of his birth, he'd be a far cry from realizing his was a somewhat cursed name. It was an old and beaten story, really - a pregnant girl kicked out of home who ended up at the Path of Miracles, a difficult labor, and one more orphan for the old lady to watch. The only peculiarity of the whole thing was that, pained as she was, his mother hadn't been able to say his name properly - and the women of the Path found it horrid luck to name a child anything besides it's mother's wish, even if what anyone understood was just half an angel's name. Raphael, Michael, Nathanael - those were just the ones that didn't sound too weird, but it really could've been any other angelic name out there.
There was nothing angelic in his red patch of a head, the old woman used to say. It would've been bad protocol with the Heavens, to name such a brat after a sacred being - so he got a harmless, if incomplete, Ael to label himself.
Most days, he couldn't care less about his chopped name, way more occupied juggling fire clubs while perched on a ball - like many of the Path's sons, Ael was a street artist. It stood as short for mostly overworked, scarcely paid, and definitely not respected, of course; but the spin of a club set aflame and thrown skywards never ceased to entertain him, and there was always the Fool's Festival to distract them from their misery for awhile.
The party still roared behind him as he slipped quietly into Notre Dame, as it would until the night was fully set - given that neither Bishop nor Heartless intervened. Ael doubted the first would be much of a trouble, once the Festival had already started - had he wanted to stop it, the Bishop would've needed to squash it before people forgot, at least for the day, how the colors, music and happiness of the gypsies were so, so, oh so evil.
The second, however... The darkness was no longer safe for anyone, and a slight tremor ran down his spine as Ael walked the empty rows of the Cathedral in absolute silence. The candlelight of a thousand promises flickered over the stone saints, casting shadows upon the marble that inked its soulless eyes even darker than Ael's make-up. The high stained glass windows weren't much help to illuminate the place, and occasionally a pole-legged artist would run in front of the ones on the lower levels, leaving an entire section in the dark for a second. Maybe a choir was rehearsing somewhere in the deeper wings, but only wisps of their song reached Ael's ears over the pandemonium just a thick stone wall away. No other soul stood on the great nave, and his grip on the unlit clubs threatened to break the handles with its tightness.
He couldn't possibly have felt more alien under Notre Dame's roof.
Sculpted and painted angels alike glared at Ael, assuring him that he'd never belong amongst them, with his red hair spilling like blood over his shoulders and colorful clothes clashing furiously with the stoicism of the Cathedral. His face, made up to impress, scrunched up at the Virgin's untainted expression of intended compassion, as much as it looked pretty blank to him.
He should have known, really should have guessed there would be nothing for a junk boy such as himself in the church of all churches - nothing, but the feeling of being a complete stranger. His were the streets and the Path of Miracles, the orphans, the desperate and the free, the fire spinning upwards and the Fool's Festival outside.
Gypsies cannot survive within four walls, old woman Esmeralda used to warn all her orphans, as she told her tales of sanctuary in Notre Dame; the only ties gypsies hold are those with the Path itself, and even that can be negotiable. For love. For chances. For survival, if need be.
Ael just wanted to check whether that would ever be a fair trade, and the cold air of the Cathedral even in the brink of summer couldn't be a more eloquent answer.
He turned his back to the altar as the first terrified shriek rose over the crowd, and all the time it took to turn into full chaos was that of his hurried steps back to the door. The bright glare of the sun didn't seem to affect the creatures born from darkness, which jumped the humans and ripped their hearts straight out. The swords of the Bishop's soldiers swiped right through the insect-like shadows and killed none of them, and Ael didn't stop long to rejoice as the bloody man turned into a Heartless just for a lack of better timing.
Ael lit his clubs on a flying red Heartless' magic, running as far away from the Cathedral's square as his legs would carry him - not that it helped much, as the creatures kept sprouting out of every shady corner of the streets, and wasn't Paris just too rich with those. He fought, he burned and kicked, he threw a Heartless four feet away from the cute blond thing who kept borrowing his Kohl, but he knew all along he never stood a single chance, and it was alright.
Under the shadow of Notre Dame, reflected at the looking glass of a bakery, Ael saw his heart be taken clean out of his chest, and rolled his eyes at the damn make-up for running like tear tracks down his cheeks.
Sitting on his throne at the Castle That Never Was and abstracting away every single word of Xemnas' halfway done speech, Axel let his eyes roam over his companions at Organization XIII, absorbing the calculated expressions, the fake smiles, the underlying nothingness that gnawed the back of each of their minds. The Organization was his refuge, the four walls that wouldn't lock him up forever and to which he'd hold ties with unless something better showed up - but for then, his new Path of Miracles had everything he needed. He could play with fire, there was a cute blond thing constantly by his side, and the make-up never smudged.
Observing the faces of the other Organization members, Axel found that being incomplete suited him, and it wasn't like he ever intended to be an angel - he'd been a Nobody from the start, anyways.
----------
I'm actually proud of this. ^^~ I wrote it back in November, I think, and it's still warm in my heart - I really should explore more this little universe...
X-Posted to khyaoi.