love & pain; everything.

WHO DOES KAIRI THINK AQUA IS?

She thinks she’s very brave.  She thinks she’s good, and kind, and strong, and afraid.  She thinks she has seen horrible, impossible things, and has ached terrible, and knows that no one can see horrible things without becoming a BIT OF A HORRIBLE THING THEMSELVES.  (  kairi wonders what that means for her.  )  But Kairi is not afraid, not of Aqua’s trembling or of her too - sharp teeth or the way, sometimes, nails are more like claws are more like daggers.  Kairi thinks Aqua is good, and she is right, and that is all.

But Kairi does not assume beyond that.  Beyond that goodness, that strength.  She knows too intimately how it feels when everyone chooses to see something WHOLLY PERFECT so they are spared the fear of seeing something THAT IS NOT.

“It’s okay,” the princess says, heart soothing, light reaching and trying to fill the hairline cracks in Aqua.  It isn’t something she chooses; it simply is.  The stupid thing, always trying to bleed into others, as though maybe then it will not be so blinding light inside her ribs.  Kairi is not who anyone thinks she is, either.  (  wonders if this sudden empathy is selfish or kind.  but the others look at aqua and see such goodness they cannot see the hurt.  they look at kairi and see such light that they cannot see how sharp her knuckles have grown.  )  She draws closer, takes her shuddering hands --- cold, like she said --- to prove that she is not afraid.  That she will NEVER BE AFRAID OF AQUA.

“You can tell me who you are.”  Because no matter what she says, there will always been the base of what Kairi knows and trusts and love : Aqua is good.  Aqua is brave, and strong, and A SAFE PLACE.  And nothing will change that.

Not to Kairi, at least.