FADING / FADED

       she’s what’s wrong.

       ❝   ——— you,   ❞   she speaks not without thinking. with thinking but ill—advised, perhaps. ill—thought out. fading / faded / gone, or should be. the inverse of everything ( she’s everything everything everything ) and thus nothing / empty. devoid.   ❝   you’re missing... parts of the picture. i can find them... if you want,   ❞   vague / transparent. not quite whole.

     she’d been at it for hours. the combination seemed so simple, & yet a few steps in she always got confused. she stumbled over her feet or fumbled as she swung her keyblade or slipped & outright fell. her arms were heavy & her legs were tired, but she still refused to let herself stop. she was focused, her gaze narrow, & so she practically jumped when she heard the voice & realized that she wasn’t alone. her turn was sharp, keyblade pulled close in a defensive stance as her eyes scanned the area.

     ❛ naminé. ❜

     the word came out in a breath of relief, her keyblade lowering but not vanishing–––– she wasn’t finished yet, she wouldn’t be finished until she got it right or she couldn’t train any longer. she wanted to argue. she wasn’t pushing herself too hard, she was training more, she was working harder, she was doing all of this because the last time she didn’t she died–––– but none of those words made it past a thought. there was no use denying it when she knew her almost as well as she knew herself.  ❛ i know. ❜

     aqua had said something similar with all the gentleness of a teacher, & kairi had toned down her training for a day, maybe two, before the reminder of the feeling of being struck down pushed her back into action, the memory of watching sora vanish before her eyes pushing her resolve to train whenever she felt tired. ❛ but, i can’t just stop. ❜ i haven’t gotten this yet–––– i’m not strong enough–––– if i can’t defend myself who will be next? ❛ i can’t. ❜

kairi is strong—willed and brave. she’s determined and steadfast. she’s passionate and giving. she’s falling apart at the seams ——— well, kairi isn’t the doll of the pair of them, is she? ( what does a doll know of bravery and passion and selflessness? ) she’s : bright technicolor against colors that threaten to dull her to pastels but in the end is so full of light that she overwhelms everything around her. or threatens to. or becomes close to. she is the sun / or maybe becoming too close to it.

naminé breathes and tastes despair on her tongue / doesn’t think it’s her own. despair is something half—foreign and mostly—abandoned and kairi stands before her, glistening in fading light, whole and breathing and alive and a—light with a fervor that will not leave her. will not flee her. it’s not ——— it’s not impossible to understand. it simply is : this burning hope this terrible fear this screaming anxiety. kairi is scared.

kairi is just a girl. ( aren’t they all just. children? but then : thinking of the little witch as anything but an abomination, an anomaly to the universe, is irresponsible. )

here is the truth : it hurts to be apart from her / they were meant to be one in the same, parts of a whole, or that is what she thought at least. was she wrong? others seem to think so, others seem to feel so and there are two bodies ( one true and the other fake ) and one heart and one ——— something. she remembers kairi’s heart faintly, vaguely, flashes of recollection. it was warm / it felt like drowning / it felt like she was lost to sea. as she was meant to be.

so she watches her train from a distance. a near distance, a far distance, aren’t all distances the same, in the end? they are still apart, and naminé watches her with arms looped around her knees, tucked away into shadow. ❝ you’re pushing yourself too hard, ❞ quiet, so—called gentle, carrying all the same. a passive gaze and unstressed brows and something so simple as : you’re working too hard. hours and hours and / hours. days, perhaps. is all time the same? she wonders how tired kairi’s arms are / once she would have known.

❝   xion,   ❞   her name rests like a bell’s ring on her tongue and it feels jagged against her mouth. she wants to shed layers of herself and peel layers of her away and what will remain? she wants to be with her / be apart from her. she wants to ———   ❝   can... i draw you?   ❞   this page is already marred and these pencils half—gone and she wants to remember. she wants to forget. she wants ( ... ) what does she want?

here : to be with xion.

❝   ——— oh,   ❞   not quite caught yet her fingers freeze / instinct. paused mid—motion and then she half—remembers herself and half—abandons herself and her fingers curl and she smooths at the fabric of her dress : an almost compulsive motion.   ❝   should i... not?   ❞   i’m sorry lingers on her tongue and it tastes like roses and iron and she swallows the pair.

there is something / fragile yet : unyielding. but breaking. inside of herself? inside of ——— what and who and where and she looks at her, this flaxen girl, the dip of her shoulders and the fall of her hair. like a painting, comes a disjointed thought, like something out of ( ... ) naminé does not want to draw her, not precisely, she wants to / watch her. witness her. mouth parts and she ( ... ) speaks? ❝ are you... okay? ❞

     she’s brilliant / a white that most would find hard to look at and yet he’s never been able to really look away from her, enraptured by her, a light that left after images burned into the eyes even after long looking away. it was new and strange and it was change but sora wouldn’t push towards a flight naminé herself wasn’t willing to take and so; he leaves the choice for her. ❛  you can pick whichever one you want! it doesn’t have to be something different — you can pick something white, if that’s what you’d like!  ❜ he’s fluttering like a bird in an unknown space / dances between fabrics and styles, unsure of what would be the best for her / if she even wanted to go through with this change? ❛  you don’t have to overthink it; whatever feels right to you, then that can be your choice!  ❜ because it was more than a change of aesthetics but — a shedding of old skin. those who clipped her wings were gone from this world ( he’d made sure of it ) and she was… free. the freedom was hers; the choice to take it was hers, as well.

he could be / and wasn’t that terrifying? wasn’t it horrible to know that someone as decrepit as vanitas could be lingering in every shadow, every world, every heart stained with darkness? but for as awful as the thought was, she hardly seemed bothered by his presence —— was she not scared? was she not aware that he could destroy her within seconds if he so wanted to? or did she not think him capable of doing it? ( did she take him for a fool, the way everyone else has / the way the master did / the way VENTUS did? ) the thought alone makes the poison run deeper; claws sink into the skin of his palms and darkness destroys the land by his feet and vanitas is ——— angry. angry she wasn’t afraid / angry she seemed to be almost indifferent to him. the nerve of this fucking nobody — ❛  then, why don’t you? even the realm of light makes mistakes; why don’t you do everyone a favor and stop pretending like you belong there.  ❜ a sneer / a curl of the lips and the abomination even goes as far to laugh at her pitiful state. the darkness stretches forward, ready to welcome her into the eternal nothingness. ❛  you belong in the dark. you’ll never be one of them.  ❜

you’re lighter here. terra has to wonder just how true those words of her were; if it was truly worth celebrating the shade of grey where darkness once existed? she says he’s lighter and terra doesn’t think he is but maybe it’s the result of standing so close to her own light that makes him appear a better person / standing once more in the realm of light and having that light wash them both clean ( ah, but could travesties like his couldn’t be so easily erased with a simple beam of light / and terra knew firsthand how swift the judgement casted upon those with stained hearts were — it would be far too long before he can call himself a denizen of light. ) 

she gives him her name and he tucks it away for safekeeping / vows to remember and protect. ❛  it’s strange, to be back in this realm.. in this body. like a dream that’s too good to be true.  ❜ like something so impossible that surely terra was still lost to darkness / still chained by unbreakable bonds and destined to spend his ( not his ) life in someone else’s ( his? ) body. if he hadn’t been there to witness the end, terra wouldn’t have believed it. ❛  but we’ve returned. and now, we can begin to make up for lost time.  ❜ for surely she’s just as lost in the new world as he was / a presumption made from her own self - imposed distance from the others. and maybe this was another reason why he keeps her company / stands in the sand and watches the sun and sky.

        being lost suits her. lost means unfound / lost means scattered / lost means faded and faded and fading, not quite : here nor there nor anywhere. unneeded. unrequired. unwanted. ( ah, but she already is one of those un– things, isn’t she? ) lost leads to simplicity : for when she is found, there is always SOMETHING to follow. the foundations of fear, the settling of pain, memories crushing in and in and in. she wonders if he feels similar. she wonders if being found is more painful for him / than the concept of REMAINING LOST is. but then again, there is pure light and protective will and it’s different ( ... ) it different, right?

everything about her was —— infuriating. her presence and her lack of presence and her bleakness and everything in between was a soreness to the eyes / an impurity in an otherwise colorless land. she speaks to him and even her voice was a grind to the gears; just barely loud enough to not be categorized as a whisper but hardly enough to call proper speaking. vanitas shouldn’t even humor her with a reply ——— but alas. “ why wouldn’t i be here? ” defensive / always so defensive / the cornered dog will always bark and bite if a hand ever dared to come close and she was close enough. “ the better question is why are you here? shouldn’t you have faded away, left as nothing more but the memory of a memory? ” a fitting fate for a nobody.

       A GHOST DISAPPEARS INTO AMONG CROWD ——— no, not quite. this place is loud and raucous and crowded and she’s caught in a riptide / a crush / taken along and rendered breathless : overwhelming. overwhelming. an ocean raging in a birdcage body and when she slips free it’s as if gravity flees and she stumbles / trips / is steadied. ❝ oh... i’m sorry, ❞ her hair feels tousled and she feels winded and the sky isn’t / the sky. a place she can’t quite disappear.

he’s not sure how long he’s been standing by her side / if he was ever here or there at all but time has never been the closest of friends to him. years passed by in blinks and flashes and even standing by the water’s edge was too surreal to be considered real; but the water was cold and the sunshine was harsh and surely terra couldn’t have imagined all of this, not after being drenched in a darkness so profound for so long. so then, it has to be real —— right? 

she calls his name and it’s not a surprising thing to hear from her because they did know each other, didn’t they? they had been adrift in the very same ocean, with her presence offering comfort the way a dove did to sailors lost at sea. while her name might not be something he knows, that didn’t diminish the fact that terra remembered her well. ❛  i know you. when i was unsure of where to go, you helped me find the path back home. i don’t think i’d be standing here if it wasn’t for you.  ❜ this much, he knew to be true. ❛  my name is terra. what’s yours?  ❜ they’re long overdue for a proper introduction.

it’s a kindness ——— there, at the core of his heart. kindness, warmth, a gently glowing light. she wonders if he senses it / if he’s aware. she recalls the sensation of it, a trace—memory. the links, the familiarities. she followed them to him, to the fragile broken ruins of his heart, but still there remained the absolute foundation of him, the crux upon which his heart had built. they were in the amorphous ocean and they stand in the ocean now and she watches small silver—y fish glint in her palms and tips her hands. they flee back to their / home?

are they both steeped in darkness? perhaps it’s more appropriate to say they are both immersed in shadow / born in it and devoid of light. there is something familiar in him and : SHE FINDS HERSELF UNMOORED BY IT / watches him. her gaze is impassive and the set of her mouth is neutral and she wonders about the universe. not in its entirety, but rather the places where stars and celestial bodies cannot wander, the dark stretches where there is nothing / nothing / nothing. her mouth parts ( the doll speaks !! ) and there is an odd, stilted moment of silence. ❝ why, ❞ and perhaps she could simply leave it at that, watch him react, continue watching him quietly, but, ❝ are you... here? ❞ passing through her mind supplies. there is nothing to be done with her / she is nothing / and so on and on and on.

        ❝ you didn’t destroy me, ❞ is it an unkindness to peel these parts of his skin back? is it cruel to speak of things that happened so long ago / not so long ago at all / time is a concept that means little to someone to whom existence is ( ... ) tenuous. will it alleviate the weight on his heart to speak these words? she imagines / abstractly / a window opening beneath a gust of wind and a smudge of a creature, disrupted, and a mask slipping. ❝ on that hill, ❞ as if he needs clarification. maybe he does.

     he’s gentle in the way he treats her, not due to some unspoken fragility caried beneath her wings but —— because sora knew best, how terrifying the worlds could be. to be dropped in the midst of something so grand.. he doesn’t want to overwhelm her. but she’s doing what she can to take those steps forward and so, sora walks beside her. ❛  let’s! if there’s nothing here that you really like, i think there’s a few other places to check out?  ❜ and he knows ( he knooows! ) he shouldn’t be too overbearing / that he might not be helping her settling into consolation and yet — could his excitement be blamed? to see her step out of this gilded cage and fly into the vast sky —— !!

        quiet splashing / and she knows him by the shape of his heart. ❝ ———terra, ❞ the ocean will carry her voice away / the ocean will carry her away / does he know her name? is it strange that she knows his? but she knows him. the weight of his weary heart. he is all warm hues and tones against the clear water and pale sand and ghost—girl. ❝ you... might not know me, but i know you. ❞