You think you can be forgiven?

Sora stared at the floor for what seemed like another hour before he finally placed his feet on the floor and stood up. He walked to the door, body a bit groggy. Despite his lack of sleep, his body had at least begun to shut down for the night, only to be stirred out of its semi-conscious state. He met Ienzo at the doorway.

After procession the options Ienzo gave him, he settled on the first one. “I think I’ll try to relax and maybe eat something.” He was trying to put his mind at ease and perhaps a warm baked good or a sea-salt ice cream would do the trick. “Were…you about to go to sleep yourself? You tend to do a lot of work throughout the day.”

Stepping back allowed some light from the hallway to trickle into the room, and also kept Ienzo from slanting his neck too much while looking at the younger boy. Despite the hours in bed and the time of night, Sora didn’t look particularly disheveled. He nodded along with Sora’s decision, already starting to turn down the hall to lead him to the kitchen when he heard his question.

kingdomboys:

“Uhhm…” He peeked over at the clock, which showed he had been tossing and turning without sleep for about 2 hours. “I guess…1 or 2 hours?” He took a shot in the dark before sitting on the edge of the bed. “Maybe I need water or something.” He murmured. “Do you recommend anything Ienzo?”

Ienzo straightened out of his lean when it became apparent Sora was thinking of getting out of bed, his mind already churning with ideas. “Well, there’s a variety of different ideas... Eating foods that promote drowsiness, meditating, surrounding yourself with nostalgic scents and sounds that make you relax. Another completely different approach would be physical exertion to the point of exhaustion.” Even as he chattered, he kept his voice low. “But in the case of thinking too much, expressing your worries or journaling seems to help.”

There was no shortage of projects in Radiant Garden, with the town itself almost completed and its roads and paths paved. There were efforts to beautify the town with new flowers and murals, establish new businesses beyond construction and food services, repair the non-essential waterworks that had been cordoned off while the mainlines were given priority... Anyone and everyone's hands could be put to use if they wanted to help.

Aeleus found himself helping around the town more often than not, only occasionally called upon to the castle when Ansem or Even needed help moving some of the old contraptions the Restoration Committee had not cleared out. Ienzo was conspicuously absent during those times, Ansem absently commenting that he was off studying in the library.

The castle was still home after everything that had happened, despite any awkwardness brought on by that fact; Aeleus still shared a hallway with Dilan and would walk with him when they were finished working. He watched as Dilan took it upon himself to cook dinner most evenings, reminding him that Master Ansem also liked it when he occasionally ordered from the restaurants. He shared a moment in the morning with Master Ansem as they both drank tea before beginning the day. He listened as Even groused about the lack of hot water as he dragged himself into the kitchen well into the late morning.

He watched from afar as Ienzo spoke to his contacts over the gummiphone.

Ienzo spent a lot of time on the gummiphone. On the one occasion Aeleus crossed him that week, he barely looked up from the device as they passed each other, switching from a text chat to start a call. His expression was carefully blank even as he put forth a pleasant tone for whoever was on the other end.

They both kept busy.

@x-purpose

When Aeleus suggested that he rest and allow the others to take care of the replica research, Ienzo made an effort to argue.

A small effort.

Part of him felt he should have argued more. After all, he had spent many waking moments thinking of ways to assist Sora and free Roxas, all in the name of doing the right thing -- atoning for the ignorance of a child. He idled on the gummiphone listening to Chip and Dale's ideas, extracted data from his former master's database in Twilight Town, calibrated the replica body from Even so it could accept Roxas' digital memories...

And that wasn't even taking into account the reunion with his former master.

Anyone would have understood if he felt overwhelmed. And he did feel overwhelmed -- physically exhausted from a limited amount of sleep and still reeling from the gratitude of being forgiven. Their work even culminated into Roxas waking as his own person in the labs, a whirlwind of activity as Roxas shot off to help Sora. He felt happy. Relieved.

Confused.

He thought... He wasn't sure what he thought. Ever since awakening in the labs, recompleted after ten years as a Nobody, he had moments of blank confusion when he was stressed and upset. When he thought long and hard about his lack of a childhood. When he tried to focus on the idea of Xehanort. It was easy enough to set aside, dismissed as not yet being connected enough to his feelings to know how to express them. If he avoided being stressed and upset, he didn't have to deal with that confusion at all.

So he only made the token effort to argue nowadays. It was easier that way.

But he wasn't feeling stressed now, resting on a window seat and drowsily looking out upon the castle town. He just felt confused, an odd echo in his chest as he thought of the Keyblade wielders fighting for all their lives. Was this what it meant to feel unfulfilled? He had studied facades and emotions enough in his past existence to think he had a good grasp on such things.

With a sigh, he pressed the palms of his hands to his shut eyes and wearily settled down for a nap.

- - - - -

In the soft white light of the heart, a pillar stood in testament to its life. Symbols of meaning patterned the whole of it, etched as if upon stained glass. In most hearts, the pillar was vibrant in color, offering up reflected light to the soft gloom from which more stations arose.

The colors of the pillar were pale. Muted. Lacking depth.

———  𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐒 ! ♡ NAME! ♡     Athena PRONOUNS! ♡     she/her ZODIAC SIGN! ♡    Cancer TAKEN OR SINGLE! ♡     Single

———  𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐒 ! ♡ 1! ♡    I have two cats who tend to not like each other. One's a grumpy old lady who makes it her business to stalk the other. The other is pretty sweet but very vocal, so she makes a lot of noise when she's stalked.

2! ♡    My time spent gaming nowadays is largely done on mobile, and they're all offshoots/gachas from games I played when I was younger and less busy - Star Ocean, KH, Fire Emblem, Shin Megami Tensei. The only original mobile game I'm playing is Dragalia Lost.

3! ♡  I've practiced kendo for years. I have six practice swords in my house at any given time. Two of them are in my bedroom.

———  𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 ! ♡ PLATFORMS USED! ♡     Dreamwidth and Tumblr, when I get the time to do any RPing. I've used Discord, and I wouldn't mind RPing there again, time and plotting permitting.

———  𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐅𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 ! ♡ FEMALE OR MALE! ♡    To play? Male muses - usually serious and calculating types with ambition. To play against? No preference.

LEAST FAVORITE FACE(S)! ♡   Nooo clue?

MULTI OR SINGLE! ♡     Uhh multiverse, multi-ship, multi-storylines? Separate verses for separate ships / ideas unless specified, of course.

FLUFF / ANGST / SMUT! ♡   Of the three, angst, but can I say adventuring and character growth? Angst is all well and good, but I love characters reflecting and growing together.

PLOT / MEMES! ♡    Plots. But memes are a great way to bounce characters off each other until we come up with a plot!

TAGGED BY! ♡   N/A; I just saw this and thought it's about time I did something for a munday.