#frozenacademia

/sweats

DRABBLE- Your muse recalls their 6th birthday.

It was in the silence of the dead of night, when science experiments were in stasis and many of the other Nobodies asleep or out on missions that Zexion chose to dwell upon his past. Like so many of the elder Nobodies, the originals, he'd gone over the days leading up to their experiments that lead to this... non-existence. He had been crucial in gaining the laboratory space from Master Ansem, to gain the resources that had ultimately lead to this life.

It was the self-anger that held him in this state, or that's what he told himself, though it had been rare before the loss of his heart for the child he'd been to show emotion. Long hours stretched as he poured over report after report, compiling complete records of every trip to every world they'd found. And when he could no longer focus on the small print, he found his mind wandering. 

In the stillness of what passed as night in Neverwas, the Schemer sat alone in his study, shadows dancing along the walls in the candlelight. A few shifted of their own accord, separate from those of the books that surrounded the young man. It was that his mind was wandering again, further back past that mistake he'd chosen to help in, this experiment that he was still living in. Tonight his mind was wandering, recalling events in his life until he settled on one particular event.

His sixth birthday had been celebrated in Ansem's castle, by that point he'd been a child prodigy, the Prodigy of Radiant Gardens. He could still feel the sunlight on his face from the garden tea that had served as his party, the giddiness he'd felt at opening the presents. Most had been nothing but more textbooks, things he'd loathed and loved at the same time. Other children his age received toys, he'd received Advanced Calculus. There was one gift that had stuck in his mind though.

He'd still been calling Even 'Father' at that point, too naive to understand why the elder apprentice cringed when he said the title among the others. Still, later in the evening Even had pulled him aside under the pretense of putting him to bed. It was then the man had presented him with a stuffed rabbit, knowing the child had longed for one but all the animals in the castle had to have a purpose if they were live.  

The rabbit had grown bedraggled even by the time he'd ceased calling Even his father later that year, taken everywhere with the child he'd been. Still, he'd slept with the stuffed bunny until the day they'd been consumed by the darkness and the rabbit had been lost along with so many other things. 

9: Jawline Kiss

Oh, would you look at that. I’m still alive.