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Unrelated: TACTICS VOLUME 8 COMES OUT ON JULY 10TH I AM SO PSYCHED. [boogies]
On-topic: Fic!
HOLLOW MEN I & II
Kingdom Hearts 2 -- Organization XIII (... + Naminé); game spoilers. Some Roxas/Axel?
... these are so loosely, loosely loosely connected. A bunch of shortomg pretentious pieces based on lines from T.S. Eliot's "Hollow Men." I jump all over the damned place, hah.
++++++
I: we are the hollow men
Some doors do not need a key to be opened.
+++
Once upon a time (so the story goes), once upon a time there was a boy who lost his memory and was saved by a philosopher so wise that it was part of his name. And the boy wanted very much to remember who he was, so he could be more than the boy whom the wise philosopher had recognized, and maybe some day stand completely separate.
And then once upon a time came the day when the boy realized that this master who styled himself as so wise was really nothing more than a very foolish old man. Blinded by his own self-importance, the wise philosopher neglected to realize the importance of darkness.
Because where there was light there was dark and one could not exist without the other. Shadow was what shaped rays of light, and if the wise could not understand that, then perhaps he was not very wise at all. The boy turned his eyes inward to find his answers.
But in a world where there was always light and the gardens never stopped blooming there was very little space for nurturing darkness.
And then one day, once upon a time, the door opened wide.
+++
In reality, Xemnas does not terribly mind not having a heart.
A heart gets in the way of scientific research and interferes with decisions that are necessary. It can be confused, hurt -- even broken -- stolen, betrayed.
But on the other hand, it can lead to interesting flashes of inspiration, intuition, and the few times he cannot figure out what path to take, he has no heart to guide him.
Really, it's such a hassle, but it does have its occasional uses. He will, he thinks, just have to remember to keep a tight reign on his, when he has it again.
+++
There were more, once -- more like him, more like them, more with minds and faces and memories of their own. Like moths to flame they are all drawn to each other, milling about in obvious distrust; there are the Heartless, and then there are the normal people. What are they?
And well. They are scientists, and so they do what it is they have always done: They experiment.
One Nobody they volunteer from the Land of Dragons -- a girl with ink-black hair and jade-green eyes.
She screams until one day she stops and whispers. Her voice fills the room in a dry rustle, until Vexen is forced to leave so he can concentrate on his notes.
He will come back the next morning and find a Dusk in her place, writhing without a word in its bindings. A few more experiments produces the exact method to produce the change, and Xemnas writes on this for later consideration.
It becomes an effective threat for punishment.
+++
The first time Demyx came back from a mission to Atlantica, he went to his room and pulled the sheets of staff paper from under his bed and ripped them up without saying a word to anyone.
+++
There is a certain irony to the phrase, "Nobody talks about it," when it pertains to them. This does not make it less true.
Where do Nobodies go when they die? It's like being a child again, not quite sure if you can die, but knowing that others do and thus being curious. But nobody talks about it, nobody says a thing, and even in a house of mirrors, there must be something for a reflection to occur.
The appearence of a Keyblade in their midst is troubling. A Nobody struck enough times with a Keyblade fades -- it vanishes, leaving nothing but the faint smell of ash behind, and there is no way to determine if, somewhere out there, a corresponding Heartless will disappear as well.
Saix stands by the wide windows of his observatory and looks down upon the World That Never Was, and the clumps of Nobodies that wander aimlessly towards some unspecified goal. He can no longer remember that time, if he had indeed ever been through one -- were those of the Organization born by clawing their way up from that crude shape, or was it the strength of will that kept one from degenerating in the first place?
He turns his face upwards, but the moon gives him no answers.
II: eyes i dare not meet in dreams
Some locks need more than a key to be undone.
+++
The first time Axel meets the Key of Destiny, he reaches out to clap the kid on the back, get a feel for what sort of musculature there is under that heavy black coat. The kid's kinda tiny, and he thinks it won't be a surprise him if he were puny, too.
What he gets is a neat little twist that would make any Dancer proud, and then two Keyblades pressed to his throat. In the darkened alleys that thread like veins through the World that Never Was, Thirteen's eyes gleam like a cat's, round and unblinking. It's sort of like being doused with icewater, and he's roomed with Demyx before, he knows just how it feels like.
"Don't do that," he says. Number Thirteen. Roxas.
"Yeah, okay," Axel says, and holds very still until Thirteen's arms relax and the kid steps back. He holds up his hands in a pacifying gesture, and the kid just sniffs, rolls a shoulder at him, and stalks away. Two Samurai melt out of nowhere and follow him, until the shadows swallow them completely.
+++
"Do we dream?" asked the witch.
"Of course not," Larxene said, without looking up from her book. "You need a heart for that." Idiot, she doesn't add.
"Oh," said the witch. She padded noiselessly along a length of bookshelf and trailed her fingers along the many leatherbound spines, stopping every now and then to trace a gold-leaf title. "Then are we hollow inside?"
"What are you babbling about now?" Irritated at the continued interruption, Larxene marked her place and snapped her book shut. "Of course we're not."
"How do we know?" The witch looked down at herself, then put her hands on her chest. It was almost obscene, except for the look of blank curiousity on her pretty little face, and the look in those big empty blue eyes made Larxene's fingers itch. The longer she stood there, unspeaking, the more irritating she became, and Larxene was about to get to her feet and do something about it when the witch said, "Are we hollow? Would we rattle in a strong wind?"
"We're meat," Larxene said and stood. "There's guts and worse, even in a scrap like you." She stalked over and snagged the girl's arm; it was like a twig in her grasp -- if she just tightened her fingers and applied pressure just so, it would snap. Crunch! and then maybe she'd shut up for a while. But the girl was still necessary -- and there'd be all sorts of unpleasant questions if the others came sniffing around to find out what had happened to their precious witch -- so Larxene just hauled her back, dragging her across the library floor. The witch came limply, stumbling once or twice as she tried to keep up.
Up the stairs they went, spiralling further until they finally reached the White Room. Larxene hauled it open with one hand and tossed the witch in with the other. It irritated her to see the girl regain her balance easily enough, with tiny deerlike steps, and then simply stop. Before Larxene could close the door, the witch turned. There was something eerie in her eyes now, and even with the weird circumstances of her "birth," Larxene was taken aback by her expression. Even the shadow of a Princess of Heart, it seemed, could reflect some light on its own.
The witch put her hands over the place where her heart should be, looking mournful. "We're hollow," she said. "There's not even a place that can be unlocked."
Larxene slammed the door with enough force that her arm tingled, then stalked back to the library, disgusing her shaking in the swift angry movements of her walk.
+++
"Hey," says Demyx, "a shooting star." He points.
"Dream on," Axel says, without looking up. "There aren't any stars here."
+++
There are days when it's more comfortable to wear someone else's skin
It clears his head and lets him see puzzles from a different angle. A child would turn the pieces just so and thus complete one side of the cube, but the adult would say No that doesn't work, you've destroyed the orange and the green. Zexion tries both and isn't quite sure which fits better.
And every time he thinks he's almost -- almost! -- figured it out, his finger twitches wrong and he finds himself staring at yet another mess. He pulls darkness around him, lets it mold his face and form into something else, and slides the last puzzle piece into place.
Triumph, he thinks, is a wonderful fleeting thing.
He lets his shape become his again and sweeps his hand across the table, scattering the pieces again.
+++
The wind smelled like smoke and the coming rain. Xigbar pulled the hood of his coat up and hunched his shoulders, but the cold still cut bitterly through him, leaving his fingers numb on the trigger of his gun. He was tired and he was hungry, and he'd smoked his last cigarette nearly an hour ago. The boss had told him wait, and damned if he was stupid enough to try pushing Xemnas, not when a little bit of lip might cost him something he'd never regain.
"I need you to stand guard," Xemnas said. "You and your Snipers. You'll take the east side of the castle. We don't need any interference after we've come this far."
Xigbar snorted and shifted the weight of his gun. Damned if he wasn't going to just sleep for a week, and let the sheets be damned--
Behind him came a sudden blasting rush of air. It was enough to make him stumble forward and then he whirled, staring up.
The moon was shaped like a heart.
The moon was shaped like a heart.
Around him, the Snipers rustled and reached out towards the great hanging thing in the sky, and Xigbar could only stare at the strange pale radiance of it.
"Well, I'll be damned," he muttered. "Kingdom Hearts." He put his hand on his chest, and for once, he didn't even notice the silence underneath it.
+++
He makes the offer, and he's surprised when Roxas actually agrees.
If I had a next life, Axel does not say, I'd spend it trying to find you again.
--end I & II--
On-topic: Fic!
HOLLOW MEN I & II
Kingdom Hearts 2 -- Organization XIII (... + Naminé); game spoilers. Some Roxas/Axel?
... these are so loosely, loosely loosely connected. A bunch of short
++++++
I: we are the hollow men
Some doors do not need a key to be opened.
+++
Once upon a time (so the story goes), once upon a time there was a boy who lost his memory and was saved by a philosopher so wise that it was part of his name. And the boy wanted very much to remember who he was, so he could be more than the boy whom the wise philosopher had recognized, and maybe some day stand completely separate.
And then once upon a time came the day when the boy realized that this master who styled himself as so wise was really nothing more than a very foolish old man. Blinded by his own self-importance, the wise philosopher neglected to realize the importance of darkness.
Because where there was light there was dark and one could not exist without the other. Shadow was what shaped rays of light, and if the wise could not understand that, then perhaps he was not very wise at all. The boy turned his eyes inward to find his answers.
But in a world where there was always light and the gardens never stopped blooming there was very little space for nurturing darkness.
And then one day, once upon a time, the door opened wide.
+++
In reality, Xemnas does not terribly mind not having a heart.
A heart gets in the way of scientific research and interferes with decisions that are necessary. It can be confused, hurt -- even broken -- stolen, betrayed.
But on the other hand, it can lead to interesting flashes of inspiration, intuition, and the few times he cannot figure out what path to take, he has no heart to guide him.
Really, it's such a hassle, but it does have its occasional uses. He will, he thinks, just have to remember to keep a tight reign on his, when he has it again.
+++
There were more, once -- more like him, more like them, more with minds and faces and memories of their own. Like moths to flame they are all drawn to each other, milling about in obvious distrust; there are the Heartless, and then there are the normal people. What are they?
And well. They are scientists, and so they do what it is they have always done: They experiment.
One Nobody they volunteer from the Land of Dragons -- a girl with ink-black hair and jade-green eyes.
She screams until one day she stops and whispers. Her voice fills the room in a dry rustle, until Vexen is forced to leave so he can concentrate on his notes.
He will come back the next morning and find a Dusk in her place, writhing without a word in its bindings. A few more experiments produces the exact method to produce the change, and Xemnas writes on this for later consideration.
It becomes an effective threat for punishment.
+++
The first time Demyx came back from a mission to Atlantica, he went to his room and pulled the sheets of staff paper from under his bed and ripped them up without saying a word to anyone.
+++
There is a certain irony to the phrase, "Nobody talks about it," when it pertains to them. This does not make it less true.
Where do Nobodies go when they die? It's like being a child again, not quite sure if you can die, but knowing that others do and thus being curious. But nobody talks about it, nobody says a thing, and even in a house of mirrors, there must be something for a reflection to occur.
The appearence of a Keyblade in their midst is troubling. A Nobody struck enough times with a Keyblade fades -- it vanishes, leaving nothing but the faint smell of ash behind, and there is no way to determine if, somewhere out there, a corresponding Heartless will disappear as well.
Saix stands by the wide windows of his observatory and looks down upon the World That Never Was, and the clumps of Nobodies that wander aimlessly towards some unspecified goal. He can no longer remember that time, if he had indeed ever been through one -- were those of the Organization born by clawing their way up from that crude shape, or was it the strength of will that kept one from degenerating in the first place?
He turns his face upwards, but the moon gives him no answers.
II: eyes i dare not meet in dreams
Some locks need more than a key to be undone.
+++
The first time Axel meets the Key of Destiny, he reaches out to clap the kid on the back, get a feel for what sort of musculature there is under that heavy black coat. The kid's kinda tiny, and he thinks it won't be a surprise him if he were puny, too.
What he gets is a neat little twist that would make any Dancer proud, and then two Keyblades pressed to his throat. In the darkened alleys that thread like veins through the World that Never Was, Thirteen's eyes gleam like a cat's, round and unblinking. It's sort of like being doused with icewater, and he's roomed with Demyx before, he knows just how it feels like.
"Don't do that," he says. Number Thirteen. Roxas.
"Yeah, okay," Axel says, and holds very still until Thirteen's arms relax and the kid steps back. He holds up his hands in a pacifying gesture, and the kid just sniffs, rolls a shoulder at him, and stalks away. Two Samurai melt out of nowhere and follow him, until the shadows swallow them completely.
+++
"Do we dream?" asked the witch.
"Of course not," Larxene said, without looking up from her book. "You need a heart for that." Idiot, she doesn't add.
"Oh," said the witch. She padded noiselessly along a length of bookshelf and trailed her fingers along the many leatherbound spines, stopping every now and then to trace a gold-leaf title. "Then are we hollow inside?"
"What are you babbling about now?" Irritated at the continued interruption, Larxene marked her place and snapped her book shut. "Of course we're not."
"How do we know?" The witch looked down at herself, then put her hands on her chest. It was almost obscene, except for the look of blank curiousity on her pretty little face, and the look in those big empty blue eyes made Larxene's fingers itch. The longer she stood there, unspeaking, the more irritating she became, and Larxene was about to get to her feet and do something about it when the witch said, "Are we hollow? Would we rattle in a strong wind?"
"We're meat," Larxene said and stood. "There's guts and worse, even in a scrap like you." She stalked over and snagged the girl's arm; it was like a twig in her grasp -- if she just tightened her fingers and applied pressure just so, it would snap. Crunch! and then maybe she'd shut up for a while. But the girl was still necessary -- and there'd be all sorts of unpleasant questions if the others came sniffing around to find out what had happened to their precious witch -- so Larxene just hauled her back, dragging her across the library floor. The witch came limply, stumbling once or twice as she tried to keep up.
Up the stairs they went, spiralling further until they finally reached the White Room. Larxene hauled it open with one hand and tossed the witch in with the other. It irritated her to see the girl regain her balance easily enough, with tiny deerlike steps, and then simply stop. Before Larxene could close the door, the witch turned. There was something eerie in her eyes now, and even with the weird circumstances of her "birth," Larxene was taken aback by her expression. Even the shadow of a Princess of Heart, it seemed, could reflect some light on its own.
The witch put her hands over the place where her heart should be, looking mournful. "We're hollow," she said. "There's not even a place that can be unlocked."
Larxene slammed the door with enough force that her arm tingled, then stalked back to the library, disgusing her shaking in the swift angry movements of her walk.
+++
"Hey," says Demyx, "a shooting star." He points.
"Dream on," Axel says, without looking up. "There aren't any stars here."
+++
There are days when it's more comfortable to wear someone else's skin
It clears his head and lets him see puzzles from a different angle. A child would turn the pieces just so and thus complete one side of the cube, but the adult would say No that doesn't work, you've destroyed the orange and the green. Zexion tries both and isn't quite sure which fits better.
And every time he thinks he's almost -- almost! -- figured it out, his finger twitches wrong and he finds himself staring at yet another mess. He pulls darkness around him, lets it mold his face and form into something else, and slides the last puzzle piece into place.
Triumph, he thinks, is a wonderful fleeting thing.
He lets his shape become his again and sweeps his hand across the table, scattering the pieces again.
+++
The wind smelled like smoke and the coming rain. Xigbar pulled the hood of his coat up and hunched his shoulders, but the cold still cut bitterly through him, leaving his fingers numb on the trigger of his gun. He was tired and he was hungry, and he'd smoked his last cigarette nearly an hour ago. The boss had told him wait, and damned if he was stupid enough to try pushing Xemnas, not when a little bit of lip might cost him something he'd never regain.
"I need you to stand guard," Xemnas said. "You and your Snipers. You'll take the east side of the castle. We don't need any interference after we've come this far."
Xigbar snorted and shifted the weight of his gun. Damned if he wasn't going to just sleep for a week, and let the sheets be damned--
Behind him came a sudden blasting rush of air. It was enough to make him stumble forward and then he whirled, staring up.
The moon was shaped like a heart.
The moon was shaped like a heart.
Around him, the Snipers rustled and reached out towards the great hanging thing in the sky, and Xigbar could only stare at the strange pale radiance of it.
"Well, I'll be damned," he muttered. "Kingdom Hearts." He put his hand on his chest, and for once, he didn't even notice the silence underneath it.
+++
He makes the offer, and he's surprised when Roxas actually agrees.
If I had a next life, Axel does not say, I'd spend it trying to find you again.
--end I & II--
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![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
The first time Demyx came back from a mission to Atlantica, he went to his room and pulled the sheets of staff paper from under his bed and ripped them up without saying a word to anyone.
I think I'm going to cry. poor thing.
And Xigbar! oh. just. What a lovely little moment there. and of course he misses his cigarettes.
You are awesome. ^^
From:
no subject
For some reason, Xigbar just sort of struck me as the sort who smokes. XD Afterwards, he gets some Dusks to go in on a match with some Gamblers and takes the munny to get himself more. [coughs]
I'm really really glad you liked these, woo♥♥
From:
no subject
"Hey," says Demyx, "a shooting star." He points.
"Dream on," Axel says, without looking up. "There aren't any stars here."
I'm not sure why, but it kinda hit home with a lonely, desolate non-existence they all live in.
From:
no subject
I somehow get the feeling that when Kingdom Hearts materialized in the World That Never Was, that was the first time they'd had anything in their sky other than darkness, and well. A heart that's floating up to join Kingdom Hearts might look like a shooting star, if you squint hard enough.
From:
no subject
So good though. So good.
My squishy, how she hurts me, but she is a good hurty squishy. *purr*
From:
no subject
I am v. v. glad you like these, though! ♥ It is probably the fault of you and
From:
no subject
I just. Yes. This is so... it's haunting, it's entrancing, it's -- YES. Just. I love it. I love the shifting tones through it, the shifting voices, from fairytale to real and god poor Demyx, poor ALL of them, and. Yes. Axel. And Xigbar. And. MAN the Namine section is just. YES.
....And like. You handle the characters who are almost never handled and I LOVE IT.
A LOT.
WHUT.
♥
From:
no subject
... I am totally going to try and get all of the Organization in the following parts, but that will take a while as I try to figure out what I can from the bits and pieces of canon we get. (Also. Psyching myself up to write "empty," which is surprisingly hard -- but maybe not so much, when comes from writing SORA. 8D;)
♥♥ I'm glad you liiiiiiiked♥
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
I'm really glad you liked this♥ They're sort of exhausting to write, but it makes me happy that they're readable, despite all the jumps♥♥
From:
no subject
You rock.^^
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
♥
From:
no subject
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it♥♥