Finale, Part 2: Destiny Islands, Brighton, the City of Light, on a Thursday Afternoon
If you asked Kairi what it was like, being a Princess of Heart, she would laugh and tell you she'd been short-changed. No powers, nothing special, just a fancy title and a tendency to get kidnapped.
This wasn't entirely true. Kairi could see with her heart, and not her eyes. Kairi could line the pieces up the way they should go, just by willing it hard enough. Light would find a way, and she could push it in the right direction.
She wasn't lying, when she said she didn't have powers. It was just that Kairi didn't realize other people couldn't do that.
So when Kairi focused and looked, hard, she saw the real problem. She and Naminé had been half each, once, and since had grown and flourished and changed. Neither of them were fully whole alone, but they were each too much to fit back into a single casing. They were not quite one and not quite two, two hearts linked together and orbiting in lopsided circles.
It was all wrong. They'd need to shave around the edges to smash back in, and that was even worse. Kairi had a better idea.
If she slipped this knot free, and moved that piece out ... then they wouldn't be tied together at all. Then Light could breathe in and fill the empty spaces. Then they could be one each.
His name is Valentine, Naminé had said, and that was the name to the line here. So that was where Naminé should go. To Valentine.
"Fly," Kairi smiled, opening her eyes.
And Valentine looked around sharply, wide-eyed.
This whole world was suddenly so very bright and different and vaguely familiar, as though perhaps he was waking up from a dream or had swallowed some bad frui-- Fruit.
He had seen this once, hadn't he? His hands were on his maskless face and there was a garage door to his back and he was standing in an alleyway in what he knew had to be the real world. He had to squint, to narrow his eyes to keep all of it from drowning him at once. The world had risen up to eat him, without his mask, and --
Jason looked around sharply, mouth open in shock.
This whole world was suddenly so very bright and different and vaguely familiar, as though perhaps he was waking up from a dream or had stepped into some strange draw- Drawing.
He had seen this once, hadn't he? His fingers were brushing over a mask, and there was a column of keyholes to his back, and he was looking out a window in what he knew had to be Helena's dream world. He had to turn his head this way and that, to take it all in through the pinholes of his new face. The world was hiding from him.
He smiled. That was perfectly alright. It was brighter here, somehow. More like he belonged. He fully intended to look around until he'd seen it all. Juggling and fish and a tower of his very own.
After all, he was fully certain that he could someday be a Very Important Man, here.
Valentine took a few dazed steps forward. The next thing he'd have to do was try to survive in this place, wasn't it? The future fruit had showed him as a waiter, a profession he rather wanted to avoid falling into, really. And what he had seen of this place in Fandom was most certainly a skewed view, if so many other people there were thrown off by Fandom's oddities, as well.
Somewhere around him he could hear the sounds of water on a pier, the bustle of Brighton life, a whole world that he didn't understand at all, aside from 'books don't fly,' and 'people wear little rabbity things on their feet.' He had to pick a direction. Any direction. Maybe if he followed the water, he'd come across something worthwhile- at least he'd always be able to follow it back. He'd learned that much from Fandom. Yes, that's what he would do. Follow the water.
The water seemed, to him, to be as good a place as any to begin sorting out why the mask would send him here, when Naminé was somewhere else entirely.
Naminé opened their eyes and saw that they were seated on a bench, somewhere near a beach. They --
Naminé closed her eyes and focused. Her eyes. She. Not they. How ...
She opened her eyes again. She was alone, and Kairi was gone, and yet she was ... whole? She felt suddenly that she should be afraid, that this was somehow a bad sign, but the breeze was ruffling her skirt and the sun was warm. And she had the strangest feeling that things were right, for once.
Naminé stood up carefully. It was lovely here, wherever here was. And now what? Was there somewhere she should be, something she should be doing?
Perhaps if he followed the water some more, his feet pressing into the sand and the breeze blowing his jacket around and saltwater seeping through his sneakers, this would start to make sense.
The sun would stop burning at his eyes, and it would all make sense. Being alone, here on the beach, without so much as a proper face.
Was this somehow what the mask thought he'd needed?
At least she wasn't alone, Naminé realized, taking inventory of her surroundings. Further ahead there was a sandy-haired man walking along the edge of the water. He seemed oddly in tune with all of it, the wind and the water and the sand, in a way she couldn't place.
Maybe he would know where they were? It seemed as likely as not, and she didn't like the thought of him wandering away. So Naminé followed, reaching the edge of the water quickly, hoping to catch up.
Follow the water and try not to squint too much and maybe the sun would stop burning his eyes eventually. Everything seemed so very fresh here and he was vaguely aware of footsteps from somewhere behind him... Maybe. Maybe...? But then, this world was backwards and upside-down and fish didn't fly. He was probably just hearing things.
He'd gone mad, that's what this was. He'd used the mask and it had simply made him lose his mind.
Why did she want to reach out and tug on his arm? She'd been whole for two minutes and she was getting impossibly forward. She couldn't explain it. Behave, Naminé.
There was something so familiar about the shape of him, the way he fit against the beach. It was as if someone had drawn the beach just so he could walk along here, looking disenchanted with all of it and ruffling his hair.
She wasn't getting forward, she was going mad. That explanation made much more sense all the way around.
Nevertheless, she had to know where she was. So she coughed, politely, and hoped the man would turn around.
"Excuse me?"
Her voice felt hoarse. She hadn't used it in so long ...
He knew that voice.
He knew that voice and stopped dead in his tracks and tried not to break into an insane grin and wheel around and wrap his arms around her and squeeze and never let go. Because that voice was impossible and she was gone and -- maybe he was going mad. Maybe the fruit had just showed a fall head over heels into crazy. Maybe the MirrorMask was broken and he was on a beach in another world for no good reason.
But he'd turn around- he was lost, and turning around was something that lost people did, yes? And he'd see that there was Nobody th-- "Naminé?!"
Not Nobody, then. Somebody.
[NFI, NFB, OOC welcome, LMNOP. Preplayed with and coded by palestshadow. Also, eee.]