Beating Drum Heart [3/6]
*hand twitch* One giant thing done, so many more to go. sdfasfdasfjala
Author: tunasaladsonnet
Chapter Title: White Shadows
Rating: G! (but lots of head-canon ahead)
Spoilers: KHII - Second visit of Port Royal.
Notes/Continuation: L-Lexaeus is kind of my fictional husband. At least my muse husband. He doesn't ever leave. He just waits. ;_; I'm sorry this took so long, you guys.
This chapter takes place during Sora & Company's first visit to Hollow Bastion and his return to Traverse Town, methinks.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
Beating Drum Heart
Chapter 3: White Shadows
A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.
~ George Moore
The monitor flicked onto the Forge of Superfluous Effort and the image of a man with heavy dark hair sitting on one of the benches. He turned from sharpening his spear when an automated voice announced that there was an ‘Incoming Signal. Source: Allied Gummi ship’.
Xaldin turned and grinned, resting his spear across his knees. “Lexaeus. Back from your vacation?”
Xigbar appeared on screen before he could respond, having somehow managed to cover himself in soot. His one gold eye glared through the black residue. “Lexaeus!”
“Number Two. Do I have to ask?”
Xigbar grinned as only he could, raising his hands innocently. “We weren’t in the labs. Scout’s honour.”
Xaldin scoffed in the background. “He was just trying out some new wiring on a gummi ship.”
“Speaking of which! You were the last person I’d accuse of stealing my battleship, Lex. Much less dismantling it,” Xigbar laughed.
“Blame Zexion. I didn’t ask for a not-birthday present.” Despite his words, Lexaeus couldn’t help grinning around at the interior of his new ship.
“Like hell you didn’t,” Xaldin chuckled. “The kitchen was smoking for hours, and you weren’t even there to see your cake.”
He shook his head deeply. “What a tragedy.”
“Told you he skipped out on us,” Xigbar remarked. “How was your vacation, journeyman?”
“I’m not a journeyman, Xigbar.”
“Oh, whatever. You’re close enough, I guess.”
“Zexion’s been waiting for you to come back. He wanted to know how his new baby is doing,” Xaldin said, grinning expectedly at Xigbar, who rolled his eye.
“That thing certainly has two parents,” he grumbled.
“Where is he then? I certainly don’t want to tell him I crashed it.” Lexaeus asked, smiling slightly.
II and III blinked at the intercom, before promptly bursting out laughing. “Hoo, you definitely don’t want to know where he is then!” Xigbar said, before barking with laughter again.
Xaldin shook his head sympathetically. “You crashed it.”
“Zexion did send me on vacation to the encroaching edges of darkness.”
“True. Well, he and Vexen are with the Oblivion Neophytes, checking out guess-where,” the Whirlwind Lancer ran a gloved hand over the namesake in his lap, spotting a scratch on the blade. “You can probably still catch them if you set your course now.”
“Will do,” V nodded, typing Castle Oblivion’s coordinates into the engines.
“What a vacation,” Xigbar said, crossing his arms and shaking his head. “You crash and spend a week putting it back together. And here we all thought you were kicking your feet up on a beach somewhere.”
Lexaeus shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad. It was a very nice world.”
“Hmm,” Xaldin muttered. “Almost a shame it’ll be swallowed up by darkness soon.”
Something inside twanged then, like a wire being pulled too tight. That was odd. Maybe he’d ask Vexen about it. “I’ll see you two soon then.
“And for goodness’ sake Xigbar, clean yourself off the next time something spits ash at you.”
“That’s what I said.”
---
Castle Oblivion was situated on a world they had never cared to name. By extension, the entire planet could be called Castle Oblivion, but it didn’t seem very appropriate to call the rolling green fields with its patches of lush trees ‘oblivion’. There was just the one area, where the entire planet caved in on itself, that was of the proper amount of nihilism to build a castle.
They had built their second headquarters there to investigate what had caused the hole in the planet in the first place. It rotated between the Realm of Darkness and the Realm of Light, much like their own world and the place called Twilight Town.
Lexaeus landed in the lowest level of the castle, thirteen stories below the cliff. He was walking down the hallway that lead away from the gummi bay when he saw a flicker of light out of the corner of his eye. For a second, he considered a lightspot formation. The strange things popped up almost everywhere. One even had the habit of showing up and disappearing again at the Alter of Naught.
It certainly looked like a lightspot. Lexaeus tilted his head at the glow in at the end of the hallway. It definitely wasn’t a trick of the light. But there was something different. For one thing, this lightspot was making a noise.
It was a quiet shuffling sound, like the sound paper made when drifting through the air. It was definitely the right shade of pale gold and the right amount of brightness, he observed as he knelt down beside it.
The light thickened and gathered. It started moving like smoke in reverse. And now the smoke was flattening out in sheets. The shuffling sound faded into the sound of waves on a shore, as the core of the light dulled. It started to spread out and take on an oddly… human shape. Seconds past and the dull gold solidified and became hair, the rest of it skin. The flattened smoke had become a white cloth that the girl now clung to as if for life.
The sound of waves gave out to the din of rapid breathing. Her eyelids flickered over the tiles she was hunched over, sky blue eyes panicked. She met his eyes briefly and she attempted to jolt away or stand up. Her lack of proper air flow prevented her from doing anything.
“Breathe,” he told her.
She tried, sucking air in through clenched teeth, but after a couple of seconds, her eyes started to roll.
That was when he scooped her up (she was insanely light) and started running. He wasn’t sure how many floors he had to portal through before finding Zexion and Vexen, standing in one of the labs, unloading devices onto the shelves. Zexion had turned and opened his mouth before Lexaeus had interrupted: “She’s not breathing.”
A second. “What?”
Lexaeus’s legs carried him to a clear table and his arms moved to put the girl down. She couldn’t stop twitching all over. “What in the world-?” “Who-?”
“Zexion, you need to put her to sleep. Now.”
The Schemer was by his side in two seconds, one hand on the girl’s forehead, the other on her collarbone. Her eyes shot open and she struggled against the contact feebly, her hands shooting up and clenching the Nobody’s arm. Wispy whimpering sounds escaped from her throat but, as Zexion’s fingers shone blue-black, her eyelids flickered into sleep. Her struggling stilled and her breaths lengthened.
Vexen pried her hands off of Zexion’s arm, and set them down on the table. The three of them looked around at one another, visibly shaken and confused. The girl dozed, breathing deeply and fully.
“So Lexaeus, how was your vacation?” Vexen asked, a wide smirk spreading over his face.
“I need to sit down, that’s how my vacation was,” he responded, sitting on one of the wooden packing crates littered around the room. He rubbed his palm into his eyelids.
“Evidently, I am a bad vacation planner,” he heard Zexion say.
“Yes. You are.”
He could hear Vexen teasing laugh before he laughed it and see Zexion’s good-natured cringe without seeing it.
He was home.
---
“So she is a Nobody, then?”
“Without a doubt. No pulse - no heart.”
The girl scribbled at a blank piece of paper with one of Vexen’s pens across the room, lying on the white tiles in a pool of sunlight. She was dressed in one of Larxene’s smallest sweaters and pants, both many times too big. Marluxia sat close by, able to listen to the discussion and watch her at the same time.
Larxene folded her arms. “But she doesn’t even remember her name?”
“As far as I can tell, her mind is completely blank save for the basic knowledge a fourteen-year-old girl would have. She knows fundamental concepts in math and science. She knows some natural features, like what a tree or a lake is,” Zexion explained. “I can’t pry into memories - my powers don’t allow that - but she doesn’t have any thoughts concerning a specific world or even any other people.”
“If she doesn’t remember a name, how can we give her a new one?” Axel asked.
“It’s best that we wait and see if it comes around. It took Saïx a couple of days to remember his original name. In the mean time, we’ve been calling her Zero,” Vexen answered.
“That’s Miss Zero,” Marluxia corrected from his chair. He turned and grinned at the girl. “Isn’t that right?”
The girl blushed but kept her eyes on the paper. Larxene scoffed (Axel grinned at that), and continued, “Why not Thirteen? She’s a Nobody. What reason is there for her not to join the club?”
“Because she’s different than any other Nobody,” Lexaeus spoke up for the first time. He watched the girl intently, as if trying to pinpoint something. “When she formed, she was surrounded with light. Every other one of our members were formed in shadows. Besides that, there’s the issue of her memories, as Zexion said.”
Vexen nodded, holding his chin in thought. “We’ll never know the reasons behind these exceptions if we don’t study her more closely. If we go tossing her into battle we may never get the opportunity.”
“Her fate is for the Superior to decide, Vexen,” Marluxia said, looking at them all from the corner of his eye. “Don’t tell me you need reminding?”
Vexen scowled at that, and Larxene walked over to Axel’s spot on the windowsill. The ensuing whispers between them no doubt held new jabs at the Chilly Academic. This became especially apparent when Axel managed to coax a harsh giggle out of the Nymph.
Zexion rolled his eyes and walked up beside Lexaeus. “Something’s bothering you,” he said.
“You’ve had déjà vu before, haven’t you?” The Hero asked. He couldn’t stop watching the girl in the too-big sweater doodle on the paper.
“Of course,” Zexion looked up from underneath his bangs. “But do you mean regular déjà vu, or the Somebody induced variety?”
“The latter,” he responded.
“Five, if you have some sort of theory regarding our Miss Zero, I suggest sharing it with us,” Marluxia said, smiling over the back of his chair.
“It’s not exactly a sharing theory,” he said, stepping forward. “More of a showing.”
Marluxia only gestured towards the blonde Nobody on the floor, allowing him to continue.
Lexaeus walked up next to the girl and crouched. She looked up obediently, traces of what she knew as fear and nervousness in her eyes. “Miss Zero, may I ask you to stand?”
She nodded and obeyed, rolling her sleeves up only to have them fall back down. She watched as he walked around her, standing to her left. “Now, stand completely still, and hang on to me.”
She squeaked when he scooped her up and balanced her on one of his broad shoulders. He held onto her, her legs dangling down his side as though his shoulder was only a tree branch. He addressed Vexen and Zexion. “Does this look familiar to you?”
The sunlight coming through the window ambered. Had the girl been a little younger, shorter, her arms would’ve wrapped around his forehead for support and her legs wouldn’t dangle down so long. Her feet would be smaller, but she’d still be barefoot, especially out in the castle courtyard as they were. Her hair would be shorter, redder, and her eyes would have a touch of purple in them, and he would be smiling of course, and his hair would be a little different, and there certainly wouldn’t be an ‘x’ in his name.
Zexion and Vexen were looking at ‘Miss Zero’ as if Lexaeus had brought her into their lives all over again.
“Impossible…” Vexen said.
“The Princess,” said Zexion.
---
“Let me get this straight,” Xaldin rubbed the bridge between his eyes. “Princess Kairi is alive?”
Xemnas’s hands were steepled in front of his face. “My Other never intended to kill her. He cast her out to the Worlds in hope that her connection to the keyblade would lead him to a Wielder.”
“Speaking of which, Superior: keyblades exist? The Mouse King was always spouting legends.”
“Roxas wields at least one. Axel reported that the boy can use two, but he hasn’t been able to bring one into its full power yet,” the Superior explained.
“This is what you get for avoiding home sweet home, Xaldin,” Xigbar teased, rocking back on the hind legs of his chair. He pointed at his only eye. “Would’ve been able to see the whole thing if you’d tagged along.”
“For goodness sake, Xigbar, I thought you kicked that habit in your first life.” Zexion narrowed his eyes at him.
The Freeshooter laughed, dropping the legs of his chair to the floor. “Sorry kiddo. Didn’t know you cared.”
While Where Nothing Gathers was the current meeting place of the Organization, it had not always been that way. Back in the days of Organization VI, they had stumbled upon the castle, eerie, empty, and waiting for them. There had been six bedrooms, a kitchen, a lab. And there was a meeting room, with a table and six chairs. They had started calling it the Room of Ill-Stared Hexes, because it seemed appropriate. All those years passed and they still met here to discuss things away from the Neophytes.
“And how exactly did you manage to ‘see’ all this, Xigbar?” Vexen asked, tapping away at his keyboard. The monitor was detached and suspended in mid-air, floating at eye level. When he looked across the table, the semi-transparent screen followed him. Xigbar grinned through the words of the report at him, eager to explain, but Zexion interrupted coolly.
“Using a combination of Number Two’s, Ten’s, and my own powers, we were able to create a kind of ‘scrying portal’ into the events of the past.”
Vexen typed away and Xigbar continued. “Turns out that Maleficent witch we’d been watching had made an artificial keyblade from six of the Princess’ Hearts. Only this one unlocks hearts, not Keyholes.
“And the Keyblade Wielder, this Sora kid, somehow got his heart mixed up with little ol’ Kairi’s. So he released her heart and his when he stabbed himself through with it-”
Lexaeus frowned. “He stabbed himself?”
Xigbar laughed. “Did I not mention that?”
The sound echoed oddly around the room. He’d have to investigate that later - probably something in the architecture. An old quote about laying down one’s life for the life of a friend floated by in his mind. Xaldin was speaking again.
“So Roxas and Naminé were created on the same day, and were released from the same body,” he pondered. “No wonder she doesn’t have the same eyes as the Princess.”
“Nearly the same,” Zexion noted.
“Is that the name we’ve decided on, by the way? Naminé?” Vexen asked.
“Ansem the Wise named his daughter after the ocean. Since Naminé is only a part of her it makes sense that she be named after a wave,” Xaldin replied.
“Her powers?” Lexaeus asked.
“Unknown, as of right now,” Zexion said. “Due to her unusual birth, she might not have any.”
“Or she may have more than the rest of us,” Xemnas guessed.
There was silence until Xigbar leaned across the table, addressing Xaldin. “You get to meet the kids today, right?”
“Third day after their arrival, so yes. Maybe I’ll be able to prod something out of them.”
“You’re certainly terrifying enough to manage it,” Zexion quipped, leaning his chin on his knuckles. There was faint laughter around the table. Xaldin snorted, annoyed. Xemnas cracked a smile before concluding the meeting. Vexen’s computer sank into the table and the Originals stood, ready to leave. The Superior left with some parting words.
“Remember though: Roxas is not to know of Naminé. They may prove to be too valuable to us on their own. Placing them together may lead to our undoing.”
---
“My name is Lexaeus, Number Five of the Organization. I can control the element of Earth and use a tomahawk as my weapon.” He pressed his fingers together and looked down on her. “Do you have any questions about me?”
Naminé shook her head.
“Nothing at all you’re curious about?” He pulled up a chair at her long table and sat. It creaked softly under his girth.
Two days after the meeting, five days after Roxas and Naminé had moved into the castle. He had met and sparred with Roxas earlier that morning, and was now in the aptly titled White Room. The girl’s domain.
She looked down at the hem of the white dress Xigbar had managed to commission for her (he and Xaldin always wondered how this ‘Edna Mode’ put up with Number II’s haphazard visits). “I have one.”
He nodded to indicate she could continue. “Why does everyone keep mentioning a Princess Kairi? Is she my Other?”
“Has no one told you that?”
She frowned thoughtfully. “Well, Superior told me about the Apprentices. Then Two told me about weapons. And Three tried to help me figure out elements-”
“So, no.”
She shook her head demurely. Somewhere, in another place, her Other would’ve shaken her head so hard it would’ve tossed red hair into her eyes. How different people could be.
“Kairi was the daughter of Ansem the Wise, the man the Apprentices served under, as you already know. She was a Princess of Heart, one of seven girls in all the Worlds born without darkness in their hearts. When Xehanort became a Heartless, he destroyed the girl’s memories and cast the Princess out into the Worlds in order to find the Keyblade Wielder.”
The more he talked the more it felt like tripwires were being set off inside. It had never been difficult to say things like this out loud before, but this was to a girl who shared the face of the innocent.
“Do you mean Roxas?” She asked, her eyes shining.
He smiled and shook his head. She was forming a curious connection to the boy already.
She nodded, understanding. “I don’t suppose that’ll give me a lot of options when it comes to elements.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, if Kairi didn’t have any darkness in her heart, I could have Light. But, um, Xaldin said that Roxas controls that.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself,” he said. “Your powers will reveal themselves in time, and they’ll continue to long after you discover them.”
She leaned forward. “You think so?”
“I know so. Everyone’s powers continue to change and grow. Demyx only perfected his clones a couple of months ago. But you’ll learn about that later.”
“Even your powers?”
He thought on that. When he had sat on top of a hill with the sun setting and a human next to him, he had thought he had heard chimes in the wind. Xaldin had never described hearing the legendary Voice of the Wind. And everything about that particular world, from the giant trees to the red soil on Nakoma’s feet breathed Earth. Why had he heard something? “Perhaps.”
She frowned, intrigued. “You don’t think your powers can grow?”
“Stone isn’t a flexible element, Naminé.”
“But you think they might grow?”
Lexaeus shook his head. “You are more like the Princess than I first thought. Again, my answer is perhaps.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just - Vexen said that you were a scientist - and I thought you’d like to investigate. But,” she shrugged, eyes downcast, “I shouldn’t jump to conclusions or…”
He opened his mouth to reply to that and shut it again.
Oh, damn it.
He sighed. “No, Naminé, you’re right. I will have to look into it. But for now, what would you like me to teach you?”
She leaned back in her chair. “Would you mind if you taught me what Lesser Nobodies are? I haven’t really met any before.”
Lexaeus cast a look up to the ceiling. Too low. He opened a portal behind him. “Of course. We’ll have to go outside.”
She nodded, pushing herself off the chair. They stepped through it into the open air of the courtyard. She rubbed her arms, and he remembered how long it had taken him to get used to the cold in the corridors of darkness. He sent out a silent call for Gayn and Qaf. Naminé shuffled her feet but remained silent.
Eventually the two Geomancers emerged from the North wall of the courtyard, towering high over his head. Their limbs creaked as they moved, like the giant pillars of stone they resembled. The girl shrank into his side. “Are these trees?”
“No, but they’re certainly big enough to be,” he replied.
Over the next couple of hours, teaching Naminé how to speak in the Lesser-Whispers, the thought of returning to the world with chimes in the wind became more and more prevalent.
If Vexen didn’t know the reason behind his snapping, echoing insides, maybe he could find it there.
~~~
Foot Notes
Author: tunasaladsonnet
Chapter Title: White Shadows
Rating: G! (but lots of head-canon ahead)
Spoilers: KHII - Second visit of Port Royal.
Notes/Continuation: L-Lexaeus is kind of my fictional husband. At least my muse husband. He doesn't ever leave. He just waits. ;_; I'm sorry this took so long, you guys.
This chapter takes place during Sora & Company's first visit to Hollow Bastion and his return to Traverse Town, methinks.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
Beating Drum Heart
Chapter 3: White Shadows
A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.
~ George Moore
The monitor flicked onto the Forge of Superfluous Effort and the image of a man with heavy dark hair sitting on one of the benches. He turned from sharpening his spear when an automated voice announced that there was an ‘Incoming Signal. Source: Allied Gummi ship’.
Xaldin turned and grinned, resting his spear across his knees. “Lexaeus. Back from your vacation?”
Xigbar appeared on screen before he could respond, having somehow managed to cover himself in soot. His one gold eye glared through the black residue. “Lexaeus!”
“Number Two. Do I have to ask?”
Xigbar grinned as only he could, raising his hands innocently. “We weren’t in the labs. Scout’s honour.”
Xaldin scoffed in the background. “He was just trying out some new wiring on a gummi ship.”
“Speaking of which! You were the last person I’d accuse of stealing my battleship, Lex. Much less dismantling it,” Xigbar laughed.
“Blame Zexion. I didn’t ask for a not-birthday present.” Despite his words, Lexaeus couldn’t help grinning around at the interior of his new ship.
“Like hell you didn’t,” Xaldin chuckled. “The kitchen was smoking for hours, and you weren’t even there to see your cake.”
He shook his head deeply. “What a tragedy.”
“Told you he skipped out on us,” Xigbar remarked. “How was your vacation, journeyman?”
“I’m not a journeyman, Xigbar.”
“Oh, whatever. You’re close enough, I guess.”
“Zexion’s been waiting for you to come back. He wanted to know how his new baby is doing,” Xaldin said, grinning expectedly at Xigbar, who rolled his eye.
“That thing certainly has two parents,” he grumbled.
“Where is he then? I certainly don’t want to tell him I crashed it.” Lexaeus asked, smiling slightly.
II and III blinked at the intercom, before promptly bursting out laughing. “Hoo, you definitely don’t want to know where he is then!” Xigbar said, before barking with laughter again.
Xaldin shook his head sympathetically. “You crashed it.”
“Zexion did send me on vacation to the encroaching edges of darkness.”
“True. Well, he and Vexen are with the Oblivion Neophytes, checking out guess-where,” the Whirlwind Lancer ran a gloved hand over the namesake in his lap, spotting a scratch on the blade. “You can probably still catch them if you set your course now.”
“Will do,” V nodded, typing Castle Oblivion’s coordinates into the engines.
“What a vacation,” Xigbar said, crossing his arms and shaking his head. “You crash and spend a week putting it back together. And here we all thought you were kicking your feet up on a beach somewhere.”
Lexaeus shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad. It was a very nice world.”
“Hmm,” Xaldin muttered. “Almost a shame it’ll be swallowed up by darkness soon.”
Something inside twanged then, like a wire being pulled too tight. That was odd. Maybe he’d ask Vexen about it. “I’ll see you two soon then.
“And for goodness’ sake Xigbar, clean yourself off the next time something spits ash at you.”
“That’s what I said.”
---
Castle Oblivion was situated on a world they had never cared to name. By extension, the entire planet could be called Castle Oblivion, but it didn’t seem very appropriate to call the rolling green fields with its patches of lush trees ‘oblivion’. There was just the one area, where the entire planet caved in on itself, that was of the proper amount of nihilism to build a castle.
They had built their second headquarters there to investigate what had caused the hole in the planet in the first place. It rotated between the Realm of Darkness and the Realm of Light, much like their own world and the place called Twilight Town.
Lexaeus landed in the lowest level of the castle, thirteen stories below the cliff. He was walking down the hallway that lead away from the gummi bay when he saw a flicker of light out of the corner of his eye. For a second, he considered a lightspot formation. The strange things popped up almost everywhere. One even had the habit of showing up and disappearing again at the Alter of Naught.
It certainly looked like a lightspot. Lexaeus tilted his head at the glow in at the end of the hallway. It definitely wasn’t a trick of the light. But there was something different. For one thing, this lightspot was making a noise.
It was a quiet shuffling sound, like the sound paper made when drifting through the air. It was definitely the right shade of pale gold and the right amount of brightness, he observed as he knelt down beside it.
The light thickened and gathered. It started moving like smoke in reverse. And now the smoke was flattening out in sheets. The shuffling sound faded into the sound of waves on a shore, as the core of the light dulled. It started to spread out and take on an oddly… human shape. Seconds past and the dull gold solidified and became hair, the rest of it skin. The flattened smoke had become a white cloth that the girl now clung to as if for life.
The sound of waves gave out to the din of rapid breathing. Her eyelids flickered over the tiles she was hunched over, sky blue eyes panicked. She met his eyes briefly and she attempted to jolt away or stand up. Her lack of proper air flow prevented her from doing anything.
“Breathe,” he told her.
She tried, sucking air in through clenched teeth, but after a couple of seconds, her eyes started to roll.
That was when he scooped her up (she was insanely light) and started running. He wasn’t sure how many floors he had to portal through before finding Zexion and Vexen, standing in one of the labs, unloading devices onto the shelves. Zexion had turned and opened his mouth before Lexaeus had interrupted: “She’s not breathing.”
A second. “What?”
Lexaeus’s legs carried him to a clear table and his arms moved to put the girl down. She couldn’t stop twitching all over. “What in the world-?” “Who-?”
“Zexion, you need to put her to sleep. Now.”
The Schemer was by his side in two seconds, one hand on the girl’s forehead, the other on her collarbone. Her eyes shot open and she struggled against the contact feebly, her hands shooting up and clenching the Nobody’s arm. Wispy whimpering sounds escaped from her throat but, as Zexion’s fingers shone blue-black, her eyelids flickered into sleep. Her struggling stilled and her breaths lengthened.
Vexen pried her hands off of Zexion’s arm, and set them down on the table. The three of them looked around at one another, visibly shaken and confused. The girl dozed, breathing deeply and fully.
“So Lexaeus, how was your vacation?” Vexen asked, a wide smirk spreading over his face.
“I need to sit down, that’s how my vacation was,” he responded, sitting on one of the wooden packing crates littered around the room. He rubbed his palm into his eyelids.
“Evidently, I am a bad vacation planner,” he heard Zexion say.
“Yes. You are.”
He could hear Vexen teasing laugh before he laughed it and see Zexion’s good-natured cringe without seeing it.
He was home.
---
“So she is a Nobody, then?”
“Without a doubt. No pulse - no heart.”
The girl scribbled at a blank piece of paper with one of Vexen’s pens across the room, lying on the white tiles in a pool of sunlight. She was dressed in one of Larxene’s smallest sweaters and pants, both many times too big. Marluxia sat close by, able to listen to the discussion and watch her at the same time.
Larxene folded her arms. “But she doesn’t even remember her name?”
“As far as I can tell, her mind is completely blank save for the basic knowledge a fourteen-year-old girl would have. She knows fundamental concepts in math and science. She knows some natural features, like what a tree or a lake is,” Zexion explained. “I can’t pry into memories - my powers don’t allow that - but she doesn’t have any thoughts concerning a specific world or even any other people.”
“If she doesn’t remember a name, how can we give her a new one?” Axel asked.
“It’s best that we wait and see if it comes around. It took Saïx a couple of days to remember his original name. In the mean time, we’ve been calling her Zero,” Vexen answered.
“That’s Miss Zero,” Marluxia corrected from his chair. He turned and grinned at the girl. “Isn’t that right?”
The girl blushed but kept her eyes on the paper. Larxene scoffed (Axel grinned at that), and continued, “Why not Thirteen? She’s a Nobody. What reason is there for her not to join the club?”
“Because she’s different than any other Nobody,” Lexaeus spoke up for the first time. He watched the girl intently, as if trying to pinpoint something. “When she formed, she was surrounded with light. Every other one of our members were formed in shadows. Besides that, there’s the issue of her memories, as Zexion said.”
Vexen nodded, holding his chin in thought. “We’ll never know the reasons behind these exceptions if we don’t study her more closely. If we go tossing her into battle we may never get the opportunity.”
“Her fate is for the Superior to decide, Vexen,” Marluxia said, looking at them all from the corner of his eye. “Don’t tell me you need reminding?”
Vexen scowled at that, and Larxene walked over to Axel’s spot on the windowsill. The ensuing whispers between them no doubt held new jabs at the Chilly Academic. This became especially apparent when Axel managed to coax a harsh giggle out of the Nymph.
Zexion rolled his eyes and walked up beside Lexaeus. “Something’s bothering you,” he said.
“You’ve had déjà vu before, haven’t you?” The Hero asked. He couldn’t stop watching the girl in the too-big sweater doodle on the paper.
“Of course,” Zexion looked up from underneath his bangs. “But do you mean regular déjà vu, or the Somebody induced variety?”
“The latter,” he responded.
“Five, if you have some sort of theory regarding our Miss Zero, I suggest sharing it with us,” Marluxia said, smiling over the back of his chair.
“It’s not exactly a sharing theory,” he said, stepping forward. “More of a showing.”
Marluxia only gestured towards the blonde Nobody on the floor, allowing him to continue.
Lexaeus walked up next to the girl and crouched. She looked up obediently, traces of what she knew as fear and nervousness in her eyes. “Miss Zero, may I ask you to stand?”
She nodded and obeyed, rolling her sleeves up only to have them fall back down. She watched as he walked around her, standing to her left. “Now, stand completely still, and hang on to me.”
She squeaked when he scooped her up and balanced her on one of his broad shoulders. He held onto her, her legs dangling down his side as though his shoulder was only a tree branch. He addressed Vexen and Zexion. “Does this look familiar to you?”
The sunlight coming through the window ambered. Had the girl been a little younger, shorter, her arms would’ve wrapped around his forehead for support and her legs wouldn’t dangle down so long. Her feet would be smaller, but she’d still be barefoot, especially out in the castle courtyard as they were. Her hair would be shorter, redder, and her eyes would have a touch of purple in them, and he would be smiling of course, and his hair would be a little different, and there certainly wouldn’t be an ‘x’ in his name.
Zexion and Vexen were looking at ‘Miss Zero’ as if Lexaeus had brought her into their lives all over again.
“Impossible…” Vexen said.
“The Princess,” said Zexion.
---
“Let me get this straight,” Xaldin rubbed the bridge between his eyes. “Princess Kairi is alive?”
Xemnas’s hands were steepled in front of his face. “My Other never intended to kill her. He cast her out to the Worlds in hope that her connection to the keyblade would lead him to a Wielder.”
“Speaking of which, Superior: keyblades exist? The Mouse King was always spouting legends.”
“Roxas wields at least one. Axel reported that the boy can use two, but he hasn’t been able to bring one into its full power yet,” the Superior explained.
“This is what you get for avoiding home sweet home, Xaldin,” Xigbar teased, rocking back on the hind legs of his chair. He pointed at his only eye. “Would’ve been able to see the whole thing if you’d tagged along.”
“For goodness sake, Xigbar, I thought you kicked that habit in your first life.” Zexion narrowed his eyes at him.
The Freeshooter laughed, dropping the legs of his chair to the floor. “Sorry kiddo. Didn’t know you cared.”
While Where Nothing Gathers was the current meeting place of the Organization, it had not always been that way. Back in the days of Organization VI, they had stumbled upon the castle, eerie, empty, and waiting for them. There had been six bedrooms, a kitchen, a lab. And there was a meeting room, with a table and six chairs. They had started calling it the Room of Ill-Stared Hexes, because it seemed appropriate. All those years passed and they still met here to discuss things away from the Neophytes.
“And how exactly did you manage to ‘see’ all this, Xigbar?” Vexen asked, tapping away at his keyboard. The monitor was detached and suspended in mid-air, floating at eye level. When he looked across the table, the semi-transparent screen followed him. Xigbar grinned through the words of the report at him, eager to explain, but Zexion interrupted coolly.
“Using a combination of Number Two’s, Ten’s, and my own powers, we were able to create a kind of ‘scrying portal’ into the events of the past.”
Vexen typed away and Xigbar continued. “Turns out that Maleficent witch we’d been watching had made an artificial keyblade from six of the Princess’ Hearts. Only this one unlocks hearts, not Keyholes.
“And the Keyblade Wielder, this Sora kid, somehow got his heart mixed up with little ol’ Kairi’s. So he released her heart and his when he stabbed himself through with it-”
Lexaeus frowned. “He stabbed himself?”
Xigbar laughed. “Did I not mention that?”
The sound echoed oddly around the room. He’d have to investigate that later - probably something in the architecture. An old quote about laying down one’s life for the life of a friend floated by in his mind. Xaldin was speaking again.
“So Roxas and Naminé were created on the same day, and were released from the same body,” he pondered. “No wonder she doesn’t have the same eyes as the Princess.”
“Nearly the same,” Zexion noted.
“Is that the name we’ve decided on, by the way? Naminé?” Vexen asked.
“Ansem the Wise named his daughter after the ocean. Since Naminé is only a part of her it makes sense that she be named after a wave,” Xaldin replied.
“Her powers?” Lexaeus asked.
“Unknown, as of right now,” Zexion said. “Due to her unusual birth, she might not have any.”
“Or she may have more than the rest of us,” Xemnas guessed.
There was silence until Xigbar leaned across the table, addressing Xaldin. “You get to meet the kids today, right?”
“Third day after their arrival, so yes. Maybe I’ll be able to prod something out of them.”
“You’re certainly terrifying enough to manage it,” Zexion quipped, leaning his chin on his knuckles. There was faint laughter around the table. Xaldin snorted, annoyed. Xemnas cracked a smile before concluding the meeting. Vexen’s computer sank into the table and the Originals stood, ready to leave. The Superior left with some parting words.
“Remember though: Roxas is not to know of Naminé. They may prove to be too valuable to us on their own. Placing them together may lead to our undoing.”
---
“My name is Lexaeus, Number Five of the Organization. I can control the element of Earth and use a tomahawk as my weapon.” He pressed his fingers together and looked down on her. “Do you have any questions about me?”
Naminé shook her head.
“Nothing at all you’re curious about?” He pulled up a chair at her long table and sat. It creaked softly under his girth.
Two days after the meeting, five days after Roxas and Naminé had moved into the castle. He had met and sparred with Roxas earlier that morning, and was now in the aptly titled White Room. The girl’s domain.
She looked down at the hem of the white dress Xigbar had managed to commission for her (he and Xaldin always wondered how this ‘Edna Mode’ put up with Number II’s haphazard visits). “I have one.”
He nodded to indicate she could continue. “Why does everyone keep mentioning a Princess Kairi? Is she my Other?”
“Has no one told you that?”
She frowned thoughtfully. “Well, Superior told me about the Apprentices. Then Two told me about weapons. And Three tried to help me figure out elements-”
“So, no.”
She shook her head demurely. Somewhere, in another place, her Other would’ve shaken her head so hard it would’ve tossed red hair into her eyes. How different people could be.
“Kairi was the daughter of Ansem the Wise, the man the Apprentices served under, as you already know. She was a Princess of Heart, one of seven girls in all the Worlds born without darkness in their hearts. When Xehanort became a Heartless, he destroyed the girl’s memories and cast the Princess out into the Worlds in order to find the Keyblade Wielder.”
The more he talked the more it felt like tripwires were being set off inside. It had never been difficult to say things like this out loud before, but this was to a girl who shared the face of the innocent.
“Do you mean Roxas?” She asked, her eyes shining.
He smiled and shook his head. She was forming a curious connection to the boy already.
She nodded, understanding. “I don’t suppose that’ll give me a lot of options when it comes to elements.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, if Kairi didn’t have any darkness in her heart, I could have Light. But, um, Xaldin said that Roxas controls that.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself,” he said. “Your powers will reveal themselves in time, and they’ll continue to long after you discover them.”
She leaned forward. “You think so?”
“I know so. Everyone’s powers continue to change and grow. Demyx only perfected his clones a couple of months ago. But you’ll learn about that later.”
“Even your powers?”
He thought on that. When he had sat on top of a hill with the sun setting and a human next to him, he had thought he had heard chimes in the wind. Xaldin had never described hearing the legendary Voice of the Wind. And everything about that particular world, from the giant trees to the red soil on Nakoma’s feet breathed Earth. Why had he heard something? “Perhaps.”
She frowned, intrigued. “You don’t think your powers can grow?”
“Stone isn’t a flexible element, Naminé.”
“But you think they might grow?”
Lexaeus shook his head. “You are more like the Princess than I first thought. Again, my answer is perhaps.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just - Vexen said that you were a scientist - and I thought you’d like to investigate. But,” she shrugged, eyes downcast, “I shouldn’t jump to conclusions or…”
He opened his mouth to reply to that and shut it again.
Oh, damn it.
He sighed. “No, Naminé, you’re right. I will have to look into it. But for now, what would you like me to teach you?”
She leaned back in her chair. “Would you mind if you taught me what Lesser Nobodies are? I haven’t really met any before.”
Lexaeus cast a look up to the ceiling. Too low. He opened a portal behind him. “Of course. We’ll have to go outside.”
She nodded, pushing herself off the chair. They stepped through it into the open air of the courtyard. She rubbed her arms, and he remembered how long it had taken him to get used to the cold in the corridors of darkness. He sent out a silent call for Gayn and Qaf. Naminé shuffled her feet but remained silent.
Eventually the two Geomancers emerged from the North wall of the courtyard, towering high over his head. Their limbs creaked as they moved, like the giant pillars of stone they resembled. The girl shrank into his side. “Are these trees?”
“No, but they’re certainly big enough to be,” he replied.
Over the next couple of hours, teaching Naminé how to speak in the Lesser-Whispers, the thought of returning to the world with chimes in the wind became more and more prevalent.
If Vexen didn’t know the reason behind his snapping, echoing insides, maybe he could find it there.
~~~
Foot Notes
- Either the 'Forge of Superfluous Effort' makes absolutely no sense, or it's so clever I don't even get it.
- When I imagine the Castle Oblivion planet I imagine one of those planets in Super Mario Galaxy that has chunks missing from it. Yeah.
- Lightspots are the in-universe name for save points. I got that for someone's fic somewhere, but I can't remember whose.
- In my head, the lesser Nobodies are named after simple symbols, usually letters of an alphabet. The Dancers have the English alphabet, the Dragoons have the Greek. The Geomancers have the Arabic. No, I am not so lame that I actually have the others figured out.
...Vexen totally names his after elements, doesn't he? Ahaha. - Roxas had a scene in here too, but it didn't flow very well. I'll post his scene seperately.