Title: The Other Side
Summary: A goddess should know when to work and when to play, especially when she's not the one in charge. Naminé really should have known that.
Pairings (Subject to change):
Naminé/ ?
Axel/Roxas
Riku/Sora
Saïx/ Xemnas
Cloud/ Leon
Maybe others?
Rating: T/M
Disclaimer: I do not own. Kingdom Hearts does not belong to me, but to those who contributed to its creation...
Warning(s): Dark themes, hints at self harm/suicide, foul language, maybe more...
Prologue
There once lived a being with tremendous gift. Creating life was as easy as drawing images in a sketch book.
The lives she made, the paths they took, the lives they lived, how they impacted with one another...
It was fun in the beginning, but fun became boredom easily.
"So go outside and live," a being, an entity with abilities far greater than her own, encouraged her. "Drop the color pencils and go have some fun."
And that was what she went and did.
Dismissing the artist's room, she threw her artpad out the window and left the realm of creation behind.
Go have fun.
And happily, blissfully, stupidly, she did.
Life outside was great! She thought. It was so much better than creating it.
But then, who would be left in charge?
A being, an entity with abilities far greater than her own, saved the artpad and picked up where the dropped pencils left off.
Go have fun, they encouraged the girl. But she should have taken her art with her when she left.
"Go outside and live," a being, and entity with abilities far greater than her own, encouraged her. "Drop the color pencils and go have some fun."
And that was what she did.
She made her life, made her path, lived her life, and impacted the lives of others...
It was fun in the beginning, but fun became boredom easily.
"It's over," her aged body closed its eyes.
Young again, She stood in a mansion and pushed the door to the artist's room.
"I'm ready." She announced. "I've had fun. Time to take me back."
"Go outside and live," A being, and entity with abilities far greater than her own, cracked a smile and slammed the door in her face. "You've dropped your color pencils.
Go have fun."
She reached for the artist's room door and pushed.
The world went black, and came back as another life.
'What is going on?' She wondered, but she lived. She did not make her life, made her path, lived her (second) life, and impacted the lives of others...
Only to have the door slam shut.
There was a blackout.
A smile.
"Go outside and live."
And she was back.
Again.
Again.
And Again.
And Again.
Countless times. Until it refused to stop.
"Wait," she grabbed out to emptiness, clutching his red and black gloved hand in her trembling, fragile ones. "Why is this happening?"
Pale lips parted. "Because you wanted to have fun."
"But it's not fun anymore!" She shook her head and screamed.
She no longer made her life. She did little to make her own path.
She no longer lived her life. She feared it.
It was fun in the beginning, but fun became boredom easily. And boredom? It became fear very, very quickly.
"Everything's gone wrong!" She plead to inevitability with tears in her eyes. "I want to go home. Take me back..."
Golden eyes peered down at her from beneath pitch black bangs.
"You gave it all up." Vanitas pushed her back into her random, neverending cycle.
"You wanted fun, now there's nothing but 'fun' left."
XoXoXoXoX
But there was nothing "fun" left. She hated everything now, but nothing more than life itself. She hated it because she had once created it. Not all of it, she recalled distantly. No, because she had only gotten so far before she left to have "fun".
But there were individuals whom she knew she had given life to. There was the blond with the redhead, the one she knew would fall into madness, because that's what she had him do.
It, unfortuantely, also became something she would do. But that was when she was bored.
To think, she could come up with something like that on an off day. Then, she felt the shiver up her spine, what inspired the story behind the redhead smiling at the blond? Where had he come from?
Her?
No.
She hadn't come that far along in her artwork yet. Though, if she were honest, she would have cast aside her drawings if she had to design the green eyed male.
There was not enough black in her arsenal to color in his heart.
Evil, she frowned, her listless gaze traveling to a crimson haired girl standing between two friends.
She recalled the artwork for the pretty girl, an elegant canopy of colors she had never used before, but would use if she draw up the perfect world for a perfect life.
But whomever called themselves The Artist now must have found her drawing and colored over it, because the blue eyed girl wasn't a goddess any longer. She wasn't a queen, or even a princess anymore, and it pained her just thinking about it.
Ugly.
She caught sight of one of the blue eyed girl's friends, a boy with wild brown hair, and immediately looked away.
That boy... He shouldn't be allowed to smile. It was far, far too kind of an expression for someone as vile and despicable as him.
But she took her mind off of it as quickly as the thoughts arrived. It was best not to think of those things.
She shook her head and exited the classroom without a word. She was their teacher this time around, so it wasn't a surprise that she was leaving her students behind in a state of shock.
Some called out to her, the fallen princess and the vile monster to be more precise, but she couldn't be bothered anymore. It was time they were left behind.
Something needed to change.
"Where are you going?" A blonde haired teacher called out to her as she passed by, but even the woman's ever present green eyed glare was not about to stop her.
No, because she knew better. Those eyes that looked so strong held behind them a soul that could be easily broken.
And it's the newest addition to their hallway gathering, a blue eyed, pink haired male that breaks the blonde's spirit.
Not that it's happened yet.
"What's this?" He wants to know, but she sidesteps him and does her best to keep any part of her body for meeting his reaching grasp.
She's never been comfortable near him before, and it most certainly wasn't about to start now. Not when she could still feel the razorblade touch of his hands on her flesh, and the cold, unrelenting grip he once had on her heart.
"It needs to change," she whispers aloud, but no ones heard the sound. Not like they would. She's been fairly quiet this time around. After all, she could only tell the world how to spin so many times before it sought to defy her.
That was the time to change it, she realized some time ago (but not without suffering the consequences in the meantime.
"I'll change it."
"Change what?" A counseler's keeping pace with her, but with a few words she shuts him down.
"You don't care." A harsh thing to whisper to someone dedicated to helping others, but she's lived his life before, and she knows the truth. He's in his thirties, so by now he's given up on humanity. Blue hair can only hide a scarred face so much. For the rest, to hide a scarred body, it takes so much more.
But she dropped the topic the minute her feet touched the stairs approaching the building's roof. Finally, she easily made her way up the stairs and through the normally locked rooftop door.
"Mrs. ––" Her name was carried off somewhere in the breeze, but she did not care. It did not matter to her if she heard the name or not. It wasn't her real name, so why pretend to bother?
Besides, in a few moments the name wouldn't mean a thing to her, except maybe as another notch on her mental "lifetime wall". If such a thing existed.
"It doesn't," She's whispering louder now, she can tell, but the silver haired man behind her isn't concerning himself with her words.
No, because he has other things to concern himself with, such as those disturbing love letters he always finds attatched to his personal belongings.
He thinks they're nothing, but they're something, as she had found out the hard way.
Maybe he should concern himself with that, a thought passed, but she loses track of it watching the clouds above her head. Black hair obstructs the view, but she casually brushes it out of her blue eyes and smiles.
She's made it this far again. She must be doing better, even though she's sure nothing's changed.
But it needed to.
And she would change it.
The wind whips around her small frame, and the sky above her head turns a darker shade of gray.
"Ms. ––" There goes that name, but she doesn't want it. It isn't hers. This is just another life she's testing out.
"Ms.––?
"Ms.––?!
"XION!"
Ah, there it is. The life she's borrowing- The person, the body, and the name.
"But it's never my own," she whispers and closes her eyes.
Her clothes whip back and forth on her body from the speed of the wind roaring around her.
She's changing, but not to herself. It's never herself. She'll never have her place again...
Golden eyes blink her way, "You're here again?" The everpresent nothingness takes in her helplessness, lifts her from the floor, then laughs.
She ignores it because she's comfortable. In his embrace, she can sleep, even if it won't last long.
This is emptiness, she reminds herself. Things outside of it may shift, but within the nothingness, there's no change.
"Vanitas..." She reaches out to touch his pale face, but again, before she can get comfortable, it's gone.
Instead, in it's place is the reflection of a blue eyed, blonde haired girl who's image is all to familiar.
She's been here before, she knows it, and instead of the tragic apathy she's become accustomed to, she scared. Frightened. Terrified.
This life was a cursed life- what she longed for and feared rolled into an imperfect body.
This was, is, Life Number-
She presses her fingers to the mirror, grimaces, pulls back the hand, strikes the glass.
And screams.