A/N: I don't own anything of Kingdom Hearts, only this one shot. I haven't played KH: COM, only watched some vids, so please tell me if something's not completely right about it. Enjoy reading! :)
~ "The pleasure was all mine." ~
It was true what they said about what could happen when one had no change of environment: slowly but surely you started to lose your mind, sometimes without noticing it yourself. Naminé had witnessed this personally. But what did it matter? Naminé was just a nobody after all, not supposed to exist, anyway.
Then why did everything feel so weird, so threatening, so deceitful and awkward? She started to see things differently. She wasn't alone in that white room. There were shadows and they were moving in all directions. They wouldn't let her alone, ever. They were watching her, taunting her, laughing at her, scaring the living daylights out of her.
Fortunately she was allowed to come out of her "safe" room every once in a while, so she could at least explore the area a bit. She had to be very careful that she wouldn't stray, though. It had happened sometime. It was when she had met Ven. He was very nice, but he reminded her too much of him, Sora. At first she had even thought he was Roxas.
He had returned to her white room safely again, acting like a real gentleman. She was lucky that no other member had found her. She didn't know what Xigbar for example would have done if he had spotted her first. She shivered involuntarily.
When Axel had seen her drawings, he had asked her a few questions. He had given her the feeling that he had wanted to meet Sora himself if there had been a possibility to do so. After that, he had visited her more frequently. She wasn't sure if she had to mind that, or not.
Fortunately, she had been smart enough today to write all the steps that she made, so she could find room easily when she came back again. Slowly she went down, floor by floor. It seemed that staircases were endless, where time stood still and where there was quiet all around her.
The days were getting longer and longer as time passed. Every day seemed to be the same as the previous one. No changes at all. The Castle soon had become boring, because all those rooms seemed to be alike and all were white too. Perhaps outside wouldn't be this boring. Castle Oblivion always made her feel like she was much lighter and as if she almost floated over the course on her sandals.
She arrived at the courtyard of the Castle. The sun shone, but it couldn't warm her cold body. A nice breeze made the leaves of the trees dancing in the wind, but she didn't feel any cold, either. Nobodies didn't feel these trivial things. The atmosphere was noticeably different here compared to the one inside, much freer, but it had to be her imagination, for nobodies couldn't feel and didn't have a heart either.
She looked around and knew immediately by the abundance of exotic, colorful and fragrant plants and flowers that this should be Marluxia's garden. Her eyes scanned her surroundings and had soon found Marluxia's noticable hair.
Seeing it made her always wonder if it was his natural hair-color, and if not, why he had chosen this color. He was watering the plants. Even when he did something so small and simple like that, he still looked elegant for her.
Almost as if he had felt that someone was watching him, she saw how his back tensed slightly. Naminé softly gasped for breath. Was it intuition? Slowly and almost in a threatening way he turned around until his eyes had made contact with hers. His eyebrow went up slightly, but then he narrowed his eyes into slits.
Naminé swallowed. She didn't know whether she should remain there, walk over to him, or turn around and flee to her sanctuary. From this distance she could hardly see whether he was a bearable mood or not. But he would still come after her if he wished. She knew he was even faster than she, since he could make a black portal and she couldn't.
She couldn't move anymore, though. It felt almost as if she was nailed to the ground. Oddly enough, her legs did no longer respond to the many signals that her brains were sending to them. She saw, frightened, how he slowly raised his right hand. Was he going to summon his scythe?
He did something completely different, though. He seemed to be beckoning her. It was a short, simple gesture, with some serious impact. Before Naminé's mind could register what exactly she was doing, or put her legs to a halt, she had taken a few hesitant steps in his direction. And some more. And a few more, until she had reached him. Once there, she remained silent, staring down at her pale legs, until he broke the silence, as always.
"You know that this garden is mine, right."
He didn't make it sound like a question, but Naminé chose to answer, anyway.
"Y-yes," she replied, somewhat shakily.
She didn't like the way he looked down at her at all. It was dark and threatening.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
The tone of his voice made her head snap up at him, as if he had yelled at her, angrily, which he hadn't. She knew very well that she had to be careful with what she would say to him as a reply.
"I - I like it here. But if you want me to leave..."
She turned slowly. The idea that she was so vulnerable with her back turned to him only made her more nervous.
"I didn't say you should leave. Now, how about a little tour in my garden? I'm sure you will find it very...interesting."
Naminé was quiet - she was standing almost as still as a statue - and thought of what she should do next. If she had turned around again at that time, then she had seen how his eyes had glistened by the word "interesting."
"Okay, I'd...love to," she said finally.
"Good. Follow me."
He turned and walked away from her, without looking if she really followed him or not. Naminé followed him slowly. Once they stood amidst the plants, she remarked that this place was very humid. Her white dress and her hair felt a little heavier than normal, thanks to the damp.
She felt as if they were walking through a tropical jungle. Not that she ever had been to one. She only knew about them of the books Zexion, number V, had brought her some time ago. She loved to read, but probably not as much as The Cloaked Schemer did.
Marluxia told some facts about the different flowers, such as which one you had to keep out the sun and how you could see how much water you should give to each plant and how big some plants could become. She had noticed that he knew all the names of plants and related facts from his head.
He led her through various kind of flowers with different colors like pink carnations, cherry blossoms, daisies, gardenias, hazel branches, irisses, lilacs, lillies, orchids, peach blossoms, rosemaries, tulips, roses, violets, and much more, but she didn't know the name of those flowers.
"Did you know that every flower has a different meaning? Combined with colors, they can even get thousands of other meanings," he said, slightly sounding like a teacher.
"No, I didn't."
She sounded surprised. She had to admit that it was informative to stay at Castle Oblivion.
"I think it's about time that you go back to your room. It's almost time for lunch."
She didn't ask him how he knew so sure. Perhaps the plants told him.
"Okay. Thanks for the tour. It's very beautiful here."
His mouth curled up a little bit, as if to smile, but a split of a second later this sign disappeared.
"You're welcome, Naminé. The pleasure was all mine."
She turned and started to walk away slowly.
"Naminé," he said with his deep voice.
She stood still almost immediately and turned around once again.
"Here. Give it a beautiful place in the room."
He was holding a white orchid with his gloved hand. The orchid had some orange spots too, as if the sun had given some of its color to the flower as a special gift. He handed it to her and she took it, albeit a bit surprised and hesitantly. She hadn't forgotten the story of Aurora yet. Fortunately, this was not a rose, so what could go wrong?
"Thanks," she said, somewhat breathlessly.
"You're welcome. I don't get visitors in my garden often, unless something's wrong," he said.
"I'm sure it won't be the last time, either," she replied, before she could keep herself from doing so.
She bit on her lip, wondering why she had said that out loud. She hadn't meant to do so.
"I have no doubts about that."
He gave her a brief nod as a goodbye and she turned again. With the flower in her hand, she walked back to her room, all the way up the stairs. It was at moments like this that she wished she could make dark corridors. At least then she would be a bit faster. She instantly noticed that something had changed in the room since her departure.
A white vase had appeared on the white table. There was also plenty of water in it. She knew that Marluxia had something to do with this. She carefully put the orchid in the vase and went to her regular position on the white chair.
The orchid gave some color to the room. One would notice its presence immediately. She just didn't know yet that the vase would be filled with various flowers soon enough, because the flowers Marluxia gave her would never wither.
A/N: Thanks for reading! =) Hope you've enjoyed it. ^_^ What do you think about this? Note about this one-shot (I thought I had to explain myself on some points): the meaning of the orchid is being beautiful. The colour orange stands for warmth. And white means pure, real. That's why I chose this flower and colors. And what have we learned today? Right, you should watch out when you give someone flowers, because each flower and color have a different meaning. Pretty confusing huh? Hey, I've got an idea while writing this! How about I write something about that first time Naminé meets Roxas? It would be my first Namixas/Roxaminé story. Please review and let me know what you think! It makes me happy. :)