So this is part of my amazing January first fanfic dump, and if you haunt the deepest darkest corners of livejournal, then you may have already seen all of these. They're all posted on my fanfiction lj(with hotaru-ai), thatnobodygrrl. Check it out? -- shameless self-promotion. There's all this and much much more out there.
So this is a drabble I wrote, and it's set after KH II, reflections from Kairi, Sora, and Riku(not in that order...) on their lives now and how they've changed. If you find things that sound familiar to you, they probably are. Several points in this were based on moments in other fanfictions, and while I don't have a list of them all, I admit that I am an idea-stealer/modifier.
There are a lot of things missing from their lives now. Big things, like how they wake up and see the same island every single day, because the novelty of waking up to a new world every morning wears off fast, and little things, like being able to turn a corner without drawing a weapon. But some things get to them more than others.
For Kairi, it's something in the way Sora's name sounds different from the way it used to. And Riku's, too. She feels kind of like she's desperately calling out to some kind of celebrity. Like the names don't belong on her tongue. She feels like she doesn't have a right to know these two heroes. It's not like it used to be, knowing her friends, bossing them around, laughing with them… She's almost afraid. Intimidated by the shadows of their accomplishments.
For Riku, it's how he can't smell the Darkness anymore. Sometimes he wonders if maybe the strong scent of salt coming off the ocean is just covering it up, but he knows it isn't true. He knows that his ability is gone, but it feels like losing a sense. He wonders if he would feel this empty if he were, say, to go blind.
For Sora, it's the emptiness of knowing that his existence no longer has meaning. Like a soldier carrying his gun every day after the war, he longs for some sort of memento to remind him that it wasn't all fake. He can't call his keyblades anymore. He's tried, on numerous occasions, but when he holds his hand out, nothing appears. There's nothing there.
For each of them, there's a sense of loneliness that the other can't comprehend. It drives them apart, like a silence. They don't know each other anymore. Nothing is the way it used to be, and unlike the first time, there's a sense of finality to this adventure. A sense that this is the last time, and that they really aren't needed anymore. All they have to do now is settle back down into a normal lifestyle.
What's so hard about that?
Story of a worn-out hero.
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