I'm on a bit of a fiction spree, folks. XD This was inspired by my sister's recent fascination with Zemyx while I was writing a RiSo/Akuroku of a similar flavor (For which the blame lies entirely on RK Ryune) that I'll get back to working on soon.
The chapter title is Latin for As you wish.
I'll be co-authoring some other Zemyxs (with sides of RiSo, Akuroku, an Cleon) with my sister and they will be amazing, so expect me to shamelessly advertise them when they debut.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or themes presented below this line: and I especially don't own the altered quotes from the movie/book. But I own this particular amalgam of said themes/charas: for which reason I shall smile like an idiot if y'all enjoy it. =)
The room in which he lived was Spartan and unfurnished. The only hints of personality lay in the large bookcase pressed to the wall by the bed, teeming with books of various ages and sizes - all of them obviously well loved and tucked away in a specific order known only to the room's inhabitant.
There was one book that sat apart from the others, and one would perceive this to be the most adored of all. Worn but immaculate, it perched on the very edge of a bland night table next to a non-descript lamp and alarm clock, within easier reach than even the glass of water it shared space with.
This book wasn't like the others; stuffy tomes filled with facts and information. This singular novel was the remainder of a childhood spent in fantasies of Goblins and magic. And it could be said that this book possessed an even deeper meaning to its beloved reader - one that said reader could not even begin to imagine…
Until the day he made the wish.
Zexion Musaki was sixteen and fed up.
Just because he didn't have plans obviously didn't make it okay for his mother and stepfather to push their little spawn off on him for the evening without asking. Normally he didn't mind his female half-sibling, but he had been looking forward to a night with his books as the storm outside raged.
Fifteen month old Xion put a thorough wrench into his plans.
"Aww, poor Zexy. They've done it again."
Murmurs of indignant assent filled the dark and cluttered throne room as they rushed to agree with their king.
"How very like them to spring this on me on their way out the door."
Violet eyes gazed back at him solemnly.
"I'm rather displeased with you, Xion. You've ruined my plans for the evening," Zexion deadpanned, eying the toddler reproachfully. She was seated on the pillow next to him on his bed, watching him as he thumbed absently through a massive science journal.
Despite his inclination to pour through the tome, logically he knew that his sister had to be watched carefully. And Xion would get bored far too quickly. Bored Xion was never good, since it often led to tantrums. So with a put-upon sigh, he returned the aging book to its place and turned, finally, to the deceptively innocent leather bound pages of his most treasured possession.
"Since there is no hope for my studies until you are finally asleep, would you like me to read you a story, Xion?"
Her face lit up, and she squirmed into a more comfortable position, gazing up at him expectantly as she stuck nearly her entire hand into her mouth and slobbered.
...
Zexion was not a fan of spit.
"Once upon a time," he began softly, not really even looking at the page he'd opened to, "There was a beautiful young girl, whose stepmother always made her stay home with the baby."
Though the story was about a female, Zexion had always secretly likened himself to the over-dramatic protagonist, especially on nights such as this. It was perhaps the least rational notion he had ever allowed himself to entertain, but he couldn't help it.
"... And the baby was a spoiled child, and wanted everything for himself, and the young girl was practically a slave."
Xion was fidgeting already, worming closer and reaching. "No, Xion. NO." The slate haired reader spared her a warning glance from his visible eye before returning to the story he'd long ago memorized.
"... But what no one knew is that the king of the goblins had fallen in love with the girl, and he had given her certain powers."
Occasionally, when his studies weren't enough to satisfy the hunger of his mind, Zexion allowed himself to fantasize the he was the object of a goblin king's affections. But only rarely, and then he would marshal his thoughts back into order. Besides, he was a far too logical mind to understand the practicality of homosexuality or inter-species relations.
"So one night, when the baby had been particularly cruel to her, she called on the goblins for help. 'Sa-"
"AaaAh!" The lavender eyed toddler giggled and lurched forward with her drool slick hands, grasping at the battered copy of The Labyrinth from which he had been reading.
"Xion, will you please lie still?" Zexion grated in annoyance, angrily (though gently) batting her saliva-sticky fingers away from his treasure. His young sister - fragile feelings hurt by his treatment and tone - scrunched up her little face and began to cry.
"Ooh, he's upset tonight," a gnarled creature crowed gleefully, beckoning others over to watch the rare visage of an angry Zexion in the king's crystal. "Maybe tonight he'll finally... ?" Another creature ventured hopefully.
"Maybe," A different sort of voice - airy and boyish with a slight nasal lilt - trickled over the dark room, and all of the creatures turned to its source. "It all depends, really..." The Goblin King shifted listlessly on his throne. 'Why doesn't he just do it already?'
And then he smiled. "Let's encourage him, boys." 'Soon, Zexion. I'll make it all better if you'll just wish me to...'
She was his half sister, really, but Zexion did not call her that; not since the analytical part of his mind had once asked of him, "What's the other half of her, then?" and he had been unable to think of an answer.
'Half nothing-to-do-with-me?' That was no good. It wasn't true, either. Sometimes he felt fiercely protective of Xion; wanted to shelter her from the harsh facts of reality and take her away from all this, to a better place, a fairer world. An imaginary land somewhere, perhaps? If only he didn't know better.
At other times - and this was one of them - he hated Xion, who had twice as many parents in attendance as he had. When he hated Xion, it frightened him: because it led him into thinking about how he could hurt her.
'There must be something wrong with me,' he would reflect, 'that I can even think of hurting someone I dote upon; or is it that there is something wrong in doting upon someone I hate?' There was no logic to such fickle emotions, and it was appalling.
He wished he had a friend who would understand the dilemma, and maybe explain it to him, but there was no one. And as for their mother... it would piss Larxene off even more than it frightened Zexion. So he kept the perplexity well hidden. Not that anyone knew him well enough to notice anyway.
"Dammit, Xion!" Normally, Zexion refrained from vulgarity. But he detested it when Xion cried. Putting the book hastily back in its place on the nightstand, he scooped the wailing child up into his arms.
"Please, Xion, stop your ridiculous bawling!" he begged frustratedly, bouncing her lightly in a motion she usually found soothing.
She refused to be soothed, pausing only to pick up again. Suddenly he was angry. "Fine, Xion." He stalked across the hall, not bothering to turn on the light as he set her down in the crib. "Do you want to know what happened next?" She just continued to wail, so he continued on, bent over the wooden rail to glare down at her as the wind howled in the background and rain began its staccato rhythm on the windows.
"'Say your right words,' the goblins said. 'And we'll take the baby to the Goblin City and you will be free.' But the girl knew that the king of the goblins would keep the baby in his castle forever and ever and ever and turn it into a goblin," he snarled the word, and Xion bawled harder.
He was too inexplicably pissed to care.
"So the girl suffered in silence until one night, when she was tired from a day of housework and she was hurt by the harsh words of her stepmother and she could no longer stand it, she picked up the screaming child. 'Knock it off. Come on, stop it! I'll say the words. No, I mustn't. I mustn't say... I wish... I wish...' And the baby just kept crying, until the girl snapped in frustration: 'I can bear it no longer! Goblin King, Goblin King, wherever you may be, take this child of mine far away from me!' She called desperately, holding the child away from herself."
"Do you know what happened, Xion?" His voice was low and bitter, but Xion wouldn't quiet. "The Goblin King took the baby, just as she wished."
Shoving away from the crib, he walked stiffly to the door. 'Let the child cry for all I care...'
In the doorway he stopped and turned, jaw clenched and fingers twisting into fists. "You know, Xion..." his visible eye glinted in the half-light cast by the moon through lacy curtains. "If I were an 'imaginative' child who believed in magic and goblins and fairies... I might wish I knew the real words to wish you away."
"I wish the goblins would come and take you away right now!" The entire throne room supplied in a yell, though it was useless. Crystal ball audio was distinctly one-way.
'Say iiiiiiit, c'mooooon! - Wish the goblins would come and take her away right now.- They've given you the real words, all you have to do is say them!'
Idly, in a fanciful manner entirely unlike himself, Zexion murmured over his shoulder as words planted themselves, "I wish... the goblins would come and take you away... right now."
A slow, eager grin split the mouth that Zexion would grow to know well in the hours that would follow. 'As you wish...'
Lighting and thunder struck in sync as the power went out.
And in the room behind him, Xion's crying suddenly ceased.
If he'd been an 'imaginative' child, Zexion might have believed that he had heard laughter in the wind.