File this under the "Obscure-Disney-worlds-I-wish-the-games-would-visit-but-I-know-never-will" brand of wishful thinking.
Demyx doesn't like this world.
It's not like it's a bad place. It's quiet and cool and calm enough for him to think he can sneak off into the shadows and pretend to be busy while Marluxia has his back turned. The buildings are splashed with cheery coats of paint, the villagers are always smiling, and the entire place is surrounded by a sea of golden wheat. A little backwards with its dirt roads and dirty people, but nice enough.
But those cheery buildings are built on creaking logs, those wheat fields surrounded by dark, gloomy forest. Raw meat and strings of mushrooms and herbs dangle from smoky windows, and the nearby graveyard is bigger than the village square. No one even bats an eye as some guy in a bloodstained coat marches through the town's only street with a dead deer on his back.
And really, with a name like Sleepy Hollow, this place is just begging to be haunted.
Going by his expression, he thinks Marluxia doesn't like it either, but really, the guy only has two faces: "I'm going to kill you while frowning" and "I'm going to kill you while smiling." He's frowning now. Demyx hopes it's not meant for him.
"My, my," Marluxia whispers, and the way he says it makes Demyx think he could probably find a way to stab someone to death with a tulip. If he hasn't already. "How very quaint."
Demyx would've used "creepy" instead, but he knows better than to speak up.
It's mid-afternoon. They've been standing in the shadows of an old church for nearly an hour, and the sun is still just as bright as it had been when they'd first stepped out of their corridors of darkness and landed at the edge of the forest some ways down the road. Demyx sags in the shade of a rusting crucifix. Recon missions can be so dull. And being stuck with Mr. Tall, Dark, and Slicey isn't making this one any less boring. Demyx summons his sitar and slides his fingers over the strings. Marluxia's always struck him as a bit of a control freak. Maybe if he ignores their difference in rank and lets him take the lead, he can trick him into doing all the work.
"We learn nothing by standing here," Marluxia says suddenly, pulling off his hood with a flurry of loose flower petals that somehow doesn't make him look any less intimidating. "Come, let's greet the cattle."
Demyx just sighs and dismisses his sitar, trailing after him through knee-high grass seemingly made for catching his coat. Marluxia makes himself useful and wordlessly manipulates the grass until it is flat at their feet. For a second, it almost looks like it's bowing to him.
They get stares even before they step into the village square, mostly from little old ladies and a group of children sitting under a sign bearing the name "Ye Olde Schnooker and Schnapps Shoppe." Demyx scrunches his brow and wonders what a Schnooker could possibly be as a dark-haired boy breaks away from the group and darts right up to Marluxia.
"Odds bodkins, gadzooks!" the boy exclaims, loud enough to call even more attention to them. "What'd you do to your hair, mister?"
If Marluxia has a reply—and Demyx is sure he does—he doesn't get the chance to say it when a short, fat woman comes tearing out of the "Schnooker" building and pulls the boy away. "Abraham Van Brunt!" she shouts at him. "You know better than that!" The woman looks to them sharply with fear plain in her eyes. "I'm terribly sorry, sirs! He's just a boy!" And then she runs back to where she came from, dragging the boy with her into the shop. The rest of the children are quick to follow, slamming the door behind them with the frantic rattling of a lock. Demyx looks around and finds that they're suddenly alone in the street.
"Uh," he says.
A door swings open on the building next the "Schnooker" shop with a clatter loud enough to make him jump. After a moment, a chubby, middle-aged guy draped in fine cloth and jewelry scurries out into the street. "Gentlemen," he stutters at them, bowing and pulling off his pointed hat fast enough to yank the white powdered wig from his scalp. "I... I assume you are with the Hessian? Your cloaks..."
Demyx doesn't have the slightest clue what he's talking about, and he's pretty sure Marluxia doesn't either even as the other Nobody straightens and confidently asks, "To whom are we speaking?"
"Baltus Van Tassel at your service, sirs," the chubby guy says, and Demyx wonders if he should spray him with some water before he passes out. His face is pale except for a dark spot of color on each of his cheeks, his brow slick with sweat. He's quivering like Larxene somehow got her lightning in him. "I own most of our sequestered little glen. W-would you care to join me at my estate for a cup of tea? It's just down the road, and I would be happy to provide use of my carriage. I'm sure we could—discuss matters cordially."
"Um," Demys says, but Marluxia quiets him with a flap of his hand.
"We would be delighted," Marluxia says, and Demyx thinks he's probably the only Nobody who could give Xemnas a run for his munny when it comes to speaking in a way that makes him sound really nice and really cruel at the same time.
Demyx doesn't like the tea, but he sure likes the little cakes Van Castle (or whatever his name is) offers them after they get to his house. He's eaten five by the time Marluxia interrupts their stammering host halfway into some lecture about a nearby revolution and soldiers or something like that.
"Mister Van Tassel," Marluxia begins, all creepy and lord-y as he balances an expensive-looking teacup and saucer in his fingers, "I'm afraid I must stop you there." He pauses to take a long drink from his cup, like he's enjoying keeping the guy waiting. "I regret to inform you that you have mistaken us for someone else entirely. We are not associated with this 'Hessian' of whom you speak. We are but humble travelers only looking to pass through."
Demyx has something to say to that, but just mumbles around a bite of apple cake instead.
The chubby guy stiffens with surprise, then sags into his chair with relief, then straightens again as he starts to process Marluxia's words. "May I ask who you fine gentlemen are?"
Marluxia just smiles at him. "Humble travelers, Mister Van Tassel."
"... I see." The chubby guy drums his fingers against the armrests. "Do you… intend to stay here long?"
"Perhaps," Marluxia says, looking downright pleasant. "What can you tell us about your sequestered little town?"
When they finally walk out of chubby guy's parlor and start making their way for his front door, what little sky he can see through the windows is dark orange, and Demyx thinks he's going to fall asleep standing up. For a town so wrapped up in death and ghost stories, chubby guy sure found a way to make it all sound so boring. Marluxia's still got that deceivingly nice smile on his face as they chatter on about something he doesn't bother listening to, and when a little blue-eyed, blond girl suddenly appears on the staircase behind them, Demyx is almost happy to have something to distract them.
"Katrina!" Van Something calls, panic clear in his voice. "Go back upstairs now!"
The girl cocks her head and smiles down at them with a grin that kinda reminds him of Larxene, then climbs back up the stairs and disappears. The chubby guy shakes his head before turning to them. "My apologies," he says. "My daughter can be so... curious."
Marluxia's pursing his lips like he's lost in thought. For a second, he almost looks normal. "No need to apologize," he says. "She reminds me of my own."
"Ah," the chubby guy says with a nervous, if knowing, smile. "Is she waiting back home?"
Marluxia grins. "Yes." Then, almost as an afterthought: "She rather enjoys drawing."
Oh. There's the creepy Marluxia he knows and sorta tolerates.
"This place is weird," Demyx announces to no one in particular once they get back to the village square.
They're sitting on a bench outside one of the shops. In the short time since they left with the chubby guy, the place has been overrun by pumpkins, and there are dozens of people milling about in simple white masks scribbled over with smiley faces. The graveyard is drowning in the light of a hundred flickering candles. A small crowd gathers around the chapel and sings solemnly in a language he doesn't recognize while a larger crowd dances in an energetic circle a few feet away. A part of him kinda wants to run up to the band beside the circle and start playing along with his sitar, if only because that squeaking fiddle is starting to get on his nerves.
"If you had been listening to our gracious host," Marluxia says, "you would know that today is a native holiday. All Hallows' Eve, they call it. From the looks of things, it appears to be a local approximation of Halloween."
"I've been to Halloweentown," Demyx says. "No one there ever put on a mask and sang around a grave with their family."
Marluxia just hmms at that, and Demyx doesn't push it any further.
It takes him a little while to notice, but people are staring at them. Rather, a group of smiling young women are staring at them. They whisper among themselves before giggling, and suddenly two of the women are heading straight for them.
"Hello," one of them, a redhead, breathes to Marluxia.
"Good evening, sir," a brown-haired girl says to Demyx before fluttering her eyelashes.
"You're not from around here, are you, sirs?" the redhead asks, puffing out her chest in a way that just has to be intentional.
"Would you care for an apple, kind sirs?" the brown-haired girl asks, placing a bulging handkerchief on the bench between them before they can respond. "They were picked just this morning."
"Uh, thanks," Demyx says, and grabs one. It's good. Sweet. The brown-haired girl smiles at him again as he looks uneasily to Marluxia.
"Would you care to dance, sirs?" the redhead asks. "We are in need of partners."
Demyx isn't sure how to react, but Marluxia just smiles at her and gently takes her hand like he's done this a thousand times before. Demyx knows better. Marluxia may look and act like a fairy tale prince—when he has something to get out of it, anyway—but Demyx is only half joking when he muses that the redhead is probably going to end the night in a shallow grave. Oh well. As long as Marluxia keeps him out of it, he doesn't care.
Demyx is left pondering if he's going to follow Marluxia's example and take the brown-haired girl's hand when the music abruptly stops. The dancers go still. Demyx pulls himself to his feet to look over the crowd.
He doesn't see him at first because it's getting so dark, but a tall, pale guy decked out in black leather armor and a bright red cape is suddenly standing at the head of the crowd.
He's also staring right at them.
"You're new," the man in black says in a low, deep voice tinged with an unfamiliar accent, looking at Marluxia with a cruel half-smile that could rival Marluxia's own. The man raises an eyebrow. "Visiting for harvest?"
Marluxia just smiles back at him amiably, his hand still clasped over the redhead's. "I'm afraid we're only passing through."
"A pity. Sleepy Hollow is breathtaking this time of year." The villagers rush to get out of his way when the man in black walks through the crowd. He crosses to Marluxia in a few long strides, staring down at him with that same cruel half-smile. The redhead stumbles back, and Demyx realizes that the brown-haired girl has mysteriously disappeared.
Now that Demyx can see the man in black a little better, he thinks he looks even more like a stereotypical vampire with his dark eyes and hair and deep widow's peak. He has a long sword belted to his hip. There's a silver scar hooked around his left eye that's given him a permanent, lopsided squint. "Will you be departing soon?" the man in black asks.
"Perhaps," Marluxia says, and Demyx hears an edge in his voice that wasn't there before. "You are the Hessian, I presume?"
"So you've heard of me," the man in black says, and Demyx hears the same edge in his voice before realizing that this is what it sounds like when two giant egos are about to throw down. "And I assume you've heard what I'm capable of."
"Superstitious hearsay." Marluxia's smile widens just slightly. "That is all I assume."
Demyx isn't a mind-reader, but he's pretty sure that isn't the response the man in black was expecting. The man's eyes glint as he takes a step closer to Marluxia. Marluxia just continues staring up at him, unflinching.
And then the guy tosses his head back and spits right in Marluxia's face.
Marluxia blinks once, twice, before reaching up and slowly wiping his face clean. After a moment of staring at his fingers, he smiles pleasantly up at the man in black, his eyes hard and cold. Demyx frowns. That smile makes him think of Venus Flytraps, all pretty and inviting until they bite your face off.
"Leave my town," the man in black breathes, "before I am forced to do something unpleasant."
Marluxia just smiles extra sweetly and summons his scythe in a rush of darkness and flower petals.
Demyx still isn't a mind-reader, but he's pretty sure the man in black wasn't expecting that either.
Someone screams, and the tense silence of the village square is thrown into chaos as Marluxia takes the first swing. The man in black dodges it as best he can, throwing up an arm to catch the handle as he draws his sword, but the blade connects with his ribs and he's left gasping, darting back on light feet even as he tries to catch his breath.
"Reaper!" a woman screeches from the crowd. "The Reaper is among us!"
Demyx sits back and wonders if he should be helping Marluxia before deciding that no, he seems to be doing all right on his own. He manages to take two more bites out of the apple, wincing at the screams of the villagers as they scramble around him, when the man in black suddenly draws a flintlock pistol and points it right between Marluxia's eyes.
Oh. Maybe he should start helping now.
"Leave, Reaper," the man in black spits, looking and sounding like he still doesn't know how to react to what just happened. "I have claimed this village for myself."
Marluxia, to his credit, seems to realize that gun beats scythe. He takes a slow step back and lowers his weapon, and Demyx is starting to think they'll be getting out of this without anyone dying before he abruptly reaches over and pulls the redhead in front of him as a human shield. Demyx chews his apple piece contemplatively. If Nobodies are creatures of habit, Marluxia's got his habits down pat.
"Demyx," Marluxia says coolly from behind the shaking girl. "Would you be so kind as to open a corridor?"
Sighing in his mind, Demyx swallows his last bite of apple before doing just that.
There's hardly anyone around to scream anymore, but the man in black still looks shocked when a corridor blooms up from the dirt and Marluxia sidesteps toward it, tossing the redhead to the ground before darting inside. Grabbing Marluxia's untouched apple, Demyx saunters over to the corridor and takes a bite, pausing to look at the man in black and the terrified redhead as a particularly brave villager runs over to pull her to safety. Hmm. Now would be the perfect time for him to say something cool.
"... Happy Halloween," he eventually says, but with a mouthful of apple it comes out sounding more like "harpy halloway." He stares a bit longer before turning and walking into the shadows.
Night comes, and Demyx decides that he really doesn't like this world.
The forest is extra creepy once the sun goes down, and being stuck with Mr. Tall, Dark, and Slicey isn't lightening his mood, especially when the guy looks even more like something out of a horror movie than usual. He's just crouching in the grass and listening, hood up, head bowed, curled up like a gargoyle in the moonless night.
Demyx sighs, splitting the nearby stream into a rolling arc for what feels like the gazillionth time that hour. He finished his apple hours ago, and Marluxia made it very clear that he didn't want to hear a note from his sitar. He's half-tempted to pull the "I outrank you" card, but that might lead to actual work. If he's stuck in a potentially haunted forest with nothing to do, he could do worse than be stuck with the guy who could probably talk to the potentially haunted trees.
The woods are quiet save the trickling water and a few croaking toads. The sky is so black that he can pick out every world and star.
"There," Marluxia whispers suddenly, looking out toward the glen. Then: "Pull your hood up and stay quiet."
Demyx just knots his brow further, but doesn't see any reason why he shouldn't do what he says. He crouches beside Marluxia and squints into the shadows, searching.
He hears the man in black long before he sees him. Or rather, he hears his horse. A rhythmic thumping of horseshoes on dirt intercut with soft, low snorting. Eventually, he's able to make out the man in black's outline, a broad shadow silhouetted by faint slivers of starlight. He's still a ways off, but he's heading straight for them.
"How'd you know he'd be here?" Demyx whispers.
"Van Tassel said he always takes this path to his camp," Marluxia whispers back without looking up. "Were you too busy gorging yourself to hear?"
"Camp?"
"They are at war," Marluxia says, sounding a little annoyed.
Demyx vaguely remembers hearing something about a revolution, but before he can ask anything else, Marluxia is rushing forward in a crouch until he's fully submerged in tall grass. Not knowing what else to do, Demyx stumbles after him.
From inside the grass, Demyx decides that he's much more comfortable indoors on a couch or recliner, thanks. He fights a sneeze as it itches his nose, putting his weight on his hands as he tries to keep balance. The man in black is closer now, but it's no easy feat to pick him out in the dark.
"Stay," Marluxia says, and darts forward again until he's toeing the stream.
There's a tiny wooden bridge over the water, around that two small wooden walls and a low, pointed roof. Marluxia moves to hide himself in front of it, and before Demyx can really start to wonder how someone can move so swiftly and silently while crouching, the man in black emerges from the shadows on his horse and slowly approaches the bridge, completely unaware of them. Demyx hunkers down farther into the grass and watches.
Marluxia creeps around the side of the bridge as the man in black's horse steps onto it, soundlessly climbing onto the roof and summoning his scythe as he emerges. Demyx has a lot of questions, none quite as pressing as why Marluxia suddenly whistles to grab the man's attention.
The man in black turns his head, searching in the dark, and Marluxia gives him just enough time to start fumbling for his gun before grinning brightly and swinging for the neck.
Well. There are worse ways to end a mission.