Changeling
by glorifiedIntrovert
Chapter One: Prelude to War
I've never felt like this was where I belonged. Strange things happen- things I can't explain. I see things, feel thing, hear things, know things —things that no one else seems to understand or believe. Who am I? What am I?
I need to know.
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The celebrations on either side of the valley were loud enough to wake the dead. Music that couldn't possibly exist in any world with humans in it. Battles halted in their endless slaughter, weapons abandoned on bloody fields. Alcohol was being poured freely into chalices and open mouths in equal turn. Around the warming glow of fires hundreds danced. Sitting back in thrones miles apart, the regents watched the festivities in glee. In their arms rested their children, newborns without mothers. The energy of glamour skittered across their skin and in turn they shifted restlessly, hands grasping empty air and cries for food being uttered.
A glass was raised by one King and his people shouted and raised whatever they could find. Be it their own drinks or their dance partner, it was hefted into the air. Shouts made the child begin to cry in earnest and they simply cheered louder at the sound. The heir to their throne had strong lungs, to be heard even over their raucous catcalls and shrieks. It would do him well as a monarch, and the celebration went on.
In the other land, the other King was tucking his child away for the night so he could go out and enjoy himself. If the child could not stomach one night without his father, then he would not be strong enough to lead their Court. With no affection in his eyes he swept from the room and allowed the whimpering babe to be left in the darkness. His Court welcomed their King back with loud cries that did not go unheard by the baby. Its own weak noises were neglected, and the celebration went on.
A nervous group of twelve watched the fires from a distance. They spoke in quiet tones as eyes looked over the parties. Unlike the two Courts, this group was not happy over the birth of the two children. Children meant heirs to the thrones, and heirs meant that those pompous Courts would continue to exist and spread only more blood through the land. Not to mention that as the Courts continued to grow… their own lands could be overtaken. Unease settled in a heavy aura over them as plan was beginning to be made.
"You don't have to do that, really-"
"I want to do it-"
"Don't trust you-"
"Don't see the point-"
"Got it memorized?"
"Stop it, all of you."
Before any earnest arguments could begin to be made, the command was barked out in a sharp voice. The attention was shifted to the speaker with curiosity in the expression of the twelve. Golden eyes shone lamp-like in dark of their camp as they scanned the assembled group. The speaker leaned forwards, gloved fingers lacing together as they brought their chin to rest atop them. A light smirk shifted their features.
"I have a plan."
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"Are you sure this is wise?"
There was a quiet scoff as narrowed eyes looked to the speaker, a thin silver eyebrow quirked. Two figures were perched atop a roof in the cool autumn air, thick black cloaks keeping the chill from bothering them. A hand was held up in defense by the speaker, an aqua-haired man, shoulder rising and falling in a shrug. The other man shook his head, seeming to exhale pure exasperation at the action of his companion, silver hair falling in his face at the movement.
"Are you sure you want them to grow up in their own world?" it was the silver-haired one who countered in a voice that was soft, deceptively so.
The blue-haired male sighed in response as his eyes went down to the subject of their conversation. Bundles that held two small infants were in each man's arms. They were fast asleep, round young faces not a bit disturbed by the fact that—hours before this moment in time—they had been taken from their own beds by the men that now held them. Nerves sparked between the two men and they shared a look that transcended any words they could have spoken. However, the one still felt compelled to respond.
"No," the blue-haired man sighed as he ducked his head down to look at the child in his arms, a shock of sandy blond hair wisped across his forehead, "That would be the worst thing that could happen…"
"This is for the better, Saïx," the silver-haired man reminded him as he readjusted the dark-haired bundle in his own arms. Amber eyes flickered open as the baby looked up at him, sleepy confusion his expression before his eyelids slid shut once more, gurgling as he cuddled into the man's chest.
The blue-haired man—Saïx—gave a slight nod in response as he straightened up. "Is keeping them in such proximity wise, though? In our world or not, they will still feel the pull towards each other. It won't end well, Xemnas. I'm telling you now, it won't end well."
"Are you questioning me? It will be easier to keep an eye on them if they're together than if we placed them at opposite ends of this world," the fair-haired Xemnas leveled a hard stare at Saïx.
"But together they—"
"Are you questioning me, Saïx?"
"No," a sigh, "I suppose I'm not. Let's just hurry up and get this over with. I'm feeling sick of this world already."
With only a nod of agreement Xemnas rose as well and looked down to the house they were across the street from. A carelessly opened window let the brisk wind sweep into a room, twirling the mobile of keys and crowns that hung above a crib in circles. In the crib a baby giggled and reached up towards the moving objects high above its head, legs kicking as if it could not separate the motions of its four limbs quite yet. Bright blue eyes the color of the sky on a clear day watched the spinning objects with absolute fascination.
"That child, I will replace with mine. I'll need you to find another in this town to exchange with yours. The parents… well; you know what to do about them."
At Xemnas' order Saïx sighed as stuck his palm out in the air. In front of him the space ripped into a swirl of black and purple. With a final nod, the blue-haired male slipped inside the void, the darkness swallowing up him and his uncertainty before it vanished. There was no trace of Saïx or the void ever having been there.
With his companion gone, Xemnas looked once more to the baby in the crib as he began to walk across the open space between the roof and the house. Below him the city of Twilight Town went about their lives and if one were to look up at the sky, instead of the cloaked man seeming to defy gravity, they'd see a flock of birds, leaves from a tree that was nowhere near this part of town, anything but the actual thing that was there. Xemnas supposed—slipping into the infant's bedroom now—it was for the better that humans were such blind creatures. He didn't think they could stand seeing what really existed outside of their tiny little world.
The blue-eyed infant looked up at Xemnas when he entered the room and his squirming ceased as his attention turned to the stranger in his room. It was then that the dark-haired child in his own arms decided to wake, seeming to sense the presence of the other child. They were beginning to wake up now as the bundle he held tried to shift to get a better view of the other child, eyes round. The blue-eyed child was trying to sit up and failing at it, hands and feet reaching into the air as if it could haul itself up by some invisible rope.
The silver-haired man swapped the two so now the curious sky-colored stare was closer to him. The weight was near to similar but the aura... There was no mistaking that it was a human he held now. It would fool no one but hopefully... Xemnas was distracted as the human child's hands reached up and grabbed hard at Xemnas' hair, a giggle bubbling up at the face he pulled. Why was he doing this again?
'Oh right. Because else wise, every Solitary would be dead by the time those two reached adulthood,' the thought made him toss a scorn-filled look at the dark-haired child that now inhabited the crib. It was watching Xemnas with wide amber eyes, thumb lodged between his lips. What's done was done and now… Xemnas turned to the door.
Time to take care of the parents.
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Was he sure that he had the right one with him?
Looking between the squirming infant in his arms and the bundle he'd deposited, it was nigh on impossible to tell. He knew the switch had been made, though, so what was the point in noting the similarities between the two. Though while one slept peacefully the other fretted in his arms, they looked near to identical. It was almost eerie how much a human child could look like one of their own… Saïx leaned down to press his lips against the child's ear; murmuring words of peace and sleep until the infant became still. His job would only be made more difficult if he had to deal with a rowdy child on top of everything else.
Straightening and his attention went to the door, pointed ears attuned to the sound of a deeper voice as it snored two doors down the hall. Quick and silent feet brought him to the threshold of the parents' room. Their door was ajar—most likely to be able to run to the child's home if danger should befall it—and the irony of it made his lips twitch up into a smirk. He didn't have to risk the door squeaking on his way in and alerting the sleeping forms to his presence. Their precaution was making this extraordinarily easy.
With the child still secure in his arms he went over to where the male human rested, mouth open to produce the snores Saïx had heard all the way in the child's room. Balancing the infant between his arm and hip, he reached out with his freed hand to touch the father's forehead, eyelids closing as images began to flutter from his mind into the human's. It was confusing and his own mind fought against it for a moment, before Saïx allowed his mind to be swept up into human memories.
Xemnas and he had concocted this part together after much thought. Normally they'd just dump the children and steal away the human's, but this was nowhere near a normal case. Those two children now in beds that were not their own… they weren't dying like their kind were usually when the switch was made. They were only children, too, with parents unaware of what was happening. If their parents actually knew what Saïx and Xemnas had done... he shuddered at the thought. But that was macabre speculation for another time. His attention returned to the human memories.
His wife, saying she was pregnant.
The switch had to be hidden to all that were not in the original planning of it. Saïx hoped, through pure dumb luck, that the children would not fall sick and die from the poison of this world. They should be strong enough, with their parents being who they were. While they didn't want the children in their own world, having them dead would make matters worse if they were ever found.
Her belly round with eight months of pregnancy.
If the Courts found out about this, he and Xemnas were as good as dead. They wouldn't appreciate how two Solitaries snatched children of their own out from under their noses. They would only see how they had been tricked out of their heirs and who was to blame. The death… the blue-haired man gave a light shudder at the thought that the man echoed in his dreams, brow furrowing.
Her hand clutching at his until her knuckles turned white.
Saïx shook the thoughts of Courts and deceptions from his mind, lest the man get a taste of the world he would never see along with the false memories he was getting. Besides, such a death could never happen. The plan had been so precise, so careful. The point he had to manipulate was coming up and idly, in the back of his mind, he wondered if Xemnas was having any trouble with this part.
Smiling down at their newborn baby boy, wondering what to name him.
There. Beneath pale eyelids, golden irises turned hungry as he stole out the real name of the child—Roxas—and switched it with the name of the other. That way the child would be able to say his name without his throat burning from the lie it was. The lie that Saïx and Xemnas were throwing the children into.
Ventus.
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In another world, the sun was rising over a forest of bright colors and strange plants. Trees with stars as fruit among mushrooms the height of men, atop one a blue caterpillar snoozed, a hookah still smoking beside him. In a clearing there was the remains of a fire with many creatures around it. Some humanoid in shape, others far, far from it, all asleep from the celebrations that had been going on for too many nights to count.
A man was rising out of his bed, dark hair ruffled and brown eyes still clouded in sleep. He blinked in confusion at a sound that was conspicuously absent from the room. The squirms and cries of a child; they would surely have woken well before him and be demanding food and attention. His child had such a strong voice and used it so often, the silence was the first hint that made it obvious something was rose out of bed and crossed to where a basket lay in the corner of the room.
There was a child in there, but he was asleep and there was something wrong. Focusing to see the aura around the child. The man frowned, setting more wrinkles into a face that was never supposed to age. He drew back abruptly as shock colored his features, mouth falling open. There was not a hint in that aura that connected the father to child, no trace of their relation. And there was something so distinctly… human about the creature before him. He reached out again to touch the aura and this time he inhaled, taking in the scent as well.
The roar that echoed through the castle sent a flock of birds winging to the sky.
In mountains a far ways away, Saïx and Xemnas looked in the direction of the shout before exchanging a look. It was too far for them to actually hear the rage in the cry, or even the cry itself, but they felt the ripple through the land. Like an earthquake it shook the ground enough that the shockwaves reached the pair miles away. Pure instinctual fear set deep inside their bones and they took off running towards the camp, adrenaline speeding their tired forms.
Enough that in another castle, in another territory, a bald man raised his head from staring in disbelief at his own basket. In it, a child whose hair was brown, not the black of how it should have been, laid squirming and crying. Arms and legs reaching up as if searching for something. A mobile of keys and crowns that was oddly absent from overhead.
Accusing eyes turned towards the opposing Court, not bothering to notice the faint traces of Solitary aura that surrounded the baskets and led out of the castles, high into the mountains. It was too muddled with his own aura to properly sense it. Besides, it was too clear whose world this was. The bald man's upper lip curled into a snarl.
"Eraqus."
"Xehanort."
Both men snapped orders for their Knights to come, and come quick. The anger in their tones masked the fear that they felt. As parents, they had been irresponsible and now... these things had taken the place of their children. A theft had been made and the other Court was surely to blame. War, long overdue, was the swift response.
And in the mountains, a dirty blond head raised to look at the silver and blue-haired men standing and facing the direction of the Courts. His lip was being worried between his teeth as he got flashes of images before his eyes. So real, but only illusions. It was comforting to know his lover was safe at the same time unease pricked at his stomach, hearing the Unseelie King discussing words of war to him in a hushed tone.
The blond rose and went to the two men, shuffling around the sleeping forms of the rest of their group as he went. The pride at how his lover had managed to infiltrate himself so seamlessly into the Court had faded long ago and now he only felt fear. Especially now, with the news he had just received.
"Zexion… he… he has news," Saïx and Xemnas turned to raise an eyebrow at him in unison at his murmured words.
"And? What is it, Demyx?" Xemnas asked, his voice soft but anxiety coated it in heavy layers.
"The Courts move to war."
Saïx looked to the silver-haired man with a twisted grin, unable to hide the feral gleam that was entering his expression. Xemnas merely nodded and turned his eyes back to the distance. Only one close to him could see how his cheek lifted in the barest hint of a smile. Their plan was off to a flawless start.
Chapter One: Prelude to War
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Author's Notes:
This is my first fic for this fandom (oh look, alliteration for everyone!) so any feedback, be it positive or negative, is greatly appreciated.
Also, let the record show that I am a miserable excuse for a writer when it comes to summaries.
This chapter brough to you by lots of French Vanilla tea and enough showtunes to make your ears bleed for hours.
I hope you liked it, please review. Reviews mean motivation for me to continue because otherwise I'll think I'm a failure.