AN: Ah… it feels so good to be at the keyboard once more! This thirsting writer has finally re-found her muse, and the desire to alchemize thought into writing was too much to resist. Temptation has never been more gleefully succumb to…!

I never thought I would grow weary of salt-parched lips.

I'd been caressed by heady tropical breezes and kissed by the white foam of the ocean's undulations since I was old enough to form memories and affinities. I've always had a strange liking for running my tongue over my lips after a long swim and tasting sunshine and salinity, for feeling the lazily cruel brilliance of the sun dye my skin scarlet if I was overly self-indulgent and spent hours outside. There was even something comforting in the sand that coated my still-moist feet when I walked back home, in the relief of having cool aloe massaged over my reddened skin before I drifted off to sleep.

Such seemingly simple things had defined my childish ideas of comfort, of home. Punishment for me was being deprived of sunburned skin and a salty mouth, seeing Sora's playful silhouette through my thick curtains and desperately wishing I was with Him, the torture of it even more so when I recognized Kairi's girlishly lithe form trailing after Him.

I still felt that twinge of smoldering envy whenever they disappeared together for hours at a time while I was left to imagine despondently what must have transpired during those blissful rendezvous, but the familiar feelings of jealousy, of longing and betrayal were less than welcome. They reminded me of why I had yearned to escape this marine-bound prison in the first place, of why seeing the glitter of hope in Sora's eyes at the thought of adventure had set my heart ablaze with impassioned optimism while reserving some of that fire for my own hopes and dreams.

We had built rafts with childish craftsmanship that nevertheless left us admiring our product proudly as the sun dipped behind the glimmering blue horizon, painting the sky tangerine in its wake. It was in these moments that I was filled with a strange feeling whenever I looked at Sora, at His skin dewed with perspiration and His hopelessly disheveled hair reminiscent of cinnamon and caramel, the exhausted smile that would tug at the corners of His lips at the end of the day. Such seemingly simple things would arouse the most profound of sentiments and thoughts. Perhaps most people are as appreciative of aesthetics as I was, but the fact that I nearly swooned with… with an indescribable need, a whispering craving that haunted both dream and waking thought… it drove me to near madness.

So with this plaguing disease of the soul the Heartless came… maybe the deviant awakening inside of me had called to them like a siren, my swirling thoughts like fodder or the most fragrant of dark bouquets. They had found me and trapped me, embracing me in something that was not unlike the intimacy of lovers, the humiliation of aberrant strangers, their sweet promises like a hot breath on my neck that was intrusive but not entirely unwelcome. They laced my fantasies with the opiate promise of what I could never have, to taste sugar on my ravenous tongue, to feel warmth and softness on flesh that hungered for it, to have my parched lips wet with the saline laments of my beloved.

Yes… all of it! All of it! I'd give anything to have…

Darkness. Ever encompassing, ever present, and unlike the entrancing intimacy of the Heartless, this was cold, bleak, dark, a lover being withheld ardent kisses and hushed whispers in their ear. I yearned the comfort of deception, but darkness was a selfish lover. I yearned for rest, for escape from the gaping whole that threatened to engulf me from the inside out. Darkness was kind to me then, letting me fall into what I hoped was unending sleep. I hid within myself, wanting to erase all but the sweet sound of His voice that lulled me to sleep.

I awoke.

My beloved was gone.

Loss... indescribable loss. My knees crumpled and I fell to the ground, raising my eyes to heaven as though my cherished seraph would be there gazing back at me placidly. I felt my lids burn and sting; the sky drenched in ink-tinted blackness swirled cruelly as building tears twisted them; I gasped for air, suddenly unable to do something as simple as breathe.

Sora... I don't deserve you. I never will, damn it all!

I heard a broken moan, almost like a self-conscious sob, and vaguely registered that my own treacherous lips had let it escape. I'd lost my light, my sol solis et luna, my divine one who, if fate allowed, would be ever showered with praises and admiration. Let the darkness, with all its lack of warmth, compassion, with its selfish lust for whatever I had to offer it, everything... let it all consume me. Loveless, Heartless, boundless, hopeless, worthless, guiltless, shameless...

Selfless. Take this body and make it yours, merciful blackness.

I had fallen into the greedy grasp of darkness, the most willing of masochists. I yearned for the darkness to break me, to hurt me beyond imagination, to inflict on me blinding, searing agony. I wanted pain that I could taste, sweet yet almost briny on my tongue, pain that would burn crimson on my eyelids as I shut my eyes against it. I longed to forget the ache that made me feel fragile, on the point of collapse.

'And though I shall walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for You are with me,' beloved. Consume me completely - be my sanctified sin!

The darkness complied.

Fire coursed through my veins, unfamiliar and unforgiving. I bit my lips to stiffle the shriek of pain that ripped at my throat, the pain of my teeth tearing into such tender flesh not intense enough to make me stop, to ease my vicelike bite until I tasted blood, warm and freeflowing, making me almost heady with the mingled pleasure and revulsion that gagged me. So many all-consuming wants,needs! Blood on my tongue, the masochist in me delirious with the flavor and the agony of a mangled lip; pain shooting through every fiber and sinew, my body awash with a heat reminiscent of the heat of lust - no, infinitely better - that caused my breath to quake and quicken, my heart to race, the air to feel insufficient; I had a dark creature inside me to nourish, crying out for some young, hot, delicious flesh to ravage, to destroy, to become its master and humble servant.

Was I feeling pain before?

Any agony in the world would have justified this! Pain had seamlessly transformed into a pleasure beyond anything I could imagined in my most twisted fantasies and desires, beyond the confines of decorum, manners, considerations - it was pure and black, undiluted, hedonistic ecstasy. I could hardly contain myself - where before I had quelled my cries, now they escaped me unbidden, shudering, almost reverently whispered moans. I swooned; I longed, even reached out, for some pretty piece of flesh, some perfectly molded filth that would writhe and purr as I wished, and the blessed darkness become my confidant. It formed itself into something not entirely - but sufficiently - solid that seemed to know the most forbidden wants and desires that coiled within me like flames that licked at my sanity.

I knew darkness, lying breathless and sated, the momentarily hot blackness becoming cold once more.

I could feel it in every conceivable projection and orifice. I could still feel its greedy lips and tongue on that most private part of me and that warmth that had enveloped it; I could feel it twist and coil within my entrails; I felt the faint, almost comforting fire stream along the blue and red threads that linked my heart to parts of the body that could do its bidding.

I still longed for more. Satiation failed to satisfy me, for I knew that the malice and blackness that coursed within me was willing to give me what I desired, whensoever I desired it. I was still drunk with whatever it was the darkness had aroused in me.

Almost as if to prove me correct, I once again saw the blackness seem to arise from my own flesh and form its own. As I drew nearer to it, my breath and pulse both beginning to quicken once more in anticipation, I gazed upon the onyx-tinted mass that now lay supine at my feet. In its indefinite features I saw the face of my beloved. A flare of anguish, a stab of pain, a smothered moan of remembrance.

I silenced it all as I pressed my lips to my supine lover's, tasting its mouth hungrily, imagining the one who had stolen any love I was capable of. Once, twice, thrice, four times we devoured each another's flesh, until His name fell from my lips.

Sora.