Exactly one thousand, m'dear. Count it in Word.
Beast's ballroom is empty, echoing, as the two figures in cloaks portal out of The World That Never Was. The Beast himself isn't there; he's in another part of the castle, still as a statue, a forgotten memory. Sora will make him fight Heartless that arise from the walls, from the floor, twisting themselves into existence from the nether air itself. Whether they will approach the Keyhole at the heart of the world and slip, slide inside, is up to the Beast, and up to Sora.
Sora is not here yet. Words have come from Aquabah that Sora is under the hot blue sky, fighting himself in trails of smoke and memory.
Some days Demyx hates that witch who resides in the highest tower of oblivion; some days, like today, he would get on his knees and hands and sully his beautiful black cloak on the white marble to grovel.
Zexion has torn his attention from the clone in the tube to take Demyx's arm, to listen to his playing, have an off day from his scheming that is so much a part of him. Demyx could whisper thanks to the hearts of the worlds, but he'll settle for making music ring through the flat images of Beast's castle. Demyx knows that just to be here will steal his memories of the place, running around here with Roxas and Axel. It will be so much better-realized than Sora will remember, but that's the point, isn't it? He won't. Remember. And neither will Demyx.
He splays himself on the ground, gloves pressing against the hardwood of the floor. When he was here with the Beast contemplating the rose, higher, he did the same thing.
"What," Zexion says, and toes him. "Are you doing."
"Enjoying," Demyx says, and grins up, his hood a puddle under him and his hair pressed soft against the floor.
"Hurry up," Zexion says. "Riku is waiting for me."
The grin falls off Demyx's face. Riku. Replica. It's all Zexion thinks about, these days. "Fuck Riku," he says from the ground, and pushes himself up. If he could cry, he would. He would have been prone to crying. If he could.
Dancers twist themselves from the nether, twisting and twirling and stepping. A full circle, a dance circle. They surround Zexion and Demyx, an audience Demyx plays to. "Listen to me," Demyx says, looking full at Zexion, meeting his eyes. Deep blue, so blue it hurt.
Demyx ran his hand along the air, and mid-run the sitar's weight settled into his lap. One primal note; water clones poured themselves into containers of Demyx's will, and if only unlife would flow as easy - blue, so blue as Zexion's eyes, his hair, and Demyx wondered if he would ever notice -
He closed his eyes and played, each note glimmering, bouncing off the rafters and settling low on the ground. A dragon of water noses the ceiling and exploded into shimmering droplets that caught the lanterns hung on the wall.
Zexion is still standing over Demyx when the song finishes and the clones stop swaying, his fringe covering his eye. Demyx chances another look up, and sees the same expression. He's an ice man, and Demyx understands ice. It's colder water.
"Glad you liked it," Demyx says, and pushes himself off the floor, the sitar melting away.
Zexion still watches him.
"I'll let you go back to your Riku now," Demyx says, and opens a portal. He gestures toward it.
"...No. I'm not done," Zexion says, and raises a hand. Gently, Demyx feels his portal tug closed.
"Call your water clones."
The Dancers watch them. One makes a little step, a little twirl. Another leaps. When it lands, Nobodies twist out of the floor and take the Dancers' points.
"Monks?" Demyx gasps, whirling around to face Zexion. "What -"
"Play," Zexion says, ice-cold and stiff. "Play."
The sitar leaps into Demyx's hands. He lets loose, a power chord. As his water clones reform and the dragon noses the roof again, beautiful people (who died at the Nobodies' claws) fling themselves into the clones' arms and dance with them, and dance. Above, a pearl dragon twines with the water, spiralling a mating display in the air.
"You -" Demyx says, and his words echo with his sitar, his fingers on automatic. "Why?"
"I appreciate you," Zexion says, and with it come flashes of almost-memory, almost-emotion. "You have always had so many possibilities."
A room full of sitar and dancing and Zexion is holding out his hand and he - "Dance with me."
He's asking and Demyx is willing. The clones keep time, water denser at their feet, pounding on the parquet in time to how his heart would beat.
The Dancers reach up and pluck the lanterns off the walls, shattering them in oil and fire at their feet until the room is flickering. Long shadows stretch up the walls and fade through the windows, exposing the hall to the dark that is the rest of the castle, and the night.
Demyx dances, fleet of foot, and he is with Zexion, who guides him through the steps of the dance of time, time of water and sitar, ice and fire.
Above the dragons twirl, and under the dancers dance, in twirls, in a circle around the two of them, dancing, swaying, together.
Demyx opens his eyes. They were shut before. In his gloves a card rests, a picture of a monk and a dancer, dancing. A fragment teases at the edge of his thought, a ballroom...a castle of roses? A monster...like a beast. But he's in a white room on a lower level of Oblivion, alone, and it seems too good to be true. Sora is in Aquabah, coming up quickly. Demyx shouldn't be here.
Demyx files this card away, with all the others. He's almost got a deck, now. Perhaps he will go tease Zexion some more, today. One way or another, Zexion will learn to like him.