Author's Note: Well, I actually meant to write something psychologically evaluating why Nobodies can feel some emotions (anger, resentment, ambition) and not others (love, trust, devotion) sparked by a conversation on fanficrants (LJ). And... it just didn't work out. I got this instead. In any case, it's still dedicated to pixie-paramount because without her rant and general awesomeness, I probably wouldn't have written it.
And don't worry, Pixie, I'll still psychologically analyze the hell out of them. Probably this weekend, when I can get in touch with my inner Neo-Freudian.
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts nor any of its respective characters, settings, et cetera.
Tell Me, Snow White
"How are you feeling today, princess?"
A loaded question, stuffed to bursting with every meaning he buries beneath the words and waits, patient, to bloom. Naminé does not look up from her sketchpad. Her eyes stay on the rough graphite likeness of an apple she's never seen as she replies, "Fine."
"Is that all?" The click of his heels resonates louder, ripples of sound snaking through the room as he draws nearer to its centre. It beats through the floor and up the legs of the chair she sits in; the hairs of her arms stand on end, her flesh sharpened by his presence, but her eyes remain fixed on the fruit. "Not sad? Even a little?"
"I'm fine," she says almost tiredly, concentrating on the stem and how it doesn't bend just the right way, or look quite like a stem, and how Marluxia is so close she can hear the echo of his empty chest. "Thank you."
Hot leather kneads her shoulders; his fingers dig shallowly into her translucent skin, until it goes from pale pink to ivory under his touch. "Are you frightened?"
If she had a heart, it might be pounding – as it is, her brain frenzies inside her skull, and her sketchpad leaps meekly in her hands. She breathes deeply through her nose, shuts her eyes, and concentrates on the paper – cold and forgiving as marble – rather than his menacingly warm grip. "I'm fine."
It might look better if it were thinner…
"Are you certain?" His fingers color a picture of piqued flesh along her collarbone and close around her throat with finesse, like a flower folding to the night. When she swallows, mouth desert dry, she can feel his palm, and her skin pressed to the hide that wraps his hand.
…the leaf is wrong too… there's something not right with the leaf…
"Yes." Naminé can't draw anymore, can't move the pencil without it quivering like a reed in the wind – and she won't let him see, won't let herself plant anything in that pathetic garden he's prepared for her. Instead she tries very hard to pick her art apart.
the stem is too thick, there are too many veins in the leaf, the shading is wrong, it shouldn't
His grasp tightens and the oxygen cuts in harder, not quite filling her lungs. Marluxia's other hand follows the same path, and treads along her chin, her jaw, coaxing a strand of wheat hair to twist around his finger. His lips are at her ear, breath stinging her face: "I think you're lying."
shouldn't shouldn't shouldn't be quite so round shouldn't look
"I'm –" and she might have finished the sentence, had he not pulled her to the back of the chair. Naminé speaks in crass little gasps, hears her sketchpad flutter to the floor in a flurry of paper wings and metal rings. Her tiny hands claw at him, short nails searching for a seam in the leather. She cannot muster a scratch – and all the while, he chuckles delicately into the hollow of her throat, as if enjoying a very private joke.
The room is fading from white to grey when he releases her; she curls forward and clutches her head, taking great, grateful breaths. The sound of rushing air and flooding lungs and tears smother his steps as he rounds the chair. Finally the shadow is cast before her; Marluxia raises her chin with a deceptively gentle hand.
"What a thing, Naminé, to feel," he purrs. Her eyes are stuck on his, and it is very clear from the way they wonder that she is not fine. "And yet you deny it, take it for granted." He brushes hair from her face, tucking it neatly behind her ears. His fingertips dance along the pink blossoms of her cheeks. "We are Nobodies, without hearts. We should cherish what few emotions we have."
She blinks, blinks, blinks, as if hoping when next she opens her eyes, the room will be empty, impenetrably white fog. But he is always there, like the ghost of a moor.
"Now tell me, princess," his fingers fall from her face to her throat, feather-soft along pale skin, then alight on her hand, "how are you feeling?"
She shivers and watches as no emotion reflects in his eyes, and tells him in tones he likes to hear, "Heartless."
After a moment of painful stagnancy, he smiles, and a small laugh like a bubble bursts from his lips. He picks up her sketchpad and pencil, gingerly places them in her lap, then pats her affectionately on the head. Finally he turns to go, opens the door to the darkness outside, and leaves the room in lingering dusk: "And for now, that's just fine."