Standard disclaimers apply.
Author's Notes: I'm sorry for any errors or spelling mistakes. Grammar escapes me. "-.- I really hope this works. Please, please drop by and tell me if it was horrible. I need to know. A brief study of Xehanort's character. Set before the nobodies.
12 Cranial Nerves: I Olfactory
by: Naiyad
Xehanort was about ten when he decided that the meaning of life was defined in an individual's scent. Well truthfully, he hadn't really decided that on his own, but Even had caught him off guard.
"What's your take on the meaning of life?" he had asked on that humid summer afternoon. The self satisfied smirk barely concealed. Evidently, the older boy had stumbled upon some sort of a revelation during his most recent, one-sided conversation with the water fountain, and was eager to show it off.
"That's easy." Xehanort had answered with the confidence that he had not felt, desperately trying to buy himself time. He was grasping in vain at light footed rabbit thoughts, scurrying so infuriatingly out of reach when their cooperation was needed the most. "It's s-smell." Ashen hair bouncing as he nodded his head for emphasis, amber eyes searching at his feet for a glimpse of a cotton tail.
"Smell…" Even's voice fell a semitone as he repeated the word. "How very…profound." The older boy looked almost disappointed over such an easy win. He had probably expected more of a challenge. "Would you care to…elaborate?" The sleeve of his blue cotton robe flapped against his wrist as he drew swirling patterns in the air with one hair, reinforcing every enunciated syllable, left hand resting on a bony hip, like a wizened wizard, casting a spell. Are wizards always wise? Master Ansem is a wizard king. Someday, Xehanort would want to be a certified wizard. Or better still, he'd have a fleet of wizards under his command. But first, the problem at hand. He needed to focus.
"Well yes, smell." Would they be tempted to approach him if he offered them thoughts of carrots? Ghost bunnies, come here. He didn't notice how his fingers were making come hither gestures towards his feet. "Life is unique to every individual, and with life comes…experience." He's caught a rabbit by its foot.
His companion however, looked decidedly unimpressed. "That's a tried and tired train of thought, Xehanort. I'd have expected better from you." Even always had this odd habit of sniffing when his glasses slipped too low down the bridge of his nose. His eyes would squeeze shut and his nose would wrinkle and for a fraction of a second, he'd look like he just swallowed something very bitter.
"I'm not done." The rodent almost escaped, but he had managed to grab it by its ears. "You see, experience leaves a mark. It sort of taints us with its- uh…" Don't say mark again. Even is almost as bad as Ienzo when it comes to the use of a good vocabulary. His ten year old mind was stumbling and flailing over the wires of connected thoughts in his head. Minutes pass with his lips pursed as the correct words sought to exit. "-stain."
It floats feebly in the space between them, like a frosted breath that melts too quickly in the sun.
Xehanort wanted to kick himself.
Summer is long and profound in Radiant Garden. The robes he wore made him uncomfortable. It clung to him between his armpits and to his thighs. The sun against his back is almost as cruel as the look behind the wire rimmed glasses.
Sounds of laughter distracted him, and he unconsciously turned towards their source. Xehanort didn't notice how his eyes misted over. There's a reason why Braig and Dilan are always playing together, building towers that defy the laws of gravity out of twigs, while he sat here alone picking apart blades of grass. Alone.
In his hands, he feels the soft, lengthy ears, and with uncharacteristic amount of violence, tries to rip them apart.
Try again. Resolve built up in him lake an inhaled breath. He coud feel his lungs expanding. "Experience leaves a mark-"
"You've said that already."
"-like my experiences today," small hands gestures at the expanse of green at his feet. "When I get back to the castle, I would smell of grass, and maybe morning dew. Accumulated experience is the building blocks of life."
Before he's through, the older boy already had his mouth open, poised like a needle, ready to poke holes into a ten-year-old's logic balloon. "If Eleaus smells of sweat, does it mean that he's been playing with salt and saline all day then? Is that what you're implying? Your meaning of life?"
To be completely honest, Xehanort didn't quite get what the blonde was getting at, but decided to pretend he did anyway. It's how puffer-fish survive. He'd read about it in one of Master Ansem's books. Suck in the air, and pretend that he's bigger than he feels.
"No, it means his life is about hard-work and dedication, s'all." He cocks his head to one side as he searched for a way to illustrate his point. "Master Ansem is wise." It's a safe topic, a safe example. "His life encompasses the knowledge of the books in the library, so he always smells of parchment and candle wax."
Thin lips work a while, like he's chewing on the answer before he can swallow it down and digest it, or like he's chewing on a retort before he spits it out. Xehanort is already distracted by the pattern of veins on an oak tree's leaf. It didn't matter. He must have won this round, because Even turned around and quickly made his way back to his spot next to the water fountain without another word. The marmoreal lion lent him a shaded patch of lawn.
From a distance, an all too familiar crash resounds and a flock of pigeons take to the sky, followed by Dilan's frustrated curses. A cricket chirped at his feet. Xehanort knelt to the ground and placed his palms like a dome around the creature. It escaped easily through the opening at the top, and he settled back to dissecting the grass around him.
A lifetime later, Xemnas idly wonders why he doesn't seem to smell of anything in particular.