Disclaimer: Curvily not mine.
A/N: Written for Challenge #202 on KH Drabble: 'smile'.
A Curve That Sets Everything Straight
© Scribbler, September 2009.
'A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.' -- Phyllis Diller.
Aerith woke slowly, sleep sticking to the inside of her head like half-eaten candyfloss. She murmured about not staying up so late, pushed hair off her face, opened her eyes – and froze.
That wasn't her ceiling.
It wasn't even the ceiling of her church, where she'd fallen asleep more than once. The church wasn't technically hers, of course, but nobody else wanted it. Part of the ruined city Radiant Garden had been built atop, it was only accessible via the sewers. Nobody went there except Aerith. She liked the atmosphere, wondering about the people who used to live there. Had they a kind ruler like Lord Ansem? Did they have the same peace and security?
Did they run from shadowy hands, or watch the hearts ripped out of their friends and family?
This room wasn't even slightly mystical. It was small, warm and smelled of old socks. Aerith's room in Healer House smelled of lavender from packets of dried petals she'd slipped into the chest of drawers. She often came home grimy – you couldn't get your Healer Qualification without hard work. Still, that didn't mean her room had to smell like a sewer too.
For a microsecond she wondered if it'd been a dream. Then a face appeared, leaning over with no regard for personal space.
"Hey, Ponytail. Back among the living?"
The phosphorescent flash of memory detonated. Aerith remembered running, ducking into the sewers and dragging a blond boy too injured to realise the rest of his dormitory was dead. She remembered the splash of footsteps behind her, shouting, the smell of blood and gunblade oil as another wounded boy covered their retreat. She'd always found sanctuary in the ruined city, but not when stumbling alongside the cadets whose names she didn't even know, those horrible things only a heartbeat away – literally!
The Heartless really had ruined everything.
Tears slid from Aerith's eyes, down her temples, into a pillow that wasn't hers.
"Ponytail?" The nickname came out with artificial brightness "Ae-Aerith?"
The hesitation forced her to take the heels of her palms from her eyes. Yuffie never used her real name. She never sounded so lost, either. Yuffie was ten going on twenty-five. She could increase the ambient light in a room by a hundred watts with one cheeky grin.
Right now her smile was more like a naked bulb, its light too stark and unnatural, especially for the only ninja who'd ever bucked convention and made friends among the Radiant Gardeners who'd considered her clan worse than gypsies. Yuffie was one of a kind, but right now her smile was only kind of one. It reminded Aerith of cracks in a window, spiderwebbing into pretty patterns after the bullet went through. One wrong move and all the glass would fall out.
Aerith's throat stuck like she'd excavated the desert with her mouth. "Where are we?"
"They called it Traverse Town. Dumb name, if you ask me – which nobody did." Yuffie scrunched her face into an even wider smile. "Meh. Dumb adults. Who needs 'em, right?"
It was the most horrific thing Aerith had ever seen. Even worse than the Heartless's arms buried in her roommate's ribcage. Even worse than knowing she couldn't ever go home again.
She sat up and drew Yuffie into an unprompted hug. "It's okay to cry."
Yuffie stiffened. "I know."
"Really. It's okay."
"I know."
But it'd be years before she did; and also smiled properly again – when a boy with startling blue eyes and a grin that lit up a room arrived and forced them to reflect it with more than just the pale imitations they'd grown used to.
Fin.