STANDARD DISCLAIMER APPLIED.

the road to hell is paved in:
by:
pixie paramount ((8/18/2007, 4:17 AM)
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
, Namine-centric & from zero to sixty, I fall


0.
Once a long, long time ago she was just a little lost girl in a dark, ink-blotched land.

Her fingers itched to burn the canvas surrounding her, the blow it up big on paper and—

Their hands are sharp and bruise her; she doesn't like it, this land she inhabits (Naminé doesn't like being hurt).

She likes to forget these times, when she was alone in the dark and in a place she has never been before.


1.
The castle is a lot like in her dreams.

Tall and imposing, white; her eyes aren't used to it, stuck in the dark and all.

She feels oddly empty as she walks through the doors, bathed in light.

(She thinks this what it is like to be whole, as she steps into the castle, bathed lily-white and pure and—

It isn't, she knows, but this is a beautiful lie.)


2.
The four, door less walls are pristine white and like the castle—looming over her, imposing some unbreakable will.

They tell her she can draw to her (non-existent) hearts content, but this is just a lie until they need her because what she draws are her memories and her life—in this castle and not, her dreams—and she doesn't know it, not yet, that she can create and break and—

She feels it, this power, beneath the pads of her fingers—warm and prickly like that quick burst of static electricity, flowing and through her but concentrated at the tips, flowing through her as she takes a utensil and—

You get the idea: Naminé is just a to, do not touch.


3.
They treat her as nicely as people without hearts or morals or anything, really, can.

She's cared for—clothed and sheltered and it's all she can really ask for—even if it isn't the warmth of a mother's hand but the cool, sometimes biting, cold of a leather glove. She still thinks she can call this place home.

Maybe, someday, when she has a heart and knows what it is like she could call it that. Maybe; though she doesn't completely believe it.

(The heart and mind tell you lies, sweet-thing, the shadows croon to her, inching closer and closer into the night.)


4.
The Organization grows; it seems, with each passing day.

New faces, names, and specialties, all without hearts or a real name or genuine memories to go with that name—just like her, just like the rest of the people in this castle.

Naminé smiles, bitterly, at the sketches doting her pad—they are free to leave and she is not.

Life here seems incredibly unfair.


5.
His lies bother her.

They hit a bit too deep and when she tries to take it, they snag.

She doesn't like him. Not really, at least.

(If she had a heart she would say for sure that she hates this man who smells like roses and blood.)

She just wishes that he wouldn't tell her the things she wants to hear (she wants them to mean something, to not just be words—thrown callously about…like when he says them.)


One day, she thinks, the day he has a heart to break he'll regret this.

He's playing snakes-and-ladders with the Organization, she thinks on the day he assassinates Vexen; she doesn't know or understands his reasons. She hopes he does, though, and that he won't end up like the others.

She hopes.


6.
Roxas is sweet with his sulky eyes and pout.

She tells him that they are alike with her crystal-bells giggle and small, ghostly smile.

He doesn't say much, just shrugs and smiles—so slightly, she can see that boy in him—in his own, small way that makes him different, makes him Roxas and not some forgotten fragment of a boy they both remember.

(She wants to say that she loves him but the words can't come out—she doesn't know, barely remembers, how they feel.)


It's heartbreaking, watching the Replica.

He's so, so lost and a part of her hates the Organization for allowing this.

(A part of her hates herself for allowing this to go on.)

He's just a shadow, not whole.

When he promises her that he will protect her, she smiles sweetly at him and hopes he makes it his dream, his purpose—so he can die fulfilled and real.

Or as real as any of them can dream to be.


Naminé knows how all of this will end for her: she'll become whole.