Disclaimer: You know the drill. Square-Enix owns all, and I own nothing.
Warnings: Freaking adorable Heartless.
Unchained Melody
Prologue: Blue Rhapsody
A small patch of blue flitted through the seemingly endless hallways of white. A human would have identified the creature as a Blue Rhapsody - a tiny floating Heartless. Its deceptive size would have most believe that it was a threat only to the weakest of hearts. Yet, in groups, Rhapsodies could be quite devastating.
This Rhapsody, however, was alone. Instinct told it to seek out hearts. Yet the commands of its mistress - a being so thoroughly steeped in darkness that she was capable of holding sway over the Heartless - left it patrolling the castle. If it found an intruder, the Rhapsody was permitted to steal its heart. Yet it had never found an intruder. With the exception of the mistress and those who served her, the castle had been empty since the defeat of its former master.
None of this was known to the Rhapsody. Its only awareness was of its need for hearts and the will of the mistress.
Empty, soulless room after empty room the Heartless encountered. Its only orders had been to patrol, no other specifics had been given. Few found a lone Rhapsody worth troubling themselves over. And so the Rhapsody patrolled with no destination.
When it entered into a plain square room, the Heartless paused. Straight ahead was an exit. But it could also see a landing above. Above, it remembered hungrily, had been Kingdom Hearts. If there were hearts in the castle, they would be above. Rather than leaving through the exit ahead, the Rhapsody floated up to the landing.
If the Heartless had been a thinking creature, it might have known that each room of the castle had once had a name, even the landing which it floated above. It might have even been curious about the castle itself, wondering what sorts of creatures once called it home. But the Heartless neither needed nor wanted such knowledge. It was a creature of instinct, and that very instinct urged it only to seek out hearts.
Floating onward in its patrol, the Rhapsody found next room filled with broken monuments lined up in even rows. In front of each of the shattered monuments rested red tiles engraved with weapon-shaped emblems and writing. The Rhapsody prepared to pass through the monument room when one of the tiles went from red to blue.
The Rhapsody fired off a blizzard spell in reaction, ice forming above its head and shattering against the tile. No reaction. Nothing attacked and nothing perished. Flitting over to investigate, the dull thought that perhaps the mistress ought to be informed passed through its mind, only to be dismissed by that same, never-ending hunger.
A faint hint of curiosity and the need to make certain it wouldn't be leaving an enemy behind sent the Rhapsody closer to the tile. As it neared, a faint, shimmery glow filled the remnants of the monument. The Heartless retreated, and the glow faded. Yellow eyes blinked as the light disappeared. Light, the Rhapsody knew. Light was connected with hearts.
The Rhapsody flitted forward again, bobbling awkwardly through the air. The bits of monument began glowing again. Had the monument been whole, it would have been large enough for a human to fit through. The broken pieces, however, barely afforded enough room for the tiny Heartless.
A presence danced along the edges of the Rhapsody's awareness - a presence, but no heart. The Heartless spun in the air searching for the being it sensed. This new room was dusty and dark. Only the fading light from the monument gate and the Heartless's glowing yellow eyes provided any illumination.
A shape on the floor drew the Rhapsody's attention. It was easily long enough to be a person. The Rhapsody dove for the shape, hoping to find a heart. The thing, however, wasn't alive. It was long, skinny and broken at the top. Strings traversed its length, some snapped and some whole.
The Rhapsody drifted to the ground to examine this strange thing more closely. Whatever it was, it did more than pique the Heartless's curiosity. It also aroused something very much like memory in a creature that lived by instinct.
The Heartless bobbled awkwardly when it landed, its tiny legs clumsy upon the ground. It bounded forward rather like a small bird, moving in short hops and yet ready to take flight at the first sign of danger. When nudging against the thing brought forth no response from the presence, the Rhapsody leapt onto the thing. Its feet caught in the strings, producing a brief cacophony that echoed around the room.
Frightened, the Rhapsody soared straight up, twirling in a circle and blasting ice in every direction. As the ice shattered against the walls, it produced more echoes which reverberated around the room, rumbling louder and louder. It seemed as though the noise would shake the very walls apart.
The very air trembled with the noise, shaking the Rhapsody back to the ground. It landed hard and rolled, bumping back into the instrument. And there it cowered until the last of the noise trailed off. Only when silence once again filled the strange room did the Rhapsody dare to step away from the thing.
Rather than fleeing, for the light from the monument gate had faded and the Rhapsody couldn't remember where it was, the Heartless again leapt onto the thing which had so piqued its interest. It took more care this time, straddling the strings. Hesitant, fearful of the noise, the Heartless grasped a string between its toes. It pulled and released.
A single note twanged through the room, hardly a beautiful sound. As before, the echo carried, but this time it didn't overwhelm the room. The sound pulsed and throbbed like a living thing - like a heartbeat.
Music. The single word surfaced from the dark depths of the Heartless's awareness. A word unconnected with anything, and yet with a meaning the creature could almost feel. The Rhapsody plucked at another of the unbroken strings, and a new sound joined the first.
Bobbing up and down, excited by the sounds, the Heartless continued to pull and release the two strings. Music. It knew this somehow, and it liked it.
Light burst forth from the instrument, and the Rhapsody became more aware of the presence it had first sensed. Now it could feel that presence all around. The Rhapsody squealed fearfully and tried to fly away, but its foot tangled in the strings of the instrument. Trapped, it struggled and pulled to no avail. The strings might as well have been a hand clasped on to the tiny foot.
The Heartless continued to fight as the light blazed into a crescendo. The Rhapsody had to shut its eyes against the brightness, only to find the afterimage of a man burned against its eyelids.
In a desperate bid to escape the light, the Rhapsody opened the dark pathways between worlds. It didn't care where it wound up, so long as it was someplace away from the light. Yet, as it was pulled into the darkness, the light followed. Heartless and light merged as they fell through the dark paths.