Sora was having another one of those days.
His feelings felt like they were all jumbled up in a hodgepodge of him, other people, and just plain confusion. He couldn't afford to feel like this- a crude sculpture of trash and treasure just tossed together and labelled "Sora". That wasn't who he was, and people needed him to be more than what he was. He'd learned that people rallied to him, that he had become their grounding point in these desperate hours. Sora's still smiling, everything will be okay. He knew he could frown, but with a Keyblade WAR on the horizon and everything looking hopeless, Sora felt like he couldn't afford to be anything but happy. Despair was palpable enough as it was.
So it was these moments of confusion where he hid himself away to try and sort everything out. Sora would climb up to the top of Yen Sid's tower, sit down, and watch the twilit stars. He tried to divine what he could from them, like Yen Sid could as if he was reading some old tome with all the knowledge in the worlds.
Other days he would just tell himself stories about what constellations he could find. The night sky was always different in other worlds, but there was patterns that were familiar no matter where you went, and that was a point where Sora could plant his feet in the ground while his head swam through thunderclouds.
Sora would pick through his thoughts, put some aside, try and yank others into cohesive understanding. Sometimes it hurt, sometimes it made him tired. He was wrestling with himself, and more often than not the other him won. He'd nap it off or down a couple potions for a burst of energy, but lo and behold next week there he was up on the roof again starting it all over.
But the next day he would smile. The next day he would ignore the feelings that weren't his, and his eyes shone with his smiles... Or perhaps frustrated tears. His friends let him have his moments to collect himself with no question, so they never questioned if it was working or not.
It was another day like this where Sora sighed in frustration. He let his tears leak out, letting his emotions flow. He wasn't exactly sad. This wasn't a crippling wave of despair and loneliness. If he had let himself bottle all this up it certainly would have, but this was just a moment where he didn't know what to do with himself.
One voice was screaming with loss at the sky.
Another- perhaps two, a small chorus -were preoccupied with the sunset tones below.
A third was prowling in the back, angry, bitter, and ready to strangle himself.
Sora looked at one star, then another, trying to guess what worlds they were. He closed his eyes. Breathe in, breathe out. He imagined himself surrounded with his friends. He wished that could be a real moment, but their forces were drawn thin. Aqua and Lea were one team; Mickey, Donald, Goofy another. All of them were handling the situation with the Princesses of Heart and getting them to safety, which in this case was back in Radiant Garden with Leon and his crowd. Riku was training Kairi elsewhere.
He wondered why he imagined himself with his friends when really he wanted to sort these feelings out alone. No one understood him better than him. Maybe they would be useless in helping him straighten out his own head. Maybe he just didn't want them to be bothered with this burden yet.
"Sora? Hey, Yen Sid told me you were up here again." Sora looked over to see Kairi climbing onto the roof with him. She sat down, "So, what's up?"
Sora wrinkled his nose at the scent of sweat. Probably just got back from some heavy training and sparring. Riku had been saying that contrary to appearance Kairi was swinging her Keyblade slow and hard, with not exactly delicate or precise swings. It was crude (Riku planned on fixing that), but got the job done.
Sora finally shrugged, "Thinking."
"Oh no," Kairi's voice was flat with teasing sarcasm, "you're actually thinking."
Sora chuckled and gently punched her thigh, "I know, right?"
The two settled into silence. Kairi folded her fingers on her knees. Sora crossed his legs and kicked his foot. Kairi tilted her head, wondering if Sora would get the subtle question if he was okay. A few minutes of closed lips later, Sora seemed to miss the cue.
"What's on your mind?" She finally asked.
Sora dodged the question, "You're always on my mind."
"Cute," Kairi said, "but that's not it. You can't fool me like that, Sora." Sora sighed. His foot danced in the air. "Sora." Kairi was going to get to the root of this if it was the last thing she did.
"I dunno..." Sora finally gave in, "That's the whole problem. Some days I don't know."
Kairi's head bounced back and forth a little. She made a little noise of agreement. "A lot of times people don't know things." She remarked, "What is it that you don't know?"
"Me." Sora whispered. This caught Kairi off-guard. She knew Sora didn't know about a lot of things, but himself was never one she considered.. But she remembered a way to help Sora, and so she commanded, "Sit up."
"What?" Sora asked.
Kairi grabbed him and pulled him up, "Come on, I can try and help. Remember how Riku would have those dissociative episodes?"
Sora complied with a nervous laugh. When Kairi had an idea no one could stop her, "O-okay then, but I dunno how me and Riku are the same..." Kairi instructed him to sit cross legged in front of her, then she held out her hands.
"This is something to help center yourself. Me and Riku kinda stumbled into it one day back home, and we both think it might be because of my light." She told Sora, "Now, you too. Hold them." When he held them, she continued explaining. "Take deep breaths. Close your eyes. Center yourself."
Sora did what she said, but laughed nervously with doubt, "I-I've tried all this Kairi-"
"What do you see?" She cut him off with a question, "Tell me everything."
Sora thought a moment. "Darkness." He said, "And you. And me."
"Look beyond me." Kairi told him, "Look beyond you. What do you see now? What's causing all the discord?"
Sora saw himself and Kairi vanish in the darkness. The boy that appeared in front of him he definitely knew, and his heart panged with regret and guilt, "R-Roxas..."
"What is he like? Tell me everything you can, every feeling every sense."
And so all kinds of words tumbled from Sora.
Roxas was sadness, and anger, and missed opportunities. He was lies that never meant to hurt and yet inflicted more damage than one could bear. Roxas felt like sunsets and rebellious acceptance. He was the intense orange of a sunset too perfect to last and the the transition to cold as dusk fell into night. The embers and ashes of a pyre long burned while the Phoenix above tried to rise back to the pinnacle of life it used to be. Roxas was anger and sadness and hurt that coalesced into this bitter regret that nothing could be done for. Nothing to do with the pain besides accept it. A stab wound that never fully healed and became an ugly, ugly scar.
"Mmm." Kairi hummed when Sora finished. "Anything else?" She asked.
Sora thought about it. Someone else crept in at the edges. "T-there's another..."
This person was also regret. Instead of Roxas's intensity they were just sadness. A field of forget-me-nots that were withered and dead that made flower crowns and flower shackles that weighed Sora down. Was it fear? Regret? A memento to remind him that one day he would be forgotten. One day he would just cease to exist. Mortality was frail and ephemeral. Waves tossed shells at him and took them back as if they regretted sharing them in the first place. Everywhere was blue and purple in these sick, pale mourning shades that made everything too dark or too dismal. If felt cold like night, and filled with aimless wandering. Sora's head hurt to think about anything more than this, content to forget and not try to remember.
"Interesting," Kairi noted, "is that all?"
"I don't think so." Sora said as another person came into focus.
This boy was very different. He felt bittersweet and peaceful. Poppies and tall yellow grass and lavender combed by the wind with careless thought. The wind never halted for a minute, battering Sora with attempts to be happy, to smile. It felt like forced hope, insistence there was always a light at the end that was driving him to madness. Clouds hung in the air like a gray cloth, making every ray of sun that peeked through taunting and colorless. Occasionally the sun would truly shine through the clouds, and it was beautiful stained glass in viridian hue until he saw it was cracked and dusty with age and neglect. There was no cold, but there was also no warmth. A limbo in everything. Numbness, sleep. Underneath the forced happiness and lack of feeling was regret and loneliness. An intense sadness that couldn't help to be bothered. It begged to be left alone to sleep, denying the idea of waking up to harsher reality.
Kairi hummed again, "Interesting." She asked once more, "Is that all?"
Sora hesitated. There was one more person coming along. "One more..."
This was rage. It was pain. People screaming and the intense red of first blood drawn. The metallic taste of life in your mouth and soreness in your limbs. Golden greed and darkest shadows with a cold silver heart that violently made its presence known. People suffered, that was a fact. This heart suffered. Pain had become an empty release, maybe even a delight to inflict on others. The concept of death was thrown into Sora's face with a war cry. It didn't matter if you were young, old, healthy or sick: one day you would die and it would not be pretty. Your flesh would decay and your being would shrivel into nothing. Death was a cold fact. Rebirth was merely debatable.
Sora's hands trembled in Kairi's. He felt lightheaded, but his jangled mess of thoughts had somehow snapped into alignment. Just through talking to her. He quietly scolded himself for not taking the opportunity sooner.
"Very interesting." Kairi said after a moment. "If that's all, you can open your eyes."
Sora did so, relieved that this was all over for now. Kairi smiled encouragingly. She held up her hand and gently brushed away Sora's spikes of hair, "See? Not too hard." She added, "Lemme tell you Riku would take hours to sort out some days. For saying you don't know yourself, you're in pretty good condition."
"Just confusing in a way I'm not used to." Sora laughed, holding her hand.
Kairi smiled. She reached over, and Sora was surprised at her bringing him into a hug only to find she was pulling his hoodie sharply over his head. She ran off giggling while Sora tried to get his hood over his none-too-happy spikes of hair. He ran after her, "Hey! Kairi!"
Kairi disappeared back into the tower, "Catch me if you can!"
Sora vanished right after, glad to be a kid for once.
I felt like describing characters without actually describing them so plop