Way of the Dawn
Ourania
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The night was a yawning void, filled only with diffused shadows and a smattering of negated stars that withered the vast plains into shades of immortal grey. The grass was creeping darkness given form, a leery paranoia that shifted and flattened beneath the soles of his boots, bladed tongues dispersing droplets of dew among the worn grips before shifting back into a crooked uniformity.
Hooded and cloaked in a shade that blended artfully into the charcoal-colored backdrop, the boy himself held little interest in the ungodly hour that he found himself traversing through. He moved with a liquid grace, the silver sheen of his hair whispering and being resettled by an errant, feckless wind. He appeared to be on the trail of something, guided only by the dirty, yellow clip of a crescent moon. His nerves thrummed with excitement borne of tolerant waiting, of hours and days dwindling down into the sinkhole that had become a life of plurality and uncertain ties.
He could feel it, nearly forgotten, but approaching from his periphery and teasingly darting away whenever he tried to hold it up to a mental light for inspection. Frustrated and hungry for a source other than edibles, he continued to seek out the unnamable sensation that drove him to the brink of a precipice that he dared not glance over. He had torn apart the very fabrics of space and time to find it, but had not seemed to come any closer to locating what he sought, and the flame of his determination was slowly tapering off into a line of wispy smoke. He knew that he had to find whatever this cause for such an undertaking was, some long lost burden that he needed and wanted all in one escalating tangle of appetite. But what? Or was it who? Why was it so hard to remember at times? Even his identity was a hazy question mark, slowly devoured by a growing, seething darkness that he had to work to contain within the scope of his own form.
It was autumn in the world he blindly stalked through, and the scent of slow decay was unnervingly satisfying to a part of him that he desperately wished he could lock away. Predatory and alien, it immersed him in primal data and gave him a heady, nauseated feeling. It enveloped him in a cocoon, drawing tighter and nearly suffocating the poignant layer of humanity that was hiding in some little known cranny of his brain. Or perhaps it was his heart, supposing he still had one; supposing it had decided to stay. He didn't really care to know where it was, since knowing would mean it could be found and finding meant that the darkness would override it.
He stopped momentarily on a hillside, sharp eyes taking in the black velvet blanket of the sloping area below and noting that the pinpricks of light in the distance probably spelled a town. Something about the way the civilized sector was nestled between enormous, emerald hills like a fraudulent jewel drew him down, closer than he normally would have dared to go. The trace was tugging insistently, assuring him that he was getting warmer in his pursuit and that all the searching had not been in vain.
It was the dead of night when he arrived on the outskirts of the town, a friendly, hand carved sign that declared a name in a language he couldn't wrap his head around. Illiterate in the squiggles and dots, he walked on in, nearly every sense on heightened alert.
"Hey, gorgeous."
He paused, disgruntled and confused by the dirt's sudden come on. When he glanced up, it was to find a gaggle of girls perched around and on a white-washed fence, one of them smiling beckoningly while her cohorts grinned or blushed at their friend's foolhardy call.
"You look lost," She went on, adolescent voice a far-cry from the seductive purr she was attempting to emulate. Her long lashes were batting playfully at him, as though she'd suddenly developed a tic. "Did you need a place to stay?"
He absorbed what was happening and unleashed a slow, mindful smile that stopped just short of baring his incisors. He was a wolf among the sheep, so used to cautiously treading among sharp hooves and suspicious, wary eyes instead of adoring glances. She couldn't have known what she was suggesting, at least not where he was concerned; they were farm girls, all four of them, and they smelled of cheap perfume that they'd likely concocted themselves and sweat from a long day's work. He could feel the eager pulse of her heartbeat, of all their heartbeats, battering against him like an ocean tide and threatening to consume him. None of them would have presented much of a struggle; their arms were slender despite their calloused hands, and not one of them was armed. And if he could just reach out and take them, take their young, love-seeking hearts…
"Charlene!" Horror in another's tone brought him back to himself, and he bit down on his tongue until he tasted something thicker and more bitter than blood, instinctively backing away. But she hadn't been screeching at him, at something he'd done in a moment of feral disorder; she'd just been voicing her mortification at her friend's evocative actions.
"I'm looking for someone," His voice came from far away, a deeper resonance than he could remember ever possessing. Surprise flooded him at the label of 'someone,' rather than 'something,' but he ignored it for the moment, intent upon their faces. Their heartbeats were still racing, as though aware that they had been branded prey, now simply waiting in the eaves to play their roles.
The same girl who had admonished her friend turned to look at him, the freckles on her nose wrinkling as she examined him critically. "We don't get many strangers around here. You're the only one who's come through recently."
"That's not true," One of the quieter girls rebuked, a smaller, more delicate female whom he had missed spotting at first, her heartbeat so gentle and quiet and sure. "There were a couple of others, just a few days ago. I spoke to them and gave them directions. They were heading north. A boy with brown hair and blue eyes and two others."
She was glowing slightly, just a faint tinge of light that at once repelled and intrigued him. She'd been touched by what he was looking for, briefly but recent enough that the fleck of brilliance still clung to her in segmented rays of power.
"Are you Riku?"
His eyes snapped up to meet hers, having before been toying with the idea of cracking open the thin bars of her ribcage and capturing the musically pulsing muscle that lay just beneath. His brain sputtered like a gutted candle when the name painfully sunk into his consciousness, trying to turn over and warm him once again. He had held such a name once, buried as it was by hate and lust and greed. But he remembered now, remembered with sharp clarity who he was and why it was so important to find-
"Yes." It was choked, as though he had to force his throat around the admission. Unbelievable shame and self-loathing were working inside him, trying to counter the darkness, but he doubted either would be enough to still the maw of the beast he'd thrust his hand into. I had to. It was the only way.
"He asked if you were here," Something in her tone dared him to look up again, and he saw pity vying with distaste in her features. Did she know then? Did being touched by the radiance grant her to see those who were eaten by the murky depths? "He's looking for you."
The viciousness of his smile was still there, but beneath it was something more. An emotion far more painful to look upon; the girl turned away from him before she could see it too clearly.
The creature named Riku left shortly thereafter, scenting the boy on the wind and following the winding path of light that he had left in his wake. He would find him, and he would tell him all the things that he would not wish to hear. He would disclose what it had been like to take in the darkness and not be swallowed whole by it; to wield it and shape it while black lightning danced in his heart and mind. He would tell him about the terror and the agony and the tears mingling with sweat and blood. And perhaps, when it was over, he could rest and the hunt would draw its own end.
And I did it all for you.
After all, he was only, irrevocably and devastatingly, human.
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Author's Notes: Wow, Oura's working on something? She's not dead? What a shock...
Actually, this was just a one-shot, written for a contest and posted here as an afterthought. I always though that Riku would be a little crazed after taking in the darkness, always fighting impulses that the Heartless so readily engaged in.
Hope it was coherent. 3