An entry for the challenge 'tidying up' over at the LiveJournal community khdrabble. Classical references ahoy.
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In the woods one morn, a young nymph met a boy sitting upon the rocks, playing his music to the wind. Horrible creatures with faded yellow eyes gathered around like the calm of a stream, watching as if he was a muse.
She saw his instrument from behind withered trees, saw the cracked, rotten wood and the name 'Medy' scratched in with nails. The strings were loose, wild beneath his fingers like snakes; he never could keep up with their venom, always missing notes and adding sharps where silence should be.
The sound was horrible. It never was quite a melody, but enough to tear at the wretched hearts of sirens. No wonder the dark creatures were drawn to him.
"What an interesting heart you have," she whispered dryly, just loud enough for him to hear.
The music did not stop, but the darkness shuddered.
"You stole my Heartless—just as they were about to raid that village. Such a pity."
She continued, but he did not answer: he bowed his head politely and rocked out of time with the music, playing faster and faster still, wearing the fret board away with his fingers. Agitation, she recognised, and for a moment tried to feel it.
It was his home, that much was certain. Did he plan to fend of the Heartless forever with nothing but a broken sitar? Indeed, he had a good heart; strong and firm and isolated, but rich with icor.
Surely an entire village of dull hearts couldn't compare to one that drew Heartless in and tamed them with fractured melodies.
And so the nymph smiled, treachery tearing at her lips. "Give me your heart. (A pause, but not for a reply.) And I will call my Heartless off."
"I'm sorry ma'am," he said humbly, "but my heart is in this sitar."
His words were pathetic, but they did not mirror his actions. The muse nodded, well aware that it would be his hamartia; death and blackness for him, yes, but salvation for them all.
The music stopped, and the Heartless danced under her tuneless spell once more. They were hungry beings, and pain had probably been searing through as they watched him play.
The Heartless took the concept of stealing one's heart all too literally. Black claws and black teeth dug into his chest, over and over until it was only an empty hollow they gnawed; until they backed away slowly, running their hands over their own chests and not feeling satisfied. They never did.
She'd kill it, the one who was the musician's heart, and it would be hers. Then, perhaps, she'd be able to hate that wordless song he sung.
They were curious creatures, the Heartless, all gathered around the body that should not be, that never was. She kicked them away to see it for herself. Wild-red hair turned dirty blonde. His face, his eyes—all of it, changed.
If she had a heart it would have been kindness, but this was simple greed. Kneeling down she wiped the torrent of blood from his missing heart—the only blood a Nobody ever bled, before blades only tore open rivers of dark nothing—and rearranged his Other's clothes.
Tidied him up so that he smiled without an echo, not yet aware that it all meant nothing.
"That village," he said in a sing-song voice, eyes darting around the world that was new to him. "Hearts. There are hearts and... we need them."
It was all he could think of. With a single wave Heartless flew forward, desperate to gorge themselves, even when cursed so by Hunger.
If he could feel, the trauma would have pleased him callously; and he laughed nonetheless, perfectly in tune with the sickly noise of Shadows stalking through the forest.
Glancing at the rock where the muse had once been the Nocturne turned towards darkness, a Nymph by his side.