Encoded Hearts
Chapter II
Reigning Reflections
Lexira had taken her time to climb those colorful stairs, explaining everything to the curious feline in her arms. For some reason, she felt that she should explain in detail eveything it would see. It wasn't as much for the cat's benefit as much as for her own. Because, really... Between you and me, is the cat really going to give a damn after it goes back home, whether or not it knows what the stained glass floors represent?
Not really.
Her "acesion to heaven" took a headty twenty minutes of her time. After whch she finally reached the highest tower and sat down on the glass floor. She extracted a book from her robe's pocket; before going out-being too lazy to change into something more appropriate- lexira had just but on one of those infamous black robes over her white nightfown.
She had careflly instructed the cat to stay still during her reading, and had informed it that she was already halfway through the small black book. She thusly proceeded to go through the story in a nutshell; or, atl least, what she'd read of it thus far.
"It's about a beautiful maiden and a man..." Lexira started, obviously uncertain as to whether or not she was doing justice to the story by recounting it this way. "The maiden was mysterious and beautiful, and just happened to appear in the man, the prince's, courtyard one day. His father, the king, instructed him that she was going to be his private maid, and would attend to his every need. But the prince, see, was really rude and mean, and some said he didn't even have a heart!"
The cat miaoed here, making the young woman laughed. She agreed with his unknown declaration; that did sound like one of the Organisation XIII!
"But then, well, he started falling for the maid. And they lived WONDERFUL things together... And now, I'm at the part where the King called his entire court to announce some bad news. Sound interesting, Sunshine?"
Lexira giggled lightly as the cat bounced up and down, clearly making the girl know that the story intrifued it. Although Lexira had never had the certainty that the feline ever understood her, its enthousiam was enough to brighten her days cnsiderably. Hence why she nicknamed it Sunshine.
"So, back to our story." Lexira declared, somewhat solemnly, cracking the dusty crimson book open. The pages fluttered underneath her fingers and she tried to find that small red ribbon she had plaed where she had stopped reading. She found it after a few seconds of searching back and forth, and began reading, blissfully ignorant of the uproar cause by the very discovery of her existance.
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"I'm telling you, the exact woman at the other end of the floor was the one that jumped off!" Sora cried, trying to convince his friends that his dream had not only been a dream, but the revelation of a journey nearing its beginning.
Kairi had countered biitterly; it had just ben a dream, nothing more, nothing less. Most likely than not, it might've been his subconscious, which knew about the upcoming journey, that projected this odd image in his sleep. Though Riku had quickly caught on to the slight tone of jealousy in the younger girl's voice. Upon later confrontation, she agressively refused to admit anything.
"I agree with Sora." The former being of darkness declared after a few uncomfortable moments of silence. The younger keybearer's smile quickly returned, brightly as ever. He was clearly happy that someone was believing him. "And besides, this is the only thing we can connect with the appearances of the keyblades. We can at least try to work with it." He finished by shrugging, not daring to look at Kairi, wanting to avoid that deadly glare as long as he possibly could.
"Well..." the young redhead started, crossing her arms. "Do you remember her name, or what she looked like?" she asked, looking fixedly at the ground in front of her feet.
Sora came to answer, but the words seemed to be glued to his lips; nothing would come out. He tried as best he could to remember the girl's name, or, at least, her face. But nothing, simply nothing at all, would come to mind. It's as though his brain was denying her very existance. And with reason...
"I... I don't remember." Sora whispered, narrowing his eyes, staring at some point in the horizon. He was clearly trying to piece together the reason(s) why he couldn't remember a bloody thing. "I just remember she was in that strange world, both on the flooring, which usually only has you, Riku, Donald, Goofy and me, and that she just dissapeared in rose petals."
Both Riku and Kairi sighed, the latter hanging her head in some form of exhasperation. Sora was decidedly a perfect hopeless.
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It took a few days before anything could be done regarding contacting someone in an other world. It had took more than just a little thinking, from all three keybearers, to figure out a way to use the things they learned and knew to talk to someone. Anyone. That would possibly know what was going on.
Kairi, one day, proposed to try and make some door or something to get to the strange world Sora had talked about. Seeing as, sooner than day, he had admitted going there two or three times prior, it might not just me just a dream, but actually a real world. And if someone else had been there, and specifically said 'This is your world', then it must be something more than just a stupid little freaky dream.
After finally managing to open a doorway to the King's castle, the gummi ship seemed to lock onto their location and just appear over the water, after four days of thinking and brainstorming. Strangely enough, the three friends were able to reach the castle without much difficulty; a single meteor corridor was all they needed to cross to reach their destination, as opposed to the usual three worlds and lord only knows how many corridors.
Upon coming out of the gummi hangar, hidden under a certain bush in the front garden of the castle, Sora was the first one to breath a sigh of relief when noticing the absence of heartless and nobody. At least, he thought, the worlds aren't under anything dark.
Needless to say that Donald and Goofy were the first ones to notice their long time friends. Goofy was the first one to throw himself on Sora, who predictably fell backwards. Riku crossed his arms and chastissed the two 'guards' for being such slackers, before greeting them with somewhat a large smile. Kairi greeted them as hapily as usual, albeit in some tired manner(they had all spent countless hours trying to figure out a way to talk to the king). Though, both old friends were curious as to know why, all of a sudden, the three keybearers had suddenly found up at the castle. It's wasn't as though they just decided to show up, tired as can be, just for a simple visit.
"We have to talk to King Mickey." Kairi admitted, turning her eyes to the tiles floor of the main hall, smiling somewhat sadly.
"What for? Did something happen in the other worlds?" Donald ask, and, already, Sora winced at the urgency he could hear in his voice.
"It's nothing like that, really! We're just a little worried." Sora added, crossing his arms. He had given his share of explaning their being there; it was Riku's turn.
"The keyblades came to us again. We're just trying to find out why." The elder of the three finished, stuffing his hands in his pockets, silver hair picking up some unexistant breeze.
Both royal guards looked at each other, worry gleaming in their eyes. From the looks of it, they had already heard something similar from the very person the three old friends had wanted to come visit for more information.
"Sora? Kairi, Riku? Well, I guess it's time we saw each other…"
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"Come on, Sunshine! Faster!" Lexira cried, running as fast as she could, through the ruins of the Castle that Never Was, trying her best to avoid any bit of falling debris. She was trying to get up to the Altar of Naught, but climbing half-destroyed stairs without any particular power was proving to be harder than she thought. And having some weird people running after her wasn't making her situation any more appealing than it was in the beginning.
Two strange women had proceeded into the young woman's room, as she came back from the stained glass world(she always reappeared in her room, for some reason). They hadn't spoke a word, but Lexira was, actually smarter than that, though it's a debatable opinion. She was certain, at the point where the two women were about to grasp her arm, that they were far from being just some adoptive parents of some, any, sort.
So she had taken her legs, and Sunshine, to her neck, and ran as fast as she could. Running away would be so much easier if I could open those damned portals! Lexira cursed herself, deeply wishing that she had let herself be consumed by the dark a little more, if only to able to warp wherever she pleased. It was, at the time, a selfish wish, and she knew it. But if it allowed her to save her life at that point, she would've gladly given into the darkness for it.
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"There's no where else to run, kitty."
Lexira panted heavily, her breathing coming in ragged, irregular beats. Her back was facing her two assailants, though the voice had come from a third one. She mentally cursed everything out in the world; why, oh WHY, had she insisted upon staying in the dreaded castle? It was like a beacon for anyone who wanted to know more about the XIII, or whatever else revolved around the damned place! She really had been stupid upon choosing to stay there.
"To run, maybe..." she exhaled, double over her knees in some vague hope to catch her breath a little faster. "But who says... I couldn't escape somewhere... Where you could never go?" Lexira asked, with somewhat of a smirk, reaching down to the small knife holster on her thigh.
"Oh, I wouldn't do that, Sugar. We still have a lot of things to teach you!" one of the women chirped, her odd, green hair folwing in brilliant locks, as she swirled on herself. Golden eyes seemed to glow in the faint lighting of the outdoors. "You know, we of the Reign don't take well to people who don't listen to us."
"The... Reign...?" Lexira breathed, frowning at the fragmented tiles underneath her feet. All of a sudden, everything else seemed to fade into nothingess; her breath came easily, physical fatigue fading into a dark abyss. Such was the extent of the young woman's curiosity, one would suppose.
"Yep! The Reeeeeign. It's a puny world for what we really are. I mean, it sure as hell sounds better than The Group-of-people-who-realy-have-nothing-better-to-do-with-their-improvised-lives-than-to-bring-back-the-darkness-and-rule-over-the-world. Amiright?" the other woman said, crossing her eyes, a foxish grin gracing her otherwise flawless, deeply tanned features.
Her hair seemed to be as white as the purest clouds, and her skin seemed like molted chocolate, swirling around nearly-white eyes, giving her an ethereal look.
"Bring back darkness? You're crazy!" Lexira cried, finally turning around. Her curly black locks caught in the abnormally rough winds around the top of the Altar, pristine green eyes staring at golden and pearl ones with some fury she had never felt before. "The worlds are finally free from everything bad that had ever happened, and you plan on bringing it back?!"
"Yes, that is the point, dear." The male voice tunes in for the second time. It took Lexira only a second of two to stop him, somewhere on the edge, to her left. "But those two innocent women forgot to mention the part where we destroy our alters." On those words, the man took a small leap frowards, his booted feet soundlessly touching the fractured tiles of the Altar.
His features seemed to have been carved with utmost care; shocks of blonde hair flowing freely, to what Lexira approximated would be down to his mid back. Waves remained untamed, visible even though the sunkissed locks were sluggishly tied behind his head. Piercing yellow eyes gazed mercilessly down at the younger girl.
"Atlers? You're not making any sense at all." Lexira snapped, lighlty jumping as Sunshine jumped on her shoulder. She took a few tentative steps back until she hit the railing, her eyes darting from one stranger person to the other.
"Alters, dear," the green haired woman started, twisting her hair between her fingers. Orange eyes stared down at her. "are like the mirrored version of someone... Their opposite, actually. And WE, members of the Reign, are the rather obnoxiously powerful alters—"
"Of the seven princesses." The blonde man finished, carefully inspecting his nails.
"Screw you, Ytuaeb." The green haired woman spat, crossing her arms. She was obviously offended, seeing as the man, Ytuaeb, stole the words from her mouth.
"...the seven princesses." Lexira repeated without any intonation, blinking a few times, before laughing incredulously. It made no sense to her that these... creatures(because she certainly wouldn't give them the benefit of being called alters) could be anything like, or unlike the seven princesses. As well as a princesse clearly couldn't be a man. Much to their dismissal, apparently.
"It's a one-in-a-million chance." Ytuaeb intonned bitterly, frowning with annoyance. "Alters can be men or women, it depends onnothing at all. And really, alter is a pathetic word descended from Alter Ego. I really prefer to call myself an Ether."
Again, Lexira couldn't help but laugh. This all seemed so ridiculous to her! Though, she knew that this was all serious. And mostly, she knew that this was too much for her to take at the moment. She grinned, already plotting her great escape.
"Can I at least know your names before I get knocked unconscious and dragged to whatever lair you live in?" Lexira sighed, crossing her arms and draping a serious stare upon the three.
"My name's E-T-I-H-W. Pronounced Ethough, thank you very much." The dark-skinned woman declared, swinging her hips to the left and resting a balled fist on them.
"My name's Leira." The green haired woman muttered, glaring daggers at Lexira. Though the latter guessed why that would be; they nearly shared the same name. Though why that was profoundly eluded the younger woman.
"And I'm Ytuaeb, as you already... What are you doing?"
It was already too late.
After memorizing the names, Lexira had thrown herself over the crumbling railing, holding Sunshine in one arm, tearing a hole in the air with the dagger in her other hand, woman and gash in space quickly dissapearing before anyone could do anything about it.
"Allerednic won't be happy about this."
