Chapter 4: The garden of time
Luxord is going to be involved in this story... He's basically playing the role of the Doctor in Doctor Who crossed with that alien guy with the hat from Men in Black III. Just so you know, this chapter is FULL of foreshadowing. You'll see what I mean. Even if you don't, you'll know soon enough…
This is also the first chapter written entirely from a single characters POV, but that's probably only going to be in this chapter.
I wrote this chapter while listening to Clocks by Coldplay and Dearly Beloved from Kingdom Hearts. I know that's random.
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or the Legend of Zelda
(Roxas's POV)
"Luck of the draw you'd end up with me," a voice said delicately.
I didn't recognize the voice, and that made me tremble. Before I opened my eyes to see the man, I listened, and heard a strangely familiar sound. The sound of clocks. They were ticking endlessly. It was utterly loud and strange. It sounded as if the clocks were amplified, as if thousands of them were ticking at the same time. I slowly opened my eyes and stood up. I was lying on a wooden floor.
I caught eyes with a strange blue eyed man. He had blonde short hair and a goatee. He was sitting at a mahogany desk which was strewn with papers, essays, and portraits; both painted and photographed, both black and white and colored. There was a black lined hourglass with pure white sand which was quickly spilling from the top orb of the hourglass to the bottom.
I blinked in surprise, and the man spoke slowly, with a British accent, "His time is running out."
The room we were in was a gigantic library, and the bookshelves stretched so far into the sky that I couldn't see the top of them. I glanced at his table. I remember one picture: a painting of a brown, dead field covered in dusty rubble, and littered in thousands of blades, all pointing down in the dusty earth, penetrating and destroying it. I stared at the man in confusion, "Who are you?"
He looked up at me. I couldn't tell how old he was, really. He had one of those timeless faces that made him look like he could be 18 or 30 or 50, but I couldn't tell which, "Luxord."
I glanced down at his hands. He was holding four cards, which were normal for the most part, except the numbers. There was the ace and eight of hearts, but then there was one red card numbered 13 and the one next to it was numbered 14. Why did he even have cards like that?
I frowned, "Luxord… Where… where am I?"
He nodded, "I see. You fell through the portal though you have no place here."
I shook my head, "Stop talking in riddles. What's going on here?"
"Time," replied Luxord easily, placing down his cards and flipping through several old paintings of different people who I didn't recognize, "Time is what goes on. Even when we don't know what it truly is."
I blinked at Luxord, confused, "Alright… When am I?"
Luxord shrugged silently, "You are every time, and no time. You are everywhere and nowhere. You are everything and nothing, Roxas. You have the power to change everything or to change nothing."
I didn't understand a word he was saying, even though I heard them, "How do you know my name?"
"I know everyone's name," Luxord replied easily, searching around his desk for something.
I blinked curiously, "Luxord… What are you?"
"I keep watch over the times. I block the creation of paradoxes. I assist the hero of time. I watch over the lost ones," he replied calmly, apparently finding what he was looking for and quickly writing a note on a piece of paper.
I frowned, "Lost ones? What are lost ones?"
Luxord finished his small note, signing it with a flourish, "Those who lose themselves in the garden of time are known as lost ones."
"So, are we in the garden of time," I asked slowly, watching as Luxord finally stood up and I finally got a good look at him.
He had on a black suit with a blue tie that matched his eyes. His shoes were simple and black, with no visible fastening mechanism. There was a small tattoo on the side of his neck which I could just barely read though I think it said, Lady Luck. He had two small diamond studs in his ears, and he wore two thin pure unharmed white gloves on his hand, "We are where you want to be Roxas. This place stretches beyond your imagination. This library is your room that you created for yourself. The others have their own rooms."
I couldn't help but be curious, "Can you take me to the other rooms?"
"Certainly," Luxord replied.
He led me down a thin passageway between two of the bookcases to a tall oak wood door. He slowly turned the brass hand knob and what I saw behind the door honestly surprised me.
The room was nearly empty and had walls and floors that were all pure white, so white that I could hardly tell where the wall ended and the ceiling began. The entire place was covered in a thick white mist that only went up to our ankles. But there was something far more surprising in the center of the room. In the center of the room there was a large black grand piano.
Sitting at the piano bench was a girl wearing a black long jacket with a hood which hid all of her features from me save her hands from the wrist down which were gracefully dancing across the keys.
She was playing Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven. I recognized it from when I was younger and dad used to force Terra to take piano lessons because it reminded him of mom. Terra used to play it on those scary awful nights when dad used to not come home until past mid night, and it served as a lullaby for Ven and me. I loved that song, but Terra was never good at being graceful so I'd never heard it played as perfectly as when that lost girl played it.
I blinked in surprise, and Luxord said, "Interesting. The last time I entered here she was playing Für Elise. It seems she's expanded her repertoire to account for what you wish to hear, Roxas."
I closed my eyes and listened to her hitting every note of the piece with precision, as if she had written it herself, "So she's a lost one?"
Luxord nodded sadly and gave the girl a pat on the head. She didn't even move in the slightest when he did and the piece still sounded perfect, "Yes, Xion is a lost one."
"How did she end up like this," I gestured to her as she began the second movement of the sonata.
Luxord shook his head sadly, "Xion began here normally. Then she took up playing the piano and hasn't stopped playing it since then."
I stared at the girl surprised, "So she never stops playing the piano?"
"The only way lost ones can hold their identities is to find a task to do. It may be simple, it may be intricate. But eventually, what they do becomes who they are entirely. They lose their identity," Xion moved on into the third movement of the song at this point, bridging the two sections of the piece masterfully, "and they become like a puppet on invisible strings, forced to move down a set path until someone they know comes and reminds them who they really are."
I frowned, still mesmerized by the song that was hitting the air, but trying to understand what Luxord was explaining, "So, why don't you just show her to someone she knows?"
Luxord sighed lightly shaking his head, "To fix a broken soul is not so simple as to show it a friend."
"But you just said-"
Luxord cut me off a final time, "Come, we need to move on."
He started to walk away without me, but my gaze lingered on Xion as she finished the piece and subsequently began at the beginning again, "Alright, fine."
I ran to catch up with Luxord, "Where are we going?"
"We're going to a place lost in time. From there I can get you to other time periods so you can find your friends," my disposition perked up, "That's what you wish for, isn't it Roxas?"
I nodded slowly, "Um… yeah. So where are they? Can you show me them?"
"I can show you the pathway to them," Luxord replied, leading me out of the room and into what appeared to be the remnants of a destroyed city, "But you need to find them on your own."
"Right," I muttered.
The city itself consisted of broken and destroyed buildings and cracked cobblestone passageways. Water welled up from broken brass pipes connecting buildings to the castle above. We were in a courtyard that had a raised part around a smaller central circle. The central circle consisted of what appeared to be half of a flower made of stone and the other side was cracked and broken to the point where the original design was indecipherable. Dead trees ringed the square where there weren't ramps down to the lower section. A little girl with long brown hair and green eyes ran up the stairs to Luxord, "Luxord, Luxord, Luxord, Luxord!"
Luxord looked down on the girl, smiling, "Hello, Aerith."
Aerith frowned. She looked like she couldn't have been a day older than 6. She had long brown hair that was fish-tail braided down her back that was tied up with a large pink bow. She was wearing a light pink sundress with spaghetti straps and tan sandals. She pointed down at the square accusingly, "Yuffie pulled my braid again," a boy with spiky black hair ran up the ramp after her, "she keeps teleporting around for no reason, Leon is destroying stuff," she gestured to the boy who'd just ran up, "And Zack is trying to give me cooties!"
Zack frowned, "I am not!"
Zack looked like he was about the same age as Aerith. He had black hair that somehow spiked backwards, and I don't know how he got it to stay that way. He had large bright blue eyes and a tiny scar on his cheek. He had on a black tee shirt and black shorts. He was wearing worn out converse sneakers that were so well used that the soles were beginning to fall out of the shoes. The two of them started arguing like little kids when there was one cookie and two of them, "You did to!"
"Did not!"
Luxord stepped between the two of them, "Alright, Aerith, Zack, you both know that fighting will only bring you to an early grave."
Zack frowned, "Yes, Mr. Luxord…"
He turned to Aerith, "I'm sorry I kissed your cheek… I thought you would like it."
I couldn't help but think about how sweet that was, two little kids who cared about one another but didn't understand romance at all. Aerith crossed her arms in front of her chest before saying, "Okay, fine," her disposition lightened up a bit, "C'mon, let's go see what Mr. Cid is doing!"
She pulled the surprised boy down an alleyway to the side of the square. Luxord laughed, shaking his head like a father watching his children play. I looked up curiously, "Who were they?"
Luxord's smile seemed to vanish, "Those were two of the lost children who live here."
I remembered how Xion looked when she was sitting there, playing the piano incessantly for eternity and asked, "Are they going to end up like Xion?"
Luxord shook his head, "No. You see, this group of children and Cid, the man who raises them, all used to live in the city where we're standing," I looked around in surprise when he said that, "When the city was washed away by a tsunami their lives were taken along with the storm," he left me for a moment so I could process that thought.
No way… That wasn't possible, was it? I slowly said, "They're dead?"
Luxord nodded sadly, "They died with their storm, but unfortunately, they were thrown off course of the path to the afterlife, and they cling to this timeless place as their very existence depends on it. They have no true age, time or place. Truthfully, they could be any age they want or look any way they want, but they're too young to understand the truth about themselves."
I gasped in surprise, "Those kids were dead… And they couldn't go to heaven, so they ended up stuck here?"
Luxord nodded, "You are understanding me then, Roxas."
I nodded meekly, "Then, if they're lost like Xion is, how come they keep living the way they do?"
He sighed, running a hand through his hair, "The true thoughts and feelings of a lost one are a mystery to me, but I do know that they are forced to fall into a routine every day of their life. Some are more severe than others, like Xion who constantly plays the piano. These children wake up, Yuffie pulls Aerith's braid and Zack gives her a kiss on the cheek. Leon goes on a rampage and starts to destroy random things and Aerith comes to complain to me. Then she forgives Zack and the children spend the rest of their day with Cid until they fall asleep. They do the same thing over and over, and their minds are forever trapped in the routine until someone alive breaks it."
I shook my head, "That's awful. How could that ever happen to somebody?"
Luxord replied, "I do not know. I wouldn't give too much thought to the ways of the lost ones," he patted my shoulder lightly, snapping me out of my trance, "Now, then. Roxas, why are you here?"
I frowned, "Well, last night I went to go get my brother home from the police station, then this random kid who was looking for his friend came and talked to us. I think his name was Link or something… Then we got him back and we were going to walk home. I remember a huge flash of light, but I can't remember anything after that."
Luxord nodded, "Then everything is as it should be."
I sighed, "But now I lost both of my brothers and I can't even go home…"
Not only that, but you are confusing the heck out of me…
Luxord gave me a pat on my head, reminding me of how annoyingly short I was, "It's alright Roxas. As a matter of fact, the terminal is hidden within the castle."
"I'm sorry," I said, "I'm just a little confused. The what?"
Luxord sighed, rubbing his temples, "That's right, you don't know anything", he started to walk through the square towards a set of ruined brick stairs on the other side, "Come, we must go to the terminal of time."
I nodded shakily, still confused and wishing I had my brother back. He walked up the broken steps and I followed as closely behind him as I could. I had to be careful because some of the stairs were cracked in various places with loose bits of stone that would crumble down the hill if you stepped on them, other steps that were unstable like rocks on a hiking trail, and other steps that weren't even there anymore, so you had to skip a step. I jumped over one of the missing steps, trying to catch up with Luxord, "So, Luxord," I paused for a second as I nearly tripped over a crumbling stair, "Where are we anyway? You said this was a real place."
Luxord shrugged, "It depends on the time period, really. In the distant past it was a beautiful prosperous city known as Radiant Garden. After the tsunami that ravaged it, it was simply known as Hollow Bastion."
I looked around at the empty place around me, half to approve of the name and half to wonder how many more stairs there were left, and thankfully there weren't that many, "Huh. Then how did this place end up in the Garden of Time?"
Luxord replied, "Hallow Bastion's ruins were eventually destroyed, many years before you were born."
I curiously asked, "But, why?"
"You should learn not to question the behavior of human beings, Roxas," Luxord said calmly, "It's as if you were questioning why the ocean crashes against the shore or why the sun shines every evening and the moon comes out at night."
I was starting to get used to Luxord's style of talking, it almost felt like he was writing a poem with his speech the majority of the times he opened his mouth. I replied, "But there are scientific explanations for those things! There's a reason for everything, including people's feelings and actions."
Luxord laughed, "There are 'scientific' explanations for everything, correct Roxas? But you can't look into someone's mind and see their thoughts, their emotions, their truths, their lies, their light or their darkness. One never knows the secret of another's heart," I stopped to think about that for a moment, "You shouldn't keep trying to find answers in your mind. Some things you aren't meant to understand. Learn to keep an open mind, Roxas, and the rest will follow."
I stood completely still for a moment, trying to process what he was telling me. Luxord released another chuckle, "Don't overthink it. Come along. You want to see your brothers again, correct?"
I nodded, dazed and followed him. He led me through the broken down hallways of the castle until we reached a large library with two floors, separated by a spiral staircase. It was beautiful, but imperfect thanks to water damage.
All around the castle, there was a permanent line of dried dirt halfway up the wall. The stone walls were lined with mahogany bookcases and they stretched along the walls and into the center of the room. It looked like a smaller and less confusing version of the library where I had met Luxord. The books were organized by color and were lined up perfectly so that all of the covers were in line with one another. Luxord walked up to one of the bookcases on the wall pointing at the perfectly lined up orange books and scanning the shelves like he was looking for something. He carefully glanced at the third shelf up before saying, "There you are."
I squinted to try and see what he was looking at and he pulled a black book out of the bookshelf, which caused the bookshelf to slide to the side, revealing a hidden passage. He turned and handed me the large black book and said, "Here, Roxas. I only ask you one thing. Never read the book, and if you do, never read ahead."
I looked down at the black novel in my hands and saw that there was a strange symbol that looked kind of like three triangles that had been attached to one another to form a larger triangle. The author's name wasn't written on the book, but there was a V engraved into the side of the book. I asked, "Why can't I read it?"
"Someday you will understand, but," he shook his head, "you cannot read it or your future would be set in a single direction. For now, your future is unpredictable and uncertain."
I frowned, "Um… Okay."
I was officially done with trying to understand anything that Luxord said to me. None of it made any sense after all, so why should I bother trying?
I followed him through the unlit passage, using my hands to guide me through the darkness and trying to follow behind the sound of Luxord's footsteps, which was a lot harder than it sounds.
Eventually we stumbled into a room that was so bright that it left me with sparks stuck in my eyes. I blinked hard, trying to get the light to fade and the appearance of the room to return to normal. "Welcome," Luxord said calmly, "to the Terminal of Time."
I blinked in shock at my surroundings. The room we were in was like one of those giant spherical theatres where the walls are round and there are pictures on every part of it. The images themselves appeared to be clips from various time periods showing different things: One of them looked like two knights jousting in medieval times. Another looked like Julius Ceaser giving a speech and another showed the funeral of a president. The images were about the size of my head and layered unevenly on top of one another so that some were completely visible at the top of the pile of images, while others were only partially visible, buried underneath more prevalent pictures. I was so mesmerized I nearly didn't notice it when Luxord started talking again, "From here we can travel to any time period you wish and find specific people at different time periods. We're searching for your brother Terra, am I not correct?"
He raised his right hand straight out and all of the images began spinning around the sphere, first at a very slow speed, though it gradually became faster and faster to the point where it was dizzying to look at the pictures. I managed to say, "We're looking for both of my brothers, not just Terra."
He started to move his hand around, which brought the shuffled images to an abrupt stop and some images moved to the top of the pile in the path his hand was making, like he was searching for something, "I suggest we take things one step at a time, and begin with Terra."
I nodded and watched as he pulled a picture of my brother out of the crowded screen. It switched pictures several times so that it was a yearbook picture when he was seven, then a family portrait of him with Ven and me, and then a picture of him hugging Aqua tightly in a garden I didn't recognize. Luxord frowned, and snapped his fingers and another one of the temporal portals of light appeared in front of him. This time, though, I could hear Terra's voice coming from the portal… He sounded like he was saying thousands of things at once in the background that I couldn't hear, but one statement was clearer than the others: Roxas… Come over here, I'm waiting for you.
I blinked in surprise, feeling almost entranced by the light and my brother's voice and stepping towards the light. Luxord snapped me out of it for a moment by saying, "I need to warn you of something vitally important Roxas."
I kept staring at the light, and it kept enticing me to walk into it, "What is it?"
"Be careful," Luxord said, "Do not cause any paradoxes in time. Something as simple as stepping on a butterfly could ensure that you will never be born."
I nodded, "Right. Don't change history."
I took a deep breath and walked into the light.
Don't worry Terra and Ventus… I'm coming.
End chapter 4
Alright, I should warn you now that chapter 5 is going to be huge so it's going to take me a longer time then the past two chapters to write. I'm sorry about that, it couldn't be helped.
Sorry if Luxord was confusing, it fits his character both in this story and in Kingdom Hearts itself. If you didn't notice little things that may become important later, you'll understand later in the story. For people who don't know too much about Kingdom Hearts: Zack, Aerith and the other lost ones in Hollow Bastion are not ocs.
Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave a review, but please don't flame. Critiques are welcome, just remember that I'm not perfect and I can make mistakes so please don't be too hard on me! :)
