AN: In this chapter, you'll get a bit more background on what happened with Namine and Maleficent, plus the introduction of some soon-to-be-key characters. Enjoy!
~*~
~*The Art of Working Backwards*~
Part 8 – Backstep
~*~
Flashback
~*~
"Now, do you see this crystal, my dear?" the dark sorceress asked, holding a clear, fist-sized orb out for Namine's inspection. "These Seekers are very useful objects. They can be used to store materials that would otherwise be very difficult to transport. Observe."
The orb rose from Maleficent's sharp-nailed hand, glowing faintly green, before flying towards an iron torch stand near the wall. Like all other fixtures that lit the palace, it bore an eerie green fire that Namine always found unsettling. As soon as the crystal touched the stand, both objects glowed purple. The orb clacked to the ground, the torch stand no longer in sight.
Maleficent gestured for Namine to retrieve the orb and, hesitantly, the girl obeyed. As she approached the round crystal, she saw that it now seemed to be full of billowing violet smoke. For some reason, the specific shade of purple made her think of poison. Nervously, she picked it up.
"It looks different now," she said, walking back to where Maleficent waited.
"Of course," the witch replied. "That's how you know it's retrieved the object you desired."
"How do you get it back out?" Namine asked, turning the sphere over in her hands.
"You needn't worry about that, my dear." Maleficent plucked the orb from Namine's small hands. It glowed once more, and the torch stand reappeared beside Maleficent, green flame still burning strong. "All you have to worry about is retrieving the orbs. I will send them through portals into other worlds to collect ingredients for my spells. You will find the orbs and bring them back to me."
"But, why do you want me to do it? Not that I don't want to help," Namine added quickly, "but it just seems that it would be so much easier to do it yourself, since you already know how those…'Seekers' work."
"Sadly, when the inhabitants of those worlds see me, I'm afraid their prejudices take over," Maleficent sighed. "There aren't many worlds that will welcome a sorceress with open arms. You on the other hand…" Namine froze as a cold, pale hand stroked her hair. "Who would ever be unsettled by a sweet girl like yourself? And even if they do become…'unreasonable,' you always have your little gift."
Namine nodded as the invasive hand returned to its owner's side. Maleficent had explained a bit about her powers and how to access them, but she was still a bit skeptical. If she were really able to rearrange peoples' memories, wouldn't she have had some indication before? Yet she couldn't help but notice that of all the sugar-coated phrases and assurances the strange woman fed her, this assertion was always spoken with a greedy sincerity that Namine instinctively trusted above the witch's promises.
~*~
Finding the first Seeker had been easy. Namine had stepped through a portal into a cozy little cabin with seven small beds and almost immediately found the smoke-filled crystal on the wooden floor. Maleficent hadn't told her what exactly she would be fetching, and as she stepped through the portal that had appeared when she picked up the Seeker, Namine could only hope that it wouldn't be something the owners of the cottage would miss.
Her second foray was more of a challenge. She'd found herself in a beautiful palace courtyard. For a moment, she'd forgotten her mission, quietly enjoying the peaceful night air, the sounds of a dance drifting from the elegant building, and the beautiful fountain, flowers, and hedges of the garden.
Then the guards spotted her.
Namine had wished Maleficent kept the portals open instead of closing them behind her. As she darted around the corner of the building, Namine put her powers over memory to their first test. She focused on the two guards, on their hearts, following the shallow connection between her heart and theirs to scratch the surface of their memories. On instinct, she felt some link of theirs stamped with her own image and impression and quickly severed it.
Peeking nervously around the corner, she watched as the two men glanced at each other in bleary confusion, shrugged, and walked back to their original post. Namine took a moment to catch her breath, which was by then as shaky as her trembling hands. Summoning her courage, she made her way cautiously back towards the place where Maleficent's portal had originally left her. Seeing a faint, purplish glint in the shadow of the marble stairs leading down from the ballroom, Namine hurried forward.
The crystal sphere lay half-hidden by the grass beside the steps. As she knelt to pick it up, she heard steps approaching and stopped, pressing herself flat against the side of the stairs. The steps paused halfway down, and Namine feared she was spotted. But then they continued, faster than before.
"Guards!" an authoritative, yet appealing voice demanded. "I'm looking for a girl who passed by here just a moment ago."
Namine went rigid.
"She would have been wearing a slipper to match this one."
Curiosity made Namine push herself up just enough to peek over the stairs. A well-dressed young gentleman with dark hair was holding a shoe that looked like it was made of sparkling glass for the guards' inspection.
"Our apologies, my prince, but we've seen no such maiden this evening."
In no mood to press her luck unnecessarily, Namine ducked back down and picked up the Seeker. Her relief was palpable when a portal promptly opened behind her, allowing her to dart back through.
~*~
"Do you think you could teach me how to make those portals?" Namine asked, handing the Seeker from the palace over to Maleficent. "I'd feel better going out if I knew I could get back on my own."
The witch's face lit with glee as the orb was handed to her, then cooled to a calculating grin as she considered the girl's request.
"I suppose I could grant you that power," she said, as if mulling it over, "if you'll do something for me in return."
~*~
End Flashback
~*~
Strange things were said to happen in the old mansion outside of Twilight Town. Local children often told stories about the ghosts of the previous owners who supposedly haunted the groaning walls to this very day. Yet in spite of – or, more likely, because of – such tales, the children often spent the night there on dares and came back with chilling stories of voices on the wind and faces seen in shadows.
"Fatty was right! This place really is haunted."
Of course, no one had ever seen or heard so substantial a sign of supernatural activity as the two boys who had just fled into the hall after what was probably an angry poltergeist made its presence known with a mighty wumph!
"Axel! For the last time, his name is Pence."
A groan from the next room had them both pressed back against the wall in tense silence. Axel leaned to the side, peeking slowly around the doorjamb. But the curtains in the room were drawn, blocking out the moonlight, and the abandoned building hadn't had anyone to pay the electricity bill for ages.
Axel felt a flashlight being pressed into his hand, and gave his companion an unseen smile of gratitude. He flicked on the switch, and a beam of light illuminated the hardwood floor, slipping across their parallel sleeping bags before landing on the musty old couch towards the back of the room.
"What the hell?" Axel muttered to himself. He stepped back into the room, curiosity overcoming fear at the sight of a person passed out on the sagging piece of furniture.
"What is it?" the smaller blonde asked, trailing behind his companion as he approached the couch.
"It's a girl… I think," Axel replied uncertainly. "Hey, Roxas, you took a first aid class in school, right?"
"Yeah, is there something wrong wi-- Oh, man…"
"Yeah, pretty much…"
The girl on the couch was completely limp and still, showing no signs of life except for one hand clutching a bag to her chest. More disturbing, however, were the shadowy tendrils twisting their way up her neck and down her limbs to her wrists and ankles as if they were in the process of devouring her.
"I don't think we ever covered that in health class."
"Shouldn't you, like, take a pulse or something?"
"Are you kidding? What if it's contagious?"
"Like an infection? Looks more like a tattoo to me."
"Does she look like the tattooing type to you?" Roxas asked with a raised brow, gesturing at the white sundress and pretty blue sandals.
"Maybe she was going through a rebellious phase." Axel shrugged, pointing to the upside-down triangle tattoos under his eyes.
"That's one hell of a rebellious phase."
"Look, just take the pulse already! I don't think she's breathing."
"Really?" Roxas frowned, holding his palm just above the girl's nose and mouth. "Shit! You're right!"
"I am?" Axel's eyes widened in surprise. He hadn't actually expected her to be that badly off.
"Go get your cell phone and call an ambulance," Roxas instructed, taking the flashlight from his companion. "I'm going to try to find a pulse." Two fingers went to what Roxas hoped was the pulse point on the motionless girl's throat. The coolness of her skin was alarming, as was his inability to find a heartbeat. "Crap, maybe it's closer to the jaw?" Roxas groaned. Was this some kind of divine punishment for not paying attention in health class?
Blue eyes snapped open.
"Whoa!" Roxas jerked back in surprise. The flashlight beam wavered. The girl sat up, her moves as slow and calculated as a wary stray.
"Hey! Nice going, Rox!"
"I didn't even do anything," the blond protested before returning his attention to their odd guest. "Good to see you awake. For a minute there, we thought you were a goner."
The girl stared straight back at him with vague, unblinking eyes. If she'd heard, she gave no indication. Roxas found the odd fixedness of her stare deeply unnerving.
"Umm… Can you even understand what I'm saying?"
"Found my cell phone!" Axel announced triumphantly. The girl's pale blue eyes snapped to focus on him, and he flinched under the sharp gaze. "Err… So, should I still call that ambulance?"
"That's probably a good idea. She seems pretty disorient- Hey!"
In a flash of movement, Roxas was knocked back to the floor with the girl on his chest. The flashlight clattered aside.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" he demanded. Something dark and strong whipped out of the floor, lashing him down.
"Time to feed…" the creature above him said in a hissing whisper. Roxas felt his face pale and his insides chill as the meaning of the words sunk in.
"HEY!" came Axel's furious shout, followed by a cell phone chucked right at the creature's head. "Get off of him!"
The phone made contact audibly, knocking a startled noise from the girl-thing. She fell to the side, and Roxas's dark bindings immediately vanished. Seizing upon the opportunity, Roxas leapt back, grabbing the fallen flashlight and shining the beam on his attacker. From her position crouched on the floor, the girl looked up at him, trembling and blinking like one awaking from a particularly disturbing dream.
"C'mon, Rox! Let's get out of here," Axel urged, grabbing the younger's wrist. But Roxas wasn't quite ready to leave.
"What are you?" he demanded of the girl-thing. "Some kind of monster?" Ghosts weren't solid. Humans couldn't summon chains from shadows or survive when their body temperature matched the room. And it would certainly take a monster to look at a person and think 'dinner.'
Slowly, the creature stood, wincing at the light in its eyes.
"I'm…" she began shakily, her voice more human-sounding now. "I'm what's left."
Before either boy could ask for clarification, she turned to the side and raised her hand, causing a solid disc of swirling shadow to appear. She stepped into it, and it quickly shrank shut, leaving the two shaken, flummoxed adolescents in her wake.
"What the hell?" Axel summed up, sweeping his flashlight around the room as if he expected her to pop back out of any unwatched shadow. The beam landed on the floor, illuminating the only proof that the girl-thing's appearance had been anything more than a nightmare: the sky blue bag the girl had been clutching with the corner of a sketchbook peeking out of it.
~*~
Namine fell to her knees as soon as she set foot in the world's dark mirror. Her entire body trembled with the desire to feed – an empty, exhausted, wanting feeling. She raised her hands up in front of her face and was horrified to see that the twisting darkness had advanced well down her arms, almost to her hands.
"No, no, no, no…" she whispered over and over again, as if her desperate chanting might somehow push back the spread. It was too soon! And worse, she'd attacked someone and almost eaten their heart! Was she already that far gone? Her gambit had saved her from Maleficent's clutches, but at what cost?
Her limbs shook violently as she jerked and stumbled to her feet, driven by a desperate need to seek ad devour. Her eyes darted about, taking in the landscape in snaps and flashes. Clumps of barren trees stood together on rolling ground. Interrupted snatches of stone walls wandered aimlessly through. Little heartless Shadows crawled silently and purposefully through the fragmented echo of a world.
A tiny light froze her.
It had drifted down like a snowflake out of nowhere, a little speck that engaged every modicum of her focus and attention. Every muscle was rigid, like a hound pointing at a hidden pheasant. In the periphery of her vision, she saw the Shadows regarding the light-speck with similar intent, igniting a fierce instinct within her.
Before the little light could drift low enough for the Shadows to claim it, Namine lashed out with one of her chains, snatching the light back into her waiting grasp with the speed of a viper's strike. She cupped the precious speck in both hands and pressed it to her chest in a gesture as instinctive as swallowing and felt the light absorb into her.
It was like a first breath of fresh air after being locked in a tomb. Namine sighed shakily in relief. She didn't feel quite as weak now, and the edge of her hunger was dulled. Reason began to poke through instinct and she looked up, trying to discern the light's source.
Stars! This was the first dark world where she'd seen stars in the sky. But after a moment of staring, she realized that the stars were moving. While new ones winked shyly into existence, others drifted closer until Namine understood that they weren't stars at all. They were more little light-specks falling sparsely down from the heavens to feed the waiting heartless that scampered about below.
Another speck fell closer, and while it was still ten feet above her head, Namine whipped a long chain upwards to snatch it like she had with the first. Again, she pressed the little light to her chest to be absorbed with a smile of pure satisfaction. Craning her head back, she watched to see if any others would fall close enough for her to snag them.
Gazing upwards with eyes less clouded by hunger and instinct, she could see that not all of the sky bred the tiny light specks. There were dark areas where no light bloomed. A single large swatch of sky seemed to be responsible for sending forth all of the life-giving morsels. It took her a long moment to recognize the shape of this patch for what it was.
It was a keyhole.
~*~
AN: Yes, the Seekers are my own invention. As we get into the cosmology of the worlds and Maleficent's origin, you'll see even more of my personal theories and inventions coming into play. Hopefully, this will add to the reader's experience rather than detracting. As always, reviews are much appreciated! In fact, it was the knowledge that some people were eagerly awaiting the next installment that prompted me finish editing this last night (although I couldn't post the file until today, because the site was being finicky XP). 3 Thanks for the motivation, guys!
