"Naminé!" she heard Roxas call. She opened her eyes. They were surrounded by a lengthy dark corridor. Slowly they were falling through a black void. And then... at the end… a light was opening. Naminé closed her eyes.
...Naminé...
There was that voice again. How she loved to listen to it. Sometimes it appeared in her dreams... flitting among forgotten promises, nameless faces, and unknown friends. But she never knew who's it was... until now.
"...Naminé. Open your eyes." She heard Roxas say softly. Gently he grasped her by the shoulders and lifted her up. She obeyed and slowly opened her eyes.
Whiteness blinded her, and everywhere blurred into a clear bland nothingness. Roxas pulled a piece of hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. Liquidy warmth coursed through her entire being again, waking her up; bringing her back into life. She shivered and closed her eyes for the third time.
"Open your eyes." Roxas repeated.
Naminé clamped her tiny hands over her face. "No, thank you." she said.
He pulled her hands from her face. She opened her eyes and when she was looking he sat back and laid his cloaked head in green plants. "Told you you could trust me." he said proudly.
Naminé looked around. She and Roxas were both sitting in fresh, never touched looking grass. It smelled as sweet as it looked. Dreamily Naminé ran her hand through it. It was caked with dew, and its watery droplets clung to her palm. "And how exactly is pulling me off a tower supposed to get me to trust you?" she asked him, still inspecting her surroundings. Behind her there was forest-like foliage poking through the mid afternoon sky with the sun particles floating silently amidst the bright reflections off the grass. In realization Naminé soon recognized exactly where she was. Not by sight, not by sound, but by touch. Grass was only so soft in twilight town in one place, and that place was the mansion.
And sure enough, as Roxas pulled Naminé off the ground she came almost face to face with the towering structure, separated from it only by the tall black gate that encased it's entrance. It seemed to do its job of menacingly guarding the solemn castle so well that even the small white birds that usually fluttered in and out of the trees were nowhere to be seen.
"I saved you, didn't I?" Roxas said. "Besides, I wouldn't do anything to hurt you."
"Why are we here?" she asked him, straightening up and wobbling slightly on her unstable balance.
Roxas, however, looked completely unfazed by their little near death escapade. He merely stood, stretched, and said, "Don't you remember this place?"
Naminé didn't answer but only stared at the mansion. It was just like she remembered... only... what was that? For a half a second she thought she saw a quick and decisive movement in the top right window... She shook her head. "Must be my imagination..." she said surely.
Roxas dusted the grass from his coat. "What must be?" he asked her.
"Are there curtains in that window?" she asked him as she directed her pointer finger to the section of the house where she had seen it. "The one on the right?"
Roxas smirked. "Well I guess the only way to find out... is to go see!" he started running towards the direction of the gate.
Something nudged inside Naminé. She did not want to go here. White-hot discomfort flamed her insides. This place... she had been here so many times before, but this time, for some reason it was different.
"Wait!" she reached out and grabbed Roxas by his black coat in a futile attempt to stop him. Turned out, Roxas was a little bit stronger than Naminé was.
He laughed as she hung limply from the ground and he barely put up a struggle. "Naminé, I don't think you can take me down."
We'll see about that, Naminé thought. Swiftly Naminé twisted her leg around and knocked Roxas clean off his feet and on top of her. This she obviously didn't think through, however, because after half a second of feeling proud of herself for the trick Roxas came tumbling down on top of her with a thud. "Whoaa!" they both yelled.
Naminé opened her eyes to find Roxas face to face to her. His hand had flown to the back of her head to protect it from the fall. She could feel him breathing, but she could not feel the slow and steady beat of his heart like one would expect, and oddly enough, it was the very first thing she looked for. Silently she reached up and placed her warm hand on his chest. She waited for what seemed like several seconds, but she could feel no distinguishable rhythm.
"What are you doing?" he said softly. Neither of them made a motion to move.
She felt around his chest, but still felt nothing. "Looking for your heart." she smiled, but was genuinely committed to finding it, longing a comforting beat.
Roxas reached with his free hand and lowered his black hood from his face. Slowly shadow melted into clear, cream colored skin. Then his whole face, previously masked by a cloak of darkness, came into full view for Naminé. His creamy skin was a slight shade darker than hers. He had hair the most striking blonde, like Naminé's, but again, darker. It seemed to fly in a hundred different directions, in spikes that seemed to defy gravity. But somehow it all seemed to gather together perfectly... meaning it didn't look ridiculous. It actually looked... familiar somehow.
Naminé gasped when Roxas opened his eyes. They struck Naminé as the most vibrant form of an seascape blue, stolen from the very ocean itself. Suddenly Naminé got a flash of memory. Those eyes... were not just Roxas' eyes. They were Sora's eyes, too. Now, as she saw Roxas' eyes, she remembered what his looked like. In fact, Roxas looked so much like Sora that for a moment she had trouble distinguishing them from one another. However, as their two faces melted into the one, so familiar, it quickly simplified to only
the face of Roxas. And finally... they looked at each other for real.
"I think..." he slowly reached his hand to where Naminé's heart would be."It's right here."
Naminé sat up and wrapped her tiny arms around Roxas' neck and held tight. She still couldn't feel his heart, but she knew it was close. After several moments she let go and looked him in the face she had longed to see for so long. She smiled and pinched a piece of his spiky golden hair in her fingers.
"I like your hair." she laughed. He smiled, and everything else in the world melted away. Then Roxas stood and grasped Naminé by the hand to help her up.
"Let's go inside. I need to show you something." he started walking closer to the gate.
Even though Naminé felt more safe, comfortable, and happy with Roxas now, she still felt a twinge of nervousness at the thought of going into the mansion. She frowned. She was going to do this, she thought. At least for Roxas. She pushed her innermost doubts to the furthest point she could reach in the back of her mind. Timidly she took a step forward.
"Naminé, let's go!" a small brunette tugged insistently on her hand.
Naminé looked around. She was at the exact same spot... but it was different. In front of her a younger Ollete pulled with determination on her arm, trying to get her to take a small step closer to the mansion.
"Please, Naminé, it's not scary!" Ollete sighed in defeat and fell exhaustedly in the grass.
Naminé shook her head. "I am not scared." she crinkled her eyebrows in thought and slowly her cerulean eyes dropped to the ground. "But I cannot go in there."
Hayner, who had been standing with Pence by the gate, clomped over to Naminé in his massive army boots. He put his arm over her skinny shoulder and said, "Ah, why? It'll be fun. Who knows what's in there." he added dramatically.
Naminé shook her head. "...No..."
"Well what if-" Hayner began again.
"Naminé." Ollete appeared by her side after thrusting Hayner to the ground with sheer unaided force.
"That was unnecessary!" he shouted in anger from the grass.
Ollete ignored him. "We only want to check it out. We'll leave after we look around for a minute." Ollete tried to convince Naminé.
Naminé said nothing but looked up and tried her hardest to smile. Apparently Ollete had caught a glimpse of the sadness in Naminé's eyes, however, because she softened her look and took hold of Naminé's hand.
"You know what..." Ollete smiled. "Maybe we should just go back."
"What?" Hayner and Pence shouted simultaneously.
"If you don't feel okay about it, we won't go." Ollete grinned. "Besides, there's plenty of other stuff to explore."
Naminé was so grateful at that instant to have Ollete. But she shook her head.
"No." she said. "What's a little adventure going to do?" she smiled, and bravely took a step forward.
Alot of this story will be primarily based on flashbacks, just so you know :D They're kindof heard to keep track of.