A/N: this is the epilogue! Thanks to everyone for reading and following this fic over the past four years!
"Sev'n ou' a'en," Vanitas said through a mouthful of crêpe. Honey oozed down his chin, but he couldn't care less.
Aqua could, apparently. She wiped the honey with her thumb and licked it off.
Rude. That was honey he could've saved for later.
"Only seven?" she asked, reclining on her hands. The fountain behind her cast a fine mist across her back, and a rainbow over the castle's courtyard. "I thought for sure you'd give it at least an eight. The royal baker herself made these."
"Don't care if it's royal. It's not chocolate."
The honey-lemon crêpe was tasty, he'd give it that, but no amount of powdery sugar could live up to a sweet, gooey chocolate. Apparently the Castle of Dreams didn't have such luxuries, though. He hoped they visited Radiant Garden again soon—it was the nearest world with crêpes that he'd rate ten out of ten.
"It's too bad you can't make Unversed anymore. Then you could make Prize Pods with chocolate anywhere." She took a bite of her own crêpe, a savory ham-and-egg one. He could taste the ghost of it on his tongue—a byproduct of his time sharing her body.
"Those ones were pretty finicky, even then." Vanitas shrugged. "Actually, this was the only world where they'd make chocolate. Spent a lot of time right here in this fountain, collecting Chocolate Valentines."
"Huh. I wonder why that is." Aqua frowned thoughtfully.
Vanitas shrugged. It hardly mattered, since he couldn't make them anymore either way. He'd have to find a different source of chocolate.
Maybe he could make a living carting chocolate from Radiant Garden to these other poor chocolate-less worlds. Surely they'd give him as much munny as he wanted once they realized how incredible the dessert tasted. He'd have enough to afford a lifetime of crêpes.
Of course, to do that, he'd have to either get his magic back, or keep hitching rides with the Dandelions forever. Ugh.
"Maybe not," Aqua said, reading his thoughts. "You know those squishy blocks we've been cleaning up? Lauriam says they're pieces of the worlds' borders that collapsed when Kingdom Hearts connected their hearts. There's talk of building some sort of flying vehicle from them. Then we could go anywhere, even without magic."
Vanitas's eyes widened. Picking up the weird blocks had been about the only help he and Aqua could contribute, since their magic hadn't fully recovered. He didn't mind too much—at least it was a better gig than sealing keyholes and clearing out the misplaced chunks of worlds, like Terra, Ventus, and the Dandelions were doing. He'd have a lot less time to kick back and eat crêpes if they expected him to do all that too.
"That would be nice," he said, nodding. "You feel up to joining my chocolate business, then?"
"Unless you plan on producing it from scratch, what you're imagining is more of a merchant business," she corrected. "But… I suppose so. Once there's nothing left for us to help clean up… I'm not sure what else I'd do. I can't exactly be a Keyblade Master anymore."
He felt her disappointment as she said it. The loss of her magic had hit her much harder than it had him.
"Most people can't. There's whole worlds out there full of people who can't, I dunno, shoot Fire or heal from getting stabbed. They still get by." He shrugged.
"I know." She sighed. "I just feel like… there's nothing else I'm good at, you know?"
"Yeah. I was only good at being evil."
He grinned, and she snorted.
"Alright, I get it. I'll figure something out." She finished her crêpe and brushed her hands off on her skirt, a simple one she'd borrowed from Cinderella for the day. "We have plenty of time to learn some new tricks."
"Exactly."
He polished off his crêpe and flopped sideways on the fountain ledge, kicking his legs up on Aqua's lap. He could feel the warmth emanating from her—not just her physical warmth, but the part of her heart he would always be tied to. The part of her that cared for him, despite—or maybe because of—everything. That warmth was the only magic he needed.
The sky above was bright and blue, the sun comfortable on his face. He tucked his sticky hands under his head and closed his eyes. He could afford a short nap.
After all, they had plenty of time.
XXX
Waves lapped against Luxu's feet, soaking them through his boots. His socks felt soggy and swollen; the texture of wool and salt chafed his soles. His tank top was crusted with sand that dug into his back like a thousand tiny needles. He swore that sand had even found its way under his eyepatch, irritating the wound that still hadn't completely healed.
He doubted it would heal well, now. Not when his magic was sucked dry as the Graveyard in summer.
He tried to blink the crust out of his good eye. It stung from the ambient salt in the air—more intense and irritating than it had any right to be.
This was supposed to be Unreality. He wished his aches and pains would get the memo, and stop feeling so damn real.
Stars fell from the sky above him, their trails crisp and clear even through the film of salt and sand. In the Real worlds, a meteor shower like that would mean a barrier had been broken, a world made vulnerable to the darkness. There wasn't supposed to be darkness here, though—nor light, for that matter.
Regardless, the sight was beautiful. More beautiful than a prison had any right to be. He'd been a lot of places in the cosmos, and he'd never seen stars quite like this. None of the constellations he'd charted lined up with the sky's dappled patterns. Like the remaining stars had been scattered without rhyme or reason to anyone lookin' up at 'em.
No stars he recognized. A moon that mocked him with its pale light, insignificant compared to the Kingdom he was supposed to bring.
If there was one good thing to come of this, it was that the Master probably couldn't see how pathetically he'd failed, with No Name refusing his call. The weapon had fallen in with him, but had disappeared sometime between then and him waking on this beach.
No more watching. No more being watched. Whatever the Master thought… that wasn't Luxu's problem anymore. He might've felt relieved if he weren't so weak from the loss of his magic.
"Heh… guess that's that, then."
He closed his tired eyes, and let the ocean lullaby drag him to sleep.