My Oh My
'The Farewell Symphony'
The Emporium was having a slow day.
That was to be expected, really, because in a relatively small community full of relatively old people relaxing in the glory of their retirement, there wasn't much market for kinky sex toys. In fact, the only way they managed to stay in business was by selling products to teenagers, something which really lit the local parents on fire. Figuratively speaking, of course. ...Of course.
At any rate, Larxene was her normal cheerful self, unloading boxes and various plastic-wrapped goodies from a large cardboard box, tossing them onto shelves and scowling all the while.
Leon sat behind the counter and talked philosophy with a faerie.
"So his name was... So-crates?"
"No, no, not So-crates. It's pronounced Sah-cruh-teeze."
"Are you sure?"
"More or less."
No one present in the room had expected the little bell to ring cheerfully. And certainly no one had expected for Yuffie to stride confidently up to Larxene, clear her throat, place her hands on her hips and ask...
"Larxene, have you ever kissed girls?"
Larxene looked up. She blinked. And very slowly she said, "If this is some pathetic excuse to make out with me, I hope you realize that you're going to get a black eye."
"No! Eww! Get real! I... I need to know what I'm supposed to do with Kairi..."
"...Kissing girls is easier than kissing guys. They're just like you. Do what you like." Larxene narrowed her eyes and rose from where she had been crouched in front of the shelves, juggling her cardboard boxes in her arms and headed towards the back room. Determined, Yuffie followed, gritting her teeth and balling her fists and praying that this would pay off.
"Well I don't know what she likes. Everyone likes different things. Isn't there some... universally good lesbian thing to do?"
"No!"
"...What the hell's wrong with you?"
"Fuck off!"
Slam.
Yuffie stared confusedly at the closed door, the ripped-out piece of notebook paper quite simply stating that what lay beyond was not only just for employee's only, but it would also be detrimental to one's physical and mental health to risk walking in there without due reason.
"Hey Leon...?" Yuffie started.
Behind the counter, Leon shrugged and raised one eyebrow at the hopeful looking girl standing in the middle of the story. "Don't ask me," he said blandly. "Why not try Cloud?"
"Eh? He's here? Where is he?"
The aforementioned faerie glanced up from his current perch on Leon's shoulder and cocked his head to the side slightly. "...Yuffie?"
When Yuffie just continued looking cluelessly around for Cloud, Leon shot her his own expectant look which was simply received by a defensive, "What?"
"Cloud. Obviously."
"Where?"
"Right here. Are you..." And then it hit him. "Yuffie... on my shoulder... you can't see him?"
Yuffie placed her hands on her hips angrily and huffed, "Of course not! There's nothing on your... Oh." Blink. Stare. "Holy..."
And although Yuffie couldn't see it and Leon couldn't feel it, Cloud began to tremble. And he began to grow so terrified that he wondered if he would ever feel safe again. For it is a scary thing to doubt your own existence. And it's an even scarier thing to realize that the world and its inhabitants are better off believing you never existed to begin with.
x x x
That evening, Leon's apartment was quiet. Leon had been reading some book that he hadn't even been interested in at all since he got home from work. He was trying his hardest to avoid speaking with the little faerie flitting around him because he was well aware of the intense look with which Cloud was regarding him.
Granted, Leon didn't have the slightest clue what was on the mind of the little guy, but he wasn't about to start asking, either.
He could hear a distant, quiet clatter somewhere across the room. One glance away from the text of the page told him Cloud was just playing in the bowl Leon kept by the apartment door, holding his keys and spare change. He shook his head, he turned back to the page and he realized he had no idea where he was. He'd stopped reading about ten pages ago. Damn.
"A penny for your thoughts?"
Leon raised one eyebrow and looked up again.
There was Cloud, flapping his wings furiously as he tried to get a good grip on the penny he carried in his arms, screwing up his face in the process and huffing and puffing with all the effort it took to carry the stupid thing across the room. If Leon was anyone but Leon, he would've burst out laughing, for sure.
Cloud simply smiled innocently, though it wasn't without a trace of pride that came from the joy of using one of the little human-coined (certainly no pun intended) phrases he'd picked up along his way. He had hoped that it would make Leon smile, chuckle, maybe open up to him a bit more for Cloud was indeed a very lonely little faerie and he enjoyed Leon's company for reasons that he just couldn't explain.
He didn't have the words to do so, nor did he have the knowledge and the emotion to pin together. It was something completely beyond his understanding and completely beyond the realm of his own little imagination.
Leon closed his book, sliding a leaf of old notebook paper between the pages to keep his place, watching with only the smallest amount of interest as Cloud came to perch upon his bent knee, the penny still clutched in between his arms and his small chest, though much of its tiny weight resting on Leon now, instead.
They began to talk, quietly and softly as they sometimes did. It was a sort of talk that Leon rarely had- had never had throughout his childhood and into the difficult times in his life. It was the sort of talk that could only transpire between one greatly troubled person and one greatly unbiased person.
And seeing as each of us is biased and therefore each of us has only spoken with biased people, clearly none of us have a clue as to what Leon was feeling. But clearly Cloud must have sparked some sort of faith in Leon for Leon to put into him and his pure and clean nature, his blank and carefree feelings.
"What do you think about, Leon? I know you haven't been reading because your eyeballs weren't really moving all horizontally and everything like you humans do when you read."
"I was just thinking. About things. Nothing in particular, I guess."
"Nothing you haven't thought about before?"
"No, nothing I haven't thought about before. If anything, something I've thought about too much before."
"Is it something you're afraid of?"
"Not necessarily."
"Is it something you wish you'd done?"
"Not really."
"What is it?"
"I'm not sure. I know what it is, but at the same time it feels like I don't. Like I've been thinking about it so much that it's gone and lost whatever meaning it had to begin with."
"Is it something good or bad?"
"Is this twenty questions or what?"
"Is it something good or bad?" Cloud asked again, persistent, but in such a way that Leon couldn't even imagine being annoyed by it.
"I don't know. I guess it's just something that used to be unimportant, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed important."
"It sounds sort of strenuous," the faerie said, stressing the last word and the most recently-added to his vocabulary. In fact, he'd only learned it that afternoon from watching the interaction of some random woman who walked into The Emporium. ("My, my, Mr. Leonhart, but what a strenuous schedule you keep. Are you sure you don't need something to... loosen you up? Maybe I could help you relax, you know..." "...I'm fine, Mrs. Trepe. That'll be three-fifty. Thank you, come again." "Oh I will. And I hope you'll be here the next time I do, mm?")
Leon chuckled lightly at this, and had Cloud been the size of a normal person, he probably would've ruffled his hair or shown some sort of sign of affection. As it was, Leon didn't want to squash the little fellow, so he just stifled the impulse with a small sigh and continued on in an equally small voice.
"I'm sick of running, honestly... I'm sick of not doing the things I want so badly to do, just because of other people."
"Are other people really all that important?"
"...Shockingly enough, yeah, they are." Leon found himself giving Cloud a small smile, though it didn't quite reach his eyes and he knew it wouldn't get by without notice from the little faerie. "Even to a mean old asshole like me."
"I don't think you're a mean old asshole. ...Whatever you mean by that. Is it like being 'gay'?"
"Not really. But if it's easier for you to understand it that way, sure."
Cloud rocked back and forth gently, still perched lightly upon Leon's knee. If Leon knew how much hummingbirds weighed, he would've guessed that Cloud weighed about the same as one of them. And with the penny cradled in his arms, Leon could only wonder if some moments were just made to be picture perfect, or if luck simply brought them along as they came out of the bag, one by one.
He leaned back in his chair, and when he noticed Cloud watching him expectantly, waiting for and wanting him to continue, Leon did so, completely aware of the fact that he wouldn't even have thought of doing so for anyone other than Cloud.
"I'm wondering why I ever bothered trying. ...I'm wondering why I'm still wanting to try, even now. I'm wondering when I'm finally going to hit a stopping point and be done with wanting to try."
It took several minutes for Cloud to come up with a response to this. During this time, he ran his tiny fingers along the rigged rim of the penny, going one way and then the other. He cocked his head to one side, then the other. He rested his chin on one hand... then the other.
And when he finally did speak, he did so without faltering and without slipping up in the slightest. And it was quite possibly the first time that Leon had ever felt completely and utterly below any living being on the face of the earth.
"There isn't any such thing as a stopping point," Cloud said softly. "Nothing is ever going to stop. ...You say you're always running and you wonder when you're going to stop. But the truth of the matter is that you're just never going to. It's you and it's this world- this entire world and all of its morals and ideals- running against one another, that's all it is. And you're going to want to stop, but you never can. There is no stopping point. There's just the point when your body will become too old and too tired to continue on, when it'll lay down and fall to pieces. When the world will meet and pass you and leave you in its dust. But you'll still be running. You're always running. You'll just fall behind one day."
"...And what happens then?"
"Well... I'm not really sure."
"Cloud?" Leon asked quietly, not wanting to break the atmosphere with his deep voice and not wanting to somehow mess up the moment, that picture-perfect moment. "Do you want to know the one thing that sometimes makes me wonder if you're really real or not?"
"Yeah, I'd like to know that, I think."
"It's the way you talk. It's so normal, but so blunt and human, it can't possibly be real. No real person is ever really interested in another, no matter how close they are. People are selfish."
"I'm not a person."
"...That's right."
"But I am real."
"...That's right too."
"...I'll stay with you until you fall behind, okay?"
"Why?"
"Because I want to know what happens. And maybe because I want to make sure you'll be okay."
x x x
Larxene was thinking.
It was a revolutionary feeling, really. Something strange and foreign creeping up on her, an idea, a concept, a...
"Kairi!"
Kairi jolted backwards from the sink and rammed her head into the medicine cabinet. Cursing, she stumbled to the left and rammed her hip into a cupboard. Cursing some more, she rushed to the right to avoid the cupboard, tripped, and fell towards a wall. Thankfully her arms reached out and caught her. But not-so-thankfully, one of her flailing feet ended up in the toilet bowl.
"Kaiiiiri!"
"Oww... Wha-at."
Larxene flung open the door a brilliant grin riddling her face as she exclaimed with all the brilliance in the world... "Oh, you're foot's in the toilet, dear."
"And you've got the IQ of a pea, but I'm not complaining, am I."
"Harsh."
"Shut up."
"Listen... I've got it."
"Got what?"
"I've figured it out!"
"What, what, figured what out?"
Slapping one hand against the little white pedestal sink, Larxene smirked and placed one hand on her hip jauntily, tossing her hair over her shoulder in what normally would've been considered a very striking pose, had Kairi not been pounding with bruises all over her body and had she not had one foot trapped in a toilet. Nonetheless, that didn't keep Larxene from explaining in a very matter-of-fact tone, "Yuffie... she couldn't see Cloud today. She's figured out what's wrong with her!"
"...Really?"
"Mmhm. So... we must be close. Have you been over to the Emporium lately? Maybe now that you guys are together, you're fixed too." Larxene rubbed one hand thoughtfully over her chin, over the five o' clock shadow that wasn't there and never would be.
Kairi simply blinked at her calmly, twisting her foot experimentally as she tried to free it from its little porcelain prison. "...But I haven't changed. Yuffie has, but not me."
"You sure about that?"
"Positive."
"When was the last time you saw Riku and Sora?"
"...Oh. I..." Kairi blinked again, her foot coming free and sending her staggering backwards slightly, though Larxene thankfully moved forward and stopped her from crashing into the wall. "I guess I haven't really been thinking about them lately, actually. I mean, with everything going on and... you know, Yuffie and all, I..." Wait a... oops. "I completely forgot to tell them about Yuffie!"
"Exactly!" Larxene sounded impressed with herself, to say the very least.
"What?" Meanwhile, Kairi sounded confused as hell, to say the very least.
"Kairi, look, look, look! You used to be so crushed because you couldn't live without them! This entire time while we've all been scratching our heads like morons, you've been fixing your problem without even realizing it!"
"...You think so?"
"Well what else could be wrong with you? You're fucking perfect, for God's sake."
Kairi clearly had to think about this for a moment, rubbing her toilet-water-soaked ankle tenderly, her mouth puckered into a frown, eyebrows furrowed together as she tried to figure it out, slowly but surely. "...So... but... that would mean..." She turned to look up at Larxene, raising one eyebrow questioningly as she said, "You think the thing holding me back this whole time was... Riku and Sora?"
"Nononono, it's not that harsh, see. The problem was you. Yeah, I mean, you were definitely the problem." Certainly the less-harsh version of Larxene's theory. ...If that was the case, Kairi was almost positive that she would never want to hear the harsh version. "No offense. But listen. Riku and Sora are a couple. And... and maybe you were too dependent on them!"
"I'm dependent?"
"Kairi! Listen! Go to The Emporium! I'm right, I know it!"
"I'm dependent on Riku and Sora?" she asked again, slower this time and enunciating each syllable as though she were trying to make sure Larxene understood her question. Maybe Larxene and her were having a misunderstanding. Maybe Larxene didn't really mean she was dependent. Maybe she meant something else entirely. Yes, that had to be it.
"Kairi." Larxene paused, making sure she had eye contact with the girl in question before continuing on the most serious tone that Larxene owned at the time, "You were living with them while they were banging in the room next to you. You went years without sleep because you had to listen to your two best friends having sex and screaming at the top of their lungs all night."
"...You don't have to be so descriptive."
"I can't believe I didn't see it before. Hell, I can't believe you didn't see it before."
"So I'm really dependent on them..."
"Well come on. They were your best friends and they went like that." Larxene crossed her fingers as her smile stretched wider across her face, mocking, yes, but at the same time containing a sort of amused understanding that was all that Kairi guessed she could really expect of the older girl, especially as she said, "It only makes sense you'd be left hanging on. But now you've got us, so you don't have to cling to them anymore, right?"
"...Oh. I... never realized that." Kairi could literally feel something breaking inside her, yet she wasn't sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing. She seriously doubted that it was her heart snapping in two jagged pieces, but she wasn't sure what else it could be. And yet she was perfectly fine just leaving it there with a mental nod of finality, closing the book of the emotional roller coaster as she said, "...I guess you're right. I've got new friends now."
"...Uh, yeah, hey, whatever. No need to get all mooshy on me, got it?"
Kairi grinned wickedly and flung her arms out to both sides, completely sending herself hurtling towards Larxene and cooing, "Aww, come here and gimme a hug, Larxene!"
"Get off me, you little leech!"
"Hehe!"
"You have a girlfriend now!"
"She's not my girlfriend. We're just trying to see where it goes from here."
"So then why'd she come asking me for kissing info this morning?"
"She did?"
"Yep."
"..."
"..."
"God, get off me, Larxene! I have a girlfriend! Where's your frickin' dignity?"
"...Crazy harpy woman."
x x x
Mr. Tigi was having a moment in which all his thoughts felt scrambled. There was the white of the room around him, yes, but then there were the things inside his head, blackened, shadowy, and very confusing. Images of a monster and its creator, the fear of being the creator of a monster.
But certainly, certainly not all creations were evil, were they? Even if a mortal was convicted of playing God. Things were considered evil because they were given life? Practices were considered sin because they defied tradition? It wasn't something Mr. Tigi could understand. It wasn't something he had ever understood.
A painting created by a poor man living on the streets could inspire someone so much that they found new meaning in life. They could put down the knife and vow to start anew, to force their way through their messy world and work it all out for the better. So... in that respect, a painting could give life, but not be viewed as playing God?
None of it made sense.
But as Mr. Tigi let out a small, shuddery sigh, something happened.
There was a dull pain, an intense pressure, the feeling of someone wrapping two cold hands around his skull and squeezing, squeezing, straight through bone until everything shattered. He could feel that something was wrong and he could see that something was wrong, watching his vision sway, jerk violently as his body collapsed to one side. He could feel that something was wrong as he began to lose feeling of his body, a strange, tingling sensation that began in the left side of his face, inside the skin, somewhere within, and spreading.
It spread along his face, seeping across to the right side. It spread down his neck in snakelike strands, slithering throughout and sinking into to his shoulders, his chest.
And in his last moments, Mr. Tigi's thoughts were happy ones. For he knew the answer and he knew that he was not guilty. And he knew that his children were as innocent as he and he was inspired by the painting, by the story, and by the feel of life itself that he should die.
x x x
"...Leon, you're here."
The room was darkened and for a moment, Leon had wondered if Cloud was ever there at all. He'd been wondering for the past two hours. He'd been wondering, thinking, all the while with his face between the pages of a book, the words lost somewhere in the space between them. And then...
"...I... w-what's going on...?"
"I'm sorry I couldn't help you. Why didn't you try? Why couldn't you just try?"
"Stop talking like that... What's..." Leon took a few steps into the room. Cloud was seated on the bedside table, his arms wrapped around his bent knees, his head resting above those. He looked... tired. "What's wrong with you?" Leon whispered.
"I'm dying, Leon. If I was ever really alive to begin with. ...I'm dying."
Are there ever words to say in response to that?
"...O-oh." He walked further into the room. He sat on the edge of the bed. And he refused to look at the small faerie seated just across from him. And all the while he felt as though he were being cheated out of the goodbye he deserved, wronged once more by the doings of his own hand. "I..."
"It's a scary feeling. To die and realize that you've never really been living much." Cloud looked up at Leon and though there was so much he felt as though he should say, as though he needed to say... nothing would come. All he could do was ask, "Why didn't you try, Leon?"
"Because I didn't want to! Because I'm fine with the way I am! I've been fine these last few weeks, okay? I didn't want to move because I was fine. I didn't want to try because... because..." Leon stopped himself. He scowled and he glared and he did everything he'd always done to push away and be pushed away in return. But none of it worked.
I didn't want to wake up one morning and find there was no one I could talk to. I didn't want to close my eyes, only to open them and figure out that you were gone. Or worse, that you were still there. That I just couldn't...
"What are you going to do, Leon? What are you going to do when you're old and lonely and..." Cloud winced, doubled over in pain, eyes closed to world and wanting to block it all out. Wanting to block it all out if it would make it go away. "Ah!"
x x x
"He's had a stroke and..."
"Well why aren't you doing anything?" Yuffie shouted into the receiver. From across the table, Kairi shot her a puzzled and alarmed look, but somehow she already knew.
Somehow, they both already knew.
"We're trying, Miss. We're trying, but he isn't responding. ...He isn't responding. ...And we don't know why."
x x x
"Cloud..."
Never before had Leon experienced such an incredible feeling of helplessness. When he was ten and had accidentally set the kitchen on fire with Einstein's Kiddy Chem Set, he had felt helpless. When he was thirteen and had broken his mother's favorite vase while she was out and then had gathered and glued all the pieces back together just to find that one was still missing, he had felt helpless.
And when he felt he had failed as a teacher with in inability to communicate his excitement and get his thoughts and points across to his students, he had felt helpless.
But never before had Leon been forced to look death in the face as it gripped such a small, pure heart and clenched it between its two bony hands.
"Are... are... are you fine with being miserable for the rest of your life? What are you going to do when you see them all around you talking in a language you can't understand and feelings things you've never felt before? What are you going to do when you become just like me, Leon? When no one can see you and no one can understand you because... because you're so far behind... because..."
Cloud clenched his teeth together, eyes closed, one tiny, trembling hand clutching as his chest as he gritted out, "Because I didn't try hard enough. ...What are you going to do when you're sad, Leon?"
"I'm not going to be sad." Leon licked his lips and closed his eyes for several seconds, trying to figure out how he could compose himself, how he could pull all the thousands of parts of himself back together again.
And yet all he could come up with and all he could say was, "...Listen, I'm the type of person who's never been truly happy in my entire life. At least, I don't think so. And... If that's the case, having not been happy, there's no way I can be sad. I have nothing to compare sadness to. It's just a little bit below fine for me. That's okay. ...It... it wasn't your fault, Cloud."
"I could've tried harder."
"No... no, you couldn't have."
x x x
Somewhere, however few miles away, there was a room full of children who had never grown up. Whether it was because they didn't want to or whether it was because they simply couldn't, none of them knew. And they all sat quietly in the smallest of circles and they all watch numbly as their own lights began to fade away.
And though none of them knew what death was and though none of them knew how to fear it, all of them did. And all of them wished for their parent to guide them away like he should have, to take them in his hands once again and show them how things worked in this world they never understood.
x x x
"Hey... Leon?"
"...Yeah?"
"Can I try something?" Cloud asked quietly. When Leon only tilted his head to the side and regarded Cloud with a sad, puzzled expression, it was all Cloud could do to simply smile and say, "...I... I saw these humans on the street, you know. They looked happy. And they... They, um..." Cloud's voice trailed off, it died out.
He looked pitifully up at Leon, blue eyes glistening and burning and for the life of him, for what little life of him he had left, he could not understand what it was. He reached his arms up towards Leon and the human obeyed as humans always did. He carefully scooped Cloud up in his hands and brought him closer, towards his ear, hoping to hear what Cloud could not convey.
Cloud simply shook his head. He reached out, bent over and tired. His wings drooped around his small body because he couldn't feel them- they were gone to him, fading away piece by piece. He placed both of his small hands against Leon's cheek and cocked his head to the side curiously, completely thrown by it all. Still, after all this time, he was amazed by the wonders of the human race.
And then he leant forward and kissed Leon on the cheek, between his two outstretched palms. And for the very first time, Cloud began to cry.
"I'm not sure what love is... but I think I love you. Is that okay?"
"Yeah... it's okay, Cloud."
"...I'm glad."
"It's okay, Cloud... It's..." Leon bit his bottom lip because he wanted to feel some other sort of pain. Because he couldn't stand any pain that wasn't physical. Because he didn't want it anymore, because he'd never wanted it to begin with, and because it was all he had ever gotten his entire life. "It's okay... Oh God, it's okay... Please be okay..."
"...You know what I wish?" Cloud whispered. He forced a shaky smile as he looked up at Leon and he turned and buried his face into the warmth of the hand beneath him. I feel so cold... "I wish I could die beautifully for you," Cloud murmured.
"Why?"
"...Humans like pretty things... don't they?"
"But..."
"I wish I was beautiful. I wish I was like you."
"Cloud, wait..."
"I'll miss you, you know?"
"Cloud..."
x x x
"Seems like you've really grown attached to the little squirt there, Leon."
"...Whatever."
"You know it's true. So why is it? Cloud chilled with Naminé for a few weeks before any of us even knew about him. What is it that makes you guys so tight?"
"...I talk to him. And he talks to me."
"Is it really that great?"
"...Yes."
x x x
"Cloud, didn't you promise? Remember, you... you promised you'd stay with me. Don' you remember? You can't break promises." Leon began to sound desperate, staring at Cloud with eyes that wanted to close and keep him from seeing something he didn't want to see. "You're not even real! How can you break promises?"
"I am real, Leon." And Cloud sounded almost as desperate as Leon himself.
x x x
"Well... whatever works for you, Leon."
"Cloud seems to care more about what I think than any other person I've ever known. And he can't judge and he can't tell you what's right or wrong... but that's... I think it's a good thing. Because he's just Cloud. And he's just this simple, pure thing."
"...And it feels like he's always on your side in the long run"
"...How did you..?"
Larxene smiled. "Lemme tell you something, Leon. There are some emotions that are painfully obvious and universally similar. And just a word for the wise? Love is usually the most obvious and similar of 'em all. But don't tell anyone I said that, got it?"
"...Right..."
x x x
An eerie light settled across the tiny form lying upon Leon's palm. He felt the beat of wings against his hand, one last trembling attempt at flight. One last try to unveil the only thing that Cloud had ever seen about himself as beautiful.
Leon watched numbly as it all simply began to break away. As Cloud began to... crumble. Just lying there in his palm with absolutely nothing that he could about it. Silver dust sprung out from the faerie and for half a moment, Leon stupidly wondered if it would let him fly. But happy thoughts were beyond him, even as he could have sworn he'd heard a laugh that sounded all too much like Cloud's bells and whistles voice.
And no matter what he could think of, Leon believed that nothing would bring Cloud back. No matter how much wood he knocked on, no matter how many times he clapped his hands, no matter how many times he shouted that he believed, he believed, he believed, dammit... none of it would save Cloud. Because by then, Cloud was gone. And all Leon held in his hands was air, and he felt as though he were no more than the King of Air and Darkness.
Perhaps he would have done White proud as he fell to the floor then and did not cry. For Leon didn't know how to cry, and although Cloud had been nothing more than a figment of someone's imagination, a pipe dream come to life, Leon saw then only one fact and one fact alone.
Cloud was more human than Leon ever could be.
And it was beautiful. And Cloud would have been happy.
And the gray gardens stretch from one horizon to the next, waiting for their dreamer's dreams to come to rest.
x x x
Dear Larxene,
By now I guess you've pretty much realized that I'm not here. And I'm sorry for leaving without notice, because that's certainly not something I normally do. But sometimes we all do things we don't normally do, I guess, or the world wouldn't be half as interesting as it is, now would it?
I hope you're not thinking that anyone is to blame for me leaving (especially not you, because you're not). But I do have something I need to do, some things I need to get done.
If you look at the drawing, maybe you'll understand.
Folded up inside the envelope was a familiar charcoal-smudged picture that Larxene opened between her hands, a dusty blooming flower in a cold and lonely world- the only link between her and the starving artist in who-knows-where. And Larxene stared at her reflection on the paper and she did begin to see.
Larxene saw that her mouth was a stubborn frown, the corners of her lips buried into the smooth skin of her face, stitched in too tightly like the needlework of a desperate old grandmother holding onto the only thing she knows.
Larxene saw that her hair fell about her face and neck in short, wispy tendrils, brushing this way and that and certainly more beautiful on paper than it could ever have been in real life- Right?
She saw her eyebrows, knitting together in a soft but puzzled manner, situated over her eyelids, shadowed and smudged and erased and worked again and again.
Stray fingerprints danced around her face and outline, small, nimble scuffs of gray above paper that was once- perhaps- white.
And the thing Larxene saw last and the thing Larxene found odd that she did not see before was the fact that she could not see at all. The drawing could not stare back for the drawing had no eyes. There weren't even smudged lines, traces of thought or existence within those two spaces imprinted on her face. All there was whiteness.
It was as though the artist had followed her vision, lead along blindly by some passion to draw what she saw and what she felt and to somehow combine the two as they came through her arm, through her wrist, through her fingertips... all to make something beautiful. Yes, it was as though the artist herself had danced as fast as possible only to stop midway with no leading partner and no one left to turn to.
It was as though (and it was painfully obvious that) Naminé had no idea where to begin with Larxene's eyes.
Several minutes later, Larxene could be seen leaving the apartment complex. She would not be seen there again, though as she left for that final time, one thing for certain could be said.
Her face was completely different from that on the paper. Hers was a face of puzzled sadness, of not understand why she lost something and not understanding that it had been there to lose in the first place. It was quiet and lax, far from the loud and stubborn lines that had made it up before, the smudges even holding some conformity about them. She was reduced to shades of gray with no extremes, no white and no black to fall back on.
And yet somehow, something struck a chord within her and hit a color that hadn't existed before, or if it had, had been buried too far below to ever be seen. And it was then that Larxene truly changed, for better or for worse.
Of the five children who had so long been held back from their own adulthood, Larxene was the fourth to reach it. She was the fourth and she would be the final, with no others after her.
(x) (x) (x)
Epilogue to come, some strings to tie up, and then we're done, everyone. Reviews are appreciated annnd... That's that. (That was absolute hell to write. My gosh. I've destroyed my evening.)
