Exposition: The World That Never Was
A cool damp cloth was placed against the mage's forehead, slowly waking her. Her eyes opened and she blinked several times.
"Hey," a soft voice said, "How are you feeling?"
She then remembered where she was, and the battle against the giant black monstrosity that nearly killed her. Such memories reminded her to be on guard as she called for her staff with a weak, outstretched hand and she eyed him coldly, ready to fight.
He sat back on his knees, hands in front of him. "I don't mean any trouble."
He wasn't much more than a boy, she thought, examining him. Big, blue eyes and blond hair. He wore a black overcoat and had no visible weapons.
"Who?" she asked, her voice was barely above a whisper.
"My name is Roxas, what's yours?" he responded, still keeping his distance.
"Aresia," she replied, sitting up, patting her various pouches to make sure all of her belongings were accounted for.
"Nice to meet you." Roxas held out his hand. The magus looked from him to his and raised an eyebrow at his actions. Roxas withdrew his hand and changed the subject. "What brings you here?"
"Curiosity," she stated honestly. She was exploring the world. However many times she had been told that curiosity had killed the cat, it was now that she believed it.
"If you don't mind," Roxas edged closer, "would you explain what happened to you?"
"I fought," she started, trying to find proper wording, "a great shadow."
"That's interesting," he mused, appearing in thought, "Why would a Heartless come here?"
"Heartless?" she repeated, head tilted to the side. The concept of a creature without a heart attacking her was baffling, like this entire place, and its people.
"Yes," he nodded, "Heartless are what are created from the darkness in their hearts once they have succumbed to it. The heart is released and becomes a Heartless."
"How do you know this?" she questioned again, the entire idea was of interest to her.
"Well, you see," he paused averting his eyes, "I'm part of this group known as Organization XIII. We research the heart and its properties because . . . because we don't have one."
Aresia tensed, she reached for a scroll when he spoke again, sensing the danger.
"Wait, it's not like that. I'm not a Heartless, even though I do not possess a heart, let me explain," he said.
Only nodding in response, she did not relax the grip on her staff and she had the incantation of a protection spell on her lips.
Roxas continued, "We are known as Nobodies. When someone with a strong heart gives into the darkness, the empty shell beings to think and act with a will of its own. Without hearts, we are emotionless, we cannot truly feel anything. It is said we never are supposed to exist at all."
"You fear, I saw it in your eyes," Aresia noted.
"It was not a real feeling, just the shadow of one, a memory, a very distant one," he expressed with purposeful faux sorrow.
Finally, the ideal seemed to dawn upon her, but only extended her confusion. One part of her feels pity, for the inability to feel joy or love, but another says the opposite for lack or fear, despair, or sadness. She related it to being color blind. Knowing that there are many beautiful colors in the world, as well as hideous, only to see everything as gray.
She rose to her feet with shaky knees and turned to leave. "Good luck," she said as she proceeded up the steps when Roxas called out to her.
"Well this is some thanks you give when a stranger finds you practically bleeding to death and dresses your wounds?"
The mage felt her shoulder quickly with one hand and surely enough; she felt bandages covering the skin beneath her robes, which had returned to pristine condition as she enchanted them to do so. For a moment, her reaction as to say, "You really deserve thanks for the kind actions done with the goodness of your heart," but she stopped herself and instead replied, "What do you want from me? You obviously saved me at the possibility of some sort of personal gain."
"I would . . . like you to come with me," he said, leaving his knees and stepping forward awkwardly, as though he felt embarrassed, "it would be a great contribution to our research, to compare our differences and stuff . . ." he trailed off.
"Before I agree, I'd like a run through of what sort of research would be done," she replied, considering the least that she could do.
"I'll take you to our building, I can teleport us there-" Aresia was startled at that, which was misinterpreted. "-unless you'd rather walk."
"Not at all," she exclaimed, not intrigued, "you are magi?"
"What's . . . magi?" Her hopes fell.
"Magi are magic users. How can you teleport without being a mage?" Aresia asked, looking him over again for a component pouch or a wand.
"Oh! I use a dark portal, watch."
Aresia looked on in awe as the cloaked teenager extended a single hand and, without a word, a circular mass of darkness came into sight, waves of back reveling into itself. Her daze was broken when she felt him gently grab her wrist. Recoiling out of instinct, she eyed him suspiciously.
"You have to be in contact with me for it to work," he explained before adding slyly, "but are you willing to put your life in my hands?"
Aresia rolled her eyes, "My life is in the hands of magic. I fear not which knows its own, but if that is the case." She offered him her hand, which he took. Aresia closed her eyes as Roxas led her into the darkness.
They were overcome with an icy chill as they left their previous realm. Aresia shivered in the cold, which had never happened before; being able to wield the frost element usually left her immune to its effects. The air, however, was completely bearable to her, which was unexpected by the young Nobody, but he didn't let that show, not that it was difficult to conceal. As she opened her eyes, she was surprised that she could see clearly, but what she saw was difficult to describe as Roxas led her across the bizarre plane. In the distance, there was a red and white swirling orb. The ceiling mimicked the ground in a strange purple and red mix moving towards the orb and while she and Roxas stood still, the odd floor didn't appear to carry them with it. The area made her feel dizzy as she clutched her staff for support. Its long post had mounted on it a purple, spiked spade that glowed eerily with power in a ghoulish aura. Though most eyed it uneasily, it brought her a sense of comfort.
"Come," Roxas' voice rang from within her thoughts. She looked at him strangely, thinking she was mental when she saw him gesture towards the orb and step forward, still holding her hand. "Come with me." She heard again and she obeyed cautiously, testing the ground in front of her with her staff before walking on it. His hand was cold on her wrist, even through her bracers and robes; he sped up a bit. Aresia could see his breath and wondered if he needed to breathe. They were almost at the orb now; it gleamed with a blinding light as Aresia touched it. She closed her eyes to shield them from the light, but it was still white beneath her eyelids. Then, it went black and she feared she had gone blind; she still felt Roxas, but she reached out with her staff hand. She peeked an eye open, dreading the possibility of the curtain of darkness not being lifted. She saw a wall, a white one. Breathing a sigh of relief, she properly examined where she was. A hallway. It was plain; the bleached walls lighted fluorescently. The hallway was lined with doors; the closet one, directly in front of her, had the symbols XIII above it. Roxas watched her as she turned her eyes towards him and then looked down to her wrist.
"Is this still necessary?" a smirk danced behind her masked face as he let her go.
"Erm, no," he stammered, then, again, he regained his composure, "If you don't mind, we should check in with the Superior. I'm sure he'd be thrilled to meet you."
"Of course, after you," she said, adjusting the strap on her shoulder and pulling her mask more comfortably over her nose.
Roxas started down the hallway and Aresia was about to follow when she heard a whoosh behind her.
"What do we have here?" a voice called.
In one swift motion, she dug her hand into a pouch and extracted a pinch of sand and turned to face the figure behind her. Without thinking, she sprinkled it in front of her.
"Omoveo," she whispered, then watched another man in a black coat, this one with outrageous red spikes shrink down on all fours and begin to grow a wool coat and wander about, looking for grass. That hadn't been before it yelled.
"Hey, Roxas! Help!" The shout had diminished to what seemed to be more like a sheep's baa toward the end. Aresia stepped back and admired her handy work when a very distressed Roxas ran by her and to the sheep.
"Axel! What happened?" he yelled, turning and glaring at her, he shouted, "What did you do! Fix him!"
"Take it easy and look." She pointed at a very disgruntled man sitting on the floor.
"Axel!" Roxas exclaimed, crouching down beside his friend, who appeared to be looking for something on the floor, "Are you okay?"
The man who appeared to be Axel mumbled, "There's no grass anywhere. No grass . . ."
This seemingly bewildered Roxas. "What grass? What are you talking about?"
Axel then spouted, "There is no grass!"
Aresia found this highly amusing as a laugh escaped her. Roxas shook his friend as if he was dreaming and Axel held his head in his hands before he looked up at Aresia. As he focused in on her, he stood, thrusting his hands forward and a pair of red rings lined with miniature spears appeared. As he drew them back, his hands emitted flames.
"You'll pay for that," he stated.
"Oh, really?" she asked sarcastically.
Roxas stood between them, not sure who he was protecting. "Hey guys, cut it out," he said timidly.
"She," he started, paused, then proclaimed, "she sheeped me!"
Aresia looked very smug at this, proud of her profane actions. Then, watching Roxas look at her with an attempt at a silent plea, she sighed.
"You startled me," she explained, "It was a knee-jerk reaction."
"Hmph, next time you better look first or you might end up killed," he snorted, dismissing his weapons, he crossed his arms.
In attempts at being friendly, she introduced herself. "My name is Aresia Centra, you?"
"Axel. A-X-E-L, got it memorized?" he said, indicating his head with his pointer finger before extending his hand in the same matter Roxas had. Aresia studied him, and then looked to Roxas, as she was unusual with the custom.
To break the awkward silence that had accumulated between them, Roxas cleared his throat. "We were going to see the Superior. Aresia has agreed to help us in our research."
"Well, how do you know she's not a spy?" Aresia narrowed her eyes at the false accusation as Axel continued, "Trying to dismantle us from the inside?"
"Yes, because my sole intention in coming to this city was fighting a huge black thing-"
"Heartless," Roxas interrupted her.
"-Whatever. Just to try and mess up your organization? Why would anyone even bother?" she snapped.
At this, Axel shrugged and then grinned at her wickedly. "I suppose," He looked her up and down. "I'll have to keep an eye on you."
Aresia resisted the strong urge to make his wooly quest for grass permanent as she locked eyes with Axel, hers in a glare, his indifferent, though he did raise his eyebrows up and down twice in a quick motion suggestively.
"See you around, Axel," Roxas said, taking Aresia's arm and leading her down the hallway.
"Oh, most definitely." With that, he bowed back and disappeared through a portal of darkness.
The two followed winding corridors that never seemed to change. The only indication that they hadn't been traveling in circles were the door's numbers, which were going down.
"Would you like to hear about the research before we get there?" he asked. Aresia nodded and Roxas continued, "Well, you already see how we have no hearts. We're trying to figure out a way to find out hearts so that we can become whole again?"
"I thought your hearts had because Heartless?" she asked him. She opened her bag and took from it a dark red book that was held shut with a clasp. The spine was decorated with looped, ornate calligraphy which read Aduro Ignis. She studied the first page, muttering a few incantations to herself to commit them to memory.
"Yeah, the thing about that is that we have to kill the Heartless, so we can release the hearts. After a heart is released, it goes to this place. According to the Superior, this place is a vortex of darkness where are hearts are born," Roxas explained as they come through a windowed hallway.
"Where is this place?"
Roxas stopped and looked through the fixed pane glass, up into the eternally night sky, there was a moon in the shape of a heart.
"There." He stared up, fixated for a moment before turning to her. "That's why we slay," He clenched his fists and then two key-like weapons appeared in his hands and shined in the moonlight, "every Heartless we see, for that smallest chance it releases our hearts."
Aresia nodded understandingly before awing at his strangely unique weapons, in they were weapons.
"What are those?" she asked curiously, pointing at the keys.
Roxas shrugged and then jumped at her with them in a swinging arc, aiming for her head.
"Contega,"she muttered and a light purple shield outlined her. The weapons bounced off harmlessly, sending a shudder through their wielder. Roxas landed on his feet and observed the aura.
"I figured you would've blocked the attack, but not with a purple bubble," he retorted before saying, "These are Keyblades, they are used to destroy Heartless. I am their chosen wielder; no one could take them from me; they always return. Here." He offered her one that was about three feet long and a stainless white, hanging from a chain at the handle there was a blue and yellow star.
She took the 'keyblade' and held it awkwardly in her offhand before dropping it as if she had been burned, letting it clatter against the ground. The shield around her dissipated.
"What's the matter?"
Aresia clutched her hand near to her with her staff hand and appeared to be silently saying something. An expression mingled with a mix of fear and despair was etched onto her face. Finally, she relaxed into relief.
"Mages are not allowed to use swords," she whispered, then her voice gained some strength as she said, "In my interest, I was foolish. I forgot the rule. It is said that those who use swords or maces do not need magic, so it leaves them. Was a frightening feeling. The magic that normally runs hot in your veins evaporates, leaving you with an immortal chill." She shuttered at the experience.
He nodded slowly in response.
She changed the subject, seeing that he didn't understand. "Isn't your superior expecting us?"
"Oh, right, just watch this quick," he said, as he looked to the forgotten weapon and then it reappeared in his hand before he dismissed it.
"Nice trick," she commented curtly and then she continued off down the hallway, her staff's clunk echoes about the empty path as Roxas ran to return to her side.
As the numbers continued to descend, the conversation had turned to other matters.
"What color is your hair?" Roxas asked, trying to peer through her hood. His own blond hair was spiked uniquely and its style barely wavered as he walked.
"I hide it for a reason," she responded, adjusting her hood absent-mindedly.
"I thought you used the hood to hide your face and identity, not your hair," he stated, giving her a knowing look.
"Well, my hair would be part of that, wouldn't it?"
"I suppose," he said, placing his hands on the back of his head as he walked, "How old are you?"
"Old enough," she replied. The two passed a door marked V and took a left. The stone flooring was unbelievably white and she wondered for a second how it was kept so clean.
"Well," he started, "I'm about fifteen mentally. It's complicated for me though. The person I used to be a part of was fourteen when his heart was opened to darkness and a year or so has gone by since then."
"So, technically, you are a year or so old," she pressed, considering this. Are they born to their past self's age?
"Yeah, I guess so, but Nobodies don't really age. I've looked like this since I could remember."
"What do the numbers on the doors mean?" she asked, think of it suddenly.
"Oh, those are our numbers," Roxas explained. He gestured with his hands an X, "That means 10."
Aresia cut him off. "I know."
"Where did you learn it?"
"School."
Roxas looked confused for a second, but he moved on. "Well, my number is 13, or XIII. There are only thirteen members here, we got them in order we joined. So, the Superior is I, and here's number IV's room."
"I see."
Roxas continued, "They have names too, but I address them by number as way of showing respect since they've been around longer than I have."
"As it should be," a calm, quiet voice called from behind. Aresia looked over her shoulder to the voice and saw a tall man in yet another black coat with long straight blue hair. She glanced at Roxas who was no longer paying attention to her.
"VII," he said, nodding in acknowledgement to the man.
"Who," he began slowly, "is she?"
"This is Aresia, we've been on our way to see the Superior. She has agreed to help with our research, number VII, sir."
"Ah, hurry along now." He shooed them away with a gentle wave of his hand before turning and walking the other way. Doing as instructed, Roxas hurried his pace, causing Aresia to stumble over her robes in her haste.
Once outside the door marked I, Roxas knocked twice with the back of his hand. Several seconds later, the mechanical door open to show another uniformed man, but this one was tan with purely white hair and glittering orange eyes. He smiled mirthlessly at the guest before him.
"Saix had informed me that you were coming. Please." He stepped to the side and welcomed them in. He gestured to two chairs in front of a desk. The walls were lined with over-crowded bookshelves save for two breaks for wooden doors. The floor was brown carpeting, a much welcome change from the previous, seemingly unending white, hard, and cold of before. The desk was littered with papers; there were four large volumes piled on the right and a pen case on the left. The chairs themselves were black leather more fitting for a library, Aresia thought as she rested her staff against one and sat. Roxas sat to her right as the Superior settled himself behind his desk. He shuffled the papers into a pile and placed them to the side.
"Let us become acquainted," he said, his tone friendly, "I am Xemnas, number I, or the Superior to those such as Roxas. I am the founder of Organization XIII whose goal is simple to become whole again by recapturing our hearts in a place known as Kingdom Hearts. I trust that young Roxas has already informed you of this?" he finished, allowing Aresia a turn to speak.
"Yes, he has. I am Aresia and I have agreed to contribute to your research on the heart," she answered.
"How did you come upon this place?" Xemnas asked.
"Well, sir, I've always believed I had kender blood," she joked, waving it off. She believed it to be true occasionally. The itch to travel always seemed to plague her; the uncontrollable urge kept her from sitting still for too long. She watch Xemnas look to Roxas, who shrugged.
"I suppose that story could be told another day," he cleared his throat, "For now, we have business to attend to."
"Perhaps you could explain what it is I'll be participating in?" she questioned.
"You would confer with our more scientific members. One is more inclined to alchemy, he would probably make you a guinea pig for his concoctions and how your reaction differs from a Nobody's and a Heartless. Another is not much of a talker, but a shower, he will pick at your mind and toy with your emotions to see how weak having heart makes you. If I may ask, I see you bring a weapon," His eyes glanced at the mysterious staff. "Are you a fighter?"
"When it is required," she answered flatly.
"Then, I'll be interested in seeing you spar with one of our members. Let us head to the meeting hall and continue our discussion there. Would you take her there for me, Roxas?" he asked.
Roxas nodded. "Yes, sir."
"That's a good boy, anyway, I'll see you two shortly," he said as he walking them back to the door. Standing during the conversation, she grabbed her staff and felt the dark wood lovingly. Aresia left the room first and was followed by a slightly disgruntled Roxas. The door shut behind them with an ominous clang of metal on metal.
Normally, I don't leave messages at the bottom of stories, but since this is chaptered, I need to say that the chapters will end at odd places depending on how much I feel like typing. This is the first part of the chapter which normally is about twenty-five handwritten pages. The beginning will float around Aresia until the other characters are introduced, then the viewpoint will being to differ. The story will contain similar themes with Dragonlance (as shown with the kender) and World of Warcraft (with some of her spells and later on, potions). Also, if it could be noted that Aresia is not the most romantic character any one has ever seen, there will not be any pairings with her in them.
With utmost sincerity,
kenthel