Take a Look Around
It was like a bittersweet symphony of soundless screams in one small room of white nothingness. Axel/Naminé, Marluxia/Naminé.
"Take a look around, Naminé," Axel murmured quietly, his gaze boring into the small doll-like girl before him. "Do you see what you want, hmm? Do you see freedom?"
Naminé's glassy eyes found the floor, her hand, smooth as porcelain, clenching against her chest tightly. She found no heartbeat from within her still frame.
"There is no point looking around," she replied sadly in a voice just barely above a feathery whisper. "I know that it's not there to be found. I've willingly given up my freedom."
Axel smirked, and it was something that marred and melded his revulsion and his amusement into one single twisted expression. "Willingly given up?" the redhead echoed with a snort. "If you ask me, you've forfeited your freedom, little half-princess." There was something like a snarl in his words. "All for that flowery, pink-haired bastard, no less."
She couldn't find her voice. She didn't know why Axel sounded so angry at her.
"And now that you've found out it's a lot less roses and a lot more thorns," the redhead continued, baring his teeth, "do you regret it?"
Naminé's fingers twitched, but she remained silent, pale blue eyes still glued to the polished marble floor of her white-walled prison unseeingly. And the taller Nobody approached her lifeless form, coming in too close for comfort.
"You're a stupid, stupid girl, you know that?" Axel's voice was bitter and acidic. "You like being his sacrificial lamb or something?" he hissed. "His damn marionette that he can play with whenever he feels like bruising flesh? … Or do you just like how he touches you so you can close your eyes and pretend that he's one of the key bearers?"
"It's not like that," she whimpered desperately, shaking her head.
But no matter how many times she shook it, she couldn't shake off the lie.
"It's not… like that."
Her shoulders drooped and her tiny frame wilted. Strands of pale hair fell limply onto her face.
"No, huh? How much has he hurt you, Naminé?" Axel breathed softly, his fingers wrapping painfully around her slender wrist as he bent over to look closer into her vacant eyes. He tilted her chin up with the forefinger of his free hand.
The girl stared into those green, green feline-like pools – so hard and icy and cruel – and she refused to blink. She refused to waver. She would not submit.
But she couldn't help the single tear that escaped her blonde lashes that gradually slid down her left cheek to meet Axel's glove.
The redhead clucked his tongue once and caressed her cheek, smearing the wetness against her damp skin.
"That's what I thought."
His voice was cold, unfeeling. And he let go of her, leaving deep red imprints along her pale ash-white arm.
"When you finally grow a backbone and figure out how much you don't want to be his finger-puppet-fucktoy," the man turned on his heel, "let me know."
And he walked away without sympathy, vanishing through a dark portal with a swish of his black coat, leaving the wretched half-princess behind to shed wet tears that she shouldn't even know how to shed.