A/N: Hooray! I have reviews! Even though, in this day and age (lol) I can respond to reviews by just clicking the handy little reply button, I'm a little old-fashioned (lol) myself. Here are my replies.
To Ri2: Honestly, I'm not sure what the Gatekeeper does with munny. It was a kinda random thought I just threw in there at the last minute. Who knows, maybe it'll come up again. "Where'd Sora go?" I'll never tell. ; Well, not before the time is right. (mwahaha…) Kudos for the first review, by the way.
To Larxene12: Aww…thanks! It's reviewers like you that give me the warm fuzzies! grabs nearest reviewer in a strangling death hug And you'll be happy to know that I have a lot of this prewritten, so updates will be quick, at least, for a while, anyway.
To chibiRebel: Don't we all just love sequels? And once again, I'll never tell. ;
And without further ado, my next chapter!
Next to Nothing:
Chapter Two:
"The Birthday Present"
I shot up in bed, sweaty and panting again.
Still breathing hard, I wiped the sweat off my brow and contemplated my dream. The Gatekeeper, well, everyone has nightmares about the Gatekeeper, even if you are already dead…I concluded, But he seemed so real…too real. I shook my head, as if to clear it of such nonsense. But Catássa, I hadn't dreamed of Catássa since the last time I had seen her, two years ago. So why would I dream of her now, on the day of my supposed birthday? It wasn't a coincidence, right? Maybe it wasn't my birthday, after all. My dream was wrong, I had miscounted the days.
When I finally accepted that I wasn't falling back asleep with a question like this on my mind, I swung my legs out of bed, stood up, and walked across the dark, creaky, wooden floorboards to see if Leon and Yuffie were awake.
Indeed, they were. Yuffie bustled around with pots and pans, apparently making breakfast as Leon remained seated at their table, reading a newspaper entitled "The Garden Times".
"Larissa! Good to see you're awake!" Yuffie cried, and before I realized what was happening, I was engulfed in one of Yuffie's tight, bone-crunching hugs. Leon gave a sharp nod in my direction.
" Leon, What's today's date?" I gasped as Yuffie released me from her hug. Leon lifted the top of the paper slightly, then replied,
"November 30th. Why?"
I sighed. "Oh, my god…" I mumbled under my breath. The dream-Catássa had been right after all.
"What's wrong?" Yuffie peered at me with big brown eyes.
"Nothing, nothing." I turned around, because I knew that if they saw me, they would realize that I was lying. "Well, today's my—" I choked a bit, then started over. "Today's my birthday." Yuffie smiled, and Leon looked up slightly, out of curiosity.
"Well?" Asked Yuffie expectantly, drumming her fingers on the counter.
"'Well', what?" I asked, confused.
"As in, 'Well, how old are you?'" She said, giving a melodramatic, exasperated sigh, probably in an attempt to cheer me up.
"Oh. If—" I choked again, pausing a moment before continuing. "If I were still alive, today would be my sixteenth birthday." I probably sounded awful down, dull and pessimistic for a girl on her 'Sweet Sixteenth'. Turning around, I said, "You guys are great, but I don't want to impede on your hospitality any longer. Toodles!" I added, as I walked out the door without waiting for a response.
Radiant Garden looked different, now that I could see in color. Everything looked so different, it was almost as though I was there for the first time, almost as if everything had been brought to life before my eyes. Almost.
Something had been bothering me though, since my return from Between. I had a whole new set of memories and feelings, Larxene's memories and feelings, and they needed to be dealt with sooner or later. My mind wandered back to the journal at my house, half-empty. Or half-full. The journal was covered in a neat green fabric, and it had, for some reason, caught my eye at the Marketplace about a year or so ago. Of course it did, it's the exact same color as Axel's eyes... The thought thundered through my head, a foreign invader, a memory belonging to someone else. Sort of. There had to be a better way to deal with my new memories, a better way than this.
Memories of who I used to be, or, rather, who I am now seem to be taking over my life. I—I feel like—there must have been something, a conflict unresolved, something left unfinished, unsaid. Feelings never addressed, never sorted through, desires never acted upon. And—and now I have to pay the price. If only I could figure out what was unresolved, and maybe, just maybe, I could fix this and finally put Larxene to rest. She—I—this may torture me until I fix her problems that she couldn't, due to an untimely death. But what can I do? I'm only a patchwork soul!
All of a sudden, I felt sick to my stomach. I looked up from the ground, and I realized why. I was standing in front of the entrance to the bailey. The location of my birthday present. Thoughts of Axel, Larxene, and things left unsaid were abandoned momentarily as I stepped into the shade of the bailey.
The air was considerable cooler within the bailey, being hidden from the sun, day after day. I spotted what I decided must be Catássa's present, over on the balcony overlooking the remains of the castle. It was a red chest, decorated with intricate, ornate golden designs, with a piece of paper taped to the top. I walked over, and proceeded with a further inspection. The piece of paper indeed, had my name written upon it, in Catássa's large, loopy, show-offy cursive that I remembered so well. It was a very large chest, and strange noises seemed to be coming from it, like the chattering of birds and the hissing of steam. At this point, I was debating whether or not to open it, taking into account Catássa's mischievous disposition. I was just about to walk away when the lid of the chest flew open.
"Ah!" I cried as I immediately whipped around the corner, hoping that whoever (or whatever) had opened the chest didn't see me. Breathing hard, my heart racing, all kinds of thoughts streamed through my head. The Organization? Have the rest returned as well, come to punish me for my traitorous acts?
"Great job, Rikku, you scared her off." Came a mellow voice from the balcony, sarcastic and reprimanding.
"It's not my fault. She was never going to open that stupid chest. It was waay too cramped in there." Protested a girly, high-pitched voice, apparently Rikku.
"Rikku, Paine. Calm down. She can't have gotten far." A third voice reasoned calmly, obviously the compromise between the two. Hm…I thought to myself. Not exactly the Organization. Didn't Leon say Yuna, Rikku and Paine were these—
The three fairies sprung from around the corner, and I let out another cry of distress, but I didn't turn to run. Yuna, Rikku, and Paine, hovering about six inches off of the ground, didn't seem to be any danger to me, so I kneeled down to their level and asked,
"Did Catássa send you?"
"Who, the red-haired girl?" Yuna asked, "She didn't tell us her name, only that it was your birthday today, and that we needed to give you this." And she pulled from behind her back a blue sphere, about the size of the palm of my hand. It shined and sparkled, glowing with a light that seemed almost unreal.
"You should have seen the treasure she brought us." Rikku squeaked greedily. "I've never seen anything like it before. It must have come from far away…"
"No offense," I began, after taking the sphere from Yuna's tiny hands and ignoring Rikku. "But what in the world am I supposed to do with this?"
"Oh!" Rikku squeaked again. If I had to listen to that all of the time, I decided, I think I might be driven insane. Must be different when you're a fairy. "The red-haired girl said, 'My good friend Larissa came from Starlight, so she's never seen a sphere before.'"
I chuckled slightly to myself. Yeah, that was Catássa alright. Standing up again, I reassured them, "I'm sure Leon can explain it to me."
"One more thing," Yuna said. "The red-haired girl. She said—she said—" Yuna stuttered, not quite able to get a hold of her words. Paine sighed, and continued for her.
"The red-haired girl said to watch it alone."