I did promise that the next chapter would be up soon, didn't I? :) It was mostly done, I just split it into two parts because it seemed appropriate, and I mean, who wants to read a 6,000+ word one-shot about Axel meeting Tigger? LOL.
Many thanks to Saxhyel, manyissues101, Pantharya, KattJealous, Kabbage Kat, Blazy, and LiteraryMirage for reviews!
Axel and Tigger walked, or in Tigger's case bounced, for what seemed like hours, though it really couldn't have been more than twenty minutes. Everything in the forest looked exactly the same, down to the last tiny leaf, and Axel couldn't quite shake the feeling that he was going in circles. On top of that, Tigger had long since stopped giving him directions in favor of babbling about nothing in particular, and now singing at the top of his stuffed little lungs.
"OHHH THE WONDERFUL THING ABOUT TIGGERS!" he began. "IS TIGGERS ARE WONDERFUL THINGS!" Axel's left eye had gotten so twitchy since his arrival that the apparently contagious twitch had already spread to his right, resulting in a spastic and unnatural jerking of his face from left to right in a most erratic fashion.
"THEIR TOPS ARE MADE OUTTA RUBBER! THEIR BOTTOMS ARE MADE OUTTA SPRINGS!" His teeth were grinding, too.
"THEY'RE BOUNCY, WOUNCY, FLOUNCY, POUNCY, FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN!" No. No they most definitely were not.
"BUT THE VERY MOST WONDERFUL THING ABOUT TIGGERS IS-"
"Do you really have to do that?" Axel finally snapped. All the twitching was going to give him crows' feet, and he couldn't even age.
"What's wrong with singin'?" Tigger asked innocently. His beady little stuffed tiger eyes and adorable springy tail were threatening to take down even hardened Axel's many defenses. Not only had he somehow circumvented the fact that Axel couldn't feel real emotions and managed to annoy him, but he was also steadily busting through the layers upon layers of psychotic neurosis that Axel had developed to compensate for not being able to feel emotions in the first place. The little guy was good.
"Uh, nothing's wrong with singing, objectively speaking. I just prefer quiet." For some reason, Axel thought he needed to preserve little Tigger's feelings. The Hundred Acre Wood being what it was, there probably wasn't much around to hurt anyone's feelings, and who knew how his new guide would react?
"Ok," Tigger said at last, though he seemed somewhat deflated. He stopped bouncing, too, simply walking beside Axel, paw in sweaty pre-teenage hand, ears drooped, springy tail dragging on the ground. The silence was even more unbearable than the singing had been. The little guy was good. Axel sighed, and resigned himself to the most humiliating adventure he'd yet had.
"What is it?"
"What's what?"
"The very most wonderful thing about Tiggers," Axel growled, inwardly hateful for being forced to say it out loud.
"Oh. Silly! The very most wonderful thing about Tiggers is I'm the only one!" Tigger crowed proudly, accompanied by a loud bounce onto his tail. Axel blinked in surprise. He hadn't expected an answer like that- Tigger hardly seemed like a raging individualist. Though on the plus side, if this world only had one Tigger, well, thank God.
"Seriously? You're the only one?" The question was tinged with more than a small amount of desperate hope.
"Yep! Just me!" Wow. Only one Tigger. Relief washed over Axel like a sobering cold shower- he'd been so afraid of encountering an entire village of Tiggers that he hadn't even consciously recognized how terrified he was of encountering an entire village of Tiggers. But just one, one Tigger was manageable.
Axel could of course relate to being the only one of something, even though his empathy was stunted. He was and would forever be the only Axel. There had only been one of his Other, after all, and he could only lose his heart once, resulting exactly once in this particular incarnation of his shadow. The formation of Nobodies had all the miraculous randomness of a natural birth, a million separate factors pouring together and forming one precise not-person. Axel may have been nobody at all, but at least there was nobody else quite like him.
Axel was so deep in thought that he didn't even notice or care that he was obtaining wisdom from a stuffed tiger in a picture book. All well and good, because while he was busy thinking, Tigger took off through the woods in a completely random direction, abandoning him where he stood.
"Wha-? Hey, wait!" he shouted, and he moved to run after him. Unfortunately, he'd forgotten about his overly large feet, and he took one step before tripping over himself, hitting a tree, whirling around and landing straight on his rear end. His limbs, which for some reason suddenly seemed to be way more than just the usual four, were tangled up inside his coat, effectively keeping him in one place while he desperately tried to unravel himself. Axel did not notice when Tigger reappeared with another cuddly critter in tow.
"Wow, that was a spectacular landing on your butt! Could you teach me sometime?" The new voice was higher than Tigger's, soft and curious, somehow making a question that would be completely sarcastic from anyone else sound incredibly sweet and innocent. Axel was almost afraid to look. Not another Tigger. Only one Tigger, he reminded himself, and he bravely opened his eyes.
The newcomer was smaller than Tigger, and actually wore clothes. No pants, though, Axel noted. The animal wasn't anything that Axel recognized, though it looked a little mousey, with floppy brown ears and big feet and a thick tail. If it was anything like Tigger, the name should indicate what kind of animal it was, so Axel wasn't too concerned.
"This is Roo," Tigger explained happily. Axel narrowed his eyes. Roo? What kind of animal was a Roo? "Roo, this is Ay-xel. He's a friend of Sora's!"
"Sora! He's a great bouncer!" Roo cheered, hopping a little on his oversized back feet. Another bouncer, then. Swell. "Hi Ay-xel!" Axel didn't bother to correct their pronunciation of his name, since he wouldn't be hanging around these creatures for much longer anyway, and he figured it would be more trouble than it was worth.
"Uh, hi, uh, Roo." He was still upside down on the ground, and unwilling to do more than mumble awkwardly. Axel was content to allow the social burden to rest heavily on the locals.
"Where's everyone else?" Tigger asked Roo.
"They're all by the hill still looking for Eeyore's tail," Roo explained. Again with the yortle! What was a yortle? To be frank, it sounded dangerous. "Eeyore and Pooh and Piglet and Rabbit and Owl. I was coming to look for you!"
"I was at the bouncin' spot! That's where I met Ay-xel! He's lookin' for Sora so I told him we should come see you guys!" Axel began to notice that everything these creatures said had such buoyant enthusiasm that it sounded as if each sentence or phrase ended with an exclamation point. The energy was a refreshing change from the bland atmosphere of his home in the World That Never Was, not that he'd tell anyone that. He wished he could be this excited to see someone.
"Let's go! Everyone's waiting!" With some effort, Roo and Tigger managed to push and pull Axel upright and get him back onto his feet, despite his being more than twice their combined size. They really were rather sturdy, for stuffed animals. Now that he was up, the trek continued, with both of his companions reassuring him that the hill was very close, and hey, maybe after they found the yortle they could play some Pooh sticks, whatever that was.
True to their word, the trees soon began to thin out, and a road appeared, leading out of the forest and into a riverbed. Axel couldn't see anyone at all, despite the list of names that Roo had given.
"Where is everyone?"
"Up on the hill. Look!" Axel squinted. Sure enough, a small crowd- small in both stature and number- had gathered at the top of the hill, where there appeared to be a tree with a swing. His eyes widened. The swing! That swing had been in the picture he was looking at when he got sucked into this place! Could he be close to the exit?
"Let's go," he said excitedly, or rather, as excitedly as he could. He wanted to go home. For all that Nobodies couldn't feel, they could certainly still feel desire, and right now Axel desired a trip out of this crazy place and back to his castle. He'd had enough adventure for multiple lifetimes. He led Roo and Tigger across a rickety footbridge and straight up the hill, where he was brought face-to-face with the little bear from the pictures. Winnie the Pooh.
Pooh was sitting on the swing, just like he'd been in the picture. He was surrounded by an entire zoo's worth of fuzzy animals, and Axel easily put faces with names. Rabbit and Owl and Piglet were staring up at him curiously, and the very sad-looking donkey who must have been Eeyore. Piglet was completely terrified of him, and quaked silently behind one of Owl's wings.
"Why, hello there, Somebody-I-Don't-Know." Winnie the Pooh cocked his head to one side, scratching his exposed belly with a paw. His voice was different than what Axel had been expecting- lower, to begin with, and sort of raspy. In fact, the collection of little stuffed animals had very adult voices and mannerisms. Axel wondered briefly just how old they were.
"Are you a friend of Sora's?" Rabbit asked curiously. Apparently not all of them were dumb as posts. Maybe Axel had hope of escape after all.
"This is Ay-xel. I found him at the bouncin' spot! He's lookin' for Sora!" Tigger shouted, bouncing wildly around the group. Axel noticed that the little tiger's peers were not at all amused by his antics- Rabbit looked away, Owl coughed, Eeyore stared at the ground, and Pooh seemed to be off in his own world and not noticing at all. He felt somewhat vindicated that Tigger annoyed everyone else, too, though he couldn't help almost feeling bad for the little guy.
"Uh, yeah," he said. "Do you know where he is?"
"Sora went away a while ago," Owl explained. "We don't know where he went."
"And then Eeyore lost his tail again!" Roo wailed. Oh. They were looking for Eeyore's tail. That explained quite a bit. A quick look confirmed that the little stuffed donkey did not, in fact, have a tail, but a little tack where a tail was apparently supposed to go.
"It's not much of a tail, but I'm rather attached to it," Eeyore said dully.
"We came up here to see if we could see it better from a high place," Rabbit explained. "Pooh's going to swing from up here, but he's too heavy for us to push."
"I know! Ay-xel can push for us!" Axel wasn't sure who had made the suggestion, but all of a sudden his legs were surrounded by hopeful eyes, knee-high and desperate, silently begging him to please, please help them find Eeyore's tail. They weren't complete without it, they were telling him. Somewhere, deep in the recesses of his soul where his heart was meant to be, a string was tugged. Axel tried to convince himself that he was only helping them so they would help him out later, I scratch your back you get me the heck out of here, but really, he would have helped them either way. Not that he'd ever admit it.
"Ok," he said. He shuffled over to the swing, and gave Pooh a little push. That wasn't high enough, so he waited for Pooh to swing back, and then pushed him again, and again, a little higher each time. The bear was heavier than he looked.
"Do you see anything, P-P-Pooh?" Piglet stuttered, the first time he'd spoken since Axel arrived on the hill. Axel gave the rickety swing one last mighty push.
Winnie the Pooh went flying.
Axel's eyes widened and he clapped a hand over his mouth to stop himself from shrieking in horror in a rather unmanly fashion. All of the animals wailed in dismay as Pooh sailed majestically though the air and over the river in a graceful arc, and they rustled past Axel's knobbly knees on their way down the hill to rescue him. The only one present not horrified at Pooh's predicament was the recently sidelined Tigger, who cheered and bounced on his tail.
"Atta boy, Pooh Bear! Hoo-hoo!" he shouted. Axel stared down at him.
"You're not worried?"
"Nah," Tigger scoffed. Down below, the rest of the inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood had found where Pooh landed, and were dragging him out of some brush. The bear did indeed look perfectly fine and uninjured- Tigger had been right. Pooh was also holding something, a tiny piece of gray fabric with a bright pink bow. Axel raised an eyebrow. That couldn't possibly be-
"Eeyore, it's your tail! Pooh found it!" Roo cheered. The animals rejoiced as if the entire world had been saved.
"Three cheers for Ay-xel and Pooh!" Owl chimed in. While the cheers were going on, Eeyore took the pathetic tail and pinned it back onto his rear.
"It's not much of a tail, but it's mine," he said affectionately. Axel watched the scene with all the wonder of an outsider peeking in, and his hand automatically flew up to the dead space where his heart once was.
It's not much of an existence, but it's mine.
"No matter how many times Eeyore loses his tail, we always find it again," Tigger said, uncharacteristically quiet. "We always work together and find it again." Axel looked down at the group. Six animals, plus Tigger beside him, plus Axel made eight. Tigger was content to stay outside the group- if he wasn't annoying them, apparently, he couldn't be bothered. Axel smiled a little. The sentiment was very, very familiar.
Suddenly, Axel felt something tug at his navel. He automatically looked down, and was surprised to see that he could see grass through his hands. Was he fading away? No, he was going back. He was leaving the Hundred Acre Wood and going back where he'd come from- away from this place and back to the World That Never Was, to continue the search for his heart.
"Are you leavin'?" Tigger asked. "Don't forget us! And don't forget to bounce!" Axel grinned, as genuine a smile as he could produce.
"Of course I won't." And he meant every word. After all, there was no way in all of the universe and its shadowy underbelly that he could forget the Hundred Acre Wood.
He couldn't possibly forget the day he'd learned the most wonderful thing about Axel.
"OHHH THE WONDERFUL THING ABOUT AXELS!
IS AXELS ARE WONDERFUL THINGS!
THEIR TOPS ARE MADE OUT OF RUBBER!
THEIR BOTTOMS ARE MADE OUT OF SPRINGS!
THEY'RE BOUNCY, WOUNCY, FLOUNCY, POUNCY, FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN!
BUT THE VERY MOST WONDERFUL THING ABOUT AXELS IS-"
CRACK.
The castle was silent.
No one in the meeting room had seen Xigbar leave, but they certainly noticed when he reappeared, grizzled and surly and spinning one of his massive guns on his right index finger.
"He's just in shock- got 'im in the kidney. He'll be fine tomorrow," Xigbar said bluntly. That day, the second-in-command made Organization XIII history by becoming the first and only winner of the Team Member of the Month award.
The book was deemed too dangerous to keep, retrieved from Axel's room by Vexen using special gloves and tongs, and disposed of quickly and cleanly, packed into a crate and dropped into a lake in Hollow Bastion where surely no one would ever find it. Now that the terrifying incident was over, the Nobodies dispersed rather embarrassedly back to their individual tasks, with no noticeable change in behavior, except that they may have avoided Axel slightly more than usual. For several days, no one dared to speak of the incident, until finally Xemnas came to terms with the fact that he'd have to get Axel's report on what was inside. The book had once belonged to the Keybearer, after all.
Xemnas steeled his resolve, and went to find Axel to find out just what was so horrifying that it had caused him to sing that awful song.
"Number 8," he drawled. Axel was drifting around the castle the way he usually did when he had too much free time, setting things on fire and generally being a nuisance. Even when being addressed by his Superior, all Axel could do was curiously cock his head to one side. No manners at all, really. "I need your report on what was… on your last mission."
"Oh, that," Axel said cheekily. "Here you go." He produced a blank manila folder before disappearing into a dark portal with a quick wave. Xemnas sighed and shook his head. What was he going to do with these people? He flipped open the folder and stared at what was inside.
His eye began to twitch.
Read book. Keybearer has juvenile taste in literature. End report. - VIII
"Wow! That was a spectacular landing-on-your-butt! Care to teach me sometime?" is a snarky punchline from my one of favoritest webcomics, Bob and George. My fanficcery has a tendency to get riddled with little references that only I understand. LOL.
That's all, folks. Now go write some Axel / Ariel fanfic, as it's the best pairing ever. I know what I'll be doing this weekend.
Review, plz? :D