{dream monarch}
The wolf was smaller this time. In a foggy haze, she knelt beside it, letting it nuzzle her palm and whimper a little. It was just a pup, she realized, a tiny little thing with no home to go to. She smiled at it, and it looked up at her with its big blue eyes, and she saw that it was crying, red tracks staining its pale fur and snout. Blood, she saw, and she wanted to scream at the sight.
The wolf turned slowly, beckoning her to follow, and she did. She was not on the ship anymore, but in a long hallway, doors running down each side, and beside each door was a still beating heart, nailed into the stone wall. She stared as rivulets of blood ran slid downward, and thumping filled her ears. She hurried her pace, standing beside the wolf as it stopped before a door.
Open it, a soft voice in her head whispered. See what you have done.
She reached forward, her fingers against the dark red knob, but she pushed herself away fast. "No!" she gasped, shaking her head. "I don't want to see!"
You have to open your eyes, the wolf said, looking up at her sadly. If you don't, you'll never know the truth.
"But I'm happier this way…" she murmured, stepping backwards. The wolf shook its head and began to whimper again. It gave her a look full of absolute sorrow, and it bolted down the hallway without another word. She moved after it, but her legs got snagged by something beneath the mist, and she tumbled face down into a pool of clouds.
She tried to scream, but her voice caught in her throat, and as she fell she found that flowers where knotting themselves in her hair, crawling up her skull and knitting themselves into the golden strands in a circle atop her head. The clouds spun and wept, and she felt something crawling on her back. She wanted to find something to grab to stop her falling, but she couldn't.
She landed on a bed of feathers as white as her skin and as soft as silk, and she laid there, terrified. She could not move, and her chest ached as if someone had stuck a blade between her ribs. She could not breathe, but she could see, and when she saw she screamed, but her mouth would not move.
He stood above her, his mask in his hands, and he smiled, his skin around his mouth cracking. He looked as if he'd just been burned alive, his cheeks sunken, and his skin crisp and flaking and charcoal black. She would not have recognized him if it were not his eyes, the gold seeming to be a live flame against the smothered fire-fuel that was his skin.
This is your fault, his voice hissed, and she sobbed. No sound left her lips. Everything that's happened is your fault, and you were a fool from the start. You think I'm evil, but what are you?
"Not me!" she screamed, her jaw clamped shut. "I never did anything! Why are you taking this out on me? I never hurt you, it wasn't me!"
But no matter how hard she screamed, or cried, or sobbed, no one heard her. The golden eyed boy faded away against a cloud, and even after he was long gone she could see the glow, two embers in the darkness, only there to watch her.
She saw the silver haired boy next. He knelt at her side and stared at her, his eyes wide, and his mouth agape, and he looked so human she sobbed even more.
I'm so sorry, he whispered, his voice near hysterical. I should never have left you alone…
"Me?" she asked through unmoving lips. "Stop it! Stop saying this to me! It's not me! Let me go, I'm not her, I'm not her!"
His voice swam in her mind long after everything faded away. I wish I was dead with you.
"I'm not dead!" she shrieked, sitting up in her bed, her eyes wide and tears streaming hot down her cheeks. She panted and clutched at her chest, feeling for a wound, but there was none. "I'm not dead… I'm not her…"
Who is she? That was the question on Naminé's lips as she tried to drown the images of Vanitas's true face with images of the flowers falling around her. She might've been scared, tumbling down from the sky like that, but it had been so pretty…
"I'm not her," she repeated, kicking back her blankets. She swung her legs over the side of her bed, feeling her hair swing from side to side. It was still done up from the ball, but it was loose and tangled now. Naminé stumbled toward the door of her cabin, swinging it open without a thought. "Who are you?" she whispered to the night as she moved down the ladder to the cells.
It was an open question. She asked it to Vanitas, and to Roxas, and to the boy with silver hair, and to the wolf, and to the woman the boy thought she'd been, and most of all, she asked it to herself. Who was she, the girl pirates hated for reasons no one could explain, the girl who spoke to ancient wolves, the girl who saw and knew and learned? She understood that her dream was not just a dream, but something deeper, something as ancient and archaic as the wolf.
Perhaps she wasn't human after all.
She grabbed a lantern from a hook, the dank lower level of the ship too dark and musty for her liking. She knew how to get to him, though, for whatever reason, and she found that no one stopped her. She passed Axel, who was playing dice with a blonde man with a beard, but neither of them looked up at her. Even as her bare feet scuffed against the floor, and even when she waved a hand in front of his face, Axel did not notice her. It was like she wasn't even there.
She neared the cell soon enough, her arm extended with the lantern, and light splashed against the wolf's features. He had been sleeping, but the moment the light touched him, he raised his head to look at her. His wise blue eyes found hers, and she smiled at him.
"I had a dream about you," she said, setting the lantern down on the ground. The wolf blinked at her, and she wondered if it understood her. She wished she could speak that language again, but she knew that wouldn't happen. "You were smaller, but I know it was you. You wanted to show me what I'd done, but I didn't want to see."
He rose up, his large body wobbling a little, and she could tell he was exhausted. He padded near her, pressing his nose through the bars of the cage, and he whimpered a little. Naminé smiled slightly, and she looked around. Shadows were cast by the dim light, and they seemed to sway with the ship. She might've been frightened if she was in her normal state of mind, but for the moment, she was understanding.
"I'm not who they think I am," she said with certainty. "I didn't make Vanitas look like that."
The wolf cocked his head, and Naminé grinned at him. "You have a name, don't you?"
He watched her, his eyes glistening in the lantern's light, and for a while she stood there staring. Finally, he nodded, and turned away.
Kairi was as surprised as Riku when two faeries walked before the king, one bending the knee, the other folding his arms across his chest and jerking his helmeted head in acknowledgement. When Kairi squinted at the one kneeling, she noticed how human she looked, and she had to bite back a comment.
"Is there anything in particular you wanted, your grace?" the helmeted one asked, his tone sardonic and bored.
"Neku," the girl said quietly, tugging on his the fabric of his breeches. Neku, the helmeted boy, did not respond immediately. But after a long look from Joshua, the boy bent the knee as well, though it was hesitantly.
"I called for you two because I wanted your opinion." Joshua twisted a bit of his fluffy ashen hair between his thumb and forefinger. "Not because I wanted your undoubtedly upbeat attitude."
"That's me," Neku grunted, his head bowed near the floor. "Perky as hell. Can I get up now?"
"May I get up, Neku, may."
"You're the king, you can raise your ass off that stupid chair whenever you please," the boy retorted, and to his credit, he still kept his head to the floor, and what was visible of his face was calm. Kairi giggled, thinking to herself that the boy would be beheaded if this was a normal court.
"Neku, stop," the girl said, raising her head. "My apologies, my lord, my friend does not know how to hold his tongue."
Joshua was smiling, to Kairi's surprise, and he giggled in response to her words. "If Neku knew how to hold his tongue he wouldn't be nearly as high maintenance as he is."
"What?" The boy rose his head at this. "If his grace did not want to put up with the trouble of having a human pet, why did his grace choose to keep it?"
"Human?" Kairi blurted out before she could stop herself. It was one thing for a faerie to speak to the king like that, but a human? It was unthinkable, and yet here it was happening right before her eyes. She couldn't help but think it was amazing.
Neku turned his head to her, and she saw him frown. "You called us here for a mermaid?"
"Why do you ask questions you know the answers to?" Joshua asked with a long sigh, his eyes falling on the girl. "I don't know how you deal with him, he acts like he's still a child."
"I act like a child? Have you ever heard yourself—" He stopped, his sentence ending with a sharp gasping noise, and his lips twisted a little in pain.
"Thank you, Rhyme." Joshua smiled easily, rising to his feet before the four of them. Riku seemed to be confused, his eyes flashing between the two faeries… or two humans, Kairi couldn't be sure with the girl, Rhyme. "Someday you must tell me how you do that."
The looked that crossed Rhyme's face was a mix of guilt and shame, and she turned away from Joshua. Neku seemed to relax, and he slumped a little. He took a few steps back to distance himself from the king, and the girl, who was now watching Kairi with a great deal of interest. Kairi watched her as well, and she realized the girl looked very young. There was also the shimmer of glamour that clung to her, though the trace was light.
"Joshua," Riku said, his eyes finally resting on Neku. "That boy…"
"Oh, he's exactly who you think he is." Joshua's smile widened, and Neku turned to look at Riku. "Neku, remove your helm."
It took Neku a moment to obey, but when he did, a mess of orange hair fell against the boy's face, and his dark blue eyes found Riku's. Kairi found something strange about those eyes. She thought perhaps they looked too wise for a young human boy.
"You kept him?" Riku whispered.
"No, I sacrificed him, and now he is back to haunt me with his quick tongue and slight sense." Neku rolled his eyes at Joshua's words, and he waved at Riku.
"You never told me there was someone else there that night," he said, eyebrows furrowed.
"I never thought to bring it up." The smile on his face looked cruel, but Kairi could see that there was something more than that. Neku seemed more than just human, and the silence between them seemed eerie. The way they were looking at each other, their eyes locked, it seemed as if they were speaking without using words.
It took Kairi a moment to realize the girl, Rhyme, had snuck beside the pool, and was now sitting cross-legged beside her. She offered Kairi a kind smile. "They'll be at this for a while," she said. "They banter constantly. Once they did this in front of the entire court, and Joshua was forced to flog him."
"They're friends," Kairi said distantly. Rhyme nodded. "It's sad."
"I agree." She stared at the duo, her lips tugging downward. "But birds of a feather flock together, I guess."
"What?" Kairi stared at the tiny blonde, who shook her head in response. What did the king and Neku have to do with birds?
"I just meant that they're alike in a certain sense, so they tend to rely on one another."
"What does that have to do with feathers?" Kairi flushed when Rhyme laughed, and said that it was just an expression.
"Why did you keep him?" Riku asked, staring at Neku intently.
"Well," Joshua said, walking towards Neku. When he got too close, Neku sidestepped him, glaring at the back of his head. "I wasn't going to, to be honest. Human children are cute to look at, but they're so noisy."
"But you kept him," Riku said, his eyes widening. "You kept him, and raised him, and now what? You have a human puppet?"
"Says the manservant to humans." Neku smiled bitterly at Riku when the boy looked at him sharply. "Yeah, still here, buddy."
"He's here because he has nowhere else to go, and he's actually useful when he shuts up." He smiled sweetly back at the boy, who in return looked torn between being disgusted and annoyed. "Why don't you demonstrate, Neku."
"If it pleases you, your grace," Neku spat, his eyes on Riku. "You used to be Joshua's knight when you were young, because you grew up here, but he traded you off for one reason or another, and that's why you're not bound to him anymore. The queen you were serving died a few years ago, so you're free from faerie service for good unless you make a new vow. So, did you fall in love with the queen before or after she took the human kid's heart?"
Riku stared blankly at Neku, as did Kairi, and Rhyme sighed beside her. "Don't be cruel, Neku," she called, and Joshua waved at her to be silent.
"Before, huh?" Neku swiveled in place, glaring at Joshua. "You never told me I wasn't supposed to be a sacrifice, you asshole."
"Yes, I'm so sorry I forgot to mention the fact that you were never supposed to be here, my greatest apologies, Neku." Joshua smirked at Riku, who was standing rigidly. "Do you see why I kept him now?"
"Did you tell him all that?" Riku asked glumly.
"To be honest, I never tell Neku anything." Joshua's smile was almost hostile. "He finds out through other means."
"I'm a telepath," Neku said, deadpanned.
It made sense suddenly what was happening. The drawn out eye contact between Neku and Joshua, Rhyme's method of making Neku be quiet. If Neku could read minds, he could probably project his thoughts just as easily, creating a speechless conversation, but telepathy would also cause him to be very sensitive to certain things. Perhaps Rhyme had a certain thought that strained Neku's mind too far.
"That's awful," Kairi murmured, and all eyes fell on her. Joshua's were curious, and Rhyme's seemed to express agreement, but Neku's were the ones that surprised her. He stared at her with a hollow look that made her sympathy only grow for him. One mind was befuddling enough, but having to listen to everyone at once had to be excruciating.
"He's stronger than you'd think, mermaid." Joshua walked toward her, and he tilted his head. Rhyme jumped to her feet, and Joshua patted her head as he passed. "Now, about your issue. You see, I can't just let you walk out of here with your newly human body. Magic doesn't work that way, and honestly, the havoc you could wreak by just being near a human is more than I'd like, considering peace terms and other things that might be endangered."
Kairi frowned. "I won't hurt anyone," she said, shaking her head. "I'm not like that."
"Oh, I'm sure you're not!" He laughed and bent beside her so they were eyelevel. "But I don't trust your word for it."
Rhyme stood straighter when Joshua rose up and stepped toward her. He tilted his head and folded his arms across his chest. "And what do you think of this, changeling?"
Rhyme's eyes moved to Kairi's face, her expression contorting slightly. She then calmed, and looked back up at Joshua. "I don't think she means any harm, my lord."
"Hmm." He seemed to ponder her answer for a moment, before nodding. "Yes, she does not seem the type, to be sure… also, leave your courtesies at the door when you don't have an audience, Rhyme, it's very distracting."
She stared at him for a long time, her face never betraying her thoughts. "If it pleases you," she said, distrust slipping into her tone. She managed to cover it with a timid smile, and she turned away, moving quickly to Neku's side. He glanced at her, but said nothing. Perhaps he was speaking to her in her head.
Kairi wondered what her story was. It seemed as if she didn't belong where she was, almost as much as Neku. Was she human? Kairi found herself looking to Neku, who was watching her with narrowed eyes. Nothing in his expression seemed to answer her question, despite his glare. Perhaps it meant that it did not matter whether or not Rhyme was human.
"Will you make me human?" Kairi asked, looking back to Joshua. "I have nothing to offer you, so I can see why you would say no."
"Now, that's not how you bargain." He smirked at her and shook his head. "You should learn now that there is always something to offer." Something in his tone made Kairi shudder, and she sunk into the water, turning her gaze from his.
"Before I decide, I need both of you to give me your honest opinions about this. My two dysfunctional humans are the only ones I can trust with this."
"Why don't you just choose by yourself?" Neku asked. "Be independent."
"Because I'm asking you to choose for me." Joshua spun around and walked back to his icy throne, and Kairi peered up at the duo. So Rhyme was human after all? The girl was standing close beside Neku, who was quiet now. It seemed he was honestly thinking this through. Kairi felt a sudden panic, realizing that this boy knew her thoughts, her feelings, and now he was making a decision based on that.
"Let her be human," Rhyme said, speaking loud. "If she wants this, she should have the chance to have it."
"It's not that simple, Rhyme," Neku murmured. "Magic doesn't work like that. It's very specific."
"It worked for me." The girl looked up at Joshua, her eyes widening. "You can give her this, I know you can. You should do it."
"I may very well," Joshua simpered. "But I would like to remind you that you were never human. The details of the glamour you were under as a child are a bit fuzzy at best, but no matter how strong it was, you were never human."
She stared at him, her face becoming something that did not suit her, hard and expressionless. "If you can say that, Joshua, then I don't believe you have grasped the concept of humanity yet," she said in a soft, almost tender voice. It didn't match the look on her face.
Neku looked taken aback by her words, and even Joshua's eyes seemed to widen slightly. Rhyme gave a slight curtsy, her expression sliding back into a pleasant smile. "I must excuse myself, your grace. I don't believe I'm welcome here any longer." She turned and walked quietly out of the throne room, her feet padding softly against the marble.
"Wow, you pissed her off," Neku observed, his eyes following the girl as she left. "Next time, Josh, don't even talk to her, you only make things worse."
"Why do you have a changeling at court?" Riku asked, his eyes warily flickering between Joshua and Neku. "Better yet, how'd she get so old? Changelings usually die before the one year mark because of their sickliness."
"Well Rhyme never was super sickly," Neku sighed, rubbing his temples in what seemed to be frustration. "She thought she was human until the glamour wore off a few years ago. It was really heavy glamour, and no one knows who put it on her."
"What's a… changeling?" Kairi piped up, staring at the three males with wide eyes.
"A changeling is a faerie child that gets switched with a human child to avoid suspicion for a while." Joshua shrugged, tossing his hair out of his eyes. "They're usually already dying by the time they're switched, so they never last long. Rhyme is a peculiar case; I've never met a changeling who lasted long enough to have the glamour actually wear off."
"That's cruel," Kairi whispered, pushing herself away from the edge of the pool. "You leave your own kind, young and helpless, to die so you can steal human children? That's monstrous!"
"It's done for everyone's benefit," Joshua said. "But I don't expect you to understand. Now, Neku?"
Neku stood quietly for a few moments, his eyes carefully avoiding contact with anyone else's. Finally he looked up at Joshua and shrugged. "Just give her what she wants, Josh. It won't kill you." Neku stepped back, his eyes flashing to Kairi's face, and her eyes widened as his voice rang inside her head. It was a strange sensation, having another person's thoughts inside her brain, and it felt so invasive that she had to bite her tongue.
Be careful, his voice whispered. He doesn't intend on you surviving this. Whatever he says or does next, listen well, and please don't agree to anything stupid.
He dismissed himself after that, no comment to leave behind. Kairi shook her head, trying to rid herself of his voice, but she could still hear it ringing in her mind. She looked up at Riku, who seemed to be equally disturbed, his face contorted strangely.
Kairi took a deep breath, and she pushed her damp hair from her face. Her senses were going wild from being above surface for so long. "You'll help me?" she breathed, trying not to dwell on Neku's words. Joshua smirked at her once more, and he nodded.
"Well, I have no choice, my two little humans agree that it's a good idea, so who am I to argue?" He looked so pleased, Kairi wondered if he'd wanted this all along. Why had he bothered to ask Neku and Rhyme, then?
"The king?" Riku offered, his sullenness still prominent over his cynical reply.
"That's true enough." He stood, plucking from the ice spires of his throne a pale blue flower. He moved forward towards Kairi, kneeling beside the pool. A goblet rose from the waters and solidified in his hand. Swiftly, he crushed the flower, and it crunched beneath his fingers. The remnants spilt into the goblet, and Kairi stared as he held it out to her.
"This will make me human?" she asked, reaching up to take it. Joshua pulled it back, waggling his finger at the redhead. She blinked at him.
"It will," he said. "But there's conditions to humanity. You must be willing to make sacrifices to be human. Are you prepared?"
Kairi thought about Neku's words, but she couldn't bear to take them too heavily to her heart. "I am," she said, determined. "What are the conditions?"
"One." Joshua lifted his index finger, a smirk at his lips. "I'll have to take your voice."
Kairi pushed herself away from him, her eyes growing as wide as saucers. She pressed her hand against her burned throat, going rigid at the thought. "My voice? Why?"
"Is it not obvious?" Joshua clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and shook his head. "You're a siren, if you've forgotten, and a human body can't change that. There's magic in your blood."
"He's right," Riku said, "as much as I hate to admit it. Your voice has a certain compulsive nature, and a normal human would be clay in your hands."
Kairi looked to Joshua, her fingers sliding against her wet throat, and she could only nod weakly. "Fine," she whispered. "Take it. What else?"
"You'll have a human body, but you won't have a human heart." Joshua stood up, and he swished the liquid around inside the goblet. "I'll give you one moon to prove your humanity."
Kairi felt herself going numb as she digested his words, and she looked down at her hands. "And if I don't?" she asked, looking back up at him. "I die?"
"Not quite." Joshua smiled placidly at her. "Dying is too simple, I'm afraid. I'll require your soul if you fail, and… well, it won't be pretty."
Kairi wanted to say no. It was difficult for her to remember why she was doing this. But then she remembered Ven's words, and her body shuddered as regret and shame filled her. She didn't want to be a associated with killers and seductresses. She wanted to be human, where she could feel emotion without getting sick, and she could run and leap and talk to real people.
"One moon," she said distantly. "How do I know if I've become human in that time, then?"
"You'll know." Joshua's eyes glittered shrewdly.
Terra marched into his mother's room, his eyes flashing dangerously. He set the pair of glass slippers down on the table, glaring up at the woman's pale face. Her eyebrows raised at his anger, and she tilted a little to the side. "What's wrong now?" she asked, licking her lips.
"You," Terra spat. "I hate you."
It seemed to take all of her self restraint not to roll her eyes, but they twitched anyway. "I'm hurt, Terra." She set down her goblet and shook her head. "I have done nothing wrong, as far as I can see."
"You ruined everything!" His fists trembled as he recalled Aqua's words, her hurt expression, and her frantic escape. She didn't understand why he'd never told her. Why he let her find out like that. In truth, he had meant to tell her earlier, before the announcement was made, but he'd been caught off guard. "I don't want this. I don't want to be a prince."
"Well that's too bad." His mother smiled thinly at him. "But you are a prince, and you'll be king soon."
"No." He glared down at her, feeling more strength facing her than he ever had before. "I'm not going to be king, mother. I am not the rightful heir, Xion is." Terra stepped forward, leaning closer to his mother so she could see the contempt in his eyes. "I'm through pretending. Xion will rule, not me. If she wants me to stay in the castle, I will, but only to make sure she can handle herself, and then I'll leave."
She did not seem to find him amusing anymore. Her blue eyes were cold as she matched his glare, her jaw set. "And where will you go?" She sounded pleasant, but there was poison hidden beneath her tone. Her smile as bitter now.
"That's not your business." Terra straightened up and turned. "You know, making me a knight was the best thing you did for me. It makes all the guards willing to follow my lead." Terra smiled to himself. "I'll give you a day to pack. I have guards on Xion, so don't you even think about touching her, because you don't know these people like I do. If anything happens to her, I'll come after you, is that clear?"
"You're sending me away?" To her credit, she did not sound surprised, or angry, or sad. She just watched him with her cool emotionless gaze, her smile a shell of something sinister. "Your own mother?"
"You stopped being my mother a long time ago," he said quietly. "You'll be sent into exile, but you'll live out the rest of your life comfortably. I made sure of that."
"How kind of you," she spat, rising to her feet. "One day?"
"One day." Terra grabbed Aqua's glass slippers, and left the room without another word.
Aqua woke up the next morning in her rags, her feet bare and blackened from the road. She laid in her cot for a while, staring at the ceiling as the sun began to lighten her room. Terra was a prince. He'd never told her he was a prince. Why hadn't he told her? The embarrassment from never figuring it out was accumulating to being mortified.
He didn't trust her. After all their years of being together, he did not trust her. She wasn't sure how to cope with that fact.
She jumped off her bed and pulled her soiled washing dress over her head, tossing it aside without much care. Aqua snatched her spare trousers from under the cot, flicking a spider from the baft, and tugging them on quickly. She found a belt near the foot of her cot, and as she tried to make her trousers stay at her hips, she got exasperated. Being a boy would be so much easier.
She took a roll of bandages and bound her breasts until they became as flat as they could be. She had no mirror to inspect her work, so she went along and pulled a thin cotton shirt on, her skinny arms and willowy frame getting swallowed in the baggy fabric. She picked up her boy-boots and left the room, creeping carefully down the stairs. The hall was still dark.
Her vest was hanging on a hook where she left it, and she hastily shrugged it on. She left the house without putting on her boots, her feet already dirt caked to the ankles. She didn't realize she was crying until she reached Eraqus's library, and he spotted her through the window. His eyes were wide, and his brow was knitted in confusion.
It took a moment for Aqua to grasp why. She reached up, feeling for her hat which she knew was not there. She swallowed uneasily and took a step back, wiping her tears away.
She was about to break into a sprint when she saw Eraqus smile. "I'm not quite as much of a fool as you might think, Calder."
Aqua shuffled her feet, feeling her neck and cheeks grow warm with fresh embarrassment. "I never thought you a fool," she said softly, using her normal voice. It felt unnatural speaking to him like this. "I just hoped to fool you."
"You did." He stood and walked to the window, his dark eyes watching her curiously. "For a while, anyway. Your knight helped me figure it out."
"Terra told you?" Anger flared within her, and she turned her face away so he wouldn't see how hurt she was.
"I think you and I know that the boy would never do that." Aqua looked up at him, and she saw amusement in his face. She realized he wasn't quite as old as she often thought he was. "You tended to act a little less like a boy around him, I noticed. Also, you never had the face for it."
"I make a pretty boy." She smiled at him, and she stepping into the shop. "Do you know why I pretended all this time?"
"I can imagine you had many reasons." Eraqus studied her face, and his smile grew. "I used to wish I had a child, Calder. I had apprentices before you, but none quite so… unique."
"Well I'm sure none of them were girls," she laughed, leaning against an oak desk near the far wall.
"That is true enough." He closed his eyes and touched the scar on his cheek. "But I mean something else. You are a special girl, Calder, not only in mind but in heart as well. You have a gift."
Aqua smiled and looked down at her hands, forgetting about Terra for a moment, and her heart swelling for the older man who made her feel like she had a father again. "My name is Aqua, sir. And I'm not sure what I'm gifted with, but thank you… so much."
He walked toward her, his face growing grim as he placed a hand on her shoulder. "Aqua," he said, his voice carrying a sort of deadly seriousness. "You may find soon that the world is not as black and white as it seems. I had to learn that the hard way… and I still cling to the idea today, that darkness is to be feared and destroyed."
"Darkness?" Aqua looked up at him curiously. "What do you mean, sir? Darkness as in the night? That's nothing to fear."
"This is my lesson to you." He squeezed her shoulder, his black eyes looking desperately at her face. "A child will wake in darkness and scream, while an adult will awake in darkness and stare. Be a child for as long as you can, Aqua, for children can sense what others ignore."
This is like my special DDD chapter. Because seriously, if you don't know Rhyme and Neku yet, where have you been? I actually didn't realize they were in the same version of Traverse Town until I reread this chapter, so that's cool.
I'll admit they were my favorite part. I love writing them, and I hope I got them down. Neku's a telepath because when I first bought TWEWY, I thought everyone only had one power at first, and Neku's was mind reading. OBVIOUSLY I WAS WRONG, but I literally had no idea what the game was about, so I went with it. One of the better first impressions of a game I've had, considering I used to think Sora was a girl.
OH MY GOD, TERRA, DID YOU JUST GROW A BRAIN AND STAND UP TO A VILLAIN BEFORE SHE SCREWED YOU OVER? lol this is why i write fanfiction, just to make myself like people like terra more.
I'm really excited to get 3D, and a 3DS actually. This is the first time I'm ever getting a system AND a KH game on the same day, so we'll see. I'm getting a used one because I'D LIKE TO HAVE SOME MONEY LEFT AFTER THIS.
Review? =[ I know this isn't as popular as White Knight, but I like it much better.