The mansion loomed before them, bathed in the dim glow of the moonlight. It's broken windows and overgrown vines gave it an air of abandonment, as if time itself had forgotten this place. Larxene didn't like this. She didn't like how calm Naminé seemed, how detached.
"What the hell are we doing at this shit heap?" Larxene's voice cut through the silence, sharp and accusatory . She was completely focused on Naminé, any sudden movements and she'd make sure they were her last. Her eyes briefly flicked over to the mansion, scanning it's facade before returning to Naminé and narrowing in suspicion. Naminé was frozen in place. What was happening? She wasn't sure what to make of this. One second they were laughing and bantering and the next it seemed like Larxene was one false move away from turning her in to pin cushion.
"I thought it would be a nice quiet place-"
"Quiet?" Larxene growled, her cold eyes focused completely on Naminé. "Quiet enough to make sure no one hears me scream?"
Naminé's eyes widened, her surprise genuine, but she remained perfectly still. "I come here when I don't want to be found," Naminé sputtered.
"That's not helping your case." Larxene warned, her heart pounding in her chest, adrenaline flooding her system. "Out in the middle of nowhere? No witnesses?"
"What are you talking about?" Naminé spoke finally. Horror should have been evident in her voice, but she always sounded terrified so it probably didn't register any differently to Larxene. "Just look at us, there's no way I could do anything to you and get away with it. I'm much smaller than you."
"All the more reason to be suspicious. You got some guys hiding in that mansion waiting for us?" She growled, her voice low and threatening.
"Larxene...I'm not going to hurt you." Naminé said softly, her voice steady despite the fear coursing through her. "I didn't bring you here for that."
Larxene's eyes flickered, doubt creeping in, but she still didn't lower the knife. "Then start explaining.
Naminé sighed, her shoulders slumping slightly as she glanced at the mansion. "This place... It means a lot to me. It's quiet. It's empty." Naminé paused, a peculiar emotion Larxene didn't recognize in her eyes. "Like me. I come here when I don't want to feel the weight of the world pressing in. I just...felt like you could use something similar after your...uhm... call. I'm sorry if it seems strange."
Larxene's grip on her knife loosened, though her body remained tense. Her gaze darted from Naminé to the mansion and back again, searching for any sign of a lie. She had to admit, the blonde girl sitting rigidly next to her was probably 105 pounds sopping wet while wearing a backpack. Larxene had no doubt she could easily over power her if she needed to. The girl was strange, that much was clear, her reaction told Larxene as much. Even the weirdest of people would have a more visceral reaction to having a knife pointed at them. This girl, however, was cool and collected. The only hint that she was even afraid was the slight tremble of her hands that gripped the steering wheel tightly. So tightly in fact that her knuckles had begun to turn white. Well, as white as one could notice, Naminé herself was a pale girl Larxene noted. That made Larxene second guess her assumptions. Larxene's life had never been simple or clean. Living the way she did you learned to get smart and get strong or you ended up gone. A nobody in a news story half listened to.
"So, what, you just bring people here to brood or something?" Larxene scoffed, but the bite in her words had softened. Just a little.
"No, I've never brought anyone here before." She met Larxene's gaze, her voice barely above a whisper. For a long moment, Larxene was silent, the knife still poised in her hand but forgotten. She searched Naminé's face for any sign of manipulation, any hint that she was being played. But there was nothing. Only a quiet sadness and a desire to escape, one that Larxene understood very well.
With a heavy sigh, Larxene finally lowered the knife, replacing it in her boot once more. "You've got a really fucking weird way of making friends, Naminé." She muttered.
"I know." Naminé smiled faintly.
They sat there, the mansion towering behind them, the night growing darker around them. The tension in the air lingered, but something had shifted - an understanding. Fragile but real.
"Well," Larxene hopped over the passenger door and out in to the chilly October air, revealing that the entire time she wasn't wearing her seatbelt. Naminé wasn't sure if that should have surprised her or not considering she nearly got knifed just moments ago. 'Rule follower' was clearly not Larxene's schtick. "You gonna invite me in?" Naminé blinked before grabbing the keys from the ignition and walking towards the towering fence separating them from the old lonely mansion. Naminé paused waiting for Larxene to follow before handing her the keys to her car back. It was obvious that Larxene was still a bit on edge with the way she carefully and deliberately took them from Naminé's hand but Naminé didn't really mind. This was, admittedly, a strange situation to be in with someone you've only known for a handful of hours. "As weird as you are, I don't think you can scale this fence. What's the deal?" Larxene inquired, kicking her boot at the base of the bricks between them and the mansion.
"No need." Naminé pushed the large iron gate to create space for them to enter. The heavy rusted metal creaked and groaned under the movement, leaves and debris falling from it's hinges as Naminé opened it wider. "I know the man who owns this place. Well...owned. No one's heard from him in months."
"You know, you probably shouldn't drop creepy shit like that *after* we've already trespassed on to the haunted mansion grounds..." Larxene grumbled, looking over her shoulder at the old gate.
Naminé couldn't help but laugh a little. "Don't worry, the outside looks much scarier than the inside." As they reached the front door, Naminé kicked a dingy old mat over revealing an ornate bronze key. She picked it up and unlocked the door like she'd done dozens of times before on nights not unlike this one. She opened the tall wooden door completely, revealing a large, dark entrance hall. Stairs on either side of the room framed a large seating area facing a huge bay window overlooking a garden and hedge maze. The ornate chandelier above flickered to life as Naminé flipped a switch next to the doorway.
"It's not much honestly, but I keep it clean enough." Naminé wandered over to a door on the west side of the building, decorative marble statues of a pegasus on either side. "This is the room I was given."
"Wait, so you live here?" Larxene questioned incredulously.
"No, it's...a bit of a long story."
"Cliff notes then. This place is really fucking creepy."
"I wandered in here one night a couple years ago out of curiousity. I could see lights from one of the windows and for whatever reason I was compelled to see what it was. All the stories about this place said it was abandoned."
"So, you waltzed in to a supposedly abandoned mansion, in the middle of the night, by yourself...you are aware that this exact shit is why people go missing, right?" Larxene remarked, crossing her arms.
"Well...at the time I wouldn't have minded that I suppose. Come in." Naminé led Larxene in to a nearly impossibly white room. The floors, the walls, even the curtains and furniture were an almost pristine white. It was like stepping through a portal in to another world almost. The delapidated wood and dusty carpet from the room prior seemed so far away. Larxene hardly believed her eyes. The only clashing colors, besides the black the two girls were wearing, were the dozen or more paintings hung across the walls. "This is my home away from home."
Larxene was speechless, which wasn't a common occurence for her. Her sharp wit usually left her with a retort for anything but this was different. It felt otherworldly. Larxene glanced at Naminé as she removed her jacket and sat down at the white table in the middle of the room. Larxene wandered around the room looking at all the paintings one by one.
"Are you sure it's alright to be here?"
"Absolutely." Naminé said. "Ansem would be happy to have another visitor."
"That being?"
"The owner. He was the one I met that night. I thought it was a dream at first, to be honest. He reacted to me as if he was expecting me. Like some random girl wandering in to your home was a normal thing that just happened."
"Clearly it was." Larxene scoffed.
"He welcomed me in, and we just sat in silence for a long time as he read. He told me he was studying something. I didn't really care, to tell you the truth. Not at first. But eventually curiosity got the better of me. I began to look around the room, seeing countless textbooks on weird topics like "Darkness of Hearts" and "Emotions Where there Are None"." Naminé smiled a bit, remembering her first time here. "I asked him what it was all about, and he simply said 'Us'"
"The fuck is that supposed to mean?" Larxene sat in the chair opposite Naminé at the table, the only other sounds besides their voices being the echoes of Larxenes boots off the walls. She spoke bluntly but she couldn't help but be interested in what Naminé was saying. The girl was full of surprises and Larxene found herself getting more and more curious about her.
"I asked the same thing-"
"Doubt it."
"-Okay maybe not exactly those words... and he said 'exactly what it seems like. Humans are the prominent species in this world, yet all of their motivations and desires are rooted in something that isn't even tangible; Emotions. The heart."
"Sounds like a load of shit if you ask me."
"Maybe, but he's not exactly
wrong. Think about it. You came with me to this place-"
"Still not sure if I regret that yet."
Naminé rolled her eyes. "Because of emotions you were feeling. Whatever it was, it made you want to get away from the place you were."
Larxene pondered the thought for a moment, mulling over Naminé's words. "So you're saying, what, our actions are predetermined because of our hearts or emotions or whatever?" Larxene certainly wasn't buying in to this whacko ideology, but she had to admit that it was an interesting topic.
"No. Not in the sense of fate or destiny. Just that what we feel is a very larger part of what we do." Naminé answered matter of factly, like it was as simple as basic addition. "When we're sad we cry, when we're angry we yell. Emotion is motion."
"I still feel like that's an over simplification of how people work, but I guess I see what you're getting at."
"Well, I suppose I'm only repeating what Ansem told me from memory, I'm no expert." Naminé admitted with a small smile.
"Alright, so then, what do you do in this creepy ass room?" Larxene took another look around room, eyeing each of the different paintings that encircled them. "You just be all pretentious about feelings and shit?"
"Paint, usually. I find it easier to express what I'm feeling when I paint here."
"Wait, so, these paintings are yours then?" Larxene turned back to face Naminé, a look of surprise playing on her face.
"Yes." Naminé couldn't help the pride she felt when saying that.
"Wow, Little Miss Bitch. You've got some talent. If you weren't such a fucking weirdo I'd say you could make it big. Then again, most artists are fucking weird aren't they."
"I suppose." Naminé chuckled.
"Why do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Accept everything? That was pretty obviously an insult. And earlier too with the knife. You didn't scream or cry or anything." Larxene propped her chin up on her wrist as she studied Naminé's face. "You some kinda soulless automaton?"
"That's just how I am. I...got greedy once. I acted on my emotions and I lost everything because of it. So I don't do that anymore."
"Ominous. If I didn't know any better I'd say you're some type of haunted ghost girl or some shit." Larxene jeered. "You ever thought about selling this stuff? I'm no expert but even I can see that these are pretty well done."
"Ansem sells them. I don't really paint for anyone for myself but he said they were worth something more than just being memories. I don't really know the details but every month I get a commission sent directly to my bank."
"Even now that the dude has vanished?"
"Yeah, that's one of the strange things. I assume he's alright because the money hasn't stopped, but he's been gone for some time."
"Freaky." Larxene stated, a shiver running up her spine. "You sure we're not going to get possessed by some weird ass phantoms? I'm not exactly in the mood to get haunted."
Naminé smiled softly. A sad smile. "I think we're the only ghosts here."