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Jun. 21st, 2006 03:30 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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kh_drabbleChallenge: None
Title: Nest
Wordcount: 492
Spoiler Warnings: KHII.
Notes: Sora's mother does exist, we know. But after that?
What does he do first, upon returning? Not this. But he remembers, later, and can't believe he forgot, and he must go now, go find and tell and share and return to childhood peace.
The sting of salt drifting inland on the slight breeze. A post to lash the boat to. His boat. The purity of unpolluted air, in great, heaving lungfuls.
Running barefoot. New asphalt, melting off the edges of the roadway in the summer heat. A recent addition. His calluses are different - accustomed to shoes and sudden conflict - different than they used to be. After so much time, the ridges worn by dusty paths have nearly worn away.
Running. Expectation. To home. To the home he had forgotten and neglected and thought about so little while he lacked it, but that now seems so vitally essential to his definition of this place as home in a greater sense. Home. Mother. Dinner. Warm laundry, fresh from the dryer, to warm his cold feet in cold winter. Close hugs after close scrapes, the hint of bergamot and vanilla below attentive ears.
A rooftop in the distance. Gray-red. Fading with age. Similar in every respect to all the others, except that it is his.
His street. Newly paved. His house, where there is grass on the lawn. New grass. Where has the gravel gone? A foolhardy bird had nested in that gravel, once. Its legs so long and its defensive posturing. He and his mother had watched out for it against the evil neighbor dog.
Where has the gravel gone? Grass is more troublesome to keep. His mother wouldn't have been able to keep it up herself. Not without his help.
He stops.
Standing on the sidewalk. There is a light on in the kitchen window. A silhouette. Riku comes to a stop behind him. Kairi, too, in a few seconds. They have followed him here. Kairi watches him watch the window. "Sora --"
Grass is too troublesome to keep. He walks up to the door. Steps over a child's bicycle, tipped over on the path. A trowel sticking out of a soil-filled pot next to the door.
He raises a hand to knock. He can hear Kairi dash up to him, behind him. Riku still watching from the sidewalk. Silhouette in the window.
"Sora, it's . . . your mother isn't here." He does not lower his outstretched hand. Stretching back a year or more, to knock on the door of someone else's residence.
"Nobody believed you were real. When she said so. Everybody thought she was crazy." Stretching, stretching, across a depth of time more infinite than all the space he'd traveled.
"I think she thought she was crazy, too, in the end. She died. A long time ago." A little further . . . .
Kairi rests a hand on his shoulder. Holds him back. Breaks, the moment breaks. He has no strength to bridge the gap.
A heavy price awaits those who bear the key.
Title: Nest
Wordcount: 492
Spoiler Warnings: KHII.
Notes: Sora's mother does exist, we know. But after that?
What does he do first, upon returning? Not this. But he remembers, later, and can't believe he forgot, and he must go now, go find and tell and share and return to childhood peace.
The sting of salt drifting inland on the slight breeze. A post to lash the boat to. His boat. The purity of unpolluted air, in great, heaving lungfuls.
Running barefoot. New asphalt, melting off the edges of the roadway in the summer heat. A recent addition. His calluses are different - accustomed to shoes and sudden conflict - different than they used to be. After so much time, the ridges worn by dusty paths have nearly worn away.
Running. Expectation. To home. To the home he had forgotten and neglected and thought about so little while he lacked it, but that now seems so vitally essential to his definition of this place as home in a greater sense. Home. Mother. Dinner. Warm laundry, fresh from the dryer, to warm his cold feet in cold winter. Close hugs after close scrapes, the hint of bergamot and vanilla below attentive ears.
A rooftop in the distance. Gray-red. Fading with age. Similar in every respect to all the others, except that it is his.
His street. Newly paved. His house, where there is grass on the lawn. New grass. Where has the gravel gone? A foolhardy bird had nested in that gravel, once. Its legs so long and its defensive posturing. He and his mother had watched out for it against the evil neighbor dog.
Where has the gravel gone? Grass is more troublesome to keep. His mother wouldn't have been able to keep it up herself. Not without his help.
He stops.
Standing on the sidewalk. There is a light on in the kitchen window. A silhouette. Riku comes to a stop behind him. Kairi, too, in a few seconds. They have followed him here. Kairi watches him watch the window. "Sora --"
Grass is too troublesome to keep. He walks up to the door. Steps over a child's bicycle, tipped over on the path. A trowel sticking out of a soil-filled pot next to the door.
He raises a hand to knock. He can hear Kairi dash up to him, behind him. Riku still watching from the sidewalk. Silhouette in the window.
"Sora, it's . . . your mother isn't here." He does not lower his outstretched hand. Stretching back a year or more, to knock on the door of someone else's residence.
"Nobody believed you were real. When she said so. Everybody thought she was crazy." Stretching, stretching, across a depth of time more infinite than all the space he'd traveled.
"I think she thought she was crazy, too, in the end. She died. A long time ago." A little further . . . .
Kairi rests a hand on his shoulder. Holds him back. Breaks, the moment breaks. He has no strength to bridge the gap.
A heavy price awaits those who bear the key.
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-21 11:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-21 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 12:47 am (UTC)Awesome drabble.
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Date: 2006-06-22 08:20 am (UTC)I'm sorry this crosses your doujinshi, but it's been sitting around for a while. I do love exploration of Sora's actual family, because it's just so rare. Thank you very much.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-24 04:04 am (UTC)There are no words to describe this fic. It's just so emotional, and so plausible that it fits. So many things about it made me think of my own home, and my own family. I could feel Sora's excitement as he ran, and the ending was unexpectedly heartbreaking. Incredible work!
no subject
Date: 2006-06-24 09:58 pm (UTC)