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Jan. 7th, 2007 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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kh_drabbleChallenge: [090] Under Lock And Key
Title: Pretending
Word Count: 450
Notes: I'm still alive. Also Axel/Naminé does not even have the potential for fluffy until KHII. D:
Naminé draws with her whole body, feeling every detail through her arms and legs and empty chest. She lives on the paper, making herself anew every minute… she becomes the memories she creates. There’s sand in her hair and wind in her face as her thin white body fades away but it is better, she thinks, to live like this. Better than it could be. The White Room reminds her that anything blank has potential; it can always be filled.
She doesn’t like it when the others watch her. It distracts her from burying herself ever deeper under sheets of pigment and shade. Everything’s part of the mural, and they’re shape and color where nothing should be... she can’t cope with the disorientation. White is simple. White is easier. Axel’s the most colorful of all of them, and it makes him poison to her.
“You know,” he tells her, swinging the symbolic little cage back and forth with a finger (back-forth, back-forth she watches it, and lets the doll inside express itself with swirling lines, a sense of vertigo) “This cage is more like you than the damn doll. All bars and no hinges. Nothing to unlock, huh?”
“All cages open to the right key,” she says quietly, and realizes with pale dread that she’s let him bait her into conversation again. Axel is always good at that. She quickly turns her attention back to her paper. A red sky at night, three children’s delight...
“I think you’re operating under a bit of an illusion here, little witch,” Axel smirks. “Whatever you’re pretending to be for Marluxia and his project, you’re not the caged princess here. No matter who comes along with a key, you’re not getting a happily ever after. Know why?”
Her crayon flees his voice across the paper. Red sky at morning, take warning, take warning. If he recognizes her anguish for what it is, it doesn’t stop him.
“You’re the cage, Naminé. Put whatever scraps you want in there, if you unlock it? It’s still empty.” He shoves the cage cruelly; the little doll inside shivers and falls. She lets her crayon fall too (the paper’s still white underneath the bloody waxen streaks) and waits dully for whatever’s coming next.
His breath tickles her ear. “You know, I always wonder why you keep something worthless locked up so tight.” His voice is a low croon. It almost sounds like sympathy. He likes the crazy patterns of shattered things – broken toys are more interesting, and Naminé’s never been whole. She closes the sketchbook, shutting away all that’s precious to her (a smile she doesn't own) before his mouth shuts hers. It’s hot, demanding, triumphant. There's no reason to resist.
Title: Pretending
Word Count: 450
Notes: I'm still alive. Also Axel/Naminé does not even have the potential for fluffy until KHII. D:
Naminé draws with her whole body, feeling every detail through her arms and legs and empty chest. She lives on the paper, making herself anew every minute… she becomes the memories she creates. There’s sand in her hair and wind in her face as her thin white body fades away but it is better, she thinks, to live like this. Better than it could be. The White Room reminds her that anything blank has potential; it can always be filled.
She doesn’t like it when the others watch her. It distracts her from burying herself ever deeper under sheets of pigment and shade. Everything’s part of the mural, and they’re shape and color where nothing should be... she can’t cope with the disorientation. White is simple. White is easier. Axel’s the most colorful of all of them, and it makes him poison to her.
“You know,” he tells her, swinging the symbolic little cage back and forth with a finger (back-forth, back-forth she watches it, and lets the doll inside express itself with swirling lines, a sense of vertigo) “This cage is more like you than the damn doll. All bars and no hinges. Nothing to unlock, huh?”
“All cages open to the right key,” she says quietly, and realizes with pale dread that she’s let him bait her into conversation again. Axel is always good at that. She quickly turns her attention back to her paper. A red sky at night, three children’s delight...
“I think you’re operating under a bit of an illusion here, little witch,” Axel smirks. “Whatever you’re pretending to be for Marluxia and his project, you’re not the caged princess here. No matter who comes along with a key, you’re not getting a happily ever after. Know why?”
Her crayon flees his voice across the paper. Red sky at morning, take warning, take warning. If he recognizes her anguish for what it is, it doesn’t stop him.
“You’re the cage, Naminé. Put whatever scraps you want in there, if you unlock it? It’s still empty.” He shoves the cage cruelly; the little doll inside shivers and falls. She lets her crayon fall too (the paper’s still white underneath the bloody waxen streaks) and waits dully for whatever’s coming next.
His breath tickles her ear. “You know, I always wonder why you keep something worthless locked up so tight.” His voice is a low croon. It almost sounds like sympathy. He likes the crazy patterns of shattered things – broken toys are more interesting, and Naminé’s never been whole. She closes the sketchbook, shutting away all that’s precious to her (a smile she doesn't own) before his mouth shuts hers. It’s hot, demanding, triumphant. There's no reason to resist.
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Date: 2007-01-08 02:12 am (UTC)I love this fic, and that particular sentence just reads so well. Very nice!
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Date: 2007-01-08 02:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-08 02:32 am (UTC)That was so good! I was hooked right from the beginning. I also like that you took the themes of Naminé's drawings and the white room and made them something different from how they're usually written. (I hope that makes sense. I'm trying to say it wasn't cliche, which was refreshing.) It fits her very well to think of the white room as her canvas; it complements her.
But the best part is the cage. Wow, just wow. I never thought of it that way, but Axel's description is eerily accurate, even if he is trying to push her buttons.
And you know I love the ending. The perfect way to end the drabble. (Plus it made me do a little fangirl squee. *Cough*)
P.S. Haha, I agree. There is no fluff with Axel until KHII, period.
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Date: 2007-01-08 02:43 am (UTC)When I'm writing CoM!Naminé, it's just easiest to go with the far extreme of creepy with anything I bring up in the fic because she just IS. It's fun. :D
And Axel's mindfuckery just wouldn't work if he wasn't right, the bastard~
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Date: 2007-01-08 02:51 am (UTC)Hah, yes. She had to have gone a little mad being cooped up in there for so long. I think it works to bring that sort of thing out in the way she compares her world to her sketches. Her world is so tiny and limited. She only has what she knows to go by. She doesn't even have Kairi's memories, her 'past' life so to speak, for comfort.
Ah, yes. Because Axel is always right. Well, he was right enough times to get half the Org killed. That's something.
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Date: 2007-01-08 02:47 am (UTC)Just very nice all around. ^_^
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Date: 2007-01-08 02:50 am (UTC)Thank you!
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Date: 2007-01-08 01:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-08 05:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-11 08:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-11 09:51 pm (UTC)Thanks for the rambling, meaty comments make me go ♥. :D