[203 - Don't Get Caught] Fragments of a Broken Doll

[obabscribbler.livejournal.com]

Challenge: Don't Get Caught
Title: Fragments of a Broken Doll
Word Count: 568
Pairings: Namine/Replica

 

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She hid him where she could, tucking him under memories and pulling blankets of reminiscences across him so he wouldn’t be spotted. He didn’t thank her. He couldn’t. With every relocation she put him through, he lost a little more of himself, his consciousness spread a little thinner, until finally she pulled back the memory of eating flavoured ice on a hot day to find him curled in a foetal ball, unresponsive as stone. She called his name, pulled at him, but went straight through. The pieces were too broken. The centre couldn’t hold, and all she had left were bits of a jigsaw without a box to show you what the picture should look like.

 

She didn’t know why she was trying to keep him. It might’ve been kinder to let him go. He wasn’t even real in the first place, right? But she couldn’t. He hadn’t deserved anything that happened to him – not being born, not living, and definitely not dying. So she’d crept back after everything was over, gathered what was left, and stored him in the safest place she could think of.

 

Whenever it looked like he might be discovered, she grabbed the pieces and moved them someplace else in the memories she’d reconstructed so well she knew them better than her own. She didn’t think Sora would erase him, but Sora wasn’t in control of his own mind right now, was he? Clasping the fragments to her like glass from a priceless shattered vase, no matter how careful she was, somehow she still always seemed to have less each time.

 

“Please,” she murmured softly, even though he couldn’t hear her. He’d stopped responding to her voice six months into Sora’s sleep. He’d stopped moving at four. Stopped speaking at two. Now, at nine months, he was just a shell of a memory of a fake.

 

Except that he wasn’t fake. He was real. To her, he’d been the realest thing in the whole castle. If souls were gained through suffering, he’d definitely earned his.

 

Humans could produce babies in nine months. She couldn’t even save one person – the one who’d always loved her no matter what. Her own mind threw up memories of his head in her lap, her stroking his hair before Vexen came to spirit him away again. Before she knew it, she’d tried to pull his head into her lap again, but he was like smoke. By the time Sora woke up, there would probably be nothing left to find, accidentally or not.

 

She sensed Sora’s subconscious like a shadow moving in a dark room. He was close. Panic gripped her even though it was already too late.

 

 “Please don’t go.” She gathered the fragments once more and shifted sideways through the reformed memories. “Don’t leave me now. You swore you’d always be by my side. You said you’d always protect me …”

 

This time she hid him amidst childhood recollections of the real Riku, hoping Sora’s subconscious would just gloss over the slack face and impassive eyes instead of exorcising them as foreign matter like she feared. Naminé couldn’t save the Replica. That was beyond her power.

 

But she would keep hiding him until there was nothing left to hide, because fake or not, they’d both had their own emotions, their own dreams, and she wasn’t ready to let go of those until she, too, faded away and was forgotten.

 

Comments

[obabscribbler.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I've developed a real soft spot for these two, and it's always nice to know others don't mind riding in the same boat as me and my brain. ^_^

[kaos-sparrow.livejournal.com]

Aww! This is so sad. And good. And sad.

[obabscribbler.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[mirrorbrothers.livejournal.com]

O.o

It's beautiful...

[obabscribbler.livejournal.com]

Aww. *blushes* Cheers very much.

[greedchan.livejournal.com]

guh
Oh, wow.
That's realy... xD Wow. Sora as a sort of antagonist feels really... natural to me, for some reason. I feel like I understood her fear of his arrival, if not him himself. :3 Very well done. Good luck!

[obabscribbler.livejournal.com]

I feel like I understood her fear of his arrival, if not him himself

That's exactly what I was going for. Thank you!

[tabitha-dornoc.livejournal.com]

This is wonderful! I love the overall feel and language of the drabble. I love the very idea of Namine tucking him in bits and places, of Sora rejecting it unconsciously, making her look for new places. I love the timeline you've set out, six months, four, etc. Namine's determination and growing despair are so tangible. And, just, what an awesome idea for the prompt. Absolutely lovely work! <3

[obabscribbler.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, thank you. I really respect your writing - you were one of the very first authors I came across when I entered the KH fandom - so these compliments just about made my face spontaneously combust with blushing. Cheers!

[iki-teru.livejournal.com]

How did I miss this entry when you first posted it??

That...that...I don't even have words to properly describe how amazing that was, how very soul chilling the whole concept of her hiding him among memories, and how he's fading out in that nine month period. That whole bit going backwards about when he stopped responding, stopped moving, stopped speaking it was just amazing! Namine's quiet desperation to keep him with her was just heart breaking and this line right here: he was just a shell of a memory of a fake. is what completely did me in.

[obabscribbler.livejournal.com]

*blushblushblushblushetyblushorama*

Thank you.

[zanypomegranate.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. This is so wonderful because you do really get that sense of dread with Sora's coming. Really lovely idea, well written and heartbreaking. :)

[obabscribbler.livejournal.com]

Thank you kindly. ^_^