Challenge [254]: By Rote
Feb. 28th, 2011 10:55 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
synchroshatter.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
kh_drabbleChallenge: [254] Expressions of love
Title: By Rote
Word Count: 315
Notes: I'll be honest- this didn't turn out how I wanted. But it's deadline day and I wanted to post. XD
Given that he was the eldest of the three, not to mention the only one with any memories of Before, it wasn’t surprising that Axel was the one Xion and Roxas went to when they wanted to know what ‘surprised’ was. They listened attentively as he told them it was like an electric shock, a jolt that kicked the bottom of your stomach out, though not always in a bad way.
Of course, this was a while after the lessons had begun. They’d already nodded thoughtfully when he’d told them that ‘happy’ was a bubbling rush that swept through your body and left you giddy, and that ‘sad’ was a lump that prickled and burnt in your throat. They’d carefully committed to memory every detail of how ‘scared’ filled you with a numbness that left you as rooted as a statue and how ‘bored’ warped the world around you until every minute dragged like a day.
And then, one evening in February they’re huddled together eating ice cream through lips already numb with cold, they ask him what ‘love’ is.
Looking uneasy (shifty, like he’d rather be anywhere else), he tells them about an invisible cord as strong as steel, binding people together with a huge range of other feelings: joy when they’re together, sorrow when they aren’t, pain when one suffers and hope for a future. He tells them how it ties together couples, friends, families no matter how far flung across the worlds they might be; how it’s so powerful, so overwhelming, that people would do anything for it.
And they listen and they nod and they commit each and every detail to memory, and Axel knows deep down that as easily as they could parrot all the facts back to him, they don’t get it, not really.
After all, how can you understand something you never remember feeling in the first place?
Title: By Rote
Word Count: 315
Notes: I'll be honest- this didn't turn out how I wanted. But it's deadline day and I wanted to post. XD
Given that he was the eldest of the three, not to mention the only one with any memories of Before, it wasn’t surprising that Axel was the one Xion and Roxas went to when they wanted to know what ‘surprised’ was. They listened attentively as he told them it was like an electric shock, a jolt that kicked the bottom of your stomach out, though not always in a bad way.
Of course, this was a while after the lessons had begun. They’d already nodded thoughtfully when he’d told them that ‘happy’ was a bubbling rush that swept through your body and left you giddy, and that ‘sad’ was a lump that prickled and burnt in your throat. They’d carefully committed to memory every detail of how ‘scared’ filled you with a numbness that left you as rooted as a statue and how ‘bored’ warped the world around you until every minute dragged like a day.
And then, one evening in February they’re huddled together eating ice cream through lips already numb with cold, they ask him what ‘love’ is.
Looking uneasy (shifty, like he’d rather be anywhere else), he tells them about an invisible cord as strong as steel, binding people together with a huge range of other feelings: joy when they’re together, sorrow when they aren’t, pain when one suffers and hope for a future. He tells them how it ties together couples, friends, families no matter how far flung across the worlds they might be; how it’s so powerful, so overwhelming, that people would do anything for it.
And they listen and they nod and they commit each and every detail to memory, and Axel knows deep down that as easily as they could parrot all the facts back to him, they don’t get it, not really.
After all, how can you understand something you never remember feeling in the first place?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-03-01 09:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-04 05:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-01 09:56 pm (UTC)How do you do it.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-04 05:30 pm (UTC)Magical powers.I'm glad you think so, I found it kind of rushed. One of those moments where you stare at the screen and your brain is shouting at the words to move into the right places so they make better sense, damnit! But it's good to know it came out alright in the end! XD