Non-Challenge Drabble: Not Quite
May. 9th, 2011 01:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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kh_drabbleTitle: Not Quite
Word Count: 590
Notes: BBS SPOILERS LIKE WHOA. I finally get my writing drive back after two weeks, and it goes straight here. Go figure. This is a companion piece to Cold Comfort, which means it's another in the line of KH/Discworld crossovers. Also, Pratchett-esque footnotes are not as easy as they seem.
The world itself was dead. Whatever battle had once taken place here had killed thousands, judging from their fallen weapons, and left the world soaked in blood and dying, breathing its last when the final warrior fell.
No, Death decided, any job that would have been left for him on this world had long since been finished. He was simply here to sate his curiosity as to why, on a world so long dead, something here still...lived wasn't the word. Neither was survived, since the entity wasn't really doing either. Existed might have been more accurate, but only in the barest sense.
Whatever word he used, it did not change the fact that the suit of armor kneeling before him had a consciousness of its own. There were no ghosts here*, nor were there any wizards to bring anything resembling life to inanimate objects either by accident or on some odd purpose.** No, this was magic of an entirely different sort - the sort that could reach through time and space and warp the Lifetimer he held in his hand, twisting it into two interconnected and somehow still functional pieces.
Nobody but Death himself should be able to touch the Lifetimers.
Objectively, he had no sense of right and wrong - not as humans defined them, at least. He did, however, have a sense of duty and a rather territorial protectiveness of it, both of which had been utterly violated by whatever force had twisted the Lifetimer. It had led him here, standing before the not-quite-alive armor and trying to decide just what to do about it.
Are you here for me?
The armor not-quite-spoke in much the same way Death did: the words simply existed, echoing somewhere in the red and golden metal. No human or part-human or human remnant Death knew of should be able to do that, and yet this one did.
NOT TODAY.
Then I will wait.
It was a sentiment quite unlike those he heard from most humans, and it gave him pause. After a second's consideration, he spoke up. FOR WHAT?
For Xehanort.
The reply was immediate. Death could almost hear the rage dripping from the words - a feat in and of itself, given the words simply were not audible to begin with. This sentiment, at least, sounded much more human. FOR XEHANORT, he repeated slowly, considering.
All I have left is my hatred of Xehanort. I will wait for him.
It was a him, then - an entity that had somehow stripped the armor of what it once had and left it nothing more than a lone consciousness trapped on a deserted world. It was a good reason for such hatred, and a starting point in Death's search.
I SEE. Parting words, and nothing more; there was little he could say to that vow, and little he could do for the armor. Instead, he simply stepped out of the world, leaving the armor and the deaths he had not been there to oversee behind. His search had begun, guided by a name not-quite-spoken by a form not-quite-alive. It was a few too many not-quites for Death’s taste, yet he added one last one to the list: he was sure this Xehanort would be not-quite-happy to meet him. Death would make entirely certain there would be reason for that.
*Even the most tenacious of ghosts would have gotten bored long ago with absolutely nothing to haunt.
**These purposes ranged from "requiring unpaid menial labor" to "having nothing better to do" to "it's Tuesday."
Word Count: 590
Notes: BBS SPOILERS LIKE WHOA. I finally get my writing drive back after two weeks, and it goes straight here. Go figure. This is a companion piece to Cold Comfort, which means it's another in the line of KH/Discworld crossovers. Also, Pratchett-esque footnotes are not as easy as they seem.
The world itself was dead. Whatever battle had once taken place here had killed thousands, judging from their fallen weapons, and left the world soaked in blood and dying, breathing its last when the final warrior fell.
No, Death decided, any job that would have been left for him on this world had long since been finished. He was simply here to sate his curiosity as to why, on a world so long dead, something here still...lived wasn't the word. Neither was survived, since the entity wasn't really doing either. Existed might have been more accurate, but only in the barest sense.
Whatever word he used, it did not change the fact that the suit of armor kneeling before him had a consciousness of its own. There were no ghosts here*, nor were there any wizards to bring anything resembling life to inanimate objects either by accident or on some odd purpose.** No, this was magic of an entirely different sort - the sort that could reach through time and space and warp the Lifetimer he held in his hand, twisting it into two interconnected and somehow still functional pieces.
Nobody but Death himself should be able to touch the Lifetimers.
Objectively, he had no sense of right and wrong - not as humans defined them, at least. He did, however, have a sense of duty and a rather territorial protectiveness of it, both of which had been utterly violated by whatever force had twisted the Lifetimer. It had led him here, standing before the not-quite-alive armor and trying to decide just what to do about it.
Are you here for me?
The armor not-quite-spoke in much the same way Death did: the words simply existed, echoing somewhere in the red and golden metal. No human or part-human or human remnant Death knew of should be able to do that, and yet this one did.
NOT TODAY.
Then I will wait.
It was a sentiment quite unlike those he heard from most humans, and it gave him pause. After a second's consideration, he spoke up. FOR WHAT?
For Xehanort.
The reply was immediate. Death could almost hear the rage dripping from the words - a feat in and of itself, given the words simply were not audible to begin with. This sentiment, at least, sounded much more human. FOR XEHANORT, he repeated slowly, considering.
All I have left is my hatred of Xehanort. I will wait for him.
It was a him, then - an entity that had somehow stripped the armor of what it once had and left it nothing more than a lone consciousness trapped on a deserted world. It was a good reason for such hatred, and a starting point in Death's search.
I SEE. Parting words, and nothing more; there was little he could say to that vow, and little he could do for the armor. Instead, he simply stepped out of the world, leaving the armor and the deaths he had not been there to oversee behind. His search had begun, guided by a name not-quite-spoken by a form not-quite-alive. It was a few too many not-quites for Death’s taste, yet he added one last one to the list: he was sure this Xehanort would be not-quite-happy to meet him. Death would make entirely certain there would be reason for that.
*Even the most tenacious of ghosts would have gotten bored long ago with absolutely nothing to haunt.
**These purposes ranged from "requiring unpaid menial labor" to "having nothing better to do" to "it's Tuesday."
