Challenge [263]
May. 30th, 2011 11:05 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
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Challenge: [263] The Bad Guys
Title: Eye of the Beholder
Word Count: 499
Notes: Some day, I will finish a drabble that is not literally at the last minute. x_x
It had been the right thing to do. Hadn't it? Of course it was right. Anyone would do the same, when the alternative was never seeing their friend again. Anyone in his shoes.
At least, Riku liked to imagine, because he didn't know anyone else it had happened to.
And everything was all right now-- wasn't it? They were back together, the three of them. (Three, not five, not six. Three, he remembered DiZ saying, was a sacred number to the mystics of old. And at the time, Riku nodded and agreed, because it was one more reason to go along with his plans.)
Three lives had come back together, at the cost of three--
Not lives. He could not think of them as lives-- abominations, DiZ said-- but something more than unlife. Three existences between life and nothingness.
Xion was simple enough. There was no if or but about that. It (though the whisper in his head said she, not it) was out of control, had to be destroyed. Should never have existed to begin with.
Namine was almost as simple. In the white room, she slipped her tiny hands into his and whispered, I don't want to exist any more. I should never have existed to begin with. Cast a glance at her drawings, scattered across the table. I don't want this power. When I'm done with this, I'll never use it again-- I'll go back to being Kairi.
And in a strange way, he admired her for it, because she didn't even know what being Kairi was. Only that she was certain it must be better than what she was. Her strength of faith would have made saints envious.
The third one was not so simple. Was there ever a way to tell someone that they must exchange their life for a stranger's? Somewhere inside, he had found the strength to hate Roxas-- a calm, cold anger, not a burning one-- for wanting to take Sora away, and tempered it into will and darkness.
And Roxas hadn't punished him then-- could not. Hadn't survived the machinations of Namine and DiZ. He'd punished him in the only way possible-- by defying absorption.
The first time he saw it, he wasn't sure what he was seeing. Glint of eyes. Lowered head. Mouth contracting slightly. He held the body differently-- didn't transform it, but could make it look more un-Sora than Riku realized was possible, just by stance and little shiftings of tension.
One night when the three of them camped out on the beach, he'd felt a sand-gritty hand scrape at the side of his cheek. And rolled over to see cold eyes glaring in the starlight.
Fingers pressed into his shoulder, hard enough that there would be a row of bruises in the morning. And breath hissed softly in his ear. "I still hate you."
And Riku gave the only answer he could give Roxas, when all was said and done.
"I know."
He never slept well at campouts, any more.
Title: Eye of the Beholder
Word Count: 499
Notes: Some day, I will finish a drabble that is not literally at the last minute. x_x
It had been the right thing to do. Hadn't it? Of course it was right. Anyone would do the same, when the alternative was never seeing their friend again. Anyone in his shoes.
At least, Riku liked to imagine, because he didn't know anyone else it had happened to.
And everything was all right now-- wasn't it? They were back together, the three of them. (Three, not five, not six. Three, he remembered DiZ saying, was a sacred number to the mystics of old. And at the time, Riku nodded and agreed, because it was one more reason to go along with his plans.)
Three lives had come back together, at the cost of three--
Not lives. He could not think of them as lives-- abominations, DiZ said-- but something more than unlife. Three existences between life and nothingness.
Xion was simple enough. There was no if or but about that. It (though the whisper in his head said she, not it) was out of control, had to be destroyed. Should never have existed to begin with.
Namine was almost as simple. In the white room, she slipped her tiny hands into his and whispered, I don't want to exist any more. I should never have existed to begin with. Cast a glance at her drawings, scattered across the table. I don't want this power. When I'm done with this, I'll never use it again-- I'll go back to being Kairi.
And in a strange way, he admired her for it, because she didn't even know what being Kairi was. Only that she was certain it must be better than what she was. Her strength of faith would have made saints envious.
The third one was not so simple. Was there ever a way to tell someone that they must exchange their life for a stranger's? Somewhere inside, he had found the strength to hate Roxas-- a calm, cold anger, not a burning one-- for wanting to take Sora away, and tempered it into will and darkness.
And Roxas hadn't punished him then-- could not. Hadn't survived the machinations of Namine and DiZ. He'd punished him in the only way possible-- by defying absorption.
The first time he saw it, he wasn't sure what he was seeing. Glint of eyes. Lowered head. Mouth contracting slightly. He held the body differently-- didn't transform it, but could make it look more un-Sora than Riku realized was possible, just by stance and little shiftings of tension.
One night when the three of them camped out on the beach, he'd felt a sand-gritty hand scrape at the side of his cheek. And rolled over to see cold eyes glaring in the starlight.
Fingers pressed into his shoulder, hard enough that there would be a row of bruises in the morning. And breath hissed softly in his ear. "I still hate you."
And Riku gave the only answer he could give Roxas, when all was said and done.
"I know."
He never slept well at campouts, any more.