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Can I be your memory?
“What would you have done?”
Naminé lifted her eyes from her sketchbook. Alphinaud hadn’t gone to the other world, the one that held Living Memory. But he had heard all about it from his friends, and told her. Unbeknownst to him, she had already spoken to the Warrior of Light and received her memories, so she knew everything.
A digital world, soft and glowing. Something that made one think of melancholic music, of nostalgia and times long gone. A world tinged in yellow—and orange—and skateboards and sea salt ice cream—
“What do you mean?”
“I am wondering… what you would do, if you had entered such a place. Would you have turned it off?” He was earnest, yet searching, as if there was something about the whole area that set him on edge and he needed her to explain.
The blonde hummed and decided to flip to another page. “Alphinaud… have I ever told you about the digital Twilight Town?”
“You haven’t said much about it, and I did not wish to pry,” he replied softly. He knew she had been abused and that she had made mistakes she worked tirelessly to correct.
She began sketching, remembering. The days she worked endlessly to fix Sora, the days she worked to create false memories for Roxas. It had been the most difficult task she had ever undertaken. “We hid Roxas there for a week while I fixed Sora’s memories. But Roxas could not survive in such a place without memories… his and his friends’.”
Her friend placed a hand over hers, and she stopped sketching to stare at it. His glove didn’t cover his entire hand, so she felt cloth and skin in a jumbled sensation. He could not seem to think of what to say, so they were silent for several long heartbeats.
Naminé didn’t move. “The memories made there… they were so strong that people who had never known him, would never know him, for a Nobody has no place but within his other half, told Sora that Roxas was one of them.” And Roxas had cried deep inside of Sora when it came time for Sora to bid farewell to Twilight Town; the feelings were so strong that they transcended Sora’s awareness.
“Is that not part of your power? Or was it truly something that transcended the digital world?” Thankfully Alphinaud was not having trouble understanding what “digital” meant, because it would have been so much worse to try explaining her thoughts while also trying to explain something as complicated a concept as “digital.”
She shook her head. “It was the power of friendship. Of hearts bound together. My power wouldn’t have affected the real Hayner, Pence, and Olette.” At least, not that time.
He nodded.
“So I understand… The desire to see them as real…” Naminé couldn’t help the yearning in her voice. “I wanted to be real, too. I wanted to be a person.” She had known from the very beginning that she was not real, and not even a Nobody. She was nothing. She had no name, no place to call home, no people to belong. She was just Kairi’s shadow, a light flickering within a star.
Alphinaud frowned. “But you are now, aren’t you?”
She laid a hand over her chest. “I was granted my own body and my own heart. Things I never dreamed could be mine.” Her body didn’t keep her from glowing, however. That would be a special gift of hers for the rest of her life. “But Alphinaud, listen. Roxas was put into the digital Twilight Town. He was his own functioning being before that. The world was created for him. It wasn’t real.”
He absorbed that for a time, and while he did, Naminé flipped her hand so that she could clasp his. Their hands were warm and he found he didn’t want to let go. “The feelings were real.”
“Yes.”
“The memories made were real.”
“Yes.”
“But the people weren’t real?”
“…No.” It hurt to say it. They had behaved like real people. Cheered Roxas on at his Struggle tournament. Asked for his help with odd jobs. But it was only a simulation.
“The people in Twilight Town were not made from memories of the dead.”
“No, they were made from copies of the living.”
“So why…?” He struggled to put it into words.
“Let me show you.” When he nodded, Naminé reached up and placed the tip of her index finger on his forehead. Closing her eyes, she led him through the false Twilight Town as Roxas experienced many unexplained and mysterious instances, and then allowed him to see what had happened in Living Memory through the eyes of the Warrior of Light.
Alphinaud pulled away and gazed into his lap—he was hiding his face and his emotions. “The difference is the power used, isn’t it?”
“I knew you would figure it out.” This time, she laid her hand on his, squeezing it tight and letting her glowing light wash over him in an effort to comfort him, as it usually had a soothing effect. “One used electricity, and the other used aether, particularly that of a person. There is a distinct essence of human in the aether of people. Twilight Town’s citizens were as close as we could get, but they were still flat and dimensionless. But that other place… they saved every part of a person and that’s what made the people in Living Memory so… alive. Why it hurt so much to even think of turning off the terminals, why it felt like they died a second time.”
“Naminé.”
“Yes, Alphinaud?”
“Would you do it? Erase someone’s memories to save him from pain?”
“No, Alphinaud. That won’t save the heart from pain, and I don’t break hearts on purpose.” She had promised herself after accidentally hurting Riku Replica, never again would she lose control and break someone. “The heart will remember… even if the mind doesn’t.” After all, Sora remembered Kairi even through her memory powers.
“Would you… would you…” Alphinaud trailed off. Even he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say, only that he was seeking answers. Naminé’s powers were strong and nearly absolute; her opinion on the subject was important to him.
“You know those words Emet-Selch told the Warrior of Light? ‘Remember us. Remember that we once lived.’ That’s the important part, isn’t it?”
Alphinaud looked up with wide eyes. “The very same,” he said, horrified. “Wishing to preserve the dead at the cost of the living. I hadn’t realized it before.”
“It’s a lot easier to line the pieces up after the danger has passed.” Naminé picked up her pencil again and went back to her sketchbook. “There are a lot of things I’ve learned about my powers and what it means to use them, you know.” More lines, another color. “In this case, the dead need to be allowed to die. We need to remember them, grieve them, and let them rest. And I will. I will remember all those people in Living Memory.”
“No, that’s too much of a burden on you,” he protested immediately. “There were dozens of people there!”
Naminé raised an eyebrow. “And surely you can remember dozens of people who have died.”
“Not like you, I can’t.” He crossed his arms, which only made her smile.
“I’m so glad you care, Alphinaud.”
Her friend blushed deeply, as he always did around pretty girls. “It’s clear that someone has to,” he muttered, not meeting her eyes again. “I worry about when it will become too much.” What if she collapsed? What if her powers overwhelmed her, and she forgot who she was? What if no one cared that Naminé was drifting further away, watching humanity pass her by as she remembered and remembered and kept remembering?
She ducked her head and went back to drawing. She was almost finished with the page. “To answer your first question, Alphinaud, I wouldn’t have done anything different. The terminals needed to be shut down, even if it would have hurt. No matter how lifelike they were, all those people were a simulation. They weren’t real, not like you. And me.” Her tongue nearly stumbled over the last phrase, but she said it nonetheless.
Finished at last, she sat back. Her drawing had merged Twilight Town and Living Memory together. Orange sun and yellow nostalgia. Of sea salt sundae specials. Of popcorn and pretzels.
“Remember that they lived, Alphinaud. Let them die.”
He took the sketchbook to give it a proper look. Naminé was very good at landscapes and she had done well with this. The colors blended together perfectly and there was something just right about the electrope blocks mixed with Twilight Town’s architecture. Very carefully, he touched the corner, where children were playing. “Well done, my friend. This is lovely.” Lovely and nostalgic and he could almost hear a melancholy tune as he looked at it.
“Thank you.”
Alphinaud set the sketchbook on the table, mulling over all that they had discussed. Naminé’s powers were lonesome things and more powerful than he suspected she allowed him to know. But she was gentle, and sweet. She wanted to be a part of the world, not be its observer.
And that was something he could do.
“Come with me.” He got to his feet and held out his hand, his heart beating faster as he did so.
Naminé blinked, stared at it, then looked up in flushed confusion. “Where?”
“Anywhere! Somewhere we can make memories of our own.”
Understanding set in, and a beautiful smile spread across her face. She slid her hand into his and stood up. “Let’s go!”
The pair tightened their grip on each other as he led the way out of the building and into sunshine. It was a nice day after rainfall, one that promised adventure.
First they stopped to watch street performers. Naminé watched in awe as they performed acrobatics to lively music. Alphinaud couldn’t help but be impressed too.
Next they found a group of people playing music and others dancing, and although they were both shy, Alphinaud bravely pulled her into a dance with him. It wasn’t long before they were laughing and simply having fun. They lost count of how many songs were played because it was too much fun to let it end.
They stopped to get a drink of tropical juices, something neither of them had ever tried before. The tart flavor of pineapples had them smacking their lips and laughing at each other because of it, but they drank it down eagerly and left their cups empty.
By that point, they had already done so much, so Alphinaud led the way to the beach, where Naminé wandered into the waves that lapped against her calves, looking happy and beautiful. Then she came out of the water and they searched for seashells, where Alphinaud explained the types of shells they found and Naminé arranged them whimsically in the sand.
The sun began to set, so they walked down the pier to sit at the docks, their feet dangling as they watched the setting sun. “It was a good day.”
“I’m glad, Naminé. I enjoyed it as well.”
“Can we do it again?”
Alphinaud smiled at her. “Of course we can.” More memories made together, in the present, instead of chained to the past. He wanted that for her.
“Someday soon?”
“I promise.”
Can I be your memory?