Work Text:
(1)
In the days after the war, Naminé met more people than ever before. DiZ, Vexen and Zexion (Ansem, Even and Ienzo now, the same faces on different people) came every day to make sure her new body didn’t reject her Heart and she tried not to flinch too much around them. The others were easier to handle, so long as they only came alone or in pairs—any more than that and her lungs started to feel small.
It was nothing to worry about. She just needed room to breathe.
(2)
Her room in Radiant Garden was very nice. Smaller than any other room she’d been able to call her own, but with a bit more colour to it: greys and blues and purples in soft, easy-on-the-eye hues, a welcome change after the violent brightness of Castle Oblivion.
“And you can see the whole town from here!” said Xion, leaning so far out the window her torso disappeared completely. “Look, that’s Fountain Court over there—and the gardens!”
Naminé didn’t look. She hadn’t been outside yet. She remembered leaving Castle Oblivion with DiZ, how small and scared she’d felt, how hard it had been just to keep on walking when she could feel the full weight of the sky bearing down on her shoulders. No second-hand memory could have prepared her to a horizon that didn’t end, or all the sights and sounds and smells of a world that wasn’t under lock and key.
And what would she leave for anyway? Anything she needed was brought to her, and people came by every day. For once in her life, she wasn’t lonely at all.
It was always a surprise, how many people wanted to see her, to thank her for things that, at the time, had felt very selfish and unkind. How many people, even people she'd never met before, knew and thought of her. She'd always thought it was in a Nobody's nature to leave no lasting impression in people's minds—but then again she was no-one's Nobody now, though she wasn’t quite sure what that made her.
She wasn’t quite sure of anything these days. That, too, was a mostly welcome change.
(3)
When Xion came to visit, she always started by looking at Naminé’s drawings. She always did it the same way, slowly making her way around the room clockwise, and never said a word until she was done. She’d long ditched the Organization’s coat, though she still dressed mostly in black. Her face had settled closer to Sora’s than Kairi’s, but these days she mostly looked like her own self.
Usually she came with Axel or Roxas, but sometimes it was just the two of them. Naminé liked those days. Sitting in silence, drawing, while Xion did her own thing—it was a new experience, friendship that didn’t need talking, and there was something deeply relaxing in being able to just exist with someone else.
“I don’t know this one—do I?”
Naminé looked up. Xion had stopped in front of one of her more recent pieces—a lone tower shooting high over a forest, all purples and green.
“That’s in Corona,” she said. “It’s, hum, from after—when Sora found me in the Final World, some of his more recent memories bled through.”
They hadn’t, really; but they’d been right there, and alone in that shapeless void Naminé hadn’t been able to resist sneaking a peek.
“Do you… know any more? Worlds he’s been to after—after me, I guess?”
“Only a few.” A toy store, a frozen mountain. A golden sea people fought over endlessly and a land of clouds and rainbows. The memories were never too far away, and she’d always had a knack for description. Xion listened to her hungrily, eyes lost in far-away dreams.
“He’s really been all over the place, hasn’t he?” she said once Naminé was done. There was something bittersweet to the twist of her lips—a complicated kind of sad. It took her a long time to get the next words out:
“You know, I—I used to love having Sora’s memories. Remembering was painful and confusing, but the memories themselves were all so… warm, and full of love. Now they just make me sad. All these places I’ve never seen, all these people I’ve never met.”
She was about to say something else but seemed to think better of it. Bit her lip. Then in a rustle of cloth, she crossed the room and sat beside Naminé.
“Now that everything is over,” she said, “the others—no. We are all going to Sora’s island pretty soon. It’s… kind of a way of getting closure, I guess, after everything that happened. After that I’m just gonna go. I want to be everywhere Sora has been, and then find more and more places to see. I want to make my own memories.”
Naminé couldn’t stop being aware of how close Xion was sitting. Their shoulders almost brushing.
“I was hoping you would come with me.”
Naminé froze, and it seemed like the whole world froze with her. She couldn’t hear anything beyond the words ringing in her ears. There was a lot of new in her life; being wanted was one she could not get used to. But soon enough the meaning of these words sunk in and despair followed suit.
“I—I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I—I like it here. I can’t just leave.”
As a matter of fact, she could, though it had taken a surprisingly long time and some pointed comments from Axel and Riku to understand.
“Don’t you want to see them, though? All those worlds Sora has been?”
She did. She knew exactly was Xion meant, about Sora’s memories being warm. Over the course of his travels, he had connected with so many people, so many worlds—for people like them, born in shadows, grown in solitude—it was impossible not to bask in his light.
But—
She hugged her sketchbook close to her chest and shook her head no. Beside her, Xion sighed.
“We’re all worried about you, you know?” she said.
“Don’t be. I’m fine, really.”
“Then why won’t you ever go out? Or even look out the window? Are you really happy staying here forever?”
“I—”
Naminé hesitated. It wasn’t the first time someone expressed concern for her self-imposed exile. DiZ—Ansem had been trying to nudge her out the door for a while now, almost gentle and apologetic in his attempts. Axel had been less subtle, asking outright if she knew she wasn’t a prisoner.
They didn’t get it, though. Even she didn’t quite get it. She’d hoped to be free for so long, yet now that she could do anything she wanted, exist in the outside world in places that knew nothing of witches and Nobodies—she couldn’t bring herself to actually do it. Like if she did she was going to break some untold rule of the universe and everything would be back to how it once was.
If anyone could understand, though, it was certainly Xion, who’d gone through such similar things, who’d walked to her doom with her eyes wide open, painfully aware of what was coming, who’d had to accept her own end but then been brought back anyway.
Naminé took a deep breath and teetered on the edge.
(4)
And stepped forward.
(5)
Once upon a time, a girl of no importance to anyone was born in a strange castle. Though she was not allowed to leave, she could still see the world through a boy’s memories.
Eventually she met the boy, and he was very kind to her, even though she hadn’t been kind to him at all. He promised to be her friend, and even though he forgot, that promise was her light in the darkness. But now the boy is gone, and there is nothing left of him except for the memories inside her head.
(6)
“Memories… don’t last forever. They change as we do—as we learn and grow and we gain new perspective. If I leave—if I go make my own memories—what happens to Sora’s memories that are still inside me? If I see Sora’s home with my own eyes, will I still remember what it looked like to him? Until I know for certain Sora is coming back, how can I take that risk?”
(7)
For a long time, Xion didn’t say anything at all, just let Naminé pour her heart out to her. When she spoke there was a seriousness to her voice Naminé hadn’t heard since that day in Twilight Town, when her end had been so close at hand.
“Saïx used to say I was the Organization’s worst mistake. He wasn’t the only one saying these things to me, but somehow it hurt a lot more coming from him, I think because he didn’t seem to care at all. He was just—stating a fact. He’d call me useless, and of course I believed him, and it hurt so much, to think that I had no purpose. I felt like I couldn’t do anything without Axel or Roxas covering for me. I used to lie awake at night and wonder why I was even there, if even the people who were the most like me couldn’t find a use for me. But then I met you and Riku, and learned about—about what I was, what I’d been made for, and you needed me so much and I—I thought, this is it. The answer I’ve been looking for. It’s not pretty, it’s not nice, but at least there will be a point to me.”
Something hot and heavy lodged itself in Naminé’s throat. She remembered the Xion she’d met back in Twilight Town, hopeless and lost and so much like she herself had been. Sad and lonely and so desperate for any kind of sense that she’d done horrible things just to make it stop. There was a particular kind of hurt that came with being incomplete; it was even worse to realize the real you was still out there and no-one needed you at all. Not even a ghost, barely a shadow. A true Nobody.
“I was wrong."
The words hit Naminé like a physical blow. She recoiled from them and curled in on herself. Beside her Xion was staring straight ahead, her whole body radiating tension. From the corner of her eye Naminé saw her hands were shaking, but when she spoke her voice was steady:
“I was wrong. It was necessary and it was the best for everyone and it was the only choice I could make, but it shouldn’t have been a choice at all. I was wrong, and it took dying to understand that, and I—I don’t want to make that mistake again. I want to live for myself, not just because others need me to.”
It hurt to hear all this, like someone had ripped a hole in her and was rooting around, looking for her heart. After a while she realized it was because it hit so close to home. Suddenly she couldn’t stand the thought of Xion looking at her, not with those eyes of hers that still looked so much like Sora’s. She didn’t want to be this way. She didn’t want to think like this. She wanted to be patient, she wanted to be kind. She wanted to not be selfish anymore. She wanted—she wanted—but it hadn’t been fair, none of it. She’d done bad things but what choice had she had—what choice had she ever had except to follow the path others had paved for her? But Xion had been the same, and if she could look past that, if she could stand up on her own and start moving forward and go after what she needed, what she wanted , then maybe—maybe—
“I’m scared.”
As soon as she said it the truth of it barrelled into her. She was scared. She’d been scared for so long, she didn’t know how to lose the habit. And she’d never expected this—a new body, a second chance. She’d thought herself lucky just to have met Kairi, lucky to be whole again instead of fading into nothingness. But there she was again, alive and breathing, not Kairi’s shadow, not Sora’s witch, she was here and she was real and she didn’t know how to deal with that, she didn’t, she didn’t.
Xion moved to crouch in front of her and took her hands in hers. She wasn’t smiling. She looked infinitely kind. Naminé wanted to forget everything and let Xion’s courage carry her, but it wouldn’t have been fair to either of them.
“I’m scared,” she said again. The words came out small and wet.
“I know. So am I. But I was scared before too, and I kept going anyway, for the sake of my friends. I want to keep going again, for me this time—even if it’s hard. I want to. Don’t you?”
(8)
“Yes.”
(9)
It’s not easy to leave. She feels dizzy even before takeoff, heart beating like a hammer, head spinning like vertigo—but Xion lets her clutch her hand the whole way through and so she does, even when her fingers turn white from her death grip.
Eventually, they land, and Naminé gets to take her first steps on the beach. Her feet sink a little in the sand. And it’s hard to focus on it anyway, when there’s so much going on all at once: the wind in her hair, the sun on her skin, the hhh-shhh of the tide rising and falling, slowly, slowly, like a giant breath, and the scent, the scent, the scent of sea-salt-sand-shells-sun.
After a long while she manages to unclench her fingers. She can still feel Xion beside her, a silent company. Soon they’ll be looking for seashells, but for now Naminé’s just happy to stand here with her, to let the immensity of the world sink in and to breathe alongside it, alive, alive, alive.