Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It is like waking up from a long slumber, it is like—drowning, maybe. The stars and the sea and darkness in his lungs. Marluxia exhales a laugh. 

Lauriam breathes in. 

He opens his eyes to a starry sky and dusty plains, a voice on the wind. He realizes he is crying. He realizes his chest hurts. He puts a hand over his heart, and feels it aching.

He is in a graveyard. A crossroads. A battlefield now empty. The millions upon millions of blades stabbing upward like teeth, the untended graves of the world he once knew. And in the wind—

"Hello again, old friend."

“E-Ephemer..?”

—the start of something new.

.

He realizes a few things, in quick succession: he is Lauriam, he has a heart, he was Marluxia once and now no longer, and he—

He is missing something.

He names the voice on the wind and panics just as quickly; the familiarity gone with the breeze. Who is Ephemer? Who is he? As Marluxia the loss was grating, annoying at best, but now the pockets in his memory feel like pits. He remembers... he remembers...

“I was looking for someone,” Lauriam whispers, and it feels like nothing at all. Not enough. “I...”

"You don’t remember?"

His eyes squeeze shut. “N-no.”

There is a long pause. At last, the voice says, "Do you know who I am?"

Lauriam takes a breath. The words wither on his tongue. He could lie, easily—but lying to this not-quite-stranger feels like taking a blade to the heart. His exhale is pained. “…No.”

"Oh.

"…You fell farther than I thought."

It feels like a blow. He can’t breathe. “I—“

"That’s okay! That’s fine. I’m sorry." The voice—the boy?—is babbling now, quick and earnest. "We all fell, I think, in our own ways... I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry."

“We?” Lauriam manages. He feels dizzy, or maybe sick. He feels on the edge of some great revelation. As if he has just been handed the last piece to a puzzle he didn’t know he was solving. It terrifies him. 

"Yes, we all… well. You all. I, I didn’t…"

Lauriam waits. For a long moment, the boy is utterly silent. When he speaks again that whispering voice is hushed and pained. "I don’t really have the right to judge you at all, do I? After all, I…"   Another pause, weighted and heavy. "I’m sorry I left you alone."

A flash of irritation burns through him. “What are you talking about? I don’t even know who you are!”

"I’m a friend," this voice says, firmly. "Um, an ally? " Unsure, there, almost sheepish. And then, quiet, with a fondness Lauriam does not recall— "I am with you. Always."

It’s not an answer at all, but something about the words settles him; Lauriam exhales, slowly, and climbs gingerly to his feet. The more he looks, the more sure he becomes: he’s woken up again in the Keyblade Graveyard, that place of the final battle between light and dark—though it’s empty, now, abandoned in full. He looks off into the distance, eyes trailing across the piles upon piles of Keyblades, dead and cold. He wonders how he knows they’re useless. He wonders why the thought of picking one up makes him want to scream. 

In the end, he has to look away. His hand presses hard against his chest. Hearts. Such troublesome things. He’s forgotten how to bear one.

Lauriam starts walking. “Who was I, then, to wake up here? To name a ghost of this place?”

Another pause. The voice hums. "So, you’ve forgotten even that?"

“I—”

Laughter echoes in his ears. "Never mind. Reach out your hand."

He scowls at the air. “What are you doing?”

"Please. Just do it?"

I don’t know you, Lauriam thinks. But his heart beats loud in his chest, and after a heavy sigh, he does as asked. “I don’t see how—”

"Close your eyes."

Lauriam grits his teeth, and closes his eyes. He tries to breathe.

"You said you remembered very little. But, well… what little do you remember?"

A voice—this voice—clear and bright and speaking fast. Laughter, five-fold. A city in the light of daybreak. His hand on someone’s shoulder, smiling, saying— Strelitzia, like this—

His heart aches. His eyes burn. Something heavy falls into his hand, and Lauriam opens his eyes.

His blood runs cold. 

"You were like me," says the voice. "You were a Keyblade wielder."

Lauriam stares at the blade. Then he starts to laugh.

.

The irony of it is too much. For a moment he loses himself to it, caught in the rising throes of emotion from a heart he has forgotten how to have. He laughs until he realizes he’s crying, and then the shock of it snaps him out of it; the Keyblade drops, his breath stuttering. He coughs. He kneels on the ground.

"Lauriam? Are you okay?"

He pushes himself up, stunned by the fit; he scrubs at his face and feels emotion flutter in his chest. He doesn’t know the name of it, except that it is alien to him. He presses his hand over his heart and tries to breathe. 

The Keyblade is gone, now. That strange, beautiful blade of vines and roses. But he can still feel it. The weight of it in his palm, the buzz in his mind, a warmth wrapped around his long-unused heart.

“I—  I was… a wielder?”

"Yes."

He thinks of Xemnas, in this graveyard, looking down and calling them relics of a legacy older than time. He remembers the way he scowled, then. The holes in his memory he had never acknowledged. The annoyance of Xemnas knowing something he did not.

Now the memories elicit a new reaction in him— something cold, something hot, like molten iron in his chest. He thinks of Sora— of Roxas— of all those wielders of light, Keyblades in hand, remembers looking at the strength of their abilities and thinking if I had a power like that on my side— 

And he had. All along, he had.

Except… no. He hadn’t, had he? He can feel it now, humming in his chest—  the Keyblade, like a song. It’s… new. Uncertain. He thinks he would have known if he’d felt this before.

“I don’t understand,” Lauriam says, because he doesn’t. “What…?”

Something flickers in his vision. The wind made solid, dust given form, light become shape. A boy, perhaps a few years younger than he, and yet, despite his indistinct form— somehow, Lauriam can imagine. Somehow he knows what this strange boy must look like. White hair. Green eyes. Red scarf.

"There’s a lot I don’t know. I’m sorry. But I saw you there, when the war woke me up again. I saw the others, too. I know… who you became. Marluxia."

His fingers curl in the dirt. He feels his expression go cold. “So you will not answer me.”

"In some ways, I think I don’t know you at all. And yet."  His form flickers. His expression is tired and drawn. "I see your heart. And the Keyblade, it still answered your call. And… you don’t remember me, but I remember you. Lauriam. You… you were so kind to us. I don’t think I could have made it without you. And I was happy, to know you. To know all of you. For all of the darkness that followed us… those days in the clocktower have become a precious memory."

Lauriam says nothing to this. He has nothing to say. He feels struck silent. 

"So much has happened. My memory, too, has begun to fade. I slept for so long… but I’m awake now. And I… despite everything. I want to trust you. I really, really do."

Lauriam stares at the ground. He doesn’t answer. His mouth is dry.

"Do you remember the one you’re looking for?"

The name drags from his chest. “Strelitzia.”

He can’t see it, but he gets the sense the boy is smiling at him. "Your sister."

He hadn’t known that, per se, but the words settle over him not as a surprise but like a snap—  like something obvious, dredged up from the dirt and brought to light. He feels dizzy again. His little sister. It sounds right. It feels right. 

Strelitzia.

For a moment, his vision blurs. He remembers—  a child, head bowed, shuffling over broken pottery. Voice small and sad. Sorry, Lauriam. 

And his own voice, so much younger and so much softer saying back, It’s okay.

He blinks fast. His eyes burn. “Did, did I ever—?”

"No. I’m sorry. Even now, she remains lost."

“Then…”

"Will you go?"

Of this there is no question. 

Lauriam gets to his feet. He looks out over the graveyard, thinks—  the war, our war, everyone I know is dead —  and turns away from it. There is something rising in his throat. Maybe it is horror. An ancient Keyblade legacy, Xemnas had said, and Lauriam can feel the truth of it in his bones. The first Keyblade war. The catastrophe that threw the world into ruin.

And he had been convinced to start it all again.

A new burn, this time, in his chest. He is self-aware enough to know it is shame.

Lauriam exhales, shaky, and closes his eyes tight against the burn of tears. He grits his teeth. He takes another breath, and holds himself steady. 

“Thank you,” he tells the voice in the wind, and steels his heart to leave. One breath, then another—  and then he turns on his heel, and leaves it all behind him. He walks away from the Keyblades. Ephemer. The war he does not remember. He walks away— 

And hears, behind him, laughter.

"Oh, Lauriam. Didn’t you hear me?

"I am with you. Always.

"This time, my friend, I won’t let you go alone."

Chapter Text

It takes a couple of tries for Ephemer to convince him to create a portal from the power of the Keyblade; Lauriam insists it isn’t possible, and Ephemer insists right back that it is, he just doesn’t remember how. When the portal finally forms Lauriam is dizzy from success and even dizzier at the sound of Ephemer’s laughter, loud and bright and echoing in the breeze. For a moment he can see the memory in full—sunset red light and this boy sitting alone at a round table, chin cradled in his hand, smile bright. Laughing. I should have just asked for your help from the get-go, huh?

He blinks the memory away, and stares at the portal with a sinking feeling. Ephemer settles beside him, less physical and more a sense. In the dusty breeze of this graveyard eternal, he looks like the faded image of a person, blurred by the edges of the world.  

“Are you afraid?”

“Of course not.”

“Hmm, ” Ephemer says, and though he can’t quite see the other, Lauriam knows he is smiling. He’s not sure how he knows this. It’s not a memory, per se, nor even nostalgia—just fact. A true thing, like the Keyblade’s song ringing soft echoes in his ears. A sure thing. Ephemer, smiling. 

“Well, okay then.”

Lauriam presses his lips and looks at the portal—swirling light and whispers of power. “You’re sure this will work?” he asks, ill at ease with how closely it resembles a dark corridor. He feels exposed without the protective shell of the Organization’s signature coat, weak and ill-guarded. His scythe is gone and his former powers with it; all Lauriam has is a Keyblade he cannot remember how to use, no matter if the blade recognizes him, and a ghost of a boy who lingers at the edges of Lauriam’s memory like a very persistent shadow. 

“It’s how we got around before.”

“Is it?” He can’t recall such a thing, and it makes him scowl, a bit. “Hm.”

“Perfectly safe!”

Lauriam doesn’t answer. 

“See, I can tell you’re doubting me, but I promise— it’s fine. If you held your wish in your heart and focused the way I said, then it’s sure to take you where you want to go.”

The problem, Lauriam thinks, is that he doesn’t know where he wants to go. Which is perhaps why the portal unsettles him so much. Ephemer’s presence, the echoes of laughter, this unfamiliar tension wound tight in his chest— the song of the Keyblade, still ringing distant in his ears. He’d lifted his blade and the portal had unfurled like flowers almost at once; where is it, then, that his heart wants so badly to go—and why can’t Lauriam figure it out?

Are hearts always such a mystery to the people wielding them? Lauriam has forgotten how annoying it is. 

(And how frightening.)

He stares at the portal with lips pressed thin.

“And you’re sure,” he says, slowly, “that you’ll be able to… follow me through?”

He’s not sure how to feel about that, either. In all honesty, Ephemer’s presence should grate on him; Lauriam has never been one to seek another’s company, except for maybe Larxene’s, on the days he was in the mood to deal with her. And yet, the idea of leaving this boy behind—of leaving this graveyard alone—the very thought is withering. In the moment before Ephemer laughed and promised to stay, turning away from these graves, and from him, had felt a little like dying.

Ephemer’s laughter (always, always laughing—) and his promise to stay… no, Lauriam doesn’t know what to make of it. Because Ephemer is cheery, and earnest, and everything Marluxia could not stand, and yet upon hearing those words, Lauriam had relaxed in relief almost despite himself.

He doesn’t know Ephemer. He barely even remembers him. But they must have been friends once, surely, because there is no other explanation for why his being here is such a relief. 

“Well,” Ephemer says. “I’m going to try. I… I don’t know, honestly. I’ve never tried to leave before, though admittedly at that time there wasn’t anywhere to go… and I slept through most of the worlds being rebuilt. But I think I can leave. Really, I do.” Lauriam blinks, and for a moment he can see him in full— the white-haired boy, hand on his chin, squinting into the distance and humming under his breath. “It helps that I’m leaving with you.”

Lauriam considers this. “Why?”

“Well, you know. Our hearts are connected, and all that.”

Lauriam presses his lips. He almost wants to scoff, and yet—  well. Does he have any room to disagree? He had opened his eyes and named Ephemer at once, despite not remembering him at all. And even now, he is stalling, and for what? The portal is right there. What does it matter, whether Ephemer can follow him, unless Lauriam actually wants him there?

“…I see,” Lauriam says, at last, and sighs through his teeth, regarding the portal with resignation. “I suppose we will have to see to find out.”

“That’s the spirit!”

Lauriam shakes his head and steels his shoulders. He looks behind him one last time. The graveyard. The Keyblades, left dead and dull in the dirt. He closes his eyes, and feels them ache with phantom pain.

“Then,” he says, and keeps his voice steady. “Let us go.”

He turns and walks through the portal. He leaves the graveyard behind. But as he steps into the gate, away from this place of nightmares and memory, he can hear Ephemer, faintly, soft and sad and knowing, speaking to the air behind them.

“I’m sorry,” he says. Lauriam cannot see him. He sounds so sad.

He sounds so tired.

.

The change in place is near immediate—the dust gone, the tang of blood that lingers eternal in the graveyard replaced by a musky scent that reminds him of rainwater and cobblestone. The air is cool here, and damp, almost a fog—and when he opens his eyes it is to see a small town set against a star-lit midnight sky, with street lamps alight with a warm glow and close-knit blocky buildings built of dark wood and uneven brick. It is a quiet place, a soft sort of place—and it is, Lauriam realizes at once, entirely empty.

Lauriam stands there, uncertain, Keyblade held awkward in his hand. He flexes his fingers and it vanishes. The warmth of it lingers. He shivers. For a moment, he is afraid to ask. 

He grits his teeth, and prepares for the worst. “Ephemer?”

Silence. Something cold ices down his spine. His fingers curl. He takes a breath— 

“Oh! Sorry, sorry, I—  I’m here. Sorry.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, feeling winded. “You…”

“I haven’t seen the stars in a while. They took me by surprise. I, um. Didn’t mean to—  yes, anyway, sorry. I’m here. Still! Still here.”

He exhales a hard breath, but now that the chill has passed he almost wants to laugh. It is a strange feeling: fond, warm, nostalgic. A faint sensation, half-way to memory, of shaking his head and turning his face away to hide a smile. A moment from long ago. 

“Where are we?” Lauriam asks, instead of indulging the echo, and steps out into the street. Cobble beneath his feet, and fountains full of still water… it feels like a world suspended, a moment in time, like the whole place is holding its breath. Behind him, the portal slips closed with nary a sound. “Why this place?”

“Hmm… well, that has a long answer and a short answer.”

Lauriam looks over. For a moment he can almost see him—Ephemer, blurred against the backdrop of the world, fingers tangled sheepishly in his hair, rubbing the back of his neck. An embarrassed smile. 

“I have no idea.”

“Excuse me,” Lauriam says, chilly.

“I just woke up! And I’ve been sleeping for—” Ephemer almost seems to stumble. “ A long time. I, um, I have no idea what this place is. What most places are? I don’t know, I haven’t seen it…”

“No idea?” Lauriam repeats, incredulous, and then something Ephemer has said hits him sideways. He stops. A few more off-hand comments slot into place. Something cold ices down his spine. Lauriam stares at the ground, struck. “...The first Keyblade War.”

Ephemer takes a moment to respond. The laughter has fled from him. “ …What about it?”

“That was… we were there. Weren’t we?” He cannot think of anything else that would match those faint nightmare images lingering like scars in the back of his mind. The fear, the sick lurch of his gut, the brief flash of a memory, of stepping down into a ruined field—the Keyblade Graveyard—and seeing the bodies not yet vanished, of looking down and realizing that what he had thought were rivers was actually blood. 

“Yes,” Ephemer says, and for a moment sounds so uncharacteristically empty that Lauriam almost falters. 

But the confirmation makes something else chill in him, too. Because the Keyblade War does not even count as a memory. It is not even history. It is so old, so long ago, that it has become fantasy, become fairytale, become more story than fact. For such a tragedy to be forgotten—how many years does that take? How many millennia? And for the first time it strikes Lauriam, truly and honestly— how on earth, then, is he here?

(And the others—the others. Strelitzia and those blurred faces he can’t quite recall—what of them? Are they alive? Are they here with him? Or are they so far away that even memories of them are lost, taken whole by time?

...How long has Ephemer been in that graveyard?)

There is a long pause. Lauriam barely breathes. Ephemer does not speak.

“…I see,” Lauriam says, and turns away. 

Ephemer is quiet for another moment. Then he sighs. “I’m sure the others are okay,” he says, and Lauriam catches the faintest flicker of a smile before Ephemer fades from view once again. “I don’t know where you all fell, but… I know—I’m sure you aren’t the only one who made it.”

Lauriam considers this. He shakes his head and starts walking. If neither of them know this strange in-between town, he might as well start exploring. Surely he is here for a reason? “You sound so certain,” he remarks. “Do you have any idea where they might be?” 

“Um, that’s…” 

Lauriam frowns. “I wonder if perhaps I should have stayed at the Graveyard for a little longer. If I appeared there, then…” The thought makes his skin crawl, even as he says it. The idea of walking through those rows and rows of Keyblades, those deadened hearts turned cold and rusted, makes something lurch ill in his gut. But if it means finding the others, whoever they are—and most importantly, if it means finding Strelitzia—

“Haha, well…” Ephemer trails off. “U-um, I’m not sure. I have some ideas? But regardless, I don’t think…” He goes a little quiet. “Not the graveyard,” he says, finally. “I think they’d go anywhere but there.”

And Lauriam can understand that. But at the same time, it makes him wonder—why, then, had he woken there?

He feels cold. He rubs absently at his arm, and pushes open a door to an abandoned house. Chairs and tables and empty plates. No one has been here for a long time. He closes the door, and moves on. 

He must be here for a reason, he thinks. The Keyblade, singing; this town, unknown to them both, appearing from the depths. There must be something here. There must be something. 

Their conversation has fallen into silence. Lauriam pushes past an ache he didn’t know he had, and keeps looking.

There must be something more to this, he thinks, than just ghosts.

.

He explores this first district for what feels like hours; in all that time, nothing of note appears. After the eleventh empty house, Lauriam slams the door shut and marches for the district gates. Why is he even here? There is nothing in this place, no one and no clues at all. He is wasting his time.

Ephemer says nothing as they head to the next district; if it weren’t for the flickers of him in the corner of his eyes, Lauriam would almost think him lost. Finding Ephemer is like an exercise in snapshot moments: Lauriam blinks as he opens the gate and sees a flash of white hair by his elbow as the boy leans to look out behind him—blinks again as he steps through, and a blurry figure of a boy with a red scarf is now half-way down the street, hands linked behind his back and rocking on his heels, peering through the windows. Blinks again, closing the doors behind him, and then—

Ephemer’s voice, right by his ears. “There’s a workshop! With a screen, too; I guess technology came back to that level, huh? Maybe we can find some information.”

Lauriam shakes the dizziness away and heads for the workshop. That’s not a bad idea at all, he thinks. He looks beside himself, and sees the faintest afterimage of Ephemer walking next to him.

He pushes open the door, taking in the workshop in full. It’s a small room—  cluttered with desks and chairs and paper half-inked. But his eyes are drawn to the wall, to the wide screen taking up half the space, and the memory hits him so hard and so sudden he almost falls over.

Cold stone and towering ceilings, and another boy sitting before the screen—washed out by the white light, eyes dim and shadowed and bruised sleepless beneath his hat. Lauriam steps up to his side and frowns down at him, and says, Have you been here all night? You need to rest—

And the boy looks up, eyes rolling, the book in his hands already snapped shut.

I don’t need you to worry for me, Lauriam.

“Brain,” he whispers.

“What?”

Lauriam startles. “I—”

“Are you okay?”

“—yes. Yes. I’m fine.” He’s not. He feels shaky. 

Ephemer is quiet again. He stands at Lauriam’s elbow, the most solid he’s been thus far; he’s frowning. “Brain,” he repeats. “Did you… um, do you remember him?”

“…He was—” The words fall away. Lauriam grits his teeth. 

“A friend,” Ephemer says, softly, knowing. “He used to…” He trails off, then laughs. “When we would go looking—or around town—I remember, you never wanted to come. You’d stay behind and help with his research, and—”

Something sparks in his memory. “He used to make me stand there and hold beakers,” Lauriam mutters, and even as he speaks he’s unsure of the memory, but—yes. It is there. He can recall it like a distant dream—being younger and surer and standing there, glass bottles in hand, annoyed but mostly just resisting the urge to roll his eyes. And just before he could get too cross—

Oh, right, you’re here too. Do these equations for me?

—Brain, Lauriam tells himself. His name was Brain. He was my friend. And even if he cannot remember everything… like Ephemer’s laughter, like the Keyblade in his hand, it settles in his new-gotten heart like a truth. 

He forces himself away from the room, steps outside and tries to remember how to breathe. He needs to go to the computer—see if it’s working, if it is any use at all—but he cannot make his feet move, and when he closes his eyes he realizes his vision is spinning. He rests his head in his hands and leans against the wall, and breathes until his hands stop shaking.

Ephemer is silent. 

“I’ve forgotten.” His voice is dry. Lauriam almost laughs. Friends, he thinks. Family. Hearts, hah. Only a little while ago he would have disdained them, but even if his memories of being Marluxia are stronger than his memories of being Lauriam, a heart apparently makes all the difference. To turn blank spaces into missing pieces, to make him miss the moments that used to fill his past. And he realizes, then, all at once, why he never remembered anything all those years with the Organization.

Hearts. Such fragile things. Whatever vestiges of his heart had formed, Marluxia had likely crushed it willingly, without realizing, if only to escape the burden of it—and these memories, Lauriam is realizing, are all from the heart. Grief. Regret. Fondness. The images come only after, the thunder after lightning, the echo following the heartbeat. Without one there is no other, and now—heart returned and an old friend by his side—these forgotten things have returned with a vengeance. 

Ephemer’s voice is quiet, again. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

Ephemer takes a long time to reply. When he does, he sounds even quieter than before. “…I know.”

Lauriam curls his fingers into his hair, and then forces his hands down, rising back to his feet. In seconds, he’s under control once again, and he shakes his head, trying to chase away the echoes. He brushes the dust of the empty town from his shirt, and pretends his hands aren’t still shaking. 

“Right,” he says. “The computer—” 

And then he stops, eyes widening, at the sound of footsteps.

“Is that—” Ephemer starts, bewildered, and then Larxene ducks around the corner and almost runs right into them. “Woah!”

“What—”

“Hey, asshole! Watch where you’re—”

“Larxene,” Lauriam says, surprised, but as soon as he says it his mind rebels, hisses Elrena and ally and— and Larxene, or Elrena, or whoever she’s become, stops mid-word and lurches back .

“Apologies,” Lauriam says, before she can speak. He’s starting to feel a bit dizzy. “Elrena.”

She looks almost exactly as he remembers—  only without the coat, now, dressed in a linen top and sharp slacks. Her hair slicked back from her eyes. She opens her mouth as though to speak, and at the sound of her name snaps it shut, eyes going wide. “What?” she says, bewildered. She blinks twice and straightens. “Marluxia?”

His smile freezes at the edges. All at once, any delight at seeing her turns ashy on his tongue. Right. Right.

“Yes,” he says, carefully. He remembers her. He remembers beyond just Marluxia—  remembers a sun-lit town and Elrena sitting on the steps, frowning off into the horizon. It is only the barest glimpse of a memory, but it is enough. He knows her. Impossibly, ironically, he has apparently known her all along.

And so to hear the wrong name from her, of all people, cuts deeper than he would have thought. 

“What are you doing here?” she says, and she’s starting to grin now, something sharp and familiar. “Did you wake up here too? Ugh, thank god, I was starting to get really bored— ” She stops. Her eyes narrow. “No, I… wait. How the fuck did you know my name?”

Ephemer has vanished from sight, but Lauriam can hear him hum, like a distant buzz of static. “Hey…” he says, thoughtfully. “She was fighting with you and the other coat-people in the graveyard, wasn’t she?”

Lauriam winces. “That is…” 

“I didn’t tell it to you,” Elrena continues. “I mean, I don’t think so. So how—” For the first time she seems to look at Lauriam properly, up and down with a scowl, and her expression falters. Her head tilts as if hearing something from far away. She blinks very fast and inhales sharp through her teeth. “…Lauriam.”

Lauriam stares at her. Well, he thinks, a little stunned. That was quick.

“Huh?” Ephemer says, for once sounding fully and entirely taken off-guard. Elrena jumps. This time, it seems Ephemer is letting her hear him. “Oh. Oh! Um, um—Elrena. Oh, wow. From Vulpes, right?”

“What? What?” Ephemer flickers in the corner of Lauriam’s eyes, and Elrena lunges back, a knife flashing in her hand. “The fuck?”

“Oh, uh—um, right, you probably don’t… I mean, I hardly remember you, and we didn’t really interact…” Ephemer sounds sheepish. “I’m Ephemer. It’s nice to meet you.”

Elrena turns to Lauriam. Her expression is a sight to behold, and despite everything, Lauriam almost smiles. “The hell,” she says. “You—and whatever he is—what?”

“It’s been a day,” Lauriam demurs. “A lot has happened. I didn’t expect to find you here, Elrena.” He frowns. “You… knew my name, as well. How much do you remember?”

She looks uneasy. Her eyes flash through the air, as though trying to find Ephemer again. “…Not much, until just now,” she says, wary. “Your name. Uh, I don’t know, a rooftop? And—” She pauses. Her eyes flash to him. “You were… we were looking for someone.”

“Yes.” His mouth feels dry. He closes his eyes. “Strelitzia. My—”

“Sister,” Elrena finishes. She’s blinking fast. “Your sister. And…that kid, what—”

“Ephemer,” Lauriam explains, and when her expression doesn’t change he blinks. “You… don’t know—?”

“We never met, officially,” Ephemer says, appearing beside them both. Elrena jumps. Ephemer smiles up at her. “But I know Lauriam, and a friend of a friend is just a friend still in progress, isn’t it? So either way, I’m glad to see you’re okay! Sorry I didn’t recognize you until now.”

Elrena gives Lauriam a look, scornful and mocking. Lauriam stares back, frowning. It doesn’t surprise him, her reaction to Ephemer—and in truth, such pep from anyone else would likely elicit the same from him—but he cannot find it in himself to sneer at Ephemer’s words, his kindness, his cheery asides. Not with all these echoes in his head. Not with the sheer weight of relief that had fallen on him, when Ephemer had said, This time, I won’t let you go alone.

When Lauriam doesn’t react, Elrena falters. Her next glance at Ephemer is considering, narrow-eyed, watchful. Ephemer just beams.

She squints at him, and finally turns away. “…Sure. Whatever.”

How wonderful that they’re getting along, Lauriam thinks dryly, and then replays the conversation back in his head and blinks. Vulpes. What had Ephemer meant by that? It makes him think of stained glass and a fox mask, but that leaves him with more questions than a true answer. 

But regardless, Lauriam thinks, now is not the time. There’s something else bothering him. “Why were you running?” he asks Elrena, curious. “Is something wrong?”

“Oh, that.” She pulls her eyes away from Ephemer and straightens, tension slowly bleeding from her shoulders, but doesn’t put her knife away just yet. “I thought I heard…” She looks confused, bleary, one hand on her head, and for a moment she squints at Lauriam like she is seeing someone else in his place. “…Never mind.”

He considers her. “If you’re sure.”

“…Yeah.” She crosses her arms, and casts a quick glance around. “So, what about you? Did you wake up here too?”

“No,” Lauriam admits. “Elsewhere. I came here through… certain means.” He doesn’t know yet how much she recalls, and I made a portal no one remembers how to make with a Keyblade I barely remember how to wield is just a bit too bizarre to voice aloud. “I didn’t choose to come here, exactly. It’s just… where I ended up.”

“Oh,” she says, and her brow furrows. “So you’ve just been looking around, then?”

“Until you showed up, yes.” 

“Right…”

Lauriam blinks and looks over her again. Something about her tone strikes him as odd; even Ephemer, who claims to hardly know her, appears a few feet away with his head tilted in curiosity, looking at Elrena with a thoughtful expression. 

Elrena, for her part, seems oddly conflicted. She shifts on her feet, flicking her knife through her fingers. “Right,” she says again. Lauriam eyes her. She glares back, defiant, and then immediately looks away. “…And did you find anything?”

“Just you,” he says, slowly. “Elrena—”

“Look—” She scowls. “Did you… hear something?” 

Lauriam stares at her, confused and a little alarmed. “What?”

“When you— I don’t know. Went looking.”

“No,” Lauriam says, after a very long pause. He waits. She doesn’t say anything. He narrows his eyes and asks the obvious question: “Did you?” 

She hesitates again. She looks around. Ephemer is strangely quiet. And then, sounding almost unsure of herself—

“No,” Elrena says, at last. “It’s nothing.” 

Chapter Text

In the end the computer is a bust. It takes both Lauriam and Elrena to get it booted, and by then it’s clear their efforts are quite wasted: the screen is dead and static, flickering with incomprehensible colors. Lauriam presses his lips. Ephemer sighs and suggests they keep looking. Elrena accuses Ephemer of messing with the screen, claiming ghosts are known for electromagnetic pulses. 

“Oh, I see,” Ephemer says, at the comment. Then: “…Um, what is that, exactly?”

“Ugh, never mind. Just go away, would you?”

Lauriam suspects Elrena just wants to speak with him alone. 

On one hand, he wants the same; on the other, he has not forgotten the look in Ephemer’s eyes, that muted blankness in his voice. I saw who you became. Marluxia. He’s not sure how much Ephemer saw of the second War, nor what he understood from it; there is little doubt, however, that if he saw Marluxia then he must have seen Larxene as well.

So he’s not surprised when Ephemer falters at the comment, smile going small and thin; wavering in the air like the ghost he is. Elrena is giving Lauriam a look—back me up here, is what that means—but Lauriam just waits. For all that Ephemer has said he wants to trust him… Lauriam understands a little better now. The rising memories of the first War lend new light to his actions in the graveyard. To have helped Xehanort, to have tried to restart that ancient horror once again, Nobody or not, possessed or not… well.

After a long pause, though, Ephemer ducks his head in a nod. “Okay,” he says. And then, a little wryly: “Let me know if the computer works!”

And the Lauriam blinks and Ephemer is gone—from view and hearing both, presumably, though Lauriam has no idea how Elrena plans to check that. He sighs and turns back to the computer, fiddling with the wires. As expected, nothing changes. 

Elrena eyes the place where Ephemer had stood and then snorts. “Oh, finally. Thought he’d never leave.” She crosses her arms and turns to Lauriam, looking him up and down. “So?”

“So,” he replies, toneless, and smiles faintly when she rolls her eyes at him. This is one part of having a heart again that he doesn’t mind at all—the warmth of it. Still. “You shouldn’t be so rude to him.”

“Who, ghost kid?” Her nose wrinkles. “Why do you care?”

Lauriam looks away, smile gone now. He pulls his hand away from the computer wires and curls his fingers, trying not feel too frustrated with her. It’s a valid question. She is the closest thing to a friend he had as Marluxia; his only ally, in the grand scheme of things. In all regards, Ephemer is an outsider, another pretend-ally turned pawn like what they did with the rest of the Organization. He understands why she thinks that. It does not stop him from disliking it, bone-deep disgust with the very idea.

But he doesn’t have the words for it, doesn’t know how to explain this friendship that is, even now, only half-remembered and still unknown to him. So he sighs, instead, and says, “What did you want to talk about?”

Elrena frowns at him, and Lauriam raises an eyebrow back, and after a moment she makes a face but reluctantly drops it. "Whatever," she mutters, though she sounds a fair bit more subdued now. Her eyes flicker to where Ephemer had last been and her frown deepens, but at last she shakes her head. "So? What the plan?"

He considers this. "The plan?"

She stares at him. "You... don't have one?"

Something odd needles at his chest; Lauriam leans back against the wall by the computer, staring hard at nothing. "I..." He stops, a little embarrassed. "No. It's been... a time. I don't know enough." He hasn't remembered enough. "I want to remember what I have forgotten. Find the people I lost."

"Strelitzia?"

"Yes." Always, always, always. He thinks of Brain, though, and frowns down at his hands. "And... others, too."

"Others?"

He considers her confusion upon meeting Ephemer, and shrugs. "I don't know if you knew them too. But I remembered... his name was Brain. I regarded him highly." He stares off at nothing. "And... not just him. I can't recall the others just yet, but—” He resists the urge to touch at his chest, over his heart. It aches. "I know they are there."

"...Huh." Elrena seems subdued; he eyes her, but she doesn't meet his gaze, staring off over the unknown town with an unreadable expression. "So what are you doing here?"

He smiles. "Finding you."

She snorts, but something of the tension eases from her shoulders. "No plan at all?" she remarks. "Well. I've never been one for following orders anyway."

As if he has ever really given her orders. The idea almost makes him want to make a face. He abandons the computer entirely, turning to face her fully, leaning back against the wall. "My turn," he says. "What do you remember?"

"Like I said, not much." She shifts on her feet. "...Strelitzia, mostly. I remember... she was sitting on a rooftop..." Her brow furrows. "She was waiting for someone." She shrugs. "Nothing that will help us find her now."

"You never know." Still, he grimaces. “Is that all?"

"Ehh, about."

He considers this, frowning off at nothing. No mention of Keyblades. No mention of the War... but then, he hadn't really remembered it either, until he summoned the blade and saw the Keyblade Graveyard with his heart still beating. 

"Vulpes?" he suggests, half-curious at her response.

"Excuse you."

"Nothing?"

"I don't know," Elrena snaps, but she seems testy again, uncertain. Her lips pull to a grimace, and she turns her face away. “…I— a woman. I don't know. She wore a mask? She said..." Elrena trails off. Sighs. "Nope." She rubs at her temples. "Fucking hell."

He sympathizes with her; the headache has been building slowly but surely for him. "Indeed."

She pauses. Then she settles next to him by the wall, gingerly. "I can't believe I forgot," she admits, muted in a way she so rarely is, and Lauriam looks at her and does not comment on it. "Even you. How did we—” She shakes her head. "I knew you there, in that place, but when we met again I still didn't... how does that even work?" Her fingers curl. "And Xemnas—he knew all along. Didn't he?"

Lauriam thins his lips at the reminder. "I suppose so."

She gestures. "Yeah, okay. But how?"

How, indeed? Lauriam stares at the air with a dark expression. Marluxia had never liked Xemnas, as much as a Nobody could dislike anything; to learn that Xemnas might know more about Lauriam's past than even he does...

But no, Lauriam thinks, that doesn't make sense either. Because hadn't Xemnas said so himself—that he chose them to unearth those secrets? Perhaps it isn't that Xemnas knows their past. Maybe he just knows how to find those who are a part of it.

Lauriam grits his teeth. The Graveyard was empty. Where Xemnas is, he is now likely gone; the one time Lauriam could actually use the Superior, and he is nothing. How ironic.

"I guess it doesn't matter," Elrena mutters sourly, looking to be thinking about the same. "Bet the stupid keykid got him too." She kicks at the ground, ignorant of the way Lauriam twitches hard at the nickname. "Well, screw him."

He smiles, a little. "It matters little. We can find our past on our own."

"Mm." She tilts her head. "Any idea where to start?" She frowns, abruptly. "He talked to Demyx and Luxord too... ugh. Think they might know something?"

He... hadn't thought of that. Lauriam frowns. "I have no idea," he admits. "And no way of finding them, regardless."

"Well, you didn't mean to find me, either, but here we are." She flips one of her knives through her fingers, absent-minded. “Do we know if the fight got all of them? Old man might still have them at the Graveyard." She looks up. Her expression falters. "...Lauriam?"

He feels a little as if he has been hit in the throat; he has to look away. "No," he manages. "I... I awoke in the Graveyard. There was no one there." No one but Ephemer, and does he even count? He has been for as long as those awful rusted keys have been there.

"What, seriously?" Elrena stares at him. "Why there?"

"I don't know." He leans against the wall. "I suspect it has to do with the War. The first one."

Her expression doesn't change. "Why?"

Why? He stares at her. He goes to speak—

"Well, it was around that time. Er, I guess, not that you would remember it, huh..."  

Elrena jumps, eyes wild, knife in hands; even Lauriam stills, startled, fingers digging into his own arms. Ephemer, standing abruptly beside them, blinks.

"Oh, sorry. Did I startle you?"

Elrena splutters at him. "I thought I told you to get lost.”

“I just came back!” Ephemer says, looking embarrassed. “I really did leave. Sorry.”

"It's fine," Lauriam says, before she can comment. "Ephemer, what do you mean? I remember..." He trails off, taking a steadying breath. "I remember the War rather well.”

"Oh, I meant..." Ephemer sighs a little. "It did happen. The Keyblade War. But... out of the few who survived it, only five of us remembered." His glance to Elrena is almost apologetic. "You weren't one of them."

"Only five people?" Lauriam repeats, stunned. "That's... why?"

"I got my memories erased even back then?" Elrena demands, sounding furious. "Are you kidding me? What the hell!"

But Ephemer doesn't back down, though his shoulders round up, old shame. "I'm sorry," he says. "I really am. But... you weren't there, not really. I only saw the tail-end of the war, and even then..." For a moment his voice falters. He flickers. His eyes close. "I wish I could forget. I do."

There's silence, for a moment, neither Lauriam nor Elrena knowing what to say that. Ephemer has faded from view. Lauriam sighs, softly, and pushes away the lingering ache of grief he doesn't yet have the context or memory to understand.

"Very well," he says. “We’ll talk about this another time. Ephemer, did you find anything?"

Ephemer flickers back into view, a few feet aside to where he last was, looking relieved at the change in subject. "Not really, no. This district is pretty empty too. Some of the houses are still made up though... and I found a few pins on the floor of one of the houses? Someone used to live here, I think, but they aren't here anymore."

Lauriam frowns. "How... comforting."

Ephemer shrugs. “I don't think there's anything else here," he says. "Not, um, that this isn't a great place! It's lovely! But..."

Lauriam hums. "You're right. It might be time to move on." They've found Elrena, after all, and if connections between the heart are to be believed, then she is probably the entire reason they appeared here at all. If there is nothing else to find, then there is no reason to stay.

But Elrena doesn't look pleased; she's scowling, and spinning the blade in her hands like she's feeling restless. "We don't know for sure," she says, and when Lauriam blinks at her, she crosses her arms and looks away. "What! We don't. And considering how you two completely missed me, I'm not sure I trust this ghost kid to find anything worth finding."

Lauriam frowns; Ephemer, however, just laughs. "That's fair, I guess."

Lauriam considers her. "You want to keep looking?"

She won't meet his eyes. "What, like you have somewhere else to be?"

He does, actually. He has a million other places he'd rather be: he wants to see Strelitzia again, he wants to find Brain, he wants to remember those other people who are still only echoes in his mind. But Elrena won't meet his gaze—and her shoulders are tense—and he remembers how she ran into them, racing around the corner. As though running away from something.

Or, perhaps—her question from earlier. Did you hear something? Running away from something… or running to?

He doesn't want to stay. But when Lauriam opens his mouth to tell her this, to say as coldly as Marluxia ever was, that they don't have time and have more important things to do regardless—what comes out instead is, "All right."

.

In the end, they split up to search. 

Elrena is shifty and uncertain and takes the first district without comment, and when Lauriam offers to search with her she waves him off. “I’ll be fine,” she says. “Besides, I don’t trust ghost kid to search on his own, and I’m not going with him, so.”

“Lauriam didn’t find you either,” Ephemer points out, grinning, and Elrena turns away as if not hearing him. Lauriam eyes them. Ephemer laughs.

So they split up, in the end, but as they shift through the empty city Lauriam cannot help but feel uncertain. He watches Elrena leave, and when she is gone, turns to Ephemer and says, “Are you sure you didn’t find anything?”

“You mean, the reason she wants to stay…?” Ephemer sighs. “No, nothing. Pins, um, one really pretty feather, but it kind of dissolved when I tried to touch it… um, needle and thread? But they were just things. I don’t think… well, I can’t be sure, but…”

“You don’t think that’s what she’s looking for.” 

“…No. Do you?”

He thinks of what Elrena said before, and sighs. “Let’s keep looking.”

Ephemer hums, light and thoughtful, and the conversation ends there, for the moment.

They keep searching. The empty houses, and the empty streets— still, nothing of note appears. Dusty dishes, forgotten rooms. It’s exactly as Ephemer said it would be. Some houses are already unlocked, one memorable one is still lit, more colorful pins scattered on the table. Ephemer looks at them with interest; Lauriam frowns at them, and the flicker of power he can feel from them, but when he picks one up it is cold and empty and he leaves it on the table with the rest.

“I don’t suppose anyone I knew fought with pins?” he wonders, only half-kidding.

“Haha. I don’t know how that would work, really…” Ephemer is smiling, though. “No. All Keyblades. Ooh, we did have medals, though…”

“…Medals.”

“You’d attach them onto keychains—in the gaps of the links. Power boost!”

Hmm. He has seen nothing of the like before; it must be an old technique, lost to time. And on second thought… the keychain of his Keyblade did seem longer than the usual, the gaps in the chain wider. Perhaps he could see if medals still exist here, in some form…? 

Something to look into, perhaps. Along with everything else.

Lauriam exits the house, closing the door shut behind him. The streetlamps shine orange in the gloom. He looks at the light for a long moment. “Ephemer.”

“Hm?” 

“…the others.”

There’s a pause. “Are you sure?” Ephemer hedges, and he flickers like static, in and out of view so quick it makes Lauriam feel dizzy. “I don’t want… if it’s too much… we should wait, maybe, um, if you—“

“Please. If it’s too much, I’ll tell you. I just…” He doesn’t know how to say it. He closes his eyes and sighs.

“…Okay,” Ephemer says, finally, and he sounds reluctant, like the words are pulling through his teeth, but he sighs afterwards and then straightens. “Um. Okay. What… what do you want to know?”

There are so many things he wants to ask, and he has no idea where to begin. “…Brain,” he decides. “What can you tell me about him?”

“Oh! Hm. Um. He was… studious? He was good with computers, uh…” Ephemer chuckles, a little nervous, tugging at one strand of hair. “I don’t really know what you want me to say.”

“What was he like?”

“…Distant. He didn’t sleep a lot. I think that bothered you. Hm, he’d get lost in thought very easily… and he always had so many ideas. He thought so quick! Some days I could barely keep up. He was always ahead.” Somewhere in speaking Ephemer’s hesitation fades into enthusiasm; he stays in view, smiling off to the side. “He knew a lot. He read a lot. He wasn’t good at taking care of himself, though, so…”

“…We’d take turns badgering him to sleep.” He can almost recall it. Brain brushing past him to the kitchen, looking back, annoyed at him. Hurry. Before they band together and steal all my coffee. 

(An echo, too, of Lauriam’s reply. If you just slept more—

That, coming from you?

Oh, be quiet.)

Lauriam exhales slowly. He turns his head away, but he feels warm. “He liked making things,” he murmurs, bemused.

“Yes!” Ephemer is smiling outright now. “He was kind. And a good friend. Just quiet. You two worked together on a lot of projects. You helped him out a lot.”

When Brain let him help, or remembered he was there. But Lauriam is smiling. “Yes. I think so too.” His smile fades. He thinks back to his conversation with Elrena and grimaces, then braces himself. “…Actually, there was something else I wished to ask you. You said you… saw me. Marluxia. I—I don’t suppose—you recognized anyone else on that Graveyard? During…” He hesitates. “The second War?”

Ephemer is still, now. His smile has faded. “Why… why are you asking?”

There is something odd in Ephemer’s voice, strained and thin; Lauriam blinks at him. “Someone I… knew,” he says, unwilling to describe Xemnas any more familiarly than that, “suggested that we—Elrena and I, and two others—were chosen to be vessels due to our connection with an ‘ancient Keyblade legacy.’ I thought it foolishness, at the time, but…” He trails off. “I suppose I’m just covering our bases. I don’t know their original names, but I knew them as Luxord, and Demyx. Luxord I fought with at the Graveyard…” He pauses. “Demyx was a musician.”

Ephemer is quiet for a very long time. “Um,” he says. He doesn’t appear, his voice bodiless on the wind. “It… doesn’t ring any bells, no.”

“I see.” Lauriam frowns off to the side. “So… perhaps it is not them.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are still—holes, in my memory. I remember… standing at a table. You are there. And so is…Brain.” He closes his eyes. “And others. But I cannot… I can’t recall them. No matter how I try.”

“The other Union Leaders,” Ephemer says, understanding. 

“Union Leaders?”

“Oh, it was… there's too much to explain, really. Hm. But there were—a few of us. Me, you, Brain…” He pauses. “Skuld, too.”

His head aches. Lauriam stills halfway through checking the next house, hand stuttering in the air. “Skuld,” he echoes. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to focus. Dark hair, he thinks. Quick steps. Something about her… “She was worried about something?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re remembering. But, Skuld was—she took things seriously. So, probably?”

“Mm.” His head throbs. Lauriam settles his hand against his forehead and sighs. “Damn this.”

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t understand why this is so…” He bites the words off. “Never mind. This is getting us nowhere.”

“Sleep,” Ephemer suggests. “If we aren’t leaving this town anytime soon, then there’s no rush. Let's find Elrena and rest.”

Lauriam does not want to stay here. He doesn’t want to linger. But there’s another echo in his head now, a girl’s voice, soft and firm: Get some rest, Lauriam. I can handle it. You can’t take everything at once, you know.

He frowns at the pavement and closes his eyes, and the echo settles away, warm and distant. He sighs. Then he straightens. “…All right.”

Ephemer flickers, again. But in the flashes of him he can see, Lauriam thinks he’s smiling.

“Good,” he says warmly, and with one last glance at the empty houses, Lauriam turns away.

. 

They meet up with Elrena at the door between the two districts, and even from a distance, he knows she has found nothing. The scowl cuts dark across her face. 

She looks at him. Lauriam shakes his head. Her shoulders hunch.

“We should rest,” Lauriam says, in the silence that follows. “We can figure out our bearings after that.”

“That’s—!” Elrena says, and then she snaps her mouth shut and glowers at the floor. 

“I’ll keep looking,” Ephemer offers, when she doesn’t speak. His expression is sympathetic. “I don’t need to sleep, after all. And in any case I’ve slept more than long enough…” The joke is in poor taste. Lauriam eyes him. Elrena, who has no context for the joke at all, just squints. Ephemer chuckles weakly and rubs at his neck. “Um. Anyway. I’ll keep looking around. So get some sleep, okay? Both of you.”

“Like you’re going to find anything,” Elrena says, snappish, and marches into the nearest building before either Ephemer or Lauriam can respond. Ephemer’s gaze follows after her. His expression is… oddly blank.

“…She is just frustrated,” Lauriam offers, feeling vaguely frustrated himself. He feels caught between sides, and he is not sure if he likes it. The feeling twists knots in his chest. 

“I’m not mad,” Ephemer says, and he glances back at Lauriam. His offered smile is small, but… it does not seem false, at least. “Don’t worry. Go rest! I’ve got this.”

Lauriam hesitates, uncertain. He watches Ephemer for a long moment, standing still on the street. For a moment he wants to ask— he is not sure what he wants to ask.

“…I promise you. I won’t disappear.”

Lauriam startles. “I—”

“Like I said before. I won’t let you go alone. I’ll still be here when you wake up.” For the first time, Ephemer does not seem so see-through. His eyes are serious and sure, his feet firm on the ground. He doesn’t flicker at all. “This is real. I promise.”

Lauriam does not know what to say to that. He lets out a slow breath and then brings himself to nod. “I…” He rubs a hand over his face. “All right.”

Ephemer flickers away with a smile. Lauriam looks back at the town—quiet, ever empty, the whisper of a soft wind on the streets—and then turns to go inside himself.

Sleep. After everything, after all they’ve been through… it doesn’t sound like such a bad idea after all. 

He finds an empty room and curls up on dusty covers. The air is silent and still. He closes his eyes and drops to sleep before he can think better of it.

.

(He dreams of a Graveyard, of a city in the light of daybreak, of a cliff overlooking the horizon. The flowers bend in the breeze. His sister laughs. Ephemer laughs. The boy lies sleeping on the bed and does not laugh at all. Lauriam puts his head in his hands and does not see him.

He dreams of a clocktower; he dreams of a room too big for them. A round table, scattered chairs, stained glass windows. The ceiling stretches up into shadow; through the skylight windows there is only darkness, a hint of stars. It is so late at night even the air seems to have fallen to a hush. 

Brain sits at a desk on the far end, shoved into some forgotten corner. He is caged in at all sides by bookcases and papers left abandoned. His light is the only light left—the small lamp glowing with a soft halo in the gloom, the Book laid open on the desk before him. His hat sits askew on his head.

Lauriam steps up, leaving the door open behind him. He says, “I thought I’d find you here.”

Brain doesn’t jump, but his shoulders stiffen. His glance back at Lauriam is sharp. The shadows are dark under his eyes, thumbprint bruises. “Lauriam,” he says. Then he frowns. “You’re still up?”

Lauriam raises an eyebrow. “That’s my line.”

“Hm.” Brain looks away. His hand rests carefully on the pages of the Book. “I’ll sleep eventually.”

“Eventually.”

Brain casts him an annoyed glance. Then back to the Book again. “Eventually,” he agrees. He tuns away fully, his back to him. The shadows cast him in silhouette.

Lauriam waits. Brain says nothing else— he has, Lauriam realizes, gone right back to reading. Lauriam lifts his eyes to the ceiling, and then walks up to stand beside him. He has to resist the urge to blow out the light. Then they will both be left in darkness, and as satisfying (and funny) as the move would be, such a joke will only sour in the long run. 

The War is still too close. The shadows, even with the light, are just too dark.

Instead, Lauriam sits up on the desk. The response is good enough—Brain looks up, and frowns at him. “Get off,” he says, sounding annoyed again. “I was reading those papers.”

“Oh, were you? I’m so sorry. My mistake.” He doesn’t move.

The frown deepens. “Lauriam.”

Lauriam tilts his head, fighting the urge to smile. “Yes?”

“…You’re not subtle.”

“I’m not trying to be.” Brain sighs. Lauriam shakes his head. “Go to sleep. The Book will still be here in the morning.”

Brain reaches up for the brim of his hat and tugs it low over his face. His jaw is strangely tight. He doesn’t speak for a long moment. Lauriam waits with him.

At last, his shoulders slump. Brain pushes his hat back up again, away from his eyes. He looks tired. The shadows catch in the hollows of his cheeks. “Fine,” he says. “You win.”

It doesn’t feel like a victory. Lauriam smiles anyway, and offers his hand; Brain takes it with a roll of his eyes, and lets Lauriam pull him to his feet. He yawns into one hand, and then looks surprised at himself.

Lauriam very carefully doesn’t laugh at him. He places his hand on Brain’s shoulder and pushes him towards the door. “Please sleep.”

“I already said I would.” Brain shakes him off and heads for the door. He stops at the doorway, leaning heavily to the side, and then yawns again. His expression has gone annoyed. Lauriam grins at him.

Brain glances back, eyes shining beneath the brim of his hat. “Don’t just stand there and laugh at me,” he says, unimpressed. “Come on.”

“Oh?”

“You’re still awake, aren’t you? Go to bed yourself. Before Skuld comes looking too.”

Skuld does seem to have a sixth sense for these things, though whether that is because of worry or simply because Skuld herself is a restless sleeper, Lauriam doesn’t know. His smile gentles. “Fair enough,” he says. He stays where he is. 

Brain too, stays standing. Lauriam watches him and Brain watches him back. The light on the desk flickers. The pages of the Book turn. This far away from the light, Brain’s whole face seems cast in darkness. 

“Brain,” Lauriam says, at last. Something has twisted in his chest. His voice is tight. “Brain— how do I find you?”

Brain says nothing for a long moment. Then he reaches for the brim of his hat and sighs. 

“Lauriam,”� he says. Quiet. Solemn. The room feels fuzzy at the edges. The light has gone out behind them. The room is empty, and the absence is a living thing. People used to live here. He used to live here. The empty spaces where the others used to sit feel like a hole in his chest.

Brain says, “You can’t keep assuming there’s going to be something to find.")

.

He wakes up freezing cold, Ephemer’s voice in his ears, high and panicked. “Lauriam,” he says. “Lauriam, Lauriam, get up!”

He pushes himself upright, blurry from the dream. “What?” 

“Hurry!”

Alarm breaks through the fog. Lauriam rolls to his feet, chest tight. “What is it?” He says. “Ephemer—”

Ephemer flickers into view. The sight of him— faint, faded, see-through— for a moment, Lauriam freezes, caught entirely off-guard. Ephemer shouldn’t look like that. Ephemer shouldn’t…

The feeling fades. Pain spikes through his head. Ephemer flickers, and reappears by his side. “Lauriam?” he says. Worried now. The tone is familiar. He has never heard it before now.

His heart hurts. “I’m fine,” Lauriam says, forcing the words even. “What’s happening?”

“You need to move,” Ephemer says. He still sounds worried, but his eyes have darted back to the window. “It’s—“

The shadows writhe. Lauriam throws himself back just before the neoshadow manifests. He hisses. “Heartless!” 

He reaches out a hand, for his scythe— and nothing comes. Lauriam freezes. Ephemer says, panicked now: “Move!”

Claws catch in his side instead of hooking in his chest. Lauriam stumbles back through the bedroom door, his shoulder smacking into the far wall of the hallways, fear and frustration both burning through his blood. Stupid. Stupid. He is a Nobody no longer; of course the scythe is lost to him.

“Try to head downstairs,” Ephemer says, flickering in and out of view like a bad light. “I’ll be right back, I need to go warn—”

“Lauriam!”

He startles, whipping his head around. Just there, down the hall— “Elrena?”

“Those fucking heartless have found us! We have to run!”

Lauriam levers himself against the wall, hand pressed against his bleeding side. “I—” No point in arguing. Elrena is the one who wanted to stay; if she admits the situation is out of control, then pushing the issues will only pour salt in the wound. “Very well. Let us get out of the building first. I’ll meet you downstairs!”

A shadow darts behind Elrena on the stairs. She swears, throws a knife at it, and slips past it in a blur. Lauriam kicks the bedroom door on the neoshadow—unlikely to slow it down, but hopefully it will provide a moment to move—and then goes to follow after her.

Ephemer blurs. He is standing on the top of the staircase, staring down at where Elrena had gone. His faded eyes shine with an inner glow; his expression is unreadable. “I didn’t wake her,” he murmurs, so soft Lauriam almost misses it. “How did she…?”

The neoshadow phases through the door. Lauriam automatically reaches for his scythe again and snarls. Ephemer whips around. “Lauriam,” he says. “The Keyblade!”

Lauriam holds out a hand, dodges the next swipe of the neoshadow’s claws, and calls again. Nothing. “It won’t answer me!”

“You need to focus—“

“I am focusing—”

The neoshadow slips into the darkness. The walls creak. Yellow eyes, too close—

(The stranger, one-eyed and scarred and smiling. One eye slitted gold. Well, they say. Fancy meeting you again. You’ve come a long way, kid.)

His thoughts white-out. He forgets what he has forgotten. He throws up a hand to shield his heart and already knows it is futile.

(The stranger. The strange blade, so terribly familiar. It hurt.

Sorry, little dandelion. It’s nothing personal.)

His fingers close around the hilt of a blade. Lauriam swings. The neoshadow fades away into smoke and a small shining light, dying as silently as it appeared. The freed heart drifts up to the ceiling and fades away back to the kingdom.

Lauriam stands, breathing heavily, clutching the Keyblade so tightly it hurts. His vision is blurry. There is a strange ringing in his ears.

“Um,” Ephemer says. He sounds stunned. 

Blue and gold glitter in the corner of his eyes. Lauriam jolts, looking down at the Keyblade at last. This— this isn’t his Keyblade. He is not sure how he knows, but he knows. It sings a different song. It burns with a different warmth. Dark blue and gold wound up a narrow hilt, the blade like a star.

“This is your Keyblade,” he says. He is not sure how he knows that either. “I— I summoned your Keyblade?”

“Um,” Ephemer says, again. His eyes are very wide. Once again, he seems almost fully present, feet firm on the ground, shocked back into reality. “I— well— I guess that works?” He tugs at the ends of his scarf and gives Lauriam a helpless look. “I don’t know.”

There is no time to question it. The Heartless bleed from the shadows of the wall. Lauriam takes one last deep breath, grits his teeth—really, now, will this ever start making sense—and then turns to run for it.

He gets down the stairs just before the Heartless swarm him, and takes care of the rest with one sweep of Ephemer’s blade. Something in him chafes. If he remembered— if he knew more—once, these Heartless would have been nothing to him.

But he has forgotten. And now he is running away.

There’s no point in thinking about this either. He pushes the thought away and scans his surroundings. Elrena is there, on the bottom floor. Fighting her way to the front door of the house. 

The Heartless have surrounded her. She is wielding her last knife. It will do nothing.

Lauriam raises the Keyblade; the heartless burn. The Keyblade’s song sings of shadows. Even though it is not is own, it answers his call just as easily—if not easier—than his own blade. He doesn’t understand at all.

Elrena is staring at him. “You,” she gasps. “Where did you— a Keyblade?”

So she really hadn’t remembered. He should have told her sooner… but now is not the time. “Later,” Lauriam says. “We need to get out of here. Ephemer—”

Ephemer appears just beside him, one see-through hand hovering over his own blade. It feels like static on his skin. “Just like before,” he says, seriously. “Keep your wish in your heart and let it lead, and the portal will come to you. You can do this!”

The heartless are all around them. The shadows make his chest tight. Lauriam steadies his hand and forces himself to focus on the door anyway. He needs a portal. He has only just found Elrena again, and there is still so much he wants to ask. They need to run. They must escape—

For a moment, his vision blurs. Something like a dream, or maybe a memory. A different room. A different door. Brain, looking back at him, his face in shadow. His smile small but fond.

Come on, he says, and his voice is almost warm. Before Skuld comes looking too.

(A round table, scattered chairs. Brain, flipping through the pages of a book. A young boy with a shock of blond hair, face down on the table, fast asleep. Ephemer, laughing. A girl with dark hair and starlight earrings, laughing with him. She looks so tired, but her smile is still so bright.

Skuld.) 

Light burns through the air. The portal resonates and then unfurls.

No time to waste. Lauriam grabs at Elrena’s shoulder and throws them both through. The shadows whisper. Ephemer’s Keyblade sings of stars.

The doorway closes shut behind them.