Archive of Our Own

The Walls were something Ralsei understood from the moment he first began to think.

There were many Walls. There was the Wall of Glass, engraved with scripture; the Wall of the Worlds, constructed all around the cramped, empty space he called home; the Wall within the Cage, the barrier that distinguished Soul and Parts; Walls upon Walls upon Walls, and at their center was him. A small bundle of shadow, important despite itself, its only hope being to efface a couple measly sentences on the Glass and engrave something new in their place. So what if he was effaced alongside it?

But there was one Wall that differed, one that Ralsei thought would preserve him as he was, and one that, unlike the rest, existed to be malleable. It was composed of three segments: one between the First and Second, one between the Second and Third, and one between the Third and First. There was a hierarchy to these Walls: the Walls surrounding him must only be gently chiseled, creating an image that showed to the others only the convincing outline of a person while permitting him to see the others in full, whilst the Wall between the other two ought to be dismantled and their own prisoners free to be together. He had to see his companions in full were he to be of service, a duty which entailed a necessity for them to see one another; but they could not see him, for they would be disappointed to learn the outline was just that and nothing more.

He found a chisel and began to sculpt.

At first, it seemed that all was working as intended. He tutorialized the First, chipping away at the Wall between himself and Kris, himself and the Soul, permitting glances at the outline of a person. He even offered them relief, momentary though it was, from the perplexities of their duality with their Soul, so they might understand themself better. He scolded the Second, showing to her through cuts in the Wall precisely as much as he believed needed to be shown, no more and no less, for he knew she would disengage if she saw the vacuous center of his being. He had control, chisel in hand, and he was learning its art. A deft hand would be needed to chisel Glass.

Yet he was a fool, believing himself to be skilled at his craft. He found himself half-awake on the floor, Kris knocked to their knees, Susie standing on wavering legs against an unshakable opponent. Had he not shown enough of himself? Too much of himself? His lessons appeared to get through to the First and Second, but was he simply too weak to perform any other duty? It was only by the grace of timely intervention that the three of them left that Dark World alive. All Ralsei had to hold onto was the bittersweet taste that he had some indirect part in their survival, and the gaps in the Wall.

He looked to the Second. He could see her outline well, and she his. He even caught a couple grins as she shifted around on the other side of the Wall, examining thoroughly his nice little outline. Despite his trepidations, he smiled back at Susie. Loose bricks slipped out of place easily as the disguise slipped and his true form became exposed, even if it was still little more than wireframe. She seemed to like it.

He looked to the First, hoping to see the same, but only found a shifting mirage of brick and stone. What he thought were outlines of their being, focused one second, in the next became indistinct, blurry; the outline of the Parts confused themselves with the outline of the Soul, overlapped, extinguished, until all that was left was an indescribable hole. Who had said what? Which of those outlines was Kris, and which was their Soul? Had one of them listened to him against the other’s wishes? The bittersweet taste on the roof of his mouth melted into a blandness like rice cakes, and he gave a cheerful good-bye to his friends, knowing the words would at least be heard through the gaps in the Wall. Whether they would be listened to was another matter.

The adventure continued. Several bricks were knocked out of the Wall between him and Susie, enough that Ralsei felt he had to duck down and cautiously slip some back into place so as not to show too much. Yet every time she moved a brick out of place, there was an adrenaline rush within his heart. It felt good to be seen in that way. It felt good to say a couple kind or silly words that cut her to the quick, and see her smile back at him. He wanted to keep feeling that way, keep dismantling that Wall brick by brick, though oftentimes discomfort would come as quick and sharp as pleasure and make him rebuild it in a new configuration. It hurt to see her think things of him that did not exist within his outline, yet it hurt even more for her to see things that were there, things he himself couldn’t see. It hurt to realize that he might not be able to hide anything from her. It hurt to think that he could be anything else than what he was, useless of a thought as it was. Still he tried, brick by brick, to mold the Wall to his desired shape as much as he could.

It was only when he stood on the swan boat next to Kris, acid waves gently lapping at the shores and glowing dully, that his frustrations and confusions towards them, fueled further and further by that horrible desire to see, finally transformed, became unstagnant.

“It’s nice that Ralsei is Ralsei.”

He didn’t know what that meant, necessarily. He wasn’t convinced it would be an authentic sentiment to begin with. How could they know? They weren’t breaking the Wall, no, not even chipping at it. They hardly looked at him at all. An open and shut case. A canned line meant to appease him. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Yet during the entire ensuing fight on the river, Ralsei’s thoughts were elsewhere. For there sounded a distinct, muted shriek of metal on masonry.

Earlier, they hadn’t seemed interested in talking to him at all. The way they spoke wasn’t like how they had talked to him throughout Card Kingdom either, dull and uninvested save for their quiet sincerity in that dank prison cell. This time, there had been an awkward hitch in their voice, as if they weren’t comfortable with what they were saying. The words slipped out haltingly, each one carefully enunciated, words slowly shaped by the contours of their tongue. It bordered on mechanical. But there was something strange about them at that moment: their lips, always rigid and cautious around him, slipped into a slight curve at their last two words. As if they were comfortable saying he was someone, though Ralsei sometimes doubted if they could even see his outline. Though he could hardly see theirs, either.

A jolt ran through him. That rush of emotion from when the Wall between him and Susie was torn down, pain hand in hand with joy, returned and amplified tenfold as a brick slipped out of place and clattered, broken, to the floor. At last, he’d gotten a taste of Kris, Kris themself, and suddenly he was ravenous. He reached a hand forward, desiring despite his instincts for propriety to tear another brick from the Wall, but the moment had passed. When they arrived in front of the camera, he offered a little peace sign with them, before they began to laugh as he came to the startling realization that they had only offered a picture of their backs turned away. A selfish part of him longed for the chance to hold onto something permanent, material, after so long spent removing a single, revealing, constant brick from a shifting and incomprehensible Wall. He needn’t become too greedy, however; was he not content with what he’d achieved?

They stepped off the ride, walked outside, and for a long moment, Ralsei watched them in silence. Their expression loosened, but did not falter from impassivity. It, however, was just enough to let Ralsei know that the one displaced brick would stay removed. He opened his mouth, only for a single breath to escape before Susie crashed down into the picture. There would be no more moments between him and Kris for the rest of the day.

Things continued as they were. He and Susie played their continuous game of tearing down their Wall and rebuilding it, losing themselves in the pleasure and pain of the routine, but all along Ralsei’s focus was diverted. That single brick missing from Kris’s Wall distracted him, captivated him, tempted him closer and closer to a task all the more daunting than before, because now he and Kris could see one another, small though the window was. He couldn’t afford to make a mistake or be too hasty, though extending his game with Susie to them made his heart flutter, lest he lose the progress he’d made. All he could do was stare at them through the hole in the brickwork, and try to keep himself together when the world—and Susie herself, darn her teasing—taunted him with the appeals of shallow romance he wanted nothing more than to deepen and share. 

Was this feeling love? If he were to confess his thoughts to another, someone who knew the true meaning of the word, he did not know if this fear would be affirmed or nullified. He certainly couldn’t ask Susie, and especially not Kris; the act of tempting them with the attachment love implied was unconscionable, for they might feel themselves obliged to reciprocate. But with whom else could he discuss such a thing? Who would be there to listen? There were no other Lightners to ask about it, no Darkners whose advice or privacy he trusted. All he had was himself in his little pen of Walls, trapped but, despite himself, yearning for a little more. 

More. That was what he wanted. The small kindling left behind in his heart from his short talk with Kris on the boat crackled with a spark. More. A cutting pain swelled in his chest. More. His fingertips tingled, itched as though coated from within by a swarm of tiny millipedes. More. The air in his little pen seemed at times suffocatingly stagnant, at others tempestuous. More. He stumbled on shaky legs towards that same Wall, tripped, fell, scraped his knees and grinded his claws against a textureless floor. More. His burning hands gripped the rough texture of stone brick, its sharp angles jutting through his immaterial fluff and into his gaunt, bony palms. More. He put his eye to the hole, squinting against the breeze flowing in until it burned. More.

More. More. More. More. More. His skin was sliced, burnt, bleeding, scarring, and all of it hidden between layers and layers of fluff. He was an addict, desperate for his fix.

He wanted to protest when Kris went off by themself to do something in the back rooms of the Green Room. Whether it was them or their Soul, he knew not, but what he saw on their face, an expression of discomfort with lips pursed and a set jaw that belied an odd compulsion, he knew he could not stop them. He thought to get in their way, to make them take him along, but he backed down at the last second. Best not to make them too uncomfortable or invasive. Instead he simply sat on the couch with Susie, quietly taking notes on how her little mannerisms made him feel.

It wasn’t until some time later that Kris re-emerged, eyes covered by their bangs, some emotion Ralsei couldn’t yet parse pulling on the corner of their mouth. Nothing strong enough to ask them how they felt, but something Ralsei wondered if he might learn how to identify. He stuck close to Kris’s back, watching them closely, occasionally flexing his fingers as though he could feel the chisel through his fluff. The moment Susie was out of the way, talking to Tenna, he lifted the chisel up to the mortar, grazing it against the grain to find the little hole he’d worked on earlier.

But then the brick dropped straight through on his side. Kris was giving him a look he met with trepidation, only to find it so intense he had to back off and look away before he got embarrassed. They seemed not to realize what they were doing to him, a little tease and some words comparing him to a man he’d never met making him think that, perhaps, he could gently slot the brick back in without them noticing. Then, strangely, they laughed. Loudly. He’d seen them mess with Susie, and he himself had been messed with quite a bit already, but the incredulous, cackling laugh that sounded rougher and more tactile than anything they’d said before made him realize the futility of hiding away this time. He confessed between their fading chuckles, and the wiping of a finger under their eye, that he liked how his face looked. This was dangerous territory; what had happened to the bundle of shadow meant only to be seen by outline? But for this moment, he found it more painful to let their laugh die in the air than to give it its due. Susie came back, their voice went right back to its blase tone, and they carried on as though nothing had happened. All the while Ralsei ducked his head and hid his blush.

Eventually, once Kris had once again disappeared into the back room, doing whatever it was they were doing, Ralsei thought about the Walls again. There were so few bricks between him and Susie, yet so few bricks missing between him and Kris. That barrier between them and the entity they hosted was still so vague, so indistinct, that he could only hope they’d clue him in on little differences in tone and mannerism. He liked to think he’d noticed a couple, but he remained so unsure. All he knew was that his chisel was still unrefined, still hesitant, and that while “Kris” could push down the bricks as much as they wanted, in reality it was a one-way mirror; they saw him, while he saw something no less opaque. It didn’t matter that Kris talked about inviting him to the Festival, even though he knew it was impossible, because who was it? It didn’t matter that Susie constantly pressed him for ideas, made him play their little game together, because its lessons didn’t seem to apply. Ralsei pushed these difficult thoughts aside and simply followed the motions from then on, letting Tenna rave, letting the Dark World pass him by, letting Rouxls put them into a ridiculous fight, letting them all drift into the frigid remains of the Green Room as Ralsei sat down, his mind still trapped between those Walls.

Lucky for him, however, he did have a distraction. Too good of one. He sat down next to Susie, bracing himself for yet another round of their destroy-and-build game, only to find his mind quickly wrapped in another game entirely. It was a vapid little RPG, but earlier on, he hadn’t made any progress. He had a score to settle. At first, Susie’s little chants of “Get his ass!” and “Hey, don’t stop now!” helped him get over his previous hurdle. One enemy went down, and maybe he still felt a twinge of guilt. But, he realized, this was just a game; there were no consequences, no moral implications of perhaps fighting a couple enemies here and there. These weren’t Darkners who might get their feelings hurt and nurse their wounds, who might risk not forgiving him, but little abstractions of bizarre creatures that didn’t really seem to “die” anyway. That’s it. 

Another enemy was defeated, then another, then another. Susie gave encouragements and little whoops of joy, crisp and clear to his ears, so clear he forgot there was supposed to be something between them to muffle the sound. He forgot the room around him. He forgot the footsteps, so quiet that Susie didn’t seem to notice them, coming from somewhere behind him, though there were not supposed to be any Darkners left in the room. He forgot the couch. He forgot everything, his world distilled down to the barest sense perceptions as he played more and more. There were no more Walls; all that remained in the vast, empty expanse was sense. The sound of Susie’s laughs. The visuals of the game as his character gained experience points. The satisfaction of coming out of an encounter fine. This feeling, for which he had no name, had become him.

To be honest, he still was rather bad at the game, taking his time with every encounter and eking his way through on a sliver of health. Adrenaline, or some facsimile thereof, roared through his ears at each point until even Susie’s influence faded out. He was only momentarily pulled back when, upon failing a section and losing, he hadn’t realized how angry he was until the sound of Susie’s ribbing pulled him back to reality. And yet his embarrassment, which should have lasted for hours, simply came and went. Back to the game. Back to that feeling of utter madness and absurdity. That’s what truly lay beyond those Walls. The absurdity was so strong, the madness so loud, that Ralsei failed to notice that Susie had stepped away, nor the sound of a door creaking open. 

“Kris.”

Kris. Kris. Kris. 

How could he have forgotten Kris?

The Walls he’d forgotten all sprung up at once, in their multitudes towering high above, before collapsing onto him as madness succumbed to blinding clarity. Glass. Worlds. Cage. First. Second. Wall after Wall after Wall crushed him. Even the one he’d left so open to Susie reassembled itself, just so its weight could add to his bone-cracking burden. How could he forget them all? Forget everything that made him him? How could he think he was material, he was something, when all there was to it was a pile of fluff? 

But maybe, just maybe, there was something left to see. That bit of Glass. He didn’t ever enjoy watching it, but looking at the small, tiny rhyme in its faintest corner, he found the courage to stand up. He disregarded Kris’s uncomfortable expression, let those Walls around him rise into place and fill back up. He’d had his fun. There was a mission to be done. A foe to face. A Lightner to save. He found his balance, shutting out the shame, tearing his eyes away from the Wall he’d spent so long making tiny chips at, the Wall that felt more opaque than ever.

It was only minutes later that he found himself crushed again. The Knight had appeared, cutting the party down effortlessly, and with that, the Glass bore down on him once more. Everyone else faded away as they ran off, out of the Dark World, leaving Ralsei to strain against the weight of these Walls that held him down. Some part of him ached with that need for more, that festering wound which wouldn’t leave him be when now, most of all, quiet was necessary. The scars of before itched, stinging newer wounds refusing to close and join their ranks, those uneven slashes all screaming at him the notion that now, more than ever, he needed help. The Lightners’ help. What a failure. Searching for answers, Ralsei returned to the castle, sitting alone in the center of his barren room as he consulted the Glass for himself. There had to be some answer. There had to be. He couldn’t bear to imagine the pain and fear on Susie’s face if she saw what he saw, the quiet dread from Kris if they truly knew the extent of their incoming sorrow.

They were suffering so much, weren’t they?

They said they knew what they were doing. They asked him not to tell. He wouldn’t have anyway, but before that boat ride, all he’d known of them was their secretive side. In a way, that was their commonality. What drew Ralsei to their side. He thought they might’ve known his pain. Perhaps they did. Yet Ralsei knew sharply that, no matter what they believed, they knew not what he knew. It was flatly impossible. 

They were suffering so much, weren’t they? From what they knew, and what they knew not?

After a long night and a longer morning, Ralsei welcomed the Heroes back to Castle Town with open arms, relishing the way he could mess with Susie and resume their little Wall-tearing game as though nothing had happened. It came so easily when the pressure was light. He could joke, and she’d respond in kind; he could come close to embarrassing himself, accept a bit of needling, but things would taper off before it got too painful. The Wall between him and her yawned more open than ever.

While the two of them bantered over the table, he sneaked a peek at Kris. A tiny bit of a smile, faint enough that Ralsei felt he might be imagining it, bent their cheek. The sudden, commanding tone in their voice when they told him to eat nearly made him oblige all on its own, but unlike when he played the game with Susie, his self-awareness permitted him no more than a single, delicious bite. He wanted, he needed Kris to know him too, so that their burdens might both be eased; why couldn’t he abandon what he knew he was around them? Why couldn’t he taste the absurd madness in that slice of cake the way he could in the air when alone with Susie? What was wrong with him?

The cold wind which fluttered the curtains of his room and stung at his skin felt more real than it, too. Susie’s admonishments for thinking what he was sure was true felt like her sharp fangs sinking into him. Then, she was gone. Him and Kris, alone. He opened his mouth to speak, lips smacking in absence of dignity. 

Chisel poised, he tensed his muscles and threw all his force at the mortar, art abandoned in the gale.

He spilled his guts out to them. Asked questions he knew not to ask. Invited curiosities for things not to be investigated. Compared to how he talked to Susie, his rhetoric must’ve seemed tame, but in his head it felt earth-shattering. The Wall shook. Bricks broke. Kris’s eyes, ruby-red and glinting, stared at him for a long moment. He wanted to cringe away, cover what he’d said and hide his face once again. He no longer could. Not when he’d shown himself like that.

When they coughed out an answer, kind as ever, Ralsei’s eyes caught on something. The shifting barriers of the Walls for a moment stilled as the memory of the quiz shows sprung to mind. Their cough was familiar, identical to those they’d made when the Soul’s indicator lingered too long on an incorrect answer. Their words, encouraging and kind, so, so kind, Ralsei realized, were still Kris’s. He worried about what the Soul wanted them to say that they’d subverted; in much greater measure, however, he quietly rejoiced. For once, he had a concrete tell on Kris themself, a way to halt the shifting Wall of the Cage in its tracks just long enough to track what they might say. The cough was their cipher, offered to him in another act of kindness that was so Kris.

They were suffering so much in being so kind, weren’t they?

Affirmed and emboldened by Kris, cowed by the implications for what the Soul wanted to do with him, Ralsei smiled and let things carry on from there. He bid them a cheery farewell as they went off to study at Noelle’s house, ignoring the twinge in his heart that echoed “more, more, more.”

No. 

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. NO.

The moment the next Dark World opened, far though it was, Ralsei knew what it portended. His feet carried him faster than he could think. Whatever time he had until Kris and Susie discovered it and saw what he’d been seeing all his life, that Wall of Glass fragmented into thousands of tiny, thin, inextinguishable panels. Breakable but eternally replaceable. Whether hours or minutes, there was not a moment to be spared. He ran all over the Sanctuary, cleverly blending in with the resident Darkners, for though distant and isolated he still numbered among them, searching for every piece of evidence to destroy he could find. Fire sparked to life in his hand if he found a book that needed to be burned. Paths were laid out in advance to guide the Lightners to the finish line as quickly as possible. Everything to keep the truth away.

He was still a failure. He watched, trembling, as Susie talked more about the Prophecy she was seeing for herself. Tolerating it. Liking it. Pulling it between the two of them, such that though he could still see through the narrow transparencies of the Glass, the words on it, brilliant and opaque, blinded him from the rest. He couldn’t look at her anymore. Couldn’t risk what might happen if she caught on. She couldn’t see the full thing, yet; she was opaque to him, yet he was clear to her. Things weren’t supposed to be like this. These Walls existed to obscure him, to let him be the small bundle of shadow he’d always been so his companions could see one another. Everything was wrong, his chisel stolen, his hands at the Walls slipping down the icy surface of the Glass until he landed in reverence on his knees. It was all he had.

And yet there was mercy. Both Kris’s, and their Soul’s. Without Susie around, it seemed to jump at the opportunity to follow her instead, permitting him the chance to get away and continue his search, fire once again at the ready. That tell of Kris’s, the little odd smile they made which Ralsei knew to be genuine, reminded him of their bond of secrecy. Every second counted. So long as Kris was there to buy time, he knew he could maintain some shred of the protector he so loved being. They still watched him, they still cared for him, they still wanted him to see just a bit more of them while knowing how important privacy was. They understood the nuances of the Walls. 

As much as Ralsei admired Susie for pushing past those same nuances, on the other hand, he was no stranger to cursing her inelegance. Curse her for attaching herself to the deplorables of the Prophecy. Curse her tendencies to run without thinking. Curse her for not letting him be who he knew he was supposed to be.

Curse him for letting it happen.

He knew what she was doing, smearing her blood on him. A feeble attempt to hide from him at this too-late hour, where the Glass between them was shattered and the truth laid bare. No matter how she acted, he saw her, too much so; he’d tried to cover his face too, make her think it was his fault, yet she saw him just the same. More, he hoped, as her fingertips slipped off his cheek. No more, he pleaded, as he watched her screw her eyes into a mockery of a smile. He felt his lips stretch to match hers as she left him and Kris alone again once more, the blue lights that matched their skin tone pulsing from the smashed panel, expression hidden in negative space.

What were they going to say? Kris, infinitely kind? Their Soul, perhaps brusque, but passionate? More, he silently begged, desperate for an injection of hope to let him become Susie’s mirror in the way he desired. No more, he cried, knowing he couldn’t bear the pain of another mirror. He couldn’t look at himself anymore. Never. Never. Never.

Kris, infinitely kind, would tell him what to do. Kris, passion behind impassivity, would inspire him. Kris, the mixture whose shape shifted and distorted from his grasp so often, would reflect nothing though the fog. Their eyes, shaken, rested upon his. Kris, infinitely kind, would find the strength to press on. They always did. They were suffering so much, and yet, they still knew what to say. 

“Keep smiling.”

When they stepped around him, past locks of dark hair he caught a glimpse of their eyes. Brow furrowed, eyes darkened. A look of indescribable disgust on their face. Was it at him for being weak? Or was it at his attempt to hide his sorrow?

Keep smiling.

No, that wasn’t right. He knew Kris didn’t hate him. And if it were simply their Soul talking, they would’ve done something. They were suffering so much, weren’t they? Having to work overtime to correct faux pas after faux pas from their invasive guest?

Keep smiling. Don’t let them see you think.

Ralsei wasn’t sure where Kris had gone. The Fountain was still open. Were they waiting for something? Watching him as he stared into the nothingness ahead? He had to understand. He had to know how to help them. They were suffering so much, making choices he didn’t understand, acting in ways he couldn’t imagine. The hole in the Wall between them threatened to close, and all Ralsei could do was watch the scattered bricks for a trace of movement.

Keep smiling. It’ll come. No mirrors here for you.

The bricks remained still. Why did the Wall not change? What was Ralsei seeing if not confusion?

Keep smiling. Keep smiling.

Perhaps it wasn’t what he was seeing. These Walls, he had come to find, were not simple one-way mirrors. Showing an outline and receiving an image as he’d once wanted was impossible. If he were looking in at himself from the other side of the Wall, what would he see? That little bundle of shadow thinking itself grand?

Keep smiling. Keep smiling. Keep smiling. 

There was no such thing. A being sat in its place. A being that smiled through it all, smiled at him, and when he feigned to look away from it, its features faded into a blank, white canvas. That was what he saw from the other side.

Only, he couldn’t be on that other side. He could only be where he was now.

Keep smiling. Keep smiling. Keep smiling. Keep smiling. Keep smiling.

This was what Kris must’ve seen. On the other side, and on their own, there was the same blank canvas. Their facades shallowly different, their depths identical. Ralsei understood. It was the bond of secrecy cloaked in a different garb. They hid, so he must hide, too. He hid, and thus, so did they. How had such a simple answer eluded him for so long?

Keep smiling. Keep smiling. Keep smiling. Keep smiling. Keep smiling. Keep smiling. Keep smiling. 

Love was a mirror, Ralsei decided. Openness was one, and secrecy another.

Light swept out from the fountain. It was time to choose.

He’d keep the secret. He loved Kris, after all.

Ralsei smiled.