For all that Riku has wanted to with every minute, every hour, every cell of his continued existence, it's amazing that this hurts as much as it does. Instead of growing around a slumbering kingdom because a princess pricked her finger, it feels like there are dark thorns pushing out through his every nerve, stinging hot between his eyes and out of the tips of his fingers. Out through every chamber of the heart that still beats, despite everything.
He feels like one great and whispered ache. Like everything is off-center and the world lists like the ferry did before it sank. Like the world is a fever dream, gone strange and unpredictable.
That the sense of wrongness, the way some of his senses contradict (and so vehement their rebellion) with the one they see meandering among the trees. ]
Why won't you say anything?
[ Riku asks of the air.
Sometimes, he sees him stooping like he would when he was looking for mushrooms or seashells, or dancing off into the shadows like he'd seen something else of greater interest. The boy had set off in search of a way to right all the ways everything had gone wrong for not just him but for all of them, just like always, a hero to the very core of him, and somehow it seems right he'd get distracted, and wrong that he would knowing what it cost.
And he's so quiet. ]
Did you...?
[ Die, he means. Die and come back different, a reasonable enough thing to assume given their circumstances, that maybe Sora hasn't answered because he's lost the ability to hear him. And that- That's okay. They'd make it work, somehow. But the question sits in his throat like a cannonball and maybe that's for the best, if he can't even hear it.
His head snaps up as he hears footsteps retreating quickly. The first thing he thinks is when did Sora get so fast, because whenever they raced Riku usually took the lead. ]
I would've followed all the way to the graveyard
For all that Riku has wanted to with every minute, every hour, every cell of his continued existence, it's amazing that this hurts as much as it does. Instead of growing around a slumbering kingdom because a princess pricked her finger, it feels like there are dark thorns pushing out through his every nerve, stinging hot between his eyes and out of the tips of his fingers. Out through every chamber of the heart that still beats, despite everything.
He feels like one great and whispered ache. Like everything is off-center and the world lists like the ferry did before it sank. Like the world is a fever dream, gone strange and unpredictable.
That the sense of wrongness, the way some of his senses contradict (and so vehement their rebellion) with the one they see meandering among the trees. ]
Why won't you say anything?
[ Riku asks of the air.
Sometimes, he sees him stooping like he would when he was looking for mushrooms or seashells, or dancing off into the shadows like he'd seen something else of greater interest. The boy had set off in search of a way to right all the ways everything had gone wrong for not just him but for all of them, just like always, a hero to the very core of him, and somehow it seems right he'd get distracted, and wrong that he would knowing what it cost.
And he's so quiet. ]
Did you...?
[ Die, he means. Die and come back different, a reasonable enough thing to assume given their circumstances, that maybe Sora hasn't answered because he's lost the ability to hear him. And that- That's okay. They'd make it work, somehow. But the question sits in his throat like a cannonball and maybe that's for the best, if he can't even hear it.
His head snaps up as he hears footsteps retreating quickly. The first thing he thinks is when did Sora get so fast, because whenever they raced Riku usually took the lead. ]
Wait!