#OTP:You Won't Fade

[singingcookie]

Namiku

The ship is my: OTP, I even made a playlist for them uwu

I consider this ship’s feelings: Mutual | Mixed | Strange | Awkward | Platonic |Sibling-like | One-sided | They don’t really like each other 

I’d consider the relationship:Healthy | Awkward | Abusive |Doesn’t work properly | They’d never get together |

Children:No | Yes | They’d thinkabout it

General Opinion: This probably won’t happen in canon. And that makes me sad. But this pairing has the potential for sure. Namine and Riku can understand each other to an amazing degree. Not only the face they show to the world, but they also understand each other’s deepest struggles. The things they felt guilty over, that they torment themselves over their actions.

And they are able to pull each other out of those dark spaces of their mind. When Riku is starting to pull back, wallowing in all the horrible things he had done with the islands disappearing, Namine is there to remind him of all the good he’s done since. How no one he knows will possibly hold that against him. How much his friends care about him.

And when Namine starts to fall into her guilt spiral over everything at Castle Oblivion, Riku is there for her, reminding her that she was being held prisoner. That she had no choice and it’s absolutely nothing she should be beating herself up over. When she starts to wonder if she’s even worth being around, he’s there to remind her that she has a friend not only in Sora--who would absolutely never blame her--but in him too.

Kids, again I feel like could go either way? I don’t know if Riku would particularly want kids? But if Namine did, I think Riku would be down.

Tl:dr they are good for each other’s emotional well-being and I love them

[singingcookie]

Status

Status…, the words shown bright as the pod pulsed in the background, trying to find any minor change to what lay within. The gaps between them grew longer each time. And then finally new words appeared.  Memory failed to link. Retry? Naminé sighed, unaware of how long her breath had hitched between the two messages on the monitor.

“Not again,” she muttered, pulling herself up from the low chair. She pressed her hands to her head, trying to swallow the lump in her throat as she forced herself to breath. She had been working so hard, pushing and pushing as much as she could to progress her goal. But it wasn’t enough. It never was. She shuddered as she took another breath, lowering her hands as she approached the side of the machine.

He was in there—how long had it been now? Several months…at least five? If everything had remained simple, he should have been out already. But of course it couldn’t be simple. The universe had to intentionally throw her own work back in her face. Make it incredibly difficult to keep a promise to her first real friend.

“Naminé.” It was as though she had awoken from a trance, the way she recoiled at another’s voice. There was his best friend. Looking down at her with a frown. He was disappointed, wasn’t he? How could he not be? She was the whole reason his friend was stuck in stasis.

At first, she was relieved that it was him, rather than her “caretaker”; but he couldn’t possibly be happy with her either. So the relief became anguish, she couldn’t bring herself to even look him in the face.

The silence between them was long. It was hard to find the words to say. He couldn’t tell her it was alright, she wouldn’t believe him. He didn’t know if he would believe himself. There was really only one solution.

It took opening and closing his mouth a couple of times before those words could actually get out. When they finally did, they were accompanied by an extended hand. “C’mon, you need to get out of here. Being here just makes you sad.”

“I’m.” She turned her head to the side, her chin lowered as she mumbled, “I can’t be sad, Riku.” She still accepted his offer, touching her fingers to the black gloves he wore.

She always said things like this. Nobodies don’t feel anything. No hearts. No feelings with that said. But that just couldn’t be true. DiZ often repeated the same notions. But…observing her over the course of these several months…Riku knew it couldn’t be. No matter how much they insisted.

Riku’s hand squeezed hers as he guided them toward the exit, his own head low. “Then why are you crying?” He received no reply other than her unsteady breathing just behind him. He didn’t mind, it was fair that she didn’t know what to say. She could not seem to wrap her head around the idea that she might not be as disconnected from ‘real people’ as DiZ tried to lead her to believe. So he didn’t push the subject further, only continuing to lead the way.

He came to a stop once they had entered the foyer, jerking his head briefly toward the opposite side of the stairway. “You should go grab one of your notebooks. One that doesn’t have anything related to all this.” He could feel her tense up and so released her hand as he continued, “And meet me on the ground floor.”

She did not question, only quietly agreed before doing as she was told. It took a few minutes—perhaps finding a notebook like he described was difficult—until she joined him at the bottom of the stairs, clasping one along with the crayons she had been given. “Alright, let’s go.”

She seemed to hesitate as he led the way toward the front doors. “Um, I’m sorry but…where exactly are we going?” He placed a hand on one of the doors, shoving it open and standing in front of it as Naminé walked through, attempting to shield her eyes from the light. It gave her step a slight stutter, and she paused once she actually stepped out to look back and await an answer.

“Out,” he replied as he moved to lead the way again. Perhaps more curt than he had been intending. In all honesty, he felt as though he had sort of forgotten how to talk to people. He and Naminé didn’t talk all too much. And DiZ wasn’t exactly the best conversationalist either. Aside from them, the only one he had spoken to was Xion. Just that one time. Maybe it was best that he clarify just a bit. “We just need to get you out of that place for a while. It’s not healthy.”

She continued to follow him but nonetheless noted, “That doesn’t really answer my question, you know.”

He was about to glance back at her, he could have sworn he could practically hear a small smile in that, something highly unusual. “Oh.” But he came to a stop instead, and she bumped into him, unprepared for the sudden halt. “I almost forgot.” He reached behind his head, his fingers moving to find the ends of the black material covering his eyes.

“What are you doing?” He could hear her sandals crunching the foliage under their feet, as she moved to his side. She sounded concerned.

He managed to untie the knot and stuffed the strip of cloth into his pocket. “It’s not exactly normal for people to walk around blindfolded in town.”

Only after saying so did he slowly open his eyes, cringing at how intense his surroundings were. It wasn’t like being on the islands: the reflective sand, the ocean, the clear blue of the sky. Here, it was only the deep greens of the foliage, the warm browns of the tree trunks, and the gentle orange of the near perpetual sunset… The colors were so much more muted. But after only seeing the black of that cloth for several months…it was a stark adjustment.

“Riku?”

“Sorry, I need a second,” he started, his eyes blinking rapidly as though that might help somehow. “It’s been a while. Can’t guide you if I can’t see, right?” She reassured him that it was fine and he chanced a glance at her. Perhaps a mistake. If the subdued scenery was blinding to him, it was nothing compared to her against that very backdrop. The white of her dress, the flaxen hair; she was the sun, and he had to look away from something so bright.

He cleared his throat as he pressed on leading them through the demolished courtyard. “Anyway, I don’t have an exact place in mind. But I’ll figure it out as we go.”

Naminé hummed in reply as she fell into step behind him. Walking through the woods was much better the shade of sunset coming through the leaves helping with the adjustment. “So, blindfolds aren’t normal?”

“What?” Did she actually think that? He supposed it would make sense, as he was one of the few normal people she had interacted with. This would also be her first journey into town also. He couldn’t help glancing back at her, an explanation on the tip of his tongue. And then he saw it, a quiver of a smile that could only mean she was totally messing with him. He expelled a breath, just a hint of a laugh in it. She was joking. “Yeah, well, I like to follow my own path…”

Just being outside was already working wonders on her.

They approached the gap in the wall that separated the town from the woods, and he wondered, “What kind of thing would you like to see?” That might help him decide where their destination should be. Unfortunately, she responded that she didn’t know. It figured… Well, she was prone to drawing. Maybe that could help. Somewhere high up, but not enough to where she couldn’t easily see things or people to sketch. “Alright, I think I have an idea.”

He picked up the pace as the entered the tram common, following the tram’s path toward the southeast. She started to ask a lot of questions as they continued. Why did that part of the ground look different? What were all these buildings for? What was the tram for exactly? Sometimes, it really did surprise him just how little she was allowed to see of the real world. He answered each question as they came, leading them up a staircase. When he finished explaining that a tram was for transportation, she asked, “Could we ride it later?”

“If it’s still going, maybe,” he replied, explaining that it usually stopped at a certain time. “How’s this?” He came to a stop as they reached the edge of a rooftop, which gave a clear vantage point of the shopping section of the common. He watched as people sifted through the open area, going from business to business. “I know it’s not like going to an actual place but…” The girl had sat down, her legs curled up beside her and flipping her notebook open with a crayon already held aloft. Well, that was a relief at least.

He sat down beside her, his legs hanging over the edge of the building. Seeing all of these people…it reminded him of travelling into the city on the islands with his friends. Those days felt so long ago now… It didn’t help that chunks of his memory were so fuzzy; but that was bound to happen, so many of those memories were tied to Sora and not to mention Kairi. Kairi’s presence helped to solidify them as real events, but the specifics of them were more unclear.

He didn’t do much as she drew. It was mostly people or cloud watching. Sometimes, he tried to help put a coherent memory of his friend group. Younger years were easier. Maybe because that was where she had started her work. Around the time Kairi became a best friend of theirs, that was where things got foggier. Why did the Organization even do this?

“Does DiZ know you’re letting me out today?”

That snapped him out of his recollection, glancing back to finding her scribbling color into one of her doodles.  “I don’t really talk to him,” he admitted, leaning on his palms and looking toward the sky. “Unless it’s necessary.”

“Why’s that?”

He hesitated to answer. “I don’t like him much.” It sounded even worse than he thought hearing it outloud. Her crayon stopped moving against the paper and she began to ask another question. He already knew what it was. “I’m here for Sora. Not him.”

“Does he know that?”

“Probably on some level.” DiZ had always been annoyingly perceptive of Riku’s motivations after all. “Don’t worry about him. If he finds out, I’ll take the blame. It was my idea anyway. Besides…” He gave a laugh, thinking of everything he had seen of the man. “What’s he gonna do? Ground me?”

“No,” she said as she turned to another page, and starting another picture. “Maybe take your blindfold.”

He quirked his head in her direction, there it was again. “Was that another joke?” Her smile grew a little when he asked that, and he said with a chuckle, “You might need to get fresh air more often. You seem happier out here.”

“Maybe.”

[singingcookie]

Blinding White

“These are for you.” The girl stared at the plain white box that was held out to her by the man in red. She hesitated in taking hold of it, resulting in his orange eyes to narrow, forcing it in her grasp. “It’s polite to accept gifts from people when they’re offered.”

“R-right.” She lowered her chin, trying to steady her trembling hands. If being too slow elicited that kind of reaction, she did not want to find out what dropping the ‘gift’ might result in. If she had learned anything with her last caretakers—it was nothing pleasant. “Of course.”

She pulled on the top of the box, opening it to reveal a short string of colors. She looked up only to find that DiZ had turned away, making his way toward his staircase. She took out the one that matched his deep robes, examining it. “They’re…crayons.”

“You said you required new utensils to continue your work, did you not?” There was a terse edge to his voice she could not help but notice. She had been using colored pencils since the beginning of her work. She could switch, in theory, but she possessed no talent with these. 

“Yes…thank you,” she mumbled, putting the waxed object back in its place. She waited until he had crossed the threshold to his side of the mansion before giving a quiet sigh, looking over the box’s contents again as she made her way toward her own space.

Everything lay exactly as she left it. Some pictures from…before resting upon the floor. Her notebook wide open, an unfinished drawing residing on the visible page. Not to mention her old art supplies. Her colored pencils reduced to mere nubs in the last few months. She had made so many drawings with them. And now she had…

The box practically blended into the table. Which meant it blended in with the chair. The curtains. Even the flower vase—and that was including the flowers. He seemed to be convinced that she held a fondness for the color. Why else give her a room like this?

But in truth, she deeply disliked it. It made her think of the castle. And that made her recall her manipulation, of her guilt. But maybe that was the point, she thought to herself as she took her seat, pulling her notebook toward her as she did. Maybe he wanted her to think of her guilt—how easily she became the Organization’s marionette toy. To dissuade her from thinking of anything but the task at hand. But did it work?

She would like to think that she was guided by her own thoughts rather than someone else pushing her along the path. But it was truly hard to know for sure. She took out the brown, wax instrument and continued on the subject’s hair. How could one know the difference when it was all they had ever known?

She finished the drawing. And then another. And another. But after the fourth, she had to take a moment’s pause. She set down her crayon, stretching her tense fingers. The shadows in the room had grown longer. How much time had passed? Well, did it really matter?

“I was starting to think you would never take a break.” She jumped slightly in her seat, shaken by another presence. He stood out starkly in her domain. The dark of that familiar coat and the cloth over his eyes making him almost hard to look at for too long. But the unique silver hair helped to alleviate the issue. However slightly.

“Sorry,” he raised his gloved hands at her movement, brow creasing beneath his blindfold. “I didn’t mean to scare you, Naminé. I thought you would sense me or something.”

She shook her head, tearing her gaze away from him, looking back at her previous pictures instead. “If I’m really focused, everything else just sort of…falls away.”

“I see…”

She heard him step deeper into the room, close enough to her table to see the drawings thus far. It made her wary. “Did DiZ send you?” she wondered, trying to keep her tone casual as she picked up a crayon again. It felt like DiZ had recruited the teenager as his “muscle” and she was not sure whether that role would also relate to herself or not.

“No.”

She began to scribble out the hair. Before she had a process to texture people’s hair. A feat she had discovered, today, was very difficult with the things DiZ had given her. “Checking on my progress with Sora then?” She did not forget their previous discussion. About Sora’s Nobody and the third person. She would not entirely blame him if that was why he was here. The process was so much more slow-going than it was supposed to be…

For a moment all that could be heard was the crayon running across the paper. “…No.” That was very hard to believe. Even if he had not hesitated. “I just thought I should check on you. With how things were before—well, I thought you might like some company.”

Her hand slowed slightly, caught off guard, but folded herself closer to her notebook nonetheless. “Talking is distracting. I don’t think he would be happy if he came in and saw us.”

“We don’t have to talk,” he noted, his words slow and inviting. “I just thought having someone else around might…feel nicer.”

She halted, her eyes glancing in his direction but still keeping hunched over the table. Did he really care how she felt? “If you really want to,” she began before raising her free hand and gesturing at the opposite end of her surface, “but you have to sit over there.” No. It must be because of Kairi. Or Sora. Maybe both. After all this was only their third—well, fourth, technically—conversation; there was no reason to care about how she felt.

Yes, that made sense.

His footsteps echoed as he made his way over to the other seat but once he had sat down, it was as though he was not even there. True to her request, he did not speak. And whenever she looked up, he was either staring toward the window or down at the table. It was appreciated, though she did not say or do anything to show it.

Dealing with the chains of memory was difficult work. It was not as simple as ‘just think about it and it will happen’. She had to really connect with the memories she was handling in the moment: what it looked like, what it sounded like, how it made Sora feel. She was pouring her entire being into recalling even the most subtle nuances in each one. Drawing helped her to focus on one aspect in particular, whether that were a place or perhaps just a person who was important.

And then once she had a memory captured, she would have to link it up to what progress she had already made. And then move on to the next. The process was much more difficult now though. There were memories she remembered seeing before. But now they were just gone. She told Sora she did not erase memories, and that was true! But they seemed to be misplaced, no longer unhooked beside his memory’s chain. But absorbed and linking with someone else to whom they did not belong instead.

She paused in her drawing, looking down at the familiar face. Naminé had been trying but no matter how many drawings she made, she could not regain focus on anything surrounding that girl within Sora. She was someone very special to Sora; but no matter how hard she tried, she could only bring up memories of her arriving on the islands. Like she was any other girl he had known. Her work back in Castle Oblivion was truly coming back to haunt her.

She set down her crayon again before she began to stand, grabbing some of her papers along with tape from the dresser behind her seat. “DiZ is going to be very upset if this continues for much longer,” she noted as she hung the pictures of scenery upon the wall. “He’s already mad enough…isn’t he?”

She looked back to her guest when he did not immediately answer. “So I can talk now?” He lifted his head, turning it more to one side. She decided not to answer such an obvious question and so he eventually continued, “Well, DiZ is…always that way. He seems to be consumed by something or another. And he doesn’t think of others very often.”

“Mm.” She decided not to say any more than that, unsure just what exactly was safe to say around DiZ’s “hired help” and what was not.

There was a wide pause as she hung up one of the pictures she had grabbed—a portrait of the fountain in Hollow Bastion—and placed alongside some other setting pictures. “Is this how all of your days go?” Riku wondered. “Stuck in this room, making picture after picture?”

“Sometimes I have to go down to the pod. Check Sora’s status on the monitor,” she said, smoothing one of the pieces of tape down as she did. It was nice to see him, though she found herself wishing that he was awake. “Make sure everything is going as it’s supposed to.” She left her hand upon the wall. It felt as though the white was leeching the warmth right out of her. “Or I’ll go to one of the other rooms if DiZ summons me…”

“Do you ever go outside?”

Her hand recoiled from the surface, remembering that first time she came here. So excited to finally be outside of those stifling white walls. Seeing trees for herself for the first time, admiring just how vivid a green they were. And then she was led to the mansion gate, told this would be her new home.

She should have known after passing through that to the entrance how it would be. All those crumbling statues before the house; DiZ had acted as though they were not there, his orange eyes staring straight ahead. And then inside. The bare foyer. The decimated dining room…

It was not any different than her previous “home”. Just as empty. Just as cold.

Yet again she was shoved in with that wretched color. She wanted so badly to scribble along the walls the longer she stayed in here. Manipulate its shade. That was what the color was for. Was it wrong that she try to help that along the best she can? But she never did. All she could do was put up her pictures. Her quiet rebellion.

She bowed her head as she began to make her way back to her seat. “No. I don’t.”

“You don’t want to?”

Of course she did. But just because she wanted something did not mean she had the ability to do it. She was not like Sora or Riku. Who could fight for what they wanted. She was not like Kairi who had people she was willing to fight for, weapon or not. All she had was herself and Sora’s memories. What could she do? Hold his memories hostage so DiZ would let her be free? No. That was not fair to Sora. She made him a promise. She would keep it.

She only sighed, reaching for another crayon as she did. “I’m going back to drawing now.”

“In that case,” Riku stood up from the chair, the legs making a noise as they scuffed along the floor, “I’ll leave you to it.” She said nothing as he made his way to the door, trying to decide on what she should do next since her last drawing did not work. But the door never opened. She looked up to see him stopped in front of it. “If you need anything, I’ll be in the back.”

The door creaked open. “The back?”

Riku turned his head slightly, his blindfold just visible behind his silver bangs. “The back area behind the mansion—I guess you could call it a garden but it’s not exactly in the best condition.”

Oh, through those glass doors in the foyer. She had seen it from time to time, but never really paid much attention to it. She looked back at her blank page once she had heard the door close behind him. What should she do now? None of the most important memories with Kairi were surfacing. She had minor ones ready to connect, but without all of them…things were a lot more difficult. Especially since that was the main portion of her work.

The orange light of the sky tinted her white curtains. It might be dark soon. She had been at this for a long time now… Maybe a break was needed. She pushed her notebook further away, setting her crayon down beside it before she made her way into the foyer, heading toward the first floor. She rounded the end of the stairs to see the glass that led to the back area.

The hues from the town’s famous sunsets painted the whole scene. Trees and bushes littered the area, and there in the middle sat a broken down fountain with a unicorn statue. Her fingers stopped, just for a moment, before they came in contact with the door and then she forced herself outside.

Riku was there, too, sitting on the rim of the fountain. His head perked up the slightest bit at the door closing. “That was faster than expected.”

She made her way through the grass, her sandals crunching the blades beneath her as she went. “You knew I would come out here?”

“No,” he replied, turning away again. “Was just hoping.”

She brought her hands together as she observed him. That seemed…familiar. She walked over, sitting on the fountain as well, but maintaining a distance between them. It was like her offer back in the basement of the castle. That said, perhaps getting her some feeling of freedom was his goal all along. They sat together in silence for quite a while. With only the sound of birds, the wind rustling the leaves, and the beautiful tints that danced along what she could see of the horizon. It was so…peaceful.

“Why did you decide to come spend time with me today?” She finally voiced the question that had been bothering her. She had tried questioning his motives earlier but he insisted those to be wrong. And it did not feel as though he had lied about that. “You said it would be ‘nicer’, but I feel like that’s not all of it.” She held her hands together tighter than before, resting them in her lap. She did not have the strength to ask him if it was simply because of his best friends and her reminding of them.

He did not answer immediately. His hands were placed beside him upon the stone, his chin lifted up as though he was gazing into the sky. She had never really thought to ask if he actually could see through that thing, even a little bit. It sure seemed that way, sometimes. “DiZ,” he eventually began, his words slow to come, “seems to think that you should be left alone to concentrate. But as far as I can tell, alone or not, you get just as much done. Not to mention, you’ve already touched on the big problem you’ve been having with this task.”

He pushed himself up off of the stone, taking a few steps away, with his back towards her. “And DiZ can’t be bothered to notice just how much he resembles those people with how he treats you.” He shook his head, adding, “He wants my help, and I will. For Sora. But—” He turned back around, crossing his arms. “I don’t think that means I need to treat you the way he does. Nobody, witch, or whatever you want to call yourself—you’re still a person, Naminé.”

“But—” She really was not expecting this. But what he was saying. It just was not true. By all accounts, she was not a person! “But I’m not really—”

“Listen, I’m new to all these things. But my thoughts on the matter are this: you deserve respect. Just like anyone else.” She really did not know what to say to that; and after a few moments, he seemed to tense up at her silence. Riku turned away, brushing a finger under his nose. “Look, I’m just saying…if you’re ever having a hard time. I’m here to help. In whatever way I can. That’s all.”

He seemed to try to immediately head back to the door after saying that, forcing her to stand, a hand raised, as she called after him, “But, Riku, why—why help me so much?” He did not need to offer that kind of help surely. It was not as though they had spent enough time together to warrant him having any care for her. Especially for what she had done to his best friend. How could anyone look past that?

One foot was already inside the mansion while the other anchored him to the garden, her question insisting an answer. His head was ducked down, not allowing himself to look back as he quietly replied, “Because you helped me once.”

She remembered feeling his light fade while interacting with Zexion. How he was so distraught over his friends and what he assumed they thought of him. She had needed to communicate how wrong he was. Tell him what they truly felt from what she had seen of Sora. What she felt of Kairi. But the words would have meant nothing coming from a stranger. So she disguised herself. But he later knew it was her, in spite of that.

“I was in a pretty hard place,” he continued. “It seems only right that I…try and do the same.” He lingered for only a moment, flicking his head over his shoulder briefly, before disappearing back into the building.

She could only stare at the see-through doors as his silver hair streaked out of sight, before her lips turned up in a smile. A tear rolling down her cheek as she murmured, “Thank you…”