𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗹𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗳𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁

𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘯 …

[destinedplace]

#KAIRI : TAKE THE WEAKEST THING IN YOU / & BEAT THE BASTARDS WITH IT.

a low - activity multimuse blog for various characters from kingdom hearts, written by rain. sideblog to lovestender. headcanon - based, not spoiler free. RULES & MUSE LIST.

[destinedplace]

@heartinhands : 🎀 ]ㅤ.ㅤwhat is their main love language ? - skuld and kairi / accepting!

skuld —— acts of service at a broad level; skuld just badly, badly needs to feel like she's following rules, being good enough, et cetera, so she naturally leans into giving. there's a mental calculation going on in her head at all times, about how good she has to be to earn...something. this was a tendency that existed prior to being named one of the leaders of the surviving dandelions, but that definitely worsened it. on the other hand, she is very touched when people performs acts of service for her.

kairi —— quality time and physical touch battling it out for number one here. the main thing is that she loves time and closeness; her current mental state is a really messy, anguished mix of "i have been abandoned by my closest friends" and "nobody actually loves me they just love the light in my chest" and "i deserve that abandonment and lack of love," so you can see how someone just...spending time with her in a cuddle puddle would be grounding. on the other end of the spectrum, that's also how she tends to naturally give love; she wants to be there beside you, talking and holding hands.

[puppetrys]

see, the thing is: percy misses a lot of things, but this, he doesn't. the drop in her shoulders / the dimming of her eyes / percy pauses, head half angled to her and half angled to the waves. the push and pull, the quiet crashing—— he knows this. he knows that the sea ( that he ) can be terrifying, cruel. it's almost an act of penance, the way he drops another seashell between them. a truce, a blessing, a curse. a connection neither of them can run away from. ❝ for a while ... it was the reason why i hated my life. ❞ it's so far away now, the endless schools and the cramped apartment and the lonely, lonely kid he used to be—— but he's never forgotten. ❝ i never got over it, i think. just found people who made it bearable. ❞

he turns to her now, trying for a smile. ❝ and hey, i don't mind being one of them for you. ❞ a pause. ❝ unless you've already found them. in that case, uh, forget about it. ❞

[destinedplace]

Xion doesn't know the story — she doesn't know how deep the similarities between them run. She doesn't know that Percy, too, knows what it's like to be the sea, to know there is no separation between your self and your drowning. She doesn't know that Percy ( like her ) can be terrifying, cruel. Someday, maybe she will. For now, she just looks at the shell in her fingers, and she feels seen in the way that's both frightening and warm. I never got over it. I just found people who make it bearable.

( a thought / brief, aching : it's not fair, that real people have to share my hurts. )

She makes an attempt at smiling, too, and hopes hers is more convincing than his. It's probably not. The laugh that follows his words is startled and sincere, though, and the bend of her lips expresses both. She doesn't understand why he's kind to her, still unused to a world where she doesn't have to earn every scrap of tenderness. It's hard to doubt him. "Is there an upper limit on friends I can have?" she asks, playful, less hollowed out. "Nobody told me!"

[inrigor]

@destinedplace, continued : morrigan wonders what she means by that, for a second. she's not unfamiliar with such a thought── she's doing it now, breaking her body once more── but for xion ... what does it look like? ( what are the warning signs? ) she watches the soft glow in xion's hand and wonders if it was at least her choice. ❝ it's this or i die, ❞ she says with that line of thought, words soft; kinder than she usually is. when the glow fades and her skin remains the same, it's almost like a confirmation of her penance. but she doesn't pull away. ❝ it's bad, but a lot of things are worse. 's easy to just choose whatever gets me through it. ❞ her fingers twitch. ❝ and sometimes── i get to hurt back. that makes it worth it. ❞

[destinedplace]

Its this or I die. I break myself or I'll be killed. It's bad, but unexistence is worse. Xion thinks she may be sick, both at the familiarity of Morrigan's words and at the way her magic is utterly pointless. ( i'm useful or i'll be killed. i suffer for everyone or i don't deserve to live — and won't be allowed to. ) Teeth grit hard enough that her jaw starts to ache. And sometimes I get to hurt back. "It isn't," Xion says quietly, her scar stinging across her chest, too much berserk and too many memories. "I'm sorry. I'm useless here." And she doesn't just mean due to her lackluster healing. Small, pale hands drop to her side, useless, useless, useless. you know what happens when you're useless, don't you, xion? "How do you...usually treat it, when this happens?"

[heartslight]

it's a series of complex emotions. how desperately does he want to be saved from this but does he want to risk exposing his friends to the dangers this world holds? but no, it was that exact mindset that lead him here in the first place! so should sora just roll over and allow misfortune to bring possible ruin to his friendships? how was sora meant to allow that? what if in the end, all it amounted to was chaining his friends inside this nightmare, with no escape in sight? it was too much / it was just too much / it was too much? was sora allowing his friends to fight for themselves too much? did he think so little of them that he was already giving up before even allowing them the chance to prove themselves? when had he become as controlling as the villains they swore to defeat? 

questions challenging the foundation beneath his feet haunt the heart as he glances down to where she rests. strelitzia and yozora are another confounding variable in the mess that sora has become; equal parts salvation and destruction. they were as cruel as the world around them, and yet sora couldn’t help but lean into the touch— there is still love within the violence. ❛ i don’t want to be saved without you. ❜ cruel / cruel / he had spoken horrible words to her, and still does he cling to the kindness she offers him— there is still love within the violence. he shifts from where he rests, moves to reach out to her as if maybe salvation does reside within the hollow of her cheeks. 

her skin felt like ice. it hurt to the touch.

❛ i’m sorry. i said something mean before. ❜ there was no freedom / there was only the illusion of freedom, gifted to him by the people he was chained to— but still, they allowed him to sink into delusion. ❛ i’m not alone. i’m not alone, because you and yozora are here. ❜ but even to his own ears, the words hardly sounded genuine.

[destinedplace]

Her hand rises / to press over the palm he holds to her cheek / and then she remembers how cold her body is, no heartbeat to warm it, and she stops, because despite it all, she doesn't want to hurt him. ( just to cage him? / no, no, she's just —— so lonely ——— ) Is inviting Yozora to break her to offer Sora a reprieve from the hurt. Despite her selfish sickness, she knows / knows / knows she would suffer any pain to free him, both because she loves him and because it's right, natural, her role. She is made to die and suffer so another can shine. She wants him to stay forever / she wants him to flee, to fly free to another world that can love him better, if only he'll leave her a little stardust in her too - small cage to remember him by.

Her hand drops.

Sora says he doesn't want to be saved without her / that he's not alone / and she smiles weakly and says, without any cruelty at all, "That's not true, Sora. It's okay." Her face is fathomless and sad and she loves him so much, bleeding out for him would feel better than a kiss. ( and what a selfish doll she is, that she knows on some level she wants both despite scarcely deserving the former. ) "I know we're...not enough. And I — I know you want to be free from here. You'd leave us for that. That's okay. It's good." It's good. It's the way it's supposed to be. SHE WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR FREEDOM, EXCEPT HURT HER JAILER OR HER FELLOW PRISONER. She would do anything for freedom except what matters. She lives to make others free. She doesn't live at all, now. No wonder she's useless.

"You can be mean," she soothes / and isn't it just like what she said to Yozora, in a way? I want you to hurt me / I want you to make me suffer / to save Sora some suffering. ( a fuzzy image : a boy with sora's face, so many years younger, with the same blank eyes. ) "I would...understand. I'm not enough, and I'm selfish. It's okay to hate me."

[dearlybeloves]

@destinedplace : the truth is that, despite all of naminé's strings, despite all of her planning ( or contributions to ) ── she is afraid. this newfound body, this gifted shell, contains so, so much fear. for herself, of others. it's nauseating, sometimes. unfortunately, she does not know how to let any of it show, joining xion and drawing closer to the seashore. ❝ i haven't, yet. i've── ❞

( penance, perhaps. she does not know if she should be on this island in the first place, after all she's done, afraid that if she breathed too loudly── stepped too recklessly── that it would swallow her up. sometimes she looks at xion and thinks that she'd do the same. that, at least, she's not afraid of. )

❝ ── i've never been on destiny islands before, ❞ she finally admits, finishing her half finished sentence from before. naminé's voice is soft as she crouches next to xion. ❝ i wasn't allowed to ... ❞ a finger runs through the wet sand, the grittiness of it── she doesn't mean to flinch away as the ocean brushes against it. ❝ then i just ... never had the time. ❞

[destinedplace]

Two girls defined by fear / by caging / by use and abuse. By the knowledge that they lived and died ( can puppets live? can they die? ) at the whims of stronger being who hated them, who did not view them as girls or people at all. Blank canvases, upon which they could projects other uses and other faces. This newfound body, this gifted shell, contains so, so much fear. But it contains love, too, and being - loved. Xion looks at Naminé —— who sentenced her to death, and wonders if Xion feels the sun and the fear both, whereas Naminé so often seems to have only the fear, because Xion spent her first life being - loved and loving. And Naminé was alone.

( it makes her heart hurt. it had hurt for her the moment they'd met, too. xion had wondered, at the time, if it was because naminé is of kairi and xion is of sora —— if she'd loved naminé so much, so fast, because she was built to. she starts to wonder it now, and stops herself. )

"I'm glad I get to be with you on your first time here," Xion says softly, meaning it, smiling, eyes a little wide, a little empty. They're both unsettling girls, Xion knows. But at least they get to be girls. "It's hard —— to have so many other people's memories. Most of my memories of this place, they're not —— mine. It makes me feel a little hollow, but...it's nice. To make new memories of my own here, with you."

[destinedplace]

@dearlybeloves / naminé & strelitzia.

"I'm sorry," Strelitzia says, as she comes closer —— but not close. It's a poor substitute for amends, but it's as close as the corpse girl will ever be able to reach. She remembers only glimpses, but it's enough to know the pieced that matter. Girls in white / girls in cages / girls bleeding out, in a hundred different ways. Girls who harmed the hero and will spend their not - quite - lives trying to undo it. But only one of the mirrored girls bruised against the cruelty of Strelitzia's beloved brother.

She can't even be angry at him, really. Naminé was so small, when Strelitzia had been / when a small piece of Strelitzia had been a weapon Laurium Marluxia could wield. Naminé's hurt deserves hatred for the one who wrought it. No one knows that better than Strelitzia. But she can't offer it. Maybe that makes the apology meaningless. But if she's going to be here, not - quite - living, then she has to —— she has to try. She has to apologize. She has to ——

"I know...it's not worth m - much. But I am. I am so, so sorry that he...that my brother hurt you. And I ——" She can endure so much hurt. It's what she was made for. Or at least remade for. ( she can't hate the hands that jailed / bruised / broke her, either. ) She can endure so much in place of those she loves. "I understand if you hate me, or...if you want to hurt me. You can do that, too."

[destinedplace]

@heartslight / sora & strelitzia

It's all very familiar, which makes it easy. Her first life is still a blur to her, something she gazes at as though through smudged glass, but she remembers this feeling with such intimate ease that she knows it must have preceded Quadtratum.

Watching someone she loves be so beloved, and knowing that she doesn't belong beside them. No one belonged in Quadratum. Everyone but her belongs now, and everyone but her had belonged before, in the sun - drenched city she died in. It hurts, but it's easy.

Sora finds her, eventually, leaning against a tall tree down by the beach, where she'd decided to disappear to once it became apparent she didn't belong in the group. Sora is so beloved and deserves all of it, has returned home to a family that adores him. Strelitzia is a parasite, or, worse — another thing that hurt him. She doesn't belong. Not when she's part of the reason he got so sick and remains so sick.

She's still cold like a corpse, you know.

Sora finds her, stands beside her, and she doesn't look at him. She smiles softly at the sea instead. "I didn't know there could be so much sun." She knows she'd wanted to die in the sun. That she might get to not - quite - live in it is beyond belief. Even if she'll never fit, even if she doesn't deserve it. Selfish girl. "The heat on me feels really nice."

[destinedplace]

@dearlybeloves : 12 / riku & kairi / windmill by mccafferty.

For a long time, as the sick developed, Kairi didn't want anyone else to see it. She felt like she wasn't allowed, the small part of her already believing, even before she could articulate it, that they only loved her because of the light convinced she might be abandoned were she to be more / less than that perfection. Now, it's easier, or harder in the opposite direction. She is desperate for others to see her brokenness. She is desperate for everyone to stop pretending she's perfect because it would hurt to acknowledge that the princess is capable of being wounded.

She's not sure if jealousy is darkness. She's incapable of darkness. But the jealousy is like tar in her stomach. She smiles tiredly at Riku, and she means it. She's not unhappy, here, with him. "I wanna know what it's like to not be me. To not just be light."

[destinedplace]

unlike most of the keyblade weiders, kairi was trained in battle to fight humans. to battle xehanort. everyone here knows how to battle people, but most were trained or trained themselves fighting heartless first and primarily. she was trained above all to battle and destroy living, thinking people, with heartless being almost an afterthought. heartless can't plan, most can barely think. accordingly, she finds destroying heartless very simple — she can be overwhelmed by raw numbers, of course, but for the most part it feels like easy mode.

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

Aeschylus, tr. by Mary Lefkowitz and Romm James, from Plays; “Helen,”

[dearlybeloves]

@destinedplace : i love you, no matter what you've done. riku sucks in a breath at that, a horribly nauseating sound, wet and gasping. it hurts to hear. it's all he's ever wanted. when had they grown so apart, that the confirmation is enough to ruin him? he stands before her now and feels like he doesn't deserve to hear them.

❝ ... i know, ❞ he says finally. he sits down next to her, drawing his knees to his chest. but he's looking at her, properly. ( seeing her for the first time in years. ) here, she looks ... she's just kairi. he's not seeing her reflection in others, nor is he── looking at just her pain. it hits him, then; he doesn't know her at all anymore.

( when was the last time he saw her so tired? she's been angry at him before, miserable, he's seen that. he's even seen her dead and dying. but she scrubs at her eyes and draws herself in and riku realizes it's something unfamiliar, and that── hurts. just a bit. does he even remember the curve of her smile? he wants to. he thinks he does── the blurry image of it, maybe. but it's so easy to slot naminé or xion in her place, too.

... when was the last time he let himself see her? )

❝ i'm a bad friend, ❞ he says. it's quiet, overlapped with the soft crash of waves. ❝ i thought that, 'cuz they weren't actually you ... it was fine. ❞ and that hurts too, doesn't it? he'd figured out naminé's tricks quickly enough. he saw kairi in xion once then never again. but only because they weren't her, considered them less than her── that's awful too, isn't it? ❝ i told myself they were just using your face. ❞

riku grimaces but he doesn't turn away, no mater how much he wants to. ❝ sometimes, i hate── having a keyblade. i wish i never got it. all i do with it is hurt people. hurt you. but with people like ... like aqua, like sora ... i think it's just me. i think i've just always been── cruel. i've only ever been cruel to you. ❞ and to people who look like you. ❝ but i love you. i really do. i wish i loved you better. ❞

[destinedplace]

There are so many things Kairi will never be allowed.

And it's not Riku's fault, not a lot of it. Not Sora's fault, either. Kairi will never be allowed to hate anyone but herself. She'll never know what it feels like to truly, really despise another person, or to disregard them as useless. She will never be given the permission to ache to do harm. She will never be able to undervalue another life, convince herself that that life doesn't matter. She exists ——— Kairi barely exists. It's just the light in her pretty skin, her warped biology making her saint instead of girl or a friend. Or maybe the light makes her the very best girl of all. Maybe her the light's endless forgiveness and her the light's endless love and her the light's endless care for every living creature aside from herself, who's barely living makes her the perfect girl. Maybe Kairi is the perfect girl, and the perfect girl be definition cannot be a human.

But she can't —— she can't empathize with Riku. She wishes she could, and she has to wonder if that, too, is Kairi, the girl, or if that's just the light, perfect, always looking to help, to suffer with or for. She will never be able to feel Riku's selfish selflessness. She will never be able to sacrifice another person for a selfish, loving goal. She cannot imagine looking at a boy who looked like Riku and feeling anything but love for him. She cannot imagine looking at a boy with Riku's face and wanting him disappeared. She cannot imagine looking at a boy with Riku's face and not doing her fucking best to bleed out for him.

( maybe it doesn't mean anything. if she's designed to love every creature, she'd bleed out for all of them. a perfect girl shouldn't be allowed favourites. )

There are many things Kairi will never be allowed. Riku and Sora put her in a cage, on a shelf, and they disallowed her many other things. There are many things Kairi wants, so badly she could die, and her body is —— her heart is splitting. She feels like she's coming apart, bone straining against muscle against the gold that should have replaced her blood, if she really is so perfect. She curls smaller, can't look at him, head ducking and hands rising to fist in her hair. She doesn't understand. She can't understand. She can't understand how his love can so often result in cruelty. She can't understand his love, so often doled out in a way that felt like bindings. She can't understand why hearing him call himself cruel hurts so badly, makes her so angry. She is too afraid to understand her own selfishness. She's too afraid to consider a reality where wanting more than this — more than killing or abandoning girls with her face, more than hiding that from her — isn't selfishness.

Her teeth grit. One of her hands leaves her hair to tuck between her chest and her knees, curled tight into her shirt, like she could rip out the light if she tried hard enough. Would that allow her to understand Riku? Is it her fault they drifted, that she's not Kairi, a girl, but a Princess, light incarnate? Is it her fault that Riku didn't feel like he could tell her, like he had to hide his hurt from her? Is it Kairi's fault that her biology is less human, more saint? Is it kairi's fault that Riku hurt Naminé and Xion?

( the miserable thought, in its basest form : did kairi deserve it all? for the sainthood she never chose? )

"I'm sorry," she says, and she's surprised that her voice is a sob. She pulls her hair reflexively. "I'm sorry —— I'm not like you. I wish I was. I w - wish so badly that I was. I'm sorry I can't — understand." She's sorry that even trying makes her feel like she has to rip her skin off. "I'm sorry that I was — such a bad friend you didn't f - feel like you could tell me." And she's sorry that she's angry, in her stunted way. She's sorry that she's angry in a different, somehow worse way than she'd been when she'd broken his nose. "But I —— but stop acting like —— stop saying that you're cruel!"

Her head raises from where it's been hidden in her knees, and she looks at him properly. She tries to see all of him, the cruelty and the love and the way he's more than she'll ever be. She's still angry. But her eyes are desperate, and the tears down her cheeks are the same. "You — you always t - talk like it was some —— accident, or like you're just...like that! Like you're innately some fucking monster who just...can't help but be cruel, like you were born that way." After their last fight, when she'd hit him, it had been the same. Kairi will never be allowed the full breadth of human emotion, of human hate or cruelty. And he'd pretend that he ——

Oh. Oh. Of course. Kairi, who will never be able to be anything but loving. Riku, who convinced himself he could never be anything but cruel. Of course they needed Sora, so perfectly human, to mediate. Of course they ——

"You made cruel choices. Be - Because y - you love Sora and me." And that's —— not about her, but it is, isn't it? "That's not the same as — as being cruel." She realizes she's envious. She realizes she's seething with it, and she's not supposed to, not with the light, and it hurts. Riku gets to choose. He's so much more human than she will ever be. And he pretends otherwise. "You're good, Riku! You're — you're good, and not just because you don't have a choice like me! So stop —— stop convincing yourself you're not! You've loved me really bad but you've loved me really good, too! You —— erase all th - the good stuff!" Maybe that makes it easier to do the bad, if he pretends he doesn't have capacity for a perfection more real than hers will ever be. She's jealous and she's angry, that he'd erase all the good and loving and kind threads of their love to absolve himself from the choice of his own harm. She's jealous and she's angry and she's taking his hand in both of hers before she realizes she's moved.

"You saved me. On the beach, when I washed up. You were good, right from the beginning. You've al - always been able to choose it. You were good to me. Riku, you've been good to me so long. You've loved me better than anyone so many times. I can't —— Riku, I can't love anyone on purpose like that. I don't get the choice. The way you love me means so much more to me than the way I love anyone. So —— so stop pretending that doesn't count!" A ragged inhale. She's trying so hard to see and understand him. "I just want you to love me on purpose enough to —— let me see the bad parts. I just want you to stop pretending you don't get a choice."

[dearlybeloves]

fair── yozora almost laughs. is there anything fair about this? the cage, the muzzle. the man they're all trapped under. if the world was fair, they wouldn't be here in the first place. but yozora simply stares at her, not quite leaning into her fingers but feeling the ghost of them all the same. there── a little light. more than the kindness and incorporeality that she exists in between.

( i need to snuff it out, he thinks, before it causes trouble. )

❝ give him what? ❞ he presses, takes a single step closer. he knows, in a sense; she's seen the aftermath of it. yozora wonders if she'd helped in any way, picked the crystals off of him, scrubbed him clean of blood. it'd make sense. it'd be something she'd do. maybe she thinks she can shield sora from the worst of it. maybe she thinks she can stop his deterioration. ❝ you want me to hurt you? ❞

( a moment, then, to think. has he ever hurt her before? he's been too much, of course, and he's the one keeping her in this cage. but he doesn't hurt her like he does sora / doesn't need to, in a sense / there was never any fear of her running. is there, now? is he at fault? his gums ache for the fight. no good, it'd be no good── but strelitzia is important enough to be caged. he kind of wants to see why. )

[destinedplace]

"I want you to do to me what you do to him," she says softly, like she's asking for something very normal, like she isn't asking to be shattered. But she can take a great deal of abuse, you know? She remembers that much, even if the context is hazy. She knows that it took more than a simple strike to kill her, to make her bleed. Can she bleed now, the way Sora does? She doesn't have a heartbeat anymore, she knows intimately But she doesn't want Sora to be Yozora's favourite. She doesn't want Sora to be the only one hurting. It isn't fair to either of them. And if so little about how any of them live is fair, why shouldn't they try to make it fair, in the small ways any of them have any control over?

He'll say yes, she knows. He'll hurt her. Because he's kind, in his way — kinder than she is, she thinks, nauseous and glad of it, glad that she's not so broken that she can no longer feel sick when she's being bad — and because he's curious. He wishes he was only cruel because he has to be, but he doesn't have to be, and he wants to see how they tick. He wants to see how Sora looks when he breaks. Now that she's offered it, he'll want the same thing from her.

She stares up at him, cheeks warm; maybe she would bleed. That's a familiar way to be —— below others. Below him. Her hand moves just barely closer, fingerprints ghosting ( ha ) across his cheek. "If you want to...hurt people, it's not fair that it's just him. I'm here, too. I can —— I can take it." TAKE IT FOR SORA / TAKE IT AS PROOF THAT YOU LOVE ME, TOO.

[destinedplace]

me sparks and nams have created the most insanely toxic yozosostrel dynamic possible and by god kh4 cant take it from us

[heartslight]

he considers her, her words. is there a fundamental difference between leashed and caged? both were trapped, limited in their capability to do anything / to go anywhere. did it matter if sora was leashed or caged, when they had clipped his wings? what did it matter how much freedom he had, if there was nowhere to go? what did it even matter? ❛ nothing changes, regardless of what's done to me. ❜ it's all he can offer from his place on the couch, curled in within himself. there's nothing more to do / there's never anything to do but wait and rot and die. ❛ i can't leave, and there's nowhere to go. my friends, my home— i'll never see them again. ❜ and it was all his fault. but how could sora regret something that saved his friends? ( regret? no, when did he— he didn't regret anything, he— he couldn't regret it— ) ❛ i can't even talk to anyone in this world. i'm all alone. ❜ alone with only the comfort of ghosts just as broken as sora was, if not more. a fitting end for the sacrificial hero.

[destinedplace]

Her head tilts to see him —— and for a split second, just one, a few heartbeats, she's relieved by his misery. She remembers the Sora of before, when he'd freshly awakened, who'd been so sure he'd get free. Who'd been so sure he'd take Strelitzia with him. And she's relieved that he's given up, that he won't leave, that she'll have more company in the cage than Yozora. Rotten thing, rotten girl, deserved what she got. And then it's smothered, even past the dull weight of her malaise, by grief for him, and horror at herself. Oh, Sora...

It just isn't fair. When Strelitzia died, she'd left her brother behind, but no one else loved her, and she'd been close to no one else in turn. Sora is so lovable, so warm and kind and sweet, that he had lots of people who loved him and whom he loved in return. Strelitzia's death had cost nothing but her own fear and pain. Sora's has cost so much, and he deserves far more than the cage or the collar.

She pushes herself to sit up and moves just a little closer to the couch, unsure of what to say. You can talk to me feels trite; she isn't a person, and she knows that Sora means he wants to talk to a person. ( for a second, just one, a few heartbeats, her feelings are hurt. she'd always known she wasn't good company, but...she truly is nothing, huh. ) "I'm sorry, Sora," the corpse girl murmurs from the floor beside him. That feels right. He, above. She, below, looking up at him. It's a familiar way to be — below others. Yozora taught her, but she had some practice, even before she'd died. "I'm sorry...Yozora and I aren't...more. I'm sorry I can't get you...out of the cage." Would Yozora break her if she tried? Would the Master? ( yes, she knows. ) She'll have to try...what could be worse than her death? "But...your friends love you. They'll — they'll save you, I bet..."

[destinedplace]

@heartslight / sora & strelitzia

"Yozora's...wearing a collar," she says softly one day, one of the days where she can't leave the apartment without feeling like her guts are going to explode out her skin. ( the dead fearing inversion. stupid. ) Her hands raise above her head where she lays on the floor; she watches the freckled digits curl, each joint a small pulley. How does she still freckle with no sun? How does her body still function, even dead, with her floating so far outside it? "And I'm in a cage. I can move around more easily in it, and it doesn't hurt as much, 'cause nothing's pressing on my throat all the time. But his leash is really long, so he can go further than I can." She's been wondering about which has it worse lately. She hadn't wondered about much at all until Sora joined their prison. "I've been caged longer than he's been leashed, I think. When you came, I thought —— because you're so strong, I...I thought he'd leash you too, send you out like he does Yozora. But it's more like you're caged with me..."

[destinedplace]

@heartslight / sora & strelitzia.

"Okay, okay, keep your eyes closed ——" She's a collection of good things today; brave enough that the pressing fear when she's out is lessened to a pinprick, feeling more generous than selfish, as content as a girl in a cage can be. It's easy for the dead flower girl to smile as she tugs Sora by the hand, carefully, accommodating his closed eyes. It's only fair, since she'd demanded them! She'd told him she wanted to show him something, then made him cover his eyes when they got close to the city's edge. Strelitzia's cage is small, but she asked Yozora and he agreed, allowed her to press closer to the bars than usual. Of course, she promised to come back.

"Aaaand — you can open them!" The city doesn't really end, of course, but outside the center, it peels away. Fewer homes or people — ghosts to Sora and Strelitzia both, if for different reasons — and, more importantly, a wide stretch of green, dotted with flowers. Nothing compared to the childhood she only half - remembers, but as of now, in the sunset, the world glows.

She wants to say, I like to come here when I can because of the quiet and the flowers. She wants to say, the city and the apartment are so grey and washed out, but there's colour here. She wants to say, sorry for being selfish sometimes. She wants to say, sorry it's so hard to be dead here. She wants to say, I love you. Instead, she smiles, gentle, and says, "It's...pretty, right? Like a memory."