An unfamiliar voice behind the fragile Nobody broke her away from her the lingering thoughts. She didn’t hesitate to turn around, expecting it to be a regular civilian of Twilight Town, but who she saw was no one that looked liked he belonged in this this world. Namine’s head tilted to the side, confused of what he might have wanted from her, but then her eyes shifted towards his hand that held a precious item of hers: her coloring pencils.
Namine was deep in thought about the walk back to the Abandoned Mansion and how she disliked walking through the woods that she might have never noticed them falling if not for this man stopping her. It wasn’t necessary, but he still went out of the way for her despite probably being here for another reason. For that, Namine was grateful. She looked back up at him and gave him a warm smile, taking the pencils into her own hand. "Thank you."
Aah, for the prompt thing: Roxas/Namine, "Strangers"?
"strangers" / rokunami.
Before Xion disappeared, letting the memories that had constructed her identity return to Sora, she left behind a promise that kept more value in it than she felt her existence did; for Naminé to watch over Roxas. The Nobody that has powers over Sora’s memories couldn’t understand why she would want to promise such a thing since, at the time, she believed that Nobodies would fade away and be forgotten, much like Xion did. She knew the ending she would face, but wanted to make sure her friends left behind would be fine without her. Nonetheless, Naminé could understand the part of her that found that promise very serious and significant. After all, she and the boy that rested below the Abandoned Mansion had made a promise to become friends once he awoken; although he knew there’d be no chance of remembering the memory witch. Regardless, she would put her life on the line for that promise to become reality.
A promise is a promise and Naminé would stay true to any that she’d make.
It seemed like months passed since Xion perished, but it was only two weeks, and Naminé only managed to keep an eye on Roxas from afar. She could tell from his new and happier lifestyle that the memories of being a Nobody and a member of Organization XIII didn’t seem to exist to him at all. She became a bit envious since she wished she could live that carelessly as if there wasn’t a worry in the world, but she couldn’t because she had so much at stake. Naminé didn’t want to risk interrupting Roxas’ new life, so she kept a distance between them as each day went passed, and tried to blend in with the rest of the civilians in Twilight Town, acting as if she just so happened to be strolling through or shopping around the district.
Naminé didn’t want to seem like what others would refer to as a ‘stalker’, but she had no other way of watching over him; she had no other way of fulfilling Xion’s dying wish. Each day just got more difficult for her to keep an eye on him, especially at one point when the leader of the group – a male with dirty blonde, wavy hair that wore green camouflage pants – seemed to have pointed out to Roxas that Naminé has been staring at him frequently.
Embarrassed, Naminé decided to change her pattern and only visit Twilight Town every few days. She dedicated her free time to drawing or restoring Sora’s memories. That was her main purpose, but before she knew it, she started to find herself being more interested and committed to watching out for Roxas. She wasn’t just doing it for Xion any longer, but for Roxas’ sake, too.
Naminé has only been able to watch him from afar, but she already cared for him; she valued him; she wanted to protect him.
One afternoon, Naminé had decided to take a small walk throughout Twilight Town since it had been days since she last saw Roxas and grew curious on what he was up to with his friends. They, along with many others, were located in the Sandlot practicing for an event called a ‘Struggle’ Tournament. She watched on the sidelines until Roxas and his friends seemed like they were ready to leave. Right before she was about to walk off, she looked over at Roxas once more and, to her surprise, found him looking right back at her, too. Their eyes met for what seemed like an eternity until Naminé forced her eyes to look away as she walked off in a hurry motion. However, she didn’t get too far before a voice called out to her.
“Hey, wait up!” He called out, running up to her from behind. Naminé hesitated before turning around, frighteningly expecting Roxas and his friends to stand there with arms crossed and looks of suspicion and anger, but when she did so, slowly, there was no one else besides Roxas – smiling. He took a few more steps towards her, scratching the back of his head, eyes looking away from her for a moment. She could tell he was trying to find words to say without sounding weird. “Um, hi.”
The blonde Nobody felt herself grow confused. Why was he suddenly talking to her? Surely he would have recognized her by now if he managed to notice how often she was looking at him. Was he trying to avoid the topic of that? Or did he simply just have a bad memory?
Roxas quickly seemed to have noticed the stunned look on her face and decided to keep speaking, hoping to make more sense. “Look,” He sighed. “I’ve seen you around, and even Hayner – Uh, my friend – pointed you out before, staring at us. He said I should try talking to you, and right when I was planning to you suddenly disappeared for days.” His facial expression changed into a worried look. “Did something happen?”
Naminé’s cheeks started to burn a light shade of red from his sudden concern. This wasn’t what she expected. Where was the angry yelling; the crossed arms; the looks of disapproval? None of it was happening and his suddenly worry towards Naminé trying to avoid being creepy threw her off guard. Was this why Xion wanted Naminé to watch over him? Was this what Naminé wanted to protect? Naminé found herself staring too long until she broke out into a fit of giggles, covering her mouth to muffle the sound. The look of concern that Roxas had changed into a smile of relief; he knew there wasn’t anything to worry about.
Instead of interrogating her with questions on her past actions, he skipped to the introductions, although she had known all along whom he was. “I’m Roxas. And you are…?”
“My name is Naminé.” She replied with the most polite tone she could think of and a friendly smile to suit it.
“Naminé, huh?” He repeated, crossing his arms and closing his eyes for a second. The look on his face made Naminé think if he had heard of her name elsewhere, but there wasn’t any possible way he could have. Unless he suddenly remembered something of the Organization, which she doubted, there was no way he could have recognized her as anyone other than the ‘girl that kept looking at him’. He relaxed his posture and stared back at her. “It’s nice to meet you, Naminé.”
The blonde female gave him a small nod. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Roxas.”
Unable to think of anything else to say, there was a moment of silence as the both of them just stared at each other.
“So, Naminé–” Roxas started again, attempting to break the silence. His body suddenly stiffened before asking her the question. “Do you want to go grab a sea-salt ice cream, or something?” An unnoticeable shade of pink took over his cheek and he even looked away, shy to look direction at the blonde girl before him. He gave off an awkward laugh before Naminé could reply to him. However, Naminé’s expression showed that she didn’t understand that he was technically asking her out on a small date. Either that or she just didn’t know what a sea-salt ice cream was. Actually, she didn’t really know what it even was. It didn’t take a minute for Roxas to understand that and he immediately ran off.
“Wait right there!” He shouted as he turned a corner, leaving Naminé dumb-founded.
Within a matter of minutes, Roxas has turned with a small treat in his hand that Naminé assumed to be one of the famous sea-salt ice creams. What bothered her, though, was that he had only bought one.
“I only had enough munny to buy one, so here.” He explained, trying to hand it to her, but she lifted her hands in front of her, shaking her head ‘no’.
“I can’t, Roxas. You have it.” Naminé declined. She slowly folded her hands over her chest, tilting her head and giving him a small smile of gratefulness. “Thank you, though.”
“No way, I bought this for you.” He shouted, eyes and mouth widening from the shock. She wasn’t surprised by his reaction. Sea-Salt Ice Cream was a well-known treat throughout Twilight Town that even visitors would grab one or two before leaving. If you didn’t have at least one while being here, then there had to be something wrong with you because it was too good not to try. To Naminé, however, it just wasn’t something that came to her mind while staying here.
Again, she declined his offer.
“Come on, Naminé.” Roxas said in a sweet tone as he slipped off the wrapper. His eyes shifted from the ice cream and looked into Naminé’s blue orbs. She felt like she was under some frozen spell, unable to look away from him. He reached the Popsicle out to her to take a bite, smiling. “Try it.”
With those words, Naminé could finally understand what he had meant to Xion – and now to her.
She knew for a fact now that she wanted to protect him –
The quiet that Namine grew to love for months became tainted with chaos when Nobodies had suddenly appeared in The White Room, interrupting her from her usual moment of drawing. She stood from the chair, petrified and surprised by their sudden appearance. Was someone from the Organization here? She looked around and even focused her attention on the door, but no one else came besides the Nobodies. When she finally managed to take a step back away from them, that was when they attacked. And Namine, well, she did the only thing she knew she could do: she ran.
She ran through the corridors, out of The Abandoned Mansion, and into the forest that led towards Twilight Town. She had only hoped that getting to Twilight Town would save her since the creatures of darkness didn't seem to like being around regular civilians. She'd just have to stay there until it felt safe enough to go back to the mansion. Then again, when would it be safe to go back there? It used to always be crawling with Nobodies whenever they wanted a familiar other blonde Nobody, but now, with no knowledge of the other Nobody's whereabouts, Namine could only assume that the one they were after wasn't Roxas - it was her.
The frightened girl kept her eyes focused on the road in front of her, and only ran as much as her legs would let her. However, from the looks of how far she still remained from the Twilight Town side entrance, there was a slim chance of hope that she'd make it. And that was when it hit her.
As much as Namine had wanted to never use her powers again, she was still a Nobody that could access a portal of darkness to a different location. It wasn't what she wanted to do, but it was her last resort for making it out alive. Or at least, almost alive. Immediately after she concluded the decision, she lifted her fragile arm in front of her and opened a portal, throwing herself in without looking back or waiting to close the portal. She hesitated to actually focus on a place she wanted to go and started to regret ever using the portal in the first place. For a moment, she felt like the darkness we bringing her to a place of it's own, and she had only hoped it wasn't the place that the Nobodies planned to have taken her: The World That Never Was.
By the time the portal finally opened back, Namine hesitated to walk out, but did so in a slowly and guarded manner. Her blue orbs had scrutinized the area and even though she couldn't recognize it entirely, she did believe it was just another sector to The World That Never Was. The neon lights, tall skyscrapers and buildings, the ominous feeling that was given off due to how small everything made you feel compared to the world were all apart of the one place she never wanted to return to again. As she walked, she looked around hoping for a sigh of life that wasn't out to hurt to her, but there was nothing. Even the night sky seemed more lively than anything else.
As if on cue, Namine stopped in her tracks and quickly shot her head towards the sky. Yes, it was a dark sky, but it was not the same night sky that she grew to distrust. That feeling of danger had faded into worry because the one thing that could guarantee if she was in TWTNW wasn't there to conclude her doubt. The heart-shaped moon, where was it?
Namine doesn’t have many pet peeves, but a big one would be others still referring to her as a ‘witch’, since - from what she’s read - witches seem to play more of a ominous and malicious role. She felt like that title was earned during the events of CoM, but once she managed bring Sora back properly, she felt like that title was not needed anymore and that she was just starting to use her powers for good instead of something out of demand.A more regular and small pet-peeve of Namine’s would be when she retrieves a new box of art utensils and they aren’t sharpened enough for her drawings. Do you know how hard it is to sharpen a color pencil without a sharpener?
Send ϡ for a MENTAL STATE headcanon.
After the events of KH2, Namine finds herself in more of a tranquil state. She isn’t worried or frightened about being bossed around or hurt due to orders, and she isn’t feeling like a criminal for managing to fix what she once did wrong. At times, however, the memories and guilty feelings return and bother her more than ever, but she manages to pull herself together and continue on with a more positive view on life. It may have taken her a long time to reach this sort of peace, but she doesn’t regret the hard work she had to put in to get here. After all, she managed to make best friends along the way.
The silence that consumed the mansion became the only noise that Namine recognized. It felt like years have passed ever since all of the ones that she valued more than her life had finally returned back to their original places and Namine, with no where to go, only managed to find shelter in a place she felt most comfortable in, regardless of her dislike towards it: The Abandoned Mansion. She never wanted to return here after the events that had took place recently, but it was the only placed that seemed to suit a Nobody like her. The corridors and rooms of this vacant house only gave off the feeling that something was missing, but what was it? A short sigh escaped her lips as she closed the sketchbook that was being held tightly in her hands. She knew the answer all to well. What was missing from the mansion? From her life? She longed for it ever since her friends had finally departed - company.
The White Room, which was where Namine was usually located, seemed to have reflected off her solitude the most. The walls were covered in drawings that she had created herself based off the memories she had of her own and the memories of the people she wish could be here now. The fragile Nobody silently walked over to a specific drawing, one of her favorites. It was of her Somebody, Kairi, and three others that she managed to consider close to her as if they were also apart of her: Sora, Riku, and Roxas. They were all holding hands and stood along a shoreline. Namine wasn't there, and she started to wonder why she didn't include herself either. A proper answer couldn't come to her head and she decided to go ahead and edit the picture herself now. There was enough space for her to add another person and she knew she could manage a quick sketch of herself there, side-by-side, with her best friends.
However, when Namine picked up a pencil and held the tip close to the paper, she froze. There was a cloud of doubt over her and she started to second guess editing this picture. If one of her friends just so happened to see the picture, what would the think? That it was weird to hope for a moment like that to be true, with her being in the picture, too? Then she recalled why she couldn't put herself in the drawing the first time. She wanted so badly to feel needed and like she belonged somewhere, but there was no place that she was certain of that she could be with others surrounding her, wanting her to be there as much as she wanted to be with them. But she wasn't sure if that was what they wanted either. Because, if that was the case, why weren't they here for her now?
