[Drabble] - KH/FFX - Deeper than the Beat of a Heart
There is one thing that binds them all, even though they do not know it.
It binds the two boys on the islands, who play with a blitzball - more beach ball than proper blitzball, it doesn’t have half the density that it needs to slice through the water or to crack open a fiend’s skull, Wakka knows this without knowing, it just doesn’t feel right when he throws it - and with a toy sword, scrabbled together out of driftwood and twine - but Tidus remembers without remembering the weight of edged steel in his hands, the lethal dance of dodge-and-strike, and forgets that he should have scars from the moments when he wasn’t fast enough.
It binds the fairies in Radiant Garden who call themselves treasure hunters - searching searching searching for a treasure that doesn’t exist any more, or maybe it never did in the first place? They hunt for memories - of a dream, of a team, of the world’s past - always searching never finding and they cannot say what they are searching for even if they themselves knew, because the treasure of memory is too much like the treasure of a heart, and too many hearts have been stolen already.
It binds the guardian who walks the paths of the dead, fallen from grace and honor both. Both of your promises broken - one to live, the other to protect. It is the road you should not have taken, but did - in your rage and want of revenge you waded through a sea of blood to cut off the head of the lying Church, because your lord was dead and your friend was Sin, and it was your fault for not saving them but Yevon’s fault for driving them to the Pilgrimage, driving Spira to ruin, and in the end you were not as strong as Braska thought you were.
There is something that is instilled deep at the core of them all, even now - untouched by time, by Heartless, by the unraveled and twisted stories of the paths they should have walked.
Deeper than the beat of a heart, pyreflies shine, and clear voices rise, though none but one knows how they know these words, this song, this hymn.
