authors just got released for the 2019 KH Exchange so I can share my piece here! if you like this you’ll love the gorgeous little fic @xehanortsreport made for me!
[574 words. pre-canon aeleus character study, shades of aeleus/dilan.]
someone once said aeleus preferred actions to words. something about this prickled him, itching the back of his neck like a the tag in a new shirt, and his mind scratched at it until he knew exactly why it was wrong. he liked actions well enough, he decided, but the truth was he loved words; what he didn’t love was speaking.
he loved literature, how every time he went back to a story it was exactly the same yet seemed to grow deeper and more complex the more familiar it became, themes and jokes and feelings resonating differently to the different versions of himself who read them at different times. he loved poetry, both reading and writing, how the words could be build up and pared back like clay until they formed the desired shapes, beautiful sculptures covered in their authors’ fingerprints. speech was a lump of wet clay on his tongue.
some conversations were fine. he’d work on them in his mind, shaping them over time into functional little vessels, ready to carry their intended meanings. as he grew older his collection grew, and he refined them. some were simple, to be used over and over again: “halt, who goes there”; “let it go, even”; “yes, lord ansem”. some were more complex, designed for a single moment, molded and reshaped over and over until the time to use them came and he could only hope they were right. usually they were, sometimes they were not. when a pot cracks in the kiln, you call it a learning exercise.
even’s words poured out of him like water, and aeleus envied him a little. he said exactly what he thought when he thought it, paying little respect to timing or privacy or decorum, whether anyone was listening or not. he muttered like a brook and raged like a stormy ocean. it became a soothing sound, even’s voice pattering on like summer rain on the roof. aeleus loved his words.
ienzo’s words were precious gems, rare and sparkling and oh so carefully faceted. he spoke precisely, with sharp diction, so unlike other children. aeleus could sometimes see him working on them, grinding and polishing away. when ienzo gestured for him to bend down so he could whisper a perfect ruby, aeleus would always thank him - it was the least he could do. he wanted to tell him about his clay, but he never figured out how to talk about it. aeleus treasured ienzo’s words nonetheless.
dilan wielded his words like weapons, sharp and beautiful and dangerous. he rarely said things because they were true - he’d say appropriate things, useful things, things that would give the right impression, flickering butterfly knives that seemed to dance in his grip but somehow never ever cut him. it was an impressive display, but dilan had other words too, aeleus’ favourites - not butterfly knives but butterflies, bright and delicate and short-lived, whispered in private moments. from time to time aeleus would try to turn them into poetry, to capture them with a clarity such that dilan might, for once, see himself through aeleus’ eyes, but as he worked on them they turned into clay. muddy, thick, clumsy. he felt ashamed for ruining them. he cultivated a corner of his mind to become a garden for them, where he could watch them flutter until he could feel them in his core. he loved dilan’s words the most of all.
