A/N: I am alive. :O Its been forever I know, and I'm sorry! TT I've started a lot of drabbles but haven't been able to finish any of them lately...so to cure my intensive writer's block, I've decided to open requests to you guys! Feel free to request a theme or pairing! Just make sure that if you request a pairing you have a theme, because if its something like, KankurouTen I might have hard time coming up with something on my own. .;

This is my entry for the TenSquared Anniversary Contest, which I wrote a while ago but haven't been allowed to post this until now because of the rules. xP; Slighty cheesy, but please enjoy!

Ocean Maze

He is devoid. He is the empty spaces between color and death, frozen like icicles jarring at the cores of rocks. He watches the birds and he loves them but it's that first time when he sees the mist vaporize into the sky like a wish crashing off the waves that he finds his reflection.

It disappears into the tidal callings of the moon, running deep into the mazes of the ocean currents and when he watches the water, still or raging he smiles because he knows there are lives trying to find themselves beneath the blue flow. In itself, the water is like him-blank and forced to take the shape and illusion of whatever came into its flow. It couldn't fight; it could only drown its attackers into its cold depths as it longed to be anything but pure. Purity meant fragility; an exposed innocence that could get shattered at any moment.

And so he chased after the waters circling in his mind, the free flow of fate and peered down into its clear depths.

And yet he couldn't see anything.

His reflection was all black and grayed waves spun him away into endless depths where he could only sink, unbreathing and trapped within the numbing walls that seeped past his stone skin and entered him.

It was the first time he felt fear.

It was a chilling, gnawing burning of toxic coals that never seemed to lose steam and ate away at his flesh and veins with a dark cold ink. It was seeping into him and he couldn't-he couldn't-

feel.

It was just…cold. Everything. A tortured frigid gap that cried out for vacancy to be filled within his chest and it was then that he panicked. Because all the doorways that could cure the excruciating nothing lead outside the whirlpool, and he could not bring himself to unlock it.

(Never taking off the weights that keep us stuck here- in the comfort and the fear.)

Or find the key.

The days fled into years as he watched the faded outline of the clock spin its web in the black. Soon he had just-let go, letting the whirlpool carry him away as his eyes faded blank, white and halting as the penetrating eyes of a haunted doll. He couldn't break free-he hadn't found the key- and so he watched as others beat at the waters in the distance and scorned their futile struggle. Why couldn't they be free, and just let the water carry them away?

Its when he felt her touch- a single warm grasp, like the secrets of a candle floundering in the dark, that he knew the key was not somewhere in the cage. It was hidden somewhere deep inside of her, within the strange flesh that pulsed with newfound blood that-

Just wouldn't give up.

But she had already kicked off into the air on wings and only feathers flew behind for him to catch. They are nothing familiar, not the cold metal bars that he knows or the washing of the tide has never drowned his voice out completely. They are white but untamed and something electric is sparking inside his blue veins. They starve for air and as he catches an amber star shine in the distance he knows he's got to find the flight.

But then he closes his eyes, because-because-

He doesn't know if he can handle a first breath without shattering like his walls.

As chains of fate whip against him, though, he begins to have second doubts about letting the sea take him. The waters are dragging against his back with every wave like a slice of ice and he winces every time he falls into it because it's nothing like her touch.

He's-starting to miss…something…is it air? Was there a time when he watched the birds and not the waves?

His eyes sputter open into the world.

The wind greets him like a castle to an overlord who's just woken up from a sleep of a thousand days and now the clock's rewound itself open.

She watches him tensely, lips furrowed deeply together as he chokes on a last spurge of water. Her amber eyes flash with shadows as she puts a hand on his chest. "You okay, Neji?" The words are casual but just a hint of worry is laced into her tone and he can tell by her voice that her throat is dry. It echoes through her fingers and into that hollow-something-that suddenly has a name.

The last of the ocean has finally left him. His tired eyes open and the slightest smile curves as his heart beats, pumping energy into his slowly rising veins. "Never been better." He says quietly in a deep, worn voice but the smile is still lingering because its true.

The rose's petals have fallen off but he's not a desperate beast anymore.

He's a bird. A songmaker of the wind that just-

Won't give up.

She smiles back, curved cheeks glowing. "Great." Her amber eyes twinkle with a true glint of gladness under the sun before she gets up from the sand, brushing it off her pants. As he eyes the ocean stains on her vest and the grains of sand that have managed to get caught in her hair he realizes she's been beside him the whole time.

She reaches out a hand playfully, a teasing glint replacing the worry in her eyes. "Need some help?"

He scowls and doesn't reply, instantly pushing off the shore and dusting sand off his clothes. "Let's go." he chooses to respond instead, turning. The sun blinds him momentarily as the sea gusts blow his hair backwards and he squints.

She laughs. "Uh, Neji, it's that way." She jabs a thumb in the other direction and she can't resist a smirk as his eyes widen slightly before darkening instantly and he stalks off with a huff. Her lips mirror his usual amused ones perfectly with an extra sparkle as she turns confidently in the other direction.

He puts his hand on her back as they head off the beach, leaving the tides behind them. She turns her head in a little spark of shock at the touch and looks at him inquiringly, a slight flush sprung up in her cheeks.

He smirks, a faint gesture that's somehow tender as he turns his eyes ahead. He knows. She's the one guiding him out of the maze.

He looks back to catch a last glimpse of his old home, though, as a gust of sea wind breaths a gasp of mist into the air, and his eyelids lower slightly in complete contentment. Because he can see his reflection.

It takes light, he realizes suddenly, to find the key.

And so he takes his key by the hand and flies into a wind that he can drown in all he wants.