Why do I like writing this scene so often--?

Don't shoot me.

Originally posted on requiempathic at livejournal, a while back.

AESTHETIC
when there’s nothing pretty about it.

the sky is sinking in paradise, tonight

That's what he's thinking, toes in the sand and eyes lost in mud tracked mazes — until there's nothing left of Riku, nothing but green nightmares and shaking cold fingers.

The sea air is frost around him. It tastes like ice. It tastes of spiralling down and looking up; cracks in the sand and shadows that stare back when you gaze too long, and metal, too. Gold, silver, strong. Like a key.

The sky is flame and ebony, the ground is tundra, and the island air is a sea of keyhole metal.

the sky is blue and the ground is growing green and — no!

— and the island air is —

It's shaking out into a cluster of shadow hands and cobweb gestures, clockwork black. Here is the door, swarm, portal out, and it asks like bright red paint-flecked questions and dark curtains that whisper and sway, what will you give up to leave?

what will you give up to stay?

He will put one foot before the other and cross this bridge with parasites at his heels. His eyes will scream of oceans.

— and he is —

Sora, hesitating, because this isn't his path.

— and she is —

Kairi, but I thought she was with you?

— and what are they now?

They are candles on lakewater ice, tadpoles trapped beneath the frost. Snapshot ghosts, staring down the solar eclipse. They are rusting grand piano keys and severed harp strings washing up on rocky shores like salt-scented driftwood, breeze-light and expendable. They are his past and his old paradise, tonight, (that's what he's told, and the vocals through his mind glow green, you don't need them. they are your paperfolds and torn ends, tonight. they are your sacrifice.)

they are the last sight of sunshine, he'd like to say, they are my friends.

But his words glow green, too.

(sora sora sora sora don't take my hand it's not me)

(kairi kairi kairi kairi where's your heart it's not with me)

And there they are.

Piano keys, newly carved, laid out like paper dolls in the sun.

you can dream.

It's a good memory anyway.