It's such an evocative command, no doubt intentional, that Ienzo strains not to squirm in place from the faintest tickle of air against the nape of his neck, too much familiar, sonorous velvet on the ear. He clutches his elbows and glowers at the screen before him, a new entry field and the slow emergence of text that seemingly no one is typing in- Xemnas doesn't have his hands on the keys, nor is Ienzo touching them himself.
A N O T H E R
The young man heaves a sigh at the blinking cursor.
"In search of your memories. Of your past. Whatever happened to that? I don't know how we ever got so tangled up in trying to unlock so many of the heart's other secrets, but amidst our curiousity we lost our way, experimenting with the darkness. We railed against our Master's limitations and crossed boundary lines of what we had thought possible. We created monsters out of the shadows, and they would someday ravage all we knew."
He's spooled this narrative out to himself a hundred times, trying to tell a story where the pieces fit right. Where he's no tragically flawed yet sympathetic orphan hero, where he's not the worst villain of the bunch either, where the facts are naught but a string of subjective truths in his own lens. There are days the story's almost polished, and days when it's complete and utter rubbish, detestable and inexcuseable from every angle. He's told them all, in essence the same root tale every time.
"We explored the heart together." Ienzo swallows, and there is so much he cannot will himself to regret about the thrill it once gave him, despite some sense of moral gravity ever-so-slowly wrenching him apart by the bones, like some torturous punishment of social engineering. "We put forward difficult questions, challenging notions, and we dared to seek answers. My mind was so restless and open and growing, then." I was so young and eager, so ripe for change. It should have been my hour of blooming, and instead you uprooted me completely and hid me away where the light couldn't reach. Anyone could say it was a vicious thing to survive through.
And it's... intimate, when it comes to Xehanort, in ways he isn't bold enough to tell out loud. Not while he's still weeding through the lies and betrayals and deceptions and feeling so sick to his stomach about it.
"Surely you don't expect me to feel the same way now about it, as I did when I was a foolish, yearning child?"
no subject
It's such an evocative command, no doubt intentional, that Ienzo strains not to squirm in place from the faintest tickle of air against the nape of his neck, too much familiar, sonorous velvet on the ear. He clutches his elbows and glowers at the screen before him, a new entry field and the slow emergence of text that seemingly no one is typing in- Xemnas doesn't have his hands on the keys, nor is Ienzo touching them himself.
A N O T H E R
The young man heaves a sigh at the blinking cursor.
"In search of your memories. Of your past. Whatever happened to that? I don't know how we ever got so tangled up in trying to unlock so many of the heart's other secrets, but amidst our curiousity we lost our way, experimenting with the darkness. We railed against our Master's limitations and crossed boundary lines of what we had thought possible. We created monsters out of the shadows, and they would someday ravage all we knew."
He's spooled this narrative out to himself a hundred times, trying to tell a story where the pieces fit right. Where he's no tragically flawed yet sympathetic orphan hero, where he's not the worst villain of the bunch either, where the facts are naught but a string of subjective truths in his own lens. There are days the story's almost polished, and days when it's complete and utter rubbish, detestable and inexcuseable from every angle. He's told them all, in essence the same root tale every time.
"We explored the heart together." Ienzo swallows, and there is so much he cannot will himself to regret about the thrill it once gave him, despite some sense of moral gravity ever-so-slowly wrenching him apart by the bones, like some torturous punishment of social engineering. "We put forward difficult questions, challenging notions, and we dared to seek answers. My mind was so restless and open and growing, then." I was so young and eager, so ripe for change. It should have been my hour of blooming, and instead you uprooted me completely and hid me away where the light couldn't reach. Anyone could say it was a vicious thing to survive through.
And it's... intimate, when it comes to Xehanort, in ways he isn't bold enough to tell out loud. Not while he's still weeding through the lies and betrayals and deceptions and feeling so sick to his stomach about it.
"Surely you don't expect me to feel the same way now about it, as I did when I was a foolish, yearning child?"