(a/n) god this is a mess. headcanon everywhere and pretty sure half of this contradicts canon anyway so yolo. extreme 3D spoilers. don't even come in if you don't know.

"O swear not by the moon, th'inconstant moon
Who nightly changes in her circl'd orb
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable."

. apogee .

(red)

he

(his eyes widen)

you should know his name(wecarenot)your lips almost part(thecutsburn)he(OBSTACLE)

(you fall away)

we knew i always knew we always knew he was a traitor

(but did you know that it would come to this)

. full(on the wane) .

You'd stared, and the first thing you'd thought was, I should know this man, but I don't.

The air was stale there, tasteless and dead in your lungs. You did not know how you had gotten to where you were, a flat plain (plane?) colored in grays with a black sky overhead. No moon, and even the stars seemed to shrink away when you looked at them, as if they could not bear your gaze. Or as if they were not really there, simply optical illusions, an expectation painted there by your brain. The man before you wore a hood and cloak, black leather and silver chains. The ends of his hair peeked out from beneath the hood—dead silver-white, like the survivor of a sickness. Like a man on the verge of death. (Do you know him? A name almost made its way to your lips, but flattened like the dead air in your mouth. A meaningless word.) He came closer, close enough to see his face beneath his hood.

The second thing you'd thought was, I should fear this man, but I don't.

The man's eyes were gold like fire, like suns, and he'd smiled when he saw that you were aware. A gesture of his hand.

I S A

burned in the air before you.

You'd had only just enough time to think, my... name? before the man flicked his wrist and the letters began to whirl around your head, taking their meaning with them—

pulling on the core of you, twisting you into knots and untwisting again, it hurt, it hurt like being pulled apart hurts, like being unraveled and unwound, like being unmade—

You'd opened your mouth to scream.

—something cut through the maelstrom, an explosion across and through you, a—

sudden—

silence. Your mouth open, but no scream in it. You'd breathed in instead, jerkily, as one might upon waking from a nightmare.

S A I X

You. This name meant you.

The man reached down and took your chin in his hands. You could not move, though something told you that you should—not a true feeling, not out of fear or conviction, but because fear and conviction seemed now like things you were once told about, instructed in, a rote response. This close, it was like he blotted out the light, the earth, everything. (Do you know him? Have you met him before?)

"Would you like to be whole again?" he asked.

As soon as he said it, you realized, yes, yes, you would like that. More than anything. Yes, because you had finally realized what was wrong with you, what you felt like (insomuch as this feels like anything): this state, where nothing prompted anything real from inside you, where you were only waiting for a logical response to float in from a memory of a similar situation, memories robbed of color like old photographs, like something you never experienced but were told about once: this state, which is just like when you would go inside your own head while the rages took you until it was safe to feel anything again: this state, which is the exact opposite of being alive.

You, on your knees, the man who had named you and made you real again holding your face to his; you reached out and touched his chest. A gesture of supplication. "Please," you'd said. "Please."

"Then you are one of us," he said. "The lost, without hearts, without true existence. To regain what you have lost, you must help us to complete Kingdom Hearts. Do you understand?"

If you'd had tears, you would have shed them. You'd nodded. Yes. You understood.

He'd smiled. Like a predator.

. first quarter .

The first time you bit into one of those ice creams Lea likes so much now, the cold shock had nearly made your teeth buzz. You hadn't even tasted the famous "salty-but-sweet" flavor at first; you'd just sputtered and rubbed your jaw, while Lea laughed and said you were supposed to lick it, not destroy it, to which you'd replied that food is food and anyway who'd even asked him.

Now, when the two of you have enough pocket change at the end of the week that isn't being put towards grand schemes and groceries, you get ice cream and sit on one of the garden walls and watch the sunset trace the lines of the castle to the west. Today, a few wisps of cloud drift behind the tallest towers, stained sakura-pink by the setting sun's light.

"Because you know," Lea says, gesturing with his licked-clean stick (he's already done, while you are only halfway finished), "the sunset's red because red light travels the farthest."

Your tongue darts out to catch a salty-sweet drip before it reaches your hand. "Mm-hmm. And do you know why red light travels the farthest?"

Lea falters; this is a new addition to the usual script. "Uh... because it's the best?"

You turn to him. "It's because red light travels the sloo-oo-west," you say, poking a finger into Lea's shoulder and drawing out the word. He groans while you lick the last of your ice cream off the stick. "The frequencies are longer. That's why a lunar eclipse shows up red. The slow red light can bend around the earth's atmosphere and illuminate the moon. Otherwise, it'd be lost in shadow."

"So slow and steady wins the race. Still the best." Lea grins and stands up. For a second—one second—the setting sun's light seems to catch on him in a way: his teeth bared, his eyes fierce, his hair lit in so many reds it seems ablaze, his skin painted in vermilion. This is a moment you will always remember, visually speaking; one of those moments when you are young and feel unbearably alive for no reason at all. And when he turns back you can almost believe, in the way he looks at you and his smile widens, that he is seeing the same thing, seeing you burnished copper and gold.

You could have said anything then. You could have said, Let's rip the mountains down, stone by stone, just you and just me, and build a castle out of it twice as big as the Garden. You could have said, When I call you an idiot, you see, what I'm really trying to say is that I'd die for you. You could have said, I'll never forget you, I'll never forget this moment, and I want you to tell me you'll never forget it either, and we'll be each be immortal in this moment as long as the other lives, Lea, Lea, let's live forever.

But you never said any of those things.

. third quarter .

It would figure that you only remembered his name when it was too late.

"We have to set things right," you said, (and strange, it was strange, this sensation like your teeth wanting to grind, like cold and ice in your chest when you look at him, and a... (something like (loneliness?))), "There is too much on the line...

"Lea."

It would figure, when his eyes tightened, and he turned away.

It would figure that would be the last time you called him by that name.

. waxing crescent .

You are running, ducking around the cans in the alleyways, running because you can feel one of the rages coming on and you're hoping to get somewhere else before it hits, hoping insomuch as you are thinking at all right now beyond pure flight, running like a thing possessed, running like something is biting at your heels.

This is what you do when it happens; you run, trying to tire yourself out before the blind rage hits and you become violent. When you were smaller, it was less necessary; you could hardly do much damage with young, unmuscled limbs, at the ages when everything else was larger than you. But now you are an older boy and too strong to be safe around other people. Too strong for them to be safe around you. That's why you run. You run to get out of your head before it all compresses down in a crunch of fear-hate-fear-anger-fear-terror-fear-violence-fear-fear-fear.

And you are often successful. You can usually get somewhere isolated before it really hits, come to with only a headache, a set of new bruises and split knuckles and a particularly dark-stained section of wall where you'd tried to tear it down and only cut your skin. You count those as small victories, little triumphs. You wrap your hands in a strip of bandage and wet a cloth in cold water to put to your head. And life would go on.

But today—

This time, you come back into your own head with a shock more acute than usual, your chest heaving, your arms restrained by something—by someone. You go boneless, sinking to the ground, and the arms locking your own to the sides of your body come loose, depositing you in a heap on the ground. You turn as you hear another person flop down close by, turn and see Lea, his forearms splashed with crusting blood and one cheekbone already bruised and swelling. His eyes wide. He draws in a long breath when you make eye contact, and lets it out slowly.

"No," you say, your tongue numb in your mouth, even as he opens his to speak. A one-word rejection of this. "No." Your hands, trembling, search yourself—that's so much blood on his arms, where did you hurt him, did you hurt him—no, your hands come away from your face covered in it, it's yours, your nose is bleeding badly. You can't even taste it but you can feel it on your lips and sticking between your teeth.

Lea is in some slight shock. "Ahaha." Little short laughs. His eyes are still saucer-wide, not leaving your face. He swallows, swipes his face with his bloodied forearm, and laughs again. Like he is testing the air with it.

You back away until your feet hit wall. Narrow alleyway. You didn't make it out to the outskirts after all. You cannot speak. You keep seeing faces in your mind, an old aunt who had turned you out after you'd put a fist through her window and shattered her hip, a foster father that hit back twice as hard and that when you were just seven years old, a stray dog you'd once had and loved until you snapped its neck, a girl you hadn't even approached whose mother spat over the wall at you and called you a monster in human skin.

Lea pulls his legs under him into a sitting position. Runs fingers through his hair and winces when he grazes his cheek bruise. "I saw you running," he says. "I called your name, but you didn't answer." Pauses. "When I caught up to you..." He looks sad, as if the insult lay here and not in being beaten: "You didn't recognize me."

You find your voice, finally. "You idiot," you hiss, and he flinches back as if struck. You wipe at your chin and feel crusted spittle under the congealed blood. You flex your fingers—left knuckles aren't split, but they are definitely swelling, probably you'd hit Lea in the cheek with that one, facial bones are too hard to punch safely—and slam the butt-end of a fist against the ground. "You idiot."

"Isa..." He looks sad for you, wounded, which is an expression you have never come to associate with anyone after one of the blind rages. "Isa, are you... are you angry?"

"No," you snap, not as an answer but as a warning. Do not go farther than this. This is where you must stop, turn, and go back the way you came. You should have expected it would be Lea eventually. He's the first in a long time, in your life, to be with you for this long. You have known it, secretly, for a while now. This is why you do not cultivate relationships. This is why you lash out with your tongue long before you have the chance to lash out with your fist, with a brick, with whatever comes to hand.

But he persists. "Is this why you sometimes get hurt, and you don't tell me why?"

"Stop asking."

He falls silent, but you know it is only because he is regrouping. "You know," he says, "I never knew you were that strong, Isa." You say nothing this time, letting your expression speak for you. Stormcloud dark, and just as opaque. "I think..." He seems to have difficulty knowing how to phrase this next. "I think that's the most alive I've ever seen you."

And that hurts. You feel, at a distance, your eyes burn, and you are turning away before Lea realizes he said something wrong, turning away and pressing your hand to your mouth so hard your teeth split your lower lip. You don't normally cry, especially not after an episode. You are normally too exhausted. Over his stammered, confused apologies (why is he even still here), you choke out, "Lea, you miserable sack of shit. That's the exact opposite of being alive."

(Because being alive is when you do things because you choose to do them, and for no other reason. When you act on your feelings, or your whims, or your comforts, or your kindnesses, and not on your insanity. Not when your malfunctioning brain decides to flood itself with fear-chemicals, adrenaline, hormones, a toxic stew of misfiring synapses that drives the real you into the back of your head while your primal instincts take over your body. Not when you howl like a dumb shrieking animal and attack anything you see moving because you don't know the difference between a threat and not-a-threat.

That's not what being alive is at all.)

You look at each other for a long time, you still half-choking down tiny waves of sobs, though the real moment of crying is already over, he just shell-shocked and without a thing to say for once in his life.

Finally, Lea stands up and walks over to you, holding out a hand. "Come on," he says. "Let's go home."

The hand you put in his trembles. But when you stand, and he wraps an arm behind your shoulders to support you, you curl an arm back around him in return.

. waning crescent .

It was after Axel left for the last time.

He betrayed us, you'd thought. You stood in his old room, before the mirror in his bathroom. He betrayed us. He betrayed... me. (Was that how it had worked?) You were not sure why you had come here, except that something seemed confused and disjointed in your head about the whole situation. Detachment was the normal order of business for Nobodies, having no hearts, but this was. This was a different sensation. Alien, even.

For Nobodies, memories were their only link to knowing how to be. Less than real beings, who could react to unknown situations with true emotions, something that came from a heart. Not just showing something that they have been told they should feel, like animals programmed with instincts. If hearts were not necessary to be real, then Vexen's replica disasters would not have been disasters. It was the exact opposite of being alive—just following the electrical impulses in your brain, things that could be manufactured by anything. Adrenaline brings oxygen to the muscles and forces you to run or fight, or both, even if there is nothing to run from or fight. Norepinephrine, anger. Dopamine, contentment. If you could reduce human beings to animals, to chemicals, to a chain of cause and effect... But you couldn't, because human beings have hearts, and that makes all the difference. It makes all the difference in the world.

So, you knew, this sensation must have a root cause, a logical following, a memory linked to it, because you didn't have a heart. (Didn't you? Then what would you call this? This irrational action, this squeezing sensation in your core, like a fist clenching in your lungs?) Axel left. That was not surprising now, in light of his actions leading up to this moment. After a reconsideration of the facts. You once knew each other, yes, and if you had a heart, it might cause you to be distressed. (And if he had a heart, he wouldn't have left you. Because of those memories. You were both Nobodies. You were both less-than-real beings.)

But... he had said something. I'm not the one who's changed, he said.

And this was what was troubling you, distantly, because it didn't add up. Axel had deviated from the plan. (From... which plan?) He had been interacting with the Keyblade wielder, and with the puppet (that... that thing, even less real than you), and those presumably unknowable interactions had changed him. Because he had been doing different things. Yes.

But you, you have been on track. You were doing the same thing, the thing you'd been meant to do, from Day One. You had not left the Superior's side. You had maintained your safe distance from Axel and carried out your duties, because... (because... there had been a real reason, right?) And so, you can't have changed, because there was no logical reason for you to change at all, internally or in your patterns of behavior. Because Nobodies don't have hearts, and because an object in motion will remain in motion until and unless acted on by an outside force.

Roxas, Xion... outside forces. Axel had changed trajectory.

But you.

You had not exposed yourself to an outside force. (Had... had you?)

You rubbed your eyes. Your scars ached for some reason. The mirror offered no answers, only your own face staring back at you. With a... with a strange, unfamiliar expression. (An expression? With nothing to express?) You leaned in to look more closely at yourself. Touched your scars, examined your eyes.

(This unease must have stemmed from a remembering, from a memory of a day like this in which you felt this way in response to a similar situation. [Except that was impossible, because (Lea)Axel had never betrayed you before. {Because, and then you were remembering something you had not remembered in a long time, because you had stood and let the sun burnish you bronze and gold, and you had seen your face reflected in his own—}])

You were, suddenly, inexplicably, shaking. Shaking violently, as if freezing cold, as if you had just woken up from a nightmare. Your face in the mirror was sheet white, your eyes wide, because—

My eyes...

Have my eyes always been this color?

It was such a basic question, so fundamental, that the thought you might not know the answer had your brain firing every distress chemical it possessed, your hands shaking like leaves in a wind, your whole body feeling like you weren't getting enough oxygen. You... You knew, right? Because no one could not know the color of their own eyes—

You shut them, opened them, and there they were, burnished gold, the same color as the Superior, and Xigbar—why? when it was such an uncommon color?—why? when suddenly in your memories you had recalled that they should be tidal blue-green, inherited from the mother that died in your infancy, close to but not the same as (Lea's)Axel's, and if they had somehow changed, then why wouldn't you remember noticing?

You backed to the wall and clutched your head. It hurt, your head hurt, your scars burned as painfully as the day you'd received them—and that was something you couldn't remember either, now you realized, and this sensation in your chest like being crushed, that was—

this was—

this was horror.

(Because if you, a Nobody, couldn't trust your memories, then you couldn't trust anything about yourself. Because if you, a Nobody, could feel horror, then... then what?)

"Is everything all right?" You looked up in shock to see, of all people, of all the worst people to have arrived—the Superior himself. He surveyed the room, and you in it, his eyes unreadable. "It is rare for you to shirk your duties, Number Seven. I wonder if you have been feeling well."

Your mouth dry, you bowed. "Sir." Your mouth dry, your thoughts racing, your hands shaking, there was no way he wouldn't notice the state you were in. He saw everything. "I'm quite fine. Simply... confounded by Number Eight's defection."

"I wonder," Xemnas repeated, and stepped closer. "'Confounded,' is it?" His eyes bored into you, and you felt the distinct sensation that he could see something you couldn't. "You of all of us, Number Seven, should remember that we do not feel. We are lost. We are not whole."

"Of course... sir," you said.

This had seemed to be going well until Xemnas seized you suddenly by the face. "Wha—?" you'd gasped, and then—

your scars burned, fierce and hot, down from your face into the core of you, down around that knot behind your ribs, scorching dark like smoke from a fire. You were in too much pain to even scream, but you heard the Superior hiss, "Never forget your flesh bears the sigil, recusant," before you lost consciousness for a few moments from the pain.

(You thought you heard Xigbar (odd, because you hadn't seen him) say: aw, poor baby's fighting it, isn't he – too bad we put him on the fast track, not a word of which made any amount of sense.)

You came to a little while later, with Superior helping you to your own room. You felt numb again, detached (wait, why had you thought "again," when you haven't known different since becoming a Nobody), a little sick and spacey. Your head hurt. "What... what happened?" you slurred, suddenly aware that you looked completely incompetent before the Superior.

"You are pushing your body too hard," he said, sternly. "In light of our... personnel issues, I am sure it was inevitable. Rest, and be back to work by tomorrow. That's an order."

"Sir, you... you are kind," you said, and collapsed the moment you were free.

In the morning, you couldn't remember why you'd gotten no work done the day before.

. waxing gibbous .

"But this is what I'm saying: if you did it once, obviously you can do it, and if you can, why not?" Lea gestures to the huge weapon he'd found god-knew-where. The two of you have relocated to an isolated area outside the city walls, with a bunch of barrels and painted targets on sticks scattered in various areas. You grip the handle of the weapon—Lea'd called it a "claymore"—and heft it. You can barely lift it. "Man, one time you were in it so deep you picked up a boulder and threw it, and later I went and it had to have weighed more than you."

"Yeah, it's like when mothers can lift trees off their children. But Lea," you scold, dropping the claymore with a muted clank, "that's only under certain conditions. Adrenal glands..." You shake your head. "And I've hurt myself doing stuff like that. The reason our muscles aren't turned on full blast all the time is because we'd break our own bones if they were."

"Maybe you just need to try."

When Lea gets like this, there's no reasoning with him outside of a physical demonstration. You pick the claymore up again. Actually, you think, hefting it, the problem is less the weight and more the unwieldiness. No—you try swinging it a little, and the weight is still the problem.

No...

Because, really, it can't just be adrenaline. Lea's right. You have done some insane feats of strength when gripped with the rages, but if they'd all only been accomplished with raw strength alone, you'd either have broken both your arms (or your back) every time. You swing the claymore back and forth a little farther, like the motion of a pendulum. It's so long that to accomplish this, you have to hold your arm out at an odd angle. This motion feels somewhat familiar. Muscle memory, in a way.

Back, forth, back, forth. It's not about controlling the massive weapon—it's about redirecting it, push-pulling it, taking advantage of potential energy.

"Isa, are you—"

"Shh." You can feel it, somewhere, the hint of a movement pattern. Push-pull, tide goes in, tide comes out. It's in the hips, the knees, your center of gravity. You swing it out once, pull it back in, and then—

You explode forward, swinging this claymore that's almost as tall as you, letting its center of balance pull you, and you've obliterated one barrel into splinters, swing it back, almost-overbalance—no, you've got the hang of this, you've corrected and pulled it into another arc where it comes down on one of the targets—that's gone, too, and you leap forward and flip in the air recklessly, letting the massive weapon pull you, one flip, two, and it comes slamming too far to the left of one target and the thud it makes when it hits the earth rocks you and forces you to let go, rolling to the side and coughing.

Next you know, Lea has leapt on you and is shaking you by the shoulders—"Isa that was the most amazing thing I've ever seen ho-lee-shit you have to get better at this Isa dude that was actually the coolest thing I have ever seen you do Isa Isa—"

"Get off me," you choke, shoving him a little so you can sit up and get your bearings back. You survey the damage. "It's..." You are actually somewhat shocked that you'd managed to do it. Finally: "It's a dangerous fighting style. I'd be wide open on the swings."

"Yeah, that's where I'd come in," Lea says, still grinning like an idiot.

"Oh?"

He pulls one of his discs from his pocket and spins it on a finger. "I'm long-distance. I cover your flanks, and you be the big guns. We could annihilate anything!"

"Yeah. Lea, who in the world would we need to annihilate?" You stand and dust yourself off. "Did you intend for us to join the army? Or fight aliens?"

Lea deflates a little; brought down to earth, as it were. "I guess... We could do the wrestling circuit..."

"I think you've got a circuit loose." But you reach down and pick the claymore back up. "Come on. If I get the hang of this, maybe we can even spar." Lea perks up again.

"Hey, maybe we should get better targets. I could swipe some trash cans..."

. waning gibbous .

It was a process, maybe, of becoming a Nobody—it was hard to remember your and Axel's former names.

Axel shrugged one night, one of the rare nights when you interacted. It was hardly safe—there was always a chance that the two of you might begin to seem suspiciously close, and you were sure that if Superior ever closely interrogated you about your motivations for being in the Organization, either of you would crack in moments. "Sometimes I remember. Sometimes I don't. I've tried writing it down, but I lose the paper or can't read it." Axel scratched his head. "Does it matter? We're not really those people anymore anyway."

"But that's precisely the point," you'd said, "if we want to become those people again, we'll need to remember." Sometimes you chased the thought around at night before you fell asleep, but Axel's name always escaped your reach, slipping away from your fingers if you got close. Sometimes the effort led you to wrinkle your brows so much it made your scars tingle and ache.

"Maybe it's the other way around. We won't be able to remember until we get... completed, or, you know. Whatever." Axel waved a hand. "It's probably backwards to get so hung up on it right now."

"I can't help but observe you are being rather cavalier about this," you'd said.

Axel grinned, a ghost smile that showed too many teeth. He never looked like Lea what he did in the memories from your former life when he did that. You supposed... you probably didn't look much like your old self, either. "Hard to care when you can't, buddy." You wondered what emotion he was remembering for that. Bitterness? Resignation? Putting on a brave face? It all seemed so distant anymore, so far removed from yourselves.

The days and nights and months went on for a long time since that conversation. Sometimes you would remember things from your former life, and sometimes they would be harder to pull up. You just stuck to the plan. Stay close to Superior. Find ways to eliminate the others before they could interfere. (Without emotions like guilt or sympathy, it was easy to do such things.) Above all, don't look suspicious, unlike that rank amateur Marluxia. You both understood that, with your position close to Superior, it would be extremely easy to slip up if you interacted too often, or with too much friendliness.

At least, you'd thought you both understood that.

. full(on the rise) .

The shadows have come for this world, and you don't know where Lea is.

You run, run fast and hard, and some people in your more familiar streets shrink from you because they knew what it meant for you to start running—but there are more pressing issues at hand, like parts of the city have begun burning, and you keep seeing black bug-like things crawl like oil and smoke out of the shadows and corners, and you saw them rip a man's heart out of his chest while he screamed, and—and you need to find Lea. That's all.

The waterfall is empty, the gardens are burning and trampled, and it's only on the steps to the castle that you find Lea, battered, hair singed, throwing any object he can get his hands on at the black things. On your way here, you'd grabbed a length of heavy pipe from the aquifers that you've been using to beat off the shadows; now, you club a bug hard enough to stun it so you can leap over it and get to Lea's side at the high ground.

"You're late," he quips.

You don't have a comeback, so you shift your grip on the pipe and pause to catch your breath. Your lungs burn from sprinting for too long, and your arms ache from carrying the pipe, and worst of all you recognize the warning signs of a coming rage, because all this insane calamity has primed your brain for panic mode, for shut-down-and-survive mode—your vision shrinking down, your fingers starting to twitch.

You are strangely calm about this. "Someone needs to make it to the castle. Someone needs to alert His Highness."

"You mean the guy no one has seen in months. You mean the guy who's looked the other way while people have been quietly dying for a while now." Lea's face is hard. "We don't know what's going on—"

"All the more reason," you say, noting that the shadows have been flanking the two of you as you speak. "Lea," and you turn to him, and he sees the look in your eyes and recognizes it, "you need to go warn them. I'll cover your back."

"Isa..." He knows. He knows neither of you is going to make it.

"Go!" you snarl, and whirl to slam your pipe into the throat of a bug-thing that had just jumped for the two of you. It explodes in a black, greasy mist. "Get out of here!"

Lea turns and runs. You swing your weapon in wide, shallow arcs, daring any of the black things to get past you. "Come on!" Your eyes sting. "Come on, you bastards!"

You never even had time to lose your mind.

Something struck you in the back, and you felt yourself falling forwards, into a mass of the writhing black shadows. It was another bug thing, this one crawling up your back, up your neck, and you scream when the darkness starts chewing into you, the bug things burrowing their claws into your chest.

(You'd always been afraid of dying in a rage, dying when you weren't alive to feel it.

In that moment, you learn to regret ever feeling that way.)

. new .

we awoke in our world, our ruined world, grays and stars alike shining down

(you had thought,

isa.

that was it.

but you, as always, were just too late. only coming to when the damage was done. maybe that's just your nature. to destroy.)

just understand, isa. you brought this on yourself. we know you were planning to betray us.

but you didn't. and we are forgiving.

we will deal with the traitor as traitors deserve.

(you feel the darkness eating at your edges)

. perigee .

"I'm Lea," he says. "Got it memorized?"

"Why," you quip without breaking stride, "is there going to be a test?"

Lea rubs his nose. "If everyone remembers you, you live on in their hearts forever. And man, I've got big plans. So I have to live forever. Make sure you remember me. I'll remember you back, so it's an even trade." He grins. "What do you say?"

You can't seem to shake this guy. "You wouldn't live forever. Only as long as the people remembering you would. So you'd die off after one or two generations."

"Say, I never thought of that! Maybe if I have a bunch of kids and hang my picture on the mantle." Lea's half-jogging to keep up with you. "Hey, I like you. A guy who thinks around corners like you, a guy with natural charisma and good looks like me, we could go places. What's your name?"

You stop. "I have no interest in giving you my name," you say, looking him directly in the eyes.

"Don't you want to live forever?" Lea spreads his arms. "You're an enigma, I gotta tell you."

Your hands clench a little, release. "I'd be satisfied with just living, thanks."

"Well, man, when you wanna upgrade..." Lea points to himself with his thumb. "Right here."

You had never intended to speak to him again. But something about that encounter draws your thoughts to it, for days, until one day, you seek him out yourself.

"It's Isa," you call to him from across the waterway. He looks up with delight. "Don't bother remembering, you seem busy."

"I'll never forget," he says. "I remember everyone I've ever met."

You fold your arms. "I highly doubt it," you say. "That's unlikely."

But he takes your hand in his, and leans in. "Isa," he says, quietly, and with a shock you realize he means this very seriously, "I will never, ever, in my whole life, forget about you. That's a promise." He lets go. "Commit it to memory."

. ecliptic .

[because of all the colors red light travels the farthest

(slow and steady wins the race, right?)

otherwise it'd be lost in shadow]

end.