Rating: G
Prompt: Guide (take it step by step, one foot then the other)
Characters: Luxord, Naminé
Summary: You don't always realize what you have until it goes away.
Originally Written: 05/01/09

A/N: Written for tunasaladsonnet on LJ. She totally made me friend!ship these two. Naminé's nickname/the title came from Tuna's wonderful writing. Happy birthday, love. I don't think I did these two justice but I hope you like it.

Pigeon

Luxord was the first person she met that didn't call her a name. Larxene didn't bother hiding her disdain; Axel gave her nicknames out of amusement, but they're still unwanted all the same; and Marluxia — she learned very quickly to feel uneasy when Marluxia came near. But Luxord was different. She didn't get to talk to others very much, but she could tell something wasn't quite right.

"Why don't you call me anything?"

Luxord looked up from the drawing he was inspecting, an old doodle of Naminé's that featured a cat pawing a fishbowl. "I do call you something. Naminé."

Naminé shook her head, setting down her crayon. "Everyone else calls me names." She glanced away. "Some of them not very nice."

Setting aside the paper, Luxord walked over to stand beside Naminé's chair. He didn't comment on how she shied away almost unconsciously. "Xemnas doesn't call you names."

"Xemnas doesn't call me anything," Naminé replied. "He doesn't talk to me."

Luxord smiled faintly. "You have a point." He paused, taking a moment to inspect what she had been drawing. The beginnings of some sort of decrepit castle. He would have to ask Axel where Naminé was getting her inspiration from at some point soon.

"Is it a bad thing that I do not call you names?"

"You call me by my name."

He glanced over to find her staring at him. It was rather disconcerting. "Naminé?" She nodded. "It's only proper to address a lady by her preferred name. It takes quite a lot to earn my disrespect."

Naminé looked like she didn't know whether to be flattered or annoyed at being called a "lady."

"Ladies don't make friends with bad guys," she said at last, and Luxord glanced up sharply, eyebrows raised in surprise. His expression softened when he saw that she was smiling. "Don't worry, I can tell you're not a bad guy. Not like…" She trailed off, and Luxord could only guess who she was thinking of. He quashed the instinct to figure out who it was and go shake them down. Strange.

Smiling, Luxord stroked his chin thoughtfully. "I don't think you can call someone who kills for hearts not a bad guy."

Naminé bit her lip. "You're not bad. You're desperate."

Luxord stared at her and wondered how one girl still so new to the world could psychoanalyze half the Organization in five minutes.

*

"I think 'bad' is strictly subjective," Naminé told him at a later meeting, after Luxord had returned from an off world mission that had lasted far too long for his tastes.

"I just sent a world into total darkness," Luxord replied, sitting down tiredly at the small white table in Naminé's room.

"Bad people don't bring little girls souvenirs," Naminé retorted, lightly fingering the leather-bound sketchbook on her lap like it was a precious gem. "Particularly before they even clean up." She pointed to her own temple, and Luxord touched a hand to his head, crumbles of dried dirt falling at the contact. Smirking, he rubbed the caked dirt from his face.

"Touché. So, is it suitable?"

"Mm?"

Luxord gestured lazily at the book. "Your gift."

"Oh." Naminé glanced down at the object in her hands. "I've never gotten a gift before, I can't really say — "

"A simple 'yes' will suffice."

Looking embarrassed, Naminé nodded. "Thank you."

Luxord watched Naminé turn the book over in her hands, marveling at the detailed binding. "How about this: a charming young lady like you deserves a gift or two, and I've always been fond of giving them."

"You have?"

Luxord smiled wryly. "I have memories of being fond, anyway. Technicalities. The point is that I'll bring you something when I can, hm?"

Naminé smiled, a clear, genuine smile, and Luxord decided that he wanted to see that smile again.

*

More white. It was white wherever she went. But it suited her.

"Will you still visit me?" Naminé asked him, smiling, but Luxord could hear the lack of hope in her voice. She was never good at hiding her emotions, as unreal as they were.

"We must be realistic, love," Luxord replied, opening a hand and conjuring a deck of cards. "I doubt the Superior will appreciate my idling away here. Pick a card?"

Naminé bit her lip, muffling a giggle. "You hypocrite." She gaily picked a card from the bottom. "I don't mean a lot. Just, you know." She paused. "A visit."

The unspoken 'to check up on me' practically echoed in the silence. Luxord understood the unease all too well. Xemnas couldn't have picked a more unfortunate bunch to assign Naminé to.

"I shall certainly try my best," Luxord told her, the empty promise not going unnoticed. He took Naminé's card and tucked it back into the deck. "Don't forget you have a job to do as well."

Naminé looked away, eyes downcast. "Yes."

"Chin up, pigeon," Luxord chided, shuffling the deck with a wave of his other hand, and Naminé glanced up, surprised.

"You called me 'pigeon.'"

Luxord, for possibly the first time in this life, was hesitant. "I'm sorry, love, I was just on a world where this woman — "

"N-no," Naminé interrupted, shaking her head, "I like it. It's strange, but I like it."

She gave him a smile, that one painfully real smile that had over time come to give him this strange semblance of hope, and he said nothing. There was nothing he could say to that, as eloquent as he was. Instead, he spread the cards over the long, white table. Naminé ran her hands across the backs, feeling them lightly. Finally, she picked up one from the middle, the memory of it resonating in her fingertips. She flipped it towards him.

"This would be a much more impressive trick if you were the one that did it," she told him, giggling.

"I'm just here for the show." Luxord snapped his fingers, all the cards but Naminé's disappearing. He tapped it with a gloved hand. "Keep it."

She flipped it back over, so the face showed, confirming it as the card she had pulled in the beginning. A single red heart was bright against the stark white of the room.

"You sap," she muttered, and tucked the card into her sketchbook. Maybe she wouldn't mind one person calling her by a nickname. It was sort of cute.