Chapter Text
Fire & Moonlight , a Kingdom Hearts fanwork: Drabble challenge by Wishing-Fire, written by Raberba girl
17. Gleam
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Summary: Axel's worked for years to find this treasure trove. Perhaps what he ultimately ends up walking away with is even better...or perhaps not. Either way, his life is going to be a lot more interesting from now on.
A/N: Inspired by Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire.
o.o.o
Axel was so eager to get to the Core Room that he did not notice the reddish-brown marks until they were practically standing at the threshold. Then, as the other hunters swarmed inside, yelling in excitement, Axel paused and reached for the Diviner's bound hands, cradling them gently in his own. He did not miss the creature's flinch at his touch. "Why didn't you tell us you were bleeding?" he asked.
"Are you implying that you actually care?" was the low response.
Axel chuckled. "Surprisingly...yeah, I kinda do." He adjusted the restraints until they were a little looser, trying to squash down a slightly guilty feeling. It was just...really hard to stay businesslike sometimes, when the things looked so human.
"Hayes!" some of the others were yelling, along with a spew of impatient profanity. "Get the berserker in here!"
"Waiting a few seconds isn't gonna kill you!" he yelled back, with a few colorful additions of his own. "C'mon, Lu." He hauled the Diviner inside and glanced around at the bare gray interior, thinking that it didn't look anything like an ancient civilization's treasure trove. But then, that was kind of the point.
Feeling strangely uneasy at the hunters' yelling, their greedy impatience prompting at flood of insults at the Diviner, Axel dragged him - he couldn't help thinking of it as a 'him' - into the middle of the floor. "All right, Lu. Time to sing."
The Diviner was silent.
In a practiced, almost weary gesture, Axel took the creature's moonstone out of his pocket and squeezed it in gentle warning. The Diviner flinched, but maintained his silence. "Luna. Come on. I really don't like hurting you, but I will."
"Smash it, for all I care," the Diviner said shortly. "I'd rather die than let you creatures desecrate this place."
Axel blinked, vaguely aware of the increasing noisiness from the other hunters. "So you're digging your heels in, huh." Axel stepped closer and began to whisper into his ear. "What was it that friend of yours called you back there? The word for 'moon dancer' - Saïx, right?"
The Diviner's eyes closed in quiet defeat.
"Sia, sing the Song of Release," Axel tried. Then, when that didn't work, "Asi, sing the Song of Release. Isa, sing the Song of Release. Ia--"
The eerie sound of the Diviner singing in his own language filled the air. It was not particularly loud, but there was a sharp, alien tone to it that silenced the hunters' clamor. The floor and walls began to rumble as they shifted.
'This is it,' Axel thought in excitement. 'What I've been living for these past five years - it's finally happening.' No more stealing, no more scrounging, no more hungry nights or fresh blood on his hands....
The once bare room was now growing full, full of the gleam of gold and the colors of Diviner art and the dark scent of ancient secrets. The hunters howled with selfish joy, whooping as they flung themselves to wallow in the lost treasures.
Axel was still watching Saïx. He would have been whooping and reveling with the rest of them, if he hadn't been so astonished to see what he had thought was impossible: Diviners could weep after all, just as they could apparently bleed. When the singing began again, Axel immediately guessed what it meant.
"G...Get out," he tried to say, his mouth suddenly dry. Then he tore his eyes away from the golden-eyed figure and bellowed at the men, "GET OUT! You're gonna die!" He might as well not have spoken, for all the attention they paid him. The gold in the corners of the room was starting to melt, and they didn't even notice.
It's not like he had meant to save the Diviner, it was just instinctive. Axel seized him by the hood and dragged him along as he ran for the exit, cursing the captive's stumbling, uneven gait. "Move, move, movemovemovemovefaster...!"
The air was growing hot as they fled down the corridor, and Axel winced as he heard screams starting up behind them. "This whole place is gonna be a lava pit before we even reach the path, there, argh, faster!" It was the side of the subterranean mountain they'd slipped and cursed their way down hours earlier. Axel could make it back up without the climbing equipment, probably, it'd just be ten times harder than it had been coming down--
"What are you doing?! Get going! The fire's coming!" The odor of burning rock stung his nose as he looked down at Saïx, who stood gazing up at him in almost disdainful fury. Then Axel swore explosively when he realized that the Diviner's arms were still bound, making it impossible for him to follow. "Why am I risking my neck for you?" Axel ranted as he slipped and slid his way down again, reaching out to rip off the restraints. "Now, c'mo--"
Terror surged through him and he cursed himself for his stupidity, as the creature seized him by the throat the instant it was free. "Sa...ix...." He couldn't breathe. The Diviner's face was changing, eyes consumed in a mindless haze of yellow, mouth opening to roar and then bite his head off or whatever Diviners did when they went Berserk--
Everything went black.
When Axel woke up, he found himself lying in a field of flowers beneath a bright, cloudless blue sky. He choked and scrambled away when he realized that his killer was close by, but Saïx did not react to him at all. The Diviner simply continued to stand without moving, turned away, gazing up at the sky.
"Why are you in heaven?" Axel asked cautiously. Then he laughed. "Why am I in heaven?" He'd fully expected to end up in the other place.
Then he realized that this was the field outside the ruins, the last place they had seen of the outside world before beginning their descent. They'd been underground so long, he'd forgotten. "Wait, so I'm not dead?!" A Luna Diviner had had him at its mercy. How had he survived?
Saïx abruptly turned to face him. Cursing, Axel tried to run, but hands closed around his throat and he was seared by that baleful golden gaze. Yet though those hands held him captive, they allowed his breath to pass.
"Why you?" Saïx hissed. "All this time, after everything your race has done to me and my people, and it ends up being you?"
Axel had no idea what he was talking about. He was also preoccupied by the alterations to the Diviner's face: two small marks, one beneath each eye, like dark upside-down teardrops. "Where'd those tattoos come from?"
Saïx flung him back down and stalked a few paces away again, resuming his contemplation of the sky.
"Ow," Axel complained. "That hurt. And my face hurts, too." He paused. Two distinct spots of pain, actually; one under each eye. He had a sudden strong hunch that the Diviner was not the only one with an altered face. "Hey...Saïx...what happened back there?"
"A sacred place was profaned and purified, thirty-two of your fellow humans perished, and I gained a firestone." Saïx turned to face him again. Revealed the glimmering orange-red gem he held. Squeezed his fingers around it.
And Axel felt a sharp pain in his chest. He gasped for breath, then stared at Saïx in dawning horror. "You-- you made me a berserker?"
"I was trying to kill you," Saïx said shortly. "I don't know what you are now. This has never happened with a human before. All I can do is keep your firestone away from you and hope that your lifespan hasn't increased along with your magic."
"What? I don't have any magic."
Saïx glared again.
"...You're saying I have magic." Thoughtfully, Axel pulled something out of his pocket. "I also still have a moonstone." He smiled ruefully. "Guess we're gonna get to know each other pretty well."
"Undoubtedly."
o.o.o
Author's Notes: This theme is one of my favorites so far (including future ones that I've already drafted).
"Hayes" is my headcanon surname for Axel/Lea.
Complete: 17/101