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The White Room is exactly two hundred and fifty steps from corner to corner, if Naminé stretches her legs just a little, one hand to the wall for balance. There are windows, but one has been charmed to show the sunny beaches of some unknown island and the others just show darkness (outside)(inside)(everywhere). She keeps the curtains to those drawn closed.

No rules have said that she has to remain there at all times, but the one time she ventured out, two Nobodies materialized from the walls to trail silently after her. She made it as far as the end of the hallway before losing her nerve and ran back.

There have been other times when she opened the door and looked down the long hallways, but always since she just closes the door and retreats back to the nook of window and wall, staring out at the stretch of clean beach, and if she dreams with her eyes open, she can pretend that if she just leans out, there will be hot sun on her face and a salt breeze in her hair, and a figure that waves and yells to hurry up, they're going to the beach and they'll leave her behind if she doesn't come on already ...

Naminé closes her eyes.

Lexaeus brings her the next meal and a fresh box of crayons. She did not ask for them, but of her old box, only the black one is mostly unused. She opens the top and runs her index finger over the smooth new points and selects the sandy-tan and the warmer brown sienna, which she cradles in her palm and roll slowly. She does not thank him, and Lexaeus does not ruffle her hair like a father might (like she's seen before)(like she's worked before)(like she's felt before?), and he leaves without another word.

She drinks half the cup of soup before she retires back to the window, and she draws a memory: Boys, tussling like puppies and a sand dune that was no longer there, so they went tumbling over the edge and rolled to the feet of a girl. And then when she scolded them for fighting, they grabbed her ankles and made her fall too, cushioned by bony limbs and pudgy little-boy tummies, and their laughter set seagulls to flight.

Naminé starts to color the girl's hair white-blond, then stops and selects her red crayon instead.

There is no way of telling how time passes in Castle Oblivion; she thinks, sometimes, that like everything else here, it merely depends upon the whims of the master. And he is far too busy to worry about silly things like one day fading into the next; there are whispers in the hallways about a rebellion, about an end, about plans for a Boy Who Is Coming To Them, a Boy Who Is Important To Them All.

Once she tries to draw this Boy, whom she has heard so little about but wants to know (he's new)( he's different)(he has his Heart). The most she manages is a faceless creature with spiky-soft brown hair, holding a long stick. Her hand hovers uncertainly over the selection of colors and she can't imagine what his eyes will look like, if she even gets to see him before Marluxia sweeps him away. What will he sound like, before he's broken (in)(down)(out) like the rest of them?

Eventually she simply rips that one sheet out and crumples it up and hides it under her pillow.

But somehow Marluxia finds it, and he studies it for a long moment before he begins to laugh -- almost not unkindly, and smoothes it out as best he can, though some of the creases are too deep, crisscrossing over where the Boy's face should be.

"I suppose it was bound to happen," he says. "You're getting restless, aren't you?"

Naminé stares down, watching her ankles swing slowly in-out-in of her line of vision. She doesn't flinch when Marluxia's hand closes around the back of her neck (so cold)(like her skin)(like his skin)(they're cold), nearly gentle, and propels her forward out of her chair, to the window. He tugs at her hair until she's forced to look up, and then he does what she has never been brave enough to: he pushes the window open.

For a moment there's a blast of air in her face, so hot and strong that her eyes automatically flinch shut. She draws in a sharp breath and tastes salt in the back of her throat.

She opens her eyes and stares out into the blinding sun -- and then Marluxia snaps his fingers and the light fades; they're just facing another spire of the Castle, dark and wreathed in the faint firefly glow of magic. The next breath chokes in her lungs. On some level she has always known that the islands were not real, false as everything else in the universe, but she is still -- she is still --

"Would you like to go there for real?" Marluxia's voice is so full of warmth, that a listener would never know he had no heart. In his hand, Naminé twists to look up at him.

"It's not that hard," he says. "You know how we travel."

She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. "The gateways of darkness," she whispers, soft as the rustle of pages.

"Right." He squeezes her neck, gently, and he snaps again; now instead of the island she sees another castle, different from all others she's ever known, tall and white and swan-graceful, like something out of one of the fairytale books Demyx had given her (before they were found)(before they were taken)(before all faded to Oblivion). "There are gates throughout all the worlds, like veins, all connected to a single central heart."

"Kingdom Hearts," Naminé says.

"Clever girl." Marluxia reaches for the window and the second illusion fades. "You think that's so?"

She looks up at him and she laces her fingers together. "What do I need to do?"

He smiles, just a brief curl of his upper lip that's more genuine than she thinks she has ever seen, on the face of a Nobody. "There is someone I'd like you to meet," he said. "I think the two of you will get along quite well."

Her knuckles ache from how tightly she holds them together. She glances sidelong, and sees that he is still holding her crumpled drawing, and unlike her, his hands are rock steady. She thinks about a blue sky (over flat ocean)(over sloping beach)(over all the worlds) and almost wants to snatch the picture away from him and retreat back with her crayons. "Him?"

"His name is Sora," Marluxia says, still smiling the whole time. "And he'll be here soon."