_{Notes: This isn’t really meant to be taken seriously in any way, shape, or form. Especially because it’s strongly EsuNami (Ace/Naminé, meaning mortevatem’s Ace and my Naminé) and I pretty much wrote this for the sake of the last two lines and in an attempt to get the will to write back. It includes hints of lore from Type-0, or more like blatant mentions, and probably ridiculous butchering of a lot of things, and also a little bit of growing up.}

         _{They met, and they became friends, and then she left for what she thought would be forever. In the end it turned out that forever was actually two years but that two years stretched into two and a half as she hesitated and pondered and fretted before realizing that there was no true reason to panic. So she gathered her courage and sucked it up and went to go see him and—}

                  _{The place where she had arrived was empty of his presence, and memories of him.}

         _{And she left again and didn’t return for a year, instead traveling and going and seeing and growing because that was what she wanted to do, what she had always wanted to do. Finally she was free and freedom was joy, or so she had thought, but there was always something in the back of her mind, always something that sat and peered and laughed at her, at the happiness she was trying to enforce on herself. Because she knew what it meant, that he was no longer in that place and there were no more memories of him.}

                                    _{The dead were forgotten, in that world.}

         _{But she tried not to let herself dwell on that, tried not to let herself get lost in the sadness that was always linger in everything that she did, said, thought. Felt. Sometimes it seemed to work, sometimes she seemed to be able to drift past those thoughts, those remembrances, that sadness that seemed to taint everything that she did, until it came to the point that it seemed that there was no more grief for her to feel. A part of her felt relieved at the thought, and a part of her felt desolate, but from the beginning she should have known that such strong feelings were not so fickle.}

         _{In the end it was when she was reading of space, of the planets and of the constellations that she thought of him again fully, so suddenly that it was a shock to her system and she had no time to stop the tears that fell from her eyes, the way that a lump grew in her throat and begged to be sobbed out. All that she could do was cover her mouth and let the tears fall, because there was no way to deny that she missed him, and was sad that he was gone. And then he was never far from her thoughts.}

         _{It all came to a point when she appeared once more in his world one day, accidentally, without much thought put into it but it was a part of that world that she was unfamiliar with. A place that was lush and wide and full of those birds that he loved so dearly and it was then that she met him again. There on that farm, looking the same yet not, appearing almost happier and lighter and as if things were okay with him, better than they had been, and the happiness and relief had been so all consuming that she almost cried again.}

                                                      _{But he didn’t remember her.}

         _{That was okay. Really, it was alright, even though she had gone through shock at first, and then grew sad once more, but she tried to keep it internalized and say hello to him properly instead, and introduce herself. Reintroduce herself. And then she left, and stayed away, before returning once more because his name was the same and his face was the same and his voice was the same but she did not know if he was the same person, and she would never be able to leave it alone if she did not at least try to piece it all together.}

         _{They grew close again, and she tried to put the two of them together in her mind, tried to make sense of the fact that they could be the same, were probably the same person. After all, if this young man was simply a doppelganger then he would not have the same personality, the same pattern of speech, and she accepted it the way that she accepted everything. Without question and with a nod of her head, because sometimes things were not questionable, sometimes things had no answer that she could find.}

         _{And eventually she spoke to him about what she had been reading up on, the stars and the constellations, about the sixteen clusters of stars suddenly disappearing from the sky one day, all at once. Such a phenomenon seemed impossible, the idea of so many worlds (because the belief was that all stars were worlds, but she was unsure about that sometimes, because sometimes a star could just be a star, couldn’t it?) dying within one day. So she told him about it, not expecting any answers, and she tilted her head when he said—}

                                    _{”That sounds familiar, but it’s a nursery rhyme.”}

         _{With a hum she let it go, unsure if she should press the matter any further and her eyes lingered on him for a moment, wondering. At that point it had been a year and a half since she had found him again, five years after they had first met. Physically twenty she had grown into herself and prodded at him more, pried at him when he seemed bothered, because sometimes he needed that and sometimes she needed that in return, but even though she had accepted the idea that he was the same person that she once knew, sometimes she felt moments of doubt. Moments that never lasted long, not among the chocobos and in his presence and around the books that he kept and in his home, whenever she visited him on that world.}

                  _{Five years since they had first met melted into six and then seven and in that seventh year was the nth time that she sat on his couch under a blanket with a half empty but still warm mug in her hand, cold toes tucked underneath his thighs. Many times they had sat like that, sometimes as he read, sometimes as he didn’t, but that was the first time that she had held the mug close to her chest and leaned forwards and pressed her mouth against his. Just for a moment, a few seconds, before she pulled away and leaned back comfortably, drinking more from her mug easily, but it was enough for her to know.}

                                                      _{Kissing Ace felt like kissing the stars, the universe.}

                                                                 _{And Naminé would never forget that.}