Chapter Text
When Master Xehanort split them in two, Wayward Wind left with Ventus.
At the time, Vanitas was too out of it to really realize it. Too confused by his new existence, too hazy with pain from his torn-apart heart to notice that something was missing. To notice that there were no bright green eyes to watch over him. No dark grey scales to protect him, or gleaming golden horns and claws to defend him.
He just... sat there. Where Master Xehanort had left him, leaning against one of the stone pillars of the Graveyard, his mind blank as he watched the shadows of slim clouds pass by him, listening to the wind rushing over the desert, until it suddenly wasn't just a quiet whisper anymore, but a storm.
The wind picked up, orange sand rising from the hard stone in great clouds of dust, swirling around with each flap of enormous wings as they slowly lowered a large body towards the ground, until the biggest dragon Vanitas had ever laid eyes on finally landed.
Master Xehanort's dragon had no name that Vanitas was aware of, and yet it commanded respect with its sheer presence. Its silver-grey scales shone brightly, even in the dingy, yellow light of the Graveyard, its massive claws gouging into the dry earth like swords. It turned its head, the slit pupil set in a gleaming blue-green eye settling on Vanitas, black horns curving upwards in majestic arches at the back of its skull. It lowered its head, hot breath that smelled of rot hitting Vanitas and blowing back his hair, as his eyes flickered to the figure that was now elegantly gliding down from the back of the enormous beast.
Master Xehanort's feet hit the ground, and his dragon receded into the distance, cowering close to the ground and watching with attentive eyes, as Vanitas's Master walked the short distance towards Vanitas, until he was looming over him. His eyes were narrowed.
„Where is your dragon, boy?“
Vanitas blinked, and, with someone actually adressing him again, awareness slowly seeped back to him. He blinked again and looked around, and saw none of the familiar scales or horns or shining eyes. Blinked and looked down at his chest, feeling for the warmth that usually rested there and found nothing but sharp edges and raw flesh. There was nothing he could pull into existence. No presence that was sheltering his heart underneath feathered wings, that cooed at him with a soft rumbling sound when he carefully poked it.
There was... something there. Something dark and ugly and twisting, leaking out of his broken heart and coiling around it in angry black tangles, but... Whatever that was, it wasn't a dragon. It wasn't his dragon.
Vanitas blinked, looked up, and saw disappointment.
°°°
The Unversed showed up before his dragon did, though not by a large margin.
Master Xehanort was frustrated by Vanitas's missing companion, agitated and angry. And though Vanitas didn't remember everything about his former life just yet, he remembered that that was very bad. His Master was pacing back and forth in front of him, hands clasped behind his back and a severe expression on his face, as he muttered something to himself that Vanitas couldn't quite follow, though the way he kept casting scolding hot looks towards Vanitas told him enough to send shivers down his spine and make his stomach roil.
There was nothing in particular that caused it, he was pretty sure. But Master Xehanort was just passing him by again, threw him another, narrow-eyed look, and suddenly, Vanitas was on his hands and knees, retching up darkness.
It stung in his throat and burned in his eyes, a thick, acidic smell wafting up from the writhing puddle on the ground. Another wave, and Vanitas retched again, spat out thick tendrils that stuck to the inside of his mouth like they didn't want to leave, before finally managing to heave in a large breath, staring with wide eyes at the puddle as it moved. Twitched and trembled, until creatures started to emerge from it. Long, sleek bodies, that twitched as much as the puddle had, their eyes a burning red that settled on Vanitas almost instantlyy, once they had fully freed themselves from the sludge.
The creatures stared and Vanitas stared back, and then, they suddenly moved. Like a wave, like a single unit, they strained forward, towards Vanitas as excited chattering erupted in his mind. His heart slammed against his ribs, his eyes widened. He fell backwards, landed on his ass and tried to scoot away, but his back hit a wall almost immediately.
The rock he'd been leaning against before. The rock that now cut him off from any escape route he could have had from these creatures, that cut off any hope to get away before they–
He whimpered, and something in his heart snarled.
It burst forward in a cloud of black and purple, blue lights flashing in the middle of it, and Vanitas had just enough time to see dark purple scales and a long, red spike at the end of something that might be a tail, before all thoughts fled his mind at the feeling of teeth tearing into him.
He convulsed, screaming as he tried to curl up, tried to protect himself, but the pain didn't go away. He was torn apart, his insides mangled, claws cutting through him, teeth taking large chunks out of his flesh, and he screamed and wept until he finally lost consciousness.
When he opened his eyes again, he was on his back, staring up at the hazy sky, his mind foggy and his limbs stiff. His throat was raw and itchy, and when he coughed, it felt like sandpaper over his skin. Then, he dragged in a deep breath, and forced his body to sit up. The movement didn't go unnoticed.
Master Xehanort was standing a few feet away from him, looking... not proud, never proud, but almost glad. Excited, perhaps, intrigued. And behind him, his nameless dragon had shuffled closer, looking bored as it used one clawed foot to press something else into the dust. A writhing bundle of dark scales and red horns and undulated fury, a long tail whipping through the air, the spike at the end of it scraping uselessly over silver scales again and again. It was clawing at the ground, snarling at the larger creature keeping it pinned, before it suddenly fell still and silent.
A long neck twisted, and Vanitas found himself staring into a pair of bright, blue-green eyes that looked eerily similiar to the much larger ones of the nameless dragon above it.
Something in his stomach twisted, his limbs locking up. In anger or fear, he couldn't say.
„It seems you do have a dragon after all,“ Master Xehanort hummed, sounding pleased. He twitched his fingers, and the nameless dragon huffed, before slowly, almost amusedly, lifting its paw off the ground. As soon as the gap between it and the ground was large enough, the foreign dragon wriggled out from between the saber-like claws and shot out of its hold, bounding over the sand with two leaps, before smashing into Vanitas with the force of a thrown boulder.
Vanitas wheezed as he was bowled over, sliding another few steps before coming to a standstil with the dragon standing right above him, tail wagging back and forth, wings fluttering in delight, eyes glimmering as it sniffed his face, a red tongue darting out to lick over his cheeks.
It was the same as what Wayward Wind would have done. The same twitch of its head, the same way it nuzzled against his cheek. The same way it kept poking him, like demanding head scratches and pats.
Vanitas lay there limply, staring up at the dragon that was behaving like it loved him, the dragon that was not his own, and felt nothing but rage.
It was eays enough from there, to figure out what those creatures he had produced earlier had been, too.
°°°
After that, once Vanitas had shoved the dragon off himself and got back to his feet, Master Xehanort finally started to explain. What he had done. How he planned to fix it.
X-blade. A dragon titled for its purpose alone. A dragon stronger, larger, and more powerful than any other. That was said to have circled the sky back in the Age of Fairytales, always vigilant, always ready to protect the reason for its existence: Kingdom Hearts.
A dragon that Vanitas would be able to get his hands on, if he managed to get his hands onto Ventus first.
Really, Vanitas couldn't care less about the stupid dragon. As long as he got Ventus back, as long as he got his heart back... As long as he fixed the broken mess that resided in his chest, as long as he fixed the jagged gashes that made his emotions spill out of him like water spilling out of a cracked cup... He would be content with that.
But, he had to admit, the all-powerful dragon would be a nice side-effect, he supposed.
Those thoughts were still circling through his head long after Master Xehanort had climbed atop his own dragon again and left, leaving behind the promise to return tomorrow. And until then, Vanitas was alone. Alone with the handful of Unversed that had survived Master Xehanort's earlier prodding, roaming around some ways away from him, and the stupid dragon, that refused to leave his side and go entertain itself, like the Unversed at least did.
Vanitas couldn't help but glance over at it again, that creature that had apparently bound itself to him. Once again, he met its annoyingly familiar, blue-green eyes, and the tail, that had been slowly swaying from side to side until now, started wagging in earnest, as it buried its claws in the ground and tensed its legs. Like it was preparing to launch forward again and cuddle close to him, despite the consequences its last attempt to do so had had.
The mere sight of it made Vanitas's blood boil. Because this wasn't his dragon. He didn't even know where it had come from, why it was here. Why it was here, and Wayward Wind wasn't, and–
The dragon twitched its wings, growled quietly, an almost playful sound, and then it jumped forward. Eyes sparkling, maw opening in the dragon-aproximation of a grin, and–
It disappeared in a flash of blue light, dark smoke curling around where it had once been, as Vanitas gritted his teeth and forced the dragon out of existence once again. Out of his sight, out of his mind, back into the depths of his heart where it wouldn't bother him, where it wouldn't–
Something warm settled in his chest, slithering between the cracks in his heart and spreading out large wings as if trying to shield it. He could almost feel the rumbling purr the dragon let out as it settled down, content to be close to its master, happy to be at the place it originated from, ready and willing to protect it from any and all harm and–
Vanitas clapped a hand over his mouth as vomit rose up once again, the dragon hissing in his chest when the Unversed slipped through its claws, no matter how much it tried to stop them, sounding frustrated and annoyed and–
Vanitas's knees hit the ground again as he heaved out bile and darkness, but he barely paid attention to it as he dug his fingers into the dragon nestled close to his heart and pulled. It almost hurt, unlodging the thing from around his heart, but that didn't matter. He just wanted it out, he wanted it gone, he wanted–
Another flash of blue, purple and black smoke, and then there was a soft nose against his cheeks, a low rumbling somewhere next to his ear, as if it was trying to ask if he was alright, a tail sweeping around him, a wing spreading over him, as if trying to protect him, to shield him.
Vanitas recoiled from the damp nose, whirling around and shoving it away hard enough that the dragon actually stumbled a little to the side, its tail sweeping out in surprise, and making way for Vanitas to skitter away from it and out of reach. His chest was heaving with sharp breaths, his eyes wide and teeth bared, fingers twitching with the need to tear something apart, preferably this stupid dragon that was now looking at him with large eyes, whining quietly.
„Don't go near me,“ Vanitas hissed, balling his hands into fists and hoping they would finally stop shaking. „Don't come anywhere near me, or I'm going to... to...“ He trailed off, still breathing heavily. He didn't finish the threat. Had no idea how to actually finish it. There was hardly anything he could do to the stupid beast. He had no weapons to hurt it, and its scales were too thick for him to do any sort of damage with nothing but his hands.
But the dragon still seemed to understand him well enough. It kept whining and whimpering throughout the entire night, looking more pathetic than Wayward Wind ever had, but it didn't try to breach the distance between them again.