A PROLOGUE
A man wearing a suspicious modern-age robe sat on a pile of pure-white bricks in a half-finished room, through whose walls of bare wooden supports could be seen many other rooms in various stages of construction. A few even had random protrusions of architecture already, but everything was colored an absolute white. Because we do not already know the identity of this man sitting here, the hood of his robe was up over his face, leaving him with a small window on the world through which he could see… his shoes. For the record, these were normal-sized shoes. The man sung a tune, slow and sad, for no one in particular to hear:
“One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever have.”
“Two is just as bad as one,” continued another man, also wearing the regulation uniform robe of Organization XIII, also with his hood up. He strolled in through an unfinished wall behind the first man.
“WHAT, Zexion?” said the first man, irritably.
Zexion, having been correctly identified, lifted his hood, revealing blue-grey hair combed over half of his face. “Does there always have to be a ‘what’, Xemnas?”
“Augh! I was hoping to be able to conceal my identity for at least five seconds!” Xemnas whined, pulling off his own hood, previously hiding yellow eyes, prematurely white hair, and a suspicious tan. “Ugh, hood-hair.”
“It’s already four in the afternoon! Just because you’re the leader doesn’t mean you have to keep your hood on till last EVERY day.”
The area around Xemnas’s temple twitched as he gritted his teeth. “Was there something you wanted?”
“Actually, yes.
I was wondering if you might have noticed, but the Nobodies
don’t know anything about construction. They might have more of a brain
than your average Heartless, but… They’re trying to build the
“So? Go whine at Vexen. He’s the only one here who has a PhD in anything besides How to be Evil.” Xemnas pulled out the latest copy of the Times and thumbed through to the editorial about a man’s experiences as the owner of a coffee shop. He smiled at the man’s politically correct attitude toward his employees. Evil leaders had a lot more options. One day, he might smack Zexion. Another, he might throw things at him. And some days he could just ignore the hell out of him.
Zexion was
well aware of Xemnas’s attitude toward short people,
but he was one of those people who, knowing that the worst that could happen to
them would be that they get killed, feels compelled to make their problems
known to people who don’t care. However, having successfully mentioned the gist
of his dilemma to the boss, he felt the blame was officially off of him if the
building fell down on top of everyone. He left to mention the problem to Vexen anyway, because he happened to be one of those whom the