Kingdom Hearts fic: The Curse

[mistressofmuses]

Summary: Sora is cursed by a sorcerer to be forgotten and unknown to everyone who knew him. He sets out to find a way to break the curse... and finds himself at the mysterious castle of a different sorcerer. Inside, desperately seeking shelter, he encounters a strange woman apparently made of fire, and a small hope that perhaps either she or the sorcerer will help lift his curse.

Written for the AU-gust event (a different AU prompt every day for the month!) This was for the first prompt: "Fantasy."
This one definitely got away from me as soon as I had the vague idea of Kairi as a fallen star. This is currently intended as a one-shot, but once this month-long challenge is over, I plan to turn this into a full-length fic! (The full length fic will have a SoRiKai endgame, though for the purposes of this oneshot it is quite gen.)
[Note in 2023: I did write it as a full fic, titled "All Strange Wonders."]

---

As soon as the sun set, the temperature dropped dramatically.

Sora pulled the short-sleeved jacket more tightly around his shoulders, but it did almost nothing to cut the chill. For the first time he started to regret his impulsive decision to leave Twilight Town.

Was it really impulsive when you knew you were under a curse?

He shook his head. He couldn’t have stayed. The thought of his mother returning to the store and thinking him a stranger… Xion was away on her apprenticeship, but Roxas came by to visit often enough… The thought of his mother not remembering him was horrible enough, but encountering either of his siblings, and seeing blank lack of recognition? Sora didn’t think he could bear it. So leaving was the only choice.

But he hadn’t realized how much colder the hills would be once night fell. The dark was almost worse; the stars above were brighter than he ever remembered seeing, but there was no moon. He could barely see the road in front of him, and all he needed now was to blunder off down a steep embankment, or into a tree.

In the middle distance, toward the far side of the valley he saw a gentle glow, maybe from distant windows. Perhaps there was a farm out here. He indulged himself in the brief fantasy of a kindly farmer inviting him in out of the chilly night air, and offering him a bed for a few nights. Sora could do chores with the best of them, so he at least had that much to offer, even if no one could know his name.

In order for that to even have a chance of becoming reality, he’d have to make it there before the farmer turned the lights off for the night, since there was no way Sora could find the farmhouse without them.

He turned his feet in that direction, even though it led him off the dubious road, and picked up his pace, hoping the exertion would keep him warm. If only he weren’t so tired. The walk was now even more difficult, without the hard dirt of the path to follow. The hills, with their rolling waves of grass, and periodic scrubby bushes and stands of wildflowers had been beautiful during the day. Now they were perpetual hazards waiting to trip him up.

After a while, he realized the lights seemed to be approaching more quickly than expected. He was pushing himself, but he had no illusions about how efficient a walker he was. He’d been dismayed at how little distance he’d gained over the course of the day, so it seemed improbable that he was now traversing rougher ground and yet somehow going twice as fast.

He stopped to catch his breath, and the lights kept getting closer.

Sora clapped a hand to his mouth, stifling an instinctive yell. Of course. Of course he would put himself on the path toward something and it would turn out to be the heartless sorcerer’s castle. What other luck could he possibly have?

For the second time, Sora considered turning back, returning to Twilight Town, and… And what? What could he do there? He had no name, no past that anyone there could remember. He couldn’t imagine his heart surviving an attempt to pretend he was a stranger. Seeing his mother, his brother, townspeople he’d spent his whole life around… and having no one remember him.

Everyone knew to beware the sorcerer in the hills, and his impossible castle. But it was a sorcerer of a kind who’d laid the curse on Sora, right? Maybe another sorcerer was his best chance to lift it, too.

So he didn’t run away. He kept walking toward the lights, and the lights kept approaching him.

And then it started to rain. Just a light drizzle, but enough to make the chilly night downright miserable.

Sora did start to run, but toward the castle, not away. The magic castle kept coming toward him, speed entirely unaffected by the change in the weather. Finally, their paths collided.

The castle floated just a couple feet above the field, and Sora had to jump up onto a stair in front of the door. The castle kept moving, but luckily Sora had practice from jumping up on the back of moving carts with Roxas and Xion, so he made it on his first try.

The door itself was almost disconcertingly normal. Not what he would expect. Standing on the single step while the ground moved at a steady pace below him felt a bit disorienting, but he brushed it off, and knocked. There was no answer, but he tried to wait politely. Perhaps the sorcerer was asleep? Did Sora really want to wake him in the middle of the night? They were told to avoid the sorcerer at all costs under the best of circumstances. How much worse would he be when annoyed?

It was still raining. And the castle’s lights were on.

Sora bit his lip and knocked again. When there was still no answer, he tried the door. It was locked. And it was still raining. Somehow, the locked door pushed Sora over the edge from nervous to annoyed. Instead of knocking politely a third time, he pounded on the door, slamming the side of his fist into the wood almost hard enough to bruise.

The answering click was loud enough he could feel it through the wood. No one opened the door, so Sora tried the handle again, and this time it turned.

Sora cautiously poked his head inside the door and looked around the small room. There was no one there. Strange, since someone must have unlocked the door. He took a slow step into the room, certain this must be a trap of some sort. The sorcerer who lived here was said to be “heartless,” right? So setting a trap for a hapless wanderer wouldn’t be unexpected.

It was dark in the small room, darker than Sora had expected from the light in the windows, but anything had probably seemed bright against the total darkness outside. The dim light was probably doing the room a favor; Sora could see piles of clutter overrunning every surface, threatening to collapse at any provocation.

There was a gentle temptation again to flee, this deserted room somehow more frightening than anything Sora had imagined. Then he shivered, and the temptation vanished. The source of the light was a fire burning on a hearth on the opposite side of the room, and despite how low it had burned, it was almost certainly warmer than the middle of the night in the hills in the rain.

At least the floor was mostly clear of debris, despite being in dire need of sweeping, so he didn’t trip on anything as he crossed the room. There was even a chair placed in an ideal spot to enjoy the warmth, and he sank into it gratefully. The fire itself was a bit strange, though not more so than the magic castle itself. But it was shaped differently than he would expect, a few feet wide, despite how dimly it was burning, with odd gradients in the color of the fire itself. Then again, why would he have expected the fire in a sorcerer’s castle to appear normal? He shut his eyes with a sigh, forcibly reminding himself whose magical castle he had just broken into. Though was it really breaking in if the door had unlocked? Regardless, what was he even going to say when the sorcerer found him? That was a problem for when it happened; he’d think of something.

The light against his closed eyelids changed, and he startled back to alertness. The fire itself was shifting, almost rolling toward him. He pushed upright in the chair, knowing that there was nothing he could do if this was the trap he’d been waiting for. The fire attacking him; what a way to go. At least no one would remember to miss him.

But the fire didn’t actually get any closer. It continued to shift, and… sit up.

The fire was a young woman. Or… it was still a fire. But it was shaped like a young woman. Her skin was pale, flickering yellow-white, while more orangey flames made up the suggestion of a dress. Darker red fire looked like wavering hair. And two deep, purple-ish spots of flame appeared like eyes. Her “head” cocked to the side, like she was staring at him.

Sora didn’t think he was so tired he was hallucinating, and considering the magical nature of this place, this fire-girl was probably real.

“Hi,” he managed to choke out. “I’m S-” That was as far as he got before he was actually choking.

The fire just kept looking at him until he’d caught his breath.

“That’s a bummer of a curse,” she said. Her voice was pretty. Maybe a bit teasing, but not meanly. He thought it would be a nice voice to hear laugh.

“You can tell I’m cursed?” he asked, before he thought better of it. He could feel the relief on his face as the words came out without catching in his throat. “And I was even able to say it!”

“Takes one to know one, I suppose,” she answered. “And most curses have a standard clause to that effect. As long as everyone involved in a conversation knows about the curse, they can talk about it. It’s only when you’re talking to someone who doesn’t know that it strangles you on your own tongue.”

“My name is-” he tried again, but couldn’t even make it to the first letter before it was like something had crushed his throat, and he couldn’t even manage to get another lungful of air.

The fire girl sighed as he choked. The sigh sounded like the crackle of dry wood. “My name is Kairi. And I know that you’re under a curse, but I don’t know your name. Sorry.”

When the curse relaxed enough to let him breathe, he asked, “Can you break the curse, Kairi?”

She shook her head. “I’m more the type who…” She hesitated. “…Makes deals. Unstructured magic like laying and breaking curses isn’t really something I can do. Maybe Riku could.”

“Riku?”

“The sorcerer who lives here.”

Sora couldn’t remember ever having heard that the sorcerer had a name. He was always just ‘the heartless sorcerer.’

Despite everything, Sora’s eyelids were growing heavy. “Do you think I can ask him?”

She hummed to herself. “Well, you can’t tell him you’re under a curse. And it’s not quite so easy to get around that I’ll be able to tell him. He’s not the most observant, but maybe he’ll notice.”

If anything could have kept Sora awake, it should have been a beautiful woman made of fire talking about a sorcerer that Sora had always been terrified of. And yet, he could feel himself drifting off.

“Ha,” he heard faintly. “There’s some gratitude. Sleep well, I guess.”

---

“And who are you?” a different voice asked.

Sora squinted his eyes farther shut without opening them. If he could just get a few more minutes of sleep…

The voice didn’t repeat the question, but Sora heard a throat clear impatiently. And that triggered the memory of the fire girl, and the castle, and the night in the hills, and the curse…

He sat bolt upright in the chair, and looked up into a surprisingly familiar face. Bright aqua-blue eyes, and long silver hair… It was the man he’d run into in the town square, before everything went wrong.

There was no corresponding look of recognition on his face, but of course there wouldn’t be. No one could remember him.

“I’m…” Sora stopped before the words could strangle him. “I’m your new assistant,” he blurted.

A silver eyebrow arched.

Sora glanced at the wide stone hearth. Kairi was sitting upright still, and the flames shifted in a way that made it look like she was giving him two thumbs up.

“Uh… I was supposed to start today,” Sora continued.

“I don’t think I hired an assistant.”

Sora gestured to the clutter that he’d only glimpsed the night before. “Clearly you need one. Someone to clean up your, uh… workspace. Mix… ingredients…” Sora was rapidly running out of any idea what a sorcerer actually did. “I’ll work for room and board.”

The sorcerer, Riku, as Kairi had called him, still looked skeptical. Then he shrugged. “Fine. I suppose you should get started, then.”