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Summary: The goddess was the goddess of Destiny, the mother of Destiny Island. The folktales said that she knew and guided the destinies of all the inhabitants of her island, that she watched over them on their paths.
If the goddess watched over them, then she would know where they were.
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Sora wakes up and Riku and Kairi have vanished, pulled away from the world entirely. He goes to petition the goddess of destiny to help him find them.
Riku wakes in an endless hall of stained glass, and Kairi in a field of infinite stars.
But they always find each other.
Day 31 of AU-gust: Combine two AU prompts
THE FINAL DAY! I am *amazed* that I made it through the entire month, writing and posting a fic a day. (A bit after midnight on this last one, but I'm okay with that.)
For this day, the main two AUs that the fic focuses on are "Soulmates" and "Magic," though it touches on a few others.
When Sora woke up, he was alone.
He knew they were gone. Not just that they had gone for a walk, or wandered away, or gone on a trip in the middle of the night. They were gone. There was no way to find people who had vanished from the world, not just by looking.
So he went to the mountain.
When Riku woke up, he was alone.
He didn’t know where he was, but the others weren’t with him. He pushed his way up off of the cold floor. A stone hallway extended as far as he could see, the grey broken by stained glass windows every few feet in both walls. Light slanted through the windows from both directions, leaving pools of color on the floor. It was strangely disorienting, like the sun impossibly shone from two directions.
The only thing he could do was walk.
When Kairi woke up, she was alone.
Neither of the others were with her, but she pushed herself to her feet. A field of stars extended in all directions. She turned in a slow circle. Darkness on all sides, interrupted by bright orbs of white light. She couldn’t tell if the ground below her feet was clear or reflective, but the darkness and glowing spheres seemed to extend into infinity both above and below her.
Nothing would happen standing still, so she picked a direction, and started walking.
The mountain was the center of the island, and the goddess dwelled there.
Or so the stories said. They were fairy tales, mostly ignored. But Sora’s mother remembered her grandmother telling her the tales were true. That the goddess lived in the center of the mountain, waiting and watching the island she had created, and the people she loved.
Sora didn’t know how to find a goddess, one he half believed in and half only hoped was real. But when the two people you loved the most vanished, and you knew they had been taken from the world entirely, what else could you do?
There were trails up the mountain, but he didn’t take those. He had to find the heart of the island, the center of the mountain.
“Please,” he whispered. “Please, I need them.”
The goddess was the goddess of Destiny, the mother of Destiny Island. The folktales said that she knew and guided the destinies of all the inhabitants of her island, that she watched over them on their paths.
If the goddess watched over them, then she would know where they were.
The trip up the mountain was agonizing. Without a path, he had to fight the undergrowth and the steep incline.
“Please,” he whispered. He didn’t know if it was a prayer or if he was just begging.
If she was the goddess of Destiny, then she had to know that they were his destiny.
“Help me.” He felt tears on his cheeks, but didn’t wipe them away.
The trees ahead grew close, and he had to push his way through. They scraped his shoulders as he forced his way past. The ground leveled out for a few yards, before the mountainside jutted sharply upward. But in the rock wall, surrounded by ferns, there was a cave entrance.
Sora paused, and then stepped through. The heat and humidity of the summer day fell away, the coolness a kind of relief until his skin grew clammy.
As the entrance retreated into the distance, it took the light with it, until every step was taken in pitch blackness. He kept walking, and no rocks or cave walls blocked his path.
“I need them,” he repeated into the dark. There was no echo off the walls, like the cave had accepted his words.
Slowly he became aware of a distant chiming, musical, but not like any instrument he’d ever heard. When he saw the glimmer of light ahead, he thought it must be his mind playing tricks on him, but it grew as he continued to walk, until he recognized it as a passageway. The entire time, the chiming grew louder.
The passageway let out onto a chamber of the cave, though one that seemed impossibly large for the inside of a mountain. It was vaulted higher than the tallest building he’d ever been in. The light came from the ceiling, where small holes let in sunlight from above. The holes also let in water, streaming down in thin ribbons to the ground. The glittering waterfalls were responsible for the chiming, splashing over rocks and into pools of water that must have been far deeper than they seemed.
And in a tall niche halfway up the wall of the cave, he saw the goddess. She was beautiful, dressed in gold.
He took one step toward her and froze, overwhelmed.
She turned her golden gaze on him.
LOOK. The voice was everywhere and yet silent.
He turned, looking around the natural cathedral. He was surrounded on all sides by the falling streams of water. It glinted in the light, but there was something else. A reflection in the water.
It was him. Not a true reflection of him as he was in the cave, but still him. The reflection was dressed casually, in jeans and a t-shirt, a suburban house in the background. His reflection turned away from him, toward two figures behind ‘him.’ Riku, and Kairi, both with feathered wings at their backs. Riku’s were the same silver as his hair, with bands of darker grey striping them. Kairi’s were pale, almost white, with a pearlescent pink and purple cast.
Sora spun, but there was no one behind him.
Instead, he saw another reflection of himself in another waterfall. This version of him was in a hospital bed, asleep. Then Riku sat down at ‘his’ bedside, leaning forward to grip ‘his’ hand. The scene shifted, and it was Kairi at his bed, holding onto him.
His hand flexed, wishing he could feel their grip.
He looked away, and there was another waterfall in front of him. This one showed him in what seemed like old-fashioned clothing, on his knees. Riku was standing in front of him, dressed like… a pirate. There was no sound that Sora could hear, but in the reflection ‘his’ head snapped up as if he’d heard something, and then Kairi rushed at him, pulling him to his feet, and then into a hug.
He turned to look back at the goddess, and he saw all of the infinite streams of water, each reflecting a different version of him, and of Riku and Kairi.
LOOK.
Riku didn’t know where the voice came from, or if he’d even heard it in the first place.
The hallway had been endless, the stained glass beautiful and disorienting but providing no real mark of how far he’d gone. But it was the only thing he could look at.
He paused, and looked into one of the windows. At first the image on the other side was distorted by the thick colored glass, but as he peered through, it took shape.
It was him. At first he thought it was just his reflection in the glass, but it wasn’t actually him. Or at least not the way he was dressed right now. The ‘him’ in the mirror was dressed all in black, torn jeans and fitted t-shirt, bracelets in a tangle around his wrist. Colored light separate from the colored stained glass flashed across ‘him’ as he leaned in to a handheld mic. He was singing. It was like a camera that panned to the side, showing a crowd of people in a crowded club, and in the back, Sora and Kairi, watching him.
Riku gasped and stepped back. He strode down the hall to the next window, and stared into it.
This version of him had longer hair, long as it had been years ago before he’d cut it. The reflected version walked through dark city streets that looked both like and unlike the streets of Destiny Island. They had the same shape, but none of the stores were the same. A shadow somehow broke away from the wall of a building in this reflected world, attacking the version of ‘him’ Riku was watching. That alternate version slashed out with his hand, and the shadow fell away. He turned, breathing hard, his eyes focusing on something. And as they stepped forward, Riku saw Sora and Kairi, both armed, but not threatening the other version of him, even as that ‘him’ bared teeth too sharp to be natural…
He looked away, and toward the window across the hall.
This one showed him underwater, swimming, blue and silver scaled tail propelling ‘him’ through the water as easily as Riku’s legs moved him. And then there were Sora and Kairi, swimming with them. Sora’s tail was a vibrant red and deep purple edged in gold. Kairi’s was a paler pink and purple that glittered with every motion. Riku couldn’t hear the three merfolk, but he could see the delight on their faces.
Riku raced down the hallway, flickering reflections of him-but-not-him, Sora, and Kairi through every window’s glass.
LOOK.
The voice echoed in the space around Kairi, while also seeming to come from inside her head.
Look at what? Everything extended into infinity in every direction she looked. The bright points of light were the only thing here.
So she approached one of them, squinting into the brightness.
Inside the light, she saw… herself. Not standing in an endless stretch of darkness, but standing on a rooftop. She was dressed in some sort of costume, a white top and skirt that faded through the colors of a sunset. A white and gold mask decorated with radiating gold spikes somewhat disguised her identity, but she knew it was ‘her’ in some sense. Then stepping up behind her, Sora, dressed like a fairy tale knight, also masked. And Riku, in form-fitting black, identity similarly obscured.
She turned toward another ball of light.
Within this one, she saw herself in a cottage, surrounded by green and growing things. She raised a hand and a vine reached for her. Then Riku came into the room, arm slung around Sora’s shoulders as they both approached the table where she was working.
She pushed herself away, toward another.
In this one, ‘she’ was standing in a dimly lit room, her hair woven with so many flowers she couldn’t identify them all. ‘Her’ dress was white and pale pink, and she looked so happy. Next to her she saw Sora, flowers tucked through the spikes of his hair, and on his other side, Riku, flowers braided into his long hair as well. Sora’s mother, or a version of her, twined a ribbon around the three’s outstretched hands.
Kairi wanted to watch, but forced herself to look away. She started to run again, desperate to get somewhere, to find something that would let her find Riku and Sora again. Out of the corners of her eyes, she saw more and more versions of the three of them within the white lights as she passed.
“Please,” and this time Sora knew he was begging. “They’re missing, and I have to find them. Can you tell me where they are?”
The goddess looked down at them.
WHAT DO YOU SEE?
So many versions of them, but not the ones he needed.
IN SO MANY WORLDS, IN SO MANY TIMES, WITH SO MANY STRUGGLES, YOU ALWAYS FIND EACH OTHER.
The last words resonated in a way he felt in his bones, in his soul.
“We always find each other,” he repeated. He forced his legs to move, pushing toward the cave wall below where the goddess was seated.
There was a waterfall there, pouring gently from a star-shaped opening in the rock. He reached for it.
IN SO MANY WORLDS, IN SO MANY TIMES, WITH SO MANY STRUGGLES, YOU ALWAYS FIND EACH OTHER.
Riku forced his exhausted legs to keep going. He stumbled, but kept going. And then he was at the end of the hallway. A final window, with a golden, five-pointed star as the focal point. He reached for it.
IN SO MANY WORLDS, IN SO MANY TIMES, WITH SO MANY STRUGGLES, YOU ALWAYS FIND EACH OTHER.
Kairi didn’t know where she was going, with nothing to serve as a landmark as she ran. But the voice urged her on, and she followed the indefinable pull in her heart toward something. And she found it. One of the glowing white stars truly looked like a star. Most were spheres, but this one was a three-dimensional, five-pointed star, with the same soft, white glow. She reached for it.
And there they all were, standing in a cave, surrounded by chiming waterfalls.
Sora pulled both Riku and Kairi close, the desperate grasp to hold them close enough they could never be separated again. The others were clinging to him the same way, hands and arms and lips seeking each other as confirmation and reassurance.
When Sora could pull away long enough for air, he looked up, but the golden goddess of Destiny had vanished.
