Kingdom Hearts fic: Step Right Up - Chapter 3 [fic complete]

[mistressofmuses]

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In chapter 3: A return to the sea.

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Sora’s knuckles were white on the wheel. He tried to keep his eyes on the road, going a careful five miles over the speed limit and no more. It was tempting to push his mom’s little car to whatever its max speed was, but getting pulled over wasn’t going to help anything. Neither would a crash.

It was also tempting to dive off the highway onto one of the smaller back roads, just for the illusion of privacy and safety it would provide. The highway felt so open. But no: the most important thing was to get the two mer-persons in his backseat to the ocean. And the carnival owner already knew where Sora was from, so it wasn’t like he could hide their destination.

He looked nervously in the rearview mirror. He half-expected to see some action movie scene playing out behind them, the carnival goons in big SUVs bearing down on him, but no. However long their lead would last, it was holding so far.

Also in the rearview mirror he could see Kairi and Riku. Kairi had helped Riku into the spare clothes Sora had brought, after he’d said a naked man in the back of the car could draw the wrong kind of attention.

She was checking over Riku inch by inch, looking for injuries, muttering under her breath that Riku was too thin, had lost too much muscle.

Sora’s heart ached.

“That parasitic worm of a man still has your Scale,” Kairi said, voice roiling with barely suppressed rage.

“But you brought me another.”

“I had to come find you. I’d hoped… well, I’d hoped you were happy. That it had been a choice, not to come back. But if I had to rescue you, I wasn’t going to count on you having yours still.”

Kairi leaned forward and grasped Sora’s shoulder. Her slender fingers were still so surprisingly strong. “Thank you,” she said. “For helping me get to him. For saving him. For giving the Scale to him.”

“Glad I could help.” He wasn’t sure what else to say.

“Most humans, if offered one of Nachre’s Scales, wouldn’t give it back.”

Sora thought of the carnival owner, holding the scale necklace up to the glass, taunting Riku.

“I don’t even know what that is,” he said truthfully. “But you wanted me to give it to Riku, so of course I was going to.”

“Such a bright heart,” Kairi said.

Her voice sounded almost… fondly exasperated. That was silly of him to think.

In the rearview mirror he saw Riku and Kairi exchange a look. Some sort of decision must have been reached, because then Riku started to speak.

“Nachre was the first of our kind. The Mother of the Mer, the one from whom all merfolk were born. It’s said that She could shift at will between fin and legs. As Her children, we lack that ability, but She left us Her Scales so that we might prompt the change if we chose. Most of the Scales have been lost, and the ones that remain are guarded closely.”

“Which is why I hate that that bottom-feeding garbage still has one,” Kairi said.

“How did you get two?” Riku asked. “I can’t imagine they’d want to let that many out of sight.”

Kairi gave him a sideways look. “They… may not know I took it.”

“You stole it?” Riku asked.

She sighed. “I’m not certain they know, but I’m also not certain they’d care. They all but forbid anyone to leave the undersea, after you disappeared.”

Sora cleared his throat. He didn’t want to interrupt, but… “About an hour left until we get back to the coast.”

Lightning flashed in the clouds ahead of them, backlighting an enormous thunderhead in dramatic blues and purples. Even over the noise of the highway, he could hear the ominous rumble of thunder.

Local legend said that mermaids were an omen of disastrous storms, the kinds that ended in shipwrecks and lost sailors.

Sora had no reason to believe that, since his first sightings of Riku and Kairi hadn’t been accompanied by storms of any kind. Still, it seemed poetic somehow.

He drove on, and the first splats of rain started to hit the windshield.

---

The threatening downpour held off as Sora pulled the car into one of the small parking lots that provided easy beach access. It was faster to get to the water from here than from his apartment.

Part of him was unbearably sad that the mer-people—merfolk Riku had said—would be leaving. He’d spent his life longing to know they were real, that there was some bit of magic out in the world, and now he did know. But this adventure was almost over now.

As it should be. He’d righted his inadvertent wrong, as much as he could. Riku and Kairi would be safe. That was what was most important.

He shut the engine off. A few big raindrops splattered on the windshield, subdued compared to the constant lightning and thunder.

Sora took a deep breath, and got out of the car.

Kairi was out of the backseat barely a second behind him, Riku tumbling out after her.

“Let’s go,” Sora said. He jerked his thumb toward the surf. The waves weren’t shipwreckers yet, but they were definitely higher than usual.

They all took off at a run across the sand. The beach was completely deserved, as Sora had guessed it would be. There weren’t that many people interested in swimming in the middle of the night on a pleasant evening; no islander was foolish enough to be out in a storm like this one was shaping up to become.

All three paused a few feet away from the edge of the waves. Sora didn’t know how to say goodbye.

Kairi stepped up to him. She was nearly as tall as he was, and she looked him levelly in the eye.

“Thank you,” she said again. Then she reached out, cupped her hand on his cheek, and darted forward to kiss him.

He was too stunned to really respond before she’d stepped back.

She smiled at him, a softer expression than he was already used to seeing on her face, and wasn’t that a pang right to his heart.

“We’ll see you again soon,” she said, and oh how he hoped that was true.

She started to strip off the clothes he’d loaned her, facing the rising surf. He averted his gaze, and there was Riku.

It felt like Sora had never really gotten a good look at Riku, though that wasn’t completely true. He was as beautiful on two legs as he was with a tail.

“You were worth it,” Riku said.

That was the last thing Sora could have imagined him saying.

“How?” he blurted. “I’m the reason you were captured, I can’t make that up to you.”

“You’re why I’m free again,” Riku said. “And I don’t regret coming to land to meet you.”

Sora’s eyes stung. The merman he’d dreamed of seeing wanting to see him in return was almost too much.

Then Riku surged forward, pulling Sora into a kiss. This time Sora wasn’t quite as shocked, and he was at least able to kiss back. Riku’s skin was wet from the rain blowing in, which seemed fitting for a merman. Then again, Sora’s was, too.

Riku’s lips were as soft as Kairi’s had been against his. Riku’s tongue just barely brushed at Sora’s lower lip, before he pulled away. Sora chased the motion just enough to give him another quick peck.

“I’ll miss you,” Sora said, though in some ways that was still a silly thing to say to someone he’d just spoken to for the first time a couple hours ago. And yet it was painfully true.

“You heard Kairi; we’ll see you again. Soon.” Riku seemed to be searching Sora’s face, paused like he was torn on what to do next.

The wind was picking up, more rain coming along with it. Finally Riku snapped back into motion. He shucked his borrowed clothing—slightly too small, compared to Kairi’s too big—and then ran toward the waves, diving into the water as soon as it got deep enough to swim.

Looking farther out, where the water was already growing a bit choppy, he saw Kairi bobbing between the waves. Moments later Riku’s silver hair appeared next to her. They both waved to him, before he saw twin tails (the colors surely not visible lit only by flickers of lightning, yet he knew they were two-tone blue and pink-purple) flick to the surface. Then they vanished.

He watched the waves, regaining his composure. At least there was no one around to try and judge whether all the water on his cheeks was due to the rain or not.

As the wind grew gustier, and the thunder that much more insistent, he turned back to the parking lot… just in time to see headlights pulling in. A flash of lightning revealed it was one of the big, black vehicles he’d imagined. Suitably dramatic.

Really it was a miracle they’d gotten as much of a lead as they had.

Riku and Kairi were off and away; they had to be far enough away to be safe by now. But just in case, Sora could try to give them even more of a head start.

The lightning provided the only illumination along the beach, purple and blue behind the clouds, but the flashes were so constant it might as well have been daytime.

Hurriedly, Sora bundled Riku and Kairi’s discarded clothes together and jogged toward the docks. Over the rumble of thunder, he heard the slam of a car door.

Good.

He made it to the small, private docks where people kept their own rowboats. He dumped the thoroughly damp clothes into the bottom of his, and did his best to shape the pile into something that could have been a person. Or a merman. The lightning should help sell the illusion, unsteady light and deep shadows making it harder to see anything too clearly.

Sora looked over his shoulder, not having to sell the illusion that he was frightened. Someone was running along the sand toward him, and he was almost positive it was the carnival owner.

He pretended to struggle with the rope mooring his boat to the dock. He wanted the man to get just a little bit closer, to keep him distracted…

Hope he doesn’t have a gun and just decide to shoot me. The thought wasn’t pleasant.

The man—definitely the carnival owner—hit the end of the docks, still at a full run. “You stop!” he snarled, the words audible despite the wind doing its best to whip them away.

Sora stopped fumbling with the rope, and leapt into his boat, shoving it away from the dock as hard as he could, before grabbing the oars and steering himself out into the waves. He hunched at a slightly awkward angle, like he was trying to shelter or protect something—or someone—else in the boat.

He winced slightly as a rough wave sent the little boat lurching. His poor little rowboat might not survive this, even if he somehow did. Only a complete idiot would go out into a storm like this, even in a real ship.

Sora could barely hear the pounding of footfalls on the docks over the sound of the thunder and the waves. He thought maybe he’d imagined it, but a glance back confirmed that the carnival owner had raced to the very end of the dock, as if that would somehow let him catch Sora.

Sora slowed his rowing just a bit. He didn’t want to be too far ahead.

And yes, the man unlooped the rope tying another small boat up, and stepped shakily into it. He clearly wasn’t familiar with the motions, not like an islander would have been, but he still knew what to do, and started rowing his stolen boat after Sora.

“You get back here!”

“You can’t have him back!” Sora shouted, shifting to try and block the wadded up clothing from view.

“He’s mine!”

Sora didn’t care why the carnival owner thought Riku would be in the boat instead of in the sea. Maybe he’d seen Riku fleeing on legs and assumed that he couldn’t go back to fins. It didn’t matter, just as long as he wanted to follow Sora. Because the longer he followed Sora and the otherwise empty boat, the farther away Riku and Kairi would be getting.

The storm was getting worse. The waves were getting to be more than the little boat could handle. Sora did his best to go with the rise and fall, to not hit resistance that would make him capsize, but it was only a matter of time. He’d vaguely intended to try and get back to the play island once he’d somehow lost the carnival owner, but there was no way he’d even make it there.

That was okay, because Riku and Kairi were safe.

There was a sickening lurch as a wave seemed to come at him directly from below, and the oars were yanked from his hands. Just as quickly, they were gone. Now he was well and truly trapped. He had no choice but to watch the carnival owner get closer and closer. Sometimes it was like an awful strobe light, each flash illuminating him suddenly closer. Other times, the light from one flash hadn’t faded away by the time the next lit the sky, so Sora was able to see every bit of his progress.

Something must have happened to him as well, as he was down to one oar, with which he was barely managing even the illusion of control. But the waves forced their boats together.

“He’s mine!” the carnival owner snarled again as soon as he was close, and he lunged out of his stolen boat toward Sora’s.

That had not been what he anticipated, and the little craft jerked even more wildly as the man nearly tipped them over. Sora gripped the edges of the boat, futilely trying to keep it upright. There was already water pooling in the bottom, from the rain and the spray of the sea.

The carnival owner barely looked at him, instead clawing at the pile of sodden clothes draped on the second bench and the floor.

Sora let out a laugh at his thwarted rage. What had the man thought he was going to do? He’d abandoned his own boat, and Sora’s had no oars. He would have been completely stranded, even if it had been Riku there.

“Nothing is yours!” Sora snapped. “You should never have tried to hold him captive!”

“Where is he?”

“Gone! Far away from here, where no one is ever going to be able to take him again.”

The man’s response was another snarl, this one wordless. He lunged.

There was nowhere to retreat to, and the carnival owner was bigger than he was. Sora spared half a thought to hope the boat didn’t capsize, before he realized it didn’t matter. He could die being throttled or he could die washed out to sea, and it would all be the same in the end.

The carnival owner’s hands reached around Sora’s throat. “He was mine. You took what was mine, boy. You’re a thief.”

“And you’re a kidnapper,” Sora forced out on a gasp before his windpipe was forced closed. And maybe a murderer, soon.

“Kidnapping is for people, not for animals.”

Sora’s hands flailed helplessly at the man’s front. He couldn’t get his arms or legs into a position with enough leverage to do anything useful, to try and throw the man off, or even do any damage.

It was hard to tell if the dark and the bare flickers of light around the edges of his vision were from the lightning storm or the lack of oxygen.

“You stole the thing that was mine, the star of my show, the most valuable thing I had. I’ll make you pay with the only thing of value you have.” The carnival owner pushed Sora’s head and neck even farther back.

The pain was getting worse around his throat, in his head where it was shoved against the wood of the boat, and in his chest, desperate for even a breath of air. Sora knew he wouldn’t get it.

His flailing attempts to claw at the man’s neck or chest were growing weaker. Then his fingers tangled in something.

It was the necklace. The scale that the carnival owner had taunted Riku with. The one Kairi had been so upset that the man had been able to keep.

The chain slid between his fingers, and with the last of his strength, he grasped the scale itself and twisted his hand. The scale bit into his palm, but that pain was distant and inconsequential compared to everything else. He felt the resistance release as the chain snapped.

Even knowing it was the last thing he was going to do, there was a curl of satisfaction at the thought that Sora could take this from the man, too. And if he took it down into the water with him, maybe someday Riku and Kairi would find his bones, and the scale with it. Maybe they’d mourn him.

Water closed over his head. Sora wasn’t sure whether he’d been shoved overboard, or if the boat had finally capsized after all. He could barely see the flickers of the lightning above the surface, just dim flashes.

He was an islander; he knew that he should kick off his shoes, should kick and claw his way back to the surface. But his air was already gone, and there was just no energy left for that. He let his eyes drift closed and felt himself sink.

He tightened his fingers around the scale, and thought of Riku and Kairi.

---

The peace he’d resigned himself to was immediately interrupted by pain. The burning in his lungs hadn’t lessened, but instead began to spread. Weirdly it was his legs that hurt the most, like the very bones were being crushed. His skin felt like it had been scraped raw, like it was covered in hundreds of little cuts, burning in the salt water.

I never knew drowning would feel like this. Trick of the lack of oxygen, maybe.

He’d hoped that at least the worst of it was over when he’d slipped under. It certainly couldn’t last much longer, at least.

Then a hot new agony, like something slashing across his throat, knives cutting into the meat of his neck, and he screamed. Somehow that forced another air bubble or two out of his chest and through his lips, air he hadn’t even realized he still had. Too late to appreciate, now that it was gone.

Something hit him from the side. Whatever it was felt strong and solid, probably as big as he was.

Just my luck. Sharks, too? Had a shark somehow… bitten him in the neck? Broken his legs? Shark attacks were vanishingly rare, but the thought was there and gone, chased away by the pain.

Except… the pain wasn’t quite as bad as it had been a moment before. That was something.

Something else grabbed him from the back, and held on. He thought he was being turned around, so his head was back toward the surface, but he couldn’t be sure. There was a tug at the necklace tangled around his wrist. He tried to tighten his fingers, unwilling to lose this one last thing, but it was futile, and he felt it pulled away.

Only for it to brush his throat, like someone had put the necklace on him the proper way.

But he couldn’t fight the desperate instinct to inhale, even as he had just enough presence of mind to know that would be the end. But he couldn’t keep himself from trying to draw a breath.

The motion was all wrong. Instead of feeling the water flood his nose, he felt it in his neck, those spots that had felt like he’d been cut into, faded now just to a dull ache.

Then the water was in his throat, in his chest…

Bringing with it the sweet relief of oxygen. His eyes flew open at that. All that was around him was dim blue-grey water. But he breathed out, and again felt the water move through his neck. Another wrong-inhale and his head started to clear.

Maybe this was what drowning was like: a last desperate hallucination of being able to breathe.

He tried to kick his legs, to propel himself to the surface, but somehow he couldn’t. It was like… trying to stand up and walk when your legs were tangled in the bedsheet. He flailed his arms a bit, and felt his forearm connect with something.

And then hands, with long delicate fingers wrapping around his wrist.

He stared at his arm where it was being held. He couldn’t see much, though even that seemed to be getting clearer, somehow.

Red hair, and eyes that seemed to nearly glow purple, even in the dark of the water.

“Kairi!” he tried to yell, though no sound came out.

She smiled at him, lacing fingers through his. He felt the soft webbing between her fingers, gripping his. Then she… sang something. It was lovely, musical, and carried in a way that his attempt at speech certainly hadn’t. And it felt joyful, the way Riku’s song when he was captive had felt heart-rending.

There was an answering trill from behind him, and he looked up and over his shoulder. Silver hair and bright aqua eyes.

He knew the word would be just as lost in the water, but he still tried to say Riku’s name.

Riku sang something else, and Sora was left with an impression of amusement.

Riku’s arms were under Sora’s, holding him upright. Kairi swam over next to him, and rested an arm behind his back, then flicked her tail forward, then nudged him and gave a meaningful bob of her head.

Sora looked down at his legs, guessing she wanted him to copy her motion for some reason.

After the mermaid and the merman and the somehow breathing water, it really shouldn’t have been such a shock to see his legs were gone, replaced by a vibrant red tail.

---

There was a weird learning curve, figuring out how his tail moved as compared to his legs. It still bent, but not the same as his knees had, and the feel of it through the water was all different. Riku and Kairi both helped him learn the motions, and before long he’d been able to swim at a pace he recognized as far faster than he’d ever been able to move ordinarily.

The storm had raged through most of the night, but by sunrise the sky was calm and clear. The waves had calmed, and everything felt refreshed. Sora hoped that any damage on shore wasn’t too bad, and that no one had lost their boats or anything else. Well, at least two people had lost rowboats. Sora’s was long gone, as was the one the carnival owner had stolen. Along with the carnival owner, which felt like the lesser loss.

Sora leaned back in the soft sand of the play island, the gentle waves moving warm and slow over his tail. He admired the new scales. He’d noticed the red first of all, and it was certainly the dominant color. But when the light hit them the right way, the color shifted to a deep blue-purple that could almost pass for black. Each scale was edged in bright yellow gold.

He reached down to run his fingers over the scales, still shocked that they were a part of him. Then he flicked the flukes at the end of his tail, and barely bit back a delighted laugh.

“Your scales are beautiful,” said Kairi, almost shyly.

“I can’t believe they’re mine.”

“Nachre’s blessing,” said Riku.

“But how?” Sora asked. “You said the Scales were a gift from…” he faltered a little, trying to remember what Riku had said in the car. It was only a few hours ago, but it felt so much longer. “The Mother of the Mer? Was that it?”

Riku nodded, seeming delighted that Sora had remembered. “Nachre was the first of the Mer. She left us her Scales so that we could change between fins and legs the way she’d been able to.”

“So how did it work for me?”

Kairi answered, “The Scales were a gift to the mer, her children. That doesn’t mean the magic only works for them. Why do you think I was so angry that scum-crusted sand-flea still had one?”

Sora laughed. She certainly had a repertoire of creative insults. Though maybe they were standard for merfolk.

He reached for the Scale now hanging around his neck. The bright morning sunlight sent rainbow iridescence dancing across the Scale’s surface. Riku had knotted the chain where it had been broken so that it would stay around his neck. Idly, Sora thought about what he could replace the chain with, before he realized that was probably too presumptive. Of course he’d have to give the Scale back. It wasn’t really his. “I didn’t know the Scale had magic that would work for me.”

“You were lucky,” said Kairi. “The transformation is triggered by a drop of blood on the Scale, but also the desire of the mer—the person,” she quickly corrected herself, “using it. It must have gotten your blood on it, and sensed your desire not to drown, and considered that intent enough.”

Sora let the Scale fall to his chest and looked at his palm. There was a crescent-shaped cut in the meat of his hand, where the point and edge of the Scale had bit into him when he’d grabbed it.

“I think that makes us all lucky,” said Riku.

The other merman reached out, and took Sora’s hand, gently pressing a kiss to the cut.

Sora was sure he had to be blushing.

Kairly leaned against his opposite shoulder, an odd sideways embrace. “Definitely.”

Sora looked at their three tails together. Kairi’s purple-pink-white gold, his red-indigo-yellow gold, and Riku’s cyan-dark blue-silver. He thought they were all the most beautiful things he’d ever seen.

“To think, all three of us can change back and forth whenever we want!” said Kairi, stretching her arms up and then falling back on the sand. “It’s wonderful!”

“All… three of us?” Sora asked.

That had been more than he’d dared to hope. He’d been afraid that Riku and Kairi would ask him to shift back, and take the Scale back with them to the sea, since it was rightfully theirs.

“Of course,” said Riku. “Did you think we were going to leave?”

“Maybe?” Sora said. “Aren’t you?”

Riku gave a shrug, which also incorporated an expressive twitch of his tail. “I came here for a reason.”

“You were kidnapped!” Sora protested.

Riku reached back out to him, tugging at a spike of his hair. “I came to the islands to explore, and then I saw you. Then I had to stay, because you had the brightest heart I’d ever seen. I grew up being told that humans were all bad, but I knew that couldn’t be true, if someone like you was here.”

“But… kidnapped!” he stressed again. “You saw some of the worst that humans can be.”

Kairi sounded thoughtful when she said, “There are a lot of stories, sad ones, about merfolk who fall in love with humans. They leave the water, and usually the human turns out to be unworthy of it.”

“Oh,” said Sora. He wasn’t sure how to take that, actually. It didn’t sound complementary.

“Just think!” Kairi said. “Sora, you might be the first human that’s been worthy of a merman falling in love with him. And a mermaid, too!”

At this point Sora was certain his face had to match his new scales. “L-love?”

Riku nodded emphatically. “I think you’re worthy of it.” Then he paused. “Though maybe you aren’t strictly human anymore.”

Sora flicked his tail. Yeah, that did seem to put him in a not-quite-human category.

Kairi waved it away as something inconsequential. “Either way, only the best could draw Riku in.” She reached out and ran a finger up Sora’s back, before letting her hand fall back to the sand. “And I didn’t want to stay in the undersea without him. Especially now that I know why he came here.”

“And I don’t want to go back,” Riku said. “I wanted to come here, and I want to stay here.” He sounded hesitant when he added, “If that’s okay.”

“You want to stay?” That was certainly what it sounded like, but Sora thought it was best to confirm.

Kairi sat up. She rolled her eyes in a surprisingly human expression. “Of course we want to stay. And you want us to, don’t you?”

“I do!”

“Then I don’t see what the issue here is.” She leaned closer and gave Sora a quick kiss on the cheek. “It sounds settled to me.”

“O-okay.” If his voice was shaky, it was only out of delight at the prospect.

“Settled,” Riku agreed, leaning in for his own kiss on Sora’s cheek.

Sora threw his arms around them both, and pulled them back into the sand with him in a tangle.

Once he would have done anything to know that mermaids really existed somewhere. The confirmation was better than anything he’d ever imagined.

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